The Science of Nudging

or it is the Philosophy of Nudging?

Does nudging encourage a certain kind of popularism? (is that a word?) whereby a book is read because it gets the most nudges? Does this therefore encourage us to all read the same books?

*What if someone decided, but didn't announce it ahead of time, to go with the more intriguing nudge or the loneliest nudge?
*Or what if we asked others to nudge something they haven't read but they think sounds interesting?
*Or what if we gave nudgers a certain criteria like: "Oh, I'm in the mood for something moderately light with no gratuitous violence" OR "I'm looking for the most challenging book in this pile."
*Or what if we told the nudging crowd a bit about ourselves that might affect their nudge like, "I'm a fan of the clever, quirky book; which do you think I might like most from this pile" OR "I just had a root canal and my washing machine overflowed earlier, I'm looking for the right book for a pain-medication-post-flood sort of evening."

Why make it too easy for all of us nudgers?!?!? Any comments? further suggestions?

If I could give the panel (LTers) criteria I would! But my mood can be hard to desribe most times in explaining the type of book I want to read next!

I try to give a reason why I nudge a book. I notice that most others are too. I think this helps. For instance sometimes I will nudge a book that I loved to read and will explain why in a short sentence or two. Other times I will nudge a book because it's the only one that I've read in the pile and was 'OK' to read. So I hope my nudges are taken with a grain of salt.

I do think the most popular/most read books will always get more nudges so a comment why a book has been nudged can change that. A really good/exciting singular comment nudging a book might induce me to read it regardless of the multiple nudges a well liked/classic will get.

After all it's not an opportunity missed... I will read them all before I die I swear! lol

I have an exam in three hours which is why I'm so chatty (nuts)
*just breathe*

Not a science. Maybe a philosophy. Or, maybe an art? Nah, not an art.

Anyway, the books that are better known are bound to get more nudges, or comments anyway (un-nudges? de-nudges?).

I think that the key to all this pushing and shoving is that the nudgee decides which books to post - so therefore there is a preselected choice system working already.

That is the beauty of the system - and it is likely that most of the TBRs will be read eventually anyway, non?

It is quite a brilliant idea.

I just love this idea because it's another opportunity to give and receive opinions on books. But it's also a unique and fun way to do it.

>4 kiwidoc: good point on the preselection of TBRs.

Re #4, I have to admit to not really pre-selecting... except for of course the pre-selection that led me to buy the books in the first place. I just picked the two shelves that were most full of not-yet-read books and then filled the spaces with books picked at random from another unread shelf!! Maybe I'll be more scientific next time.

An interesting variation might be posting a shelf of "books I have loved this year" and asking people to nudge books *not* on the shelf that you might like... although that obviously opens up the field to interesting randomness rather more widely.

>7 FlossieT: intriguing. One could post two piles: On the left, books you have enjoyed; on the right, the TBR pile. Nudgers would consider your pile on the left when nudging books on the right, right? :-)

> 4 and 7

I did pre-select. I didn't see much point in putting up lists of things that I know I'm about to read (whatever you'd all said, I'd have read them regardless), so I deliberately took books that have somehow slipped from top spot on my TBR list - you know the kind, they look great when you buy them and you want to read them right away, but they end up festering on the shelf and just don't seem that attractive any more...

And it's working! I'm already much keener on reading these books than I was this time yesterday. (Although, as has been pointed out above, sooner or later they'll get read anyway).

>9 rachbxl:, it may sound a bit weird, but I don't think I have any TBRs that have festered for longer than about 6 months. I actually completely cleared my backlog (the one that was physically present on my shelves, that is!) towards the start of this year. But having discovered swap sites and the local warehouse sale this year has swiftly eradicated the lovely clear expanse of shelf that I was appreciating back around Easter-ish....

Vocabulary so far:

*nudge – a recommended book

*nudgoid, which has the characteristics or form of a nudge, but is not an actual nudge. (compliments of Media1001)

*shove – a large nudge

*nudgee – the person getting the nudge
*nudger – the person providing the nudge

*de-nudge, un-nudge, non-nudge – a book NOT recommended

Any others?

*fudge---to ruminate over all the titles in the pile, declaring that they all sound wonderful, without offering any nudge whatsoever.

Excellent addition to the lexicon, Linda, join nudgers now, we love comediennes!

Thanks, dylan. I've been lurking...may as well join. It's not like I have work to do or anything!!

sludge A book that one must read sometime but that one has been putting off because one knows it will be a tough slog during which one may often find one's self in a slough of despond. N.B. Sludges may only be given to works that qualify as tomes (sometimes mistaken for tombs because the sludgee may come to the tomb before the end of the tome).

Excellent, Mary!

#15 Love it, Mary. So the past two and a half years for you, with a nervous breakdown, that qualifies as a sludge. LOL. As much as I would have enjoyed being guided in that group, I am pleased I missed it. Proust and I remain at arm's length.

Hi all.

Glad to see the word "nudgoid" made it in.

To shorten the definition...

nudgoid: educated guess nudge.

For example:

I love every fictional piece of work that Douglas Adams has written, but I have not yet read his non-fiction novel Last Chance To See. I'm giving it a nudgoid.

Thanks for starting the lexicon, kiwidoc...you kiwi-ROCK!

-- M1001

>17 polutropos: Andrew how right you are. Two and a half years, one nervous breakdown, and finally . . . ah yes . . . finally time regained - that qualifies as a sludge. I suspect that the current project - reading everything Dostoevsky ever wrote may perhaps turn out to somewhat like a sludge - more like an epic sludge since more than one book, none of which makes up a whole work, is involved.

I've spent some time thinking on this one, but for once (okay maybe twice) find myself absolutely stymied. What's the word for an unwanted nudge? We desperately need one.

Could it be a grudge? Except that suggests a degree of maliciousness on behalf of the nduger, which may be a step too far.

Is the nudge unwanted in an absolute sense, or only retrospectively discovered to be so once the nudged book has been completed?

Perhaps instead of de-nudge, etc, we could anti-nudge, or poke off the pile?

Any other vocab. suggestions to refine the science????

How about drudge?

Surely, "drudge" must be the word for a book that "I know you probably won't enjoy, but you kind of have to read for your general moral and social education."

Most of Dickens (apart from A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist and Edwin Drood) would fit into this category for me.

I think we must "pudge" anything longer than 600 pages. That way the caveat "if you have time and stamina" is understood.

I'd like to return to Lois's initial musings on The Science of Nudging. One of my initial worries was that the same safe, popular books would always be the ones nudged from any TBR stack. Recently The Remains Of The Day got unanimous approval as a must read. Lois's concern that this might mask more innovative or adventurous choices stands. We should guard against ourselves continually choosing from the same canon of (popular literary?) books.

Lois suggests we might be more explicit about the nudges we expect to receive. Perhaps. But I don't think, whilst appreciating all the nudges, as a nudgee I feel myself compelled to choose the book with the most nudges.

I think I would take my ever-expanding knowledge and experience of the likes and dislikes of fellow nudgers to begin to craft my future tbr's stacks with much greater care. I see this happening as people put forward innovative lists of tbr's or checks and balances to apply to their nudgers.

As a nudgee, as yet, I have been strictly earnest and tried to be openly declarative in giving a supporting reason for my nudge - sometimes laying aside what I would consider the "obvious" nudge for a slightly more obscure choice but sometimes plumping for that classic, for example Toni Morrison's Beloved, where not to have read it simply won't do.

In general, I agree with the observation that the book with most votes need not neccessarily 'win', but how, then, should you guard against picking the book you most wanted to read anyway? I think the best thing about nudging is that it forces someone to consider the dormant parts of their TBR pile. Maybe the real challenge lies in constructing the TBR pile, rather than in how it gets nudged?

Interesting ... the TBR pile as an art form?

So, there could be angles of attack in one's nudges; the post-modernist nudge, the feminist nudge, the popular post-colonial nudge, the dead white male nudge, a canonical nudge, a catholic nudge, an I don't know much about literature, but I know what I like nudge. This could hurt.

>29 merry10: ooooo, that's intriguing. But is this done through choice of books in the TBR pile or requested of nudgers. For example, I'm in the mood for a feminist nudge and my TBR pile features a broad variety (no pun intended there!) of literature. Nudgers chose the book that would best fit my feminist mood?

I also thought one could go with the most interesting one-line nudge. Of course, that may favor those nudgers who can craft a seductive sentence . . .

>26 dylanwolf: I agree, how one constructs their TBR affects the nudges. I should have known better than to put a Virago in the pile, especially one with a blurb that mentions Austen, Trollope and Eliot:-)

Kevin, I think "not to have read it just won't do" ought to hold for Remains of the Day as well, personally. I remember it as being very impressive in a quiet way. But then I did read it a while ago now...

I did like Lois's nudging approach though.

I can't disagree with that Rachael. The Remains of The Day could certainly fit in that category.

My problem is that I start to go... and The Trial and The Plague and Cry, the Beloved Country and True History of the Kelly Gang and... before I know where I am I've stuffed the category with hundreds of books! Which I suppose doesn't work really.

What would the feminist nudge be called, fudge? I like that... :o)
And why not ask for rhyming nudges?

OR....Haiku nudges!!!!!!!!

Oh, oh, oh, me me me!

I have a Haiku nudge:

The little girl on the plane
Turned her doll's head around
To look at me.

J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

hmmm. To address the concern about "safe" or "popular" nudges... As someone who clearly doesn't read as much fiction as most other nudgers (essays, poetry, lit crit and cultural studies take up most of my time), I am simply not in a position to offer really sound comparative advice because I have often read only a couple of books on people's TBR lists. So while I do read more off-the-beaten-track books, they rarely appear in people's lists. Therefore, I am forced to either remain silent or nudge for something more popular, which I have read.

I don't see any way around this problem. The more widely read a book is, the more likely it is to be nudged because other books on the list have not been widely read. Open nudges and topic nudges therefore seem to elicit the most (revealingly) idiosyncratic suggestions. Maybe we should have more of them...

I agree with everyone who said that we needn't choose the most popular nudge.

>36 cocoafiend: agree. I confess to being a bit 'naughty' and recently nudging a less popular book to be contrary:-)

I bet you have a yummy TBR pile, cocoafiend (I also enjoy poetry and lit crit). Have you posted a pile yet?

37, yes, I actually posted a lot of fiction, to try to read outside of my usual non-fiction zone. I'm reading Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz, Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Not particularly unusual, but I make up for it by slogging through Judith Butler's The Psychic Life of Power, revisiting Christina Britzolakis' incredible Sylvia Plath and the Theatre of Mourning, and reading strange experimental poetry by my friends.

dylanwolf, re: the ongoing discussion about such popular choices as Remains of the Day and Beloved, I think we're encountering the age-old problem of the canon. These books are certainly part of the twentieth-century canon, along with such figures as master comedian Kafka, about whom we've had quite a lot of banter... These just seem like the most likely points of overlap between everyone's particular, specialized interests.

I do love that we have category nudges: immigration-themed books etc. And also merry10's suggestion of angling our nudges: trash fiction nudge, postcolonial nudge, bathroom books (that one's for you, urania...)

Thank you for the bathroom book acknowledgment cocoafiend. Does tomcatMurr get a litter box pile?

Of course! Eliot's Old Possums Book of Practical Cats to peruse while squatting amidst the sodium silicate...

cocoa,

You are a fiendish hoot! I'm laughing so hard that I may not make it to the bathroom in time.

*blinking and micturating peacefully here in my litter tray*

micturating - thanks for enriching my vocabulary, tomcatMurr!

There IS something peaceful about micturating... tomcatMurr and urania1 have it all figured out. And judging from their postings, they have whole libraries in their bathrooms / litter boxes...

But micturating and the other thing are not long processes, so the result of this is that the rest of the read is spent sitting with an exposed cold bottom - leaving a nasty donut mark on the nethers. I have never really understood the appeal of it, in truth.

I believe there are some for whom "the other thing" is a long process, and therefore reading material is a necessity. I am not one of those people and don't enjoy sitting with "an exposed cold bottom," either. So I'm with you, kiwidoc, I've never understood the appeal of bathroom reading either !

Kiwidoc and Lindsaci I agree with you! Urania1 and other unbelievers are not convinced by my arguments against reading on the loo that it causes HEMORRHOIDS and is not to be encouraged. Perhaps the NASTY DOUGHNUT NETHERS is a much worser medical condition that will frighten them off this unhealthy activity.

I prefer to keep my books in my library, and have no books in my loo. I therefore am not able to contribute any nudges to this thread, except perhaps to nudge the bathroom door and yell, "Get off the pot! There are others who need to use it too!"

Scatalogical references bore me.

Maybe, but they really amuse the rest of us.
:)

Clearly, the issue at hand...er...(I'll leave that one alone) is whether good time might be wasted when it can be better used by reading - whether the long or the short of it. I would highly recommend the book Flash Forward Fiction: 80 Very Short Stories, reading very suitable for the very shortest of visits and adaptable to those inclined to doughnut rings markings.

Or indeed this: Novels in three lines

>49 tomcatMurr: Careful there TomCat. Popularism is an argument for a man with a poor case. The majority choice of daily newspaper in the UK is a vile, hypocritical, bullying, racist, sexist, illiterate rag known as "The Sun."

I don't care if I'm in a minority of one but I'll still fight for the litter tray being emptied at the end of the day, hygenically and in private; not to be passed around the dinner table between courses, sniggered over by those whose comedic tastes have failed to mature past the age of three or who revel in the schadenfreude of the other people's discomforture. Personally it puts me off my food so I consider it rude.

And if that scratches through my veneer of liberalism to reveal, instead of the expected heart of softwood pap laminate, one of dark, creosote-hardened mahogany, so be it.

You see Bill Hicks wasn't a comic demi-God, he was a foul-mouthed exploiter of popular culture. The very enemy of free-speech because his exercise of it was truly exploitative, both knowing and ignorant as well as repugnant. Free speech is too precious a commodity to waste on gutter obscenities, it has a far more important task in revealing the truth behind Damilola Taylor, Stephen Lawrence, Deep Cut, Charles de Menezes, Victoria Climbie and so on.

Heavy or what? Really it's just that I got over having a bottom (as we call it quaintly but delicately over here in the UK - I do so hate the word butt, that is a large wooden barrel for collecting rainwater) many years ago and, to quote Robert Louis Stevenson, the world is so full of a number of things that I think we should all be as happy as kings.

(edited to refer to Hicks in past tense)

Bill Hicks, who he?
Dylanwolf, we are sitting on the same side of the fence in everything you say in your post, believe me (except most of your references went right over my head).

Of course I cannot speak for others, but what amuses me in the scatological nature of this thread and others is not the immaturity of the scatology itself, or the suffering caused by embarrassing medical conditions, but the satire on discourses, the intertextuality, the in-jokes, the parody of high moral seriousness aligned with low subject matter, dare I say it, the wit.

I most sincerely apologise if I have offended anyone, and promise to mend my errant ways, but at the same time would urge offendees to LIGHTEN UP!!

Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.
Aristotle

Good response, Tom! I'll lighten. We all have different sensibilities.

No problem, Kevin. Let's go back to discussing the marvellous comic genius of Thomas Mann and Kafka.

I have just read The Transposed Heads by Thomas Mann and have to agree that it is a little gem. Covers the basic human dilemmas of love and lust and identity. Thanks A-musing.

Hmmm, Kiwidoc,

your message is word for word what I would have said. I finished the book yesterday while I should have been doing other things, and posted a review saying just what you did.

Great minds, I guess.

And of course, thanks, A-musing.

Hey! It's great to see you've read it! I've been "selling" that book for a long time, one of my all time favorites. It's nice to see others enjoying, too.

When I look out over the whole range of what Mann wrote, I'm continually amazed. I still haven't challenged his longest opus, the Joseph and his Brothers series. But I can say I've read most of his shortest.

How did we get here from scatalogical references?