BMB Week 6

Assignment 1

The thing I like most about Tor - Fiction Affliction, as I mentioned in my previous post, is that they highlight the quirky releases in the sci-fi/fantasy genre in their "genre-benders" lists. These books open up whole new avenues or reading for our customers. Suzanne also does a great job of compiling all the new releases and arranging them by date, just in case our readers are eager to get the first copy. I do wish there was a little more review and less preview (i.e. marketing blurbs) on the site.

Assignment 2

This Prezi is really well done. I've seen a lot of Prezi presentations (Prezi-tations?), since it was just becoming popular when I was in graduate school. Most of those made me feel motion sick, while this one did not. I especially like how the nodes and links are written up in concise and informative paragraphs. I could almost hear a customer saying something similar.

Assignment 3

Let's choose Christian Urban Fiction, Superhuman Sci-fi, and Military Romance, since I am not familiar with those subgenres.

Christian Urban Fiction

Fan Website: The Gospel Writer is dying to be updated, but has some good review, previews, and interviews that tell a lot about the genre. According to the site, urban christian fiction focuses on the protagonist's relationship with God in their everyday lives, showing deeply personal spiritual awakenings and journeys.
Three authors/titles: Rhonda McKnight writes a blog about the books in the subgenre, including her own. Some authors in this subgenre are also clergy or theologians, like Karia Bunting. Vanessa Miller is a motivational speaker and author of at least 30 urban christian books.

Superhuman Sci-fi

Fan Website: I found a couple of good websites via Google. Miami-Dade College actually has a libguide for the sungenre, which is really cool. An article from Examiner.com talks about a few titles and authors, and touches upon the "con" scene, which I think is a very important to understanding the subgenre. Conventions are growing exponentially in popularity, and they are places where fans interact, share, and find new and interesting things to read.
Three authors/titles: Some of Stephen King's novels involve superhuman components, such as Carrie and The Dead Zone. Dune by Frank Herbert and Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (now a major motion picture!) are also classic novels that fit into this subgenre.

Military Romance - "Passion and Patriotism"

Fan Website: I did a Google search and found a fan site that hasn't been updated since 2005 here. It is totally awesome in a retro way--the whole page is centered, with lots of graphic banners and gifs--and it talks briefly about a new (at the time) author Catherine Mann's "Wingman Warriors" series. Incidentally, the whole series has just been released as ebooks. Will we see an update of this site?? I'm waiting breathlessly.
Three Authors/Titles: It looks like Suzanne Brockmann is the matriarch of this genre. Catherine Mann has become quite popular as well. Maya Banks's KGI series ranks high on the Goodreads list for military romance.

Assignment 4

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a classic/horror mashup. To my chagrin, a few of Austen's books have been "mashed" since they're out of copyright. It's not at the top of my to-read list, but I am aware of it, and it seems to be (or has been) popular with teens. Kirkus has some more to say on this topic.

The Destroyermen series, starting with Into the Storm, is a techno-thriller/fantasy mashup. Half Tom Clancy, half George R. R. Martin. At the cusp of WWII, a WWI-era destroyer sets sail for Japan but is caught in a storm that transports it to an alternate world inhabited by two species of creatures who are at war. The premise was almost certainly inspired by the awesome 1980 film The Final Countdown.

Cinder is a fairy-tale/sci-fi mashup about a cyborg in "New Beijing" who meets a prince and saves Earth from aggressive lunar people. I've heard really good things about this one, and have had requests for it. The thing I like most about it is that you can tell that it's a genre mashup just from the cover and title.

A couple new tools I discovered, and one I want to make

I was looking for some new resources for reader's advisory, because I'm trying to become better at it, and ran across two online tools that look interesting, and could potentially be useful in an RA conversation.

WhichBook

WhichBook is a recommender website where you can get suggestions based on mood. So, if your customer is in the mood for a certain kind of book, you can use sliders to select  up to four characteristics on a gradient, like the generic "Happy > Sad" or "Beautiful > Disgusting" or "Gentle > Violent". However, it looks like the recommended books are primarily UK-focused, so I hope that their library of suggestions will grow.

YourNextRead

This is a pretty interesting site for recommendations. You choose a book, and the site generates a spiderweb of eight similar titles. Their transparency is lacking though,because there are no appeal factors listed, so you can't tell how exactly the titles were matched or where the recommendations come from (I'm guessing they scrape Amazon for titles and reviews, since there is some prominent advertising for Amazon).

• There is also a really great feature called MyMap, where you can create a "map" of your reading, linking books so they are laid out graphically.

And one that I would enjoy using (and may have to create myself)

I would love to see a website or tool that would compare two books based on their appeal factors, and then make recommendations based on the similarities as well as the differences between the two. For example, if someone had read Fifty Shades of Grey and Twilight and wanted readalikes, I could tell them a couple for 50 Shades and a couple for Twilight, but is there Paranormal BDSM Romance out there that I don't know about? (edit: Goodreads says there are...yikes! )I think this kind of comparison tool or website would be quite popular.

BMB Week 5

Assignment 1

I really enjoy following NPR Books because of the multi-media nature of it. All in one place, read a news story about a book, see relevant photos, and listen to the book review. It aggregates content from all of the syndicated NPR shows, so it's easy to see a list of all books review on, say, Morning Edition.

Tor.com's Fiction Afflictionis great because it's very easy to digest. They have four categories that talk about every month: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, and "Genre-Benders." I love the last category because the books within it are so creative. It's nice to see that there's still a whole lot of innovation in these genres, so that readers can constantly expand their reading.

Assignment 2

Popular fiction is definitely the genre for which I get the most requests. Often, customers will come in with a list of books they read about in the newspaper or saw on Anderson Cooper or Dr. Phil.

The questions I really like to get are from customers who saw a book on TV or in the newspaper, and can't remember the title or the author. This is a pretty straightforward search, if they can remember around when they saw the book. We just look at the website for the TV show or newpaper, and there is usually a rundown of guests or topics that is easy to scroll through. It's a pretty easy search that most of our customers find really helpful, and they are impressed and appreciative when we find the title their looking for.

Earlyword is going to be really useful for these kinds of questions, because it has, for example, an index to People magazine book reviews. That will definitely come in handy. Also, Earlyword is also very meticulous about tagging its content, so I will be happily perusing the multitude of categories.

Assigment 3

One of USA Today's anticipated books is Tenth of December by George Saunders. It is a book of short stories that take place in a variety of settings, but mostly in the near-future world, with a focus on the intersection of science and technology and humanity. The stories have strong moral themes and are written in with a quirky wit that would appeal to fans of David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell. Readers looking for similar short stories about science and technology would enjoy Kurt Vonnegut's Welcome to the Monkey House. Readers who prefer a more traditional short story language and format would like John Cheever's collected short stories, as well.