In article >,
says...
> I don't know about other people, but I find it difficult to select books
> to read without being able to open them up and have a look.

If you go book shopping on Amazon, you can read the reviews and often
"open the page" for a free sample read. In UK, we can buy sexondhand
books online for pennies (I recommend Abe Book. I'm happy to take
recommendations from people I know IRL or online, whose tastes have
previously matched mine. Plus, we got a dozen new books as Christmas
presents.

I'd mneed a century life-extension to read all the boooks and
authors on my "pending" list.

>Now I have
> to go by author and hope for the best, or go for re-reads of previously
> enjoyed books.

TBH for those of us with a huge library of books, time to re-read
old favourites has been one of the pleasurable opportunities of lockdown
hermitage. I have reread my entire collection of Patrick Obrien ( an
inexhaustible pleasure)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey...Maturin_series

And some old favourites from Jane Sandison (most out of print; I came
upon her in the 1970s and collected the set secondhand in jumble sales;
they are now collectors items with a website for addicts)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Duncan

OK,men probably won't love Jane Duncan, but you MIGHT get addicted to
US author Donna Leon's Brunetti detective series set in Italy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Leon

( re-reading Brunetti is on my list)


Lurking on the shelves is my collection of US author Betty MacDonald

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_MacDonald

My mother and I read her in the 1960s, crying with laughter.

Also sitting on the shelves waiting for me is Seamus Heaney, whose
poetry is an endless source of wonder.

Janet UK