ADULT FICTION
“Book of Extraordinary Tragedies” by Joe Meno — “[A] richly embroidered coming-of-age story . . . An uplifting and interesting exploration of one family’s struggle for existence in the United States, against the backdrop of history, classical and popular music, and the financial crisis of 2007–08; highly recommended.” —Library Journal, starred review
“Eversion” by Alastair Reynolds — “[An] utterly brilliant exploration of life, death, and consciousness … It’s his most ambitious, certainly, and at the very least, one of his best. Required reading for SF fans.”―Booklist
“Fairy Tale” by Stephen King — “A page-turner driven by memorably strange encounters and well-rendered, often thrilling action.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Has Anyone Seen My Toes” by Christopher Buckley — “This is Buckley at his comic, mischievous best…Buckley delights in exploring the intersections of plausible and absurd as they arise in an off-kilter mind that resembles the author’s for all its allusive gymnastics and silliness.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Last of the Seven: A Novel of World War II” by Steven Hartov — “A fact-inspired novel about a German Jewish soldier fighting for the British as a member of two secret, all-Jewish commando units disguised as Nazis. … Hartov is at his best capturing the torturous physical tests his protagonist is put to. The desert scenes scorch the imagination; the bombing of a transport ship is horrific. … A little-known story enjoyably told.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Lucy by the Sea” by Elizabeth Strout — “No novelist working today has Strout’s extraordinary capacity for radical empathy, for seeing the essence of people beyond reductive categories, for uniting us without sentimentality. I didn’t just love Lucy by the Sea; I needed it. May droves of readers come to feel enlarged, comforted, and genuinely uplifted by Lucy’s story.”—The Boston Globe
“Lungfish” by Meghan Gillis — “A family lives illegally on a Maine island, barely surviving, while a father endures recovery; Gilliss imbues every page with the ache and uncertainty of trying to give a child small pockets of joy under near impossible circumstances. The story is told balletically, compulsively, in short spurts of image and sensation, while also managing to immerse the reader fully in the textures, tastes and sounds of the Maine coast.” —Lynn Steger Strong, Los Angeles Times
“Mad Honey” by Jodi Picoult — “Alternatingly heart-pounding and heartbreaking . . .This collaboration between two best-selling authors seamlessly weaves together Olivia and Lily’s journeys, creating a provocative exploration of the strength that love and acceptance require.”—The Washington Post
“Moth” by Melody Razak — “Gripping… Razak painstakingly paints a portrait of a family; their rituals, their private languages, their shared lives. This careful characterisation pays off, heartbreakingly, when the horrors of partition wreak havoc on small, happy lives” — The Times
“Our Missing Hearts” by Celeste Ng — “Utterly stupendous. Ng creates an exquisite story of unbreakable family bonds, lifesaving storytelling (and seemingly omniscient librarians!), brilliantly subversive art, and accidentally transformative activism. As lyrical as it is chilling, as astonishing as it is empathic, Our Missing Hearts arguably achieves literary perfection.” — Booklist (starred review)
“Shrines of Gaiety” by Kate Atkinson — “[A] riveting re-creation of life in 1920s London…Atkinson’s palpable fondness for her characters helps her to imbue even themost minor of them with texture and depth, and she brings the same attention to detail to her portrait of the highs and lows of Jazz Age London. Another triumph from one of our finest novelists.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“The Marriage Portrait” by Maggie O’Farrell — “O’Farrell intelligently connects Lucrezia’s trapped circumstances with the art that her husband, a notable patron and collector, commissions to immortalize her . . . There is a blinding power to the heightened, almost fetishistic beauty of Renaissance art, this novel suggests as it portrays a world of far greater brutality and fierceness.” —Wall Street Journal
“The Winners” by Fredrik Backman — “Backman leaves no emotion unturned, sweeping up the reader in riveting family dramas that jump the boundaries of hockey-town rivalries. Another winner.” —Library Journal (starred review)
“Village Idiot” by Steve Stern — “In an act of resounding creative alchemy, audaciously imaginative Stern combines his fascination with Jewish folktales and mysticism with the life and work of painter Chaim Soutine, forging saturated, gleaming, and tumultuous prose that captures the vision and vehemence of Soutine’s thickly textured, writhing, nearly hallucinatory paintings….Stern’s kinetically inventive and insightful homage is incandescent, riveting, and revelatory in its wrestling with the mysteries of creativity and the scourge of antisemitism.” — Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
ADULT MYSTERY
“Girl, Forgotten” by Karin Slaughter — “Slaughter skillfully leads readers on a thrilling journey into the past to solve the murder that a small town wants to forget, yet is still haunted by.” — Library Journal (starred review)
“`Long Shadows” by David Baldacci — “The plot gets complex, with suspects galore. But the interpersonal dynamic between Decker and White is just as interesting as the solution to the murders, which doesn’t come easily . . . The pair will make a great series duo, especially if a bit of that initial tension between them returns . . . Fascinating main characters and a clever plot add up to an exciting read.”―Kirkus Reviews
“Treasure State” by C. J. Box — “[A] fast-paced mystery that pits betrayal, anger, and hate against hope and longing as it examines the lasting effect of a community used and abandoned after making a fortune for the titans of the copper mining industry.” ―Library Journal
ADULT BIOGRAPHY
“Acceptance: A Memoir” by Emi Nietfeld — “A luminous, generation-defining memoir of foster care and homelessness, Harvard and Big Tech, examining society’s fixation with resilience—and its cost” — Publisher Annotation
“Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships” by Nina Totenberg — “A genial, likable tone. Totenberg’s stories are lively but never go on too long; she appears to reflexively turn the reader’s attention to the generosity or small kindnesses of others. She writes, without pretension or self-congratulation, about moments of journalistic triumph of which she has every right to be proud…Her final display of friendship in this book entails laying bare just how frail Ginsburg truly was — and how extraordinary she was to persevere and inspire for as long as she did.” – The New York Times Book Review
“The Daughters of Auschwitz: My Story of Resilience and Hope” by Tova Friedman — “This is the real thing, the horrors of the Holocaust brought shudderingly to life, and all from the point of view of a small child who could barely read or recognize numbers… It is an angry book, but it is also required reading.”—The Jewish Chronicle
“The Man Who Could Move Clouds” by Ingrid Rojas Contreras — “Rojas Contreras reacquaints herself with her family’s past, weaving their stories with personal narrative, unraveling legacies of violence, machismo and colonialism…In the process, she has written a spellbinding and genre-defying ancestral history.”—New York Times Book Review
ADULT NON-FICTION
“Africa is not a Country” Notes on a Bright Continent” by Dipo Faloyin — “With clarity and incisive wit, journalist Faloyin explores the origins of the 54 countries of Africa…Africa Is Not a Country [is] a forceful rebuttal of erased histories and simplified imagery as well as a celebration of a continent already living its dynamic future.” ― Booklist (starred review)
“Boards and Spreads: Shareable, Simple Arrangements for Every Meal” by Yasmin Fahr — “Whether hosting a dinner party or a sleepover, readers will find fun recipes and eye-pleasing, and crowd-pleasing, solutions for all their entertaining needs.”—Library Journal
“Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus” by David Quammen — “An authoritative new history of Covid-19 and its predecessors. . . . [Quammen] constructs a masterful account of viral evolution culminating in Covid-19. . . . Unsettling global health news brilliantly delivered by an expert.” ― Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Pickleball for All: Everything but the “Kitchen” Sink” by Rachel Simon — “An entertaining and comprehensive look at America’s fastest growing sport, Pickleball for All is the ultimate primer for any level of player interested in the wacky history, unique rules, and exciting future of pickleball. ” — Amazon.com
“The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired our Mines and our World” by Max Fisher — “A Pulitzer Prize finalist, New York Times investigative reporter Fisher debuts with a critique of social networks, traveling worldwide to show that their rage for maximum engagement has radically restructured the world and led to extreme thought and, more crucially, extreme action. Homing in on pandemic, election, and insurrection; ” — Barbara Hoffert. LJ Prepub Alert Online Review. LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2022.
“The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II” by Buzz Bissinger — “Bissinger effortlessly combines sports and military history in this gritty account of a football game played by U.S. Marines on Guadalcanal in December 1944 . . . . The book excels in its sweeping yet fine-grained portraits of how these Marines got to Guadalcanal and in the harrowing descriptions of Pacific Theater combat, including the bloody fight for Sugar Loaf Hill on Okinawa. This is a penetrating tale of courage and sacrifice.” — Publishers Weekly
“The Need to be Whole: Patriotism and the History of Prejudice” by David Quammen — “America’s greatest philosopher on sustainable life and living.” ―Chicago Tribune
“The Storm is Here: An American Crucible” by Luke Mogelson — “Indispensable . . . The great New Yorker battlefield reporter immerses himself with American militias you’ve only heard about, providing a firsthand account of those countrymen who are increasingly turning on their government. It reads like a first draft of the breakdown of American democracy.” —Chicago Tribune
PICTURE BOOK
“Opening Day Trouble: At the Great Vermont Corn Maze” by Mike Boudrea
EASY READER
“Wild Fliers!” by Martin and Chris Kraft
JUVENILE GRAPHIC NOVELS
“Turner Family Stories: From Enslavement in Vermont” edited by Jane C. Beck & Andy Kolovos — “Turner Family Stories: From Enslavement in Virginia to Freedom in Vermont features the work of six New England cartoonists drawing on the rich personal and family stories of the remarkable Daisy Turner (1883-1988) of Grafton, Vermont.” — Amazon.com
JUVENILE NON-FICTION
“Your Yard is Nature: 10 Ways to Help Birds and Pollinators in Your Yard” by Leslie Nelson Inman
YOUNG ADULT GRAPHIC NOVEL
“Turner Family Stories: From Enslavement in Vermont” edited by Jane C. Beck & Andy Kolovos — “Turner Family Stories: From Enslavement in Virginia to Freedom in Vermont features the work of six New England cartoonists drawing on the rich personal and family stories of the remarkable Daisy Turner (1883-1988) of Grafton, Vermont.” — Amazon.com