A few times I have been asked this over the years. I always thought it was a silly question, but after going into depth with someone about books based on various interests and categories, I realize that I was wrong. So let’s dive into a few of the many ways I find new and interesting books to read.

First off, I am a member of various book clubs. Through a local library in my city, I joined a young adult book club. I thoroughly enjoy young adult books without shame or guilt. I fell back in love with reading in my pre-teen years with a young adult story and it seems only fitting that I still love young adult now as an “adult”. But I also sign up for reading challenges through my local library, seasonal reading bingo cards or winter reading challenge and so on.

Online book challenges are another fantastic resource for new book finds. One in particular that I have done for a few years is the read harder challenge. I rarely win the full challenge, but the many categories make me read outside of my normal comfort zones and I love that. If you only read what you love, you miss out on other fantastic finds! Online book clubs are also wonderful for learning about many new books that you may have either never considered or never heard about yet. The Internet is a great resource if you aren’t scared to get out there and look around for some digital clubs and challenges.

Speaking of the Internet, I read all types of books. Physical books, e-books, audiobooks, blogs and short stories, you name it and I probably have read it in that format. Claiming that any type of reading is invalid because it doesn’t fit your ideal checklist of what’s really reading is just ridiculous. Science has shown that audiobooks listeners are just as capable of comprehension as a physical book reader. (See article: https://time.com/5388681/audiobooks-reading-books/) So, now that we are past that little disclaimer about book types, let’s talk about non-specific sites. I listen to audiobooks on two different apps on my phone and I often look for new reads from my library on the one by checking out the “what’s available now” list and selecting one I haven’t read that looks interesting at random. For the one I make purchases on, I often rely on my next favorite way to find new reads to help select books to buy. On all sites and apps that I use, I also find a lot of new recommendations in the section “For You Based On Previous Reads”. This section is wonderful for taking my already curated content and finding new similar reads.

Back to my purchases now. Another great way that I find new reads is through friends. As a reader, I have lots of other nerdy reading friends. I have a friend who shares very similar tastes to me who did a book swap with me last year and we bounce book recommendations with each other, another friend who works at BN who sends me great recommendations, and one time I asked one of my social media platforms for recommendations of books from their favorite authors that leads to two full word document pages full of suggestions. One of those two pages was from a single person and I read over fifty percent of that list so far. Holy smokes, right? I enjoyed almost every book on that friend’s list that I made it through so far and I am still slowly working my way through that list (I have both pages printed and stored in my office for safe keeping. I turn to this list whenever I hit a wall and want an easy recommendation).

I also like tracking books I have read in the past using the website goodreads (See: https://www.goodreads.com/). I have tracked every book I can remember reading prior to signing up several years ago and track every single book I am currently working my way through now. In the last few weeks, I have started writing thorough book reviews so that if I forget about the details of a book I read, I can look back and see my own notes on the story. But more importantly, this site also recommends books to me based on books I tracked and rated. I can pull up a book I enjoyed recently and look through the section “readers also enjoyed” for more ideas.

That’s a lot of places to find new books: book clubs, reading challenges, library, apps, friends, and so many more I haven’t even touched on. Hopefully, if you are struggling to find a new read this will help you find the next wonderful book to get absorbed into. Thanks for reading friends, keep reading!