Looking for Something to Read Over the Holidays?

Do you have some spare time coming up? With the holidays approaching now is the time to find yourself a great read for those lazy summer days. Have a look at NoveList, one of the latest additions to the Library's collection of Online Databases.

*NoveList is an easy-to-navigate reader's guide to fiction providing a huge array of searching options. You can search by title, author, series name (even plot!) or peruse ready made lists and articles. You can even restrict your search to titles released within a certain year of publication or display only adult large print titles.

Readers wishing to find books in a particular genre can browse the ready made lists. The lists are categorisied under two main headings, Best Fiction which covers awards, honours and recommended lists and Explore Fiction showing mysteries, horror, romance, adventure and more. Children and Young Adult books are included under their own headings. In addition to the expected categories of romance, mysteries and fantasy for example, are collections such as graphic novels. Many of the genres are then further sorted into separate sections which could assist the reader in identifying a focus area.

Of particular interest to many will be the Read-Alike searching feature that lets you find other authors that write in a similar style to your favourite one! An author I'm particularly interested in is American novelist Joyce Carol Oates who has been writing consistently since the 1960s. A search on Joyce Carol Oates produced a sizeable piece on her background, her style of writing and the awards she has won. It also brought to light a pseudonymn that she writes under that I had not known previously.

NoveList provides a facility to create an account to save searches for future reference. After you sign in you can save search results and create alerts. In addition the database can save lists and retrieve previously saved lists. This database is well worth a look and if you're interested you might like to start with the 1 Minute NoveList, a sample search showing how you can get started.