Sample Searches

What Do I Read Next? Sample Searches

What Do I Read Next? includes more than 100,000 recommended titles, more than 60,000 plot summaries and awards information from 562 awards, all to help users uncover new reading adventures, find long-remembered favorites and discover award-winning titles.

Search 1:

A customer subscribed to What Do I Read Next? wanted to find some fictional books for adults on alternate outcomes in relation to war in the 20th century.

Solution:

1. Opened What Do I Read Next? and went to the "Custom Search" page.
2. Made sure only the "Adults" and "Fiction" boxes were checked.
3. "Alternate History" was selected for "Genre/Story Type".
4. "War" was selected for "Subject".
5. "20th Century" was selected for "Time Period".
6. Clicked on the "Search" button and four books that matched the customer's request.

Search 2:

A librarian managing the adult reading club at her library wanted to use What Do I Read Next? to find some books that may be of interest to club members who had just finished reading "The Lord of the Rings Trilogy" and expressed their enjoyment of this series of books.

Solution:

1. Opened What Do I Read Next? and went to the "Help Me Find a Book" page.
2. Made sure only the "Adults" and "Fiction" boxes were checked.
3. Entered "Lord of the Rings" in the entry box and clicked the "Search" button.
4. One record was retrieved:

   Tolkien, J.R.R. - Lord of the Rings Trilogy

5. Clicked on the record link and entered the "Attributes" page.
6. Checked the "Fantasy" and "Inspirational" boxes under "Genre:".
7. Checked the "Fantasy" and "Inspirational" boxes under "Subject:".
8. Selected "Fictional Country" under "Settings:".
9. Clicked on the "Search" button and retrieved four unique book recommendations:

   Lewis, C.S. - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: A Story for Children

   Sebanc, Mark - Flight to Hollow Mountain

   Tolkien, J.R.R. - The Hobbit: Or, There and Back Again

   Tolkien, J.R.R. - The Silmarillion

Search 3:

A children and young adult librarian using What Do I Read Next? wanted a search strategy that would find some books about space colonies that she could add to her library section's collection.

Solution:

1. Opened What Do I Read Next? and went to the "Genre Search" page.
2. Made sure only the "Young Adults", "Children" and "Fiction" boxes were checked.
3. "Space Colony" was selected for "Science Fiction".
4. Clicked on the "Search" button and more than 15 books that matched the librarian's request were retrieved.

Search 4:

After watching the movie Luther, a man using What Do I Read Next? at his local library wanted to find fiction or nonfiction books for adults featuring religious characters during the Protestant Reformation.

Solution:

1. Opened What Do I Read Next? and went to the "Who? What? Where? When?" page.
2. Made sure only the "Adults", "Fiction" and "Nonfiction" boxes were checked.
3. Selected "Religious" for "Who?".
4. Selected "Protestant Reformation" for "What?".
5. Clicked on the "Search" button and retrieved three books:

   Beckett, Lucy - The Time Before You Die

   Ludwig, Charles - Queen of the Reformation
   
   Norton-Taylor, Duncan - God's Man: A Novel on the Life of John Calvin

Search 5:

A user of What Do I Read Next?, unable to remember the title, wanted to find the book written by Taylor Caldwell about the life of the Roman statesman/philosopher Cicero.

Solution:

1. Opened What Do I Read Next? and went to the "Custom Search" page.
2. Entered "Taylor Caldwell" in the "Author" entry box.
3. Entered "Cicero" in the "Character Name" entry box.
4. Clicked on the "Search" button and retrieved the title of the book:

   Caldwell, Taylor - A Pillar of Iron