Yes, we work with books.  But we also love reading them!  Here are the books we've been reading recently, and what we have to say about them (last updated: March, 2013 ). The book summaries are taken from our catalog. Also, check out the archives for even more staff picks.

• Family of Secrets by Russ Baker
  

  Hope says: I was amazed and oohed and aahed through much of this book!  Like a CIA operative, I was finding out all sorts of things buried under levels and levels of family, history, politics and relationships.  read more >>
  
  

  Hope says: I was amazed and oohed and aahed through much of this book!  Like a CIA operative, I was finding out all sorts of things buried under levels and levels of family, history, politics and relationships. The author gives factoids and coincidental happenings and leads the reader down the road of political intrigue and innuendo. For a fun read this large tome won't cease to amaze you, because normally I find politics boring!  I highly recommend it!

  Summary: The long-hidden story of a family we thought we knew--and of a power-making apparatus that we have barely begun to comprehend. After eight disastrous years, George W. Bush leaves office as one of the most unpopular presidents in American history. Russ Baker asks the question that lingers even as this benighted administration winds down: Who really wanted this man at the helm of the country, and why did his backers promote him despite his obvious liabilities and limitations? This book goes deep behind the scenes to deliver an arresting new look at George W. Bush, his father George H. W. Bush, their family, and the network of figures in intelligence, the military, finance, and oil who enabled the family's rise to power. Baker's exhaustive investigation reveals a remarkable clan whose hermetic secrecy and code of absolute loyalty have concealed a far-reaching role in recent history that transcends the Bush presidencies. Baker offers new insights into lingering mysteries--from the death of John F. Kennedy to Richard Nixon's downfall in Watergate. Here, too, are insider accounts of the backroom strategizing, and outright deception, that resulted in George W. Bush's electoral success. Throughout, Baker helps us understand why we have not known these things before. Family of Secrets combines compelling narrative with eye-opening revelations. It offers the untold history of the machinations that have shaped American politics over much of the last century.

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• American Wasteland by Jonathan Bloom
  

  Ken says: This book covers food waste from every possible angle. You'll be astonished and inspired to think about food differently than you do now. read more >>
  
  

  Ken says: This book covers food waste from every possible angle. You'll be astonished and inspired to think about food differently than you do now.

  Summary: What Tom Vanderbilt did for traffic and Brian Wansink did for mindless eating, Jonathan Bloom does for food waste. The topic couldn't be timelier: as more people are going hungry while simultaneously more people are morbidly obese, American Wasteland sheds light on the history, culture, and mindset of waste while exploring the parallel eco-friendly and sustainable-food movements. As the era of unprecedented prosperity comes to an end, it's time to reexamine our culture of excess. Working at both a local grocery store and a major fast food chain and volunteering with a food recovery group, Bloom also interviews experts--from Brian Wansink to Alice Waters to Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen--and digs up not only why and how we waste, but, more importantly, what we can do to change our ways.

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• Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
  

  Joseph says: I would recommend this book to anyone. It's nonfiction, but it reads almost like fiction. The narrative is extremely engaging and powerful, and provides ample food-for-thought. I could hardly put it down. read more >>
  
  

  Joseph says: I would recommend this book to anyone. It's nonfiction, but it reads almost like fiction. The narrative is extremely engaging and powerful, and provides ample food-for-thought. I could hardly put it down.

  Summary: From Pulitzer Prize-winner Katherine Boo, a landmark work of narrative nonfiction that tells the dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the twenty-first century's great, unequal cities. In this brilliantly written, fast-paced book, based on three years of uncompromising reporting, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human. Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees "a fortune beyond counting" in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption. With a little luck, her sensitive, beautiful daughter--Annawadi's "most-everything girl"--will soon become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a fifteen-year-old scrap-metal thief, believe themselves inching closer to the good lives and good times they call "the full enjoy." But then Abdul the garbage sorter is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and a global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power and economic envy turn brutal. As the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true contours of a competitive age are revealed. And so, too, are the imaginations and courage of the people of Annawadi. With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects human beings to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century's hidden worlds, and into the lives of people impossible to forget.

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• The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
  

  Merle says: Eleven year old Flavia de Luce is part Miss Marple, part Sherlock Holmes and completely original. When her father is suspected of murder Flavia is on the case much to the annoyance of the police. This is the first book in a series of five. read more >>
  
  

  Merle says: Eleven year old Flavia de Luce is part Miss Marple, part Sherlock Holmes and completely original. When her father is suspected of murder Flavia is on the case much to the annoyance of the police. This is the first book in a series of five.

  Summary: Flavia, an 11-year-old with a chemistry lab, finds a corpse in a cucumber patch and applies the detective skills she learned plotting against her older sisters. This debut mystery by a Canadian author won the 2007 Crime Writer Association's Debut Dagger Award.

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• The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick
  

  Jimmy says: Information is everywhere, but only with written language did we first figure out how to capture it like a fly in amber. But in the last hundred years, these advances have been exponentially dizzying. Gleick talks about the wild world of abstraction, calculating machines (steam-punk style),  read more >>
  
  

  Jimmy says: Information is everywhere, but only with written language did we first figure out how to capture it like a fly in amber. But in the last hundred years, these advances have been exponentially dizzying. Gleick talks about the wild world of abstraction, calculating machines (steam-punk style), genetic information, quantum uncertainty, and much more. Don't worry, you don't need to be a scientist to understand or learn from this entertaining science book.

  Summary: James Gleick, the author of the best sellers Chaos and Genius, now brings us a work just as astonishing and masterly: a revelatory chronicle and meditation that shows how information has become the modern era's defining quality--the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world. The story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanishes as soon as it is born. From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long-misunderstood talking drums of Africa, Gleick tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness. He provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the inexorable development of our modern understanding of information: Charles Babbage, the idiosyncratic inventor of the first great mechanical computer; Ada Byron, the brilliant and doomed daughter of the poet, who became the first true programmer; pivotal figures like Samuel Morse and Alan Turing; and Claude Shannon, the creator of information theory itself. And then the information age arrives. Citizens of this world become experts willy-nilly: aficionados of bits and bytes. And we sometimes feel we are drowning, swept by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets. The Information is the story of how we got here and where we are heading.

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• The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
  

  Dan says: Carnal love vs. divine love in London World War II, Sarah must choose between her lover, Maurice Bendrix, and her newly found Catholic faith and coincidental miracles. The book has many twists and crescendos that leave you breathless and perhaps a little more spiritual. read more >>
  
  

  Dan says: Carnal love vs. divine love in London World War II, Sarah must choose between her lover, Maurice Bendrix, and her newly found Catholic faith and coincidental miracles. The book has many twists and crescendos that leave you breathless and perhaps a little more spiritual.

  Summary: The novelist Maurice Bendrix's love affair with his friend's wife, Sarah, had begun in London during the Blitz. One day, inexplicably and without warning, Sarah had broken off the relationship. It seemed impossible that there could be a rival for her heart. Yet two years later, driven by obsessive jealousy and grief, Bendrix sends Pakris, a private detective, to follow Sarah and find out the truth.

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• Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton
  

  Jesse says: In Great North Road, Hamilton once again serves up an epic mix of detective fiction and sci-fi that is sure to please old fans and win him some new ones. Compelling characters, fascinating xenobiology, and a page-turning murder mystery make this my favorite read of the year thus far. read more >>
  
  

  Jesse says: In Great North Road, Hamilton once again serves up an epic mix of detective fiction and sci-fi that is sure to please old fans and win him some new ones. Compelling characters, fascinating xenobiology, and a page-turning murder mystery make this my favorite read of the year thus far.

  Summary: Bestselling author Hamilton's riveting new thriller combines the nail-biting suspense of a serial-killer investigation with clear-eyed scientific and social extrapolation to create a future that seems not merely plausible but inevitable.

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• A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson
  

  Jennifer says: I am a big fan of Joshilyn's distinct blend of mystery and humor which is perfectly seasoned with a giant passel of southern charm.  This novel didn't disappoint!  I listened to this book  read more >>
  
  

  Jennifer says: I am a big fan of Joshilyn's distinct blend of mystery and humor which is perfectly seasoned with a giant passel of southern charm.  This novel didn't disappoint!  I listened to this book and consider it a bonus that Joshilyn reads her own audiobooks. She has an enchanting voice that brings her books to life, this one included, like nobody else.

  Summary: Every fifteen years, trouble comes after the Slocumb women. Now, as their youngest turns fifteen, a whole new kind of commotion is chasing all three generations. Mosey's desperate to know who used their yard as a make-shift cemetery, and why. The oldest, forty-five year old Ginny, fights to protect Mosey from the truth, a fight that could cost Ginny the love of her life. Between them is Liza, silenced by a stroke, with the answers trapped inside her. To survive Liza's secrets and Mosey's insistent adventures, Ginny must learn to trust the love that braids the strands of their past--and stop at nothing to defend their future.

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• Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott
  

  Alice says: A short read for the spiritually inclined full of affirmation that it's ok to be a seeker your whole life. Parts made me laugh out loud. Parts were echoes of my own voice. A book to share. read more >>
  
  

  Alice says: A short read for the spiritually inclined full of affirmation that it's ok to be a seeker your whole life. Parts made me laugh out loud. Parts were echoes of my own voice. A book to share.

  Summary: Three simple prayers to get you through tough times, everyday struggles, and the hard work of ordinary life.Readers of all ages have followed and cherished Anne Lamott's funny and perceptive writing about her own faith and prayer. And in Help, Thanks, Wow, she has coalesced everything she's learned about prayer into these simple transformative truths. It is these three prayers--asking for assistance, appreciating the good we witness, and feeling awe at the world--that can get us through the day and show us the way forward.

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• Every Day by David Levithan
  

  Nancy says: I picked this book up because the premise reminded me of the early 90s TV show Quantum Leap. David Levithan, a young adult author, has an excellent ability to tell really great stories that also appeal to adults and this love story read more >>
  
  

  Nancy says: I picked this book up because the premise reminded me of the early 90s TV show Quantum Leap. David Levithan, a young adult author, has an excellent ability to tell really great stories that also appeal to adults and this love story about a teenage boy who wakes up every morning in a different body does not disappoint.

  Summary: Every morning, A wakes in a different person's body, a different person's life. There's never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere. It's all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because finally A has found someone he wants to be with—day in, day out, day after day.

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• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
  

  Elisabeth says: This is probably one of the most engrossing historical fiction novels I've come across. I am less familiar with English history but once I was able to keep all the Thomases and Williamses straight, I found it a wonderful insight  read more >>
  
  

  Elisabeth says: This is probably one of the most engrossing historical fiction novels I've come across. I am less familiar with English history but once I was able to keep all the Thomases and Williamses straight, I found it a wonderful insight into Tudor England and the writing is brilliant! I can't wait to read Bringing Up the Bodies (her second in a planned trilogy).

  Summary: England in the 1520's is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king's freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death.

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• Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
  

  Kimberly says: Yes, it's a movie now, but this is a great book about the existential crisis faced by a zombie in a post-apocalyptic world. Not only is it a zombie book, it's a musing on what makes us who we are, and a love story—it's got it all! read more >>
  
  

  Kimberly says: Yes, it's a movie now, but this is a great book about the existential crisis faced by a zombie in a post-apocalyptic world. Not only is it a zombie book, it's a musing on what makes us who we are, and a love story—it's got it all!

  Summary: A zombie who yearns for a better life ends up falling in love—with a human—in this astonishingly original debut novel.

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• Forgotten by Catherine McKenzie
  

  Jencey says: This book is totally unforgettable. The pages turned themselves. I was completely interested in what the main character Emma was going through. The book asks a very interesting question. What would happen if you were suddenly absent from your life for six months?

  
  
  
• Eight Girls Taking Pictures by Whitney Otto
  

  Sarah says: This novel tells the loosely-connected stories of eight female photographers throughout the 20th century. I especially loved how well this book explored the tensions that women are often faced with, such as choosing between a career and family, and the choices that each woman ultimately made. read more >>
  
  

  Sarah says: This novel tells the loosely-connected stories of eight female photographers throughout the 20th century. I especially loved how well this book explored the tensions that women are often faced with, such as choosing between a career and family, and the choices that each woman ultimately made.

  Summary: Bestselling author Whitney Otto' s Eight Girls Taking Pictures is a profoundly moving portrayal of the lives of women, imagining the thoughts and circumstances that produced eight famous female photographers of the twentieth century. This captivating novel opens in 1917 as Cymbeline Kelley surveys the charred remains of her photography studio, destroyed in a fire started by a woman hired to help take care of the house while Cymbeline pursued her photography career. This tension--between wanting and needing to be two places at once; between domestic duty and ambition; between public and private life; between what's seen and what's hidden from view--echoes in the stories of the other seven women in the book. Among them: Amadora Allesbury, who creates a world of color and whimsy in an attempt to recapture the joy lost to WWI; Clara Argento, who finds her voice working alongside socialist revolutionaries in Mexico; Lenny Van Pelt, a gorgeous model who feels more comfortable photographing the deserted towns of the French countryside after WWII than she does at a couture fashion shoot; and Miri Marx, who has traveled the world taking pictures, but also loves her quiet life as a wife and mother in her New York apartment. Crisscrossing the world and a century, Eight Girls Taking Pictures is an affecting meditation on the conflicts women face and the choices they make. These memorable characters seek extraordinary lives through their work, yet they also find meaning and reward in the ordinary tasks of motherhood, marriage, and domesticity. Most of all, this novel is a vivid portrait of women in love--in love with men, other women, children, their careers, beauty, and freedom.

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• Wonder by R.J. Palacio
  

  Mia says: Fall in love with a most unusual character, August Pullman, both courageous and spirited. He is also a fifth grader suffering from facial abnormalities. This book tugs at your heart strings, in a good way, and reminds you of the power of kindness. read more >>
  
  

  Mia says: Fall in love with a most unusual character, August Pullman, both courageous and spirited. He is also a fifth grader suffering from facial abnormalities. This book tugs at your heart strings, in a good way, and reminds you of the power of kindness. Auggie's face is one that causes people to stare. It also causes little children to cry and adults to look away. Auggie just wants people to see past all that and realize that he is just a normal kid, trying to find his place in the world. I was hooked on Wonder from the beginning quote by Natalie Merchant. A fair warning, you will have to go to the Children's area to check-out this good-for-the-heart gem.
   
  Summary: Auggie has been home schooled all of his life. This was due mostly to the fact that he has always been in and out of hospitals having surgeries related to facial abnormalities suffered from birth. When his mother wants him to be more integrated into society, she convinces him to attend a school with other children for the first time. Told through several different voices: Auggie's, his sisters, and several classmates, this novel takes you on a roller coaster of emotions through Auggie's first year of school. A year that is full of challenges for Auggie: parents worrying about having Auggie in their school, classmates not knowing how to treat him, and teachers trying to help him adjust. Fall in love with Auggie, and a few other characters too, as Auggie struggles through fifth grade with the loving support of his family.

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• Deep Blues by Robert Palmer
  

  Scot says: This is an exceptional, exceptionally readable account of the birth and evolution of the blues. Author Robert Palmer served as the chief pop music critic at the New York Times for much of the 1980s, and his writing here is academic, yet lucid; read more >>
  
  

  Scot says: This is an exceptional, exceptionally readable account of the birth and evolution of the blues. Author Robert Palmer served as the chief pop music critic at the New York Times for much of the 1980s, and his writing here is academic, yet lucid; educational, yet entertaining. The tales he tells stand tall, though the folks--Robert Johnson, Son House, Muddy Waters--at the center of them are recognizably human. If you're at all interested in sussing out the origins of the blues, this volume's information-packed 310 pages are essential.

  Summary: Blues is the cornerstone of American popular music, the bedrock of rock and roll. In this extraordinary musical and social history, Robert Palmer traces the odyssey of the blues from its rural beginnings, to the steamy bars of Chicago's South Side, to international popularity, recognition, and imitation. Palmer tells the story of the blues through the lives of its greatest practitioners: Robert Johnson, who sang of being pursued by the hounds of hell; Muddy Waters, who electrified Delta blues and gave the music its rock beat; Robert Lockwood and Sonny Boy Williamson, who launched the King Biscuit Time radio show and brought blues to the airwaves; and John Lee Hooker, Ike Turner, B. B. King, and many others.

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• In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner
  

  Rebekah says: A lyrical autobiographical novel set in Cambodia during the socialist revolution, the background of the book recounts how the Khmer Rouge broke apart families, destroyed culture, and instigated constant chaos and fear.  A young child at the time, Raani recounts her memories of her struggle read more >>
  
  

  Rebekah says: A lyrical autobiographical novel set in Cambodia during the socialist revolution, the background of the book recounts how the Khmer Rouge broke apart families, destroyed culture, and instigated constant chaos and fear.  A young child at the time, Raani recounts her memories of her struggle to survive, details the loss of her innocence, and the building of her character.  The legacy of Raani's princely father and poet lives on in the author, and her story of loss, love, and wisdom is heart-rending and beautiful.

  Summary: Told from the tender perspective of a young girl who comes of age amid the Cambodian killing fields, this searing first novel--based on the author's personal story--is one of survival, endurance, and forced exodus.

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