General | K-12 | Public Library | Tips and Training

Lives Change with Reading

What book has changed your life? A study at Emory recently suggested that reading a novel can trigger actual changes in the brain that linger, at least for a few days, after the novel is finished.* Most of us have felt this, but now there is hard evidence with functional magnetic resonance imaging scans that show changes in resting-state connectivity of the brain. This means it’s time to turn to NoveList to choose the next book to read.

NoveList is a book recommendation tool with useful tools for the reader and librarian, including tools to help users find a new book or author based on previous favorites.

The fastest way to a recommendation is to search for a favorite book title or author. Each title in the results will include links to Title Read-alikes and Author Read-alikes. Some titles also offer Series Read-alikes.

Another way to a good recommendation is to search by your topic of interest and then narrow your results using the facets, or appeal terms, on the left side of the screen. You can narrow by the type of Storyline, the Pace or Tone of the story, by the Writing Style, or by a particular Subject or Location.

NoveList also features pre-packaged book lists to find recommended titles on many different topics. The “Recommended Reading Lists” box on the home page, left side, includes bibliographies on Road Trips, Biographical Novels, Historical Thrillers, Coming of Age Stories, Dystopian Days, and Witches and Wizards, to name a few.

See also some of the tips we’ve shared earlier on how to use NoveList:
* Tip: Find Out about the Next Book in a Series with NoveList Series Alerts
* Finished the Hunger Games and Looking for the Next Series to Read?
* NoveList Tip: Find Authors in a Specific Genre
* Books to TV and Books to Movies in NoveList

NoveList K-8 is a subset of NoveList for younger readers.

Note: Readers will want to know what novel was at the center of the Emory study. The subjects all read Pompeii by Robert Harris, which was chosen because it was considered a page-turner with a strong narrative.

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