Week 5

Assignment 1:
Fiction Affliction is fantastic!  It's a week-by-week listing of releases in those genres.  As interim SFF selector (Welcome back, Jackie!), it was incredibly helpful in buying May titles. There are short annotations for each title, so I have an idea what they each are about without being overwhelming.  It's on Tor's site, but it includes multiple publishers.

The Daily Beast is interesting to read, but it's not as directly applicable to my job.  It's got a lot of great stories that relate to books but provide more insight.  Stories like the one fact-checking Dan Brown's Inferno are interesting.  I like it as a reader, but I find it less useful as a librarian. 

Assignment 2:
For my job, I need to look at most of these sources.  I use Early Word every day, but I took a little time to explore anyway.  I'm glad I did.  I found a link to a breakdown of publisher imprints.  This is a small thing, but it's frustrating to try to look them up when I can't remember.  There they are with links to catalogs on Edelweiss.  Voila!  The list of publishers' library marketing reps is also really handy.  I'll keep that in mind too. 

Assignment 3:
The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes
This title is on one of the Huffington Post Best of 2013 list, and I just read it.  The publisher bills it as a combination of The Time Traveler's Wife and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but I don't think those are very good comparisons. The book follows a time-traveling serial killer who is on a collision course with the one victim who survived his attack.  It's a fast-paced thriller filled with grisly murders.  There just happens to be time travel.  Definitely not for the faint of heart.  Readers who like Chelsea Cain's Gretchen Lowell series or The Silence of the Lambs will want to check out this genre-bender.

Week 4: Goodreads

I'm a regular Goodreads user.  I love keeping lists of books I have read or want to read.  It's so helpful because I read a lot and apparently have the memory of a gnat! The more I'm exploring it, the more I realize that I should be using shelves to sort things more as I read.  That's such a great tool to be able to sort all of these books later.  I will definitely experiment more with that. I really like the lists and being able to see so many people's opinions on books. We've been talking Goodreads a lot around here, and I usually find much more useful recommendations on here than I do using Novelist.  Maybe that's because so much of it is user-driven rather than using subject headings?

I recommended Devil in the White City to Doug.  Here's what I said: "Based on your review, I'd also recommend Devil in the White City. It's another great historical nonfiction book that weaves together multiple stories to give you a broader view of the time period while telling the story. It has lots of different story elements to keep readers engaged."

Week 3

Conversation 1
Based on her interest in travel/description of place, the first thing that came to my mind was Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes. I also think that Wild by Cheryl Strayed would be a good match for her because of the self-discovery and travel aspects.  It has the bonus of also being an Oprah book, which would probably interest this reader. 

Conversation 2
J. R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood might be a possibility (depending on how much sex/violence the customer is ok with). These guys are kick-ass vampire warriors.  There may be some occasional angst, but they definitely do not sparkle.  The series started as paranormal romance, but it's much more an urban fantasy series now.  This reader might also want to go back to the classics like Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire,  Stephen King's Salem's Lot, or the obvious choice Stoker's Dracula!

Conversation 3
For this reader, I would recommend either Destiny of the Republic, which is also by Candice Millard, or The Hour of Peril by Daniel Stashower.  Both are fast-paced and engaging and bring the reader a little-known story from history. 

Week 2: Appeal Factors

The Ashford Affair by Lauren Willig
Lauren Willig’s new stand-alone novel The Ashford Affair is a departure from her well-known Pink Carnation series. The story, which the Library Journal says combines an “Out of Africa sensibility with a Downton Abbey cast,” takes readers from the English countryside before World War I to 1920s Kenya and 1990s New York City. The Ashford Affair is a character-driven, multi-layered love story that will enchant fans of Kate Morton.

 

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight

Kate Baron, a single mom and busy attorney, is devastated when her daughter Amelia dies in an apparent suicide. Weeks later, as Kate returns to work, she receives an anonymous text message that stops her in her tracks. “She didn't jump.” Slowly, Kate begins to uncover the truth about the last months of Amelia’s life. Through text messages, emails, and social media posts, Kate unearths the secrets that Amelia kept. This character-driven story is both suspenseful and heartbreaking as Kate learns the reality of Amelia’s world and the truth about how she died. Reconstructing Amelia will appeal to readers who enjoy Jodi Picoult’s novels or William Landay’s recent bestseller Defending Jacob. Reconstructing Amelia’s emotional depth and exploration of current social issues make this a great pick for your next book club discussion.

I made suggestions on Sandy L. and Jo B.'s annotations.