Nancy Pearl (celebrity librarian, NPR commentator, author of Book Lust  and model for the Librarian Action Figure) has come up with a new way to organize the books we love based on 4 “Doorways”, so called because these terms reflect our experiences when we enter a book’s world. She suggests that we decide how much each of these experiential elements was important for us in a book we loved to guide us in our choice of another book we will enjoy. Nancy would like to see each of these element put into a pie chart on a book’s cover or in the catalog, so that reader’s can assess the potential appeal of new books for them.

The four elements she puts into her pie charts are:

1. Story (Plot)

2. Character (Whether you feel as though the characters are your close personal friends)

3. Setting

4. Language

To read the rest of Nancy’s article, click here.