Week Seven Prompt

I read the article from the smoking gun, "A Million Little Lies". I'll start off by saying that I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with embellishing the truth when you're writing a book. It helps the story, as a story, flow better. However, stories that are "based on true events" are advertised as such. They are based on true events. This tells the reader, or viewers in the case of television/movies, that while the plot itself is true, there may be some details enhanced, removed, or added.

Frey's book doesn't do that.

He insists that it's all true, that he may have embellished a little bit, but that everything in the book really happened. The Smoking Gun disagrees, and so do I.

In interviews, Frey reveals that he tried multiple times to get his story published as fiction, and was denied time and time again. The moment he tagged it as a nonfiction memoir, it was snapped up and thrown on Oprah's list.

In my opinion, this is the author version of clickbait. Advertise in such a way as to draw in viewers, when the actual material is bland and banal.

Science Fiction Annotation

Title: Dawn

Author: Octavia E. Butler

Publication Date: 1997

Genre: Science Fiction

Number of Pages: 256

Summary:

Lilith Iyapo has lost her husband and son to the final nuclear strike that has devastated the Earth. In her final moments, she sleeps.

Lilith awakens hundreds of years later, aboard a spacecraft of unimaginable design. Humanity's saviors, the Oankali, live on this craft as they travel from world to world, forever searching. Forever changing.

For the Oankali do not live and grow and change as the humans do. They are in complete control of their evolutionary designs, and they have settled on humans as the next link in their genetic shift. Humans will return to Earth, to live and grow, and to be the bearers of the next generation of Oankali.

Whether they want to or not.


Characteristics that fit in Science Fiction:

• Speculative fiction set in the future
• Explores moral, social, intellectual, philosophical, and/or ethical questions against a setting outside of everyday reality
• Setting invokes otherness of time, place, and/or reality
• Characters are used to underscore issues and atmosphere; aliens emphasize the otherness

Read-Alikes:

• Ammonite by Nicola Griffith
• The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
• Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

Week Six Prompt

For promoting romance novels, the first idea that comes to mind is setting up displays in the month of February to promote romance books during the 'romance month'. Maybe soft romance near the front desk (i.e. romance with light/no sex, no darker themes) and a mix of romance in displays around the library. Maybe do a romance reading program, where people sign up for the month, and whoever reads the most gets a small prize; special bookmarks, assorted treats, coupons to any business(es) that want to participate in the promoting. Appealing to people's competitive streaks is a good way to get them to read things they might otherwise ignore. Outside of the month of February, promote a different genre each week with displays near the front of the library, and some fliers promoting books in said genre. 

Romance Annotation

Title: Slave to Sensation

Author: Nalini Singh

Publication Date: 2006

Genre: Romance; paranormal romance

Number of Pages: 352


Summary: For nearly one hundred years the Psy have maintained a cold, emotionless existence, in order to keep control over the vast mental abilities that make them who they are. However, that control is starting to crack, and the Psy Council will stop at nothing to hide the fissures.

Sasha Duncan is a councilor's daughter. She knows better than most the price of failing to conform to Silence, the emotionless rules that are taught to every Psy child. She also knows the price of allowing her Silence to fracture. It's a price she may be willing to pay when she begins to tangle with Lucas Hunter, the leopard alpha of the changeling pack DarkRiver.


Characteristics that fit in Romance:

• The story centers on the romantic relationship between the two main characters
• Reader is involved in the outcome of the Romance
• Features outside circumstances the keep the two characters apart
• Happy ending; the couple gets together and are content
• Descriptive adjectives to delineate characters, setting, and romantic or sexual interludes
• Characters drive the narrative

Read-Alikes:

• No Rest for the Wicked by Kresley Cole
• Dark Prince by Christine Feehan
• Hell's Bell by Keri Arthur

Week Five Prompt

I feel that collection development depends fairly heavily on how books are reviewed. If books are never given a bad review a-la Booklist, then how do librarians know if they're biased or not? If a book has hardly any reviews at all, how do they know they're getting a quality book? It makes it difficult to develop a good, comprehensive collection if the resources for judging a book are limited or skewed.

In regards to the two romance reviews for week five, I feel that neither review, on its own, would be wholly reliable. They're both too personal. However, if I had to depend on one or the other, I would go for the blog review.  It's well written and gives important points such as length, genre, and pros and cons.  The Amazon review is poorly written and doesn't really tell why other readers would be interested in the book.

The Angela's Ashes reviews make me feel comfortable about adding this book to the collection.With multiple sources following the same positive trend, you know that the reviews aren't just biased personally.

I don't think that it's fair that one type of book is reviewed heavily and others are not, but there's not much we can do about that. Books that become popular, have the potential to become popular, are in a popular genre, or are published by a popular author are always going to be given priority over relatively unknown books. Library collections that rely too heavily on reviews and don't take chances on unknowns run the risk of falling into a rut; readers that have already read the popular ones and are looking for something new and/or different may be left wanting. Review resources that won't print negative content are less reliable, to me. Reviews shouldn't be insulting to the author, but honest reviews are necessary. Not everyone will enjoy every book, and it's important to show that.

I don't buy for a library, and I mostly only read from a select pool of authors. When I do choose something to read, I read the summary and use that to decide if I like it or not. As I've stated before, I don't like to involve others in my reading process. However, if I had to use a review source, Kirkus is my favorite source.

Kirkus-Style Review: Spartan Gold by Clive Cussler

Sam and Remi Fargo are well known and quite successful treasure hunters, but it’s not the treasure that draws them. It’s the story, the mystery behind and the adventure of discovering some of the world’s most famous myths and treasures. This time they’re hunting Napoleon’s famed ‘lost cellar’, which contains directions to an even greater treasure.

They’re not the only ones looking for it.

When the Fargos rescue a friend from a kidnapping and assault, they become the focus of Hadeon Bondaruk, the half-Russian, half-Persian millionaire who believes he is a descendent of Xerxes the Great. He has made it his life’s mission to recover the treasure Napoleon left directions to, Xerxes’ treasure. And he will stop at nothing to acquire it.

This book gives an interesting view on history, tying together the Persian king Xerxes the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, a WWII German U-boat, and the people of today who stumble across their tracks. 

Readers will enjoy the witty treasure-hunting Fargos and their counterpart, the dark and sadistic Bondaruk. Sam and Remi have an unstoppable sense for adventure, sustained by their resourcefulness and aptitude for overcoming the impossible. This is a couple well-attuned to each other and their limits. There’s never a point they’re not together through their struggles. Bondaruk plays a not-fully-sympathetic villain, and his menagerie of assassins and henchmen gives the Fargos a run for their money.

An adventure from start to finish, readers won’t be disappointed in joining the Fargos on their first adventure novel debut.

Adventure Annotation

Title: Spartan Gold

Author(s): Clive Cussler w/ Grant Blackwood

Publication Date: 2009

Genre: Adventure

Number of Pages: 375

Summary:

For Sam and Remi Fargo, treasure hunting is more than digging up riches; it's about the adventure. When this couple saves their friend from his interrogation and would-be murder, they set in motion an adventure that spans centuries. From Xerxes I and Napoleon Bonaparte to old WWII submarines and a current Russian/Persian millionaire, Sam and Remi set out on the biggest, and most dangerous, adventure of their lives.

Characteristics That Fit in Adventure:

• Action Packed: Every chapter has a mystery to solve and a danger to avoid

• Hero(es) on a mission: Sam and Remi seek to discover treasures thought either myth or long gone

• Set in foreign/exotic locales: From the U.S. to France to Russia, this book never sits in one place too long.

• Brisk pacing: There's no waiting time between location, no conversation that doesn't pertain to the current situation.

• Tone: dangerous situations are treated seriously and humorously at the same time, not letting the tone become too dreadful but not light-hearted in deference to the situation.

• Characterization: both characters are committed to their adventure, but take moments to question themselves and each other. Their motives are always clear.

Some Read-A-likes:

• Deep Fire Rising by Jack Du Brul

• The Cult of Osiris by Andy McDermott

• The Aztec Heresy by Paul Christopher

Secret Shopper Experience

I chose to get a recommendation for my adventure annotation. Since I've never asked anyone, much less a library professional, for reading recommendations, I was very nervous and a bit scatterbrained on how to go about doing it.

I went to my local library. When I was waiting for the head librarian to be finished with her current patron, another worker asked if I needed any help. I told her what I was looking for, the 'adult' specification, and she began to help me find something to read. When the head librarian finished, she started to help me too.

The first librarian went to her computer to start looking up authors while the other hit the racks. I stayed with the first, but was confused about whether or not I should follow the second. I gained a list of authors from the initial librarian, and the head librarian came back with a few books she thought might fit what I wanted. I ended up going with the first author on the list I was given, because the first librarian had mentioned him quite a few times during the process.

Both librarians were very kind and very professional. Despite how unhelpful I knew I had to have been, they never made me feel like I was annoying or difficult. I think they could have asked more questions to get a feel for who I am as a reader, but overall I was very pleased with the experience. Now that I know what it's like, I'd be more prepared and go back to them for more recommendations.