Read, Remember, Recommend!

In my humble opinion, the best bookstores and libraries have posters, newsletters, and displays to give browsers suggestions on new books to read. For years, the independent booksellers’ association has published regular “Book Sense” (now known as “IndieBound”) newsletters with recommendations on recent releases, children’s book lists, book club suggestions, and more. The Green Free Library always has wonderful displays, enticing patrons with books on a monthly theme, such as National Poetry Month in April or Banned Book Week in September. I’ll never forget my favorite used bookstore from the time I lived in Denver, CO: their lists of award-winning books informed me of categories like the Hugo Award, the Agatha Award, and the PEN/Faulkner Award, leading me into excellent writing in various genres.

In addition to flyers and displays at book places, now more than ever, there are thousands of resources online to discover book recommendations. All the “major” awards, such as the Pulitzer Prize or the National Book Award, have their own, detailed websites, as well as not a few of the smaller awards. Moreover, bibliophiles by the score have taken to their computers to tell the world about the books they love. If you are at all tech-savvy, there is a world of book blogs out there now, where you can read literally millions of suggestions and critiques of books. My only advice is this: use these sites as tools, and don’t get so lost on your computer, reading about others’ experiences with books, that you lose the time to go read for yourself.

Thus we come to my recommendation(s) for this week: Read, Remember, Recommend and Read, Remember, Recommend for Teens, by Rachelle Rogers Knight. Always a voracious reader, as well as an active book blogger herself, (www.bibliobabe.com), Knight found that after having her second child, her reading notes become completely disorganized. On her website, she shares how she had little clippings from magazines, half-finished reviews scrawled in various notebooks, and award websites bookmarked on her computer. Knight wanted a place where she could keep her own lists of books she wanted to read, books she’d lent out to friends, notes she’d taken while reading a new favorite, while still having handy access to many lists of award winners and book association recommendations.

Certainly, there are plenty of “reading journals” on the market – mostly blank books that direct the reader to fill in notes about books they’ve read – as well as books filled only with suggested reading, such as the fantastic Book Lust series by Nancy Pearl. Knight, however, couldn’t find anything that combined all of the these elements in one place, so she created her own.

Brightly colored covers, spiral bound for easier writing access, with tabbed sections, commentary and explanations for various awards, a list of literary terms, and some recommendations for reference websites, the Read, Remember, Recommend journals are a bibliophile’s dream. The rave reviews continue to rain in from bookstores, librarians, writers, parents, teachers, students and book people everywhere.

After buying and pouring over both books, my only criticism is this: the teen edition, published second, is far superior in breadth of recommendations. Read, Remember, Recommend for Teens offers much more diversity with awards from many genres, and more styles of recommendation lists including “Read-Alikes”, such as “if you liked the book Eragon, you’d like….” While the original, adult edition does include book club recommendation lists from organizations as diverse as Oprah’s Book Club to Penny’s List at Costco Connections, nevertheless, almost every list is either classic or contemporary fiction which has won some erudite prize. In the teen book, there are lists such as the Modern Library’s 100 Best Books of the Century, but there are also recommendations for books written in verse, westerns, GLBT, reluctant readers, action-driven style, paranormal romance, science fiction, mystery, fantasy and more. These categories hardly seem to exist in the adult world, which makes me a little sad. Obviously, I enjoy many of the Great Works of Literature (emphasis added, with only very slight sarcasm), but there’s nothing wrong with reading across the genres, since there are great writers in many styles, nor is there anything wrong with reading a ‘lighter’ book once in a while. I hope your summer reading brings you both!

Read to remember or read to forget? Tell Hobo your reading reasons, recommendations, and reflections by emailing him at from_my_shelf@yahoo.com. To see past recommendations of Hobo’s, check out his blog at http://frommyshelf.blogspot.com. Need someone to agree with your reading reviews? Look for the new Hobo bobblehead figure, coming soon to a bookstore near you!