I frequently struggle with picking out my next book. I can browse book stores for hours but I'm always hesitant to buy something for one of many of the following reasons:
I don't know if the book is outdated. I don't know the historiography well enough to know if I'm buying something that has contributed to the field or if I'm buying something from a writer rather than a historian. Most simply, I don't know if I'll learn anything that makes up for my time investment. I struggle mostly with #2. I can be interested in a topic, but I don't want to pick out something written by a Tom Holland or Graham Hancock type. What's the best way to become acquainted with the historiography of a subject? I can google and google but I can't help but feel as if there is a whole academic community that I'm not privy to. How did people even do this before the internet?
Before the internet the academic community would often make use of book reviews in the academic journals they had access to for works around the topic they were interested in, or by recommendation elsewhere.
Another way forward is if you have just read a book you enjoyed. If you want to dive deeper into some of the themes of topics it covers then you look in its bibliography under the relevent section and see if anything listed there is attractive to you.
Most academic type books, or specialist history books will have some form of historiography around their topic in their introduction from which you can glean titles of books or authors around the topic.
There is a an issue with all this though and it's one historians often have to deal with and it's one you say you suffer from and see it as a negative - sometimes the book you read just isn't what you thought it would be even with the above methods of identifying it. History, no matter how well sourced or contextualised, is prey to both the prejudices of the writer and that of the reader and it is not unusual to find a book with which you simply don't get one with. Maybe you find the argument unconvincing, the evidence insufficient, perhaps the lens the historian used is not one you appreciate, or even you find the writers own assumptions and interpretations too jarring. That's actually ok. Reading a book you don't agree with or feel wasn't what you wanted to read actually helps define your next book as well.
Historical reading is about spreading a wide net and choosing which fish to keep and which to throw away. This is desirable as it allows you to be aware of alternative approaches to a topic. One caveat I might make though is don't, despite what I have said earlier, put too much weight on book reviews - as much as historians have their own flavour and preconceptions so too do reviewers academic and generalist ones.
This isn't a direct answer to your question (I apologize if this isn't appropriate for that reason), but if you haven't seen it already the AskHistorians book list is really excellent (I don't know if there's been a meta post about how they specifically curate it, which would be relevant to your specific question).
If you're looking for new academic texts specifically, check out the latest titles in the American Historical Review (AHR).
I agree with what GP_uniquenamefail stated, additionally if you are looking for a whole new book topic but are hesitant to buy, what I normally do is go into a chain store like Barnes and Noble and see what they have that I think sounds interesting. I then take photos of those books and when I get home check for academic book reviews and read up on the author. Then I’ll either go back and purchase or look online at Amazon.