- November 6, 2020
In 1913, Laura Lyons lived in the New York Public Library’s superintendent’s apartment with her husband and two children. While her husband managed all of the caretaking duties of the busy and awe-inspiring library, Laura raised her children and wrote an amusing column for the library’s newsletter about her family’s experience living in the famous ...
Read more… - October 30, 2020
Nat Turner by Kyle Baker was an incredibly emotional and eye-opening experience. It is the true story of Nat Turner and his slave rebellion, which took place in Southhampton County, Virginia in 1831. Told in graphic novel format, Baker uses vivid, wordless images alongside excerpts of Turner’s confession to convey the brutalities of slavery and ...
Read more… - October 23, 2020
That Can Be Arranged is a lighthearted, funny, and colorful graphic memoir that details author Huda Fahmy’s love story, which happened to be an arranged marriage. Huda guides us through what it was like growing up as a Muslim woman and trying to balance both familial and personal expectations for relationships. The way she navigates ...
Read more… - October 16, 2020
Well, THIS was disturbing. Maybe not a book to read in 2020? I picked this up because the horror movie forums I follow were raving about Netflix’s new film version of it and I wanted to read it first. Now I can’t tell if I’m excited to see it or dreading it. Not really; I’m ...
Read more… - September 24, 2020
Mooncakes, written by Suzanne Walker and beautifully illustrated by Wendy Xu, is a young adult graphic novel about witch-in-training Nova Huang, who is apprenticing at home with her grandmothers. Together they run a magical bookstore with just about every magical book you could want to read, and more tea than you could probably drink in a ...
Read more… - September 18, 2020
I would recommend Max Brooks’ Devolution to anyone, but especially to fans of Brooks’ World War Z, Bobcat Goldthwait’s Willow Creek and the History Channel’s 2007 series, MonsterQuest. Told mostly through the firsthand journal account of Kate Holland, it’s interspersed with interviews with several people who either knew her or were involved in trying to piece ...
Read more… - September 10, 2020
For the start a new school year, Eat at Home Tonight is a wonderful cookbook, full of dinner options for busy families. I have bookmarked many of the recipes to try, and the ones I’ve tried so far have been delicious! I’ll be making her One-Pot Sausage, Corn, and Red Pepper Chowder this week for an easy weeknight ...
Read more… - September 3, 2020
On the Horizon: World War II Reflections is a stirring new memoir written by Maine’s own Lois Lowry. The book looks back at the history of lives forever changed after the bombings of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima. The slim novel/memoir is written in verse, with each poem a recollection of heroes both big and small. ...
Read more… - August 28, 2020
This book is a wonderfully executed piece of historical fiction.
Maggie O’Farrell creates a family history of William Shakespeare, his wife, and children. Working with very little available factual information, O’Farrell pieces together her imagined version of the world in which Shakespeare lived and worked. In the process, the reader is invited to speculate along with the ...
Read more… - August 21, 2020
Her Last Flight, by Beatriz Williams28 Summers, by Elin Hilderbrandt
For anyone looking for a good beach read during these dog days of summer, two authors of the genre have new releases that might interest you. I recently read Her Last Flight by Beatriz Williams and 28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand. I loved the former, I ...
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