dmsj

I just finished watching John Green's latest video, in which he talks about the vagaries of the NYT bestseller list and how you will miss out on a lot of excellent books if you use that as your primary source of book recommendations. So that got me to wondering how other people discover the books that they want to read.

Personally, I am such a F/SF devotee that a huge number of the books I end up checking out are sourced directly from Tor's lists of new releases. They publish the lion's share of my current favorite authors and seem to be responsible for the majority of recent Hugo nominees.

I also rely heavily on my local libraries. There are two in particular with good F/SF sections and I am able to find most of the books that I want to read in their collections instead of having to purchase them. I also regularly browse their nonfiction new releases and recommendations for younger readers.

The other major source of recommendations for me is social media - mostly you all here on Dreamwidth, but also Bluesky, Facebook, and Discord. I'm always paying attention to what my friends are into.

Occasionally I'll see an interesting book on the shelf at Target or Barnes & Noble, but I'm not located near any independent bookstores, alas.