Librarians read…a lot!
And since we read so much, we’re uniquely qualified to recommend books that we think others might enjoy. Here are some of the books that we’re reading right now that we think would be worth your time to consider.
Mona of the Manor
Author:
Armistead Maupin
Set in the early 1990s, the long-awaited tenth novel in Armistead Maupin’s beloved and enduring Tales of the City series follows the adventures of Mona Ramsey, now the widowed Lady of a glorious old manor in Britain’s golden Cotswolds, and her fabulous adopted son Wilfred, as they come to the aid of an American visitor with a troubling secret.
When Mona Ramsey married Lord Teddy Roughton to secure his visa–allowing him to remain in San Francisco to fulfill his wildest dreams–she never imagined she would, by age 48, be the sole owner of Easley House, Teddy’s grand, romantic country manor in the UK. She also didn’t imagine that she’d need to open the manor’s doors to paying guests to afford the electric bill and repair the leaking roof. Yet somehow she and her young friend Wilfred–whom guests assume is serving as Easley’s charming-but-clumsy butler–and the loopy old gardener Mr. Hargis, are making it work. This delicate equilibrium is upended when Americans Rhonda and Ernie Blaylock arrive for a weekend vacation at Easley, and Wilfred stumbles onto their terrible secret.
Braiding Sweetgrass
Author:
Robin Wall Kimmer
An inspired weaving of indigenous knowledge, plant science, and personal narrative from a distinguished professor of science and a Native American whose previous book, Gathering Moss, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing.
As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowing together to reveal what it means to see humans as “the younger brothers of creation.” As she explores these themes she circles toward a central argument: the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgement and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the world. Once we begin to listen for the languages of other beings, we can begin to understand the innumerable life-giving gifts the world provides us and learn to offer our thanks, our care, and our own gifts in return.
Group Living and Other Recipes
Author:
Lola Milholland
Lola Milholland grew up in the nineties, the child of iconoclastic hippies. Both her parents threw open their rambling house in Portland, Oregon, to long-term visitors and unusual guests in need of a place to stay. Years later, after college and after her parents’ separation, Milholland returned home. There, she joined her brother and his housemates–an eccentric group of stop-motion animators and accomplished cooks–in furthering the experiment of communal living into a new generation. Group Living and Other Recipes tells the story of the residents of the Holman House–of transcendent meals and ecstatic parties, of colorful characters coming together in moments of deep tenderness and inevitable irritation, of a shared life that is appealing, humorous, confounding, and, just maybe, utopian–with a wider exploration of group living as a way of life. From spending time at her aunt and uncle’s intentional community in Washington State to finding her footing in the kitchen as a student in Japan to mushroom hunting in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, Milholland offers an expansive and vibrant reevaluation of the structures at the very center of our lives. Thoughtful, quirky, candid, and wise, Group Living and Other Recipes introduces a gifted memoirist and thinker, making a convincing case that “now is always the right time to reimagine home and family
Lightningborn
Author:
Julie Kagawa
In a world in the clouds where only the rich own dragons, a poor boy named Remy finds a wild baby dragon-believed to be extinct-and becomes the focus of an evil pirate’s vengeance.
REMY spends his days trying to survive the mean streets of Cutthroat Wedge-one of the many islands floating in the gravitational pull of the magical Maelstrom raging below. But his life changes forever when a violent storm brings a baby dragon to his doorstep, and he feels a bond he has never felt with anyone. Remy names the dragon Storm and vows to protect this new friend, no matter the cost.
GEM longs for the day when she call herself a true mage. That is, if she can convince her teachers and peers that just because she’s a princess doesn’t mean she’s lazy and spoiled. But when Gem learns that the floating islands that make up her kingdom are rapidly sinking into the Maelstrom, she makes it her mission to save her world. Against the king’s wishes, she accesses forbidden research and discovers the secret to saving humanity may lie in a True Dragon-a dragon capable of intelligent thought and able to cast and use magic. But True Dragons are extinct…aren’t they?
Together We Rot
Author:
Skyla Arndt
Wil Greene’s mom has been missing for over a year, and the police are ready to call the case closed–they claim she skipped town and you can’t find a woman who wants to disappear. But she knows her mom wouldn’t just leave…and she knows the family of her former best friend, Elwood Clarke, has something to do with it.
Elwood has been counting down the days until his 18th birthday–in dread. It marks leaving school and joining his pastor father in dedicating his life to their congregation, the Garden of Adam. But when he comes home one night after a final goodbye with his friends, already self-flagellating for the sins of drinking and disobeying his father, he discovers his path is not as virtuous as he thought. He’s not his father’s successor, but his sacrifice. For the woods he’s grown up with are thirsty, and must be paid in blood.
Now on the run from a family that wants him dead, he turns to the only one who will believe him: Wil. Together, they form a reluctant partnership; she’ll help him hide if he helps her find evidence that his family killed her mother. But in the end they dig up more secrets than they bargained for, unraveling decades of dark cult dealings in their town, led by the Clarke family.
And there’s a reason they need Elwood’s blood for their satanic rituals. Something inhuman is growing inside of him. Everywhere he goes, the plants come alive and the forest calls to him, and Wil isn’t sure if she can save the boy she can’t help but love.
