Electric knife! I have $10 one and it cuts bread like a dream!

I'm really interested to see the answers to this question too! I'm always jealous of the automatic slicers at the bakery. I wish I could bring in my homemade loaf and ask 'em to slice it =P

Waaay back, a friend of my mother's baked bread every day and complained of the same problem. The solution came when her husband made a bread knife with a built-in slicing guide. The blade was held out from the handle, allowing you to snug the handle up against the end of the loaf and (if you cut straight) get the same sized slice every time.

This page has an image of one (scroll down).

Letting it cool overnight sounds like a great idea - I tend to find that the bread just falls apart when I slice it. If only I could count on half the loaf not being gone when I woke up! Warm fresh bread products do not last long enough for sandwiches in my house, otherwise they'd be a fantastic way to save money and eat nicer bread....

My Shun Ken Onion 9" Bread Knife has a similar 'waved' edge- and is both very thin, and extremely sharp. It's crazy expensive, but I picked it up in a set of 4 of their knives on the "cheap." Amazon's price is not so friendly- here

Also try cutting slices from the loaf in a herringbone fashion.

Try this link:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/11933/bread-knife-and-matters-slicing

Put in the search term "herringbone" and it will bring you to a picture. It's easier to see it than to explain it.

I just use a serrated bread knife on totally cooled bread and it seems to work fine. My husband is better at it than I am. I use the sandwich bread recipe from Joy of Cooking. Some softer recipes don't seem to cut as well.

We use a bread saw, like Ketherian posted a link to. Here's one on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Out-Woods-Oregon-Bread-Slicer/dp/B001DSP81E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304442099&sr=8-1

For thin slices, your bread needs to cool *at least* 12 hours. All bread that you buy pre-sliced has been allowed to rest for an extended period before being packaged. (This is why many bakeries don't slice-- they want to sell you fresher bread!)

Your knife should be thin and sharp. Also make sure you are using very minimal downward pressure. That's what's making is squish. Let the knife do the work. Don't just move it back and forth half an inch, use the entire length of the bread knife as you saw.

Hmm, lots of good ideas here. I think I am going to try a combination of allowing the bread to cool longer and using an electric slicer. Thanks, guys!

and now, would you please share your bread recipe? thanks. ;)

I'm going to be boring and say practice. My boyfriend grew up eating sliced bread until he moved in with me, and at first he couldn't slice it thinly and cleanly. Now he can - it came eventually.

I think foodefafa has a good description of how to slice bread well there in the 2nd paragraph.

When I purchased an electric knife years ago, it came with a manual bread slicing guide. It's been great for my homemade bread. In fact, I think I'll go make some bread now. Here's a link to a similar item:

http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/bread_slicing_guide_manual_bread_slicer_acrylic_wood.aspx

Wusthof wave bread knife. Pretty much amazing.

I've been making homemade bread for over 3 years now and I think I've figured out the perfect way to get smaller slices (since this was the one factor that deterred me from making my own bread in the first place).

I let the loaves cool completely on the counter, then I bag them and put them in the fridge overnight. Then I take them out at some point the next day and use a regular ol' serrated knife to slice them. I can get really thin, medium, or thick slices easily with no squishing or irregular slices.

Maybe it's the bread recipe I use (or lots of practice), but I do think it's really important that the bread be as cold as possible.

It would be awesome to splurge on a better bread knife, but for the amount of time I use it, it's just not worth it. I'll be using my cheap IKEA bread knife till the handle falls off.

I use the Mac Superior bread knife. It's amazing! We call it "the Bread Sword" at our house due to it's shape. It has no trouble making thin-thin-thin through (cooled!) homemade bread (and tomatoes, and zucchini, and cake...)

http://www.chefknivestogo.com/macsubrkn.html

Letting it sit overnight pretty much does the trick for me. I can slice thinly and the bread doesn't fall apart or get smashed. The quality of the bread knife (unless it's exceptionally poor) doesn't matter as much as how fresh the bread is.

I can get about 16 very thin slices out of a half-size loaf. I always make whole wheat, and I bag it while still warm to keep the moisture in (as whole wheat is prone to drying out), let it sit overnight, slice, and freeze the sliced bread.

Rada bread knife. $10 and excellent.

Seems like leaving bread on the counter overnight is an invitation to bugs/pests.

It would definitely be an invitation to my cats.

if you can ignore this dude's weird-looking fingers, he has a good technique. i use the same method with a regular bread knife.

http://youtu.be/jXZ-x0ix_-g

I suggest investing in a bread slicer - a little kitchen gadget with grooves so you can slice the bread evenly. We have one and well it's the best thing we've had since ... well, you know.

There are plenty of different options on the market, and I assume in the States you will have even more variety.