Around the World discussion

where do you go for recommendations? i used to rely on my local bookstore, but i moved. i am a really picky reader, so don't trust goodreads star or recommendation system. i am also trying to read my bookshelves, but they aren't as inspiring to me as they were when i bought the books years ago. (obviously if i have had them for years unread...)

Lurk42 - Besides recommendations from friends, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other sites have book reviews every weekend and top 10 lists every so often by their reviewers. I also browse book sites and book publisher sites every so often and they're pretty good at suggested recommended books for you once you've bought or viewed books - a bit scary, but pretty good, just like GR. I also tend to browse book summaries and if they sound interesting, I take a shot at them. I've had great luck in finding new authors that way.

If not using Goodreads, I look at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books and http://www.reddit.com/r/books/ a fair bit for ideas.

Friends, Amazon (only the "other's have bought" part, not the reviews), Goodreads lists, news paper reviews and podcasts like "The Readers" and "Books on the Nightstand"

I choose my books by going to a library/store, browsing shelves and when title interests me, I read the plot description, and if it still interests me, I read a random fragment from inside the book.
Sometimes I get recommendations from my friends.

Welcome to YLTO, Kama.

I was like Kama, it is by far the best way of choosing books, but my three of my four favourite bookstores have all closed.

Hi all. Nice to meet you.

What about libraries, Val?

Most of the libraries are still open here and I use them. I did not find many of the World Tour books there unfortunately, but they are good for non-fiction, literary award shortlists and crime novels.

How is the library organised? Or is it the lack of titles?

All the non-fiction is catalogued by subject and decimal classification, and the shelves are labelled. It is pretty easy to find what I am looking for, if they have it. This is true for all the libraries I use, the small local ones, the bigger central one and the university library.
The fiction is organised by author's name, but with separate shelves for certain genres like crime and romance. Sometimes there are displays of new arrivals, books for quick loans (two weeks instead of four) or prize shortlists. There is also a children's section in each library, which is very popular.

I can look at the library catalogue for the whole county online and reserve books to be collected at my local library, for a small fee.

There is a shortage of foreign fiction in translation, although the central library has quite a lot of foreign books in their original languages.

Thanks for explanation, Val. It's different than in Poland. We have separate children, adult and foreign-language libraries.
In Poland children libraries have books sorted by authors alphabetically.
Adult libraries have (more or less) general fiction sorted by author's country or region. (This inspired my idea for A to Z by countries challenge) From what I checked (in the library closest to my home) there should be books from at least 80 countries. There can be some separate shelves for genres like poetry, fantasy & sf probably romance/crime too (I'm not into these genres so I don't pay attention). In those cases, for example the poetry book gets also label saying which country is this. Non-fiction is catalogued by subject too. I think this is American system.
As you see, there is no problem getting translated literature, nor getting a read from a specified country (provided the books were translated into Polish and bought by the library). There might be a problem of getting the specified book tho...
My local foreign language library is sorted alphabetically by authors, but getting newer/world books is problematic. No Americanah for me. :(

When I was a child our libraries were more separated. The reference, non-fiction, fiction, music and children's libraries were in separate rooms in the same building. Children could use the adult libraries for reference and even borrow books from them when they were old enough (ten in some local authorities, twelve in others), but we could not make any noise or we would have to leave.
Now the libraries are more likely to be open plan and there are small children making a noise, sometimes a library assistant is reading aloud to a group of them and the whole thing is more relaxed. Most of the libraries are smaller now than I remember, plus a lot of the reference material is digitised and there are terminals to access it, instead of shelves of books, folders of old newspapers and big desks.