I talk a lot about the backlist here on the blog. A summary of those thoughts: the backlist is your best resource because it is where our largest number of titles live.
I often suggest you use awards long list titles from the past 2-8 years as way to identify backlist options. I do this because those title have been vetted by someone and made a "best list." The problem with just going to any list of popular titles from the past is that they may not have aged well.
This post is proof that there are some AWESOME reads from 10 years ago that can and should be suggested to today's readers. They are great reads and will be "new" to many of your readers. However, this post is also proof that we cannot blindly look at all popular titles from the past and suggest them without doing some work. Good news though, that work is what we do as library workers, and it is where we can show our aprons how helpful we are.
I also want to point out this statement at the end of the post:
Do you remember what you were reading 10 years ago? Would you still read those books? As we inch our way towards 2024, take a look at our rereading archives and see what other rioters have to say about revisiting old faves.
These "rereading" tagged posts are also a great resource and honestly, an antidote to the wave of "best of the year" lists with which we are about to be inundated. It is exhausting and upsetting, to library workers and patrons alike, to see all of the awesome books that came out this year that they will not ever have time to read. It can be overwhelming. Instead of trying to fight the current, a great reading escape can be to re-read older favorites or even check out those backlist titles they never got to back then. The pressure is off now, and those titles can just be enjoyed, without year end pressure. And shouldn't all leisure reading be about the escape and enjoyment anyway?
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