Staff Picks - LibGuides at Boulder Public Library

Kaley S. recommends The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley

02/22/2025

Boulder Library

adult fiction, literary fiction, psychological fiction, biographical fiction, .Kaley S.'s reviews

This beautifully written coming-of-age tale had me hooked on every word. I greatly enjoyed being inside the mind of this young, curious, creative boy as he is having a life-altering summer without even being aware of it and learning lessons in the most painful of ways.

Publisher's description:

Summering with a fellow schoolboy on a great English estate, Leo, the hero of L. P. Hartley's finest novel, encounters a world of unimagined luxury. But when his friend's beautiful older sister enlists him as the unwitting messenger in her illicit love affair, the aftershocks will be felt for years. The inspiration for the brilliant Joseph Losey/Harold Pinter film starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates, The Go-Between is a masterpiece—a richly layered, spellbinding story about past and present, naiveté and knowledge, and the mysteries of the human heart.

Find The Go Between in our online catalog.

Syd recommends Huda F Cares? by Huda Fahmy

03/30/2024

Boulder Library

graphic novels, .Syd's reviews, BIPOC, biographical fiction

Follow Huda and her family as they take a road trip from Dearborn, MI to Disney World in Florida. Being visibly Muslim, Huda and her family experience the park a bit differently than others. Where does one pray in Tomorrowland? How does one stay cool in abaya? A witty & heartfelt romp of a story.

Publisher's description:

This summer's exercise in Fahmy family sisterly bonding involves a trip to Disney World--which seems like it's headed for disaster when Huda gets into a fight with a boy making fun of her hijab.

Find Huda F Cares? in our online catalog

Terzah recommends Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

12/04/2023

Boulder Library

adult fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, .Terzah's reviews, grief, biographical fiction

Great characters. A spooky graveyard setting. Questions of sin and redemption. Historical resonance. The transcendent power of love. This book has it all. The "bardo," as some Buddhists call the transitional state between life and death, in Saunders' vision is not very different from our world: a place where people can be so blinded by their own heart's desire that they do not see what is truly good for either themselves or others. It's when they can break out of that narrow view that salvation is possible. I don't know if the "real" Abraham Lincoln was the man both great and good Saunders has created. But I want him to be, because as that he is the best example of how I should live my own small life. This is the power of literature: to give us heroes who are, always and timelessly, worthy of our emulation.

Publisher's description: From the seed of historical truth that is the death of President Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son Willie, George Saunders spins a story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm ... Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state--called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo--a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie's soul.

Find Lincoln in the Bardo in our catalog.

Alyssa F. recommends The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk

10/27/2022

Boulder Library

adult fiction, historical fiction, .Alyssa F.'s reviews, religiously diverse, biographical fiction

This book was a major factor in the author being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. It is long and not an easy read but well worth the effort. Through contemporaneous vignettes, we are told the story of Jacob Frank, a historical messianic figure from 18th-century Poland, who encouraged his Jewish followers to convert to Catholicism. We see events unfolding from many different viewpoints, including his followers, his grandmother who sees all and cannot die after swallowing an amulet, a Catholic priest writing a history of everything, and an omniscient narrator. Set in the broader context of antisemitism in Poland during the 18th century, we follow the movement of Jacob Frank's followers, who consider themselves "anti-Talmudists" and lean on the mystical learnings of the Kabbalah, and their conflict with the traditional Jewish community.

Publisher's description:

In the mid-eighteenth century, as new ideas--and a new unrest--begin to sweep the Continent, a young Jew of mysterious origins arrives in a village in Poland. Before long, he has changed not only his name but his persona; visited by what seem to be ecstatic experiences, Jacob Frank casts a charismatic spell that attracts an increasingly fervent following. In the decade to come, Frank will traverse the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires with throngs of disciples in his thrall as he reinvents himself again and again, converts to Islam and then Catholicism, is pilloried as a heretic and revered as the Messiah, and wreaks havoc on the conventional order, Jewish and Christian alike, with scandalous rumors of his sect's secret rituals and the spread of his increasingly iconoclastic beliefs.

Find The Books of Jacob in our online catalog.

Cosmo recommends Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

06/06/2022

Boulder Library

adult fiction, historical fiction, literary fiction, political fiction, .Cosmo's reviews, biographical fiction

Though historical fiction isn't a genre I have much familiarity with, this book was engrossing enough to get me out of my comfort zone. Awareness of the Tudor England time period might give the book a greater sense of irony, but I found the characters and their various political maneuvers were plenty interesting without prior knowledge. The terse and quietly expressive writing makes the setting feel uncertain and alive without the characters feeling like modern 21st century inserts. You might learn something by accident after reading this book, but it never feels like homework.

Publisher's description:

Assuming the power recently lost by the disgraced Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell counsels a mercurial Henry VIII on the latter's efforts to marry Anne Boleyn against the wishes of Rome, a successful endeavor that comes with a dangerous price. Employing a vast array of historical characters, and a story overflowing with incident, the author turns Tudor England into a compelling piece of fiction. Mantel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairsbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death.

Find Wolf Hall in our catalog.