Thinking About Contemporary Literature

Have you ever heard of the website About Contemporary Literature? It's a section of About.com that relates to , you guessed it, contemporary literature. For the bookworms out there, this is a pretty fun place to spend a few hours (or days as the case may be for this blogger). I came across this site by subscribing to the feed through bloglines.com, but for everyone else, it can be found at http://contemporarylit.about.com. There are several book reviews and blogs by Mark Flanagan along with blogrolls to other blogs that will introduce readers to new authors, discuss new books coming out, and personal experiences with reading.

But enough advertising for About Contemporary Literature. I've mainly been thinking about a series of book reviews I read about the Harry Potter book series. I use the term book review loosely as it is more like an analysis of each book. Instead of simply stating a general outline of the plot and the reviewers personal opinion on the quality of text, the reviewer goes further. All of the reviews discussed the overall themes of the books and how they are parallels and allegories for our own world. There are several other book reviews on this site that follow along the same lines of intellectual analysis.

While at first glance, this site wouldn't seem to be of much help to librarians, but I believe that it actually could be quite helpful. For starters, how many times a day are reference librarians asked to recommend a good book? This website is one more tool that they can use to identify types of books that can appeal to certain readers and creating reader's advisory lists. The analysis of each book draws different parallels between books and the real world which can lead to book choices that might not otherwise be considered for some readers. Going back to the Harry Potter reviews, some people might write them off as mere fantasy books or kiddie literature. However, the reviews would lead one to realize that someone interested in social reform would find these books to be incredible allegories.

It's interesting how a website that I found as a great way to amuse myself can also be a handy tool for the local reference librarian.