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8 Ways to Find a Book to Read: Where to find the Best Book Recommendations

About four years ago, I wrote a post about where to find picture book recommendations (or perhaps better titled “Why my library card holds are always completely maxed out”).

I figured it might be time to do a version for where to find a book to read for adults.

I think books recommendations for adults are a little trickier than picture books because a picture book just doesn’t require that much investment. You can check out 20 picture books at the library and read them all, multiple times, in a week.

A 200+ page novel, though?

You’ll be lucky to get through 2-3 a week (and frankly, most of us aren’t even close to that rate). So when you pick something, you really want it to be good.

Also, there’s nothing more frustrating than WANTING to read, but having nothing in your queue, whether that’s a stack of physical books, books on your Kindle, or an audiobook.

These are my favorite places to find a book to read:

find a book to read

8 Ways to Find a Book to Read

Book Page
This is a free magazine that most libraries get and you can pick up a new copy each month. Usually, there are about 70-100 titles recommended and they’re broken up into categories (audiobooks, children, YA, romance, cookbooks, etc), so it’s very easy to skim through to the sections you’re really looking for.

I’ve found so many books there that I’d never have picked up otherwise, like Things a Little Bird Told Me and The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. Plus, I love the in-depth interviews with popular authors about big new releases, and the short reviews of many books. This is one of the best ways I stay on top of what’s coming out, even if some of them aren’t books I’m at all interested in. It’s also available online and easily searchable, although I’ll admit I almost never look at the website.

Audible Monthly Customer Favorites
I’m a massive sucker for popularity-based lists (probably because so often the critically-acclaimed books are on the dry side, or at least too dense for my sleep-deprived brain to really handle). Every month Audible puts together a list of the twenty most popular audiobooks that month, which I think is just about the right length. Enough to give you plenty of options, but not so enormous that it’s completely overwhelming.

Amazon Best Books of the Month
I think Amazon does a really great job curating book lists. I use their monthly children’s book lists extensively and the adults ones are also excellent. They have a few picks for each month and then they also have ten best books in a variety of genres, from non-fiction to romance to mystery, so if you have a preferred genre, you can go right to those types of titles.

Book Blogs
Back in the first years of my blog, I followed a boatload of book blogs, but it quickly became just completely overwhelming. Some of these book blogs were posting book reviews every single day, and I basically just started tuning them out. Now I follow a handful of book blogs that have similar taste to mine – I really love Modern Mrs Darcy, of course, and I also absolutely love Sunlit Pages and Talk Wordy to Me. Interestingly, none of them are solely focused on books, so I feel like I get a lot of great content from them without it overloading my to-read list.

Tell Me What to Read
This really is one of my best places to get recommendations. I mean, dozens of people suggesting their favorite books to me? These comments are a GOLD mine. I don’t have many good ideas, but starting this series was the best idea ever.

Podcasts
I swing back and forth between listening to a lot of podcasts and listening to a lot of audiobooks, and right now I’m listening to a LOT of audiobooks, so my podcast listening is a little low right now. But I always love What Should I Read Next, The Simple Show, and Read-Aloud Revival as good places to find new titles. My main problem is that I hear books recommended while I’m out walking or have my hands occupied doing dishes or laundry and don’t have a great way to note the books I want to read. Of course, I don’t really have a good system for tracking what books I want to read in the FIRST place.

Goodreads
I’ve been using Goodreads for nearly ten years, and I know lots of people find it very useful to find a book to read, but frankly, I mainly use it just to record the books I’ve read. It’s kind of overwhelming to me, so I follow very few people (mostly just a few close friends and some of my library school friends) on there and then check out what they are reading and add them to my want-to-read list.

Book of the Month Club
I wrote a whole post in detail about why I love this book subscription, but basically they pick five new books each month and give a great, pithy description of the book and who it’s perfect for. I can always count on being interested in at least one or two of their selections!

 

And if you have other great ways to find a book to read, I’d love to hear!

Because the only thing I love more than books are book recommendations.

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6 Comments

  1. I like to check out Book of the Month club to see what titles they have – they’re usually a month ahead with at least one title. I’m always late to the party when it comes to reading what’s popular (I’m just now reading The Young Elites by Marie Lu, for example, which everyone read seven years ago).

  2. I really like Goodreads! There are a few people I follow that I have similar tastes with, and I can usually pick a book that way. Other than that I read blogs to see what everyone is loving! I really wish I had more time to read.

  3. Also, don’t forget about your local librarians! They spend tons of time reading reviews, buying books, and checking people out, so they can give you super-personalized and updated recommendations!

  4. I know it’s their job and all, but I love talking to the people that work at independent book stores for recommendations. They always suggest something I would never have found by myself, and I’ve not been disappointed yet!

  5. Librarians, yes! Not only can these experts connect readers (and reluctant readers) with just the right books, you can go home with as many books as you want…all for FREE! Yay, public libraries!

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