@duncanpubliclibrary Thanks for the resource suggestion, I'm definitely making a note of it!
How to Find Read-Alikes On Your Own
A read-alike is, as its name suggests, a book which you might like if you’re looking for books similar to one you liked. Read-alikes can be paired together based on similar plots, settings, pacing, language (e.g. old-timey style, a similar writing style to another author, lots of name drops [think Tolkien’s works or Game of Thrones kind of thing], etc), and more.
Finding you read-alikes is one of the jobs librarians can offer, but if you’re shy about asking for help with this or just want to be able to independently search for your next read, the following three resources are some of the best to get you started:
Likewise
Likewise is an app available for Android and iOS where you can get recommended read-alikes by both the app and other users. You can also make recommendation lists (e.g. “If you liked At Home by Bill Bryson you might like…”) and a saved list of books that caught your fancy. What’s more, you can also look for “watch-alikes” for movies and tv and “listen-alikes” for podcasts (you can even look up restaurants and places!)
Goodreads
Goodreads is a great site for reading nerds to bookmark. You can search for read-alikes without an account, but if you have one you can then save the book in your Bookshelf (which basically consists of whatever lists you want to create).
You can search for read-alikes in two ways. The easiest method is by typing in the book you want read-alikes for into the main search bar and look at the top right corner of the book’s individual page, where you will see the covers for various books liked by people who also enjoyed the same title you did.
The second method can be a bit more hit and miss. You click the browse button at the centre to of the screen, and choose Lists from the dropdown menu.
Once there, there is a search bar on the top right corner where you can type in your book’s title and see what other books are listed with them in the site’s many book lists.
NoveList Plus
NoveList is a paid service that many libraries pay for which is usually found in the “digital services” section of a library’s website (if you can’t find it, ask your friendly local librarian if your library has the service and if so, how to access it).
NoveList is a fantastic resource for finding read-alikes for themes, genres, writing styles, and so on. It’s actually so good that it’s a go-to resource for librarians when helping patrons find a new book to read.
To search for read-alikes for a specific book, type in the title of the book you want a read-alike for. Once you’re in the book’s page, you can find read-alikes listed on the right side of the page. If you find a book you like, you can even click on a link to see if your library has it in its catalogue!
If you’re interested on finding a read-alike based on genre, your best bet is to click on the Browse Genres buttons when you scroll down the homepage.
If you have any difficulties navigating the service or want to learn how to search through the service like a pro, NovelList has an button on the topmost banner (How Do I?) to help you surf the site as well as better understand how read-alike suggesting works.
If you’re looking for suggestions for a child or teen, if your library has NoveList K-8 that might be a better place to start, as it functions much the same as NoveList Plus does but the books are all for teens or younger.
Authonomy
It’s been a while since I used this website in particular, but it’s useful for helpful critique and to get your original works out there. If your book get on the top five list at the end of the month Harper Collins will read it for possible publication.
Teen Ink
Figment
Fiction Press
ReviewFuse
and of course… Tumblr
Other Websites:
Write or Die is great if you want to give yourself a certain amount of time to write a set amount of words.
Tip of my Tongue for when you can’t remember the exact word
Character Traits Form
Online Thesaurus where you just type in a word and you get a cluster of different words
Characters
Top 10 Questions for Creating Believable Characters
How to Create a Fictional Character
Describing Clothing and Appearance
The Difference between Ethnicity and Nationality
Describing a Voice
Characters (part 2)
How to write Funeral Directors
I’ve read quite a few fanfics where they just have funeral directors slapping clothes on a body and calling it a day. As a former funeral services major I can tell you that’s not the only thing they do.
How to write Drug Dealers
How to write Gamblers
Interview with a Hitman
Terms for royalty
Naming Characters
Behind the Name
Top Baby Names
Looking for a name that means a certain thing?
7 Rules of Picking Names
Most Common Surnames
Medical/Crime/Legal
Coma: Types, Causes, etc
Tips for writing blood loss
Gunshot Wound Care
Examples of Hospital Forms
Common Legal Questions
The Writer’s Forensics Blog
Brain Injury Legal Guide
Types of Surgical Operations
Types of Mental Health Problems
A Day in the Life of a Mental Hospital Patient
Global Black Market Information Because where else would you find out how much money it takes to get a 16 year old girl to kill someone in Mexico?
Crime Scene Science
Examining Mob Mentality
How Street Gangs Work
Other Helpful Stuff
Poisonous Herbs and Plants
The Psychology of Color
The Meaning behind Rose color
Compare Character Heights - I personally love this site so much.
Types of Swords
Color Symbolism
How a handgun works
Blueprints for Houses
The Six Types of Haunting Activities
The Difference Between lay and lie
10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling
5 Easy Tips to Improve Your Writing
How to Write a Eulogy
Types of Crying
Career Masterpost
Avoiding LGBTQ Stereotypes
Tips for Writing Ghost Stories
A Spell to See Spirits
Make Graphics out of Quotes
Superstitions and More
The 12 Common Archetypes
Language of Flowers
Military Sign Language
A Visual Dictionary of Tops
Describing Tiaras
What author do you most write like? (I’ve gotten Stephenie Meyer)
12 Realistic Woman Body Shapes
Japanese honorifics
Dress Up Games
I personally like to find games that I can make my OCs with.
Azalea’s Dolls
Doll Divine x
Dress Up Games
Shidabeeda Games
Free Writing Software
Google Docs (automatically saves as you write. 100% recommend)
EverNote
OpenOffice (a free version of Microsoft Office)
Articles
25 Steps To Edit the Unmerciful Suck out of Your Story
10 Rules for Writing First Drafts
10 Things Teenage Writers Should Know About Writing
Create a Plot Outline in 8 Easy Steps
Publishing Agencies to Stay Away From
5 Ways to Make Your Novel Helplessly Addictive
Books:
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing
Chicken Soup for the Writer’s Soul
Writing Great Books for Young Adults
Inspirational Quotes: x x
And I couldn’t find the original post for these so (pictures under the cut)
In the Brazilian Portuguese translation of the Harry Potter books the game of Quidditch was translated as Quadribol.
It’s not unreasonable to assume that Brazilian sorcerers would translate the name Quidditch to something more palatable to lusophone tongues.
But why Quadribol?
Quadri-
While not obvious to anglophones, Brazilians of all ages readily recognize that the quadr- prefix in Latin refers to the number four, because our words relating to the number four (quatro) follow a similar pattern (our word for the geometric shape “square”, for example, is quadrado).
-bol
In Brazil games like Basketball and Football/Soccer were translated to how the English pronunciation would be spelled in Portuguese: Basquetebol and Futebol.
Several games whose names are loanwords from English got transliterated end in “bol” (handball to handebol, football/soccer to futebol, basketball to basquetebol
Instead of inmates being able to receive donated books in the mail from family members and community groups, inmates at three New York prisons now have to purchase books selected by six, state-approved vendors. And the selection is limited. And expensive, activists say.
Novels cost $11.25 from one vendor.
A book about chess costs $29.95 from another.
And about a quarter of the titles are coloring books.
According to the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, the directive is in an effort to restrict contraband from entering the prison “through a more controlled inmate package program.”
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office has made the point that inmates still have access to prison libraries, but some say it’s not enough. “The problem with prison libraries is that [the prisons] control who has access to them,” said Amy Peterson with NYC Books Through Bars. “So people who are in solitary confinement don’t have access to prison libraries.”
Peterson’s group has been mailing books to prisoners all over the country for nearly two decades, with a focus on New York. “We get letters from people saying they had to borrow a stamp in order to write to us. So if these people can’t even afford postage, we don’t know how they’re going to be able to afford buying books from a vendor,” she said.
Read more
From the NY Daily News:
Over the past several days, inmate advocates pointed out that the vendors combined offered only five romance novels, 14 religious texts, 24 drawing or coloring books, 21 puzzle books, 11 how-to books, one dictionary, and one thesaurus.
“No books that help people learn to overcome addictions or learn how to improve as parents. No Jane Austen, Ernest Hemingway, Maya Angelou, or other literature that helps people connect with what it means to be human. No texts that help provide skills essential to finding and maintaining work after release from prison. No books about health, about history, about almost anything inside or outside the prison walls,” advocacy group Books Behind Bars complained in a letter to the governor.
Gothic fiction has its beginnings in Britain during the latter half of the 18th century. Writers and readers of Gothic fiction revel in what is more mysterious and less pragmatic: the supernatural, the strange, and surging feelings of all kinds. Here are eleven excellent examples of Gothic fiction that span two and a half centuries:
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (1817)
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (1847)
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1891)
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (1930)
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (1938)
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (1962)
Where To Start: How To Write the Exact Right Beginning of Your Story
How to Show Character Mastery and Transformation through both the Internal and External Plots
Cause and Effect Scene by Scene
How to Create Subplots
Emotional Elements of Plot: Stories that Last Evoke Emotion
How to Plot the End of Your Novel
Plot the Climax, Write the Climax, Re-Vision the Climax and Then Re-Write the Climax of Your Story
How to Decide Which Scenes to Keep and Which Ones to Toss
Where Exactly Does the End Begin in a Novel
Benefits of Pre-Plotting
30 Scene Ideas
Plot Generators
Romance
Fantasy
Paranormal Romance
Crime
Horror
Mystery
Science Fiction
Dystopian
Even More Options Here
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