Week 12 Prompt Response

Readers' Advisory Matrix for
Gӧdel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter

1. Where is the book on the narrative continuum?

A mix (contains highly narrative moments with periods of fact-based prose)

2. What is the subject of this book?

Hypothesizing the nature and origin of consciousness by examining "strange loops" (repetitions that appear to be self-generating) in the artwork of M. C. Escher, the music of J. S. Bach, and the mathematics of Kurt Gӧdel.

3. What type of book is it?

A long-form, interactive lesson taught by the author, interspersed with regular narrative sections in the form of fables.

4. Articulate appeal:

• What is the pacing of the book?
  A slow burn, but the pacing relates to the reader's familiarity with the concepts being discussed, and greater familiarity will facilitate faster reading and a quicker pace.
  
• Describe the characters of the book.
  The book has few characters, and when they exist they usually are simply a stand-in for an idea. In the many fables that pepper the book, readers will grow accustomed to the characters of Achilles, Tortoise, and Crab; in discussions about mathematical, musical, and artistic concepts, Gӧdel, Bach, and Escher are characters, but little is discussed about their lives or personalities - the book is all about their ideas.
• How does the story feel?
  Like wandering in darkness until small lights start to flicker on as you begin to understand the author's ideas. Challenging, but thought-provoking and perspective-enlarging.
• What is the intent of the author?
  To teach the reader new concepts and ways of thinking about the world, and kindling in the reader a sense of experimentation and discovery.
• Does the language matter?
  Not much - the words are a vehicle to ideas, but the reader will not sink back into exquisite sentences and phrasing.
• Is the setting important and well-described?
  No, there is no setting, and setting is largely irrelevant to the book.
• Are there details and, if so, what?
  There are heaps upon heaps of details, mostly logical and mathematical, and the reader will need to be interested in learning many, many small details in order to understand larger concepts.
• Are there sufficient charts and other graphic materials? Are they useful and clear?
  There are many illustrations and graphical representations of the concepts discussed in the book, and for the most part, they are helpful additions to the text.
• Does the book stress moments of learning, understanding, or experience?
  All three, and these moments are the primary goal of the book. Whether the reader experiences these moments of understanding and learning will make or break how they experience the book as a whole.

5. Why would a reader enjoy this book? (rank appeal)

• Learning and discovery
• Interest in logic and mathematics
• Detail-oriented

Week 11 Prompt - Ebooks and Audiobooks

The growing number of media options for reading a book is making the work of readers' advisory considerably difficult because learning enough to recommend books from each medium requires consulting different sources and looking for different types of information and appeals. Dunneback (2011) points out the difficulty of advising patrons about ebooks when ebook file formats and compatible devices are an issue that can get in the way of a good recommendation. I worry that ebooks have the potential to contribute to disparities in equal access to information between those with more money and those with less. If some patrons have the financial means to purchase a proprietary device used to read ebooks that a library lends while others do not, the library is no longer providing equal access to information to all. I'm curious if there is a feasible way to loan out e-reader devices to patrons in order to address this problem? Of course, many file formats can now be used on all manner of devices, but there is still an underlying assumption that everyone has a device that can be problematic. I think it's important to consult with a patron at the beginning of a readers' advisory interview to determine what types of devices they have available to read potential ebook recommendations.

Audiobooks are also a fantastic way to experience reading, but come with a different set of appeal factors than print books. Mediatore (2003) points out that choice of narrator, tone of voice, and pacing of voice can have a stronger influence on audiobook listeners' enjoyment of a book than traditional print book appeal factors. One way I've noticed these appeal factors in my own audiobook listening experience is that narrators are often chosen in order to represent the author whose book they're reading. This can be a great thing, as more and more books by people from marginalized communities are published and adapted to audiobook, we as listeners get to experience the text more fully when we hear it read by a member of the author's community (or by the author themself). However, I've noticed that literary classics are almost invariably read by old British people, which only intensifies the misconception that classic works are cobwebby historical documents not intended for modern audiences. I think audiobooks offer exciting opportunities to experience books in a new way (whether we've read them before or not), but in order to properly recommend them to patrons we can't just rely on our knowledge of their print book versions - we need to investigate narration quality as well, and this forces us to find alternative review sources that focus specifically on audio quality.

References

Dunneback, K., & Trott, B. (2011). E-books and Readers' Advisory. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 50(4), 325-9.

Mediatore, K. (2003). Reading with Your Ears: Readers' Advisory and Audio Books. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 42(4), 318-23.

The Poisonwood Bible

The Poisonwood Bible

Barbara Kingsolver

Genre: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction

Publication Date: 1998

Number of Pages: 546

Geographical Setting: Congo

Time Period: 1950s-80s

Plot Summary: A Southern Baptist family uproots from its life in Georgia to move to a small village
 in the Belgian colony of Congo in 1960. Driven by an evangelical zeal, the father Nathan Price 
aims to convert all the Congolese villagers to Christianity and baptize them, but finds a population
with little interest in Christianity, and even less interest in his fire and brimstone theology. Nathan’s 
wife Orleanna and their four daughters must find a way to adapt to life in the village of Kilanga and 
survive in the politically turbulent country. The women of the family are caught between the 
increasingly dangerous political turmoil of a Congo seeking independence and the growing 
madness of Nathan Price. This novel wrestles with themes of racism and colonialism, with 
interfamilial and spiritual relationships, and with the meaning of home.

Subject Headings: Congo,  Patrice Lumumba, Colonialism, Family Chronicle

Appeal:

• Pacing: leisurely
• Tone: atmospheric, foreboding
• Writing style: lush, descriptive

Read-a-likes:

Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris - A historical novel centered around the life of a 
French woman, told in two time periods: part of the book is set when the woman is a child, the 
other when she is elderly. Jumping backward and forward in time, the book explores the reality 
of pre- and post-war France while inching ever closer to revealing the terrible secret at the heart 
of the main character’s life. The story is lavishly described and has a strong focus on food and 
other sensory details of place.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe - A novel set in Nigeria that explores life before and after 
colonial rule. The story explores the cultural shifts that occur when sudden change leaves one’s 
homeland permanently different. While focusing on similar themes that The Poisonwood Bible does, 
this novel approaches the topic from the point of view of the colonized, rather then the colonizer.

White Teeth by Zadie Smith - Set in modern day England, this novel explores the lives of an 
Englishman and an Indian immigrant. The two characters remember pivotal events from their 
lives, from World War II onward. This novel also explores the effects of British colonialism on 
both colonies and England itself. It is less focused on the history of colonialism than The 
Poisonwood Bible, and chooses instead to explore its modern implications.

Related authors:

• Joanne Harris
• Alice Walker
• Anne Tyler

Book Club Experience

Some of my college friend and I had the idea to start a book club a few months ago. The interest in forming the book club was partly social, partly gastronomic, but mostly a chance for good discussion. We have met twice now, each meeting being around six weeks apart. When we were discussing forming the group, we did not have a specific theme in mind for the types of books we’d like to read, but each person had a book or two that they had either read recently and wanted to discuss or that they were interested in reading.

Many of the books people suggested were nonfiction, related to current societal issues like racism and capitalism, so the first book we chose to read was We Were Eight Years In Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which is a series of essays about race and racism written throughout Barack Obama’s presidency. All of us in the group are pretty progressive and largely on the same page politically, but we are also a group of white people and part of the aim of the book club was to provide accountability for each other as we try to stay educated about racism and our privilege.  

We decided that we would each come up with some questions to bring to our first book discussion to get the conversation moving. This was a good idea, and lines up with the recommendation on the I Love Libraries page “Facilitating Discussion” (2015) to take notes while reading the book and bring them to the book club to spark discussion. This strategy would have worked better, however, if we had all done a better job of following another of the recommendations on that page to support our opinions with specific quotations from the book and with page numbers. We often found ourselves making vague assertions that were difficult to discuss because we did not have a specific quote or context to dig into.

Although we all enjoyed the book and brought plenty of ideas to discuss from it, our first book club meeting (as well as the subsequent one) have been frustrating because one of our group members is what I Love Libraries’ “Structuring Your Meeting” page (2015) describes as a “dominating personality.” The makeup of our group is three women and two men (one of which is me). The other man in the group dominated the entire conversation nonstop. He was always the first to respond when anyone else asked a question to the group, and his responses tended to be lengthy and full of long pauses; he just generally took up a lot of space. What’s more, he had a tendency (as many men do) to address the questions he asked the group directly to me, the other man. I did my best to respond to his questions when he asked them directly to me, but as this pattern continued to happen I began trying to give a brief answer and then divert the conversation another way by asking one of the women in the group a question. I could tell that the women in the group got more and more uncomfortable with the discussion as it progressed because of how central the man’s presence was to everything that was said. Eventually I decided to just stop responding altogether to any questions the man asked the group in order to allow the women in the group to respond when they felt comfortable doing so. This led to some long, uncomfortable silences in which the man would pose a question and nobody would respond. He seemed to be uncomfortable with the silences, so he would just respond to his own question when this happened.

The difficult thing about this situation is that we are all friends outside of the book club, but something about the construct of an organized space for discussion brings out the dominating personality in this man. Because of our relationships with one another, it has been difficult to broach the topic with him, and since our second book club meeting there has not been any talk of a third one. I think the book club could still end up working, but we would need to establish some more ground rules, and I think it might be valuable to follow the advice on the I Love Libraries “Structuring Your Meetings” page (2015) and assign a group leader for each meeting to better moderate the discussion. I also wonder if part of the problem is that we’ve been reading nonfiction so far. This dominating friend is very academic-minded and fond of debate, and nonfiction books might bring out this in him more than a good novel. It may also be valuable to just try and schedule a meeting without him to see how it goes, but that could quickly lead to hurt feelings.

My book club experience has been a tricky one to navigate, but I am still drawn to the potential conversations we might have if we can better moderate them.

References

Facilitating Discussion. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.ilovelibraries.org/booklovers/bookclub/facilitate-discussion

Structuring Your Meeting. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.ilovelibraries.org/booklovers/bookclub/structure-meeting

Midterm Paper Summary

Here is the introduction to my midterm paper, which examines four major subgenres of science fiction for the purposes of readers' advisory work:

Science fiction is a wide and varied genre that attracts readers for a variety of reasons. Performing readers’ advisory work for patrons interested in science fiction can be difficult for librarians unfamiliar with the genre, but a bit of familiarity with science fiction’s subgenres and book awards can provide valuable help. This essay will examine four of science fiction’s broadest subgenres (hard science fiction, space opera, utopian fiction, and dystopian fiction), as well as major science fiction awards as beginning points for readers’ advisory. The four subgenres described here can also be thought of as two different axes for examining works belonging to the science fiction genre: hard science fiction and space opera being opposite ends of an axis that track the scientific rigor and accuracy of a work, and utopian and dystopian fiction forming another axis tracking a work’s overall tone and attitude toward the story. This is not an exact system, but provides a framework that may be helpful in a readers’ advisory capacity.

In the essay, I spend some time looking at the history of each of these four subgenres and recommend a list of books that are representative of aspects of the subgenre. For example, I examine the "hard science fiction" subgenre that focuses on scientific rigor and accuracy above all else, and also describe some of the problems this subgenre has had with bigotry, sexism, and gatekeeping. Then I contrast it with the space opera subgenre, which stands on the opposite end of the spectrum and focuses on grand scales, flashy effects, and character-driven stories.

Another axis I examine in the paper is the utopian/dystopian fiction spectrum. Utopian and dystopian fiction have lots of overlap, and fans of both types of story will defend their preference by pointing out how ultimately hopeful the subgenres can be, whether by depicting an ideal future society or by spurring readers to action by describing the worst possible future society. Stories do not tend to fall cleanly into one or the other of these subgenres, so it is helpful to think of them as opposite ends of a spectrum.

Hopefully my choice to divide science fiction into these main subgenres/axes is helpful for librarians unfamiliar with the genre looking for resources to help with advising readers who are looking for a good sci-fi book to read!