Authors, Web sites help you find good reads with less trouble

Thomas Jefferson said, "I cannot live without books." Some of us know exactly what he meant. If you are among this group, you know that one of the constant quests is for that next good book.

Sometimes friends can help with the quest by their recommendations. Or we read reviews of books in newspapers or magazines and make decisions based on the opinions of a "professional" reader.

Libraries can help with the quest for a good read, too. Most libraries purchase books and other materials based on reviews in trade journals. Typically librarians choose items that represent quality and the reading tastes and interests of the communities they serve. So almost anything you would find in a library is "recommended" at some level.

But choosing and reading a book is a very individual thing. In 1993, Nancy Pearl, librarian, best-selling author and book reviewer, wrote, "Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment and Reason." While there are countless books and articles and bibliographies that recommend books, I particularly like Pearl's tome because it's fun to read in itself. Also, from what I know of her, I respect her judgment and her recommendation.

Organized (alphabetically, of course) into some 200 quirky categories such as Academia: The Joke, Elvis on my Mind, or Women's Friendships, each category includes a few paragraphs about a few books. These are not exhaustive recommendations, they are tantalizing starting points.

"Book Lust" was so successful that Pearl came out with "More Book Lust" in 2005. If you are interested in similar books, check out the Dewey Decimal section 011 in your library.

Of course in this computer age there are technological resources for the reader, too. Anyone who has bought a book on amazon.com has experienced the recommendations that come to you based on what you purchased. That's the power of the computer at work to match what you have purchased with millions of others' purchases and project what else might appeal to you.

But Amazon does not have a corner on harnessing the computer to help select your next good read. Check out www.librarything.com. This is a Web site that invites you to enter lists of books that you own. You can build your own catalog complete with tags so you can retrieve items even if you've forgotten the author or title. You can review your books and rank them. The service is free for 200 books or less with nominal additional charges for more. But even as a visitor you can harness that power of the computer by searching across all of the entries for recommended books based on what you like. There is also an "unrecommended" feature that gives you titles you are least likely to choose.

Other similar Web sites are www.shelfari.com and www.goodreads.com. Alan Minarik, my colleague at NSLS and a voracious and most intelligent reader, has experimented with all three sites. When asked about the differences he noted that "shelfari" and "goodreads" seem to be completely free. He also noted that the styles of the sites differ. "'Shelfari' is my personal favorite," he said. "I just like the style and the look of it." Listen to my complete conversation with Minarik on this topic on this week's podcast at www.sarahlong.org.

We readers of the world certainly agree with the sentiment of Sara Nelson, who titled her reading memoir, "So Many Books, So Little Time." So spend those precious reading hours carefully by selecting only the best books, the ones that speak to you most personally. Friends, reviews, libraries, books and yes, the World Wide Web can help.