Staff Recommendations
Daryl M.
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There There
by Orange, Tommy
November 5, 2018
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A postal worker, a young teenage boy, a documentary filmmaker, a scholar with a Masters degree in Native American literature, and a woman struggling with alcohol addiction are individuals who have three things in common: they are all Native Americans, they all live in Oakland, California, and they are all attending the Big Oakland Powwow. These five disparate individuals are only part of the cast of twelve characters, who also share those common attributes, in Tommy Orange’s stunning debut novel,There There.The author, who was born and raised in Oakland, California, uses the city as... Read Full Review
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Vengeful
by Schwab, V. E., 1987-
October 29, 2018
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Eli Cardale and Victor Vale are ExtraOrdinaries (or EOs): people who have survived a near-death experience, and as a result of the trauma developed a special power or ability. Eli’s ability is regenerative: nearly any wound inflicted on him heals almost instantly; and he does not age and may very well be immortal. Victor can control pain, both his own and that of others. At the end of the events chronicled in V.E. Schwab’s Vicious, Eli had been arrested for Victor’s murder, and Victor had just been resurrected. What happens next is chronicled in Schwab’s latest novel, ... Read Full Review
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The Dinner List
by Serle, Rebecca
October 15, 2018
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It’s a psychological exercise. It’s also a way to find out more about another person, or simply a jumping off point for a discussion among friends. But even if you’ve never created a list, almost everyone, at some point, has been asked to name the five people, living or dead, who they would invite to dinner if they could invite anyone. In her latest novel, Rebecca Serle follows Sabrina Nielsen, a young woman who shows up for her 30th birthday dinner and finds the people on her list seated at the table. It makes for an interesting evening and a marvelous read.Sabrina made the list years ago,... Read Full Review
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The Black God's Drums
by Clark, P. Djeli.
October 7, 2018
Call Number: SF
Creeper has lived on the streets of New Orleans since her mother died when Creeper was eight years-old. At thirteen, she does OK for herself, although life is always hard and there is never enough to eat. And then she hears a group of Confederates plotting about kidnapping a Haitian scientist and stealing his mysterious weapon called the Black God’s Drums. This information could be valuable--valuable enough to get Creeper what she really desires: a position on the airship Midnight Robber and a chance to leave New Orleans and start a new life. But this will only happen if Creeper can... Read Full Review
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A Study in Honor
by O'Dell, Claire,
September 24, 2018
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Sherlock Holmes is the world’s best known, and possibly most popular, detective. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published the first Sherlock Holmes story, “A Study in Scarlet,” in 1887. Over the next forty years, Doyle went on to write fifty-five additional short stories and four novels about Holmes and his faithful companion, Dr. John Watson.Holmes and Watson have become icons for both Great Britain and the mystery genre, and their adventures did not end when Doyle stopped writing. The characters have provided a type of playground for other writers shortly after the publication of the first Holmes... Read Full Review
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A Gentleman's Murder
by Huang, Christopher.
August 27, 2018
Call Number: M
In Great Britain, the years immediately following WWI were a period of great change. New technologies were finding their way into people’s everyday lives. Women began to voice their dissatisfaction with being essentially second-class citizens and unable to vote. And the men who survived serving in WWI returned to their homes scarred from the experience, both physically and psychologically. It is during this tumultuous time that debut author Christopher Huang sets his compelling new mystery: A Gentleman’s Murder.The year is 1924, six years after Armistice Day and the end of WWI. Eric... Read Full Review
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Meet Me at the Museum
by Youngson, Anne.
August 13, 2018
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A woman, who has worked on a farm in Bury St. Edmunds, England for her entire adult life, has dreamed for decades of visiting the Silkeborg Museum in Denmark with her best friend to see The Tollund Man, a naturally preserved mummy discovered in a peat bog. When her friend dies, she sends a grief and regret-filled letter to the museum, which is answered, cautiously, and a bit clumsily, by one of the museum’s curators. Over the course of the following year, the two develop a regular correspondence through which they forge a connection and friendship upon which both will come to rely.Meet Me... Read Full Review
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Deep Roots
by Emrys, Ruthanna.
July 23, 2018
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In recent years H.P. Lovecraft and his works have become increasingly problematic. His personal views on race permeate his stories resulting in fiction that is, at best, challenging to enjoy for many readers. As a result, there currently tend to be three approaches regarding Lovecraft’s fiction: those who love it, those who hate it, and those who choose simply not to read it. But there is now a fourth group of readers that is developing: those that are fascinated with the works of authors like Ruthanna Emrys, who use Lovecraft’s mythos as jumping-off points to create incredibly thoughtful,... Read Full Review
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Making the Monster: The Science Behind Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
by Harkup, Kathryn,
July 9, 2018
Call Number: 823 S545Har
2018 is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein: Or The Modern Prometheus. In the intervening two centuries, Shelley’s novel, originally published anonymously, has become her most famous and well-known work and an international icon. The name Frankenstein has become shorthand for both mad scientists running amok and their monstrous creations (which also tend to run amok!). So, it is fitting that during this bicentennial year, Dr. Kathryn Harkup, a UK based scientist and writer, would investigate the woman behind the novel and the science... Read Full Review
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Time was
by McDonald, Ian, 1960-
June 18, 2018
Call Number: SF
Anyone who has spent time in bookstores or libraries has found them: short notes, usually handwritten, tucked away in books to be found by the latest reader of the title. Typically, they are ad-hoc bookmarks, inadvertently left behind by a previous reader. When you find one of these, what do you do? Do you throw the note away, assuming it is trash, or do you place it back in the book? If you choose to put it back, do you read it before you do so? What if you found a note, read it and discovered that it was not arbitrarily left in the book, but quite consciously placed there for someone else... Read Full Review
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Witchmark
by Polk, C. L.
May 29, 2018
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Dr. Miles Singer is a man with secrets. First, his name isn’t really Miles Singer, it is Sir Christopher Hensley. He is a child from an aristocratic family of magic users who are deeply entrenched in Aeland’s government. While it is true that he is a doctor and a veteran, however he was never meant to be either. He was meant for a life of servitude to his sister, acting as a booster or battery, for her magical power. So he ran away, hiding his magical abilities and noble background, to pursue a life serving as a physician and psychiatrist working with other war veterans in the wards of... Read Full Review
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Pride and Prometheus
by Kessel, John,
May 7, 2018
Call Number: SF
What if Mary Bennett, Elizabeth Bennett’s younger sister from Pride and Prejudice, encountered Victor Frankenstein at a social event in London? What if, upon meeting Victor, the serious and studious Mary became quite taken with the withdrawn, troubled, and also quite brilliant, Frankenstein? What would happen? This is the question entertainingly explored by John Kessel in his new novel Pride and Prometheus.Mary Bennett and her younger sister, Kitty, are both beginning to realize that their chances of finding a suitable husband are dwindling rapidly. While Mary prefers to... Read Full Review