Below are my responses and recommendations for the conversations listed in the Be More Bookish blog. For readability's sake, I am including all my responses after the "jump" in this post.
Conversation One - Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (Read-Alike)
Per the conversation with the customer, I would offer the following:
Since Gilbert is a divorcee writing about finding herself after her divorce, the customer may find Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home by Maria Finn to be a worthwhile option. The author writes about how she learned to deal with love and loss, and finding out what you really want in life through a series of tango dance lessons. The book also explores the culture behind the tango dance tradition, much in the same way Gilbert observed the world around her in Eat, Pray, Love.
Conversation Two - The Anti-Twilight
Based on the the fact the customer is disinterested in novels that feature 1) plodding pace and, 2) love stories (see #1), I think we are looking at a customer who wants an action-oriented read. Consulting with my good friend NoveList, I came back with a few suggestions.
The Cirque du Freak series by Darren Shan is about a pair of teens who visit a freak show and deal with the fallout from snooping around within. Features vampires of the more Scary variety, its much more classic horror with a lot of gruesomeness and suspense.
More recently, there is also the Department 19 series by Will Hill - a teenager joins a government agency committed to fighting supernatural threats after witnessing his father's murder. It's a gritty read, with a fast pace and compelling narrative - its also for an audience slightly older than the Cirque series.
Conversation Three - Roosevelt Recommended Read-Alike
Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley & Livingstone by Martin C. Dugard chronicles the search for Dr. David Livingstone, who disappeared while trying to chart the source of the Nile River. He's pursued by Henry Morton Stanley, a journalist. It's a compellingly dramatic, richly-detailed true story of two men traveling through uncharted parts of Africa.
If you want some more Roosevelt action (and who doesn't?) you may also consider The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America by Timothy Egan. It's about the former President's efforts to repurpose the National Forest Service after a devastating blaze consumed millions of acres of woodland and killed almost 100 people - most of them forest rangers trying to fight the fires. It's drawn together with testimony of witnesses to the fire and its aftermath, creating a compelling narrative while providing a large amount of detail.
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