Faye’s Thoughts on… Recommendations

It’s that time of the year where everyone is recommending books. In part to ease Christmas shopping and in part simply by wrapping up all the books read in the year and describing favourites. So today I wanted to talk to you all about recommendations.

The General Recommendation

There are some books you read and finish and believe that everyone should read. These are what I’m coining as general recommendations. They’re good on a basic level, perfect for presents to people you don’t know well and are often books that get or are hyped. This may not be my favourite kind of recommendation but they do come in handy!

The Gender Recommendation

As a library assisstant, I am often asked to give a recommendation that an x-age boy or girl will like without anymore information. Personally, I hate these kinds of recommendations but I do know that they can be helpful for parents, autnts, uncles and grandparents who really don’t know what the child reads or because they don’t read themselves.

The Personality Recommendation

These are the recommendations that are given upon knowing some things about a person. Like they enjoy adventure books or really liked x book. With these recommendations you can go for books in the same genre or by similar authors. It also means you can recommend books on say horses to someone who has admitted to loving that animal. These are great recommendations when you know a little about the person but not a lot.

The Personal Recommendation

And then you have my favourite recommendation, the truly personal one. It’s the kind of recommendation you give to someone you truly know. Upon hearing the recommendation and reading said book, that person knows you know them completely. This is the friend recommendation. The kind that is perfected by getting to know someone and what they generally like to read. I love giving these kinds of recommendations, as I just think it’s the perfect way of showing how much you listen and care.

With all recommendations, there is that innate worry that the person will dislike it and wonder what planet you were on when you thought they’d like it. I like the personal recommendation best, but essentially, I love being able to recommend all books. Especially if I’m in the position to hear what they thought about it all at the end!

But what about you? Do you like recommending books to people? What’s your favourite kind of recommendation?