Week 7, Assignment 3

For this assignment I've been reading Stacked and Teenreads. (Teenreads has tested my patience. It is very sloooow to load. But I'm trying to look beyond that since they have good info.) I really like the content of both sites; prefer the layout (and loading time) of the Stacked site. 

Stacked is produced by Kimberly Fransisco and Kelly Jensen, both librarians. The focus of this blog is on the blog content; other features line the margins of the page in smaller type, which makes it easy to see where the most current information is: in the middle. To my eye, it's a pleasing and streamlined layout. I feel like this blog is directed toward book consumers as well as book professionals--librarians, booksellers, etc.. They seem to talk about library things pretty often. And I love the entry Kelly posted today about her system's summer reading club. I am now kicking myself for shipping all the middle school entry slips back to Youth Services without mining them for the titles that kids are reading. Brilliant! Also, she mentions teens reading Nicholas Sparks. Quite a few teen girls have asked me for Sparks' books since summer started, and now that she says it on her blog, it makes me think that we could do a display of adult books that appeal to teens. (Jodi Picoult would also be on that display.)

Now to the other site. Teenreads seems to be directed at teen readers or any readers who enjoy teen books. They have a corporate team that manages their affiliated sites but also have a number of book reviewers, and they elicit input from their readers. Also found it interesting that Teenreads is part of a network of sites produced by The Book Report Network...and that this network includes a site called 20SomethingReads...which reminds me of the "New Adult" label I read about in Assignment 1 this week. Teenreads has a search features that enable readers to search by title, author, or (especially) genre. The site is busy with scrolling banners that change out every few seconds (surely that's part of the reasons the pages load at glacial speed) and it's packed with articles and features, so it takes a minute or two to figure out what the highlights are. I don't find the layout all that user-friendly, but it may just be me.

I like that both sites are not only current with new releases, they also include older titles for consideration. I'm glad to know about both of these sites and I'm sure I'll continue to refer to them.

Week 8, Assignment 1

Both articles about readers advisory with nonfiction made some good points. I like the idea of creating mixed displays of fiction and nonfiction materials. This is some thing we've done at my branch, although having our fiction and nonfiction collections on separate floors makes this a little tricky. In particular, our mystery readers who "have read everything" would enjoy a true crime/ mystery display, and on occasion I have remembered to suggest titles by Ann Rule or Erik Larsen when in conversation with such a customer.

With regard to readers advisory, I have found that people who identify themselves as nonfiction readers are somewhat less likely to be willing to read fiction; they tend to prefer the facts to fictionalized accounts of historical events. For example, readers who are interested in nonfiction about World War II have been less likely to want to switch over to read historical fiction about that period; yet readers who enjoyed The Book Thief have been interested in reading more about what really happened and have been receptive to titles like In the Garden of Beasts. But there are always readers who cross quite happily between fiction and nonfiction because they enjoy a good story; I fall Into this category, while my husband is a "just the facts please" nonfiction reader. According to him, you can't improve on the truth. And truth can, at times, be stranger than fiction.

Week 7, Assignment 2

So, thus far I have read three of the five suggested articles for this assignment. In the interest of getting this project completed, I had to stop there (for now). The first article I read was this one from Publishers Weekly about the "New Adult" subgenre. I found myself both laughing and agreeing with one of the comments that follows the article--the writer described herself as a "cranky Gen-Xer" who had managed to become an adult without this subgenre, but who at the same time likes the label if it gets (or keeps) people reading (and yes, a latte while reading the next Hunger Games would be lovely...just make mine with coconut milk, please).

I think that "New Adult" is probably more of a marketing tool than a new section that needs to be added to our shelves, at least for now. A number of years back as part of my coursework when completing my Master's in teaching, I took a kid-lit class, and one of the key ideas from that class that has stuck with me is the notion that children need to see themselves in books. Well, I don't think it's just children...I think that all people like to see something of themselves in books. Not exclusively, mind you; most readers, at least some of the time, look for an escape or something that takes them away from reality...but it seems like the books that resonate most with us tend to be the ones that tell us something about life and how to live it.

Moving on to the other articles I read ("Who is Buying Teen Books?" from Christian Science Monitor and "The Next Big Thing" from YALSA), another thought that all of these articles brought to mind is that a good book is a good book is a good book. I don't hesitate to recommend The Book Thief or Code Name Verity to adult readers who say they enjoy historical fiction set during the World War II era, or The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian as a book club selection, because they are Just. Good. Books.

I posted comments on Cynthia W. and Eileen K.'s blogs.

Week 7, Assignment 1

Had to print out the "What to Read Next" article from Lawrence Public Library...and as a companion to this, I read another article from Christian Science Monitor, "10 Books to Read After the Hunger Games Trilogy." The latter article was linked from an article I read for Week 7, Assignment 2; just had to take a peek at it (a) to see if there were any I hadn't heard about previously, and (b) to see which titles are consistently recommended, like Divergent and The Maze Runner. These lists come in particularly handy during summer reading season. And many of them will end up on my own Goodreads "to read" list, like Legend by Marie Lu.

Week 6, Assignment 3

The instructions for the first part of Assignment 3 are to choose three fiction subgenres with which I am unfamiliar and to locate a fan website for each. In order for this to be useful, I would like to choose three subgenres that customers have actually requested. So...I selected paranormal romance, hip-hop urban fiction, and epic fantasy. In addition to the websites I list below, I also consulted  Fantastic Fiction, NoveList, and Goodreads to get more information for these entries.

Paranormal Romance
Fan website: This was a good subgenre to pick. Finding a fan website for this was easy-peasy: I just googled "fan website for paranormal romance" and came up with a slew of them. I initially choose a site that unfortunately was not up-to-date. Some pages were last updated in 2010; the most recent reviews were from 2012; and the New Releases page didn't have any actual content. So, I selected a blog that appeared at the top of the search results, called "Paranormal Romance Fans for Life," which was updated two days ago. This site keeps tabs on new releases and is maintained by an author in this genre.
Authors/Titles: Danica Winters (blog owner), Nalini Singh, Christine Feehan
Hallmarks/Appeal Factors: According to Goodreads, paranormal romance books feature romantic relationships in conjunction with non-human, other-worldly, paranormal creatures and phenomena ("vampires, shapeshifters, ghosts, time travel, fantastical beings, and psychic abilities." ~from Goodreads). These books are also typically fast-paced and can be graphic.

Hip-Hop Urban Fiction
Fan Website: I searched using Google for "hip hop fiction" and came up with a number of websites that discuss urban fiction/street lit/hip hop fiction as interchangeable terms, but had a harder time finding a site that defines "hip hop fiction" in the way that it was defined on the Prezi graphic--as encompassing just urban titles focused on the music industry. There are many good resources and lists, such as this Urban Fiction/Street Lit/Hip Hop Fiction article and The Urban Book Source. Searching for hip-hop fiction on Goodreads produced lists of largely nonfiction titles. I also came across this informative blog about street lit.
Authors/Titles: Teri Woods, Ashley and JaQuavis, Nikki Turner
Hallmarks/Appeal Factors: Hip-hop/street lit/urban fiction books typically feature an urban setting, a fast pace, realistic dialogue, and realistic depictions of life on the streets.

Epic Fantasy
Fan Website: Once again, I turned to Google to see what I could find with a basic search (knowing that of course I could find lots of info on Goodreads and NoveList as well). I found a site called Best Fantasy Books that has lists of all kinds of fantasy and its subgenres, including epic fantasy. A "top 50" list of epic fantasy books can be found on this page.
Authors/Titles: J.R.R. Tolkien, George R. R. Martin, Steven Erikson
Hallmarks/Appeal Factors: Epic fantasy works feature struggles of good versus evil, are populated with heroes, wizards, villains, richly detailed worlds, and are often large, multi-volume works.

The last part of this assignment asks us to find two mashup titles--titles that blend two subgenres. Here are two that I found and my rationale for each:
The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen qualifies for mashup status because it blends magical realism with chick lit and a heartwarming modern romance. A woman of some repute around town turns up hiding in sheltered Josey's closet, urging the hapless twentysomething to get a life and go after the man she admires.
Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce contains elements of several genres: literary fiction (superb writing), fantasy-fairy tale (betcha guessed that from the title, huh?), a good dose of cultural commentary, and a heckuva lot of psychology to boot. Sixteen-year-old Tara goes missing after a major falling out with her boyfriend, and shows up twenty years later, looking the same as she did when she "left." She claims to have been kidnapped by fairies.

Week 6, Assignment 2

The Prezi graphic of fiction genres and subgenres is a great way to capture the different categories of fiction. I have to agree with a few people who commented that it would have been great to have it blown up so you could view it all together, but the navigation wasn't unmanageable either. The explanations and links between subgenres were helpful.

PS, a day later...on further thought, I think that the graphic in the Prezi would actually be a better item to have offered in print--perhaps printed on 11x17 paper. It would be a great item for future reference, and would make completing Assignment 3 just a tad easier. We could also share it with customers!

Week 6, Assignment 1

As I've mentioned in previous posts, we have a lot of mystery readers at my branch, and I am not a mystery reader myself. It's not that I object to mysteries--I enjoy them--it just happens that mysteries infrequently make it to the top of my reading lists. For these reasons, I thought that Stop You're Killing Me would be a good resource to follow. I haven't been disappointed with the site; in fact, I've shared it with several of our customers who are mystery fans. One customer in particular likes gritty police procedurals, particularly those set overseas in Scotland and Europe, so I shared SYKM's page on police procedurals with this customer and we found a couple of new titles/authors to try. Lists like this are quite helpful when doing RA, and I've found several other author read-alike lists on this site useful over the past couple months as well.