Read alike links

Welcome to "Read-a-like links"

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This Web site provides links to resources created by book lovers around the world.

Happy selecting,
Chris Rippel

P.S. One problem with linking to resources created by others is that they may delete or remove their Web pages. I selected resources that have been available for some time in the past hoping they remain available for some time in the future. Please report bad links to me at crippel@ckls.org.

Book club resources

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Booklists

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Morton Grove's Fiction-L provides booklists broken down by genre, character, setting, subject, author audience, best of (year, older books), and miscellaneous.

Overbooked provides "hot lists" of new and notable books and lists of books that received "starred reviews."

"Selective lists" provides lists of books of specific types, topics, people, etc.

Movies and Books

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Based on the Book by Mid-Continuent Library links books with their movie. You can trace the book or author to the movie or the movie to the book.

If you like the author, try..."

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The Book Seer works well with just a title and author.

"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 books by other authors.

Gnod's Suggestions is an experimental tool that is fun to use. You will have to decide whether it is useful.

Type in three favorite authors.
Click continue.
Gnod will then suggests one-at-a-time about five other authors.
Click whether you like, don't like or don't know the author. This builds the database for future users.

Several libraries provide extensive lists of author read alikes.

More specific categores

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Books 'N Bytes groups authors into specific categories.

Reader's Advice "genre index" groups very specific categories into the following broader categories:
Children's & YA | Family | Fantasy | General | Historical | Horror | Humorous | Military/War | Multicultural Fiction | Mystery | Notable Fiction | Religious/Spiritual | Romance | SF | Short Stories | Suspense/Thrillers | Western Clicking a category displays a list of authors who write in that category. The author index lists author's by last name, followed by a list of genres the author writes in. Clicking a genre retrieves a list of all authors writing in that genre and the books they wrote in that genre.

"BookBrowse" provides browsing by genre, time period, and theme.

SLIS Reading Group reviews books, i.e., describing each book's appeal and recommending other books like it.

"List of literary genres" in Wikipedia provides a long list of basic and subgenres. Clicking the genres displays a description of the genre mentioning prominent names and sometimes a list of authors who write in that genre.

"Lists of authors" in Wikipedia groups authors by genre, religion, nationality, race or ethnic group. Clicking groups retrieves the list of authors. Clicking the author's name retrieves articles about the authors.

Military

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Books 'N Bytes lists lots of military authors.

Westerns

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Books 'N Bytes lists lots of western writers.

Series

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"What's next?" by Kent District Library allows searching by:

Author's name
Book title
Series title
Categories: youth or adult
Genre

"Books in Series" by the Nebraska Library Commission allows searching by:

Author's name
Book title
Series title

"Series and sequels" by Los Angeles Public Library allows searching by:

Author's name
Book title
Series name
Character name

"Reader's Advice" offers browsing by series' name. The author index lists authors followed by the genres they write in. Clicking these genres lists authors writing in that genre.

SciFan Web Site lists the authors' books and series.

Click the letter for the author's name or name of the series.
Authors are listed on the left.
Series are listed on the right. Clicking a series lists the books and related themes.

Science fiction

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Science Fiction authors by Christ Church Libraries in New Zealand broken into the following categories

Hard science fiction
Military science fiction
Comedy
Cyberpunk
Space opera
Alternate history
Soft / Social science fiction

SciFan Web Site lists the authors' books and series.

Click the letter for the author's name or name of the series.
Authors are listed on the left.
Series are listed on the right. Clicking a series lists the books and related themes.

Science fiction and fantasy lists the books of over 4000 authors.

Cross-over authors by Christ Church Libraries in New Zealand

Humorous and satirical authors by Christ Church Libraries in Australia

Time travel and alternative history authors by Christ Church Libraries in Australia

Search for authors and books

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"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.

Awards

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Book awards broken out by genre at Bookspot.com

Mystery awards by 'Stop You're Killing Me!"

American awards on Wikipedia

Author rankings by literary awards

Award Annals is dedicated to tracking all literary awards.

Staff recommends

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Farminghon Public Library staff recommendations back to 2005. Links to past year's recommendations are on the right-side menu.

Bettendorf Public Library staff recommendations.

2010 (pdf format)
2009 (pdf format)
2008 (pdf format)
2007 (pdf format)
2006 (pdf format)
2005 (pdf format)
2004 (pdf format)
2003 (pdf format)
2002 (pdf format)
2001 (pdf format)
2000 (pdf format)
1999 (pdf format)
1998 (pdf format)

Google search for "library staff recommends" retrieves a list of recommendations from librarians around the country.

General

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"If you like this author, try these authors" lists by Bettendorf Public Library

Animals

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Animal story authors by Christ Church Libraries in New Zealand

Chick-lit

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Chick-lit authors by Christ Church Libraries in New Zealand

Fantasy

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Fantasy authors by Christ Church Libraries in New Zealand

Fantasy Fiction Web site

Science fiction and fantasy lists the books of over 4000 authors.

Cross-over authors by Christ Church Libraries in New Zealand

Horror

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Author lists by Christ Church Libraries in New Zealand

Historical fiction

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Author lists by Christ Church Libraries in New Zealand

Military fiction authors by Christ Church Libraries in New Zealand

Humor

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Author lists by Christ Church Libraries in New Zealand

Adventure

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Author lists by Christ Church Libraries in New Zealand

Espionage authors by Christ Church Libraries in New Zealand

Inspirational fiction

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Author lists by Christ Church libraries in New Zealand broken into the following catagories

General
Historical, romance, saga
Adventure, mystery, westens

Mysteries

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Mystery, crime and detective author lists by Christ Church Libraries in New Zealand group authors in the following categories. These lists are not of the "If you like this author, try..." variety.

American
British
Hardboiled
Light touch
Police at work
Private eyes
Psychological mysteries
Women detectives
Awards

Author lists by "Stop You're Killing Me!" group authors in the following categories. These lists are not of the "If you like this author, try..." variety.

Cozy (Traditional) mysteries
Gothic suspense
Humorous mysteries
Paranormal
Pets
Police procedurals
Psychological suspense
Real people
Romantic suspense
Science fiction and fantasy
Vampires

Author lists by 'Stop You're Killing Me!" grouped by these categories. These lists are not of the "If you like this author, try..." variety.

Mystery classics
Standard PI
Amateur male leads
Female leads
Female leads (lighter/domestic)
Female sleuths
Classic English
English police
Psychological villains
Techno-thrillers
Tough crime

Author lists by "Stop You're Killing Me!" in the following groups. These lists are not of the "If you like this author, try..." variety.

The Books N' Bytes Mystery section has a long list of authors.

"Cozy Mysteries" allows browsing by authors' last name. Brief description of each author followed by a list of their books. The "Cozy by themes" lists authors by state, time period, vacations or exotic locations, animal themes, culinary themes, professions, holidays, and "older sleuths." There is also a page called "TV and Movies."

Romance

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All about Romance Web site.
List of 34 of the most popular romance authors with about 10 to 15 recommendations for each.

FictionDB Web site lists authors in the following categories.

Romantic suspence
Contemporary relationships
Romantic comedy
Romantic comedy/mystery
Light historical
Heavy historical
Historical America
Historical Georgian
Traditional Regency
Time travel
Medieval
Fantasy