'The Trouble With Recommending Books'

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This is a really nice article on recommending books (especially to children) in which the author praises the efforts of children's booksellers and librarians. Included is a wonderful memory from her youth, which I think many of us may find familiar. I know it accounts for at least a part of my desire to be a children's bookseller.

June 8, 2010

The Trouble With Recommending Books

Posted by Deirdre Foley-Mendelssohn
As a child—an easily bored, semi-feral child without a TV—I spent a lot of time in the local bookstore. The store had a large children’s section, with rows and rows of chapter books that led out to a small café, but by the time I was eight or nine, I would peruse the stacks and come away with the distinct impression that I had read everything there. The only thing—or, rather, person—that stopped me from giving up and turning to some other sort of entertainment was the children’s bookseller, a short black-haired woman who had read everything and could, if I told her some books I liked, recommend a new one to me—inevitably a more obscure but equally good one—with seemingly magical accuracy, the way that other adults enjoy pulling quarters out of kids ears. It was astonishing.....

There's more, so please check out the rest of the article.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2010/06/the-trouble-with-recommending-books.html#ixzz0qUc1eZjV


http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2010/06/the-trouble-with-recommending-books.html

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