Newly published books

[MissMarplesNiece]

How do you find out which newly published books are getting good reviews and sound like they would be a good read?

I tried Book Toc but it seemed to be full of people promoting their own self-published books or people reading fantasy-romance books, which isn't a genre I like to read. I look at the book reviews in The Guardian and inews but I am wondering if there are other places that I could use to find out about new novels.

I have the Waterstones app and find that helpful for browsing and spotting new books I’d like to read. You can save a wish list to keep track of ideas and they have a “book of the month” feature with recommended books/reviews. Also the website Good Reads. And prize long/shortlists eg Booker, Costa, Women’s Prize for Fiction, I like the Wainwright prize for nature writing etc.

Like others, I read reviews (mainly in the Guardian). I also follow a few people on YouTube (BenReadsGood for example) - I have picked up a few good suggestions from him. On social media I follow lots of bookshops, national and smaller local ones. Also just word of mouth, friends will mention a book they've heard good things about or I hear something recommended on a podcast etc.

I don’t bother. The vast majority of new books are rubbish and will be forgotten in a generation. I have 3,000 years of great writing to choose from. I know that Jane Austen and George Eliot and Virginia Woolf are good because they have stood the test of time.

I agree! Modern books are very formulaic I find (unless we're talking about new non fiction stuff, which I love!)

Yes, but in fairness, @Dappy777, you’re a bit of an old fogey when it comes to reading, you run everything by Harold Bloom for approval, and as you clearly read little or no contemporary writing, it’s hard to see how you can have an informed opinion on it. Have some confidence in your own taste. You might find things you actually enjoy!

OP, get on publishers mailing lists, as they, especially indies, will announce their spring list. See what launches or author readings are on at local bookshops. As well as reading the book pages of as many newspapers as you have access to, there’s also the TLS, LRB, New Yorker, Paris Review etc — see if your library has a subscription. The Irish Times books editor does a very good periodic newsletter about big publisher auctions for a title, new releases, prize shortlists etc. if you have a decent bookshop, browse their new releases tables, and note what the staff recommend.

Currently reading Wuthering Heights on my Kindle which was a free read. 😀

Reviews in the Guardian and the Times and the newsstand magazines (eg New Statesman, Prospect). Recommendations on social media by people I respect and have similar taste to eg Sam Baker and her substack The Shift. Recommendations from IRL friends.

There are lots of book posters on Substack

You could sign up to the weekly newsletters at https://www.lovereading.co.uk/. They cover new fiction/non-fiction/audio etc. They've also got a 2026 preview.

Sarah Cox has her Radio 2 book club on BBC Sounds (shame they cancelled her Between the Covers TV show).

I'm reading that too! A very old physical copy rather than kindle though 😄

You can find book recommendations on places like Goodreads or Storygraph. They are review sites, and I think that you can sort by new releases.

I mostly read the New York Times Book Review section.

Do you not have anything like that?

I look at reviews, listen to recommendations from people I know and often use kindles sample facility to try to get an idea before actually buying , though the sample thing isn’t unfallable, I’ve read a few where the first few chapters you get seemed good but took a real nosedive after

The Times
The FT
The New York Times
The Guardian
The Observer
The Arts Desk

I’m also on the mailing lists of:

Major literary book prizes
Poetry publishers
Play script publishers

And I admit I fell into the whole Robert Galbraith ‘Strike’ oeuvre because of a breathless thread here, where posters had booked annual leave to read the newest volume. I was so intrigued, I had to see what all the fuss was about.

Beyond all that I inevitably stumble over countless reviews and recommendations everywhere - academic and professional creative networks, launch events and seminars, friends and colleagues, what I see in relatives houses when I visit, even titles when wandering around a bookshop.

The FT Lit Fest is in my city (as always) this week. It’ll be hard to avoid all of it …

Apart from looking at Goodreads and Storygraph, I read my bodyweight in romance ebooks. I get a lot of recommendations from Reddit's romance readers' subreddit.