In brainstorming sessions about "what would be good to add to MagicLibrary.org?" the idea of star ratings always seems to come up. It would be easy to implement, and a simple way for users to engage and think about the books they have... right?

But no, star ratings are a broken system. Think about how you pick restaurants; anything less than a 4.0 average means something is wrong with that place.

Look at magic shops and see how the vast majority of products have a full five-star rating? Really? Every product is of exceptional quality?

As reviewers we are too kind, and as consumers too harsh.

Books are a complicated capture of a human mind. It's an insult to try to sum it up with a single number, one to five. What if the ideas are brilliant, but the writing is poor? Does that make it a bad book? What if the tricks are rather mundane, but it's beautiful to look at with full glossy photo-illustrations? Is that worth five stars for the effort?

No, I will not be be adding star ratings. I want people to explore books without prejudice.