Goodreads Developers discussion

Hi, I am very new to this kind of data analyses, so please accept my apologies if this question had been addressed before, I could not find a solution that was accessible to me.
I simply need to obtain all (or as many) reviews for two books, namely Woolf's To the Lighthouse and Mrs Dalloway, so that i can then analyse the corpus obtained from them and see if readers define the two novels as "difficult".
I tried following the API page instructions but did not manage.
I don't need all the coding and complicated things around it, I only need the review texts.
Can this be done anyhow?
Thank you so much! (Please do not answer with technicalities! Assume I'm a 5 year old) Thanks!

Argh, use search!
See all available api in api list and you will find your answer

I did use search, thanks, and as I mentioned there is not really an accessible answer for non-programmers

Any example/suggestions instead?

Problem is: APIs are for developers, querying resources and parsing responses are for developers, it's not feasible to answer in a "non-programmer" mode.

Thanks Marisa. I don't want to criticise but this is the point of having a forum of people who could help, right? Let's say I have very basic developers knowledge, and I could figure up to a point how that worked. As you actual developers surely know, becoming such is a learning path in itself, and I am not pretentious enough to say I am. At the same time, i need some tools for my research, and no on can become an expert in everything you need for a research. I would't expect a biologist to know how the glass of the lens of a microscope is created.

So. I need those reviews + You guys might know how to help me = I ask here.

Is that so strange to expect that someone with knowledge just give me some simple 1+1+1 instructions so I can get what I need?

Well, I cannot give you them in that case, sorry, I've seen the reviews when I've downloaded some xml from a book, but I haven't parsed them so I am of no help here.

Marisa wrote: "Well, I cannot give you them in that case, sorry, I've seen the reviews when I've downloaded some xml from a book, but I haven't parsed them so I am of no help here."

Hi! did you use the book.show method for this?

John Paul wrote: "Marisa wrote: "Well, I cannot give you them in that case, sorry, I've seen the reviews when I've downloaded some xml from a book, but I haven't parsed them so I am of no help here."

Hi! did you us..."

Ok, one more time. There is no api to get book's reviews. There is only embeded widget with reviews.

Marisa wrote: "Problem is: APIs are for developers, querying resources and parsing responses are for developers, it's not feasible to answer in a "non-programmer" mode."

@giulia

It sounds like you're doing a DH research project am I right? I'm doing something similar and also trying to figure out how to get reviews data that i can analyze/encode. It would be really disappointing if you can only access reviews through a widget and not to actually get the data—some of the comments here seem to be a difference between developers who want to display data and their knowledge of the various layers of tech that go into that display/building, and researchers (like me!) who want to read and analyze data for other outputs (like books)

I'd love to hear about what you're doing!