My work husband G once asked me how I find so many different and good book recommendations. He is an avid reader, but prefers non-fiction and does not belong to any book clubs or the like. He joined Goodreads because I told him about it and now I am his only friend, which means that he sees ALL of my ratings and comments about them at work. He is not really a social media person, but loves being able to keep track of his books, which I find very dear. I have recommended a few fiction books to him which he has really loved (The Nightingale, The House in The Cerulean Sea, A Tree Grows In Brooklyn) even though his genre is usually non-fiction.
First of all, my number one method for getting good book recommendations is from other bloggers, and I keep them in a list and make a few notes. I also do rate them in Goodreads once I am done; the notes I keep in this list are very basic. Here are a few examples.
Birchie: The Social Climber by Amanda Pellegrino (put on hold 11/13)NGS/Lisa: Kill Show (put on hold 12/01, hard copy only, no audio)
Stephany: Symphony of Secrets by Brendan Slocumb (put on hold 10/24)
---------------- READ ------------------------
Emily: An Evil Heart(on hold 10/06) READ, thought it was good.
Elisabeth/Nicole: I Feel Bad About My Neck (borrowed 6/28) READ, really liked it. Great read about getting older as a woman. Humorous.Jenny: Let Your Mind Run: A Memoir of Thinking My Way to Victory (Deena Kastor) (put on hold 9/28)READ, thought it was good. Definitely different from the other two running lady books I read this year.[Side note, in case you are wondering, they were Good For A Girl and The Longest Race]The other thing I do is I poach my friends' feeds on Goodreads for five star reviews. This is actually not one I do very often, as I am not really a social media scroller; I generally get on, add my updates and get off without really looking through the feed. However, sometimes I will see a five star and I will go to Libby and put that on hold. For these ones, I don't really make a list or notes. I also peruse the Goodreads annual choice awards. Each year a winning book is chosen from each genre. However, there are also about 10 nominees for each category and I often will add books from the top ten to my holds list. For example, here were some of the top nominees (and the winner, Weyward) for this year's historical fiction category (one of my favorite genres).
However, I will also peruse the prior years nominee lists if I am looking to fill my holds bin. Sometimes there are books on the old lists that I have still never read. The good thing about this method for me is that I can tell by a glance on Goodreads if I have read it or not, because more likely than not, I will not always remember!
I also use Libby in two ways: (a) if I need a book now, like I am desperate, I will check the "available now" filter and just see what is out there and in this case I am not too picky. If I see a thriller from an author I know (or think) is not total crap, I will borrow it. I also have some in the pocket, like I still have not read all of the Louise Penny books, so I am saving some of those for a rainy day! (b) I may also filter by "popular now" although more and more I have read a lot of the first ones that come up, but I will still scroll down and then either put them on hold or borrow them if they look interesting. In this case, I will admit, I sometimes DO judge a book by its cover. Sorry!
Lastly, and not least, I get recommendations from IRL friends! These are more few and far between but they are still there. My friend K's Mom was reading Lessons In Chemistry the last time we were together and I was so excited to hear what she thought about it after she was done (and she loved it! and apparently there is now a TV show too, which is supposed to be pretty good).
Also, you may wonder how I keep track of what I want to read. I used to mark them as "want to read" on Goodreads but I found that once I had the "wish list" function on OverDrive, which then transferred over to Libby, it is just easier to either put them on hold right away, borrow them right away, or put them on my wish list on OverDrive/Libby right away rather than trying to manage two lists.
So there we have it. If you are looking for a book recommendation, you can find a list of some of my favorite books here. And if you want to poach my five star shelf, you can find me on Goodreads here.
How do you find new books? Where do you get book recommendations? How do you keep track of your TBR (to be read) list?
P.S. Only one more week until Christmas!! đŸŽ„
