Prompt Response: Week
3
1.
The fourth book in the series is The Lunatic Café published in January of
1996.
2.
This reader may enjoy starting the Maddaddam
Trilogy by Margaret Atwood. The first novel is Oryx and Crake. This series is written lyrically and still deals
with ecological themes, but delivers a faster paced story.
3.
The Teahouse
Fire by Ellis Avery might be good choice. This story is set in 19th
century Japan and the author’s detailed style provides a strong sense of place.
4.
Obviously other Elizabeth George novels are good
choices, but you might also enjoy Ruth Rendell or Deborah Crombie as they are
not as “creepy” as John Sanford. They feature stories set in England and tend
focus more on the process of solving the crime rather than the gory details. A Share in Death by Deborah Crombie
might be a good one to try.
5.
I am
Legend by Richard Matheson and The
Dead Run by Adam Mansbach are good choices. However, if wanted to know the “science”
behind zombies he might enjoy The Zombie
Autopsies by Steven C. Schlozman, a book that is presented in a nonfiction
fashion. Or if he wanted to read a classic without really reading a classic,
there is always Pride and Prejudice and
Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith.
Where I find my books:
I, too,
really enjoy Novelist. My library has had it for a bit, and I really like to
use it both professionally and personally. I like how easy it is to narrow your
search. It is almost impossible to be “picky” when comes to Novelist. It will
find something very close to what you like.
However,
after reading Chelton’s list of tools, I gave allreaders.com a try and I liked it
pretty well. I enjoyed how you could search by plot, character, setting, etc.
It was a fun and easy way to generate a large list of books that have certain
characteristics that I like. I did a simple search for stories set in jungles
that deal with lost cities and quickly had a list of 66 for my perusal. I feel
it might be good for helping patrons that don’t have specific requests, but
desire a list to work their way through.
Another
way that I find books is just by browsing Amazon’s and Barnes and Noble’s
websites. That is typically how I purchase books for myself and just can’t help
but look at their recommended books before checking out. It’s definitely not
perfect, but it does at least get me to branch out and try new authors. I tend
to get stuck in a rut sometimes, reading the same author over and over.
Lastly,
my absolute favorite method of finding books to read is recommendations from my
grandparents. They might love reading more than I do and we have similar
tastes. We have recommended books for each other for years. It works well and
it leads to some great discussions. They are the ones that first turned me on
to Ted Dekker, who is now my favorite author.
I think it's great that you get book recommendations from your grandparents! (If I did that I'd probably end up reading mostly political biographies and read-alikes to Gone with the Wind!) I'm glad you mentioned Amazon, though, because I tend to forget that one - even though I use it to help library patrons all the time. (I also use it for collection development...but I probably shouldn't admit that!)
ReplyDeleteI agree - personal recommendations are the best! Family and friends know us better (or at least they should), and therefore can make more personalized suggestions that are more likely to resonate. That's another reason why Reader's Advisors should hope for building long-term relationships with patrons - the more we time we spend learning their literary tastes, the better we'll be able to make suggestions over time.
ReplyDeleteFor me the go to person is my little sister. The added advantage is that she likes to buy books (or receive them as gifts). She reads them fairly quickly, too. So, as long as I'm willing to wait a bit, I can read her very gently used copy. It is interesting also to note how different are tastes are, too. I tend to favor the science fiction authors, and she tends to favor fantasy. We sort of overlap on the juvenile fiction. She just offered to lend me Divergent today.
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