Week 5

Week 5, Assignment 1
I have been monitoring NPR Books every few days.  It covers popular best sellers plus somewhat obscure books.  There are many author interviews which have been featured on NPR.  One column is titled My Guilty Pleasure in which writers talk about the books they love but are embarrassed to be seen reading.  It's a great site.

Week 5, Assignment 2
The best resource in my branch is Book Pages, which is not mentioned.  Many customers, including myself, will go through it at the desk, and put books on reserve.  I will try to use Early Word and some of the others and see if it is something useful to use at my branch.

Week 5, Assignment 3
From PW Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2013. Big Girl Panties by Stephanie Evanovich- The season's hotly anticipated romance debut. Stephanie Evanovich is Janet Evanovich's niece, which is enough to get people interested, and the book itself looks to be a fun chick-lit-ish exploration of love and body image issues. Anything with the Evanovich name on it is going to be big.

Week 4

Got my shelves made on Goodreads.  Added a new one "books I couldn't get through".  I already have about 45 books and just added 5 that I want to read. 

I recommended Tapestry of Fortunes to Heather Mays.  She is a fan of Chicklit and, as I described this book, it's a bit more sophisticated Chicklit. 

I have read and put on hold, many books that I have seen on Goodreads.  I need to keep my account more updated though.  Many of the books that Goodreads recommends to me are not books that I would read.  Not quite sure why some were recommended.

Week 3

Conversation 1

I would recommend Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman.  After her husband suggests a two month separation, she begins a new life traveling by herself to Guatemala, Nicaragua, Israel, the Galapagos Islands and ends her 15 year journey by living in Indonesia for 8 years. The two books are similar.....women who are traveling on their own, searching for something.  In the end they both found what they were looking for.

Conversation 2

For the reader who wants vampire stories, but without teen angst, I would recommend The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice.

Conversation 3

I would show the customer Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage is also about an ill fated expedition, but this one was to Antarctica.  Both books are about discovery and exploration.

Week 2

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan. 
This is the story of Mamah Borthwick Cheney and Frank Lloyd Wright.  The two main characters, Mamah and Frank are beautifully vivid.  You feel like you know them personally.  The pace moves along and doesn't keep you waiting.  You are never bored.  There are twists and turns in the plot that keep you wanting more.  The tone is dramatic, romantic, mysterious, sad and at some times humorous.  The settings - the houses, Europe and Oak Park, Illinois - are explicitly detailed.  You can picture them in your mind.  I loved this book and appreciated a resolved ending, though not the way I would have liked it to end.


Son by Lois Lowry
The conclusion of The Giver.  The plot is divided into 3 parts - before, between and beyond.  It begins with Claire, a 14 year old birthmother in the town that Lowry established in The Giver.  The pacing can get confusing, especially if you have not read the others in the series.  It jumps back and forth between all 4 books.  The characters are well defined and well developed.  Lowry has brought back all the characters from all the books in the series.  The story has an ending, but Son still leaves you with many questions.


Recommendations:
I recommended books by Terri Thayer to Sharon Coffman.  She is new to mysteries and is a quilter and these are cozy quilting mysteries.

I also recommended the Mommy Track Mysteries to Melanie Brevis - she's a new mommy again.