Are you in a book group? Do you have to come up with new titles to suggest to your group? Well, I'm in a book group too and just recently had to come up with a title for my group. You would think this would be easy for me. I work surrounded by books and booklists and a staff that reads A LOT!! But it isn't easy. So, I thought I'd tell you where I go to look for books for my book group. The ideas I present aren't in any particular order - one not better than the other. No doubt some are places you go to all the time. Hopefully there will be some new ideas.
1. The Northfield Library catalog - did you read an author you liked? Try another title by the same author. Did you like a certain type of book? - you can look at the subject headings and see if you can find something else like it.
2. Readers Advisory books on reference here at the library - goodness, what is Reader's Advisory? Well, it's what we say in the biz about helping people find good books to read. We have lots of these kinds of tools. Are you really into nonfiction? We have a book called "The Readers' Advisory guide to Nonfiction" (2007) - you can look up books in all kinds of categories including food and cooking, travel, science, true crime and history.
3. Websites - oh my goodness, as you know there are so many. Some of my favorites are National Public Radio - http://www.npr.org/ - they have a section on books (under Arts and Life); of course Amazon is great w/ the readers reviews as well as published reviews from library journals like Booklist and Library Journal and also the NY times.
Don't forget authors have their own sites if you are trying to figure out the sequence of titles in a series or just other books they've written. Just google the author's name.
I also love to go to http://www.webrary.org/ - this is a Reader's website done by the Morton Grove Public Library (Illinois) - check out the Fiction L booklists under Reader's Corner - some of the best book lists around.
4. Library databases - we subscribe to several good tools to help you find a good book - Novelist, Booknews, Dearreader.com - all are available free with your library card - just go to www.northfieldmn.info and click on "Electronic Resources".
The only problem with all of this is how will you ever decide which book to choose? :)
Oh well, happy looking and happy reading.
