Ongoing effort to find more good books

An entry titled An Attempt to Find Yet More Good Books from A Work in Progress eggs me on babbling about how I go about book hunting. Tayari Jones' guidelines in culling books would be a nice idea for the unhabitual readers who don't know where to start. But more experienced readers who have cultivated taste for certain genres or authors, literary magazines like Pages and Bookmarks Magazine brief a variety of new books, although they tend to emphasize on books by major publishers. The New York Times Book Review also discusses the note-worthy new releases but again, like any mass media, it focuses on the mainstream crowd pleasers, books that are most likely to make the bestseller list.

I follow my heart and the instant mood. Last summer I found myself to be on a binge for Shakespearean comedies. So I dug out The Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night and Comedy of the Error and read them all. Then a blooming desire to fulfill a dream since I was a kid told hold of me: to read the unabridged The Dream of the Red Chamber, a 5-volume novel hailed as one of the most significant works ever written in Chinese literature. I spent almost three months perusing the original Chinese texts and the Penguins English translation.

Readers of this blog will notice my attachment to Russian literature especially the works of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. I manage to re-read major works of these authors and thrive to compare the various available translations to the same title. Several Amazon reviewers whose reviews I scrupulously follow, like Grady Harp, Mary Whipple, and A.J., point me to many great reads over the years. Their insightful and thorough opinions have helped shape my reading habit.

I'm blessed to be in San Francisco, a city so well-read and is endowed with a number of great bookstores. A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books is the grand central joint for book readings and literary events with an incredibly savvy staff. I often look into their staff recommendations for my next reads. Cody's is another of my favorite hangout spot and book hunting ground. The newest store in downtown becomes my daily quickstop on the way home. City Lights Bookstore is probably the most well-known bookshop in the city. Despise its somewhat snooty staff, City Lights offers the widest selection of books published by small presses. It houses sections devoting to European literature and the beat generation. Online vendor Powell's Books is thoughtful enough to devote a section on literary works published by small presses.

I make it a habit to scour local bookstore at least once a week, browsing through the fiction and literature, history, and philosophy sections. A neat hand-written list of possible acquisitions accompanies me through the stacks. Sometimes I'm in for a specific theme like 20th century Chinese literature, or contemporary gay literature (not erotica), or whatever that appeals to me at the time. Usually I'll search out related titles and seek out authors with similar styles. This book hunting, like having lunch and dinner and doing laundry, is an ongoing effort that bears the ambitious mission to find the good books.

So many books, so little time!