Thursday, October 7, 2010

Taking cues when choosing books

It could be a huge research project to fully understand the myriad of ways in which people choose their reading material. Saw it on a display? Heard about it on Oprah? A friend said you'd like it? I know that I pick up reading suggestions everywhere. How about you?

In this week's ALA e-newsletter, two links on this topic in particular stood out to me:

1) Rupert Grint chose A Clockwork Orange as the book he's holding on his READ poster; these celebrity endorsements can be rather effective in getting people to try out specific titles.

2) One librarian in New York has been compiling a list of books that have appeared on the television show Mad Men. Some of the titles may have been part of the storyline while others were just part of the background, but he says circulation of and requests for this books has jumped because of their inclusion on the hit show. And the fact that all the books are accurate to the show's time setting makes the surge in popularity even better, in my opinion. Let's give some older books a chance!

2 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed that second link. Mad Men is responsible for turning me into a fan of the poet Frank O'Hara. I'd never explored O'Hara until Don Draper was reading one of his poems aloud in Season Two. It is strange how we end up choosing books sometimes.

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  2. I love when someone recommends a book to me. It's so incredibly flattering to think that someone read a book and thought to themselves "I think (insert name) would really enjoy this."

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