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Staff Favorites 2021

From children's books to biographies, thrillers to romance, here are the some of the best books read by the Silas Bronson Library staff in 2021.

 

Biography/Memoir

 

 

 

   

Tracy Borman, Queen of the Conqueror: The Life of Matilda, Wife of William I

Around the year 1049, William, Duke of Normandy and future conqueror of England, raced to the palace of Baldwin V, Count of Flanders. The count’s eldest daughter, Matilda, had refused William’s offer of marriage and publicly denounced him as a bastard. Matilda’s remarkable story is laid out against one of the most fascinating and transformative periods in European history.

 

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Book

 

   

 

Children's Books

 
   

Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin, Illegal

An award-winning graphic novel that explores the current plight of undocumented immigrants from New York Times bestselling author Eoin Colfer and the team behind the Artemis Fowl graphic novels. How can a human being be illegal for simply existing?

 

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Book

 

 

   
   

Ben Guterson, Winterhouse

Orphan Elizabeth Somers's malevolent aunt Purdy and uncle Burlap ship her off to the ominous Winterhouse hotel, owned by the peculiar Norbridge Falls. Upon arrival, Elizabeth quickly discovers that Winterhouse has many charms - most notably its massive library. It's not long before she locates a magical book of puzzles that will unlock a mystery involving Norbridge and his sinister family. But as she uncovers the hotel's secrets, Elizabeth starts to realize that she is somehow connected to Winterhouse, for better or for worse.

 

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Book

 

 

   
     

JonArno Lawson and Qin Leng, Over the Shop

In a beautifully detailed wordless picture book, a tumbledown building becomes home sweet home for a found family.

 

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Book

 

   
 

 

Kwame Mbalia, ed., Black Boy Joy: 17 Stories Celebrating Black Boyhood

From seventeen acclaimed Black male and non-binary authors comes a vibrant collection of stories, comics, and poems about the power of joy and the wonders of Black boyhood.

 

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Book

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Fiction

 

 


 

 

Jessica Anya Blau, Mary Jane

Almost Famous meets Daisy Jones and the Six in this funny, wise and tender novel about a fourteen-year-old girl's coming of age in 1970s Baltimore, caught between her straight-laced family and the progressive family she nannies for - who happen to be secretly hiding a famous rock star and his movie star wife for the summer

Genre: Fiction

 

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Book

 

   
   

Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

From the bestselling author of Becoming Mrs. Lewis comes another beautiful story inspired by C. S. Lewis's ability to change the world and captivate hearts-including those of a terminally ill boy and his logic-driven sister.

 

Genre: Biographical Fiction

 

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Book

 

 

 

   

Scott Carson, The Chill

Far upstate, in New York’s ancient forests, a drowned village lays beneath the dark, still waters of the Chilewaukee reservoir. Early in the 20th century, the town was destroyed for the greater good: bringing water to the millions living downstate. Or at least that’s what the politicians from Manhattan insisted at the time. The local families, settled there since America’s founding, were forced from their land, but they didn’t move far, and some didn’t move at all…

 

Genre: Horror

 

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Book

 

 


 
 

Alyssa Cole, When No One Is Watching

Rear Window meets Get Out in this gripping thriller from a critically acclaimed and New York Times Notable author, in which the gentrification of a Brooklyn neighborhood takes on a sinister new meaning…

Genre: Thriller

 

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Book

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Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

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?

Genre: Fantasy, Science Fiction

 

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Grady Hendix, The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

A supernatural thriller set in South Carolina in the '90s about a women's book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious stranger who turns out to be a real monster.

 

Genre: Horror

 

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Elin Hilderbrand, Golden Girl

Entering the afterlife due to a hit and run accident, a successful author learns she can observe the earthly lives of her nearly grown children and is also permitted three "nudges" to alter the outcome of events.

Genre: Fiction

 

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Mary Pat Kelly, Galway Bay

In the bestselling tradition of Frank Delaney, Colleen McCullough, and Maeve Binchy comes a poignant historical family saga set against Ireland's Great Starvation and the building of Chicago.

Genre: Historical Fiction

 

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Andrew Klavan, When Christmas Comes

Colorful Christmas lights dapple the family homes in the idyllic lakeside town of Sweet Haven when Jennifer Dean, a young librarian at the local elementary school, is brutally murdered. There are witnesses and her boyfriend Travis Blake confesses to the crime... but something doesn't quite add up. Blake is a third generation Army Ranger, awarded the Silver Star for his heroism in Afghanistan--how could a beloved son of this tight-knit burgh commit such a grisly deed?

Genre: Mystery

 

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Book

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

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

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

 

Genre: Fantasy

 

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Liane Moriarty, Apples Never Fall

From the bestselling author of Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers, comes Apples Never Fall, a novel that looks at marriage, siblings, and how the people we love the most can hurt us the deepest.

 

Genre: Fiction

 

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Kim Michele Richardson, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

The hardscrabble folks of Troublesome Creek have to scrap for everything—everything except books, that is. Thanks to Roosevelt's Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, Troublesome's got its very own traveling librarian, Cussy Mary Carter.

If Cussy wants to bring the joy of books to the hill folks, she's going to have to confront prejudice as old as the Appalachias and suspicion as deep as the holler.

Genre: Historical Fiction

 

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Book

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

In the 1700s, Addie LaRue makes a deal with the devil—she will live forever, although her immortality comes with the curse of being forgotten by everyone. Addie moves through time and across continents; she learns to survive and even leave her mark on the world. Then one day she meets a man in a bookstore who remembers her name, and suddenly everything changes.

 

Genre: Fantasy

 

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Book

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Sarah Strohmeyer, Do I Know You?

Jane Ellison is a 'super recognizer' able to identify strangers by the slightest facial details... When she spies human rights activist and heiress Bella Valencia in a crowded Boston airport, Jane's convinced she's found the person responsible for her sister Kit's disappearance... Jane is ready to risk everything for the chance to publicly expose Bella's crimes at her upcoming celebrity wedding. But the more she digs into what happened that night, the more she questions her own assumptions.

 

Genre: Thriller

 

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Book

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Sarah Sundin, The Sea Before Us

In 1944, American naval officer Lt. Wyatt Paxton arrives in London to prepare for the Allied invasion of France. He works closely with Dorothy Fairfax, a "Wren" in the Women's Royal Naval Service. Dorothy pieces together reconnaissance photographs with thousands of holiday snapshots of France--including those of her own family's summer home--in order to create accurate maps of Normandy. Maps that Wyatt will turn into naval bombardment plans.

 

Genre: Historical Christian Romance

 

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Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

When, in 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel's doors.

Genre: Historical Fiction

 

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 Graphic Novels

 
   
     

Rebecca Hall, Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts

An historical and imaginative tour-de-force, Wake brings to light for the first time the existence of enslaved black women warriors, whose stories can be traced by carefully scrutinizing historical records; and where the historical record goes silent, Wake reconstructs the likely past of two female rebels, Adono and Alele, on the slave ship The Unity.

Genre: History, Memoir

 

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Book

 

   
 

 

 

Non-Fiction

 
   

Caryn B. Davis & Eric D. Lehman, Connecticut Waters: A Celebration of Our Coastline and Waterways

A photographic tribute to Connecticut's maritime roots both past and present. The book takes readers on a nautical journey exploring the many ways Nutmeggers use the state's lakes, rivers, sounds, and shores for industry, education, and recreation.

 

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Paige Embry, Our Native Bees

Honey bees get all the press, but the fascinating story of North America’s native bees—endangered species essential to our ecosystems and food supplies—is just as crucial. Through interviews with farmers, gardeners, scientists, and bee experts, Our Native Bees explores the importance of native bees and focuses on why they play a key role in gardening and agriculture. 

 

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Bonnie Henry, Soap and Water & Common Sense: The Definitive Guide to Viruses, Bacteria, Parasites, and Disease

As a physician who has spent the better part of the last three decades chasing bugs all over the world, Dr. Bonnie Henry, a leading epidemiologist (microbe hunter) and public health doctor, offers three simple rules to live by clean your hands, cover your mouth when you cough, and stay home when you have a fever.  Lively, informative, and fascinating, Soap and Water & Common Sense is the definitive guide to staying healthy in a germ-filled world. 

 

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Ryan Holiday, Courage Is Calling

The first in a four-book series about Stoic virtues: courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. Through engaging stories about historic and contemporary leaders, including Winston Churchill, Barack Obama, and Eleanor Roosevelt, as well as some lesser known but equally as remarkable people, Holiday shows you how to practice courage in your daily life. 

 

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John MacArthur, A Tale of Two Sons

MacArthur takes the Parable of the Prodigal Son back to its Biblical roots, revealing Christ's original message as intended for the Pharisees, the disciples, and the world today.

 

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Candacy Taylor, Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America

The first book to explore the historical role and residual impact of the Green Book, a travel guide for black motorists. Published from 1936 to 1966, the Green Book was hailed as the "black travel guide to America." 

 

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Shomari Wills, Black Fortunes

Between the years of 1830 and 1927, as the last generation of blacks born into slavery was reaching maturity, a small group of industrious, tenacious, and daring men and women broke new ground to attain the highest levels of financial success. Black Fortunes illuminates as never before the birth of the black business titan.

 

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Teen/Young Adult

 
 
   

Leigh Bardugo, Rules of Wolves

The wolves are circling, and a young king will face his greatest challenge in the explosive finale of the best-selling King of Scars Duology.

Genre: Fantasy

 

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