Tuesday Thread: Book Concierge

What do you want to read?

Last week, I was hankering for a very specific sort of book: a literary romance. Literary romances aren’t about books (although, as Possession proves, they can be) — they’re just a type of romance that’s sold and marketed differently, and often have a different style, than other romances. (Here is where I refuse to say they’re “better” because I think that sort of hierarchy is worthless and I absolutely love a non-literary romance). I just wanted a book like Possession (A.S. Byatt), like The Great Fire (Shirley Hazzard), like Euphoria (Lily King). I asked the question while piddling around on Twitter after a hard day of work, and received SO MANY GREAT ANSWERS and bought SO MANY BOOKS (the great thing about running your own newsletter ‘business’ is….books are a business expense).

Every time I do something like that, I’m reminded that not everyone has the benefit of a large social media account that makes it so that a whole bunch of strangers will give you suggestions to fit your very specific book recommendation needs.

So let’s use this space to do one of the things it does best: generate advice. Post what sort of book you love, or what you’re looking for, and be as specific as possible — and I promise you that dozens (hundreds!) of book-lovers will come to recommend. Ask without shame, and more importantly, recommend with abandon. (And come back! We have people in all sorts of time zones who arrive at these posts at all different times of their day; they deserve good book recs too).