PREPPING FOR THE SUMMER
Where to get book recommendations when you don't want to go through entire blogs!
By Ioanna Lee
As the school year comes to an end, our free time starts to open up and we inevitably get bored. As we stay home this summer, we need something to keep us from going insane or murdering one of our family members (at least I do). Many other people have written articles on where to borrow books, and as our libraries as of May 15 are now offering contactless curbside pickup we have many options on what we can do to satisfy our need to read (lol that rhymed).
Curbside Pickup at Urbana for requested items is available for pickup everyday as long as you make an appointment. For more information on Urbana’s curbside pickup go here. The Champaign Main Library and Douglass Branch Library also have Curbside Delivery available. For information about Champaign’s curbside delivery go here. Aaaaand if you don’t have a library card or lost it somewhere in the black hole that your home has become, worry not for you can get an e-card here for Urbana and here for Champaign. You're welcome.
I am going to introduce you to some of my favorite places to go for my book recommendations!
1. Goodreads
Goodreads is nice for getting readers’ opinions and ratings as well as book lists and discussions made and held by readers. You can even ask authors featured on Goodreads questions about their books! I use Goodreads the most because I can keep track of the books I’ve read, books I’m currently reading, and mark the books I want to read. I’m also currently participating in the 2020 Reading Challenge and encourage you all to do so as well!
I think everyone has at least heard of The New York Times Bestseller Lists. Everyone knows that they have the best books right there for readers to conveniently copy down onto their own to-read lists. As a bonus, some of the books have reviews that are quite interesting, albeit rather lengthy.
3. Kirkus Reviews
I really like Kirkus reviews because of their easy-to-browse book reviews page. You can even filter the results by genre, subgenre, age, category, and rating. Then, all you have to do is find the book cover that looks the most interesting (because the cover has to be good for the book to be good lol) and click on it to read a review that is nice and short. Some covers have a small icon in the top right corner that looks like this. The Kirkus Star icon marks books of exceptional merit.
4. Barnes & Noble
These sites will keep you running for the summer and maybe even longer!
Have a nice day AND A GREAT SUMMER!! cya!
Nice job on this post! After reading through many of the articles written by our classmates, I have a good idea on where to borrow books. However, this is the first post I've seen on the finding good recommendations, and it will definitely be helpful throughout the summer. Although I've used the first two websites that you mentioned to look for recommendations, but I hadn't thought of using Kirkus Reviews or Barnes and Nobles. I will be utilizing these two from now on, so thanks for your post. Have a great summer!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the useful post! I'm always looking for new, interesting books to read, and without being able to browse library shelves it's sometimes hard to get new recommendations. I like how you added links for each site to make it easier to locate them and gave honest reviews for each one. I'll be sure to check some of the recommendations out this summer when I'm bored in quarantine and desperate for a good book to read. Great post!
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