I'm guessing you want me to say Google. But I'd actually use Amazon. Or even just walking into a good book store and reading a few! What have you got to lose?
I was thinking that when buying books, people often take notice of recommendations from Amazon or random sites through Google or discussion sites like this one, but a recommendation from someone I know or interact with is preferable when I can get it. And it's not necessarily preferable because of a higher quality recommendation: a recommendation from a person implies some degree of meaningful interaction with them that contributes to an overall sense of.. meaningful-ness even if the book turns out to be awful. Plus if it turns out to be awful, I can discuss it with that person further and possibly get a better recommendation. Plus whether or not it's awful, I can talk with them about it after reading it for additional meaningful interaction.
I think that kind of loss of meaningful interaction is a pretty small thing, but it can add up over time and have a greater impact with high usage of services like Google that automate things that previously generally involved more human interaction. And sure, no one's forcing anyone to use Google or Amazon instead of talking to people, but it's a fairly subtle opportunity cost that comes with using those services. And those kinds of services are convenient and useful enough that it's quite easy to make a habit of using them, and habits aren't easy to change.
Well, pre-internet, my city had three bookstores. None of the people working there read anything besides the popular trash; they couldn't tell you who wrote The Metamorphosis without looking it up. The store selection was based on catalogue recommendations by the publishers.
I think many easily turned to the web for recommendations because as wholesome these kind & knowledgeable book and movie human recommenders are, they simply weren't available to a lot of us.
Amazon book recommendations and keyword search are garbage. Sometimes even a direct search for title and author name will put the result halfway down the list. The two good things Amazon has going for it are the huge catalog (great for finding the right ISBN), and reviews dating back to the 1990s. Makes it easier to decide whether or not to purchase the book from a more ethical retailer.
Out of all the online bookstores, Thriftbooks has the best recommendations in my experience.
The best ways to find good books are still bibliographies and large public and university libraries - browse the shelves, ask the librarians. Online library catalogues usually beat online retailer catalogs for keyword searches.
