Amazon reviews. I’ve bought or borrowed from the library books I’ve seen praised on this forum. I also get a monthly review of books from two bookstores I frequent. One of them sells only science fiction and fantasy, so I can buy all the SF books I want without falling into the trap of buying fantasy, a genre I don’t enjoy reading at all.
You are absolutely right. Sorry if I was confusing. Readers’ mouths are what matters. It’s getting those readers in the first case which is hard for all but the well known authors.
With a ruler. And I’m not kidding.
I have different standards for different types of material - I like one thing in novels, another in history, another in biographies, etc. But what always remains, the final judge of whether I will pay for a book, is how thick it is.
Too thin, or too many pictures, and I won’t buy it unless absolutely necessary. The more pages, the more words, the more likely it is that I will buy it.
It’s that simple.
I rarely, if ever, read fiction (if I do it’s probably Stirling), so I usually walk to the history section and to go what era I currently want to study. Then I browse titles that catch my eye. Book jackets and prefaces are read, then I decide.
I keep a running list of recommendations from friends, ideas from our monthy “Whatcha Reading?” threads, things seen while browsing bookstores or Amazon, classics or ‘big-name authors’ I haven’t read yet, etc etc. It’s always nice to find an awesome author with a decent back-catalog, like Iain Banks, Arturo Perez-Reverte or Jim Crace, that can get me going for a while.
I’ll browse the history or literary travel sections for random books, but I don’t tend to spontaneously pick up unknown fiction or sci-fi authors.
I lurk forums. If people are talking about a book and their discussion seems interesting even when i haven’t a clue what they are talking about then there’s a very good chance i’ll enjoy the book.
I’ve read that a lot of publishers talk their authors into increasing the length of a book because of how many people think this way.
I read mostly science fiction. I go to the SF section and start at A and go to Z. I look for any authors I like and see if they have anything new. If something catches my eye I’ll try a new author. I then go to other parts of the store but generally only look for specific authors.
Mostly I pick them up, read the cover blurb and if it seems interesting I randomly read a few pages here and there. If I like the writing I get it.
I buy all my books at Goodwill, so I work almost exclusively by the cover and memory of authors I have liked before.
I have several ways. I go to Borders and see what’s new. I shop by genre. I go to Amazon and see what is recommended based on my past history. I hang out at the monthly Whatcha Reading thread and see what other dopers are recommending.
First I go by author. A friend turned me on to Terry Pratchett, so I read all of his books. After reading Good Omens (co-authored between Pratchett and Neil Gaiman) I begain reading everything by Neil Gaiman I could find.
If I can’t find anything by those two I haven’t read, I generally ask friends for advice on authors/books they may have liked. This is how I came across a few of the works of Richard Dawkins and Steven Hawking, which were quite good.
Another deal-maker is post-apocalyptic fiction if done well. World War Z was quite good, and I am eyeballing the *Dies the Fire *series for my next book purchase.
I prefer to buy my books new and I read very fast. Given that, if I’m shelling out $27.99 for a new novel (or $10 for the paperback) the damn thing better be 800 pages in size 6 font, nothing but blocks of text.
It irritates me buying a book only to be done with it the next day. I’ll possibly re-read it, but still: $25 ought to last longer.
Like others in here, I’ll often go by author, but it’s another of my weird book fetishes - I won’t read two books in a row by the same author. I just found I got too saturated in one person’s style reading two or more in a row.
The ‘reading the works of author x in order’ came about after reading one two many series and discovering that the solution to number 4 was mentioned in number 8, or knowing that Detective Plodshoe’s daughter was going to survive the accident in episod 3 because she’s in a wheelchair in episode 5. It’s not confined to pulp fiction; even some truly great authors have done things like that.
And here seems like as good a place as any to mention a Penguin edition of a book I shall not mention by name, where the cover painting of the second volume was ‘The Death of character X’. The book in question had an episode early on where character X was left on the battlefield and we were supposed to think he had died - other than the fact that the painting on the second volume gave that game away. AAAUUGH!
I use a couple different methods. When I’m browsing in a bookstore, I usually stick to books by authors I’ve already read before and liked. If not that, I’ll pick a book that’s been highly recommended to me or is on sale.
For a new author, I usually try to find reviews of it on the internet or find a friend who has read it before.
I, too, judge a book by its cover. If the title is clever, that piques my interest also. I will then read the first page and look at the blurbs. If I’m still interested, I will then go the library to get it.
I watch a lot of CSPAN’s Book TV on weekends. If an author sells his book well there, I will usually be interested.
I usually just ask Harold Bloom.
Lately I’ve been selecting by author–someone I’ve always meant to read but haven’t or an author whose previous works I’ve liked. I also skim through my friend’s books on Goodreads and see what they’ve read that looks interesting. NPR also has some good recommendations, but I’ve learned to take them with a small shaker of salt after the great Cloud Atlas disappointment.
Then there’s the “I still have credit at the used bookstore and I’ve found all the stuff I know I like” scenario. I pick a shelf at random in the fantasy/sci-fi section and skim until I find something that looks interesting. That’s how I found out about J.V. Jones.
Have you read any Ken Follet? He’s written some beasts. I was turned onto him by my father-in-law who feels exactly the same way as you about books.
It depends on what I’m after - if I want something light & stupid, I go straight to Pratchett, SD Perry or Laurell K Hamilton (it’s like Salad Dressing. Bad for my teeth, but I can’t stop myself).
If I want something more meaty, I’ll hit up the shelves of Richard Morgan or Alastair Reynolds to see if they’ve got anything new out. Otherwise I then trawl the shelves looking for books that are a) Big and b) Interest me with their blurbs/ a random paragraph.
I have been known to buy books because they’re shiny. I got Chasm City and Altered Carbon because they had that kind of “holographic” cover on them. Morgan and Reynolds are now my two favourite authors. I also bought “Deathstalker” because of the shiny cover. That… Not so good. But still enjoyable in a cheesy way. So I guess you could count that as 3 out of 3.
This is exactly how I use Amazon wishlists, and why I love them. My library list is a zillion pages long, and I am actually nerdy enough that I keep a notebook in my purse with the call numbers of the books that I want, so that I don’t forget when I’m actually at the library (otherwise I tend to go off a bit wonky and just start gathering things at random until my arms fall off, and the librarians look at me askance for cluttering up their stacks).