Where could you search through books published in the UK specifically? (And finding older, less talked about books)

[namenewnewname]

Is there a good place to search specifically through British books or books published in the UK? I'm also wondering what the best places for browsing reviews on older, less talked about books(so books published before goodreads and book blogs) or searching for them by keywords.

Thanks in advance!

That's an interesting question. I don't know if such a resource exists. I do often however browse through my library catalogue using a keyword. They hold a lot of reserve stock that I order in. The only thing is I have to Google a title that catches my eye as there is never a description. They are free to reserve though.

Persephone'catalogue might be a good starting point.

Actually I just looked for books published UK 1970 and this Wikipedia page came up.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1970_British_novels

Goodreads is sufficiently big to have reviews of everything whatever its publication date. So to pick a random example The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark, published 1963 has 863 reviews.

I'm not a big Goodreads fan but they absolutely do cover older books in greater volume than anywhere else.

I don't think there's a similar resource that excludes books published only in America, but I'm not really sure why you'd want that.

I use abe books a lot, on line second hand retailer, I think owned by amazon. They have a truly vast reach. They have individual booksellers from all over the world. They have new stock as well. I bought a book from them from California which had formerly been lent from a public library in Compton in Los Angeles, still had its library numbers and stuff. It gave me a thrill! And it was in such good condition.
You can search using all manner of filters about genre and format. I've never looked for books by date of publication.
When I order for the school library ,where I work part time, I use browns books for students .They have a publication date function and excellent reviews. They are very reliable that's why we use them!

But for lesser known authors there's sometimes two reviews, or none... I browse goodreads a lot, but for some books there's only a couple of ratings, that's it.

If I'm looking for a book I'm pretty sure is British(I didn't grew up in the UK) or at least published in the UK, it would be nice to narrow things down a bit.

Say what you remember here to start with. Maybe someone can identify it.

Ah, I see.If you're looking for a specific book and you can remember only a couple of half remembered possibly untrue facts about it (the lead character played the saxophone, or maybe the cello? it was published between 1940 and 1980, and there was a grapefruit on the cover of my edition....or perhaps a pomegranate? It was definitely a green background though, and written by a woman) then the site you're looking for is called Mumsnet. I don't know whether you're familiar with it but the posters are brilliant at identifying books from vague facts.

Abe books - I found a book I last read 40 years ago on here, although I roughly knew the title.

Are you after a specific book?

Also look at major bookshop websites - they may be able to help?

Lots of books aren't only published in the UK, though. If it was a popular book/author in its time, there would probably be British and US editions.

Ooh, tell us what you can remember! I love this game!!!
@TheQueenWhoNeverWas 🤣🤣🤣

Are you after a specific book, or are you actually trying to find a body of browsable reviews that is focused only on older British books? I don’t think the latter exists.

Both, if that makes sense. It started with trying to look up a couple of older children's/YA books, but I'd also like to look for similar books and see if I could find unknown gems. Book blogs and Goodreads are great, but it's usually mostly new releases or the super famous authors like Donna Tartt, Jane Austen etc. So any tips of good review archives, or searchable databases would be very welcome.

I'd try looking at the Persephone catalogue, thanks!

It started with trying to look up a couple of older children's/YA books, but I'd also like to look for similar books and see if I could find unknown gems.

There are quite often threads on MN about children's books you used to love, so you could probably do worse than hunting through some of those old threads.

What authors do you like?

I've found Books for Keeps, and that was just the type of site/magazine I was looking for.

And with some browsing of the children's books board, I've managed to find the Jinny books by Patricia Leitch (they have completely different cover designs here, and have even changed some character names, so no wonder it took some time). So thank you!

If anyone else knows about good review sites, or other places I can browse by keywords(in addiction to Worldcat and goodreads), I'd love to know. .

If you're into horse books check out Jane Badger Books, who specialises in republishing them. She has an active facebook page.

Girls Gone By also republished classic children's series - school series, adventure series and so on.

I haven't used this medium very much, and I don't know if you use Facebook, but this group has lots of posts that might interest you. Or one of the members could find your specific book.

If you know author, book title or series, Fantastic Fiction might be worth looking at

WorldCat is basically a massive database of books and what libraries hold them. I'm not sure if you can search by where published, but it's amazingly useful for finding books in general.

There's a booktuber, Miranda Mills, who collects vintage books, some of them out of print, reads and reviews them on her channel. I've had quite a few recommendations from her reviews and enjoyed reading them.

Go onto the Booker Prize website-they list all the shortlisted books going back to 1969.

For children, google Wikipedia Carnegie Medal and it will give a list of all the children's books that have won this, going back to 1936.

Also agree with @DrivingThePlot about Miranda Mills.