Week 6:  Building Base Knowledge

Assignment 1:

Following stopyourekillingme.com, I continue to be amazed by the thoroughness of its compilations and especially by its indexing.  The list of Awards just hints at the number of subgenres that fans follow: they celebrate traditional, private eye, thriller, Australian and Canadian crime, humorous and historical mysteries.  (I don’t see there any recognized awards yet for cat/dog, embroidery or food mysteries---surely in America food mysteries would be formally lauded.)  I can see myself consulting the Historical Index by time period looking for recommendations for myself and for customers.

 

Assignment 2:

The genre Prezi is amazing!!!  What a handy reference!  Thanks, Alex.

Assignment 3:

Subgenre fansites—

Time Travel Science Fiction:  I wasted an hour of my time looking but could not find any fan sites that are so very specific.  I ended up reverting to Goodreads (Yay!) and discovered an active “Time Travel” group of 941 members.  Some notable/recognizable authors in this subgenre would be Diana Gabaldon, H.G. Wells, and Audrey Niffenegger.  Often intricately plotted, the appeal factors center on “what could have been,” both in a nostalgic/romantic way and/or have an alternative history bent.

 Paranormal Romance:  After losing so much time looking for a fan site for above, I stuck with Goodreads and found “Paranormal Addicts & Newbies - Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy,” a group of 7103 members.  Think Stephanie Meyer, Charlaine Harris, J.R. Ward.  The group self-describes as vampires, werewolves, shifters, witches, fae and everything else paranormal--often with a bit of a twist or extra hot spice.

Apocalyptic Horror: Goodreads offers the 6354-member fan group Apocalypse Whenever, which describes itself as “the most active Goodreads group for apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic and dystopic fiction!”  Appeal factors focus on the quick pace, the atmospheric, suspenseful and gruesome tone plus the guaranteed shivery thrill factor of contemplating a scary alternate reality.  Some classic authors in this subgenre are Aldous Huxley, George Orwell and Stephen King.

Subgenre Mashups—

How does urban fantasy mystery strike you?  Try Street Magic by Caitlin Kittredge (Book 1 of her Black London series).  Contemporary murder, a mage strung out on heroin, a girl kidnapped in the fey underworld, and a female detective named Pete who must sort out the mess….With elements of a police procedural, gritty urban life and fantasy, Street Magic has slick crossover appeal for the younger adult set.

And what about steampunk romance? Soulless by Gail Carriger is Book 1 of the Parasol Protectorate.  As the publisher states succinctly, Soulless is “comedy of manners set in Victorian London: full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.” ‘Nuff said.

Week 5

 

Assignment 1:

The more I investigate SYKM, the more amazed I am.  I especially like the character and author lists; the author lists link to the author sites, if available.  The indices that are listed in the left column are really helpful to hard-core mystery readers: you can search for books and characters by location/setting, jobs, historical period, diversity, genre, etc.  The Read-Alikes section was a little disappointing at first.  The author section is barely fleshed out but has a disclaimer that the section is being worked on.   The Categories section is more useful and complete, and overlaps the Author section somewhat.

 

Assignment 2:

Towson’s most popular collections are pretty predictable for a large, diverse branch—a mix of bestsellers and literary fiction.  The Early Word site covers all the bases.  My most recent discoveries are the amazing “Categories.”  Under “Consumer Media, Book Coverage,” I found links to all the magazines that regularly cover books, including People and Time.  (My guilty lunchtime reading is no longer justified, I guess.)  I also discovered the whole section of Trailers Based on Books, listed under “Movies and TV.”  I’d rather read a review, myself, but for the visually oriented, I suppose these are necessary; they strike me kind of like MTV did in the 1980s: just listen to the music/read the book, already!  I’ll definitely return to the Early Words site frequently even after this Bookish training ends.  It’s the best aggregator of book stuff I can imagine….

 

Assignment 3:

Eagerly awaited by fans of literary fiction, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, the debut novel by Anthony Marra, is sure to be nominated for several literary prizes in 2013.  This intricately plotted novel takes place in just five days during the second Chechnyan war in 2004 and as the story repeatedly rolls back ten years to the first conflict, surprising relationships between a handful of civilians are revealed.  The writing style is richly detailed, dialogue-rich and stylistically complex, and while the tone is atmospheric and bleak, there is occasional humor that emerges from the pathos of this character-driven story.  Fans of Anil’s Ghost, The Tiger’s Wife, The Orphan Master’s Son, and Everything is Illuminated would be interested in this profound and lyrical war story of love and loss.