Staff Picks

This is a love letter to books and the power they have over us.

 

Publisher's description:

Yeongju is burned out. She did everything she was supposed to: go to school, marry a decent man, get a respectable job. Then it all fell apart. In a leap of faith, Yeongju abandons her old life, quits her high-flying career, and follows her dream. She opens a bookshop. In a quaint neighborhood in Seoul, surrounded by books, Yeongju and her customers take refuge. From the lonely barista to the unhappily married coffee roaster-and the writer who sees something special in Yeongju -- they all have disappointments in their past. The Hyunam-dong Bookshop becomes the place where they all learn how to truly live.

 

"Alone is how we survive, you've said, but one thing I do know is that alone is not how we live."  Mika Moon, an isolated witch who never stays in one place for long, answers a Witch Wanted ad and finds her home, the family she has been longing for, and the work that makes her happy.

 

Publisher's description: 

A warm and uplifting novel about an isolated witch whose opportunity to embrace a quirky new family-and a new love-changes the course of her life. As one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon knows she has to hide her magic, keep her head down, and stay away from other witches so their powers don't mingle and draw attention. And as an orphan who lost her parents at a young age and was raised by strangers, she's used to being alone and she follows the rules...with one exception: an online account, where she posts videos "pretending" to be a witch. She thinks no one will take it seriously. But someone does. An unexpected message arrives, begging her to travel to the remote and mysterious Nowhere House to teach three young witches how to control their magic.

 

 

At Aleisha's summer job at her local library she discovers a crumpled reading list that begins with "Just in case you need it!" She is in need of a title to recommend to a new patron, so she tentatively tries the first novel. A story of connection through books and generations and cultures.

 

Publisher's description: 

Working at the local library, Aleisha reads every book on a secret list she found, which transports her from the painful realities she's facing at home, and decides to pass the list on to a lonely widower desperate to connect with his bookworm granddaughter.

Find The Reading List in our online catalog.

The Starless Sea is a feast for fans of worldbuilding. While it follows several main characters, it's not particularly plot driven. But it's full of mystery, symbolism, and stories within stories (within yet more stories). I got swept up in the lush place descriptions and enjoyed every time characters and storylines were connected. This book takes you on a wild ride and you're never quite sure where you'll end up.

 

Publisher's description:

Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a rare book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues -- a bee, a key, and a sword -- that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to a subterranean library, hidden far below the surface of the earth. What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians--it is a place of lost cities and seas of honey, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also those who are intent on its destruction. Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a beautiful barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly-soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose -- in both the rare book and in his own life

 

Find The Starless Sea in our online catalog.

This is a wonderful meditation on reading in general and, specifically, what I'll call "The Book From Childhood." Almost all of us have one. Miller's was The Chronicles of Narnia. Many of us have returned to The Book as adults only to be disappointed in some way. Miller shows us how we can "get back in" and appreciate Our Book anew. I especially liked her take on the great works of children's literature, which are often viewed with condescension by "serious" literary critics but, she argues, shouldn't be. And I love the idea that we can still openly love certain books and great works of art even if their creators had some glaring faults (sexism, racism, etc. among them) or unsavory motives. I found myself relating to her as I read such thoughts as if she were my braver, more honest, more analytical, and more skeptical self.

 

Publisher's description: 

The Magician's Book is an intellectual adventure story, in which Miller travels to Lewis's childhood home in Ireland, the possible inspiration for Narnia's landscape; unfolds his intense friendship with J.R.R.Tolkien, a bond that led the two of them to create the greatest myth-worlds of modern times; and explores Lewis's influence on writers like Neil Gaiman, Jonathan Franzen, and Philip Pullman. Finally reclaiming Narnia "for the rest of us," Miller casts the Chronicles as a profoundly literary creation, and the portal to a life-long adventure in books, art, and the imagination. Erudite, wide-ranging, and playful, The Magician's Book is for all who live in thrall to the magic of books.

Find The Magician's Book in our online catalog.

 

The title The Sentence takes on several meanings throughout the book, from a prison sentence to an actual sentence that our indigenous protagonist, Tookie, thinks can kill people. Louise Erdrich's characters are living through early COVID times in Minneapolis, trying to figure out what was happening at the time of George Floyd's murder. If you like books and bookstores, you will enjoy reading about the survival of a small independent bookstore based on the real Birchbark Books. Oh, by the way, the main theme is solving the mystery of a haunting at this fictional bookstore.

 

Publisher's description:

A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading with murderous attention, must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.