Working at a public library has its privileges, one of which includes forcing your tastes in literature on others. Well, maybe not forcing your tastes on others, but recommending books to patrons who are tired of the James Patterson/Debbie Macomber/Danielle Steel unholy trinity. To be honest, very few people seem to get sick of those three, mostly because they keep writing new books every week (and Nora Roberts helps pick up the slack during an off month). But there’s plenty more to the library than thrillers or chillers.

The library I work at doesn’t have everything, but it does have a lot more than I used to think when I just came in as a regular patron. Maybe I was spoiled by my time at the library in Clemson, where most of the stacks were filled with actual “literature with a capital L” that students were forced to read (especially if they were English majors). William Faulkner had an entire section devoted to him in Clemson; when I got to the library I’m at now, there were maybe three of his books on the shelf. Of course, when you’re a public library (meaning that you serve the public), you can’t really carry all the sorts of half-baked literary criticism that is a university library’s stock in trade.

Since I started working in August, I’ve read my way through a couple of John Updike books, some Michael Chabon, and all one thousand and fifty pages of Norman Mailer’s “The Executioner’s Song.” I’ve taken advantage of the request system to get books sent from the other branches so I don’t have to drive up there to get them. I read a so-so biography of Paul McCartney, Ron Rash’s first novel, and so on. The books I have out as of this moment: “Roger Ebert’s Book of Film” (getting back to my film-snob college days), “The Blind Side,” and “One Nation Under a Groove: Motown and American Culture.”

Today we finally took down the Georgia O’Keefe display that’s been up there since I started working, and in the discussion about what to do with the space I threw out the idea of “staff recommendations.” I’d been eager for this since I began entertaining the notion of working there, wondering just what I’d offer for our patrons. We don’t have any Thomas Pynchon except for “Against the Day” (too big to read), David Foster Wallace (though what little I’ve read of him suggests that our average patron would get a headache trying to keep up with his favorite literary device of footnotes), or Sarah Vowell (I’m tempted to donate one from my private collection, but I’m waiting to see if someone comes in asking for her books first). But there are some good books to choose from, that’s for sure.

The table got pretty crowded after the staff picks idea started spreading, but I got in four books that I think represent my own psyche or interests. I had a few ideas for ringers, like Vonnegut or Hornby, but I decided to mix it up a little. My four picks thus far: “America, The Book” (The Daily Show), “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union” (Chabon), “Made in America” (Bill Bryson), and “The Year of Living Biblically” (A.J. Jacobs). I don’t know if anyone will check out any of my recommendations, but they’re pretty cool to look at there on the table.

Back when there was such a thing as a “record store” in the greater tri-county area, I used to see staff picks near the front and see if I could gleam the personality of the person making recommendations. For example, if someone recommended Limp Bizkit, June Carter Cash, and the “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” soundtrack, I’d wonder how schizophrenic they were. To say that it’s been a dream of mine, a slightly pathetic dream at that, is not an understatement. Perhaps I should aim higher, but for the time being that’ll do.