As I’ve written about before here on this blog and elsewhere, I’m a passionate reader as well as a writer. Like those of a lot of geeks, my household reflects that we’re readers. We have shelf after shelf of print books all over the house, as well as hundreds of ebooks between us on various digital devices.
And, like a lot of geeks, we often find ourselves hard pressed to figure out how to find the books we want to read. So I thought I’d do a roundup of where I find my newest reads, in the hope that this might prove helpful to fellow readers out there!
So in no particular order, I give you my list of recommendation sources!
1) Tor.com is one of my biggest ones for SF/F. I regularly read their site, and their reviews of recent releases as well as announcements about upcoming titles frequently make me go “ooh hey that sounds like fun”.
2) Also for SF/F, since I regularly read both John Scalzi’s and Mary Robinette Kowal’s blogs, I see the Big Idea and My Favorite Bit features that they regularly run. I’ve picked up several titles on the strength of posts that authors have sent in to appear on those features.
3) Yet again for SF/F, book reviewer James Nicoll. What he likes to read doesn’t always align with what I like to read, but he’s pointed me at more than one book I’d otherwise have never thought to pick up. For example, The City, Not Long After and There And Back Again by Pat Murphy, or The Dazzle of Day by Molly Gloss. I find him quite satisfying for broadening my SF/F reading horizons.
4) For romance, my go-to, one-stop shop is Smart Bitches Trashy Books. I’m persnickety about what romance subgenres I like to read, and they’ve been consistently reliable at helping me find titles as well as authors that fit into those subgenres. Two of my favorites I’ve learned about from them are Courtney Milan and Kate Noble.
5) For mystery and suspense, I keep an eye on Criminal Element’s newsletter. I don’t read those genres as often as I do SF/F, but I do like a good period mystery occasionally, or a good suspense novel.
6) Since I’m a member of the Northwest Independent Writers Association, I learn about multiple things I’d like to read just from my fellow members of that group.
7) While I don’t use the feature very much, I do keep an eye on the recommendations features on Goodreads (and by extension, my Kindle) just in case that pops up something I want to check out.
8) Other readers I know are always a win for telling me about potential fun things. “Hey Anna, you should totally read this, I think you’d dig it,” is one of my favorite things to hear out of someone!
9) And, of course, I keep an eye on other posts on this very site!
What about the rest of you? How do you find new things to read? Tell me all about your favorite book sources in the comments!
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Angela has a lifelong goal of reading ALL THE BOOKS, and this has been compounded by also wanting to read SF/F in French, because holy crap you guys there's a whole other language's worth of books over there that she hasn't read yet! Meanwhile, she writes her own books as both Angela Korra'ti and Angela Highland, and you can come find out all about those at angelahighland.com. Or you can geek out with her about your favorite books on Facebook or Twitter.
The biggest one is probably social media. If a bunch of people are excited over a new release, then I may decide to check it out too.
ReplyDeleteI've also discovered some authors through awards lists or because the author is attending a local convention.
My favourite subgenre is urban fantasy. Now that it's no longer as huge and a lot of my favourite series have ended or are winding down I've been seeking out series that I missed at the height of the UF popularity and trying them.