Reader's Advisory Week 3 Prompt

1. I am looking for a book by Laurell K. Hamilton. I just read the third book in the Anita Blake series and I can't figure out which one comes next!

The Lunatic Cafe , Jan. 1996, is the fourth title in the Anita Blake vampire hunter series (not to be confused with the Anita Blake graphic novels).

2. What have I read recently? Well, I just finished this great book by Barbara Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer. I really liked the way it was written, you know, the way she used language. I wouldn't mind something a bit faster paced though.

For this reader’s advisory query, I’d ask the patron if they are interested in another title with an ecology theme. If so, I’d recommend Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach, which shares some of the Kingsolver titles attributes, but also is plot-driven. If the patron is more interested in a faster moving, descriptively written work, I’d suggest Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, which also is romantic and descriptive, but also fast-paced.

3. I like reading books set in different countries. I just read one set in China, could you help me find one set in Japan? No, not modern – historical. I like it when the author describes it so much it feels like I was there!

The Tea House Fire by Avery Ellis is historical fiction, descriptively written with a strong sense of place. The book is about two women, one Japanese and one American, whose fates become entwined in 19th century Japan. The Japanese tea ceremony is central to the story about an American girl adopted by a tea master and raised as an attendant and surrogate sister to the tea master’s daughter.

4. I read this great mystery by Elizabeth George called Well-Schooled in Murder and I loved it. Then my dentist said that if I liked mysteries I would probably like John Sandford, but boy was he creepy I couldn't finish it! Do you have any suggestions?

Since the patron loved Well-Schooled Murder, I’d suggest the first two books of George’s Thomas Lynley series - A Great Deliverance and Payment in Blood, or even the prequel, A Suitable Vengenance. If the patron seems happy continuing with this series, I’d let them know there are 19 titles to date, including the prequel, so it could keep them reading for awhile. If the patron is looking for a new author, I’d suggest P.D. James’ Adam Dalgliesh mysteries, which while a bit slower paced  and less violent, share several appeal factors with the George series, including a compelling writing style and a strong sense of place.

5. My husband has really gotten into zombies lately. He’s already read The Walking Dead and World War Z, is there anything else you can recommend?

For the zombie loving husband, I’d recommend The Living Dead by George Romero, with the thought that the director of the classic film Night of the Living Dead ought to be able to put together a solid zombie story. Also, 30 Days of Night: Rumors of the Undead by Steve Niles for another zombie tale, this one a novel based on a graphics series. Finally, The First Days by Rhiannon Frater is the first book in the As the World Dies trilogy tracing the efforts of a lawyer and a housewife to survive a zombie invasion.

My Reader's Advisory Sources:

My regular print sources for book ideas include: BookPage, Booklist, LibraryReads and especially Indie Next List. Some of BuzzFeed's book lists highlight titles that aren’t typically featured in more general sources. I look back on previous years’ “best of” lists and particularly enjoy NPR’s interactive Book Concierge because it includes a wide-range of titles and you can select a variety of parameters to sort the selections. It also often reminds me of books I noted as “interesting” when they first came out, but I didn’t get around to reading yet.

Each month I’m looking for titles for a book group I lead. We don’t have a chosen book to be read by everyone. Instead, I do about a half dozen book talks on titles relating to a theme. I use Goodreads’ listopia for these theme searches -- sometimes with great results and sometimes not. I also do a general Google search for the theme and sometimes come up with a great list on a library website. Thanks, librarians!

At our monthly gatherings, I not only present the titles I’ve collected for the month’s theme, but I invite everyone to share what they’ve been reading lately (no matter if it fits our theme or not). I get a lot of great suggestions this way, as well as from one-on-one conversations with patrons and my colleagues.

All of this wealth of book information leads to excessively long “to read” lists. As always, so many books, so little time.

Ashley Bell - Dean Koontz

Ashley Bell

by Dean Koontz

Genre: Suspense

Setting: Newport Beach, Calif.

Time Period: Contemporary, with flashbacks

Synopsis: Bibi Blair, at 22 already a published author, experiences troubling physical symptoms one morning, goes to the emergency room and is swiftly diagnosed with fast-growing, soon-to-be fatal brain cancer. When told of her diagnosis she says, “We’ll see.”
The next day, following a real or imagined 4 a.m. visit to her hospital room by a hooded stranger and his dog, Bibi insists that her tests be repeated. The retest results confirm her intuition; no trace of her cancer can be found.
Giddy with relief, her aging surfer parents surprise Bibi with the gift of a visit from a masseuse/mystic who reveals Bibi’s miraculous reprieve from death comes at a cost. She must save the life of Ashley Bell, whoever she is.
In short chapters, jumping back and forth in time and place, plot twists and mysteries are compounded, and past experiences are resurrected, often leaving Bibi and the reader questioning what is real, what is imagined, and to what degree paranormal forces are controlling events.

Appeal:
Intricate Plot
Fast Paced
Strong Female Protagonist
Suspenseful

Genre Characteristics:
Short Chapters
Flashbacks
Sympathetic Protagonist

Read-A-Likes:

All the Birds Singing - Evie Wyld
Strong female lead character; random events come together in a menacing way.

Corrupted - Lisa Scottoline
Female lawyer confronts dark memories to defend someone she failed in the past.

Blue Labyrinth - Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
Fast-paced, suspenseful, occult fiction set in Calif.

The Guilty - David Baldacci
Fast-paced, plot-driven suspense.

The Stranger - Harlan Coban
Suspenseful, intricately plotted unraveling of family secrets.

Reading Profile

Reading is integral to my childhood memories. I remember the musty aroma of the bookmobile on a humid summer day, the first book I checked out from the school library (How the Camel Got Its Hump), and the fantastic discovery of Michelin travel guides on the shelves on my public library which allowed me to plan all sorts of vicarious trips while still too young to drive. For as long as I can remember I've always had a large stack of books waiting to be read.

Freedom of reading choice disappeared in college, replaced with long reading lists for history and English classes. With 10-week terms cycling by quickly, there are a number of great books that passed before my eyes, but I can't say I truly read and experienced them.

Once freed from college reading lists, I read mostly non-fiction until I became a library staff member a few years ago and realized I needed to get reacquainted with a wide range of fiction very quickly.

The promise of interesting characters often draws me to a book and, if that promise is fulfilled, makes that title memorable. My last-read favorite book is A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. While the plot points are interesting, what drew me to this title, kept me interested throughout, and made me sad to reach the end is the quirky characters and their interactions with one another.

Along with character, I'm also drawn to stories with a strong sense of place, especially if I can couple a book's setting with travel. Recently my son and I listened to Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods while driving across the country with a two-day deadline. Although we were heading west in a car rather than north on foot, being on our own trek while listening to the book enhanced our enjoyment and memory of the story. This year we shared The Martian audio book on our cross country drive and arrived home with 20 minutes left on the last disc. If it weren't for welcoming family members literally standing at the door to greet us, we would have, even after 16 hours in the vehicle that day, sat in the garage to finish the book. (Fortunately the others went to bed soon after and we finished listening that night.)

Beyond interesting, fully-drawn characters and strong settings, I tend to look first at realistic and literary fiction, and biographies. Work responsibilities push me toward YA titles, but again I gravitate toward realistic fiction (I loved Eleanor and Park) and am hopelessly out of step in the YA world as I do not enjoy dystopian or vampire tales. I also should read more mysteries and, what I term in my head "popular guy authors" -- James Patterson, Clive Cussler, Stuart Woods -- to be better able to make recommendations to our patrons.

Perhaps I'm still rebelling a bit against the rush to push through so many books in college. I don't set reading goals and only periodically update my Goodreads account to reflect which titles I've read. I do, however, keep lengthy "to read" lists on Goodreads, filled with any title I run across that sounds remotely interesting and separated out in a number of subcategories for reader's advisory reference. I'm looking forward to putting a small dent in my "to read" pile and pushing myself into some new genres through this course.

Welcome

Welcome to Scanning the Stacks, a blog I've created for this semester's Adult Reader's Advisory course. I'm looking forward to talking about genres, authors, readers' preferences, and good reads!