Monday, April 26, 2010

5 PEOPLE LAB - PERSON FIVE

The last person I did Reader's Advisory for was my mom. She also received the email from me with the five questions; her answers though were alarmingly brief. For the question "Have you read anything lately that you enjoyed?" she answered "biography, i enjoyed it". Wow mom, thanks!

Luckily though I do know her pretty well and I see her pretty often so I am a bit more familiar with her recent reading experiences that I am with other people. When I spoke with her about the RA after receiving her email responses she said she would like to switch it up with some fiction, something entertaining and light. She tends to get really bogged down with these biographies that she reads. She once expressed interest in reading biographies about all of the past presidents; I'm afraid I really ran with this with gifts and things and now she's really just got a pile of unread biographies...they take her ages to get through.

So she said she would like to branch out from the biographies with some fiction, which needs to be entertaining right away (or she'll fall asleep and never read it). It was also, with her, helpful that I knew what sorts of movies she likes (she's a total chick flick lover) so I immediately gave her all of the Sophie Kinsella books off of my shelf, since thats really the only way she will ever read anything...it needs to be delivered right into her hands. I also gave her the two Emily Giffin books that I had on my shelf to get her started with. She has amazingly read all of the books I gave her and is on the hunt for some more easy to read chick lit. I need to turn her on to Stephanie Plum.

She had also recently read "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" and really enjoyed it so I wanted to get her something similar. Reader's Advisor Online led me to Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" which is another non-fiction book that employs fiction techniques in its storytelling. Also RAO pointed me towards "Devil in the White City" by Eric Larson as another non-fiction book that reads like an imaginative piece of fiction. I also chose the later for my mom because I thought the Chicago setting may interest her. When I shared the two titles I had selected for her she was more interested in the "Devil in the White City" but unfortunately she has not had a chance to read it yet since this is the busy time of year for her at work. By the time I through with her she'll have a pile of books waiting for her this summer.

(Its very nice that Reader's Advisor Online has a section devoted to non-fiction. Its a life saver really for all of us fiction people.)

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