My friend Lizzie had asked me recently how I pick out the books I read. This was in response to me telling her about yet another wonderful piece of literature I’d just finished (I think it may have been after I finished Cat’s Cradle, maybe?). While I had an easy answer to give her on the spot, it got me thinking: how precisely do people figure out what books to read?

For me the process is simple. I have three main ways of finding books to read, and maybe two or three other sources that come in handy occasionally. So below I’ve made a little list of how I like to find books. Feel free to contribute your own in the comments!

1. Famous writers’ reading lists

There are so many online. Pretty much everyone who has written anything good ever has been asked about what they read, and gave a wonderful answer. I like perusing lists by writers I admire: Hemingway and Stephen King, W.H. Auden, Nabokov, Fitzgerald.. Oh boy there are so many.

2. My supervisor’s office

Besides reading compulsively, I am also working on an M.A. dissertation in philosophy. My supervisor’s office is more densely packed with books than the uni library. As a bonus for me, a lot of them are related to my thesis and my philosophical interests. It makes finding my bearing in the discipline a bit easier, but my impostor syndrome a lot worse.

3. Picking books that look good up at the library

We’ve all done it. We see a book, and though we’re told not to judge it by its cover, we do. There’s no harm in that. I never would have found Nami Mun’s magnificent and sublime Miles from Nowhere if I hadn’t been drawn to the cover. Sometimes I’ll walk past a book by an author about whom I’ve heard or read good things, but haven’t yet picked them up. I never come home from the library with just what I wanted.

4. References in books I read

Murakami is maybe my favourite choice for finding books to add to reading lists this way. Sometimes I think he likes to brag a little bit about what he’d read. That’s why I love him though.. his characters are always obsessed with a piece of literature the way I am. He of course is not the only writer who does this. He’s just my current favourite.

This works even better for academic books, because I can find more texts relevant to my field.

5. Books that are the basis for films I love.

I’d seen Blade Runner before I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I’d seen I, Robot, before I read anything by Asimov. The Cloud Atlas film let me discover David Mitchell. There are countless examples. In one case I actually still think the film is better than the book (Fight Club).

6. Books that my favourite protagonists like.

While we’re on the topic of films, how often do you see Lisa Simpson or Daria Morgendorffer with a book? All the time. Exactly. Usually something awesome. Given what level of influence books exert on us, if we want to be like our favourite fictional people, reading what they read is a good idea.

So you now know how I like to get books. How about you?