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I hadn’t thought about using reviews in this way before. Do you find the aggregate review numbers to be helpful on Goodreads? I find that most books I’m interested in have seemingly artificially high ratings or very few ratings.

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Yep, for me the ratings are a decent gauge for the quality of a book. Given the amount you read, it's likely that you'll exhaust the list of books that are highly rated and happen to be in your domain of interest. Since I read about 2 books a month ~ 25 books a year, I haven't faced this problem.

I suggest you look into English translations of books that are highly rated in other languages. Lots of hidden gems to be found this way.

Personally I find anything above a 3.8 on Goodreads to be a safe bet. Above a 3.6 is doable if it's coming off a personal recommendation or happens to be controversial.

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