Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: The Booker Prize Edition

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.   

The Booker Prize Longlist was recently announced. What is the Booker Prize? From their About Page:

The Booker Prize is the leading literary award in the English speaking world, and has brought recognition, reward and readership to outstanding fiction for over five decades

Each year, the prize is awarded to what is, in the opinion of the judges, the best sustained work of fiction written in English and published in the UK and Ireland. It is a prize that transforms the winner’s career. 

Go here to access the titles, details about every book, information about the judges. And on the main page, there are even more articles about this year's longlist. I will also post them at the bottom of this post. 

But even with the regular. display, backlist, and collection development advice I give for every award (access above), The Book Prize is an award you need to know about for a variety of reasons, reasons which give you even more options to serve your patrons.

First, these books are always among the top books written in English every year, which means this year and past year's lists make for reliable suggestions to your curious readers. The backlist is also very easy to access. In fact, they call it The Booker Library and it is bearable in every imaginable way. 

Second, these titles (2024 or any year in the recent past) tend to be on the "readable side." What do I mean with that? What I mean is that they tend to pick excellent titles of high literary merit that are readable for a general adult audience. These are critically acclaimed, literary fiction titles that you can give out to a wide swath of readers with confidence. This year's longlist is a great example as Tommy Orange's Wandering Stars in on the list. It is a popular book with library patrons. I have read it as well and have suggested itwith confidence to many readers.

Third, the Booker Prize has a history of identifying authors worth you time early in their careers, sometimes earlier than they get singled out for other major awards. This year is no exception. Let's look at it from both sides of the equation. First, an author who is on the longlist this year, who had his mainstream breakout this year, but who has been nominated before, Percival Everett. He is on the longlist for James this year, but he was a finalist for The Trees previously. Use this link from the Booker Library to read more about Everett. Second, and the other side of the equation, the Booker often singles out debuts and this year is no exception with 3 debut novels on the list.

Fourth, this award list serves as a readalike for itself. Not all awards can do this, but I have used this award list as a suggestion engine for readers who have enjoyed any book that has appeared on the longlists. In fact, back in the early days of the 2000s, I offered a "Holds Without Hassle" program at my library, and not only did we allow them to pick authors for that list, but we also had a few awards they could select. This award (called the Man Booked back in the day) was one of the most popular choices. People wanted the winner put on automatic hold and then after reading it, we helped them find the other nominated titles. I have seen this work in action, even with the books being about widely different topics and from a range of authors.  

Fifth, and this is how my readers first found out about this award in the first place, these titles make excellent book discussion choices. Again, there is a very helpful Booker Library, where you can find books by author, title, or even pick a prize year. And to make it even easier for you, they have Reading Guides designed specifically for libraries. Using the backlist from 2-5 years ago is a great resource for winning discussion titles.

And finally, the judges. I have talked about this before, but look at that list of judges from this year or past years. Take this year for example-- click here and scroll down. You can do this for any prize year. Go to the Book Library page by year and you will get a page that looks very much like the 2024 page with all of the judging info. The judges themselves are excellent options for displays, suggestions, and purchases if you don't own their books. You can also use the judges list as one of my 5 Resources You Cannot Live Without-- Author Recs of Other Authors. Recently, I wrote about how that works in relation to the NYT Best Books of the Century discussion.

I am sure there are even more reasons why this award is a great resource for you to help your readers. Click through for all of the details and information and decide how you can best use this list for your library. The site is really a treasure trove of resources, suggestions, and lists all year long. Here is the most basic info-- the titles on the long list:

Longlist

Wandering Stars

Wild Houses

Held

Creation Lake

This Strange Eventful History

Playground

Enlightenment

Orbital

James

The Safekeep

My Friends

Stone Yard Devotional

Headshot

And also from the website, this statement about the longlist overall, which contains some interesting statistics and observations:

The judges’ selection includes: 

• Strong new voices – including three debut novels – alongside international bestselling authors and six writers previously nominated for the prize
• The first Dutch and first Native American authors to be longlisted, the first Australian in eight years, one British-Libyan writer, and authors from Canada, the UK, Ireland and the US 
• A strong showing of Americans displays a range of experience, from a first-time novelist to the author of more than 20 novels
• Blackly comic page-turners, multigenerational epics, meditations on the pain of exile – plus a crime caper, a spy thriller, an unflinching account of girls’ boxing and a reimagining of a 19th-century classic
• Eight women and five men 
• The first nomination for Pan Macmillan imprint Mantle, and four nominations for Jonathan Cape, in the imprint’s first longlisting since 2019
• ‘Works of fiction that inhabit ideas by making us care deeply about people and their predicaments,’ according to Chair of judges Edmund de Waal, who adds that these are works that have ‘made a space in our hearts and that we want to see find a place in the reading lives of many others’

New Shelf Care Podcast from Booklist With LibraryReads and More

I am digging out after taking 2.5 days off last wee and yesterday. But thankfully, you are still getting a new blog post because the latest episode of Shelf Care: The Podcast. See below or click here to access this episode and all previous episodes. 

But this episode in particular is a perfect listen as it is all reading suggestions featuring Booklist staff and LibraryReads Executive Director, Rebecca Vnuk. 

Happy Listening. I am going back to emails and preparing more posts for this week.

On this episode of Shelf Care: The Podcast, we’ve got lots and lots of reading suggestions. First, host Susan Maguire is joined by Rebecca Vnuk, Executive Director, LibraryReads, for a mini-Read ‘n’ Rave, a version of the hit program that Booklist and LibraryReads host at ALA Annual. (Find the whole list of books our librarian experts raved about at this year’s Read ‘n’ Rave here.) Then, Audio Editor Heather Booth talks to her daughter Julia about how libraries can help teens find good audiobooks. Finally, Susan and Sarah Hunter, Editor, Books for Youth and Graphic Novels, sat down to share a ton of great new graphic novels that you can use to celebrate the tail end of Graphic Novels in Libraries Month (and beyond).

“They Just Need to Get a Job”: 15 Myths on Homelessness, by Mary Brosnahan

The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern, by Lynda Cohen Loigman

Break Every Rule, by Brian Freeman

The Most Wonderful Time, by Jayne Allen

Marigold Mind Laundry, by Jungeun Yun, tr. By Shanna Tan

Swordcrossed, by Freya Marske

Bury Your Gays, by Chuck Tingle

Swan Song, by Elin Hilderbrand

The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn, v. 1, by Tri Vuong, art by the author

The Puerto Rican War: A Graphic History, by John Vasquez Mejias, art by the author

A Pillbug Story, by Alison Conway, art by the author

Ash’s Cabin, by Jen Wang, art by the author

Plain Jane and the Mermaid, by Vera Brosgol, art by the author

The Deep Dark, by Molly Knox Ostertag, art by the author

The Worst Ronin, by Maggie Tokuda-Hall, art by Faith Shaffer

The Jellyfish, by Boum, art by the author

Navigating with You, by Jeremy Whitely, art by Cassio Riberio

Anzu and the Realm of Darkness, by Mai K. Nguyen, art by the author

Gamerville, by Johnnie Christmas, art by the author

A New Car for Pickle, by Sylvie Kantorovitz, art by the author

Hearing Things, by Ben Sears, art by the author

RA for All Long Weekend

 The blog is off today and Monday. It will return in Tuesday, July 30th.

Related, today is also the birthday of LibraryReads Executive Director, Rebeca Vnuk. Celebrate by suggesting a book to a reader from the vast archive of LR choices.

Reminder: Actively Anti-Racist Service to Leisure Reads with Becky and Robin

Because I have made updates to the page recently and to counter the "DEI Hire" narrative that is out in the would right now, I wanted to remind you all that Robin and I have an entire class on the topic of why systemic racism is a thing and how we, a profession of mostly white women, are responsible for upholding it in our collections and service to readers.

We offer tangible advice about how to provide inclusive service to your patrons using the same exact skills you already employ. 

We can come to your conference or present for your state library. However, one of the biggest challenges we have to bringing this training to those who need it most is that many states are not allowed to hire us because of the title of the program. 

To all of you we want to say this: If you want this training to be made available to your library workers despite a climate where this training is not allowed, we will work with you to do whatever it takes to get it to you. 

Click here to read more and contact us.

RA for All will be off until Tuesday. Have a great weekend.

Matching Books to Your Mood via GoodReads

In general we match books based on why someone wants to read a book and not centered around what happens in the book. This is something I write about a lot. It is in my 10 Rules of Basic RA Service which links to this longer post on the topic. 

There are many ways to match books based on why someone would like a book, and their current mood is a great example. We see this overall with Gentle Reads and Horror having an increase in readership during these unprecedented times that we have been living through. Why? Because of mood.

As we live through this tumult many have turned to leisure experiences that either are more calming than real life for consolation OR to events that are way worse to make them feel better about the real world. Both are a reaction to real life "moods;" every different reactions but a mood based read is just what these readers are looking for.

There are a few ways to find mood based reads and I was reminded of one recently when Goodreads had this article on their blog:

84 New Mood-Based Reading Recommendations (Across Genres)

Those of us with serious reading habits are already aware of this basic truism: The books we choose to read are often dictated by mood.
 
As in: Sometimes you’re in the mood for a comforting read. Or a love story, or a funny story, or a story that will sweep you away. And sometimes you might be looking for all of the above! In fact, lots of dedicated readers keep multiple books on the nightstand, actual or virtual, for just this reason. 
 
Today’s specially curated collection is dedicated to this concept of mood-based reading recommendations. Our editors have personally sorted through the stacks to create 21 categories featuring specific reading moods and hankerings. It’s highly informal, extremely genre-agnostic, deeply unscientific, and a lot of fun. Scroll down and see for yourself.

Click here to read it in full. It is mostly focused on newish books, but you can also include backlist titles by searching for a specific mood on Goodreads and pull up user generated lists or use NoveList or Reddit to find more titles. 

Go to NoveList and use the appeal mixer to find titles or take a book your patrons really liked (with similar mood) and click on the appeal terms which best fit the mood for which they are searching. 

And for Reddit result, just use a search engine and do a natural language search the mood the patrons is looking for and add the word "books." So into Google type "books for a reader that want to be swept away reddit" and then use the lists to find a title.

However you do this, use it as a remind to ask people what kind o feeling they want from their next read rather than asking them about genre or plot elements. See also this post from last week when I wrote about this in more depth and use the connection between two books in completely different genres to prove a similar point.

Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: Ignyte Awards Edition w/ Commentary [Possibly Rant]

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.  

This week the finalists for the Ignyte awards for speculative fiction were announced here. But first, for those who are still unfamiliar with this award which began in 2020 from the home page:

WELCOME TO THE IGNYTE AWARDS

The Ignyte Awards began in 2020 alongside the inaugural FIYAHCON, a virtual convention centering the contributions and experiences of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) in Speculative Fiction. Founded by L. D. Lewis and Suzan Palumbo, the awards were an attempt to correct representative gaps in traditional spec lit awards and have grown into a coveted and cherished addition to the awards landscape. The Ignytes seek to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscapes of science fiction, fantasy, and horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding efforts toward inclusivity of the genre.

Awards are given annually in the following categories:

Best Novel – Adult

Best Novel – YA

Best in Middle Grade

Best Novella

Best Novelette

Best Short Story

Speculative Poetry

Critics Award

Best Fiction Podcast

Best Artist

Best Comics Team

Best Anthology/Collected Works

Best in Creative Nonfiction

The Ember Award for Unsung Contributions to Genre

Community Award for Outstanding Efforts in Service of Inclusion and Equitable Practice in Genre

The current list of finalists is here, and at the top of that page you have a button that links to the backlist of awards for the last four years.

Use this award as you do all others to make displays and check your collections (see the links at the top of the post for more ideas and details). This award in particular would be a great way to show your community about all the great books and authors they may have missed by just titling a display or online list "Award Worthy Speculative Fiction." And then, only include books and authors from the first 5 years of nominees. There are some big name authors and you should have plenty of titles to make a well sticked display of many subgenres of speculative fiction. Then see what you hear from your patrons.

Do any of them even notice that every item is by a person of color? If you have no mention of the award you are pulling titles from and make no mention of the fact that it is only authors of color, I am willing to bet you get very few comments. Patrons will not argue with the term  "award" that easily. 

And yet if you made this same display and said critically acclaimed or award worthy speculative fiction by authors of color....that would lead to comments, mostly negative. Same list. Same display. Different heading. Different reactions.

There is no need to tell your patrons that you are intentionally singling out an award that is for authors of color only. NO NEED. Do you give them the parameters of every display you put up? Of course not! Stop right now thinking that you do. Stop right now claiming that this is deceptive. It is not. It is standard practice NOT to make a diversity statement. When awards were all straight and white we never did a caveat of that fact. For decades most awards were only for white people and we never broadcast that.

Also, stop thinking that these are second tier titles. There are award winning, bestselling books here in places where identity was not considered. These are critically acclaimed books full stop. And you are now using awards lists as an RA Tool to help connect book with readers, as instructed by an expert in the RA Service field. Me. End of story.

By the way, this is an example of how you can be actively anti-racist. You don't apologize, you don't include caveats...you just do something. You model the behavior you want to see. 

But wait, there's more with this award that makes it an even better option for libraries: The public can vote!

This adds a whole other interactive dimension to my usual posts about using awards as a resource to help readers. You can add a QR code for patrons to vote with your displays in the building or add the link for voting online. Yes this will give away the parameters of the award, but people who care enough to vote are not going to say anything. 

Library users are hard core readers already and if you give them a chance to have their voice and opinions heard in a major award, well, they are going to be excited that they were asked. Talk about showing them that you want them to be a part of the service you provide to them with their pre-paid tax dollars.

What I'm Reading: Northern Nights

I have a review of an anthology that I think your patrons will be clamoring for-- because it has a NEW story by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. The review is up on Booklist Online, but here is the draft and more information.

Northern Nights
Edited By Michael Kelly
Oct. 2024. 298p. Undertow, paper, $19.99  (9781988964478). 

First published June 20, 2024 (Booklist Online).

Award-winning Editor, Kelly presents 20 brand new tales of Canadian Horror. Inspired by Tor anthologies from the mid 1990s [Northern Stars and Northern Suns], which featured the best speculative fiction from Canada, Kelly asked bestsellers like Silvia Moreno-Garcia to newer award-winning voices like A.C. Wise to emerging writers such as E.C. Dorgan, to give him a dark story that would both pay homage to those classic volumes and serve as a showcase for the varied Canadian Horror landscape of the 21st Century. The stories themselves range from creepy to visceral, as two standout stories showcase– David Demchuck’s deceptively atmospheric “The Black Fox'' and Premee Mohamed’s abjectly terrifying, “The Night Birds.” While fans of some of the bigger name authors will be clamoring for this book, it is also a great choice for those who enjoy themed, Horror, anthologies, especially those focused around an identity, featuring original stories by current authors such as Never Whistle At Night edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. and Out There Screaming edited by Jordan Peele.

Three Words That Describe This Book: Strong Sense of Place, range of fears, theme anthology

Further Appeal: First and foremost, this anthology was very fun to read. I got to encounter stories from authors I knew and new to me authors all united by their Canadian settings. The introduction by Kelly was also excellent as it firmly placed the entire volume in its place, explaining how Canada Horror is unique.

Yes people will want to read it because of SMG's story, which is very creepy and worth the price of admission, but there is so much more here that readers will appreciate.  

The Tor anthologies that inspired Kelly all gathered reprinted stories. This anthology is remarkable in that Kelly commissioned all new stories. 

Finally, Kelly is an excellent editor and as head of Undertow has been responsible for publishing critically accmailed and award winning books most notable collections by Cassandra Khaw, Tobi  Ogundiran, and Premee Mohamed.

Further Readalikes: This is for fans of themed anthologies or Horror with a strong sense of place, especially those collecting original stories. Anything published by Undertow should also be considered; in fact, use this as a chance to browse their site and order more books but them. The 3 I mentioned have all been singled out for and/or won MAJOR speculative fiction awards. And those links go to my reviews in the trade journals of them.

I also think fans of The Hideous Book of Hidden Horrors edited by Doug Murano would also be a good readalike here (another major award nominee and winner by a small press)

The Best Beach Reads Are Long, Dark and Difficult – Really via GQ UK

Earlier this month I reminded you to rethink your idea of the beach read and to broaden what you consider worthy of that title. Click here for that full post.

Today I have a follow up because GQ UK addressed the same issue earlier this week, publishing an article entitled, "The Best Beach Reads Are Long, Dark and Difficult – Really." From the intro to their list of suggestions:

So, what should you be reading as you singe on the sand? The longest, most difficult and most depressing books you can stomach. This might seem counterintuitive. It isn’t. If you’re up for taking on challenging books – which you should be, whether for dinner party bragging rights or simple aesthetic refinement – the next question is when to take them on. Trying to trudge through the anguished pages of Shuggie Bain or A Little Life in winter, with less than eight hours of sunlight a day, is a truly harrowing experience.

Which is why you should reserve those books for the beach. You’ve finally got enough time to crack the spines of properly long novels. Your attention span isn’t being picked apart by work emails or social engagements, so you can properly focus on intricate writing. And because you’re sitting in the sun, drink in hand, you’ve got enough mental fortification to submerge into the grimmest of plots without having your own mood brought down. We’re not quite recommending you take full-fat academic theory poolside, as Sydney Sweeney and Brittany O’Grady did in the first series of The White Lotus – but here are some other suggestions, to make sure you don’t squander those precious weeks when you’re in peak reading mode.

I love this idea of thinking about the reading experience over the type of book when considering something a beach read. The idea that you should take a book that you know will need more of your attention (not less) to the beach makes so much sense. I encounter so many readers who want to read the more dense, complicated, or difficult books but just know they will not have the chunks of time needed to devote to said book. 

[I for one often search these books out in audio precisely because I can carve out more time to read them while doing menial tasks or exercising. But I too have been known to take a difficult book on vacation precisely for the reasons mentioned-- especially when I have a long plane ride.]

Many of these readers would also never think of taking these books to the beach because so much of the marketing tells them that a "beach read" should be light and fluffy. But again, as I have noted many times, that is not true and perpetuating that idea with our displays and marketing does not allow us to help all readers.

Summer and/or vacation are often the only chance the vast majority of our patrons have read the 1-3 books survey data says the average American adult is reading per year. We need to be more open about the fact that ANY book can be a "beach read." And it is our job to use the RA Conversation to figure out what type of book people are looking for and not assuming if they are going to read it on a beach that it must be a certain preordained type of book. And yet, for some the "beach read" may 100% meet the traditional marketing and that is great too.

Check out this article from GQ UK though because it presents a specific type of reader and in doing that, it serves as a reminder to all of us that everyone comes in to us with reading preferences that are unique to them. And it is our job to figure those out and help them where they are, not where we think they should be.

Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: The Ursula K. Le Guin Prize Edition

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.  

This week 10 authors were named to the shortlist for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize. Never heard of it? We will discuss below why this makes it such a great resource, but first, here is the information from the prize's landing page:

The Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction is an annual $25,000 cash prize given to a writer for a single work of imaginative fiction. This award is intended to recognize those writers Ursula spoke of in her 2014 National Book Awards speech—realists of a larger reality, who can imagine real grounds for hope and see alternatives to how we live now. Read about the first Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, awarded in 2022.

This year, ten shortlisted books were chosen by the Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation following a public nomination process.

The recipient of this year’s prize will be chosen by a selection panel of authors: Margaret Atwood, Omar El Akkad, Megan Giddings, Ken Liu, and Carmen Maria Machado. The recipient of the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction will be announced on October 21st—Ursula’s birthday. Check back closer to that date for more details.

Many thanks to everyone who nominated books, and to Electric Literature for announcing the shortlist!

First, I want to address the comment I made above about the fact that you might be less familiar with this prize makes it an even better resource. Knowing about prize and award lists that most of our patrons are also aware of is necessary for us to do our jobs. Our patrons will expect that we have heard of those honors and expect we are ready to help them find books that are nominated for or have been nominated for said award. It's the lowest hanging fruit for us to look like we are prepared to help them.

However, where we show our worth to our patrons the best is by pointing out books and authors they would NOT have found without our help. If you hand them James Patterson, Colleen Hoover, or the most recent National Book Award winner you may give them a book they will enjoy but you won't show them anything they didn't know. We all work hard to be good at our jobs. We take matching books with the best book for them at that moment very seriously. They have no idea how hard we work at it. And why is that? because we don't SHOW them the effort.

In general we are terrible at communicating what it actually takes to craft a collection, but we are even worse at giving ourselves credit for that work. 

The Usual K. Le Guin Prize is a great example of showcasing critically acclaimed authors to our patrons, writers they might really enjoy, if only they knew about them.

And for us, this is a great chance to add newer voices to our collections. One of my favorite newer voices in speculative fiction, Premee Mohamed, is on this list but some of the others, I was not aware of.

Second, let's talk about the category of writers for this award. It is a, "prize given to a writer for a single work of imaginative fiction." I love that word "imaginative." It leaves the door open to the reader and, in this case, judge to decide what that means. In this case, it is almost always interpreted as speculative in some way. But the breadth this natural language term allows is refreshing. These are authors whose work would be very hard to fit into a genre box, meaning they might not get nominated for genre specific awards, and yet, their work is great and worthy of a larger audience. 

I also love the term "imaginative fiction" because it would make an excellent conversation starter to display idea. (Go here for more on that by me) Put up a display of these authors, the judges, and the backlist by the authors and judges, and then ask people (at the display, with bookmarks at the service desks or in every book on the hold shelf, online etc....) what their favorite book of "imaginative fiction" is. I promise you, the answers will  surprise you because not everyone will choose a speculative framed book. That word is natural enough and broad enough to elicit a range of responses. It will also make for a fun display when you showcase the answers while also helping you to gain a better understanding of you community's reading tastes (which in turn helps you decide what other new books to add to your collections going forward).

This award is very similar to the Shirley Jackson Awards and the advice I give about that award as well.

Third, and I already mentioned this, the judges. Look at the that list. They are a who's who of "imaginative fiction" themselves. Their works are also a great place to look for suggestions and similar authors. At the every least, these 10 books would fit in the whole "authors recs of others" category of resources, which I mentioned yesterday as well. 

And you knew this last one was coming....Fourth, the backlist. Again, the backlist of the prize (which is not very old but past honorees are easily accesible at the bottom of the prize page and if you use the drop down menu for the "Book Prize" heading, you can choose a specific year as well, making the backlist of all of the books and authors (including judges) a great resource.

Click through to the Ursula K. Le Guin homepage for more. And remember, I offer this advice for all prize nomination lists, always. You can access that coverage with the links in the header of this post.

Best Books of the Century Discussion As a Resource For More Than The List Itself

Last week the New York Times ran their "Best Books of the 21st Century." Not only was there a list from 100 down to 1-- which in and of itself will drive backlist interest in books I know you have on your shelves-- but also, I enjoyed seeing the ballots of authors who they asked to vote. You can access that page here. [I have a subscription but I think if you do the free subscription you can see this featured coverage.]

Those authors putting their favorite books of the century on display for all to see here is the perfect example of one of my favorite resources in general, in fact, I love it so much that it is in my list of 5 Resources You Cannot Live Without which is always on my Ten Rules of Basic RA Service page. That resource is: Author Recs of Other Authors. I also included it in Chapter 15 of my book:

Author Recommendations of Other Authors: The  least “professional” of my general RA resources, is also one of the most effective, pointing a patron to the authors and titles that their own favorite authors love. Patrons find great joy reading these books, even those in a genre outside their normal comfort zone. Stephen King is the perfect example of this phenomenon. King, the best known horror novelist in the world, is famous for turning previously unknown books into bestsellers just by mentioning his affection for said book. But where do you find this information? A few places, including,  the author’s Twitter feed, front or back covers of a book, or Fantastic Fiction where at the bottom of each author record there is a section which gathers an author’s “recommendations.” As horror authors get more popular themselves, they are well known for paying it forward to others, so you can regularly find today’s most popular horror authors-Victor LaValle, Carmen Maria Machado, Paul Tremblay, and Stephen Graham Jones- suggesting the next generation of great writers to their legions of fans. Why not listen to the authors your patrons already love and pass on their favorites with a comment on how you found the suggestion? When it works, and it does more often than it does not, you look like a genius. Often, the book is better received by the patron than those carefully crafted suggestions you agonized over.

That statement above was very prescient because Tremblay and Jones are included the NYT Best Books of the Century Coverage. But there are many authors across the spectrum of literature and even one of the best audio book narrators of all time-- Dion Graham. [This last inclusion made me very happy because this is a man who has literally read many of these books to millions of readers. His thoughts are useful in a whole different way both because some readers enjoy certain narrators so much, they will listen to any book that person readers AND because he has a unique perspective on the best books of the last century.]

So now we have the list itself of the Top 100 Books of the Century and the Author ballots, both of which are a great treasure trove of resources to help readers, but I also want to point you to the fact that for each book on the list, the NYT staff also included three readalike titles for each book on the list after the entry on that book as well as creating an NPR Books We Love style of questionnaire to help you match a book with a reader that uses more natural language searching. Even the title of the search engine uses natural language-- "That's a Dizzying List! Help Me Chose a Book."

All of this content, is a great resource to do our work as it gives us many entry points to helping readers find the right book for them. People will have seen or heard about the 100 Best Books of the Century and will come in wanting to talk about it. Yes, this is true. And yes, we can use these resources to find them the right book for them as a reader.

BUT, this is all RA 101; the basics; the very minimum of how we can help readers. What I want you to see is the next step-- that every single one of these things that I have pointed out above are an example of conversation starters. All of these lists, the ballots from other authors, the helping you find a book, and more... all of it is there to create a conversation around books. And this-- having conversations about books and reading, not the transaction of matching a book with a reader-- should always be our goal in the public library. This entire "literary event" works to sell papers and drive clicks and digital subscriptions precisely because it is trying to be interactive. They are trying to draw people into a conversation while also asking them to participate: click the titles you have read, see the readalikes for more, see what your favorite authors included on their lists, chime in and respond in a public forum where you can see other's thoughts as well.

Clearly it is working because LitHub has already responded back with a list of the books that the NYT missed-- moving the conversation to another, unaffiliated platform where books and reading are discussed regularly. 

This is how conversations work, someone begins and the dialog goes back and forth, in this case, across the entire book atmosphere.* People listen and respond, with each response adding something new.

It is the drum I have been beating the loudest all year-- to be interactive with your RA Service. And my advice on where and how to begin is with Conversation Starters is explained here.

People often resist when I try to get them to involve their patrons in their service encouraging them to ask questions and use the answers to make new displays and lists, but I cannot stress enough how much better it is for everyone when we ask our patrons to share their thoughts on the books they like (and dislike). Not only do we hear their feedback but we show them that we do want to know. 

The most common "problem" people share with me about their RA Service is that they cannot get anyone to come up and ask them for help selecting their next read. And my response always is-- that is because they don't even know you want to help them. Model the behavior you want to see and people will begin to respond. So, instead of simply having signs or online posts that say you are there to help with their leisure reading needs, instead, show them you want to include them in your service to readers by asking them questions first.

How do you do that? Well again, this handout I have provided is a great way to start. But even better-- look at the NYT for inspiration. They are modeling a conversation. They picked a question-- What are the best books of the century?-- and have turned it into a RA conversation bonanza.

And great news for us, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. Our job is to use resources to help patrons, and this resource is an interactive conversation starter all teed up for us; it is ready to use. Put the books on display, make smaller displays for some of the authors who have their ballots on this page, put all of these online and in the building (bridging the physical virtual divide), and then this, the final but most important step, find ways to ask your patrons to chime in-- in person and online.

You can ride this for months of conversation with your patrons-- and if you offer digital subscriptions to the NYT even better--  you will also drive access there, meaning your in person staff and your databases are actively helping patrons.

But again, most importantly, use this example to inspire you to make all of your RA Services more interactive. If you need help, good news, this is what I do-- help you to better serve your readers. Contact me about working with your library or system.

*Book Atmosphere is a term I borrow from Robin Bradford. I always cite her when I use it.