Transcript

Hey everybody, this is Gayle from The Readerly Report and today I’m gonna do a solo episode. As Nicole and I have ramped up the frequency of our recordings. We have found that sometimes it’s hard for us to find a mutually convenient time for us to record when that happens, rather than skip an episode, what we’re gonna be doing is doing some solo shows.

So I know you that you had one from Nicole a week ago, and now I’m here to record one as well. Today I’m gonna talk about something that we have covered on the show before, but not recently. And I thought it was time to revisit it because life changes so much. And that topic is how do we find out about books to read?

How do we learn about new books? How do we add to our already groaning TBR list? and what sources out there maybe are ones you might be interested in that you haven’t tried before or that are emerging, or maybe you just didn’t think about. I’m gonna talk a little bit about how I find out about new books and kind of update what I have said in the past.

Probably the most consistent places for me to learn about new. Podcasts, books to Graham and book talk. And book talk is tk. So that’s the hashtag book talk on TikTok. So I’ll start with podcasts. Nicole and I have been recording for a long time. We have probably been doing this for six years, five years of doing the book podcast.

but it seems like in the last year or two there’s been an explosion in book podcasts. There are lots and lots of book podcasts out there. If you’re interested in books and reading and you like to listen to podcasts and you’ve got time to, you know, spend with AirPods in your ear, then I really recommend checking out the World of Book podcast.

There are a lot of different ones out there. There’s. Like ours that tend to focus on, generally on fiction, generally on literary fiction, but not entirely. There are lots of times we talk about other stuff. We talk a lot about thrillers, talk about memoirs, some non-fiction, contemporary fiction. There’s obviously our podcast, but there’s lots of other really good ones out there.

Some of my favorites are Sarah’s bookshelves, live tbr, et cetera. Currently reading. There’s some other ones that I’ve kind of recently added to my list, which I’m gonna be checking out over the next couple weeks and seeing if any of those will be added to the rotation. It’s hard sometimes to find time to listen to podcasts, especially book podcasts I feel like require a lot of attention.

You wanna, you know, be able to focus, you wanna be able to jot down or otherwise remember books that you hear about. I tend to do a lot of my book podcast listing when I run. That’s kind of my book, podcasting. But I think podcasts are a great way to learn about books. When you find a host or a guest or somebody who seems to be kindred soul, a book twin, as it’s often called. Then, you know, going back every week or every couple of weeks to check in on that podcast is a great way to learn about new stuff and does not always just new stuff.

It could be backlist, it could be classics, but it may be new to you or just a book that you’ve heard about, but, wanna take a chance on until you heard someone talk about it. So, book pod podcasts are really a great way to learn about new books. #bookstagram two is really, for me, the main reason I use Instagram at this point.

I would say that 75 to 80% of the book content or, or the regular content on my Instagram feed is related to books I recommend. You know, great ways to find out about books to grammar. Is to just follow the #bookstagram or #instabook and just start following people who are posting about books that either you read and liked, or books that you’re intrigued by, or people who just, you know, you can click on their profile and look at their wall, you know, their archive of posts and see whether it looks like, you know, generally are they reading and reviewing books that you.

If there’s a book you really didn’t like, did they give it a great review or did they agree with you? I think it’s a great way. I post pictures on Instagram. Every time I review a book, I use a lot of hashtags, but one of them is dogs and books or books and dogs. Cause I always post a picture of the book with my dog.

I am at Gweiswasser, that’s G W E I S W A S S E R. I’ve learned about some great books to grammars who have followed me or liked my posts, and then I, you know, I can see on Instagram who has liked my post, and then I click through and click follow them back. I find out about lots and lots of great books through books Instagram, and I highly recommend it as a good way to expand your reading horizons.

BookTalk is new-ish, just as TikTok is new-ish. But #booktalk also has really exploded, and the best way to find book talkers is to just search for the hashtag book talk #booktalk. I have learned about lots of great stuff through book talk, and I like that the videos are usually really short, so, Somebody is either talking or not even talking, maybe it’s just text on the screen.

But I find also that people, for whatever reason, are a little less, I dunno, they’re a little more honest on book talk maybe than they are in #bookstagram. It’s hard to find a negative review or somebody who’s willing to kind of go out on a limb and say they didn’t like a.

Whereas in #booktalk I’ve noticed that people seem to be very willing to say, “Eh, this book wasn’t as great.” Or sometimes there are, videos that are like: “5 Books That Were Not Worth The Hype,” or sometimes it’s “5 Underrated Books” or “5 of My Favorite Books”, or “the 5 Books I Read in September”.

And then people will say, “I liked this one”, “I didn’t like that one”. So for whatever reason, there just seems to be more honesty and a little less curation or a little less positive content on BookTalk, which I’m always okay with that. And I find TikTok to be an incredibly addictive space anyway, and so when you throw book content in there, I’m going to just be even more addicted.

Check out #booktalk. I used to post on book talk a while ago and I created some videos and it took me forever to do them. I’m just not like a great video editor and I stopped, but I’m kind of rethinking it, I might jump back in at some point. I would say follow me, I think I’m Gweiswasser a book talk also, or Gweiswasser on TikTok.

But again, I think I only have like six or seven videos and they’re really old. I think I did them during the pandemic and they’re definitely outdated, but I do find that people keep following me and liking those posts.. Just shows you there’s a, a strong healthy appetite out there for booktalk video.

Those would be like my top three podcasts, books, Instagram and Book Talk. But there’s lots of other things. So if you’re not into Book Talk or TikTok and you’re not really an Instagram person or even a podcast person, here are some other places that you can go to get great book content. Of course, there’s blogs.

I still keep up my blog. I’ve been doing my blog since 2006 and it is now 2022. That is a long. To be writing on a blog and I still post everything on a blog. That’s like my main place. That’s where I post everything and then I cut and paste from my blog to books to bookstagram, and I cut and paste to Facebook.

But my blog is really where everything lives. And I know people who only follow me because of my blog, and they only follow the blog and they don’t follow me on social media. Blogs are definitely not like the shiny object that they were 20 years. and not even what they were 10 years ago. And I think in many ways they really have been supplanted by some of these other platforms.

But there’s still lots of people blogging, lots of people who use blogs as their primary place. There’s people I follow that I’ve sort of discovered through their blogs, Novel visits, Gilmore Guide Books. Many, many other bloggers out there are still blogging. Most people who blog will still post their content on social media, so you can find it that way too.

I tend to just sign up for email notifications for blogs that I’m interested in, cuz I really don’t use blog readers anymore. And I keep up with them that way as well. So if I’m not getting their email newsletter, then maybe I’m seeing their updates on Facebook or Instagram, but I’m often finding myself back at their blogs over time.

And my blog is “Every Day I Write the Book”. I’ve been blogging there forever and so you can always find my stuff there. But again, I do try to post all that stuff on Instagram and on my personal Facebook page. And then I try to remember to post it on my blog Facebook page, but I forget to do that a lot cuz who can remember all this stuff? It’s just a lot.

You can always find gray blogs out there. They’re still alive. And then I would say that the rest of my blog inputs are coming from kind of a mishmash of places.

I highly recommend Book Reporter, which is a great website. It’s run by Carol Fitzgerald, she talks to gazillions of authors and reviews books. She has guests on her blog all the time. She interviews them. She also does a monthly webinar, I guess is what I would call it, because you just kind of dial in and, and watch. It’s you know, on Zoom it’s not, it’s not interactive cuz you can’t actually see the other people there. But she does it once a month.

It’s called Bookaccino Live, kind of like cappuccino, but bookccino. And she’s always got like the next month of new releases coming out and she just lets you know what they are. And she covers fiction, historical fiction, non-fiction, like memoirs and thrillers. And she’s usually got about maybe 20 to 25 books each month where she’s just letting that they’re coming out when they’re coming out, and then a little bit of a teaser for the month ahead, and then she’ll.

Cut it off, and then you can register for the next one. And if you can’t make it, they’re usually on Wednesdays at 2:00 PM which for some people is a good time. And some people it’s a horrible time. That’s Easter Eastern Time, 2:00 PM Eastern. If you can’t make it, it’s not a big deal. Usually, within two or three days she sends out a video so you can watch the video of the webinar whenever is convenient for you.

You miss a little bit when you don’t do it live because you miss, There’s oftentimes like a contest where she’s gonna do a book giveaway and you have to be on the live stream in order to do that, and then you miss whatever comments and commentary people are adding to the chat. But other than that, it’s really not a big deal to miss it live.

So if that is on a convenient time, I would still recommend signing up cuz you’ll get the recording later. But she’s a really great source of new books.

I also like to just browse bookstores. I’m sure you do too if you’re listening to the show. If you have a good indie bookstore in your hometown or when you’re traveling, that’s one of my favorite things to do.

When I travel, I go to a new place, and always check out the indie bookstore. I always discover books in bookstores. Sometimes it’s in the staff picks on the bookshelves. Sometimes it’s just my own browsing, but I always discover good stuff that way. And when I’m in the bookstore, I always grab a copy of the Indie Next List.

So the Indie Next List comes out every month, and it is a list that is compiled from independent booksellers who basically share with the Indie Next list what they’re looking forward. Or you know what one book they wanna highlight and they also identify who the bookseller is that recommended it. So it’s kind of fun to see names of book sellers from around the country. Cool-sounding bookstore names. Indie Next List you can usually find it’s passed out for free in the bookstore. You can also find it online. So it’s I N D I E, like independent bookstore. That’s a really great source of new books. And they also will tell you what’s new in paperback and as well, Book Reporter.

So Book Reporter. Is great for the book live, but there’s also tons of other content on the book reporter website, including new paper bags. Sometimes when Nicole and I are researching a show like we’re doing an upcoming paperback show or we are winter preview or things like that, I will often start with book reporter or the ending next list to help me fill out those lists.

I also get a gazillion emails every day that have to do with books. I get pitched books from publicists all the time. I get so many of them every day that I just tend to delete them because it’s impossible to keep up with them. But in addition to those emails, I’m also on a bunch of publisher lists.

So I get emails about upcoming books from all the big publishing houses, from some of the independent publishing houses. Sometimes they are offering books for review, but usually, they’re not. They’re just, you know, “Hey, this book is coming out”, or “Hey, here’s our exciting books this winter”.

If it comes from a publisher, I obviously take it a bit with the grain of salt because these are marketing emails and they’re going to push their books and they’re not necessarily including, Objective reviews of their books, but it’s still a great way just to find out what those books are.

I try not to delete that stuff without reading and I try to at least glance at it and see if it’s something that I might want to, or I might wanna read or might wanna add to my library hold list or my TBR list on Goodreads. So yeah, my inbox is definitely a source of lots of book discovery and it’s a little overwhelming sometimes cuz there’s just so much of it.

I would say it’s not the most effective way to reach me for books because there’s too much and I often just have to delete it. But I do find some gems in there sometimes.

I also still read the print newspaper. It’s crazy. I am lucky to live in Washington DC We have a great newspaper, The Washington Post, and we have a really, really good Book review section at the Post. And in fact, it used to have a standalone section every Sunday called “Book World”. And then it went away for many, many years, probably like 10 years and it’s back!. So I’m kind of excited that we now have “Book World” back in the Washington Post. I’ve got Book World and then there’s usually a review and at least one or two reviews in every daily print edition of the Post.

I definitely follow that pretty closely and they are a great source for book recommendations. I used to read the New York Times book review. I don’t anymore. I just, it’s too much. I just can’t, you know, there’s a limit. So Also, there’s some magazines I get Real Simple, which usually has pretty good book reviews.

I used to get the print edition of Entertainment Weekly, which had great book reviews and sadly, the print edition of Entertainment Weekly has gone away and it’s all digital and I don’t really go seeking out the book reviews on EW anymore. So that’s sad. But Real Simple has good ones. And I know there’s other magazines out there with good book review, so you know, that’s like old media, but it’s still a good way to find out about.

That’s pretty much the list. It’s a lot. I feel like I spend more time learning about books than I do actually reading them, which is a problem. It’s something I’m trying to work on, but I see platforms have proliferated. I find that my time spent researching and learning about books is now like vastly outweighing the time I spend reading them is not good. And it’s probably a reason for my book slump because when I get in bed and I should be reading my book at night, I go on TikTok instead cuz I just, it’s irresistible. And then half of that stuff is book-related content. Anyway, that’s a topic for another day.

I thought I would mention a few places where I do not find books or I do not find particularly helpful to learn about books. One of them is Goodreads. Goodreads for me serves a really different purpose. It is a place where I share my reviews and I keep track of the books I’ve read and where I also keep track of books I wanna read.

But it’s not a place for book discovery for me. There’s too much there. There’s too much, I don’t know. I’m connected to a number of people through Goodreads, but I just find that like, it’s kind of random. I don’t really know who they are. And so I don’t spend a lot of time looking at like what my Goodreads friends are reading.

I do, however, use Goodreads to look up reviews. Once I have found a book I’m interested in, I will always check out the Good Reads reviews and I certainly will do that after I finish books. I’m always really curious to see if my views are in line with other people’s. Goodreadsplays a big role in my life, but it’s not one of book discovery.

I do you get emails from some of the other sites like Libro.fm or what is it? bookshop.org. I get that stuff. It’s also kind of overwhelming and I don’t always use that for book discovery, although I do get the reviewer emails about audio review copies from Libro.fm, and I learn about books that way as well.

More often than not, Libro is asking me if I wanna review an audiobook, and it’s more oftentimes than not, it’s a book I’ve already heard about. It’s still super helpful because then if I’m interested in the book, I’ll download the review copy. Goodreads, not so much, and I guess that’s it. I think I, for me, that’s kind of scorching the earth on all the various book content out there.

Oh, I forgot a major one. And this is an obvious one: word of mouth. Huge. I have lots of friends who are great readers and many who read more than I do, and they are a really great source of book recommendations for me. My book, my In Real Life Book Club. And Nicole, my podcast partner. Great source of reviews.

I, you know, definitely talk to people about books all the time, often asking my friends, What are you reading now? What’s been good? What was your favorite book last year? I learned about a lot of books that way, but I guess that kind of goes without saying. That is this week’s show. Hopefully this was helpful in expanding your book Horizons a little bit.

And I’d love to hear about where you find out about books and you know, what are your go-to sources. If you want, leave us a comment. You can leave us a comment on our blog, the Readerly Report or on Instagram, and let us know where are you getting your book recommendations. And do you tend to agree with me or am I off the mark on some of this stuff?

Let me know. And until next time, happy reading.