Venturing Outside Your Comfort Genre

Every so often there comes a time when you feel like you have read all of the books that truly interest you within your favorite subgenre. And then you get this sort of "Well what now?" mentality. In general, people go through phases where they only want to read one specific subgenre, like only Paranormal Romantic Comedies, but once you have exhausted that subgenre it still might seem difficult to venture out. Another scenario would be if you just started to read for leisure and you are nervous to venture out from your starting point. There are literally millions of titles out there, but where do you start?



There is always the old standby of browsing the bookstore. It really works for some people; however I have never been able to "browse" the bookstore. It is so overwhelming to me just wonder through stacks and stacks of books (essentially judging each one by it’s cover – which is whole other post entirely), and I have three small children that make it pretty much impossible to browse any store let alone bookstores.


Well a good place to start is to ask your friends and family what they are reading. This might be hard, if you and all your friends generally read the same books (like me and my friends) but you never know. You can specifically ask people what their favorite all-time books are, and you are sure to find a couple of winners.


Another good place to look is within the books that you already have. Most books will have some sort of review comments proclaiming how wonderful the book and/or author are. And a good amount of these quotes come from other authors. If you have never read a book by that author, give them a go. To take this idea a step further you can also go to some of your favorite authors’ websites (most all have one, or at least a blurb on their publishers website) and check for a few things. What are they reading right now? Who influenced them? And who are their favorite authors.


Many of the larger book retailers have matching services on their websites. This is that little box to the side of book description that says “If you like this book, you may like these others” or “Other people who selected this book, also searched these”. You will be surprised what you find in these little automated boxes.


And last but certainly not least, you can jog through the blogosphere and see what other people are reading.


What are you tips? How do you go about finding new books and authors?