We live in an age where discovery has become a product. Every taste is pre-digested, every preference mapped, every “you might also like” pretending to know your soul better than you do. I pondered a bit on this in a recent note and many of you had a lot to say (both for and against gamification but for the most part thinking out loud like me within that murky in-between area).
Look, I like productivity tools and book-reading apps and the Apple Watch’s perhaps only useful ability to track steps and sleep patterns just as much as the next person. Still, it’s important to fiercely hold on to what makes us human.
So, in the age of apps and algorithms, here are six old-fashioned ways that are helping me find what to read next…with perhaps less exactitude but certainly more wonder.
Find out who your local authors are. Libraries and indie bookstores will generally have local-author nooks where they exclusively keep books published by authors who live in the area or are from there. Pick up those books and find something that strikes you. If you, like me, are living somewhere that you aren’t a “true local” in, just remember…none of us are truly local anywhere and simultaneously we are all from the same place.
Follow your favorite writers’ influences. You can do this by just reading directly about who your favorite writer’s favorite writer was OR, a bit more fun, is picking up your favorite books and looking in the Acknowledgements section to find the who they thank. Usually, a few of those wonderful people will be writers themselves who would’ve been more directly involved with your favorite writer’s work than their own favorite writer might ever have been.
Ask a librarian to surprise you. I promise you that your librarian is a nice person. I promise even if they look grouchy, they’re not. I promise you they’d be pleasantly taken aback with your tech-drowned ass walking up to them and saying these words: O dear keeper of the library, please guide me to my next book. Okay, you don’t have to be as weird as me, but like seriously…librarians are awesome and have boundless knowledge. Avail yourself to their wisdom.
Pick up something from a free library. If you live in a small town, these shouldn’t be hard to find. If you’re a city-mouse, then idk drive to a small town or go visit your mom and walk around the neighbourhood and find one. The free libraries in my neighbourhood are so interesting — you’ll get the usual ratty Tom Clancy book or a manhandled Daniel Steele (again, the book, obvs), but you’ll also find amazing classics (I just found a beautiful hardcover 1st edition of Beloved last week!), old Book of the Month copies, and a host of other possibilities. Those little doors are portal begging to be unlatched.
Go up to strangers who are reading a book and ask them if they like it. I started a whole project in Toronto two years ago of photographing strangers reading books in public (always with permission), and the short conversations I had with them were lovely. In any given day, I’d end up with at least five pictures and at least one new book to check out. And let me tell you, if I — as a neurotic loner ultra-freaky introvert — can do this, then my friend you can do some part of it too.
Judge a book by its cover. And the first page. Don’t read a single review. Kill your impulse to look it over on Goodreads. Avoid the blurbs on the back (which tbh are often hilariously bad at convincing anyone to get anything). Think, if only for a moment, how the book feels in your hands…what it makes you think when you look at that cover — are you disgusted at how bad it is, are you enamored with the simplicity of it, do you want to tattoo the design on the back of your head — then open it just to the first page (of the actual story/writing) and read it. Is this a voice you want to spend some time with (even if you later abandon it)? Ask yourself, and find an answer.
Shannan! I absolutely adore the idea of asking a librarian to surprise you. What a fantastic idea.
When I was in high school and college (back before life got me, back when I liked reading), I would go to The Dollar Tree (everything is like $1) and would choose the most unhinged novels by their cover. I found some of my favorite books in that $1 isle.