In Summation...

There are alot of  words about books out there. I enjoyed reading most of it.

The toe-dipping into other genres was very helpful. Important books rise to the surface in the blogs. They have helped me navigate in some of the genres I read less of.

I really loved the Prezi web.
Very cool. I'd like a hard copy as others have requested.

Book Trailers

I may like the book more than the movie, I may like the movie better than the book...
but, no question, I don't like the trailer.
Videos about books, really?
Dumb.
Hey if it's so great, then the scene, ploy, or author's explanation should have been in the book!
Having said that, I do like hearing authors talk about their books, but a PR video doesn't cut it for me.

week 8 - dewey

True crime is catalogued under 364.1523 here in our library.
Midnight in Peking by Paul French, about the murder of an English Diplomat's daughter in 1930's China, will be found there.

Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett  along with many other memoirs is in the BIO (first letters of subject's last name) section.

Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart: Heart advice for Diffiicult times  may be found in our our religion (Buddhism) section 294.3

Hot Zone by Richard Preston about a rogue Ebola virus is found with other nonfiction medical thrillers in...    614.57





Truth & Beauty is a beautifully written memoir of Ann Patchett's friendship with Lucy Grealy, the author of Autobiography of a Face. Grealy lost a jaw to childhood cancer and struggled mightily with her disfigurement and uncooperative body.
Patchett and she met in college and this is an exploration of their twenty-odd year friendship that ended with Grealy's death.
Grealy, like Patchett, wrote. She also did heroin and had alot of sex. The Heroin likely killed her.
This is a sad, yearning book.
For readers of novels about friendship and tragic young lives.


Pema Chodron's chatty self-help book, When Things Fall Apart: Heart advice for Diffiicult times may be found in our very helpful Buddhist section. Chodron is a Buddhist monk who found herself one evening  in mid-life with a drink in hand as her husband blithely dumped her. Self-discovery and Budhism followed.
She is a smart, self-aware, funny woman who gives ageless advice in a conversational style.
Readers who are looking for a book about our relationships and human foibles would like this, I think.

YA or YEA!

In reading the New Adult genre article in Publisher's Weekly, I was happy to find that there is thought going into this sliver of the targeted reading public.
New Adult may be a lame tag but it may help when we get the just-out-of-college-so-now-I-can-read-what-I-want people.
I got a few title suggestions from the Christian Science Monitor's article.Yea! bigger piles!
I am often one of the tired-at-the-end-of-the-day adult readers who wants something well-written, easy, satisfying...

YALSA - The next big thing
Adult authors are getting in on the act and writing teen books.


Blogs
Teenreads blog is one of the Book Report Network's eight blogs. President is Carol Fitzgerald.
From what I can tell they have alot of different reviewers and the Teen Board gives a bird's eye view of what the Y in YA want.
Successful enough to have 24 on their teenboard. Thse kids probably have alot of friends and family...


John Green blog written by... John Green!
Recently he was  communicating with his brother solely through videologs and there is a link to the vlogbrothers blog (vlog?)
He has devoted fans. and some who aren't very nice so, all in all, I'd say his blog gets around.


Imprints
Harlequin Teen - romance, of course.
Lots of fantasy stuff and a bit of dysfunctional or family tragedy stuff.
Happy endings are key and doesn't look like that's going away anytime soon.

MacMillan - History remains popular.
Classics, still going strong.

9 finds

The value of  subgenre fan websites varies greatly.
I googled all sorts of keyword combos to find the first few fan sites. Then... it didn't work any more.
Much grumbling ensued until a friendly voice recommended Goodreads Groups (thanks Jo!)

These crime/thriller sites carry recommendations that are fast-paced set mostly in exotic locales.

On Crimethrillergirl, I found a review of 
The Twelfth Department by William Ryan. It's a fast-paced historical thriller set in the 1930's Kremlin.
Third in a series of previously well-received novels.

There's an event alert...
Crime Readers Association is giving away  free tickets to the CSI Portsmouth festival in the UK!

CrimeFictionLover has a really readable list of recommendations...
Louise Doughty's Apple Tree Yard - a middle aged woman protagonist - rare but intriguing...

The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny finds CI Armand Gamache on another case, this time set in a quiet but deadly monastery.



The Romance Reader features hearts! hearts! hearts! on its main page and all over its reviews.
BTW : we own very few of the titles I was interested in.

Her Man in Manhattan by Trish Wylie is a Harlequin Kiss novel.
It includes the important appeal factor of a happy ending for star-crossed lovers.
Rich girl, bodyguard - 'nuff said.


Lisa Cach seems to be a diverse author.
She writes time-travelling, comedic, or dark,  romances.
I may read The Changeling Bride  based on the favorable review of her debut novel.
Most of her offerings garnered four hearts.

Daring the Devil got 5 Kisses. Author Leslie Lafoy has written quite a few well- reviewed books. The heroine is a smart Irish girl in nineteenth century Massachusetts. The hero is a stranger, tracking his father's killer to her town. Kisses and fights follow. Suspense promised.



Apocalypse Whenever is a Horror readers' group.There are over 6,000 members.
The book they are reading now is Ready, Player, One, by Ernest Cline which I actually have bedside. I'm vindicated , somewhat, I think...

Cinder by Marissa Meyer is a cinderella tale set in a scary futuristic Beijing.
She's a cyborg but she has a rotten step-mother and sisters. What else is new?

Disaster desire? There's much to choose from - biological, disappearance-of-population, cannibalism, demons.... good stuff
A.S. Thompson  writes the plague stuff -  like The Change and The Longest Road  - fun!

So that leads me to my mashups:

Time travel/ plague
Connie Willis' Doomsday Book

Time travel/ historical
Kindred by Octavia Butler

Read them.

Genre-bending

I've found alot of the science conversation on SF Site really interesting. As a lover of non-fiction, I realize that much of sci-fi is the stretching of the known world into probable possibilities...
I think for me, often the sociological aspects are not as keenly drawn. They seem anachronistic in whichever new world men and women are finding themselves...


SFSite is stuffed with references to TV and film. I think more than any other genre, Sci Fi seems to translate well. Certainly the audience for Hollywood  blockbusters and Dr. Who might be the same, mostly young and mostly male?
Or do I date myself ??

Earlyword, continued...

Michael Pollan's Cooked has been highly anticipated, however it is more of a how-to book than I had hoped. I'd recommend it to someone who enjoys the intros to the Joy of Cooking chapters, ie... about yeast

For readers looking for a treatise on the food industry's misdeeds,
I'd recommend instead  Michael Moss' Salt  Sugar  Fat   How the food Giants Hooked Us.

For readers looking for a great memoir with a treatise on cooking great food, I'd go with Blood, Bones, and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton.
It will become very popular very soon -  Gwyneth Paltrow has optioned it.

Earlyword

The Award Winners links are really efficient.
I use them often, especially when recommending kids books to parents who want "something good."
I always try to show them the site and the links on the sidebar.


I have completely ignored the Archives, but after spending a little time in them this week, they are my new favorite thing.
Looking back reminds me of what I meant to read,  as well as reminding me of what I actually read!

knowledge is good

NPR Books has 23 Genres!
Now I know.
It helps to read all the words on a page...
I had "followed" this site for years -   just reading (when I got a chance) the newest stories that popped up.
Following the links embedded in these stories always gave me more than plenty for my must-read list.

But since I started the Bookish training I have spent some time exploring the page ( !)
One link I "discovered" and have started using often is the BROWSE GENRES link.
I have used it when customers are looking for a "good read" whether in Historical fiction, Young Adult, or Faith & Spirituality
I have also used the NPR BESTSELLER LISTS link on the right of the page, which follows the sales of Independent booksellers.
Customers like lists!

Goodreads

Goodreads, which I had joined (but ignored) a few years ago, was a lot of fun to explore.
I loved rating my reads and getting suggestions.
It is an easy way to keep up with colleagues but I don't like seeing everything they do first thing!
I applied filters unsparingly!!! 


I recommended The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill to Katy because she likes books about animals and their interactions with each other and with humans. This is a fascinating memoir about a man who discovers the intricate, hidden lives on this hilly neighborhood in San Fran.

After Nancy Pearl's suggestions -  I need to hit the consignment shop for another bedside table.

Conversation # 1
This reader likes to read what's popular (Oprah).
Learning/discovering - about people (including the author) and places - seems to be important, as well.

I would recommend Wild by Cheryl Strayed.
Like Eat, Pray, Love, it is the story of a young woman who puts herself in a challenging environment in order to find herself. Strayed's descriptions of the people and the natural world she encounters on the Pacific Coast Trail would appeal to this reader and it would be a good discussion book for the bookclub.


Coversation #2
This reader wants a fast-paced, unsentimental, (possibly gritty) vampire book.

 I'd recommend Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire which though descriptive, so not necesarily action-packed, is a compelling, dark read.
Atmospheric old New Orleans is the back drop  to the story of  these jaded, all-too-human vampires.

Or if they are looking for something more contemporary,  I'd recommend Charlaine Hariss' Sookie Stackhouse series which is a bit lighter but lacks the saccharine teen romance.


Conversation #3
The reader appreciates that this book is a tru-life adventure story.
Adversity makes it interesting.

I would recommend Into Thin Air,
which is a fast-paced read about a deadly trek up to the summit of Everest.
That the author was part of the party makes it even more compelling.

read that? read this!

I posted two suggestions to Drennan N's blog

Broken & Beautiful

---

The city of Mumbai is one of the many exotic, heart-wrenching and ultimately familiar characters in Katherine Boo's Behind the beautiful forevers.

Boo's Lyrically-written reportage chronicles a year in the life of Mumbai airport's local slum.
Two hundred yards away, it sat on a stretch of road, " where new India and old India collided and made new India late."

The sharply-drawn residents squabble over space, the trash they ( illegally) pick from the nearby airport and their fiercely-guarded reputaions.
Power is wielded through political corruption and envy is the fuel that feeds their feuds and spurs their up-ward mobility.
Boo is most interested in how people rise out of poverty and in this sad, beautiful book, "each evening, they returned down the slum road with gunny sacks of garbage on their backs, like a procession of broken-toothed Santas."

Let me just say, I loved this book. The language was beautiful...

(which many of my customers know since I cannot help saying so every time I hold it).

Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor & Park  is a character-driven YA love story whose pingpong style allows for a fast, satisfying read.
The two main characters' stories are told in short, alternating chapters.
Eleanor's desperation in a severely broken home is the darkness against the highbeam of their physical and emotional attraction to each other.

The interplay of themes of being "other" and the all-consuming thing that is first love balances and grounds the story.
Highschoolers will recognize the shorthand of playlists and the hierarchy of the daily busride.
Humor and a somewhat hopeful ending keeps the reader from the prozac bottle.

Don't know much about...

 ... SF, so I decided on the reassuringly named SF Site.
It ain't pretty, but it has what I'm looking for - "Best of 2012!"

Since high school, when I loved  Stranger in a Strange Land  but hated Dune (sacrilege, I know), 
 I've mostly hated during my love/hate relationship with Sci Fi.
I just can't stand epic batttles between peoples whose names are unpronounceable...
But I know there are gems out there and I am determined to get acquanted with them.

Picking NPR as my book site was easy. I mostly read non-fiction and this site gives me all I want plus the news of the day and arts and...

Enjoyed the games - thanks!