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Dec. 2nd, 2014 09:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckHow you pick new books to try. (For melannen)
There are an awful lot of books I want to read. I'm trying not to buy books now because, when I do, I don't tend to pick them up and read them even if I really want to read them (The fact that I still haven't finished The Islands of Chaldea is fairly typical of books I own). I end up trying a lot of books from the library. I have about 500 books saved in lists on my library account, things I eventually want to read. I seem to add books to those lists faster than I take them off. I also have list of things I want to read that the library doesn't own but that I might request through interlibrary loan.
I use GoodReads to get recommendations some times. I find that it recommends a lot of things to me that I'm not hugely enthusiastic about, however. I'm trying to be ruthless about marking things I know I'll never read as 'not interested,' but I keep thinking that maybe I should at least try those books.
I use Amazon to try to keep track of new books that interest me. Amazon's not very reliable that way, but it does tend to pull up new books by the authors I can reliably read, and it gives me a few months notice on upcoming titles. Amazon also recommends a lot of things I know I'll never read. It thinks, based on things I've bought and enjoyed, that I'll love urban fantasy, and I don't.
I find a fair number of books just by reading DW and LJ and an assortment of blogs. I like it when people talk about what they've been reading. Even the books people hate sound interesting a lot of times just because people have a great deal to say about them.
I spend some time, too, browsing my library's online catalog. It's the closest I get to shelf browsing these days. I kind of miss shelf browsing and the serendipitous discoveries that come of it, but I don't think my family would have the patience to let me spend an hour or two finding books. I suppose I could take the bus downtown on my own in order to browse. The activation energy for that is too high, however. I'd never get out the door.
I don't get to bookstores very often now and tend not to buy much when I do go. I have a hard time finding books there that interest me-- The science fiction and fantasy section right now tends toward types of books that I don't like (urban fantasy, military SF, grimdark) or can't read (epic fantasy). I'm more likely to find things that I might actually read in the kids' section (not the YA section. Most of that is anxiety inducing), but kids' books are difficult because I don't want to buy hardcover but a lot of the books never appear in paperback. It's also not rare to find, say, book three without having books one and two.
When using all of these resources, I look at blurbs quite a bit. If I've read other books by the author in question, that informs my decision. I'm wishlisting a lot of non-fiction at the library these days, and for that, I often browse looking for titles that sound interesting. If I'm reading a review, I consider how frequently I agree with the author of the review about books. (I really enjoy reading review on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, for example, but I rarely pursue the books I see there because I don't have a great history with enjoying the books those reviewers like.)
melannen)There are an awful lot of books I want to read. I'm trying not to buy books now because, when I do, I don't tend to pick them up and read them even if I really want to read them (The fact that I still haven't finished The Islands of Chaldea is fairly typical of books I own). I end up trying a lot of books from the library. I have about 500 books saved in lists on my library account, things I eventually want to read. I seem to add books to those lists faster than I take them off. I also have list of things I want to read that the library doesn't own but that I might request through interlibrary loan.
I use GoodReads to get recommendations some times. I find that it recommends a lot of things to me that I'm not hugely enthusiastic about, however. I'm trying to be ruthless about marking things I know I'll never read as 'not interested,' but I keep thinking that maybe I should at least try those books.
I use Amazon to try to keep track of new books that interest me. Amazon's not very reliable that way, but it does tend to pull up new books by the authors I can reliably read, and it gives me a few months notice on upcoming titles. Amazon also recommends a lot of things I know I'll never read. It thinks, based on things I've bought and enjoyed, that I'll love urban fantasy, and I don't.
I find a fair number of books just by reading DW and LJ and an assortment of blogs. I like it when people talk about what they've been reading. Even the books people hate sound interesting a lot of times just because people have a great deal to say about them.
I spend some time, too, browsing my library's online catalog. It's the closest I get to shelf browsing these days. I kind of miss shelf browsing and the serendipitous discoveries that come of it, but I don't think my family would have the patience to let me spend an hour or two finding books. I suppose I could take the bus downtown on my own in order to browse. The activation energy for that is too high, however. I'd never get out the door.
I don't get to bookstores very often now and tend not to buy much when I do go. I have a hard time finding books there that interest me-- The science fiction and fantasy section right now tends toward types of books that I don't like (urban fantasy, military SF, grimdark) or can't read (epic fantasy). I'm more likely to find things that I might actually read in the kids' section (not the YA section. Most of that is anxiety inducing), but kids' books are difficult because I don't want to buy hardcover but a lot of the books never appear in paperback. It's also not rare to find, say, book three without having books one and two.
When using all of these resources, I look at blurbs quite a bit. If I've read other books by the author in question, that informs my decision. I'm wishlisting a lot of non-fiction at the library these days, and for that, I often browse looking for titles that sound interesting. If I'm reading a review, I consider how frequently I agree with the author of the review about books. (I really enjoy reading review on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, for example, but I rarely pursue the books I see there because I don't have a great history with enjoying the books those reviewers like.)
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Date: 2014-12-02 07:15 pm (UTC)Browsing has declined greatly in importance since the demise of Borders. I still do browse at Literati and BookBound, and sometimes Schulers in Lansing, and the used shoppes, but more and more I am reading on the Nook app -- I feel guilty for not supporting the book stores, but it's hard to argue with what works for me. If I do have a physical copy of the book and it looks interesting, I flip it open at random and spot read. I'm all about prose style and if the style seems clunky, I usually put the book down.
I've have been letting the Nook store sell me lots of sub-$3 e-books, mostly old mysteries and history. Most have not been very good. See above comment about prose style. :-(
For the last year I have been shipping "care" packages of cheap used mystery paperbacks to a friend overseas -- mostly from the AADL Friends sale at 50 cents each, also from used-bookstore clearances and thrift shops. So I get to test-read many of those before I ship them out, and a few have caught my interest.
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Date: 2014-12-06 02:48 am (UTC)I don't like the fact that e-readers won't let me skip around in the text-- When I have a book (at least when it's fiction), I often read from both ends toward the middle. That only works with an e-book that has a clickable table of contents. I think I'm more willing to read fanfic that way because I've never been able to jump around in those and so am used to it.
Right now, I look at buying books and then consider the number of unread books I have already and the number of books I have on my lists for future reading from the library. It has to be something really extraordinary to get me to buy. Well, that or it has to be something that Scott and/or Cordelia will also read.