Conversation 1:
Librarian: Hi, is there
anything I can suggest?
Customer: I’m looking for a good story, you know, something that draws me in. But I don’t know where to start looking.
Librarian: What was the last book you read? Could you share something you liked about it?
Customer: The last book I read was Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Everyone is reading it so I had to pick it up. It was lovely. She is such an interesting woman and so brave. I enjoyed the descriptions of the countries she went to and what she did while she was there, of course, but I think what I liked most was how she shared her inner thoughts — so reflective but funny too. I thought it might be just light fluff or all me, me, me, me, but it was so much more than that. I read all the Oprah books and just love them. Anyway I wanted to ask you for a few suggestions for my book group. It’s my turn to pick the title.
So the descriptions of places and encounters was appealing to you and you liked the author's sense of humor, but what you enjoyed most what her personal experience during the journey - how she grew, in what ways the places she visited touched her, and ultimately how she came to a better understanding of herself. I can think of a few recommendations for your book club based on these elements:
My first recommendation is Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World, by Rita Gelman. Like Eat, Pray Love, Gelman's memoir begins with a woman who similarly seems to have it all but feels she has yet to find her true self. At 48, a successful children's author, wife and mother of two grown children, Gelman finds herself at a crossroads and discovers a need to leave behind the conventional life she has always known. Traveling with little money and no companion, Gelman adopts the lifestyle of a nomad, living in Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua and Bali, among other countries. To support herself, she writes and takes on jobs as they appear. What was intended to be a one-year sabbatical to discover and replenish her inner self turns into a continuous way of life. To this day, Gelman remains a nomad. She returns from time to time to her family in America, but ultimately she remains without a permanent home or the conventional boundaries that tie one to a home. Gelman's continuing journey might serve well as a contrast to Eat Pray Love, whose author ultimately finds that a year is enough to find the inner balance that motivated her to travel in the first place.
You also mentioned that you enjoy Oprah's book club selections. I think that the following thoughtful memoirs from Oprah's book club list might also be quite suitable: A Kiss Before You Go by Danny Gregory; Oddly Normal by John Schwartz; and Bend, Not Break by Pin Fu.
Conversation 2:
Customer: Can you recommend any vampire books that are nothing like the Twilight series?
Librarian: Let me see how I can help you. What don’t you like about Twilight?
Customer: Everything, but especially that teen love story – way too much angst! And way too slow. Have you read any good vampire stories lately?
Based on what I'm hearing from you, I would recommend two possible vampire series that are short on angst and have nary a teen in sight.
The first of these is Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series (a.k.a. the Southern Vampire mystery series). This action-packed mystery series is a real genre jumper and the basis for the HBO series True Blood. Forget teen drama and tortured souls - these characters are refreshingly realistic and flawed - vampire and human alike! Set in the backwoods of Bon Temps, Louisiana, each book in the Sookie Stackhouse series incorporates humor, a strong and sassy clairvoyant heroine and paranormal romance, all topped off with an edgy mystery. Start with Dead Until Dark.
For a fast-paced departure from the drama of typical vampiric encounters, try Christopher Moore's offbeat and decidedly funny series Vampire Love Stories. Set in contemporary San Francisco, Moore's series features clever dialogue and a humorous take on the practicalities of vampire/human relationships, Exhibiting a cheekiness seldom found in vampire stories, it's a surefire antidote for the slow-paced melodrama you're hoping to avoid. Start with Bloodsucking Fiends.
Conversation 3:
Librarian: Hi, are you looking for anything in particular?
Customer: I just read this great book The River of Doubt. It was about Teddy Roosevelt and this ill-fated expedition to chart an uncharted river in the Amazon. They lost almost all their provisions, the president was injured, and it turns out one of their crew was a murderer since there was a murder. And the most amazing thing was that it true. It was fascinating and really fast paced. Do you have anything to recommend that is like that?
Okay, so some of the most appealing elements for you seem to have been a certain drama, more than a hint of danger, and in particular that this story was based on real events. Right off the top of my head I'm going to have to recommend Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. This tension-filled memoir detailing a similarly ill-fated expedition to climb Mount Everest is as terrifying as it is poignant. The antagonist in this story is the "murderous storm" that engulfs a group of climbers on an already perilous 1996 expedition. The account brings to waking life the harrowing events of the climbers' experience, the acts of heroism on the part of some and the all-too-human mistakes made along the way.
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