Week 1

As I expected, I did much better on the adult book covers than the children's book covers. I recognized about half of the kids' books, but I recognized all but 2 of the adult books. I am an avid reader, but stick mostly to adult titles. I throw in the occasional YA/teen and juvenile fiction, but until I started working at the library, I never really looked or read picture books. Slowly, I'm reading more of them and getting familiar with authors.

For the "blank" book covers, they were fairly good, in the sense that the genre type was easy to guess. I didn't have any trouble picking what genre the blank book cover belonged to.

I found the Golden Rules to be helpful. I think one of the hardest things will be to keep up with EVERYTHING that is published. No matter how many book reviews I read, publications I peruse, etc, there are always new authors and titles that surprise me. This abundance is complicated with self-published books. The advice to "read read read" is more an ideal that doesn't always materialize. I can't speak for others, but life is busy enough that finding enough time to read what I want, in addition to stuff that I *should* read is tough. With limited time, the "write write write" aspect is difficult as well, but I find using an online site (Booklikes, Goodreads, etc) is really great for keeping track of what I have read, what I plan to read, and how much I liked the books. Even if I don't have time to write a full review, just giving a star rating serves as a great reminder.

I am going to follow Street Fiction in the Urban genre. I don't read urban fiction, but it is certainly popular, so I think getting familiar with those novels would be a great help with readers' advisories. As for the other source (Recommended Links-Books) it is a toss up between NPR and Early Word. I am drawn to NPR since I listen to it while commuting and often hear parts of author interviews and discussions about their newest books, so following the site would round out that experience. However, Early Word looks to be a great resource as well. I'll probably look at both and decide soon which one I like better.

Lastly, the "Just for Fun" assignment was fun to read. I had a few chuckles about what the author's daughter thought those classic novels were about. It really does just go to show you that you can't judge a book by its cover!!