Books and More

'"You like her too much," Zamena says. Nobles are not like us. Never forget it." "She is different." "Why? Because she was born common? She isn't common now."' Costanza Casati, Babylonia, pg. 173 I'm always one to make sweeping predictions for what the new year will bring, literary-wise. Last year, I predicted that 2024 would…

  It might sound odd to close out 2024 with a deeply unsettling novel about a woman trying to solve the mystery of where she goes when she’s asleep, but I read this short novel in one sitting.  While Knutsdottir’s The Night Guest appears slight at first glance (some chapters are just a few words…

2025 is fast approaching, but we're not quite ready to turn the page on 2024! This year was filled with titles that made us laugh, cry, and gasp. We read stories that moved, challenged, and transported us. We're a community that loves to read -- and to share what we're reading -- which is why…

“No matter how great a work of art is, it comes to an end. In fact, in order to be great, it must end.”  Juhea Kim, City of Night Birds, pg. 305 When I was five years old, I wanted to be a ballet dancer more than anything in the world. All my child-sized brain…

  I'm not much of a winter fan, much to the chagrin of my snow-loving partner. Too much sleet! Too much hidden ice! Even the pigeons under the bridge around where I live are shivering! The only way I can convince myself to go outside between November and February is helping out at my local…

Now in its ninth year, the beloved One Book, One Community (OBOC) series is an opportunity for readers from Cook Memorial, Indian Trails, and Vernon Area public libraries to join in a shared experience of literature. This year’s selection is The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff. A young woman in rural India finds the false…

Poor Richard Osman. He wrote a beloved, critically acclaimed mystery series that breathed new life into the cozy mystery subgenre, spawned countless imitations, and is currently in production as a Netflix series. Then he pressed pause.  At the end of The Last Devil To Die, Osman announced that the members of the Thursday Murder Club would…

    Would you let your children pick your next date? In Is She Really Going Out with Him? (I must confess to humming the old Joe Jackson song every time I say the title) by Sophie Cousens that is exactly what our narrator agrees to.  Anna Appleby is a busy, newly divorced mother of…

  Office politics are the subject of Natalie Sue’s debut dramedy novel, I Hope This Finds You Well.  Jolene works at the corporate offices of a big box store, Supershops.  Her desperate loneliness is as redolent as the smell of burnt popcorn in the staff room microwave.  It is in fact, a smell that kicks…

“They stared down at the ground in stony imitation of the graveyard angels, without the blank unblinking eyes or patchy beards of lichen. When they heard Edie’s footsteps round the Drewalt obelisk, they looked up and she looked down and realized that what they were actually staring at was a hole in the ground.”  M.L.…