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Week Three Prompt

 


One

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!

Book number 4 in the Anita Blake series is called The Lunatic Cafe.


Two

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. 

Because the patron liked the use of language in Prodigal Summer, I looked at the terms on Novelist under the writing style for that book. “Descriptive", “lush”, and “lyrical” were all used to describe the writing style. I did a search of books that also used those words to describe the writing style and then narrowed them down to books that are listed as fast-paced. Yellow Emperor’s Cure by Kunal Basu and Champion of the Scarlet Wolf by Ginn Hale were a couple of the books that fit this description.


Three

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!

I used the advanced search to search the keywords “Japan,” “historical,” and “detailed.”

Several books from the Sano Ichiro series by Laura Joh Rowland were listed in the results. Shinju is the first book in the series. The patron might also enjoy Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell, and The Garden of Evening Mists by Twan Eng Tan. 


Four

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?

Well-Schooled in Murder is a part of a large series by Elizabeth George. The patron should check those out if they haven’t already. Otherwise, the patron might enjoy Agatha Christie’s books. A Kirkus review on Novelist compared Well-Schooled in Murder to Christie’s style.

 

Five

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?

The Living Dead by George Romero was also adapted to film, so he may be interested in that. Blackout by Mira Grant, Zombies: A Brief History of Decay by Olivier Peru, Monster Island by David Wellington, and The Passage by Justin Cronin are several other popular adult zombie apocalypse books.

 

Six

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.

I searched books to movies in the last five years with the key work “literary” in them. The search turned up a lot of results, but most of them probably weren’t what the patron would consider literary. I used Goodreads lists and found Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman (made into a movie in 2017), Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly (adapted to film in 2018), Can You Ever Forgive Me? by Lee Israel (came out as a movie in 2018), and If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin (a 2018 film).

 

Seven

I love thrillers but I hate foul language and sex scenes. I want something clean and

fast paced.

I again turned to Goodreads because I was able to easier find what I was looking for there. Searching “clean thrillers”, I was able to come up with several options. Mary Higgens Clark’s novels are a popular option. Books by Victoria Holt (including books under her pen names Phillips Carr and Jean Plaid) might interest the patron as well as books by Anya Seton and Daphne du Maurier.

 

 

How I Find Books to Read

I typically either read books recommended to me or use Goodreads to find books. I search Goodreads for the genre I am feeling interested in at the moment and look for popular books. If a friend has read a book and rated it highly, I’ll usually give that book a try. I have a running list of books I’ve heard good things about or am interested in reading, so I generally refer to that when I need a new book to read.

Comments

  1. Alisha CrumpFebruary 6, 2021 at 9:22 AM

    Hello Christina!

    I also love personal recommendations and GoodReads! I actually read more of the books recommended to me than I used to. In the past, I would not be as likely to read something recommended to me because I just assumed that they did not know my reading tastes well. However, now I actually move personal recommendations from my coworkers to the top of my to-be-read list. As it turns out, I end up really enjoying those recommendations more than the titles I find myself.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Erin CataldiFebruary 10, 2021 at 7:29 PM

    Good job at utilizing more than one resource for this prompt. All your book suggestions look great. Full points!

    ReplyDelete

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