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Now Read This #3
Now Read This III: A Guide To Mainstream Fiction
The third in the "Now Read ThiS" series, Pearl & Cords's guide briefly describes and organizes approximately 500 of the most popular and current contemporary, mainstream fiction titles according to their primary appeal features-character, setting, language, and story. It also notes award-winning titles and those appropriate for book clubs; and it offers users suggestions for related reads. Focus is on titles published since 2000, and all annotations are new to this volume. This is "the" standard readers' advisory guide to mainstream fiction, and an essential tool for readers' advisors.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 1, 2010
A must for all librarians interested in reader's advisory. It is especially useful for an in depth understanding of the four doorways into a novel, bridge books into other genre's and similar reads.
December 20, 2020
This book has caused me to think me about more deeply about how I read and what attracts me. I can't wait to read the other books in this series. Nancy Pearl is my hero!
December 5, 2016
Note to self: don't read so many genreflecting books back to back.
Even though I was eager to add (unnecessarily) more books to my to-read shelf, someone returned several of these to my library and I picked them all up on a whim since they were there. I ended up reading 3, one right after the other, so by the time I got to this one I didn't want to read through every description.
Since this is supposed to be 'mainstream' fiction, the titles aren't genrefied nicely, rather split into categories the books excel in: language, setting, character, and (I believe) story. This classification didn't help me any, so I just flipped through titles front to back. And as with the crime book I read before it, there was quite a few trends in terms of topics covered: in this case it was war (especially WWII), romance ('love affairs' is the subject tag used in the book), family relationships, race, and historical settings (mostly 1900's). None of these topics interest me, so I did a lot of skimming.
By this point I didn't want to be reading hundreds of summaries, so I went purely by the subject tags for any that caught my eye; I did find a few but not as many as I expected. I'm also curious as to why the authors called this 'mainstream' fiction--I'm beginning to think it was just to clarify that it was general fiction with no inclusion of genre fiction, because 'mainstream' to me meant popular or widely-read, and I recognized almost no titles in this book at all. Maybe three. (I'm not very 'well read' though, so perhaps the trends in this book of things I don't like are things most other people would read about).
Even though I was eager to add (unnecessarily) more books to my to-read shelf, someone returned several of these to my library and I picked them all up on a whim since they were there. I ended up reading 3, one right after the other, so by the time I got to this one I didn't want to read through every description.
Since this is supposed to be 'mainstream' fiction, the titles aren't genrefied nicely, rather split into categories the books excel in: language, setting, character, and (I believe) story. This classification didn't help me any, so I just flipped through titles front to back. And as with the crime book I read before it, there was quite a few trends in terms of topics covered: in this case it was war (especially WWII), romance ('love affairs' is the subject tag used in the book), family relationships, race, and historical settings (mostly 1900's). None of these topics interest me, so I did a lot of skimming.
By this point I didn't want to be reading hundreds of summaries, so I went purely by the subject tags for any that caught my eye; I did find a few but not as many as I expected. I'm also curious as to why the authors called this 'mainstream' fiction--I'm beginning to think it was just to clarify that it was general fiction with no inclusion of genre fiction, because 'mainstream' to me meant popular or widely-read, and I recognized almost no titles in this book at all. Maybe three. (I'm not very 'well read' though, so perhaps the trends in this book of things I don't like are things most other people would read about).
April 12, 2010
Here's a strong entry in Pearl's series that helps readers find works of mainstream fiction based either on preference for a particular appeal (story, character, setting, language) or the enjoyment of one of the listed books. As with other Now Read This books, it's well indexed and the books are well chosen (this time drawing from books published since 2002, whwen Now Read This II came out, but focusing on books from the last three years). In this volume, the annotations are a little longer, providing a better understanding of each of the listed works. There are also many more connections drawn to nonfiction and genre fiction this time, which is a nice update for readers who cross back and forth between different types of books. Every library should own this.
July 5, 2010
Truly outstanding! Five hundred mainstream fiction books are impressively annotated, with excellent suggestions for other works to try if you like a particular title. Very well done!
January 11, 2011
Great resource!
September 27, 2013
A great Readers' Advisory resource. I love that Nancy Pearl uses the metaphor of a "doorway" as an appeal factor. The doorway is what draws the reader into the book. Love it.
July 26, 2016
very textbook-like and heavy (figuratively & literally) ick...much better options out there.
August 21, 2016
The lists on book related websites in the appendix make this well worth reading by themselves, but Nancy Pearl's and Sarah Cord's passion for books is pretty catching.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews