I loved Molly’s last post that discussed giving books as gifts. They are always a wonderful gift and I wouldn’t mind having 100 books wrapped and waiting for me at home. How do you know what kind of book to buy someone? An age old question, okay maybe not that old, but it has been asked for many years. I give my nieces and nephews books all the time, and my parents, and sisters, etc. How do I know what to get them? For me it’s easy, I’m a librarian. I have access to countless reviews and I’m surrounded by books. Literally, surrounded by them! How do you find a good book for your friends and family? Or, yourself, we all deserve a good book.

Start at the library, we have this great tool called “Need a good book”. We can give you suggestions based on past reading preferences. You can even submit the form online, check it out:

https://upperdublinlibrary.org/i-need-a-good-book/

Your second choice is coming in to see us, we love to talk about books. I’m the worst at coming up with titles and authors on the spot, so don’t be discouraged if I say give me a minute after asking you some questions. I usually go to my notebook or my computer for inspiration and then I’m off gathering titles. My notebook will be featured in an upcoming post, you’ll be amazed, you’ll want one for yourself, you’ll cry when I tell you the first one was stolen. It’s an epic tale, maybe not epic, but pretty cool. I’ll give you as many titles/authors as you need, or as I can find.

Your third choice is pretty cool, I might try it out myself this year. Penguin Random House, a major publishing house has a hotline for very situation. (A side note, two publishers merged to create this publishing giant, they should have named themselves Random Penguin. That would have been awesome!) You know the Butterball Turkey Hotline, the number you can call with questions about preparing and cooking your turkey? This new hotline is just like that, but they give you book gift ideas through a special website. No, they don’t just recommend their own books and anyone can use it. It’s called the Penguin Hotline and is available for you from now until Dec. 21^st. The form is easy to use and they have blog posts to browse with recommendations.

If you use the library or the Penguins, let me know how your book buying experience turns out. I am happy to listen to you rave or complain and I’ll happily share my latest reading adventures with you (as of writing this, I’ve only read 141 books this year, I’m very far behind).

Happy Reading and gift giving!