Where your books take you: a map of every place you've read about
2 min read
Books take you places. My books now has a Map tab that shows where: every book on your shelf, put on a world map by where its story is set. Pride and Prejudice puts dots across Hertfordshire and Derbyshire, Moby-Dick takes you from Nantucket across three oceans, and The Lord of the Rings goes on a list of its own, because Middle-earth isn't on any map of ours.
How to open it
Sign in, open My books at the top of the page and choose the Map tab, or go straight to your reading map. The map is made from the books you've saved in My books, so the more you add, the more it shows. If you keep your reading on Goodreads, Import from Goodreads on the My books page brings your whole shelf over in one go.
What you'll see
- A dot for each town, city or region a book is set in, and a shaded country where we only know the country. Point at a dot or a country, or tap it, to see which books took you there.
- A line counting your places, countries and continents, and how many of your books we could place.
- Where you go most: the countries with the most of your books.
- Beyond the map: places that aren't on Earth, such as Middle-earth or Arrakis.
- Your most travelled book: the one set in the most countries and seas.
Where the places come from
From two open databases: Wikidata, which records where many books are set, and Open Library, which tags books with the places they're about. No AI guesses at it. Wikidata knows famous books best, so a classic is more likely to be on the map than last year's debut, and the page tells you how many of your books it could place. If you have a very long shelf, the map uses your 600 most recent books.
Read your way somewhere new
Under the map, BookSense tells you the first continent you haven't read your way to yet. Press Find four books set there and you get four books set on that continent, chosen from the books you loved. This part uses the same AI as our recommendations, and says so: the reasons under each book are written with AI. If the AI can't answer, you get four well-known novels set there instead.
Share it, or don't
The map is private until you choose Make my share page. That page shows the places and how many books took you there, under the name you use for public reviews, and never which books. You can send the link or save the picture, and Stop sharing takes the page down straight away.