By Jessica L. Smith
Choosing the right book to read can be hard. Really hard. I’ve been an avid reader since I was a little kid, so you’d have thought it would get easier picking my next read, but often that is not the case. It can feel overwhelming, and like there’s too many books to read, and not enough time. So, how do you find the relevant book for you?
To start simply, you have to read what you like, which relies on genre. Finding a book that appeals to you largely depends on the genres you’re interested in. This can be impacted by your current situation. Maybe you want to forget your reality and become engulfed in a fantasy. Maybe you’re feeling passionate about something and want to read a collection of non-fiction essays. Maybe you’re craving a feel-good romance that will have you kicking your feet and smiling at the page. The problem can be the wide variety of book genres, which makes it overwhelming finding the right book for you.
Maybe then, we need specific methods of finding a relevant book. One way could be asking a friend for recommendations. An old friend once lent me their copy of ‘Jane Eyre’ right before we finished a year at secondary school for summer break, which swept me up into a whole summer of reading and re-reading Brontë’s life-changing novel. I cannot thank my friend enough for that recommendation. Yet, from personal experience, friends aren’t always the best in giving recommendations. Sometimes the best book that your friend has ever read will not be the best book that you will ever read. It perhaps, then, works best if you and your friend are into the same genres.
Now, we have to talk about it. ‘Book-Tok’. For me, I seem to have spent so much time mindlessly scrolling that I have curated the perfect ‘For You Page’ where like-minded people talk about the kind of books that I love to read, which has become a brilliant way of finding books relevant to me. Take Eve Babitz’s work, for example. Without ‘Book-Tok’, I might not have her dreamy books sitting proudly on my bookshelves after devouring them all. Maybe I would have stumbled upon her work eventually, but ‘Book-Tok’ sped up that process. Whilst I won’t name and shame some of the books that have become popular on ‘Book-Tok’, albeit controversially to give the platform its mixed reviews, there are some brilliant creators recommending brilliant books on there for you to get your hands on.
It might sound a little absurd, but publishing companies can also be a great way of finding a relevant book. You might want to collect all the special editions of books that they publish, like the beautiful Penguin clothbound classics. Or, you might look to some independent publishers, who have a great selection of published books. Take the Fitzcarraldo Editions, who publish contemporary fiction and essays. Personally, I am obsessed with their editions. I know, don’t judge a book by its’ cover, but this is a publishing company who just gets it. The aesthetic simplicity of their blue and white covers is perfect. Their relatively small collection of published books thus far is a great curated list to get your hands on, such as their collection of Annie Ernaux’s work, or the popular novels of authors like Olga Tokarczuk, who was recently included in singer Dua Lipa’s monthly book club. Fitzcarraldo Editions also offer subscriptions, in which you receive a set amount of their new publications throughout the year, which is a great way to discover new titles and authors.
Both Ernaux and Tokarczuk are Nobel Prize winning authors. This raises the question of whether we should look to the award system to find relevant books to read. Whilst critical opinion isn’t the be all and end all, if a book has an award, it is bound to be an interesting read. The Booker Prize Award, which has been around since 1969 to celebrate contemporary fiction, is one I personally love. The 2024 Booker Prize was awarded to Samantha Harvey’s ‘Orbital’, and whilst I am yet to read this (with it currently being sat on my overwhelmingly huge to-be-read shelf), Harvey’s writing is said to be beautiful. Back in 2019, I was captivated by the joint Booker Prize winners of Margaret Atwood, for ‘The Testaments’, and Bernadine Evaristo, for ‘Girl, Woman, Other’. The judges couldn’t decide on one winner, so both authors were awarded the prize. I read both of these novels and loved them, so perhaps the award system is a good way to find some relevant and captivating books.
We seem to be finding lots of ways to find curated lists of relevant books to read. Another place to find these is through bookshop’s curated tables. These range from tables of classic fiction, romance, popular contemporary, or even ‘books we pretend that we’ve read’. Unless I’m after something specific, I find that I often spend most of my time in bookshops browsing these tables, mentally adding books to my to-be-read list, or excitedly picking books up and telling my friend (who isn’t bothered) that I’ve read it before. These tables can make it easier to dive into a bookshop and pick out a good read, instead of becoming lost in a sea of books.
If you’re in education, ask your teachers or professors for recommendations! They’re bound to have an endless list of recommendations like the curated bookshop tables, particularly if they specialise in literature. If you don’t want to ask them personally, check your course reading list for extra recommendations alongside the set texts. One of my teachers got me into Virginia Woolf, naming ‘The Waves’ as one of her favourite books of all time, which I am now inclined to agree with.
There’s a plethora of routes and ways to find relevant books to read. It’s all about finding the right way for you. Once you find it, you’ll never be lost choosing your next read again.
Image: Alexandra Kirr on UnSplash.