Book Category: Featured

Dickens and Prince

Written by staff-admin on November 14, 2022.

Equipped with a fan’s admiration and his trademark humor and wit, Nick Hornby invites us into his latest obsession: the cosmic link between two unlikely artists, geniuses in their own rights, spanning race, class, and centuries—each of whom electrified their different disciplines and whose legacy resounded far beyond their own time.

Examining the two artists’ personal tragedies, social statuses, boundless productivity, and other parallels, both humorous and haunting, Hornby shows how these two unlikely men from different centuries “lit up the world.” In the process, he creates a lively, stimulating rumination on the creativity, flamboyance, discipline, and soul it takes to produce great art.

Signal Fires

Written by staff-admin on November 7, 2022.

Shapiro’s achingly beautiful novel centers on the Wilf and Shenkman families, neighbors on Division Street whose lives intersect in unexpected ways. At the story’s heart is Waldo Shenkman, the brilliant if misunderstood boy whose fascination with the night sky gives him an appreciation for the connectedness of all things. Heartbreaking yet filled with grace, this is a story of people making choices, keeping secrets, suffering through misunderstandings, yet ultimately finding a sense of connection in compassion. Gorgeously written, told with empathy and compassion, Signal Fires is not to be missed. – Diana

Demon Copperhead

Written by staff-admin on October 17, 2022.

A retelling of the classic Dickens novel David Copperfield, Demon Copperhead is set in the mountains of southern Appalachia. It’s the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

The Froggies Do NOT Want To Sleep

Written by staff-admin on September 22, 2022.

Why go to sleep when you could joust, or sing opera, or go for a
nice drive through the countryside? The adorable excuses the
froggies come up with to avoid bedtime are guaranteed to
entertain any little froggies you may know.

Ordinary Monsters

Written by bbb-admin on August 30, 2022.

Charlie and Marlowe are pursued by a man made of shadow in this intricate offering from J.M. Miro.

It is easy to fall in love with Miro’s characters as they traverse a slightly sinister estate house in a moody Scottish landscape…where children from all over the world with mysterious powers have gathered. The line between good and evil is blurred as Victorian Britain heads towards a collision with the dark underworld. Bonus: This book contains the best railway fight scene I’ve ever read. – Liv

Bomb Shelter

Written by bbb-admin on August 30, 2022.

Mary Laura Philpott, author of I Miss You When I Blink, returns with a beautiful memoir that meanders and weaves through the wilds of being a person. Philpott examines our true relationship to media— how it comforts us in bizarre little ways. She travers the scope of our attachment to the weird little living things around us. She finds fantastic throughlines to tie stories together and picks just the perfect, most hilarious and most painful anecdotes to explain her relationship to the world around her. The result is a true marvel of humor and hope. – Liv

The Last White Man

Written by bbb-admin on August 30, 2022.

Mohsin Hamid’s gift for exploring deep and complex issues in original ways is on full display with The Last White Man. Anders wakes up one morning to find that his skin has turned dark. At first, as he navigates this new self, he only tells his girlfriend, Oona. As reports of similar transformations around the land become more and more frequent, Anders reveals himself to family and friends, forcing everyone to grapple with old prejudices as they reexamine their relationships with one another. The brilliance of this book is the way in which Hamid explores a full range of human emotions as he brings his characters together, envisioning a hopeful future of empathy and understanding.