Where do you find reliable recommendations for good books?

[CrappyEndOfStick]

How do you find out about good books? My friend always recommends great ones to me, but I’m wondering if there is a reliable regular source to review and recommend books?

Any suggestions?

On here!

I have been following Harold Bloom’s famous canon list. It’s not totally reliable (no P G Wodehouse or Ted Hughes for example), but he has introduced me to some amazing new writers.

I have given up on modern critics and academics. I just can’t trust them anymore. I no longer trust them to praise or recommend books based on quality alone. Too often, they will praise a writer because they tick a certain box, not because they are any good.

That said, most of my favourite writers are long dead anyway. I still haven’t read all of Iris Murdoch’s novels, for example.

For new releases, I look at the reviews in Good Housekeeping, BBC History (although I think they have slightly changed the title) and The Sunday Telegraph.

I also look at the New and Upcoming Releases on the Waterstones' site.

It’s partly about good books, but mostly about books that suit what you personally enjoy. The best recommendations I’ve had are from people who know me very well and know what I’d like. But if you have a a few “types” of book you like, I’ve found a few Facebook / online type groups for “people who like this sort of book” eg Georgette Heyer, Dorothy Dunnett, sci fi, fantasy, historical etc, and there are some good recommendations in with the nonsense, esp if the people recommending seem to enjoy similar stuff to you.

This is quite fun - have you played with it? Type in authors you like and it tells you what others people who like Author X also enjoy. https://www.literature-map.com/

On here.
I subscribe to Waterstones and Blackwell's emails.
If I've enjoyed a novel, I'll also look at who's endorsed it and check out their novels too.
I also listen to the Women's Prize For Fiction Book Shelfie podcast - I've discovered some great books through that.

Reviews generally (I find the Guardian ones helpful), but my best bet is my daughter, whose tastes in reading almost exactly align with mine.

Usually podcasts and a good browse but feel like I'm getting recommended the same handful of books and seeing the same books in every shop at the minute so looking for new ideas!

On here mainly. Have got very fed up with other sites and shops that promote BookTok books, only to discover that when I actually read them they aren't that great, generally mildly disappointing but sometimes dreadful.

MN has been pretty reliable throughout.

If I come across a title somewhere, I go on Goodreads to see what the reviews are like there. Also the friends I have on there share what they're reading, which is often to my reading taste too.

Friends
The Book Club podcast
Book shop employees - if ever you are in Bath I highly recommend going to both Mr B's and Toppings

I’ve recently used chat gpt. Told it what books I like and what I was looking for based on my mood at the time (I had just finished a lovely but emotionally exhausting novel and wanted an easier read). It came up with some interesting recommendations. I’ve already read a couple and enjoyed them.

I like a good browse in my preferred genre. Sometimes I have an idea about something I would like to read / know more about and find it in book format. Example, I really wanted to find some historical fiction about Sinan the architect & found the most wonderful author: Elif Shafak. I try to avoid popular review type sites or generic recommendations. I have also read a few books recommended on here.

I agree with ProfessionalTeaDrinker, the Internet always comes up with the same 3 titles!

If anyone is reading books in German, there is this wonderful website Phantastikcouch.de or Krimmicouch.de or any other genre.

... I wish there was something similar in English, the closest there is is Goodreads.

Bookbub

The ‘what are you reading’ is a good thread to get ideas.

But taste is subjective. Your idea of ‘not that great’ won’t be mine, as demonstrated by any thread on here.

I read reviews in the Irish Times, Guardian, LRB, will keep an eye out for who’s promoting a new book at local literary festivals or giving readings at the university etc, will note anything of interest from prize lists or ‘fiction coming out this year’ articles, or be recommended stuff by friends etc, as well as browsing in bookshops and knowing when a favourite author has something new out — but nothing’s an infallible guide that what I’m going to like. I will always read the free Amazon sample or skim the prose of browsing in a shop.

My most recent purchases were both recommended in an author interview in the Irish Times — Polly Barton’s What AmI, A Deer?, which is new, by someone who is usually a translator of Japanese fiction, and Gwendolyn Brooks’ Maud Martha, a 1953 novella by the former US Poet Laureate.

I’m also continuing to read/reread the work of contemporary authors I like but have not yet read all of, like Vigdis Hjorth, Sigrid Nunez, Annie Ernaux, Deborah Levy (which I warmly recommend!) , and classics I’ve never got around to (The Idiot, Hunger). Equally, there are highly-regarded authors I know I will never read another word of eg Philip Roth, Bellow, Hemingway…

For a fuss free way, I subscribe to the willoughby book club and get a bespoke subscription. You spend 10 minutes filling in what you like and love and don't like and they send you a book a month.

I haven't had a bad book. And I have been introduced to some fantastic books and authors. I love how they're packaged...it feels like a beautiful.gift arrives just for me every month.

I have also bought this as a gift and the person who received it said he thinks it's the best gift he has ever had. (My first subscription was a gift, so I know he he feels!).

Not remotely associated to them, just impressed.

Claude and ChatGPT both give me great recommendations. FT new genre reviews (e.g. new thrillers, sci fi) are great and I find other newspaper reviews mediocre and a bit group thinky. Reddit r/books can be good.

Friends, here, Goodreads, sometimes books recommend other books!

Goodreads. I can check the reviews on books I already know about and it also recommends books based on what I've read. I record all the books I have read on goodreads so it has a good idea about what I like.

50Bookers thread on here
The Bookseller magazine (available free in independent bookshops)
My real life book club and its WhatsApp group

On here, also telling Chat GPT what I like and can it recommend similar. Not perfect but it has thrown up a couple of very good suggestions.

If you start a thread here saying I liked X and loved Y, what should I read next, you woll
get a bunch of suggestions!

Can anyone recommend any good book review podcasts or YouTube channels? I would like to widen my reading, last couple of books have been " ok" and I think I'm maybe tired of the genre.

Mostly instagram. If you can find readers who generally like what you like then you can get some good recs. Some of the “booktok” viral books are a bit meh, but once it’s learned the algorithm is pretty good for helping me understand what’s popular at the moment and getting a feel from lovers and haters of their reviews and what I might like. Anything that looks good gets added to my Amazon wish list.

I also do the Goodreads challenges and so look at well reviewed books on those which throws up some unexpected great reads (recently the audiobook of Only Plane in the Sky which was fantastic and I would never have looked at otherwise).

But tbh I have 110 unread books on my kindle and 150 on my Amazon wish list so I’m now pretty brutal on whether something makes the wish list or not as I’m not really in need of book recommendations!

Is there a good independent book shop near you? There's one near me I pop into fairly regularly and they'll always recommend things. I've found the staff in Waterstones to be generally helpful with this too, TBF - if you tell them a title you've recently liked they're often able to suggest other books you might also enjoy.

It depends what sort of recommendation I'm looking for - for history, I think the Literary Review covers a wide range in an interesting way. I think the Guardian is decent for its 'Book of the Day' and I used to love its 'Top 10 books about...' lists, but it doesn't do those anymore although the archive of them has some great suggestions. The Guardian still covers a broad range including literary fiction and regular round-ups of crime and thrillers/ sci-fi, etc.

If you can find one, an independent bookshop where the booksellers' choice seems to match yours. It's a joy when such a thing happens. I do find it interesting that I can go to one bookshop and barely find anything I'd want to read and to another of similar size but where I want to read it all.

Women's magazines for slightly less 'worthy' recommendations. A couple of youtubers who focus on more niche interests, such as folk horror.

I treat the buying of books as a hobby in itself!