Staff Picks - LibGuides at Boulder Public Library

Melissa recommends Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

12/31/2022

Boulder Library

romance, teen, .Melissa's reviews, teen fiction

I was a high school student in the 80's, and I remember riding the bus, trying to find a place to sit in the cafeteria, and searching for my clique. I remember my first school crush, holding hands and talking on the phone for hours, saying very little. This young love feels very realistic--they know it's probably not going to last, but they don't want it to end. That's how I felt about the book--even as I was turning the pages, I didn't want the book to end.

Publisher's description:
Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits--smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try

Find Eleanor & Park in our online catalog

Jennifer recommends Noor by Nnedi Okorafor

12/23/2022

Boulder Library

adult fiction, fantasy, science fiction, .Jennifer's reviews, ability diverse, BIPOC, Black, body diverse, multicultural

An outrageous story that blends deep respect for traditional lifeways with technology in unexpected and really right ways. Ableism, fear of difference, utopia, and surveillance are also key themes. Noor is funny and fast-paced, and would be a good introduction to the genre for reluctant SF readers.

Publisher's description:

When everything goes wrong on a trip to the local market, AO, a woman with a ton of major and necessary body augmentations, must race against time across the deserts of Northern Nigeria with a Fulani herdsman named DNA in a world where everything is streamed.

Find Noor in our online catalog.

Louise recommends A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas

12/22/2022

Boulder Library

poetry, .Louise's reviews, family life, juvenile nonfiction, juvenile fiction, holidays

This beautiful classic is a lovely read aloud to share over the holidays. My favorite edition is illustrated by Edward Ardizzone. You can also find the original recording read by the author online.

Publisher's description: The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas recalls the celebration of Christmas with his family and the feelings it evoked in him as a child.

Find A Child's Christmas in Wales in our catalog.

Cosmo recommends Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe by Thomas Ligotti

12/20/2022

Boulder Library

adult fiction, horror, literary fiction, short stories, psychological fiction, .Cosmo's reviews

Otherworldly psychological horror stories in the vein of Edgar Allan Poe or H. P. Lovecraft that conjure a dense dream-like atmosphere through rich, beautifully constructed prose. Strangely cathartic, despite the eerie subject matter. I would recommend reading right before going to sleep for the best experience.

Publisher's description:

Thomas Ligotti's debut collection, Songs of a Dead Dreamer, and his second, Grimscribe, permanently inscribed a new name in the pantheon of horror fiction. Influenced by the strange terrors of Lovecraft and Poe and by the brutal absurdity of Kafka, Ligotti eschews cheap, gory thrills for his own brand of horror, which shocks at the deepest, existential, levels.
Ligotti's stories take on decaying cities and lurid dreamscapes in a style ranging from rich, ornamental prose to cold, clinical detachment. His raw and experimental work lays bare the unimportance of our world and the sickening madness of the human condition. Like the greatest writers of cosmic horror, Ligotti bends reality until it cracks, opening fissures through which he invites us to gaze on the unsettling darkness of the abyss below.

Find Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe in our online catalog.

Hannah recommends Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang

12/19/2022

Boulder Library

adult nonfiction, autobiography, family life, lived experiences, immigrants, Asian, BIPOC

Qian Julie Wang's memoirs of her immigration from China to America at age seven are profound and beautifully written. As undocumented immigrants, she and her parents (educated professors in China) struggled to find their place in the United States. She describes having to grow up quickly, working with her parents in sweatshops, navigating the school system, and the fear of being deported. But she also shares clear memories of joy, like discovering the library, and the wonders of New York City Christmas window shopping with her Ma Ma.

Publisher's description: This memoir from a Chinese woman who arrived in New York City at age seven examines how her family lived in poverty out of fear of being discovered as undocumented immigrants and how she was able to find success.

Find Beautiful Country in our catalog.

Theresa recommends Horse by Geraldine Brooks

12/17/2022

Boulder Library

adult fiction, historical fiction, literary fiction, animals, .Theresa's reviews

Here is the lost story of Lexington, the most famous horse of the 1850s and the Black trainers who nurtured him and protected him from their white owners. Amazing stride-by-stride accounts of the races of the era. Two cleverly interwoven stories from 1954 and 2019. Historical fiction and modern mystery.

Publisher's description:

Kentucky, 1850. Jarrett, an enslaved groom, and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. As the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name painting the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack. New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a 19th equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance. Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly drawn to one another through their shared interest in the horse - one studying the stallion's bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.

Find Horse in our online catalog

Louise recommends The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid

12/16/2022

Boulder Library

adult fiction, literary fiction, .Louise's reviews, psychological fiction, lived experiences, BIPOC, multiracial

In The Last White Man, the main protagonist Anders wakes up and discovers he has changed race. Mohsin Hamid explores the impact this has on the people of the unnamed American town where Anders lives. Powerful and thought- provoking, tightly crafted short novel.

Publisher's description:

One morning, a man wakes up to find himself transformed. Overnight, Anders's skin has turned dark, and the reflection in the mirror seems a stranger to him. At first he shares his secret only with Oona, an old friend turned new lover. Soon, reports of similar events begin to surface. Across the land, people are awakening in new incarnations, uncertain how their neighbors, friends, and family will greet them. Some see the transformations as the long-dreaded overturning of the established order that must be resisted to a bitter end. In many, like Anders's father and Oona's mother, a sense of profound loss and unease wars with profound love. As the bond between Anders and Oona deepens, change takes on a different shading: a chance at a kind of rebirth--an opportunity to see ourselves, face to face, anew.

Find The Last White Man in our online catalog.

Terzah recommends Native American Night Before Christmas by Gary Robinson, illustrated by Jesse T. Hummingbird

12/15/2022

Boulder Library

children's, poetry, .Terzah's reviews, picture books, Indigenous, holidays

A wonderful and humorous adaptation of the Christmas classic on a Native theme. I also loved the glossary at the end, which explained words like "hoka-hey" (a Lakota term of encouragement that Old Red Shirt shouts to his team of buffalo).

Publisher's description:

An innovative retelling of the classic Christmas tale, this full-color book takes a whimsical look at what Christmas Eve might be like for an American Indian family.

Find Native American Night Before Christmas in our online catalog.

Kelly recommends Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

12/14/2022

Boulder Library

adult fiction, literary fiction, family life, lived experiences, BIPOC, Black, grief

This is hands-down the best book I have read in a long time. Neuroscience grad student Gifty struggles with the weight of her childhood faith, her mother's mental illness, and her brother's overdose. With gorgeous prose, Yaa Gyasi holds her characters' pain and questions and longings.

Publisher's description:

Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive.

Find Transcendent Kingdom in our online catalog

Lara recommends Marilla of Green Gables by Sarah McCoy

12/12/2022

Boulder Library

adult fiction, historical fiction, history, family life, .Lara's reviews

In a prequel that would make LM Montgomery proud, Sarah McCoy brings us back before Anne into the life of her beloved Marilla. Taking you from when Marilla was 13 all the way through to when Anne arrives, the story quenched my thirst for the reasons neither Marilla nor Matthew married, and the tale behind Marilla's failed relationship with John Blythe. If you're like me, and hold Avonlea close to your heart, read this book.

Publisher's description:

Plucky and ambitious, Marilla Cuthbert is thirteen years old when her world is turned upside down. Her beloved mother dies in childbirth, and Marilla suddenly must bear the responsibilities of a farm wife: cooking, sewing, keeping house, and overseeing the day-to-day life of Green Gables with her brother, Matthew and father, Hugh. In Avonlea, a small, tight-knit farming town on a remote island, life holds few options for farm girls. Her one connection to the wider world is Aunt Elizabeth "Izzy" Johnson, her mother's sister, who managed to escape from Avonlea to the bustling city of St. Catharines. An opinionated spinster, Aunt Izzy's talent as a seamstress has allowed her to build a thriving business and make her own way in the world. Emboldened by her aunt, Marilla dares to venture beyond the safety of Green Gables and discovers new friends and new opportunities. Joining the Ladies Aid Society, she raises funds for an orphanage run by the Sisters of Charity in nearby Nova Scotia that secretly serves as a way station for runaway slaves from America. Her budding romance with John Blythe, the charming son of a neighbor, offers her a possibility of future happiness, Marilla is in no rush to trade one farm life for another. She soon finds herself caught up in the dangerous work of politics, and abolition, jeopardizing all she cherishes, including her bond with her dearest John Blythe. Now Marilla must face a reckoning between her dreams of making a difference in the wider world and the small-town reality of life at Green Gables.

Find Marilla of Green Gables in our online catalog.