Books, Readers and Beyond: #52 What to Read

1. Finding a read-a-like. This lesson was all about finding a read-alike. I chose David Sedaris' non-fiction works as one of my favorites to search.

First, I searched Novelist Plus. Novelist was easy for me to navigate because it is familiar to me. An expert in reader's advisory wrote a helpful selection of similar writers. She interested me in exploring the works of James Thurber.

Next, I tried searching for read-alikes in Fiction_L Booklists. I found this site to be not as attractive to me personally since I prefer to read nonfiction. However, it has much of the same types of searches Novelist offers. I do find the site not as user-friendly as Novelist and you have to do a little digging to get information you want. I do think if you take the time you will get valuable leads to further reading.

When I tried Library Booklists and Bibliographies, there were more links to lead me to the information. Once I got there, I had the choice of fiction or nonfiction and the site offered many authors and specific titles to explore. I would like to use it again because its information was supplemental to Novelist's.
2. Find two books suitable for two children who have specific interests. I used NoveList to locate the following titles: For the girl interested in animals, I found Crinkleroot's 25 more animals every child should know and Farm animals. For the boy, I found Vintage: a ghost story and All the lovely bad ones: a ghost story. I was able to specify age group and subject to find the titles.
3. Author read-a-like: Dean Koontz. Find three new authors to recommend. I searched three lists with no luck: Fiction_L Booklists; Librarian in Black; and Overbooked. I googled "author read-a-likes" and found the Hennepin County Library author read-a-like list. Their approach was to break up the authors' styles into categories, i.e. horror, contemporary. Authors Sarah Langan and Brian Keene had books with horror elements similar to Koontz. Then, I looked at NoveList. I found it to be the easiest to navigate. One of the authors listed was Dan Simmons.
4. Series search. The series title is "Song of the Lioness." The books in the series, in order, are: Alanna: The First Adventure; In the Hand of the Goddess;
Woman Who Rides Like a Man, The; and Lioness Rampant. The resource I used was Mid-Continent Public Library.