"About Books" is a search engine retrieving Web pages and Web sites about authors, book titles and books about topics. I recommend viewing the 10-minute video tutorial. The link to the tutorial is a tiny link below the search box. This search engine does work well and, like Google, offers a variety of reader resources.
"What should I read next?" Web site recommends books by type in the author's names or book titles.
- Type in the author's name or book title and search
- This retrieves a list of titles to verify that they author and title are what you wanted.
- Clicking the correct title and this displays a list of other books.
The Reader's Robot offers a number of ways of listing books.
- Begin by clicking on a broad category
- This displays a page with a number of search tools. (Not all categories have the same tools.)
- "Have the robot recommend books" displays several lists of books, on each list click the books you like, the robot then recommends some books. Use this tool if you are well read in a genre.
- "Search" allows word searching within 20 genre categories.
- "Index: subgenre" lists titles by their subgenres of each genre.
AllReaders.com offers book reviews and several fun and detailed ways of searching by plot, setting, characters and style.
- Plot searching: Three levels of plot devices, percent of book devoted to violence, planning, relationships, description of society, tone of story, time period, kid or adult.
- Main character searching: gender, profession, age, special powers, eccentric, level of violence, ethnicity, level of sensitivity, sense of humor, intelligence, physique.
- Main adversary searching: identity, age, profession, special powers, eccentricity, motive, group, e.g., nazis, monster, level of sensitivity, sense of humor, intelligence, physique.
- Setting searching: three levels of location
- Style searching: part of series, storytelling, level of gore, number of deaths, sex, jargon, amount of dialog.
Gnooks offers three experimental tools for suggesting authors.
- Gnod's suggestions asks you to type in three favorite authors. Then it suggests authors to you. You vote on whether you like, don't like or don't know the suggested authors. The suggestions are based on the voting of thousands of those before you.
- Map of literature is the a animated graphical representation of database created by the above. Type the name of one author and the map displays a bunch of authors around it. The distance between your authors and other authors represents how many readers claimed to like both authors. Clicking a nearby author moves the clicked author to the middle of the screen. All the other authors rearrange themselves. Kinda fascinating and fun.
- Literature forum is a book discussion group.
