Goodreads: Review as advisory site

            I decided to use Goodreads to try something a little different.

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 Lunatic Cafe is the fourth book in this series. I searched on Goodreads by the author Laurell K. Hamilton

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.
--Since they mention how they like how the author writes I’d suggest they keep with the same author unless they specifically say they want to try another author. Searching under the author in Goodreads Flight Behavior seems to be one of the authors more faster paced books.

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!
--This may be too easy of an answer, but I know there was high praise for Memoirs of a Geisha. It’s historical fiction that is based in Japan and since it did receive such high praise I’d think it would be a good read. I searched the list option on Goodreads mostly to make sure this book was based in 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’d make sure that the patron knew this book was part of a series and see if they wanted to know the other titles. If they already knew I’d suggest the Whidbey Island Saga, as it’s by the same author but I would point out that while it is a mystery it does have a paranormal aspect. There are also authors such as Martha Grimes, Minette Walters, or Peter Robinson. They came up in a similar author search on Goodreads and their writings don’t seem to be scary.  

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?
--If he’s looking for more graphic novels I found the Revival series that deals with a little bit of mystery. If it’s okay for it not to be graphic novel the series Newsflesh has a very similar feel of how World War Z is set up. These came for looking at similar reads of the previously mentioned titles.

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.
--Some recent books that have been turned into movies would be The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Gone Girl, Twelve Years a Slave, The Perks of Being a Wallflower (this one I highly recommend), and Life of Pi. I searched by Listopia on Goodreads and searched “books turned into moves” and looked through some list but really I could pull some of these from my head.

7. I love thrillers but I hate foul language and sex scenes. I want something clean and fast paced.
--This one was a little harder with Goodreads. I ended up look through a discussion on clean reads where someone had asked this question. Some of the suggestions were authors Marry Higgins Clark, Victoria Holt, and Dan Brown.

I often go through Goodreads myself and look at lists and what’s recommended by the site based on my own profile. I wanted to use this site for the prompt because I’ve never used it to recommend books to another person and wanted to find out how well it worked. I will admit it was rather hard, especially the last question. The site is defiantly more for the individual to go through on their own and doesn’t have much in the way of advanced search. The last question in particular was hard to answer with this site as I couldn’t really weed out non-clean thrillers without just going through the recommendations.

I do like this site in some areas however; I like making my own lists and going through the ones others have made in particular. I also like that you can mark books “read”, “want to read”, or “reading”. When recommending books I often go through what I’ve read and try to think of something they might enjoy. I’m defiantly going through these tools and Novelist next time as they seem to make the process much more efficient.

Reader Profile

My reading schedule can range from finishing a 500+ page book in three days to not reading for a few months. Just depends on what else is going on. When I am reading it's usually fantasy with some mix of adventure and different types of fiction. I'm not much of a romance fan but I do sometimes read poorly written ones for a good laugh. I haven't read much non-fiction but that may be because what I have read wasn't too interesting so maybe I need to look for better recommendations. I think I'm more prone to fantasy because that's the genre that started off my love of reading so it's a little bit more special to me.

I also have a strange draw to anthologies, I own several although some are older. They were probably the best part of my undergrad in English Literature as we had to have a new one for just about every class. I honestly don’t know why I like them so much, I just know I can flip through one for a few hours and have the time of my life.

Some of my favorite books would be the Harry Potter series, Persuasion, the Harry Dresden series, and the Song of Ice and Fire series. I suppose I am more prone to series reading then stand alone novels, didn’t realize that till I wrote the last sentence! I don’t necessarily have a favorite author, but I do enjoy J.K. Rowling and Jane Austen probably the most out of anyone else. I could reread their books till the end of time. I like helping people find books that they would enjoy as well and hope that this class can teach me the skills to do this better in the future.