Book Tasting at the Berryville Library

Last week, we hosted the library’s first-ever book tasting for adults, and it was a smashing success. We wanted to highlight it here in case you want to replicate it on your own or just vicariously experience ours.

I am responsible for reader’s advisory services at the library, which means I create recommendation lists for our patrons, and I conduct trainings on reader’s advisory and create readalike resources for our staff. One of our goals for this year was to provide an in-person reader’s advisory event for patrons.

After considerable discussion, we landed on a book tasting, where participants could sample from multiple books in the space of an hour/hour and a half. Most of the resources I could find on book tastings were for school librarians, and they also depended on having multiple tables.

Well, we don’t really have that as an option in our space. So, I improvised. I planned for a 3-course book meal to be served to up to 9 guests at 1 table. We also scheduled it during our new programming time, 4th Monday Meetups. These are at 10:00-11:30 am on the 4th Monday of the month, and it’s intended to be a way for people to participate in a fun activity or hear an interesting speaker while also getting to make friends and indulge in some coffee and doughnuts.

All the books chosen for the book tasting have been profiled in some way on this very blog, though I did try to prioritize newer books. Each course featured a range of genres, both fiction and nonfiction.

All participants also received a scorecard to keep track of their likes and dislikes. The original idea had been for each person to sample two books during the course, with each course lasting about 10 minutes. At the end, there would be a buffet where everyone could sample anything.

We started with appetizers, a blend of lighter books either in tone or size.

We then moved on to our main course.

We then finished with dessert, which is where both the heaviest and the lightest books were featured. It all depended on how substantial you wanted your book dessert to be.

We had been unsure of turnout but figured if we had 5 people attend, it would be a success. Instead, we had 11 show up. A big thank you to all our diners! You were such a fun, engaged group with fantastic taste in books.

And because everyone was having such a good time, we quickly abandoned the idea of only ordering 2 books and just let everyone pass around the books family style during the individual courses, so we didn’t even need a buffet at the end.

My end goal was for people to leave with books or at least an idea of what they’d like to read next. Several participants left with a book checked out–or on hold. Paulette Jiles’s Enemy Women proved quite popular. 🙂

A special thank you also to Julie, who helped me develop the idea of an in-person reader’s advisory program, proofread the menus, and helped serve books; Kelli, who initially suggested a book tasting, assisted with making the menus and scorecard look nice, set the table and coffee up beforehand, took pictures, and also helped serve; Jen, who provided me with a lot of great tips and resources from her previous teen book tasting; and to Mary-Esther and Camille, who kept the library going while all this was going down.

We had several people ask during the event if we were going to do this again, and the answer is absolutely! In fact, I am already noting down ideas for books to feature next time. And thanks to the great turnout, we’re already looking at spaces where we can set up multiple tables. 🙂

And just as a reminder, as I told our attendees at the end, if you’re a patron, please reach out to me about doing a tailormade reading recommendation list for you. You can see examples of the lists I’ve made for people over the years, but you can also request your own. I just need to know what books and authors you like and why and what books and authors you dislike and why. You can call us at 870-423-2323, email us at info@berryvillelibrary.org, or stop by the circulation desk and request a desk. We’re also hoping to launch an online form you can fill out soon.

Have you ever attended a book tasting? Have you read any of the books on the menus? What are you excited to try off the menu? As always, please follow this link to our online library catalog for more information on any of these items or to place them on hold.