Prompt #1

1. I am looking for a book by Laurell K. Hamilton. I just read the third book in the Anita Blake series and I can’t figure out which one comes next!

The next book in the series is The Lunatic Café. I found this by searching Anita Blake on Goodreads and looking at the series listing.

 

2. What have I read recently? Well, I just finished this great book by Barbara Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer. I really liked the way it was written, you know, the way she used language. I wouldn't mind something a bit faster paced though.

I came up with a few suggestions using NoveList and searching by appeal terms, specifically a descriptive or lyrical writing style and fast-paced. Additionally, I looked at other books written by Barbara Kingsolver. As far as fast-paced novels with descriptive writing I found Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. It is a speculative fiction book with a darker tone than Prodigal Summer but it has similar writing style and a focus on ecology, albeit a more grim one. Kingsolver’s other novel, Flight Behavior, would also be a good recommendation because it shares the same descriptive and lyrical writing. Not necessarily fast-paced, but with more suspense than Prodigal Summer.

(As a random side note - I literally always thought her last name was Kingfisher.)

 

3. I like reading books set in different countries. I just read one set in China, could you help me find one set in Japan? No, not modern – historical. I like it when the author describes it so much it feels like I was there!

I used NoveList and searched using Japan as the keyword, then filtered to historical fiction. This led me to two good recommendations: Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden and The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama. Both have a lyrical writing style and a slowly, more leisurely pace while Memoirs of a Geisha has an atmospheric tone and The Samurai’s Garden has a moving tone. Both are sweeping stories set in historical Japan.

 

4. I read this great mystery by Elizabeth George called Well-Schooled in Murder and I loved it. Then my dentist said that if I liked mysteries I would probably like John Sandford, but boy was he creepy I couldn't finish it! Do you have any suggestions?

First, I looked up John Sandford’s books on NoveList to see what factors likely made his books “creepy” and determined it was probably the combination of a violent tone, flawed characters, and a gritty writing style. Then I looked up Well-Schooled in Murder to find that it is a more leisurely paced mystery with complex, likeable characters and a lyrical writing style, though it also has a violent tone. This gave me some insight into the types of mysteries to look for. I searched using a couple different combinations of appeal terms including mysteries, complex or likeable characters, and lyrical writing style. I recommend two different authors with large mysteries series: Louise Penny with the Inspector Armand Gamache Series and Laurie King with the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes Series. Both of these authors write mysteries very similarly to Elizabeth George. The first books in each series are: Still Life and The Beekeeper’s Apprentice.

 

5. My husband has really gotten into zombies lately. He’s already read The Walking Dead and World War Z, is there anything else you can recommend?

Since this one is pretty open, I just searched with the keyword zombies on NoveList and sorted by popularity to see what other popular zombie books there might be. I came up with Day by Day Armageddon by JL Bourne which starts a series of zombie horror novels.

 

6. I love books that get turned into movies, especially literary ones. Can you recommend some? Nothing too old, maybe just those from the last 5 years or so.

For this one, I honestly found it easiest to Google search “recent books made into films.” This got me quite a few results including Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens as well as two books made into mini-series, Normal People by Sally Rooney and Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty.

 

7. I love thrillers but I hate foul language and sex scenes. I want something clean and fast paced.

I used NoveList to search for fast-paced thrillers then used NOT sex NOT swearing Boolean operators to hopefully remove those from the results. I found What Happened to the Bennetts by Lisa Scottoline as a recommendation.

 

As far as how I find books to read for myself, I usually use Goodreads. It’s so easy to fall down a rabbit hole of just continually clicking on recommended or similar books and piling even more on my to-read shelf! I enjoy their curated lists as well. Otherwise, I spend a decent bit of time looking through the on-order books at my library and putting holds on the ones that sound interesting.