So Many Books has a post on The Modus Operandi of Avid Readers.  This quote in particular lined up with my experiences:

We have so much information in our heads that we have accumulated over years and years of successful reading experiences that in comparison to new or infrequent readers we are more likely to have a good experience with books. The good experience acts as a reward and encourages us to read even more. Conversely, a bad experience makes us less likely to want to read more. But avid readers have a wealth of good experiences to draw on to encourage continued reading. New or infrequent readers get discouraged.

I’ve chatted with Jaimie many times about this.  The old saw is "Never judge a book by its cover."  Particularly when reading science fiction and fantasy I can and do judge a book by its cover.  Just looking at the layout of the cover can tell me with a reasonable degree of accuracy that I will not like this book.  It’s very hard for me to quantify the criteria I use because I don’t have an artistic vocabulary, but I know that the choice of image, the predominant colors, the art style, and the font used for the title all play a part. 

A quick look at the cover can tell me that there’s a decent chance I’ll enjoy this book, or that I might like it if I’m in the right mood, or that I probably won’t like at all. 

Covers matter when I’m thinking of picking up a new author.  They don’t matter as much when it’s an author I already know.  They can serve as a warning that the author is trying something different and the book should be approached with caution.  Authors I know get the benefit of the doubt, whereas new ones get filtered quickly.

I need a better filtering mechanism.  I’ve tried to find a book reviewer whose reviews would help me find books I would have otherwise missed.  All the reviewers I’ve read have consistently praised books that I loathed and panned books I’ve loved.  Unfortunately they’ve also praised books I enjoy and panned ones I don’t, so I can’t even use them as a NOT filter.  I don’t expect a reviewer’s taste to match mine exactly, but I do want at least 80% overlap before I begin to value their reviews. 

How can I find books that match my taste?