For my Readers Advisory class our teacher has asked us to look up a couple of "what-ifs."  What if a patron expressed a certain desire in a book?  What would suggestions would you make using Novelist.  Novelist is a database that some libraries have available to help readers when they get stuck--some even have it available to the public who hold library cards.  There is also a novelist just for kids--for those of you have youngsters or know some youngsters.


Below are the answers that I gave to the questions she asked:

• I looked on Novelist for the fourth book in the Anita Blake series.  The fourth book is The Lunatic Café.  If you would like to know the fifth book--just in case--it is Bloody Bones.

•   If you enjoyed Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, you might like Anthill by Edward Wilson.  It has some of the same features such as the lyrical use of language but it also has some suspense, which might move the story along faster.

• You might enjoy The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell.  It is set in 1799 in Nagasaki Harbor.  According to Novelist it is “richly detailed.”

• If you liked Well-Schooled in Murder by Elizabeth George, you might also like the other books by George.  Well-Schooled in Murder is actually the third book in a series with the character Thomas Lynley.  So, if you want to back track book 1 is A Great Deliverance and book 2 is Payment in Blood.  If you want to take off from three and not look back For the Sake of Elena is book 4.  If you want to try a different author A Possibility of Violence by D. A. Mishani has many of the same appeals except it isn’t as violent as Well-Schooled.

• For a read-alike for Walking Dead you can try Rise Again by Ben Tripp or Escape by James Melzer. If he really enjoyed World War Z then Blackout by Mira Grant and Gone-away World by Nick Harkaway are also apocalyptical in nature.

For my personal reading searches, I often find books as I am working at the library and if I don't have time to read them any time soon--I put them on my list of "to read" at Goodreads.  But, sometimes, I look through Goodreads and see what my friends are reading and what they say about the books they are reading.  

My Reading Profile

I have always loved to read.  As a librarian, the toughest part is seeing and touching books that look really interesting, but I can't sit down right then and read it.  My Goodreads list keeps growing--which means I should never be bored . . . right?

My reading tastes run from picture books that I just have to share with my children, to Christian fiction for those days I just need a feel good story, to fairy tale retellings and fantasy for days I want to escape into my imagination.  I enjoy reading historical fiction and mystery as well--though I don't read these very often.

The one genre I find myself running away from is Horror.  I don't know about you, but I enjoy feeling safe and sane.  Stephen King, what snippets I have experienced, does not do that for me.  I have never been the same after watching Alfred Hitchcock's, The Birds.  Nope -- no to Horror.  I tend to stay away from sexually explicit material as well--no to Fifty Shades of anything.

I am a big teen literature reader.  If someone recommends a teen author or title, I will almost always read it.  I took a class in Youth Services and Literature where we were to read, read, read.  (I read over 5000 pages -- That's not easy to do when you have a lot going on.)  You would think that by the end of the semester I would be looking for something a little more "grown up" or a break from reading altogether.  Nope.  A lot of these teen novels have serious thematic material. I have an addiction!  I found myself captivated by books . . .  or sleeping!

I am hoping to spread out into other "genres" over the next 3 - 4 months.  My goals are to enter the "adult world" and read Mystery, Suspense, Western (my Dad's favorite growing up), Adventure, and ---just to keep an even keel--Gentle reads.