I do think that libraries should cater to a wide variety of tastes. The problem comes with one person deciding what the other people should read.Exactly -- one person, or the committees (boards) that are interested only in the bottom line. The problem is many public libraries in the US are catering to very narrow taste, and I think that's what most of us are really complaining about. Now, whether this is because the preponderance of the clientele only want certain types of books, or the space and budget restraints are inhibiting the purchase of a broad collection...I'm not sure, but I suspect it's both. It's very disheartening to me, though, to see choice shrinking rather than expanding in public libraries. I have nothing against sci-fi/fantasy being well represented for readers who love it. I do object to mediocre and poorly written sci-fi/fantasy crowding out other genres, though. (I certainly can't tell, though, what is good and what is bad in the genre because I don't read enough of it, but I've been told very frequently by several family members who love the genre that about 70% of it is crap. I'll take their word for it because among them they have almost 150 years of reading experience, a lot of it in sf/fantasy, and even they see their beloved genre is over-represented -- and debased because of it.) There comes a point when a significant portion of the clientele is not being served well because the most popular genres are hogging everything, and those people will get discouraged and turn away; perhaps some potential readers will be lost because the library doesn't have much of anything they need or have an interest in. The libraries have already lost me, but I don't count because I have other resources -- it's those who don't have alternatives I feel the saddest for.

Liz's post on the May thread reminded me that I had the hardest time with remembering Levy's Small Island for a book club. I normally have an excellent memory - though not that of my younger days - and I simply could not remember either the title of the book or the author when I went to the book store. I must have checked the email 6 times before I finally wrote myself a note to take with me to the booksellers. Not a good title perhaps, but I loved the book. My introduction to James Lee Burke was In the Electric Mist with a Confederate General at the library. How could I pass up such a title? I'm embarrassed to admit, but my first Elizabeth Peter's novel, picked up purely for the title, was Naked at Lunch. I agree that Zelazny had some excellent titles - the Short story A Rose for Ecclesiastes is a favorite. How about Stone's titles? The Agony and the Ecstasy is good. For Whom the Bell Tolls Freeman Dyson's Disturbing the Universe M.F.K. Fisher's book about cooking during WWII food rationing, How to Cook a Wolf Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by Berendt A good title is much more likely to pull me in than good cover art.

Killer in the Rain ~ Raymond Chandler (a collection of shorter stories, some of which he expanded into novels)

Ann I haven't read anything by Heyer since I was about 15! Not so long ago I was at a church sale and picked up a copy of something by GH and casually remarked to a woman next to me "We used to read her stuff when young perhaps as a lead-in to Jane Austen". The woman, a rather serious do-gooder, looked at me as though I told her I still read Enid Blyton. I returned the book to the counter and slunk away. Tim, EJH certainly had 'boundary issues' as you well-describe them. When first married and very young and naive with her husband away at Sea, and living with his family she and his equally young half-brother had a 'crush' on each other; probably nothing serious but they made the fatal mistake of telling both the husband and the M-in-L. Her whole life seems to have been a series of similar moral blunders. She wrote about them quite candidly in her autobiography Slipstream; well worth reading.