I Asked AI to Analyze My Reading Habits. My Wallet Almost Didn’t Survive.

Okay, I confess—I was bored, somewhere between watching an episode of Such Brave Girls and reading, so I opened ChatGPT and asked:

Based on the titles below representing the last digital books I purchased from Amazon, what could be inferred about my reading style and preferences?

  • Skinbreaker #1

  • Alchemised

  • Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age

  • Skinbreaker #2

  • The Melancholy of ResistanceBeing Logical: A Guide to Good Thinking

  • Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

  • The Blue Flower: A Novel

  • The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

Lo and behold, within milliseconds the pocket oracle proclaimed that I…

  • read broadly across genres but with depth and purpose

  • enjoy mythic, imaginative, and wonder-centered works

  • appreciate philosophical and mental-clarity themes

  • gravitate toward emotionally profound real-world narratives

  • like self-reflection without sugar-coating

Not bad, right?

To be fair, I do have a tendency to buy books I aspire to read—eventually—and I can’t resist racking up extra Kindle points whenever there’s a 2x or 3x promotion. It might take me days… or months… to actually get to them. So it’s no surprise the LLM was working with incomplete and slightly misleading data.

I do read broadly, yes—but it’s mostly three or four genres in rotation. I enjoy mythic and imaginative works, and I’ll read philosophical or emotionally heavy material, but I wouldn’t call all of them favorites. The one thing that was spot-on?

I do value imaginative escape with emotional or philosophical weight, not just plot-driven fantasy.

Then the model dangled an intriguing line in front of me, and like any book-loving moth drawn to a poetic flame, I got pulled right in:

“Your reading style blends philosophical curiosity, emotional depth, literary richness, and pragmatic self-growth — a seeker’s library with both imagination and steel.”

“A mind hungry for beauty, truth, and better ways to see the world.”

How could I resist?

It followed up with:

Would you like a list of books that fit this mood — maybe 5 next-reads tailored to this blend of myth, philosophy, emotion, wonder, and clarity?

I mean… what am I supposed to do? Not say yes?

So I agreed, braced myself, and got my wallet ready. Here’s what the algorithmic book-summoner recommended:

  • Piranesi — Susanna Clarke

  • A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence — Jeff Hawkins

  • The Faraway Nearby — Rebecca Solnit

  • The Master and Margarita — Mikhail Bulgakov

  • Four Thousand Weeks — Oliver Burkeman

  • The Buried Giant — Kazuo Ishiguro

Honestly? Not bad at all. I already owned three and had read two—including one of my favorite “book-within-the-book” masterpieces.

Having narrowly escaped the siren song of impulsive one-click Kindle purchases, I put my phone down and returned to my reading.

But not before updating my Amazon wishlist.

Just in case.