21st Century Literature discussion

What is your favourite source for book recommendations, and why?

My favorite recommendations come from Bill at Longfellow's Books in Portland, Maine. He's taught a lot of English literature classes over the years and really knows how to engage people with books. He's so good, he twice sold me The Flamethrowers. I was convinced both times! Luckily, the store took the duplicate copy back!

Over the four years Bill's been recommending books to me, I've read a lot of ones I would not otherwise have read and, for the most part, been glad I did. The Flamethrowers is one example. A few others are The Family Fang, My Education and The Free.

Can I be honest? My goodreads update feed.

Haha, Deborah! good one :)

For me it's also the update feed a little, although I tend to navigate from it, and then follow links, and follow links, and follow links.. and so many new books get in the way that I don't think I could read them all ever even with my reading capacities :D

I sometimes also look at lists, and then there are the books that I get from people, either loaned or given away. I will sometimes randomly browse the library too, although that is less likely to produce a good book that a goodreads search. So I've been giving that method up lately.

Then there are the books we decide on in my book club. And then there are also the 4-5 goodreads groups for reading which pick a book every month or two to read it together. That's usually a very good source of new books, especially because you also get into a discussion while reading, and I've found that that really is great fun. And the more different groups you join the more fun it is.

And then every once in a while someone in a group will post some price long list or short list.. I'll look through those and find several interesting titles as well.

I'm fond of anything that helps me to understand the weird world of science (eg Steven Pinker) so like to look at the Welcome Trust book awards each year. Health and medicine are main topics

www.wellcomebookprize.org/

Michael wrote: "I'm fond of anything that helps me to understand the weird world of science (eg Steven Pinker) so like to look at the Welcome Trust book awards each year. Health and medicine are main topics

www.w..."

Thanks for bringing another (substantial) prize to our attention, Michael.

At the suggestion of a good friend and respected reader, I recently read/listened to Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature of All Things. Neither she nor I have read Ms. Gilbert's popular Eat, Pray, Love or its follow-on. I'll probably nominate TSoAT for the next reader selection here. Although not as enthusiastic as my friend, I thoroughly enjoyed the story of a woman whose life followed a trajectory from the end of the 1700's into the last half of the 1800's as she became an expert on an obscure corner of botany (mosses -- little threat of male interest/competition) and ultimately reached insights of the scope of giants like Darwin. The story suggests the layered and largely lost to posterity ways scientific knowledge sometimes accumulates.

My foundation source for reading suggestions is The New Lifetime Reading Plan: ..Revised and Expanded by Clifton Fadiman and John S. Major. Their suggestions form the backbone of what I am trying to include in my fictional reading oeuvre. Since all represent choices carefully picked-over, they give reassurance in joining long-lived conversations of readers (and writers), even if I’m not quite ready to use the label “Great Conversation” -- I think great or greater conversations can be based on recent books providing contemporary worldviews and challenges. I am playing a lot of catch up 'cause most of my life was about technology and business.

Book groups, both face-to-face and online, are my second major force for book selection. They particularly provide incentive to read with a group in a particular time frame, even if they take me to selections I would have been unlikely to choose myself.

Third is hard to choose among (more) (view spoiler)[– these are pretty even-steven: a) book reviews in the weekly NYT Book Review; b) announcements of winners/runners-up in major contests (Man Booker always, others as I catch them -- increasingly, Nobel and Neustadt sometimes); c) books about books like those of Michael Dirda or Nancy Pearl; or d) what friends are reading (more important than their suggestions – may want to converse about the book or gain insight about that friend).

Beyond that are the places that bring a book to one’s attention: a) Barnes and Noble book review bulletin; b) reference to a book in another article; c) displays at B&N and in an indie – but don’t visit either a lot, probably once a month for a couple of hours; d) book displays, especially new acquisitions, in local library; e) articles on books or authors in business, news, special interest magazines ….; f) book shows (try to get to one big one annually); g) advertisements on Goodreads, emails from B&N and Amazon; h) lists of books, such as those from Times or Guardian or Modern Library; i) new release by an author I already know.

Other than the NYTBR or a review deliberately sought after some initiating interest, I like to think reviews have relatively little impact on book selection. I go to them after selection or when reading to get another view or slant on the book – often after having read all or a considerable part of the book.

Too seldom am I influenced by my own TBR collection – too easy to move on to something else, even if there is a title that I really have wanted to read for some time.

What will inspire impulse buy? Used book sales locally (library, charity, community wide annually); Kindle specials; sale shelves in a bookstore; coming upon a specially apt match with interests.

Goodreads recommendations are increasingly bringing new book ideas to my attention – don’t know that I have followed up on reading very many of them yet, however, because have enough of both new ideas and backlog from other sources.

I am becoming aware my relative lack of attention to films and TV shows is increasingly leaving me without needed background literacy for many of the newest novels. (hide spoiler)]

I'll agree that Goodreads has become one of my key sources for book recommendations. Literary awards and "best of last year" lists also provide much fodder.

The one source I get really excited about, however, is the annual list of most anticipated books from The Millions (you can see the 2014 list at http://www.themillions.com/2014/01/mo...).

Deborah wrote: "Can I be honest? My goodreads update feed."

Same here

When you say "goodreads update feed" what specifically are you referring to? (I get Goodreads recommendations in several forms, but I don't know which, if any of them, I would call an "update feed.")

Daniel -- thank you for The Millions link. I sent it on to reader friends who don't use Goodreads regularly.

Daniel wrote: "I'll agree that Goodreads has become one of my key sources for book recommendations. Literary awards and "best of last year" lists also provide much fodder.

The one source I get really excited abo..."

Thanks for the link, Daniel. In just the first two months I saw quite a few books I want to look into!

Lily wrote: "When you say "goodreads update feed" what specifically are you referring to? (I get Goodreads recommendations in several forms, but I don't know which, if any of them, I would call an "update feed..."

When you click on home and then the updates tab...where it shows what all your friends are reading/rating/reviewing.
I probably get as much recommendations from groups as I do there.

you're lucky. most of my updates feed is about friends friending someone or signing up for countless giveaways at a time. not much actual reading activity involved :/

Julie wrote: "When you click on home and then the updates tab...where it shows what all your friends are reading/rating/reviewing...."

Thx, Julie! That one doesn't appear that it will particularly work for recommendations for me either. But the Recommendations tab, while overwhelming, and the spontaneous recommendations that appear have really been expanding my "awareness" shelf -- a precursor of "to-read" for me.

Evelina, the updates feed will also pick up reviews by people whose reviews you follow. I like cozy mysteries, and I have identified a blogger/reviewer whose tastes are close to mine. By following her reviews, I get new suggestions. I recently discovered a series I really like that way.

I have a group of friends with similar reading tastes as mine, so that helps. I rely on my friends ratings and reviews a lot when looking at books here.

Julie wrote: "I have a group of friends with similar reading tastes as mine, so that helps...."

[Smile.] I'd pity my friends if their reading tastes were similar to mine! :-o

(There have been times when I have characterized my reading choices as attempts to prove myself wrong. No longer quite so likely, but friends and books have little congruence for me -- a reason I hesitate to nominate any more in my f2f group, even though I'll bring a range of choices to the table.)

Casceil wrote: "Evelina, the updates feed will also pick up reviews by people whose reviews you follow. I like cozy mysteries, and I have identified a blogger/reviewer whose tastes are close to mine. By followin..."

I know, but almost none of my friends write reviews at all :[ very passive goodreads users, most of them. I guess I haven't followed very many people who actually post reviews, just my friends. I should add some bloggers or something, but I guess I don't really know any. But I guess I get enough recommendations from the group reads :)

Not sure I like this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/s...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/s...

"Scribd, an ebook start-up that operates along the Netflix subscription model, has lifted the proverbial curtain on books and big data by releasing a stream of back-end insights on how (and what, and where) people read. It’s no secret, of course, that Web-savvy retailers like Amazon draw from readers’ past purchases and browsing history to recommend books. But Scribd, which claims its data will help people publish better books, takes that approach one step further — linking reading habits, as tracked by e-readers, to specific genres, demographics and geographies, and then making those links public."

Shades of Dave Eggers' The Circle.