Sunday March 9th, 2013 Finding Your Next Great Read

Everyone I know goes through times of book drought, where there’s just nothing new by their favourite authors nor does anything seem appealing.  What do we do at a time like this?  How do we find the next book to thrill us and save us from the winter blues?

I have a few different ways I find new books, stories that might be outside of my usual reading choices which cause me to stretch a bit.  One device which many of us use is to get reading recommendations from friends and coworkers.  Most often these suggestions come from people who read very much in my comfort zone.  However, there is a huge benefit to asking someone you wouldn’t normally make that request of.  Last month I was chatting with Steve at Waverley when he held a book and said “he’s a great author.”  The “he” in question was Scott Sigler and the book Pandemic.  I checked out the first two books in the Infected trilogy and read all three in rapid succession. Now, I’m on to another one of Sigler’s books and have passed Infected on to other readers.

One of the most traditional ways of finding a new book to read is in reading reviews.  I really enjoy this as I frequently read pre-publication reviews.  By the time the book hits our shelves I have often forgotten the review, but the book appears on hold for me.  In the past year or so there have been two new authors I’ve encountered this way that really stand out.  The first is Jojo Moyes and her book Me Before You.  I’m now a dedicated fan of her work.  The most recent was The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon which arrived just last week.  I’ll be going through the same process with her as I did with Moyes in reading previous works and eagerly anticipating new publications.

Sometimes a book comes to us serendipitously.  Usually it’s a case of the cover, title, or even author name catching our eye.  Sometimes it’s even stranger.  This past January I had the same book fall off of the shelf three times in one morning, so I decided to check it out and read it.  Until then I was familiar with the work of Janet Evanovich, but had never read one of her books.  The Heist proved to be a good, quick read which exposed me to yet another new author.

There are of course other ways to find new books such as our “New and Upcoming” list, the author suggestion shelf-talkers we’ve been putting on the shelves, the TBPL Off the Shelf blog, and the Our Readers Recommend bulletin boards.  With these tools and some good conversation we should never be without a great read.

Ruth Hamlin-Douglas