Sure Bets

Yesterday, a patron came in to RV looking for a good book to read.  The last book he read was The Catcher in the Rye by Salinger, but could not think of any other books he’d read that he liked.  He wasn’t interested in classics so much, but just a good book.  What would you have recommended?  What are your Sure Bets?  (Books that you can confidently recommend to anyone.)  Please add your comments to this posting!

For more Readers Advisory discussion, here’s a great article by Mary K. Chelton on Readers Advisory 101, subtitled A Crash Course in RA: Common Mistakes Librarians Make and How to Avoid Them.  (CLJ)

Not So True Life Stories

Fake Memoirs are all over the news lately.  The most recent memoir to be exposed as fiction is Love and Consequences by Margaret B. Jones, which has now been recalled by the publisher.  In this memoir, which got glowing reviews (including a starred Library Journal review), Jones claims to be half-Native American and raised by a foster family in L.A. gangland.  In truth, she’s white and was raised quite comfortably in a upper middle-class home. 

Scott Simon discussed fake memoirs  (like Jones and James Frey) on NPR’s Morning Edition this weekend and made a great point about why Jones and Frey would write fictional stories and claim them as memoir: writers get a break when they’re telling their own stories; that is, life is hard, but fiction is harder. 

For discussion:  What’s your favorite memoir – true or fake? (CLJ)