Chapter-A-Day will send you about five minutes' worth of reading per day of either current fiction or non-fiction (such as business, self-help, or inspirational). If you like it enough to want to read the rest of the book, then you go to your local public library to check it out or purchase it online at the Chapter-A-Day Web site (or at your local bookstore). If you didn't find it that interesting, forget about it and read the excerpt of the next book.

A number of publishers (and authors themselves) now make excerpts (and sometimes entire first chapters) of new books available on their Web sites for free, including Simon & Schuster, Random House, & St. Martin's Press (just to name a few). Also, when authors appear on NBC's Today Show, you can then go to the Web site to read an excerpt of the new books featured on that day's program.

All of these methods allow you to "test-drive" new authors (or new titles) at your convenience in the comfort of your own home or office. It's also a good way to find out if a given book would really be worth your time & effort to obtain (by giving you a chance to sample at least the book's beginning).

But what if you have already read all of the books by your favorite author?

While you are waiting for your favorite author's next book to come out, you can use one of the subscription databases librarians use to find a similar author (or favorite plot type or genre), To access What Do I Read Next and/or Novelist, go to the Harris County Public Library Web site, click on Online Services, and then click on Databases. You will need to type in your library card barcode number plus your PIN to use these databases from home.

Of course, you can also read complete books online (not just excerpts) by registering for Netlibrary ebooks the next time you are at the library. Once you sign up at the library, you can then access your Netlibrary account from any Web-capable computer, such as at your home or office.

For more information see: