American author James Patterson has collected stories from booksellers and librarians, throughout North America, describing why they enjoy providing books for people to read. Finding the right book for someone to read is a challenge enjoyed by most librarians and booksellers. However recommending books to read is not a one way street. When I worked in libraries library patrons would often also recommend authors or titles to me. Reading can and should be a shared experience.
The book is divided into five sections:
- To be a bookseller, you have to play detective
- I could talk about books forever
- I can't imagine what people do without books in their lives
- It doesn't matter what you like to read, as long as you love to read
- Just one more chapter, please, just one more chapter
Stories in the book include a number of discussions on choosing books for people of different ages, interests and needs at a particular time. Promoting collections is also an important part of running a bookshop or working in a library and a range of promotional and outreach projects are described as well as arranging author talks. COVID-19 provided challenges for those operating bookshops and libraries. Censorship of collections and campaigns to ban books is also discussed. Libraries and bookshops (especially independent bookshops) are increasingly becoming community hubs. Research indicates that readers continue to enjoy reading physical books.
The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians is a book that the reader can dip into at leisure to enjoy reading the observations of people who love books and reading.
As an aside, some of the accounts refer in passing to books by Patterson while there is a long list of books he has written or co-written at the end of the book.
No comments:
Post a Comment