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Looking for something good to read?

NoveList Plus: Your Guide to Fiction & Non-Fiction
Assists fiction readers in finding new authors and titles; contains materials for all ages with subject access to over 100,000 fiction and non-fiction titles, updated quarterly, as well as full-text reviews, annotations and summaries. Use NoveList Plus in the library or at home (Fort Worth Library card required)

Dear Reader Use in the library | Use at home (Fort Worth Library card required)
Sign up for online bookclubs reading fiction, horror, mysteries, romance, sci fi, business, general nonfiction, and others genres. Every day Dear Reader will e-mail you a 5-minute sample. By the end of the week you"ll have read 2 to 3 chapters. If you"re hooked, we probably have it at the library.

NextReads Newsletters
Are you looking for a few good books to read? Sign up for our e-newsletters and get great book suggestions by email. We'll deliver reading lists right to your inbox along with new gems, bestsellers, and related titles. Select from fiction, horror, mysteries, romance, sci fi, business, general nonfiction, and other genres.

What Fort Worth's Reading

Most Checked Out Titles at Fort Worth Library
See what others have been checking out from the library.

Library Staff Recommendations
Selections from Library staff members.

Feast on Books
Fort Worth Library's blog, where our librarians and other staff share stories and recommendations.

What America's Reading

New York Times Best Sellers
Includes best sellers in hardback and paperback, in fiction, non-fiction, advice, and children's.

USA Today Best Sellers
A weekly list of the top 150 best selling titles. The list is unique in that it includes a mix of adult and children's fiction, non-fiction, hardbacks, and paperbacks.

Publishers Weekly Bestseller Lists
Best seller lists and other book news from the bookselling industry's trade magazine

Essence Bestsellers
The Essence Best Sellers list is based on reports of retail sales. Respondents are African-American bookstores and include stores in NYC, Detroit, Alabama, Nashville, Dallas, Houston, and California.

Christian Bookstores Association Best-Seller Lists
The Christian Marketplace best-seller and category top-seller lists are compiled from actual sales in Christian stores. Includes lists for Christian living, fiction, music, videos, and children's titles

Web Sites for Book Lovers

BookWire
"The Internet resource dedicated to new titles, new authors, and the general scoop on the book industry." Themed book lists, publishers' home pages, author interviews and biographies, publishing statistics, and much more.

BookPage.com
A monthly general interest book review featuring the best in new releases. Author interviews, reviews, and topical reading suggestions. Includes picks for audio books and children's books.

Book Reporter
Celebrating their 10th year connecting readers with books and each other, the Book Report Network offers reviews, author profiles, and features to help you find your next great read. Whether you're just looking for something good, want to write about a book that disappointed you, or want to tell the world about a book you couldn't put down, bookreporter.com helps you discover and discuss good books.

Interact
An online library community powered by Ingram Library Services. Interact gives you free and direct access to Ingram's collection development librarians, product buyers as well as interviews with today's authors.

PublishersWeekly.com
Keep up with what's going on in the book publishing world. Industry news, publishing trends, interviews with authors, reviews, and more.

Webrary at Morton Grove (IL) Public Library
Created by librarians in Illinois, the Webrary contains links to numerous Web sites for bibliophiles and extensive bibliographies and pathfinders. Bibliographies will list books with short anotations while the pathfinders will include books, Web sites, associations, all on a particular subject. Pathfinders are designed to go one step further than just giving a book list.

African American Literature Book Club
This impressive site is overflowing with great information. There are tons of reviews, information about authors, dicussion boards, and more. Recently profiled authors include Mary B. Morrison, Jacqueline Woodson, and Queen Latifah.

Black Book Network
Calling themselves the "Cyber Meeting Place for Book Lovers," the BBN spotlights books published by and for people of African heritage. You can find reviews, recommendations and book industry news here.

Black Voices African-American Books
Read reviews, excerpts, and new; listen to interviews and other podcasts. Right now their podcast archive has interviews with The Pursuit of Happyness author Chris Gardner and the Queen of Street Lit Nikki Turner.

Who Reads What?
Every year since 1988 the Gardiner Public Library in Gardiner, Maine has asked different "noteworthy people" to recommend their favorite books. Notables from past years include Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Oprah Winfrey, George Bush, Bill Gates, Bo Jackson, Yo Yo Ma, Barbara Jordan, Bill Mumy, and Cher. You might be surprised at Gregg Allman's recommendation.

Suggestion Generators

Of course, the best way to find something good to read is to talk about with other book lovers. But if no one's around, try one of these online tools. Put in some information about your reading tastes and they give you some titles you might enjoy.

whichbook.net
Uses a sliding scales to generate recommended book titles. A British site, and the recommended titles reflect it.

Reader' s Robot
By genre, make selections about length, setting, writing style, characters, and other factors. There is a limited but growing number of titles in the database, but this is an interesting approach to making you think about why some books appeal to you and others don't.

StoryCode.com
Another British site, this one has you use sliding scales to code books you've read by genre, characters, plot, setting, atmosphere, reading effort, etc. Based on the assumption that most readers enjoy a variety of books, and depending on the wisdom of the group to help ensure a close match, this site generates suggestions based on appeal factors rather than simple genre author read-alikes. Try it--the results are interesting.

Just Google It!
When all else fails, Google if you like [author] try and you'll get lists of read-alikes developed by libraries around the country.

Book Clubs and Book Discussion Groups

Fort Worth Library Book Discussion Groups
We have a number of lively book discussion groups that meet regularly at our branches. There's one near you!

Mosaic Books Directory of Book Clubs
This directory contains book clubs with a specific interest in African American literature. Many are in the DFW area, contact information is provided along with a little information about the various clubs.

Online Clubs

Catalina Magazine Book Club
The first cyber book club featuring Latina authors. Some recent picks include Across a Hundred Mountains, Sex and the South Beach Chicas, and The Finishing School.

OOSA On-Line Book Club
The Only One keyStroke Away book club focuses on African American literature. They conduct on-line chats that sometimes include the author for the book they are discussing. The site also includes lots of reviews for titles from smaller presses and self-published titles.

Yahoo Reading Groups
Yahoo has over 2,100 reading groups. Some are general interest, but many specialize in authors, genres, and themes. There's something for just about every interest. Here are a few of the largest general-interest groups.

bookgrouplist
Begun in 1996, this Yahoo discussion group has members from around the world. Members select the titles, and begin discussing a new book every 2 weeks.

Literary Fiction Lovers
The name says it all. The 800+ members read 2 book contemporary fiction titles a month.

Bookworms Reading Group
Over 2,500 members read one popular fiction title per month.

Starting a Book Club

ReadingGroupGuides.com
Affiliated with Book Reporter.com, this site provides reading recommendations, discussion questions, and general advice on starting and running a reading group.

Book-Clubs-Resource.com
Advice on starting and running book clubs, plus a directory of general-interest and special-interest online clubs.

Lists and More Lists

Award Winners
Who won the Pulitzer last year? What is the Man Booker Prize? Find the answers at these Web sites.

Best Books List
Everybody from Time Magazine and Metacritic to Library Journal puts together lists of the "best" books. Check out these lists and see how many of them you have read.

A Book For Every Mood and Taste
Literally! There are lists for mysteries, westerns, chick lit, urban lit, Christian fiction, African-American, Latina/Latino and so much more.

Nancy Pearl's Picks

Nancy's Picks | Pearl's Picks Archives

When you need help picking something to read, turn to a professional! You've heard her on NPR, you've seen her books, Book Lust and More Book Lust, at the library and book stores, you can watch her monthly book talks on the Seattle Channel's video-on-demand (RealPlayer required).

Updated 14 September 2009