Neal Wyatt's clear, informative Novelist article on the RA Conversation was enlightening. I especially found value in two things: how important it is to listen to the customer; and how little needs to be said. Listening to the customer also entails extracting as much as possible from a potentially taciturn reader. However, using the techniques she recommends can engender great relationships with readers, or even simply create one singular instance between librarian and customer.
Nancy Pearl is always enjoyable to hear due to her obvious love of books and the desire to match readers with books. What I like about her choices on this podcast is that they are not the most obvious selections. She is also not afraid to suggest genre selections as well as more literary titles. Her familiarity with each is important to note - you cannot fake your way through RA. She probably spends a bit more time speaking about books than many librarians in the trenches actually have, but cultivating relationships with readers is very important to keep them coming back.
Conversation 1 (Eat Pray Love) had me thinking a lot about travel memoirs, a favorite genre of mine. It helps that I'm the selector who buys them for the library system! The first book that came to my mind, due to her enjoyment of Elizabeth Gilbert's inner thoughts, is Tales of a Female Nomad, by Rita Golden Gelman. We featured this book in a Genre Boot Camp a few years ago, and I think it would be a great match for a person who enjoyed Eat Pray Love for the reasons stated in the conversation. I might also recommend Bill Bryson's works, especially In a Sunburned Country, which informs the reader not only of his Down Under experiences, but of Australia's history, geography, and people.
Conversation 2 (Something vampiry other than Twilight) made me instantly think of Annette Curtis Klause's classic teen vampire tale Blood and Chocolate. A very different take on the vampire genre than the Twilight series and the numerous variations/knockoffs that followed.
Conversation 3 (Something like The River of Doubt) prompted me to consider a number of presidential histories. The first that came to mind was Destiny of the Republic (by the same author, Candice Millard, as The River of Doubt), about the short, ill-fated presidency of James Garfield. Beyond that, I also thought of Edmund Morris' biography of Teddy Roosevelt, Theodore Rex, and also Nathaniel Philbrick's books
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