On Bibliophobia and Overcoming It.

The promised post has come. Much later than you anticipated, no doubt. But then again, you're probably used to that ;) Truthfully, I wrote this a long time ago, but just found it in my drafts, and decided to give it another go. I mentioned in my Thanksgiving post about how most of my friends are not great readers. This is an understatement, actually, because most of my peers only pick up a book if they have to browse it for school, whether it's college or HS.
Hence, I get a lot of teasing about being The Librarian in our group. This is only because I sometimes know answers to questions that others don't (ever hear of the game Catch Phrase?), which is because of my extensive reading and my particular love for historical fiction! Therefore, I don't mind the constant ribbing, because a) it's all friendly and b) they're acknowledging the fact that the well-read tend to be smart, and that knowing random facts can be kind of fun!

It has occurred to me before this how many different genres of books there are, and how many people of varying interests are bound to be interested in at least one of the categories. But these people are those who do not enter the library more than once every five years. These people think of books as being heavy, boring tomes like War and Peace; or slimmer, but just as boring, volumes like The Old Man and the Sea.

 

These are the people who became utterly dismayed in their required English classes because they are issued an extensive reading list. The number of kids who come to the library, looking for a book for required reading, always look for the thinnest book on the shelf. This cancels out books like Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and the aforementioned War and Peace. Now, some of this is understandable. No guy would care about Jane Eyre and to take it further, Jane Austen is completely taboo. (I don't know any man who knows who Mr. Darcy is) Charles Dickens is known to be wordy and lengthy, since he was paid by the word, and therefore used twenty when one would do. Leo Tolstoy is entirely understandable to be avoided at all costs, I'll admit.

Like one high school senior who came in the library asked me, when exclaiming how awful Sense & Sensibility (!!) was to read: "Did people actually talk like that?!"
To my credit, I did not give out a long spiel about how great that historical time frame was.
 But I did want to shake her by the shoulders and ask "Do you know nothing?"

These high school students now have a base for their dislike of reading. Books are therefore boring and not to be talked about. Who wants to read?

And this is when a librarian straightens her soapbox to present her point.
I love it when somebody comes to the front desk and asks me to help them find a book. Granted, usually these people know exactly what book they must read and only need direction towards the right shelf. That's easy enough.

But occasionally, the odd person will come in and need assistance trying to find a good book! Sometimes self-consciousness does get in my way, but I love to suggest good reads. The pressure comes when I realize that if the particular book I suggest doesn't actually appeal to the patron, it could once again turn them off reading forever.
On the off chance that they don't like the book, but still come back for more options, this is the perfect example of just trying to find the right genre.
And this is the magic of books: from there, an entire new world opens up.
A person could decide to try Jane Austen, for example. If said person actually enjoys Pride & Prejudice, they will be more than happy to try each of her other novels. But Austen only wrote a few. So then what?
If I wasn't worried about scaring them off, I would suggest Charles Dickens.
Now, I'm not comparing the two. (That's a blog post for another day) But I'm saying that both are historical, and if that is something they enjoyed about Jane Austen, they're likely to also enjoy that about Dickens.

Then, (yes, I'm actually going somewhere here) they'll likely wish to know a few more facts about both Austen and Dickens, and will be tempted to check out books on those particular authors, from which they will learn about other influential authors of both time periods!

And from there, they will find more good historical reads! This scenario changes depending on what exactly they liked about Jane Austen, because if they found it a little hard to read, but loved the story, I could suggest just about anything. If they want more of particular characters, there are plenty of spin-offs, especially of P&P and S&S.

This is where the librarian gets excited. And before I again go on and on about the subject, I will present an example:

A few weeks ago I signed someone up for a library card. I discovered, upon making necessary small-talk, that she needed said card so she could check out some more Jane Austen books. Of course, I was more than thrilled. When she said she had started with Pride & Prejudice, I jumped in, wondering if she had ever known the plot and storyline before. She said she had, but couldn't remember what actually happened, so revisited and finished it, wanting more! We got involved in a small discussion, of course, as I cannot resist talking about Jane Austen.
While she stood there as I filed away her information, she picked up a book we had on display, which was P.D James' Death at Pemberly, and got excited, as she instantly recognized the Austen connection, and said she would definitely try it sometime.

Needless to say, I went home that day satisfied that the world possesses one more Austen fan :)
And I stand fulfilled.
I shall now put away the soapbox.