Prompt Response - Week 3 - Novelist

Question 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! 

Answer: If she was reading the graphic novel, the 4^th graphic novel (not book 4) is Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: the Laughing Corpse, Book 2: Necromancer. If she was looking for the 4^th book in the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series (the regular book), that one is The Lunatic Cafe.

Question 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.

Answer: If she wanted another book by Barbara Kingsolver, she might try Flight Behavior. If not, she might try The Loop by Nicholas Evans (about a wolf biologist) – this readalike has an issue-oriented theme, with a romantic tone. It was also listed as very popular, and had a 4 star Good Reads rating. If the patron was not interested in limiting the search to eco-fiction (which was tricky, there didn’t seem to be many of those), there would be lots of other options.

Question 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!

Answer: There are two questions that would help narrow the search: “Do you want a book that is an adult book or one that is listed as adult and teen?” Also, “Do you want it to be in the general time frame of World War II or before that?” I searched for Japan and limited the search to “historical fiction” and checked adults. I also limited the time from to 1960. I sorted by popularity, and glanced through. I picked out titles that were set in Japan and that were not primarily about WWII. The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiayama, The Snow Fox by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, or Cloud of Sparrows by Takashi Matsuoka. (My system actually has all three.)  Also, before giving these recommendations I would want some idea how historical and cultural she was wanting. (For example, if she really wanted a Harlequin set in Japan, she probably wouldn’t like these three books one bit.)

Question 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?

Answer: First, there are others in the series by Elizabeth George. The first was A Great Deliverance. Next, the description of the series lists two authors in particular: P. D. James and Martha Grimes. P.D. James has a series that starts with Cover Her Face, and Martha Grimes has a series that starts with The Man with a Load of Mischief.

Question 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? 

Answer:  First, I'd ask: "Was that The Walking Dead graphic novels or the regular novel? Did he want a graphic novel or a book or both?" (My other responses are guessing novels, partly because of World War Z.) Just to make sure: Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor is part of a series by Robert Kirkman. Has he read all the books in this series? Some options are The Rising by Brian Keene and Zone One by Colson Whitehead or Monster Island by David Wellington. I did a search for Zombies and Gruesome. I limited the results to adults and the genre to “horror stories”.  (When I did this search, Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor and World War Z were both included in the results.) (Also, my system has Monster Planet and other titles by Brian Keene, but not Monster Island.)

 Tools:

When answering patron inquiries, the choice of tool depends upon the question. For example, the first question about a series by Laurell Hamilton could be answered by checking the catalog. However, for a different author, I might start with a check of Google. This would normally happen if I suspect (or know) that I am not spelling something correctly. Since Google makes suggestions, anything with suspect spelling goes though Google. If Google doesn’t supply the answer (it might for an author name or the spelling of a title), it will likely list Amazon as a prominent link, and series information or an ISBN number can be found from there. Also, if Amazon doesn’t have a book, it is unlikely that the library does.

However, if I needed to go to the next step and recommend a similar book, I suspect the next stop would be either GoodReads.com or LibraryThing.com. Either of those would give fairly good information on authors, series or individual books. Also, both have recommendations. LibraryThing.com has recommendation lists that are longer and quirkier. I would tend to try GoodReads.com for a patron first and LibraryThing.com for me first. Partly the reasoning is that for a patron I might want to suggest the best three options for a similar read, but for me I can look through a longer list, particularly if I have read several of the similar titles already. For myself I have also looked through publisher sites (baen.com, for example) or compared the recommendations of Amazon.com, goodreads.com and librarything.com. For an unfamiliar author or title, the tags on LibraryThing.com have occasionally helped me get a quick sense of the book. (In particular, there are certain tags I would tend to avoid.)

Knowing that I was going to write this, I asked the branch manager and the adult librarian at my branch what they use for readers advisory. They said that they basically use Amazon.com or GoodReads.com. When I asked them about spelling, they quickly added that they also use Google to check the spelling. Also, I specifically asked about Novelist (which is accessible through my library system), and neither uses Novelist.