Week Three

Conversation 1: 

It looks like the customer wants a book rich in description and character development, both light and meaningful at the same time. If someone approached me with a similar desire, I would point them in the direction of The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe by Romain Ruertolas, translated by Sam Taylor. While it is not a true story, the fakir has the same self-discovery process as he encounters beautiful countries and interesting people - learning his true meaning with the world.

Conversation 2:

The customer seems to want a quick paced story that focuses less on romance and more on development of real characters and strong language. For this customer I would either offer Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire because it has a lot more in terms of dynamic characters that are less interested in relationships, as well as it being a page turner. If the customer seems interested in relationships, but less superficial than the Twilight saga I would offer A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness because it builds on the typical vampire narrative while offering interesting and vivid descriptions and being very quick paced.

Conversation 3:

What the customer seems to enjoy are gritty and real life narratives that have some tendency towards fatalism (or at least the worst-case scenarios). For this customer, I would recommend Wild by Cheryl Strayed. Her story is a memoir of her travels across a trail in the west mountains for 100 days surviving on very little and making the most of her time alone. Many situations follow the "it couldn't get any worse" dynamic, though she seems to really take something away from the trip.

Week Two

My Friend Dahmer is a darkly touching account of one man's experience of knowing Jeffrey Dahmer during high school. Quick-paced and morbidly intriguing, this graphic novel will have you questioning whether or not you can ever know what's going on in someone's life as Derf Backderf shares his own demons with the world.










Johanna Morrigan adheres to the tenants of 'sex, drugs, rock and roll' in this lyrical narrative about the dysfunctional rites of puberty. Johanna is brass and quirky, but overall Caitlin Moran's How to Build a Girl will touch you with its tale of redemption for those who never fit.

Sharon G. Flake evokes the powerful imagery of growing up through the honest and insightful words of her many speakers.  You Don't Even Know Me gives the reader an unfiltered view through eloquently crafted poetry and prose into the minds of young black men who are not only brave, but searching to find themselves amidst monstrous cities.

Week One

The genre blog I have chosen to follow will be StreetFiction. It appears to offer a wide array of sub-categories including urban fiction, non-fiction, teen, Christian, and poetry. Urban fiction as a whole is one that I have not tackled yet and this is a good incentive to learn some authors or books within the genre to have a wider frame of knowledge.


EarlyWord is the blog I have chosen for books. The way it is structured in terms of the tagging system, as well as the vast array of tags available, seem like a useful function to learn different books that I would not normally encounter on a general daily blog.


Both activities identifying the covers of books (the quiz as well as the blank covers) proved a little difficult. Some of the books I knew because they had been popular, whereas some of the books I had never heard of before. I found the blank cover activity especially challenging because there were a lot of sub-genres within the groups that I had never heard of, but sounded generically easy to grapple with overtime and exposure.


I think the Golden Rules of Advisory are a handy reference to remember that you can't know what to recommend if you don't have the tools and knowledge to spot overarching trends. The two that seem really important are five and six, to not pigeonhole books or patrons. Making assumptions based on tropes, loose ideas, or even just past experiences are a barrier to being fully committed to offering honest service. These are good opportunities to practice listening skills!


That kid made good guesses about the covers. Sometimes the cover is the most interesting part of a book, but that doesn't mean it hits the target in terms of showing the audience what it provides. Purposefully misleading covers, or extreme graphic design, sometime seem like a downfall to providing the context clues necessary to correctly place a book where it should be.