How to Find Your Next Good Book in Genre Fiction

The October 2007 edition of Novelist Notes, which is an online newsletter that goes with our subscription to Novelist, had these excellent tips to finding genre fiction booklists.

I have recommended Novelist before. It's a great tool, particularly for finding similar books to one you have just read and liked. A drawback to Novelist that I have encountered is that the categories they assign to books are often too general to be meaningful. You have to be really clever to identify and choose the aspects of a particular book that you would like duplicated in your next read. I feel when I am using the "find similar books" feature that I need a human to intervene and describe the essence of the book in a more focused way. Novelist mitigates against this drawback by providing an increasing amount of editorial comment and expert articles. One such editorial feature is "Explore Fiction Lists."

Explore Fiction Lists has just been updated. This article explains how to use it. The article is directed to librarians, but I have quoted here only the parts that would be relevant to readers and book groups:

"NoveList and NoveList K-8's ready-made book lists are great sources for eager patrons and busy librarians. NoveList is now pleased to announce that all of our genre-based Explore Fiction lists have been completely revamped and updated. In addition to the updated lists, we have added several new genre lists, including Historical Fiction and Graphic Novels at the Adult level, based on requests from our users.
All of the popular genres, including Mysteries, Romance, Science Fiction, Fantasy and Historical Fiction, are covered in the Explore Fiction lists. Each genre contains a number of lists covering popular sub-genres, for example "Contemporary Romances" and "Romantic Suspense" under the Romance genre. Each list contains 15 to 20 titles, carefully selected by experienced librarians...
Here's how to access NoveList's Explore Fiction lists:
Select the Browse Lists tab.
Under the Explore Fiction heading, select the appropriate reading level link. To find the new Adult Historical Fiction list, select the "Adult" link.
You will see a list of genres to choose from. Select the "Historical Fiction" link.
A listing of sub-genres will display. Choose a topic of interest, for example "Immigrant Experience," to see the full list of titles.
At the end of each Explore Fiction list, you will find a description that will give you more information about the books on the list or how you can find more books like those listed. Please note that at each list, you can select a title to link directly to the book record for an annotation, reviews, and links to other resources."
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