The year is coming to an end and what is actually "the latest shit" in the book market? How do you decide on a "good" book?
Most of the time, that happens via the Amazon algorithm, via personal recommendations.
And then you go to a bookstore.
Many people love the atmosphere in bookstores, sit down, then need a "de-caf-chai-latte-mocha" and please "a glass of water, but not so cold" and start reading a book in the store. Whether at the big chains or at local booksellers, it's a wonderful phenomenon that most of the time people just read and just consume caffeine at the "reading islands" in the store, but then almost never buy a book. Or customers wander around the store, pursuing their haptic needs and touching each book once.
The big problem with chain stores is that they hardly provide good advice in their huge stores and you can hardly find anything among the towers and mountains of books. And of course the customer stands in front of you, who asks the employee for a book, whether he can order this one until tomorrow, but doesn't know the author and the title.
The format "books on TV" to present always fails, even when great showmasters tried that or something like that, completely failed. Thousands of tweets and blog posts, newspaper articles and YouTube videos, TikTok and Snapchat snippets every day. And then I still want to eat and drink, sleep, talk, meet someone, and take the dog out.
Then why read another printed book?
Because it relaxes, gives you time for yourself and you can completely "switch off". Like in a meditation or yoga exercise. You do something for yourself and your brain. You dive into other worlds and can also entertain yourself very well later.
The best advice for a new book that is really worth reading among the thousands of new releases is in your local bookstore. When you're out and about, go in to your local bookstore and have a conversation with the bookseller. Those are the really valuable conversations and you'll get good and very valuable advice on a new book that's well worth reading. After that comes possibly the coffee and the sitting down and the still further "just looking".