One of my main resources for book information is Amazon.com. The first way I use Amazon is to check out a book (or DVD or CD) that I have heard about somewhere else. There are reviews and product descriptions to help me decide if this is something I want to read and if I want to buy it or get it from the library.
The second way I use Amazon is to look for upcoming books from favorite authors. If you do a search for an author, then sort the search results by publication date, you can see if there is something new coming out and when it is supposed to be released. Sometimes the list will include things that don't seem related to your author. If that happens, pick a previous book, then follow the author link on the book's page. That will usually weed out the extra things.
The third way I use Amazon is to save books in my wish lists. You can make several, so I have one for upcoming releases - books that I am interested in that haven't been published yet. I also have one for the other members of my family so I have somewhere to tuck away gift ideas when I come across something I think someone might like. I also have a list for educational books and one for just Star Trek books, etc. That helps me keep each list relatively small and easily organized.
Amazon will also use your ordering history to make recommendations. Since we use Amazon a lot, this is a good feature for us. Every month or so I will go and check out the recommendations to see if there is something new coming out that I might like. You can also flag some purchases that you don't want used to make recommendations. That means that I can buy my husband a book about World War II but not get 50 recommendations for similar books when I really want to read about mysteries!
Finally, when you find a book you really like, you can go to its page on Amazon and scroll down to see other books that you might like that are similar to the one you just read.
Amazon is a fantastic resource for readers! I have found all sorts of new "favorites" just from using these tools.
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