Book Recommendations

A friend of mine has just started reading, after years of deeming it too boring. Turns out she just needed some good recommendations. I was on IM to the most uber librarian I know, and said "guess what book got her started?" She knew straight away of course - it was The Time Traveler's Wife, possibly the saddest and most beautiful book ever written, which Uber Librarian actually introduced me to. I also recommended My Sister's Keeper to my newly bibliophilic friend, and she keeps asking for more recommendations.

Seeing as I read quite widely, but am not Nancy Pearl, I was a bit afraid of recommending stuff that may then turn her off reading - not my responsibility I know, but as book lover I feel a certain responsibility to not let anyone (especially the newbies) drop out of the fold. So imagine my delight when I got an email (from Library Link of the Day, which I'm really enjoying receiving, as a certifed Library Nerd) that linked to an article about LibraryThing.

Now I'm not likely to catalogue my books anytime soon - I am so not enough of a nerd for that right now (not to mention I don't have that many books here: I actually am having to recycle them due to the fact it's ridiculous to send books back to Australia - I'll keep the ones I really love of course, as I like to lend them out and one day want an entire room with bookshelves on all the walls, with big comfy couches in the middle and a really cute little puppy dog to accessorise it. Okay, fantasy over. And point taken, I am enough of a nerd.), but the suggestion search is awesome - well from my limited testing I thought it was really good, and I passed on the recommendations to my friend. Some of them were books I'd read but hadn't though to mention to her, so as well as suggesting new ones for her to try (and me!) it reminded me of others I'd loved.

As librarians can't know (or at least remember) everything - even though some people expect us to - it's really good to know about websites that can help give us the illusion of knowing more than we do. You're a fan of Zadie Smith? You'd probably like Monica Ali. But I'd stay away from books on Christian theology. (Okay so the unsuggester is a little weird. It seems like the database includes books from people who read fiction and those who read biblical and scientific texts, and the algorithm states that ne'er the twain shall meet. Which is probably completely true - I love fiction and am extremely unlikely to pick up either What Jesus Demands of the World or Against Method for a lazy Sunday afternoon, or in fact any time of the day read, and I'd be surprised if the owner of What Jesus Demands also owned The Red Tent. But if you need it suggested to you that you probably wouldn't like a book on programming in C, you may just need to go browse in a library or bookstore. Or try reading the introduction of that programming book and staying awake. I'm just saying.)

I think it would be a great idea for libraries to use a similar technology - having users of the local library share their book choices. After all, it's not just the books we buy but the books we read that are important. For example, I love Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, but I don't buy them because I know I won't reread them and I'm unlikely to lend them to someone. I think they're perfect for libraries, however, because they're light and fun and quick to read, and as a public librarian I'd make sure I had the whole series in my library. I'd still suggest them to someone, but probably only if they were asking for something light to read on holiday, which is how they were recommended to me. Of course a search that recommends books based on the type of reading you wanted to do is just making the whole thing more complicated... not to mention boring to read about on my supposedly new, improved and no longer verbose blog, so...

Librarian Out.