How do you find things to read?

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How do you find things to read?

Postby gsbod » Mon Oct 11, 2021 5:19 pm

Following on from the discussion around rdearman's hunt for French book recommendations, the more general question occured to me about how to find out about things to read in your target languages in general.

Reading preferences are of course an incredibly personal thing, and yet I'm now pretty well set up in both my native English and in my best second language German to find out about books that I might want to read - and I'd be interested to learn about how the readers on this forum do the same for their own languages (either as a native speaker or learner).

Starting with my native English, I generally read things that typically get filed under "literary fiction", although within that my tastes are as idiosyncratic as anyone else's. My main sources of inspiration are:

Book displays in bookshops
The Books section on the Guardian website
The TLS podcast
Shortlists for literary prizes (often I find the runners up more interesting than the actual winners) like the Booker Prize or the Women's Prize for Fiction

When it comes to German, in addition to reading the kinds of things I like to read in English, I also rather enjoy crime fiction. My inspiration comes mainly from the following:

Book displays in bookshops (it's been 2 years since I last made it to a proper German bookshop, although occasionally interesting things turn up secondhand in a local charity shop here)
The Lesart podcast from Deutschlandfunk Kultur
The monthly Krimibestenliste from Deutschlandfunk Kultur
The winners of the Deutscher Krimipreis
The catalogue for the specialist publisher Ariadne for Krimis
Shortlists and longlists for the Deutscher Buchpreis
Books that have been adapted for film or TV (even if in most cases I don't end up watching the film/TV show)

In the past I've also paid attention to things like bestseller lists (e.g. Der Spiegel's bestseller lists for German, or Amazon's bestseller lists for books in all kinds of languages) but I've found that there's generally not a huge overlap between things that are selling well at any given moment and things that I might actually want to read right now.
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Re: How do you find things to read?

Postby einzelne » Mon Oct 11, 2021 5:53 pm

If it's not about fiction, then it's mainly my interests that guide me. I read books on a particular topic, discover that there are interesting books on this topic written in a language I don't know yet, then, if the list of such books becomes quite big, I start to learn this language.

So, I've never had a problem with finding the books to read. The question has always been: how do I find time to learn this language and read all these books???
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Re: How do you find things to read?

Postby RyanSmallwood » Mon Oct 11, 2021 6:09 pm

I don’t think I have a single go-to source but for a new area of literature or any media I usually try to find someone (be they a professional reviewer or someone who just suggests stuff on social media platforms dedicated to books or other media). I may start with what is popular and once I get an idea of what I like or don’t like and find someone with similar interests, or sometimes from their writing style I can tell if they look for similar qualities as me.

For going more in depth I find histories of literature can be helpful, although typically more for older books. This also add another element of enjoyment for me because even if I wouldn’t normally enjoy a book on its own, it can still be interesting to see how a certain genre or era changes over time. There can sometimes be an issue of histories staying more canonical and ignoring certain kinds of media, but I think it’s becoming more common for some histories to re-think old prejudices, and to take all kinds of media more seriously and look further than the usual recommendations. So if I get lucky and find the right type of history it can really open up some fascinating areas to explore, but sometimes it’s trickier to find one for all areas of potential interest. Sometimes fans who’ve been following more contemporary genres for a while can write thoughts about recent developments in different places, so just try to keep digging and looking for the interesting discussions from anyone who loves books and media and likes to think about them.
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Re: How do you find things to read?

Postby iguanamon » Mon Oct 11, 2021 6:19 pm

Three of my languages have sufficient choice for reading- Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan. The others, I have to take what I can get.

Like most people, there are genres of fiction that appeal to me. I like fiction- novels and short stories. I read newspapers, or rather, their modern equivalents. A good newspaper will also cover culture, and culture includes books.

The New York Times has a list of upcoming translated books every year. If a book description interests me and it was originally written in one of my L2s, then I'll search for the book and the author to see if they have other books that may interest me. I'll also check to see if the books from other languages have been translated to my L2's.

There are also google searches, best done in the L2, with variations- search by genre; search by popularity; search by genre and popularity over certain time periods; search by country with the other variables.

One of my best sources is Twitter. It takes a while to curate a good twitter feed in L2(s), but once it is done, the books will come to you. Following L2 booktubers, authors, poets, newspaper book sections; book reviewers, is a good place to start.

Goodreads can be quite useful for reviews and algorithmic tips. Also, wikipedia helps. If I like an author, I can search them in wikipedia and see a list of all their books. I can also search a country's (or language) literary output by decade- which can give me books to search.

Pre-internet, back when people read actual books, they would go into a bookstore and look in genre sections. They'd pull books from the shelves, read the book flaps and back covers and maybe read a few pages of the book itself before buying it. Many internet bookstores will either allow the back cover to be read, have an extended "blurb" about the book, or will allow part of the first chapter to be previewed as a pdf. All of which are helpful. Some publishers/fans have "booktrailers" on youtube. I will probably read this book soon.


Here the author, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, reads the first couple of pages:


I discovered Pérez-Reverte a long time ago browsing in an actual bookstore in the US with a Spanish language section. I liked the cover, checked out the flaps and back cover and bought the book- "La reina del sur". It hooked me from the start and I couldn't put it down. I don't like all of his books, but some of them I find irresistible. I follow him on Twitter, and his publisher too.

Booktuber Pam Gonçalves (Brasil)


Myself, I find searching in L2 usually gives me more information, then the other tools help narrow my choice. Of course, one's language skills must be sufficient to search in L2 and understand the results... but then again, if a learner can't do this, then it follows that reading won't be of much use anyway.

Another option is to start with translations of books which you may already be familiar and like, or the genre. Sometimes, the translators themselves are also authors and they may have written books in their L1 you may like. Don't discount translated novels (in most languages). These are books that L2 readers read and have read themselves. They won't provide anywhere near as much L2 cultural information as an L2 original will, butthey will help to acquire vocabulary, idioms and can ease the transition to L2 original writers. Some may think translations into L2 are easier to read, but this is often times not the case, believe me.

When beginning to read, I like to stay with something which I am familiar and/or can be used to make a parallel text- "Alice in Wonderland"; "Robinson Crusoe"; "Gulliver's Travels"; "Genesis- The Bible". Once I can read well enough not to have to rely upon L1 text or familiarity, then I can branch out more widely. One of the first books I read in Catalan original was "El zoo d'en Pitus" which I found by searching in an age range of 9-12 years old. Then I researched it. So seek ( in L2) and you shall find, hopefully. Though some people are never satisfied no matter what they find. Caveat Emptor.

(For Spanish try the lists and descriptions on America Reads Spanish.org- Essential Guide to Spanish Reading 2020 to start.) Unfortunately, there is no equivalent for Portuguese or Catalan.
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Re: How do you find things to read?

Postby daegga » Mon Oct 11, 2021 7:04 pm

I don't methodically search, so just some examples
  • inspired by the TV series / movie based on the book (LotR, GoT, The Expanse, En man som heter Ove... or even Kurt Tucholskys Schloß Gripsholm)
  • people I know praised it (Patrick O'Brian)
  • first book of a series was free and I liked it (Honorverse)
  • I read other works written by the same author before (lately a lot of David Weber)
  • internet search for recommendations for my language level
  • genre search reveals only 1-2 authors for my target language
  • literature canon
  • well-known author
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Re: How do you find things to read?

Postby Le Baron » Mon Oct 11, 2021 7:18 pm

Recommendations are difficult. When someone raves to you about a book you can either read it and think 'yes, you're right' or read it and think 'did we read the same book?' But it's worth giving recommendations a try at least, because how can you know until you try it?

I very rarely read books that are currently in best-seller lists now, but I've read a few. I read Zadie Smith's White Teeth when it was published and I'm glad I did so. Often I'll come to them at a much later date when I find them in second-hand shops.

Like iguanamon I do take some recommendations from L2 book youtubers and some on Twitter. However it's mostly browsing and trial and error, which is perhaps not the most efficient way, but it's pleasant; especially in a paper bookshop environment.
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Re: How do you find things to read?

Postby AllSubNoDub » Mon Oct 11, 2021 8:05 pm

Mortimer J. Adler's list of Great Books should keep most people busy for a while. I don't think reading them in translation is a bad thing, especially if the languages are closely related (and some of them you'll have to read in translation anyway, so why not two birds).

His book How to Read a Book is one of the most valuable books I've ever read in my life. You'll find tons of "gurus" and "experts" blatantly repackage these ideas as their own and give him no credit. Not only does it teach you how to read and digest Great Books, or otherwise required reading for whatever purpose, it teaches you how to quickly evaluate any book to see if it's worth reading at all.
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Re: How do you find things to read?

Postby DaveAgain » Mon Oct 11, 2021 10:46 pm

In the recent past I've read books mentioned on this forum, in YouTube videos, books mentioned in other books, radio/TV programmes, and suggestions from website algorithms (people who read that, also read this etc).

When I see a book mentioned that I think I might like to read, I either add it to a wishlist, that I can consult when thinking about what book to buy, or if it's out of copyright I download a copy onto my eReader.

If I never hear of another book, I'll still have far more past recommendations to consider than I can ever read.
Last edited by DaveAgain on Tue Oct 12, 2021 3:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How do you find things to read?

Postby Le Baron » Mon Oct 11, 2021 11:21 pm

AllSubNoDub wrote:His book How to Read a Book is one of the most valuable books I've ever read in my life. You'll find tons of "gurus" and "experts" blatantly repackage these ideas as their own and give him no credit. Not only does it teach you how to read and digest Great Books, or otherwise required reading for whatever purpose, it teaches you how to quickly evaluate any book to see if it's worth reading at all.

Excellent. I can't say I'd ever heard of that book! It looks so promising I want to read it. I followed the link to Wikipedia. The reading list is as I expected. I've actually read quite a few on there: Plato's dialogues (everything except The Laws), Capital, Sophocles' Tragedies, Augustine's Confessions, Descartes; quite a lot of Cicero and Ovid at school and I still have my old copies of the Loeb Classical Library editions! Then Machiavelli, Adam Smith, Hume's Treatise/Enquiries, Locke, Leviathan, Rousseau's treatises, State & Revolution, the Leibniz he lists, Kant's Prolegomena.... A lot of Nietzsche, Russell.. I'll list no more for fear of looking like a knob.

Many more of them, some of them in L2 languages. I don't know if I could really learn enough languages (or to a solid enough level) to really do justice to a proper reading of all the world's great books. Or that using them as a tool for learning would be the best way of absorbing their content, when reading translations would speed things up so considerably. For instance it took me about 2-3 years to read through Plato's dialogues on and off and four years to properly read through all three volumes of Das Kapital. It took me six solid months to read through Keynes's General Theory and that was written in English!

I don't have time left on earth for that giant list plus learning how to read any of them in the original languages!
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Re: How do you find things to read?

Postby iguanamon » Tue Oct 12, 2021 12:28 am

AllSubNoDub wrote:Mortimer J. Adler's list of Great Books...His book How to Read a Book is one of the most valuable books I've ever read in my life. ...

Thanks ASND, it's nice to see both of these books referenced! I have read both of these books, many years ago. It's good to see them mentioned here. They have served me quite well over the years. "How to Read a Book" ought to be required reading. It is that useful. The list of great books came from a time over 50 years ago when diversity wasn't a given. The list was considered to offer those who hadn't had the opportunity to pursue a liberal arts education to be able to gain the knowledge of such an education on their own time, at their own pace. Clifton Fadiman came up with a similar list in his book "The Lifetime Reading Plan". The word "lifetime" being the optimal word, because that's what it would take to complete it- a lifetime. So, an early start is helpful.

As time has passed, there has been criticism of the reading lists from the 1960's for lack of diversity and Western focus. There are any number of updated reading lists available online now, such as The New Lifetime Reading Plan which has a somewhat broader diversity.

I didn't grow up with a family with intellectual tradition. My people scraped by as subsistence farmers for over 350 years in America. I was the first in my family to go to university. I had a state school education and graduated from high school with 80 students. I was fortunate to have a good high school English teacher who taught us etymology for ten minutes a day and exposed us to some of those books on Adler's and Fadiman's lists. For example, we read and performed Moliere's Tartuffe which would not be expected in a small, Southern Baptist town. Besides teaching us with great literature, our teacher taught us how to read critically. Later, when I left for university, I discovered these books in a used book store off campus and bought them. I look back and consider myself blessed that I had such an amazing opportunity to learn that I could teach myself (not just languages... but a lot of other things) in my little backwoods southern town- all because I learned how to learn and how to read a book.

Edit: Thanks to Iron Mike for pointing out to me The Untranslated Blog. There are many gems of untranslated books to be discovered within, and if you can't read the language... well...
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