Week 3 Prompt Responses

 1. I am looking for a book by Laurell K. Hamilton. I just read the third book in the Anita Blake series and I can’t figure out which one comes next!

The Lunatic Cafe is the 4th book of that series! 

2. What have I read recently? Well, I just finished this great book by Barbara Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer. I really liked the way it was written, you know, the way she used language. I wouldn't mind something a bit faster paced though.

I recommend "The Year of the Flood" by Margaret Atwood. It's fast paced but still lyrically written and descriptive.

3. I like reading books set in different countries. I just read one set in China, could you help me find one set in Japan? No, not modern – historical. I like it when the author describes it so much it feels like I was there!

How about "Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden? The story begins in 1929 in Japan when a young girl is sold into slavery and learns how to be a geisha. The writing style is described as "richly detailed" so I am sure it will feel like you are there!

4. I read this great mystery by Elizabeth George called Well-Schooled in Murder and I loved it. Then my dentist said that if I liked mysteries I would probably like John Sandford, but boy was he creepy I couldn't finish it! Do you have any suggestions?

Well, that book by Elizabeth George is actually part of a series, so if you liked that one I would recommend reading the other ones as well! Otherwise there is a series by Louise Penny, The Inspector Armand Garmache series that is also a mystery series and like "Well-Schooled in Murder", it is character driven and detailed. The first book is called "Still Life". 

5. My husband has really gotten into zombies lately. He’s already read The Walking Dead and World War Z, is there anything else you can recommend?

"The Zombie Autopsies" by Steven C. Schlozman is another zombie apocalypse fiction book that is written to seem like it is non-fiction. Like World War Z, you are given insider accounts on what is going on in the form of a doctor's journal, detailing his attempt to cure the epidemic.  

6. I love books that get turned into movies, especially literary ones. Can you recommend some? Nothing too old, maybe just those from the last 5 years or so.

"Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens is a great literary fiction book that was adapted into a movie in 2022. I would also recommend "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker. While its original book publication is more than five years old, it was just remade into a new movie in 2023. 

7. I love thrillers but I hate foul language and sex scenes. I want something clean and fast paced.

 "Lock and Key" is a fast-paced, suspenseful novel that is written by Traci Hunter Abramson, an author who writes "clean" fiction.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed doing this assignment. My work has Novelist, but I'll admit that I have been hardly using it. Seeing all of the different ways to search using this resource for this assignment has shown me that I really need to utilize it a lot more! 

When finding books to read, I utilize Goodreads sometimes, but I don't do general searches. I scroll through and see what my friends are reading and what they are rating highly. I also have really similar reading interests as two of my coworkers, so I rely on them for recommendations as well. I also read a lot of book review magazines as part of the collection development for my job, so I see a lot of new books there. But honestly, what I use most often to find things to read is my library's catalog. Our catalog has a lot of list features so I can search different lists for topics or genres of interest, and there is also an explore feature that shows the newest titles that have been added to my library. 

Reading Profile

 I've always loved reading. I remember my first grade teacher calling me a "star reader" and being so proud of that. As I was growing up, I would stay up really late at night reading and I didn't even have to be sneaky because my parents didn't care as long as I was quiet about it. Once I got to college, I was an English Literature major and even though I was reading so much for class, this was actually the time that I read more for fun than I ever had because I needed some agency in my reading choices and to escape from some of the assigned stuff sometimes. 

Now my main source of reading is audiobooks, which seems like the only way I can squeeze them in with grad school, work, and two young children. I am proud of the 25 books I read last year even though it is far less than the hundred plus I used to do. 

My favorite genres are non-fiction, particularly memoirs, and historical fiction, although I am very particular about the time periods of the historical fiction. Some of my favorite books I read last year were "Finding Me" by Viola Davis, "The Great Alone" by Kristin Hannah, "I'm Glad My Mom Died" by Jennette McCurdy, "Daisy Jones and the Six" by Taylor Jenkins-Reid, and "Firekeepers' Daughter" by Angeline Boulley. 

The article we read about appeal factors really stood out to me this week--the appeal factors that are really important to me when selecting a book are timeframe, relationships, mood, and authenticity. But it was also interesting to think about what appeal factors are not important to me at all, and how this will completely vary for each person I perform readers' advisory for.