I think I understand what you're saying. If I'm wrong, hopefully you'll correct me, before I look like too much of an idiot. What I'm taking away from your post is that people get into a rut in terms of what they read. They only read pure LotR-esque fantasy series, with no deviation into other takes on the fantasy genre. Or they only read non-fiction, or consider anything less than "high literature" to be beneath them. In short, they don't branch out, so they never know what's really out there.

I'm going to pretend that my free book posts have a deeper meaning than just giving away stuff. I'm going to retroactively claim that I want everyone's reading material to branch out, to see what else is out there.

For me, I like anything fiction. I don't go so much for the histories, biographies, etc. I've just never read one that's kept my attention for more than a few minutes. Science Fiction & Fantasy was and will always be my first love, but over the last few years I've branched out into a couple of different genres. Dean Koontz was my first foray into the uncharted wilderness that is modern fiction, since he has a lot of books with a fantastic twist to them. A lot of his recent stuff has been so-so, but a lot of his older stuff is great. In particular, Odd Thomas, Velocity, Strangers, and his collection of short stories called Strange Highways.

I also like James Patterson's mysteries. That, and his style of keeping chapters to a couple of pages, really gets me into anything he's writing.

Another author I like is Jim Butcher, who writes two series right now. There's the classic fantasy series called the Codex Alera, the last book comes out a month from now. And he writes a modern urban fantasy called the Harry Dresden files about a modern-day wizard in modern-day Chicago, and all the challenges that come with trying to make rent while battling the forces of evil.

Other than the unspecified "fiction" genre, I haven't really gotten into anything different in the last couple of years. after reading some of the recent books I've posted here, though, I'm going to try to get more books in the thriller genre.

One author I've been reading a lot of recently is J A Konrath. He wrote a book called "Serial" that was published for free for the Amazon Kindle. It's a short book of three stories centering around two characters: a man who goes around picking up hitchhikers to kill them, a girl who goes around hitchhiking, and kills the driver, and what happens when the two get together.

I loved the book so much, I went to the author's website, and found that he had posted three of his unpublished books on his website, as well as all of his short stories. I posted a review about one of the books, Origin, about the US government keeping Satan in an underground bunker for study, and what happens when he gets out.

As I've posted in my review, it's hard for me to say if that's a great thriller novel or not, but it kept me reading when I should have been asleep. The same thing happened with the other two novels I've read of his. The great thing about getting books for free is the fact that I don't feel bad if I don't like them, and I don't lose anything by being bored. I haven't wasted any money, so it's completely risk-free.

I like the idea of sending out books that are special to you, but like you've said, that can get expensive. Reviews are great too, but sometimes, not enough information is given in a review to make it worth my time to pick up a book. Especially if there are already other books on my "to buy" list.

One of the things I'm trying to do, is to go back through books I haven't read in a long time, to find those hidden gems that may have fallen by the roadside. A lot of times, the books are as much crap as I remember them being, but there have been some books that I've thoroughly enjoyed going back to.

For my part, I'll keep posting freebies as I see them. Maybe someone will find a new favorite author because of something I've posted. Hope I've given you some ideas.