Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is a captivating, exploratory speculative fiction novel set in a pandemic-ravaged United States. The narrative follows the entwined stories of several people across time, all connected to an actor who dies the night the pandemic begins. St. John Mandel’s writing is intimate and lyrical in this melancholy work…
Undercover Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams (March 10) because it’s the sequel to The Bromance Book Club If I Never Met You by Mhairi McFarlane (March 24) because it’s a “social media fauxmance” You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle (April 7) because it’s a lovers to enemies to lovers romantic comedy The Happy Ever…
A patron thought City of Thieves was a “good read.” “During the Nazis’ brutal siege of Leningrad, Lev Beniov is arrested for looting and thrown into the same cell as a handsome deserter named Kolya. Instead of being executed, Lev and Kolya are given a shot at saving their own lives by complying with an…
About The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, the patron said: “This book is truly remarkable. It is hard to describe, but it was just so magical and moving.” “When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he might be…until they find a…
A patron recently returned the two books below and said: “These were both really good.” The Paris Orphan – Natasha Lester “New York City/Paris, 1942: When American model Jessica May arrives in Europe to cover the war as a photojournalist for Vogue, most of the soldiers are determined to make her life as difficult as…
“So is it just human nature to believe that things happen for a reason – to find some shred of meaning even in the worst experiences?” To be honest, had it not been a book club selection I probably would have never heard about Christina Baker Kline’s novel Orphan Train. Despite this novel being extremely decorated…
“It the first day of November and so today, some will die.” Maggie Stiefvater’s The Scorpio Races takes you to the small island village of Thisby. Despite Thisby’s rolling hills and picture-perfect coast, this is a place haunted by tragedy. Creatures known as water horses are vicious beings who emerge from the sea on the…
I will be the first to admit the title of This Is How You Lose The Time War was what originally drew to this book. Why yes I do want to learn how to lose a time war (although I probably could without much help). Turns out there is a fantastic book hiding under that…
“Obstetrician Dr. Sophie Savard returns home to the achingly familiar rhythms of Manhattan in the early spring of 1884 to rebuild her life after the death of her husband. With the help of Dr. Anna Savard, her dearest friend, cousin, and fellow physician she plans to continue her work aiding the disadvantaged women society would…
“Here is a thing everyone wants: A miracle. Here is a thing everyone fears: What it takes to get one.” Maggie Stiefvater’s standalone novel All the Crooked Saints is a story of family, darkness, miracles…and the occasional owl. Bicho Raro, Colorado is a mysterious, small desert community that is home to the Soria Family. The…
“New York, 1879: An epic blizzard descends on Albany, devastating the city. When the snow finally settles, two newly orphaned girls are missing. Determined not to give up hope, Dr. Mary Sutter, a former Civil War surgeon, searches for the two sisters. When what happened to them is finally revealed, Dr. Sutter must fight the most…
“Six days ago, Joe Lynch was a happily married man, a devoted father, and a respected teacher living in a well-to-do London suburb. But that was before he spotted his wife’s car entering a hotel parking garage. Before he saw her in a heated argument with her best friend’s husband. Before Joe confronted the other…
The Figaro Trilogy caught my eye when I was doing some browsing in the Comcat Catalog about music/operas and I came across this title. Beaumarchais’s book discusses the history and social background of the 18th century world behind the plays: The Marriage of Figaro, The Barber of Seville, and The Guilty Mother. I never knew…
“London, 1880. “I’m dreadfully afraid someone is threatening to kill my wife …” When accounts clerk Ernest Stibbins approaches the World’s End investigation bureau with wild claims that his wife Albertina has been warned by her spirit guides that someone is out to harm her, the bureau’s owner Lily Raynor and her new employee Felix…
“For centuries, the kingdom of Iraden has been protected by the god known as the Raven. He watches over his territory from atop a tower in the powerful port of Vastai. His will is enacted through the Raven’s Lease, a human ruler chosen by the god himself. His magic is sustained by the blood sacrifice…
“Karen Russell’s comedic genius and mesmerizing talent for creating outlandish predicaments that uncannily mirror our inner in lives is on full display in these eight exuberant, arrestingly vivid, unforgettable stories. In“Bog Girl”, a revelatory story about first love, a young man falls in love with a two thousand year old girl that he’s extracted from…
George Washington Black, or “Wash,” an eleven-year-old field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is terrified to be chosen by his master’s brother as his manservant. To his surprise, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist. Soon Wash is initiated into a world where a flying machine can…
I am a big fan of Adriana Trigiani’s books. When I came across this book at the library I had to read it this one to add to my list of books to read by her. The book is set in late 1940’s South Philadelphia after World War II. The main character Nicky Castone is…
If you are a fan of Jane Austen and Mary Shelley I highly recommend reading the book Pride and Prometheus by John Kessel. Kessel combines the novels Pride and Prejudice and Frankenstein that sparked my interest in coming across this book. I was curious to see how the two books combined would play out. Kessel uses Mary Bennett…
In the wake of a scandal, the Montrose family and their three daughters—Catherine, Lydia, and Emeline—flee Boston for their new country home, Willow Hall. The estate seems sleepy and idyllic, but a subtle menace creeps into the atmosphere, remnants of a dark history that call to both Lydia and Emeline. All three daughters will be…
Born with the power to kill or resurrect at her slightest touch, Maisie Cothay has spent her childhood sequestered in her family’s manor at the edge of a mysterious forest. Maisie’s father has warned her not to venture into the wood lest she vanish like her female ancestors – but one day he disappears, and…
My first inclination was to have !!! stand-in for my thoughts on this book. Exclamation marks are about as coherent as I’m likely to get when it comes to Helen Oyeyemi’s work. (Have you read her? If not, I’ll gladly wait here while you place a hold on any one of her books. (And if…
Collections often contain one or two stories in particular (or more, that’s always a wonderful bit of luck) that linger with their reader; a story or two that simultaneously satisfies and leaves one wanting more. In the case of All the Names They Used for God, that story, for me, was “Glass-Lung.” Read the summary below;…
I have a vague recollection of watching the Academy Award-winning film adaptation of this novel, possibly on television, and possibly not all the way through, start to finish, but certainly a long time ago. Likely it was for the best that I did not seek out the novel at that time; I wouldn’t have appreciated…
“In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child–not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power–the power of witchcraft, which can transform…
Long before the specter of terrorism haunted the public imagination, a serial bomber stalked the streets of 1950s New York. The race to catch him would give birth to a new science called criminal profiling. The most interesting chapter of Incendiary: The Psychiatrist, the Mad Bomber, and the Invention of Criminal Profiling was its epilogue, when…
“Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier. Thirteen-year-old Leni, a girl coming of age in…
Get in the spirit with a cozy mystery! Print the list below or keep reading for summaries of each title.
This look at the near future presents the story of Offred, a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, once the United States, an oppressive world where women are no longer allowed to read and are valued only as long as they are viable for reproduction. The Handmaid’s Tale feels like a fresh take on the…
If you are in the mood for something magical to read for the month of October, I recommend The Witches of New York by Ami McKay. Set in 1880’s New York, the author gives us a glimpse of the world of magic, realism, fantasy, and witchcraft. Beatrice Dunn, one of the main characters, is looking…
Louise Penny’s latest book, Glass Houses, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. If you’re a fan of Inspector Gamache, but are still waiting for your copy, here are some series to try in the meantime. Guido Brunetti mysteries by Donna Leon Donna Leon writes the Guido Brunetti mysteries, whose protagonist is…
In many respects the world that my generation grew up in has changed for the better. Gone are the days of enforced segregation, slavery, and Jim Crow laws. And while the society we have created is not nearly close to perfect, it is a far cry from the social injustices that people of color have…
Every Heart a Doorway – Seanan McGuire “Children have always disappeared from Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere … else. But magical lands have little need…
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti (a local author; she also wrote The Good Thief) “Samuel Hawley isn’t like the other fathers in Olympus, Massachusetts. A loner who spent years living on the run, he raised his beloved daughter, Loo, on the road, moving from motel to motel, always watching his back.…
If you’ve read Emily Fridlund’s History of Wolves: “Fourteen-year-old Linda lives with her parents in the beautiful, austere woods of northern Minnesota, where their nearly abandoned commune stands as a last vestige of a lost counter-culture world. Isolated at home and an outlander at school, Linda is drawn to the enigmatic, attractive Lily and new…
Our patron called this “the best, funniest book.” About the book: “Dell Haley’s mama always told her there were two things a man couldn’t get enough of: good cookin’ and good lovin’. Dell has the cooking down pat — the proof is in her fried apple pies. But she suspects her husband is getting more…
I randomly picked up the audiobook The Hopefuls as I was finishing my shift on the circulation desk. I started listening to audiobooks a few years ago when my commute time nearly doubled, when I was at my previous job, and now I find it hard to be in the car without listening to a…
“On a foggy summer night, eleven people–ten privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter–depart Martha’s Vineyard on a private jet headed for New York. Sixteen minutes later, the unthinkable happens: the plane plunges into the ocean. The only survivors are Scott Burroughs–the painter–and a four-year-old boy, who is now the last remaining member of an immensely wealthy and…
“In a world beset by amassing forces of darkness, one organization—the Regional Office—and its coterie of super-powered female assassins protects the globe from annihilation. At its helm, the mysterious Oyemi and her oracles seek out new recruits and root out evil plots. Then a prophecy suggests that someone from inside might bring about its downfall. And now,…
I can’t recall how I first heard about this book, but I will admit that one of my favorite authors, Jodi Picoult’s quoted recommendation on the front cover, calling the book, “Provocative, evocative, fresh, Guskin’s book is an explosive debut,” may have played a part in my decision to check it out. The beginning chapters…
It has been four months since a mysterious obsidian stone fell into Kell’s possession. Four months since his path crossed with Delilah Bard. Four months since Prince Rhy was wounded, and since the nefarious Dane twins of White London fell, and four months since the stone was cast with Holland’s dying body through the rift…
Sadly, I have to wait however long — and however long will be too long, I assure you — for series three of Grantchester, starring James Norton and Robson Green. (Withdrawal pangs struck not even a minute after the last scene of series two was consumed by credits. So, absolutely: another second without new views of Sidney &…
Once again my bedside table has gotten so full of books that my eyeglasses case and alarm clock are threatening to move to some other bedside table. Lets see what’s on there. 1916: A Global History by Keith Jeffery When I picked up this book originally I thought, “oh goodie, another World War I book,”…
Haunted by a failed love affair and the darkest of family secrets, Waldemar ‘Waldy’ Tolliver wakes one morning to discover that he has been exiled from the flow of time. The world continues to turn, and Waldy is desperate to find his way back – a journey that forces him to reckon not only with…
I don’t know how A Darker Shade of Magic got on my radar or really what I was expecting, but it honestly was amazing and had me, like, whipping through chapters.* Schwab – better known for her young adult fiction written under her given name Victoria – weaves early nineteenth-century England with (hard? high?) fantasy into an engaging…
If you read enough history sooner or later someone asks you: “What would happen if a Roman army were to go up against [insert anachronistic warrior culture here]?” I’ve gotten Romans vs Vikings, Romans vs Samurais, and Romans vs Incas. I always hate these because it’s always comparing apples and oranges, but that is exactly…
Brodsky’s Immortals is the first book in her Olympus Bound series, a fantasy of Greek gods and goddesses in present day New York City. It’s a great concept. As people gradually stopped believing in the gods of Olympus they started to weaken. Finally, hundreds of years ago, Zeus decided to throw in the towel. The…
Trinity Six is a modern spy novel that hangs on the search for the fabled Sixth Man. In the 1930s, the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) recruited five spies at Trinity College, Cambridge. Now known as the Cambridge Five, these individuals– Kim Philby, Donald MacLean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross– went on…
City on Fire is a behemoth of a novel – clocking in at over 900 pages – but it feels overwrought and excessive, as if author Garth Risk Hallberg simply wanted the world to know that he was capable of writing such an opus. The core action – which spans about seven months in 1977…
In The Fortune Hunter Daisy Goodwin has crafted a tale that weaves together fiction with historical fact. At the core of this novel is a love triangle between the handsome and dashing British Captain Bay Middleton, a young heiress by the name of Charlotte Baird, and Empress Elizabeth of Austria-Hungary, known as Sisi to her…
Vincent “The Wolf” Marelli is the head of an international crime syndicate. He has it all, but in a flash loses the most important thing in his life. This is a tragedy for him, but it is also a tragedy for the people who did it since he is now coming for them. The death…
When Miri was fifteen, and in love for the first time, a succession of airplanes fell from the sky, leaving a community reeling. Against this backdrop of actual events that Judy Blume experienced in the early 1950s, when airline travel was new and exciting and everyone dreamed of going somewhere, Blume imagines and weaves together…
If it weren’t for the big-budget movie starring Matt Damon that just came out*, I don’t think Andy Weir’s The Martian would be flying off the shelves as much as it has – but that’s kind of a shame, really, because it’s super (ridiculously) good. And not just good in a hard sci-fi kind of…
You’ve already read Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whale Ship Essex, you’re this-close to making plans to see the film (starring Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy and Ben Whishaw), and the whole thing has provoked a deeper curiosity about the whaling industry, perhaps, or maybe you’d like to read…
I admit I picked up this book because of the cover. I first saw it in the new book display by the circ desk (if you haven’t checked that one out you really should there are a lot of gems there). And everything on the cover of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street has a connection to the story which makes it even cooler. Plus it has really great endpapers. This is Natasha Pulley’s first book and it is a mixture of historical fiction and fantasy.
Quieter Than Sleep by Joanne Dobson “Karen Pelletier abandoned her life in New York for a professorship at Massachusetts’s elite Enfield College. But she quickly learns that New England is not the peaceful enclave she had imagined–and that not even the privileged world of academia is immune to murder….Professor Karen Pelletier’s prime literary passion is…
Jen recommends Benjamin Johncock’s The Last Pilot.
Ok I’ll admit that I picked up Ed Greenwood’s Iron Assassin because of the cover. A scull wearing a tattered top hat and high collar coat with clockworks behind one eye is hard to say no to. It turned out to be a really great story.
Where Station Eleven cornered speculative fiction with a flu virus turned pandemic, Broken Monsters turned its spotlight on a probable schizophrenic serial killer roaming around the city of Detroit in real time.
And, yes, both hooked me with narratives, and kept me reading past bedtime, and fed me answers just as quickly as they kept me asking questions…
Immerse yourself in the world of letters–real and imagined.
Fall down the rabbit hole with us! In our Reading Intersections series, we’ll give you a place to start and where to go next, piling titles on until you’re neck-deep in books, graphic novels and movies on a similar theme. | Perhaps the title is a bit misleading, perhaps you thought this was going to be about the city, but no…No, this is going to be about the poet Robert Lowell and the many, many letters he wrote during his lifetime.
By Jim War at the Edge of the World is the first book in a series by Ian James Ross. Aurelius Castus is a newly arrived centurion to a Roman Legion stationed in 4th century AD northern Britain. Britain is a pretty quiet billet for Castus, who had come from service in the middle east…
“At the high-end designer consignment shop Snapdragon, Helen Hawthorne must cater to the whims of snobby-yet-frugal customers like Chrissy, who comes in to sell a purse and ends up causing a scene. But when Chrissy is found dead in a dressing room with a hand-painted scarf around her neck, Helen goes from being low on…
Staff review by Rachel | Here’s the thing: I really loved Station Eleven (to the point where my review notes included such helpful phrases as “ZOMG” and “more, please”). After being completely underwhelmed by another post-apocalyptic foray (which was a complete dud), Station Eleven felt like a breath of fresh air…
Reviewed by Jen “A charming restaurant A book and its mysterious author A little secret A romantic meeting Paris and all its magic . . . Cyrano de Bergerac meets Chocolat and Amélie in this intelligent, charming, and entertaining publishing sensation from Europe. While in the midst of a breakup-induced depression, Aurélie Bredin, a beautiful…
Reviewed by Linda | Joey Rubin, a single woman working as an architect in Manhattan is given a chance to prove her skills by overseeing the restoration of the Stanway House in the Cotswold’s of England.
Jen reviewes a debut novel about the life of a housewife.
Reviewed by Rachel Let’s just get this over with: The Royal We is pretty much real person fic about Prince William and Princess Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Like them, our two protagonists (Nick and Bex) meet at college (a prestigious English university vs. the royal couple’s alma mater, University of St Andrews);…
By Jim I first read Beryl Markham’s West with the Night when I was 15 or 16. I had an obsession with bush pilots and read anything I could find about them. West with the Night caught my attention because it was the autobiography of a bush pilot in Africa. Picking it up again after…
Reviewed by Jen: Former foster child, now a stay-at-home mom of three, Allison Darling desperately wants to fit in with the stylish moms that run Monrovia, her charming seaside town based on Newburyport…
June 24 is a surprisingly contentious day in history. Here is a sampling of the battles and conflicts that happened, started or finished on this day. As usual we give you a nonfiction work and a fictional work related to these events.
Reviewed by Jen: The Vintner’s Daughter transports us back to the 1800’s and into vineyard life offering a bit of romance, tragedy and an interesting look into the wine-making process during this time so long ago.
Chris reviews “a tight sci-fi thriller that’s hard to put down.”
The great thing about Scott Lynch’s Lies of Locke Lamora (Book 1 of the Gentlemen Bastards series. Followed by Red Seas Under Red Skies and Republic of Thieves) is that it incorporates great character development, world building and lots of plot twists.
Two titles recommended by Julie: The House at the End of Hope Street by Menna van Praag and The Boy Kings of Texas by Domingo Martinez.
Recommended by Linda: The Secret Prince is a story of magic, adventure, surprise, fairytale and deception.
Reviewed by Carol: This is a story of 85 year-old Addie Baum, telling her life’s journey to her youngest granddaughters.
Reviewed by Linda: Touch & Go is a quick read suspense thriller without a lot of murder and blood. It involves a wealthy Boston family of three who have been kidnapped and hidden in the woods of northern New England.
May 7 will be the 100 anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania (see Chris’s review of Lusitania: Triumph, Tragedy and the End of the Edwardian Age) by German U-20 off the Irish coast. Like a lot of anniversaries of major historical events this one has spawned a lot of books on the subject. Here…
The Today In History Reading List is a list of books, fiction and non-fiction, to go along with some of the events that happened today.
Since seeing all three Swedish adaptations of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest) as well as David Fincher’s Oscar-winning adaptation, I’ve felt no real need to read the books – until I kind of joined a book club and then quit after I’d already started reading the first book… and, man, I was hooked.
So you’ve seen the recently released Kingsman: The Secret Service and have been bitten by the spy craft bug. One: Trust me, you’re not alone. Two: We can help fill the time between now and when you go back to the theater to see the movie again, or between now and when it’s released on DVD, whichver is in keeping with how you roll. The majority of the titles on this list, both fiction and non-fiction, can be found on display in the new book room.
James Hookbridge has been cursed to an eternity of waging war against sharp-toothed boys in the Neverland. Wholly weary of it, he has but one desire left to him, and that is for Death to find and take him at His earliest convenience. For a permanent ceasefire; the game board cleared and put away; to…
I normally do four events for the Today in History reading list but I just couldn’t choose this time so I did five. Check out a day full of Emperors and presidents, Samurai and various kinds of rebels. We give you one non-fiction and one fictional work to go with each event.
Sons of Liberty priemeres on History Channel on January 25th. Get caught up in the Revolution, and then stop by the library to check out our display of books dedicated to this rabble-rousing lot and other key Revolutionary figures; look for the display just beyond the new book room.
If you like the gore of 16th century childbirth, rich historical descriptions and strong female characters, these are the books for you!
We all do it (even though we’ve been admonished not to). Standing there looking at shelf after shelf of books we automatically are drawn to the covers. More importantly publishers know we do and create some really gorgeous covers to tempt us. Here are just a few of our favorites. Oh and we want to know what your favorite covers are. Leave them in the comments. (Bonus points if you can guess which of us picked which cover.)
We’ve got some music and musicians and big political events on this day in history. Enjoy a nice reading list with a work of fiction and a work of non-fiction commemorating them.
Spiders and Conjurers and Hypnotists, oh my.
A patron returning Gemini said it was terrific. Here’s a bit more about the book, taken from the publisher’s summary: “Dr. Charlotte Reese works in the intensive care unit of Seattle’s Beacon Hospital, tending to patients with the most life-threatening illnesses and injuries. Her job is to battle death—to monitor erratic heartbeats, worry over low…
I was afraid November 12 was going to be all World War I stuff (winding down from Veterans/Armistice day) or Pilgrims (winding up for Thanksgiving). How wrong I was. I had to pick and choose what went in this list.
Extremely touchy witches, bumbling spies and 1950s Paris
Have you ever thought “Why can’t there be more dragon’s in literature? Everything’s better with dragons”? Well Naomi Novik’s His Majesty’s Dragon (first book in the Temeraire series) proves that to be true…
Michelle here, former Book Monogamist. See, these days I have any number of fairly wildly different* books in progress at roundabout the same time. Here are early thoughts on the three books I’m Reading Now.
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest is one of those books that I think everyone’s at least heard of – if not read themselves. It’s a familiar story, with both substantial literary themes and characters that have transcended the confines of the novel. It’s both a difficult read and an easy story to follow. And I honestly did not think that I was going to love the book as much as I did.
This is easily my favorite work by Umberto Eco and pretty high on my list of favorite works of historical fiction in general. The story is set in the late 12th century and early 13th century. The main character is Baudolino a boy from northern Italy who has two talents: he can learn any language in moments and he is a very good liar.
Ever looked up the historical events of a particular day just to see what happened? Well I have done that for this lovely September 5 but I’ve added a twist. I’ve included some reading material to go along with some of today’s events. Where ever possible I’ve tried to do a work of non-fiction and a work of fiction for each event.
Reviewed in this post: John Sandford’s Uncaged: The Singular Menace and Dale Bailey’s The Fallen.
One of the biggest problems with creating a list of World War I movies is deciding what to include and what to leave out. As with the literature on the war there are hundreds of movies so I’ve done a lot of picking and choosing. However if I’ve left something out that you think should…
“Outlander follows the story of Claire Randall, a married combat nurse from 1945 who is mysteriously swept back in time to 1743, where she is immediately thrown into an unknown world where her life is threatened. When she is forced to marry Jamie, a chivalrous and romantic young Scottish warrior, a passionate affair is ignited…