

Ask HN: How do you find your next book? - dar8919


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wlkr
For fiction books I simply browse bookshops, new and old and read a lot of
blurbs. I'm fortunate in that there are all kinds of niche and speciality
bookshops alongside the more mainstream chains around me so I can spend an
afternoon perusing a few favourites on the lookout for my next reads. I'll
tend to buy a few in a go and then repeat once all are read. Rarely do I seek
out or encounter reviews for books and I do no tracking or analysis, other
than mental notes of authors I've enjoyed etc.

For non-fiction books my approach is markedly different and I seek out a lot
of online and peer reviews. With non-fiction books being a more significant
investment (time and cost vs expected advancement of knowledge) I can spend
weeks deciding which books will be useful to me.

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ay1n
I track the books I've read and want to read on Goodreads
([https://www.goodreads.com](https://www.goodreads.com)). I currently have
about 200 books on my "to read list". I find interesting books suggestions
everywhere - on the HN (special topics for books but quite often in the random
commments), articles, blogs etc. I don't blindly add new books, I first
research it for a few minutes (table of content, reviews, similar books).

I also recommend Farnam Street Blog
([http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/](http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/)) for a
lot of interesting suggestions.

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rdc12
The annual threads on HN about, "What was the best book your read in $YEAR",
tend to have some brilliant books that I would have never encounted any other
way. Bill Gates annual list tends to be solid as well, but only a handful of
books each time. Mark Zuckerberg's reading club could potentially be useful
too.

I still find a lot of success in just going to a second hand book store and
finding gems in a fairly short amount of time too. But obviously more niche
books are unlikely to be there.

Goodreads, does tend to be fairly good at identifying authors of a similar
theme, but that has only been of limited usage to me.

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tumba
If you find yourself in the position of saying "Hey, I have some free time;
what should I read?" I recommend focusing first on what you want to know or
do, secondly on determining what book and articles are likely to contain
useful information, and only then determining a plan for what to read. Here is
the process I follow.

For each subject in which I am interested, I maintain a bibliography. The most
common way entries are added here is by discovering references to books or
articles in other things I am reading.

When reading books in physical media, I usually draw an arrow by references or
notes that indicate books I should add to these bibliographies. When I am done
with a book or article, I go back through and add any such references that
still seem relevant to my bibliography. (I do this at the same time I am
transcribing notes and quotations, files of which are also an important part
of my system.) I usually include a brief note on why I believe this work will
be of value and where I got the reference.

Where this becomes useful is when I am pursuing some sort of study. I have
learned that I study best with some object in view, so even if my study is for
general education, I prepare a syllabus that presents objectives of some sort
(code to write, questions to answer, etc.).

Once I have the objectives prepared, I use my living bibliography files to
create a reading plan. Of course, once I really delve into a subject, that
plan usually expands and I add more references into both my general
bibliography and reading plan.

This process provides me an apparatus to pursue my interests in a structured
way to make the most of my time. I don't worry much about what to read next
except in the context of some such study.

I have found that without this sort of structure to focus my reading, I am in
danger of becoming a dilettante. I don't have an exceptional memory, and if I
read without a structure, I easily fall into the trap of cultivating
superficial knowledge without ever getting deep enough to answer substantive
questions or do original work.

I do, however, want to encourage serendipity, so I subscribe to and read
periodicals in variety of fields. I have also found The London Review of Books
and book reviews in leading newspapers to be useful sources of references and
lines of thought that I would probably never otherwise discover.

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rdc12
Forgot to mention the site BookFlocks [1] which interviews people about books
that were proven important to their career and life. Thou it looks like it
might be dead on new material.

[1] [http://bookflocks.com/](http://bookflocks.com/)

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gershwin
Fiction or non-fiction?

~~~
dar8919
Both.

When it comes to technology, I find books to be a secondary citizen. If I look
at things I know and use in my day job. Things like stack overflow, blog posts
and reading man pages have been my primary knowledge sources.

But off late, I've been reading books and mostly enjoying the titles I've
read. But the biggest problem for me is finding my next book.

Amazon mostly recommends titles very closely related to what I've purchased,
and I haven't had much success with goodreads lists. So I'm curious how HN
users find their next book.

~~~
gershwin
I discover books through three sources:

1) New releases from publishers/editors/authors I like. If you like 3 books
from one publisher, you're probably more likely to like another book from that
publisher despite its topic. Same for editors. And, for authors although
author releases are less frequent than editors which are less frequent than
publishers.

2) Colleagues and friends. Word of mouth still seems to be the number one way
people discover books. Ask your friends what they are currently reading. Hop
over to GoodReads.com and see if you can find a network that reads genres
similar to what you like.

3) Blogs/forums. We like to talk about what we're reading since that makes an
otherwise rather solo activity more social. Search the
personal/academic/company blogs for topics you like.

Finally, why not create a hacker news thread called "What are you currently
reading?" :)

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mingusdew
gutenberg

