Some fun sites to discover new books...

Looking for something new to read? The sheer volume of books out there can be pretty overwhelming... Here's a few sites that have made it easier to find new favorites, though. I mostly skim for stuff for the wife, since I don't get to red much nowadays. These have helped make the hunt for more books a lot easier for her.

http://www.nonamesnojackets.com/

Pick a genre, hit random, or just skim through the top page for new entries. It'll display a single chapter from a book, stripped of cover, title, author, publisher info. If you like it, click the link at the bottom of the page to find where to buy it, and what it is.

http://bookdigits.com/

Feel restricted by star ratings? In addition to the usual text space for review, Bookdigits allows very targeted and flexible ratings, that help provide a format to express exactly what you liked or didn't. You can rate a book's re-readability or addictiveness, set exact percentages for elements, to classify books that fall into more than one genre, and rank it on a scale with more than five options. My biggest complaint with Bookdigits is that the text space has a character limit, and I could only fit 1/3- 1/2 of the text review I wrote on other sites there.

You can view Recommendations with these ratings, or just browse through. It'll be great for research, with more participation, though it's not as good for discovering new works.

http://www.bookmatchers.com/

Bookmatchers contains primarily indie books, as they are catalogued and submitted individually. You can search using a number of criteria, including story elements, character elements, written tone, level of romance, violence, sex, or profanity. It's pretty wild.

Do you have any other favorite book discovery sites? I'd love to check them out, too!