A Secret Shopper Trip to the Library- "What's a good book?"

 

    I began this experience already a bit uneasy with the initial approach. As someone who makes recommendations a lot, or just from my own experience working with different kinds of professionals, or even hobbyists, one of the most dreaded questions is “What’s a good X?” with no other follow up. It’s a question that offers no information for the recommender to go on. It’s like being asked to choose dinner when the other person “doesn’t care, you pick.” There are implicitly a thousand wrong answers to a supposedly open-ended prompt.

Recommendations are best when they’re personal and specialized, that’s what makes them most effective. And people who are invested in the thing that they’re being asked about tend to be excited to have the opportunity to flex their knowledge and expertise by making good, effective, recommendations. Anyone who’s ever successfully gotten a friend into a hobby, or a favorite author, knows this feeling of success. It’s not so much about recommending the best rated or best reviewed thing, but about finding the thing that the asker will be most engaged with to continue further on their own.

            With that said, I could feel the confusion and discomfort in the librarian’s demeanor after I asked them “What’s a good book, please?” It felt manipulative, like I was putting them on the spot. I was thankful that they didn’t just read off a read of current best sellers or point me to the featured display that was set up across the lobby. That is one approach, and if I hadn’t responded to their following questions that might’ve been a good springboard. But indeed, the librarian was kind and inquisitive enough to ask what kinds of books I had been reading, or had read in the past, searching out titles and authors for them to start their mental web. They were enthusiastic and excited to be doing this, and lacking any professional librarian experience myself, made me wonder if they didn’t get asked for recommendations as often as they might’ve before Internet recommendation lists.

Eventually after a few of these introductory questions we settled on finding something in the horror genre for me. The librarian showed me the feature on the library website for searching horror recommendations posted there, which would have been helpful. But I pressed them a little more saying that I had seen those on Goodreads and was looking for something different.

“Something maybe a little contemporary, maybe something more one-off and not part of a series?” I asked.

It was at this point that this librarian admitted that horror wasn’t their expertise. The conversation did not stop there however, as they then pointed me to another desk where one of their coworkers, “knows a lot more about horror than I do.”

I appreciated this a lot. It’s completely valid to not be an expert in each genre of reading. This first librarian did the best within their means with the tools they had, and when it was clear I was going to need a little more help than that, they sent me to someone more specialized in my specific interests. They sent me off with a wave and asked that I come back to see them to show what I had found, or if I needed any further help. I know a lot of people might not be as patient with being sent around like this, but I’m someone that doesn’t mind getting my call to my insurance company passed off to 3 different help desks until I find someone that can (or will, depending on the day) help fix my problem.

I arrived at this second desk, and this person had a sticker on their book cart that read, “I’d rather be reading Stephen King”. King’s not really my jam, but it was a sign I was in the right place. After introducing ourselves, I took a different approach to my asking for a good book. This time, as I had been sent to an expert in horror, I started to “talk shop” a bit more.

“My last 3 books have all been Anne Rice novels. I had a lot of fun with them, I love the dark New Orleans setting, but after reading a series for awhile I’m looking for something a bit more one-off. Maybe something a little more contemporary? Has anyone been writing anything like a good classic ghost story lately?”

Without looking at their computer, off the cuff, they first recommended me the author Joe Hill. I hadn’t mentioned my middling opinion of King but they were enthusiastic to tell me he is King’s son (it feels like King, Rice and Koontz are the trinity of that era of horror fiction). The enthusiasm they had while bringing me out into the stacks to find the collection of Hill’s novels was enough for me to be intrigued enough to hit the slopes, as it were. They pulled 2 short story collections first (Strange Weather is currently sitting in my lap. Within the first paragraphs we’ve had mentions of Atari sticks, old radios, and Xray glasses to look up women’s’ skirts. The resemblance is uncanny), putting them in my hands, telling me they’d be a good to get a taste and see if that style was what I was looking for.

“Thank you! And ghost stories? Can you think of any of those?”

They brought me back to the desk, where they sat back and gave it some consideration. I flipped through Weather while they went back and forth from thinking to searching in the computer, coming up with four more recommendations. They brought me over to these as well, left me there to read a few slip covers, and came back with one more. I took The Ruins by Scott Smith, The Devil in Silver and The Changeling by Victor LaValle, and went to go sit in the comfy chairs and get a taste of each. About 10 minutes later, the librarian had found me once more with one more recommendation, Ghost Story by Peter Straub. The amount they were invested in finding me a book I would resonate with was obvious. I now have a glut of books to read, with a list of others to pick up later.

            Overall, this was a very productive trip to the library. I found librarians who were excited to share their knowledge, or find me the right person with that knowledge, to make sure I found the thing that would most resonate with me. I do think that I put in some work as the inquirer, seeding my questions with those points of access like previous authors and the appeals I was looking for. But as I said, I think that came from my own experience in trying to field the “What’s a good X?” question. The first librarian did a great job in trying to inquire about those access points, though. It was like I was asking a friend about what movies they had seen lately or asking a Warhammer friend about what army I should build. Maybe I’m walking away with a few too many recommendations, but that seems like a good problem to have.