Readers Advisory Class

I've finished all the core courses for library science school and now I'm into eclectic electives. The one I'm in now is awesome: The course title is Adult Services in Libraries, but it might be more accurately described as Reader Advisory. Whatever you call it, it teaches all the ins and outs of recommending books for adult leisure reading. One of the primary assignments is book talks, where the librarian gives a 10-minute talk recommending a particular title. We have to give four book talks in four different categories this semester. We get to pick the books.

Here's are the categories and the books I've selected:

• Notable fiction, i.e. a recent work of fiction that has won a major award. I selected "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," by Jonathan Safran Foer.
• Notable nonfiction, same deal but for nonfiction. I chose "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals," by Jane Mayer.
• A work of genre fiction from a genre with which we are personally not familiar. I chose "The Tin Roof Blowdown," a Dave Robichaux detective novel, by James Lee Burke.
• A work of notable fiction in translation. I chose "The Book of Chameleons," translated from the Portuguese, by José Eduardo Agualusa.

So far the class is excellent, excellent, excellent. Really interesting. In fact, I should be blogging more stuff from it like theories of reading and my new favorite reading theorist, Louise Rosenblatt. As usual, apologies for my very sporadic posting and I will try to do better soon. Sometimes life feels just too busy.