The library staff for my secret shopper assignment was eager to help and friendly, but not knowledgeable on readers
advisory skills. In addition, there wasn’t
an interview by the librarian asking what books or authors I preferred or what
types of books I liked. I had to resort
by accidently seeing the latest novel of Kristen Hannah in the new fiction
releases and stating that this book looked like something I would like to
read. The librarian attempted to find
similar books by going to Google and finding Readers’ Advisor Online and
Readers’ Advisory 101, but she didn’t know where to begin once she got into
those websites. She seemed lost as to
how to help me and wasn’t even familiar with the authors’ genres. However, she did go the extra mile by asking
another librarian and contacting another staff member who was familiar with
different fiction works. The staff was
friendly and really wanted to help, but it seemed like I could get more
information myself by going online. Even
if I looked up a book I had read in the past on Amazon like Tuesdays with
Morrie, viewed similar reads on the section of “Customers who bought this item
also bought” , and dug down a couple of levels in that area, I could have found
more than what was provided by the staff at my chosen library. All in
all, this library was in need of someone who was knowledgeable in readers
advisory skills.
About Me
About Me
When I was teen, I was on a heavy Stephen King and Peter Straub reading jag. I couldn’t get enough of these authors. Today I still have my collection of these books residing on a shelf of my bookcase. Sometime in my early twenties I became less enamored with King’s readings. I don’t know if my taste just changed or I had burned out on his style. I have to say though that The Shining by King was the first novel I read of his and my favorite out of all his books.
I then started leaning more toward suspense and thrillers and less of horror. Some of the authors I followed were Mary Higgins Clark and James Patterson. My favorite Patterson novels were The Beach House and When the Wind Blows. They were other suspense authors peppered into the mix, but this is the one genre where I mostly stuck to favorite authors.
When my children were in grade school, the Harry Potter craze was all the rage, and I was just as engrossed in reading the books as they were. I found out at that time how much I enjoyed fantasy and many young adult novels. It seemed that YA authors were more creative in many ways than most adult novel authors. My sister-in-law is a YA librarian at a high school, so she would advise or buy certain books for me to read. For young adult reads I didn’t really stick to one author, but would go off recommendations and reviews for great YA books. Yes I devoured the Twilight series, but I can’t say this was my favorite YA read. The best young adult novels I have read are Jellico Road by Melina Marchetta and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.
I still enjoy reading suspense and thrillers as well as many young adult books, but in the last few years, I have also started reading many gentle reads that pull at the heart strings. Again there is no specific author that I stick to, but mostly go off recommendations and reviews to select reads from this genre. Some of my favorites in this category are: Firefly Lane by Kristen Hannah, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, and The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards.
I am not much of a non-fiction reader unless I’m forced to read it. In addition, I a little romance goes a long way in a book, so I’m not a big romance novel reader.
Sunday, February 7, 2016
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