Book Group Genre List

Gentle Reads: books without much sex, swearing, or violence.

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff |  BG 921 Hanff  |  [Reserve Now]

In our contemporary life, where nearly any book we want to read can be quickly found and purchased with just a click of a mouse or read on an electronic device, it’s hard to remember when people had to search for specific books. This memoir, constructed entirely of letters, takes you back to those pre-Amazon days and into the life of writer Helene Hanff. What began in 1949 as a search for a collection of Hazlitt letters that was of better quality than “Barnes and Noble’s grimy, marked-up schoolboy copies” became a transatlantic friendship between the writer and Mr. Frank Doel of Marks & Co Booksellers of 84 Charing Cross Road, London. As the friendship develops it creates an image of the physicality of books—the scent, the feel of a tight binding, the leather cover, the turning of a page—that will renew your affection for books, reading, and friendship.

After the Dancing Days by Margaret Rostkowski |  BG Rostkowski  |  [Reserve Now]

Young Annie learns about the horrors of World War I through the suffering and stories of wounded soldiers recovering in a veterans’ hospital near her small Kansas hometown. Annie, who has lost a much loved uncle during the recent war, learns the real story of his death and comes to a better understanding of the world outside her comfortable life. Author Rostkowski is a high school teacher in Ogden, and this, her first novel, won multiple awards in Utah and across the nation.

The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg |  BG Flagg  |  [Reserve Now]

She might be facing an empty nest and her demanding mother’s continuous needs, but southerner Sookie Simmons Poole is doing just fine—until she receives a letter that sets her life in an entirely new direction. Her research leads her to the Jurdabralinski family, four sisters who helped keep their family’s Phillip’s 66 gas station afloat during World War II, as well as serving the United States as members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). Sookie’s process of discovering who she really is (not who her overbearing mother wants her to be) is fueled by her growing knowledge of those four courageous sisters. Full of Flagg’s trademark southern charm mixed with a little-known part of American history, The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion is a quirky novel, warm and funny and the smallest bit bittersweet.

All the Light we Cannot See by Anthony Doerr |  BG Doerr  |  [Reserve Now]

This haunting, almost gentle novel tells the story of Marie, a blind girl growing up in France as World War II begins, and Werner, an orphan growing up in Germany during the same time. Marie’s father is the locksmith at the Museum of Natural History; he creates keys and locks, and distributes them, to protect the museum’s acquisitions. Werner lives in an orphanage in Essen, the mining district of Germany; his father was killed in a coal mine. Each character has a transition: Werner’s natural instinct for science, math, and radio technology is discovered by a Nazi official, who arranges for him to be sent to the school at Schulpforta, where Nazis were created out of ordinary boys, while Marie moves to St. Malo, an ancient city on the coast of France, after the invasion of Paris. The dual stories intertwine with that of von Rumpel, a German diamond expert tasked by the Nazis with the responsibility of finding the Sea of Flames jewel, which may or may not be cursed—and might possibly be in the possession of Marie’s father. An elegant study of the way technology, time, and war influence the personal behaviors of individuals, All the Light We Cannot See illustrates that there are still stories to be told about this harrowing time in history.

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner |  BG Stegner  |  [Reserve Now]

The novel opens when wheelchair bound historian Lyman Ward decides to chronicle the lives of his extraordinary grandparents and their struggles in the Western frontier. Their story takes them from boom towns in Colorado, to near starvation on the banks of an Idaho river, to near-peace in California. However, Lyman’s study of his grandparents leads him to discover that he is connected to his family in more ways that he ever imagined. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972. It was written when Stegner was presented with a brief biographical history and series of letters that would inspire the creation of one of American fiction’s most memorable couples: Susan and Oliver Ward. 

The Ballad of Frankie Silver by Sharyn McCrumb |  BG McCrumb  |  [Reserve Now]

The Appalachian wilderness comes to life in this novel that explores the mystery of what happened to Frankie Silver, hanged for murder in a small North Carolina town in 1833. In contemporary Tennessee, Sherriff Spencer Arrowood investigates a different murder, perhaps committed by a young woman who grew up poor in the mountains, Fate Harkryder. The two murders—and the two young women moving through a legal system that fails them—begin to weave together as Spencer works to uncover the truth.

The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery |  BG Montgomery  |  [Reserve Now]

When 29-year-old Valancy Stirling (the plain, quite spinster of her family) receives the surprising news that she has a fatal heart condition, she decides to entirely change whatever life she has left to live. Rather than quietly obeying the conscriptions and directions of her family, she starts making her own choices, including making friends with the town drunk and a vagabond. Told with Mongtomery’s vivid descriptions of the Canadian landscape, this gentle, sweet romance will make your heart flutter.

The Butterfly and the Violin by Kristy Cambron |  BG Ishiguro  |  [Reserve Now]

A painting of a young woman playing the violin is the connection between two stories in this debut novel which was nominated for Library Journal’s Best Books of 2014. Jilted by her fiancé, Manhattan art dealer Sera James retreats into her work until the memory of a painting pushes her out of her comfort zone. In German-controlled Poland, violinist Adele von Bron is sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau after she is caught trying to rescue Jews. There she is forced to play her violin during the death marches of the Jewish prisoners. The two stories intertwine into a moving tale of faith, loss, art, and courage.

The Chosen by Chaim Potok |  BG Potok  |  [Reserve Now]

Potok’s magnificent story of two friends and two fathers is an unforgettable American classic. Two Brooklyn boys meet through a softball game and become fast friends, despite very different background. Reuven comes from a Jewish family with modern, American leanings. Danny is heir-apparent to his father, a conservative Hassidic Rabbi. The novel is an exploration of fatherhood, faith, Judaism, and a friendship that defies the odds.

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver |  BG Kingsolver  |  [Reserve Now]

Taylor Greer leaves Kentucky to begin a new life in the West, never imagining the strange shape this journey will take. Left with a 3-year-old girl by a Cherokee woman in Oklahoma, Greer decides to keep the toddler and make a life together. A pair of flat tires in Tucson forces the two to settle down and try to make a real home. The novel is a tale of freedom, friendship, love, and resourcefulness: with a light dose of wit and humor. Thousands have enjoyed Kingsolver’s charming and insightful characters.

Bellfield Hall, or, the Observations of Miss Dido Kent by Anna Dean |  BG Dean  |  [Reserve Now]

Set in the 1805 England that’s familiar from Jane Austen’s novels, this is the first in a mystery series. Dido Kent, at 35 years old, is considered to be a hopeless spinster—but solving mysteries gives her life a sense of purpose. Dido’s niece Catherine is heartbroken, as her fiancé has abruptly called off the engagement. He vanishes, and then a murdered woman is found on the grounds of Bellfield Hall, and Dido must figure out if the two are connected.

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown |  BG 797.123 B8126  |  [Reserve Now]

“It occurred to me that when Hitler watched Joe and the boys fight their way back from the rear of the field to sweep ahead of Italy and Germany seventy-five years ago, he saw, but did not recognize, heralds of his doom. He could not have known that one day hundreds of thousands of boys just like them, boys who shared their essential natures—decent and unassuming, not privileged or favored by anything in particular, just loyal, committed, and perseverant—would return to Germany dressed in olive drab, hunting him down.” The Boys in the Boat tells the true story of nine working-class boys who came from the University of Washington to the 1936 Berlin Olympics—and beat the German team for the gold.

Clock Dance by Anne Tyler |  BG Tyler  |  [Reserve Now]

Clock Dance begins in 1967, when 11-year-old Willa Drake is trying to figure out her mother’s absence; picks up in 1977 as she starts college, jumps to 1997 when she is a young widow and then to 2017, when her sons are off living their own lives and all she wants is to become a grandmother. Then a phone call from a near-stranger changes the trajectory of her life again, sending her to Baltimore to care for the daughter of a person she barely knows. Anne Tyler is a master at exploring ordinary family dynamics, finding the bits of magic hidden in the mundane, and this novel is no exception. You will come to love Willa as she works through the issues her life has created for her on the way to finding her own voice.

Dancing at the Rascal Fair by Ivan Doig |  BG Doig  |  [Reserve Now]

“The Atlantic was a child’s teacup compared to the ocean that life could be,” Angus McCaskill thinks, a tidy summary of a sprawling, funny, tender book that tells the story of immigration and expansion. With his friend Rob Barclay, Angus leaves Scotland for Montana, where the two friends become sheep ranchers, as well as fathers, husbands, and men along the way. Dancing at the Rascal Fair shares thirty years of their lives with readers, in stories rich with humor, suffering, love and friendship.

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron |  BG 636.8009 M997  |  [Reserve Now]

One cold morning in Iowa, librarian Vicki Myron came into work and found a tiny kitten had been stuffed through the book-return drop. Rescued by the librarians of the Spencer Public Library, Dewey became the library cat. This memoir details his twenty years at the library, including his influence on both the librarians and the library patrons. If you love books, libraries, and cats (and who doesn’t?), you will love this sweet memoir.

Drenched in Light by Lisa Wingate |  BG Wingate  |  [Reserve Now]

After her dream of becoming a prima ballerina with the Kansas City ballet crumbles because of her struggles with anorexia, Julia moves back home to work as a guidance counselor at a prestigious school for performing arts. Her life begins to intertwine with Dell, a scholarship student who is a music virtuoso but struggling to fit in with her wealthy, snooty peers. As she works to overcome the tensions both within the school and her family, Julia begins to realize the impact of her decisions and where her life’s truth path lies.

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn |  BG Dunn  |  [Reserve Now]

Ella lives on the tiny island called Nollop, off the coast of South Carolina, a “nation of letter writers” named after Nevin Nollop, who wrote the sentence that uses all the letters of the alphabet. (The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.) All is peaceful and happy on Nollop, until letters begin falling off the statue of Nevin Nollop. The island’s leaders decide that the missing Z is a sign: that letter is no longer a part of the alphabet. Public floggings, banishment from the island, and even death are the consequences of using a Z in written or oral communication. As more letters fall from the statue and are banned, the people come up with more and more ingenious use of language—while their entire society begins to fall apart. Quirky and intelligent, the novel makes great use of wordplay as it works towards Ella’s attempt to save every letter. Even Z.

Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper |  BG Hooper  |  [Reserve Now]

Etta and Otto and Russell and James tells the story of Otto Vogel, just one of a 15-kid family growing up on a dusty farm in Saskatchewan with his best friend Russell, who becomes a sort-of Vogel, pitching in with the chores and eating at their table. When they are teenagers, their teacher, ill from the area’s constant dust, is replaced with a new one, Etta Kinnick. The James of the title is a complicated, mysterious character best discovered in the book itself. This is a novel that moves seamlessly between the past and the present; part of the story is Otto’s perspective and part is Etta’s. We go to war with Otto, we stay home with Etta and then—when she is near the end of her life—we go on a walk with her. Etta, who has never seen the sea, decides (at age 83!) to walk there. Russell’s role in Etta’s life, and James’s, as well as Otto’s experiences pining for Etta at home on his own, create a compelling and devastating read. This lovely, sweet, and sad novel, part history, part travel adventure, is entirely charming.

Father Brown: The Essential Tales by G.K. Chesterton |  BG Chesterton  |  [Reserve Now]

These short mysteries place the chubby and unprepossessing priest Father Brown in the role of detective. His knowledge, gleaned in part from years of experience taking confessions, of how human evil works, provides the basis for his skill at solving crimes. These stories are quite unrealistic, but Chesterton is serious about ideas, and those he formulates here are always clever and often thought-provoking.

A Fine and Pleasant Misery by Patrick F. McManus |  BG 796.502 M4599  |  [Reserve Now]

“The more you talked about the miseries of life in the woods,” writes Patrick McManus, “the more you wanted to get back out there and start suffering again. Camping was a fine and pleasant misery.” But it’s not just camping that McManus expounds upon in this collection of wilderness stories written for Field & Stream magazine; hiking, fishing, hunting, and other nature-based adventures also appear, as well as the unique pleasures of bring a kid or two along with you. If you’ve ever pitched a tent or hit the trail, McManus’s writing will make you laugh in recognition of the miserable joys of the great outdoors.

Good-bye Mr. Chips by James Hinton |  BG Hilton  |  [Reserve Now]

Charles Chipping is a terrible teacher – uninspiring and unloved by his students at the (somewhat) prestigious Brookfield School for Boys in England. But everything changes when he meets and marries the lovely and intelligent Katherine on a summer vacation. With some of his shyness finally overcome, Chips discovers a way to begin connecting with the young men in his classes, helping them to uncover the beauty of language and history. This novel is not only a sweet and sometimes tragic life story; it is also a record of the sweeping changes in England from the Victorian Era (Mr. Chips begins teaching in 1870) through the beginning of World War II. A great record of a great teacher.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer  |  BG Shaffer  |  [Reserve Now]

On the tiny Channel island of Guernsey, an impromptu literary society is formed when four friends, walking home from a dinner party, are stopped by German officers. On the spot they claim they’re walking home from a literary society meeting; their quick thought helps them avoid prison and leads to the formation of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. This society becomes a place where the group members can “almost forget, now and then, the darkness” of living in occupied England during World War II. A decade later, English writer Juliet Ashton stumbles across the stories from the society and strikes up a conversation via letters with its members. This epistolary novel tells the story of an occupation by the Germans that was first intended to be “model,” but worsened until a concentration camp was built there. Not just a war novel, it examines the way books can connect, redeem, and sometimes even save us.

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok |  BG Kwok  |  [Reserve Now]

With the promise of housing and a job, Ah-Kim and her mother immigrate to San Francisco from Hong Kong after her father dies. The housing her Aunt Paula provides is a squalid, unheated apartment and the factory work is demanding and exhausting. Kimberly, as she’s known in America, barely has enough clothes to keep warm, let alone avoid the taunts of kids at school. It’s not flashy, but her quiet strength, intelligence, and courage as she tries to create an American life for herself and her mother infuse this novel with an uplifting sense of possibility.

Guests of the Sheik by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea |  BG 306.956 F394  |  [Reserve Now]

In 1956, Elizabeth Fernea was a newlywed. Her husband’s field research in anthropology took the couple to a small, rural Iraqi village. In a friendly, intimate tone, Fernea tells the story of her two years there, which she begins as an American woman knowing next to nothing about Iraqi culture, language, or mores, resentful of the abaya she is required to wear; and ends as a close friend to the women of El Nahra. An intimate and detailed examination of the real lives women led in Iraq in the 1950s, Guests of the Sheik is an adventure story at heart, illustrating that no matter how different our cultures are, we all share the need to live vibrant lives.

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale |  BG Hale  |  [Reserve Now]

Local author Shannon Hale reinvents the goose girl fairy tale in this award-winning novel. Princess Anidori is born with a word on her tongue, which means as she grows she learns, under her aunt’s encouragement, how to speak to animals. This strangeness does not sit well with the queen, so when the king dies, Princess Ani’s mother forges a marriage between her and the prince of Bayern, a neighboring country. But Ani’s betrayal by trusted people is just beginning; on her way to Bayern her friend Selia plots to kill Ani and take her place. Ani escapes, makes it to Bayern, and works as a goose girl while trying to take her future back. A story about a character working out her own fate instead of waiting to be rescued, Hale’s book is a magical tale.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith |  BG Smith  |  [Reserve Now]

Meet Cassandra Mortmain: 17, living in a falling-down castle with her impoverished family in 1930s England, trying to learn how to write by keeping a journal. Meet her, because you’ll fall in love with this delightful, quick-witted, eccentric character. Dodie Smith’s classic novel tells Cassandra’s coming-of-age story. Initially disdainful of love, but still full of romantic ideas, she experiences an Austen-esque series of adventures with the wealthy American family who moves into the estate near the castle. Cassandra’s charisma pulls you through the novel as she discovers the type of woman she really wants to be.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte |  BG Bronte  |  [Reserve Now]

The novel is a Victorian classic. Having been raised as an unloved orphan in her aunt’s home, Jane Eyre finds her place as a governess in Thornfield Hall. Before long Jane’s life is intertwined with the mysterious characters that make up her new home, from the dark Mr. Rochester to his odd servant Grace Pool. Eventually love and drama intertwine as Jane must attempt to understand the strange happenings of the house and desires of her heart.

Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Stewart |  BG 978.703 St493  |  [Reserve Now]

After deciding that city life as a laundress wasn’t for her, Elinore Pruitt, a young widowed mother, accepted an offer to assist with a ranch in Wyoming, work that she found exceedingly more rewarding. In this delightful collection of letters, she describes these experiences to her former employer, Mrs. Coney.

Light of the Candle by Carol Pratt Bradley |  BG Bradly  |  [Reserve Now]

Most everyone knows the bible story of Daniel in the lion’s den: captured and taken away to Babylon, he remained true to the religion he learned in Jerusalem by praying three times a day. When he refused to stop, he was thrown into a den of lions, but angels sealed their mouths and saved him. What might not be known is the rest of the story. In Light of the Candle, Utah author Carol Pratt Bradley brings ancient Jerusalem and Babylon to life with the stories of Daniel’s experiences.

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney |  BG Rooney  |  [Reserve Now]

Loosely based on the poet Margaret Fishback, who was the highest-paid female advertising copywriter in the 1930s, this novel explores how choice and social forces influence a woman’s life. It is told in alternating chapters: the history of Lillian Boxfish’s career at Macy’s in New York City, her romantic relationships, and her eventual family life; and the story of a walk she takes around the city on New Year’s Eve in 1984. As each story progresses, readers feel the effects of society’s narrow expectations for women and the advances we’ve made—as well as downright falling in love with Lillian, who is spunky, intelligent, fierce, and funny.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks |  BG 616.8 Sa14  |  [Reserve Now]

An 88-year-old woman, somewhat deaf, awakens one night to the sound of music from her childhood playing loudly. The songs don’t come from any radio but play loudly and repeatedly in her head. Her ENT and psychiatrist can’t find anything wrong, but her neurologist, Dr. Oliver Sacks, eventually figures out what’s causing the music: a small stroke in the woman’s temporal lobe. That’s just one of the stories Dr. Sacks writes about in this collection of neurological case studies. Published both in medical and literary journals, Sacks’ studies present the intricacies of the human brain and its workings along with the resilience of the human spirit. Interesting, informative, and illuminating, this work will make you think about what it means to be human.

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear |  BG Winspear  |  [Reserve Now]

Maisie Dobbs, the new maid at the London home of the suffragette Lady Rowan Compton, is not an average maid. She’s only thirteen, and she can read, and she sneaks into the manor’s library to study European philosophy. When Lady Compton discovers Maisie’s precocious intellect, she becomes her patron, eventually sending her off to college, but the Great War interrupts Maisie’s education. She volunteers as a nurse and then, when the war ends, decides to become a private detective. Her first promising case begins as an investigation of infidelity and deepens into a story of how the War affected British society. Maisie is spunky, intelligent, and witty; her story is part mystery, part romance, part history and completely entertaining.

Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson |  BG Youngson  |  [Reserve Now]

At the Silkeborg Museum in Denmark lies the Tollund Man: a body pulled from a peat bog, placed there roughly 2300 years ago. Tina Hopgood, who lives on an isolated farm in England, has been fascinated with this mummified corpse since she was a young adult, away from home at University, but has never gone to see it. Professor Anders Larsen works at the museum, and one day receives a letter from Tina. They start up a correspondence which, as they move from discussing the Tollund Man to their personal lives, blooms into a friendship. This hopeful epistolary novel examines the passage of time, the effects of individual choices on the entirety of a life, love, grief, loneliness, the nature of happiness, and the ways we might be able to shape the lives we really want to live. 

Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool   |  BG Vanderpool  |  [Reserve Now]

Vanderpool’s Newbery-winning novel is set in the town of Manifest Kansas, “a place too far away to ever get back to, a place too good to be real. A place one was proud to call home” during the 1930’s. It tells the story of Abilene Tucker, whose father Gideon has sent her back to live in Manifest for the summer, thinking she’ll be safer there than living a drifter lifestyle with him. Abilene discovers the decades-old mystery of The Rattler along with new friends and a boxful of old objects that lead her to Gideon’s history. Weaving the history of prohibition, orphan trains, Spanish influenza, coal mining and World War One with the lifestyle of a small Midwestern town, the story reads like an instant classic. It manages to combine what is endearing about childhood—mystery, adventure, the power in an object, the pull of story and that deep-seated need for affection and a place to call your own—into a sweet and satisfying experience.

Mr. Dickens and His Carol by Samantha Silva  |  BG Silva  |  [Reserve Now]

Immerse yourself in Victorian England in this atmospheric imagining of Charles Dickens’s experience writing A Christmas Carol. In November 1943, Dickens finds himself in a bit of a financial crisis. His wife has just had their sixth child, the holidays are almost upon him, and his serialized novel, The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, is not selling well. To keep his publishing contract, he must write a Christmas story, even though the idea is not especially appealing. Wandering through London, he discovers an unusual source of inspiration. 

Mrs. Mike by Benedict Freedman  |  BG Freedman  |  [Reserve Now]

Mrs. Mike is the true story of Katherine Mary O’Fallon, a young Irish girl from Boston, who marries Canadian Mountie Sergeant Mike Flannigan, who is priest, doctor and magistrate to all in the wilderness of the North Woods of Canada. Extremely popular, the novel has won the hearts of millions for its depiction of young love’s journey to maturity.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell  |  BG Gaskell  |  [Reserve Now]

Written as a serialized novel in Charles Dickens’ Household Words in 1855, Gaskell’s classic novel North and South explores issues of industrialization, social injustice, and poverty in northern England. When Margaret Hale’s father gives up his role as a priest in the Church of England after doubting its leadership, the family leaves the pastoral, southern town of Helstone for the industrialized, northern town of Milton. Here Margaret discovers a sharp contrast to her previous experiences, caused by the poverty and difficult working conditions of the factory laborers. She also meets John Thornton, the powerful owner of a cotton mill. Thorton’s mill is facing a striking labor force, while Margaret’s family is also in upheaval caused by her mother’s illness and her brother Fredrick’s legal troubles brought on by a mutiny. The developing romance between Margaret and John, full of antagonism and misunderstanding, binds the story’s varying topics into a cohesive whole.

Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen by Bob Greene  |  BG 978.282 G8303  |  [Reserve Now]

They began almost immediately, just after the attack on Pearl Harbor: the people of a tiny town in Nebraska started feeding the soldiers who came through North Platte by the trainful. A small canteen sprang up at the train depot where the soldiers briefly stopped – for ten or fifteen minutes, they were treated to food, hot coffee, cake, fruit, and hospitality. The community around North Platte joined in the project, and volunteers made sure that the soldiers on every train, from 5:00 a.m. until midnight, were greeted, fed, and encouraged. “I would say that the majority of men on the battlefields knew exactly what North Platte was,” one soldier explains. “They would talk about it like it was a dream.” Chicago Times columnist Bob Greene explores this little-known story from World War II, showing how the kindness of strangers changed lives. This touching read will remind you of the goodness that’s inherent in people and the comfort in good food and a smile. 

The Orphan Keeper by Camron Wright  |  BG Wright  |  [Reserve Now]

Growing up in India, Chellamuthu experiences hunger, poverty, abuse, and quite a bit of theft, but everything changes when he is kidnapped and sold to an orphanage. An American family meets him at the orphanage and decides to adopt him, but it is many months before he can speak enough English to tell them that he actually already has a family. A semester abroad in London, spent living with an Indian family, sparks his need to find his birth family. This novel, based on a true story, explores the concept of what creates and defines a family.

The Persian Pickle Club by Sandra Dallas  |  BG Dallas  |  [Reserve Now]

In Depression-era Harveyville, Kansas, a group of women form the Persian Pickle Club, erstwhile quilting group turned sisterhood. The newest “Pickle,” Rita, has just moved to Kansas from Denver, and she’s a little bit different from the rest of the group. She’s a big-city girl who doesn’t know the details of living a farm life, let alone quilting, but Queenie Bean, the group’s youngest member and the novel’s narrator, strikes up a friendship with her anyway. When Rita—an aspiring writer—tries to solve the murder of group member Ella’s husband, she discovers that the women aren’t as small-town as they might seem.

Persuasion by Jane Austen  |  BG Austen  |  [Reserve Now]

The last novel that Jane Austen wrote is the story of Anne Elliot. At 19, Anne fell in love with a young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth. When she accepted his proposal, however, her wealthy family thought he was beneath her and convinced her to break the engagement. Seven years later, the Elliot family has developed some financial troubles. The ending of the Napoleonic wars brings now-Captain Wentworth back into Anne’s life. Austen’s most mature work looks at the effects that social pressures and expectations have upon the women of the time.

The Quilter’s Apprentice by Jennifer Chiaverni  |  BG Chiaverini  [Reserve Now]

The first novel in the Elm Creek Quilts series, this book introduces us to Sarah McClure, who has recently moved to a small town in Pennsylvania with her husband. Sarah strikes up an uneasy relationship with an older woman named Sylvia Compton, who begins teaching her to quilt, an activity that might just turn around both of their lives.

Range of Motion by Elizabeth Berg  |  BG Berg  |  [Reserve Now]

The scent of morning toast and jam, sunlight on trees in the afternoon, the way a summer evening cools with an unexpected breeze: all of the everyday sensory experiences of living a human life are all around us, every day, and yet how often do we really take notice of them? This is the question  Elizabeth Berg’s novel, Range of Motion, puts forth as it examines how Lainey’s life changes as she tries to cope with caring for her husband, who is in a coma after being struck by a chunk of ice falling from a roof. Lainey never stops believing that her husband, Jay, will wake up, and to encourage him, every day she brings some small item to call him back to his life. Berg has a way of using story to examine the way difficult moments propel us to change, and she does so beautifully in this novel.

Rebecca by Daphne Maurier  |  BG Du Maurier  |  [Reserve Now]

When she arrives at Manderley, the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter discovers not all is as expected. Her husband’s first wife, the seemingly-brilliant, talented, and beautiful Rebecca, haunts both the house itself and its occupants. Attempting to establish her marriage and her place within the house, Mrs. de Winter is challenged at every turn by the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers. Only when Maxim is able to tell his second wife the truths about his first can this gothic story come to its chilling fruition.

The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry  |  BG Berry  |  [Reserve Now]

The seven students at St. Etheldreda’s School for Young Ladies—Dear Roberta, Disgraceful Mary Jane, Dull Martha, Stout Alice, Smooth Kitty, Pocked Louise, and Dour Elinor—have formed a pleasant little sisterhood away from their horrible families. But when the school’s headmistress and her brother die during their Sunday meal (poisoned, Pocked Louise denounces, by the veal), their situation is threated. So they do what any clever girls would do: hide the bodies and carry on. This Victorian farce, a junior novel full of dark comedy, mystery, and cleverness, is a fun and fast-paced read. 

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd  |  BG Kidd  |  [Reserve Now]

Ten years after the death of her mother, all14 year-old Lily Owens has left of her is a mysterious picture of a Black Madonna, with the words “Tiburon, South Carolina” written on the back. After a run-in with the law, Lily and her Black nanny Rosaleen must flee the police and Lily’s abusive father to find the answers Lily has been seeking. With the backdrop of Civil Rights transition occurring around them, the greatest change takes place in Lily and Rosaleen as they discover much more than they expected about love, friendship, and family. 

Summerlost by Ally Condie  |  BG Condie  |  [Reserve Now]

Ally Condie wrote the popular young adult trilogy Matched; here she writes a middle-grade novel about friendship, adventure, and dealing with loss. A year ago, Cedar’s father and brother Ben were killed by a drunk driver, and to help everyone cope her mom has moved what’s left of her family to the small town of Iron Creek, Utah. Cedar finds a friend, the quirky Leo, who helps her get a job at the town’s Shakespeare Festival, Summerlost. When they’re not working, the two friends discuss the mysterious life of an actress who haunts the sets of the festival’s stage. Her experiences with Leo, the theater people, and the mystery help her to begin to learn how to live with her grief. This sad, sweet tale is one you’ll cherish.

Walking Across Egypt by Clyde Edgerton  |  BG Edgerton  |  [Reserve Now]

Mattie Rigsbee is the spunky center of this funny story. At 78, Mattie wishes for grandchildren, but her kids won’t seem to settle down and deliver the goods. Just as she’s beginning to slow down, teenage delinquent Wesley Benfield enters her life, in need of good cooking and grandmotherly affection. Despite the concern of family and friends, Wesley and Mattie forge a bond in this endearing comic novel.

The Whole Town’s Talking by Fannie Flagg |  BG Flagg  |  [Reserve Now]

This gentle book tells the 130-year history of the small town of Elmwood Springs, Missouri…via its cemetery. When Lordor Nordstrom, an immigrant from Sweden, founded the town, he set aside a large hill as the town’s cemetery, not knowing how it would impact the residents. From sad to thrilling, mysterious to charming, the townspeople are born, live, and die in Elmwood Springs, adding their lives’ tales to the town’s history. 

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough |  BG 921 Wright  |  [Reserve Now]

Mankind’s historic first flight, accomplished at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina by the Wright brothers, is a well-known tale. Pulitzer-Prize winning writer David McCullough develops the details of the story that are not as widely known, especially the help of Wilber and Orville Wright’s sister, Katharine, whose assistance had a far-larger role that most people know. Known for his historical accuracy and flair for bringing history to life, McCullough illuminates the tenacity, intelligence, and ability that created the early days of flight.

Memoir: interesting people write the stories of their lives.

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff |  BG 921 Hanff  |  [Reserve Now

In our contemporary life, where nearly any book we want to read can be quickly found and purchased with just a click of a mouse or read on an electronic device, it’s hard to remember when people had to search for specific books. This memoir, constructed entirely of letters, takes you back to those pre-Amazon days and into the life of writer Helene Hanff. What began in 1949 as a search for a collection of Hazlitt letters that was of better quality than “Barnes and Noble’s grimy, marked-up schoolboy copies” became a transatlantic friendship between the writer and Mr. Frank Doel of Marks & Co Booksellers of 84 Charing Cross Road, London. As the friendship develops it creates an image of the physicality of books—the scent, the feel of a tight binding, the leather cover, the turning of a page—that will renew your affection for books, reading, and friendship.

Addie by Mary Lee Settle |  BG 921 Settle  |  [Reserve Now]

Author Mary Lee Settle’s memoir is an unforgettable portrait, not only of her own childhood, but also the lives and fortunes of her feisty Grandmother Addie. Born in West Virginia, Addie ends up in Kentucky, and her life encompasses some of the themes of America itself: the Civil War, the pioneers’ move west, and, above all, family. Addie is a wonderful character, a Holy Roller and believer in ghosts. However, she is also someone who interests her granddaughter in great literature. Settle’s account is a reminder that the past always shapes the future, and that family is always at the beginning of our story.

Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home by Nora Krug | BG 940.5309 K936  |  [Reserve Now]

This memoir in graphic-novel format tells the story of Nora Krug, who grew up in post-war Germany. After moving to New York City as an adult, she begins to realize that the rest of the world views Germans in a different light. This sparks a deep dive into her family’s history with the war, something her family has never discussed. With straightforward yet moving language and captivating images, Krug’s book explores the impact of previous generations upon the current one and how she might find a way to make peace with her family’s past.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coats |  BG 305.8009 C6326  |  [Reserve Now]

Written as a series of letters to his teenage son, Ta-Nahesi Coats’s collection of essays describes and explores what it means to live in a Black body in contemporary America. As it examines the history of the United States from its founding to its current issues, the author’s personal experiences, and his concerns and hopes for his son, the book makes clear the concept that race itself is a fabrication. This profound, movingly-written book is essential reading for those wishing to understand more about the lived experiences of African Americans.

Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth |  BG 921 Worth  |  [Reserve Now]

In the 1950’s, Jennifer Worth left her comfortable, middle-class life to work in London’s East End as a midwife. She gathers the stories of her experiences in this remarkable memoir. The chapters alternate between telling the intimate stories of the laboring mothers in this poor part of post-war London and describing the often-humorous accounts of living at Nonnatus House, the convent where Worth was based. The stories here vary widely, some grim, some joyful, just as the lives of the families did in that time; the sometimes-gritty medical details are fascinating, but the real drama comes in the experiences of mothers determined (mostly) to make a good life for their babies.

A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote |  BG Capote  |  [Reserve Now]

Filled with memories from his childhood in Alabama, this memoir from Truman Capote pays tribute to his distant cousin Miss Sook Faulk. Capote spent his childhood with distant relatives, but it was the old-maid cousin with whom he formed a special bond; making fruitcake, cutting their own tree, and celebrating a tipsy yuletide (from the leftover moonshine-soaked fruitcake). A Christmas Memory is full of the tenderness and innocence of childhood. In addition to Capote’s rightful literary fame, some readers may recognize Capote, a childhood friend of Harper Lee, as the basis for Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Confessions of a Molly Mormon: Trading Perfectionism for Peace, Fear for Faith, Judging for Joy by Elona K. Shelley |  BG M242.643 Sh441  |  [Reserve Now]

“There is the ideal, and then there is reality.” Elona Shelley was discussing the observation of the Sabbath when she wrote that, but it is a tidy summary of her book. The LDS gospel presents many ideals: commandments and obligations and requirements, ways of being and examples to uphold. Trying to fulfill those ideals perfectly sometimes leads members to feel as if they are failing. Starting with a mighty change of heart she experienced, Elona explores how living the gospel within the reality of the world might not fulfill the ideal, but still brings us closer to God.

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller |  BG 968.91 F9581  |  [Reserve Now]

Fuller describes her childhood, armed with an Uzi, in Zimbabwe during the Rhodesian Civil War of the 1970s. The daughter of white settlers, Fuller’s understated observations of the harsh African existence (the family lost three children at childbirth and endured constant illness, even hunger) combines with her descriptions of native revolts for self-rule. The ensuing violent conflict is described from a child’s unique perspective. The experience of the Fuller family (including their own racism and quirks) is told without sentimentality, and this book beautifully explores the beauty of Africa, the strength of family life, the human capacity for brutality, and the unique nature of individual experience.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tezmach Lemmon |  BG 958.1047 T996  |  [Reserve Now]

In 1995, Kamili Sidiqi’s dreams of becoming a teacher were disrupted by the Taliban’s descent upon Kabul. A loophole in the new law, however, allowed for women to work out of their home, and so she started a business designing and sewing dresses. Her story of quiet, productive rebellion illustrates how women can be resilient survivors of war, rather than its victims

A Fine and Pleasant Misery by Patrick F. McManus |  BG 796.502 M4599  |  [Reserve Now]

“The more you talked about the miseries of life in the woods,” writes Patrick McManus, “the more you wanted to get back out there and start suffering again. Camping was a fine and pleasant misery.” But it’s not just camping that McManus expounds upon in this collection of wilderness stories written for Field & Stream magazine; hiking, fishing, hunting, and other nature-based adventures also appear, as well as the unique pleasures of bring a kid or two along with you. If you’ve ever pitched a tent or hit the trail, McManus’s writing will make you laugh in recognition of the miserable joys of the great outdoors.

I Miss You When I Blink by Mary Laura Philpott |  BG 305.2442 P5499  |  [Reserve Now]

“I miss you when I blink”: A sentence coined by her son when he was six that came to help Mary Laura Philpott start to understand her life. Especially once she had “made it,” once she had a home and a husband and a job and some kids but still found herself just…herself. Less happy than she expected, still annoyed by friends running late, small talk, people’s barking dogs. In this collection of essays, Philpott explores who and what we miss when we blink, the selves we don’t get to be, the moments that pass us by. Irreverent, funny, unafraid to look at topics ranging from taking kids to the pool to the things that keep us from bungee jumping (as well as depression and anxiety), this book will make readers laugh, cry, and everything in between.

Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Stewart |  BG 978.703 St493  |  [Reserve Now]

After deciding that city life as a laundress wasn’t for her, Elinore Pruitt, a young widowed mother, accepted an offer to assist with a ranch in Wyoming, work that she found exceedingly more rewarding. In this delightful collection of letters, she describes these experiences to her former employer, Mrs. Coney.

The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap: A Memoir of Friendship, Community, and the Uncommon Pleasure of a Good Book  |  Wendy Welch  |  BG 381.45 W446  |  [Reserve Now]

A 2013 Boston Globe article explains that owning a bookstore has become a popular dream of many people—and has moved from number 15 to number eight on the list of  “most-wanted retirement careers.” When Wendy Welch decided to open a used book store in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, she knew that fulfilling this ambition would be difficult given the economy, the proliferation of e-readers, and, of course, Amazon. Rather than just a place to buy books, she created a community resource where readers of all sorts make connections with others in the community and the reading world at large. Her book tells the funny, moving, and unique experiences she and her husband had as they established a small-town space where “people go to define themselves for themselves.”

The Light of the World: A Memoir by Elizabeth Alexander |   BG 921 Alexander   [Reserve Now]

“The day he died, the four of us were exactly the same height, just over five foot nine. We’d measured the boys in the pantry doorway the week before. It seemed a perfect symmetry, a whole family the same size but in different shapes. Now the children grow past me and past their father.” In this memoir, the poet Elizabeth Alexander tells the story of the unexpected death of her husband, Ficre, and of her life without him. While it is a memoir of loss, it is most precisely a memoir of love: how her husband existed within her life, and how her memories of him, as well as his art, kept him present even once he was gone.

My Dream of Stars by Anousheh Ansari |  BG 921 Ansari  |  [Reserve Now]

Ansari was the first Muslim woman to travel into space. In her memoir, she tells the story of her early years in Tehran, her immigration to American, and the financial successes that allowed her to enter the Russian space program. She also writes about her time in space, which was spent not as a professional astronaut, but as an observer, so her experiences are more personal than scientific. A fast and touching read that might inspire you to follow your own dreams.

My Grandfather’s Blessings by Rachel Remen  |  BG 296.72 R282  |  [Reserve Now]

In My Grandfather’s Blessings, author Rachel Remen proves that it is possible to embrace spirituality even as a doctor continually facing the realities of life and death. Having grown up emotionally divided between the religious devoutness of her rabbi grandfather and the academic world of her parents, Remen shares with her readers the lessons she learned as she consolidated these two views and embraced healing.

The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared by Alice Ozma  |  BG 028.9 Oz6  |  [Reserve Now]

When Alice Ozma was in fourth grade—the year her mother left—she and her father started a reading streak: every day, 100 days in a row, he would read to her. When the 100 days were up, they decided to continue, and they kept the reading streak alive until she left for college. As they worked their way through a huge variety of books, from Harry Potter to Shakespeare, their relationship grew and changed, but it stayed steady because of their tradition. Alice and her father’s experiences with their reading streak prove that reading isn’t just about books or stories; it can also be about creating safe spaces, making connections, and forming strong relationships.

Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall  |  BG 976.4571 H1469  |  [Reserve Now]

Ron Hall and Denver Moore couldn’t have lived much different lives: Ron, an international art dealer, is wealthy, with a supportive wife and a beautiful home, whereas Denver grew up a modern-day slave in Louisiana before escaping to a life on the streets. They are united, however, by Ron’s wife Debbie. Dying of cancer, Debbie asks Denver to maintain the ministry she began for homeless people in Fort Worth, Texas, and through this work the two men’s disparate lives weave together to form a friendship that redeems them both. This moving true story will remind you of the power friendship has to overcome social boundaries and make both people stronger.

Survival Lessons by Alice Hoffman  |  BG 616.9944 H6751  |  [Reserve Now]

Novelist Alice Hoffman is a breast cancer survivor, in remission for nearly two decades. Here, she writes the book she wishes she’d had during her diagnosis and treatment. “In many ways I wrote Survival Lessons for myself,” she explains, “to remind myself of the beauty of life, something that’s all too easy to overlook during the crisis of illness or loss.” Not a book about cancer, Survival Lessons is instead about choices and how they affect our perspective. You’ll finish it uplifted and revitalized, ready to see what choices you can make to improve your own life.

Until I Say Good-Bye: My Year of Living with Joy by Susan Spencer-Wendel  |  BG 921 Wendel  |  [Reserve Now]

At 44, Susan Spencer-Wendel was an award-winning journalist writing for the Palm Beach Post, with three kids and a happy marriage. One day, her left hand started shriveling; it was the onset of ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, although she wouldn’t be officially diagnosed for more than a year. Once she knew the name of her illness and what it would entail—an irreversible weakening of her body’s muscles—she made a choice to seek happiness and fulfilling experiences in whatever time she had left. She quit her job and planned seven vacations to take with the seven most important people in her life; she made scrapbooks with a lifetime’s worth of photos, created a backyard haven, and wrote. The story she tells is sad, of course; we know she is dying. But it is not an examination of death. Instead, it explores living life with purpose, intent, and presence, surrounded by friends and family and actively seeking out joy. 

Inspirational Nonfiction: true stories that will help you think about life from different perspectives.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates |  BG 305.8009 C6326  |  [Reserve Now]

Written as a series of letters to his teenage son, Ta-Nahesi Coats’s collection of essays describes and explores what it means to live in a Black body in contemporary America. As it examines the history of the United States from its founding to its current issues, the author’s personal experiences, and his concerns and hopes for his son, the book makes clear the concept that race itself is a fabrication. This profound, movingly-written book is essential reading for those wishing to understand more about the lived experiences of African Americans.

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown |  BG 797.123 B8126  |  [Reserve Now]

“It occurred to me that when Hitler watched Joe and the boys fight their way back from the rear of the field to sweep ahead of Italy and Germany seventy-five years ago, he saw, but did not recognize, heralds of his doom. He could not have known that one day hundreds of thousands of boys just like them, boys who shared their essential natures—decent and unassuming, not privileged or favored by anything in particular, just loyal, committed, and perseverant—would return to Germany dressed in olive drab, hunting him down.” The Boys in the Boat tells the true story of nine working-class boys who came from the University of Washington to the 1936 Berlin Olympics—and beat the German team for the gold.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba |  BG 921 Kamkwamba  |  [Reserve Now]

A random encounter with a book called Using Energy changed the world for William Kamkwamba. Living in Malawi, an African country hit hard in the early 2000’s by drought and famine, he was hungry. The drought ruined his family’s farm, and soon his family could no longer afford to pay for his tuition. Just a teenager, Kamkwamba turned to his small local library for education; when he learned about windmills he decided to build one. Scrapped together with pieces of bicycles, tractor parts, and scrap metal, the windmill brought to his family what only 2% of Malawians have: electricity and running water. His story spread beyond his small country, helping him become a source of inspiration about how ingenuity and determination create change.

Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth |  BG 921 Worth  |  [Reserve Now]

In the 1950’s, Jennifer Worth left her comfortable, middle-class life to work in London’s East End as a midwife. She gathers the stories of her experiences in this remarkable memoir. The chapters alternate between telling the intimate stories of the laboring mothers in this poor part of post-war London and describing the often-humorous accounts of living at Nonnatus House, the convent where Worth was based. The stories here vary widely, some grim, some joyful, just as the lives of the families did in that time; the sometimes-gritty medical details are fascinating, but the real drama comes in the experiences of mothers determined (mostly) to make a good life for their babies.

The Color of Water by James McBride |  BG 921 McBride  |  [Reserve Now]

James McBride wrote this best selling work as a tribute to his mother, a Jewish girl who left her middleclass childhood home in Virginia to live a life of largely inner-city poverty. In the next fifty years Ruth McBride Jordan experienced two happy marriages to devoted Black men and raised twelve children. James celebrates this extraordinary woman’s love and determination while exploring his own identity, racially and culturally.

Confessions of a Molly Mormon: Trading Perfectionism for Peace, Fear for Faith, Judging for Joy by Elona K. Shelley |  BG M242.643 Sh441  |  [Reserve Now]

“There is the ideal, and then there is reality.” Elona Shelley was discussing the observation of the Sabbath when she wrote that, but it is a tidy summary of her book. The LDS gospel presents many ideals: commandments and obligations and requirements, ways of being and examples to uphold. Trying to fulfill those ideals perfectly sometimes leads members to feel as if they are failing. Starting with a mighty change of heart she experienced, Elona explores how living the gospel within the reality of the world might not fulfill the ideal, but still brings us closer to God.

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron |  BG 636.8009 M997  |  [Reserve Now]

One cold morning in Iowa, librarian Vicki Myron came into work and found a tiny kitten had been stuffed through the book-return drop. Rescued by the librarians of the Spencer Public Library, Dewey became the library cat. This memoir details his twenty years at the library, including his influence on both the librarians and the library patrons. If you love books, libraries, and cats (and who doesn’t?), you will love this sweet memoir.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tezmach Lemmon |  BG 958.1047 T996  |  [Reserve Now]

In 1995, Kamili Sidiqi’s dreams of becoming a teacher were disrupted by the Taliban’s descent upon Kabul. A loophole in the new law, however, allowed for women to work out of their home, and so she started a business designing and sewing dresses. Her story of quiet, productive rebellion illustrates how women can be resilient survivors of war, rather than its victims

A Fine and Pleasant Misery by Patrick F. McManus |  BG 796.502 M4599  |  [Reserve Now]

“The more you talked about the miseries of life in the woods,” writes Patrick McManus, “the more you wanted to get back out there and start suffering again. Camping was a fine and pleasant misery.” But it’s not just camping that McManus expounds upon in this collection of wilderness stories written for Field & Stream magazine; hiking, fishing, hunting, and other nature-based adventures also appear, as well as the unique pleasures of bring a kid or two along with you. If you’ve ever pitched a tent or hit the trail, McManus’s writing will make you laugh in recognition of the miserable joys of the great outdoors.

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin |  BG 158 R8244  |  [Reserve Now]

One day, while riding a bus in New York City, Gretchen Rubin realized that despite her fabulous life—good, kind husband, two beautiful daughters, a writing career—she wasn’t quite, exactly, thoroughly happy. Deciding that she wanted to “feel grateful for ordinary days,” she embarked on a happiness project, which was a year-long experiment in different approaches to happiness. She read the history and philosophy of the study of happiness; she identified areas to work on and resolutions within them. Then she spent 365 days exploring happiness. In this book, she writes about her experiences exploring happiness. It might just encourage you to consider your happiness, too, and how you can improve it.

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch |  BG 921 Pausch  |  [Reserve Now]

The tradition of the “last lecture” is an old one; a retiring professor gives his last remarks, with the idea of transmitting one final bit of lasting wisdom. When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, gave his last lecture, he knew it was vital to express his wisdom, as he was dying from pancreatic cancer. This book reshapes and deepens his original lecture, conveying truths about living our lives to their fullest.

The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap: A Memoir of Friendship, Community, and the Uncommon Pleasure of a Good Book  |  Wendy Welch  |  BG 381.45 W446  |  [Reserve Now]

A 2013 Boston Globe article explains that owning a bookstore has become a popular dream of many people—and has moved from number 15 to number eight on the list of  “most-wanted retirement careers.” When Wendy Welch decided to open a used book store in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, she knew that fulfilling this ambition would be difficult given the economy, the proliferation of e-readers, and, of course, Amazon. Rather than just a place to buy books, she created a community resource where readers of all sorts make connections with others in the community and the reading world at large. Her book tells the funny, moving, and unique experiences she and her husband had as they established a small-town space where “people go to define themselves for themselves.”

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder  |  BG 921 Farmer  |  [Reserve Now]

The book is the true story of Dr. Paul Farmer, a renowned infectious-disease specialist. In his quest to diagnose and cure diseases, Farmer traveled to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. Farmer dedicated his life to combating disease and poverty. Many of his ideas are considered innovative solutions to worldwide cycles of suffering.

My Grandfather’s Blessings by Rachel Remen  |  BG 296.72 R282  |  [Reserve Now]

In My Grandfather’s Blessings, author Rachel Remen proves that it is possible to embrace spirituality even as a doctor continually facing the realities of life and death. Having grown up emotionally divided between the religious devoutness of her rabbi grandfather and the academic world of her parents, Remen shares with her readers the lessons she learned as she consolidated these two views and embraced healing.

My Dream of Stars by Anousheh Ansari |  BG 921 Ansari  |  [Reserve Now]

Ansari was the first Muslim woman to travel into space. In her memoir, she tells the story of her early years in Tehran, her immigration to American, and the financial successes that allowed her to enter the Russian space program. She also writes about her time in space, which was spent not as a professional astronaut, but as an observer, so her experiences are more personal than scientific. A fast and touching read that might inspire you to follow your own dreams.

Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen by Bob Green  |  BG 978.282 G8303  |  [Reserve Now]

They began almost immediately, just after the attack on Pearl Harbor: the people of a tiny town in Nebraska started feeding the soldiers who came through North Platte by the trainful. A small canteen sprang up at the train depot where the soldiers briefly stopped – for ten or fifteen minutes, they were treated to food, hot coffee, cake, fruit, and hospitality. The community around North Platte joined in the project, and volunteers made sure that the soldiers on every train, from 5:00 a.m. until midnight, were greeted, fed, and encouraged. “I would say that the majority of men on the battlefields knew exactly what North Platte was,” one soldier explains. “They would talk about it like it was a dream.” Chicago Times columnist Bob Greene explores this little-known story from World War II, showing how the kindness of strangers changed lives. This touching read will remind you of the goodness that’s inherent in people and the comfort in good food and a smile. 

The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared by Alice Ozma  |  BG 028.9 Oz6  |  [Reserve Now]

When Alice Ozma was in fourth grade—the year her mother left—she and her father started a reading streak: every day, 100 days in a row, he would read to her. When the 100 days were up, they decided to continue, and they kept the reading streak alive until she left for college. As they worked their way through a huge variety of books, from Harry Potter to Shakespeare, their relationship grew and changed, but it stayed steady because of their tradition. Alice and her father’s experiences with their reading streak prove that reading isn’t just about books or stories; it can also be about creating safe spaces, making connections, and forming strong relationships.

Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall  |  BG 976.4571 H1469  |  [Reserve Now]

Ron Hall and Denver Moore couldn’t have lived much different lives: Ron, an international art dealer, is wealthy, with a supportive wife and a beautiful home, whereas Denver grew up a modern-day slave in Louisiana before escaping to a life on the streets. They are united, however, by Ron’s wife Debbie. Dying of cancer, Debbie asks Denver to maintain the ministry she began for homeless people in Fort Worth, Texas, and through this work the two men’s disparate lives weave together to form a friendship that redeems them both. This moving true story will remind you of the power friendship has to overcome social boundaries and make both people stronger.

Survival Lessons by Alice Hoffman  |  BG 616.9944 H6751  |  [Reserve Now]

Novelist Alice Hoffman is a breast cancer survivor, in remission for nearly two decades. Here, she writes the book she wishes she’d had during her diagnosis and treatment. “In many ways I wrote Survival Lessons for myself,” she explains, “to remind myself of the beauty of life, something that’s all too easy to overlook during the crisis of illness or loss.” Not a book about cancer, Survival Lessons is instead about choices and how they affect our perspective. You’ll finish it uplifted and revitalized, ready to see what choices you can make to improve your own life.

Until I Say Good-Bye: My Year of Living with Joy by Susan Spencer-Wendel  |  BG 921 Wendel  |  [Reserve Now]

At 44, Susan Spencer-Wendel was an award-winning journalist writing for the Palm Beach Post, with three kids and a happy marriage. One day, her left hand started shriveling; it was the onset of ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, although she wouldn’t be officially diagnosed for more than a year. Once she knew the name of her illness and what it would entail—an irreversible weakening of her body’s muscles—she made a choice to seek happiness and fulfilling experiences in whatever time she had left. She quit her job and planned seven vacations to take with the seven most important people in her life; she made scrapbooks with a lifetime’s worth of photos, created a backyard haven, and wrote. The story she tells is sad, of course; we know she is dying. But it is not an examination of death. Instead, it explores living life with purpose, intent, and presence, surrounded by friends and family and actively seeking out joy. 

World’s Strongest Librarian by Josh Hanagarne  |  BG 921 Hanagarne  |  [Reserve Now]

Josh Hanagrarne first developed the tics of Tourette’s Syndrome when he was six, on stage acting the role of a tree in his first-grade play. The syndrome—which he nicknamed Misty—came to influence almost all of his life, from his adolescent experiences to his LDS mission. As he tries to create an adult life around his condition (explained so vividly that readers themselves start to understand a bit of how it feels to live constantly with “an abomination of motor skills gone amok”) he discovers that weight lifting and yogic breathing help him gain some control over his tics. Now a librarian at the downtown Salt Lake City library, Hanagarne mixes his personal narrative with the tales of a metropolitan library, creating a funny, moving memoir that explores faith, books, limitations, family, adaptations, and the lengths we will go to in order to save ourselves. 

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough |  BG 921 Wright  |  [Reserve Now]

Mankind’s historic first flight, accomplished at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina by the Wright brothers, is a well-known tale. Pulitzer-Prize winning writer David McCullough develops the details of the story that are not as widely known, especially the help of Wilber and Orville Wright’s sister, Katharine, whose assistance had a far-larger role that most people know. Known for his historical accuracy and flair for bringing history to life, McCullough illuminates the tenacity, intelligence, and ability that created the early days of flight.

Childhood Classics: books that never grow old…no matter how old we readers grow!

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens |  BG Dickens  |  [Reserve Now]

The second most famous Christmas story ever told. Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly businessman, learns the true meaning of Christmas after he is visited by the ghosts of Christmases past, present, and future. Bah humbug!

Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury |  BG Bradbury  |  [Reserve Now]

12-year-old Douglas Spaulding suddenly awakens to the world around him in the summer of 1928 in Green Town, Illinois. His new adolescent awareness takes him on a journey of first discoveries full of magic and exuberance. A joyful read, Ray Bradbury’s first novel is about childlike innocence and living in the present.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis |  BG Lewis  |  [Reserve Now]

C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien were professors at Oxford University, and both were members of Inklings, a literary group who met on Thursday evenings to discuss their work. While Tolkien’s Christian references are subtly woven within his story, Lewis’s are more obvious in his beloved Chronicles of Narnia. The story is also influenced by Celtic, Norse, and Greek mythology. When the Pevensies, four children from England, stumble upon a connection between our world and Narnia, they discover magic, talking animals, friendly satyrs, and a battle between good and evil.

A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck |  BG Peck  |  [Reserve Now]

The book is a set of hilarious tales of an eccentric gun-toting grandmother and her two grandchildren, visiting on their annual summer hiatus from Chicago. The novel, written by the award-winning Richard Peck, is a perfect and beloved yarn for seekers of all ages.

The River Between Us by Richard Peck  |  BG Peck  |  [Reserve Now]

Winner of the 2004 Scott O’Dell Award for historical fiction, A River Between Us is a masterful tale of mystery and war. 1861 brings changes for young Tilly Pruitt. The nation stands at the brink of war and the only boy in the family, Tilly’s brother Noah, wants to join the fight. That leaves Tilly with her mother and sister struggling to make ends meet. That is, until the elegant Delphine and her dark traveling companion arrive on a steamboat. Rumors fly throughout the town about the odd couple, wondering if the companion is a slave and if the beautiful Delphine could be a Southern spy. The Pruits become entangled in the suspicion when they take the pair into their home. The result is a marvelous novel about the lasting influence one person can have on another. 

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett  |  BG Burnett  |  [Reserve Now]

Burnett’s classic is about a young girl who is anything but sweet. When the reader meets Mary, we can be forgiven for describing her as a brat. Tragedy followed by banishment to a neglected English estate does nothing to improve her character. It will take an equally unpleasant cousin, a young laborer, and a hidden garden to bring happiness the many unhappy characters in this novel. A childhood classic that deserves a re-reading by any adult.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith  |  BG Smith  |  [Reserve Now]

Sweet, tender, endearing; realistic, compassionate, heartbreaking. There are many words to describe this novel, but they can all be condensed into just two: so good. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a classic coming-of-age novel, set in New York in the early 1900’s. Francie Nolan is eleven when the novel opens, living in Brooklyn in a tenement house. Her father is an alcoholic but her mother is a strong woman who makes sure her family is provided for. Francie is a quiet, imaginative child, passionate about learning, reading, and writing, but life doesn’t bring her the things she wants. As the story progresses you experience the heartbreaks and triumphs, ambitions and mistakes along with Francie as she, like the Tree of Heaven, flourishes in the world’s stony soil.

The Watsons go to Birmingham by Christopher Curtis  |  BG Curtis  |  [Reserve Now]

Kenny Watson’s parents are fed up with his older brother Byron, who is running with the wrong crowd and developing a talent for getting in trouble. They pack up Byron, Kenny and little sister Joetta and head to Birmingham, Alabama. Instead of finding the slower pace and quiet lifestyle they had hoped for, the Watsons witness one of the most chilling events of the Civil Rights struggle. Kenny’s narration is both funny and moving as he intertwines his own story of family love and endurance with the tragic 1963 bombing of the 16^th Street Baptist church.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare  |  BG Spears  |  [Reserve Now]

When her beloved grandfather dies, Kit Tyler is orphaned, and so must sail from Barbados to the village of Wethersfield in the colony of Connecticut. The restrictive rules of Puritan New England do not mix well with Kit’s free spirit, and she gets in trouble often with her uncle Matthew and the villagers. When she strikes up a friendship with an old woman named Hannah—thought to be a witch—she must confront the society’s narrow moral views. Praised for its vivid recreation of colonial America, this book won the 1959 Newbery Medal. 

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin  |  BG Le Guin  |  [Reserve Now]

Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic fantasy masterpiece reveals the land of Earthsea, a landscape made of hundreds of islands. Here, dragons roam and magic is used by wizards to keep good and evil in balance. Like Tolkien’s Middle-earth, Earthsea is built with an ancient, detailed history and unique language that creates an entirely new world for readers to explore. In A Wizard of Earthsea, the first book in the series, you will meet the wizard Ged, who starts the story as an overconfident boy wizard and becomes, as he survives his training and daunting experiences, a master.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle  |  BG L’Engle  |  [Reserve Now]

Meg Murry, her brother Charles Wallace, and her new friend Calvin O’Keefe travel through space, with the help of Mrs. Who, Mrs, Whatsit, and Mrs. Which, to find her father, who has vanished. They find him imprisoned by the powerful IT on the planet of Camazotz, where all people are identical. As much an exploration of good and evil, the consequence of individuality, and the power of loving people as it is an intergalactic adventure, A Wrinkle in Time won the 1963 Newbery Medal and changed the lives of countless readers.

Classics: well-written books that have stood the test of time.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton |  BG Wharton  |  [Reserve Now]

Newland Archer is a man unable to choose between the comfortable and the unknown. Set in New York’s high society at the end of the 1800’s, The Age of Innocence details the lavish lifestyle of an American “Gilded Age” and the emergence of a powerful American aristocracy. In the center of it, the calm and cultured Newland is engaged to the perfect woman: May Welland, equally cultured and rich, a true match. Nothing can go wrong, until the fascinating Countess Ellen Olenska arrives. Socially ostracized for her divorce, Countess Olenska represents freedom from social constraints and duty to self—the things Newland wants but is too timid to claim. A biting indictment of wealth and society, Wharton’s bittersweet novel is a love story that won her the Pulitzer.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin |  BG Chopin  |  [Reserve Now]

First published in 1899, this beautiful, brief novel so disturbed critics and the public that it was banned in America for decades afterward. Now widely read and admired, The Awakening has been hailed as an early example of the modern novel. Originally entitled “A Solitary Soul,” the novel serves as a portrait of twenty-eight-year-old Edna Pontellier as she searches for love outside a stifling marriage, and finds herself, in turn, awakening to the beauty in nature and herself. Author Willa Cather described its style as “exquisite,” “sensitive,” and “iridescent.”

The Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain |  BG Twain  |  [Reserve Now]

Mark Twain retells the story of Adam and Eve in a diary format, alternating between Adam’s experiences and Eve’s. By turns hilarious, moving, and heartbreaking, their tale in Twain’s hands becomes something different than its telling in Genesis. Here, Adam and Eve are not only a story about humanity’s beginnings but about the first love story, and the first story of loss, and the enduringly human story of how we piece together both joy and sorrow to create the narrative of our lives.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley |  BG Shelley  |  [Reserve Now]

This is a beautifully illustrated edition of the classic horror novel. Victor Frankenstein, compelled to find the meaning of life and of death, creates a living being from the body parts of dead people, but his creation is monstrous to him. The story, written when Mary Shelley was challenged by the poet Byron to write a ghost story, is a turning point in literature, one of the first science fiction novels. It asks us to explore the connection between failure and hubris, as well as the moral implications of scientific discovery.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte |  BG Bronte  |  [Reserve Now]

The novel is a Victorian classic. Having been raised as an unloved orphan in her aunt’s home, Jane Eyre finds her place as a governess in Thornfield Hall. Before long Jane’s life is intertwined with the mysterious characters that make up her new home, from the dark Mr. Rochester to his odd servant Grace Pool. Eventually love and drama intertwine as Jane must attempt to understand the strange happenings of the house and desires of her heart.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell  |  BG Gaskell  |  [Reserve Now]

Written as a serialized novel in Charles Dickens’ Household Words in 1855, Gaskell’s classic novel North and South explores issues of industrialization, social injustice, and poverty in northern England. When Margaret Hale’s father gives up his role as a priest in the Church of England after doubting its leadership, the family leaves the pastoral, southern town of Helstone for the industrialized, northern town of Milton. Here Margaret discovers a sharp contrast to her previous experiences, caused by the poverty and difficult working conditions of the factory laborers. She also meets John Thornton, the powerful owner of a cotton mill. Thorton’s mill is facing a striking labor force, while Margaret’s family is also in upheaval caused by her mother’s illness and her brother Fredrick’s legal troubles brought on by a mutiny. The developing romance between Margaret and John, full of antagonism and misunderstanding, binds the story’s varying topics into a cohesive whole.

The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton  |  BG Hinton  |  [Reserve Now]

A classic of young adult literature that helped form the genre, The Outsiders is the story of Ponyboy, Soda, Johnny; Cherry, Bob, Marcia—the Greasers and the Socs and their rumbles against each other. Capturing the violence in the contrast of social structures, S.E. Hinton’s novel, written when she was still in high school, explores the way that both groups must come to terms with adult experiences such as fear, loss, and love. 

Persuasion by Jane Austen  |  BG Austen  |  [Reserve Now]

The last novel that Jane Austen wrote is the story of Anne Elliot. At 19, Anne fell in love with a young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth. When she accepted his proposal, however, her wealthy family thought he was beneath her and convinced her to break the engagement. Seven years later, the Elliot family has developed some financial troubles. The ending of the Napoleonic wars brings now-Captain Wentworth back into Anne’s life. Austen’s most mature work looks at the effects that social pressures and expectations have upon the women of the time.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles  |  BG Knowles  |  [Reserve Now]

During the summer session at Devon, a private school in New England, two teenage boys begin a friendship that will illuminate and influence the rest of their lives. World War II is looming; roommates Finny and Gene, however, experience it only as a background shadow to their summer term. They develop a ritual of jumping off a tree into the river below, but when Finny is hurt, the repercussions spread deeply into the rest of the school year. As they navigate their friendship, the boys begin to learn adult truths about rivalry, envy, individuality, and the depths (and limitations) of human kindness.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston |  BG Hurston  |  [Reserve Now]

This beloved work has reemerged as one of the premier books of the Twentieth Century. Hurston, relying on her background recording folk history, tells the story of Janie Crawford, an articulate African-American woman in the 1930s. The spunky and unforgettable Janie, explains her quest for identity, three marriages (one of which resulted in her being accused of murder), and a journey to her roots. 

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee  |  BG Lee  |  [Reserve Now]

A terrible crime splits a Southern community along racial lines. However, Atticus Finch, a courageous white lawyer, refuses to sacrifice his principles to public demand. The consequences of his choice affect both his family and the town. This tale of courage, strength, and love is told through the insightful and charming voice of Atticus’s daughter, Scout. The novel is a worldwide classic with more than 30 million copies in print.

Nonfiction – History: books that help us remember the past.

Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home by Nora Krug | BG 940.5309 K936  |  [Reserve Now]

This memoir in graphic-novel format tells the story of Nora Krug, who grew up in post-war Germany. After moving to New York City as an adult, she begins to realize that the rest of the world views Germans in a different light. This sparks a deep dive into her family’s history with the war, something her family has never discussed. With straightforward yet moving language and captivating images, Krug’s book explores the impact of previous generations upon the current one and how she might find a way to make peace with her family’s past.

Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth |  BG 921 Worth  |  [Reserve Now]

In the 1950’s, Jennifer Worth left her comfortable, middle-class life to work in London’s East End as a midwife. She gathers the stories of her experiences in this remarkable memoir. The chapters alternate between telling the intimate stories of the laboring mothers in this poor part of post-war London and describing the often-humorous accounts of living at Nonnatus House, the convent where Worth was based. The stories here vary widely, some grim, some joyful, just as the lives of the families did in that time; the sometimes-gritty medical details are fascinating, but the real drama comes in the experiences of mothers determined (mostly) to make a good life for their babies.

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller |  BG 968.91 F9581  |  [Reserve Now]

Fuller describes her childhood, armed with an Uzi, in Zimbabwe during the Rhodesian Civil War of the 1970s. The daughter of white settlers, Fuller’s understated observations of the harsh African existence (the family lost three children at childbirth and endured constant illness, even hunger) combines with her descriptions of native revolts for self-rule. The ensuing violent conflict is described from a child’s unique perspective. The experience of the Fuller family (including their own racism and quirks) is told without sentimentality, and this book beautifully explores the beauty of Africa, the strength of family life, the human capacity for brutality, and the unique nature of individual experience.

In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick |  BG 910.9164 P534  |  [Reserve Now]

Did you know that Herman Melville’s Moby Dick was actually based on a true story? Philbrick takes you on an exciting tale of seafaring, a whale attack, survival, starvation and the eventual cannibalism of the crew. This National Book Award winner is a must read.

No Ordinary Life: An Autobiography of Helen Mar Carter Monson by Helen Mar Carter Johnson  |  BG 921 Monson  | [Reserve Now]

Helen Mar Carter Monson survives the aftermath of WWI, the deadly flu epidemic of 1918, sliding down a haystack into a convict’s lap, the dissolution of her parents’ marriage, skinny-dipping in the penitentiary pond, and two broken noses, among many other adventures. These true stories, originally told to entertain bored children, are written in vivid, first-person description. This book offers honest and often humorous insight into the life of a little girl grappling with questions about right and wrong, God, social norms, and her role as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, while early twentieth century Salt Lake City grows up with her.

Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen by Bob Greene  |  BG 978.282 G8303  |  [Reserve Now]

They began almost immediately, just after the attack on Pearl Harbor: the people of a tiny town in Nebraska started feeding the soldiers who came through North Platte by the trainful. A small canteen sprang up at the train depot where the soldiers briefly stopped – for ten or fifteen minutes, they were treated to food, hot coffee, cake, fruit, and hospitality. The community around North Platte joined in the project, and volunteers made sure that the soldiers on every train, from 5:00 a.m. until midnight, were greeted, fed, and encouraged. “I would say that the majority of men on the battlefields knew exactly what North Platte was,” one soldier explains. “They would talk about it like it was a dream.” Chicago Times columnist Bob Greene explores this little-known story from World War II, showing how the kindness of strangers changed lives. This touching read will remind you of the goodness that’s inherent in people and the comfort in good food and a smile. 

The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester  |  BG 423 W7217  |  [Reserve Now]

Who would have thought that a madman in an insane asylum would have been one of the greatest contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary?  Although it sounds like fiction, the book it is a true story of the collaboration between the OED scholar James Murray and the incarcerated Dr. Minor (an American Civil War surgeon). This amazing story is both tragic and inspirational—a tribute to the human spirit. 

The Speckled Monster by Jennifer Lee Carrell  |  BG  614.521 C232  |  [Reserve Now]

Smallpox was a dreaded disease in the early Eighteenth century. For example, an epidemic in Boston from 1721 to 1722 infected 6,000 of the city’s 11,000 inhabitants (about 800 died). Choosing to give oneself a form of the disease seemed tantamount to murder. However, Jennifer Carrell, a writer for Smithsonian, tells the story of two proponents of vaccination. One, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu takes her cause all the way to King George I. The other, Dr. Zabdiel Bylston, faced public opposition in Boston for his early vaccination work, learned from local slaves. Some outraged citizens even tried to kill him when he continued to work on the disease. However, their work revolutionized medical practices and its effect continues to this day. Read about their courageous efforts in this accessible book.

What Would Cleopatra Do? Life Lessons from Fifty of History’s Most Extraordinary Women edited by Elizabeth Foley and Beth Coates  |  BG 650.1082 F6993  |  [Reserve Now]

This illustrated book is not just a collection of short histories of famous women. It helps us understand both the impact of the decisions and actions of such women as Frida Kahlo, Catherine the Great, Boudica, and Hedy Lamar during their own time period, as well as the influence they can have upon us in our current situations. With themes as wide-ranging as fashion to financial management, politics to loneliness, What Would Cleopatra Do? helps readers find inspiration in the stories of historical women.

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan  |  BG 978.032 Eg14  |  [Reserve Now]

Pulitzer-prize winning reporter Timothy Egan won the 2006 National Book Award for this harrowing account of the longest and largest environmental disaster in American history: the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression. Egan’s portraits of the families who stayed behind are sobering and far less familiar than those who left for California and the West to escape the devastation. Egan interviews the surviving families to tell of towns depopulated to this day, a mother who watched her baby die of “dust pneumonia,” and farmers who gathered tumbleweed as food for their cattle and, eventually, for their children.

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough |  BG 921 Wright  |  [Reserve Now]

Mankind’s historic first flight, accomplished at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina by the Wright brothers, is a well-known tale. Pulitzer-Prize winning writer David McCullough develops the details of the story that are not as widely known, especially the help of Wilber and Orville Wright’s sister, Katharine, whose assistance had a far-larger role that most people know. Known for his historical accuracy and flair for bringing history to life, McCullough illuminates the tenacity, intelligence, and ability that created the early days of flight.

Nonfiction – Science and Medicine: fascinating true stories about how the world works.

The Boy who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba |  BG 921 Kamkwamba  |  [Reserve Now]

A random encounter with a book called Using Energy changed the world for William Kamkwamba. Living in Malawi, an African country hit hard in the early 2000’s by drought and famine, he was hungry. The drought ruined his family’s farm, and soon his family could no longer afford to pay for his tuition. Just a teenager, Kamkwamba turned to his small local library for education; when he learned about windmills he decided to build one. Scrapped together with pieces of bicycles, tractor parts, and scrap metal, the windmill brought to his family what only 2% of Malawians have: electricity and running water. His story spread beyond his small country, helping him become a source of inspiration about how ingenuity and determination create change.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot |  BG 616.0277 Sk45  |  [Reserve Now]

HeLa cells are a necessity in medical and biotech research. These “immortal” cells—given food and warmth, they continue to grow forever—influenced the development of the polio vaccine, genetic mapping, in vitro fertilization, and numerous other scientific advancements. The cells originated in the body of Henrietta Lacks, a thirty-year-old woman suffering from cervical cancer that rapidly killed her. Taken without her knowledge or consent, her cells revolutionized modern medicine, yet for two decades her family did not know about them. Skloot’s book examines the medical repercussions of HeLa cells, but it looks more closely at the personal effects. Lacks’s family, who can’t afford health insurance, struggles to pay for medical procedures that exist because of their mother’s cells and have never been compensated for the cells. Medical ethics and legalities are examined, but in the end Skloot’s book, winner of several major literary awards, gives a face to what was previously a pile of cells growing in a test tube.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks |  BG 616.8 Sa14  |  [Reserve Now]

An 88-year-old woman, somewhat deaf, awakens one night to the sound of music from her childhood playing loudly. The songs don’t come from any radio but play loudly and repeatedly in her head. Her ENT and psychiatrist can’t find anything wrong, but her neurologist, Dr. Oliver Sacks, eventually figures out what’s causing the music: a small stroke in the woman’s temporal lobe. That’s just one of the stories Dr. Sacks writes about in this collection of neurological case studies. Published both in medical and literary journals, Sacks’ studies present the intricacies of the human brain and its workings along with the resilience of the human spirit. Interesting, informative, and illuminating, this work will make you think about what it means to be human.

My Dream of Stars by Anousheh Ansari |  BG 921 Ansari  |  [Reserve Now]

Ansari was the first Muslim woman to travel into space. In her memoir, she tells the story of her early years in Tehran, her immigration to American, and the financial successes that allowed her to enter the Russian space program. She also writes about her time in space, which was spent not as a professional astronaut, but as an observer, so her experiences are more personal than scientific. A fast and touching read that might inspire you to follow your own dreams.

Refuge: An Unnatural History of Time and Place by Terry Tempest Williams  |  BG Williams  |  [Reserve Now]

During two decades — 1940-1960—the U.S. government conducted secret nuclear experiments in the Nevada deserts that caused a series of cancer clusters in Nevada, Arizona, and Utah in the 1980’s. Williams’ family was all affected, leaving her “the family matriarch at age 34.” In Refuge she draws connections between her mother’s death and the flooding of the Great Salt Lake. Her writing is moving, powerful, and lyrical; it will leave you both heart-sore and hopeful.

The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery  |  BG 594.56 M7674  |  [Reserve Now]

Octopuses might seem like a strange subject for a book, but Sy Montgomery—who’s also written about pigs, monkeys, and parrots—is so skilled at bringing the natural world into clear focus, the subject almost doesn’t matter. Except: octopuses are fascinating! (Who knew?)  Montgomery’s interest in them was sparked one day at the New England Aquarium, where an octopus named Athena reached her tentacles towards her. These intelligent creatures play games, solve puzzles, change colors to show their moods, and interact surprisingly well with their human handlers. Montgomery explores both the octopuses’ world and the people who take care of them, creating a book that will both surprise and delight as it reveals this fascinating animal.

The Speckled Monster by Jennifer Lee Carrell  |  BG  614.521 C232  |  [Reserve Now]

Smallpox was a dreaded disease in the early Eighteenth century. For example, an epidemic in Boston from 1721 to 1722 infected 6,000 of the city’s 11,000 inhabitants (about 800 died). Choosing to give oneself a form of the disease seemed tantamount to murder. However, Jennifer Carrell, a writer for Smithsonian, tells the story of two proponents of vaccination. One, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu takes her cause all the way to King George I. The other, Dr. Zabdiel Bylston, faced public opposition in Boston for his early vaccination work, learned from local slaves. Some outraged citizens even tried to kill him when he continued to work on the disease. However, their work revolutionized medical practices and its effect continues to this day. Read about their courageous efforts in this accessible book.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman  |  BG 306.461 F126  |  [Reserve Now]

In the small community of Merced, California, reside thousands of Hmong refugees from the highlands of Laos; among them is the Lee family, whose youngest daughter Lia suffers from severe epilepsy. Anne Fadiman attempts to shed light on Hmong culture and understand the seemingly irreconcilable differences between western medicine and the Hmong in this poignant narrative.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach  |  BG 611 R53  |  [Reserve Now]

A crash-test dummy. (What happens to a body when it’s in a car crash?) A subject in an Army Ordnance Department experiment. (Just how, exactly, do bomb shells affect human flesh?) An anthropological assistant. (What happens to a body as it decomposes in, say, a block of cement?) Those are just a few examples of how a body can be useful after dying, the main thread in Mary Roach’s book. Sounds a little creepy, but Roach manages to write about all of the post-mortem possibilities with a dry sense of humor that will leave you grinning, not grossed out.

Survival Lessons by Alice Hoffman  |  BG 616.9944 H6751  |  [Reserve Now]

Novelist Alice Hoffman is a breast cancer survivor, in remission for nearly two decades. Here, she writes the book she wishes she’d had during her diagnosis and treatment. “In many ways I wrote Survival Lessons for myself,” she explains, “to remind myself of the beauty of life, something that’s all too easy to overlook during the crisis of illness or loss.” Not a book about cancer, Survival Lessons is instead about choices and how they affect our perspective. You’ll finish it uplifted and revitalized, ready to see what choices you can make to improve your own life.

World’s Strongest Librarian by Josh Hanagarne

Josh Hanagrarne first developed the tics of Tourette’s Syndrome when he was six, on stage acting the role of a tree in his first-grade play. The syndrome—which he nicknamed Misty—came to influence almost all of his life, from his adolescent experiences to his LDS mission. As he tries to create an adult life around his condition (explained so vividly that readers themselves start to understand a bit of how it feels to live constantly with “an abomination of motor skills gone amok”) he discovers that weight lifting and yogic breathing help him gain some control over his tics. Now a librarian at the downtown Salt Lake City library, Hanagarne mixes his personal narrative with the tales of a metropolitan library, creating a funny, moving memoir that explores faith, books, limitations, family, adaptations, and the lengths we will go to in order to save ourselves. 

Short Story and Essay Collections: a bunch of tiny books all under one cover.

Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew |  BG Bergman  |  [Reserve Now]

The women in this collection of short stories are almost famous either because of their proximity to fame—Lord Byron’s abandoned daughter, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s outgoing sister Norma, Oscar Wilde’s vivacious niece—or because their grand ambitions were only barely noticed by most of the world—dancing in Paris, driving a motorcycle at daring speeds and angles, forming America’s first integrated all-girl swing band. They are risk takers, daredevils, quiet renegades, women trying to find their way on unusual paths. The author was inspired to write these stories out of “a fascination with real women whose remarkable lives were reduced to footnotes”; reading them is a process of discovering forgotten but important historical moments in women’s lives.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates |  BG 305.8009 C6326  |  [Reserve Now]

Written as a series of letters to his teenage son, Ta-Nahesi Coats’s collection of essays describes and explores what it means to live in a Black body in contemporary America. As it examines the history of the United States from its founding to its current issues, the author’s personal experiences, and his concerns and hopes for his son, the book makes clear the concept that race itself is a fabrication. This profound, movingly-written book is essential reading for those wishing to understand more about the lived experiences of African Americans.

A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote |  BG Capote  |  [Reserve Now]

Filled with memories from his childhood in Alabama, this memoir from Truman Capote pays tribute to his distant cousin Miss Sook Faulk. Capote spent his childhood with distant relatives, but it was the old-maid cousin with whom he formed a special bond; making fruitcake, cutting their own tree, and celebrating a tipsy yuletide (from the leftover moonshine-soaked fruitcake). A Christmas Memory is full of the tenderness and innocence of childhood. In addition to Capote’s rightful literary fame, some readers may recognize Capote, a childhood friend of Harper Lee, as the basis for Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Father Brown: The Essential Tales by G.K. Chesterton |  BG Chesterton  |  [Reserve Now]

These short mysteries place the chubby and unprepossessing priest Father Brown in the role of detective. His knowledge, gleaned in part from years of experience taking confessions, of how human evil works, provides the basis for his skill at solving crimes. These stories are quite unrealistic, but Chesterton is serious about ideas, and those he formulates here are always clever and often thought-provoking.

I Miss You When I Blink: Essays by Mary Laura Phillpot |  BG 305.2442 P5499  |  [Reserve Now]

“I miss you when I blink”: A sentence coined by her son when he was six that came to help Mary Laura Philpott start to understand her life. Especially once she had “made it,” once she had a home and a husband and a job and some kids but still found herself just…herself. Less happy than she expected, still annoyed by friends running late, small talk, people’s barking dogs. In this collection of essays, Philpott explores who and what we miss when we blink, the selves we don’t get to be, the moments that pass us by. Irreverent, funny, unafraid to look at topics ranging from taking kids to the pool to the things that keep us from bungee jumping (as well as depression and anxiety), this book will make readers laugh, cry, and everything in between.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri |  BG Lahiri  |  [Reserve Now]

Lahiri’s debut, a lyrical representation of life in India and among immigrants in America and Britain, earned her some of the most prestigious awards in fiction, including the Pulitzer Prize and Pen/Hemingway awards. Each story considers the interplay between culture and nationality and how people can or can’t come together. A man fears for his family in the Pakistani Civil War and must rely on the kindness of friends. One couple mourns for a stillborn baby, while another contemplates items left behind in an old house. Each story has a special beauty and resonance. Lahiri demonstrates her outstanding ability to paint human experience.

Leaving Home by Garrison Keillor |  BG Keillor  |  [Reserve Now]

The novel is a terrific book, at turns hilarious and poignant, by one of the finest humorists of our day. Lighthearted and full of warmth, Keillor celebrates the common events that fill our lives. The work is a collection of the author’s Prairie Home Companion radio shorts. Although the pieces are set in fictional Lake Woebegone, Minnesota, the stories remind us of our shared human experience.

What Would Cleopatra Do? Life Lessons from Fifty of History’s Most Extraordinary Women edited by Elizabeth Foley and Beth Coates  |  BG 650.1082 F6993  |  [Reserve Now]

This illustrated book is not just a collection of short histories of famous women. It helps us understand both the impact of the decisions and actions of such women as Frida Kahlo, Catherine the Great, Boudica, and Hedy Lamar during their own time period, as well as the influence they can have upon us in our current situations. With themes as wide-ranging as fashion to financial management, politics to loneliness, What Would Cleopatra Do? helps readers find inspiration in the stories of historical women.

Contemporary Fiction: novels set after the 1970s that tell something about how we live now.

The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg |  BG Flagg  |  [Reserve Now]

She might be facing an empty nest and her demanding mother’s continuous needs, but southerner Sookie Simmons Poole is doing just fine—until she receives a letter that sets her life in an entirely new direction. Her research leads her to the Jurdabralinski family, four sisters who helped keep their family’s Phillip’s 66 gas station afloat during World War II, as well as serving the United States as members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). Sookie’s process of discovering who she really is (not who her overbearing mother wants her to be) is fueled by her growing knowledge of those four courageous sisters. Full of Flagg’s trademark southern charm mixed with a little-known part of American history, The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion is a quirky novel, warm and funny and the smallest bit bittersweet.

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver |  BG Kingsolver  |  [Reserve Now]

Taylor Greer leaves Kentucky to begin a new life in the West, never imagining the strange shape this journey will take. Left with a 3-year-old girl by a Cherokee woman in Oklahoma, Greer decides to keep the toddler and make a life together. A pair of flat tires in Tucson forces the two to settle down and try to make a real home. The novel is a tale of freedom, friendship, love, and resourcefulness: with a light dose of wit and humor. Thousands have enjoyed Kingsolver’s charming and insightful characters.

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman |  BG Hill  |  [Reserve Now]

Nina Hill is comfortable in her life: she works at a bookstore and manages a trivia team, converses with her cat and keeps her life organized in her daily planner. And she spends a lot of time alone, not talking to people—solitude is her favorite. Until the father she never knew dies, and leaves something to her in his will; suddenly her solitude is interrupted by sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, and cousins she never knew. Not to mention Tom, her trivia opposition, who is starting to appear suspiciously smart and handsome. This lighthearted, funny contemporary romance explores heavier themes like grief, anxiety, and complicated family relationships, but Nina’s spunky, witty perspective brings a positive energy to the captivating story.

The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons |  BG Lyons  |  [Reserve Now]

85-year-old Eudora Honeysett has had enough of this ridiculous world. She walks with a stick and her breathing is starting to get difficult, but mostly she’s just tired of being alone. She decides to reserve a spot at an assisted death clinic in Switzerland, so that she might die on her own terms. But then she meets her new neighbor, 10-year-old Rose, and another neighbor named Stanley. Rose is a different kind of lonely than Eudora, but she’s also bright and energetic and enthusiastic, and Stanley is kind and attentive. As this odd friendship deepens, Eudora begins to question her choice. This sweet, tender, and uplifting novel will remind you that the potential for relationships is one that never grows old.

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner |  BG Stegner  |  [Reserve Now]

When Larry and Sally Morgan, poor Westerners, move to Wisconsin to begin work at Wisconsin University during the Depression, it is the generosity of wealthy Easterner Sid, an established faculty member, and Charity, his headstrong domineering wife, which keeps them afloat. As time passes each character’s ambitions are tempered by personal choice and the unexpected trials of life. Decades later Charity reunites everyone after tragedy strikes one of the couples. The work is a touching tribute to friendship, family, and love.

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton |  BG Morton  |  [Reserve Now]

Kate Morton is the master of intricately plotted historical novels that move back and forth between current times and the past; seeing how narratives unravel and stories connect is part of the pleasure of reading her books. The Distant Hours is no exception. In contemporary London, Edie receives a letter that was mailed to her mother nearly fifty years ago and only just arrived. Her normally mellow mother reacts so strongly to the letter—which came from one of the three sisters she lived with in Middlehurst castle in Kent during the Blitz—that Edie decides to investigate. Mystery lovers, as well as history fans, will be fascinated by this story as it unwinds to its bittersweet end.

Drenched in Light by Lisa Wingate |  BG Wingate  |  [Reserve Now]

After her dream of becoming a prima ballerina with the Kansas City ballet crumbles because of her struggles with anorexia, Julia moves back home to work as a guidance counselor at a prestigious school for performing arts. Her life begins to intertwine with Dell, a scholarship student who is a music virtuoso but struggling to fit in with her wealthy, snooty peers. As she works to overcome the tensions both within the school and her family, Julia begins to realize the impact of her decisions and where her life’s truth path lies.

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok |  BG Kwok  |  [Reserve Now]

With the promise of housing and a job, Ah-Kim and her mother immigrate to San Francisco from Hong Kong after her father dies. The housing her Aunt Paula provides is a squalid, unheated apartment and the factory work is demanding and exhausting. Kimberly, as she’s known in America, barely has enough clothes to keep warm, let alone avoid the taunts of kids at school. It’s not flashy, but her quiet strength, intelligence, and courage as she tries to create an American life for herself and her mother infuse this novel with an uplifting sense of possibility.

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss |  BG Krauss  |  [Reserve Now]

In the process of writing this novel, Krauss wanted to write “a book that people would take personally.” By touching on themes we all relate to personally—the fear of dying without being seen or remembered, the way grief changes a person into someone else, the persistence of love—she accomplishes just that. The eponymous The History of Love is a novel written by Leo Gursky during the beginning of World War II; he loses it, along with Alma, the woman he loved. Unbeknownst to him, The History of Love is published and, decades later, translated from the Spanish by thirteen-year-old Alma’s mother, who is caught up in the grief of losing her husband to cancer. Alma searches for the origin of her name while Leo searches for a way to be seen before his death; as the novel progresses the threads of all the stories work their way together into a satisfying ending, detailing along the way the power of creativity to act as a healing force.

If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson |  BG Woodson  |  [Reserve Now]

Two very different teens meet and fall in love at a prep school in New York City. Jeremiah, who is black, comes from a wealthy family undergoing a painful divorce; Ellie, who is white, struggles to trust her mother, who has abandoned her family twice. As these teenagers’ relationship develops, issues of race and social standing impact them in ways they never imagined. Set in a vividly-real New York City, this lyrical novel, with chapters alternating between Jeremiah’s and Ellie’s perspectives, is both a romance and an examination of the pressures bigotry creates.

I’ll Be Your Blue Sky by Marissa de los Santos |  BG de los Santos  |  [Reserve Now]

Clare Hobbes isn’t sure: are her fiancé Zach’s temper flares just a quirk of his personality or something darker? On the weekend of her wedding, a chance encounter with an older woman named Edith helps her to see her troubles clearly, and she decides to call off her wedding. Shortly after, she is surprised to find that Edith had passed away and left her beachfront home in Delaware to Clare. The story alternates between Clare’s contemporary experiences and Edith’s story in the 1950s. It looks at the problem of marital abuse but balances that darkness with healing and hope.

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh |  BG Diffenbaugh  |  [Reserve Now]

Anemone for abandonment, caledula for enduring the heavy cares of the world, a dahlia for instability, a geranium for melancholy: At 18, Victoria Jones has gathered a bouquet of sorrows. She’s just aged out of the foster care system and, with a string of difficult placements behind her and no one to take care of her, she begins living in a park. Using the knowledge of the Victorian language of flowers—taught to her by the one foster parent with whom she might have had a future, if things had not taken a dark turn—she plants a small garden. When a local florist notices the unique message of Victoria’s flowers, she gives her a job, starting a process that will bring Victoria both the possibility of a strong future and the necessity of facing the impact of old secrets.

The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick |  BG Patrick  |  [Reserve Now]

When librarian Martha Storm finds a book of fairy tales left on her doorstep, her calm and predictable life (formerly managed with detailed lists of all the things she was doing to help other people) takes an unexpected turn. The book’s dedication was written, surprisingly, by Martha’s grandmother Zelda; other clues suggest that Zelda might not be dead as Martha had believed. Charming and funny, and yet not afraid to examine a troubled history and Martha’s fear of making changes in her life, this novel is both hopeful and encouraging.

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney |  BG Rooney  |  [Reserve Now]

Loosely based on the poet Margaret Fishback, who was the highest-paid female advertising copywriter in the 1930s, this novel explores how choice and social forces influence a woman’s life. It is told in alternating chapters: the history of Lillian Boxfish’s career at Macy’s in New York City, her romantic relationships, and her eventual family life; and the story of a walk she takes around the city on New Year’s Eve in 1984. As each story progresses, readers feel the effects of society’s narrow expectations for women and the advances we’ve made—as well as downright falling in love with Lillian, who is spunky, intelligent, fierce, and funny.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman |  BG Bachman  |  [Reserve Now]

Ove, a widower living in Sweden who’s recently been forced to retire, has had enough: the residents of his neighborhood are constantly breaking the rules and everyone’s annoying. So he decides to end his own life—except his efforts are interrupted by the new neighbors, Parvaneh (who’s fairly pregnant, despite already having two kids) and Patrick (who’s a bumbling idiot who can’t even back up a trailer). The story of how curmudgeonly Ove finds meaning in his life despite how much he misses his wife Sonja (as well as his irritation with his old friend and current nemesis Rune) and is baffled by the choices of contemporary life is simultaneously funny and heartbreaking.

Medicine River by Thomas King |  BG King  |  [Reserve Now]

Will plans to return to the small town of Medicine River, just outside a reservation in Alberta, Canada, simply for his mother’s funeral. His friend Harlen Bigbear (who is, according to Will, “like the prairie wind. You never knew when he was coming or when he was going to leave”) has other plans. The town needs a photographer, and Will is just the man for the job. He’s got other plans for Will, too, involving a single mother. Harlen and Will are the connecting threads in the novel’s narrative, which moves back and forth through the history of their friendship. A simple, gentle read, Medicine River will make you laugh as you consider your ideas about Native Americans.

The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce  |  BG Joyce  |  [Reserve Now]

In the late 1980s in an English suburb, Frank owns a music shop, where he uses his special skill—knowing what song or album a particular customer needs to hear—to keep the shop open. But only barely, as a developer is attempting to overtake Unity Street and most customers want CDs now, not vinyl. Then a young woman named Ilse comes into the shop, wanting to learn about music. Will either one be able to overcome their pasts to create a new song together?

My Real Children by Jo Walton  |  BG Walton  |  [Reserve Now]

Jo Walton’s novel My Real Children is hard to pin down: part alternate-universe, part family saga, part love story, part travelogue, what it really does is explore the consequences of choice. It tells the story of Patricia, an old woman living in a care center whose chart regularly reads “VC” for “very confused.” She is confused because of dementia, but also because she isn’t sure which of her memories are correct: Did she marry Mark and have four children? Or did she say no to Mark, fall in love with Bee, and have three children? Is her life as a traditional wife and mother the real one? Or the one where she was a travel writer in love with Italy? The novel tells the story of both possible lives, leaving Patricia (and the reader) to decide: which was the real one? This intriguing and unusual novel will push you to look at your own choices and consider how your life was changed by them. 

The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin   |  BG Cronin  [Reserve Now]

Lenni is a teenager living with cancer in the long-term care section of a hospital in England. Margot is an older woman living with cancer in another section. They meet each other on the day Lenni witnesses Margot climbing into a garbage can, but their friendship is sealed at the art classes the hospital offers. When Margot tells Lenni a story about her childhood in Glasgow, they realize that their ages add up to 100. They decide to illustrate a story from each year of their lives. Yes—it’s a book set in a hospital full of terminally-ill patients. But this isn’t only a sad novel. It is also a funny (Lenni is engaging, sarcastic, and wry) exploration of friendship and history; most importantly it looks at how sharing our stories can help others in ways we never imagined.

The Orphan Keeper by Camron Wright   |  BG Wright  |  [Reserve Now]

Growing up in India, Chellamuthu experiences hunger, poverty, abuse, and quite a bit of theft, but everything changes when he is kidnapped and sold to an orphanage. An American family meets him at the orphanage and decides to adopt him, but it is many months before he can speak enough English to tell them that he actually already has a family. A semester abroad in London, spent living with an Indian family, sparks his need to find his birth family. This novel, based on a true story, explores the concept of what creates and defines a family.

Peace like a River by Leif Enger  |  BG Enger  |  [Reserve Now]

After years of work with Minnesota Public Radio, storyteller Leif Enger weaves together a beautiful expression of love. The novel follows a young family in a heroic trek to find their fugitive brother. Although none of the family finds what they expected, Enger blends faith and hope in a story of family, sacrifice, and religion. The writing is delightful and the story meaningful.

The Quilter’s Apprentice by Jennifer Chiaverini  |  BG Chiaverini  [Reserve Now]

The first novel in the Elm Creek Quilts series, this book introduces us to Sarah McClure, who has recently moved to a small town in Pennsylvania with her husband. Sarah strikes up an uneasy relationship with an older woman named Sylvia Compton, who begins teaching her to quilt, an activity that might just turn around both of their lives.

Range of Motion by Elizabeth Berg  |  BG Berg  |  [Reserve Now]

The scent of morning toast and jam, sunlight on trees in the afternoon, the way a summer evening cools with an unexpected breeze: all of the everyday sensory experiences of living a human life are all around us, every day, and yet how often do we really take notice of them? This is the question  Elizabeth Berg’s novel, Range of Motion, puts forth as it examines how Lainey’s life changes as she tries to cope with caring for her husband, who is in a coma after being struck by a chunk of ice falling from a roof. Lainey never stops believing that her husband, Jay, will wake up, and to encourage him, every day she brings some small item to call him back to his life. Berg has a way of using story to examine the way difficult moments propel us to change, and she does so beautifully in this novel.

The Running Dream by Wendelin van Draanen  |  BG Van Draanen  |  [Reserve Now]

“I am a runner. That’s what I do. That’s who I am. Running is all I know, or want, or care about.” The runner in question, 16-year-old Jessica Carlisle, is her high school track team’s star 400-meter racer. But when she loses her leg in an accident, her identity seems to be amputated as well. What is life worth to a person who lives to run but only has one leg? She discovers that finding the worth in life is a little bit like running: the spark has to come from her, but there’s support if she can reach out and accept it.

Sister by Rosamund Lupton  |  BG Lupton  |  [Reserve Now]

When she receives the news that her sister, Tess, has committed suicide, Beatrice Hemming flies home to London. She is certain that artistic, mercurial Tess would never kill herself, so—despite a reluctant detective—Beatrice begins searching for her sister’s murderer. This is a mystery novel that reads like a gothic thriller; creepy, intriguing, and puzzling, it raises hackles and inspires chills. But at its heart it is much more than a whodunit. It is, ultimately, a novel about families and sisterhood that happens to include a murder. Written as a letter from Beatrice to Tess, the novel’s structure allows Beatrice to tell the story of trying to uncovering the murderer while simultaneously writing about Tess’s death and its effect on her. And the ending? Well, the ending comes as a thing both unanticipated and perfectly foreshadowed in the story.

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett  |  BG Patchett  |  [Reserve Now]

Ann Patchett’s novel State of Wonder begins with a probable death, that of Dr. Marina Singh’s pharmaceutical co-worker, Anders Eckman, who has disappeared while working in the Amazon jungle. Marina is sent to Brazil herself, tasked with the responsibility of discovering the fate of Anders. If the book starts with death, it burgeons with other things: fertility, the beauty and terror of tropical landscapes, unimaginable snakes, science, drugs, tree bark, lost cell phones, medical ethics, cannibals, redemption. Ostensibly a story about women exploring the rainforest, it is a novel that explores the way characters can be remade by experience if they are brave enough to allow change to happen.

Summerlost by Ally Condy  |  BG Condie  |  [Reserve Now]

Ally Condie wrote the popular young adult trilogy Matched; here she writes a middle-grade novel about friendship, adventure, and dealing with loss. A year ago, Cedar’s father and brother Ben were killed by a drunk driver, and to help everyone cope her mom has moved what’s left of her family to the small town of Iron Creek, Utah. Cedar finds a friend, the quirky Leo, who helps her get a job at the town’s Shakespeare Festival, Summerlost. When they’re not working, the two friends discuss the mysterious life of an actress who haunts the sets of the festival’s stage. Her experiences with Leo, the theater people, and the mystery help her to begin to learn how to live with her grief. This sad, sweet tale is one you’ll cherish.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See |  BG See  |  [Reserve Now]

In the remote region of China where the Akha people live, villagers’ lives are managed by ancient traditions and rules as much as the seasonal harvesting of Pu’er tea. Li-yan, however, is one of the few educated girls in the area, and when a man from the outside world arrives—in the first automobile the villagers have ever seen—she discovers her way out of her predicament, a pregnancy with a “human reject,” a baby of mixed parentage. She leaves her daughter at an orphanage and begins to try to construct a life in this new, modern world of contemporary China, far from her old rituals. Meanwhile, her daughter Haley is adopted by an American couple. Despite her privileged California lifestyle, Haley grows up wondering about her birthmother; she begins exploring her Chinese heritage while studying biology and global climate change in college. Will the teacake Li-yan left with her baby be a pathway to reunion?

Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt  |   BG Brunt   [Reserve Now]

Before he dies—of a mysterious illness no one will discuss—June’s Uncle Finn, a famous artist living in New York City, finishes a painting of her and her sister Greta titled “Tell the Wolves I’m Home.” After the funeral, June receives a package from Finn’s friend Toby, the man she heard her mother say murdered him. Thus begins a clandestine friendship which helps June, who is shy and awkward and unsure of how she fits in the world, especially now that Finn is gone and Greta hardly talks to her, process the loss of her uncle. Set in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, the novel explores how loss, love, trauma, death, and happiness impact an individual in ways that influence an entire family.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell  |  BG O’Farrell  |  [Reserve Now]

When she receives a phone call explaining that her great aunt Esme is being released from Cauldstone Hospital—and needs somewhere to live—Iris Lockhart is stunned: she didn’t know she had a great aunt. Esme was placed in a mental hospital at the age of sixteen and has lived there, forgotten and written out of her family’s story, for sixty years. Although Iris enjoys her solitary life, she can’t bear to put Esme in the miserable halfway house, so she takes her home with her for a trial weekend. The only living person who once knew all the secrets is Kitty, Esme’s sister and Iris’s grandmother, but since she is suffering from Alzheimer’s, she is only able to express regrets in fragments. Moving between Esme’s memories in 1930’s India and Iris’s contemporary life in Edinburgh, the story is crafted with tension, rich characterization, and a lyrical writing style. 

We were Liars by E. Lockhart  |  BG Lockhart  |  [Reserve Now]

Cadence Sinclair Eastman—third generation of a bigoted, old-money, establishment family in Massachusetts—her cousins Johnny and Miren, and their aunt’s boyfriend’s son Gant are “the Liars,” running wild all summer on the family’s private island off Martha’s Vineyard. The summer the Liars were fifteen, Cady and Gat fell in love, but something devastating also happened, leaving her with constant headaches and a fuzzy memory. Two years later, she tries to piece together details of the experience. Although it looks at complicated and painful family dynamics through the lens of privilege and wealth, the story strives to point out how insular yet unbelievably lucky the Sinclairs are. Cady’s efforts to dig up the truth about Summer 15 build to a shocking reveal, but the real power in the book is Cady’s voice, tremulous and fractured yet beginning to build in power as she discovers how all the wealth in the world can’t protect against unintended consequences.

Historical Fiction: novels that imagine how life used to be.

After the Dancing Days by Margaret Rostkowski |  BG Rostkowski  |  [Reserve Now]

Young Annie learns about the horrors of World War I through the suffering and stories of wounded soldiers recovering in a veterans’ hospital near her small Kansas hometown. Annie, who has lost a much loved uncle during the recent war, learns the real story of his death and comes to a better understanding of the world outside her comfortable life. Author Rostkowski is a high school teacher in Ogden, and this, her first novel, won multiple awards in Utah and across the nation.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr |  BG Doerr  |  [Reserve Now]

This haunting, almost gentle novel tells the story of Marie, a blind girl growing up in France as World War II begins, and Werner, an orphan growing up in Germany during the same time. Marie’s father is the locksmith at the Museum of Natural History; he creates keys and locks, and distributes them, to protect the museum’s acquisitions. Werner lives in an orphanage in Essen, the mining district of Germany; his father was killed in a coal mine. Each character has a transition: Werner’s natural instinct for science, math, and radio technology is discovered by a Nazi official, who arranges for him to be sent to the school at Schulpforta, where Nazis were created out of ordinary boys, while Marie moves to St. Malo, an ancient city on the coast of France, after the invasion of Paris. The dual stories intertwine with that of von Rumpel, a German diamond expert tasked by the Nazis with the responsibility of finding the Sea of Flames jewel, which may or may not be cursed—and might possibly be in the possession of Marie’s father. An elegant study of the way technology, time, and war influence the personal behaviors of individuals, All the Light We Cannot See illustrates that there are still stories to be told about this harrowing time in history.

The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg |  BG Flagg  |  [Reserve Now]

She might be facing an empty nest and her demanding mother’s continuous needs, but southerner Sookie Simmons Poole is doing just fine—until she receives a letter that sets her life in an entirely new direction. Her research leads her to the Jurdabralinski family, four sisters who helped keep their family’s Phillip’s 66 gas station afloat during World War II, as well as serving the United States as members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). Sookie’s process of discovering who she really is (not who her overbearing mother wants her to be) is fueled by her growing knowledge of those four courageous sisters. Full of Flagg’s trademark southern charm mixed with a little-known part of American history, The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion is a quirky novel, warm and funny and the smallest bit bittersweet.

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner |  BG Stegner  |  [Reserve Now]

The novel opens when wheelchair bound historian Lyman Ward decides to chronicle the lives of his extraordinary grandparents and their struggles in the Western frontier. Their story takes them from boom towns in Colorado, to near starvation on the banks of an Idaho river, to near-peace in California. However, Lyman’s study of his grandparents leads him to discover that he is connected to his family in more ways that he ever imagined. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972. It was written when Stegner was presented with a brief biographical history and series of letters that would inspire the creation of one of American fiction’s most memorable couples: Susan and Oliver Ward. 

As Bright as Heaven by Susan Meissner |  BG Meissner  |  [Reserve Now]

“Home isn’t a safe place where everything stays the same; it’s a place where you are safe and loved despite nothing staying the same.” After the death of their son Henry, the Bright family moves to Philadelphia. Sisters Evelyn, Maggie, and Willa adjust to life in the city, but then the Spanish flu sweeps through, changing their lives in ways they never imagined. This moving historical novel explores how times of crises challenge the morality of our decisions.

Atonement by Ian McEwan |  BG McEwan  |  [Reserve Now]

Ian McEwan’s haunting novel details the devastating impact of one child’s decision on a summer day in 1935. After observing her older sister Cecilia and the housekeeper’s son Robbie in a compromising situation she doesn’t understand, young Briony makes an accusation that changes lives. As the years pass, each character remains tied to that accusation and while being immersed in a world at war. Part crime story, part romance, part history, this heartbreaking novel deserves its designation as a modern classic.

The Ballad of Frankie Silver by Sharyn McCrumb |  BG McCrumb  |  [Reserve Now]

The Appalachian wilderness comes to life in this novel that explores the mystery of what happened to Frankie Silver, hanged for murder in a small North Carolina town in 1833. In contemporary Tennessee, Sherriff Spencer Arrowood investigates a different murder, perhaps committed by a young woman who grew up poor in the mountains, Fate Harkryder. The two murders—and the two young women moving through a legal system that fails them—begin to weave together as Spencer works to uncover the truth.

The Butterfly and The Violin by Kristy Cambron |  BG Ishiguro  |  [Reserve Now]

A painting of a young woman playing the violin is the connection between two stories in this debut novel which was nominated for Library Journal’s Best Books of 2014. Jilted by her fiancé, Manhattan art dealer Sera James retreats into her work until the memory of a painting pushes her out of her comfort zone. In German-controlled Poland, violinist Adele von Bron is sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau after she is caught trying to rescue Jews. There she is forced to play her violin during the death marches of the Jewish prisoners. The two stories intertwine into a moving tale of faith, loss, art, and courage.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak |  BG Zusak  |  [Reserve Now]

The Book Thief rotates around an unlikely pair: the narrator—death—and the young Liesel Meminger, whose father has disappeared for being a communist and whose mother soon vanishes. On the way to a foster home in Musling, Germany, her younger brother dies, and at the small grave side service, she steals a book from one of the grave diggers about how to dig graves. Books become intertwined with dying, with the powerful destructive forces of Nazi Germany all around her. Because she can’t yet read, Liesel’s new foster father teaches her how—using the gravedigger’s manual as a reading primer. Once she can read, she becomes a book thief, stealing tomes from piles set aside for burning and from the mayor’s wife. Death, unable to resist Liesel, comments and explains, adding a layer of sardonic wit to this story that will linger, haunting, in your memory.

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent |  BG Kent  |  [Reserve Now]

Intricately researched, Hannah Kent’s first novel brings Iceland in the early nineteenth century to vivid, shivering, sparkling life. Agnes Magnusdottir, a young working woman, has been charged with the murder of her employer. While she awaits the time of her execution, she is sent to live at a farm owned by a family in northern Iceland. She chooses a young priest there, Father Tovi, to tell her story to. Based on the true story of the last person executed in Iceland, this historical novel uses beautiful writing to tell a devastating story.

Caroline: Little House Revisited by Sarah Miller |  BG Miller  |  [Reserve Now]

Charles, Caroline, Mary, and Laura Ingalls pack their wagon and set out on a cold day in February, leaving their home in the Big Woods of Wisconsin to settle a farmstead in Indian Territory. It’s a story familiar to anyone who read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books, but here we read it through a different perspective, that of Caroline. The character who seemed stern but loving in the children’s novels becomes fully alive in Sarah Miller’s novel: terrified, brave, sensual, creative, determined yet unsure of her strength. She experiences many of the same trials that Wilder wrote about, but seen through adult eyes they become both more terrifying and more relatable. A novel that will resonate with readers who loved Little House as well as those who just love a well-told historical fiction that brings to vivid life a historical time and place.

The Chosen by Chaim Potok |  BG Potok  |  [Reserve Now]

Potok’s magnificent story of two friends and two fathers is an unforgettable American classic. Two Brooklyn boys meet through a softball game and become fast friends, despite very different background. Reuven comes from a Jewish family with modern, American leanings. Danny is heir-apparent to his father, a conservative Hassidic Rabbi. The novel is an exploration of fatherhood, faith, Judaism, and a friendship that defies the odds.

Dancing at the Rascal Fair by Ivan Doig |  BG Doig  |  [Reserve Now]

“The Atlantic was a child’s teacup compared to the ocean that life could be,” Angus McCaskill thinks, a tidy summary of a sprawling, funny, tender book that tells the story of immigration and expansion. With his friend Rob Barclay, Angus leaves Scotland for Montana, where the two friends become sheep ranchers, as well as fathers, husbands, and men along the way. Dancing at the Rascal Fair shares thirty years of their lives with readers, in stories rich with humor, suffering, love and friendship.

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton |  BG Morton  |  [Reserve Now]

Kate Morton is the master of intricately plotted historical novels that move back and forth between current times and the past; seeing how narratives unravel and stories connect is part of the pleasure of reading her books. The Distant Hours is no exception. In contemporary London, Edie receives a letter that was mailed to her mother nearly fifty years ago and only just arrived. Her normally mellow mother reacts so strongly to the letter—which came from one of the three sisters she lived with in Middlehurst castle in Kent during the Blitz—that Edie decides to investigate. Mystery lovers, as well as history fans, will be fascinated by this story as it unwinds to its bittersweet end.

Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper |  BG Hooper  |  [Reserve Now]

Etta and Otto and Russell and James tells the story of Otto Vogel, just one of a 15-kid family growing up on a dusty farm in Saskatchewan with his best friend Russell, who becomes a sort-of Vogel, pitching in with the chores and eating at their table. When they are teenagers, their teacher, ill from the area’s constant dust, is replaced with a new one, Etta Kinnick. The James of the title is a complicated, mysterious character best discovered in the book itself. This is a novel that moves seamlessly between the past and the present; part of the story is Otto’s perspective and part is Etta’s. We go to war with Otto, we stay home with Etta and then—when she is near the end of her life—we go on a walk with her. Etta, who has never seen the sea, decides (at age 83!) to walk there. Russell’s role in Etta’s life, and James’s, as well as Otto’s experiences pining for Etta at home on his own, create a compelling and devastating read. This lovely, sweet, and sad novel, part history, part travel adventure, is entirely charming.

The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys |  BG Sepetys  |  [Reserve Now]

Daniel, an 18-year-old American who is in Madrid with his parents, trying to capture the city through his camera lens. Ana, a young woman working at the Castellana Hilton, whose parents were executed for their anti-Fascist politics. Her brother Rafa, who promotes the bullfights. Their cousin Puri, who works in an orphanage. In 1957, the lives of these four young adults intertwine in the Spanish city, ruled by Franco’s politics and made dark by secrets. As with her other young adult novels Salt to the Sea and Between Shades of Grey, author Ruta Septys doesn’t flinch from the troubling details of the collusion between church and state, the murders of political adversaries, and the theft of babies. The lesser-known stories of Spain during the fascist regime are brought to life in illuminating, captivating prose in this thoughtful and mesmerizing work of historical fiction.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer  |  BG Shaffer  |  [Reserve Now]

On the tiny Channel island of Guernsey, an impromptu literary society is formed when four friends, walking home from a dinner party, are stopped by German officers. On the spot they claim they’re walking home from a literary society meeting; their quick thought helps them avoid prison and leads to the formation of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. This society becomes a place where the group members can “almost forget, now and then, the darkness” of living in occupied England during World War II. A decade later, English writer Juliet Ashton stumbles across the stories from the society and strikes up a conversation via letters with its members. This epistolary novel tells the story of an occupation by the Germans that was first intended to be “model,” but worsened until a concentration camp was built there. Not just a war novel, it examines the way books can connect, redeem, and sometimes even save us.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett |  BG Stockett  |  [Reserve Now]

Written in three distinct voices, The Help tells the story of the reality of the racial divide in the 1960’s South. Aibileen, a black maid who is raising her seventeenth white child, finds it harder as she grows older to hold back her bitterness toward her white employers. Minny is Aibileen’s best friend, also a maid, but never afraid to speak her mind, which means she’s out of work yet again. There’s also Skeeter, a white socialite; recently graduated from Ole Miss, she’s expected to find a husband,  but has other ambitions: she wants to write a book about the experiences black maids have raising white children and taking care of white people’s homes. The maids in the community initially resist Skeeter’s idea, but when a tragedy befalls one of their friends, thirteen of them take the risk to tell of the hardship of their positions. With its trio of funny, touching, and lyrical voices, the novel seeks to illustrate the personal sacrifices that must be made for social changes to occur.

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom |  BG Grissom  |  [Reserve Now]

During the early decades of American slavery, there were also thousands of Irish indentured servants. While these people had eventual access to freedom because of their skin color, during the time of their servitude they were often treated as poorly as the slaves were. Kathleen Grissom’s historical novel The Kitchen House tells the story of this lesser-known detail from that time period. Young Lavinia’s parents die while the family is crossing the ocean to America, and the ship’s captain takes her as a servant at his plantation to pay for her passage across the Atlantic. She is assigned to the kitchen house, where she is taught to work by Belle, a slave who is also the captain’s daughter. Lavinia forms a close relationship with the slaves she works alongside, but as she grows older her life’s possibilities and the untenable conditions of slavery begin to fracture the bonds. This novel tells a riveting historical tale while illustrating the devastating consequences of human bondage in all its forms.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd |  BG Kidd  |  [Reserve Now]

Sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké were two of the earliest abolitionists and suffragettes in America, fighting for equal rights in the 1830’s so vocally that they were eventually exiled from their Charleston, South Carolina home. In this novel, Sue Monk Kidd explores the life of Sarah Grimké along with that of Handful, a black slave who was given to Sarah on her eleventh birthday. This “human gift” was so repulsive to Sarah it started in motion her life-long fight for equality. The chapters alternate between Sarah’s and Handful’s perspectives as the two women’s lives and struggles influence each other over decades. Sarah realizes that “we can do little for the slave as long as we’re under the feet of men,” and it is this understanding of the dual nature of her and Handful’s struggles that informs both of their experiences.

Light of the Candle by Carol Pratt Brady |  BG Bradly  |  [Reserve Now]

Most everyone knows the bible story of Daniel in the lion’s den: captured and taken away to Babylon, he remained true to the religion he learned in Jerusalem by praying three times a day. When he refused to stop, he was thrown into a den of lions, but angels sealed their mouths and saved him. What might not be known is the rest of the story. In Light of the Candle, Utah author Carol Pratt Bradley brings ancient Jerusalem and Babylon to life with the stories of Daniel’s experiences.

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney |  BG Rooney  |  [Reserve Now]

Loosely based on the poet Margaret Fishback, who was the highest-paid female advertising copywriter in the 1930s, this novel explores how choice and social forces influence a woman’s life. It is told in alternating chapters: the history of Lillian Boxfish’s career at Macy’s in New York City, her romantic relationships, and her eventual family life; and the story of a walk she takes around the city on New Year’s Eve in 1984. As each story progresses, readers feel the effects of society’s narrow expectations for women and the advances we’ve made—as well as downright falling in love with Lillian, who is spunky, intelligent, fierce, and funny.

The Lost Letter by Jillian Cantor |  BG Cantor  |  [Reserve Now]

Austria, 1938: as the Nazis begin persecuting Jewish people, Kristoff, an 18-year-old German, starts his apprenticeship as an engraver, learning how to create stamps and documents from the Jewish Frederick Faber and forming a relationship with his daughter, Elena. Los Angeles, 1989: Katie Nelson is working through a divorce while simultaneously helping her father, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. When she discovers an unopened letter with an unusual stamp mixed in with his stamp collection, she begins a journey that will reveal her history and lead her to a new beginning.

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear |  BG Winspear  |  [Reserve Now]

Maisie Dobbs, the new maid at the London home of the suffragette Lady Rowan Compton, is not an average maid. She’s only thirteen, and she can read, and she sneaks into the manor’s library to study European philosophy. When Lady Compton discovers Maisie’s precocious intellect, she becomes her patron, eventually sending her off to college, but the Great War interrupts Maisie’s education. She volunteers as a nurse and then, when the war ends, decides to become a private detective. Her first promising case begins as an investigation of infidelity and deepens into a story of how the War affected British society. Maisie is spunky, intelligent, and witty; her story is part mystery, part romance, part history and completely entertaining.

Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool  |  BG Vanderpool  |  [Reserve Now]

Vanderpool’s Newbery-winning novel is set in the town of Manifest Kansas, “a place too far away to ever get back to, a place too good to be real. A place one was proud to call home” during the 1930’s. It tells the story of Abilene Tucker, whose father Gideon has sent her back to live in Manifest for the summer, thinking she’ll be safer there than living a drifter lifestyle with him. Abilene discovers the decades-old mystery of The Rattler along with new friends and a boxful of old objects that lead her to Gideon’s history. Weaving the history of prohibition, orphan trains, Spanish influenza, coal mining and World War One with the lifestyle of a small Midwestern town, the story reads like an instant classic. It manages to combine what is endearing about childhood—mystery, adventure, the power in an object, the pull of story and that deep-seated need for affection and a place to call your own—into a sweet and satisfying experience.

Mr. Dickens and His Carol by Samantha Silva  |  BG Silva  |  [Reserve Now]

Immerse yourself in Victorian England in this atmospheric imagining of Charles Dickens’s experience writing A Christmas Carol. In November 1943, Dickens finds himself in a bit of a financial crisis. His wife has just had their sixth child, the holidays are almost upon him, and his serialized novel, The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, is not selling well. To keep his publishing contract, he must write a Christmas story, even though the idea is not especially appealing. Wandering through London, he discovers an unusual source of inspiration. 

My Name is Resolute by Nancy Turner  |  BG Turner  |  [Reserve Now]

A historical novel by the author of These is My Words, My Name is Resolute narrates the story of the daughter of a Jamaican plantation owner. Resolute is kidnapped, along with most of her family save her mother, by pirates and sold as an indentured slave in America. She is driven by the desire to return home to her mother, but her life takes her to many other places: Montreal, a stint with the Native Americans, Massachusetts. It is in Lexington that she is caught up in the political and social upheaval that will lead to the Revolutionary War. This is a long, satisfying novel, built on thorough historical research and solid character development; it brings to life America’s struggle for independence through the perspective of a determined and brave literary character.

The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin   |  BG Cronin  [Reserve Now]

Lenni is a teenager living with cancer in the long-term care section of a hospital in England. Margot is an older woman living with cancer in another section. They meet each other on the day Lenni witnesses Margot climbing into a garbage can, but their friendship is sealed at the art classes the hospital offers. When Margot tells Lenni a story about her childhood in Glasgow, they realize that their ages add up to 100. They decide to illustrate a story from each year of their lives. Yes—it’s a book set in a hospital full of terminally-ill patients. But this isn’t only a sad novel. It is also a funny (Lenni is engaging, sarcastic, and wry) exploration of friendship and history; most importantly it looks at how sharing our stories can help others in ways we never imagined.

Oral History by Lee Smith   |   BG Smith   [Reserve Now]

Family history is hard to pin down. The stories come back to us in layers, pieced together in a conglomerate of voices. Lee Smith captures the wandering thread of personal story in this narrative about an Appalachian family cursed by a witch woman, starting in 1902 and weaving through the century to the contemporary Jennifer Cantrell, who delves into her dead mother’s family history for her thesis. Where do family stories originate? Who can tell them and who will listen? How can we preserve them? Smith’s novel answers those questions with a multitude of voices and experiences, bringing both her family and the Appalachian Mountains to life.

The Persian Pickle Club by Sandra Dallas  |  BG Dallas  |  [Reserve Now]

In Depression-era Harveyville, Kansas, a group of women form the Persian Pickle Club, erstwhile quilting group turned sisterhood. The newest “Pickle,” Rita, has just moved to Kansas from Denver, and she’s a little bit different from the rest of the group. She’s a big-city girl who doesn’t know the details of living a farm life, let alone quilting, but Queenie Bean, the group’s youngest member and the novel’s narrator, strikes up a friendship with her anyway. When Rita—an aspiring writer—tries to solve the murder of group member Ella’s husband, she discovers that the women aren’t as small-town as they might seem.

A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline  |  BG Kline  |  [Reserve Now]

Andrew Wyeth’s iconic American painting, “Christina’s World,” catches a simple scene in oil paint: a looming house, a field of waving, golden grain, and a woman in a pink dress, a scene that evokes an uncertain emotion as it creates a strong sense of place. Christina Baker Kline’s novel A Piece of the World imagines the story behind and beyond the painting, also creating an evocative sense of a place in a time within the life of Christina Olsen, the woman in the pink dress. Born in the small town of Cushing, Maine, Christina seemed destined to live a remote and lonely life, especially as a disease twisted her body. But in an unexpected twist, she becomes a host to the painter Andrew Wyeth, eventually modeling for his paintings. Refusing to let her disabilities control her entire life, Christina is a character full of courage and stubbornness, and the novel details her life as intricately as the painting’s brush strokes.

The River Between Us by Richard Peck  |  BG Peck  |  [Reserve Now]

Winner of the 2004 Scott O’Dell Award for historical fiction, A River Between Us is a masterful tale of mystery and war. 1861 brings changes for young Tilly Pruitt. The nation stands at the brink of war and the only boy in the family, Tilly’s brother Noah, wants to join the fight. That leaves Tilly with her mother and sister struggling to make ends meet. That is, until the elegant Delphine and her dark traveling companion arrive on a steamboat. Rumors fly throughout the town about the odd couple, wondering if the companion is a slave and if the beautiful Delphine could be a Southern spy. The Pruits become entangled in the suspicion when they take the pair into their home. The result is a marvelous novel about the lasting influence one person can have on another. 

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman  |  BG Hoffmann  |  [Reserve Now]

When her mother Camille—former Onion Queen of 1951, with a habit of standing in the street to blow kisses at passing cars—is killed, CeeCee Honeycutt is just about on her own. After all, her father isn’t about to step in and take care of her. Luckily, CeeCee’s long-lost great-aunt Tootie shows up in Ohio just hours after the funeral. She whisks her great-niece off to live with her and her maid Oletta in Savannah. Under the care and laughter of her new-found family of southern women, CeeCee discovers that mothers can come in many forms.

The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry  |  BG Berry  |  [Reserve Now]

The seven students at St. Etheldreda’s School for Young Ladies—Dear Roberta, Disgraceful Mary Jane, Dull Martha, Stout Alice, Smooth Kitty, Pocked Louise, and Dour Elinor—have formed a pleasant little sisterhood away from their horrible families. But when the school’s headmistress and her brother die during their Sunday meal (poisoned, Pocked Louise denounces, by the veal), their situation is threated. So they do what any clever girls would do: hide the bodies and carry on. This Victorian farce, a junior novel full of dark comedy, mystery, and cleverness, is a fun and fast-paced read. 

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd  |  BG Kidd  |  [Reserve Now]

Ten years after the death of her mother, all14 year-old Lily Owens has left of her is a mysterious picture of a Black Madonna, with the words “Tiburon, South Carolina” written on the back. After a run-in with the law, Lily and her Black nanny Rosaleen must flee the police and Lily’s abusive father to find the answers Lily has been seeking. With the backdrop of Civil Rights transition occurring around them, the greatest change takes place in Lily and Rosaleen as they discover much more than they expected about love, friendship, and family. 

A Separate Peace by John Knowles  |  BG Knowles  |  [Reserve Now]

During the summer session at Devon, a private school in New England, two teenage boys begin a friendship that will illuminate and influence the rest of their lives. World War II is looming; roommates Finny and Gene, however, experience it only as a background shadow to their summer term. They develop a ritual of jumping off a tree into the river below, but when Finny is hurt, the repercussions spread deeply into the rest of the school year. As they navigate their friendship, the boys begin to learn adult truths about rivalry, envy, individuality, and the depths (and limitations) of human kindness.

Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey  |  BG Ivey  |  [Reserve Now]

This retelling of the Russian fairy tale “The Snow Maiden” is also a historical novel. It is the story of Jack and Mabel, who’ve left their fairly safe but exceedingly sad life in 1920’s Pennsylvania for the Alaskan frontier. Sad because, except for one stillborn, they never were able to have children, and all of the family reminders around them (the nieces and nephews, the new babies, the excited couples marrying) were just too much. Of course, life in Alaska is hardly easy either, with the short growing season, fierce winters, and isolation. But then, one night of clean snow and happiness, Jack and Mabel build a snow girl, dress her with mittens, a hat, and a scarf. In the morning, they wake to find the knitted clothing gone and a dead rabbit next to the decimated snow girl. Then they find a girl, Faini, wandering in the forest, and their sadness starts to melt away.

The Summer of My German Soldier by Betty Greene  |  BG Greene  |  [Reserve Now]

Near the end of World War II, a small town in Arkansas opens a prison camp for German prisoners of war. Twelve-year-old Patty Bergen meets one of the soldiers, Anton, when he comes into the store her father owns. Days later, she helps to hide him when he escapes from the prison. As their friendship forms, Anton helps Patty learn that despite her father’s abuse and her mother’s disdain, she is a person of value and intelligence. Winner of the 1973 New York Times Book of the Year award, as well as many others, The Summer of My German Soldier explores the themes of cruelty, abuse, prejudice, racism, and power, as well as the redemptive force of friendship.

They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell  |  BG Maxwell  |  [Reserve Now]

Set during the 1918 flu epidemic, Maxwell captures the psychological complexity of family relations in a small Midwestern town. Elizabeth Morison is the center of life for her husband James and their two boys, Benny and Robert. Her importance, brought into focus by a sudden tragedy, is compassionately displayed through the view of each of the male figures. Maxwell’s sensitive and delicate prose is a tribute to all mothers. 

Transcription by Kate Atkinson |  BG Atkinson  |  [Reserve Now]

In 1940, Juliet Armstrong is 18, naïve but intelligent. She reluctantly begins working for M15, transcribing the exploits of British Fascist sympathizers until the accidental discovery of an important document thrusts her into the world of espionage. A decade later, the choices she made during the war come back, forcing her to reckon with her true identity. This fast-paced, intriguing novel is a combination of espionage, thriller, and historical fiction filled with fully-created characters who grapple with their role in society.

The Whole Town’s Talking by Fannie Flagg |  BG Flagg  |  [Reserve Now]

This gentle book tells the 130-year history of the small town of Elmwood Springs, Missouri…via its cemetery. When Lordor Nordstrom, an immigrant from Sweden, founded the town, he set aside a large hill as the town’s cemetery, not knowing how it would impact the residents. From sad to thrilling, mysterious to charming, the townspeople are born, live, and die in Elmwood Springs, adding their lives’ tales to the town’s history. 

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare  |  BG Spears  |  [Reserve Now]

When her beloved grandfather dies, Kit Tyler is orphaned, and so must sail from Barbados to the village of Wethersfield in the colony of Connecticut. The restrictive rules of Puritan New England do not mix well with Kit’s free spirit, and she gets in trouble often with her uncle Matthew and the villagers. When she strikes up a friendship with an old woman named Hannah—thought to be a witch—she must confront the society’s narrow moral views. Praised for its vivid recreation of colonial America, this book won the 1959 Newbery Medal. 

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens  |  BG Owens  |  [Reserve Now]

“Maybe it was mean country, but not an inch was lean.” After Kya’s mother leaves, the rest of her family abandons their small house in the North Carolina marsh, one by one until she’s left to grow up on her own. She learns to live alone, surviving on what she finds in the marsh as she learns its secrets. The people in Barkley Cove call her the “Marsh Girl” and stay away, but when two different boys cross her path, she begins to interact with people again. This moving, beautifully-written bildungsroman is both a love story and a mystery, delving into the beauty and complexity of the marsh and of human nature. 

Speculative Fiction: from science fiction to fantasy, retold fairytales to imagined worlds, these books ask and answer some startling “what if” questions.

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro |  BG Ishiguro  |  [Reserve Now]

Ishiguro’s novel sparked discussion and even argument within the reading community over what makes a piece “literary.” Can a genre work also be literature? The Buried Giant proves that yes, indeed, it can. It tells the story of Axl and Beatrice, an older couple living in a small village in post-Arthurian England. They, as well as most of the population of this version of Britain, are influenced by a mysterious memory problem. Memories come and go, shifting in strange patterns, and often they forget that they’ve actually forgotten most of their lives. Through this memory fog come a very few memories of Axl and Beatrice’s son and some faint impressions of their younger years, just enough to send them on a quest to find him. Their drive to remember their lives directs the story of their adventures with ogres, knights, pixies, sinister monks and menacing soldiers until they finally reach a sleeping dragon. Along the way, they (and readers) discover some important truths about family, marriage, history, and memory.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley |  BG Shelley  |  [Reserve Now]

This is a beautifully illustrated edition of the classic horror novel. Victor Frankenstein, compelled to find the meaning of life and of death, creates a living being from the body parts of dead people, but his creation is monstrous to him. The story, written when Mary Shelley was challenged by the poet Byron to write a ghost story, is a turning point in literature, one of the first science fiction novels. It asks us to explore the connection between failure and hubris, as well as the moral implications of scientific discovery.

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale |  BG Hale  |  [Reserve Now]

Local author Shannon Hale reinvents the goose girl fairy tale in this award-winning novel. Princess Anidori is born with a word on her tongue, which means as she grows she learns, under her aunt’s encouragement, how to speak to animals. This strangeness does not sit well with the queen, so when the king dies, Princess Ani’s mother forges a marriage between her and the prince of Bayern, a neighboring country. But Ani’s betrayal by trusted people is just beginning; on her way to Bayern her friend Selia plots to kill Ani and take her place. Ani escapes, makes it to Bayern, and works as a goose girl while trying to take her future back. A story about a character working out her own fate instead of waiting to be rescued, Hale’s book is a magical tale.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood |  BG Atwood  |  [Reserve Now]

In the country of Gilead, women have no choices: not what to wear, or who to marry, or what do. They cannot own property, gain education, or have a bank account.  The fertile (who are few), may bear children—but they must be given to the powerful ranking families of the dictatorship. The slightly terrifying thing is that Gilead is America, in the future, when fertility rates have plummeted and women become pawns in a game of power. The narrator, whose real name we never discover, is called Offred, and she is a handmaid: a woman who had a child before the coup and so might conceive again. She is given to a Commander’s family, where once a month she participates in the Ceremony that has become her duty.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis |  BG Lewis  |  [Reserve Now]

C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien were professors at Oxford University, and both were members of Inklings, a literary group who met on Thursday evenings to discuss their work. While Tolkien’s Christian references are subtly woven within his story, Lewis’s are more obvious in his beloved Chronicles of Narnia. The story is also influenced by Celtic, Norse, and Greek mythology. When the Pevensies, four children from England, stumble upon a connection between our world and Narnia, they discover magic, talking animals, friendly satyrs, and a battle between good and evil.

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy   |   BG McConaghy  |  [Reserve Now]

“If you or anyone you know wishes to visit the remaining forests of the world, you need to join the waiting lists immediately, for it is becoming more likely that the lists will outgrow the life spans of the forests.” Fanny Stone lives on an earth on the brink of environmental collapse. For most of her life, she’s followed the ocean’s tides and the flights of birds, escaping the memories of her traumatic experiences. Because—as we learn at the book’s opening—“the animals are dying” she travels to Greenland, where she convinces the captain of a fishing boat, The Saghani, to sail south in an attempt to follow what will likely be the last migration of the last flock of Arctic terns. A novel that explores the mysteries of Fanny’s life as it charts the expanse of a lonely, dying earth, Migrations is both a story of adventure and of the way forces that are out of our control continue to impact us.

My Real Children by Jo Walton  |  BG Walton  |  [Reserve Now]

Jo Walton’s novel My Real Children is hard to pin down: part alternate-universe, part family saga, part love story, part travelogue, what it really does is explore the consequences of choice. It tells the story of Patricia, an old woman living in a care center whose chart regularly reads “VC” for “very confused.” She is confused because of dementia, but also because she isn’t sure which of her memories are correct: Did she marry Mark and have four children? Or did she say no to Mark, fall in love with Bee, and have three children? Is her life as a traditional wife and mother the real one? Or the one where she was a travel writer in love with Italy? The novel tells the story of both possible lives, leaving Patricia (and the reader) to decide: which was the real one? This intriguing and unusual novel will push you to look at your own choices and consider how your life was changed by them. 

Oona out of Order by Margarita Montimore  |  BG Montimore   [Reserve Now]

This genre-bending novel, part time-travel, part romance, part mother/daughter relationship tale, tells the story of Oona, who for unknown reasons begins a type of time traveling at midnight on her 19th birthday (which is on New Year’s Day). As the clock flips over, she faints and then awakens to discover her 19-year-old psyche in her 51-year-old body. She’s gone from the 80s to the 2010s and everything is different culturally and physically, but her self—personality, memories, thought processes—is still 19. Each January first, Oona arrives with her chronologically-aged identity into an achronologically-aged body. As she puzzles out the connections she cannot quite understand in her out-of-order timeline, Oona’s relationships with her friends, family, ambitions, memory, body, choices, fate, and even time itself shifts towards a new understanding.

Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley  |  BG McKinley  |  [Reserve Now]

“Not silly sweethearts’ love but the love that makes you and keeps you whole”—that is the sort of love that roses need to grow healthy blossoms and, in Robin McKinley’s retelling of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, it’s the sort Beauty is able to give. When her merchant father’s ships are lost at sea, the family moves to a tiny cottage far away from anything they know. Rose Cottage, it’s called, but the roses are bedraggled and weak until Beauty starts to nurture them. Then she is called on for an entirely different sort of nurturing. While it follows the usual Beauty-and-the-Beast plot line, Rose Daughter arrives at a very different thematic place, taking a thorny, magical, and slightly-edgy route to the resolution.

Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman  |  BG Hoffman  |  [Reserve Now]

The curse on the Owens family began in Massachusetts in the1620s, when Maria Owens was accused of witchcraft. It lingers still in Susanna Owens, living in New York City in the 1960s with her three children, Franny, Jet, and Vincent. She teaches them the rules for living in order to avoid the curse: no cats, no candles, no black clothes. Definitely no books about magic, or walking in moonlight, and absolutely no falling in love. A trip to visit their aunt Isabella in that same small Massachusetts town, however, is a doorway that opens to the family secrets and the truths about who the Owens family is. Escaping a centuries-old curse might just be impossible, and so the beautiful sisters and their brother must come to understand their own identities and embrace the messiness of life lived around and between the rules of magic.

Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey  |  BG Ivey  |  [Reserve Now]

This retelling of the Russian fairy tale “The Snow Maiden” is also a historical novel. It is the story of Jack and Mabel, who’ve left their fairly safe but exceedingly sad life in 1920’s Pennsylvania for the Alaskan frontier. Sad because, except for one stillborn, they never were able to have children, and all of the family reminders around them (the nieces and nephews, the new babies, the excited couples marrying) were just too much. Of course, life in Alaska is hardly easy either, with the short growing season, fierce winters, and isolation. But then, one night of clean snow and happiness, Jack and Mabel build a snow girl, dress her with mittens, a hat, and a scarf. In the morning, they wake to find the knitted clothing gone and a dead rabbit next to the decimated snow girl. Then they find a girl, Faini, wandering in the forest, and their sadness starts to melt away.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik  |  BG Novik  |  [Reserve Now]

Told through the voices of three women, Spinning Silver is a reworking of the “Rumplestiltskin” fairy tale blended with aspects of Russian mythology. Miryem, the daughter of an unsuccessful moneylender, changes her family’s fortune by turning his business around with her cunning way with numbers. Wanda, the daughter of one of Miryem’s customers, is offered to her in forgiveness for her father’s debt. And Irina, the daughter of a duke, risks her engagement to the Tsar when a Staryk silver ring sparks her fey blood. These three women’s lives and choices weave within each other as the fey who live in the woods around their village draw a seemingly-endless winter around them.

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin  |  BG Le Guin  |  [Reserve Now]

Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic fantasy masterpiece reveals the land of Earthsea, a landscape made of hundreds of islands. Here, dragons roam and magic is used by wizards to keep good and evil in balance. Like Tolkien’s Middle-earth, Earthsea is built with an ancient, detailed history and unique language that creates an entirely new world for readers to explore. In A Wizard of Earthsea, the first book in the series, you will meet the wizard Ged, who starts the story as an overconfident boy wizard and becomes, as he survives his training and daunting experiences, a master.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle  |  BG L’Engle  |  [Reserve Now]

Meg Murry, her brother Charles Wallace, and her new friend Calvin O’Keefe travel through space, with the help of Mrs. Who, Mrs, Whatsit, and Mrs. Which, to find her father, who has vanished. They find him imprisoned by the powerful IT on the planet of Camazotz, where all people are identical. As much an exploration of good and evil, the consequence of individuality, and the power of loving people as it is an intergalactic adventure, A Wrinkle in Time won the 1963 Newbery Medal and changed the lives of countless readers.

Global Fiction: books set all around the world.

The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan |  BG Tan  |  [Reserve Now]

In this powerful story of courage, hardships, surviving and healing, a Chinese-born mother and her America-born daughter explore their past. Although tragedy has marred their lives, Tan explores three generations of women who, despite vastly different circumstances, are tied by the common bonds of heritage.

The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons |  BG Lyons  |  [Reserve Now]

85-year-old Eudora Honeysett has had enough of this ridiculous world. She walks with a stick and her breathing is starting to get difficult, but mostly she’s just tired of being alone. She decides to reserve a spot at an assisted death clinic in Switzerland, so that she might die on her own terms. But then she meets her new neighbor, 10-year-old Rose, and another neighbor named Stanley. Rose is a different kind of lonely than Eudora, but she’s also bright and energetic and enthusiastic, and Stanley is kind and attentive. As this odd friendship deepens, Eudora begins to question her choice. This sweet, tender, and uplifting novel will remind you that the potential for relationships is one that never grows old.

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent |  BG Kent  |  [Reserve Now]

Intricately researched, Hannah Kent’s first novel brings Iceland in the early nineteenth century to vivid, shivering, sparkling life. Agnes Magnusdottir, a young working woman, has been charged with the murder of her employer. While she awaits the time of her execution, she is sent to live at a farm owned by a family in northern Iceland. She chooses a young priest there, Father Tovi, to tell her story to. Based on the true story of the last person executed in Iceland, this historical novel uses beautiful writing to tell a devastating story.

Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton |  BG Paton  |  [Reserve Now]

A murderer for a son and a prostitute for a sister – that is how Stephen Kumalo, a poor country pastor, finds his son Absalom and his sister Gertrude when he arrives in the troubled Johannesburg of the 1940s. A timeless story told in poetic prose in which dignity, love, and compassion triumph over crime, poverty, and racial injustice.

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton |  BG Morton  |  [Reserve Now]

Kate Morton is the master of intricately plotted historical novels that move back and forth between current times and the past; seeing how narratives unravel and stories connect is part of the pleasure of reading her books. The Distant Hours is no exception. In contemporary London, Edie receives a letter that was mailed to her mother nearly fifty years ago and only just arrived. Her normally mellow mother reacts so strongly to the letter—which came from one of the three sisters she lived with in Middlehurst castle in Kent during the Blitz—that Edie decides to investigate. Mystery lovers, as well as history fans, will be fascinated by this story as it unwinds to its bittersweet end.

The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys |  BG Sepetys  |  [Reserve Now]

Daniel, an 18-year-old American who is in Madrid with his parents, trying to capture the city through his camera lens. Ana, a young woman working at the Castellana Hilton, whose parents were executed for their anti-Fascist politics. Her brother Rafa, who promotes the bullfights. Their cousin Puri, who works in an orphanage. In 1957, the lives of these four young adults intertwine in the Spanish city, ruled by Franco’s politics and made dark by secrets. As with her other young adult novels Salt to the Sea and Between Shades of Grey, author Ruta Septys doesn’t flinch from the troubling details of the collusion between church and state, the murders of political adversaries, and the theft of babies. The lesser-known stories of Spain during the fascist regime are brought to life in illuminating, captivating prose in this thoughtful and mesmerizing work of historical fiction.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri |  BG Lahiri  |  [Reserve Now]

Lahiri’s debut, a lyrical representation of life in India and among immigrants in America and Britain, earned her some of the most prestigious awards in fiction, including the Pulitzer Prize and Pen/Hemingway awards. Each story considers the interplay between culture and nationality and how people can or can’t come together. A man fears for his family in the Pakistani Civil War and must rely on the kindness of friends. One couple mourns for a stillborn baby, while another contemplates items left behind in an old house. Each story has a special beauty and resonance. Lahiri demonstrates her outstanding ability to paint human experience.

The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick |  BG Patrick  |  [Reserve Now]

When librarian Martha Storm finds a book of fairy tales left on her doorstep, her calm and predictable life (formerly managed with detailed lists of all the things she was doing to help other people) takes an unexpected turn. The book’s dedication was written, surprisingly, by Martha’s grandmother Zelda; other clues suggest that Zelda might not be dead as Martha had believed. Charming and funny, and yet not afraid to examine a troubled history and Martha’s fear of making changes in her life, this novel is both hopeful and encouraging.

Light of the Candle by Carol Pratt Brady |  BG Bradly  |  [Reserve Now]

Most everyone knows the bible story of Daniel in the lion’s den: captured and taken away to Babylon, he remained true to the religion he learned in Jerusalem by praying three times a day. When he refused to stop, he was thrown into a den of lions, but angels sealed their mouths and saved him. What might not be known is the rest of the story. In Light of the Candle, Utah author Carol Pratt Bradley brings ancient Jerusalem and Babylon to life with the stories of Daniel’s experiences.

The Lost Letter by Jillian Cantor |  BG Cantor  |  [Reserve Now]

Austria, 1938: as the Nazis begin persecuting Jewish people, Kristoff, an 18-year-old German, starts his apprenticeship as an engraver, learning how to create stamps and documents from the Jewish Frederick Faber and forming a relationship with his daughter, Elena. Los Angeles, 1989: Katie Nelson is working through a divorce while simultaneously helping her father, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. When she discovers an unopened letter with an unusual stamp mixed in with his stamp collection, she begins a journey that will reveal her history and lead her to a new beginning.

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear |  BG Winspear  |  [Reserve Now]

Maisie Dobbs, the new maid at the London home of the suffragette Lady Rowan Compton, is not an average maid. She’s only thirteen, and she can read, and she sneaks into the manor’s library to study European philosophy. When Lady Compton discovers Maisie’s precocious intellect, she becomes her patron, eventually sending her off to college, but the Great War interrupts Maisie’s education. She volunteers as a nurse and then, when the war ends, decides to become a private detective. Her first promising case begins as an investigation of infidelity and deepens into a story of how the War affected British society. Maisie is spunky, intelligent, and witty; her story is part mystery, part romance, part history and completely entertaining.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman |  BG Bachman  |  [Reserve Now]

Ove, a widower living in Sweden who’s recently been forced to retire, has had enough: the residents of his neighborhood are constantly breaking the rules and everyone’s annoying. So he decides to end his own life—except his efforts are interrupted by the new neighbors, Parvaneh (who’s fairly pregnant, despite already having two kids) and Patrick (who’s a bumbling idiot who can’t even back up a trailer). The story of how curmudgeonly Ove finds meaning in his life despite how much he misses his wife Sonja (as well as his irritation with his old friend and current nemesis Rune) and is baffled by the choices of contemporary life is simultaneously funny and heartbreaking.

Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson  |  BG Youngson  |  [Reserve Now]

At the Silkeborg Museum in Denmark lies the Tollund Man: a body pulled from a peat bog, placed there roughly 2300 years ago. Tina Hopgood, who lives on an isolated farm in England, has been fascinated with this mummified corpse since she was a young adult, away from home at University, but has never gone to see it. Professor Anders Larsen works at the museum, and one day receives a letter from Tina. They start up a correspondence which, as they move from discussing the Tollund Man to their personal lives, blooms into a friendship. This hopeful epistolary novel examines the passage of time, the effects of individual choices on the entirety of a life, love, grief, loneliness, the nature of happiness, and the ways we might be able to shape the lives we really want to live. 

Mr. Dickens and His Carol by Samantha Silva   |  BG Silva  |  [Reserve Now]

Immerse yourself in Victorian England in this atmospheric imagining of Charles Dickens’s experience writing A Christmas Carol. In November 1943, Dickens finds himself in a bit of a financial crisis. His wife has just had their sixth child, the holidays are almost upon him, and his serialized novel, The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, is not selling well. To keep his publishing contract, he must write a Christmas story, even though the idea is not especially appealing. Wandering through London, he discovers an unusual source of inspiration. 

The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce  |  BG Joyce  |  [Reserve Now]

In the late 1980s in an English suburb, Frank owns a music shop, where he uses his special skill—knowing what song or album a particular customer needs to hear—to keep the shop open. But only barely, as a developer is attempting to overtake Unity Street and most customers want CDs now, not vinyl. Then a young woman named Ilse comes into the shop, wanting to learn about music. Will either one be able to overcome their pasts to create a new song together?

The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin   |  BG Cronin  [Reserve Now]

Lenni is a teenager living with cancer in the long-term care section of a hospital in England. Margot is an older woman living with cancer in another section. They meet each other on the day Lenni witnesses Margot climbing into a garbage can, but their friendship is sealed at the art classes the hospital offers. When Margot tells Lenni a story about her childhood in Glasgow, they realize that their ages add up to 100. They decide to illustrate a story from each year of their lives. Yes—it’s a book set in a hospital full of terminally-ill patients. But this isn’t only a sad novel. It is also a funny (Lenni is engaging, sarcastic, and wry) exploration of friendship and history; most importantly it looks at how sharing our stories can help others in ways we never imagined.

The Orphan Keeper by Camron Wright  |  BG Wright  |  [Reserve Now]

Growing up in India, Chellamuthu experiences hunger, poverty, abuse, and quite a bit of theft, but everything changes when he is kidnapped and sold to an orphanage. An American family meets him at the orphanage and decides to adopt him, but it is many months before he can speak enough English to tell them that he actually already has a family. A semester abroad in London, spent living with an Indian family, sparks his need to find his birth family. This novel, based on a true story, explores the concept of what creates and defines a family.

The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry  |  BG Berry  |  [Reserve Now]

The seven students at St. Etheldreda’s School for Young Ladies—Dear Roberta, Disgraceful Mary Jane, Dull Martha, Stout Alice, Smooth Kitty, Pocked Louise, and Dour Elinor—have formed a pleasant little sisterhood away from their horrible families. But when the school’s headmistress and her brother die during their Sunday meal (poisoned, Pocked Louise denounces, by the veal), their situation is threated. So they do what any clever girls would do: hide the bodies and carry on. This Victorian farce, a junior novel full of dark comedy, mystery, and cleverness, is a fun and fast-paced read. 

Sister by Rosamund Lupton  |  BG Lupton  |  [Reserve Now]

When she receives the news that her sister, Tess, has committed suicide, Beatrice Hemming flies home to London. She is certain that artistic, mercurial Tess would never kill herself, so—despite a reluctant detective—Beatrice begins searching for her sister’s murderer. This is a mystery novel that reads like a gothic thriller; creepy, intriguing, and puzzling, it raises hackles and inspires chills. But at its heart it is much more than a whodunit. It is, ultimately, a novel about families and sisterhood that happens to include a murder. Written as a letter from Beatrice to Tess, the novel’s structure allows Beatrice to tell the story of trying to uncovering the murderer while simultaneously writing about Tess’s death and its effect on her. And the ending? Well, the ending comes as a thing both unanticipated and perfectly foreshadowed in the story.

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett  |  BG Patchett  |  [Reserve Now]

Ann Patchett’s novel State of Wonder begins with a probable death, that of Dr. Marina Singh’s pharmaceutical co-worker, Anders Eckman, who has disappeared while working in the Amazon jungle. Marina is sent to Brazil herself, tasked with the responsibility of discovering the fate of Anders. If the book starts with death, it burgeons with other things: fertility, the beauty and terror of tropical landscapes, unimaginable snakes, science, drugs, tree bark, lost cell phones, medical ethics, cannibals, redemption. Ostensibly a story about women exploring the rainforest, it is a novel that explores the way characters can be remade by experience if they are brave enough to allow change to happen.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See |  BG See  |  [Reserve Now]

In the remote region of China where the Akha people live, villagers’ lives are managed by ancient traditions and rules as much as the seasonal harvesting of Pu’er tea. Li-yan, however, is one of the few educated girls in the area, and when a man from the outside world arrives—in the first automobile the villagers have ever seen—she discovers her way out of her predicament, a pregnancy with a “human reject,” a baby of mixed parentage. She leaves her daughter at an orphanage and begins to try to construct a life in this new, modern world of contemporary China, far from her old rituals. Meanwhile, her daughter Haley is adopted by an American couple. Despite her privileged California lifestyle, Haley grows up wondering about her birthmother; she begins exploring her Chinese heritage while studying biology and global climate change in college. Will the teacake Li-yan left with her baby be a pathway to reunion?

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe  |  BG Achebe  |  [Reserve Now]

Chinua Achebe’s masterpiece is considered the first masterpiece written in English by an African author. There are more than eight million copies of the novel in print worldwide. The work explores the cultural collision of Western influences and traditional Nigerian tribal practices. As the story unveils it exposes a shared humanity that transcends national boundaries.

Transcription by Kate Atkinson |  BG Atkinson  |  [Reserve Now]

In 1940, Juliet Armstrong is 18, naïve but intelligent. She reluctantly begins working for M15, transcribing the exploits of British Fascist sympathizers until the accidental discovery of an important document thrusts her into the world of espionage. A decade later, the choices she made during the war come back, forcing her to reckon with her true identity. This fast-paced, intriguing novel is a combination of espionage, thriller, and historical fiction filled with fully-created characters who grapple with their role in society.

Small Town Stories: fiction set in small towns is an enduring literary motif.

The Ballad of Frankie Silver by Sharyn McCrumb |  BG McCrumb  |  [Reserve Now]

The Appalachian wilderness comes to life in this novel that explores the mystery of what happened to Frankie Silver, hanged for murder in a small North Carolina town in 1833. In contemporary Tennessee, Sherriff Spencer Arrowood investigates a different murder, perhaps committed by a young woman who grew up poor in the mountains, Fate Harkryder. The two murders—and the two young women moving through a legal system that fails them—begin to weave together as Spencer works to uncover the truth.

Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper |  BG Hooper  |  [Reserve Now]

Etta and Otto and Russell and James tells the story of Otto Vogel, just one of a 15-kid family growing up on a dusty farm in Saskatchewan with his best friend Russell, who becomes a sort-of Vogel, pitching in with the chores and eating at their table. When they are teenagers, their teacher, ill from the area’s constant dust, is replaced with a new one, Etta Kinnick. The James of the title is a complicated, mysterious character best discovered in the book itself. This is a novel that moves seamlessly between the past and the present; part of the story is Otto’s perspective and part is Etta’s. We go to war with Otto, we stay home with Etta and then—when she is near the end of her life—we go on a walk with her. Etta, who has never seen the sea, decides (at age 83!) to walk there. Russell’s role in Etta’s life, and James’s, as well as Otto’s experiences pining for Etta at home on his own, create a compelling and devastating read. This lovely, sweet, and sad novel, part history, part travel adventure, is entirely charming.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer  |  BG Shaffer  |  [Reserve Now]

On the tiny Channel island of Guernsey, an impromptu literary society is formed when four friends, walking home from a dinner party, are stopped by German officers. On the spot they claim they’re walking home from a literary society meeting; their quick thought helps them avoid prison and leads to the formation of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. This society becomes a place where the group members can “almost forget, now and then, the darkness” of living in occupied England during World War II. A decade later, English writer Juliet Ashton stumbles across the stories from the society and strikes up a conversation via letters with its members. This epistolary novel tells the story of an occupation by the Germans that was first intended to be “model,” but worsened until a concentration camp was built there. Not just a war novel, it examines the way books can connect, redeem, and sometimes even save us.

The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick |  BG Patrick  |  [Reserve Now]

When librarian Martha Storm finds a book of fairy tales left on her doorstep, her calm and predictable life (formerly managed with detailed lists of all the things she was doing to help other people) takes an unexpected turn. The book’s dedication was written, surprisingly, by Martha’s grandmother Zelda; other clues suggest that Zelda might not be dead as Martha had believed. Charming and funny, and yet not afraid to examine a troubled history and Martha’s fear of making changes in her life, this novel is both hopeful and encouraging.

Medicine River by Thomas King |  BG King  |  [Reserve Now]

Will plans to return to the small town of Medicine River, just outside a reservation in Alberta, Canada, simply for his mother’s funeral. His friend Harlen Bigbear (who is, according to Will, “like the prairie wind. You never knew when he was coming or when he was going to leave”) has other plans. The town needs a photographer, and Will is just the man for the job. He’s got other plans for Will, too, involving a single mother. Harlen and Will are the connecting threads in the novel’s narrative, which moves back and forth through the history of their friendship. A simple, gentle read, Medicine River will make you laugh as you consider your ideas about Native Americans.

Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool  |  BG Vanderpool  |  [Reserve Now]

Vanderpool’s Newbery-winning novel is set in the town of Manifest Kansas, “a place too far away to ever get back to, a place too good to be real. A place one was proud to call home” during the 1930’s. It tells the story of Abilene Tucker, whose father Gideon has sent her back to live in Manifest for the summer, thinking she’ll be safer there than living a drifter lifestyle with him. Abilene discovers the decades-old mystery of The Rattler along with new friends and a boxful of old objects that lead her to Gideon’s history. Weaving the history of prohibition, orphan trains, Spanish influenza, coal mining and World War One with the lifestyle of a small Midwestern town, the story reads like an instant classic. It manages to combine what is endearing about childhood—mystery, adventure, the power in an object, the pull of story and that deep-seated need for affection and a place to call your own—into a sweet and satisfying experience.

The Quilter’s Apprentice by Jennifer Chiaverini  |  BG Chiaverini  [Reserve Now]

The first novel in the Elm Creek Quilts series, this book introduces us to Sarah McClure, who has recently moved to a small town in Pennsylvania with her husband. Sarah strikes up an uneasy relationship with an older woman named Sylvia Compton, who begins teaching her to quilt, an activity that might just turn around both of their lives.

Range of Motion by Elizabeth Berg  |  BG Berg  |  [Reserve Now]

The scent of morning toast and jam, sunlight on trees in the afternoon, the way a summer evening cools with an unexpected breeze: all of the everyday sensory experiences of living a human life are all around us, every day, and yet how often do we really take notice of them? This is the question  Elizabeth Berg’s novel, Range of Motion, puts forth as it examines how Lainey’s life changes as she tries to cope with caring for her husband, who is in a coma after being struck by a chunk of ice falling from a roof. Lainey never stops believing that her husband, Jay, will wake up, and to encourage him, every day she brings some small item to call him back to his life. Berg has a way of using story to examine the way difficult moments propel us to change, and she does so beautifully in this novel.

Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman  |  BG Hoffman  |  [Reserve Now]

The curse on the Owens family began in Massachusetts in the1620s, when Maria Owens was accused of witchcraft. It lingers still in Susanna Owens, living in New York City in the 1960s with her three children, Franny, Jet, and Vincent. She teaches them the rules for living in order to avoid the curse: no cats, no candles, no black clothes. Definitely no books about magic, or walking in moonlight, and absolutely no falling in love. A trip to visit their aunt Isabella in that same small Massachusetts town, however, is a doorway that opens to the family secrets and the truths about who the Owens family is. Escaping a centuries-old curse might just be impossible, and so the beautiful sisters and their brother must come to understand their own identities and embrace the messiness of life lived around and between the rules of magic.

Summerlost by Ally Condie  |  BG Condie  |  [Reserve Now]

Ally Condie wrote the popular young adult trilogy Matched; here she writes a middle-grade novel about friendship, adventure, and dealing with loss. A year ago, Cedar’s father and brother Ben were killed by a drunk driver, and to help everyone cope her mom has moved what’s left of her family to the small town of Iron Creek, Utah. Cedar finds a friend, the quirky Leo, who helps her get a job at the town’s Shakespeare Festival, Summerlost. When they’re not working, the two friends discuss the mysterious life of an actress who haunts the sets of the festival’s stage. Her experiences with Leo, the theater people, and the mystery help her to begin to learn how to live with her grief. This sad, sweet tale is one you’ll cherish.

They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell  |  BG Maxwell  |  [Reserve Now]

Set during the 1918 flu epidemic, Maxwell captures the psychological complexity of family relations in a small Midwestern town. Elizabeth Morison is the center of life for her husband James and their two boys, Benny and Robert. Her importance, brought into focus by a sudden tragedy, is compassionately displayed through the view of each of the male figures. Maxwell’s sensitive and delicate prose is a tribute to all mothers. 

Walking Across Egypt by Clyde Edgerton  |  BG Edgerton  |  [Reserve Now]

Mattie Rigsbee is the spunky center of this funny story. At 78, Mattie wishes for grandchildren, but her kids won’t seem to settle down and deliver the goods. Just as she’s beginning to slow down, teenage delinquent Wesley Benfield enters her life, in need of good cooking and grandmotherly affection. Despite the concern of family and friends, Wesley and Mattie forge a bond in this endearing comic novel.

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens  |  BG Owens  |  [Reserve Now]

“Maybe it was mean country, but not an inch was lean.” After Kya’s mother leaves, the rest of her family abandons their small house in the North Carolina marsh, one by one until she’s left to grow up on her own. She learns to live alone, surviving on what she finds in the marsh as she learns its secrets. The people in Barkley Cove call her the “Marsh Girl” and stay away, but when two different boys cross her path, she begins to interact with people again. This moving, beautifully-written bildungsroman is both a love story and a mystery, delving into the beauty and complexity of the marsh and of human nature. 

Frontier Stories: people living on different types of frontiers bring these books to life.

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent |  BG Kent  |  [Reserve Now]

Intricately researched, Hannah Kent’s first novel brings Iceland in the early nineteenth century to vivid, shivering, sparkling life. Agnes Magnusdottir, a young working woman, has been charged with the murder of her employer. While she awaits the time of her execution, she is sent to live at a farm owned by a family in northern Iceland. She chooses a young priest there, Father Tovi, to tell her story to. Based on the true story of the last person executed in Iceland, this historical novel uses beautiful writing to tell a devastating story.

Dancing at the Rascal Fair by Ivan Doig |  BG Doig  |  [Reserve Now]

“The Atlantic was a child’s teacup compared to the ocean that life could be,” Angus McCaskill thinks, a tidy summary of a sprawling, funny, tender book that tells the story of immigration and expansion. With his friend Rob Barclay, Angus leaves Scotland for Montana, where the two friends become sheep ranchers, as well as fathers, husbands, and men along the way. Dancing at the Rascal Fair shares thirty years of their lives with readers, in stories rich with humor, suffering, love and friendship.

I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven |  BG Craven  |  [Reserve Now]

I Heard the Owl Call My Name is the simple yet powerful story of a young vicar sent to live with the Kwakiutl tribe in the Pacific Northwest. Unaware of his own impending death, he finds that the tribe’s ways are being eroded by an encroaching American culture. Craven’s classic story is filled with the lush landscape of the Pacific Coast and the heartbreaking alienation felt by Native Americans caught between cultures.

Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Stewart |  BG 978.703 St493  |  [Reserve Now]

After deciding that city life as a laundress wasn’t for her, Elinore Pruitt, a young widowed mother, accepted an offer to assist with a ranch in Wyoming, work that she found exceedingly more rewarding. In this delightful collection of letters, she describes these experiences to her former employer, Mrs. Coney.

Mrs. Mike by Benedict Freedman  |  BG Freedman  |  [Reserve Now]

Mrs. Mike is the true story of Katherine Mary O’Fallon, a young Irish girl from Boston, who marries Canadian Mountie Sergeant Mike Flannigan, who is priest, doctor and magistrate to all in the wilderness of the North Woods of Canada. Extremely popular, the novel has won the hearts of millions for its depiction of young love’s journey to maturity.

My Antonia by Willa Cather |  BG Cather  |  [Reserve Now]

Willa Cather published her masterpiece My Antonia in 1918 to critical acclaim. Narrator Jim Burden tells the story beginning when, as a small boy, he left his life in civilized Virginia and traveled to the edge of the Nebraska frontier. Jim remembers his childhood friend, the vivacious and spirited Antonia, an immigrant child from Bohemia, and how their own lives, families, and friends were shaped by the beauty and cruelty of the Great Plains. Universal themes of death, youth, and friendship have enthralled readers for the near century this novel has now been in print. My Antonia captures the settling of the American frontier as no other work of fiction ever has.

My Name is Resolute by Nancy E. Turner  |  BG Turner  |  [Reserve Now]

A historical novel by the author of These is My Words, My Name is Resolute narrates the story of the daughter of a Jamaican plantation owner. Resolute is kidnapped, along with most of her family save her mother, by pirates and sold as an indentured slave in America. She is driven by the desire to return home to her mother, but her life takes her to many other places: Montreal, a stint with the Native Americans, Massachusetts. It is in Lexington that she is caught up in the political and social upheaval that will lead to the Revolutionary War. This is a long, satisfying novel, built on thorough historical research and solid character development; it brings to life America’s struggle for independence through the perspective of a determined and brave literary character.

Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey  |  BG Ivey  |  [Reserve Now]

This retelling of the Russian fairy tale “The Snow Maiden” is also a historical novel. It is the story of Jack and Mabel, who’ve left their fairly safe but exceedingly sad life in 1920’s Pennsylvania for the Alaskan frontier. Sad because, except for one stillborn, they never were able to have children, and all of the family reminders around them (the nieces and nephews, the new babies, the excited couples marrying) were just too much. Of course, life in Alaska is hardly easy either, with the short growing season, fierce winters, and isolation. But then, one night of clean snow and happiness, Jack and Mabel build a snow girl, dress her with mittens, a hat, and a scarf. In the morning, they wake to find the knitted clothing gone and a dead rabbit next to the decimated snow girl. Then they find a girl, Faini, wandering in the forest, and their sadness starts to melt away.

These is My Words: the Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine 1881-1901 by Nancy E. Turner  |  BG Turner  |  [Reserve Now]

Written as a diary, this novel is Sarah’s story. At 18, in 1881, she leaves her home in New Mexico to begin a new life on the Arizona frontier. Her journal starts out rough—full of misspellings and awkward sentences—but (with the assistance of a pile of books she discovers) becomes smooth, confident, and powerful, illustrating how her experiences change her. Sarah faces down marauding Native Americans, survives a marriage to an abusive husband, experiences flood, heat, drought, and rattlesnakes, and manages to create a strong, good life, nevertheless. Based on the journals of one of the author’s ancestors, the story is continued by Sarah’s Quilt, The Star Garden, and Light Changes Everything.

True Grit by Charles Portis |  BG Portis  |  [Reserve Now]

“People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood,” begins the novel True Grit; incredible, perhaps, but fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross did just that. When her father is shot down in Fort Smith, Arkansas—his horse and his $150 bank roll stolen as well—she heads out into Indian Territory in the company of the meanest U.S. Ranger she can find, Rooster Cogburn. Her goal, of course, is to find Tom Chaney, the man who shot her father, and make sure he is punished for his deed. The outcome of her adventures is the very definition of “grit.” Mattie’s story is by turns funny, sad, heart-pounding and satisfying, a read you won’t soon forget.

Stories of Suspense: books that lead you through a series of mysteries or surprises.

The Ballad of Frankie Silver by Sharyn McCrumb |  BG McCrumb  |  [Reserve Now]

The Appalachian wilderness comes to life in this novel that explores the mystery of what happened to Frankie Silver, hanged for murder in a small North Carolina town in 1833. In contemporary Tennessee, Sherriff Spencer Arrowood investigates a different murder, perhaps committed by a young woman who grew up poor in the mountains, Fate Harkryder. The two murders—and the two young women moving through a legal system that fails them—begin to weave together as Spencer works to uncover the truth.

Father Brown: The Essential Tales by G. K. Chesterton |  BG Chesterton  |  [Reserve Now]

These short mysteries place the chubby and unprepossessing priest Father Brown in the role of detective. His knowledge, gleaned in part from years of experience taking confessions, of how human evil works, provides the basis for his skill at solving crimes. These stories are quite unrealistic, but Chesterton is serious about ideas, and those he formulates here are always clever and often thought-provoking.

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear |  BG Winspear  |  [Reserve Now]

Maisie Dobbs, the new maid at the London home of the suffragette Lady Rowan Compton, is not an average maid. She’s only thirteen, and she can read, and she sneaks into the manor’s library to study European philosophy. When Lady Compton discovers Maisie’s precocious intellect, she becomes her patron, eventually sending her off to college, but the Great War interrupts Maisie’s education. She volunteers as a nurse and then, when the war ends, decides to become a private detective. Her first promising case begins as an investigation of infidelity and deepens into a story of how the War affected British society. Maisie is spunky, intelligent, and witty; her story is part mystery, part romance, part history and completely entertaining.

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy   |   BG McConaghy  |  [Reserve Now]

“If you or anyone you know wishes to visit the remaining forests of the world, you need to join the waiting lists immediately, for it is becoming more likely that the lists will outgrow the life spans of the forests.” Fanny Stone lives on an earth on the brink of environmental collapse. For most of her life, she’s followed the ocean’s tides and the flights of birds, escaping the memories of her traumatic experiences. Because—as we learn at the book’s opening—“the animals are dying” she travels to Greenland, where she convinces the captain of a fishing boat, The Saghani, to sail south in an attempt to follow what will likely be the last migration of the last flock of Arctic terns. A novel that explores the mysteries of Fanny’s life as it charts the expanse of a lonely, dying earth, Migrations is both a story of adventure and of the way forces that are out of our control continue to impact us.

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger  |  BG Enger  |  [Reserve Now]

After years of work with Minnesota Public Radio, storyteller Leif Enger weaves together a beautiful expression of love. The novel follows a young family in a heroic trek to find their fugitive brother. Although none of the family finds what they expected, Enger blends faith and hope in a story of family, sacrifice, and religion. The writing is delightful and the story meaningful.

Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman  |  BG Hoffman  |  [Reserve Now]

The curse on the Owens family began in Massachusetts in the1620s, when Maria Owens was accused of witchcraft. It lingers still in Susanna Owens, living in New York City in the 1960s with her three children, Franny, Jet, and Vincent. She teaches them the rules for living in order to avoid the curse: no cats, no candles, no black clothes. Definitely no books about magic, or walking in moonlight, and absolutely no falling in love. A trip to visit their aunt Isabella in that same small Massachusetts town, however, is a doorway that opens to the family secrets and the truths about who the Owens family is. Escaping a centuries-old curse might just be impossible, and so the beautiful sisters and their brother must come to understand their own identities and embrace the messiness of life lived around and between the rules of magic.

The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry  |  BG Berry  |  [Reserve Now]

The seven students at St. Etheldreda’s School for Young Ladies—Dear Roberta, Disgraceful Mary Jane, Dull Martha, Stout Alice, Smooth Kitty, Pocked Louise, and Dour Elinor—have formed a pleasant little sisterhood away from their horrible families. But when the school’s headmistress and her brother die during their Sunday meal (poisoned, Pocked Louise denounces, by the veal), their situation is threated. So they do what any clever girls would do: hide the bodies and carry on. This Victorian farce, a junior novel full of dark comedy, mystery, and cleverness, is a fun and fast-paced read. 

The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton  |  BG Morton  |  [Reserve Now]

Kate Morton is the queen of atmospheric, compelling novels that revolve around secrets, and The Secret Keeper is no exception. Avoiding her siblings by hiding in a tree house during a family party, 16-year-old Laurel witnesses her mother kill a man who appears to be an intruder. But fifty years later, when she is an accomplished actress and her mother is near death, Laurel rediscovers questions she has about what she witnessed. Moving through England during World War II, the Blitz, the 60’s and beyond, the story flashes between Laurel’s perspective, her mother’s, and the murdered man’s. A mystery set within a history within an epic family saga, The Secret Keeper explores how ambitions and hopes shape a myriad of lives. 

Sister by Rosamund Lupton  |  BG Lupton  |  [Reserve Now]

When she receives the news that her sister, Tess, has committed suicide, Beatrice Hemming flies home to London. She is certain that artistic, mercurial Tess would never kill herself, so—despite a reluctant detective—Beatrice begins searching for her sister’s murderer. This is a mystery novel that reads like a gothic thriller; creepy, intriguing, and puzzling, it raises hackles and inspires chills. But at its heart it is much more than a whodunit. It is, ultimately, a novel about families and sisterhood that happens to include a murder. Written as a letter from Beatrice to Tess, the novel’s structure allows Beatrice to tell the story of trying to uncovering the murderer while simultaneously writing about Tess’s death and its effect on her. And the ending? Well, the ending comes as a thing both unanticipated and perfectly foreshadowed in the story.

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett  |  BG Patchett  |  [Reserve Now]

Ann Patchett’s novel State of Wonder begins with a probable death, that of Dr. Marina Singh’s pharmaceutical co-worker, Anders Eckman, who has disappeared while working in the Amazon jungle. Marina is sent to Brazil herself, tasked with the responsibility of discovering the fate of Anders. If the book starts with death, it burgeons with other things: fertility, the beauty and terror of tropical landscapes, unimaginable snakes, science, drugs, tree bark, lost cell phones, medical ethics, cannibals, redemption. Ostensibly a story about women exploring the rainforest, it is a novel that explores the way characters can be remade by experience if they are brave enough to allow change to happen.

Transcription by Kate Atkinson |  BG Atkinson  |  [Reserve Now]

In 1940, Juliet Armstrong is 18, naïve but intelligent. She reluctantly begins working for M15, transcribing the exploits of British Fascist sympathizers until the accidental discovery of an important document thrusts her into the world of espionage. A decade later, the choices she made during the war come back, forcing her to reckon with her true identity. This fast-paced, intriguing novel is a combination of espionage, thriller, and historical fiction filled with fully-created characters who grapple with their role in society.

True Grit by Charles Portis |  BG Portis  |  [Reserve Now]

“People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood,” begins the novel True Grit; incredible, perhaps, but fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross did just that. When her father is shot down in Fort Smith, Arkansas—his horse and his $150 bank roll stolen as well—she heads out into Indian Territory in the company of the meanest U.S. Ranger she can find, Rooster Cogburn. Her goal, of course, is to find Tom Chaney, the man who shot her father, and make sure he is punished for his deed. The outcome of her adventures is the very definition of “grit.” Mattie’s story is by turns funny, sad, heart-pounding and satisfying, a read you won’t soon forget.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell  |  BG O’Farrell  |  [Reserve Now]

When she receives a phone call explaining that her great aunt Esme is being released from Cauldstone Hospital—and needs somewhere to live—Iris Lockhart is stunned: she didn’t know she had a great aunt. Esme was placed in a mental hospital at the age of sixteen and has lived there, forgotten and written out of her family’s story, for sixty years. Although Iris enjoys her solitary life, she can’t bear to put Esme in the miserable halfway house, so she takes her home with her for a trial weekend. The only living person who once knew all the secrets is Kitty, Esme’s sister and Iris’s grandmother, but since she is suffering from Alzheimer’s, she is only able to express regrets in fragments. Moving between Esme’s memories in 1930’s India and Iris’s contemporary life in Edinburgh, the story is crafted with tension, rich characterization, and a lyrical writing style. 

We were Liars by E. Lockhart  |  BG Lockhart  |  [Reserve Now]

Cadence Sinclair Eastman—third generation of a bigoted, old-money, establishment family in Massachusetts—her cousins Johnny and Miren, and their aunt’s boyfriend’s son Gant are “the Liars,” running wild all summer on the family’s private island off Martha’s Vineyard. The summer the Liars were fifteen, Cady and Gat fell in love, but something devastating also happened, leaving her with constant headaches and a fuzzy memory. Two years later, she tries to piece together details of the experience. Although it looks at complicated and painful family dynamics through the lens of privilege and wealth, the story strives to point out how insular yet unbelievably lucky the Sinclairs are. Cady’s efforts to dig up the truth about Summer 15 build to a shocking reveal, but the real power in the book is Cady’s voice, tremulous and fractured yet beginning to build in power as she discovers how all the wealth in the world can’t protect against unintended consequences.

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens  |  BG Owens  |  [Reserve Now]

“Maybe it was mean country, but not an inch was lean.” After Kya’s mother leaves, the rest of her family abandons their small house in the North Carolina marsh, one by one until she’s left to grow up on her own. She learns to live alone, surviving on what she finds in the marsh as she learns its secrets. The people in Barkley Cove call her the “Marsh Girl” and stay away, but when two different boys cross her path, she begins to interact with people again. This moving, beautifully-written bildungsroman is both a love story and a mystery, delving into the beauty and complexity of the marsh and of human nature. 

Reimagined Classics: authors revisit old stories with new perspectives.

Bellfield Hall, or, the Observations of Miss Dido Kent by Anna Dean |  BG Dean  |  [Reserve Now]

Set in the 1805 England that’s familiar from Jane Austen’s novels, this is the first in a mystery series. Dido Kent, at 35 years old, is considered to be a hopeless spinster—but solving mysteries gives her life a sense of purpose. Dido’s niece Catherine is heartbroken, as her fiancé has abruptly called off the engagement. He vanishes, and then a murdered woman is found on the grounds of Bellfield Hall, and Dido must figure out if the two are connected.

The Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain |  BG Twain  |  [Reserve Now]

Mark Twain retells the story of Adam and Eve in a diary format, alternating between Adam’s experiences and Eve’s. By turns hilarious, moving, and heartbreaking, their tale in Twain’s hands becomes something different than its telling in Genesis. Here, Adam and Eve are not only a story about humanity’s beginnings but about the first love story, and the first story of loss, and the enduringly human story of how we piece together both joy and sorrow to create the narrative of our lives.

March by Geraldine Brooks  |  BG Brooks  |  [Reserve Now]

Louisa May Alcott’s classic Little Women is re-imagined in this novel by Brooks. In the original, the girls wait anxiously for letters from their father, off fighting in the Civil War. In Brooks’ novel, we see the harsh reality of the actual life he leads. Based loosely on Alcott’s real father, March is a minister influenced by Emerson and Thoreau (both family friends) and struggles to maintain his faith and idealism in the face of racism and mercenary behavior from both sides of the conflict. His wife, Marmee, waiting at home with the girls, will uncover uncomfortable truths of her own when her husband ends sick and wounded at Washington Hospital. A unique look at what remains one of the most important periods, and books, in American history.

Mr. Dickens and His Carol by Samantha Silva   |  BG Silva  |  [Reserve Now]

Immerse yourself in Victorian England in this atmospheric imagining of Charles Dickens’s experience writing A Christmas Carol. In November 1943, Dickens finds himself in a bit of a financial crisis. His wife has just had their sixth child, the holidays are almost upon him, and his serialized novel, The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, is not selling well. To keep his publishing contract, he must write a Christmas story, even though the idea is not especially appealing. Wandering through London, he discovers an unusual source of inspiration. 

Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey  |  BG Ivey  |  [Reserve Now]

This retelling of the Russian fairy tale “The Snow Maiden” is also a historical novel. It is the story of Jack and Mabel, who’ve left their fairly safe but exceedingly sad life in 1920’s Pennsylvania for the Alaskan frontier. Sad because, except for one stillborn, they never were able to have children, and all of the family reminders around them (the nieces and nephews, the new babies, the excited couples marrying) were just too much. Of course, life in Alaska is hardly easy either, with the short growing season, fierce winters, and isolation. But then, one night of clean snow and happiness, Jack and Mabel build a snow girl, dress her with mittens, a hat, and a scarf. In the morning, they wake to find the knitted clothing gone and a dead rabbit next to the decimated snow girl. Then they find a girl, Faini, wandering in the forest, and their sadness starts to melt away.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik  |  BG Novik  |  [Reserve Now]

Told through the voices of three women, Spinning Silver is a reworking of the “Rumplestiltskin” fairy tale blended with aspects of Russian mythology. Miryem, the daughter of an unsuccessful moneylender, changes her family’s fortune by turning his business around with her cunning way with numbers. Wanda, the daughter of one of Miryem’s customers, is offered to her in forgiveness for her father’s debt. And Irina, the daughter of a duke, risks her engagement to the Tsar when a Staryk silver ring sparks her fey blood. These three women’s lives and choices weave within each other as the fey who live in the woods around their village draw a seemingly-endless winter around them.

Romance Novels: novels that explore the vagaries of love.

The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery |  BG Montgomery  |  [Reserve Now]

When 29-year-old Valancy Stirling (the plain, quite spinster of her family) receives the surprising news that she has a fatal heart condition, she decides to entirely change whatever life she has left to live. Rather than quietly obeying the conscriptions and directions of her family, she starts making her own choices, including making friends with the town drunk and a vagabond. Told with Mongtomery’s vivid descriptions of the Canadian landscape, this gentle, sweet romance will make your heart flutter.

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman |  BG Hill  |  [Reserve Now]

Nina Hill is comfortable in her life: she works at a bookstore and manages a trivia team, converses with her cat and keeps her life organized in her daily planner. And she spends a lot of time alone, not talking to people—solitude is her favorite. Until the father she never knew dies, and leaves something to her in his will; suddenly her solitude is interrupted by sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, and cousins she never knew. Not to mention Tom, her trivia opposition, who is starting to appear suspiciously smart and handsome. This lighthearted, funny contemporary romance explores heavier themes like grief, anxiety, and complicated family relationships, but Nina’s spunky, witty perspective brings a positive energy to the captivating story.

The Buried Giant by Kashugo Ishiguro* |  BG Ishiguro  |  [Reserve Now]

Ishiguro’s novel sparked discussion and even argument within the reading community over what makes a piece “literary.” Can a genre work also be literature? The Buried Giant proves that yes, indeed, it can. It tells the story of Axl and Beatrice, an older couple living in a small village in post-Arthurian England. They, as well as most of the population of this version of Britain, are influenced by a mysterious memory problem. Memories come and go, shifting in strange patterns, and often they forget that they’ve actually forgotten most of their lives. Through this memory fog come a very few memories of Axl and Beatrice’s son and some faint impressions of their younger years, just enough to send them on a quest to find him. Their drive to remember their lives directs the story of their adventures with ogres, knights, pixies, sinister monks and menacing soldiers until they finally reach a sleeping dragon. Along the way, they (and readers) discover some important truths about family, marriage, history, and memory.

The Butterfly and the Violin by Kristy Cambron |  BG Ishiguro  |  [Reserve Now]

A painting of a young woman playing the violin is the connection between two stories in this debut novel which was nominated for Library Journal’s Best Books of 2014. Jilted by her fiancé, Manhattan art dealer Sera James retreats into her work until the memory of a painting pushes her out of her comfort zone. In German-controlled Poland, violinist Adele von Bron is sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau after she is caught trying to rescue Jews. There she is forced to play her violin during the death marches of the Jewish prisoners. The two stories intertwine into a moving tale of faith, loss, art, and courage.

Ellie and the Harpmaker by Hazel Prior |  BG Prior  |  [Reserve Now]

Whenever she can get away, Ellie Jacobs takes long walks through the English countryside near the home she shares with her husband Clive. On one walk, she discovers the barn/workshop of Dan Hollis, who is a harp maker. When he discovers that she has wanted to learn to play the harp, Dan gives her one, but because Clive objects to the gift, she keeps it in Dan’s barn, where she secretly learns to play. This romance novel invites readers to consider how the risks we take can sometimes bring us to new experiences we couldn’t have predicted otherwise.

Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper |  BG Hooper  |  [Reserve Now]

Etta and Otto and Russell and James tells the story of Otto Vogel, just one of a 15-kid family growing up on a dusty farm in Saskatchewan with his best friend Russell, who becomes a sort-of Vogel, pitching in with the chores and eating at their table. When they are teenagers, their teacher, ill from the area’s constant dust, is replaced with a new one, Etta Kinnick. The James of the title is a complicated, mysterious character best discovered in the book itself. This is a novel that moves seamlessly between the past and the present; part of the story is Otto’s perspective and part is Etta’s. We go to war with Otto, we stay home with Etta and then—when she is near the end of her life—we go on a walk with her. Etta, who has never seen the sea, decides (at age 83!) to walk there. Russell’s role in Etta’s life, and James’s, as well as Otto’s experiences pining for Etta at home on his own, create a compelling and devastating read. This lovely, sweet, and sad novel, part history, part travel adventure, is entirely charming.

If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson |  BG Woodson  |  [Reserve Now]

Two very different teens meet and fall in love at a prep school in New York City. Jeremiah, who is black, comes from a wealthy family undergoing a painful divorce; Ellie, who is white, struggles to trust her mother, who has abandoned her family twice. As these teenagers’ relationship develops, issues of race and social standing impact them in ways they never imagined. Set in a vividly-real New York City, this lyrical novel, with chapters alternating between Jeremiah’s and Ellie’s perspectives, is both a romance and an examination of the pressures bigotry creates.

I’ll Be Your Blue Sky by Marisa de los Santos |  BG de los Santos  |  [Reserve Now]

Clare Hobbes isn’t sure: are her fiancé Zach’s temper flares just a quirk of his personality or something darker? On the weekend of her wedding, a chance encounter with an older woman named Edith helps her to see her troubles clearly, and she decides to call off her wedding. Shortly after, she is surprised to find that Edith had passed away and left her beachfront home in Delaware to Clare. The story alternates between Clare’s contemporary experiences and Edith’s story in the 1950s. It looks at the problem of marital abuse but balances that darkness with healing and hope.

Jane Eyre by Charolotte Bronte |  BG Bronte  |  [Reserve Now]

The novel is a Victorian classic. Having been raised as an unloved orphan in her aunt’s home, Jane Eyre finds her place as a governess in Thornfield Hall. Before long Jane’s life is intertwined with the mysterious characters that make up her new home, from the dark Mr. Rochester to his odd servant Grace Pool. Eventually love and drama intertwine as Jane must attempt to understand the strange happenings of the house and desires of her heart.

Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson  |  BG Youngson  |  [Reserve Now]

At the Silkeborg Museum in Denmark lies the Tollund Man: a body pulled from a peat bog, placed there roughly 2300 years ago. Tina Hopgood, who lives on an isolated farm in England, has been fascinated with this mummified corpse since she was a young adult, away from home at University, but has never gone to see it. Professor Anders Larsen works at the museum, and one day receives a letter from Tina. They start up a correspondence which, as they move from discussing the Tollund Man to their personal lives, blooms into a friendship. This hopeful epistolary novel examines the passage of time, the effects of individual choices on the entirety of a life, love, grief, loneliness, the nature of happiness, and the ways we might be able to shape the lives we really want to live. 

The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce  |  BG Joyce  |  [Reserve Now]

In the late 1980s in an English suburb, Frank owns a music shop, where he uses his special skill—knowing what song or album a particular customer needs to hear—to keep the shop open. But only barely, as a developer is attempting to overtake Unity Street and most customers want CDs now, not vinyl. Then a young woman named Ilse comes into the shop, wanting to learn about music. Will either one be able to overcome their pasts to create a new song together?

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell  |  BG Gaskell  |  [Reserve Now]

Written as a serialized novel in Charles Dickens’ Household Words in 1855, Gaskell’s classic novel North and South explores issues of industrialization, social injustice, and poverty in northern England. When Margaret Hale’s father gives up his role as a priest in the Church of England after doubting its leadership, the family leaves the pastoral, southern town of Helstone for the industrialized, northern town of Milton. Here Margaret discovers a sharp contrast to her previous experiences, caused by the poverty and difficult working conditions of the factory laborers. She also meets John Thornton, the powerful owner of a cotton mill. Thorton’s mill is facing a striking labor force, while Margaret’s family is also in upheaval caused by her mother’s illness and her brother Fredrick’s legal troubles brought on by a mutiny. The developing romance between Margaret and John, full of antagonism and misunderstanding, binds the story’s varying topics into a cohesive whole.

Oona out of Order by Margarita Montimore  |  BG Montimore   [Reserve Now]

This genre-bending novel, part time-travel, part romance, part mother/daughter relationship tale, tells the story of Oona, who for unknown reasons begins a type of time traveling at midnight on her 19th birthday (which is on New Year’s Day). As the clock flips over, she faints and then awakens to discover her 19-year-old psyche in her 51-year-old body. She’s gone from the 80s to the 2010s and everything is different culturally and physically, but her self—personality, memories, thought processes—is still 19. Each January first, Oona arrives with her chronologically-aged identity into an achronologically-aged body. As she puzzles out the connections she cannot quite understand in her out-of-order timeline, Oona’s relationships with her friends, family, ambitions, memory, body, choices, fate, and even time itself shifts towards a new understanding.

Persuasion by Jane Austen  |  BG Austen  |  [Reserve Now]

The last novel that Jane Austen wrote is the story of Anne Elliot. At 19, Anne fell in love with a young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth. When she accepted his proposal, however, her wealthy family thought he was beneath her and convinced her to break the engagement. Seven years later, the Elliot family has developed some financial troubles. The ending of the Napoleonic wars brings now-Captain Wentworth back into Anne’s life. Austen’s most mature work looks at the effects that social pressures and expectations have upon the women of the time.

Epistolary Works: stories told partly or completely in letters.

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff |  BG 921 Hanff  |  [Reserve Now

In our contemporary life, where nearly any book we want to read can be quickly found and purchased with just a click of a mouse or read on an electronic device, it’s hard to remember when people had to search for specific books. This memoir, constructed entirely of letters, takes you back to those pre-Amazon days and into the life of writer Helene Hanff. What began in 1949 as a search for a collection of Hazlitt letters that was of better quality than “Barnes and Noble’s grimy, marked-up schoolboy copies” became a transatlantic friendship between the writer and Mr. Frank Doel of Marks & Co Booksellers of 84 Charing Cross Road, London. As the friendship develops it creates an image of the physicality of books—the scent, the feel of a tight binding, the leather cover, the turning of a page—that will renew your affection for books, reading, and friendship.

The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg |  BG Flagg  |  [Reserve Now]

She might be facing an empty nest and her demanding mother’s continuous needs, but southerner Sookie Simmons Poole is doing just fine—until she receives a letter that sets her life in an entirely new direction. Her research leads her to the Jurdabralinski family, four sisters who helped keep their family’s Phillip’s 66 gas station afloat during World War II, as well as serving the United States as members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). Sookie’s process of discovering who she really is (not who her overbearing mother wants her to be) is fueled by her growing knowledge of those four courageous sisters. Full of Flagg’s trademark southern charm mixed with a little-known part of American history, The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion is a quirky novel, warm and funny and the smallest bit bittersweet.

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn  |  BG Dunn  |  [Reserve Now]

Ella lives on the tiny island called Nollop, off the coast of South Carolina, a “nation of letter writers” named after Nevin Nollop, who wrote the sentence that uses all the letters of the alphabet. (The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.) All is peaceful and happy on Nollop, until letters begin falling off the statue of Nevin Nollop. The island’s leaders decide that the missing Z is a sign: that letter is no longer a part of the alphabet. Public floggings, banishment from the island, and even death are the consequences of using a Z in written or oral communication. As more letters fall from the statue and are banned, the people come up with more and more ingenious use of language—while their entire society begins to fall apart. Quirky and intelligent, the novel makes great use of wordplay as it works towards Ella’s attempt to save every letter. Even Z.

Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper |  BG Hooper  |  [Reserve Now]

Etta and Otto and Russell and James tells the story of Otto Vogel, just one of a 15-kid family growing up on a dusty farm in Saskatchewan with his best friend Russell, who becomes a sort-of Vogel, pitching in with the chores and eating at their table. When they are teenagers, their teacher, ill from the area’s constant dust, is replaced with a new one, Etta Kinnick. The James of the title is a complicated, mysterious character best discovered in the book itself. This is a novel that moves seamlessly between the past and the present; part of the story is Otto’s perspective and part is Etta’s. We go to war with Otto, we stay home with Etta and then—when she is near the end of her life—we go on a walk with her. Etta, who has never seen the sea, decides (at age 83!) to walk there. Russell’s role in Etta’s life, and James’s, as well as Otto’s experiences pining for Etta at home on his own, create a compelling and devastating read. This lovely, sweet, and sad novel, part history, part travel adventure, is entirely charming.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer  |  BG Shaffer  |  [Reserve Now]

On the tiny Channel island of Guernsey, an impromptu literary society is formed when four friends, walking home from a dinner party, are stopped by German officers. On the spot they claim they’re walking home from a literary society meeting; their quick thought helps them avoid prison and leads to the formation of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. This society becomes a place where the group members can “almost forget, now and then, the darkness” of living in occupied England during World War II. A decade later, English writer Juliet Ashton stumbles across the stories from the society and strikes up a conversation via letters with its members. This epistolary novel tells the story of an occupation by the Germans that was first intended to be “model,” but worsened until a concentration camp was built there. Not just a war novel, it examines the way books can connect, redeem, and sometimes even save us.

Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Stewart |  BG 978.703 St493  |  [Reserve Now]

After deciding that city life as a laundress wasn’t for her, Elinore Pruitt, a young widowed mother, accepted an offer to assist with a ranch in Wyoming, work that she found exceedingly more rewarding. In this delightful collection of letters, she describes these experiences to her former employer, Mrs. Coney.

Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson  |  BG Youngson  |  [Reserve Now]

At the Silkeborg Museum in Denmark lies the Tollund Man: a body pulled from a peat bog, placed there roughly 2300 years ago. Tina Hopgood, who lives on an isolated farm in England, has been fascinated with this mummified corpse since she was a young adult, away from home at University, but has never gone to see it. Professor Anders Larsen works at the museum, and one day receives a letter from Tina. They start up a correspondence which, as they move from discussing the Tollund Man to their personal lives, blooms into a friendship. This hopeful epistolary novel examines the passage of time, the effects of individual choices on the entirety of a life, love, grief, loneliness, the nature of happiness, and the ways we might be able to shape the lives we really want to live. 

Books for Bibliophiles: books about reading, writing, book stores, book clubs, and everything else that book lovers love.

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff |  BG 921 Hanff  |  [Reserve Now

In our contemporary life, where nearly any book we want to read can be quickly found and purchased with just a click of a mouse or read on an electronic device, it’s hard to remember when people had to search for specific books. This memoir, constructed entirely of letters, takes you back to those pre-Amazon days and into the life of writer Helene Hanff. What began in 1949 as a search for a collection of Hazlitt letters that was of better quality than “Barnes and Noble’s grimy, marked-up schoolboy copies” became a transatlantic friendship between the writer and Mr. Frank Doel of Marks & Co Booksellers of 84 Charing Cross Road, London. As the friendship develops it creates an image of the physicality of books—the scent, the feel of a tight binding, the leather cover, the turning of a page—that will renew your affection for books, reading, and friendship.

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak |  BG Zusak  |  [Reserve Now]

The Book Thief rotates around an unlikely pair: the narrator—death—and the young Liesel Meminger, whose father has disappeared for being a communist and whose mother soon vanishes. On the way to a foster home in Musling, Germany, her younger brother dies, and at the small grave side service, she steals a book from one of the grave diggers about how to dig graves. Books become intertwined with dying, with the powerful destructive forces of Nazi Germany all around her. Because she can’t yet read, Liesel’s new foster father teaches her how—using the gravedigger’s manual as a reading primer. Once she can read, she becomes a book thief, stealing tomes from piles set aside for burning and from the mayor’s wife. Death, unable to resist Liesel, comments and explains, adding a layer of sardonic wit to this story that will linger, haunting, in your memory.

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman |  BG Hill  |  [Reserve Now]

Nina Hill is comfortable in her life: she works at a bookstore and manages a trivia team, converses with her cat and keeps her life organized in her daily planner. And she spends a lot of time alone, not talking to people—solitude is her favorite. Until the father she never knew dies, and leaves something to her in his will; suddenly her solitude is interrupted by sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, and cousins she never knew. Not to mention Tom, her trivia opposition, who is starting to appear suspiciously smart and handsome. This lighthearted, funny contemporary romance explores heavier themes like grief, anxiety, and complicated family relationships, but Nina’s spunky, witty perspective brings a positive energy to the captivating story.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer  |  BG Shaffer  |  [Reserve Now]

On the tiny Channel island of Guernsey, an impromptu literary society is formed when four friends, walking home from a dinner party, are stopped by German officers. On the spot they claim they’re walking home from a literary society meeting; their quick thought helps them avoid prison and leads to the formation of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. This society becomes a place where the group members can “almost forget, now and then, the darkness” of living in occupied England during World War II. A decade later, English writer Juliet Ashton stumbles across the stories from the society and strikes up a conversation via letters with its members. This epistolary novel tells the story of an occupation by the Germans that was first intended to be “model,” but worsened until a concentration camp was built there. Not just a war novel, it examines the way books can connect, redeem, and sometimes even save us.

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss |  BG Krauss  |  [Reserve Now]

In the process of writing this novel, Krauss wanted to write “a book that people would take personally.” By touching on themes we all relate to personally—the fear of dying without being seen or remembered, the way grief changes a person into someone else, the persistence of love—she accomplishes just that. The eponymous The History of Love is a novel written by Leo Gursky during the beginning of World War II; he loses it, along with Alma, the woman he loved. Unbeknownst to him, The History of Love is published and, decades later, translated from the Spanish by thirteen-year-old Alma’s mother, who is caught up in the grief of losing her husband to cancer. Alma searches for the origin of her name while Leo searches for a way to be seen before his death; as the novel progresses the threads of all the stories work their way together into a satisfying ending, detailing along the way the power of creativity to act as a healing force.

The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick |  BG Patrick  |  [Reserve Now]

When librarian Martha Storm finds a book of fairy tales left on her doorstep, her calm and predictable life (formerly managed with detailed lists of all the things she was doing to help other people) takes an unexpected turn. The book’s dedication was written, surprisingly, by Martha’s grandmother Zelda; other clues suggest that Zelda might not be dead as Martha had believed. Charming and funny, and yet not afraid to examine a troubled history and Martha’s fear of making changes in her life, this novel is both hopeful and encouraging.

The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap: A Memoir of Friendship, Community, and the Uncommon Pleasure of a Good Book  |  Wendy Welch  |  BG 381.45 W446  |  [Reserve Now]

A 2013 Boston Globe article explains that owning a bookstore has become a popular dream of many people—and has moved from number 15 to number eight on the list of  “most-wanted retirement careers.” When Wendy Welch decided to open a used book store in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, she knew that fulfilling this ambition would be difficult given the economy, the proliferation of e-readers, and, of course, Amazon. Rather than just a place to buy books, she created a community resource where readers of all sorts make connections with others in the community and the reading world at large. Her book tells the funny, moving, and unique experiences she and her husband had as they established a small-town space where “people go to define themselves for themselves.”

Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson  |  BG Youngson  |  [Reserve Now]

At the Silkeborg Museum in Denmark lies the Tollund Man: a body pulled from a peat bog, placed there roughly 2300 years ago. Tina Hopgood, who lives on an isolated farm in England, has been fascinated with this mummified corpse since she was a young adult, away from home at University, but has never gone to see it. Professor Anders Larsen works at the museum, and one day receives a letter from Tina. They start up a correspondence which, as they move from discussing the Tollund Man to their personal lives, blooms into a friendship. This hopeful epistolary novel examines the passage of time, the effects of individual choices on the entirety of a life, love, grief, loneliness, the nature of happiness, and the ways we might be able to shape the lives we really want to live. 

The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester  |  BG 423 W7217  |  [Reserve Now]

Who would have thought that a madman in an insane asylum would have been one of the greatest contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary?  Although it sounds like fiction, the book it is a true story of the collaboration between the OED scholar James Murray and the incarcerated Dr. Minor (an American Civil War surgeon). This amazing story is both tragic and inspirational—a tribute to the human spirit. 

The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared by Alice Ozma  |  BG 028.9 Oz6  |  [Reserve Now]

When Alice Ozma was in fourth grade—the year her mother left—she and her father started a reading streak: every day, 100 days in a row, he would read to her. When the 100 days were up, they decided to continue, and they kept the reading streak alive until she left for college. As they worked their way through a huge variety of books, from Harry Potter to Shakespeare, their relationship grew and changed, but it stayed steady because of their tradition. Alice and her father’s experiences with their reading streak prove that reading isn’t just about books or stories; it can also be about creating safe spaces, making connections, and forming strong relationships.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith  |  BG Smith  |  [Reserve Now]

Sweet, tender, endearing; realistic, compassionate, heartbreaking. There are many words to describe this novel, but they can all be condensed into just two: so good. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a classic coming-of-age novel, set in New York in the early 1900’s. Francie Nolan is eleven when the novel opens, living in Brooklyn in a tenement house. Her father is an alcoholic but her mother is a strong woman who makes sure her family is provided for. Francie is a quiet, imaginative child, passionate about learning, reading, and writing, but life doesn’t bring her the things she wants. As the story progresses you experience the heartbreaks and triumphs, ambitions and mistakes along with Francie as she, like the Tree of Heaven, flourishes in the world’s stony soil.

Women’s Studies: books that explore a variety of women’s lives and experiences.

The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg |  BG Flagg  |  [Reserve Now]

She might be facing an empty nest and her demanding mother’s continuous needs, but southerner Sookie Simmons Poole is doing just fine—until she receives a letter that sets her life in an entirely new direction. Her research leads her to the Jurdabralinski family, four sisters who helped keep their family’s Phillip’s 66 gas station afloat during World War II, as well as serving the United States as members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). Sookie’s process of discovering who she really is (not who her overbearing mother wants her to be) is fueled by her growing knowledge of those four courageous sisters. Full of Flagg’s trademark southern charm mixed with a little-known part of American history, The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion is a quirky novel, warm and funny and the smallest bit bittersweet.

Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew |  BG Bergman  |  [Reserve Now]

The women in this collection of short stories are almost famous either because of their proximity to fame—Lord Byron’s abandoned daughter, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s outgoing sister Norma, Oscar Wilde’s vivacious niece—or because their grand ambitions were only barely noticed by most of the world—dancing in Paris, driving a motorcycle at daring speeds and angles, forming America’s first integrated all-girl swing band. They are risk takers, daredevils, quiet renegades, women trying to find their way on unusual paths. The author was inspired to write these stories out of “a fascination with real women whose remarkable lives were reduced to footnotes”; reading them is a process of discovering forgotten but important historical moments in women’s lives.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin |  BG Chopin  |  [Reserve Now]

First published in 1899, this beautiful, brief novel so disturbed critics and the public that it was banned in America for decades afterward. Now widely read and admired, The Awakening has been hailed as an early example of the modern novel. Originally entitled “A Solitary Soul,” the novel serves as a portrait of twenty-eight-year-old Edna Pontellier as she searches for love outside a stifling marriage, and finds herself, in turn, awakening to the beauty in nature and herself. Author Willa Cather described its style as “exquisite,” “sensitive,” and “iridescent.”

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent |  BG Kent  |  [Reserve Now]

Intricately researched, Hannah Kent’s first novel brings Iceland in the early nineteenth century to vivid, shivering, sparkling life. Agnes Magnusdottir, a young working woman, has been charged with the murder of her employer. While she awaits the time of her execution, she is sent to live at a farm owned by a family in northern Iceland. She chooses a young priest there, Father Tovi, to tell her story to. Based on the true story of the last person executed in Iceland, this historical novel uses beautiful writing to tell a devastating story.

Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth |  BG 921 Worth  |  [Reserve Now]

In the 1950’s, Jennifer Worth left her comfortable, middle-class life to work in London’s East End as a midwife. She gathers the stories of her experiences in this remarkable memoir. The chapters alternate between telling the intimate stories of the laboring mothers in this poor part of post-war London and describing the often-humorous accounts of living at Nonnatus House, the convent where Worth was based. The stories here vary widely, some grim, some joyful, just as the lives of the families did in that time; the sometimes-gritty medical details are fascinating, but the real drama comes in the experiences of mothers determined (mostly) to make a good life for their babies.

Confessions of a Molly Mormon: Trading Perfectionism for Peace, Fear for Faith, Judging for Joy by Elona K. Shelley |  BG M242.643 Sh441  |  [Reserve Now]

“There is the ideal, and then there is reality.” Elona Shelley was discussing the observation of the Sabbath when she wrote that, but it is a tidy summary of her book. The LDS gospel presents many ideals: commandments and obligations and requirements, ways of being and examples to uphold. Trying to fulfill those ideals perfectly sometimes leads members to feel as if they are failing. Starting with a mighty change of heart she experienced, Elona explores how living the gospel within the reality of the world might not fulfill the ideal, but still brings us closer to God.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tezmach Lemmon |  BG 958.1047 T996  |  [Reserve Now]

In 1995, Kamili Sidiqi’s dreams of becoming a teacher were disrupted by the Taliban’s descent upon Kabul. A loophole in the new law, however, allowed for women to work out of their home, and so she started a business designing and sewing dresses. Her story of quiet, productive rebellion illustrates how women can be resilient survivors of war, rather than its victims

Far from the Tree by Robin Benway  |  BG Benway  |  [Reserve Now]

After placing her baby for adoption, high-school senior Grace wants desperately to connect with her own birthmother. Her search reveals her two siblings: Maya, who was also adopted as a baby, and Joaquin, who grew up in the foster care system. As they begin to know each other and understand the impact of their birthmother’s decisions, they might begin to create a new family between them, but only if they are able to move through their individual traumas. This young adult novel explores the many ways that family bonds are formed, looking at the adoption triad in ways that are equally moving and realistic

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok |  BG Kwok  |  [Reserve Now]

With the promise of housing and a job, Ah-Kim and her mother immigrate to San Francisco from Hong Kong after her father dies. The housing her Aunt Paula provides is a squalid, unheated apartment and the factory work is demanding and exhausting. Kimberly, as she’s known in America, barely has enough clothes to keep warm, let alone avoid the taunts of kids at school. It’s not flashy, but her quiet strength, intelligence, and courage as she tries to create an American life for herself and her mother infuse this novel with an uplifting sense of possibility.

Guests of the Sheik by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea |  BG 306.956 F394  |  [Reserve Now]

In 1956, Elizabeth Fernea was a newlywed. Her husband’s field research in anthropology took the couple to a small, rural Iraqi village. In a friendly, intimate tone, Fernea tells the story of her two years there, which she begins as an American woman knowing next to nothing about Iraqi culture, language, or mores, resentful of the abaya she is required to wear; and ends as a close friend to the women of El Nahra. An intimate and detailed examination of the real lives women led in Iraq in the 1950s, Guests of the Sheik is an adventure story at heart, illustrating that no matter how different our cultures are, we all share the need to live vibrant lives.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood |  BG Atwood  |  [Reserve Now]

In the country of Gilead, women have no choices: not what to wear, or who to marry, or what do. They cannot own property, gain education, or have a bank account.  The fertile (who are few), may bear children—but they must be given to the powerful ranking families of the dictatorship. The slightly terrifying thing is that Gilead is America, in the future, when fertility rates have plummeted and women become pawns in a game of power. The narrator, whose real name we never discover, is called Offred, and she is a handmaid: a woman who had a child before the coup and so might conceive again. She is given to a Commander’s family, where once a month she participates in the Ceremony that has become her duty.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith |  BG Smith  |  [Reserve Now]

Meet Cassandra Mortmain: 17, living in a falling-down castle with her impoverished family in 1930s England, trying to learn how to write by keeping a journal. Meet her, because you’ll fall in love with this delightful, quick-witted, eccentric character. Dodie Smith’s classic novel tells Cassandra’s coming-of-age story. Initially disdainful of love, but still full of romantic ideas, she experiences an Austen-esque series of adventures with the wealthy American family who moves into the estate near the castle. Cassandra’s charisma pulls you through the novel as she discovers the type of woman she really wants to be.

I Miss You When I Blink: Essays  by Mary Laura Phillpot |  BG 305.2442 P5499  |  [Reserve Now]

“I miss you when I blink”: A sentence coined by her son when he was six that came to help Mary Laura Philpott start to understand her life. Especially once she had “made it,” once she had a home and a husband and a job and some kids but still found herself just…herself. Less happy than she expected, still annoyed by friends running late, small talk, people’s barking dogs. In this collection of essays, Philpott explores who and what we miss when we blink, the selves we don’t get to be, the moments that pass us by. Irreverent, funny, unafraid to look at topics ranging from taking kids to the pool to the things that keep us from bungee jumping (as well as depression and anxiety), this book will make readers laugh, cry, and everything in between.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot |  BG 616.0277 Sk45  |  [Reserve Now]

HeLa cells are a necessity in medical and biotech research. These “immortal” cells—given food and warmth, they continue to grow forever—influenced the development of the polio vaccine, genetic mapping, in vitro fertilization, and numerous other scientific advancements. The cells originated in the body of Henrietta Lacks, a thirty-year-old woman suffering from cervical cancer that rapidly killed her. Taken without her knowledge or consent, her cells revolutionized modern medicine, yet for two decades her family did not know about them. Skloot’s book examines the medical repercussions of HeLa cells, but it looks more closely at the personal effects. Lacks’s family, who can’t afford health insurance, struggles to pay for medical procedures that exist because of their mother’s cells and have never been compensated for the cells. Medical ethics and legalities are examined, but in the end Skloot’s book, winner of several major literary awards, gives a face to what was previously a pile of cells growing in a test tube.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd |  BG Kidd  |  [Reserve Now]

Sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké were two of the earliest abolitionists and suffragettes in America, fighting for equal rights in the 1830’s so vocally that they were eventually exiled from their Charleston, South Carolina home. In this novel, Sue Monk Kidd explores the life of Sarah Grimké along with that of Handful, a black slave who was given to Sarah on her eleventh birthday. This “human gift” was so repulsive to Sarah it started in motion her life-long fight for equality. The chapters alternate between Sarah’s and Handful’s perspectives as the two women’s lives and struggles influence each other over decades. Sarah realizes that “we can do little for the slave as long as we’re under the feet of men,” and it is this understanding of the dual nature of her and Handful’s struggles that informs both of their experiences.

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom |  BG Grissom  |  [Reserve Now]

During the early decades of American slavery, there were also thousands of Irish indentured servants. While these people had eventual access to freedom because of their skin color, during the time of their servitude they were often treated as poorly as the slaves were. Kathleen Grissom’s historical novel The Kitchen House tells the story of this lesser-known detail from that time period. Young Lavinia’s parents die while the family is crossing the ocean to America, and the ship’s captain takes her as a servant at his plantation to pay for her passage across the Atlantic. She is assigned to the kitchen house, where she is taught to work by Belle, a slave who is also the captain’s daughter. Lavinia forms a close relationship with the slaves she works alongside, but as she grows older her life’s possibilities and the untenable conditions of slavery begin to fracture the bonds. This novel tells a riveting historical tale while illustrating the devastating consequences of human bondage in all its forms.

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney |  BG Rooney  |  [Reserve Now]

Loosely based on the poet Margaret Fishback, who was the highest-paid female advertising copywriter in the 1930s, this novel explores how choice and social forces influence a woman’s life. It is told in alternating chapters: the history of Lillian Boxfish’s career at Macy’s in New York City, her romantic relationships, and her eventual family life; and the story of a walk she takes around the city on New Year’s Eve in 1984. As each story progresses, readers feel the effects of society’s narrow expectations for women and the advances we’ve made—as well as downright falling in love with Lillian, who is spunky, intelligent, fierce, and funny.

My Name is Resolute by Nancy Turner  |  BG Turner  |  [Reserve Now]

A historical novel by the author of These is My Words, My Name is Resolute narrates the story of the daughter of a Jamaican plantation owner. Resolute is kidnapped, along with most of her family save her mother, by pirates and sold as an indentured slave in America. She is driven by the desire to return home to her mother, but her life takes her to many other places: Montreal, a stint with the Native Americans, Massachusetts. It is in Lexington that she is caught up in the political and social upheaval that will lead to the Revolutionary War. This is a long, satisfying novel, built on thorough historical research and solid character development; it brings to life America’s struggle for independence through the perspective of a determined and brave literary character.

My Real Children by Jo Walton  |  BG Walton  |  [Reserve Now]

Jo Walton’s novel My Real Children is hard to pin down: part alternate-universe, part family saga, part love story, part travelogue, what it really does is explore the consequences of choice. It tells the story of Patricia, an old woman living in a care center whose chart regularly reads “VC” for “very confused.” She is confused because of dementia, but also because she isn’t sure which of her memories are correct: Did she marry Mark and have four children? Or did she say no to Mark, fall in love with Bee, and have three children? Is her life as a traditional wife and mother the real one? Or the one where she was a travel writer in love with Italy? The novel tells the story of both possible lives, leaving Patricia (and the reader) to decide: which was the real one? This intriguing and unusual novel will push you to look at your own choices and consider how your life was changed by them. 

Oral History by Lee Smith   |   BG Smith   [Reserve Now]

Family history is hard to pin down. The stories come back to us in layers, pieced together in a conglomerate of voices. Lee Smith captures the wandering thread of personal story in this narrative about an Appalachian family cursed by a witch woman, starting in 1902 and weaving through the century to the contemporary Jennifer Cantrell, who delves into her dead mother’s family history for her thesis. Where do family stories originate? Who can tell them and who will listen? How can we preserve them? Smith’s novel answers those questions with a multitude of voices and experiences, bringing both her family and the Appalachian Mountains to life.

Persuasion by Jane Austen  |  BG Austen  |  [Reserve Now]

The last novel that Jane Austen wrote is the story of Anne Elliot. At 19, Anne fell in love with a young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth. When she accepted his proposal, however, her wealthy family thought he was beneath her and convinced her to break the engagement. Seven years later, the Elliot family has developed some financial troubles. The ending of the Napoleonic wars brings now-Captain Wentworth back into Anne’s life. Austen’s most mature work looks at the effects that social pressures and expectations have upon the women of the time.

Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry Tempest Williams  |  BG Williams  |  [Reserve Now]

During two decades — 1940-1960—the U.S. government conducted secret nuclear experiments in the Nevada deserts that caused a series of cancer clusters in Nevada, Arizona, and Utah in the 1980’s. Williams’ family was all affected, leaving her “the family matriarch at age 34.” In Refuge she draws connections between her mother’s death and the flooding of the Great Salt Lake. Her writing is moving, powerful, and lyrical; it will leave you both heart-sore and hopeful.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson  |  BG Anderson  |  [Reserve Now]

“It’s easier not to say anything. Shut your trap, button your lip, can it. All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie. Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say.” What Melinda’s friends think happened at that summer party: She freaked out because people were drinking so she ratted and called the cops, and everyone got in trouble. What really happened: Well, Melinda can’t say. Not because she doesn’t remember what Andy did to her under the tree in the field behind the party, but because if she speaks it out loud, it will have to be true. So she starts ninth grade as the girl who ratted, the silent girl who never talks to anyone. But as the year passes, she discovers art, she discovers gardening, she discovers she has a voice and that only by speaking her truth can she help others—and herself.

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett  |  BG Patchett  |  [Reserve Now]

Ann Patchett’s novel State of Wonder begins with a probable death, that of Dr. Marina Singh’s pharmaceutical co-worker, Anders Eckman, who has disappeared while working in the Amazon jungle. Marina is sent to Brazil herself, tasked with the responsibility of discovering the fate of Anders. If the book starts with death, it burgeons with other things: fertility, the beauty and terror of tropical landscapes, unimaginable snakes, science, drugs, tree bark, lost cell phones, medical ethics, cannibals, redemption. Ostensibly a story about women exploring the rainforest, it is a novel that explores the way characters can be remade by experience if they are brave enough to allow change to happen.

Survival Lessons by Alice Hoffman  |  BG 616.9944 H6751  |  [Reserve Now]

Novelist Alice Hoffman is a breast cancer survivor, in remission for nearly two decades. Here, she writes the book she wishes she’d had during her diagnosis and treatment. “In many ways I wrote Survival Lessons for myself,” she explains, “to remind myself of the beauty of life, something that’s all too easy to overlook during the crisis of illness or loss.” Not a book about cancer, Survival Lessons is instead about choices and how they affect our perspective. You’ll finish it uplifted and revitalized, ready to see what choices you can make to improve your own life.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See |  BG See  |  [Reserve Now]

In the remote region of China where the Akha people live, villagers’ lives are managed by ancient traditions and rules as much as the seasonal harvesting of Pu’er tea. Li-yan, however, is one of the few educated girls in the area, and when a man from the outside world arrives—in the first automobile the villagers have ever seen—she discovers her way out of her predicament, a pregnancy with a “human reject,” a baby of mixed parentage. She leaves her daughter at an orphanage and begins to try to construct a life in this new, modern world of contemporary China, far from her old rituals. Meanwhile, her daughter Haley is adopted by an American couple. Despite her privileged California lifestyle, Haley grows up wondering about her birthmother; she begins exploring her Chinese heritage while studying biology and global climate change in college. Will the teacake Li-yan left with her baby be a pathway to reunion?

Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston |  BG Hurston  |  [Reserve Now]

This beloved work has reemerged as one of the premier books of the Twentieth Century. Hurston, relying on her background recording folk history, tells the story of Janie Crawford, an articulate African-American woman in the 1930s. The spunky and unforgettable Janie, explains her quest for identity, three marriages (one of which resulted in her being accused of murder), and a journey to her roots. 

What Would Cleopatra Do? Life Lessons from Fifty of History’s Most Extraordinary Women edited by Elizabeth Foley and Beth Coates  |  BG 650.1082 F6993  |  [Reserve Now]

This illustrated book is not just a collection of short histories of famous women. It helps us understand both the impact of the decisions and actions of such women as Frida Kahlo, Catherine the Great, Boudica, and Hedy Lamar during their own time period, as well as the influence they can have upon us in our current situations. With themes as wide-ranging as fashion to financial management, politics to loneliness, What Would Cleopatra Do? helps readers find inspiration in the stories of historical women.

Young Adult Books: who says these books are only for teenagers?

After the Dancing Days by Margaret Rostkowski |  BG Rostkowski  |  [Reserve Now]

Young Annie learns about the horrors of World War I through the suffering and stories of wounded soldiers recovering in a veterans’ hospital near her small Kansas hometown. Annie, who has lost a much loved uncle during the recent war, learns the real story of his death and comes to a better understanding of the world outside her comfortable life. Author Rostkowski is a high school teacher in Ogden, and this, her first novel, won multiple awards in Utah and across the nation.

The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery |  BG Montgomery  |  [Reserve Now]

When 29-year-old Valancy Stirling (the plain, quite spinster of her family) receives the surprising news that she has a fatal heart condition, she decides to entirely change whatever life she has left to live. Rather than quietly obeying the conscriptions and directions of her family, she starts making her own choices, including making friends with the town drunk and a vagabond. Told with Mongtomery’s vivid descriptions of the Canadian landscape, this gentle, sweet romance will make your heart flutter.

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak |  BG Zusak  |  [Reserve Now]

The Book Thief rotates around an unlikely pair: the narrator—death—and the young Liesel Meminger, whose father has disappeared for being a communist and whose mother soon vanishes. On the way to a foster home in Musling, Germany, her younger brother dies, and at the small grave side service, she steals a book from one of the grave diggers about how to dig graves. Books become intertwined with dying, with the powerful destructive forces of Nazi Germany all around her. Because she can’t yet read, Liesel’s new foster father teaches her how—using the gravedigger’s manual as a reading primer. Once she can read, she becomes a book thief, stealing tomes from piles set aside for burning and from the mayor’s wife. Death, unable to resist Liesel, comments and explains, adding a layer of sardonic wit to this story that will linger, haunting, in your memory.

Bruiser by Neal Shusterman |  BG Shusterman  |  [Reserve Now]

Brewster Rawlins: the high school kid voted “most likely to get the death penalty,” the tall, ambling quiet boy built like a tank but almost always covered in bruises and cuts and even casts for broken arms. What’s his story? Tennyson Sternberger doesn’t know, and doesn’t care to find out, until his twin sister Bronte announces she’s going on a date with Brewster. What starts as a reluctant compromise becomes a friendship as Tennyson discovers Brewster isn’t a future potential criminal but just another kid. Except, he’s not really; cuts and bruises heal faster when Brewster’s around, and the stress of the siblings’ parents’ marriage feels less painful. As Brewster and his brother Cody grow closer to Tennyson and Bronte, the twins begin to understand the implications of pain, both physical and emotional, as well as the nature of sacrifice and the depths of relationships. This Beehive Award nominee novel will challenge readers to consider their interactions with the people they love.

Far from the Tree by Robin Benway  |  BG Benway  |  [Reserve Now]

After placing her baby for adoption, high-school senior Grace wants desperately to connect with her own birthmother. Her search reveals her two siblings: Maya, who was also adopted as a baby, and Joaquin, who grew up in the foster care system. As they begin to know each other and understand the impact of their birthmother’s decisions, they might begin to create a new family between them, but only if they are able to move through their individual traumas. This young adult novel explores the many ways that family bonds are formed, looking at the adoption triad in ways that are equally moving and realistic

The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys |  BG Sepetys  |  [Reserve Now]

Daniel, an 18-year-old American who is in Madrid with his parents, trying to capture the city through his camera lens. Ana, a young woman working at the Castellana Hilton, whose parents were executed for their anti-Fascist politics. Her brother Rafa, who promotes the bullfights. Their cousin Puri, who works in an orphanage. In 1957, the lives of these four young adults intertwine in the Spanish city, ruled by Franco’s politics and made dark by secrets. As with her other young adult novels Salt to the Sea and Between Shades of Grey, author Ruta Septys doesn’t flinch from the troubling details of the collusion between church and state, the murders of political adversaries, and the theft of babies. The lesser-known stories of Spain during the fascist regime are brought to life in illuminating, captivating prose in this thoughtful and mesmerizing work of historical fiction.

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale |  BG Hale  |  [Reserve Now]

Local author Shannon Hale reinvents the goose girl fairy tale in this award-winning novel. Princess Anidori is born with a word on her tongue, which means as she grows she learns, under her aunt’s encouragement, how to speak to animals. This strangeness does not sit well with the queen, so when the king dies, Princess Ani’s mother forges a marriage between her and the prince of Bayern, a neighboring country. But Ani’s betrayal by trusted people is just beginning; on her way to Bayern her friend Selia plots to kill Ani and take her place. Ani escapes, makes it to Bayern, and works as a goose girl while trying to take her future back. A story about a character working out her own fate instead of waiting to be rescued, Hale’s book is a magical tale.

I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven |  BG Craven  |  [Reserve Now]

I Heard the Owl Call My Name is the simple yet powerful story of a young vicar sent to live with the Kwakiutl tribe in the Pacific Northwest. Unaware of his own impending death, he finds that the tribe’s ways are being eroded by an encroaching American culture. Craven’s classic story is filled with the lush landscape of the Pacific Coast and the heartbreaking alienation felt by Native Americans caught between cultures.

If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson |  BG Woodson  |  [Reserve Now]

Two very different teens meet and fall in love at a prep school in New York City. Jeremiah, who is black, comes from a wealthy family undergoing a painful divorce; Ellie, who is white, struggles to trust her mother, who has abandoned her family twice. As these teenagers’ relationship develops, issues of race and social standing impact them in ways they never imagined. Set in a vividly-real New York City, this lyrical novel, with chapters alternating between Jeremiah’s and Ellie’s perspectives, is both a romance and an examination of the pressures bigotry creates.

The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton  |  BG Hinton  |  [Reserve Now]

A classic of young adult literature that helped form the genre, The Outsiders is the story of Ponyboy, Soda, Johnny; Cherry, Bob, Marcia—the Greasers and the Socs and their rumbles against each other. Capturing the violence in the contrast of social structures, S.E. Hinton’s novel, written when she was still in high school, explores the way that both groups must come to terms with adult experiences such as fear, loss, and love. 

Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley  |  BG McKinley  |  [Reserve Now]

“Not silly sweethearts’ love but the love that makes you and keeps you whole”—that is the sort of love that roses need to grow healthy blossoms and, in Robin McKinley’s retelling of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, it’s the sort Beauty is able to give. When her merchant father’s ships are lost at sea, the family moves to a tiny cottage far away from anything they know. Rose Cottage, it’s called, but the roses are bedraggled and weak until Beauty starts to nurture them. Then she is called on for an entirely different sort of nurturing. While it follows the usual Beauty-and-the-Beast plot line, Rose Daughter arrives at a very different thematic place, taking a thorny, magical, and slightly-edgy route to the resolution.

The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen  |  BG Van Draanen  |  [Reserve Now]

“I am a runner. That’s what I do. That’s who I am. Running is all I know, or want, or care about.” The runner in question, 16-year-old Jessica Carlisle, is her high school track team’s star 400-meter racer. But when she loses her leg in an accident, her identity seems to be amputated as well. What is life worth to a person who lives to run but only has one leg? She discovers that finding the worth in life is a little bit like running: the spark has to come from her, but there’s support if she can reach out and accept it.

The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry  |  BG Berry  |  [Reserve Now]

The seven students at St. Etheldreda’s School for Young Ladies—Dear Roberta, Disgraceful Mary Jane, Dull Martha, Stout Alice, Smooth Kitty, Pocked Louise, and Dour Elinor—have formed a pleasant little sisterhood away from their horrible families. But when the school’s headmistress and her brother die during their Sunday meal (poisoned, Pocked Louise denounces, by the veal), their situation is threated. So they do what any clever girls would do: hide the bodies and carry on. This Victorian farce, a junior novel full of dark comedy, mystery, and cleverness, is a fun and fast-paced read. 

A Separate Peace by John Knowles  |  BG Knowles  |  [Reserve Now]

During the summer session at Devon, a private school in New England, two teenage boys begin a friendship that will illuminate and influence the rest of their lives. World War II is looming; roommates Finny and Gene, however, experience it only as a background shadow to their summer term. They develop a ritual of jumping off a tree into the river below, but when Finny is hurt, the repercussions spread deeply into the rest of the school year. As they navigate their friendship, the boys begin to learn adult truths about rivalry, envy, individuality, and the depths (and limitations) of human kindness.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson  |  BG Anderson  |  [Reserve Now]

“It’s easier not to say anything. Shut your trap, button your lip, can it. All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie. Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say.” What Melinda’s friends think happened at that summer party: She freaked out because people were drinking so she ratted and called the cops, and everyone got in trouble. What really happened: Well, Melinda can’t say. Not because she doesn’t remember what Andy did to her under the tree in the field behind the party, but because if she speaks it out loud, it will have to be true. So she starts ninth grade as the girl who ratted, the silent girl who never talks to anyone. But as the year passes, she discovers art, she discovers gardening, she discovers she has a voice and that only by speaking her truth can she help others—and herself.

Summer of My German Soldier by Betty Greene  |  BG Greene  |  [Reserve Now]

Near the end of World War II, a small town in Arkansas opens a prison camp for German prisoners of war. Twelve-year-old Patty Bergen meets one of the soldiers, Anton, when he comes into the store her father owns. Days later, she helps to hide him when he escapes from the prison. As their friendship forms, Anton helps Patty learn that despite her father’s abuse and her mother’s disdain, she is a person of value and intelligence. Winner of the 1973 New York Times Book of the Year award, as well as many others, The Summer of My German Soldier explores the themes of cruelty, abuse, prejudice, racism, and power, as well as the redemptive force of friendship.

Summerlost by Ally Condie  |  BG Condie  |  [Reserve Now]

Ally Condie wrote the popular young adult trilogy Matched; here she writes a middle-grade novel about friendship, adventure, and dealing with loss. A year ago, Cedar’s father and brother Ben were killed by a drunk driver, and to help everyone cope her mom has moved what’s left of her family to the small town of Iron Creek, Utah. Cedar finds a friend, the quirky Leo, who helps her get a job at the town’s Shakespeare Festival, Summerlost. When they’re not working, the two friends discuss the mysterious life of an actress who haunts the sets of the festival’s stage. Her experiences with Leo, the theater people, and the mystery help her to begin to learn how to live with her grief. This sad, sweet tale is one you’ll cherish.

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart  |  BG Lockhart  |  [Reserve Now]

Cadence Sinclair Eastman—third generation of a bigoted, old-money, establishment family in Massachusetts—her cousins Johnny and Miren, and their aunt’s boyfriend’s son Gant are “the Liars,” running wild all summer on the family’s private island off Martha’s Vineyard. The summer the Liars were fifteen, Cady and Gat fell in love, but something devastating also happened, leaving her with constant headaches and a fuzzy memory. Two years later, she tries to piece together details of the experience. Although it looks at complicated and painful family dynamics through the lens of privilege and wealth, the story strives to point out how insular yet unbelievably lucky the Sinclairs are. Cady’s efforts to dig up the truth about Summer 15 build to a shocking reveal, but the real power in the book is Cady’s voice, tremulous and fractured yet beginning to build in power as she discovers how all the wealth in the world can’t protect against unintended consequences.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle  |  BG L’Engle  |  [Reserve Now]

Meg Murry, her brother Charles Wallace, and her new friend Calvin O’Keefe travel through space, with the help of Mrs. Who, Mrs, Whatsit, and Mrs. Which, to find her father, who has vanished. They find him imprisoned by the powerful IT on the planet of Camazotz, where all people are identical. As much an exploration of good and evil, the consequence of individuality, and the power of loving people as it is an intergalactic adventure, A Wrinkle in Time won the 1963 Newbery Medal and changed the lives of countless readers.

Diverse Lives: books that examine the many different ways people live their lives, including the effects of race, gender, nationality, and sexual identity.

Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew Bergman |  BG Bergman  |  [Reserve Now]

The women in this collection of short stories are almost famous either because of their proximity to fame—Lord Byron’s abandoned daughter, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s outgoing sister Norma, Oscar Wilde’s vivacious niece—or because their grand ambitions were only barely noticed by most of the world—dancing in Paris, driving a motorcycle at daring speeds and angles, forming America’s first integrated all-girl swing band. They are risk takers, daredevils, quiet renegades, women trying to find their way on unusual paths. The author was inspired to write these stories out of “a fascination with real women whose remarkable lives were reduced to footnotes”; reading them is a process of discovering forgotten but important historical moments in women’s lives.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates |  BG 305.8009 C6326  |  [Reserve Now]

Written as a series of letters to his teenage son, Ta-Nahesi Coats’s collection of essays describes and explores what it means to live in a Black body in contemporary America. As it examines the history of the United States from its founding to its current issues, the author’s personal experiences, and his concerns and hopes for his son, the book makes clear the concept that race itself is a fabrication. This profound, movingly-written book is essential reading for those wishing to understand more about the lived experiences of African Americans.

The Chosen by Chaim Potok |  BG Potok  |  [Reserve Now]

Potok’s magnificent story of two friends and two fathers is an unforgettable American classic. Two Brooklyn boys meet through a softball game and become fast friends, despite very different background. Reuven comes from a Jewish family with modern, American leanings. Danny is heir-apparent to his father, a conservative Hassidic Rabbi. The novel is an exploration of fatherhood, faith, Judaism, and a friendship that defies the odds.

Far from the Tree by Robin Benway  |  BG Benway  |  [Reserve Now]

After placing her baby for adoption, high-school senior Grace wants desperately to connect with her own birthmother. Her search reveals her two siblings: Maya, who was also adopted as a baby, and Joaquin, who grew up in the foster care system. As they begin to know each other and understand the impact of their birthmother’s decisions, they might begin to create a new family between them, but only if they are able to move through their individual traumas. This young adult novel explores the many ways that family bonds are formed, looking at the adoption triad in ways that are equally moving and realistic

Guests of the Sheik by Elizabeth Warnock Ferrnea |  BG 306.956 F394  |  [Reserve Now]

In 1956, Elizabeth Fernea was a newlywed. Her husband’s field research in anthropology took the couple to a small, rural Iraqi village. In a friendly, intimate tone, Fernea tells the story of her two years there, which she begins as an American woman knowing next to nothing about Iraqi culture, language, or mores, resentful of the abaya she is required to wear; and ends as a close friend to the women of El Nahra. An intimate and detailed examination of the real lives women led in Iraq in the 1950s, Guests of the Sheik is an adventure story at heart, illustrating that no matter how different our cultures are, we all share the need to live vibrant lives.

The Help by Katheryn Stocket |  BG Stockett  |  [Reserve Now]

Written in three distinct voices, The Help tells the story of the reality of the racial divide in the 1960’s South. Aibileen, a black maid who is raising her seventeenth white child, finds it harder as she grows older to hold back her bitterness toward her white employers. Minny is Aibileen’s best friend, also a maid, but never afraid to speak her mind, which means she’s out of work yet again. There’s also Skeeter, a white socialite; recently graduated from Ole Miss, she’s expected to find a husband,  but has other ambitions: she wants to write a book about the experiences black maids have raising white children and taking care of white people’s homes. The maids in the community initially resist Skeeter’s idea, but when a tragedy befalls one of their friends, thirteen of them take the risk to tell of the hardship of their positions. With its trio of funny, touching, and lyrical voices, the novel seeks to illustrate the personal sacrifices that must be made for social changes to occur.

If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson |  BG Woodson  |  [Reserve Now]

Two very different teens meet and fall in love at a prep school in New York City. Jeremiah, who is black, comes from a wealthy family undergoing a painful divorce; Ellie, who is white, struggles to trust her mother, who has abandoned her family twice. As these teenagers’ relationship develops, issues of race and social standing impact them in ways they never imagined. Set in a vividly-real New York City, this lyrical novel, with chapters alternating between Jeremiah’s and Ellie’s perspectives, is both a romance and an examination of the pressures bigotry creates.

The Light of the World: A Memoir by Elizabeth Alexander |   BG 921 Alexander   [Reserve Now]

“The day he died, the four of us were exactly the same height, just over five foot nine. We’d measured the boys in the pantry doorway the week before. It seemed a perfect symmetry, a whole family the same size but in different shapes. Now the children grow past me and past their father.” In this memoir, the poet Elizabeth Alexander tells the story of the unexpected death of her husband, Ficre, and of her life without him. While it is a memoir of loss, it is most precisely a memoir of love: how her husband existed within her life, and how her memories of him, as well as his art, kept him present even once he was gone.

Medicine River by Thomas King |  BG King  |  [Reserve Now]

Will plans to return to the small town of Medicine River, just outside a reservation in Alberta, Canada, simply for his mother’s funeral. His friend Harlen Bigbear (who is, according to Will, “like the prairie wind. You never knew when he was coming or when he was going to leave”) has other plans. The town needs a photographer, and Will is just the man for the job. He’s got other plans for Will, too, involving a single mother. Harlen and Will are the connecting threads in the novel’s narrative, which moves back and forth through the history of their friendship. A simple, gentle read, Medicine River will make you laugh as you consider your ideas about Native Americans.

My Dream of Stars by Anousheh Ansari |  BG 921 Ansari  |  [Reserve Now]

Ansari was the first Muslim woman to travel into space. In her memoir, she tells the story of her early years in Tehran, her immigration to American, and the financial successes that allowed her to enter the Russian space program. She also writes about her time in space, which was spent not as a professional astronaut, but as an observer, so her experiences are more personal than scientific. A fast and touching read that might inspire you to follow your own dreams.

My Grandfather’s Blessings by Rachel Remen  |  BG 296.72 R282  |  [Reserve Now]

In My Grandfather’s Blessings, author Rachel Remen proves that it is possible to embrace spirituality even as a doctor continually facing the realities of life and death. Having grown up emotionally divided between the religious devoutness of her rabbi grandfather and the academic world of her parents, Remen shares with her readers the lessons she learned as she consolidated these two views and embraced healing.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman  |  BG 306.461 F126  |  [Reserve Now]

In the small community of Merced, California, reside thousands of Hmong refugees from the highlands of Laos; among them is the Lee family, whose youngest daughter Lia suffers from severe epilepsy. Anne Fadiman attempts to shed light on Hmong culture and understand the seemingly irreconcilable differences between western medicine and the Hmong in this poignant narrative.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston |  BG Hurston  |  [Reserve Now]

This beloved work has reemerged as one of the premier books of the Twentieth Century. Hurston, relying on her background recording folk history, tells the story of Janie Crawford, an articulate African-American woman in the 1930s. The spunky and unforgettable Janie, explains her quest for identity, three marriages (one of which resulted in her being accused of murder), and a journey to her roots. 

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe  |  BG Achebe  |  [Reserve Now]

Chinua Achebe’s masterpiece is considered the first masterpiece written in English by an African author. There are more than eight million copies of the novel in print worldwide. The work explores the cultural collision of Western influences and traditional Nigerian tribal practices. As the story unveils it exposes a shared humanity that transcends national boundaries.

The Watsons Go to Birmingham by Christopher Curtis  |  BG Curtis  |  [Reserve Now]

Kenny Watson’s parents are fed up with his older brother Byron, who is running with the wrong crowd and developing a talent for getting in trouble. They pack up Byron, Kenny and little sister Joetta and head to Birmingham, Alabama. Instead of finding the slower pace and quiet lifestyle they had hoped for, the Watsons witness one of the most chilling events of the Civil Rights struggle. Kenny’s narration is both funny and moving as he intertwines his own story of family love and endurance with the tragic 1963 bombing of the 16^th Street Baptist church.