Everyone's an expert

These days everyone's an expert on what to read - and that's the way we librarians like it!

At the Mark Twain, we've started Pinterest boards that feature patron recommendations as well as librarian suggestions.

But we don't limit ourselves to home-grown testimonials.  Beth recently described the remarkably popular NPR listeners' polls, which have identified 100 of the best-ever teen novels (2012), the top 100 science fiction and fantasy novels (2011), and 100 "killer-thrillers" (2010).

Perhaps you're looking for something a little more substantive.  You could try one of the "Books That Shaped America", the focus of a Library of Congress exhibit this summer.

Or you could be a contrarian and read one of the 373 books that did NOT win the National Book Award for Fiction. Quite a few illustrious authors (Hemingway, Nabokov, Vonnegut, Morrison...) wrote novels that were nominated but did not go on to win.  The National Book Foundation has put together an online exhibit to bring these "contenders" the attention they deserve.

Then again, maybe you'd like to try the FiveBooks Interview feature in the The Browser, which offers book suggestions each week from experts on different topics.  The choices are intriguing, as are the reasons for selecting them.

Do you have a favorite source for reading recommendations? Let us know and we'll feature it in a future blog entry.

Mary Hoskinson-Dean