The Readers' Advisory Guide to Nonfiction

Neal Wyatt

American Library Association, May 14, 2007 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 318 pages

Navigating what at she calls the " extravagantly rich world of nonfiction," renowned readers' advisor (RA) Wyatt builds readers' advisory bridges from fiction to compelling and increasingly popular nonfiction to encompass the library's entire collection. She focuses on eight popular categories: history, true crime, true adventure, science, memoir, food/cooking, travel, and sports. Within each, she explains the scope, popularity, style, major authors and works, and the subject's position in readers' advisory interviews.

Wyatt addresses who is reading nonfiction and why, while providing RAs with the tools and language to incorporate nonfiction into discussions that point readers to what to read next. In easy-to-follow steps, Wyatt

• Explains the hows and whys of offering fiction and nonfiction suggestions together
• Illustrates ways to get up to speed fast in nonfiction
• Shows how to lead readers to a variety of books using her "read-around" and "reading map" strategies
• Provides tools to build nonfiction subject guides for the collection

This hands-on guide includes nonfiction bibliography, key authors, benchmark books with annotations, and core collections. It is destined to become the nonfiction 'bible' for readers' advisory and collection development, helping librarians, library workers, and patrons select great reading from the entire library collection!

Contents

• A Readers Advisory Approach to Nonfiction: 1
• Offering the Service: 26
• Food and Cooking: 46
• Science Mathematics and Nature Writing: 60
• Memories: 82
• Sports: 100
• True Crime: 120
• Travel: 138
• True Adventure: 151
• History and Historical Biography: 168
• General Nonfiction: 190
• Learning and Marketing the Collection: 217
• Whole Collection Readers Advisory Service: 230
• How to Built a Nonfiction Subject Guide: 247
• A Nonfiction Reading Plan The Ten Books from Each Subject Area to Consider Reading: 254
• Annotation Form: 260
• Reading Notes: 264
• The Readers Advisory Matrix: 267
• Index: 271

About the author

Neal Wyatt is a contributing editor and the readers' advisory columnist for Library Journal. She has served as President of The American Library Association's Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), chair of the Collection Development and Evaluation Section, and as chair of the Readers' Advisory Research and Trends Committee, The Notable Books Council, The Reading List Council, and The Listen List Committee, the last two of which she founded. She was instrumental in the creation of the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction, the Sophie Brody Award, and the Zora Neale Hurston Award and is the founder of the Readers' Advisory Research and Trends Forum. She won RUSA's Margaret E. Monroe Award (2012) and the Isadore Gilbert Mudge Award (2013). She is the author of The Readers' Advisory Guide to Nonfiction as well as numerous articles and several book chapters. She holds a PhD in Media, Art, and Text.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Readers' Advisory Guide to Nonfiction; ALA Readers' Advisory Series
• Author: Neal Wyatt
• Publisher: American Library Association, 2007
• ISBN: 0838909361, 9780838909362
• Length: 318 pages
• Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / Library & Information Science / General; Literary Criticism / Books & Reading; Reference / General