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Staff Favorites

From children's books to biographies, science fiction to Pulitzer Prize winning novels, here are the favorite books read by the Silas Bronson Library staff in 2018.

 

 

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Biography

 


 

Dave Itzkoff, Robin

From New York Times culture reporter Dave Itzkoff, the definitive biography of Robin Williams – a compelling portrait of one of America's most beloved and misunderstood entertainers.

 

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Children's Books

 

 


Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Raymond Obstfeld, Becoming Kareem: Growing Up On and Off the Court

Written especially for young readers, Becoming Kareem chronicles how Kareem Abdul-Jabbar become the icon and legend he is today, both on and off the court.

Genre: Biography

 

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Book

 

 

 


Svetlana Chmakova, Awkward

After shunning Jaime, the school nerd, on her first day at a new middle school, Penelope Torres tries to blend in with her new friends in the art club, until the art club goes to war with the science club, of which Jaime is a member.

 

Genre: Graphic Novel

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Book

 

 

 


Medeia Cohan & Sarah Walsh, Hats of Faith

A simple and striking introduction to the shared custom of religious head coverings. With bright images and a carefully researched interfaith text, this thoughtful book inspires understanding and celebrates our culturally diverse modern world.

Genre: Board Book

 

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Book

 

 

 

 

 

Vashti Harrison, Dream Big, Little One

Featuring 18 trailblazing black women in American history, Dream Big, Little One is the board book adaptation of the author's Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History.

 

Genre: Board Book

 

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Book

 

 

 

 

Daria Peoples-Riley, This Is It

A young dancer finds confidence in herself in this picture book about dance, individuality, and self expression.

 

Genre: Picture Book

 

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Book

 

 


 

 

Rick Riordan, The Burning Maze (Trials of Apollo, Book Three)

The Greek god Apollo, cast down to earth as the ungifted human teenager Lester Papadopoulos, and his demigod friends must go through the Labyrinth to find the third emperor--and an Oracle who speaks in word puzzles--somewhere in the American Southwest.

 

Genre: Fantasy

 

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Fiction

 

 

 


Marie Benedict, Carnegie's Maid

Clara Kelley is not who they think she is. She's not the experienced Irish maid who was hired to work in one of Pittsburgh's grandest households. She's a poor farmer's daughter with nowhere to go and nothing in her pockets. But the other woman with the same name has vanished, and pretending to be her just might get Clara some money to send back home. If she can keep up the ruse, that is. Serving as a lady's maid in the household of Andrew Carnegie requires skills she doesn't have, answering to an icy mistress who rules her sons and her domain with an iron fist.

 

Genre:Historical Fiction

 

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Steve Berry, The Bishop's Pawn

History notes that the ugly feud between J. Edgar Hoover and Martin Luther King, Jr., marked by years of illegal surveillance and the accumulation of secret files, ended on April 4, 1968 when King was assassinated by James Earl Ray. But that may not have been the case.

Now, fifty years later, former Justice Department agent, Cotton Malone, must reckon with the truth of what really happened that fateful day in Memphis.

 

Genres: Historical Fiction, Thriller

 

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Fiona Davis, The Address

Fiona Davis, author of The Dollhouse, returns with a compelling novel about the thin lines between love and loss, success and ruin, passion and madness, all hidden behind the walls of The Dakota, New York City's most famous residence. After a failed apprenticeship, working her way up to head housekeeper of a posh London hotel is more than Sara Smythe ever thought she'd make of herself. But when a chance encounter with Theodore Camden, one of the architects of the grand New York apartment house The Dakota, leads to a job offer, her world is suddenly awash in possibility--no mean feat for a servant in 1884.

 

Genre: Historical Fiction

 

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Fiona Davis, The Masterpiece

For the nearly nine million people who live in New York City, Grand Central Terminal is a crown jewel, a masterpiece of design. But for Clara Darden and Virginia Clay, it represents something quite different. For Clara, the terminal is the stepping stone to her future, which she is certain will shine as the brightly as the constellations on the main concourse ceiling. It is 1928, and twenty-five-year-old Clara is teaching at the lauded Grand Central School of Art. A talented illustrator, she has dreams of creating cover art for Vogue, but not even the prestige of the school can override the public's disdain for a "woman artist." Brash, fiery, confident, and single-minded--even while juggling the affections of two men, a wealthy would-be poet and a brilliant experimental painter--Clara is determined to achieve every creative success.

Genre: Historical Fiction

 

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Book

 


 


 

Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling), Lethal White

The fourth novel in the Cormoran Strike detective series. When Billy, a troubled young man, comes to private eye Cormoran Strike's office to ask for his help investigating a crime he thinks he witnessed as a child, Strike is left deeply unsettled. While Billy is obviously mentally distressed, and cannot remember many concrete details, there is something sincere about him and his story. But before Strike can question him further, Billy bolts from his office in a panic. Trying to get to the bottom of Billy's story, Strike and Robin Ellacott--once his assistant, now a partner in the agency--set off on a twisting trail that leads them through the backstreets of London, into a secretive inner sanctum within Parliament, and to a beautiful but sinister manor house deep in the countryside.

 

Genre: Mystery

 

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Margaret George, The Splendor Before the Dark

With the beautiful and cunning Poppaea at his side, Nero Augustus commands the Roman empire, ushering in an unprecedented era of artistic and cultural splendor. Although he has yet to produce an heir, his power is unquestioned.

But in the tenth year of his reign, a terrifying prophecy comes to pass and a fire engulfs Rome, reducing entire swaths of the city to rubble. Rumors of Nero's complicity in the blaze start to sow unrest among the populace--and the politicians...

 

Genre: Historical Fiction

 

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James Grippando, A Death in Live Oak

When the body of Jamal Cousin, president of the pre-eminent black fraternity at the Florida's flagship university, is discovered hogtied in the Stygian water swamps of the Suwanee River Valley, the death sets off a firestorm that threatens to rage out of control when a fellow student, Mark Towson, the president of a prominent white fraternity, is accused of the crime.

 

Genre: Mystery, Legal Thriller

 

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Elin Hildebrand, The Perfect Couple

It's Nantucket wedding season, also known as summer-the sight of a bride racing down Main Street is as common as the sun setting at Madaket Beach. The Otis-Winbury wedding promises to be an event to remember: the groom's wealthy parents have spared no expense to host a lavish ceremony at their oceanfront estate. But it's going to be memorable for all the wrong reasons after tragedy strikes: a body is discovered in Nantucket Harbor just hours before the ceremony-and everyone in the wedding party is suddenly a suspect. As Chief of Police Ed Kapenash interviews the bride, the groom, the groom's famous mystery-novelist mother, and even a member of his own family, he discovers that every wedding is a minefield-and no couple is perfect.

 

Genre: Mystery

 

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Lynne Hinton, The Case of the Sin City Sister

When Eve's biological sister goes missing, the nun heads to Las Vegas to track her down before it's too late. Years ago, Eve heard God's call to become a nun, but her recent stint moonlighting at her father's detective agency invigorates her so much that she's wrestling with her vocation. She's working with him on a case involving a miner in New Mexico when alarming news develops: her sister Dorisanne is missing. The authorities won't act without evidence of a crime, but Eve knows something suspicious -- and possibly deadly -- is afoot.

 

Genre: Mystery, Christian Fiction

 

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Adam Johnson, The Orphan Master's Son

This Pulitzer Prize winning novel follows the life of Pak Jun Do, the son of an influential man who runs an orphan work camp, who rises to prominence using instinctive talents and eventually becomes a professional kidnapper and romantic rival to Kim Jong Il.

 

Genre: Historical Fiction

 

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Rachel Kadish, The Weight of Ink

Set in London of the 1660s and of the early twenty-first century, The Weight of Ink is the interwoven tale of two women of remarkable intellect: Ester Velasquez, an emigrant from Amsterdam who is permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi, just before the plague hits the city; and Helen Watt, an ailing historian with a love of Jewish history.

 

Genre: Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction

 

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Mariko Koike, The Graveyard Apartment

One of the most popular writers working in Japan today, Mariko Koike is a recognized master of detective fiction and horror writing. Known in particular for her hybrid works that blend these styles with elements of romance, The Graveyard Apartment is arguably Koike's masterpiece.

Originally published in Japan in 1986, Koike's novel is the suspenseful tale of a young family that believes it has found the perfect home to grow into, only to realize that the apartment's idyllic setting harbors the specter of evil and that longer they stay, the more trapped they become.

 

Genre: Horror

 

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Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

First published in French as a serial in 1909, The Phantom of the Opera is a riveting story that revolves around the young, Swedish Christine Daaé. Her father, a famous musician, dies, and she is raised in the Paris Opera House with his dying promise of a protective angel of music to guide her.

Genre: Horror, Classics

 

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Lynda Cohen Loigman, The Two-Family House

Brooklyn, 1947: in the midst of a blizzard, in a two-family brownstone, two babies are born minutes apart to two women. They are sisters by marriage with an impenetrable bond forged before and during that dramatic night; but as the years progress, small cracks start to appear and their once deep friendship begins to unravel. No one knows why, and no one can stop it. One misguided choice; one moment of tragedy. Heartbreak wars with happiness and almost but not quite wins.From debut novelist Lynda Cohen Loigman comes The Two-Family House, a moving family saga filled with heart, emotion, longing, love, and mystery.

 

Genre: Historical Fiction

 

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Jodi Picoult, Small Great Things

A woman and her husband admitted to a hospital to have a baby request that their nurse be reassigned - they are white supremacists and don't want Ruth, who is black, to touch their baby. The hospital complies, but the baby later goes into cardiac distress when Ruth is on duty. She hesitates before rushing in to perform CPR. When her indecision ends in tragedy, Ruth finds herself on trial, represented by a white public defender who warns against bringing race into a courtroom. As the two come to develop a truer understanding of each other's lives, they begin to doubt the beliefs they each hold most dear.

Genre: Literary

 

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Nora Roberts, Whiskey Beach

Suffering an intense year of public and police scrutiny after being wrongly implicated in his fiance's murder, Boston lawyer Eli Landon takes sanctuary in a centuries-old family home and falls in love with resident housekeeper Abra Walsh, with whom he is entangled in an old, life-threatening mystery.

 

Genre: Romance, Mystery

 

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Esmeralda Santiago, Conquistadora

As a young girl growing up in Spain, Ana Larragoity Cubillas is powerfully drawn to Puerto Rico by the diaries of an ancestor who traveled there with Ponce de Leon. And in handsome twin brothers Ramon and Inocente—both in love with Ana—she finds a way to get there. Marrying Ramon at the age of eighteen, she travels across the ocean to Hacienda los Gemelos, a remote sugar plantation the brothers have inherited. But soon the Civil War erupts in the United States, and Ana finds her livelihood, and perhaps even her life, threatened by the very people on whose backs her wealth has been built: the hacienda’s slaves, whose richly drawn stories unfold alongside her own in this epic novel of love, discovery and adventure.

 

Genre: Historical Fiction

 

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En Español

 

 

 


Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, & Karen White, The Glass Ocean

A "historical mystery, infused with romance, that links the lives of three women across a century--two deep in the past, one in the present--to the doomed passenger liner, RMS Lusitania... As the Lusitania steams toward its fate, three women work against time to unravel a plot that will change the course of their own lives...and history itself."

 

Genre: History Fiction, Mystery

 

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Lauren Willig, The English Wife

Annabelle and Bayard Van Duyvil live a charmed life in New York: he's the scion of an old Knickerbocker family, she grew up in a Tudor house in England, they had a fairy tale romance in London, they have three-year-old twins on whom they dote, and he's recreated her family home on the banks of the Hudson and named it Illyria. Yes, there are rumors that she's having an affair with the architect, but rumors are rumors and people will gossip. But then Bayard is found dead with a knife in his chest on the night of their Twelfth Night Ball, Annabelle goes missing, presumed drowned, and the papers go mad.

 

Genre: Mystery

 

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Nonfiction

 

 


Andrei Cherny, The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America's Finest Hour

On the sixtieth anniversary of the Berlin Airlift, Andrei Cherny tells a remarkable story with profound implications for the world today. In the tradition of the best narrative storytellers, he brings together newly unclassified documents, unpublished letters and diaries, and fresh primary interviews to tell the story of the ill-assorted group of castoffs and second-stringers who not only saved millions of desperate people from a dire threat but changed how the world viewed the United States, and set in motion the chain of events that would ultimately lead to the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and to America's victory in the Cold War.

 

Genre: Military History

 

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Richard Hamblyn, Clouds: Nature and Culture

Clouds have been objects of delight and fascination throughout human history; their fleeting magnificence and endless variety have inspired scientists and daydreamers alike. Clouds and the ever-changing patterns they create have long symbolized the restlessness and unpredictability of nature. life without clouds would not be physically possible - alongside their rain-bearing function, they act as a finely tuned planetary thermostat - but it would also leave us mentally and spiritually bereft, deprived of the inspiring, life-affirming thought-bubbles that drift continuously overhead: "the ultimate art gallery above," as Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote. The author explores the notable presence of clouds in literature and the arts while outlining their growing scientific and technological significance in the context of climate change and cloud computing today. The book covers the history and science of clouds, including the controversial practice of cloud modification.

Genre: Weather, Mythology

 

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David McCullough, 1776

Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is a powerful drama written with extraordinary narrative vitality. It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers.

Genre: History

 

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Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas

Beginning her account with Ralph Waldo Emerson, whom the seventeen-year-old Nietzsche read fervently, Ratner-Rosenhagen shows how Nietzsche's ideas first burst on American shores at the turn of the twentieth century, and how they continued alternately to invigorate and to shock Americans for the century to come.

 

Genre: History of Philosophy

 

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Teen/Young Adult

 

 


Nick Lake, There Will Be Lies

Shelby Cooper, nearly eighteen, has been overprotected by her single mother all her life but after a car accident, Shelby's life is transformed not only by the discovery of secrets about herself, but also by trips into "The Dreaming," where she is sent on a heroic quest wrapped in Native American mythology.

 

Genre: Fiction

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Ransom Riggs, A Map of Days

The fourth book in the Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children series. After having saved the peculiar world, Jacob Portman is back in Florida with his peculiar friends, where they set out on a journey across America to discover the truth about Jacob's grandfather.

Genre: Fantasy

 

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Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give

After witnessing her friend's death at the hands of a police officer, Starr Carter's life is complicated when the police and a local drug lord try to intimidate her in an effort to learn what happened the night Kahlil died.

 

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

 

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