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 21, 2016

Week 6 Prompt

Greetings! 

So many readers are inclined to seek out the latest romance or horror novel that gentle reads are overlooked.   A great number of these gentle read novels focus on relationships, and these days instead of reading about healthy and healing relationships, many turn on a popular reality television program to see how people interact. 


I would like to propose a new display in the library to promote gentle read novels.   How about an old school television with a wide frame?  The phrase “Read instead of reality T.V.” could be adhered on the front of the television screen.  



At first I thought it would be a good idea to have a television that wasn’t too old that a DVD player couldn’t be hooked up to it, and possibly show clips of a gentle read that had been made into a movie like “The Five People You Meet in Heaven”, but the idea is to get readers to turn off the T.V.  On top of this television, which would need to be fairly large, I would like to have a display much like the one shown below.  However, instead of the figures shown in the picture such as the apple and the Earth, I would like to replace all these with silhouettes of people interacting with others.  For example, a young couple who are standing close to one another, a mother with her baby, a father playing with his children, and an older couple sitting on a park bench.  In addition, I think segments of  gentle read audiobooks could also be incorporated as part of this display.  Lastly, I could surround the display with some of the most popular gentle read books.  




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5 comments:

  1. UnknownFebruary 21, 2016 at 10:33 AM

    I saw something like that old TV with the "Read Instead" sign on Pinterest. Love it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. SharonFebruary 21, 2016 at 12:48 PM

    Awesome idea! Incorporating audio books would be so cool, and it's not something we see (or hear :p) every day.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownFebruary 25, 2016 at 8:01 PM

    I really like your idea about the TV and my interest is sparked on these gentle reads. I have never heard of them before. I want to do some research on this genre.

    I am not sure that I would be interested in the book that you annotated but I do want to find a really good gentle read that I can read. Maybe someone has a good recommendation.

    Thank you for sharing with us.
    Jennie

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownFebruary 25, 2016 at 8:02 PM

    I really like your idea about the TV and my interest is sparked on these gentle reads. I have never heard of them before. I want to do some research on this genre.

    I am not sure that I would be interested in the book that you annotated but I do want to find a really good gentle read that I can read. Maybe someone has a good recommendation.

    Thank you for sharing with us.
    Jennie

    ReplyDelete
  5. Erin CataldiFebruary 28, 2016 at 11:43 AM

    Great ideas! I really like using an old tv as part of a display. Full points on your prompt!

    ReplyDelete

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