So You Want a Good Book... I Have Just the One.

Answer the following questions using Novelist (or another RA site) as much as you can - just to familiarize yourself with it if you aren't already using it.  Explain why you chose the books you did. 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! I searched for ‘Anita Blake’ and chose the series from the dropdown menu. From there, I looked for the fourth book in the series (‘The Lunatic Cafe’). It could be that the patron was looking for the graphic novel series, though—in which case it would be a different book altogether. 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. I searched for ‘Prodigal Summer’, then scrolled down to the ‘Search for More’ section and selected...

For my five choices I'd like: Adventure (week 5): 'The Thirty-Nine Steps' by John Buchan Romance (week 6): 'Lucky Suit' by Lauren Blakely Mysteries (week 7): 'Maisie Dobbs' by Jacqueline Winspear Fantasy (week 11): 'Trail of Lightning' by Rebecca Roanhorse Non-fiction (week 12) I already have ideas for which books I'd like to read. Mysteries and Fantasy I know tolerably well but none of them do I consider myself an expert on--Romance is completely out of my league and I've generally avoided it.

I deliberately try to read widely, and I do take recommendations. Last year I finally finished ‘War and Peace’; I adored ‘H is for Hawk’, ‘A Shepherd’s Life’, and Naomi Novik’s ‘Spinning Silver’ & ‘Uprooted’. I read other things, too, but those are books I really enjoyed. I tend to shy away from most modern bestselling authors; not sure why they just don’t spark my interest.  Here are the books I end up rereading every year: Gaudy Night (Dorothy Sayers) Persuasion (Jane Austen) Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (Susanna Clarke) Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien) Sunshine (Robin McKinley) Gawain and the Green Knight (Anonymous) Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë) None of the books I love are perfect. I know. Fight me. I like books in which there are rich inner lives of dynamic characters, a well-told story even if I see what’s coming next, a good eye for the description of landscape/place, and, where possible, dragons.  I’m usually somewhere in a tra...