book recommendations

78 posts

Staff Review: A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline

  Christina Baker Kline’s A Piece of the World is an easy book to review. As the selection for our March Second Saturday Book Club, it generated a great deal of discussion from those in attendance. There was much to discuss; the tormented protagonist, the simultaneously stark and beautiful tone of the […]

Staff Pick of the Week: Stardust by Neil Gaiman

This week’s staff pick is an enchanting adult fairy tale this novel was made into the movie Stardust.  Utterly charming, this staff favorite is an adventure story like you haven’t seen before.  We also have the audiobook read by the author, and it’s top-notch. “In the sleepy English countryside of […]

Staff Pick of the Week: Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews

This week’s staff pick is the beginning of an excellent fantasy series.  Cover aside, our protagonist is Kate, a mercenary in a world gone topsy-turvy, and she’s funny, determined, and can kill you three times before you hit the floor.  A couple of our staffers love this series, since each […]

Staff Pick of the Week: The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

This week’s staff pick is the lyrical, beautiful and lovely book The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George.  Our staffer loved it, and we can pretty much guarantee this will be very popular with bookclubs.  A truly excellent novel about love, loss, grief, and starting over, we can’t recommend this one enough. […]

Staff Pick of the Week : The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

This week’s staff pick is an old staffer favorite, and one that at least one of our staffer’s periodically rereads, because it’s that good.   The novel is written entirely in letters and diary entries, and is completely engaging and utterly delightful. ““ I wonder how the book got to […]

Staff Pick of the Week: Sabriel by Garth Nix

Filled with magic, necromancy, ‘zombies’, a talking cat, and a teenage girl having to save her father and well, the world.  This is a wonderful adventure and the beginning of the Abhorsen trilogy, although Sabriel can be read as a standalone novel.  Perfect for young and old readers, this has […]

Staff Pick of the Week: The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

This week’s staff pick is weird but really good (reportedly).   Hawkins has been repeatedly hailed as a cross between Neil Gaiman and Joe Hill, and the genre-bending The Library at Mount Char definitely reflects that.    This is a novel where you won’t know what’s going on immediately, but it’s an […]

Staff Pick of the Week: An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

This week’s staff pick is the debut from author Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes.  Our staffer found it powerful, harsh, and multifaceted.  On the surface, they said it seems like ‘one of those’ fantasy novels, but it quickly sucked them in, and they really enjoyed it.  The first […]

Staff Pick of the Week: The Glass Sentence by S.E. Grove

This week’s staff pick is the beginning of a new children’s/YA series full of adventure, male and female heroines, and the interesting and bizarre.  Our staffer found it refreshing, original, and highly recommends it.  Those who loved The Golden Compass, and fans of Garth Nix, Diana Wynne, Jones, and Tamora Pierce […]