[itsmemattchung]

Comment and then question.

- Scattered (How Attention Deficit Disorder originates and what you can do about it) by Gabor Mate

Question: how do folks discover new books to read — Goodeads? Friend recommendations? Book Clubs? Any other sort of niche, online recommendation engine? Podcasts?

[lumb63]

Goodreads recommendations are decent; I can often find at least one related book I’ll want to read from a book I’ve read. My problem is exactly the opposite as yours: I can’t read books as fast as my backlog grows! Most of my recommendations come from Goodreads, discussions on HN, or one or two reader friends who make recommendations I like.

Oftentimes the books I read cover only part of a very large topic, and this leads me to seek out books covering the rest; for instance, I do not expect my interests in political/societal structure and economics will ever stop yielding new books to read.

[joshuamorton]

I use the shortlists lists from awards I like (Hugo, nebula, locus, also the booker and Pulitzer lists but I tend to enjoy those less ) as well as/especially those for new authors. This also generates a list of authors I like. That gives a sort of web of trust, I enjoy n.k. jemisin, so books she recommends and endorses and has a blurb on is one I'll at least take a look at. And that's true for lots of other authors as well.

I have a local bookstore and browse the new releases and staff recommendations they have, and all together that can usually keep me busy.

[hampelm]

Our local library has a "new" section on their website that sorts everything by date acquired. A couple times a year we page through it and request the interesting-looking books!

[muffinman26]

For me it's a mix of:

1. News sites with book reviews. I read Vox's book critic reviews for a while, as well as my local paper's book review section. Definitely better for fiction or current events than other non-fiction.

2. Asking the people working at the bookstore. I'm consistently surprised by the breadth of book recommendations bookstore employees can give. Even asking for something incredibly specific (like "young adult fiction featuring a trans male protagonist" or "modern fantasy takes on mythologies other than Greek or Norse") usually yields a few interesting results. Again, better for fiction than technical non-fiction.

3. Friends, newsletters, and podcasts.

4. Wandering around bookstores, especially boutiques, and thumbing through the books on display. This still yields mostly new releases, but stretches me outside my comfort zone. I found both Paddling Your Own Canoe by Nick Offerman (entertaining) and Breathing Fire: Female Inmate Firefighters on the Front Lines by Jaime Lowe (well-researched non-fiction) this way.

[eatonphil]

> how do folks discover new books to read

I do track all books I want to read and have read in Goodreads. And I sometimes learn about cool new books from others on there.

But mostly I have topics in mind I want to read about so I search lists online and reddit to find a good book on the topic.

[paparush]

https://hackernewsbooks.com/

[zoolily]

I subscribe to the The New York Review of Books (nybooks.com) for in-depth reviews and also follow RSS feeds from The London and LA Review of Books.