How to find books I actually want to read?

If you go to Amazon and find some of your favourite books, you can see what other people who bought those bought; you can also find your favourites on other people's lists of faves and see what they like and then look at those.

Goodreads will made recommendations based on which books you tell it you've read. I am not sure how accurate the recs are, but it's one option.

You can also google for lists of top picks. A search for top/favorite Fantasy books yields this link, and you can find similar lists/links for other genres. I'll usually compare several lists and the ones that keep showing up I'll add to my to-read list.

My wish list is over 100 books now. My problem is that I don't know how to pare it down...

For romance, I use review sites to find a lot of the books I read. If you can find a reviewer with similar taste to you, this can be very helpful.

For general/women's fiction, I more often find books by browsing at the bookstore. Or sometimes I go to a book I enjoyed on Goodreads, and I browse through what readers of that book also liked--similar to what cornflake suggested.

i try to find out who influenced an author i enjoy or who they influenced. if all else fails, i'll just use tastekid or try to find books that share certain attributes with favorites

It all depends on your taste. Most people in genre fiction know their heroes. Literary work can be tricky, I usually end up disappointed in spite of all the hype and upbeat reviews. I guess it makes me a genre reader after all.

Scanning bookshelves, I find, is only really any help if you're in a particularly large bookstore, otherwise the selections are just pitiful. Goodreads is the best bet, IMO, or the Amazon bestsellers lists. As for narrowing down lists, I think that's up to you. You know what you like after all. You could always just write names down on a bunch of pieces of paper and throw a dart at them.

If I'm not already familiar with an author, I download samples to my Nook. I've been disappointed too many times by Amazon reviews to put much stock in their recommendations. (I will read the bad reviews first, which are at times substantive in their criticism.) There are one or two review sites that I like and will rely on as well.

sunandshadow said:

My basic technique of trawling bookstore shelves looking for something to read just isn't cutting it any more - I keep coming out disappointed and empty-handed. I've tried searching online for keywords related to what I want to read, but I think I must be doing it wrong. So, what techniques do you all use to find books to read when you've already read everything on the bookstore shelf that looked promising?

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I've usually gone in seeking things. I develop a seeking list from things I liked by the same author, or authors/books on my "to-read" list. Sometimes by a strong recommendation here or elsewhere.

And I have done a few beta reads and query letters that would make me want to read that person's work, but some of their heads are already big enough I'm absolutely not mentioning any names.

Hard to answer, since we don't know what your preferences in reading experience are. Maybe you need to expand your horizons a bit, and take a look at things that don't fit snugly into a narrow niche you prefer.

caw

Speaking of Amazon, there's an option to "Look inside!" many books, including newer releases. You get to read the first few pages whatever it is you're intrigued by, decide if it's worth your time, and then go check it out at the library gratis.

It's much better than relying on readers' reviews, in my experience.

I really like goodreads (I know amazon bought them and now they are Teh Evulz...but when Goodreads sends me email, it still lists B&N as the first place to buy books. And it seems like Amazon has not begun trolling through my Goodreads books to try to sell me something I would like.). You can see what your friends are reading, you can add preferred books and get automated recommendations by genre, you can find books like one single book you like, or you can even make a "shelf" of books and it will offer you recommendations based on all those books together. Your friends can send recommendations too. I also like that it emails me when authors I've added books by have new books come out. It's too hard to keep up with what new books all my various preferred authors are writing.

I also have added some cool people from on AW who have similar reading tastes to me, and some of my favorite authors who belong to Goodreads. I have had lots of luck reading books that favorite authors recommend.

I combine Goodreads with the good ole public library, so if I check out ten books at a time, and two of them turn out to suck, I'm not sad that I wasted money on them.

+1 for Goodreads: it's amazing!

Amazon is pretty great too, particularly when you purchase basically everything in your life from there. Their recommendations have become scary-accurate.

And honestly, if you don't have a Kindle, get one. The low-end ones are stupid-cheap and every ebook has a free sample. Sometimes I'll just trawl through samples as if they were movie trailers (albeit longer) until something grabs me. I've experimented with -- and subsequently fallen in love with -- all kinds of weird stuff that way, stuff I never would've taken off the bookshelf in a Barnes & Noble or whatever.

The Kindle has totally revolutionized my reading - in the sense that I VERY rarely read anything that I don't LOVE anymore.

I used to go into a bookstore or library, browse, and pick up stuff that seemed good. I still do this occasionally, but my new method is this: If I see a book mentioned that looks interesting, or is highly recommended, I send the sample to my Kindle. I have a huge backlog of samples on my Kindle, so as soon as I'm done with one book I'll have a browse through my list, pick one that seems interesting at the moment, and start reading. When I get to the end of the sample, I delete it from my device. The end.

UNLESS - Unless I can't stop. Unless I NEED to find out what happens on the next page. Then I buy it. (Sometimes I buy it on the Kindle, sometimes in paper - I have a whole different rubric for this!)

I have occasionally been disappointed by this method, but far, far less often than my old "browse and pick" method. When you buy a book or check it out from the library, you often feel compelled to finish it no matter what, or even if you're just mildly enjoying it. The result was usually a half-read book that sits on my nightstand forever, waiting...

Now I don't read anything I'm not completely sucked into, whether it's compelling characters, riveting plot, or beautiful prose. And it's expanded my reading tastes, too!

invicticide said:

Amazon is pretty . . . scary.

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Edited for accuracy.

caw

You could try finding a group of readers and asking for recommendations based on what you've read and liked.

I find books I actually want to read by . . . reading books.

Sometimes I'm surprised, in either direction. I may start something that looks promising and find myself bored and not enjoying the experience, and sometimes I give something a go that I didn't think I'd really like, and wind up greatly enjoying it.

If the bookstore thing isn't working (it costs money, after all), give the library a try. Larger selection, and, uh, free, at least in my town.

caw