New Fiction Books – August 2015

Absolutely True Lies
Rachel Stuhler
F STU
Struggling writer Holly Gracin is on the verge of moving back home when she gets hired to write the memoir of eighteen-year-old Daisy Mae Dixson, a former child star who has moved into both blockbuster movies and pop music.

Architect's ApprenticeThe Architect’s Apprentice
Elif Shafak
F SHA
One of Turkey’s preeminent writers spins an epic tale set at the height of the Ottoman Empire and that is teeming with secrets, intrigue, and romance.

Aurora
Kim Stanley Robinson
F ROB
From a preeminent science fiction author, the compelling story of our first voyage beyond the solar system, to find a new home.

A Better Man
Leah McLaren
F MCL
What if the only way you could get out of your marriage was to become the perfect husband?

The Bones of You
Debbie Howells
F HOW
A psychological thriller that revolves around a young woman’s murder and another woman’s obsession with uncovering the secrets in an idyllic English village.

Charlie Martz and Other Stories: The Unpublished Stories
Elmore Leonard
F LEO
A collection of never-before-seen stories from the inimitable master of crime fiction.

China Rich Girlfriend
Kevin Kwan
F KWA
The author of Crazy Rich Asians, is back with another entertaining novel of social climbing, secret emails, and fashion world scandal.  A comedy of manners that takes readers on a tour through Asia’s most exclusive club of the extremely rich.

Circling the SunCircling the Sun
Paula McLain
F MCL
The  author of The Paris Wife now looks at a fearless and captivating woman—Beryl Markham, a record setting aviator in colonial Kenya and who, as Isak Dinesen, wrote the memoir, Out of Africa.

Death and Mr. Pickwick
Stephen Jarvis
F JAR
A Dickensian novel about the rough-and-tumble world that produced an author that defined an age.  For fans of Charles Dickens!

The Flicker Men
Ted Kosmatka
F KOS
“If Stephen Hawking and Stephen King wrote a novel together, you’d get The Flicker Men.” — Hugh Howey

French Concession
Xiao Bai
F XIA
An atmospheric tale of espionage and international intrigue set in Shanghai in 1931 — a decadent world of violence, and betrayal filled with femmes fatales, criminals, revolutionaries and spies.

House Rivals
Mike Lawson
F LAW
Joe DeMarco is a fixer for an influential congressman, but this time out he is traveling to North Dakota to protect a passionate but naïve twenty-two-year-old blogger who has been crusading against a billionaire oil tycoon.

Love Lies Beneath
Ellen Hopkins
F HOP
Once a widow, twice divorced, Tara is a woman with a past she prefers to keep to herself.  She is gorgeous, affluent and content living alone in her mansion in San Francisco, until she meets Calvin Lattimore.  But then…

The New Neighbor
Leah Stewart
F STE
How much can you really know about the woman next door?  Nice reviews!

The Other Daughter
Lauren Willig
F WIL
Finding out the circumstances of her birth, after her mother’s death, upends Rachel Woodley’s life and reveals that everything she thought she knew about herself is a lie.

A Paris Affair
Tatiana de Rosnay
F ROS
The author of Sarah’s Key presents a collection of short stories that explores forbidden loves in the City of Light.

A Place for Us
Harriet Evans
F EVA
As Martha Winter writes out the invitations to her eightieth birthday celebration, she knows that what she is planning to reveal at the party may ruin the idyllic life she and her husband have spent more than fifty years building.

Pretty Is
Maggie Mitchell
F MIT
A fiction debut in which two young women face what happened the summer they were twelve, when a handsome stranger abducted them.

Royal Wedding
Meg Cabot
F CAB
The author of the Princess Diaries series presents the very first adult installment which follows Princess Mia and her prince charming as they plan their fairy-tale wedding.  Will this fairy-tale have a happy ending?

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street
Natasha Pulley
F PUL
Thaniel Steepleton returns home to his tiny London apartment to find a gold pocket watch on his pillow. Six months later, the mysterious timepiece saves his life, drawing him away from a blast that destroys Scotland Yard. Atmospheric!

White Crocodile
K.T. Medina
F MED
Tess Hardy thought she had put Luke firmly in her past.  Then he calls from Cambodia, where he’s working as a mine clearer, and there is fear in his voice. Two weeks later, he’s dead.  Against her better judgment, Tess is drawn to Cambodia and the killing fields.

The Woman Who Stole My Life
Marian Keyes
F KEY
Beautician Stella Sweeney is living an ordinary life when she falls very ill, falls in love, then falls into a glamorous new life in New York City. When her dream life is threatened, will she rally to reclaim love and happiness?

New DVDs – July 2015

New Feature-Length Films, Foreign Films, and Classics

5 flights up
American sniperas
Blaze
Cut Bank
The last metro
Druid peak
Ex machina
Focus
Get hard
Goonies
Jupiter ascending
Jurassic Park ultimate trilogy
Kill me three times
King of hearts
Last knights
Longest ride
Maggie
Mr. Turner
Paul Blart, mall cop 2
Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Seeds of yesterday
Shoot the piano player
Stand up guys
The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie
While we’re young
Woman in gold
Yesterday, today and tomorrow

New Television Series

Bitten
House of cards. The complete third season
Incredible journey of Mary Bryant
Mystery science theater 3000 XXXIII.
The office. Season four
Witches of East End. Season 2.

New Non-Fiction DVDs

History of Christian theology
Masters of photography: learn photography from 12 National Geographi masters.
Maya to Aztec: ancient Mesoamerica revealed.
Moms Mabley

New Fiction Books – July 2015

All the Single Ladies
Dorothea Benton Frank
F FRA
The popular author returns with another tale from the Lowcountry of South Carolina, where three unsuspecting women are brought together by tragedy and mystery.

delicious foodsDelicious Foods
James Hannaham
F HAN
Darlene, once an exemplary wife and a loving mother to her young son, Eddie, finds herself devastated by the unforeseen death of her husband. Unable to cope with her grief, she turns to drugs, and quickly forms an addiction. One day she disappears without a trace.  

The Fixer
Joseph Finder
F FIN
When former reporter Rick Hoffman loses his job, fiancée, and apartment, his only option is to move back into the decaying home of his miserable youth.  But during the renovation of the house he discovers something amazing hidden in the walls.

The Forgotten Room
Lincoln Child
F CHI
Professor Jeremy Logan, the “enigmalogist” who specializes in solving problems of the seemingly supernatural variety, receives an urgent summons from the director of Lux, one of the most respected think tanks in America.

The House of Hawthorne
Erika Robuck
F ROB
An intriguing glimpse into the life of Nathaniel Hawthorne and his talented and artistic wife, Sophia.

Invasion of Privacy
Christopher Reich
F REI
In a dangerous new age of high-tech surveillance, a young mother takes on a powerful internet magnate in a harrowing quest to learn the truth behind her FBI-agent husband’s death.

The Invasion of the Tearling
Erika Johansen
F JOH
In this sequel to the acclaimed The Queen of the Tearling, the evil kingdom of Mortmesne invades the Tearling, with dire consequence for Queen Kelsea and her realm.

Language Arts
Stephanie Kallos
F KAL
Charles Marlow teaches his English students that language will expand their worlds. But linguistic precision cannot help him connect with his autistic son, or with his ex-wife, or even with his college-bound daughter who has just flown the nest. He’s at the end of a road he’s traveled on autopilot for years.

The Little Paris Bookshop
Nina George
F GEO
Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary.  From his floating bookstore on a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life.

Love May Fail
Matthew Quick
F QUI
After Portia Kane escapes her ritzy Florida life and her cheating husband, she finds herself back in South Jersey, a place that remains largely unchanged from the years of her unhappy youth. Lost and alone, looking to find the goodness in the world she believes still exists, Portia sets off to save herself by saving someone else—a beloved high school English teacher who has retired after a traumatic incident.

The Meursault Investigation
Kamel Daoud
F DAO
A retelling of Albert Camus’s classic The Stranger, from an Algerian perspective.  The recipient of several international prizes.

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry
Fredrik Backman
F FRE
From the author of A Man Called Ove, a warmhearted novel about a young girl whose grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters, sending her on a journey that brings to life the world of her grandmother’s fairy tales.

Pinnacle Event
Richard A. Clarke
F CLA
With the 2016 presidential election just weeks away, five simultaneous murders on three continents lead to an investigation revealing the recent black market sale of five nuclear weapons.  But who bought them? What is their intended target?

The Precipice
Paul Doiron
F DOI
When two female hikers disappear in the Hundred Mile Wilderness—the most remote stretch along the entire Appalachian Trail — Maine game warden Mike Bowditch joins the desperate search to find them.

Remember Me This Way
Sabine Durrant
F DUR
One year after her husband Zach’s death, Lizzie Carter is laying flowers on the site of his fatal accident.  But as she puts her flowers down at the roadside, she sees a bouquet of lilies. She isn’t the first to pay her respects… but who is Zenia?  A title that has been compared to Gone Girl.

The Sunken Cathedral
Kate Walbert
F WAL
A moving novel that follows a cast of characters as they negotiate one of Manhattan’s swiftly changing neighborhoods, extreme weather, and the perils of twenty-first century life.

Tin Men
Christopher Golden
F GOL
After political upheaval, economic collapse, and environmental disaster, the world has become a hotspot.  In this perpetual state of emergency, all that separates order from anarchy is the military might of a United States determined to keep peace among nations waging a free-for-all battle for survival and supremacy.

The Truth According to Us
Annie Barrows
F BAR
The author of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society  evokes the charm and eccentricity of small town , Macedonia, West Virginia through the life an inquisitive young girl, her beloved aunt, and the alluring visitor who changes the course of their destiny forever.

The Ultimatum
Dick Wolf
F WOL
When hacker Merritt Verlyn releases sensitive documents from the NYPD Intelligence Division to WikiLeaks, some of New York City’s deadliest criminals suddenly gain access to Detective Jeremy Fisk’s unlisted home address.

The Water Knife
Paolo Bacigalupi
F BAC
The American Southwest has been decimated by drought. Nevada and Arizona skirmish over dwindling shares of the Colorado River, while California watches, deciding if it should just take the whole river all for itself. Into the fray steps Las Vegas water knife Angel Velasquez.  Great reviews!

New Biographies – July 2015

Anchor & Flares: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hope and Service
Kate Braestrup
B BRAESTRUP
The author of Here If You Need Me presents a new chapter of her life and thoughts as a parent and through her work as a chaplain to the Maine Warden Service.  “Bare, unflinching, and very funny.”

 And the Good News Is… Lessons and Advice from the Bright Side
Dana Perino
B PERINO
The former White House press secretary reveals the lessons she’s learned that have guided her through life, led to success, even in the face of adversity.

Between the World and Me
Ta-Nehisi Coates
B COATES
“This is your country, this is your world, this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.” Excellent reviews accompany this personal narrative, reimagined history and emotionally charged reporting.

The Book of Joan: Tales of Mirth, Mischief, and Manipulation
Melissa Rivers
B RIVERS
The one person who new Joan Rivers better than anyone else tells the story of her life with the inimitable personality.

Criminal That I Am
Jennifer Ridha
B RIDHA
A memoir from a young lawyer who becomes romantically entangled with the convicted drug felon she represents—Cameron Douglas, son of film actor Michael Douglas  —and who makes the mistake of her life … or not.

The Double Life of Fidel Castro: My 17 Years as Personal Bodyguard to El Líder Máximo
Juan Reinaldo Sánchez
B CASTRO
Fidel Castro lived a simple soldier’s life in the public eye and a luxurious dictator’s life in private.  The author exposes seventeen years of Castro’s secrets.

Einstein: His Space and Times
Steven Gimbel
B GIMBEL
A look at the brilliant scientist who was politically engaged with his times and with a strong moral compass.  Here is an engaging look at another side of the famous physicist.

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
Ashlee Vance
B VANCE
A look into the remarkable life and times of Silicon Valley’s most audacious businessman.  He is the innovator behind PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and Solar City.

Getting Real
Gretchen Carlson
B CARLSON
Now a television personality, the author is also a former Miss American and a childhood violin prodigy.

Goldeneye: Where Bond Was Born: Ian Fleming’s Jamaica
Matthew Parker
B PARKER
For two months every year, from 1946 to his death eighteen years later, Ian Fleming lived at Goldeneye, the house he built on a point of high land overlooking a Jamaican white sand beach.

Joan of Arc: A History
Helen Castor
B JOAN OF ARC
A fresh view of the amazing life of the woman who, 500 years after her death, would be declared a saint.

Jonas Salk: A Life
Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs
B SALK
For decades, poliomyelitis stalked America’s children.  When the announcement of a vaccine was made on April 12, 1955, the nation learned of the man and his team that made this amazing breakthrough.

A Lucky Life Interrupted: A Memoir of Hope
Tom Brokaw
B BROKAW
The famous newscaster, reflects on a year of dramatic change, a year spent battling cancer and reflecting on a long, happy, and lucky life.

On the Move: A Life
Oliver Sacks
B SACKS
The noted author and physician, recounts his own extraordinary life.  From the author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Awakenings, among other titles.

One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon
Tim Weiner
B NIXON
A history of the presidency of Richard Nixon that includes all of the secret tapes and documents, many that have been declassified in the last two years.

Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva
Rosemary Sullivan
B ALLILUYEVA
Born in 1926, Svetlana Alliluyeva spent her youth inside the Kremlin as her father rose to power.  Eighty-five years later, she died alone and penniless in rural Wisconsin as Lana Peters.

The Theft of Memory: Losing My Father One Day at a Time
Jonathan Kozol
B KOZOL
The noted author and children’s advocate now tells the personal story of his father’s life and work as a specialist in disorders of the brain. At the onset of his own Alzheimer’s disease, he was able to explain the causes of his sickness and then to describe what he was going through.

Under the Same Sky: From Starvation in North Korea to Salvation in America
Joseph Kim with Stephan Talty
B KIM
A heartrending story of starvation and survival in North Korea, followed by a dramatic escape, rescue by international activists, and success in the United States.

Unforgettable: A Son, a Mother, and the Lessons of a Lifetime
Scott Simon
B SIMON
Spending their last days together in a hospital ICU, the author and his mother reflect on their lifetime’s worth of memories, with stories of humor and resilience.  From the noted NPR reporter.

A Very Dangerous Woman: The Lives, Loves and Lies of Russia’s Most Seductive Spy
Deborah McDonald and Jeremy Dronfield
B BUDBERG
Spy, adventurer, charismatic seductress and mistress of two of the century’s greatest writers, the Russian aristocrat Baroness Moura Budberg was born in 1892 to a wealthy family. Intrigue!

The Wright Brothers
David McCullough
B McCULLOUGH
On a winter day in 1903, on the remote Outer Banks of North Carolina, two unknown brothers from Ohio, Wilbur and Orville Wright, changed history.  Here’s their story from the noted and popular author.

New DVDs – June 2015

New Feature-Length Films, Foreign Films, and Classics

Adventures of Priscilla, queen of the desert
American graffiti
Carlito’s way
Chappie
Clerks
Duff
Earth girls are easy
Focus
Forger
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
I love you to death
If there be thorns
Jupiter ascending
Kingsman, the secret service
Lazarus effect
McFarland, USA
Memento
Moulin Rouge
Of human bondage
Old fashioned
Project almanac
Relatos salvajes
Reservoir dogs
Run all night
Serena
SpongeBob movie, sponge out of water
Survivor
The French connection
Timbuktu
Unfinished business
Velvet goldmine
Wait until dark
Welcome to Me

New Television Series

Falling skies. Season 4
Graceland. The complete season 2
Justified. The complete final season (season 6)
The newsroom. The complete third season
Parks and recreation. Season seven
Pretty little liars. The complete fifth season
Ripper Street. Season three
Rizzoli & Isles. The complete fifth season
Teen wolf. Season 4
Transporter: the complete second season.
Two and a half men. The complete eleventh season
Two and a half men: the complete twelfth and final season
Workaholics. Season five.

New Non-Fiction DVDs

A midsummer night’s dream
Concerto inaugrale
Die Fledermaus
How Jesus became God
King Arthur: history and legend
Raising emotionally and socially healthy kids
Red army
The science of mindfulness: a research-based path to well-being
The skeptic’s guide to American history
The Wrecking Crew!
Through the wormhole. Season 5
Tosca
What remains

5-Star Books from Summer Reading 2014

This Summer the Adults in the Sewickley area read a staggering 447 Books! GREAT JOB EVERYONE! Here are the books that you rated with 5 STARS! Keep scrolling to see them all and then click through to the catalog to check them out.

The 100-year-old man who climbed out the window and disappeared
– 
Jonasson, Jonas

101 quantum questions : what you need to know about the world you can’t see – Ford, Kenneth William

12th of never – Patterson, James

Abraham Lincoln; the prairie years and the war years. – Sandburg, Carl

All joy and no fun : the paradox of modern parenthood – Senior, Jennifer,

And the mountains echoed – Hosseini, Khaled

Anne of Green Gables : Anne of Avonlea – Montgomery, L. M.

At home in Mitford – Karon, Jan

At large and at small : familiar essays – Fadiman, Anne

Beautiful day : a novel – Hilderbrand, Elin

The Beekeeper’s Ball – Wiggs, Susan

Berlin at war – Moorhouse, Roger

The big burn : Teddy Roosevelt and the fire that saved America – Egan, Timothy

City of heavenly fire – Clare, Cassandra

Clockwork princess – Clare, Cassandra

Cloud atlas : a novel – Mitchell, David

The cooked seed : a memoir – Min, Anchee

Cross my heart – Patterson, James

Dark lover : a novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood – Ward, J. R.

Deathride : Hitler vs. Stalin : the Eastern Front, 1941-1945 – Mosier, John

Delancey : a man, a woman, a restaurant, a marriage – Wizenberg, Molly

The dinner : a novel – Koch, Herman

Drink : the intimate relationship between women and alcohol – Johnston, Ann Dowsett

The drowned cities – Bacigalupi, Paolo

Duma Key – King, Stephen

Dune – Herbert, Frank

The 8th confession – Patterson, James

Family pictures – Green, Jane

The fault in our stars – Green, John

Field of prey – Sandford, John

Flash boys : a Wall Street revolt – Lewis, Michael

Gone girl : a novel – Flynn, Gillian 

Grace-based parenting : set your family free – Kimmel, Tim

The great divorce – Lewis, C. S.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – Rowling, J. K.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Rowling, J. K.

Harry Potter and the goblet of fire – Rowling, J. K.

Harry Potter and the half-blood prince – Rowling, J. K.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – Rowling, J. K.

Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban – Rowling, J. K.

Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s stone – Rowling, J. K.

Heart : an American medical odyssey – Cheney, Richard B.

Heaven is for real : a little boy’s astounding story of his trip to heaven and back – Burpo, Todd.

Herbie’s game – Hallinan, Timothy

Home – Morrison, Toni

The husband’s secret – Moriarty, Liane

I, robot – Asimov, Isaac

In the garden of beasts : love, terror, and an American family in Hitler’s Berlin – Larson, Erik

Incident at Vichy – Miller, Arthur

Insurgent – Roth, Veronica

The invention of wings – Kidd, Sue Monk

Invisible – Patterson, James

The judge – Singer, Randy

Kisses from Katie : a story of relentless love and redemption – Davis, Katie

The kitchen house – Grissom, Kathleen

Letters to a young poet – Rilke, Rainer Maria

The line : a Witching Savannah novel – Horn, J. D.

Living with the Dead : twenty years on the bus with Garcia and the Grateful Dead – Scully, Rock

Looking for Alaska – Green, John

Loud awake and lost – Griffin, Adele

Love and treasure – Waldman, Ayelet

The magician’s nephew – Lewis, C. S.

Me before you – Moyes, Jojo

Midnight in Europe : a novel – Furst, Alan

Midwives : a novel – Bohjalian, Christopher A.

Mr. Mercedes : a novel – King, Stephen

Mustard seeds : thoughts on the nature of God and faith – Coulter, Lynn

My sisters the saints : a spiritual memoir – Campbell, Colleen Carroll

The night strangers : a novel – Bohjalian, Chris

No easy day : the autobiography of a Navy SEAL : the firsthand account of the mission that killed Osama bin Laden – Owen, Mark

Notorious nineteen – Evanovich, Janet

One summer : America, 1927 – Bryson, Bill

Otherwise engaged – Quick, Amanda

The panther – DeMille, Nelson

Paper towns – Green, John

The pearl that broke its shell – Hashimi, Nadia

The perfume collector : a novel – Tessaro, Kathleen

The perks of being a wallflower – Chbosky, Stephen

The princess bride : S. Morgenstern’s classic tale of true love and high adventure : the “good parts” version, abridged – Goldman, William

Prodigal summer : a novel – Kingsolver, Barbara

Ready player one – Cline, Ernest

The reason I jump : the inner voice of a thirteen-year-old boy with autism – Higashida, Naoki

Rise, let us be on our way – John Paul II, Pope

Rose under fire – Wein, Elizabeth

Rumpole and the age of miracles – Mortimer, John

Sally Ride : America’s first woman in space – Sherr, Lynn

Sense and sensibility – Austen, Jane

Sixkill – Parker, Robert B.

Something other than God : how I passionately sought happiness and accidently found it – Fulwiler, Jennifer

Son of a gun : a memoir – St. Germain, Justin

Spring fever – Andrews, Mary Kay

The Supremes at Earl’s all-you-can-eat – Moore, Edward Kelsey

Sworn to silence – Castillo, Linda

Think like a freak : the authors of Freakonomics offer to retrain your brain – Levitt, Steven D.

This house is haunted – Boyne, John

Uncommon marriage : learning about lasting love and overcoming life’s obstacles together – Dungy, Tony

Understanding your moods when you’re expecting : emotions, mental health, and happiness–before, during, and after pregnancy – Puryear, Lucy J.

Unlucky 13 – Patterson, James

Unseen arms. – Brooks, Amy

A week in winter – Binchy, Maeve

What W.H. Auden can do for you – McCall Smith, Alexander

When you reach me – Stead, Rebecca

Why we get fat and what to do about it – Taubes, Gary

The world according to Bob : the further adventures of one man and his streetwise cat – Bowen, James

A wrinkle in time – L’Engle, Madeleine

July Staff Pick: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn was a huge bestseller two years ago, staying on the New York Times’ list for months.

Pat, who picked the book, said about it:

Think Fatal Attraction with Glenn Close in a hip marriage! Everything you think will happen, doesn’t. It’s Gone Girlterrifying for a desperate husband who is accused of murdering the ‘gone’ girl – his wife.

About why the book is especially appealing she said:

You cannot put it down! There are twists, turns, a sociopathic/psychopathic wife who is assumed murdered, quick chapters, believable characters, families in dysfunction, and confused one-sided investigators. This book needs a sequel.

Gone GirlWhile author Gilliam Flynn has no plans for a sequel, the movie is due out on October 3, 2014. The internet was abuzz this week when a new trailer was released.

If you haven’t read it yet, check out a copy and read it before you see the movie this autumn!

June Staff Pick: Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen

After a month off from staff picks, we’re back in June with one from Meghan!


Lost Lake
LOST LAKE by Sarah Addison Allen

Kate has been lingering in a fog throughout the year since her husband died, and it is only when her manipulative mother-in-law threatens to hijack her life that Kate begins to snap to. When her wardrobe-challenged eight-year-old daughter, Devin, discovers an old letter from Kate’s great-aunt Eby, the pair go on the lam to Lost Lake, Eby’s dilapidated resort camp tucked deep in the south Georgia swamplands. Long widowed, with dwindling funds and a diminishing guest roster, Eby may be forced to sell her fading haven to an unscrupulous developer, until Kate’s arrival gives her a new lease on life.

When talking about why she liked this book, Meghan said,

I love Sarah Addison Allen’s books because of their atmosphere, magical realism, and pleasurable endings.

If this sounds like a story you’d enjoy reading too, be sure to click the title above to request a copy. It is also available as an audiobook. Book description from Booklist, copyright 2010.

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr


All the Light We Cannot SeeAnthony Doerr
‘s latest book, All The Light We Cannot See, tells the story of a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France during World War II. The novel was ten years in the writing and highly anticipated. If you haven’t placed a hold for it and would like to, take a look at it in our catalog and request it here.

In the meantime, here are five similar books to tide you over until you can get your hands on it:


STONES FROM THE RIVER by Ursula Hegi

Follows Trudi Montag, a dwarf who serves as her town’s librarian, unofficial historian, and recorder of the secret stories of her people, in a novel that charts the course of German history in the first half of the twentieth century. This book is also stylistically complex and describes the challenges that the characters surmount to survive the Second World War.


JACOB’S OATH by Martin Fletcher

As World War II winds to a close, Europe’s roads are clogged with twenty million exhausted refugees walking home. Among them are Jacob and Sarah, lonely Holocaust survivors who meet in Heidelberg. But Jacob is consumed with hatred and cannot rest until he has killed his brother’s murderer, a concentration camp guard nicknamed “The Rat.” Now he must choose between revenge and love, between avenging the past and building a future. This book is also atmospheric and depicts the brutality of the War, with characters experiencing its emotional and psychological effects.


THE ENGLISH PATIENT by Michael Ondaatje

With unsettling beauty and intelligence, Michael Ondaatje’s Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an abandoned Italian villa at the end of World War II. The nurse Hana obsessively tends to her last surviving patient. Caravaggio, the thief, tries to reimagine who he is, now that his hands are hopelessly maimed. The Indian sapper Kip searches for hidden bombs in a landscape where nothing is safe but himself. And at the center of his labyrinth lies the English patient, nameless and hideously burned, a man who is both a riddle and a provocation to his companions-and whose memories of suffering, rescue, and betrayal illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning. This moving, stylistically complex novel is similar in that it reflects on the brutality of World War II and its lingering effects.


SARAH’S KEY by Tatiana de Rosnay

Sarah, a ten-year-old girl, is taken with her parents by the French police as they go door to door arresting Jewish families in the middle of the night. Desperate to protect her younger brother, Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard-their secret hiding place-and promises to come back for him as soon as they are released. Sixty Years Later: Sarah’s story intertwines with that of Julia Jarmond, an American journalist investigating the roundup. In her research, Julia stumbles onto a trail of secrets that link her to Sarah, and to questions about her own future. This book is moving and lyrical, and gives a perspective of family relationships in the desperate times of World War II.


THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE by Julie Orringer

Paris, 1937. Andras Lévi, a Hungarian-Jewish architecture student, arrives from Budapest with a scholarship, a single suitcase, and a mysterious letter he promised to deliver. But when he falls into a complicated relationship with the letter’s recipient, he becomes privy to a secret that will alter the course of his-and his family’s-history. From the small Hungarian town of Konyár to the grand opera houses of Budapest and Paris, from the despair of Carpathian winter to an unimaginable life in labor camps, The Invisible Bridge tells the story of a family shattered and remade in history’s darkest hour.

Click the titles to visit our online catalog and place a request for any of these books. Descriptions and cover images are from the library online catalog, descriptors of how these books are similar to All The Light We Cannot See are from Novelist.

April Staff Pick: Assassination Vacation

For our April Staff Pick, which comes a little later in the month, let’s look at a recommendation from Emily (who, for full disclosure, is me…since referring to myself in the third person just felt weird).


Assassination VacationAssassination Vacation,
 by Sarah Vowell
, is an exploration of the places in America with connections to the first three US Presidential assassinations. Vowell explains how these places and the collective memories of significant people and events related to the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley have been shaped and in some cases manipulated by the historical tourism industry. Assassination Vacation reads as part pop history, part travelogue and part (irreverently) witty essay.

I really liked this book and enjoyed reading it because of the characters. Even though it is a nonfiction book, there were definitely characters. I found the section on President Garfield to be particularly interesting, and he an especially interesting character. Also, Sarah Vowell herself, and her friends and family were all really great, vivid characters.

Assassination Vacation is also available in Large Print, as a Book on CD, and as an OverDrive eBook in Kindle Book or Adobe EPUB eBook formats. Vowell has written several other books on American history and culture, including The Partly Cloudy PatriotTake the Cannoli: Stories from the New World, and Unfamiliar Fishes.