I’m going to be away for most of next week on a business trip to the US. The trouble is, coming hot on the heels of last week’s jaunt up to the Ross of Mull, I’m at a loss for what reading matter to take.

What I’d really like is a site into which I could plug the names of various books I’ve read (and enjoyed), and which could then generate a list of books I might enjoy based on them.

Amazon’s system of recommendations based on purchase behaviour doesn’t quite do it - because after all, what good is knowing that people who bought X also bought Y if you don’t know that the same people loathed Y once they received it?

AllConsuming doesn’t fill the void either, because while you can search for books and see what other people said about them, and then see what else those individuals have read (and with effort, find out if they enjoyed them), it’s very linear, which means you’re seeing relationships between books and readers and other books, not recommendations. They’re not the same.

Even if last.fm/Audioscrobbler was about books instead of music, the folksonomic base and focus on relationships (fans, definitions, related works by artist e.g. song P appears on albums Q and R) makes it not exactly what I need either.

Plus all these things are monodimensional - they look for specific relationships between one item and another, rather than looking at an array of inputs and increasing the accuracy of any recommendations based on all the information.

I suppose I’m looking for something a bit like the movie recommendations I get from my DVD provider (I know Amazon provides something similar to “improve recommendations”, but AFAIK, it’s still heavily influenced by items you’ve viewed (but not necessarily purchased or indeed enjoyed - if someone sends me a link to a book about Architecture they’re thinking of buying, that doesn’t mean I want to see recommendations about buildings forever after!

I think I’m looking for a combination of What to rent, TIVO-like suggestions (based on viewing/recording behaviour, but overrideable to take anomolies into account), movielens (which is pretty experimental) and requires ratings rather than like/dislike) and ratingzone, which isn’t comprehensive, and takes forever to churn out recommendations.

In the absence of such a magical recommendation engine site, I’m turning to you, dear reader.

See, usually, I have two strands of reading matter (well, five if you include work-related things, web things and newspapers/magazines): bus reading and journey reading.

Bus reading tends to be things I can enjoy in a series of short bites: my twice-daily commute is about twenty minutes, which usually isn’t quite long enough for a chapter, but is long enough to get into something. However, because of the disjointed nature of my reading sessions, I tend to gravitate towards lighter things, collections of factual stuff. I’ve recently consumed (and enjoyed) on the bus:

• The Mma Ramotswe ladies detective agency series by Alexander McCall Smith
• Stiff by Mary Roach
• The Bullfighter Checks her Makeup by Susan Orlean
• My Life in Orange by Tim Guest
• Barrel Fever by David Sedaris
• Cod by Mark Kurlansky
• Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs

Journey reading is a different beast entirely. For journeys, I like to get stuck into a book and plough through it in one or two sittings - ideal for long plane or train trips. Because when I travel I try to travel light, there’s not much room for getting it wrong, which means that I like to be sure that I’m going to enjoy a particular book in order to take it. If I can’t guarantee that, I can tend towards the slightly trashier end of the scale (though never anything with gold embossed lettering, somewhat secure in the knowledge that the book selected will, at least, be addictively readable, and thereafter disposable.

Some books I’ve enjoyed on long journeys are:

• Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
• Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold
• Dry by Augusten Burroughs
• Past Mortem by Ben Elton
• Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
• The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
• The Princess Bride by William Goldman
• Last Places by Lawrence Millman
• Attention all Shipping by Charlie Connolly
• Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

I also love Douglas Coupland and have read and enjoyed everything by him, and get very impatient waiting for the next. I’ve read most of the Patricia Cornwell books, but I’ve gone off her recently. Dan Brown is laughable, but easy to read on a plane.

So….any suggestions for a couple of books to take to Washington DC next week, based on that lot?

For further context, I have also recently enjoyed watching Lost, Huff, West Wing and lots of M*A*S*H. I don’t watch any soaps, and don’t watch a lot of TV, but I’ve seen a few episodes of Arrested Development and liked what I’ve seen. I read The Guardian, listen to Radio 4 for at least an hour a day, and am very unlikely to read things just because everyone else has done (e.g. Harry Potter, Da Vinci Code, etc). I don’t go to the movies much, but watch a lot of DVDs (mostly new releases). If I don’t enjoy a book, I’ll put it down and walk away - I won’t labour through something just because I think I should or something.

Your suggestions would be very welcome indeed!