Welcome to November! Slightly late, but we got here!

I’ve been extremely busy with work lately, and that caused the delay. One significant factor in that is a new project we started at our sister site, Book Notification, which is assigning genres, sub-genres, and micro-genres to the 90,000+ authors listed on there.

The main reason for this is to eventually offer the best possible author, series, and book recommendations. While many websites try to do that, I’ve always found their recommendations lacking.

They either have so little data that the recommendations are too general, or they aren’t considering the right things.

For example, I love the concept of a site like Literature Map. I think it’s really neat – but it falls apart when you jump into the data. If you search Stephen King, the “closest” two authors to King are JK Rowling and J.R.R. Tolkien, for example.

They have some results that are okay, but they could be much better. I’ve checked out many recommendation sites over the years, and as soon as you dig below the surface, you start to see the cracks.

So it’s been a very interesting project. First, I had to take the time to learn and understand all the genres, as well as the people reading them and their interests.

If someone is looking for spy thrillers, then great—recommend them. Then there are series-specific recommendations. If someone is a Jack Reacher fan, I always recommend Nick Petrie.

But what about cozy mysteries? Is someone just a fan of cozy mysteries? If they primarily read cozy mysteries about dogs, does that mean you should recommend them books in the micro-genre of “Cozy Mystery: Dogs”? Or is that too specific? Can you jump up a level and recommend them books from the sub-genre “Cozy Mystery: Animals”?

So it was a really cool research project. Taking the time to fully understand genres, talking to people who read and asking them exactly why they went with the book they are reading, and what they would be looking for in recommendations.

What’s great about readers is that we all want to chat about books! I’d approach random people who had a book out and start a conversation about the book they were reading, and it would turn into a great conversation where I’d learn why they were reading that specific book and how interested they are in particular genres.

It can be a great way to kill a long train ride, or just kill a few minutes while waiting in line at the coffee shop. I wear a lot of book-related merchandise, and it’s always neat when someone sees my Illustrated Man t-shirt and wants to chat about it, and books in general.

That was the fun part. Then we had to create an entire database consisting of every potential genre, sub-genre, and micro-genre. Then start working on it, assigning authors to the appropriate categories, expanding the database as we went, checking the “related authors” list to see if I was happy with it, and then finessing it until I was satisfied we were on the right path.

Not as fun!

Where it really became a chore was deciding what micro-genres were actually worthy of listing. You haven’t lived until you’ve had a 30-minute debate on whether “Cozy Mystery Doctors & Nurses” or “Lighthouse Keeper Romance” should be considered a micro-genre or not!

Anyway, that’s been the last few weeks of my life. My work is all books, so I can’t complain, but I’m looking forward to handing that project over to my database team next week to manage!

Let’s chat about reading!

The best book I read last month was Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

This was the book club pick for Book Notification’s I Care About Books podcast. We recorded that last night, and it should be up tomorrow. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel to get notified when that drops if you want my full thoughts.

In short, it was a fantastic book. What really stood out to me was the descriptions Kurt used for characters. And the way he merges tragedy with humour. It’s even crazier reading this and thinking of when it was released, and what sort of literature was being published at that time.

Highest recommendation, and if you haven’t read this classic, be sure to pick it up.

Speaking of the podcast, I read The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, which was the November pick.

You can watch the podcast to hear my full thoughts. In short, it was one of those books I admired and respected but didn’t particularly enjoy. It took me about three weeks to get through, and it was a real struggle.

I’ve seen people give it 10 out of 10 and declare it a masterpiece, and I completely understand that, but it gets a much lower grade from me just for my own personal enjoyment, or lack thereof.

In saying that, I saw that some schools would assign it primarily as a Summer read, and that is one of its strengths: as a book to study and discuss.

While I didn’t enjoy reading the book, I really did enjoy the podcast and discussing it in detail, including its various layers. I’m really enjoying doing these podcasts purely for those discussions. Last night, after the podcast ended, we stayed on call for an additional 30 minutes, chatting more about Slaughterhouse-Five.

When it’s my turn to pick a book, I always go with one that I know resonates with the majority of OOB newsletter readers. First time around, it was The Women by Kristin Hannah. I’m up again, and I picked Still Life, the first book in the Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny.

I listened to the first couple of that series based on your recommendations, and while I enjoyed it, it just wasn’t the sort of book I wanted to listen to given my lifestyle. I listen to books while running, so I prefer fast-paced thrillers rather than a calmer tone in the world of three pines.

I’ve always wanted to go back and actually read them, and so this will be the perfect opportunity. Feels like a great series to get into over the Winter months.,

I listened to Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper, the second novel I’ve read by him, after She Rides Shotgun. A fearless publicist digs into the dark secrets of Los Angeles after her boss is murdered, uncovering a ruthless web of power, corruption, and crime.

This neo-noir (I’m obsessed with genres now, ha) novel started very well with two different protagonists doing their own thing, and had me interested early on. Unfortunately, that interest didn’t hold. The story seemed to jump all over the place from homeless campfires to steroid cartels to kidnappings, and a bit of a trainwreck. A highly regarded book by many, but not one I enjoyed.

Speaking of Jordan, I watched the adaptation of She Rides Shotgun. They stripped a lot of the movie out – although there are quite a few scenes involving the young girl that, while believable in a book (as you picture and justify it in your mind), would probably have looked ludicrous on the big screen, so that I can understand that.

It was marred by a couple of poor performances, though Taron Egerton was great. If you’ve read the book, it’s not one I’d be rushing out to see, as it falls into the “loosely based on” category. But if you’ve read the book, give it a go.

I mentioned a couple of months ago that my daughter was now attending university. She’s majoring in English, and a few of her classes require her to read specific books, so my wife and I have decided to start reading them as well, in case she wants to discuss them, or gives us an extra topic to chat about.

My wife has read most of them. I’ve only read The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith so far. I adored this book. The writing, the setting, and the story were all great, and I am looking forward to reading more in that series.

I didn’t enjoy the movie adaptation anywhere near as much. My biggest issue was that the movie went at a much faster pace, and I particularly enjoyed the slower pace in the book, with lots of typical long European meals, sipping lattes and Americanos. If you’ve never read The Talented Mr. Ripley, I’d highly recommend it.

I listened to Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell. Well, tried to. I was excited for this one because I had it on hold at the library and had to wait forever due to the number of people in front of me, and I had recently listened to None Of This Is True by Lisa, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Don’t Let Him In is a struggle. It starts with narration from three different perspectives. One is from four years prior, and the other two I guessed were in the present, even though it wasn’t explicitly stated. And one of the men featured in the four years ago timeline MIGHT be one of the men featured in one of the later timelines, but it was all very vague.

While the author felt that would add to the mystery, it left me quite confused. I stopped/started the book many times over the month and still am not close to finishing it. But it’s one of those where I do want to see where it goes, so I will power through.

I read the latest thriller by Freida McFadden, The Intruder, about a woman in a remote cabin during a storm, and a young girl is discovered hiding in her shed, covered in blood.

It was a good outing with Freida. There was a small cast of characters, and I was impressed with the twists she managed to pull off despite it. While not her best book, it’s undoubtedly among her better ones.

I’ve started reading The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark. I really enjoyed her last two standalones, so I’m looking forward to this one.

For those who don’t know, there’s a website called the 52 Book Club which creates a 52-book reading challenge every year, covering different topics. If you missed it, they just added their 2026 reading challenge, which has the usual list of great topics.

I create a spreadsheet with all the entries for my family, and as we read, we go in and fill it in and check any categories off. It’s a lot of fun, and neat to look back on the year and see everything we read.

Check out this cool gallery: 14 Street Art Masterpieces That Will Make You Fall In Love With Books Again. Thanks for that Dawna!

A shoutout to Pickles Bookshelf, who my friends met at the Milwaukee Trinket Swap on the weekend. They offer up mystery books – as in there may be hints on the packaging, but you have to buy the book to see what you get. And they have some really cool Christmas ones if you’re looking for a gift for someone – or yourself!

I’ve seen that concept in a few bookstores, and I love it. Such a great idea for Christmas gifts. I like that they have gone all out with the packaging.

Unfortunately, I don’t know whether it is local pickup in the Milwaukee area or if they ship across the USA. I messaged them on Instagram, but didn’t get a response before this went out.

As always, be sure to check out Book Notification. I’m so proud of the status of that site, and I love using it to help people out throughout the book world.

For example, we now have a monthly feature promoting debut authors. These days, writing a book isn’t even half the battle. So much work goes into marketing it, so it’s really cool to be able to highlight debut books and help new authors get started strong.

And librarians as well, many of them rely on our lists, but they are now using another feature on the site religiously. Baker & Taylor, a major library distributor, announced it is closing. One service many librarians rely on from that is their upcoming book calendar.

As a result, many librarians have reached out to me and have started using our book release calendar and sharing it with their networks of librarians. You’ve no idea just how happy that makes me to hear that we are able to help fill that void and help out the greatest people on earth—librarians!

Alright, on with the newsletter.

Each month, we give away 5 $25 Amazon gift certificates to random subscribers.

To win, all you have to do is be a subscriber. Nothing more! When we click “Publish,” we take a list of all our subscribers, put them into a random draw, and those are the winners.

Our winners this month are:

– Chuck from Redwood City, CA
– Cathy K. from Calgary, AB
– Gene P from Santa Barbara, CA
– Neil F from Carson City, NV
– Phyllis from Stuart, FL

All of you have been e-mailed. If you don’t see anything, check your junk folder or contact me.

So it goes.

Graeme
OrderOfBooks.com

Jokes of the Month

I got so bored with my Tolstoy novel that I threw my Kindle across the room. It’s wall and pieces now.

My friend went into our local library and asked if they had any books on the Titanic. “Absolutely, dozens and dozens”, replied the librarian. “That’s a shame”, he said. “They must all be ruined by now.”

It took me a while to track down that novel about religious women. The library had put it in the nun-fiction section.

Man in library: Do you have any books on badgers?

Librarian: No, they’d fall of.

I went to the library to get a book on abdominal pain but it was missing a whole section. Somebody had ripped the appendix out.

(Jokes from The Book of Book Jokes by Alex Johnson)

Book Recommendations

In this section, I give 3-5 random book recommendations from readers of the newsletter. They can be old books, they can be new. Feel free to e-mail suggestions to me. Just hit reply. If you wish to add a description for the book around the same size as the ones below that’d be great too! 

Old Man’s War Series by John Scalzi: Keith wrote in to recommend the first book in this series. Good timing too, as the seventh novel just came out in September. Here’s what he wrote:

“Old Man’s War” is the first in a series by John Scalzi, read by William Dufris. I liked the premise of this book: the universe is crowded with technologically advanced sentient species all viscously competing for a limited number of habitable worlds, resulting in galaxy wide war that has been raging for centuries. Earth is weak, with only a few colonies and inferior technologies compared to most other star-faring species.

The Colonial Defense Force controls most resources and is constantly searching for new worlds to settle. Without expansion to the stars, humanity will become extinct. Significantly, the CDF only recruits soldiers from the U.S., and they must be 75 years old – with the knowledge and skills won from living in the most successfully aggressive population on Earth. Those who survive 10 years of service are rewarded with youth and a homestead on one of the colonies. I really liked this one and look forward to the rest of the series. 8/10″

Rex Dalton K9 Thrillers Series by JC Ryan: Jeanine recommended this series, which started in 2018 with The Fulcrum. I like this description of the series which made it to the front of the book cover:

“Jack Reacher plus a dog”.

Yep that sums it up quite well! Here’s what Jeanine wrote:

“JC Ryan, who writes in the Vince Flynn, Tom Clancy style.  His series of books starring Rex Dalton and his sidekick dog Digger and well written and the characters are wonderful.  Rex works for a spy corporation used by the US government and Rex and Digger go all over the world getting into different situations, like taking down a corrupt Saudi prince and looking for some lost books from the Vatican library.”

Joseph Bridgeman Series by Nick Jones: I listened to the first book in this series and really enjoyed it. My wife and son then listened to it, immediately binged the rest of the series, and said I should recommend it—so here we go!

In the first book in the series, Joseph Bridgeman discovers he can time-travel. Only a few minutes at a time, but could he push it to more? Could he time-travel back 20 years, to when his sister went missing, to find out exactly what happened to her?

The first book was a fantastic listen with so many of those moments that had me gasping out loud.

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt: This is a standalone novel by Patrick, a Booker Prize finalist, and was adapted into a movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal, John C. Reilly, and Joaquin Phoenix.

Two brothers are hired to kill a guy named Hermann Kermit Warm, but on the long trip to do the job, one of them starts questioning the whole violent life they’ve always lived. It’s a darkly funny Old West story about rough people, bad choices, and the weird bond between brothers.

Lies Series by Andrew Cunningham: Del Honeycutt and bestselling mystery author Sabrina Spencer team up to solve thrilling mysteries filled with danger and secrets in this series.

It starts with “All Lies”. After a date ends in murder, Del Honeycutt is drawn into a dangerous mystery connected to a crime and a hidden fortune from 85 years earlier. Joined by the victim’s sister, Sabrina, whose own identity may not be what it seems, he must uncover the truth while being hunted by killers determined to keep the past buried.

November Book Of The Month

Nash Falls by David Baldacci:

David Baldacci is back, and the author of the Memory Man and Camel Club series has a whole new book series for us to dig into.

Releasing November 11th, Nash Falls is the first book in the Walter Nash series, with the second book already planned for next year.

Nash has built a good life. He’s intelligent, respected, devoted to his family, and successful at a powerful investment firm.

But when the FBI forces him to go undercover to expose a global criminal mastermind, he’s pushed into a dangerous game where survival means becoming someone darker and far more ruthless than he ever imagined.

10 More Notable Books Releasing in November

Brought to you by BookNotification.com where you can get updated on all the upcoming books by your favourite authors with your own personalized calendar!

Check Out November’s Most Popular Book Releases

Pictures of the Month

Thanks to Carla for the first two, Mark for the Kansas City Public Library pic (I’ve shared that one before but will always share it when sent!) and Pauline for the last one which is a decoration at the North Ridgeville, Ohio Library.

Send in your own to site@orderofbooks.com or by replying!
Images, jokes, etc. We’ll take it all!

Your Thoughts!

Last month, I asked you what the best book in your favourite series was. The answers are later in the newsletter.

As we’re approaching December, and some people may be looking for Christmas gift ideas, I thought it’d be a good time to ask everyone:

What was the best book you read this year so far?

And don’t worry I know it’s hard to decide; feel free to mention a couple.

I’ll give a top 5 in no particular order:

– A Calamity of Souls by David Baldacci
– Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
– You Killed Me First by John Marrs
– Split Second Duology by Douglas E. Richards
– You Series by Caroline Kepnes

It can be quite challenging to narrow it down. I feel bad leaving Erasure by Percivil Everett, The Best Lies by David Ellis and The Institute by Stephen King off that list. But that’s a nice problem to have, isn’t it? So many great books, you can’t narrow it down!

E-mail us your feedback to site@OrderOfBooks.com or just reply to this e-mail, and we’ll pick the best comments and feature it in next month’s newsletter. Five people will also randomly win a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.

Reader Mailbag!

Click here to read.

Book Notification
Order of Books » Newsletter » OrderOfBooks November 2025 Newsletter

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