HOW DO YOU FIND BOOKS TO READ?

Alternatively, AM I ALLOWED TO ASK QUESTIONS IN ALL CAPS?

I'm still learning how to use this website, particularly the markup language that I've seen people use to hide spoilers in their reviews or insert photos (I quite like the idea of using images of book covers or authors). I guess this is a matter of simply looking at the HTML of a post one finds instructive.

Anyway, it is not so obvious to me how frequent users have discovered or decided what books they want to read at any given time, or how they go about reading throughout the year. Even before asking the more interesting question of why people read, I thought it would be more pertinent to ask how: do you take recommendations from friends? Do you do your own research? Do you have an heirloom collection at home?


_{The D. H. Hill Jr. Library at my alma mater, NCSU.}

As for myself, it wasn't until my college years that I began to read seriouslyーI utilized the public library as well as the interlibrary system at my university; I visited as many bookstores in the area as I could; I waited eagerly for my next order of books to come in the mail. Today, most of my reading is done on my personal devices and online; these past few years, I have really leaned into the internet as a resource to discover new books, using Goodreads lists and the Internet Archive in particular.

It is also nice when an author you admire cites another author, whether ancient or modern, in connection to the topic you're reading about. Checking out the bibliography or recommended reading section of anything can be useful, too...

Anyway, how about yourselves? How have you found the books you want to read this year, or how do you approach book-finding in general?

To answer the first part of your question, I am copying my post on the Message Board that you might find helpful:

Because these links are such a nice resource, I'll repost them from last year:

Julie_in_the_Library posted a link that was very helpful in explaining how to achieve certain effects in your posts, like inserting images, etc.

The New How To Do Fancy Things In Your Posts thread

Which also pointed to:

The HTML help wiki

As for the second part, I get the majority of my book ideas/recommendations from Club Read. You might check out Joe's thread, he has a very complication system for finding his next read.

ETA: All caps is usually used for group threads and non-caps for personal threads.

It's a two-part question for me -- long-term and short-term.

For the long term, I've built up a ridiculously large TBR list from a variety of sources. I worked for 30 years as an acquisitions librarian in a large public library, so I was browsing through Library Journal and Publisher's Weekly every week and adding titles that sounded interesting from those sources; I still browse through Edelweiss for upcoming titles, and through Libby to see what my library has added to its e-book collection each week.

There are genre titles that have come from "100 best X" books and award-winner lists, and recommendations from friends, which is now including LT BBs; there's a whole bunch of "I really ought to read something by them at some point" authors, though not an actual written list. There are a few books that I think about re-reading, though with so many books that I still haven't read even once, I find it hard to put time into reading anything again.

In the short term -- what I am going to read next? -- I used to do very little planning. If a favorite author had a new book out, I'd grab that; if not, I'd scroll through the TBR and pick something pretty much at whim. But since I joined LT (about a year and a half ago), I'm planning a lot of my reading at the beginning of the year, built around various challenges. I have, on average, four books already chosen for each month of this year, and I can usually read five or six books a month. Most of that planned reading comes from Mount TBR, but depending on what the challenges present me with, I occasionally have to go searching for something new. (The HistoryKit has an upcoming month devoted to the Byzantine Empire, for instance, which is not an era I've ever paid much attention to, so I had to do a little digging.)

Those "extra" books at the end of the month take me back to whims. What do I have time to read before the 1st of the next month? What's not checked out at the library? And if there's not time to get through an entire book, that's an opportunity to pick off a few more stories from my ongoing journey through award-nominated SF short fiction.

>3 KeithChaffee: Thank you for sharing your perspective. By the way, I see you've read some books by David Mitchell (he's one of my favorite authors). You should read Ghostwritten if you haven't already. It takes on a strong sci-fi vibe toward the end. I myself have a short story collection by Le Guin somewhere on my to-read list.

>2 labfs39:

ETA: All caps is usually used for group threads and non-caps for personal threads.

I see. Thank you for clarifying.

Also, thanks for sharing the link to the HTML page. It's exactly what I was looking for.

It's good to hear about a variety of approaches; I appreciate you mentioning Joe as well.

I plan my year trying to set myself up to enjoy certain kinds of books. I’m working through classics and do themes. Also i have been following the Booker Award closely for five years now. Otherwise, it’s what catches my attention, often from posts here.

>3 KeithChaffee: Thanks for writing such a detailed response. It's always interesting to see how other readers organise their reading. I like how you've managed to balance planned reading with unplanned selections.

I belong to two book groups, so that makes a couple of books a month sorted automatically if I want to read them - I don't always, not least ones previously read. I also have two ongoing projects, Reading The World (countries) and A Tour of the USA (states) which are currently providing me with plenty of potential reads (the lists are ones I have constructed for myself, with help from websites etc, and they do change!).

My library includes around 1400 yet to be read books, to choose from depending on my mood/interest. That (of course!) gets added to. I listen to a range of podcasts and radio programmes on reading/books, but they only very occasionally provide new ideas I want to pursue - my reading is increasingly non-'mainstream', and few of these cover anything other than 'best sellers' (which is almost a turn-off for me), although some prize short/long lists do inspire (especially Wainwright, International Booker, Women's Prize - although this year's fiction longlist distinctly uninspires, non-fiction looks good). Rather, I enjoy listening to them covering books or authors I've previously read, or other interesting aspects of reading. Book ideas/purchases come mainly from browsing (especially charity or secondhand bookshops), a couple of magazines I subscribe/have access to, a few indie publishers' lists (I also subscribe to a couple).

But there are always exceptions to these generalisations!

I trip over them!

I've always existed in a matrix of books. Not to have thousands of books around me is a painful and unnatural condition. Whether or not I'll get to read them all is beside the point--having the choice is all that matters.

My parents and grandparents had libraries of their own and as we grew up my brother and I had ours. I became a reader but my brother didn't. Right now I have over ten thousand unread books around me but I still use the public library regularly (and, when I had a different commute, the university libraries as well).

I read almost exclusively printed books and vastly prefer them to e-books. Only space limits the number of books I'd have.

The list of books I'd like to read is always incomparably longer than the list of books I can get to. I average around 300 titles a year, but I don't count all the books I read in part.

Books lead to other books. Occasionally I'll browse libraries or publishers' sites for topics of interest. I don't subscribe to magazines like I used to but I still get newsletters from some with new titles etc. LT used to work better for me when it was possible to see library overlaps between members (and not just one's own).

I don't necessarily go looking for ways of finding new books. Really, my experiences with acquiring books have been much like my experiences with acquiring cats (only on a much, much larger scale). They just sort of show up looking appealing and in need of attention, and I have no choice but to take them home. :)

>8 Willoyd: I'm nowhere near that level of dedication. Hats off to you, sir.

>10 bragan: One might say you have quite an impressive cat-alog of books. (OK, I'll see myself out now...)

>9 LolaWalser:

Books lead to other books.

Absolutely. Especially with non-fiction, I think.

My parents and grandparents had libraries of their own and as we grew up my brother and I had ours.

I myself had a collection of the Great Books of the Western World at home, but I only remember reading War and Peace (or trying to) with interest. Just one of my many regrets.

I read almost exclusively printed books and vastly prefer them to e-books. Only space limits the number of books I'd have.

I understand. E-books are convenient for me, but I would get physical copies of all the books I read if I had the means to.

Whether or not I'll get to read them all is beside the point--having the choice is all that matters.

Interesting. Thank you for sharing!

Here at Club Read you don’t find books: books find you!

For fiction I find books through the Kobo shop recommendation system (when I want “more of the same”) or through CR (for books I may not have read otherwise).

For non-fiction it’s articles, Twitter (although I don’t visit so much lately), and as already mentioned, books lead to other books on the same or related subjects.

>9 LolaWalser:
Whether or not I'll get to read them all is beside the point--having the choice is all that matters.
Exactly! It's surprising how many people don't appreciate that. My library isn't intended to be books I've read, but books I am likely to want to read (including rereading).

>11 icepatton:
I'm nowhere near that level of dedication. Hats off to you, sir.
Thank you, but I think it probably suggests a lot more than it actually is. I have plenty of other interests too!