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Find Your Next Book
When you finish all the books available by your favorite author, it can be hard to find something new. We're here to help!
Below are links to several websites that can help you find your next favorite book.
GoodReads
Good Reads is one of the most popular book review websites on the internet (and Amazon bought it because of its popularity), and is incredible for making book lists. You can see which books your friends are reading and what they recommend, and track the books you’re reading, have read, and want to read. However, this website is completely based on user reviews and recommendations, which makes it difficult to find, for example, authors that are similar to one of your favorites unless you wade through a lot of user reviews.
Fantastic Fiction (UK)
Fantastic Fiction is a great website when you want to look up an author’s collection of books, and it even lists the books of a series in order. You don’t have to worry that you’re missing a book in the series, or that you’re going out of order, and the website even lists new books being released by the author. Each page even includes the books that the author would recommend as well as a section that lists other authors that visitors also looked at after looking at a specific author. It is a fantastic resource, not just for library use, but also for personal use. There are only a couple of issues with this site: first, with so many sections per page, the organization can get a bit confusing, and secondly, the site focuses on the popular authors, so unless you already know the name of that lesser know but wonderful author, you’re not likely to get introduced to them on this website.
Literature Map
Literature Map is not only helpful, but it is a lot of fun to play with. The user types in an author’s name and the website generates a web of other authors that have similar writing styles and genres. The closer the author’s name is to another, the more alike the authors are. This can be a great tool to use when you have patrons asking for help in finding a new author to follow, or to help find similar books for someone to try. Unfortunately, the site only recommends authors and not books, so even though the writing may be similar, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to be similar in the way you want.
What Should I Read Next?
"What Should I Read Next?" Website
What Should I Read Next analyzes the favorites list of all their members in order to recommend the best next read for any book. You can either just get a book recommendation for free by going to their main page and choosing a book title, and it will provide you a list of titles that others who have favorite it have also read. Or, you can join for free and build your own list of favorites to add to their extensive database. The analysis based on reader’s lists is surprisingly good, but book recommendations is pretty much all this website offers.
Your Next Read
Your Next Read provides book recommendations in two ways, and you can sign up and crate you own “Map” of books. To find book recommendations, you can either browse reading lists, or you can type in a title, and a web of 8 other books will appear (as well as Amazon reviews about the book you searched for). You can then click on another book in the web and 8 more books will show up based on the book you just clicked. You can also offer up recommendations of your own. Unfortunately, if you’re looking at a specific author or at a book in a big series, like Redwall, you run the risk of getting stuck in a book loop, where no matter what you click on, you keep seeing that same books over and over again.
Whichbook
Which Book is another fun site to play with as it helps you pick a book based on your mood, which you can do for free or sign up and create saved lists. The site provides a list of sliders, and you can choose 4 of the sliders to indicate your mood (are you looking for something more Happy or Sad, Expected or Unpredictable, Easy or Demanding, No Sex or Lots of Sex, etc.). Once you’ve indicated your tastes, it will provide you with a list that fits your mood (or you can explore their mood book lists). But if that way doesn’t work for you, you can create book lists based on character, plot type and setting. This site is great to help you find new books that you may not have thought you would like, but if you absolutely love a specific author, you’re going to have to think about why you love that author in order to find similar books.