pagesofjulia

In response to the question asked by MizB at Should Be Reading.

MizB asks:

Where is your favorite place to find new books to read? Blogs? The library? Newspapers? Magazines? In the backs of other books? Suggestions from friends/family? Online bookstores? On the shelves of the local bookstores? (I don’t necessarily mean, ‘where do you find books to buy’ — I mean, ‘where do you discover new titles that you add to your to-be-read lists’?).

I have a two-part response. First, I use a great many of these resources to figure out what books to buy for the library where I work. I’m looking for any and all bestsellers, with an emphasis on fiction, but also some emphasis on political nonfiction (so oft requested) and with a special interest in anything cancer-related (since my library is located in a cancer hospital). Blogs, other libraries, bestsellers lists from NYT, Amazon, and B&N, the backs of other books, patrons’ requests and discussions with patrons. I really like a website called NoveList, too – it’s subscription only but your local public library may very well have a subscription for you to use with your library card. It’s a reader’s advisory site that lets you look up books and authors you like and figure out, from there, what else you might enjoy.

For what I want to read, I guess it’s a similar answer. Really, I find new books I want to read while shopping for books for the library. I find books I want to read by talking with other people, and often, from other reading blogs. I also have a long list (ever-growing) that comes from what I read: I see references to other literature, or decide I need to read biographies of authors, things like that. I’d like to be forever self-educating as a literary scholar.

Filed under: miscellaneous |