This is not how
I find new authors (since I just remembered this site after reading your original post
), but there's a site called
allreaders.com where you can choose plot types, tone of the story and other aspects and it will generate suggestions for you. Sort of a poor man's personal book recommendation AI
. Remember to change the overall genre (SF, romance, etc.) at the beginning of the page before you start choosing things.
Anyway, check it out. Perhaps you'll find something useful.
Personally, I trade suggestions with a very good friend of mine who has similar interests. Also, browsing on Amazon (starting with something you've read that's sort of a prototype for what you want to read and following recommendations, people's lists, etc.) has proved VERY fruitful in the past. I wish someone would license the Netflix recommendation engine and use it for books. There are even some articles that appear all over the net about "must-read" books in different genres, lists of underrated books and so on. I usually learn of these lists in forums like this one
.
Threads on a forum like this are quite useful. Just browse around in old threads or start new ones (perhaps with some indication of what sort of books you've liked so far). It's easier that way to find kindred souls just eager to recommend more of what you might like. It's been my experience that we bibliophiles love to blab about what we read
- just light the match and the rest will follow
.