How do you find new books to read?

[DrNefario]

Online communities, like this one.

[AuzelMakadam]

Mostly three routes for me. One is the Goodreads/StoryGraph "readers also enjoyed" shelf on books I rated high - but I treat it as a starting list, not a verdict, because it skews heavily toward whatever is selling that month.

The second is more old-fashioned: genre award longlists (not just winners). The shortlisted-but-lost titles are usually the interesting reads.

The third is deliberate serendipity - I pick one "blind" book per month based on a strange premise alone, no reviews. Roughly half are misses, but the hits are the books I remember. Algorithms optimize for "more of what you liked"; I find I need one channel that delivers "nothing like what you liked".

[theducks]

Same old way I have always done.
The only thing that changed is the where.

In the olden days my local pusher had a NEW shelf / table or put them on the normal shelf face out (older books were spine out) and a colored round label with the date released (the spots stayed for 30 days).
Even my public Library had a New shelf.
Nowadays I mostly use the new releases / reservation pages for my fav genres at the site.

[AuzelMakadam]

Mostly the same browsing trap for me, until I noticed the pattern in what actually worked: the books that find me are never the ones an algorithm surfaces, they are the ones a single reader argued for with a specific thesis. "You will like this" does nothing for me, but "this is the book that treats X differently than everything else in the genre" sends me straight to the sample. Cover-and-title browsing only really works for books that already have a marketing budget behind them, which quietly filters out most of the interesting stuff.

I notice it from the other side too, since I write dystopian fiction myself and think about discovery a lot - from both directions the conclusion is the same: a reader reasoning publicly about why a book matters beats every recommendation engine I have tried.

Curious whether anyone here actually trusts the "readers also bought" suggestions, or whether for you a convincing single recommendation from a stranger always wins as well?

[odamizu]

Thanks everyone! I'll give some of these ideas a whirl.

Though it looks like a lot of people also do what I usually do — browse new releases at the (online) library and (online) bookstore. Seems to be a tried-and-true method, though increasingly I feel like I'm missing out on good books that my eye passes over because the cover or title doesn't grab me

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by AuzelMakadam

Mostly the same browsing trap for me, until I noticed the pattern in what actually worked: the books that find me are never the ones an algorithm surfaces, they are the ones a single reader argued for with a specific thesis. "You will like this" does nothing for me, but "this is the book that treats X differently than everything else in the genre" sends me straight to the sample. Cover-and-title browsing only really works for books that already have a marketing budget behind them, which quietly filters out most of the interesting stuff.

I notice it from the other side too, since I write dystopian fiction myself and think about discovery a lot - from both directions the conclusion is the same: a reader reasoning publicly about why a book matters beats every recommendation engine I have tried.

Curious whether anyone here actually trusts the "readers also bought" suggestions, or whether for you a convincing single recommendation from a stranger always wins as well?

I don't trust either. I read the synopsis and the sample, and decide then. The reasons other people liked/disliked something are often not valid/relevant for me, so I don't generally read reviews at all. I have zero interest in why someone liked a book I haven't read.

[DiapDealer]

I usually have more interest in why someone didn't like a book I haven't read.

I don't tend to read the reviews of people with whom I have no past experience (of their likes and dislikes), in general. Anonymous reviews with zero shared reading context doesn't really move my needle toward (or away) from a purchase.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I usually have more interest in why someone didn't like a book I haven't read.

I sometimes read the reviews if I happen to notice that the general rating for the book I'm looking at is lower than usual, and then I do look mostly at the negative reviews. Otherwise I don't bother, as the ratings/reviews by other people are no guarantee I will like or dislike the book. It's all too subjective.

The same goes for "convincing", i.e. thoroughly argumented reviews - I still may or may not like the book, and so I usually avoid any reviews altogether.

[icallaci]

I spent a year reading books that sounded interesting to me but with an average rating of less than 3.5 stars on Goodreads, and I was surprised when some of them were 5-star reads for me. Sometimes I read the reviews of 2-star books to see why someone didn't like a book, and some of their reasons are the exact things I WANT in a book.

[DNSB]

When I look at reviews, I tend to toss out the 5 star and 1 star reviews. Though the 1 star reviews are a good place to look for humour. One of my spouse's recent reads had an 1 star review complaining about too much of the book was wasted on the interactions between the FMC and MMC. Gee, it's a urban fantasy/romance so spending time/words on that relationship makes sense, at least to the two of us.

[AuzelMakadam]

Mostly backwards, honestly. I'll read one book I love and then go through the author's own influences or their 'also enjoyed' shelf on StoryGraph, which surfaces weirder stuff than the front-page algorithm. Bookstore shelf-browsing once a month for covers I don't recognize. And a handful of small forums where people rec things they actually finished, not things they intend to read. The hit rate is maybe one in four, but the misses are cheap at novella length.