Reader 4

This man is one of my coworkers at Purdue, and he was one of the most challenging to pick books before because he wasn't very specific about his interests at first. I.e., he was clearly very interested in biographies, nonfiction, and history (genres rated 9 or 10), but what subjects did he want to read about?

I ended up giving him a list of interesting titles from the ALA Notable Books list, and then we had a sit-down conversation to try to pinpoint what he was really in the mood to read about at this time. We ended up with Abraham Lincoln, the Spanish-American War, World War I, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, so I told him I would select a book that the Tippecanoe County Public Library owns for each of these topics.

My recommendations

-- Lincoln by David Herbert Donald

-- Spanish-American War by Michael Golay

-- World War One: A Short History by Norman Stone

-- Eisenhower: Soldier and President by Stephen Ambrose

I selected these through a process that involved browsing at Borders, looking at Recommended Reads in NoveList, and reading book reviews online.

Response

Reader 4 immediately thanked me for my efforts and said he really appreciated it. Today I talked to him and joked, "Have you read all those books yet?" and he laughed and said no, but added that he planned to read all of them.