Lately, I’ve been playing around and building a small web app just for fun—something to help me figure out what to read next without falling into the endless scroll of recommendation lists. The idea was simple: what if I could just look at my bookshelf and get suggestions based on what I already own?
It’s been a cool little side project, and some of the recommendations have been spot on, while others were unexpected in a good way.
So I’m curious—how do you decide what to read next? Do you go off mood, recommendations, or just pick at random? Also, what’s a book you picked up unexpectedly and ended up loving?
by heidenfuerst
9 Comments
I buy my books second hand and see if anything interesting is being sold in the moment I’m looking for something new
r/suggestmeabook always has interesting answers
At the moment I have made my own reading “challenge” or project. I call it *project 80/20*.
The project is simple. I want to have read 80% of by bookcase before I add to it. This includes physical books, ebooks and audiobooks. My hobby was not so much reading books in 2024 as it was buying books, and I realised if anyone were to ask for recommendations for the books I owned, too many times I would have to say “I do not know – yet!”
I cataloged all my books in a spreadsheet, cancelled all my book subscriptions and got to it.
I have already read more this year than last year I think it is because I contained my options. I just feel the vibe and pick what I wanted to read for some time – without excuses. It works for me, so I would highly recommend it.
I’m lucky to live where there are lots of books: four or five well-stocked thrift stores and three or four free neighbourhood libraries within a few miles’ radius.
I just forage and pick up whatever appeals to me. I’m not organized enough to draw up a plan and execute it.
For a few days, i search reddit very thoroughly. I make a list of them in Goodreads. Read their synopsis again and again. And finally pick one after back and forth.
Look at my long list of To Be Read. Set that aside. Walk right past the pile of books I own that I haven’t finished. Go to the library and pick a random book out by the picture on the cover.
I found Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala that way earlier this month and really enjoyed it. Sad, but good.
Usually I just go by my mood, or how much of a contrast I want with the book I’ve just finished (do I want more of the same or do I need a palate cleanser?). If I’m really stuck I use StoryGraph and apply filters to books I’ve marked as “owned”.
Randomly. Very randomly. Sometimes I discover an author whom I really enjoy, and that provides a few (at least) books on the reading list. Other times I want to reread so now thing I’ve read. There are cases when someone recommends something or I randomly stumble across a book that sounds interesting
A recommendation based on what you have, limits the expansion of your reading.
A generally ‘snowball’ on a subject untill i have the idea that i have a good grasp on the subject. Case in hand. I am now reading the Horde, Marie Favereau. And see their interaction with the crusader kingdoms. So that is next.
For the initial book i generally do a search ; subject + bibliography and then look further. I try to mix up subjects by asking fellow nerds to enlighten me.