Here in the NPR Books offices, we've just gotten some of the metrics back on the Book Concierge project, and we've really been enjoying looking at what's popular with our users — which books (hello, Eleanor & Park!) and particularly, which tags and combinations thereof.
We were very gratified to see how many of you were interested in NPR Staff Picks, the most popular single tag. Kids' books come next, followed by Seriously Great Writing and Science Fiction and Fantasy (nerds, represent!). Then we come to the tag combinations, and I have one thing to say to you:
You've all got dirty, dirty minds.
Elevated tastes, to be sure, but dirty minds. Far and away, the most popular combination of tags you chose was Let's Talk About Sex, paired with Seriously Great Writing — a category that includes titles like Jillian Weise's The Book of Goodbyes ("hot, hip and heart-rending,"says Craig Morgan Teicher) and James Salter's mammoth All That Is. And here's the kicker — while people browsing, say, biographies or science books were happy to do it from their desktops, a disproportionate number of you were looking up the sexy sexy books on mobile. Didn't want the boss looking over your shoulder, huh?
We understand! And we've compiled the rest of the list for you here — in handy Monkey See post format, so you don't get caught clicking on anything labeled "sex."
My Education, by Susan Choi. "Choi writes evocatively and excitingly about passion, and equally so about youth — that fleeting, fascinating and all-too-recognizable time of life," says critic Meg Wolitzer.
I Want to Show You More, by Jamie Quatro. Here's a little sample: "I want to show you more, I said. "He was silent. Then: So far, we haven't done anything we couldn't tell our spouses about."
Bobcat and Other Stories, by Rebecca Lee. Critic Jane Ciabattari says Lee "is a virtuoso — ironic, original, cosmopolitan."
Ciabattari also likes Stay Up With Me, by Tom Barbash: "Barbash's miniature dramas sparkle with grace and wit."
And finally, there's The Woman Who Lost Her Soul, by Bob Shacochis. Our favorite librarian Nancy Pearl says "I'd have no hesitation in labeling this the first "Great American Novel" of the 21st century."
Happy ... reading!
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