Wondering What to Read Next? Whichbook Lets You Search for Books By Mood

Choosing a new book to read can be overwhelming, which is why there are so many tools designed to help you narrow down your options. While these resources are good for finding books based on genre or titles similar to those that you have already read and loved, they're not as helpful when your tastes are less specific. If you're looking for literature that matches a certain vibe, try Whichbook.

Whichbook recreates the experience of asking for book recommendations from a well-read friend. Instead of typing in the title of your favorite book or the last one you read, the tool lets you search for new reads by emotion. You can choose up to four mood categories—which include such spectrums as happy to sad, funny to serious, and conventional to unusual—and select where your books should fall on a sliding scale.

You can also limit the results by selecting your preferred plot and character types. The tool gives you the option to search for books with characters of various ages, races, genders, and sexualities. The plot categories are broad and not connected to any genre, with labels like open, success against the odds, and lots of twists and turns. Other search tools—like a literary world map and recommendations based on bestsellers—are also available on the site.

You can play around with the features on Whichbook the next time you want to refresh your to-read list. And if coming up with a mood to search for is still too much work, you can't go wrong with the titles from our summer reading list.

For more fascinating facts and stories about your favorite authors and their works, check out Mental Floss's new book, The Curious Reader: A Literary Miscellany of Novels and Novelists, out May 25!