NPR Book Concierge 2021

When I’m looking for my next book to read and it’s getting toward midyear I forget about the NPR Book Concierge. This is a mistake.

The NPR Book Concierge is a cool tool that helps you find books that suit your particular interests and tastes. NPR started it several years ago when the radio network was looking for a way to make its best books of the year list more useful. The editorial staff turned to the engineering staff and those engineers came up with a slick application that is easy and fun to use. The 2021 edition is now available.

NPR editors apply tags to each book that an NPR staffer or contributor reviews during the year. This all goes on to the NPR web site and you can then mix, match, and sort to your heart’s content. For example, you can pick on Staff Picks and Historical Fiction. Or you could sort on Nonfiction and For Music Lovers. Maybe you want to sort on Book Club Ideas and Biography & Memoir. You get the idea. One of my favorite categories is Seriously Great Writing. I love using that category in a variety of combinations.

I have written about the Book Concierge more than once before, but this is such a marvelous tool (OK, toy) for the reader of books that I think it’s worth mentioning when NPR releases the latest version. If you haven’t looked at it before, check it out; it’s a lot of fun.