Books with Kamara

Butler, R., Cowan, B., & Nilsson, S. (2005) discuss the effect of Oprah's book club on selected books' performance on the best seller list after being selected. The study took at look at how well books did after Oprah selected books for her book club in the three months following her selection. Butler et al. discovered that all books ended up on the top 150 best seller list for several week after selection. How do these celebrity book clubs influence readers' advisory? I remember working in the library when Oprah would select a book. Several people would call the same day wanting to find that particular book. Unfortunately the library's supply was always much lower than the demand. This left readers wanting something that they could not get. Back then I had no idea about readers' advisory. I just shelved books and occasionally pointed out the non-fiction area or the children's books. Today I know that celebrity book clubs have boosted the need readers...

Christmas Caramel Murder By: Joanne Fluke Kensington Books 210 pages ISBN 9781617732287 Synopsis:  Hannah Swensen is baker with a "slaydar" or a knack for finding bodies. More specifically, Hannah Swensen has a knack for finding bodies of those who have been murdered. Christmas Caramel Murder is the latest story in the Hannah Swensen Mysteries. This mystery finds Hannah and her friend Lisa in quiet the conundrum when Lisa ends up on the suspect list for the latest murder. Phyllis Boyd, set to play Mrs. Claus to Lisa's husband Herb who is playing Mr. Claus, winds up dead in a snow bank just days before the town's Christmas play. The story unfolds with a bit of humor and a few seemingly tasty recipes. Hannah's efforts to find the killer and clear her friend make the story move along quickly. Mystery Appeals:  Crime, usually murder: Hannah investigates a murder. Characters followed through long series: Over 20 Hannah Swensen mysteries. Amateur Investigators...

I personally like the idea of the blind date with a romance novel for marketing romance. However, I think a more interactive display would be a Dating Game display. Books for a Dating Game display would be covered up like blind date books. In the Dating Game Display books would be covered up with different wrapping paper or be numbered. A Dating Game quiz would lead patrons to "The One" book that they want to read. An alternative Dating Game display can be found here:  https://hafuboti.com/2014/02/03/the-genre-dating-game/

Sandy Toes By: Robin Jones Gunn Robin's Nest Production, Inc. 273 pages ISBN 9781942704072 Synopsis:  Christy and Todd are Southern California residents who happen to believers in Christ. This first installment in Christy & Todd: The Baby Years visits Christy and Todd during Christy's first pregnancy. Christy thoroughly enjoys the gift that she is about to receive in having a child. However, during the course of her pregnancy and through changes with Todd's career path Christy finds that having a baby can be taxing on relationships. Gentle Reads Appeals:  Emphasis on relationships: Christy's relationships with God, her husband Todd, and her mother are focal points of the story line. Story line offers few surprises or shocks: While Gunn does not let readers know the sex of the baby until Christy has the baby there are no other real surprises in the story. Gentle or unhurried pace: The pace for Sandy Toes  is leisurely, but readers are enticed to keep ...

"Different publications review different types of books and they allow different types of conversations. For example, Booklist will not publish negative reviews, while, as you have all seen, Kirkus has no problems with it. Ebook only books, which are increasingly popular (especially in the romance genre) see little to no reviews in professional publications unless they have a big name author, and then still it's usually only RT Reviews (formally Romantic Times) or other genre heavy publications." ~ Erin Cataldi How does this affect collection development? I believe that this heavily affects collection development. I know that selectors in the system I work for look to many of the top publications to help in building the collection. I am responsible for the purchasing of juvenile paperbacks at my location, but I also tend to use reviews from top sources to pick out new paperbacks. E-Book Only Romantic Suspense Review Look over the reviews - do you feel they ar...

Nichols, Nikita Lynette. The Ugly Side of Me .  Paperback 335 pages. Urban Books, LLC. 2015.  ISBN 9781622868216.  $14.95 .  Rhapsody Blue knows she has a problem with falling for the wrong guys, but The Ugly Side of Me heroine does not let that stop her from falling for the much younger Malcolm Washington, making this the not-so-typical Urban Christian tale. Nichols' tale starts with a warning from Rhapsody to the reader not to be like her. As with any "Don't go there" warning, the reader is intrigued and pulled into the story if for nothing else, but to find out how Rhapsody ends up in her predicament. Honestly, that is about as good as this twisted tales gets. After the warning the reader is forced to watch Rhapsody go down in flames as her counterpart Malcolm carelessly handles the bad romance with Rhapsody. It is hard to read and to believe that a 34 year-old woman would behave so irresponsibly over a more that 10 years her junior. The breakneck paci...

As I walked into the library I felt like a bit of a spy on a secret mission. Sounds like the start of a good book. Maybe even a good mystery. However, it is just my account of what happened when seeking readers' advisory at a public library. I went a few minutes out of my city of Indianapolis to an affluent library to get some help finding a good mystery. False Assumptions I Had: Readers' Advisory would look different in a bigger library. I would not receive great service because I was not the "regular" patron. I would do something to give away that I was a future librarian and not an innocent patron. 1) Reader's Advisory should be basically the same at any library you go to. Patrons should be seeking books and the librarian should be ready and willing to help said patrons find books. 2) I am not sure what a regular patron is, but somehow I had the idea that I was not that patron. I worried that being of color and having outrageous hair would somehow ca...