Week Seven: Not Just For Teens

Assignment 1

What to read next? Perhaps we should post this flowchart in the teen area?

Assignment 2

I read Not Just For Teens by Angelina Benedetti, in the Library Journal. I too enjoy YA fiction and will mention that to customers. Some of it is good stuff! This article outlined the why behind what motivates non-teens to read YA, and the reasons are varied. I like good YA because, A. I just love a good classic coming-of-age story. It never gets old! A good writer can bring you back and let you revisit and explore every angst-filled moment. And B. I enjoy the emotional connection you get in the characters.

Also read was New Adult: Needless-Marketing or Valued Subgenre? in Publishers Weekly. I'd say both, if they're asking.

During college, I remember being attracted to books of my age group, like Less Than Zero, so I don't think it is a new topic. It is defined by "voice, style, and theme" and I think edgy-style books centered on this age group will always be popular, but I'm not sure how helpful it is to separate and label them as a subgenre. I think people are wary of being obviously marketed to. While some will eat it up, others will just find it condescending.

I commented on Julie B. and Kathryn T.'s blog.

Assignment 3

I followed the Forever Young Adult blog. The site is nice looking and has a retro feel. From the "About" page: Forever Young Adult is a community for YA fans who are a little less "Y" and a bit more "A." It is also described as a site for Lady Nerds, but it is definitely not "girls only." The bloggers are writers and librarians.

The book reviews are very funny. And I like how they break them down with an outline, as in an old-school book report. Brian Katcher's review of Boy Nobody used the following:

• Cover Story
• Drinking Buddy
• Testosterone Level
• Talky Talk
• Bonus Factor
• Bromance Status

And these headings are used to classify the appeal factors of the books. It is neat and tidy system. The site looks to be geared to YA fans, but judging from the comments I think a lot of teachers and librarians read it.

There is also an advice page "Dr. FYA" that offers advice and readers advisory. Topics like: YA Advice for A's from Dr. FYA. In this post, a plea for books to reach a troubled teenage boy and Dr. FYA prescribes LGBTQ literature for a reader whose teenage brother had come out to their family. I've never seen anything like this; it's very amusing and informative.

One of the funniest blog posts from this week was Cover Story: 1984 where the blogger wrote a mock description of George Orwell's 1984 based only on the cover artwork. It leads with:

The year is 1984. As the world eagerly awaits both the inevitable presidency of Walter Mondale and the highly anticipated New Coke, a lone boy named Winston Smith languishes at Oceania High. Depressed at not being neckless enough to join the Gay Bondage Bricklayers' Club, Winston spends his afternoons jamming on his synthesizer and watching The A Team.

I may come back for it, just for the Dr. FYA section.


I also looked at John Green's Tumblr. This is an online diary/scrapbook profiling his personal interests and some book reviews or discussions here and there. It's fun to have a peek at his personality like this. He shares a post from Diversity in YA with a list of YA books with transgender characters, adding his own comments. He invites people to comment on his posts, which can create some interesting discussions.

Assignment 4

First I looked at Harlequin Teen. This is a popular site for teen romance readers. It has links to every subgenre imaginable, plus blogs, and bulletin boards for readers and authors. Romance readers can discuss books to their hearts' content! Right now, it looks like summer inspired books (vacation/beach) are popular.

I also looked at Teens- Penguin Young Readers. I really like the layout of this site. It's more information and less fluff and socializing (well that doesn't surprise me) and it also has a section for librarians and teachers that looks to be very useful. I like the "most clicked" feature, that changes frequently, but lets you know what is popular. Right now there is a nice summer read of realistic fiction, The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen, a crossover author from the adult shelves, Rick Yancey (The 5th Wave), an adventure/thriller a la Hunger Games,  Proxy, by Alex London, and a historical fiction book, Tarnish, by Katherine Longshore.

Week Six: Building Base Knowledge (Genres)

Assignment 1

The genre site I chose to follow is Stop, You're Killing Me. Like Early Word, they have managed to streamline an enormous amount of information (over 47,000 titles) into an easy-to-navigate, organized site. They must be librarians. :-)

What I like about this site is that I can look at the award lists for "best of" for sub-genres of my favorite style of mystery books. I lean toward the Edgar Awards types, but I also enjoy the old-fashioned Agatha style books. I can see this being helpful as a readers advisory tool. There are also a slew of indexes featured on the left. The Historical Index could be very useful in hunting down old volumes for customers. "Do you remember a mystery series from..." As it goes back to the Classical era, it is very extensive!

Assignment 2

This chart is fun to explore. I think it needs a few more branches, but then I'd need a much larger screen!

Assignment 3

With some Googling, I found ScienceThrillers.com, "where thriller fans put their Geek on," which is a Science Thriller fan site. Reading some of the comments and reviews, I can see that the fans enjoy nonfiction and the subject of science, but when you combine that with a complex plot and authentic details in a fiction book, they get pretty stoked. 

On the site, I also found a pretty good formal definition of Science Thrillers, not to be confused with Science Fiction. First of all Science Thrillers can be fiction or nonfiction, and Science Fiction, by default is fiction. But here is the site's more complete definition: 

Story must be plot-driven, page-turning, with some (or a lot of) action The science should be largely grounded in scientific reality. If a scientific plot element is technically impossible, it must be plausible to an average reader.

One very popular Science Thriller author is Michael Crichton. They have a listing of all the 5-star books from the site, and Jurassic Park is one of them, and actually a book I have read. I'm not even familiar with the genre, but way back when, I was on vacation, and picked it up in a used book store and read it while on my trip. I really liked it, so I agree with their rating. Extinction by Mark Alpert and The Hot Zone by Richard Preston are two other well received Science Thrillers.

For my second subgenre, I chose Horror Zombies. I found a fan site for books on Zombie Hub.com. They are pretty straightforward on this site. It is basically a listing of "every zombie book every written" catalogued alphabetically and divided by fiction and nonfiction, and people are free to post their reviews. What makes a Zombie Horror book good is, if it scares you. How that is accomplished is open. Joyce Carol Oates has a book called Zombie, and it is very effective in scaring the reader, as her character was

so convincingly written through the voice of a killer, you will feel nervous while reading at how familiar, how human, he is. Part of how she achieves the effect is through sparing use of bizarre capitalization (e.g., "MOON" and "FRAGMENT") and crude drawings done with a felt-tip pen.

Sounds chilling, and they liked it! Popular Horror Zombie writers are Robert Kirkman and Brian Keene. 

And my third subgenre is Urban Fantasy. I found a fan site called Urban Fantasy Fans. It is displayed in my least favorite website graphics combo: dark background with light text. Hey, I guess they want to be dramatic! Skimming over this site, I am getting the impression these fans are voracious readers. These stories encompass much: exciting supernatural circumstances, complex plots, well-developed characters, and then some humor and romance for good measure. Kim Harrison, Linda Grimes, and Sherrilyn Kenyon are popular Urban Fantasy writers.

One mash-up of Historical Fiction and Horror Vampires is Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, a humorous account of Lincoln, a secret vampire hunter, who figured out that in order to eradicate slavery he had to kill every vampire in the country. Another is Deck Z: The Titanic, a story collaborating historical fiction, the fateful sinking of the Titanic, with a tale of horrific zombie anarchy.

Week Five: Building Base Knowledge (Part II)

Assignment 1

Visiting The Book Beast, it's very easy to get a wee bit distracted. Who doesn't want to look at the weirdest chickens ever?

The Fancy

But I digress. One fun article I stumbled upon was, Jane Austen Coined Modern Slang from the Women in the World pages. Yes, did you know "dinner-party" and "brace yourself" and 1,640 other fabulous phrases in the Modern Oxford English Dictionary come from none other than Jane Austen?

On another visit I became overcome with laughter when I spied the The Oatmeal: the stories behind the funniest comics (photos)

But, I digress. Again. I caught an article on the new biography by Jimmy Connors, The Outsider. And with a heading of "Jimmy Connors, Still a Jerk" who can pass that one up? And I'm glad I didn't because less than one week later a customer came in to request that book and I already knew about it and we were able to chat about the book. Awesome!

I'm really enjoying this site. I have set up my Google Calendar with a reminder so I can read the articles on a regular basis. I cannot read ALL of them, but I can look at a few. Thankfully, they are short and sweet. 

Assignment 2

Popular fiction, and whatever just came out and "I heard this on the Today Show this morning" are pretty popular at Perry Hall. We have our regular "Hot Titles" readers for sure. I have always scanned the People Magazine book pages and NPR Books, but I am finding Early Word extremely useful and nice to look at. How they managed to streamline that much information is beyond me, but color me impressed.

As a bit of a grammar nerd, the first thing I noticed is that they use "readers" as an adjective instead of a possessive noun when writing "readers advisory." I can't be the only person who wonders about style choices like that! I believe I may be rambling now, but I think that is what blogs are for.

I then immediately saw an article on Fairyland, Alysia Abbott's memoir. Since I had JUST heard that interview on Fresh Air, it is all coming together.

There are so many links, but I like the readers advisory page the most and am putting that on my "to read" schedule. I obviously do not read fast enough; you know what they say: so many books, so little time, but being able to read small blurbs on what is up and coming helps immensely.

Assignment 3

Last week I perused the up-and-coming titles and chose The Yonahlossee Riding Camp For Girls. It is a coming-of-age story for young adults, but I think it is one that will appeal to adults as well. It is described as having a lush writing style with a strong sense of place with steamy and disturbing appeal factors. It delves into class issues and takes place during the Great Depression, which is an interesting backdrop as well. People who enjoy a dramatic story with heartbreak and family mystery should enjoy this book. I think a good read-alike would be The Girl With a Pearl Earring. I put it on my "to read" list myself; it looks intriguing.