Suppose you were wondering which book you should read next. In this case, these sites have great book recommendations by authors, influencers, internet reviews, and AI.
Book reviews aren’t always the best way to find a book to review, simply because different people have different expectations of a book. Some people are there for a writer’s style, while others like concepts more than words. And then some people can’t stand fiction. A simple alternative is to check book recommendations that most people agree on or that are made by an expert in that type of book.
1. Shepherd (Web): Recommended Books by Writers and Authors
Who better to tell you what to read next than the author of the last book you loved? Shepherd strives to get authors and writers to recommend five titles to make a “list of books” they think you should read on a topic they’ve written about before.
The topics are different from the usual carefully defined genres you’ll find in bookstores, as Shepherd tries to recreate the experience of browsing a bookstore to fit the online world. For example, you’ll find a list of graphic novel books about navigating friendship and family, recommended by the author of one of those graphic novels. Or the best Korean War books, as one war historian suggests.
You can browse by authors or by subjects when you scroll to the end of the home page. You will find a small blurb explaining why the author chose these choices when you open a list of books. And you will also get closely related or distant lists for further reading. This is one of the easiest sites to find the next book to read.
2. Most Recommended Books (Web): Book Recommendations by Influencers
Most Recommended Books is an amazing resource that collects books that influencers or reviewers say are worth reading. Each book cites the original source, so you know it’s a verified recommendation. Surprisingly, there’s no summary of the book included with the title, so you’ll still be wondering what it’s all about until you click the Amazon link.
The site is divided into three main parts: People, Lists and Series. Series simply lists the proper order to read any series of books (including minis and short stories). But it’s the other two that are great.
In People, you’ll find book recommendations by celebrities and influencers like Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, JK Rowling, and more. Each person’s recommendation total appears below their name. You can quickly trim the list by categories, such as entrepreneur, journalist, author, comedian, etc.
In the lists, the most recommended books browse Google results, podcasts, interviews, biographies and other places to create interesting book lists. For example, the list of top mystery books was created by searching for the term, finding the top four articles, and ranking each book with at least two mentions. You will find loads of such fascinating book lists.
3. Read (Web): AI recommendations based on books you liked or hated
There are many book recommendation apps that will ask you for a book you liked and suggest what else you might like. Readow is a machine learning engine that updates recommendations as you add and remove books based on your likes and dislikes.
So to start, think of a book you read and would like something similar. Enter it in the Readow search bar and choose it, then add other books if you want. You can update this search query at any time.
The app will give you a grid of book recommendations, with each card having three buttons. Hit like if you read it and want to add it to your search query. Hit delete to remove it from your search, and Readow also learns and updates your recommendations accordingly. Finally, click the Buy button to go to the book’s Amazon page.
It’s a simple app that gives a lot of great book choices without you having to do much. Our only complaint, albeit a minor one, is that you need to be precise and specific with your book titles when typing them into the search bar.
For every murder mystery that turns a page, there’s an intriguing true crime investigation. For every epic quest of a protagonist, there is an inspiring biography. The world of non-fiction books is just as captivating as fiction books, if not more so.
The Non-Fiction Library is a developer’s effort to create a database of the best non-fiction books in English, currently listing 411 of the best titles. It covers different categories that you can filter, such as history, biographies, science, politics, business, psychology, etc. You can also filter books by year of publication and spine size. And you’ll get all the major non-fiction releases if you sign up for the newsletter.
If that’s not enough for you, head over to the subreddit r/nonfictionbookclub. This is a community for discussing non-fiction books and getting recommendations. Members write a brief summary of any new book they read. You can also request suggestions on specific topics.
5. reddit reads (Web): Top Book Recommendations and Trending on Reddit
As the largest online discussion forums in the world, many people share their best book recommendations on Reddit. Of course, they can get lost in the many subreddits and threads. Reddit Reads is an analytical attempt to collect the most shared book recommendations on Reddit on a monthly basis.
The site shows you the most mentioned books on all of Reddit, or you can filter by the many subreddits it crawls. Book mentions are collected by checking each comment for links to Amazon, Goodreads, Google Books and O’Reilly Media, eliminating duplicate comments for a more accurate representation.
The monthly Reddit Reads newsletter (also featured on the site’s blog) is a great analysis of monthly comment data. For example, you will find new books mentioned in the previous month, as well as unique subtitles and their books. Overall, Reddit Reads is a great way to find the best recommendations on Reddit.
Create a reading plan for your books
With these sites, the problem won’t be which book you should read next. Instead, the problem will be how you can read them all, especially if you haven’t developed a reading habit.
The best place to start is to create a reading plan. A quick internet search will show several approaches to reading plans, ranging from just 20 pages per day to detailed schedules and Kanban boards. The main thing is to stick to it and enjoy reading it.
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