How to find more books to read
As if our To Read piles weren't already overloaded
I am, as you might hope from a part-time writer, an eager reader. I don’t read as many books, or as fast, as I used to. The list on my phone of books I definitely want to read at some point is usually well over a year’s worth — it currently stands at 46 titles and unusually that includes 13 books I already own (2 I’m partway through). There is also a To Read shelf: 11 books, mainly from the Library of Mum and Dad but also 2 recent purchases and a gift, plus the book from a Dunfermline library book sale 22 years ago, that I really ought to admit I’m never going to read. It seems ridiculous then that I’d actively seek out more titles to add to it, and yet…
If you’re A Reader, as opposed to someone who might read a novel every summer holiday to unwind, it can become something of an addiction. You know the feeling when a book changes your life or your worldview, or fills you with magic. There’s always a chance that the next book you read, or the one after that, will be memorable and important. If you have niche interests1 you collect and devour anything on the topic, forever on the lookout for that extra nugget of insight, or that key piece of information most books on the subject overlook.
I thought I’d share some of the ways I stumble across books to add to the list or the shelf, in case that gives any of you eager readers a new place to go, and I hope you might do the same for me either in the comments or by replying to the email.
I used to get loads of recommendations from my dad, before he was a full-time carer for my mum with little time for reading. He would read a review or find a book in the library or at a charity shop, and let me know. Because titles can hang around on my To Read list for years, there is still one2 with a note saying my dad had heard it discussed on Simon Mayo’s Radio 2 book club and thought I might enjoy it. Obviously (most of) the rest of you don’t know my dad anyway, but the point is find someone who shares or knows your reading tastes and they will happily act as a book scout on your behalf. They might even pass on their copy when they’ve read it.
In the days when I visited them often, both the Library of Mum and Dad, and the Library of Big Brother, were excellent places to browse. An eclectic selection of old and new books, some out of print, and free to borrow. Much like a real library, except that if you borrow from a real library (in the UK at least) the author gets a small fee and thus you are supporting them. Befriend someone with well-stocked bookshelves, is the moral of this one.
Shockingly I haven’t been to my local library since February 2020 — a combination of getting out of the habit during lockdown, reading slower, and trying to read more of the books I own instead of them sitting on the shelf unthumbed for years. When I did nip in regularly, however, I’d often browse randomly. Sections I wouldn’t expect to select from like religion, or classic literature, have turned up books that intrigued me and I ended up enjoying. I’ve tried authors I expected to like, authors I’ve never heard of, books of short stories, non-fiction books I only wanted to read one chapter of. It’s basically risk-free3 shopping. There are often displays of recently-acquired books, books on a particular topic, and both the staff and fellow browsers can be good for a personal recommendation if you’re in a chatty mood.
Although I haven’t been to the library in ages, I have made extensive use of the BorrowBox app which Bradford libraries (among hundreds of others) are signed up to. This means I can borrow ebooks and audiobooks on my phone for free. It isn’t quite as easy to browse as a shelf of paperback spines but I have read a few random selections like Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal (Pride & Prejudice but set in modern Pakistan), Bunny by Mona Awad (darkly weird novel about cliques in an Ivy League creative writing course), and Virtual Strangers by Sam Canning which I reviewed last week. I can also try random audiobooks while I’m washing up4. You don’t get the personal recommendations but they do still have the equivalent of the ‘new in’ shelf and collections relating to something topical, like black history month.
Some people prefer to own books, I know. I don’t have room for all the books I read, and though I have occasional library-regret where I wish I’d bought a copy instead (Neuromancer) it mainly works out fine. However, the next best thing to a library is a secondhand bookshop or charity shop, or if you’re loaded and don’t mind the recent release bias, an actual high street bookshop. Waterstones tend to have handwritten recommendations from shop staff next to books they’ve recently enjoyed, and secondhand bookshops or charity bookshops are statistically likely to be staffed by book nerds; I volunteered in 2 Oxfam bookshops in my twenties. Again, browse randomly if you have the time. Buy the ones you don’t think you’ll see again in a hurry. And remember you can always make a note for later — I went to Waterstones in Leeds last week and noted a couple of books on the To Read list which I otherwise wouldn’t have come across5.
So far I’m probably only reminding you of places you already knew about. How about Slightly Foxed? It’s a quarterly magazine with articles that are more like book-related memoir or love letters to a favourite book, than plain old book reviews. I confess I’ve never read the magazine itself, only excerpts on the website or in the free newsletter. However, I have listened to many episodes of their podcast which usually focuses on a particular author or topic. The books they cover can be new or old, out of print — they reprint some themselves in collectable editions — well-known or obscure. It’s terribly genteel and one of the editors makes the (late) queen sound common but they seem nice enough and I have added books to the list after listening.
Backlisted is a podcast I think I first came across via the Slightly Foxed podcast. It proclaims itself to be ‘giving new life to old books’ and has been going for several years. Because none of the featured books were new releases, if you’re new to the podcast there’s a lot of episodes for you to dig into without worrying that you missed the boat. The older format saw the two presenters discuss books (some newly available) they’d been reading since the last podcast, as well as discussing the featured book with a guest, but more recently it’s the featured book only. I think there’s a paid-for version where they have the more wide-ranging book chat.
There have been some interesting episodes and I’ve read books after hearing about them on Backlisted, but I do have my reservations. Not to get too northern and chippy about it, but the presenters can’t half be patronising and snobbish sometimes. I think it was the author of Love on the Dole (Walter Greenwood) that they played a clip of and said something along the lines of ‘you wouldn’t believe he had an international reputation would you?’ presumably because he had a strong Salford accent. I also recall them recommending some recent novel (might have been a Benjamin Myers) with ‘not just of interest to northerners’.
To redress the balance I’ll mention New Writing North. As well as being of great benefit to writers in the north of England, they have a readers’ newsletter you can sign up to or browse online. This features new books by northern writers, and recommendations from New Writing North staff of books (including by non-northern authors!) they’ve recently read and enjoyed, which doesn’t have to mean recently written books. I think they tipped me off to The Stranger Times by CK McDonnell, a comic fantasy set in Manchester at a newspaper of supernatural goings on.
My newspaper of choice The Guardian’s books coverage has a What To Read section on the website but I’m also signed up to their weekly Bookmarks newsletter. That’s a roundup of book-related news and reviews from through the week, together with some mini-interview or something specific to the newsletter. I add a fair few books to the list from reading reviews in The Guardian — the Broken Earth trilogy by NK Jemisin and I’m Sorry You Feel That Way by Rebecca Wait are some of the relatively6 recent ones I’ve read. I’ve tried signing up to a couple of book review newsletters on Substack but I haven’t yet found one with enough of an overlap with my tastes.
The other main way I add to the list is from reading books by authors I like7. The Stranger Times was the start of a series, so book two went on the list when I finished book one. I’m enjoying Vaseem Khan’s Malabar House series of crime novels set in 1950s Bombay, so each time I hear he’s released a new one it goes on the list. Interestingly, I bought a couple of ebooks at Kobo last week and it gave me the usual ‘you may also like’ list and I actually bought one of them too! It was The Purgatory Poisoning by Rebecca Rogers, comic fantasy and a past CWIP winner (lest we forget, I was shortlisted for the CWIP short story prize last year), and did indeed seem like just the sort of thing I might like. Maybe the algorithms aren’t always useless.
Here’s what I’m currently reading and how I found them:
Lady Molly of Scotland Yard by Baroness Orczy (author of the Scarlet Pimpernel books), short stories from 1910 featuring a female detective. Bought from the local Oxfam bookshop with no prior knowledge of its existence
Music To Eat Cake By by Lev Parikian, essays on random topics from the entertaining writer of Six Things here on Substack. Bought direct from the author’s website after it had been on the To Read list for a couple of years. It got on the list after he tweeted about it.
Life and Tradition in the Yorkshire Dales by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby, a 1960s book about the centuries-old Dales traditions that were rapidly being lost as the pre-war generation died out after everything changed post-war. Bought from the local Oxfam bookshop after it had been on the To Read list for a few months. I can’t remember why it got written down but my dad has their equivalent volume on West Yorkshire so it could be simply from that
If you have some surefire ways to turn up good reading material, don’t forget to let me know. Or if you find any gems using these suggestions.
My To Read shelf holds 2 books about Swaledale, and a history of Gomersal that belonged to my great-great-grandad who knew the author
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
Unless you have a dodgy back and are trying to carry too many books home
Noise-cancelling wireless headphones may be the greatest invention since the printing press
Realistically likely to buy them at approximately the same time the UK achieves net zero, but you never know
Remember it can take me 2 or 3 years to buy or borrow a book on my list
Did I mention my friend Lee has a new comedy novel called Pleasantly Disturbed out at the start of July? I’m not on commission but I do expect a pint of decent ale to come my way when he’s next in Yorkshire.
I confess that I hardly need new ways to find books, but that has never stopped me, and these are jolly good. I will look forward to doing some more investigating! I particularly like the sound of the Vaseem Khan series. Thank you!