LibraryTechtonics

I’ve been reading quite a bit lately, one of the many reasons I haven’t been online much. I’ve even been double-fisting my reading, consuming an audiobook and a hard-copy book at the same time. I’ve decided to use my MySpace blog to track my media consumption (books, movies, music, events, etc.), which will be a neat experiment of blogging on MySpace.

This is all part of a campaign on my part to improve my readers’ advisory, “what do I read next?” skills. We offer a variety of readers’ advisory resources at Reading to help patrons (and staff) find the next read, including Patron Books in Print/Fiction Connection services (we switched from Novelist), our various book groups including our monthly WOM (word of mouth) book group, and the free Online Book Clubs service offered through the librarian section of DearReader.com.

Through the Online Book Clubs service, patrons receive a 5 minute read (or a 5 minute listen through a .ram stream in the case of the audiobooks) of a book in each of the genres you select for 5 days via email for free. If you use a generated email address through something like Bloglines, then you can receive it in your news aggregator with your other feeds. At the end of the week, the email gives you the page number where the final snippet ends, so that you can pick up in the right place in the book when you buy or borrow it. During the week, you can click on the link at the bottom of each email to talk about this week’s book with other readers on the message boards.

One of this week’s Online Book Club selections is Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson (I’m subscribed to about 5 of the 10 clubs). While some of the books sound interesting and some don’t each week, I have the option to just delete the emails if I don’t feel like reading them, and I almost did with this book, but instead decided to give it a shot. The worst that can happen, in most cases, is that I give it 5 minutes, and end up deleting the rest of the week’s emails.

I’m certainly glad I kept reading, because I now have my favorite snippet of the week so far. The brief backstory just before the favorite bit:

“Well, Clarice wants to know if you can drive over to the home and pick up your great-great-aunt Mag on Friday next. Mag needs someone to carry her over to the Quincy’s for your uncle Bruster’s party.”

I said, “Are you seriously telling me that Clarice wants to know if I’ll drive fourteen hours down from Chicago, and then go another hour to Vinegar Park, where by the way Clarice lives, and pick up Aunt Mag, who will no doubt piss in my rental car, and then backtrack forty-five minutes to Quincy’s?”

“Yes, but please don’t say ‘piss,’ it isn’t nice,” my mother said, deadly earnest. “Also, Clarice and Bud moved on in to Fruiton. So it’s a good forty minutes for her to go get Mag now.”

Which leads to my favorite snippet:

“Oh, well then. Why don’t you tell Aunt Florence–I mean Clarice–that I will be sure to go pick up Mag. Right after Aunt Flo drops by hell and picks up the devil.” [emphasis mine]

With the holidays coming up, I figure there are many readers who can relate to this kind of situation, and situations of similar flavor. Now, you have a new and interesting response to use (and for those who are offended, I apologize), care of an author from the Deep South.

I think I might actually finish this book sometime.

Tags: reading
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