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Book reviews by library staff and guest contributors
"I would never eat a child. What do you think I am...a monster?" proclaims the main character of this book who, admittedly, looks an awful lot like a monster.
The orange creature stands in a line with a bunch of kids. Ten kids, to be exact - this is important, so pay attention. Each kid has some sort of accessory - a kite, a soccer ball, knitting needles, etc.
Chris Nickson really, really loves his hometown of Leeds, England. The music journalist and mystery novelist has written, by this point, four detective series spanning two hundred years set in Yorkshire’s largest city. While each series could loosely be considered police procedurals, what makes Nickson’s series stand out is the portrait of the city itself—a place largely off the beaten path for many crime readers—as it progresses from a regional center of the wool and agricultural trade to sprawling industrial boom town bursting with late Victorian optimism.
Rocky's family spends one week a year vacationing in a cottage on the Cape. Rocky, her husband, their two college-age or slightly older children, their son's girlfriend, and Rocky's elderly parents make the small, quaint cottage with a sensitive septic system their home away from home. There are not enough beds or chairs, and privacy is limited. There is plenty of swimming, relaxing on the beach, and enough penny candy to make lasting memories.
Tessa, a young Cree girl, wants to learn beading from her grandmother, or Kohkom. But her mother informs her that first, she must learn why beads and beading are important to them. The two of them visit Kohkom, and she proceeds to lovingly teach Tessa all about the stories behind the beads. Written by a Nbisiing Nishnaabe author, What's in a Bead? shares indigenous words and customs alongside clear, bold illustrations.
I'm a fan of true crime tv and podcasts and will listen to a wide variety of them, but when it comes to books, I'm a bit more particular. I think this choosiness has to do with being able to distance myself a bit from the content and for me, when I'm reading, it can feel so much more immediate. So for nonfiction crime books I gravitate to historical crime with the natural distancing of time making it more enjoyable. A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum really fit that bill.
It's that time of year again where the best of the year lists start appearing. Have you started your lists? Publishers Weekly has just released their best books of 2024. The categories include: Top 10, Fiction, Mystery/Thriller, Poetry, Romance, SF/Fantasy/Horror, Comics, Nonfiction, Religion, Lifestyle, Picture Books, Middle Grade, Young Adult. There is something for everybody.
Don't miss these new fall-themed picture books that showcase the season:
It seems like a perfect meet cute: wide-eyed debutante Eve Ojukwu, fresh from the hinterlands of Kepler, bumps into wealthy bachelor Esteban Mendez-Yuki of megacorp MYCorps on a half-gravity dancefloor on the ritzy satellite of New Monte. Except this is all part of a carefully orchestrated con game, hatched by Ruthi Johnson—our innocent Eve—in revenge for Mendez-Yuki’s jilting of her sister Jules, now expecting Esteban’s child back on Kepler.
At a recent book discussion of the Mystery Book Group at Lakeview we talked about Dennis Lehane's powerful (though incredibly tough to read) novel, Small Mercies. One description of the books says "this novel dives into the dark heart of American racism, weaving a complex tale of family, power, and revenge set against the backdrop of Boston's tumultuous history.
This is a touching story that starts with a day that is not like the others. Eleven-year-old Sophie Winslow is best friends with her neighbor, eighty-eight-year-old Sophie Gershowitz. Eleven-year-old Sophie is an unusual child - she's an old soul and hypochondriac. She loves using traditional library reference tools such as looking up medical ailments in the Merck Manual and memorizing quotes from Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.
