Novelish

It might be reasonable to think that there are more efficient ways to find books than to look at another book - Amazon has a massive number of recommended reading lists created by its users, sites like LibraryThing have recommendation systems, and if your friends are anything like mine they’re always giving suggestions.

While all of that may be true, Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust was still really helpful. I jotted down around 65 titles without even realizing it. So, if you’re looking for something to read, I’d suggest borrowing it from the library. (I don’t see the point in buying a copy - there’s not much you can get out of it after you extract the titles you want.)

A few months ago, I wanted to find novels set in an academic setting, preferably British. I made several postings on internet forums and did hours of searching on online booksellers’ systems. I finally dug up several titles. Book Lust listed every novel I’d found on my own plus several I hadn’t (on page four,

Obviously, not everyone will find all of the book lists useful, but that doesn't really matter. I skipped over more than half of them and only read sections that caught my attention (which is why I'm not adding it to the Read in 2007 page) and I still found plenty of titles. And I think that’s probably how it’s meant to be read.

My one complaint would be that I grew somewhat tired of seeing the “Too good to miss” listings (of which there are 18 in all) throughout the book. These sections are about the work of one author that Nancy Pearl considers especially good - except I found them much less useful than everything else. Probably because they’re not as varied, so if I don’t happen to like the sound of one author’s work I’ve got to skip to the next part.

I’ll be reading More Book Lust (a continuation) and Book Crush (recommendations for children and teens) at some point. For now? I think getting started on some of the titles on my newly-expanded reading list might be smarter than working to lengthen it further.