My Reading Profile

I haven’t had too much time for reading since I started my graduate career back in May 2016, so lately I have been searching for fast reads. Books where the plot moves right along is what I enjoy most. Because I work in Youth Services, I have also been reading more children and teen books lately. I particular enjoy teen realistic fiction because I understand how hard it can be as a teen, and I hope to one day recommend titles that could help with a particular situation.

Because this is an Adult Readers’ Advisory class, let me get back to adult books…

Genres I like to read are suspense, mystery, science fiction, realistic fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, and historical nonfiction. I do not have any ambition to read romances, holiday, or urban. Genres with romance on the side or mixed in a little is perfect for me, but I cannot read one that has it as the main focus. I love main characters who are funny, but they also know when to be serious (i.e. The Martian by Andy Weir and Saturn Run by John Sandford). I also enjoy books with multiple narrators (i.e. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr and The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater). I have no preference for settings, although I suppose I can sometimes be biased towards historical eras and cities since I was a history major in college, but setting does not deter me. There is no book I particularly hated. The only books I never finished were historical nonfiction books because they were taking a while to finish and I had to return them.

My goal in 2018 is to simply read more. I do not want to set a goal amount to read until 2019, which will be my first full year since completing school (I’ll finish my MLS career in May 2018). I would like to try a couple genres I have not read before such as horror and western. I also hope to read tons more teen titles this year and become more aware of upcoming teen titles so I can offer excellent RA service to teens.

1/14/18 Update: As of January 14th, I also now plan on reviewing every book I read on Goodreads. I finished my first book of the year (The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn), which happened to be for this class, and I decided I will start off the year even better and become a better reviewer.

Currently I am included in a group at my library who offer RA to patrons over the internet. It is called Next Great Reads, and it works by patrons filling out a form online. I am pretty decent at it. Having taken several minor RA lessons through my library, as well as my contribution to Next Great Reads, I have had some significant experience with RA, but I am always wanting to be better at it. I am hoping this class will help me look deeper into books to find elements I never paid attention to before, and to help me explain books better that would appeal to a patron.

My favorite novels/series are:

1. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
2. The Martian by Andy Weir
3. Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
4. The War That Saved My Life series by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
5. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr