This week I came across two book-finding tools worth sharing. NPR’s Books We Love is an interactive guide that lets you filter more than 4,000 staff and critic picks first by year and then by genre and other tags, like length or mood. If you prefer something not on a bestseller list, you can also try Whichbook, a search engine that lets you find books by emotion or by character, or click on a world map to find books set in specific countries. — CD

When a company stonewalls you on a refund or dispute, head over to the Elliott Report’s Company Contacts database. Journalist Christopher Elliott has compiled direct phone numbers and email addresses for customer service executives at hundreds of companies — airlines, hotels, car rentals, banks, cable providers, and more. Skip the front-line customer service maze and go straight to someone with actual authority. The site also rates each company’s responsiveness to consumers. Free to use, no signup required. — MF

We built a companion page for Recomendo that tracks live Amazon prices on every product we’ve ever recommended since 2020 — over 2,500 items from both Recomendo and Cool Tools. Prices update nightly. Sort by biggest discount to find the best deals, filter by price range, or search for a specific product. Each listing links back to the original review. It’s like a permanent, always-updating clearance rack for our recommendations. Bookmark it and check back next time you are ready to buy. — MF

StoryTerra is a interactive map that links to over 120,000 books, movies, TV shows, and games with their real-world locations and time periods. You can slide through centuries on the timeline, zoom into cities on the map, and discover what stories took place when and where. — MF

I switched from Google to Kagi a couple of months ago and can't imagine going back. The results remind me of Google's golden age, before ads took over. The uncluttered ad-free interface delivers high-quality results without the SEO spam that plagues Google. It has tons of customization features I’m still learning about. It’s $10 a month, but having a search engine aligned with user experience rather than advertising revenue is worth it. — MF

The Ultimate Book List is a directory of books recommended by famous personalities, celebrities, and experts. I like that it includes source links to interviews and articles where these books were mentioned. If you’re just browsing, you can filter all the listed books by "most recommended." — CD

I created a searchable archive of every product we've recommended in Recomendo and our other newsletters since 2020. The database includes thousands of items (with photos) that you can filter by category, date, or keyword. Want to see all the knives we've reviewed? Just type "knife" in the search field. This makes it easy to browse our entire review history or find specific recommendations. The site is ready to explore, though I'm open to suggestions for improvements. — MF

I was tired of visiting multiple museum collections one-by-one for usable images, so I built this simple web tool that creates direct search links to 11 major institutional collections on a single page. Enter a search term like "sailing ships" and get one-click access to results from places like the Smithsonian, Met Museum, Library of Congress and more. Free. — MF

This is super cool: Wikenigma, an encyclopedia of known unknowns. What we know we don't know. A startlingly long list of unanswered questions, uncertainties, and blank areas in our collective knowledge. Frontiers. Good places to work. — KK

If you're finding that using quotation marks no longer returns exact phrase matches on Google, here's a workaround: After conducting your search, click on "Tools" under the search bar, then click on “All Results” and choose “Verbatim”. This will display search results that match the exact phrase you entered. — CD

Close.city is an interactive map designed to help you find neighborhoods in the United States that are within a short walking distance of amenities like supermarkets, public transportation, cafes, co-working spaces, bookstores, and other facilities. It's useful when searching for a hotel, Airbnb, or apartment that's near the kinds of places that are important to you — MF

Dexa is a new AI-powered search engine that indexes content from prominent podcasts and videos, making it easy to find the information you need. When you search on Dexa, it provides a text summary of the relevant information and allows you to listen to or watch the specific portions of the media containing the information you're looking for, saving you time and effort. – MF

Oldavista is a search engine that retrieves results from the “internet of yesterday,” sourcing from archived personal web pages such as GeoCities, AOL Hometown, Angelfire, and others. It’s modeled after the now-defunct AltaVista and scraped from the Internet Archive. I love the nostalgia exploration! — CD

Reddit is often a more reliable source of information than Google, especially for product reviews, restaurant recommendations, and how-to instructions. Unfortunately, Reddit’s native search engine is clunky and leaves a lot to be desired. I started using Giga, a site that returns relevant Reddit posts and summarizes them. I used it to find out how to cook chicken breasts so they don’t become tough and dry. — MF

I didn’t know it, but I guess I did need another search engine for restaurants. Map of the Best filters only “the best” restaurants near you based on stars, awards and reviews. It eliminates a lot of the Yelp noise and is especially helpful for me in San Jose, California where there’s an abundance of Mexican restaurants serving delicious food. — CD 

Google has taken its first steps toward integrating its generative AI into your search. Google SGE is now available as a default option in your browser. When you google something the AI sorts the answers into a readable summary, which allows you to respond and ask further questions in a conversational mode. It displays at the very top of the search page in a tinted box. I find it very helpful, reliable, and extremely easy to use – it’s just there. To turn it on, you need a Google account, Chrome on desktop or Google app on phone, and to be in the US. — KK

Reddit's search function is not pleasant to navigate, so whenever I discover a better search engine for it, I always get excited to share it widely. GigaBrain is the newest and best search engine for finding product recommendations and experience-based answers from actual people. Whatever your question is, GigaBrain will extract from billions of Reddit comments and provide you with summarized results. — CD

I felt a sense of glee when I came across Emojiton, because I take every opportunity to use emojis when it's appropriate. I'm a fan mostly because they add a playful emotional context to whatever I'm trying to convey. Emojiton is perfect for finding a string of emojis to translate films or books, or words in other languages. Here's Pinocchio in emojis. — CD

As an alternative to Google I've been asking Perplexity.ai all my questions, because it provides more than just a list of results. It searches a wide range of sources, including academic papers, and writes up a quick summary with cited sources I can click on for further research. It also guesses my follow-up questions. It feels more like a conversation than just search results. — CD

Swurl.com is a web search engine that is optimally designed for mobile. It instantly searches Google, LinkedIn, Instagram, Amazon, YouTube, Images, News and Reddit, and all results are viewed by scrolling or swiping — no clicking. Definite timesaver. — CD