How to find new books

[TigerLover]

You're talking to the right guy I have been a mad book glutton all my life and i have a system.

Firstly Go to the local library. You can sample a book there and if you like the way it's written go check out the author's other works. I randomly got a Ray Bradbury anthology out of the library a few years back and I now have his complete published works sitting on the bookshelf right in front of me.

Secondly Books aren't written in a vacuum. Check out your favourite author's favourite books.
Bradbury was a fan of Issac Asimov. So I bought one of his books from a old second hand book stall in a market. I now have Six of his books including the entire foundation series in one big-ass anthology. I took out a Steven king novel from my library and Stephen king named H.P Lovecraft as one of his inspirations. I now own a big ass Lovecraft anthology.

And then every once in a while to mix things up, I bite the bullet and just buy a bunch of paperback books from Amazon that sound interesting. I currently have Neuromancer, the Crimson labyrinth and a Terry Pratchett novel sitting on my desk ready to read. I do occasionally get bad books that way but the feeling of opening a big brown box full of novels more than makes up for it.

And if I happen to like Neuromancer i'm going to look up William Gibson's works and then his favorite authors. And so the cycle will continue with each new book I like yielding many others.

[Darius]

Libraries will also help you locate books, even borrowing from other libraries. They also have e-books, which allows you to borrow for longer periods of time. If you borrow a book from a library and don't care for it, you aren't out anything. If you like the book, you can then go online or to store like Half Price books and buy authors you like.

[matty7]

I have to say Amazon myself just because people have reviewed the books and I cant afford to waste money on something im not going to enjoy - its only failed me once and that was just because of the books font size which was too small to comfortably read

also if your looking at a book about a certain subject matter amazon will put a line of books very similar in theme underneath it giving you more choices or showing a book that really fits your needs even better

[Bookworm]

As others have said, Amazon is a good way of book hunting, especially if there is a specific author I'm looking for. I also like drifting through book shops too; I can spend ages in there just browsing. I love the smell of books, I'm weird like that :biggrin:

I'll even go into Antique shops too and browse through old tomes that are falling apart. I've started downloading ebooks onto my kindle now as books are taking over my flat!

[Cobalt]

Thanks a lot for all the replies everyone! I wasn't expecting so many responses.
I have used Amazon a lot to buy books but admittedly I haven't used the site too much to actually looks for books. Usually I will go to Barnes and Noble and look through books and just add them to an Amazon wishlist.

East, I need to upload the books I have to my goodreads account so I can show what books I have. Honestly I don't have many. I usually read books that deal with trivia I guess you could say (facts about the world, animals, etc.) I started buying up fiction books I've been interested in over the past couple of months, I just need to list them all online so I can get suggestions.

Thanks a lot for all the suggestions again everybody, I definitely had some good ideas on where to start.

[meridannight]

i didn't know about goodreads. i checked it out and it seems decent.

[Radbot42]

Goodreads Goodreads GOODREADS!! I'm surprised it took most of the first page to mention it. I love it and always try to keep my read is up to date so I get more accurate recommendations. I don't know what you are into, but if you like comedy read Christopher Moore, and if you like weird but well put together scifi read Jasper Fforde. Those are my favorite authors, and I never get bored of them!