Week 3 Assignment 2  DONE

Interview on NPR with Nancy Pearl giving a book talk on three books.

These are some of Nancy's favorite books so she describes them with such enthusiasm that you can't wait to read them!   Nancy emphasizes how much she loves well styled writing the books she noted, especially in Billy Lynn's Long Half-Time Walk. 

Lost: A Novel  by Michael Robotham

This has an appealing but flawed hero, who is solving a crime in the past (her preferred type of mystery).  The writing is nice with a complex plot.

Billy Lynn's Long Half-Time Walk by Benjamin Fountain\

In her description she referred to the following appeal factors:  irony, sorrow and anger.   Cognitive dissonance is the theme in this story that unfolds in one day. 

Treasure Island  by Sara Levine

She loved this book!  This was outrageous and delightful.  The appealing factor for Nancy was the complexity of the characters.  She was drawn into the story and into the characters such that she wanted to be able to provide her own advice to the characters. 

Week 3 Assignment 1 DONE

OK, I am rewriting this.  I already did this but I can't seem to find it in my posts. 

Neal Wyatt has very nicely presented everything one needs to know about how to provide excellent Readers Advisory.  Just a thought, maybe BCPL could use his article and suggestions for exercises for another RA training sometime in the future.

I especially enjoyed his idea of applying the following to a group of genres: Adrenaline, Intellect, Emotion, and Landscape.  I think we already do this, but putting words to it makes it more sensible. Wyatt also nicely reminds us that RA is a matter of engaging in a conversation with the customer, we must put aside our fears and feelings of being tested.  I have printed his article to give to my part-time librarians and also to use for training purposes. 

It may be a good idea that the librarian's checklist include Wyatt's article as mandatory reading, including doing the exercises.