So many books, too little time

It's a good thing I'm a bit of a nerd and enjoy keeping lists, because I finally finished updating the lists for the 330 authors I already knew about who had books published or reviewed from January 1 through March 31st of this year. Now I get to move on to creating lists for authors I'd never heard of before who had books published/reviewed in that same period and whom I found interesting enough to look up and add to my lists.

All of these new books, both those by authors I was already familiar with and those by authors new to me, bring up a good point, expressed in the title of this post--so many books, too little time. As I said, I added new books by 330 authors to my lists--at least 1 book for each of those authors. In the best year for which I have the records readily available, I was able to read 276 books that year. So even without counting the books by authors new to me, I added at least 50 more books to my lists than I've been able to read in my best year. And that was for this past quarter alone.

An appropriate response might be to say "I'm done. I'll never be able to read all the books by all the authors I already know about, so I'm not going to add any new books by anybody at all ever", or even to jettison from my lists authors I haven't read yet but already know about.

That's not my response, though. I admit I do concentrate on reading either books which are part of series from several hundred authors I've decided I'm most interested in, or singletons (single books, most often by new authors who haven't written anything else yet) but I really enjoy reading reviews of new books and if the reviews are interesting enough, checking to see if the author is listed on either of my two most usual sources and then adding them to my lists (again if I find the author sufficiently interesting).

Part of the reason is professional. Although I work for the section of the Main Library that handles the newest best sellers, among other things, I seem to be the only heavy reader and the only person interested in learning about the new books and their authors.

It's kind of like a game--I score a few imaginary points in an imaginary game when I already know something about a book a library patron asks about. I have two librarian friends who are more interested in romance, fantasy, horror, and science fiction than I am, and sometimes I am able to tell them about a new book or author they haven't heard of yet, and I score a few more imaginary points for that. (I don't deduct any when they already know about the book/author, though--hey, they're only imaginary points in an imaginary game.) And sometimes I can pass on a new book by a Florida author to my friend Tara in the Florida Center for the Book she hasn't heard of yet, or let her know when the review of a new book she'd be interested in finally shows up on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

I also look at it like I'm storing up points in some sort of literary karmic treasury of merit.

When we teach the Reader's Advisory fiction genres class to other librarians, Arlene and I make a point of saying the hope is that the class will be the start of a process for the participants, where they can develop ongoing relationships with their patrons and start learning who likes to read what kinds of books and who might be interested in which new book they read a review of or hear about. Unfortunately for me, here at Main I've not been able to develop that kind of relationship with any patrons so it's usually my mother or my librarian friends Arlene and Mimi and Tara I have that relationship with.

My two usual sources for looking books up, other than Amazon and Barnes & Noble for the reviews?

Stop! You're killing me is one of the best sites for information about mysteries, suspense, and thrillers.

Fantastic Fiction also covers horror, romance, fantasy, and science fiction.

This is my totals page for what I read.


SMC