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Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Downton Abbey Readalikes

When there is a media sensation the readalikes requests start rolling in at the RA desk.  In the case of Downton Abbey, there already were many books to fit the craze in our collections as well as books already in the pipeline that simply needed a tweak in marketing to highlight their connection to the between the wars, English setting.

Now as Season 2 gets going, not only are there copy-cat books coming out, there is also a solid crop of good novels with appeal to fans of Downton Abbey coming soon.

Sarah Johnson, THE library expert on historical fiction (in many people's opinion, including mine) has multiple posts on her blog, Reading the Past with readalikes.  Click here to access both.

These are titles I would suggest adding to all larger popular fiction collections, and as many as you can afford for others. I mean, you know you have bought a bunch of 50 Shades readalike titles; this is of the same level of fan demand.

Downton Abbey is the most popular media event that is NOT based on a specific book already drawing in requests for readalikes.  I see readalike requests for the series that are book based or have spawned book of their own (like Castle), and I see requests for the books that popular movies are based on [thank goodness we already owned Silver Linings Playbook], but Downton Abbey is unique in that we are fielding multiple requests a week for readalikes for this TV show that has no literary version.

I can imagine we are not unique.  Use the link to help you match patrons with their next good read.

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