The bad news is that I erroneously thought that I would be reading for pleasure a great deal more than I have been have this summer. The good news is that my recent journey into the field of library science has introduced me to a myriad of online tools, which I believe will prove quite useful and entertaining. For this assignment, I’ve explored what can be coined as reader advisory sites. This made me think back to a blank journal book that my cousin had sent to me many years ago entitled The Book Lover’s Diary. My Cousin Pamela, who resides in Seattle, had received a copy of this book from one of her neighborhood libraries. She enjoyed it so much that she bought an additional copy for me. The Book Lover’s Diary is the paper version of a reader advisory sans the electronic recommendations. The Book Lover’s Diary gives you blank pages to record books that you have enjoyed or want to share with others just as with the online sites. The categories included within the journal are things such as: books I want to own, books received as gifts, books I want to remember to read again, books borrowed, or books that I want to give as gifts. The book lists you create can also be grouped by title, author, or subject.
While it’s been a great while since I have made new entries into this journal, I still love the fact that a local library gave copies of the journal out to patrons as gifts way back when. I get the sense that Seattle has some great libraries just from the job postings for library related positions that I have seen appear on our SLIS list serv. I hold a cherished memory of my cousin sending this book to me as a gift, especially since we seem to have lost touch in recent years. I can understand that Web 2.0 is the current climate, but I will still hold on to my copy of the Book Lover’s Diary with its hard cover, crisp yellow pages, and famous quotes scattered inside of it. This quote from Oscar Wilde was written on page 43 of the Book Lover’s Diary:
“I shall never travel outside without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train”
I had registered for a few reader advisory sites in recent weeks, but have not gotten the opportunity to benefit from their full range of uses. Upon registration for LibraryThing, I did add about twenty-five books that have been favorites of mine. LibraryThing created recommendations for me based on the books which I included on my list. Admittedly, my poison of choice is mostly fiction, so any lists that I create will reflect this. I hope to expand my horizons a bit with the use of these advisory websites to include non-fiction and biographical genres. One of the first recommendations that caught my eye from LibraryThing was a book called Trash, as I am always a sucker for sensationalized titles. Trash was described as being the precursor to one of my favorite books called Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison. Surprisingly, an excellent movie was also cast from the book Bastard Out of Carolina, which aired on Lifetime years ago. I say surprisingly, as we all know that the book is always inherently better than any movie aspiration. I love this book, but I didn’t think to search for other books which the author has written. I read over the five or so book reviews, and decided that it must be added to my list. LibraryThing even provides you with a link to finding a recommended book in lists of local bookstores and library branches. LibraryThing also contains quick links to book searches such as e-books, audio, and book swaps where you can find these book recommendations. Book swaps are a new phenomena to me, but I am sure that I will do some research to find out how they work soon! The title of these two books also reminded me of another book in which I have been interested called Winter’s Bone. As my blog title suggests, I grew up in an area of Ohio which is near to what I consider Appalachia, and the authors for Trash and Winter’s Born share this same heritage. I plugged in the title Winter’s Bone, and received book reviews for it. LibraryThing also gives you an assortment of book tags related to your recommendations that lead you to searches for other books. The recommendations for Winter’s Bone made me even more eager to read it. One of the reviews for Winter’s Bone referenced NPR, which often serves as sort of its own reader advisory. I am going to look into now adding a specific RSS feed for NPR book reviews as I am sure that one exists. LibraryThing hosts a message board/forum that no doubt will lead me to some great books. LibraryThing also reminded me of other books that I have read by authors of books which I included on my original list. I was able to search for more titles by those authors to include in my new list of 10 ten books to be read. While I have little experience with reader advisory sites, LibraryThing gets my high rating, and I will definitely keep in tune to it.
While I have sometimes been annoyed by it, the recommendations stemming from my Amazon.com purchases serve as a reader advisory for me. They always offer, if you read this, then you may like this, inclusive of reader reviews for books similar in genre. At times I have been amazed at what they would suggest for my reading, but sometimes you need to step out of your own, self-contained box. In reviewing this assignment, I learned that I can somewhat tailor the reviews from Amazon by checking a box to keep a book purchase or search from being included from recommendation considerations. I will now consider comparing recommendations from Amazon with the online advisories.
I hadn’t loaded any book titles read into GoodReads, but I thoroughly enjoyed some of the titles of groupings for book searches. They have one list entitled, Books that you should read before you go blind, which might not be touted as politically correct, but the phrasing caught my attention. GoodReads allowed me to link up some of my e-mail listings of friends to connect with them so that I could share in their reading likes. I will need to await my inquiry somewhat akin to a Facebook friend request to see whether friends I know will be want to share and discuss their reviews of books that they enjoyed. I noted a few instances of advertising pop up while I was perusing GoodReads, which might have occurred with other sites but maybe not prominent for me to notice I suppose. Best Tortured Heroes in Fiction, and Books that Changed my World also seem to be interesting categories to bring about some great reading lists. I think that GoodReads along with LibraryThing will make get most of my attention with reader advisory websites.
Using the advisory sites has made me reflect on the types of books which generally interest me, what I might have been experiencing during a specific period while I was reading a particular book, and what draws me to a book. I had never thought much about book covers that I see in stores or libraries, but they do play some role in my selections. I don’t know what that says about me as a reader. Do I need to be penned as an intelligent reader, an avid reader, or just be content that I continue to read for pleasure? I am sometimes saddened when I hear people say that they don’t like to read. Who doesn’t like to read? This seems to extreme, and when I hear it, I want to guide them to all the different genres of books, so that they too can lose themselves in one. I didn’t use any specific search terms, but I did want to see what books appeared based on recommendations from what I have read or bought. In the future, I will try searching for terms or genres, but I wholeheartedly enjoyed seeing all the titles of books and tags that I can consider for future reading.
Top Ten
• Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
• Trash by Dorothy Allison
• Winter’s Bone by Danielle Woodrell
• A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve
• The Wall Between by Anne Braden
• Amy’s Answering Machine: Messages from Mom by Amy Borkowsky
• Trusting Yourself by M.J. Ryan
• Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan
• The Dew Breaker Edwidge Danticat
• Yoga for Women by Shakta Kaur Khalsa : photography by Russell Sadar
Petronella Holmes
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