Book-Hunting

Once my students get over the awe of how many books I manage to read in a day, the usual next question is...how do you find things to read. I admit that this is a fairly significant issue for me. Most of the time I have plenty on my pile, however the sheer volume means that I must always look for more material. So here it is... my methods.

1. Ask a friend, or in my case a student. As a general rule, if I like the person, chances are high that I will find what they read tolerable at worst, but usually quite excellent. Over time, I've figured out which students and friends have the best taste and in which areas.
2. Never underestimate the value of the random pick-up. I do a lot of browsing in used book stores. I look at the cover art and I read the back blurbs. If the cost is low ($3 or $4), I'll take a risk on an author I've never heard of before. I've found some of my favorite authors this way. Obviously, I rarely do this with new books which is a shame for breaking authors who are struggling to find a fan base, but I just don't have the bankroll to by new books at retail price randomly.
3. By imprint: One of the best things about shelving and organizing my books properly is that the imprint marks are easy to see.  An imprint is a publisher brand or arm of a publisher. One of the dirty secrets is that there are very few independent publishers any more because the big houses tend to buy them up. However they often retain the old imprints name if they've developed a name for themselves. If an imprint has developed their niche well, a reader can trust that picking up their books will yield similar types and qualities of reads. For example:
• In YA I trust:
• Squarefish (for middle to low highschool)
• Speak (For High School - actually owned by Penguin)
• Harper Teen (For High School)
• Hyperion (recently bought out by Disney - I don't universally trust this imprint yet, but it is responsible for some good titles back when Hyperion was it's own property)
• Ember (originally owned by Random House which was bought out by Penguin - so now it is part of the penguin family)
• Candlewick (my only independent imprint - it's a rather sad commentary on things really)
• Razorbill (also owned by Penguin - this imprint tends to be a little edgier than the others)
• In Non-YA:
• Penguin (now penguin is one of the major publishing houses, but I've noted over the years that if I'm interested at all in a Penguin title, it'll be worth the read. I'm not interested, of course, in all they publish, but it really seems like their editors do a good job selecting material)
4. By award: Not everything that wins an award deserves reading. I'll be the first to inject a little cynicism. However some awards I trust implicitly. Pretty much anything sponsored by the American Librarian Association (ALA) is good stuff. Below are the ones I actively troll. Some are ALA sponsored, some are not:
•  Michael L. Printz Award (ALA- Young Adult books many of which are socially aware)
• YALSA's Best Fiction for Young Adults (ALA - not really an award per se, but it's updated every year and generally very good)
• Coretta Scott King Award (ALA managed - This one's been running since the 1970s and gives awards to fiction that advocates for Non-Violent Social Change. This is the list I troll to find books for my male non-reading students)
• Nebula (Big Sci-Fi and Fantasy award - generally solid even if it's not to my taste)
• Hugo (Similar to the Nebula but for some reason I think of the Hugo as being slightly more literary, I don't know why.)
• Mann Booker Prize (The premier British literature award. There are many excellent things to be said about the British but at the top of my list is their highly literate culture.)
• National Book Award (The U.S. version of the Mann Booker Prize. This one is more hit and miss for me, but generally they are good picks)
• The Guardian Book List (Another British one. The Guardian is a news paper that puts out a recommended reading list every year - I've linked to the one for 2017)
5. By author: Once I find a book I like, I usually check out the author's other books. There's a lot of ways to troll for bibliographies. Wikipedia and Amazon are decent sources, but my favorite is Fantastic Fiction which is a massive database of English-language literature
6. Blogs & Websites: There are a lot of good sites out there. There's also a lot of crap. I'm actively on the hunt for more blogs and websites. However I have two that I've been following on and off for years: Bookslut and BookRiot. Despite the names, they have excellent articles on authors and book related topics. Book Slut is perhaps a little more academically oriented and has been around for over a decade. Book Riot is a good source for information on Young Adult literature but covers Non-YA as well

This looks like a lot of work, I realize, but it's not really. I guess it's just what I love.