Barry Trott, Editor
Jennifer Baker, Guest Columnist
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More and more, librarians working with adult users are called on to talk to groups of readers about books and reading. Whether it is to a book discussion group seeking guidance in selecting new authors, a class on crime fiction, or a program through the library’s outreach services to seniors, booktalking is no longer solely the responsibility of children’s librarians. The ability to articulately and succinctly present a program on books is an essential skill for all readers’ advisors. In the following piece, Jennifer Baker lays out some guidelines for librarians who are new to booktalking. She discusses choosing titles, preparing for the talk, and shaping the presentation to specific audiences. Baker is an adult services librarian in the fiction department at the Seattle Public Library and has worked as a readers’ advisor and reference librarian. She is currently a member of the Reading List Council, a RUSA committee that awards “best of” in eight genres each year. An alumnus of the University of Washington (UW) graduate library program, she has conducted workshops on booktalking for students in the UW iSchool and has provided training for book group facilitators in UW’s Common Book program. She is a NoveList contributor, reviews fiction for Booklist and was privileged to be mentored by Nancy Pearl.—Editor
Most library literature on the subject of book-talking is aimed at youth services librarians; naturally these librarians have a great deal of influence in the classroom talking to kids about books. Since youth services professionals are frequently asked to booktalk, it stands to reason that the library graduate programs provide guidance and opportunity to do booktalks and receive peer feedback. Adult services librarians are less frequently required to do formal adult booktalks—this area of public programming is largely neglected and should be included as an important element of readers’ advisory services. Marin Younker states that “questioning the value of booktalking to teens is like suggesting that it’s a waste of time to offer storytimes to kids.”1 Story-rich programs and booktalks for adults provide the same kind of entertainment, mental stretching, and learning experience for adults, yet library literature and educational opportunities for adult services librarians–in-training is limited to nonexistent. Many adult services librarians never do a formal booktalk; most booktalking occurs in the stacks with individual patrons or online while suggesting appropriate titles on a specific topic. For the adult librarian invited to present a formal book talk in the community, the prospect can be daunting. This article provides a few practical pointers for readers’ advisors to ensure booktalking success in different settings and with a range of audiences. Some elements of booktalking, such as program planning and marketing, and the physical preparations for a formal booktalk, are not addressed in this piece, but are adeptly covered in Chapple Langemack’s The Booktalker’s Bible.2
Choosing the Right Books
When invited to give a formal booktalk, the first thing to ask is what the host expects: What kind of reading will interest the audience? A group often will contact the library with a request for a booktalk on a specific topic. The local art museum asked my library’s fiction department to provide a booktalk presenting nonfiction and fiction about art. Such specificity of topic can be an issue if the booktalker knows little about art and has only a short time to prepare. It’s helpful at the onset to glean as much information about your audience as you can: their common interests, what they might be expecting, and what kind of program they are hosting. It will quickly become obvious to you if you are not the right booktalker for them.
If your reading interests and background are congruent with the group and you accept their invitation, think about the books you have enjoyed recently and which would fit the parameters. Choose only books you have loved and have actually read. Talking about titles you disliked—or worse, you haven’t even read—sets the stage for failure. Enthusiasm is the key to success, and how can you be enthusiastic when you don’t like a book or know little about it? You can bet that someone in the audience will correct you if you get a fact wrong. They will also know if you don’t like a book. Why bother bringing it? Read and love what you booktalk.
Knowing what the group wants you to talk about and comparing that with what you enjoy reading can be tricky— it’s up to you to make what you’ve read match their interests as much as possible. Think about the books you normally choose. What commonly appeals most to you in a great read? Is it a complex and enthralling story, a great cast of well-developed characters, a historical or futuristic setting, or maybe just a style of writing that flows and entrances? Do you always read the same genre? Do you prefer fiction to nonfiction? Are you an avid graphic novel reader or an audiobook fan? Before you can choose the right booktalking titles, it’s essential to know your own tastes—it helps you steer away from potential monotony of appeal. If you don’t fully understand appeal characteristics, or “doorways,” as Nancy Pearl calls the characteristics that lead us into books we enjoy, take the time to read Joyce Saricks’s Readers’ Advisory Service in the Public Library, or any of a number of articles and books on readers’ advisory in library literature.3 Having knowledge of appeal in literature will not only help you identify your own reading habits and areas of weakness, but also will help you talk to readers individually and make informed title suggestions in your daily work.
Knowing what you’ve read and why you like it, do you have a broad selection of titles to talk about? Can you think of books you’ve enjoyed with a variety of appeals? Sometimes a book will contain more than one main appeal. It’s important when booktalking to address your entire audience, not just the ones who love what you love! Since plot is the appeal I enjoy most, I loved The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif for its wonderful parallel storylines, but for the sake of my audience I may choose to emphasize the wonderful insight the book gives into the Egyptian culture through the characters of the two male protagonists. Alternately I might talk about the effect of listening to the audio version of Terry Pratchett’s Wee Free Men because hearing wordplay is funnier and more immediate than reading it, even though the element that led me into this trilogy was the Discworld setting. Choosing a range of materials and appeals will keep your audience tracking— each person waiting to see if you will talk about “their” kind of book. (If you do not have a wide range of appeals, topics and media, make a personal reading plan and get reading!)
Put the titles you have chosen in some sort of order. For example, for a literary audience I have chosen to talk about these titles in this order because I can easily segue from one book to the next:
- The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean (easy for me to start with, Alzheimer’s and memory, WWII)
- A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell (WWII, upheaval, Jewish Diaspora, realism)
- The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly (WWII, grief, magic, folktales)
- The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich (grief, magic, Native American culture)
- A Sudden Country by Karen Fisher (the West, Native Americans and white settlers, strong woman, landscape)
- A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn (politics, murder, foreign landscape)
- Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (politics, foreign setting, memoir)
- Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem (murder, first person narrative, Tourette’s syndrome)
- Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robinson (Asperger’s syndrome, memoir, humor)
- The Rabbi’s Cat by Joann Sfar (humor, being different, change, uplifting end)
This list contains all literary works, mostly fiction, but includes two memoirs, two murder mysteries, a western, some magical realism, and two graphic books. These books will keep me talking for about thirty minutes. Two to three minutes per book should be long enough to whet an audience’s appetite without boring them.
Once you have several potential titles, imagine how you might tell a good friend about each book. You would probably gush a bit, maybe tailor your comments to your friend’s taste, perhaps even mimic a voice or comment more on why you loved the book than on the story itself. Think about how you might use similar approaches with an audience. Pretend the audience is simpatico: they almost always are, once you relax and have fun. What is the appeal you want to emphasize, and what is the best presentation to capture a reader’s attention and make them want to read the book? This simple exercise gives us clues about our own natural style when we talk about literature, the same style we should use in book-talking with readers.
Each book’s mini-talk has consistent elements, though the elements may be presented in a different order. Knowing these elements helps you stay on track as you speak. You will always have a leading statement or introduction to the book, a few plot details, the hook, and a closing statement. The leading statement is only a few words to help segue into the book. For instance, to segue from The Madonnas of Leningrad to A Thread of Grace, one might simply say, “Another book set in World War II, but in a totally different area …” From Motherless Brooklyn to Look Me in the Eye, a good segue could be, “And if you want to know what it’s like to have Asperger’s Syndrome, read the real-life story …” It’s good to memorize your first line so you always know where to start.
The second element when talking up a title is, of course, plot. To a certain extent, you have to say what the book is about. A good rule of thumb is to say as much about appeal as possible and as little about plot as you can get away with. Have you ever had someone tell you about a movie they loved and had them go on and on about every single detail— including the end? Readers don’t need the whole story; they want to know why they will like the story. Tell just enough to make them curious, emphasizing why you loved it. The plot description could be as little as, “It’s about what went right for the Jews in Italy during World War II” (A Thread of Grace). Or it can be a part of the book that moved you: “Faye is an estate agent and while cataloging the contents of a client’s home, she comes across an antique drum painted in the Ojibwe tradition. It seems to call to her. So she steals it—something she has never done and cannot explain even to herself” (The Painted Drum).
The “hook,” a term used by many youth services librarians, is a story delivery device: the action, prop or statement that best illustrates the book’s main attraction and hooks the audience into wanting to read it. A hook for The Book of Lost Things might be, “What would happen if you visited a Grimm’s fairy tale and it wasn’t how you remembered it?” or, for The Rabbi’s Cat, “The rabbi’s cat wants a bar mitzvah so he can be a proper Jew.” Perhaps for a book like Wee Free Men, you might use a Scottish accent to describe the “big wee hag” from the Feegles’ perspective. You might decide to tell a particularly suspenseful part of the story and then leave the audience hanging, or wear a witch’s hat to talk about Wicked. A word of caution, however: If you aren’t good at drama and props, steer clear of them. You should be comfortable with your hooks and try to vary them from one book to the next. The audience will remember your hooks (good and bad), so make it audience- and appeal-appropriate, attention-grabbing, and something you can pull off gracefully. Memorize and practice delivering the hook.