A Game of Books is 23 hours and about $6200 from its goal. (Which sounds like a lot, but when your goal is over $100,000, it isn’t much.

To me, the interesting part of this project is not the nutshell blurb:

Imagine a game where you – the reader – are the main character, and every book you read earns you points and rewards. The Game of Books is a game for adventurous readers where the books you read earn you points based on what they are about.

Though given the potential of games to work as a motivator for activities of all kinds, that isn’t a bad thing. (This is intended for distribution to “libraries, parents, and teachers,” which seems entirely appropriate.) But no, what draws my attention is a later bit:

The Game uses the cutting-edge technology of the Book Genome Project – which uses computers to analyze books for thematic and writing style make-up, similar to Pandora.com, but for books – to track what themes and experiences a reader encounters in each book.

Patrick Rothfuss has talked about this, both on his blog and elsewhere. If it works, that kind of thing could be awesome. Will it work as advertised? I don’t know; I haven’t had a chance to try it. But I’d love to see somebody take a crack at it. We increasingly need a method of finding our way through the vast ocean of material out there, and reader reviews are, for a number of reasons, just not going to cut it on their own.

So take a look at their site, and if you like what you see, chip in some cash. Just make sure to do so before their time is up!