Books, Readers and Beyond: #52 What to Read

1. For the read-a-like searches, I used What Should I Read Next? and Library Booklists and Bibliographies. I did two different things in Novelist, and got two very different lists. The first one I tried was the Find Similar Books button, and I chose not to uncheck any of the subjects presented. I only looked at the first page of books and every single book presented had the elements that were most prevalent in the storyline of the book I chose to look up, The Stand by Stephen King. All of the books dealt with some kind of plague or disease spreading througout a community. The second thing I tried was the author read-a-like search and this presented a list of authors to try that might give similar emotions or styles of writing. When I searched What Should I Read Next? the lists presented were predominantly other books by Stephen King with a few titles by other authors. In searching Library Booklists and Bibliographies, I went to booklists: adult fiction first, then searched this list and found If You Like... and clicked on it. From here I clicked on Specific Readalikes and then did a computer search for King, which found him listed in the General Read-Alikes Booklists. I clicked on the one that took me to the site from Christchurch City Libraries, NZ. On this site I clicked on Stephen King under the author listings. This presented a brief article similar to Novelist, but listed more authors to try.


In the past, I usually just used Novelist for this type of search. I probably will continue using Novelist as my first stop only because it's a bit easier to navigate and presents lists I'm typically looking for. The Library Booklists and Bibliographies would be helpful if I'm not finding anything in Novelist or need to find more than what Novelist gives me. I wouldn't try it first only because it takes some time to find the "right list." I wasn't too thrilled with What Should I Read Next? If it usually suggests more titles by the same author it won't be helpful in finding others to try.



2. I used Novelist because the advanced search was excellent for this type of search. Books I found included: Secret of the underground room by John Bellairs and The Ghosts Grave by Peg Kehret for the 13 year old, and Snakes don't miss their mothers: a novel by M.E. Kerr and The Little Gentlemen by Philippa Pearce for the animal lover.



3. Using Novelist I found John Saul and Charles Grant. I then used Library Booklists and Bibliographies and found a Dean Koontz read-a-like list with many authors one of which was Greg Bear.

4. The series is Song of the Lioness. I found a list of the books on Mid-Continent Public Library's juvenile series lists. These are:

1. Alanna: The First Adventure
2. In the Hand of the Goddess
3. The Woman Who Rides Like a Man
4. Lioness Rampant