Writing Consultation

Have you ever gone to a bookstore and stood for a moment to appreciate the sheer number of books available to read? Searching for reading material might be a problem if you’re looking for your next book without a clear idea of what exactly you want to read. Sure, you could peruse the staff recommendations shelves or view Amazon.com’s “readers who bought this also bought…” section, but you wouldn’t be finding the books you want. Luckily there are several websites designed for the indecisive and/or ill-informed reader. Here are some of the most useful sites that will help you decide your next read.

Goodreads

Goodreads is a sort of social networking hub for avid readers (mostly readers of fiction). On your Goodreads profile you can rate the books you’ve read and write reviews for other users. If you’re looking for a new book you can check out users who have read the same books you‘ve read and see what they recommend. The website will also tell you if a book is featured on one of their lists that catalog the great books based on genre, year of publication, or author. All the books featured on Goodreads have links to Amazon where you can purchase them at bargain prices.

What should I read next?

WhatshouldIreadnext is a bare-bones book recommendation site. Simply type in a book that interests you and the site will list dozens of related works that you might find appealing. A website like this might be useful in a pinch. Say you’re chatting with a friend a online and they’re casting about for a book to read on an upcoming trip. Ask them what they’ve read lately, enter it at WhatshouldIreadnext, and recommend the first hit that shows up. Congratulations, you’ve become to go-to person for reading recommendations!

Literature Map

Literature Map is an author recommendation service fueled by feedback from its users. Type an author’s name into the search engine, and Literature Map will provide a graphic “map” of authors surrounding the search in the middle. The graphic forms a kind of web, with the most related authors occupying space closer to the author’s name that you entered, with the more tangentially related authors occupying the space on the edge of the web. Literature Map gives that perspective that all writers are in some way interconnected whether it’s through their subject matter, writing style, or period of writing.

Booklamp

Booklamp is an up and coming book recommendation website roughly modeled after the Pandora website aimed at recommending music based on the user’s initial interests. Enter the name of a book or author and Booklamp will not only pull up recommended reads; it will also list statistics that allow you to more readily differentiate between ostensibly similar books. The stats are broken down into criteria based on a book’s central themes. Categories include topics ranging from “Music Performance / Musical Pursuits” to “Partying / Deviance” to “Suburban Living / Neighborhoods.”

This guest post is contributed by Lauren Bailey, who regularly writes for best online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: blauren99 @gmail.com.