Secret Shopper

The library I used for my secret shopper was a small library that didn't have a designated reference or information desk. Everything was done at the main desk from circulation to answer information questions. The lady that help me did a good job of asking what type of book I was looking for and when I told her I enjoy to read young adult she went on to ask me what genre I usually read. She never once looked anything up on the computer but she was still able to help me find a book I would like by discussing the books I had already read and enjoy and ones that she had read and liked. With her knowledge of young adult books, she was able to recommend a book that she had just read that she thought I would like. The book she recommended was 'An Enchantment of Ravens" by Margaret Rogerson. When I got home I looked it up on Novelist and found out that it had several read-alikes of books that I have read.

This experience has helped me look at what I currently do when people ask me this question and what I should and shouldn't do. Since she didn't need resources to help me find a book I would like I asked her what she usually uses when she is helping people look for a new book to read and she doesn't know much about it. She told me she usually uses Goodreads to find books for patrons. Overall she did a good job of being able to help me find a book that I would like and helped me see what it looks like to have an engaging conversation about books form the patron's point of view.

Week Three Prompt Response

Part 1:

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!

The next book you will want is The Lunatic Cafe. I found this using NoveList and searching for the author Laurell K. Hamilton. Once you get to her page you will click on series, then select the Anita Blake series and it shows all the titles printed in order of publication.

    

       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.

The book I would suggest is Yellow Emperor’s Cure. Prodigal Summer had the writing styles of descriptive, lush, and lyrical and Yellow Emperor’s Cure has these same writing styles along with richly detailed but the pace is fast-paced which is what the reader has requested. I found this suggestion using NoveList and first pulling up the title Prodigal Summer to find out what the writing style was. If you scroll down on the title you are looking at you can change your search terms by options that are part of the title you are looking at. I selected all of the writing style options and clicking on search. Once the search came up I used the option on the left side of the screen to narrow down the pacing to fast-paced. This book is the third option on the list but I felt that it matched better with Prodigal Summer then the first two options.

        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!

The title I would recommend is The Teahouse Fire by Ellis Avery. It is a historical fiction set in Kyoto, Japan. This book is described as having a descriptive, engaging, lyrical, and richly detailed writing style. This would fit the requirement of the book the patron was looking for. I found this by doing an advanced search and using the search term of Japan and historical and selecting to sort by adult and fiction. Once the list of titles was shown I used the left panel and limited the writing style to descriptive and richly detailed.

                  

       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?

I would recommend A Possibility of Violence by Dror Mishani. This book is one of the suggested read-alikes given by NoveList for Well-Schooled in Murder. When you look at the appeal terms several of them match. Characters are both complexes, the storyline is character-driven and intricately plotted, the tone is suspenseful, and writing style is compelling and richly detailed. I found this by looking up Well-Schooled in Murder in NoveList and looking at the read-alikes that were provided by NoveList.

      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 would recommend Rise Again: a Zombie Thriller by Ben Tripp. I found this suggestion by looking up World War Z and picking several different appeal and subject search. I selected for the genre to be apocalyptic fiction and horror, storyline to be plot-driven, and the writing style to e compelling. When the search result came up I pick this title and looked at the read-alikes list that was given and the first one on the list was one of The Walking Dead fiction books by Robert Kirkman.  

       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.

Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman, Room by Emma Donoghue, Inherent Vice by Thomas Pychon, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain, and The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers are just a few that I would suggest. I found this by looking at books to movies section on NoveList. From there I click on a couple options till I found one that said Literary fiction was one of the genres and then I did a refined search by scrolling down the page and selecting both literary fiction and books to movies. Once I found some titles I double check that the movies had been released in the last 5 years by doing an IMDB search for the movie.

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

I would recommend The Bride Collector by Ted Dekker. This is a fast-paced thriller that has no sex scenes or foul language. This is a book I just finished and like. Ted Dekker is a Christian author who writes clean books but doesn’t try to force religion down your throat.

Part 2:

When I am looking for a new author similar to authors I have read before I like to use NoveList to find read-alikes. I also use NoveList anytime I am trying to find the next book in a series because it is the easiest site I have found to use for this. When I am looking for a new young adult book to read I look at a blog called tween 2 teen book reviews (http://www.tween2teenbooks.com/). This site has a best of whatever year it is with release dates so I know when to start looking for the books I want to read. It has another section called what to read next which gives you ideas of books that you might like after finishing some of the popular YA books. The is another section called top ten suggestions which she changes up when she finds a book that she likes more then what is listed. If I am just wanting to browse through lots of different books and lists I use Goodreads. I like Goodreads because I am able to see what my friends are reading and liking and I usually find about 1 or 2 or 10 books to add to my to-read list (which is never-ending).

Thriller Annotation: The Bride Collector

The Bride Collector By Ted Dekker

Publication Date: 2010

Number of Pages: 432

Geographical Setting: Denver, Colorado

Time Period: Present

Genre: Thriller

Plot Summary:

The bride collector has struck again. FBI Special Agent Brad Raines and his partner Nikki Holden are investigating the 4th victim of the bride collector. The bride collector chooses beautiful women and glues them to the wall and drain their blood from their heels. This victim is different because the killer leaves a note. The note leads Raines and Holden to the Center for Wellness and Intelligence (CWI) which is a mental facility that only takes mentally ill patients with high IQ. CWI has a cast of character that set out to try and help Brad Raines. Roudy who is sometimes called Sherlock, Andrea who is referred to as Brains, Enrique who is called Casanova because he is a ladies man, and Paradise who is good with dead people. With the help of CWI, Brad Raines tries to track down the bride collector (who you learn early on is Quinton Gauld) before he collects his last 3 brides. 

Subject Headings:

·         Institutionalized persons

·         Extrasensory perception

·         Serial murder investigation – Denver, Colorado

·         FBI agents

·         Serial murderers – Denver, Colorado

·         Crimes against women

·         Serial murders – Denver, Colorado

·         Crucifixion

·         Brides

Appeal:

·         Fast-paced

·         Creepy

·         Plot-driven

Elements of Thriller:

·         Thrillers tend to be fast paced which this book falls into. It is driving by the need to find the killer before he took more lives.

·         When talking about tone this book is dark and creepy with the killer going back and forth on who he is killing in the name of.

·         Thrillers tend to be focused on a theme and for this book, the theme is mental illness. The CWI play a big role in this book which is a facility for mentally ill people with high IQ. The protagonists Brad Raines has to get over his preconceptions of people with mental illness to be able to work with some of the people at the CWI who help solve the case.

Similar Authors and Works (why are they similar?):

Non-Fiction Works and Authors:

Ann Rule: She is a nonfiction true crime writer that writes about serial murders investigation and other crimes.

Devil in the White City by Erik Larson: This book is about a serial killer in Chicago that was killing at the same time as the world’s fair.

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann: This book subject is dealing with serial murders.

Fiction Works and Authors:

9^th Girl by Tami Hoag: This book is a thriller and suspense and has the subject of serial murders investigation.

Blood Dreams by Kay Hooper: This book is a thriller and suspense and has the subject of serial murders investigation.

Count to Ten by James Patterson: This book is a thriller and suspense and has the subject of serial murders investigation.

Novelist was used for read alikes.

Saricks, Joyce G. The Reader’s Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction. 2^nd ed., American Library Association, 2009.

Picture from Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7139292-the-bride-collector

Reading Profile (Readers Advisor)

I am someone who loves to read and my goal on Goodreads is usually between 80-100 which I usually go over. It has been on the lower end lately because of school since I haven't had as much free time. I enjoy reading just about everything but am not as interested in romance books. For me it is ok is there is some romance in a book I just don't enjoy the heavy romance books. The genres I enjoy the most are mysteries, thrillers, young adult, science fiction, and fantasy. As long as the book has some suspense or something to figure out I usually enjoy it. Most of the book I am able to read right now is audiobook that I listen to on my way to work and when I am able to get exercise in. Audiobooks can sometimes be hit or miss because not every reader is good but the ones that are, bring the story to life with the production. One of my goal in the next few years is to turn my office into my own personal library by adding more bookshelves and of course more books. This will give me the ability to go in and find a book at any time that I may want to read. Here are some of my personal picks for last year and my top five books and series that I enjoyed reading:

The topic 5 books that I read last year are:

1. Three Dark Crown by Kendare Blake (3 sisters with different gifts fighting for the crown only one can live in the end)
2. City of Lies by Victoria Thompson (historical fiction that talks about the suffragette movement, really liked that she used actual know people for supporting characters) 
3. Bone Gap by Laura Ruby (This was a book I read for one of my classes but I enjoyed trying to figure out how the story was going to end. This book was a mix of realism with fantasy which is an interesting mix)
4. Burned by Ellen Hopkins (Written in versus talking about a family struggle to survive in an abusive family) 
5. Night by Elie Wiesel (This is a heartbreaking book about Elie surviving in concentration camps during WWII) 

The topic 5 books and series that I enjoy:

1. Harry Potter by JK Rowling 
2. The Stephine Plum series by Janet Evanovich
3. The Selection series by Kiera Cass
4. The Martian by Andy Weir
5. A Thin Dark Line by Tami Hoag