How do you keep up to date with new releases?

[Missillusioned78]

Hello fellow book worms….

Just wondering how everyone keeps up to date with new books - I have a fear I am missing out on books that are worth a read!
Thank you 😊

The 50 book thread, though I'm usually about a decade behind what's new 🤣
I also have Waterstones mail shots, and Goodreads mailshots.

Basically the 50 book thread, where I note what I will read in 7 years time.

In short, I suppose, I don’t really. Just read what takes my fancy at any given time or is on my shelves/kindle unread.

🤣🤣🤣 <waves>

Do you have Instagram OP? I have a profile specifically for "Bookstagram" so I can indulge my favourite past time, meet other bookworms and find out what's new! You can follow the major book publishers who will regularly share their latest releases (and often run giveaways of free copies) or follow influencers who will promote stuff too. And of course follow your favourite authors on there too!

I keep a list of books I want to read, either because I know the author or get a recommendation.

Fellow 50 bookers, the Bookseller magazine, and Twitter.

I don’t bother. I have a long list of books I want to read, but none of them were written this century.

I signed up to get an email from The Guardian - Just open a free account there and you can sign up to one called Bookmarks - it's the main one I like to look at:

profile.theguardian.com/register

But I also get one from
uk.bookshop.org/

But I can't actually see how you sign up to it on their website which has lots of categories to look through.

Reading book reviews (Irish Times, Guardian, LRB etc), browsing book stores. Those ‘books to look forward to this year’ articles. Publishers’ social media.

I watch a few Booktubers and listen to book podcasts and make a note of the ones that sound interesting.

I don't tend to buy many books now, and prefer requesting them from the library. That way, if they turn out to be disappointing, I have no problem with DNFing them.

I think it depends on what you like reading.

But I read book reviews on the Guardian & Observer websites every weekend, and then make a running list.

Seriously considering going back to the beginning of the novel (Fielding, Richardson) and starting again. May be a retirement project.

I get emails from Goodreads which i have a look at from time to time. I also subscribe to a newsletter by www.booklistqueen.com who gives good recommendations. I watch a couple of youtubers but they tend to lean towards fantasy which isn't my favourite genre.

That would be fun, though I recommend skipping Snollett.

Smollett!

When I was young and innocent I thought that I'd be able to read all the books. Now I realise that it's like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon and just pick stuff at random, or go for authors I like.
I can't do fantasy/sci-fi of chick-lit so that narrows it down. I think I already have enough on my Kindle to last me forever.

The trouble with that is you'll end up reading an awful lot of dead white males unless you work very hard at finding the classics written by women and non-white people (especially in translation).

To answer the OPs question I rely on the 50 bookers, a few book blogs or instagrammers (my DD likes booktokers but it's a bit YA fantasy and romance heavy for me) and book reviews on theguardian.co.uk

But TBH I generally find 'the next big thing' disappointing and so prefer to be a few years behind. It allows some of the dross to settle. It's quite illuminating looking at the longlists for book prizes and seeing how few are recognisable a few years later. There's just too many books.

Brilliant idea. I have been stockpiling loads of classics that I've never read for the spring and summer. Now I'm semi-retired I have more time, so I'm going to do it in chronological order:

Robinson Crusoe
Moll Flanders
Tom Jones
Boswell's Life of Johnson
The Vicar of Wakefield
Gullivers Travels
Emma
Northanger Abbey
Middlemarch
Wuthering Heights
Jane Eyre
Bleak House
Picture of Dorian Gray
Return of the Native
The Time Machine
War of the Worlds
The Good Soldier
Mrs Dalloway
Catch 22

I have enough books in the house, in print and kindle form, my own acquisitions and books borrowed from libraries, to last for a long time, but I still follow new releases (and reissues) in various ways.

I get a lot of ideas of what I want to read from the website Librarything, much smaller than the better known Goodreads but I like it much better for several reasons. It also includes various discussion groups, some more active than others, and I mostly follow the 75 books group and the Virago Modern Classics group.

There are quite a lot of authors whose new books I'll look out for, via library catalogues and Kindle Daily Deals. And I love to check out charity shops, though I tend to buy more non fiction and classics reprints there than newish books, as I'm in London - some charity shops charge £2.70+ a book, and if it's a book which seems very likely to be offered at some point in the next few months in Kindle form, that doesn't seem worth it, especially as I have so many books already I want to read or reread that it can take me months/years to get to any specific book.

I've also been on the 50 books thread (and the 26 books one) here since at least 2021, though I haven't posted much.

Oh, and I get egalleys of some new/forthcoming releases through Netgalley, and have reviewed books through various websites in the past. So I read quite a few books yet to be published through this source.

Interesting @elkiedee - thanks.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with reading dead white males or dead black females and you should not judge books in this way.

I would rather read Thomas Hardy or Charles Dickens than an alive black woman who was writing shite.

You do not-and should not-treat great writers in this dismissive way because they have committed the sin of being, white, male and dead. If you do, you are not a well read person and neither are you a person of sense.

Luckily, I make little effort to keep up with new books, as I mostly read older books that have passed the test of time.

But I read the Book Review section of the New York Times, which keeps me quite up-to-date. They also give you multiple chances, because they review books, then if they're good, there will be another mention a week or two later, and then there are seasonal or yearly round-ups of the best.

www.nytimes.com/section/books/review

I read book reviews in the Saturday Guardian and the Observer and if I think I might like something I add it to my Pinterest board.
I get emails from Waterstones and Penguin, ditto
I vaguely follow the Booker shortlist

Totally agree. Harold Bloom, the great literary critic, warned about this 30 years ago. He despaired at the way the left were taking over the universities. Bloom argued that we should judge every book with ruthless honesty. In other words, we should focus on the beauty, depth and originality of the writing, and ignore everything else. If a book is mediocre, or bad, then the critic should say so, even if the author ticks all the right boxes. And if a book is a masterpiece, again, the critic should say so, even if they hate everything about the author. It’s their duty. For example, I loathe Evelyn Waugh and Ernest Hemingway, and know I would have hated them if I’d met them. But I admit that they were superb writers.

Even in the 1970s, Bloom complained that novels by minority groups were being ridiculously overpraised, while masterpieces by dead white males were being ridiculed and torn apart. Today, it’s even worse. I’ve given up on contemporary literature. The Booker Prize has become a joke, and so has the T S Eliot Prize, both of which I now ignore. The whole thing is a box ticking exercise. I can no longer trust the critics and arts journalists. Instead, I stick to the books that have stood the test of time - to Dickens and Woolf and George Eliot.

I'd like to defend Janina - I see what she reads on the 50 book threads and I'm always impressed at how she seeks out lesser heard voices, including a lot in translation. The joy of reading is in the connection you feel with another mind across time and space, whoever they are.

Like others, I like 50 book threads recommendations and reviews in the weekend papers plus walking through a bookshop or library and seeing what appeals. You could despair at the good books you'll never get to or rejoice at this cornucopia of wonders with it's endless promises of delight.

I must take a look at Librarything...