Where do you get book recommendations and ideas?

[Villanelle]

I used to be a Reader--capital 'R'.  I always read 100+ books a year.  Now, I'm lucky if I get into the double digits.  I miss reading, while simultaneously having little desire to read.  Most of this comes from that "I don't know what to read" issue.  Oh, sure, I have 50+ books on my kindle, but nothing makes me enthusiastic about picking it up to read.

I read a little of everything (though memoirs tend not to be my thing, with some exceptions).  Trashy historical romances novels to cerebral literary fiction to non-fiction.  (I'm admitedly quite picky about  my non-fiction though.) 

I'm not necessarily looking for specific book recommendations (though I suppose if you want to do that here it couldn't hurt.)  I more want to know where you get your ideas for your next read.

I used to be a part of the best book club every, but everyone, including me, moved away.  Other than that, I'm not entirely sure how I found books.  It was often one read leading to the next--next in the series, something else by the same author, or Amazon or the library suggestion "if you liked X, consider Y".  I guess I'm just in a slump and trying to figure out how to get out.  (Does it count as a slump if it's been going on for years and years?) 


I feel like if I found a few A.Mazing books that got me excited and back in the habit of reading, that might be enough, but I can't seem to get there. 

[Adventine]

Since you're not enthusiastic about reading right now, the best way to revive the habit is to find works related to your other non-literary interests.

For example, what hobbies do you have? If you like to cook, or even if you just like to eat, anything by Michael Pollan would probably catch your interest. Do you like watching movies or TV shows? Reading the books that inspired the show, or even just set in the same time period, would be the easiest way to get back into reading. Watching The Rings of Power got me rereading J.R.R. Tolkien.

Are there any books that you've read in the past that you still remember fondly? Might be worth a reread. I just finished rereading Watership Down by Richard Adams. I first read it 10 years ago. I like it just as much today, and now I'm interested in reading his other, much less famous books.

When I'm bored, I often browse Wikipedia pages about famous authors. There's usually a section that describes their literary influences. For example, Neil Gaiman's page (Career > Journalism, early writings, and literary influences) just sent me down the Wikipedia rabbit hole of authors and works that shaped his style.

[Villanelle]

Since you're not enthusiastic about reading right now, the best way to revive the habit is to find works related to your other non-literary interests.

For example, what hobbies do you have? If you like to cook, or even if you just like to eat, anything by Michael Pollan would probably catch your interest. Do you like watching movies or TV shows? Reading the books that inspired the show, or even just set in the same time period, would be the easiest way to get back into reading. Watching The Rings of Power got me rereading J.R.R. Tolkien.

Are there any books that you've read in the past that you still remember fondly? Might be worth a reread. I just finished rereading Watership Down by Richard Adams. I first read it 10 years ago. I like it just as much today, and now I'm interested in reading his other, much less famous books.

When I'm bored, I often browse Wikipedia pages about famous authors. There's usually a section that describes their literary influences. For example, Neil Gaiman's page (Career > Journalism, early writings, and literary influences) just sent me down the Wikipedia rabbit hole of authors and works that shaped his style.

Oh, interesting ideas.  One of my primary hobbies is writing, but any books on that seem to feel more like instructional manuals than fun.  But author biographies might spark something.  Or biographies on chess players, maybe.  I'll do some digging.

And I love the wikipedia idea, too. 

[wenchsenior]

I was a big reader as a kid/teen, then fell out of the habit in college (wanted to be 'someone who read' but rarely had the energy to read more than a bit of escapist fiction).  Then had a period of severe depression after college and didn't read. Then in my mid 30s I got impatient with myself and decided that my reading habit wasn't going to fix itself.

So I set up kind of a semi-structured program, where I consciously aimed to read 1) much more widely in terms of genres; 2) tackle harder reads (with accompanying learning materials, if needed); 3) got recs from other readers whose taste I sometimes jived with, so I had someone to discuss at least some books with.

It really paid off... it took some effort and discipline in the beginning b/c I had to set up time specifically devoted to reading, and I had to read stuff that I didn't always 'feel like' in the immediate moment. But I found that the more types of books I read, and the more I sprinkled in challenging books, the more interested I got in continuing to read.

Eventually (as podcasting became a thing) I also started listening to book podcasts and online classes devoted to literature (free university lectures, etc.). And I got heavily into audio books once that was a thing, so I now listen to most books, which gets me through a lot more than I used to be able to read... usually I read/listen to 80-110 books per year (I'll finish my 90th tonight...it's been kind of slow b/c I hit a stretch of bad books that sapped my enthusiasm, but things picked up hugely in the past few months).

In terms of where I get recommendations (apart from friends/family), the main way in the past 10 years is to look at the website Bookscrolling, which collates data from a bunch of year-end best-of list (sort of like the website Metacritic), and ranks books in several genres based on 'most recommended'.  Then I scan the list and prioritize from that top 30 or top 50, and try to narrow things down.*

Recently, after my aforementioned spate of frustrating books that I slogged through part of the year, I had to re-motivate myself by looking at my lists and prioritizing some authors that I already was familiar with and KNEW that I tended to like.  E.g., I caught up on some Ian McEwan, John Scalzi, Gary Shteyngart, Michael Ondaatje novels that I hadn't yet read, and it helped re-invigorate the enthusiasm that a run of annoying books had drained.

*One legit problem is that I now have a list of literally a couple thousand books "to be read" since I started doing this, and realistically I will likely never get to all of them, which is sometimes depressing. But at least I have a system that works for me.

ETA:  That's funny that you don't like memoirs!  I read them for years before one day realizing that my reaction to most of them ranges from a resounding "MEH" to absolute eye-rolling disgust LOL. Now I skip them.

[wenchsenior]

Since you're not enthusiastic about reading right now, the best way to revive the habit is to find works related to your other non-literary interests.

For example, what hobbies do you have? If you like to cook, or even if you just like to eat, anything by Michael Pollan would probably catch your interest. Do you like watching movies or TV shows? Reading the books that inspired the show, or even just set in the same time period, would be the easiest way to get back into reading. Watching The Rings of Power got me rereading J.R.R. Tolkien.

Are there any books that you've read in the past that you still remember fondly? Might be worth a reread. I just finished rereading Watership Down by Richard Adams. I first read it 10 years ago. I like it just as much today, and now I'm interested in reading his other, much less famous books.

I read this as a young teen, then read it aloud to my little sisters as an older teen. I tried to get my husband to read this for decades and he would never even try it; how could rabbits journeying a few miles cross country be exciting? Little did he know!

Eventually we took  a road trip and I sprung the audio book on him. HE WAS RIVETED.   And we both cried at the end. GOOD TIMES.

[FrugalShrew]

I like browsing in person at a library or used book sale. I'm happy to just wander the shelves, but my local library will usually have some displays, too--new nonfiction, new fiction, and themes selected by the librarians--which have turned up some fun reads.

[Cranky]

I read through the book review section on the NYT every week and always find a couple of books to put on my library reserve list.

[Kwill]

When I was a kid around 11 to 14 or so, stealing my mother's library books was a great source of reading material. I'd pick it up a book she'd set down somewhere and give it back when I was done. It really annoyed her, though, and it doesn't work now that I'm grown up and don't live there.

Right now, I'm reading Les Misérables, mainly because my sister was reading it for months. I got that on the Libby app from the public library, so I didn't actually take my sister's copy. I'm about 60% through and slowly catching up with her.

I recently started reading A Bloody Habit -- I'd bought it for my young teen godson but promised his mother I would vet it first. I've decided it's not age appropriate for him but that I'll probably finish it myself.

I started the series Ascendance of a Bookworm recently. I enjoyed the anime a few years ago and decided to get the English translation of the light novels for my niece but to vet it first. I've only gotten the first three volumes but will get more if she wants them. The story is that an aspiring librarian dies in a tragic book accident and is reincarnated as a little girl in a medieval fantasy world without a print culture. She attempts to recreate paper and printing in order to introduce books.

In recent years, I've been reading a lot of Terry Pratchett, especially the Discworld series. They're clever and fun, and they kept me sane in the lockdowns. I found those because friends had been talking about them for years.

Over the summer, I bought a box of old Reader's Digest condensed books from eBay, and I read through a few volumes cover to cover on the subway riding to work. I like those because there's a variety in each volume, but the novels are shortened so that you move on to the next one relatively quickly. It's also a way of sampling authors.

[Zikoris]

For me there are a lot, so this will be pretty long. I'm putting them in priority sequence as well.

1. Relevant reads related to travel or other things. I make situation-specific reading lists here and there, and seek out niche books to fill that. Like books set in the woods for a camping trip, books set in a country I'm travelling to, or even a specific city (I plan to do a side-trip to Nottingham soon and read some version of Robin Hood en route, for example). Also included here are books I buy at local bookstores while travelling - usually the English sections aren't too big, so out of like thirty options I try to pick the weirdest-looking one. Makes a cool souvenir too. This is always my #1 priority over any other books.

2. New releases by authors I already like. The low end here is about three a month, and some months are much more (I think October was like fifteen or something).

3. Books related to my reading challenges. I set various annual challenges in addition to my straight numbers goal, and try to stay on track with all of these every week. Next year I'm going to have a Backlog Challenge (see point 4 below), Classics Challenge, and Nonfiction Challenge.

4. Older unread books by authors I already like. When I discover new authors I'm into, I like to check out their backlogs.

5. Books I see mentioned a lot or highly praised on the book-related subreddits I follow: r/books, r/52book, and r/fantasy. I'm planning on specifically working through some of the r/fantasy "big lists" next year.

6. Goodreads, both the Choice Awards and recommendations. Standard Goodreads recommendations are kind of garbage, but you can tweak the algorithm by setting up custom shelves with a few hundred rated books on them. I found my recs got substantially better around about 600 books entered, I think. I'm around 1,800 now and it's quite good, especially for nonfiction.

7. Here and there I stumble across things organically or get a recommendation from a person I know, but it's pretty uncommon.

[cupcakery]

1.  Goodreads - either seeing what my friends are reading or browsing GR new releases or recommendations.
2.  Our public library often posts new releases or staff picks.
3.  Personal search for a topic I'm interested in.  This applies to non-fiction books.
4.  Sometimes I'll come across a news/blog/etc article that references a book and I'll put it on my to-read list.


I read a lot.  I'll end this year with 155 books.  I think the best way to get out of a reading funk is to try something different and to be willing to put down something that isn't working for you.  I'd also experiment with different formats.  While I prefer a paper book, sometimes an e-book or audiobook works well.

[BlueHouse]

1.  Book clubs -- even clubs I'm not a member of (online or through the library).  My book club is great because I do read things that I normally wouldn't choose to read and end up better as a result. 
2.  Instagram -- Those reels where readers show you their "books that changed my life".  I don't know why these reels appeal to me, but because I see the people showing the books and their one-sentence reviews, I tend to believe them.  (don't judge me)
3.  "Best book of the year" lists from NYT, The economist, etc.  There are certain literary prizes that I stay away from.  For instance, almost any book that has won or been a finalist for the Booker Prize -- not for me. 
4.  I also like Reese Witherspoon's book club picks a lot of the time.  And those keep me in the loop of what so many others are reading, so I have something to make small talk about.

[GilesMM]

Staff picks at libraries and book stores are a good start. NY Times has a best seller list. 


But you have to want to read!

[redhead84]

1.  Book clubs -- even clubs I'm not a member of (online or through the library).  My book club is great because I do read things that I normally wouldn't choose to read and end up better as a result. 
2.  Instagram -- Those reels where readers show you their "books that changed my life".  I don't know why these reels appeal to me, but because I see the people showing the books and their one-sentence reviews, I tend to believe them.  (don't judge me)
3.  "Best book of the year" lists from NYT, The economist, etc.  There are certain literary prizes that I stay away from.  For instance, almost any book that has won or been a finalist for the Booker Prize -- not for me. 
4.  I also like Reese Witherspoon's book club picks a lot of the time.  And those keep me in the loop of what so many others are reading, so I have something to make small talk about.

I also find many recommendations through Instagram. Through trial and error, I follow a couple of people with similar taste in books.

[Financial.Velociraptor]

Do you have a "half price books" in your area?  Lots of book nerds browsing the aisles that will talk your ear off about reading some peculiar things. 

[erp]

I've recently started reading meaningfully more, after falling out of the habit for years post-grad school (I understand this is pretty typical, something about reading constantly for work makes you less likely to read constantly for pleasure too).

A few things that helped me were:

• Audiobooks - because my life is distinctly stupid for commuting, I drive a lot and audiobooks are a great way to get lighter books into my head. I find this is especially nice for MBA/management type books where there's really just a few ideas and a lot of examples.
• Reading simple things, basically reading below my grade-level. I think that I was out of practice in reading for pleasure, and that I needed to get back into the habit of reading but I also needed to tune up my technical reading skill. Don't get me wrong - I was always able to parse relatively complicated words, but the process of reading for specific pieces of information or relationships (like you would a textbook or paper) is different from reading for pleasure. To do this I re-read a bunch of things I had read and loved before. A lot of Neil Gaiman for me. From there I branched into other kind of pulpy, fun material. Stuff that I could understand really easily while my brain got used to reading for fun again. It probably took me a year or more than a dozen books to really get back into the saddle, but now I can pick up things that are pretty far outside of my norm and still feel like I have the technical reading skills necessary to enjoy the material.
• Making notes (even here on the forum, which I've done a few times) - discussing and summarizing books is a good way for me to organize the information. I particularly like this when I want to argue with someone about the book. Most of my notes are just for me to organize my own thoughts, but I can imagine that you'd get the same benefits from a book club/reddit/tiktoc/etc.

Now, to your actual question of how do you find books?
-ask @Metalcat ; everything she's recommended has been great
-I try to flip through all of the Canada Reads candidates - that's 5 a year.
-Ezra Klein's podcast tends to end with 3 book recommendations, and there's a decade of podcasts or so at this point, so that's probably hundreds of books.
-Be non-judgmental on your reading. I've read comics and books I disagreed with and simple books I loved. This is about finding pleasure in your reading, and that's okay.
-Once you're reading a bit, talk about what you read, and you may find that there are a handful of readers already in your circle. They'll recommend enough to keep you busy.

Cut yourself a lot of slack, it's hard to start reading again after a long lapse, and it takes practice. Also 100+ books a year is a *tonne*, I think it's on the order of 2% of the population who'll be anywhere near 50+, 46% of people have not read/listened to any.

If you like podcasts, there's a good one with this title you could listen to on the topic of reading: Best Of: This Is Your Brain on Deep Reading. It’s Pretty Magnificent with Maryanne Wolf - it's basically a discussion about creating a habit of reading.

Good luck! Let us know what you find and share your good finds (or your terrible finds).

[lifeandlimb]

1. Ask friends for book recommendations (sometimes I can even see them on Goodreads, a social app I use to track my to-read list). Friend recommendations always yield something good because I respect their tastes, for the most part.

2. Library lists! I just discovered these, they're great. Each library has many librarian-compiled book lists with different themes. I can usually find them on the library website if I don't go into the branch.

3. Staff picks or recommended shelves at bookstores

[Log]

The podcasts I listen to are often full of book recommendations, leaning towards non-fiction. For fiction, I try to go deeper on authors I have particularly enjoyed in the past, and I found one of my friends has good taste in contemporary literary fiction, so I talk to her about books whenever we see each other. Then I'll often take note of books that are referenced in other things I'm reading, whether that's books or essays on Substack/The Atlantic.

[Villanelle]

For me there are a lot, so this will be pretty long. I'm putting them in priority sequence as well.

1. Relevant reads related to travel or other things. I make situation-specific reading lists here and there, and seek out niche books to fill that. Like books set in the woods for a camping trip, books set in a country I'm travelling to, or even a specific city (I plan to do a side-trip to Nottingham soon and read some version of Robin Hood en route, for example). Also included here are books I buy at local bookstores while travelling - usually the English sections aren't too big, so out of like thirty options I try to pick the weirdest-looking one. Makes a cool souvenir too. This is always my #1 priority over any other books.

2. New releases by authors I already like. The low end here is about three a month, and some months are much more (I think October was like fifteen or something).

3. Books related to my reading challenges. I set various annual challenges in addition to my straight numbers goal, and try to stay on track with all of these every week. Next year I'm going to have a Backlog Challenge (see point 4 below), Classics Challenge, and Nonfiction Challenge.

4. Older unread books by authors I already like. When I discover new authors I'm into, I like to check out their backlogs.

5. Books I see mentioned a lot or highly praised on the book-related subreddits I follow: r/books, r/52book, and r/fantasy. I'm planning on specifically working through some of the r/fantasy "big lists" next year.

6. Goodreads, both the Choice Awards and recommendations. Standard Goodreads recommendations are kind of garbage, but you can tweak the algorithm by setting up custom shelves with a few hundred rated books on them. I found my recs got substantially better around about 600 books entered, I think. I'm around 1,800 now and it's quite good, especially for nonfiction.

7. Here and there I stumble across things organically or get a recommendation from a person I know, but it's pretty uncommon.

Do you have a specific source for these challenges?  Or do you create them yourself.  Years ago, I recall doing several of this.  "read a book set in the city you were born", "read a book written by an author from a country that starts with the first letter of your name", that sort of thing.

[Zikoris]

For me there are a lot, so this will be pretty long. I'm putting them in priority sequence as well.

1. Relevant reads related to travel or other things. I make situation-specific reading lists here and there, and seek out niche books to fill that. Like books set in the woods for a camping trip, books set in a country I'm travelling to, or even a specific city (I plan to do a side-trip to Nottingham soon and read some version of Robin Hood en route, for example). Also included here are books I buy at local bookstores while travelling - usually the English sections aren't too big, so out of like thirty options I try to pick the weirdest-looking one. Makes a cool souvenir too. This is always my #1 priority over any other books.

2. New releases by authors I already like. The low end here is about three a month, and some months are much more (I think October was like fifteen or something).

3. Books related to my reading challenges. I set various annual challenges in addition to my straight numbers goal, and try to stay on track with all of these every week. Next year I'm going to have a Backlog Challenge (see point 4 below), Classics Challenge, and Nonfiction Challenge.

4. Older unread books by authors I already like. When I discover new authors I'm into, I like to check out their backlogs.

5. Books I see mentioned a lot or highly praised on the book-related subreddits I follow: r/books, r/52book, and r/fantasy. I'm planning on specifically working through some of the r/fantasy "big lists" next year.

6. Goodreads, both the Choice Awards and recommendations. Standard Goodreads recommendations are kind of garbage, but you can tweak the algorithm by setting up custom shelves with a few hundred rated books on them. I found my recs got substantially better around about 600 books entered, I think. I'm around 1,800 now and it's quite good, especially for nonfiction.

7. Here and there I stumble across things organically or get a recommendation from a person I know, but it's pretty uncommon.

Do you have a specific source for these challenges?  Or do you create them yourself.  Years ago, I recall doing several of this.  "read a book set in the city you were born", "read a book written by an author from a country that starts with the first letter of your name", that sort of thing.

I used to do a lot of organized ones through Goodreads (there are TONS of challenge groups that do all sorts of fun things), now I just make my own. My specific ones for 2024 are:

1. Backlog Challenge. Read all unread works by Brandon Sanderson, L.E. Modesitt, and Cassandra Gannon.
2. Classics Challenge. Read the Harvard Classics in full. Including the fiction shelf.
3. Continuing Education Challenge. Read 50 nonfiction books. I waffled on this one and #2 for a while because the Harvard Classics include a lot of nonfiction, but decided to not double-count them.
4. Daily Stoic Challenge. Read the Daily Stoic on a daily basis.

Sometime I want to do an Everyone's Read This Except Me Challenge and knock out all of those extremely popular and well-known books I haven't read yet. Maybe in 2025?

[wenchsenior]

For me there are a lot, so this will be pretty long. I'm putting them in priority sequence as well.

1. Relevant reads related to travel or other things. I make situation-specific reading lists here and there, and seek out niche books to fill that. Like books set in the woods for a camping trip, books set in a country I'm travelling to, or even a specific city (I plan to do a side-trip to Nottingham soon and read some version of Robin Hood en route, for example). Also included here are books I buy at local bookstores while travelling - usually the English sections aren't too big, so out of like thirty options I try to pick the weirdest-looking one. Makes a cool souvenir too. This is always my #1 priority over any other books.

2. New releases by authors I already like. The low end here is about three a month, and some months are much more (I think October was like fifteen or something).

3. Books related to my reading challenges. I set various annual challenges in addition to my straight numbers goal, and try to stay on track with all of these every week. Next year I'm going to have a Backlog Challenge (see point 4 below), Classics Challenge, and Nonfiction Challenge.

4. Older unread books by authors I already like. When I discover new authors I'm into, I like to check out their backlogs.

5. Books I see mentioned a lot or highly praised on the book-related subreddits I follow: r/books, r/52book, and r/fantasy. I'm planning on specifically working through some of the r/fantasy "big lists" next year.

6. Goodreads, both the Choice Awards and recommendations. Standard Goodreads recommendations are kind of garbage, but you can tweak the algorithm by setting up custom shelves with a few hundred rated books on them. I found my recs got substantially better around about 600 books entered, I think. I'm around 1,800 now and it's quite good, especially for nonfiction.

7. Here and there I stumble across things organically or get a recommendation from a person I know, but it's pretty uncommon.

Do you have a specific source for these challenges?  Or do you create them yourself.  Years ago, I recall doing several of this.  "read a book set in the city you were born", "read a book written by an author from a country that starts with the first letter of your name", that sort of thing.

I used to do a lot of organized ones through Goodreads (there are TONS of challenge groups that do all sorts of fun things), now I just make my own. My specific ones for 2024 are:

1. Backlog Challenge. Read all unread works by Brandon Sanderson, L.E. Modesitt, and Cassandra Gannon.
2. Classics Challenge. Read the Harvard Classics in full. Including the fiction shelf.
3. Continuing Education Challenge. Read 50 nonfiction books. I waffled on this one and #2 for a while because the Harvard Classics include a lot of nonfiction, but decided to not double-count them.
4. Daily Stoic Challenge. Read the Daily Stoic on a daily basis.

Sometime I want to do an Everyone's Read This Except Me Challenge and knock out all of those extremely popular and well-known books I haven't read yet. Maybe in 2025?

Aw crap... I just looked at the list of original Harvard Classic fiction and I'd barely read any of it.  On the upside, it's not like I don't read classics, or hard fiction (I do)...but it's a little annoying how little I've read off that particular list...only about half a dozen.  Gotta crack some Russian classics at some point...

[Zikoris]

Aw crap... I just looked at the list of original Harvard Classic fiction and I'd barely read any of it.  On the upside, it's not like I don't read classics, or hard fiction (I do)...but it's a little annoying how little I've read off that particular list...only about half a dozen.  Gotta crack some Russian classics at some point...

Well, I'm at zero right now, so half a dozen sounds pretty good to me, lol.

[rosarugosa]

I love to read, and I need to read; it's like eating or drinking or breathing.  I get ideas from many sources including this forum.  As someone mentioned above, new releases from authors I already enjoy are a good source.  I love it when I read a great book by an author who is new to me and find they have a lot of other books, looking at you William Kent Krueger. It's amazing how often a great book turns out to be the author's first novel, and I have to wait for them to write something else.

In the past couple of years, I've been getting many, if not most of my recommendations from a Facebook group called "What Should I Read Next?"  I find it a valuable resource because there is generally a thumbnail summary and a discussion of why people did and didn't like it.  Often people will compare a book to another book or talk about other books they like, so you can get a sense of how a person's taste meshes with your own.

[Moonwaves]

I have struggled with reading for a few years now and this year have read more books than the last couple of years by trying out more YA fantasy stuff, among other things. I've always liked YA stuff anyway and have heard so much over the last decade about how good a lot of it is now, that I decided to just embrace it. I get recommendations from instagram and also here - @mspym and @MarcherLady and a few others mention books in their journals that I frequently really enjoy.

I did try audiobooks this year but that wasn't a good fit for me. I found some (most) of the people reading to be incredibly bad at it and if I can't read and just want to listen, I prefer podcasts. I did realise a while back that reading ebooks was a huge contributing factor to me not reading as much anymore. As handy as the kindle is for travelling, it is just not as enjoyable for me as reading a paper book. I definitely retain what I'm reading far better and it feels like I interact much differently with a story, too. Reading paper books has definitely helped me find my love of reading again.

I was going to suggest challenges as well. I think @La Bibliotecaria Feroz is someone I've seen mention that before but I'm not sure where she gets them. Might be a library thing? I like the idea of it expanding my range of reading by purposefully adding in entire categories of authors I don't even realise I'm missing. For a while I used to make a note of every book I read in a year and do a breakdown of how many were by men or women - that was quite eye-opening so I realised that adding in things like "read something by a person of colour", "read something by an LGBTQ+ author" is something I really need to consciously do more of because it's just not happening unconsciously. And trying to find things like "read something that has 'bridge' in the title" can be fun.

Aw crap... I just looked at the list of original Harvard Classic fiction and I'd barely read any of it.  On the upside, it's not like I don't read classics, or hard fiction (I do)...but it's a little annoying how little I've read off that particular list...only about half a dozen.  Gotta crack some Russian classics at some point...

Well, I'm at zero right now, so half a dozen sounds pretty good to me, lol.

Two for me, although quite a few are on my TBR shelf. Okay, shelves. Okay, two shelves and one box. Let's not talk about the Kindle (which I almost never use anymore but has a load of free books I downloaded at the start because I was mesmerised by what's available).

There's also the Rory Gilmore list, which I have read a few more from. And when I was looking back over that, I found my blog entry from almost ten years ago with the BBC Big Read top 200. I used to re-read at least a few Georgette Heyer romance books every year and I'm going to do that again in 2024, I think. They generally manage to make me laugh and I am a sucker for a happy ending.

[FrugalShrew]

I have struggled with reading for a few years now and this year have read more books than the last couple of years by trying out more YA fantasy stuff, among other things. I've always liked YA stuff anyway and have heard so much over the last decade about how good a lot of it is now, that I decided to just embrace it.

This is a great suggestion. YA is so fun and speedy to read, and like @Moonwaves said, there is so much good stuff now. I gravitate towards mysteries myself, and have really been impressed with the spunky heroines and historical/literary backdrops of the newer YA mysteries--like the Myrtle Hardcastle, Wollstonecraft Detective Agency, and Enola Holmes series. One of my friends like to re-read Nancy Drew.

I actually started reading YA and children's literature again after being inspired by another book, Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project (which is a gem!). One of the things she talks about is letting go of who you think you "should" be and embracing the things that you actually like. She literally gave reading children's literature as an example, as something that didn't fit in with the "serious" version of herself that she was trying to be--but was just something she genuinely loved. I immediately thought, oh my goodness, there are so many books from my childhood that I would LOVE to read again. I promptly went out and re-read the Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, and Trixie Belden, and it was awesome. Now YA and children's literature are a regular part of my reading mix.

It doesn't need to be YA or children's literature for you, but what do you think would just be FUN to read?

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

For me there are a lot, so this will be pretty long. I'm putting them in priority sequence as well.

1. Relevant reads related to travel or other things. I make situation-specific reading lists here and there, and seek out niche books to fill that. Like books set in the woods for a camping trip, books set in a country I'm travelling to, or even a specific city (I plan to do a side-trip to Nottingham soon and read some version of Robin Hood en route, for example). Also included here are books I buy at local bookstores while travelling - usually the English sections aren't too big, so out of like thirty options I try to pick the weirdest-looking one. Makes a cool souvenir too. This is always my #1 priority over any other books.

2. New releases by authors I already like. The low end here is about three a month, and some months are much more (I think October was like fifteen or something).

3. Books related to my reading challenges. I set various annual challenges in addition to my straight numbers goal, and try to stay on track with all of these every week. Next year I'm going to have a Backlog Challenge (see point 4 below), Classics Challenge, and Nonfiction Challenge.

4. Older unread books by authors I already like. When I discover new authors I'm into, I like to check out their backlogs.

5. Books I see mentioned a lot or highly praised on the book-related subreddits I follow: r/books, r/52book, and r/fantasy. I'm planning on specifically working through some of the r/fantasy "big lists" next year.

6. Goodreads, both the Choice Awards and recommendations. Standard Goodreads recommendations are kind of garbage, but you can tweak the algorithm by setting up custom shelves with a few hundred rated books on them. I found my recs got substantially better around about 600 books entered, I think. I'm around 1,800 now and it's quite good, especially for nonfiction.

7. Here and there I stumble across things organically or get a recommendation from a person I know, but it's pretty uncommon.

Do you have a specific source for these challenges?  Or do you create them yourself.  Years ago, I recall doing several of this.  "read a book set in the city you were born", "read a book written by an author from a country that starts with the first letter of your name", that sort of thing.

I used to do a lot of organized ones through Goodreads (there are TONS of challenge groups that do all sorts of fun things), now I just make my own. My specific ones for 2024 are:

1. Backlog Challenge. Read all unread works by Brandon Sanderson, L.E. Modesitt, and Cassandra Gannon.
2. Classics Challenge. Read the Harvard Classics in full. Including the fiction shelf.
3. Continuing Education Challenge. Read 50 nonfiction books. I waffled on this one and #2 for a while because the Harvard Classics include a lot of nonfiction, but decided to not double-count them.
4. Daily Stoic Challenge. Read the Daily Stoic on a daily basis.

Sometime I want to do an Everyone's Read This Except Me Challenge and knock out all of those extremely popular and well-known books I haven't read yet. Maybe in 2025?

I was going to say find someone who you know you share similar tastes and look for their recommendations. Mine on this forum is Zikoris!

[MarcherLady]

I was going to suggest challenges as well. I think La Bibliotecaria Feroz is someone I've seen mention that before but I'm not sure where she gets them.

Hi @Moonwaves. I've been really enjoying using StoryGraph this year, (it's a more user-friendly version of Goodreads if you don't know it) and that has reading challenges - although I haven't looked into them that deeply, as well as recommendations based on your preferences.

It also shows you readers who like similar books, which has helped me prioritise my TBR pile a bit.

[ETA:] Whoops, and I've just realised this is not the thread I thought it was, so I apologise if I'm repeating information someone else has already given! - I'm going away to read the whole thing!

[Adventine]

I have struggled with reading for a few years now and this year have read more books than the last couple of years by trying out more YA fantasy stuff, among other things. I've always liked YA stuff anyway and have heard so much over the last decade about how good a lot of it is now, that I decided to just embrace it.

This is a great suggestion. YA is so fun and speedy to read, and like @Moonwaves said, there is so much good stuff now. I gravitate towards mysteries myself, and have really been impressed with the spunky heroines and historical/literary backdrops of the newer YA mysteries--like the Myrtle Hardcastle, Wollstonecraft Detective Agency, and Enola Holmes series. One of my friends like to re-read Nancy Drew.

I actually started reading YA and children's literature again after being inspired by another book, Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project (which is a gem!). One of the things she talks about is letting go of who you think you "should" be and embracing the things that you actually like. She literally gave reading children's literature as an example, as something that didn't fit in with the "serious" version of herself that she was trying to be--but was just something she genuinely loved. I immediately thought, oh my goodness, there are so many books from my childhood that I would LOVE to read again. I promptly went out and re-read the Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, and Trixie Belden, and it was awesome. Now YA and children's literature are a regular part of my reading mix.

It doesn't need to be YA or children's literature for you, but what do you think would just be FUN to read?

I completely agree. As long as it's fun to read, who cares about looking "smart" or "intellectual"?


On the subject of YA literature, I wholeheartedly recommend Naomi Novik's series His Majesty's Dragon. In fact, it's probably time for me to reread that series!

[La Bibliotecaria Feroz]

I was going to suggest challenges as well. I think @La Bibliotecaria Feroz is someone I've seen mention that before but I'm not sure where she gets them. Might be a library thing? I like the idea of it expanding my range of reading by purposefully adding in entire categories of authors I don't even realise I'm missing. For a while I used to make a note of every book I read in a year and do a breakdown of how many were by men or women - that was quite eye-opening so I realised that adding in things like "read something by a person of colour", "read something by an LGBTQ+ author" is something I really need to consciously do more of because it's just not happening unconsciously. And trying to find things like "read something that has 'bridge' in the title" can be fun.

Hi! I didn't have time to read the whole thread but I will jump in with the challenge- I used to do Book Riot's Read Harder! See https://bookriot.com/read-harder-2024/

In 2022 I finished the whole thing so I took the year off last year. I read some really great books that I wouldn't have thought to pick, but I like that you still have control- there is no one book that you have to read if you aren't comfortable and there's a lot of flexibility. The Book Riot folks will put together suggested lists for each of the challenges soon and they should link off of the page I shared above, if they do it the same way as previous years. Happy reading!

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

I have struggled with reading for a few years now and this year have read more books than the last couple of years by trying out more YA fantasy stuff, among other things. I've always liked YA stuff anyway and have heard so much over the last decade about how good a lot of it is now, that I decided to just embrace it.

This is a great suggestion. YA is so fun and speedy to read, and like @Moonwaves said, there is so much good stuff now. I gravitate towards mysteries myself, and have really been impressed with the spunky heroines and historical/literary backdrops of the newer YA mysteries--like the Myrtle Hardcastle, Wollstonecraft Detective Agency, and Enola Holmes series. One of my friends like to re-read Nancy Drew.

I actually started reading YA and children's literature again after being inspired by another book, Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project (which is a gem!). One of the things she talks about is letting go of who you think you "should" be and embracing the things that you actually like. She literally gave reading children's literature as an example, as something that didn't fit in with the "serious" version of herself that she was trying to be--but was just something she genuinely loved. I immediately thought, oh my goodness, there are so many books from my childhood that I would LOVE to read again. I promptly went out and re-read the Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, and Trixie Belden, and it was awesome. Now YA and children's literature are a regular part of my reading mix.

It doesn't need to be YA or children's literature for you, but what do you think would just be FUN to read?

I completely agree. As long as it's fun to read, who cares about looking "smart" or "intellectual"?


On the subject of YA literature, I wholeheartedly recommend Naomi Novik's series His Majesty's Dragon. In fact, it's probably time for me to reread that series!

Not entirely the same thought, but I heard (I think it was) Brandon Sanderson say look at your absolute favorite books and read the negative reviews for them to realize even the best books, to you or objectively, aren't everyone's cup of tea and that's fine. Read what you enjoy!

[La Bibliotecaria Feroz]

Another idea if you're casting a wide net- your library might have issues of Library Journal or another review publication available to read in house or check out. I have found some ideas that I wouldn't otherwise have known about or thought to read!

I work for a big library system and a lot of those have special recommendation lists that they put out as well- Staff Picks, etc.

[wenchsenior]

I have struggled with reading for a few years now and this year have read more books than the last couple of years by trying out more YA fantasy stuff, among other things. I've always liked YA stuff anyway and have heard so much over the last decade about how good a lot of it is now, that I decided to just embrace it. I get recommendations from instagram and also here - @mspym and @MarcherLady and a few others mention books in their journals that I frequently really enjoy.

I did try audiobooks this year but that wasn't a good fit for me. I found some (most) of the people reading to be incredibly bad at it and if I can't read and just want to listen, I prefer podcasts. I did realise a while back that reading ebooks was a huge contributing factor to me not reading as much anymore. As handy as the kindle is for travelling, it is just not as enjoyable for me as reading a paper book. I definitely retain what I'm reading far better and it feels like I interact much differently with a story, too. Reading paper books has definitely helped me find my love of reading again.

I was going to suggest challenges as well. I think @La Bibliotecaria Feroz is someone I've seen mention that before but I'm not sure where she gets them. Might be a library thing? I like the idea of it expanding my range of reading by purposefully adding in entire categories of authors I don't even realise I'm missing. For a while I used to make a note of every book I read in a year and do a breakdown of how many were by men or women - that was quite eye-opening so I realised that adding in things like "read something by a person of colour", "read something by an LGBTQ+ author" is something I really need to consciously do more of because it's just not happening unconsciously. And trying to find things like "read something that has 'bridge' in the title" can be fun.

Aw crap... I just looked at the list of original Harvard Classic fiction and I'd barely read any of it.  On the upside, it's not like I don't read classics, or hard fiction (I do)...but it's a little annoying how little I've read off that particular list...only about half a dozen.  Gotta crack some Russian classics at some point...

Well, I'm at zero right now, so half a dozen sounds pretty good to me, lol.

Two for me, although quite a few are on my TBR shelf. Okay, shelves. Okay, two shelves and one box. Let's not talk about the Kindle (which I almost never use anymore but has a load of free books I downloaded at the start because I was mesmerised by what's available).

There's also the Rory Gilmore list, which I have read a few more from. And when I was looking back over that, I found my blog entry from almost ten years ago with the BBC Big Read top 200. I used to re-read at least a few Georgette Heyer romance books every year and I'm going to do that again in 2024, I think. They generally manage to make me laugh and I am a sucker for a happy ending.

The Gilmore list is entertainingly idiosyncratic (though I don't think there's a book called Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton; I wonder if they meant Roman Fever and other stories?). I've read about a quarter of those. The BBC list makes me feel a little better... read 71 of those, though some were so long ago I really need to re-read to get more out of them (Sons and Lovers, I'm looking at you).

[mspym]

Book sources:
- I’ve been following Smart Bitches Trashy Books since inception and Carrie S has very similar taste to mine so when she raves about a book, I make a point to try it out.
- I’ve signed up for a couple of newsletters from authors I like and they tend to recommend more authors I might like (Courtney Milan, John Scalzi, Amal El-Mohtar)
- Non-fiction I’ve had good experiences with recommendations from Anne Helen Peterson, Adam Conover, Leena Norma & Hamilton Nolan. Sometimes I pick up a book because something else I am reading is engaging with it - PJ O’Rourke got me onto Cynthia Heimel AND Gore Vidal. Vidal got me into Italo Cavilo and a Raj-era Indian literary critic whose name is escaping me.
- This year I decided to join in StoryGraph’s r/fantasy’s book bingo challenge, to expand the range of authors I was reading. It turned out I had read quite a few of the options already so pat on the back for me but also that pushed me into discovering the rich world of Nigerian SF.

The other thing that really helped me was being liberal with my discard criteria. Instead of struggling through a book I am not enjoying, I have full permission to not finish it and just delete/ return to the library. This has got my TBR pile down from 150+ to ~50 this year. I don’t have to be bound by this reading whims of past me, I am allowed to abandon all the productivity and self-improvement books and don’t have to Better Myself Through Thoughtful Engagement With Serious Books. 

[WayDownSouth]

It's been my experience that wherever I find good conversation about a specific subject, I'll find good recommendations for authors or specific books. This forum would be a perfect example, yet it may not be the kind of books you're looking for.

Whenever I watch interesting youtube videos or documentaries, I tend to often read comments with recommendations for books, but scouring youtube video comments all day for book recommendations will likely drive you mad.

A good portion of what I've read comes in the form of a chain, where one author would cite a person or author, and I'd read something by that author who cites his own authors, etc...

A lot of times Amazon can help with their recommendations when you searcha book you really enjoyed and then see the "buyers also bought" or "similar books" section (or whatever the header is) to find decent leads but this is only really when I search my favorites. Amazon seems to recommend books for me that I don't really want to read most of the time so their algorithm isn't so hot IMO.

Another good way to find book ideas is to simply hop on twitter (now "X") and do a search for #books or #bookclub or #novels, etc., using different hashtags to suit your style preferences. This will often give some really cool results is you don't might spending a bit filtering down the list of results.

[Villanelle]

Whoa.  Out of the blue, a Facebook friend (to whom I'm not especially close), posted that she's part of a group that is centered around an annual reading challenge, and asked if anyone wanted to join.  And because this person and I travel in the same circles, it turns out many of my friends, several of them very dear, are in the group.  It's a different challengeevery year, but last year's is still up.  Read a play, 2 books by same author, book set in your home state, assigned school book you never finished, etc.  It's only 12 challenge items, but seems like a great starting place. (Though one from 2023 was audiobook read by a famous person, and if there's something like that, I may have to adapt because I do not generally enjoy audio books, unless I'm on a road trip.) 

Anyway, this seems wildly serendipitous. 

[NotJen]

(Though one from 2023 was audiobook read by a famous person, and if there's something like that, I may have to adapt because I do not generally enjoy audio books, unless I'm on a road trip.)

Have you ever listened to a memoir read by the author?  They are my favorite books to listen to - the author narrating adds a whole level to it (imo).  And for some reason I find real-life stories more engaging to listen to (my mind doesn't wander as much as with fiction).  I will read random memoirs by people I've never even heard of (that I would never pick up to "for real" read on my own).  I listen while I run and do chores, so I go through a lot of audiobooks.

[Villanelle]

(Though one from 2023 was audiobook read by a famous person, and if there's something like that, I may have to adapt because I do not generally enjoy audio books, unless I'm on a road trip.)

Have you ever listened to a memoir read by the author?  They are my favorite books to listen to - the author narrating adds a whole level to it (imo).  And for some reason I find real-life stories more engaging to listen to (my mind doesn't wander as much as with fiction).  I will read random memoirs by people I've never even heard of (that I would never pick up to "for real" read on my own).  I listen while I run and do chores, so I go through a lot of audiobooks.

I haven't.  I've never read a memoir I actually enjoyed, so I tend to avoid them entirely. Dh and I will be moving this year, which presumably will include a road trip (or could be 20 minutes away). I'll likely do at least one audio book for that, or several depending on trip length.  Whether or not their's a related "assignment", maybe I'll try a memoir read by the famous author.  Thanks. 

[La Bibliotecaria Feroz]

(Though one from 2023 was audiobook read by a famous person, and if there's something like that, I may have to adapt because I do not generally enjoy audio books, unless I'm on a road trip.)

Have you ever listened to a memoir read by the author?  They are my favorite books to listen to - the author narrating adds a whole level to it (imo).  And for some reason I find real-life stories more engaging to listen to (my mind doesn't wander as much as with fiction).  I will read random memoirs by people I've never even heard of (that I would never pick up to "for real" read on my own).  I listen while I run and do chores, so I go through a lot of audiobooks.

I haven't.  I've never read a memoir I actually enjoyed, so I tend to avoid them entirely. Dh and I will be moving this year, which presumably will include a road trip (or could be 20 minutes away). I'll likely do at least one audio book for that, or several depending on trip length.  Whether or not their's a related "assignment", maybe I'll try a memoir read by the famous author.  Thanks.

If you don't like memoirs (and I'm kinda with you), my kids and I really enjoyed the What If? books, which are pop science read by Wil Wheaton. Got us through a Little League season, for which I had unwisely committed them to playing 8-10 miles away 3 nights a week.