Week 3: The Readers' Services Conversation

Assignment 1:

Two key points I'll try to remember:

Best icebreaker--"Are you content to browse or would you like some suggestions?"

Key appeal factors to identify both as the customer is speaking and as I consider recommendations are tone, major appeal, and key feature.

 

Assignment 2:

Nancy is my guru (and we graduated from the same Annapolis College--no wonder our taste is sympatico!).  Now I have a few more titles to add to my vacation stack.  Nancy Pearl is The Master, even a little bit better than dear Ruth Brown....

 

Assignment 3:

 

Conversation 1:  Eat, Pray, Love

The reader enjoyed hearing a smart, funny contemporary woman with a complicated inner life reveal her reactions and eventual transformation as she tested herself on her a trip.  For her book group, I might recommend these three armchair travel books by bright, iconoclastic women who deliberately move outside their comfort zone and have written memoirs that celebrate their personal journey:

·         Wild by Cheryl Strayed

·         Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman

·         Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes

 

Conversation 2: NOT Twilight

The reader wants a vampire story that is fast-paced and is not brooding or atmospheric with a drippy, drawn-out teenage love story.  Here are three suggestions of thrilling, gore-soaked vampire tales that feature graphic violence as humans battle fanged forces of evil:

·         13 Bullets by David Wellington (first of five-book “Vampire Tales” series)

·         Blood and Bullets by James R. Tuck (first of “Deacon Chalk, Occult Bounty Hunter novels” trilogy)

·         Witch Doctor by Brandon Seifert (first in upcoming graphic novel series)

 

Conversation 3: The River of Doubt

The reader was fascinated by a narrative history selection that was fast-paced with a touch of murder that allowed him to learn the hidden fascinating facts about a little-known historical event.  Here are some choices:

·         The Destiny of the Republic: a Tale of Medicine, Madness and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard (same author as The River of Doubt)

·         The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

·         Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul by Karen Abbott