Reading Profile

 

Hello! I have loved reading in my spare time since early elementary school. My goal for 2021 is to read authors or books that are on my very long reading wish list. My favorite author of all time is Agatha Christie. Whodunit novels are fun because there is always a twist and trying to solve the mystery before the book ends is a worthy challenge. Other genres I am a fan of are mythology, fantasy, romance, and gentle reads. I am not biased on what I read and if someone recommends a book, I am always willing to try it out! I like these genres when I can visualize what is happening. I also was big on mythology in elementary school and this carried into what I would read. How the gods and mortals interacted was fascinating to me and fiction mythology melds what I learned in school with the escapist type of books I enjoy. As for gentle reads every now and then I want a book that is predictable. Fantasy novels transport me to a new world in a few short sentences and imagining a new type of world is a great way to get my imagination going.

Genres that I have not delved much into but have wanted to try out are westerns, thrillers, suspense, science fiction, and nonfiction. I tend to watch many of these genres on streaming services and through our library’s A/V collection but have never taken the plunge into the literary world. Due to the pandemic, I have started to branch out with formats. I used to solely read print. Something about the smell and feel of a book draws me into the story. Now I am starting to find audiobooks and eBooks are fantastic. I must like the narrator for audiobooks, or I cannot concentrate. One that I highly recommend is the 39 Clues series. The narrator’s accents can be fun and if you like when kids must save the world you will enjoy this series.

Saricks (2005) points out that one of the key components to readers' advisory is to have a responsive attitude (p. 11). I have learned with the transition to doing all our orders via curbside that the patrons trust my instincts when choosing books for them, and I do not judge them for their likes and dislikes of genres. Curbside has allowed readers' advisory to become front and center at our library. Patrons were so used to coming in and browsing the shelves that now they do not know what they want to read. They have started putting it into the hands of the reference librarian (my main job right now). Wyatt and Saricks (2019) also point out that genres blend more today and authors are not sticking to a specific genre when writing a book (p. xvi). I have learned to ask patrons why they like a book over what genres they enjoy reading. If I can get to the heart of the reason they liked a particular book or author I will have better luck suggesting titles to them. I relish the challenge of finding books that a patron will love. It is always satisfying when someone tells me that I can pick whatever because I have picked good books in the past for them!

Books I always recommend:

1. Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None
2. Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians or any of his series
3. Suzanne Collins’s The Underland Chronicles
4. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie
5. Katrina Bivald’s The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend
6. Holly Black and Cassandra Clare’s The Magisterium Series
7. Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart
8. Jeffrey Brown’s Kids are Weird: And Other Observations from Parenthood

Series/Books/Authors I want to read this year:

1. Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Series
2. Louis L’Amour
3. CJ Box
4. James SA Corey’s The Expanse
5. Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian
6. Brandon Sanderson
7. Bernard Cornwell
8. George Takei’s They Called Us Enemy

References used in this post:

Saricks, J. G. (2005). Readers' advisory service in the public library. American Library Association.

Pp. 1-13.

Wyatt, Neal and Joyce G. Saricks (2019). The readers' advisory guide to genre fiction (3rd ed.). American Library Association. p. xvi.