Saturday, February 4, 2017

secret shopper

I went to a nearby public library in search of a romance novel for one of the upcoming annotations. As far as I can recall, I've never sought out a readers' advisory interaction with a librarian, and certainly never to ask for help in finding a romance novel. Two firsts for Leah!

I ended up having a really pleasant conversation with a librarian about all sorts of romance fiction. When I told her that I recently read and enjoyed books by Margaret Atwood and Elena Ferrante, her eyes lit up as she suggested looking at Georgette Heyer, a prolific novelist who wrote "witty" romances during the first quarter of the twentieth century. She went on to tell me that she was a big fan of Heyer during her teenage years, and she pointed out a few of the titles that she most enjoyed then, probably forty years ago. She also encouraged me to take a look at some of the more popular contemporary writers, such as Julia Quinn and Jennifer Crusie.

She relied on personal experience as well as a handy, printed (on pink paper!) list of authors in the romance genre, which were categorized by sub-genre: contemporary, alternate reality, historical, and so on. She accompanied me to the stacks and spent some time thumbing through books with me. There was no follow-up, but, as she left me to continue browsing, I felt welcomed to seek her out again. 

3 comments:

  1. Two firsts for Leah! :)

    I wish I had used my interview to find my romance novel now! I had some trouble finding a romance novel that did not have a historical setting. (I guess it is not too late to ask still...) Which romance novel did you choose??

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    1. I ended up leaving with two very different romance novels -- Black Sheep by Georgette Heyer and Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie. (I also found one on goodreads called Heart of the Liliko'i by Dena Hankins that looks pretty good, but I'm not sure if the romance plot concludes neatly and happily enough for it to qualify as capital 'R' Romance -- I'll have to read and see!)

      There's still time, Darcy!!

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  2. Very smart of you to request a book you actually need to read for this class :)

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