What Are Random Reads?

Did you know that on average there are 440,000 adult fiction books published annually in the US? If you follow people on Bookstagram and BookTube you wouldn’t know it. Often book reviews are for titles that have been heavily marketed or are well-known authors (Colleen Hoover anyone?). Some of these books deserve the hype surrounding them but what about all those other books? Those novels that were someone’s dream project, that they slaved over for years, stealing moments of writing time between errands and full-time jobs and families? Those books that the author poured their heart and soul into? I often think of how thrilled they must have been to receive that offer from the publisher only to have their book released with limited publication and even smaller sales. The publishing industry is a brutal business and incredibly hard to break through. I have no doubt that there are some true hidden gems in those unsung books.

That is where Random Reads comes in. My local library has 360 shelves of general adult fiction (this does not include mystery or sci-fi/fantasy) and on average 23 books per shelf. On the first Wednesday of every month, I use a random letter generator and a random number generator and head to the library. The letter generator is to determine the section by author’s last name and the number generator is which shelf I head to in that section. My only rules are that I can’t pick a well-known book or popular author. 

I share with you which book I’ve selected and then later in the month give you my review as well as some thoughts on maybe why the book didn’t get any fanfare. My hope is that you discover some new interesting reads that you may have never heard of. Perhaps help some unknown authors find an audience. After all, as Samuel Johnson said “A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.”