Knowing about books
 

This might sound kinda of crazy,
but how do you know what kind of books are out?

Such as, I never knew Sister Souljah, shannon holmes (B-more careful), or the BAP handbook :) ever existed
(not until i came to college and searching the message board)

How do you find out about books?

Go to your local bookstore and just look around. I work at a Barnes and Noble in the receiving room, and I see all the books come in. The new books are usually in the front of the store or on displays throughout. I also used to ask my friends and family that read a lot what they were reading. That helped me get into subjects and series that I never would have found.

My local newspaper has a big section of new book reviews on Sunday. (just adding to the other good ideas.)

Ditto. DC has the Washington Post Book World on Sundays.

However, you might also be interested in one of my favorite magazines, Black Issues Book Review. The nice thing about BIBR is that they rotate which genres they feature. One issue might be the Poetry issue, another might be geared toward urban fiction. They even had a spirituality issue. Every issue, however, has reviews of all the latest African American books that are coming out.

I am sure there are other magazines or newsletters if you have a specific interest in other genres.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Sometimes your favorite general/mainstream magazines will have short reviews of books. I learned about my favorite novel, The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty, through a blurb in The Source Magazine!