Amazon's recommended reading

I got an automated email from Amazon today that shows just how far their automated recommendations software has to go to be useful. It included recommendations for the follow books...

Seven Deadly Sins by David Walsh
Comeback 2.0 by Lance Armstrong
We Might as well win by johan Bruyneel, Lance Armstrong etc
Wheelmen: Lance Armstrong, etc by Reed Albergotti
The Rider by Tim Krabnbe

Of these books I have already reviewed Seven Deadly Sins and gave it five stars.Why would they recommend a book they know I've already read?

I reviewed 'It's not about the bike' and gave it one star because it's a bunch of lies. For some reason Amazon thinks that because I reviewed a book about Lance Armstrong I must like Lance Armstrong so they're throwing recommendations for him at me. What they fail to glean from my review is that I hate Armstrong and everything he stands for.

So why would Amazon recommend the next three books which are sanctifying a man they should know I despise?

What would it take for Amazon to understand that a positive review of a book that attacks Armstrong is not a positive review of Armstrong? They need to understand there are negative correlations as well as positive ones.

Now if Amazon could take my positive review for Seven Deadly Sins and make recommendations like 'The Secret Race' or 'Rough Ride' I would be impressed. I would be even more impressed if Amazon could take my negative review of 'It's not about the bike' and recommend 'Seven Deadly Sins'.

Part of their problem is that it's difficult to determine how much of the review is on the subject matter and how much is on the book. For example, a non-Christian might give a new Hip-Hop Bible a poor review because they're giving Christianity a poor review. They would prefer to get recomendations for the Torah or Koran. A Christian giving the new Bible a poor review might be objecting to the Hip-Hop slang verse and constant references to the disciples as pimps and boyz. They would prefer recommendations for the King James Bible. It's hard to know without reading and understanding the text of the review.

Basing recommendations on stars alone is fraught with problems.

For now I'm unsubscribing.