Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Update from Mexico + Finding Books to Read

Hey guys! So... I'm back from my brief hiatus! I'm currently in Mexico where I'll be working 'til the end of August. I don't know if I had mentioned this, but I'm working with sea turtles and let me tell you, it's so freaking awesome! If you ever get the chance to go see sea turtles nesting or a hatchling release, DO IT! They're so cute and I'll definitely make you appreciate these creatures more.

Anyway, today I was supposed to post a book review but I've been super busy and getting used to my new schedule (I work from 8pm to 4-5am and sleep during the day) so I didn't have time to finish a book or write a review, so I'll leave you with this short post about how I find books to read. Hopefully, I'll get used to the change in schedule soon and post more often because I definitely have a few things I want to post about while I'm here!


I don't know about you but I usually had a hard time when choosing what books to read next, that is until I found Goodreads. I mean, how to you usually find out about books? The New York Times bestsellers list? Recommendations from friends and family? Books advertised at your local bookstore or library?

I think those are all pretty good options but I feel that the NYT list, bookstores and libraries advertise mainly new books. So what about older books? Then, some people only tend to read a certain genre, so when you ask them for recommendations they might only recommend from that specific genre, which might not be what you're interested in. For example, if I were to ask my dad for a book recommendation, he would probably recommend a book about politics, crime or the military but if I were to ask my sister, she would most likely recommend a historical fiction or a biography book. So what do you do then?

Well, this is where Goodreads comes in. Now, I'm not saying you always get good recommendations from Goodreads because I've definitely read some books I found out about through that website that were not that great. I think that the best way to find out about books through here is to join a book club. I joined a book club on Goodreads, called College Students! And although I'm no longer a college student I definitely feel like I can relate to the people in this club because mostly every one is in their late teens or twenties, in college, recent grads or grad school but most importantly, they all love reading. I'm really glad I joined this book club because they come up with a Reading Challenge about every 6-7 months, where they include a list of tasks and a description for that specific task. For example, one of the tasks is called "Blind Date" and the description says: Go to the library and pick a book from the shelves at random. Without reading the summary or anything from the book, check it out from the library and then cozy up with your "blind date" at home. Being in that book club just really motivates me to read and encourages me to read books I had never even considered reading before such as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Book Thief (which by the way is AMAZING!!), Thoughtless, Perks of Being a Wallflower and so on.

How do you find out about books and choose what books to read? Also, if you have any recommendations feel free to leave a comment!
 

1 comment:

  1. we loev simply browising the shelves of book stores or even our local library with really no idea what we want to read. we usually read the blurbs of a few and just pick out some that sound interesting. we must admit that this has lead to some dud choices though...but we've always discovered some books we would have not otherwise picked up!

    www.mkstyleramblings.blogspot.com.au

    ReplyDelete