We’ve decided to start a fun new series of posts on our blog! At the beginning of each month, we’ll highlight what we—the employees of your library—borrowed with our library card during the previous month.
It probably comes as no surprise to you that we check out a lot of stuff with our library cards. We do come here almost every day, after all. We often get asked what we’re reading or enjoying, so we’re going to pull our recommendations together into a monthly blog post for you.
So here’s what we read, watched, listened to, or played during the month of January.
Click the cover to see the title in our online catalog.
Title: The Giver of Stars (Adult Fiction)
Author/Artist: Jojo Moyes
How we enjoyed it: Book
Anna’s thoughts: Do you like Lifetime movies, libraries, and historical fiction? Then this book is for you.
Title: Before We Were Yours (Adult Fiction)
Author/Artist: Lisa Wingate
How we enjoyed it: Book
Linda’s thoughts: A very hard book to read, but well worth it. Based upon historical happenings of children who survived the Tennessee Children’s Home Society from the 1930s-1950s. Strong foster care and closed adoption themes.
Title: The Last Time I Lied (Adult Fiction)
Author/Artist: Riley Sager
How we enjoyed it: eAudiobook
Brittany’s thoughts: The Last Time I Lied was everything I love about thrillers packed into one invigoratingly fun mystery!
Title: November Road (Adult Fiction)
Author/Artist: Lou Berney
How we enjoyed it: Book
Malcolm’s thoughts: A well-done and vividly imagined historical thriller based on the premise that the JFK assassination was mob hit and that anyone who had knowledge of it had to be rubbed out. Set in New Orleans, small-town Oklahoma, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
Title: Elevator Pitch (Adult Fiction)
Author/Artist: Linwood Barclay
How we enjoyed it: Book
Pam’s thoughts: A great suspense novel that could have moved a little faster, but with an ending I never saw coming!
Title: Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams (Adult Non-Fiction)
Author/Artist: Matthew Walker
How we enjoyed it: eBook
Devon’s thoughts: I picked this up based on its mention in Bill Gates’s blog and I’m glad I did. Today’s society views a good night of sleep as optional, and Walker, one of the world’s leading sleep researchers, explains quite thoroughly (and terrifyingly) why it’s absolutely mandatory.
Title: Squeak! (Easy Fiction)
Author/Artist: Laura McGee Kvasnosky
How we enjoyed it: Book
Anna’s thoughts: A cute picture book, perfect for reading aloud. Adorable illustrations with plenty of animal sounds to mimic.
Title: Small Great Things (Adult Fiction)
Author/Artist: Jodi Picoult
How we enjoyed it: Book
Linda’s thoughts: One of my five all-time favorite authors, Picoult does not disappoint in this tale that deals with some hard truths about racism, white privilege and the difficulties of seeing our own biases in the 21st century.
Title: Ducks, Newburyport (Adult Fiction)
Author/Artist: Lucy Ellman
How we enjoyed it: Book
Malcolm’s thoughts: This is a nearly 1,000-page book mostly made up of one, long, stream-of-consciousness sentence recording the musings of a mid-40s mother and small-business proprietor living in a small central-Ohio town. Hilarious at times; culturally observant; sharply, angrily feminist. There is a plot, of sorts. Short-listed for the 2019 MAN Booker Prize.
Title: The Bat (Adult Fiction)
Author/Artist: Jo Nesbo
How we enjoyed it: Book
Malcolm’s thoughts: This is the first of Nesbo’s Harry Hole series, and it’s set, of all places, in Sydney, Australia (Hole’s a murder detective in Oslo, Norway). It sets the typical Hole pattern: obsessive pursuit of a killer punctuated by a seemingly endless parade of personal failures and deductive mistakes. Plenty of suspense.