My favorite work question to get asked is “Can you help me find a good book?” I absolutely love this part of my job!
The libraryland term for what I do is called “reader’s advisory,” booksellers call it “handselling.” I just call it talking about books! I was a bookseller at a large chain store (it rhymes with Darns and Mobile). I also worked at a comic book store called Meltdown, and I spent time slinging books at Skylight Books in Los Feliz. Yes, I am a librarian that still dreams of someday having a tiny cramped bookstore or a bookmobile. I have had friends ask for “a good book recommendation” only to be sent a three-page list of books with descriptions and reasoning; I recently gave someone books for their birthday with individual notes inside of them. I am the librarian that gets “shushed” by the patrons when I get overly excited while talking up books to a teen. While I am admittedly, not always up on the “new hotness”, I will absolutely try to find you a great book with my philosophy that “any book you haven’t read is a new book.”
While we’ve been staying safer at home, I realized how much I miss doing this part of my job. Luckily, I have bookish family members and friends who will email, text, or put out social media calls for help. Connecting them with a great book is always a joy, but I also love to help people learn how to find books they will enjoy on their own. After all, librarians are just about the only professionals who are happy to teach you how to do our job!
So, I wanted to share a few, perhaps a slew, of my preferred library databases, lists, and awards that you can use to find your next favorite book or ten. I hope you enjoy them, and you don’t get too upset with me for blowing up your TBR list. And someday, when we’re all together again, maybe you’ll get to tell your librarian about a great book you think they might enjoy!
Happy Reading!
Novelist
If you’re looking for a good book, this database, available for free with your library card, is the place to go. It will guide you through different questions about genres and moods to find suggestions, and there are booklists galore. It can also give you read-alikes for books you have already enjoyed.
California Fiction Index
A fun place to search for literature set in, or about, California. Use keywords to find novels that take place in your neighborhood or your favorite city.
LAPL Reads
A peek at what our librarians are reading and lists of books that are created and updated by our staff.
LAPL Teen Web’s New and Recommended Page
Found on our TeenWeb, these genre book lists and award-winning books are sure to spark interest.
The resources under “Book Lists” have been created by our library staff and usually have a theme to the list, or are the "Best Of" books we’ve chosen. The “Award Books” are from the American Library Association’s (ALA) Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). The award-winning books are chosen by a panel of librarians and there are strict guidelines governing what books are eligible and the criteria for selection. A couple of these awards may also be of particular interest to adult readers.
- The Printz Award: “Given to Young Adult novels that “exemplify literary excellence.” If you’re a fan of Literary Fiction, this might be a place to look for unique novels that don’t always make it into mainstream discussions. Some notable winners that you may already know are Looking for Alaska by John Green, March by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, and honor book The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas.
- The Alex Award: Awarded to Adult books with Young Adult appeal. It’s a great place to find plot-driven stories. Way back when there were no “Young Adult” books. There were kids' books and books. Once you were finished with Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, and C.S. Lewis, a middle school, or even a particularly precocious elementary school reader would start to drift into the grown-up book section. We found Stephen King, romance novels and science fiction, and fantasy tomes. Now, you can look through the books that have received this award and find stories to fall into.
Resources for Readers
A hub for websites about book awards, book lists, review sites, and our literature databases. I want to highlight one of these links in particular that I use almost every single day not only in my work but as a reader myself.
Websites that are not listed on our Resources for Readers page (yet?). Most bookish websites have more than just reviews; blogs, podcasts, and book clubs abound. These are places to find your people.
- Goodreads.com is a crossroads for reading and social media. Great for keeping track of books you’ve read and books you want to read, you can also connect with friends and authors and see what they have on their nightstand. Goodreads also has book lists created by and voted on by users, virtual book clubs, and a fantastic, searchable collection of literary quotes. You can also find read-alikes by looking at other books that people who have read a certain book have rated highly. Use this website to search for series and check the order of the books and to see when the next book by an author is expected.
- Book Riot: Booklists, book reviews, and articles about reading and bibliophilia. They also have brilliantly entertaining podcasts that cover genre fiction, new fiction, and non-fiction. Anything you explore on this site is pretty much guaranteed to blow up your TBR (To Be Read) list!
- Smart Bitches Trashy Books: A smart, sassy (and perhaps slightly swear-y) website dedicated to all things Romance. This community of readers and reviewers have (mostly) moved beyond those classic Harlequin novels and can give you recommendations for new authors and books for every level of sauciness and for readers of all ages.
- Forever Young Adult: “For YA readers who are a little less Y and a bit more A” Reviews and articles about young adult media geared towards those of us who aren’t as young and are now just considered adults. The site has even helped to create book clubs all over the country.
- The Lesbrary: “a book blog about bi and lesbian books, with occasional coverage of other identities…” The lesbrarian’s reviews and book lists span across genres and ages. They also invite you to submit your own reviews or interviews to the site and they keep a list of Sapphic and Queer lit blogs.
After all this you may wonder what I’m currently reading I will say, in these bizarre times I don’t know anyone whose reading habits haven’t been affected and changed in one way or another. When I find myself in uncertain or stressful times I tend to re-read books. Here are some that I’ve been revisiting and some that are new (to me) books.
Revisiting Books
Yes, I’m going to recommend a zombie apocalypse book. But this one, in particular, is unique in my opinion because it has come after the running and the screaming. This is the post-zombie world where people have adapted and where bloggers and online journalists were the first to notice the disease. Now, we join a group of journalists embedded in a presidential campaign. They are looking at the future, but the past looms as they begin to discover that the origin of the pandemic may not be as mysterious as they thought. Surprisingly comforting and humorous I enjoyed reading this series and also listening to the audiobooks. Don’t miss the novellas!
Written as a documentary/oral history you’ll get unique insights into how a zombie apocalypse, or any pandemic, could affect the world from military, societal and human perspectives. Surprisingly thought-provoking and the audiobook is particularly amazing not only because the text is so well suited to an aural format but also because the list of narrators includes people like Carl and Rob Reiner, Henry Rollins and Mark Hamill.
Reading for the First Time
When you are the only one who believes that your best friend has been murdered, and you were novice witches, there’s clearly only one thing you can do...Use a mysterious spell to bring her back and find her killer. And if you happen to accidentally bring back two mean girls who also recently died in slightly mysterious circumstances? Well, that’s awkward…
When Mary Jekyll (daughter of the infamous Doctor) meets Diana Hyde, Beatrice Rappaccini, Catherin Moreau, and Justine Frankenstein the ladies join forces to take down a secret society of mad scientists. Cool fictional women running around Victorian London, hopefully wearing amazing dresses, and quashing evildoers? Yes, please!
The combination of staying safer at home and the change of season to autumn, also known as Cozy-Times in my household, means I’m looking for nesting inspiration. These three interior design and lifestyle books have beautiful pictures and projects that I hope to use as a jumping-off point for decorating my home, cooking tasty treats, and finding projects to try.
