A few years ago, I wrote in The Atlantic about my complete failure to run a book club. This group should have been a slam dunk: I'd recruited my best friends; we were all stuck inside because of COVID, yearning for distraction and connection; we were all women who love to read and talk about books. And yet we managed to get through only two selections, both of which I hated, before giving up entirely. Why was reading with my friends so hard' The librarians, professors, and booksellers I talked with gave me some clues: We hadn't agreed on a theme, and we probably met too infrequently. But the most memorable insight to come out of my reporting was the concept of 'reader's advisory,' which means a knack for intuiting which volumes specific people would enjoy. The phrase comes from library science, but it describes the kinds of interactions that happen in bookstores and on the internet, too. Another version shows up in The Atlantic's book-recommendation lists, including Rhian Sasseen's...
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