LibGuides: Leisure Reading: Overview

Not Just for School!

The Thompson Library's books are not just for school work. We have a large collection of literature and popular fiction.

Check out our Browsing Collection for new and popular fiction and nonfiction. It is located on the 3rd floor near the Reference Desk.

You will find more literature and popular fiction in our main collection in the P section. It is sometimes difficult to browse through these books, so we suggest searching for an author or title in the library's catalog (Mirlyn).

UM-Flint's Goodreads Account
Find Thompson Library's staff picks and see what books your professors have written.

Library Catalog Search

What to Read Next

Did you just read a great book and want to read more like it? Or are you just having trouble deciding what to read next? The resources listed below can help.

Books & Authors
Reader's discovery tool. Explore fiction and nonfiction, read-alike books, award winners, and librarian's favorites lists.

From the publisher: "Books & Authors offers new ways to explore the endless possibilities and combinations of books, authors, genres and topics. Combining over 140,000 titles, 50,000 authors, and thousands of read-alike, award winner and librarian's favorites lists, Books & Authors helps bring readers and literature together. Through the use of expertly written and arranged content and a dynamic, cutting edge user interface, Books & Authors makes exploration of genre fiction and essential non-fiction fun! By leveraging our entire award-winning What Do I Read Next? collection, patrons and students alike can be sure that their next big read comes with a BIG recommendation."

Goodreads
An online social networking site dedicated to readers and books. Track what you are reading and what you want to read, see what your friends are reading, discover similar books through Goodreads suggestions and their "Listopia." You have to become a member of the site (it's FREE) and you log in in with your email, Facebook, Twitter, or Google accounts.
WorldCat Genres
Browse books, films, and television shows by genre. Recommendations are based on popularity in the world's libraries. Also offers recommendations on characters, places, subjects, and age group.
LibraryThing
An online social networking site dedicated to readers and books. It has many of the same functionality as Goodreads, but it is geared more toward book collectors. You have to become a member of the site (it's FREE up to 200 books) and you log in in with your email, Facebook, or Twitter.

What's Next
A database of fiction series maintained by Michigan's Kent District Library. This is a great resource for finding out the order in which books are written in a series. You can search by author, book title, series title, and genre.

Chat with a Librarian

Quick Links

Literature in the Library

Here is break down of the Library of Congress classification for the P section.

PG 2900 - 3698 | Russian literature

PJ | Literature from the Middle East

PK 2901 - 5471 | Indian literature

PL 700 - 889 | Japanese literature

PL 950 - 998 | Korean literature

PL 2250 - 3208 | Chinese literature

PN 6700 - 6790 | Comics and graphic novels

PQ | French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese literature

PR | British literature

PR 9340 - 9410 | African literature

PS | American literature

PT | German, Dutch, Scandinavian literature