Week 3 Prompt Response

Part 1: Novelist Searches

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!

To answer this question, I chose to search in Novelist by “series” from the drop down menu next to the search bar. Searching for Anita Blake returned both the graphic novel version of this series, and the regular novels. I chose the traditional novels and scrolled down to see which book had a #4 next to it - The Lunatic Cafe.

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.

To answer this question, I first searched for Prodigal Summer in Novelist. Once I found the record for that title, I saw the list of readalikes over on the right-hand side of the screen. I took a look at those to see what might be a good option for the patron and think that The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin might be a good choice since this title and Prodigal Summer are both listed as having lyrical writing styles. 

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!

To answer this question, I did an advanced search with “Japan” in the subject field and “descriptive” in the Appeal Factors field. This returned close to 70 titles. I scanned the titles and saw one that looked promising - The Teahouse Fire by Ellis Avery, which takes place in 19th century Japan. The record says the book has a sweeping storyline and a strong sense of place, which seems like it would fit with the patron’s request.

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?

To answer this question, I first looked up Well-Schooled in Murder because I was unfamiliar with the title. I saw that the book record listed the characters as likeable and complex, with a richly detailed writing style. I did a search to find titles that also shared those characteristics, and Novelist showed lots of other books by Elizabeth George. Not sure if the patron was asking for another book by the same author, or for a recommendation of a new author, so I’d give them some of the Elizabeth George titles, and then also run a search for similar authors using the “author readalikes” feature. Louise Penny seems to be a good choice based on the Novelist description.

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?

I searched for World War Z in Novelist, and then looked through the recommended readalikes. The Passage by Justin Cronin sounds like it would be a good match. According to Novelist, “Both books examine the personal, social, and political consequences of a devastating outbreak of flesh-eating monsters. The novels also share in-depth characterization and a variety of character perspectives, as well as intricate narratives that span many locations and times.”

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.

This one took me a little longer to find. I used the menu on the left and chose “Fiction A-Z” and then “Made into Movies Fiction A-Z”. Then I was able to sort the results by the most recent publication date. This allowed me to see recent books that had been made into movies. I scrolled through the results looking for literary books per the patron’s request. I would recommend The Dig by John Preston to the patron (plus, I just saw this advertised on Netflix the other day and it looks really interesting!)

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

To find titles for this query, I looked at the menu on the left under the “Thrillers” category, and then chose the subcategory of “Christian Thrillers” (because those generally have cleaner language/story lines). Smoke Screen by Terri Blackstock seems to be a good choice. Novelist says this about the book: “Blackstock’s intense and twisty story will please fans of her faith-grounded crime dramas.”

Part 2: Books to Read

I don’t actually work in a library yet, so my experience finding books to read is either just for myself or for family/friends. I use goodreads a lot. In fact, I just used it to find a Science Fiction book to read for one of our annotation assignments for this class (since I chose that genre as one I’m not very familiar with). Also, as I mentioned in my reading profile, my sisters and I keep a running spreadsheet of books we want to read/have read. In addition, one of my aunts has kept a book blog for years where she reviews all different kinds of books. I get a lot of titles from there to add to my TBR list.

Before starting the MLIS program, I had no idea that Novelist existed. It’s available through my local library, and I feel like I was missing out on a great resource for years! I am excited to learn more about it this semester so that I can confidently use it to recommend books to patrons someday.