2017/02/07

BOOKISH REFLECTIONS:
WHERE TO DISCOVER NEW BOOKS TO READ

A thing I get asked a lot is: where in the world do you find all the books you read? Where and how do you discover them? And because I love hearing other peoples answer to that question, I thought I would answer it myself.

Discovering books is one of my favorite things in the world, and there are loads of ways to do it. In the old days, I only ever found new books to read when I happened upon a bookshop, but now, I am exposed to them in many different ways.

Goodreads
I quite enjoy Goodreads and use it loads. What happens a lot is that a book pops up in my "Recommendations" or "Other people have also enjoyed..." and it'll catch my eye. I'll obviously add it to my to-read list after reading a bit about it and if I think it'll be something I'd enjoy, and then... another book pops up that looks good - I'll click on that and, voila, half an hour later I'll have ten books added to my TBR.


Instagram
This is definitely one of my favorite ways of finding new books. I mostly only follow so called bookstagrammers on Instagram and I try to follow a wide range of different readers. Some people write reviews which I read and if I think it looks good, I'll add it to my list, and sometimes, there's just a really pretty book that catches my eye and I make a note to check it out.

YouTube
This is probably the method to which I get most of my new discoveries from. I subscribe to loads of booktubers and I watch a lot of videos. I especially enjoy the content creators that talk about more unknown books alongside more known ones, because you get a good mix of things that are sort of "hot right now", but also other things. I've yet to find a channel that features a lot of nonfiction though, so I mostly get ideas for fiction books I want to read from YouTube.


Google
Sometimes, I'll literally just google things like; "books set in Iceland", "books about British Colonies", "nonfiction books you have to read", "new translated books", "best lesser known classics" and so on. Someone, somewhere, will have made a list. Trust me.

I especially do this for nonfiction, as very few people I follow feature a lot of nonfiction on both Instagram and YouTube.

Bookstores
Lastly, we have the "original" way of discovering books, and perhaps my absolute favorite - but also the one I do the least. I love going to bookstores and looking at books, but I find that most of the bookstores in my close vicinity do not stock a wide range of books in English, which is predominately what I read.

That being said, there are a few great bookstores in the centre of Oslo I always stop by whenever I'm there. If I'm meeting someone or doing something there, I'll always try to squeeze in half an hour to an hour to just go look at the books and discover new ones. I also do this when I travel - I try to find a bookstore close to where I'm at and pop by (because why not).

Although I don't do it as often as I'd like, there's nothing quite like being in a room, completely surrounded by books and endless possibilities. 


Where do you guys find new books to read? What's your favorite way to discover new ones to pick up?
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