Week Three Prompt Response

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 all the ‘Writing Style’ options, then on the next search page on the left side of the screen I chose the ‘Pace’ option and then ‘Faster-paced’. The first three titles are:

‘Divisadero’ (2007) by Michael Ondaatje

‘The Maytrees’ (2007) by Annie Dillard

‘Thirteen Moons’ (2006) by Charles Frazier

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!

I did a keyword search for ‘Japan’; then chose ‘Fiction’, ‘Historical Fiction’, and ‘Strong sense of place’. First three books are:

‘December 6’ (2002) by Martin Cruz Smith

’The teahouse fire’ (2006) by Ellis Avery

‘The pure land’ (2007) by Alan Spense

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?

I searched for ‘Well-Schooled in Murder’, then looked at the series it belonged to and chose the ‘Series Read-Alikes’, of which the first three are:

Duncan Kinkaid and Gemma James mysteries by Deborah Crombie

Hanne Wilhelmsen novels by Anne Holt

Martin Beck mysteries by Maj Sjowall

It looks like NoveList would describe the writing style of Sandford as ‘gritty’ and George’s as ‘lyrical’, so if the patron chose one series over another I would still do a quick check to make sure that if the word ‘gritty’ was used to describe it, that could be taken under advisement.

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?

So, I went to the title pages for ‘The Walking Dead’ series and ‘World War Z’ and on the right hand side of the page there are read-alikes. Perhaps—

‘Saga’ by Brian Vaughan

‘Nailbiter’ by Joshua Williamson

Hack/Slash series by Tim Seeley

6. I love books that get turned into movies, especially literary ones. Can you recommend some? Nothing too old, maybe just those from the last 5 years or so.

I noticed that ‘books to movies’ was a genre option, so I used that and ‘literary fiction’ in the Advanced Search boxes, then adjusted the Publication Date limiter to 2014-2019. The first three titles are:

’The rules of magic’ by Alice Hoffman

‘Juieta’ by Alice Munroe

‘In secret’ by Emile Zola

7. I love thrillers but I hate foul language and sex scenes. I want something clean and fast paced.

This one is tricky. I used the advanced search function to look for ‘thriller’ and ‘chaste’ (the latter term I saw used as an appeal descriptor). There are only three books in the resulting list, but they look like they might suit. From personal experience I would have several titles I could rattle off the tongue easily, but none of them are in the list I got using NoveList. Of course, the definitions of ‘foul language’ and ‘sex scenes’ are sometimes used very loosely by patrons, too—if they were not opposed to a Christian slant to the book, there is actually a subcategory in Thrillers for Christian Thrillers/Suspense, but I don’t know that they would necessarily be lacking in profanity or sex.

Second, after you get a chance to do the readings and explore Mary Chelton's list of tools, I want to hear about how you find books to read. It could be a site or a resource you've just discovered or one you've used for years, one you use for yourself or for your patrons or family and friends.

I’m afraid my methods are very old-fashioned when looking for books to read for myself, personally. I look on the shelves or in the databases for authors or books I have previously enjoyed, and search around a little for likely candidates (there is no logic involved, just my gut). If there are books mentioned in the story of other books (e.g. ’The Search’ by C.P. Snow is discussed at length in ‘Gaudy Night’) I will consider them; if one of my favorite actors is in a play in a new translation I will look up the translator’s work, or if one of my favorite authors does a blurb for another writer. 

For other people, I will rely on that network of genre similarities, author blurbs, award lists, and places like NoveList or GoodReads. It is like following a thread in a spider’s web, or untangling a skein of yarn—somewhere there is a solid connection. It just takes time to find the right one.

Personally, I prefer the serendipity of a rainy day and physical shelves to peruse, or the odd recommendations that happen to one—sitting on a train, a complete stranger leans over and tells you you must read such-and-such a book; my former thesis supervisor nearly jumped out of her skin when a train passed and told me to read M.R. James before I came to class again; once I was describing to my friend a fear that I had and someone at another table decided to read me a section of a Rainer Maria Rilke letter because he “thought it might help” (it did, so I book the book). I’m sure that one day relying on serendipity for a good book will disappoint me, but it hasn’t yet.