A librarian’s favorite inquiry

“Can you rec­om­mend a good book to me?” That ques­tion is a favorite among Delaware County Dis­trict Library’s librar­i­ans, but it seems to be a ques­tion many peo­ple are reluc­tant to ask. I some­times think that folks hes­i­tate to ask us to rec­om­mend a good book because they may be con­cerned that their request is “not seri­ous” or not exactly ask­ing for information.

I recently asked a cus­tomer who looked a lit­tle con­fused while she was wan­der­ing through the shelves if she needed help. She qui­etly said, “I’m look­ing for a good mys­tery and I don’t know where to start. I haven’t had the time to read for a long while and I’m a bit out of touch with authors and such.” Her words were music to my ears because I am also a mys­tery reader, and as with all of the librar­i­ans, I enjoy shar­ing recommendations.

As we would with any ref­er­ence ques­tions, the librar­i­ans may ask you some ques­tions about what you like to read to make sure we rec­om­mend some­thing appro­pri­ate. Once we’ve been able to drill down a bit, undoubt­edly we will be able to match your likes with a great selection.

And don’t be sur­prised if we ask you to let us know if you liked the books we rec­om­mend. Your feed­back makes us bet­ter librarians!

Please don’t ever hes­i­tate to ask any one of us for a good book to read. But beware: You may walk out of the library with an arm­load … and that’s OK, too.

Speak­ing of good books to read, check out these titles on the New Book Shelves in the month of May.

Beach House Mem­o­ries by Mary Alice Mon­roe. A tale set in the 1970s Amer­i­can South shares the story of Lovie Rut­ledge, who reflects on a sum­mer dur­ing which a beach vaca­tion to escape her unfaith­ful, dis­dain­ful hus­band cul­mi­nates in a fate­ful romance with a hand­some biologist.

The Billy Bob Tapes: A Cave Full of Ghosts by Billy Bob Thorn­ton with Kinky Fried­man, Ange­line Jolie, Robert Duvall and Dwight Yoakam. Draw­ing from the most col­or­ful moments of his life, the actor, screen­writer and musi­cian shares his insights on women, fam­ily, father­hood, friends, movies and other occu­pa­tions and hazards.

Both Of Us: My Life With Far­rah by Ryan O’Neal. A film star and hus­band of Farah Faw­cett dis­cusses his rela­tion­ship with her and all the vary­ing forces that worked against it.

The Colum­bus Affair by Steve Berry. When his beloved daugh­ter falls in the clutches of a ruth­less zealot, dis­graced jour­nal­ist, Tom Sagan risks every­thing to embark on a per­ilous quest from Florida through Prague to Jamaica in search of an invalu­able his­tor­i­cal treasure.

A Golden Voice: How Faith, Hard Work, and Humil­ity Brought Me from the Streets to Sal­va­tion by Ted Williams. The for­mer home­less man fea­tured in a viral YouTube radio voice video shares the com­plete story of how he lost his suc­cess­ful career to a crack addic­tion, trac­ing his jour­ney through home­less­ness and crime before find­ing love and redemption.

The Last Man by Peter T. Deuter­mann. When his Israeli girl­friend goes miss­ing after extend­ing a the­ory about the fortress of Masada, an Amer­i­can nuclear engi­neer trav­els deep into the Judean desert and makes an aston­ish­ing dis­cov­ery that causes him to be tar­geted by Israeli intelligence.

In One Per­son by John Irv­ing. A tale inspired by the U.S. AIDS epi­demic in the 1980s fol­lows the expe­ri­ences of indi­vid­u­als torn by dev­as­tat­ing losses and polit­i­cal upheavals whose per­spec­tives on tol­er­ance and love are also irrev­o­ca­bly shaped by aware­ness of what might have been.

Mak­ing a Dif­fer­ence: Sto­ries of Vision and Courage from America’s Lead­ers by Ches­ley B. Sul­len­berger. One of the most cap­ti­vat­ing heroes of the last decade talks to men and women from such fields as med­i­cine, edu­ca­tion, sports, the mil­i­tary and finance who embody the truest sense of moral courage and lead­er­ship by per­sonal example.

Rather Out­spo­ken: My Life in the News by Dan Rather. The Emmy and Peabody Award-winning broad­cast jour­nal­ist traces his stel­lar career while reflect­ing on the his­tor­i­cal events of his time, shar­ing new insights into such top­ics as the Abu Ghraib scan­dal, the George W. Bush Air National Guard con­tro­versy and JFK’s assassination.

Ser­vice: A Navy SEAL at War by Mar­cus Lut­trell. A com­bat trained Navy SEAL shares dra­matic sto­ries from his Spe­cial Oper­a­tions assign­ments through­out the world while high­light­ing the con­tri­bu­tions of remark­able soldiers.

Stolen Prey by John Sand­ford. When the bru­tal killing of a fam­ily in a small Min­nesota town reveals unset­tling sim­i­lar­i­ties to drug-retribution crimes, baf­fled police offi­cer Lucas Dav­en­port is shocked by find­ings that lead him into the dark­est case of his career.

If you have a ques­tion that you would like to see answered in this col­umn, mail it to Mary Jane San­tos, Delaware County Dis­trict Library, 84 E. Win­ter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call 740–362-3861. You can also email your ques­tions by vis­it­ing delawarelibrary.org or directly to Mary Jane at mjsantos@delawarelibrary.org. No mat­ter how you con­tact us, we’re always glad you asked.

Posted by Mary Santos on May 4 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.