Week Three Prompt Response

Part 1

1. I am looking for a book by Laurell K. Hamilton. I just read the third book in the Anita Blake series and I can’t figure out which one comes next!
• The fourth book in the Anita Blake Series is "The Lunatic Cafe."
  
2. What have I read recently? Well, I just finished this great book by Barbara Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer. I really liked the way it was written, you know, the way she used language. I wouldn't mind something a bit faster paced though.
• Try Anthill by Edward Wilson. It has a similar lush, lyrical writing style as Prodigal Sumer, but the suspenseful tone may make it a little more fast-paced.
3. I like reading books set in different countries. I just read one set in China, could you help me find one set in Japan? No, not modern – historical. I like it when the author describes it so much it feels like I was there!
• You should check out The Teahouse Fire by Ellis Avery. The novel takes place in 19th century Japan, and the richly detailed writing style should give you that feeling of being there with the characters!
4. I read this great mystery by Elizabeth George called Well-Schooled in Murder and I loved it. Then my dentist said that if I liked mysteries I would probably like John Sandford, but boy was he creepy I couldn't finish it! Do you have any suggestions?
• You might like Still Life by Louise Penny. It has a similar writing style to Well-Schooled in Murder, a character-driven and leisurely paced police procedural, but without the dark humor and grittiness that John Sandford is known for. 
5. My husband has really gotten into zombies lately. He’s already read The Walking Dead and World War Z, is there anything else you can recommend?
• If he's looking for more graphic novels, he should try Night of the Living Dead. It has the same bleak and gruesome tone of The Walking Dead in the zombie apocalypse and follows a band of survivors. There's also a novelization, The Living Dead, written by the filmmaker George Romero, finished and published posthumously in 2020. This novel is a happy medium between The Walking Dead and World War Z in it's tone, but still with the dark, gruesome factor of the zombie apocalypse.
6. I love books that get turned into movies, especially literary ones. Can you recommend some? Nothing too old, maybe just those from the last 5 years or so.
• I would suggest Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson. This historical fiction has literary aspects like it's lush, descriptive writing style, was published in 2022, and a show came out on Hulu last year. Another one I would recommend is Normal People by Sally Rooney. This literary coming-of-age with notes of romance follows two Irish teenagers as they form an unlikely friendship through high school and college. It was published in 2019 and the adaptation released on Hulu in 2020.
7. I love thrillers but I hate foul language and sex scenes. I want something clean and fast paced.
•  You should try out Lights out by Natalie Walters. This fast-paced thriller maintains a chaste tone so you shouldn't have to worry about language or sexual content.

Part 2

    One of the biggest ways I find new books to read these days is through reading reviews for the collections development part of my job. It's been devastating for my TBR. My coworkers and I are also always chatting about what we're reading and suggesting titles to each other. I love having a community around the books I read, so BookTok is where I spend a lot of time finding new things to read AND spiraling into theories once I finish a book I love. Don't get me started on the Fourth Wing theories!

    For patrons, I typically use Novelist if I can't think of anything off the top of my head. Or perusing GoodReads and the New York Times bestseller list for new releases to get people excited about.