Where to Find Your Next Great Read

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Debs has gotten us off to a great start on reading in the new year, talking about what we’ve read in 2022, weighing the pros and cons of book journaling, and sharing suggestions on audio narrators you should be listening to. I want to shamelessly piggyback on her excellent work because I kept running into the same issue when I was talking about these things: where do you find your next great read?

In The Before Times, I used to go to one or another of the several independent book stores we’re blessed with in the Portland, Maine area. Or I would spend an hour or two browsing the shelves at one of the local libraries. I often attended professional events like Book Expo America, the American Library Association annual conference, and regional meetings like the New England Booksellers Association’s. In other words, I was encountering newly published, to-be published and new-to-me reads all the time. Or if not all the time, at least often enough to accumulate piles of TBR tomes.

Now? Not so much. All our local libraries offer remote check out - I can order a book and pick it up. The same thing for my favorite bookstores. Call me Overly-Cautious Octavia, but I don’t linger anywhere where the vast public is in, out and hanging around. And even if I were fine with browsing, it feels more like recreational shopping to me, which I was never a fan of, and am less so now. I want to get in, get what I want, and get out. 

All this is a long-winded way of saying I need help finding places for recommended reads! Of course, right here at JRW we have a tremendous resource in all our widely-read members, and every time we have a “what are you reading?” conversation, I’m taking notes. But where else can I go? Where do I get information on the new non-fiction I haven’t heard of, or the most-anticipated science fiction, or upcoming releases of authors I already love but don’t track? 

Reds, what are your resources? Where would you point readers?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I’m completely interested in all of your  answers to this! With Mystery Scene Magazine gone (sigh), and the NYT Sunday Book Review so elite, where do you all go? How do you hear? Of course I read reviewers I love–and some of them are right here on JRW! And I know I can rely on them. So keep those reviews coming, AND if you have a site, you darling reviewers, put it in the comments!

Because of course I am always looking for new, I am so lucky to host CRIME TIME on A Mighty Blaze and First Chapter Fun–and I have to say ,both are wonderful ways of finding new books!  The bookers (big insiders in book/bookstore/publishing world) on Crime Time schedule the interviews, so I get the benefit of their expertise and connections–that’s how I got introduced to Deepti Kapoor, and Jordan Harper, and Brendan Slocumb and Chris Whittaker and Janice Hallett and Lisa Jewell (now my absolute idol) a whole list of other fabulous authors early in the process. The bookers really know their stuff!  

Same on FCF–we get pitched constantly by people/publicists/publishers who want their authors showcased, and so there’s always a stream of new people. And authors who are already favorites will provide advance copies.

So this can work for YOU, too! Just come to CT or FCF and see who you’ll meet. This week, Deepti Kapoor and Mary Kubica on Crime Time and Pam Jenoff on First Chapter Fun. VoiIà. Your next great reads.

HALLIE EPHRON: I swear by CRIME TIME on A Mighty Blaze and First Chapter Fun. Hank you are such a great resource. It somewhat fills the hole left by so many mystery bookstores that have closed. And I depend quite a bit on my fellow Reds and our amazing commenters to cast a wide net. 

Conferences! Gosh I do hope we get back to feeling comfortable about going in person because there’s no better place to meet new authors and talk to a gazillion readers and find out what they’re enthusiastic about.

LUCY BURDETTE: The one place I will not give up shopping is my local bookstores, Books and Books and the Key West Island Bookstore in Key West, and RJ Julia in Connecticut. Besides browsing in the actual stores, I subscribe to all of those newsletters, so I always get the latest on what’s coming out next. I don’t like to buy books from Amazon, but I do use their algorithms (If you liked this, you’ll like that, etc.)

Other than that it’s word of mouth–I adore our reading blogs here–so many good ideas, and you figure out who has similar taste!

 

JULIA: Lucy, I've been to RJ Julia Booksellers several times, but in my head, it always comes out Raul Julia's Book Store! 

JENN McKINLAY: I let the books find me. Seriously, I don’t think I have ever actively looked for a book in my life. That sounds crazy, doesn’t it? It’s just that I grew up in libraries (Mom was a librarian), then I became a librarian, and I don’t know how or why but books just find me, much like every stray critter in south Scottsdale. And usually, the book arrives just when I am meant to read it.

RHYS BOWEN: Hank, you are doing us a great favor by hosting A Mighty Blaze and First Chapter Fun. And my fellow Reds are great with recommendations.

I am lucky to live near two magnificent bookstores, Book Passage in Corte Madera and The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, where they have author events every single night. Barbara Peters of the Poisoned Pen will often host a new author with an established one and I’ve learned about quite a few first time books that way. 

 

Also like many of you, I get sent upcoming books to read and blurb. Some of these are just okay but some are wonderful.

But the most fun thing is to browse when I am in UK. WH Smith, bargain table! Such fun finds and books I wouldn’t normally choose.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Oh, I am seconding Rhys on WH Smith in the UK, ditto Waterstone’s. The first thing I do when I fly into London is check the book racks at the airport WH Smith’s. (And the last thing when I fly out, for the plane, of course. Otherwise, books seem to find me. Here on JRW, of course, the biggest source.  FCF and A Mighty Blaze, newsletters from The Poisoned Pen and Murder by the Book and blogs by favorite reviewers. And I have to confess that I am addicted to Bookbub (that is a whole other blog..) and I can’t count how many authors and series I’ve discovered because something was on sale for $1.99 and it sounded interesting.

 

 

JULIA: Dear readers, it's your turn now - where do you find your next read? Is it in real life, online, or in the media? I'll add your suggestions to the front page here as they come in!