Week 7: Teens

YA readers are clearly not ready to put down their apocalyptic novels anytime soon even if the editors are ready for a small ray of sunshine. It is understandable that younger readers relate to an oppressive environment, i.e. zero tolerance school policies.  In conjunction, Who’s Buying Teen Books and YA Comes of Age point to a depressing trend reflective of a country involved in long war and recovering from a recession. I tend to hesitate that YA has truly become exponentially more popular as I imagine the aforementioned factors make the waste world and boppressive environments more relatable to a wider audience.


Shannon Hall’s blog is clearly intended for the school administrations, teachers, librarians (when school’s employ one) and PTA members. Between encouraging schools to employ a fully qualified librarian/school media specialist and promoting her school assembly credentials she takes aim at school administers evoking the belief that boys cannot enjoy a story written with a female protagonist by a female. I hope more principals check out her blog before booking YA authors to speak at their schools and take note of the little boy that was too embarrassed to admit to reading about a ninja princess in front of his peers. Gender bias is not limited to YA books, it is embedded in our society, i.e. Ronald Moore defending his love of the Outlander series as a male. I imagine these posts have increased her page views but not necessarily her popularity.  John Green Books blog reminds the page viewer immediately that he is a New York Times Best Selling author.  He site targets his audience with book scroll on the left and by vlogging not blogging. Which also happens to be a great way to share the trailer to his cinematized book with his audience.


 The teen harlequin page appears to be an entire publishing company dedicated to finding the next Twilight mega success, while using the same plot devices and language found in the company’s books written for adults. A brilliant marketing strategy to bring lifetime readers to the brand. The Harper Collins teen website seems to be more focused on the suspense teen thriller, obviously brought on by the success of the Pretty Little Lairs series. Harper still have a few fantasy novels sprinkled into the mix owning to their success as well. The obvious trend in teen publishing, milk it for all it’s worth.

Week Six

Sword & Sorcery Fantasy: Most readers enjoy this genre for the complex word building while enjoying the occasional battle of steal or spell.
1.      Tigana by Guy Gabriel Kay
2.      The Sword of Rhiannon by Leigh Brackett
3.      The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
   
Paranormal Romance: This genre is known for taking the standard romance plot and shaking things up with magic and sorcery.
1.      A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
2.      Gabriel’s Ghost by Linnea Sinclair
3.      Grave Witch by Kalayana Price

Medical Thriller: Readers of this genre have a natural immunity to fear of global plagues. Often times it feels as if the author takes a CDC guide book and adds some back story.
1.      The Fifth Vial by Michael Palmer
2.      Outbreak by Robin Cook
3.      Harvest by Tess Gerritsen

Cross Overs:

Lilith's Brood by Octavia Butler (Paranormal Romance & Dystopia Science Fiction)
             The reader follows, Lilith and her offspring after she is rescued by a species interested in trade with the survivors of a nuclear holocaust. Genetic trade. Humans are genetically altered to be bread in bonded groups to give their offspring a chance of overcoming the basic flaw out hierarchal nature, which destroyed the species once. Butler forces the reader to not only reflect on humanities’ flaws but challenges the reader to reassess the foundations of family, love and loyalty.

Hello to the Cannibals by Richard Bausch (Realist Literary & Anthropology Mysteries)
             This novel follows two women over 100 years apart. As Lily researchs the historical figure Mary Kingsley she must deal with her own fears and gradual realization about the man she has married and her aspirations. Bausch weaves the two stories together allowing the reader to discovery Kingsley’s travels along with Lilly. Each women is restricted and belittled by their own families either by birth or choice. A lesser author would not have been able to strike a balance weaving together time and theme.

Week 5: Building Base Knowledge Continued

Assignment 1: Follow Up

                I despise the USA Todays’ Happily Ever After blog. Specifically, I find the layout with one third of the page devoted to Twitter to be poorly contrived. I find everything about this format distracting. It would probably function better on a smart phone. Perhaps if the Twitter was on a sidebar scroll it would not be so brightly distracting.  The actual content is useful in term of reader’s advisory; however, when I went to recommend a few books that looked good BCPL did not have a copy.  

NPR’s top seller lists are wicked useful especially if they link to an interview for reader’s advisory.  I find myself more comfortable recommending books on the list if I have heard an author interview or a review. The other day a patron was looking for a good spy novel and I was able to recommend an author he had not tried and the wait list for The Billion Dollar Spy. Which he said I had him at the "true story of a CIA source in soviet Russia".

 Assignment 2: Early Word

             One of the in demand authors at Randallstown is James Patterson while the in demand genre is Urban Fiction. Many of the summer readers tend to lean towards How to Train Your Dragon or other stories with a fantastical elements.  After pursuing Early Word I think I will use the downloadable Best Seller list from the past two years to make recommendations for books on the shelf in Randallstown as we tend to not have many of the new in demand items on shelf. This way I can recommend a similar title the patron might have overlooked while the book is shipped from another branch. I spot checked ten random books from the 2014 list and six were on the self in branch.  I like that you can download an excel table to sort by author, title or genre. This is by far the most usefully feature I have found.

 Assignment 3: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

            Toni Morrison called this book “required reading.” Coates will appeal to many readers not just as a local, but as a local that has written a series of timely letters to his son explaining his own history dealing with racism in America and systemic racism built into many facets of society. His work is insightful yet blunt. A style that should appeal to many readers. The author was recently interview by John Stewart on The Daily Show.