Crash Course in Gentle Reads Recording Access and Appeal of the Genre

Earlier this month I posted about the joint NoveList and LibraryReads Crash Course in Gentle Reads.  

Here is the link to that post and more info about what you should expect from the webinar.

And here is the free video access.

I would also note, one of the best things this webinar does is to help you, the library worker, better understand what readers who are asking for "Gentle Reads" may actually be looking for. This is a genre that isn't really a genre. It is more of a category. But, it is also a category who lines are defined by the perceptions of the reader in front of you and what they consider "gentle." It morphs and changes with each person.

Here is an example of that morphing. I often mention A Man Called Ove as a "gentle read" option; however once in a while I get push back on saying that this book, framed by a man who is about to commit suicide [but learns that he doesn't want to], cannot be considered gentle because of that troubling frame. Well, as you will learn in this webinar, this novel is part of a subset of the genre which are gentle but have a contemporary edge.

To that end, I also want to direct you to this link from Goodreads. It is the list of the most popular books tagged "Gentle Reads" by readers. Using this link every once in a while gives you a sense of what people think of as "gentle" because it is a user generated list. 

Watch the video and rethink how you suggest gentle reads, but also, how you work with readers looking for the types of appeal factors they mention. It truly is a more complex, rich, and interesting genre than many of you may think. 

And don't underestimate gentle reads for yourself. One of my favorite reads all of last year is solidly in the gentle reads camp-- The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune. And I love Horror, so again, don't underestimate the genre.

Resource Alert: Crash Course on Gentle Reads and Access to All LibraryReads--NoveList Free Genre Training Programs

Coming April 21st-- the next FREE webinar in the NoveList and LibraryReads "Crash Courses." This time is all about "Gentle Reads." You can click here or see below to sign up.

But I also wanted to use this reminder about the newest webinar to remind you that there are many useful "Crash Courses" all ready for your viewing and use at any time. Click here to access every single one.

These are the best genre training tools available for the general, American library worker. I am not exaggerating either. With each 60 min course you will be able to get yourself up to speed on a popular reading category, its key appeal terms, themes, trends, authors, and titles.

So first, sign up for Gentle Reads [whether you can make it or not so you get a reminder of the recording] and then head over to the archive of past courses via the NoveList blog.

Also check out the LibraryReads Resources page for more free and useful RA Training.

Below is a re-post of the Gentle Reads Crash Course information via NoveList's blog:

Do you have a go-to strategy for helping readers with gentle reads? Whether your readers are fans of likeable ensemble casts or heartwarming stories about characters coming home again — let NoveList and LibraryReads break down the best gentle fiction has to offer your readers — from tests of faith to life in small towns. 

Join as they cover: 

• Why readers choose gentle reads 
• History of gentle reads fiction  
• Classics, new titles/authors to watch, and awards to know   
• Subgenres and crossovers 
• NoveList insider information on genre headings, themes, appeal terms, and more 

Wednesday, April 21, 2021 
2-3 pm Eastern 
Optional NoveList training from 3-3:15pm Eastern 

REGISTER

Kaite Stover is the Director of Readers' Services for The Kansas City Public Library. She holds Master's degrees in Library Science and English Literature from Emporia State University. Stover is the co-editor of The Readers' Advisory Handbook (ALA Editions 2010) with Jessica E. Moyer. From 2004-2016, Stover wrote the "He Reads, She Reads" column for Booklist with David Wright and wrote, "Under the Radar" for Public Libraries from 2012-2017. Stover is a founding member and former Steering Committee member for LibraryReads. During the pandemic, Kaite read and listened to far more books than she thought possible, failed to learn how to use an InstaPot, and walked streets in her neighborhood she never knew existed. Follow her on Twitter @MarianLiberryan and Instagram @KaiteStover. 

After working in public libraries for 13 years, Lindsey Dunn now writes and edits feature-length readers' advisory articles for youth, all the while discovering what books she will add to her to-be-read pile. Her passion projects at work include tracking Books to Movies/Books to TV, discovering books by Caribbean and Indigenous authors, and keeping up with Christian fiction trends. She has served as a Christy Awards Judge since 2017 and is an advocate for diversity initiatives in libraries. 

Moderator Halle Eisenman leads the Editorial Content Team which oversees the creation of the lists, articles, book discussion guides, and all the other amazing and informative content you can find in NoveList. Prior to working at NoveList, she spent a dozen years working for a public library system in a variety of roles, but no matter what her job title, her favorite part of any day was suggesting books to patrons. When not at work, Halle can often be found walking her dogs (they get lots of exercise when she’s listening to a particularly riveting audiobook), binge-watching TV shows aimed at teenagers, baking, or sitting on her back porch with a book. She is currently serving as Chair of the RUSA CODES Reading List Council.  

What I'm Reading: Final GoodReads Reviews Update of 2019

Today I have another installment of my catch up reviews. This post should serves as a reminder that I do periodic updates of all of the books I read for "fun" on Goodreads and then compile them here so that the titles are searchable on the blog too. 

See below for the authors and titles as well as my three words. Use the links [click on titles] to read the full review on Goodreads.

Print

• Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob [thought provoking, reflective, candid]
• In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado [imaginative, haunting, heartbreakingly beautiful]

Audio

• A Man Called Ove by Frederick Backman [heartwarming, thoughtful, upbeat]

Christian Fiction Readers Advisory And Genre Considerations

Earlier this week, during the Massachusetts Library Association Conference, there was an excellent program on Christian Fiction Readers’ Advisory. I was following it on Twitter and saw my colleague Anna tweeting out an awesome list of genre specific, Christian Fiction Authors.  I asked her to compile all the Tweets in one place so they could be easily accessed as a resource.  Here is that link.

Christian Fiction is extremely popular with readers both religious and not, but the resources are scarce, especially for the readers who are less religious.

In my 15 years at the RA desk, I found that my religiously focused readers were very good at identifying authors on their own.  They talked about them at church or in their book groups and then came in to request we purchase the titles for the library.  They also followed many of the popular Christian Fiction publishers (some of the biggest of which are located just bit West of Chicago). I never had any trouble helping these readers. And after only a few years, I was able to competently cultivate this portion of our collection and stay on top of new authors and trends all on my own. [Not bad for a Jewish girl.]

However, I also am seeing a growing trend. A surprising number of readers, especially genre readers, are turning to Christian Fiction because they can get everything they loved about crime fiction or SF, for example, without the increasing violence and sexual situations they were coming to dislike in their favorite main stream genres. But identifying authors for this non-Christian focused audience has been difficult.

At first, I turned to the growing number of suggested reading lists for “gentle reads,” but many of these lists only consider contemporary fiction, women’s fiction, historical fiction, of romance. I kept seeing readers of crime and speculative fiction asking for more books like Irene Hannon or Ted Dekker-- decidedly GENRE authors with a more gentle bent than their non-genre counterparts.

These are authors that are excellent in their genres but also have a Christian Fiction grounding that make these readers feel comfortable.  They can get lost in the story without worrying about it taking them down a more graphic path than they wanted.

They do not want the quality of the story to be sacrificed, but they want a gentler touch. Currently the writers who are fulfilling this need the best are in the Christian Fiction world, but the current resources do not help me to identify these authors for readers very easily.

The list Anna was tweeting did give me a good starting point for helping these readers.  The discussion covered the wide range of appeal for Christian Fiction as well as lots of genre authors.

So thanks to Christine Sharbrough of the Chelmsford Library for the presentation and Anna for compiling the tweets. Christine also puts out The Christian Fiction Daily. If you want to know more on this topic, contact her.

Now go use these notes to help a reader.

What I’m Reading: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

I was first alerted to The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin in the April 2014 Library Reads list, as this novel was the #1 Librarian pick for the month.  Here is the quote chosen to book talk the novel:

“A middle-aged bookseller mourning his lost wife, a feisty publisher’s rep, and a charmingly precocious abandoned child come together on a small island off the New England coast in this utterly delightful novel of love and second chances.” 

Beth Mills, New Rochelle Public Library, New Rochelle, NY

Since it is about books, book selling, and book lovers, I was intrigued.  And while I enjoyed the book while I was reading it, it was not all that I expected going in.  This is not a “literary” novel.  It is a gentle, non-religious inspirational read (unless you consider book loving a religion, which some readers may).

I can actually best describe why you would enjoy it by saying it is Nicholas Sparks meets The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. This book is all about its highly inspirational message with books and a love of reading providing the inspiration, but it also has the Sparks-esque love lost and then found but with bittersweet results storyline in there too. (Note the past tense of “storied” in the title).

Think this captures who will love this book and what you can expect from it, but here is a bit more appeal detail.

This is a character centered story, with most, but not all, of the focus on Fikry. It is a short novel that is well paced.  Each chapter begins with a note from Fikry to his daughter about a specific book and why it has meaning to him. This not only frames each chapter, but keeps the book moving at a compelling pace as you want to see how this excerpt from Fikry’s journals fits into what we will read next.

The small town setting with a fun cast of supporting characters makes this an engaging read too. But beyond some discussions on the merits of different books or writers, and an interesting side story about how marketing affects the book’s reception this is not meant to be a “deep” book.  Zevin’s novel is a fun, beach read for the book loving set.

I think the marketing on this book unfairly gave it more “depth” and too much of a literary fiction vibe.  If I had not read Zevin’s novel for myself, I would have handed it to my literary fiction fans, when really it should go to Nicholas Sparks fans who want a book frame-- a huge audience who will love this novel, by the way.

This is a short read that someone could curl up with in a hammock or by the pool and finish in a  sitting or two.  It is satisfying and nice.  It will inspire you to live your life to the fullest. But all of its “meaning” is clearly up front which is not a bad thing to throw into the mix now and again.

Three Words That Describe This Book: books about book, bittersweet, non-religious inspirational

Readalikes: The first 2 books I thought of as perfect readalikes for The Storied Life of AJ Fikry were The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (mentioned above) and Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, both of which I have read (links go to longer reviews).  And, when I went to Novelist to look for more readalike ideas, I was heartened to see these are 2 of the first 3 suggested titles there too. Click on the links for each title above to see more readalike options.

Another title NoveList suggests, but I think is a bit more on the literary side, is The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai.  Here you will find a relationship based on a shared love of books between a librarian and a ten-year old boy who is living in a strict fundamentalist household. I would suggest The Borrower if you thought Zevin’s novel was nice but wanted a bit more substance.

I also mentioned Nicholas Sparks above and I think if you are a fan of his work, you will love this story (even though ironically, Fikry himself would hate to see me comparing his life story to Sparks as he was a bit of a literary snob). But the overwhelming tone of this book is moving and bittersweet. With the storyline of a widower, paralyzed by depression, finding happiness again by adopting a child and finding new love plus a very Sparks friendly resolution (again focus on the bittersweet here), you have the makings of a book centric Sparks-esque novel. And I am not disparaging Sparks here at all.  The man is a brilliant story teller who has managed to capture the attention of millions of readers.  He is one of the few authors whose books are often all checked out at once at my library-- all by different readers from all ages and walks of life.  That is an amazing feat.

Finally, I found similarities here to The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (link goes to my review).  Again we have a bittersweet story with a book about books frame.  Green’s story is a YA books that can be enjoyed by adults, while Zevin’s novel is for adults but could also be enjoyed by older teens.  There is nothing inappropriate in the book at all, but I question if younger teens would have interest in a story about a 30 year old widower who adopts an abandoned baby.

What I’m Reading: The Outsmarting of Criminals

Reviews keep coming...

Earlier this month I read the first book in a new cozy series, The Outsmarting of Criminals: A Mystery featuring Miss Felicity Prim by Steven Rigolosi

I placed this book on hold immediately after reading this review in Library Journal:

/* Starred Review */ After being mugged in New York City, Miss Felicity Prim plans to embark on a new career: "criminaloutsmarting." She is going to do it the cozy way by moving to a small hamlet in Connecticut, where she'll buy a cottage with a garden. All this in Chapter 1! The staff of the doctor's office where she works is distraught when Felicity announces her resignation, especially the doctor, who wants to marry her. She'll have none of this until she tries her new venture, though. Investigating as a concept gets decidedly real when a corpse turns up in her basement (a secret basement, by the way). Det. Ezra Dawes and his team make a valiant effort to keep up with Felicity. Concurrently, Felicity and her sister learn they have a secret half-sister, and thus she has a second case to solve. Mercy! VERDICT This title had me at the cover—all done in Edward Gorey style. The tongue-in-cheek humor Rigolosi showed in his earlier work (Androgynous Murder House Party ) is key to this pitch-perfect mash-up of the greatest traditional/cozy mystery tropes. Similar in tone to Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series although with a contemporary setting; a pleasure from cover to cover. --Teresa L. Jacobsen (Reviewed March 1, 2014) (Library Journal, vol 139, issue 4, p74)

Between my love of books about books, the fact that I am leading the ARRT Crime Fiction Genre Study, AND that I had just led our 2 hour discussion on cozies a few weeks before, this book was exactly what I needed.

You get the plot and some of the appeal from the review, but let me talk a bit more about WHY someone would enjoy this book.  First, it is adorable.  If you like reading and are someone who gets caught up in books on a regular basis, I mean so caught up in the characters that you forget they ARE NOT REAL [you know you’ve done it]-- this is the book for you.  Felicity is that kind of reader of mystery novels, especially the classics.  But you don’t have to love mysteries to enjoy this series.  Rather, it is that “getting caught up” in a book aspect that is shared here.

This is a mystery about a reader and the books she loves first and foremost. But, it is also a "wink, wink" parody of mystery novels, their plots, and the eccentric characters who live on the small towns of cozy mysteries.  The official term for this type of book about books where the reader is in on the joke is technically called metafiction. In terms of appeal what that  term means is that you, the reader, should expect to have a fun romp in an endearing, engaging, and witty book about a love of books and reading.  The reader is in on all of the jokes, we crave the next plot twist ripped from the classic cannon of mystery fiction, and we can’t wait for what’s still to come.

Now many may find this piling on of all of the inside jokes a bit much.  Not me though.  Warn people that it is an exaggerated, adorable, send up and they can decide if they are interested for themselves. This is a book for which someone’s enjoyment will be highly dependent upon their expectations and mood as they read it.

But it is not all puns and inside jokes.  Rigolosi is a good writer. An example can be seen in his brilliant, “show don’t tell” portrayal of Felicity’s terrible driving. That bit of writing skill is worth reading the book.  It is a great running gag but done in an understated way that I really enjoyed.

The Outsmarting of Criminals is a fast paced, fun, page turner. It is a perfect summer read for all book lovers. And don’t blame me if after you finish the novel you too are thinking about leaving the rat race behind and becoming a cozy amateur detective yourself. Just make sure to buy a house that comes with its very own secret basement.

Three Words That Describe This Book: adorable, witty, eccentric characters 

Readalikes: This series takes everything I love about Bradley’s Flavia de Luce series and Hall’s Vish Puri series and smooshes [I know, not an actual word] them together.  Click here for more on Flavia and here for more on Puri including dozens more readalike options.

But really anything on the ARRT crime fiction genre study list from the April Meeting of Amateur, Cozy, and Humorous mysteries will work as a suggestion here.

This series also reminded me of a backlist, harder to find British mystery series that also is a parody of mystery novels by L.C. Tyler and beginning with The Herring Seller’s Apprentice.  Here is the link to my review of that book and here is the link to the Goodreads info on the whole series.

And finally, the best series for people who love books, reading, and metafiction is Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series. I think it should be required reading for book lovers.

More reviews coming over the weekend [especially since I took yesterday off from posting].

BPL Book Discussion: I Still Dream About You

On Monday the group met to discuss the upbeat, character driven I Still Dream About You by Fannie Flagg.  Here is the publisher's summary to get us started:

The beloved Fannie Flagg is back and at her irresistible and hilarious best in I Still Dream About You, a comic mystery romp through the streets of Birmingham, Alabama, past, present, and future.

Meet Maggie Fortenberry, a still beautiful former Miss Alabama. To others, Maggie’s life seems practically perfect—she’s lovely, charming, and a successful real estate agent at Red Mountain Realty. Still, Maggie can’t help but wonder how she wound up in her present condition. She had been on her hopeful way to becoming Miss America and realizing her childhood dream of someday living in one of the elegant old homes on top of Red Mountain, with the adoring husband and the 2.5 children, but then something unexpected happened and changed everything.

Maggie graduated at the top of her class at charm school, can fold a napkin in more than forty-eight different ways, and can enter and exit a car gracefully, but all the finesse in the world cannot help her now. Since the legendary real estate dynamo Hazel Whisenknott, beloved founder of Red Mountain Realty, died five years ago, business has gone from bad to worse—and the future isn’t looking much better. But just when things seem completely hopeless, Maggie suddenly comes up with the perfect plan to solve it all. 

As Maggie prepares to put her plan into action, we meet the cast of high-spirited characters around her. To Brenda Peoples, Maggie’s best friend and real estate partner, Maggie’s life seems easy as pie. Slender Maggie doesn’t have to worry about her figure, or about her Weight Watchers sponsor catching her at the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop. And Ethel Clipp, Red Mountain’s ancient and grumpy office manager with the bright purple hair, thinks the world of Maggie but has absolutely nothing nice to say about their rival Babs “The Beast of Birmingham” Bingington, the unscrupulous estate agent who hates Maggie and is determined to put her out of business. 

Maggie has heartbreaking secrets in her past, but through a strange turn of events, she soon discovers, quite by accident, that everybody, it seems—dead or alive—has at least one little secret. 

I Still Dream About You is a wonderful novel that is equal parts Southern charm, murder mystery, and that perfect combination of comedy and old-fashioned wisdom that can be served up only by America’s own remarkable Fannie Flagg.

Let's move on to the discussion:

• As I expected with the feel good plot line we had 13 likes and 4 so-sos with no dislikes.  I have read Fannie Flagg before, and I really don't know how you could "dislike" her upbeat stories filled with rich and quirky characters.  I was one of the so-sos, but for me, I am always so-so on Flagg.  I love her fun and compelling story lines and I adore her characters but, the far fetched fairy tale endings (which I know are coming before I begin) always leave me a bit disappointed.  Three of the other "so-so" people shared my thoughts.  One said, "I loved the characters but the plot was ridiculous." On the other hand, here are some of the liked comments--the majority opinion:
• The characters were meaty, like people you would actually know.
• If the characters walked out of the book, they could be your friend.
• It was fun.
• Birmingham came alive to me in this book.
• Although this question was not provided by the publisher, I felt strongly that I needed to ask it.  I began by pointing out the tonal inconsistency that is the backbone of this book. Maggie's "plan," mentioned above, is to kill herself.  I am not spoiling anything because we learn this very quickly as readers.  So I asked, "This book has a light and fun tone, yet the entire story is predicated on a planned suicide.  How did that make you feel?"
• One participant said it was fine because Maggie went to such great extremes to plan out every single detail around her suicide that it was comical.  This meant you never thought she would actually do it.
• We then listed our favorite "funny" things she did each time she planned for and cancelled her suicide attempt.  I will not give them away here because they did add to the enjoyment of the story.  The point you need to know here is that it is comical to an absurd sense.  We agreed that this was handled masterfully by Flagg.  She was able to allow Maggie to come full circle from wanting to kill herself to relishing life without bringing the over tone of the book down.
• She also did not treat the suicide storyline too frivolously.  SMALL SPOILER ALERT-- We all saw this when Maggie has a dream about going through with it.  We were all as upset as her by the vividness of this scene.  We knew she would not ultimately kill herself because the tone of the story was too happy, but every person in the group was effected by this emotional scene. It made us all question our belief that Maggie would NOT kill herself and that realization left us all breathless. Again, we thought this was a great job by Flagg.  It was her good writing that made us feel such intense emotion.
• This discussion led us to a larger discussion of Maggie:
• Maggie began the book as a passive person who only saw the world in black and white, so to her, of course there was on other option than to kill herself.
• Maggie grew up above a movie theater.  Her plans were like she was planning the ending to the movie that was her life. This led to another lovely side discussion about how her life above the movie theater was described.
• Maggie was Miss Alabama, but felt like her life did not live up to that title.  She had a problem when life was ordinary.  The ordinary is what she was most afraid of and could not handle. So when life became ordinary without anything to look forward to, that's when she felt ready to kill herself.
• She seemed so put together to all of those around her, but inside she was a mess.  
• She was a functional depressed person
• She kept putting off her suicide because she had things to do, but when she actual dreamed of going through with it, Maggie understood the will to live.
• We talked about Maggie's decision on Easter Sunday not to kill herself, but rather to live life to its fullest.  We decided it was like a delayed (she's 60) coming of age when Maggie finally stopped expecting her life to be laid out like a perfect movie and instead accepted life for the imperfect, but glorious, thing that it is. So then I asked the group when in the story did mature Maggie start.
• When she stole the listing for Crestview from the villian Babs. It gave her life purpose and brought her childhood dreams full circle.
• When she had the dream and decided to live
• When she was still planning to kill herself and began to realize that if she was going to die, she did not have to go the gym anymore or worry about the news or worry about speaking her mind or even worrying about what people thought.  When she shed all of these things about living she hated, she began to enjoy living again.
• When Hazel died five years ago, Maggie started planning her death; that is when she ironically began to live again.
• We talked about the Miss Alabama and Miss America storyline.  This is the key thing about Maggie's life.  As you read we find out she was the leading contender to win Miss America.  This was during a time when the Miss America pageant was watched by almost every American.  However, Maggie's turn coincided with the violence in Birmingham and the glaring spotlight it put on their city.  Alabama and our country were going through a crisis.  Maggie was caught in the middle.  It was emotional to see her go from front runner to being hit with mud pies due to current events, not due to anything she did.  Seeing the time period through Maggie's eyes and through her friend and partner (a black woman now, young girl at time) was interesting and gripping.
• This prompted one person to say that Maggie, Brenda, and the city of Birmingham were the three main characters to her.  Maggie and Brenda are a given.  But we explored this idea of "The Magic City" as a character.  The more we thought about it, the more we all agreed.  This patron even brought in a section from our local papers which was talking about Birmingham 50 years later.  Reading this book with an eye to Birmingham as a character really made us appreciate Flagg's writing more too.  We talked about instances where the city itself grows and changes as a character would.
• On a side note, this same patron said that the novel made her realize that she still holds stereotypes against "Southerners," especially in regards to Civil Rights. This book opened her eyes to her own prejudice and made her realize that the city and the people living in it have changed too.  Just as she has changed over time, they have evolved too, and they are not the same people, nor the same town, that knocked people down with firehoses.
• This idea of Maggie's nostalgia for the old, pre-Civil Rights tainted Birmingham and her acceptance of how it is today led one participant to bring up the title.  Who is still dreaming about whom:
• Of course we began with Maggie and Brenda's separate dreams for the city.  Maggie dreams to save the charm of the old city and by saving its oldest, grandest house she meets her dream, while Brenda dreams of becoming mayor to fix the city. Maggie's dream is especially reinforced by the cover, which is a view from Crestview ( the house) looking down on a beautiful city.
•  It could also refer to Maggie and Charles still dreaming about each other after so many years apart
• Hazel: they all still dream of her and she obviously thought of them from beyond the grave by leaving contingencies in her will to make them all wealthy after her husband passed.
• It could also refer to Maggie's disappointment in not being the person she dreamed she'd be.
• Finally, we liked how the book ended with the dream of a young girl as she looked up at Crestview.  It all came full circle, both the story and the title.
• This book is also about the power of female friendships.  For Maggie and Brenda, a deep and true friendship emerges by the end of the book.  They thought they were friends before, but by the book's end, they come to understand a deeper friendship.  We also see through flashback, the relationship between Hazel and Ethel.  This story is a testament to the wonder and power of female friendships, but done it a way that does not lay it on too thickly.
• Speaking of friendships, Hazel is a larger than life force in this novel.  She is the dynamo, little person who became a real estate and business mogul.  She believed in Maggie and hired her when her prospects were dim, same for Brenda.  But at the novel's open (2008) she is 5 years dead.  Here's a summary of our Hazel discussion:
• She was positive, feisty, and a fighter
• We talked about how Hazel was a bit too good to be true, but she felt real.  Maybe not 1 person, but she felt like an amalgamation of people we all know in life.
• She was the ray of sunshine in Maggie, Brenda, and Ethel's life.  Her positive attitude kept them going.
• She saw the beauty in everything and accepted herself, something both Brenda and Maggie struggle with throughout the book.  By the end, though, Brenda and Maggie get there and are happy with themselves and their lives.
• Hazel is the moral center of the book. We all have limitations, some are more obvious than others, but we all can rise above.  Her moral center place in the book is underscored by Maggie seeing a sign from Hazel in the form of a white lily on Easter Sunday, and this becomes the final straw in Maggie's decision to not kill herself.
• Hazel was a bit too perfect a character, but Flagg knows this.  That is why we think it is important that Hazel is dead in the present of the book.  It is more effective to have her appear as remembered.  The real Hazel is not there, just the fond memories.  As a literary device this allows the reader to accept a "perfect" Hazel easier. It's all a bit too sweet, but it is okay because the Hazel of the book is not "real."
• We talked about the mystery surrounding the builder of Crestview that pops up in the middle of the book.  People felt that while it seemed to come out of nowhere, overall the story line added depth to the setting and enhanced the notion of Birmingham as a character in the story.  It also gave Maggie purpose and direction, allowing her to unite her old self and her new self. And, it underscored the theme of the literal and figurative skeletons in everyone's closets. Maggie is not the only one living with a secret.
• We talked about Maggie and Charles.  When they were younger it seemed Charles really did love and appreciate Maggie for who she was, but Maggie was still living in movie mode.  She wanted to "make it big."  But by the end, both are different people.  She appreciated him more now because she appreciated herself finally.
• We wrapped it all up with words or phrases to describe the book:
• entertaining
• flair
• quirky
• characters
• delightful
• funny
• heartwarming
• On a final note, I think this novel is a great choice for a book group who is getting bogged down by depressing books.  Yes it is a feel good story, but there is enough meat and issues to handle a discussion.  It was a nice pick-me-up for the group.

Readalikes: As one participant mentioned, Adriana Trigiani is a great readalike option for Flagg fans.  Both women write compelling and heartwarming stories that feature some of the best characters in contemporary fiction.  They are also both able to balance the serious and the funny in their stories.

For people who liked the Southern setting, aging main characters, mix of serious and funny story lines, and over all quirky feel should also try the Miss Julia series by Ann B. Ross.

Lorna Landvik also writes stories of women and their friendships again tackling more serious topics but with an overall heartwarming tone. Years ago, back before the blog, our group read Angry House Wives Eating Bon-Bons.

Speaking of previous books, two other books I would suggest that we read are  Rush Home Road by Lori Lansens and The Persian Pickle Club by Sandra Dallas. Use the linked titles for full reports.

Finally, during the discussion we talked about how the parts of the story during which Brenda and Maggie talk about not fully understanding what was happening in their town and how it was perceived by the wider world during the Civil Right Movement reminded us of  The Help.  In The Help, Skeeter has to find out from an editor in NYC just what is going on in her home town Jackson, MS. Both are also about unexpected friendships.

Student Annotations: Genres of the Emotions

Tonight's class is about the genres in which how the books make you feel is the largest appeal factor.

Click here to see what our students read in horror, gentle reads, romance, and women's lives.

For resources check out:

• RA for All: Horror 
• Smart Bitches, Trashy Books (romance)
• Hennepin County Library's list of gentle reads
• Read On…Women’s Fiction by Rebecca Vnuk

BPL Book Discussion: Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

In April I read Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson (herein MPLS) and was just captivated by the story.  I suggested it to the Book Club for the second half of 2011, and we read it this week for the August book discussion meeting.

For details about the book, its plot, and appeal, click through to my original post.  Since that groundwork was already laid, I will move right on to the discussion highlights:

• Followers of this blog know the drill by now.  I began by asking who liked, disliked, and was so-so on the book.  We had 11 likes, 1 so-so, and zero disliked.  The liked were eager to talk.  Sometimes when everyone likes a book, it is hard to keep the discussion going, but in this case, we had people who liked the book for different reasons which added depth to the discussion.
• Overall, participants cited the humor and the pacing as their two favorite things.  A few people remarked how nice it was that the book unfolded slowly but never felt "slow."  They all loved the time the Major had to ponder things, and the appreciated being a part of his thought processes.  The humor we all agreed was not laugh out loud, but it was pervasive.  Simonson found humor everywhere, much of it by simply holding a glass up to society.
• We also appreciated how all of the characters (especially the Major) grew over the course of the book. Someone remarked how the second half of the book was so different from the first half that she felt like it was a different book.  We clarified this comment though, by discussing how it was the growth of the characters which made it feel different.
• I pressed the group to discuss the two "halves" of the book in more detail.  I helped by suggesting we start with the middle point.  While it is not the middle in exact page numbers, the disaster of a dance party at the golf club is the middle of the plot.  As a literary device, the dance party brings together all of the conflicts in the story as they led up to that point, it all explodes, and then the rest of the book is the resolution.  Those who had not "liked" the dance party before this point in the discussion, appreciated it more as a literary device after.
• The guns were discussed.  The book begins and ends with the pair of Churchill guns.  It begins with the Major trying to reunite the pair after his brother's death and ends as one of the guns tumbles into the ocean.  You cannot ignore a symbol as large as these guns.  Something that bookends the entire novel is worth discussing.  We began by just brainstorming what they symbolize to the Major.  Some answers: family, tradition, inheritance, sign of honor, biggest asset, worth bragging about.  Then we talked about how the Major's feelings move from obsession with reuniting the guns at the novel's opening to his indifference to their irreparable separation at the novel's close as a signifier of his feelings about family, tradition, etc...  He was so obsessed with order and tradition at risk of all else (including love and family) but by the end, all tradition is thrown to the wind (literally and figuratively) in order to live life to its fullest.
• Classism and racism were discussed at length.  In this story the color of your skin as well as your profession say where you are in society and their is no wiggle room.  The Major is looked at askance just as much for falling in love with a Pakistani woman as the fact that she is from the shopkeeper class.  Simonson lifts the veil on modern English racism.  The people in this book are viciously racist against the Pakistani and Indian community members, yet they feel they are being inclusive. One participant felt like this book was a comment on the post-imperialism era of Britain.  This was a great point.  The Major was part of the official imperialism when he was in the army, but imperialism is aging, much like the Major himself.  It is a new world now in England with native born peoples whose ancestors came from the diaspora and are now just as British as the white people.  We wondered if Simonson could have written such a scathing attack on modern racism in England if she still lived there (she has lived in America for many years now); we were unsure of the answer to this one.
• The Major is only 68, but he acts older and is treated as older by society.  Since my group participants range in age from mid 50s to well into their 80s, we had a great general discussion about aging and what it means to get older.  The group was generous in their sharing of their personal opinions and experiences on this issue.
• We talked at length about the growth of some secondary characters such as Abdul, Amina, Roger and Sandy.
• We also had a discussion about the demise of small town life, which comes up in the novel.
• The title- Major Pettigrew's Last Stand- was brought up.  We discussed how the Major literally makes his last stand over his love of Mrs. Ali.  It is his last stand to rescue his life from inaction.  It is his last chance to live.  In case you didn't get it by the end, Simonson has the Major literally hanging on for dear life from a cliff while he makes this realization. While this "hitting the reader over the head" normally bothers me, it was in line with the satirical humor throughout the novel.
• We ended by me asking the group to throw out words or phrases that epitomize this book to them:
• humor
• pathos
• power of love
• unpredictable
• nuanced
• character growth
• change
• tradition
• great descriptions

Readalikes:  Here is what I suggested back in April:

MPLS reminded me of another book I recently read, The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise by Julia Stuart.  Both books are character centered, gentle but serious, and all about the characters.  Click here to read my review of Stuart's book.  If you liked one, there is a good chance you will enjoy the other.

If you are interested in the racial issues between the British and the Pakistanis in England, I would suggest White Teeth by Zadie Smith.  This is a more complex and more disturbing read, but it is also one of my all time favs.

If you like the story of finding love at any age, I would suggest The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery on the literary side, or Julie and Romeo by Jeanne Ray on the lighter and more humorous side.

Readers may also be interested in the British TV series which also pokes fun at the English class structure, Upstairs, Downstairs.

Although they are very different books, I have not been this captivated by a protagonist since I read Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley.

To these suggestions I would also add Paradise Postponed by John Mortimer to the list for readers who want another book that explores small town issues.  For those who want more stories of unusual, cross-racial friendships, I would also suggest The Last Noel by Michael Malone.  And finally, for more late in life love in a character centered story, try Lamb in Love by Carrie Brown.

Heartwarming Reads

Book Page's Blog, The Book Case, had this great list of "Heart Warming Reads," which they describe as:

...books that we think are well-written and uplifting, and they’re light in tone. (Think: no explicit sex or violence.)

The list includes some of my personal favorites like The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and Major Pettigrew's Last Stand.  Again use this link to see the entire list and their commentary.

What I like the most about the list is that while these books can be called gentle, Book Page did not use that term, which turns off many younger readers.  These are all interesting stories, with original and intriguing plots and characters, and resolved, satisfying endings. They are a great option for any reader looking for a "good read."

More importantly, I am getting many patrons who come to me looking for a heart-warming story during these trying times.  With all fo the bad news in the world, they want to escape to a lighter story.

While this Book Case list is a great start, you will need more than 10 books to keep your patrons satisfied.  I have also had great success suggesting  Adriana Trigiani, Sandra Dallas  and Fannie Flagg to readers looking for "heart warming books."  Also check out my review of The Tower, The Zoo and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart, including the readalikes.

Although they are harder to find, there are some good "Gentle Reads" resources floating out there in cyberspace.  Some of my favorites include:

• Hennepin County Library’s list of gentle reads 
• Salt Lake County (UT) Library's Books with “Old Fashioned” Qualities, a list which includes both fiction and nonfiction
• Sachem (NY) Public Library's list of gentle reads
• Metropolitan Library System’s (IL) Readers’ Advisory Special Interest Group’s compiled Gentle Reads list (2007)

Feel free to share some of your personal favorite "heart warming reads."

Student Annotations: Genres of the Emotions

Tonight's class covers the genres in which how the story makes you feel is the key factor as to why you enjoy those books.  These "emotions" are widely disparate however since tonight we will talk about Romance, Women's Lives and Relationships, Gentle Reads and Horror.  So we love, we cry, we laugh, we feel comfortable, and we are scared out of our minds.

You can click here to see the wide range of books the students read and wrote about on the class blog for this week.

I also wanted to remind you that for more information on Horror specifically, you can always click on over to RA for All: Horror for commentary, reading suggestions, and resources galore.

BPL Book Discussion: The Other Wes Moore

On Monday despite many people being on vacation, we still had 12 people at the BPL to discuss The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore.

Wes Moore has turned this book into a movement.  Before reading this book, I would suggest going to his website.  In fact, here is the official summary from that site:

Two kids with the same name, liv­ing in the same city. One grew up to be a Rhodes Scholar, dec­o­rated com­bat vet­eran, White House Fel­low, and busi­ness leader. The other is serv­ing a life sen­tence in prison for felony mur­der. Here is the story of two boys and the jour­ney of a generation. 

In Decem­ber 2000, the Bal­ti­more Sun ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local stu­dent who had just received a Rhodes Schol­ar­ship. The same paper also ran a series of arti­cles about four young men who had allegedly killed a police offi­cer in a spec­tac­u­larly botched armed rob­bery. The police were still hunt­ing for two of the sus­pects who had gone on the lam, a pair of broth­ers. One was named Wes Moore. 

Wes just couldn’t shake off the unset­tling coin­ci­dence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same news­pa­per. After fol­low­ing the story of the rob­bery, the man­hunt, and the trial to its con­clu­sion, he wrote a let­ter to the other Wes, now a con­victed mur­derer serv­ing a life sen­tence with­out the pos­si­bil­ity of parole. His let­ter ten­ta­tively asked the ques­tions that had been haunt­ing him: Who are you? How did this happen? 

That let­ter led to a cor­re­spon­dence and rela­tion­ship that has lasted for sev­eral years. Over dozens of let­ters and prison vis­its, Wes dis­cov­ered that the other Wes had a life not unlike his own: Both had grown up in sim­i­lar neigh­bor­hoods and had dif­fi­cult child­hoods, both were father­less; they’d hung out on sim­i­lar cor­ners with sim­i­lar crews, and both had run into trou­ble with the police. At each stage of their young lives they had come across sim­i­lar moments of deci­sion, yet their choices and the peo­ple in their lives would lead them to aston­ish­ingly dif­fer­ent destinies. 

Told in alter­nat­ing dra­matic nar­ra­tives that take read­ers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of sur­pris­ing redemp­tion,The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a gen­er­a­tion of boys try­ing to find their way in a chal­leng­ing and at times, hos­tile world.

Our discussion was long and animated.  Every single person had something to say about this alternatively inspiring and heart-breaking story.  I want to start with where we ended to set the tone for the discussion notes to follow.  After our 90 minute discussion, I asked the group to give me a word or phrase which they would use to describe this book.  Here is what I got:

• Nature vs Nurture
• Hope
• Don't give up on people
• Inspirational

Also, before the discussion began, I set some ground rules to help the discussion of a book about 2 people with the same name go more smoothly.  We referred to the author Wes Moore as Wes 1 and the incarcerated Wes Moore as Wes 2.  I will use this designation in the notes that follow.

Now on to the discussion itself.

• I began asking who liked, didn't like and was so-so on the book.  For the first time in awhile, we had 0 dislikes!  8 liked the book, and 4 were so-so.  The so-so votes were mostly because although they were engaged by the story, the writing was plain.  This is true.  Wes 1 is a bright, well educated young man, but he has no training as a writer or even a journalist.  This is a solidly written book, but compared to our last discussion title, Rush Home Road, which was simply put, beautifully written, with lyrical and magical language, The Other Wes Moore was comprised of powerful, but declarative sentences.  Once we agreed that it was the content, not the language used that we would discuss, everyone dove right in.
• Many participants mentioned how they always enjoy books about social history, but it was the personal nature of this story that really drew the participants in.  One participant said she was so engrossed in the story that when Wes 2 turned his back on the job training and went back to selling drugs, she had to set the book aside.  She was just so sad for him.  Another participant talked about how we always hear how much tougher it is for young, black men, but this really made her understand WHY.  Another shared how this opened her eyes to specific situations with real live people.  Finally on this topic, someone shared how the personal story and the social dynamics that led each Wes to a different fate were interesting.
• People appreciated the details Wes included about the prison waiting room, the corners where drugs were sold, the living conditions, and the Bronx during the 1980s.  Everyone agreed these places came alive for us.  And that says a lot since we are a long way from 1980s inner city Baltimore or the Bronx.
• We discussed at length how both Weses were very bright but Wes 2 fell through the cracks.  We talked about the failures of the education system for certain students.  Even Wes 1 almost fell through the cracks and he was at a private school and eventually military school.
• This led to a discussion of bad teachers vs bad parents. The group shared personal experiences and opinions on this topic.  We came down agreeing that teachers cannot do everything, but that  parents also need to take more responsibility.  One participant said this book should be required 8th grade reading.  I added that Wes Moore agrees, and he travels all over the country talking to at risk young people and their parents and teachers.  Click here to see more on that topic.
• I asked the group to consider why Wes 1 was so haunted by Wes 2, so haunted that years after the fact, Wes 1 tracked Wes 2 down and began the dialog that led to this book.  Someone offered that she felt Wes 1 genuinely wanted to figure out why it wasn't him.  It all goes back to the quote that defines this book: "The chilling truth is that his life could have been mine.  The tragedy is that my story could have been his."  We also felt that Wes wrote the book to help others.  That is evident when you get to the end and he has a "call to action" with long lists of groups and resources to try to stop young people from turning to a life of crime.
• Then, a participant chimed in that she felt he wrote the book to explore the age old dilemma of nature versus nurture.  We discussed this at length, and decided that the book as a whole falls in the middle here, with a lean toward nurture.  Both boys had serious intervention.  For Wes it was his mom.  She stayed on him even when he was ditching school and failing.  She didn't take defeat and sent him to military school.  However, once there, Wes tried to run away 5 times.  It took him to decide that he was going to not try to run away a sixth time for him to succeed.  Wes 2 had one last chance when he entered Job Corps.  He got serious, government funded job training.  He was a star of the program.  He was a leader to others, but when he went back home and worked for awhile, he couldn't take the pressure of supporting his family and went back to the drug trade.  We felt Wes 2 needed a network after Job Corps to step in and support him when times got tough, but he still needed to decide for himself to stay on the right path.
• These 2 moments described above were talked about at length.  To us, they represented the "life changing moments" for the 2 Weses.  Wes 1 decided to stay at military school and was very successful.  His life has only gone up from that one moment, the moment he stopped resisting.  For Wes 2, he had a series of ups and downs, but after he gave up on his Job Corps training, it was all downhill.  The group then shared life changing moments in their own lives, or the lives of their children.  We all appreciated everyone's honesty and willingness to share.  This is a great discussion point to get your group to look at the larger issues of the book.  It is easy to get caught up in the 2 Weses personal stories, but we should not lose sight of the universal message of this book.
• The Weses talk about expectations, saying if your network of family and friends expects you to succeed you will and if they expect you to fail you will.  We talked about this.  Is it that simple?  We decided no.  This means that when you fail, you can blame others, but ultimately we agreed that in this book, and in life, when you fail as badly as Wes 2 has, you have no one to blame but yourself.  Even Wes 1, who had a supportive family had to make the decision for himself to stay in school.  However, if we are saying Wes 1 succeeded due to more nurturing, there is a problem with this argument.  How can I be the only one to blame for my failures if I get less nurturing? If I need intervention from good people to succeed and I don't get that intervention, when I fail is it my fault?  We decided this is a problem too big to discuss in book group, but maybe solving this huge dichotomy holds the key to solving the problems described in this book.
• We ended by talking about what ideas the book gave us for ameliorating the conditions that led to the imprisonment of Wes 2.  The question, which I found here, asks, "What can be done to ensure a more productive life for the many young men who grow up on the streets."  We had some great ideas from the group:
• Get this book in the hands of young people
• Get involved by mentoring.  If you can turn around 1 kid that is more important than helping no one.
• Teach parenting skills.  We could see how Wes 2 was completely unprepared to be a father, by no fault of his own.  Specifically, we thought more parents needed to be taught how to teach their kids right from worng.  The group felt that is a problem all over the country, rich and poor, urban, suburban, and rural.  Someone else suggested more birth control education in middle school would have also helped Wes 2.
• Others mentioned having more inter-generational time for kids.  Not just having this contact with families though.  We talked about allowing youth to go to nursing homes and allowing seniors who are unrelated to the children, going into the schools to share their life experiences.
• Make life on the street less appealing by giving these kids the chance to experience something else.  For example, go to the corner, throw the kids in a bus and take them to a museum.  They have no idea what else is out there.  Maybe if they had more experiences they would chose a different path.
• Keep them busy.  More after school programs no matter who is running them.  This allows the kids to both stay busy and try new things.

Readalikes:  The best readalike for this book is David Simon's The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood for which a HBO mini series was made.  It also became the basis for the critically acclaimed HBO series, The Wire.  Each of these read and watch alikes are deeply rooted in serious journalism and follow the real people of Baltimore, from the dug dealers, to the kids working the corners and from  the mayor to the kids who make it out and go to college.  Everything Wes Moore relates from his and the incarcerated Moore's life is corroborated here.  Simon was a reporter for the Baltimore Sun for many years, while Wes Moore, although he did an admirable job, is not a professional writer.  So if you want more detail, on Baltimore, Simons is the author for you.

For those who want a deeper look into inner-city poverty during the era when the Moore boys grew up, the best book out there is still There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in The Other America by Alex Kotlowitz.

For readers who were interested in the inspirational story of the writer Wes Moore, I would suggest the novels of Paulo Coelho, specifically The Alchemist.  Also, Best Inspiration is a great website of all things inspirational (not just religious).  On the main page, in the left gutter, they have a list of inspirational authors.  Try one.  Or read the book that inspired Wes to make changes in his life, My American Journey: An Autobiography by Colin Powell.

Student Annotations: Emotions

After a few weeks hiatus, new student annotations are back up on the blog.  This week they read Horror, Gentle Reads, Romance, and Women's Lives.

So head on over to the class blog to see what they have been reading and writing about.

Student Annotations: Genres of the Emotions

Last night we had the class on genres which appeal mostly to your emotions: Horror, Romance, Women's Lives, and Gentle Reads.

Each genre is all about the mood it creates; they are different moods and emotions to be sure, but mood is the most important here. These are also books that focus on characters and use lots of adjectives.

I love teaching this week for both obvious and subtle reasons. Obviously I like talking about horror to the class, but as an instructor, I love how illustrative this week is. For example, I purposely do horror and gentle reads back-to-back to show how similar they are in terms of "why" people choose to read them. It is when the students learn to make the connections between seemingly diametrically opposed genres that they really learn something. This is why I also save this grouping until later in the semester. They need more experience before they can "get it."

Click on over to the class Word Press blog to see the books they read for this week, and look at what they had to say about them.

What I'm Reading: The Herring Sellers Apprentice

I have been reading a lot of mysteries lately; here's another one.

The Herring-Seller's Apprentice by L.C. Tyler is an intelligent cozy. It is also a mystery about writing a mystery book. Overall it was funny and interesting but the ending was a little too cute.

Here are the details. The Herring-Seller's Apprentice came out in England in 2007, but was not published here until 2009. There are 2 narrators in this novel, Ethelred, a middle-aged, mid-list mystery writer, and Elsie, his chubby, but fashionable, agent.

The mystery comes in the form of Ethelred's ex-wife ending up missing, and then apparently murdered. Ethelred is still her next of kin and executor of her estate, but he doesn't seem too interested in solving the case. Elsie, however, is more than eager to learn. Ethelred makes his living off of his skill with the red-herrings in his mysteries, hence, Elsie wants to learn from him and become the herring-sellers apprentice.

The case unravels with the appropriate number of twists and turns. Ethelred's missing wife seems to have bilked a number of people out of some money, so the story has plenty of meat to sustain it. However, as I mentioned above, although the ending is resolved, and we know what happened to the dead wife, the final chapter (narrated Elsie) is still slightly open and a bit too cute for its own good.

Since this is a mystery about a mystery writer, there are many allusions to how mysteries are written, the characters comment on changes in typeface, and the entire novel is supposed to be one of Ethelred's books. This would be a big appeal factor for readers.

People who like books about writers and/or books will enjoy this work. Also, fans of contemporary, cozy, British mysteries are a good bet here. This book is also fast paced with many interesting and eccentric characters. Finally, this mystery is so absurdly funny at times that you literally laugh out loud; for example, the hapless Ethelred also writes steamy romance novels. The entire thing is very tongue-in-cheek; which a reader will either love or hate depending on their preferences. Personally, I liked this part. But remember it is British humor. .

Readalikes: Felony and Mayhem Press, who published this novel, specialize in literary mysteries. They do a good job of marketing their mysteries by offering their own readalikes. On back of this book, in a box under the summary blurb, is the following statement: "Who's Likely to Like This? Fans of truly intelligent cozies."

On their website they offer another option for readalikes in their British category list. These books are described by the publishers as "set in or around the UK, these feature the highly literate, often witty prose that fans of British mysteries demand." Use this link to read their suggestions for similar works.

Also, the sequelto The Herring-Sellers Apprentice, Ten Little Herrings, will be out in August.

Other readalikes that may appeal to fans of The Herring-Seller's Apprentice would be Jasper Fforde's Nursery Crimes Series, which are funny, cozy mysteries featuring nursery rhyme characters (Jack Spratt is the lead detective).

On NoveList, I also found a list of mysteries called "Fatally Funny," compiled by Kimberly Burton, which contained The Herring-Sellers Apprentice. Other titles on the list that share a few other appeal factors with this novel are Ultra Violet by Nancy Bush, Goodbye Ms. Chips by Dorothy Cannell, and the Spellmans series by Lisa Lutz.

In terms of nonfiction suggestions, after reading The Herring-Sellers Apprentice, many readers may want to know more about what it takes to write a good mystery novel, or about being or getting a literary agent. Click on the links to find suggestions.

Student Annotations: Genres of the Emotions

Right now over at Dominican University, Joyce will be teaching the class about genres in which the most important appeal factor is how the books make the reader feel. So today it is Romance, Gentle Reads, Women's Lives and Relationships and Horror.

Horror? Yes, Horror. Horror may feel like the winner of the "which one of these doesn't belong" prize here, but think about it, it makes sense. Horror is all about how it makes you feel. In this case it is terror, not the heart-warming feeling of all the is good and nice in the world like a Gentle Read.

It is simply a different emotion, but it is still all about how the books make you feel. People read Horror to be scared, just as others read Romance to participate in the love story of the main characters.

Go on over to the Word Press Blog to see what the students think.

Student Annotations Horror, Romance, Women's Lives, and Gentle Reads

Class again last night. If you are interested, our students posted new annotations for the genres listed above over at our class blog on Word Press.

Oh, and yes there is logic to this grouping of genres. First and foremost, they all appeal to your emotions as a reader. It just so happens that the specific emotion may be a tiny bit different for each genre.

"Cozy" Reads

As I prepare for the new semester, I am updating the resource sheets I give my students for each genre. One of the genres that is most popular with readers, but has the least number of resources are a group of books we RAs refer to a "gentle reads." Now mind you, readers do not refer to them this way. Generally, however, these books are the ones our patrons are expecting when they come in and ask for "a good read."

What these readers are looking for is a good story with meat to it, but no on stage sex, no cursing, and no dark issues. One of the biggest mistakes librarians make when working with these readers is by assuming these readers are looking for unsophisticated books. This is not the case at all. These are nostalgic stories, with complex characters, interesting plots, and plenty of conflict (just not the bloody kind).

One of the best places where the gentle genre is shown in the best light is with the cozy mystery. We are in a boom time for this popular subgenre. To cash in on its success, the term cozy, in fact, is now being embraced by non-mystery titles. A well known and respected blog, Cozy Library, chronicles this growing world of gentler reads. Click here for their definition of cozy and checkout their pages for fiction, nonfiction, mystery, and not quite cozy reading suggestions.

I am excited to finally have a thoughtful resource for my students to use in locating gentle reads for patrons.