October 2022 - Staff Reading Suggestions |
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OUR MISSING HEARTS
by Celeste Ng
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From the author of Little Fires Everywhere comes the dystopian story of Bird, a 12-year-old boy whose mother has disappeared suddenly and mysteriously from his life. Bird lives in a world that is coming out of years of economic instability and violence and to counter this, the government has put into place watchdogs on patriotic acts. If one is deemed unpatriotic, their children are forcibly taken and rehomed into a house with values aligning with the government. Bird’s mother’s disappearance is tangled up with this government implementation and to find out why, Bird sets out to find her. There is a lot to digest in this novel and would make for an interesting book club read!
-Morley
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MAD HONEY
by Jodi Picoult & Jennifer Finney Boylan
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The newest Jodi Picoult novel is co-written with Jennifer Finney Boylan. Like many Picoult novels, this is very well researched and addresses a controversial social topic. The story is about two families. In both families, single mothers are raising only children who are romantically involved. The story is told from the perspective of the mother in one family and the child in the other family. It is hard to say too much about the plot without spoiling the story. It is a suspenseful novel about love, family and secrets.
-Martha
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SIGNAL FIRES
by Dani Shapiro
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Shapiro, author of the riveting memoir Inheritance, is back with her first novel in 15 years and it is marvelous! The action begins with an automobile crash that changes the lives of the Wilf family forever. Shapiro moves back and forth in time as she chronicles how that pivotal moment came to be, and how it has affected members of two families forever. Unspoken secrets eat away at these two families, as Shapiro's writing deftly captures each character beautifully--their longing for connection and love jumps off the page.
-Laura S & Staff
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This novella was originally published in Ireland over twenty years ago, and has been fleshed out and released here in the States as a perfectly, perfect book. Like her previous, and store favorite, Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan really packs a punch with every sentence. An unnamed young girl is left with her childless relatives for the summer, and she blossoms in their quiet, loving home. Alas, this idyll cannot last and you’ll be weeping by the end. Don’t miss!
-Di
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HESTER
by Laurie Lico Albanese
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This beautiful, atmospheric novel set in Salem, MA in the 1800s, imagines Nathaniel Hawthorne's inspiration for Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter. Isobel Gamble is a Scottish immigrant who is abandoned by her husband. She is a talented seamstress who suffers from synesthesia (the ability to see words as colors). You don't need an understanding of Hawthorne's classic novel to thoroughly enjoy this tale of an amazing woman fighting against the economic, sexist and racial prejudices of the time.
-Laura S
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THE LAST CHAIRLIFT
by John Irving
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This is the story of the life of Adam Brewster told in a first person narrative. Following Adam's life from 1941 to the present, this novel celebrates unique families and the affection they share. It exhibits tolerance and understanding for those who are different. Irving has said this is his last long novel. He covers all the topics that one expects him to in a novel including unusual mothers, absent fathers, writers, ghosts, prep schools, dysfunctional family relationships, wrestling, sexuality, politics, and cultural changes.
-Martha
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FAIRY TALE
by Stephen King
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Jackie's pick:
Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes into the deepest well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a 17-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for that world or ours.
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THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF AN ORDINARY MAN: A MEMOIR
by Paul Newman
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In 1986, Newman and his close friend screenwriter Stewart Stern began to compile an oral history of Newman's life. The icon's traumatic childhood, his career, and his innermost thoughts, fears and joys. No subject was off the table. The project lasted 5 years and the result is an extraordinary memoir: insightful, revealing and surprising.
-Staff
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POSTER GIRL
by Veronica Roth
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I don’t do dystopian and I read this in ONE sitting. I loved it. It’s like 1984 meets The Hunger Games. The main character, Sonya Kantor, was literally the POSTER GIRL for the Delegation, which was the government in power in the Seattle/Portland area. Everyone had an implant that tracked everything they did. Citizens were rewarded or punished according to a strict moral code. Sonya’s family dies during the revolution and she is imprisoned for ten years. The new government offers her freedom to find a missing child who was stolen from her parents by The Delegation. In her attempt to find the missing girl, she learns her family’s secrets. This is incredibly fast paced and keeps you on your toes. It is a commentary on everything from government to technology to culture wars.
-Martha
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THE ESCAPE ARTIST: THE MAN WHO BROKE OUT OF AUSCHWITZ TO WARN THE WORLD
by Jonathan Freedland
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If you think you know everything you need to know about the Holocaust, Jonathan Freedland's immersive and shattering book will come as a revelation. It's an epic of terror and endurance, personified by the history of a man who grasped that the greatest weapon that could be used against the Nazi "Final Solution" was the escape, not just of himself, but the truth.
-Kathy
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INCITING JOY: ESSAYS
by Ross Gay
(Releases October 25, 2022)
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You know I’m a sucker for anything with the word JOY in the title. Inciting Joy is collection of 14 essays where Gay thinks deeply about what we mean when we speak of joy. Joy does not mean without pain or sorry. He explores how by bringing our individual sorrows and pains together in community with others, we find joy together. In a time of so much divisiveness, these essays encourage us to look for ways to incite joy in ourselves and more importantly in others.
-Martha
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AND THERE WAS LIGHT: ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE AMERICAN STRUGGLE
by Jon Meacham
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The latest from one of our absolutely favorite historians focuses on the life and moral evolution of Lincoln and examines how and why Lincoln confronted secession, threats to democracy and the tragedy of slavery in order to expand the possibilities of America. Lincoln truly believed in a government for the people; a democracy that would afford all a chance at a good life.
-Staff
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New To Mystery Selections |
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The Maze
by Nelson DeMille
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THE BLACKBRIAR GENESIS
by Robert Ludlum
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THE BOYS FROM BILOXI
by John Grisham
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MORE MANDY'S: MORE RECIPES WE LOVE
by Mandy Wolfe, Rebecca Wolfe & Meredith Erickson
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More Mandy's, highlighting seasonal cooking, needs to be an addition to your cooking repertoire. Soups and salads with an international flare, focusing on fall and winter dishes. Based out of Montreal, you will embrace the cozy dishes to warm you up during the colder months ahead. Follow Mandy and Rebecca Wolfe on Instagram @mandysalads.
-Diana
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TWO DEGREES
by Alan Gratz
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Best-selling author and one of our favorites, Alan Gratz, has written another action-packed thriller. His latest tackles climate change through the eyes of four kids and three disasters; a raging wildfire in the California mountains, polar ice melt and a massive hurricane in Miami. Two Degrees is exciting, propulsive and timely as our kids have learned of, and seen, disasters like these over the last few years. Hopefully this novel this will inspire readers to work for a better world.
-Di
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Lake Forest IL 60045
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