Can I recommend a book?

A mother came over to the Information Desk asking for the Young Adult Mystery section; I directed her (well, her children, whom she directed) to the YA section. Mysteries have a skull on the spine. Then she asked me to recommend a book for her tenth-grader who "doesn't like to read."

A book to read is very broad, I said; can we get specific? What do you like?

"I don't know," he answered.

"Scary things?" I asked, keeping Stephen King in mind.

"No, not that."

"Detective stories," I suggested; that got no enthusiasm. He and his mother engaged in a friendly word interplay, she suggesting this or that, he declining her suggestions.

"History?" I asked.

"Yes."

"The American Civil War?"

"Yeah." That connected.

I gave him a printout of a book by James McPherson.

"Someone told me about a 3,00 page book on the Civil War."

"I don't know that there's one book that's three thousand pages," I said, immediately searching in my mind for a multi-volume set that would qualify. I thought of Douglas Southall Freeman and then of Shelby Foote. I gave him a printout of the latter, and sent him off to the 973.7 section. He seemed satisfied. I know I was.

Again I was happy to have given a patron material he wanted and liked getting. Again my knowledge helped me to recommend a good book.