Reader favorites: Recommendations from fellow book lovers

On National Book Lover’s Day, August 9th, we took to social media to ask our library community what books they have LOVED recently. We came away with some really good recommendations…so good we thought you might want to add some of them to your “must-read” list as well! If you want to learn more about library happenings, get in on the fun conversations, and get these book recommendations in real time, don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

These books were suggested by fellow book lovers and are available for you to check out at your local library. The list runs the gamut, from sci-fi to historical fiction to murder mysteries and more.

Andrea M.V.Z. is reading:

The Book of Bright Ideas by Sandra Kring

Over the course of the summer of 1961, nine-year-old Evelyn “Button” Peters finds her life transformed by the arrival of Winnalee Malone, an imaginative young girl, and her free-spirited, fiery sister, Freeda.

Anthony T.R. says, “I’ve loved the Honor Harrington series by David Weber”:

On Basilisk Station is the first book of the Honor Harrington series. Instead of remaining out of sight during her assignment to a forlorn outpost, spaceship commander Honor Harrington, along with her vessel, the Fearless, performs incredible flying maneuvers to stop a foreign takeover of a major space station

Carolyn H.M. recommends:

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever—and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.

Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.

Char M.-M. suggests:

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune.

Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He’s tasked with determining whether six dangerous magical children are likely to bring about the end of the world.

Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn. And his secrets will come to light.

The House in the Cerulean Sea is an enchanting love story, masterfully told, about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place-and realizing that family is yours.

Corey R. says, “The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz was so good!”

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Jacob Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book. Today, he’s teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what’s left of his self-respect; he hasn’t written—let alone published—anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn’t need Jake’s help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as typical amateur narcissism. But then . . . he hears the plot.

Deb A. loves:

The Coast to Coast Murders by James Patterson

A detective and FBI agent join forces on what seems like an open-and-shut case — but a new rash of killings sends them on a pulse-pounding race against time in this intense thriller.

Michael and Megan Fitzgerald are siblings who share a terrifying past. Both adopted, and now grown — Michael is a long-haul truck driver, Megan a college student majoring in psychology — they trust each other before anyone else. They’ve had to. Their parents are public intellectuals, an Ivy League clinical psychologist and a renowned psychiatrist, and they brought up their adopted children in a rarefied, experimental environment. It sheltered them from the world’s harsh realities, but it also forced secrets upon them, secrets they keep at all costs.

Denise P.E. recommends:

This Country: My Life in Politics and History by Chris Matthews

A New York Times best-selling author and former host of MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews offers a panoramic portrait of post-World War II America through the story of his extraordinary life and career.

Duffy L. just finished Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie:

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

While en route from Syria to Paris, in the middle of a freezing winter’s night, the Orient Express is stopped dead in its tracks by a snowdrift. Passengers awake to find the train still stranded and to discover that a wealthy American has been brutally stabbed to death in his private compartment. Incredibly, that compartment is locked from the inside. With no escape into the wintery landscape the killer must still be on board. Fortunately, the brilliant Belgian inspector Hercule Poirot is also on board, having booked the last available berth.

Eliana G. enjoys:

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

Cynical twenty-three-year old August doesn’t believe in much. She doesn’t believe in psychics, or easily forged friendships, or finding the kind of love they make movies about. And she certainly doesn’t believe her ragtag band of new roommates, her night shifts at a 24-hour pancake diner, or her daily subway commute full of electrical outages are going to change that. But then, there’s Jane. Beautiful, impossible Jane. All hard edges with a soft smile and swoopy hair and saving August’s day when she needed it most. The person August looks forward to seeing on the train every day. The one who makes her forget about the cities she lived in that never seemed to fit, and her fear of what happens when she finally graduates, and even her cold-case obsessed mother who won’t quite let her go. And when August realizes her subway crush is impossible in more ways than one-namely, displaced in time from the 1970s-she thinks maybe it’s time to start believing.

Elizabeth B. says “I loved The Midnight Library and my reread of Agatha Christie’s The Body in the Library”:

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie

Cheap satin and peroxide blondes were a rare sight in St. Mary Mead, at least before film-man Basil Blake bought a cottage and invited down the London crowd. Then a girl in a garish get-up is found strangled in Colonel Bantry’s library, and it appears Basil is involved…

Karla O. recommends:

Seed to Dust by Marc Hamer      

Marc Hamer has nurtured the same 12-acre garden in the Welsh countryside for over two decades. The garden is vast and intricate. It’s rarely visited, and only Hamer knows of its secrets. But it’s not his garden. It belongs to his wealthy and elegant employer, Miss Cashmere. But the garden does not really belong to her, either. As Hamer writes, ‘Like a book, a garden belongs to everyone who sees it.’ In Seed to Dust, Marc Hamer paints a beautiful portrait of the garden that ‘belongs to everyone.’ He describes a year in his life as a country gardener, with each chapter named for the month he’s in.

Nancy K.L. gave a second vote for The Midnight Library by Matt Haig!

Nancy M.K. suggests:

The Last Flight by Julie Clark

Claire Cook has a husband whose temper burns as bright as his promising political career, and she has worked for months on a plan to get out. A chance meeting in an airport bar brings her together with a stranger equally as desperate. Together they hatch a plan to switch tickets – Claire taking Eva’s flight to Oakland, and Eva traveling to Puerto Rico as Claire. But then one plane crashes, and it’s clear that one of them wasn’t telling the truth.

Patty H. says, “Anything by Kristin Hannah. The Four Winds is the best.”

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance. In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli – like so many of her neighbors – must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life.

Raygina K. says “the most recent book that I had to own was The Goblin Emperor. Reread the Rivers of London. I really enjoy those”:

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

The youngest, half-goblin son of the Emperor has lived his entire life in exile, distant from the Imperial Court and the deadly intrigue that suffuses it. But when his father and three sons in line for the throne are killed in an “accident,” he has no choice but to take his place as the only surviving rightful heir.

Entirely unschooled in the art of court politics, he has no friends, no advisors, and the sure knowledge that whoever assassinated his father and brothers could make an attempt on his life at any moment.

Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch

In Part 1 of the series, Peter Grant looks look your average London police officer, but he is actually a part-time wizard in a very elite branch of the Metropolitan Police. It’s his job to investigate those crimes that regular cops don’t like to talk about because they often involve vampires or strange things in Underground tunnels. Peter’s latest case features a self-driving killer automobile, a Serbian refugee, the Most Haunted Car in England, a handsome drug dealer with a nice paisley scarf and a seemingly harmless wooden bench with a dark past!

Susan S. says “Love our NoCo libraries!” Thanks, Susan! Here’s her recommendation:

Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad

A searing, deeply moving memoir of illness and recovery that traces one young woman’s journey from diagnosis to remission and, ultimately, a road trip of healing and self-discovery.

In the summer after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad was preparing, as they say in commencement speeches, to enter ‘the real world.’ She had fallen in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent. The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone.

And Stephanie E. suggests:

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

England, 1580. A young Latin tutor–penniless, bullied by a violent father–falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman–a wild creature who walks her family’s estate with a falcon on her shoulder and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer. Agnes understands plants and potions better than she does people, but once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose gifts as a writer are just beginning to awaken when his beloved young son succumbs to bubonic plague.