Posting # 52: "What To Read"

1. I have several "favorite" authors at the moment as I like reading contemporary romances or what is commonly known as "chick-lit". I like to call them "charming romantic comedies". For me, it is an easy escape into "Happily Ever After" and sometimes I need that. I used NoveList Plus to look up Debbie Macomber. I just brought up the NoveList website, clicked on Adult Read-Alikes and found her alphabetically by her last name... and, she was the first author on thier list. Richard Paul Evans and Susan Wiggs were listed as possible read-alike authors that I do read. A new author came up as well, Cathie Linz, so I already have a reference to her and will be looking for her books in the HCPL collections.
Next I tried using "What Should I Read Next" and was a bit disappointed. It was easy to use, just typed in Debbie Macomber, but all of the suggestions were simply reader recommendations. Just people signing in and telling you what they liked to read by similar authors. I noticed there were the usual authors I am already familiar with such as Jennifer Cruise, Barbara Delinsky, and LaVyrle Spencer. Much prefer NoveList Plus so far.
Giving "Library Booklists and Bibliographies" a try, I found it more difficult to navaigate at first. But as I got more into it, I liked to subdivsioins and the much longer list of suggestions. The suggestions were for individual books by authors an the subdivisions were nice (I used Romantic Comedy then Funny Romances) and lengthy. I found many of my favorite authors (and their books) and a few new ones to look for in the future. I also liked the links to Amazon since that 's a good place to see what the book looks like and get a review or two all in one place.

2. Using NoveList Plus, a fourth grade girl interested in animals could possible like the classic Black Beauty by Anna Sewell or something newer book like Down Boy and Sit by Lucy Nolan. (I guess it depends on weather or not she likes horse stories and/or dog stories.) NoveList was easy to use...just looked up her age then her subject and the suggestions were right there.
By checking in the NoveList Plus Teens section, her thirteen-year-old brother who likes ghost stories may enjoy The Night Tourist by Katherine March or Demons and Shadows by Robert Westall. The second books is a collection of ten "ghostly tales" so he may find one or two that he is particularly intersted in rather than reading an entire book.

3. The Dean Koontz fan could benefit by taking the suggestions listed in the NoveLists Plus Read-Alike section. Just look up Koontz, Dean and a listing appears suggestion authors such as Greg Bear, Charles Grant or John Saul. By using "What Should I Read Next" he could get suggestions such as W.E.B. Griffin, Iris Johansen or Linda Medley.

4. The customer who has finished reading Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce has started reading the Young Adult series: Song of the Lioness. By looking this up in Mid-Continent Public Library I found that she needs to read In the Hand of the Goddess next followed by The Woman Who Rides Like a Man and then end the seires with Lioness Rampant. It was very easy to research this by simply typing in the authors name and then scrollong through her series books until I found the one that had Alanna listed as the first one .