First Impressions and Online Mobs

Ramin Ganeshram, author of A Birthday Cake for George Washington, explains her side of her book being banned. She points out that the reservations she had prior to the book's release but they were ignored by the publisher. That how, despite some of the reviews going against policies, Amazon did not take down the more inappropriate reviews posted. 

It is disappointing that Ganeshram's race was called into question by an internet angry mob. It is also upsetting that people who did not even read her book took it upon themselves to harass the author while she, herself she was told to stay silent by the publishers. 

When I first read over the synopsis and the complaints, I was quick side with public opinion and blame the author. However, after reading the author's response, I now sympathizes with her. After hearing her point of view and how she was treated, I thought about the book in a different way. Before hearing about this book, I didn't know anything about Hercules. I think I will see if I can get this book on Inter Library Loan to learn about more and draw my own conclusions. 


Source:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-banning-a-birthday-cake-george-washington_b_9210992

A Mystery Annotation

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
Narrated by Dan Stevens
ISBN: 9780062265883
Duration: 06:37:09

     Synopsis:

           This is the 8th book in Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot Mysteries series. Readers do need to read the earlier books in this series in order to read this book. By chance, Detective Hercule Poirot finds himself on board the Orient Express. He is approached by a man seeking his help one day and then the next, that same man is found murdered in his room.
       Reluctantly, Detective Poirot takes on the case of who was the murderer or murderess. Extensive interviews, medical findings, and excellent deductive reasoning are the only methods that Detective Poirot needs to solve the case with an elegant flair.


What makes this book a mystery?

Characteristics: This book presents to the reader a series of clues throughout the novel with the endgame being to solve the puzzle or, in this case, murder. Another characteristic of mysteries is that Detective Poirot sets the pace of the story. The investigators often take the lead in mystery novels and the author tends to write the novel from the perspective of the lead investigator. This is the case for the aforementioned title.

Setting: In mysteries, the investigator needs to take into account the intricate details of the surrounding where the murder or other crime took place. The setting could produce clues that she/he needs to solve the case. For the whole story, it takes place on a train. Therefore, Detective Poirot has to take into account where all the riders were housed and the layout of the train itself.

Tone: This book gave me The Maltese Falcon vibes. I imagined this book as a grainy, black and white movie. I should also mention that I haven't seen any movie adaptions of this book so that speaks to the skill of the author. The tone of this novel could be described as very noir with its descriptions and the banter between Detective Poirot and the other characters.


This book would be a good fit if the reader enjoys:

Compelling writing styles
Whodunit mysteries
Intricately plots
Mystery classics
International characters and/or setting



Read-A-Likes

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan C Bradley
Still life by Louise Penny

Horrors All The Way Down

How could I use Horror as a theme to reach as many patrons as possible?

My idea for how to use integrated advisory for Horror centers around video games during the fall. This would be a catchy display aimed at Young Adults and Adults. I would take highly acclaimed horror video games and pair them together with graphic novels, films, and general fiction novels that are similar in gore, lore and/or art style. I would also feature Music CDs that are have soundtracks from a horror video game.

In order to make the display as eye-catching as possible, I will implement decorations that would go along with the over-all theme of Horror. This would include is not limited to caution tape, fake spider webs, and fake rodents. I would also ask my colleagues if I could borrow any video game merchandise for the display. 

Starry Night by Debbie Macomber

Starry Night written by Debbie Macomber, narrated by Rebecca Lowman
Run-time: 5 hours and 21 minutes

     The listener is immediately dropped into the life of an undervalued journalist named Carrie Slayton. Landing a job at Chicago newspaper seemed like a dream until Carrie finds herself stuck writing for the society page. She is surrounded by people with 2-Dimensional personalities who are just looking to get praise from her column.
     Going for broke, Carrie makes a deal with her boss. If she can get an interview with an illusive, famous author named Finn Dalton, she can cover more serious new pieces. The catch is that no even knows where to find him, let alone know what he even looks like. The only thing anyone knows about him is that he lives somewhere in the Alaskan Wilderness.
     Carrie is somehow the only person who can follow Finn's trail via his mom and then find Finn's only close friend who happens to be a pilot with an airplane. The pilot takes Carrie to Finn's cabin but then quickly leaves her there. There is a huge snow storm coming in and the pilot just leaves her to fend for herself with no way home but to wait for him to come back. Finn has no choice but to take Carrie in as a guest for a few nights or else she'd freeze to death outside.
     Over the next few days, the listener learns the following: Finn loves Alaska. Both characters are attracted to each other but know that they shouldn't. Finn mentions Alaska every few minutes. In case the listener forgot that the book is set there.
     In true light romance form, Carrie and Finn go from being enemies, tolerant of each other, friendly, flirty, then ultimately 'in love'. This progression of the relationship took place over the course of 72 hours.
     Carrie's family and friends advise her to be guarded with her love because of the speed at Finn and Carrie were going with their relationship. They become concerned when they learn that Finn asked Carrie to not publish the article that could put her career in the fast lane. Carrie is soon forced to choose between her career or a relationship with a man she just met.


The lyrical writing style of Debbie Macomber is undeniably beautiful. The description of the setting almost transports the listener to the snowy mountains under the Northern Lights. The only drawbacks to the story is the validity and the cliche. It doesn't seem possible that after hundreds of different reports tried to find Finn that Carrie would be the first one to successfully do so. Also It follows the typical troupe of a reclusive, outdoorsy male and an unconventional, smart female falling in love.

Let's Talk About Reviews

1. How does this affect collection development?

My library system runs its collection by popular demand. Books get weeded after no circulations over the course of so many months and they will only get purchased if the community seems to be interested in it or if it is written by a big name author. It is a reasonable way to run a collection but it allows books that aren't getting much hype to slip throw the cracks. It also opens up the possibility for the collection to lean toward and serve only a certain portion of the community. 


2. I have posted two more documents in the week five files. One is two reviews of an ebook only romantic suspense novel, one from a blog and one from amazon. Look over the reviews - do you feel they are both reliable? How likely would you be to buy this book for your library?

While reviews from blogs and Amazon are not written with the same flair as the ones written for high profile review magazines, there is still validity in them. Personally, I would put more stock in blog type reviews because they tend to be written by non-bias readers. These reviews are written by real readers that aren't trying to fill up their word count with fluff, flowery sentences. 

If I had the power, I would most likely purchase this book. My reasoning would be because of the Amazon review. 14 other readers found the review helpful and it seems to be similar to other popular romance books that our readers enjoy. 


3. The other document contains some reviews of Angela's Ashes, by Frank McCourt, an incredibly popular memoir. These reviews are all from professional publications, feel free to find more on your own I just nabbed a few from the Book Review Digest database for you. How do these reviews make you feel about the possibility of adding Angela's Ashes to your collection?

The reviews for this book make me want to add the book to my collection. Or at the very least add it to my TBR later list. Historical Fiction is in my top 5 favorite genres to read so I may be a bit bias but nevertheless, the book sounds like it is beautifully written. 


4. Do you think it's fair that one type of book is reviewed to death and other types of books get little to no coverage? How does this affect a library's collection?  And how do you feel about review sources that won't print negative content? Do you think that's appropriate? If you buy for your library, how often do you use reviews to make your decisions? If not, how do you feel about reviews for personal reading, and what are some of your favorite review sources?

I don't think it is very fair that popular authors and genres are more likely to get reviewed over and over again over than lesser known ones. Unless a book gets a review in noteworthy publications (Booklist, BookPages, SLJ) it is not likely that a library will get it. The budget for Collection Development is, rightly, protected and because of this Collection Librarians are often very strict on the type of books they purchase. 

I don't agree with publications that don't print negative reviews. Although, I do see why they wouldn't, I think that a publication should be open to the reviews of a variety of readers. Not everyone is going to have the same taste in books and professional review resources should be transparent to that fact. 

I am not a Collections Librarian so, thankfully, I don't have that kind of pressure. However, I use sources like BookPages, SLJ, and GoodReads to decide what I should read next. I find that they help me rule out possible duds and find books that I will really enjoy. 

The Undercover Reader

     This week's mission was to go to a branch that I would know the least amount of librarians. I have worked in my library system for eight years so that was a bit of a challenge but I was able to find one in the end.
     We were asked to see a librarian for a book recommendation and give an account of the experience. Thankfully, I found it be very pleasant and I got a good audiobook recommendation as well! It is about Maria Feodorovna titled The Romanov Empress by C.W. Gortner and narrated by Katharine McEwan. The method the librarian used may not be textbook Reader's Advisory but boy did it work!
    The book was chosen ultimately by randomly stopping at point of the list because there were so many books that could see myself enjoying. But don't fear, the rest of the books from the list have been added to my GoodReads "To Be Read Later" shelf. 

Practicing Novelist with Prompts

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 Lunatic Cafe 
I was able to find the next book in the series by searching GoodReads. When patrons ask for the next book or the order of books in a series I rely mostly on GoodReads because their format is easy to follow. GoodReads also includes stories and novellas in the series breakdown for readers.

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.

Anthill by Edward O. Wilson
To find this book, I used only Novelist. I have used Novelist before to find possible next reads for patrons before so I did not have much trouble navigating my way through it. The only issue I had was that I couldn't get feedback from the patron and do a through reference interview. I wanted to ask "Do you want to to stay with the environmental theme?" and "Did you want a book told from multiple perspectives like The Prodigal Summer". The patron could completely hate the blurb of this book but I won't know it.

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!

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
For this book, I used a combination of GoodReads and Novelist. The issue I had with this prompt is that Historical Fiction is so vague. I am not sure if the patron has a certain time period in mind or if he or she is game for anything classified as Historical Fiction. The book I am suggesting comes very well recommended from both resources I used. It appears to be a fan favorite among readers who are interested in Historical Fiction with a Japanese setting.