Reviews for Contemporary Authors, Vol. 165

The average rating for Contemporary Authors, Vol. 165 based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-08-22 00:00:00 Max Deiner Definitely as described, a guide rather than a handbook, The Real Story: A Guide to Nonfiction Reading Interests provides a breakdown of major nonfiction genres. The book excludes purely informational books, such as repair guides and cookbooks, and focuses on nonfiction stories of various kinds. The author gives a brief description of each genre and subgenre (dividing travel into armchair travel, travel humor, etc.), a list of annotated titles for each grouping and suggestions for further readings. I could see this being a very helpful book in a library, especially a library looking to promote a nonfiction book club, put together nonfiction displays, etc. Although this is a good reference guide, the author doesn't really engage with the classic components of readers' advisory, such as appeal factors and pace, or apply these factors to the titles in the book. For a librarian looking for a guide to understanding nonfiction reading interests rather than suggestions of readalikes might need to find another title first, perhaps Neal Wyatt's The Readers' Advisory Guide to Nonfiction.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-06-11 00:00:00 Bill Heyer 125 titles, mostly published between 1999-2004, including fiction, non-fiction, children's and teen, listed by categories. For my purposes (checking to see what good books I might not yet have on my list) would have been better to go straight to the back of the book where they are all in one list. Probably had read about half, and added about half of the remaining to my TBR or TBRAfter list.