Category Archives: Booklists

Looking Ahead: 20 Fiction Titles to Anticipate

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20 Fiction Books to Start Your Reading Year

Allende, Isabel. A Long Petal of the Sea (January)
Benedict, Marie. Lady Clementine (January)
Bivald, Katarina. Welcome to the Pine Away Motel and Cabins (January)
Bohjalian, Chris. The Red Lotus (March)
Box, C.J. Long Range (March)
Briggs, Patricia. Smoke Bitten (March)
Carr, Robyn. The Country Guesthouse (January)
Cummins, Jeanine. American Dirt (January)
Erdrich, Louise. The Night Watchman (March)
Jemisin. N.K. The City We Became (March)
Kubica, Mary. The Other Mrs. (February)
Lauren, Christina. The Honey-Don’t List (March)
MacDonald, Andrew David. When We Were Vikings (January)
Mandel, Emily St. John. The Glass Hotel (March)
Mantel, Hilary. The Mirror and the Light (March)
McMillan, Terry. It’s Not All Downhill from Here (March)
Napolitano, Janet. Dear Edward (January)
Reichs, Kathy. A Conspiracy of Bones (March)
Stabenow, Dana. No Fixed Line (January)
Turner, Nancy. Light Changes Everything (January)

Happy reading! Brenda

Staff Favorites

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Staff Favorites, 2019

These are some of the most memorable books we read or listened to in 2019. Look for a Staff Favorites display in January. Happy reading! Brenda

Fiction
Aciman, André. Call Me By Your Name (Korey)
Bardugo, Leigh. Ninth House (Denise)
Brennert, Alan. Daughter of Moloka’i (Brenda)
Chevalier, Tracy. A Single Thread (Brenda)
Collins, Bridget. The Binding (Meghan)
Frankel, Laurie. This is How It Always Is (Brenda)
Franqui, Leah. America for Beginners (Brenda)
Harris, Robert. Second Sleep (Brenda)
Heller, Peter. The River (George)
Hill, Joe. Full Throttle: Stories (George)
Jones, Tayari. An American Marriage (Meghan)
King, Stephen. The Institute (George)
Kwan, Kevin. Crazy Rich Asians (Debbie)
Morgenstern, Erin. The Night Circus (Korey)
Ng, Celeste. Little Fires Everywhere (Katie)
Prior, Hazel. Ellie and the Harpmaker (Brenda)
Ryan, Jennifer. The Spies of Shilling Lane (Brenda)
Setterfield, Diane. Once Upon a River (Katie)
Stein, Garth. The Art of Racing in the Rain (Debbie)
Waxman, Abbi. The Bookish Life of Nina Hill (Brenda)
Williams, Beatriz. The Golden Hour (Brenda)

Graphic Novels
Arakawa, Hiromu. Silver Spoon (Denise)
Semikawa, Natsuya. Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu (Denise)

Mystery
Harper, Jane. The Lost Man (Brenda)
Hillerman, Anne. The Tale Teller (Brenda)
Montclair, Allison. The Right Sort of Man (Brenda)

Science Fiction and Fantasy
Chambers, Becky. Records of a Spaceborn Few (Brenda)
Cherryh, C.J. and Jane Fancher. Alliance Rising (Brenda)
Polk, C.L. Witchmark (Meghan)

Teen Fiction
Keyes, Daniel. Flowers for Algernon (Korey)
Lee, Stacey. Under a Painted Sky (Katie)
Shusterman, Neal. Scythe (Korey)
Thomas, Angie. On the Come Up (Katie)

Non-Fiction

Alexievich, Svetlana. Voices from Chernobyl (Denise)
DiAngelo, Robin. White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism (Denise)
Dumas, Firoozeh. Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America (Katie)
Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (George)
Higginbotham, Adam. Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster (George)
Ingraham, Christopher. If You Lived Here You’d Be Home By Now : Why We Traded the Commuting Life for a Little House on the Prairie (Brenda)
Keefe, Patrick Radden. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (George)
Land, Stephanie. Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive (Brenda)
Magnuson, Margareta. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning (Korey)
Mickelson, Phil. One Magical Sunday: (But Winning Isn’t Everything) (Debbie)
Pan, Jessica. Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come : One Introvert’s Year of Saying Yes (Katie)
Perry, Alex. The Good Mothers : The True Story of the Women Who Took on the World’s Most Powerful Mafia (Debbie)
Rich, Nathaniel. Losing Earth: A Recent History (George)
Rubenhold, Hallie. The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (Meghan)

Downton Abbey

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Books and Videos for Fans of Downton Abbey

Fiction

Bradford, Barbara Taylor. Cavendon Hall
Follett, Ken. Fall of Giants
Galsworthy, John. The Forsyte Saga
Goodwin, Daisy. An American Heiress
Harper, Karen. American Duchess
Hollinghurst, Alan. The Stranger’s Child
Ibbotson, Eva. A Countess Below Stairs
Ishiguro, Kazuo. Remains of the Day
Kinghorn, Judith. The Echo of Twilight
Morton, Kate. The House at Riverton
Steel, Danielle. Beauchamp Hall
Waugh, Evelyn. Brideshead Revisited
Weldon, Fay. Habits of the House; Long Live the King; The New Countess
Wharton, Edith. Buccaneers; The House of Mirth
White, Roseanna. The Lost Heiress

Mysteries

Arlen, Tessa. Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman
Eccles, Marjorie. Heirs and Assigns
Fellowes, Jessica. The Mitford Murders
Maxwell, Alyssa. A Murderous Marriage

Non-Fiction

Carnarvon, Countess of. Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey
Fellowes, Jessica. Downton Abbey: A Celebration
Gardiner, Juliet. Manor House
Livingstone, Natalie. The Mistresses of Cliveden
Moran, Mollie. Minding the Manor
Powell, Margaret. Below Stairs; Servants’ Hall
Rowley, Emma. Behind the Scenes at Downton Abbey
Warwick, Sarah. Upstairs and Downstairs

Videos

Brideshead Revisited
The Forsyte Saga
Gosford Park
Howards End
Nancy Mitford’s Love in a Cold Climate
Remains of the Day
The Shooting Party
Secrets of Iconic British Estates
Secrets of the Manor House
Upstairs, Downstairs

Enjoy some of these titles before, after, or instead of watching the new Downton Abbey movie. Enjoy!

Brenda

Memorable Books Read in 2018

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Memorable Books Read in 2018

Fiction
Carey, Jacqueline. Starless                                                                                       
Cherryh, C.J. Emergence
Davis, Fiona. The Masterpiece
Edugyan, Esi. Washington Black
Green, Hank. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
Greer, Andrew Sean. Less
Kingsolver, Barbara. Unsheltered. Library Reads pick
McCoy, Sarah. Marilla of Green Gables
Ng, Celeste. Little Fires Everywhere
Pearce, AJ. Dear Mrs. Bird
Robson, Jennifer. The Gown.
Simsion, Graeme and Anne Buist. Two Steps Forward
Titchmarsh, Alan. Mr. Gandy’s Grand Tour
Urrea, Luis Alberto. The House of Broken Angels

Non-Fiction
Brusatte, Steve. The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs                                                               
Kurson, Robert. Rocket Men
Mearns, David. The Shipwreck Hunter

Books to Enjoy in 2019
Lundberg, Sofia. The Red Address Book. January, Library Reads pick
Letts, Elizabeth. Finding Dorothy. February
Liardet, Frances. We Must Be Brave. February
Heller, Peter. The River. March
Pavone, Chris. The Paris Diversion. May

These are books I enjoyed reading this year. Some are just for fun, others I read to consider for future book discussions or Library Reads picks. Enjoy!  Brenda

The Great American Read

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I’m looking forward to The Great American Read, hosted by PBS beginning on May 22. 100 books and series have been selected, and viewers will be asked to vote for their favorite book or series. Plenty of classics are on the list, as well as contemporary books, popular series for all ages, and some contemporary books. Viewers will remember much-loved books you read as a child, assigned reading titles that you actually enjoyed (or not), books familiar only because of their movies, and books you might like to read for the first time. There may be books you’ve never heard of, and books that make you wonder how they got on this list. For me, the list contains all of these categories. The only types of books I don’t see are picture books, non-fiction, plays, and biographies. Did you enjoy The Martian, or have fond memories of Charlotte’s Webb? Find out you enjoyed mysteries when assigned to read And Then There Were None in junior high? Have trouble putting down The Da Vinci Code? Cry over The Notebook? Wonder why your favorite book isn’t listed?

Here’s the list. Look for copies of the list on my June book display of The Great American Read.

Enjoy!

Brenda

Book Award Season

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Kazuo Ishiguro, 63, has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, an award that is for an author’s whole body of work. He is a British writer who was born in Japan. His novels include Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go, and A Pale View of Hills. Here is my review for his latest novel, The Buried Giant. Recent winners include Bob Dylan (a controversial selection), Svetlana Alexievich, Patrick Modiano, and Alice Munro.
Fall is book award season. On October 17, the Man Booker Prize for Fiction will be announced. These books are on the shortlist:

4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster
History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Elmet by Fiona Mozley Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Autumn by Ali Smith

On November 15, the spotlight will be on the National Book Awards. Here is the Fiction short list:

Dark at the Crossing by Elliot Ackerman
The Leavers by Lisa Ko
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

The Non-Fiction short list for the National Book Awards is:

Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America by Frances FitzGerald
The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia by Masha Gessen
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America by Nancy MacLean

The American Library Association Carnegie Medals were established in 2012. Last year the awards went to Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, and Evicted by Matthew Desmond. The long list is here, the short list will be announced on October 25.
There is a wide variety of book awards. Another major literary award is the Pulitzer Prize. Awards for mysteries include the Agatha, the Anthony, and the Edgar. The Anthony Awards will be announced at Bouchercon on October 15. Science fiction & fantasy books get Hugo, Locus, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards. The Hugos were presented in August at WorldCon in Helsinki, Finland. Cookbooks, horror novels, thrillers, romance novels, and audiobooks all have their awards. It can be fun to look at the award winners and finalists to get reading suggestions or ideas for your book group. For more lists, check out the Notable Books lists from the New York Times and the American Library Association. I read some award winners, usually to see if my book groups would enjoy them, but I only read a few award winners.
Please read whatever appeals to you, right now. If you’re in the mood for something lighter, I have a book display of cat and dog mysteries, as well as a display with zombie books. For more popular titles, check out American Library Association’s Reading List, Library Reads, or ask your friendly readers advisory librarian or bookseller.
Happy reading!
Brenda

Fiction Popular 50 Years Ago

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The Woodridge Public Library is celebrating its 50th birthday today, with a big party, cake and music. We’re having special events all year, and I’m leading at least two book discussions of titles popular in 1967, along with creating book displays. For March, many of these books were on display:

Mainstream Fiction Popular in 1967

Baldwin, James. Go Tell It On the Mountain
Bellow, Saul. Herzog
Burgess, Anthony. Clockwork Orange
Cadell, Elizabeth. Canary Yellow
Clavell, James. Tai-Pan
Du Maurier, Daphne. Flight of the Falcon
Faulkner, William. The Reivers
Fleming, Ian. You Only Live Twice
Gordon, Noah. The Rabbi
Goudge, Elizabeth. The Scent of Water
Grass, Gunter. The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham. The Comedians
Hailey, Arthur. The Hotel
Heller, Joseph. Catch-22
Holt, Victoria. Mistress of Mellyn
Kaufman, Bel. Up the Down Staircase
Kerouac, Jack. On the Road
Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Le Carré, John. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird
Levin, Ira. Rosemary’s Baby
Lofts, Norah. The House at Old Vine
MacInnes, Helen. The Double Image

MacLean, Alistair. Where Eagles Dare
Malamud, Bernard. The Fixer
Michener, James. The Source
Oates, Joyce Carol. The Garden of Earthly Delights
O’Connor, Edwin. All in the Family
Porter, Katherine. Ship of Fools
Potok, Chaim. The Chosen
Renault, Mary. The Mask of Apollo
Seton, Anya. Avalon
Smith, Betty. Joy in the Morning
Stegner, Wallace. All the Little Live Things
Steinbeck, John. The Winter of Our Discontent
Stewart, Mary. The Gabriel Hounds
Styron, William. Confessions of Nat Turner
Susann, Jacqueline. Valley of the Dolls
Updike, Leon. Topaz
Vidal, Gore. Washington, D.C.
Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. Cat’s Cradle
Wilder, Thornton. The Eighth Day
Wouk, Herman. Don’t Stop the Carnival