Week Three Prompt Response

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!

Novelist showed me with a very quick “anita blake” search that the fourth book in the series is The Lunatic Cafe published in January 1996.

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.

Searching Prodigal Summer on Novelist produces some read alikes, one of which is Midwives by Chris Bohjalian which I can personally attest is a well-written, faster paced book.  Another read alike is The History of Bees by Maja Lunde which has an environmental/natural world theme that might resonate with someone who enjoys Barbara Kingsolver.  I would recommend both of those but also take another step in Novelist and choose to limit to a lyrical writing style and thought provoking tone for more Barbara Kingsolver read alikes.  Doing this gives me Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich, a starred review and award listed novel (Booklist Editors' Choice - Best Fiction Books: 2017, LibraryReads Favorites: 2017, New York Times Notable Books - Fiction and Poetry: 2017).  I have read some of Erdrich’s other novels and so can attest that her writing is excellent. 

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 searched my local library catalog for Japan AND fiction AND history and found:

The Commoner by John Burnham Swartz - set in 1945 Japan, Subject headings: women, nobility, Japan - History - 1945, Japan - social life and customs.

This title has dozens of copies of many different editions including large print and audio in the SHARE system which indicates that, even though I am not familiar with it, it is a popular title that is more likely to be interesting to the patron.

Another possibility:

The Scent of Sake by Joyce Lebra

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?

My first suggestion off-hand would be Louise Penny.  I would also recommend Alexander McCall Smith to someone who likes mysteries but not anything creepy.  Searching Novelist for read alikes for mysteries with likeable characters (less likely to be creepy) gives me Sue Grafton, Alexander McCall Smith (!), M.C. Beaton and… (drumroll) Elizabeth George.  I would recommend all of these authors to the patron.

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?

The difficulty here is weeding through the juvenile and YA titles.  Also, assuming he is not into Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I would start by asking the patron if their husband would be open to any YA titles, as there are some good ones that he might find satisfy the zombie theme.  If the patron is 100% against the idea of YA zombie titles… 

Using Overbooked I searched “zombies” and found Positive: A Novel  by David Wellington; it received several starred reviews.  The Overbooked synopsis states “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome meets World War Z and I Am Legend in this thrilling tale that has it all: a compelling story, great characters, and explosive action, making Positive the ultimate zombie novel of our time.”  Ding, ding, ding...we have a potential winner!

If the patron is open to any YA recommendations, I would start with The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan and also suggest The Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness (it’s not about zombies but my husband who likes The Walking Dead enjoyed these).  

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.

My top recommendation for a literary book turned into a screen adaptation is Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. It was a Pulitzer prize winning novel that aired as a limited HBO series in late 2014.  This recommendation comes completely from my own experience with the book and the series.  

To add another book to movie adaptation from the past five years, I googled “literary book to movie adaptations”.  Doing this lead me pretty quickly to a 2018 PBS Books list of great book to movie adaptations: http://www.pbs.org/book-view-now/blogs/news/2018/03/01/book-adaptations/ which would be a great resource for this patron!  On the list, Call Me by Your Name by Andre Aciman catches my eye first because it got a lot of buzz last year and I can personally recommend it.  

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

I searched appeals in Novelist for the following: fast-paced, intricately plotted, chaste.  The following book was offered: Run For Your Life by Jean Holbrook Mathews.  Digging further into the title tells me that it is Christian Suspense, which is just about the only way you will get “clean” thrillers.  If the patron agreed that that title sounded like what they are looking for, I would also recommend authors Lee Strobel, Ted Dekker, and Frank Peretti.  These are authors that I have experience recommending to patrons looking for Christian Suspense novels.  

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As a ten-year veteran of full-time library work without access to Novelist (sadly), my first go-to tool to answer RA questions for which I don’t have an immediate answer is typically the library catalog.  If a patron wants a book NOW, that is the best bet.  If a patron is willing to wait a week or two, the catalog will still help us find books that are available in the system for ILL purposes, but other resources can be consulted prior to requesting through ILL.  Boolean searches in the catalog and paying close attention to subject headings used can help narrow down a difficult search. 

Finding a title that seems like a good match to the patron, you can then use Goodreads or Amazon to find similar titles (or perhaps your library catalog has this feature, which is fantastic...when it works!)  Another clue: are there a lot of copies of this title in the catalog?  If yes, that means that even if I am not familiar with the title, it is a popular book that is easily accessed making it a better bet that a patron will be satisfied with it.  Because this process has been my habit, I use it for myself, too!  I particularly tend to do this when searching the ebook portal (and I tend to read ebooks just for convenience sake).  I also read online reviews and follow releases from different publications, publishing houses, and authors.  Twitter is also helpful.  When I was purchasing for kids and YA at the library, I read SLJ and Kirkus reviews pretty religiously. 

I explored Overbooked.com for this assignment (one of Chelton’s recommendations) and find it to be somewhat useful and charming but not as robust as Novelist.  Novelist’s Make Your Own Appeal Mix feature is really amazing, and their read alikes are pretty spot on.  The extra resources available for RA for librarians and patrons both are pretty hard to beat. I don’t know what the yearly cost is, but any library with enough funding should be providing access to Novelist for their staff and patrons.