Prompt Responses

 Here are my selections for the RA prompt responses. I had some issues accessing the NoveList site at home due to some problems with our library's vendor. But I was able to finish up when I came in to work. I used some other sources, such as fantasticfiction.com and Good Reads, but found NoveList to be the most useful in crafting a specific response.

1. The Lunatic Cafe is the next book I used fantasticfiction.com to look up the series by Laurell K. Hamilton.
2. The Girl in the Castle by Santa Montefiore. This book is in a similar style to Prodigal Summer, with lyrical, descriptive writing and complex characters, but seems to be a bit more quickly paced.
3. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell. This book is set in the 1799 Japanese port of Dejima, which should fulfill both the historical and the Japanese setting, and Mitchell writes in a richly detailed style.
4. A Share in Death by Deborah Crombie is a suspenseful mystery with an intricate plot, but should not be too creepy and dark.
5. The Living Dead by George A Romero and Daniel Kraus. This book was begun by Romero, who contributed a great deal to the zombie themes with his Night of the Living Dead films started in the 60s. This novel is a modern, fast-paced continuation of those films.
6. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens is a best-selling books that was made into a popular movie. Written in 2018 it falls within the time frame they are looking for.
7. Face of Betrayal: A Triple Threat Novel by Lis Wiehl. Her books have fast-paced, plot-driven storylines, and this genre is Christian suspense, which should avoid any foul language or sex scenes.

I typically find the books I'm going to read through suggestions from members of the book club I attend and through a podcast I listen to. The books recommended by the podcast are usually nonfiction books while the book club books tend to be fiction. Those do keep me busy so I don't often have to look for other books, but when I do I typically use NoveList or Good Reads to find my next book.

Reading Profile

I don't have time to read as much as I'd like to, but I do enjoy reading a wide range of genres and topics. I read more non-fiction that fiction these days, with topics ranging from what I want to learn more about in my life at this stage, such as child raising, bread baking, organizing, various world religions, and philosophy. At the moment I am reading Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, a book about rye breads, a bread book written by the founder of Tartine Bakery in California, and I'm listening to an audiobook version of Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers with my wife. With non-fiction I find that I can have several books "in-process" at one time since I'm not usually following a plot and the books I'm reading are different enough that it's easy to keep them separate in my head. I don't read all of them everyday, but it's nice to have a selection to choose from depending on the mood I am in when I am ready to read.

As for fiction, I don't really have a favorite genre. I don't read westerns or romances much, if at all, so I am considering those for my genres this semester to become more familiar. I enjoy reading Stephen King, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, the Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley, and have started reading Agatha Christie's Poirot books. I started a book club through the library a few years ago where we meet at a local brewery and discuss the selected book for the month while enjoying a pint. We are still meeting, though we have separated from the library, and the selections come from recommendations by the members. Through that group I read a lot of books that I probably would not select on my own, but for the most part turn out to be books I quite enjoy.