haha, I know that feel -- I think the times I've been most successful at picking up book recs from panels and stuff are when I'm there with friends and between a bunch of us we get most of them and outsource the ones we're still ??? over to friends who might've also read them and who can fill in the gaps of spelling/missing names.

Codenames is so much fun! So is Dixit, though I haven't played that as recently. Dobble is a great name for a game, too. :)