Holley, here! I'm always skeptical of sequels, a little scared even. If I loved it, will the new work live up to my expectations?! Kirkus book review magazine just put out this excellent list, many of which I've seen on other best-of lists. My personal recommendation is for the Tasha Suri book mentioned here. Suri OBVIOUSLY loves libraries and storytelling, and it comes through loud and clear in this thrilling sapphic fantasy!
A spellbinding story of two young people whose fates intersect and diverge across continents and years—an epic of love and family, India and America, tradition and modernity, by the Booker Prize–winning author of The Inheritance of Loss
From the New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers comes a magnificent and intimate new novel of desire, friendship, and the lasting impact of first love
A smart and tender story about the transformative power of grief, love, and family, this luscious novel explores past secrets, present truths, and futures forged in the wake of wild summer storms.
In an England fuelled by stories, the knight and the witch are fated to fall in love and doom each other over and over, the same tale retold over hundreds of lifetimes. Simran is a witch of the woods. Vina is a knight of the Queen’s court. To survive, the two will need to write a story stronger than the one that fate has given to them.
Dive into the dark underbelly of England’s most ancient university, where behind closed doors a circle of privileged students enter into a dark pagan ritual—one that holds tantalizing power and comes at a terrible price.
The acclaimed, prize-winning #1 New York Times bestselling writer returns with a moving, luminous novel that reminds us of the sweetness and impermanence of life and the power of connection to defy time.
Equal parts heartfelt family story and razor-sharp satire, Hyper is an ambitious, thrilling articulation of life in the twenty-first century, marking debut author Agri Ismaïl as one of the most perceptive and exciting new voices in contemporary literature.
A cursed princess must discover what her heart truly longs for in this charmingly cozy romantic fantasy for everyone who’s ever lost – or found – themselves in a bookshop.
From the Booker Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo comes a vivid, moving novel following a young man returning to his Hebridean island home, a portrait of a father’s expectations and a son’s desires
A JapaneseThe Thursday Murder Club, taking healing fiction for a mystery-filled spin with this bestseller that has sold more than 200,000 copies in Japan.
The best-selling author of Gates of Fire and A Man at Arms presents a gripping, genre-bending story of a mercenary in late medieval Spain and the eternal costs of violence.
The next Books & Beyond (BAB) meeting will be on
Tuesday, July 21st at 6:30pm.For the duration of the library’s renovation, BAB will meet at the
Levite Jewish Community Center (3960 Montclair Road 35213) in their Berkowitz
Boardroom.
BAB participants are required to sign in at the front desk with a
valid photo ID. If you happen to be a member of the LJCC, simply scan in as usual for this establishment. LJCC membership is NOT required to attend Books & Beyond. The boardroom is across the hall from the
indoor walking track.
New members are always welcome!In July, we’ll be chatting about solar
energy, the sun, and the solar system.If
you’re looking for reading/watching/listening inspiration, check out the Books
& Beyond row on the Shelf Care page of our website: https://oneallibrary.org/adults---reading-recommendations
Last night, BAB met for one of our biannual Salon
Discussions, where there is no assigned topic and participants can share
anything they’ve listened to, read, and watched.
Alienmeets Midsommar in this
chilling debut adult novel from award-winning author Andrew Joseph White about
identity, survival, and transformation amidst an alien invasion in rural West
Virginia.
Tautly wound and expertly crafted, Two Nights in
Lisbon is a riveting thriller about a woman under pressure, and how
far she will go when everything is on the line.
Inspired by Kailee Pedersen's own journey being adopted from
Nanning, China in 1996 and growing up alongside her family's farm in Nebraska,
this rich and atmospheric supernatural horror debut explores an ancient Chinese
mythology.
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR (NPR, TIME, USA
Today, The Economist,Scientific American, Good Housekeeping, Reader's
Digest,BuzzFeed, BookRiot, HuffPost, Jezebel, The Globe and
Mail, Kirkus, and more!)
A family on a remote island. A mysterious woman washed
ashore. A rising storm on the horizon. Wild Dark Shore is about the
impossible choices we make to protect the people we love, even as the world
around us disappears.
A president. A vice president. And the woman they're
forbidden to love. New Camelot is a contemporary reimagining of the legend of
King Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot—elegant, carnal, and unforgettable.
Jay Bell’s Something Like series (not available in the JCLC, request from Interlibrary Loan)
Something Like Summer
Something Like Winter
Something Like Autumn
Something Like Spring
Something Like Lightning
Something Like Thunder
Something Like Hail
Something Like Rain
Something Like Forever
Central to the plot is the troubled relationship between Ben
and Tim, former high school sweethearts who continue to meet over the years,
their chemistry changing with each encounter. While the series doesn’t shy away
from intimate details, it also focuses deeply on emotion, resulting in a
combination that will make your heart flutter.
From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner—a powerful examination
of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about race,
class, and gender with characteristic subtlety and grace.
With the Cold War fought and won, British spymaster Tim
Cranmer accepts early retirement to rural England and a new life with his
alluring young mistress, Emma. But when both Emma and Cranmer’s star double
agent and lifelong rival, Larry Pettifer, disappear, Cranmer is suddenly on the
run, searching for his brilliant protégé, desperately eluding his former
colleagues, in a frantic journey across Europe and into the lawless, battered
landscapes of Moscow and southern Russia, to save whatever of his life he has
left.
Redford stars as CIA operative Nathan Muir, who is on the
brink of retirement from the field, when he learns his protégé Tom Bishop has
been arrested in China on a charge of espionage. No stranger to the
machinations of the CIA's top echelon, Muir hones all his skills and irreverent
manner in order to find a way to free Bishop.
The man he knew as "Control" is dead, and the
young Turks who forced him out now run the Circus. But George Smiley isn't
quite ready for retirement—especially when a pretty, would-be defector surfaces
with a shocking accusation: a Soviet mole has penetrated the highest level of
British Intelligence. Relying only on his wits and a small, loyal cadre, Smiley
recognizes the hand of Karla—his Moscow Centre nemesis—and sets a trap to catch
the traitor.
Spies. Secrets. Soviets. And tight leather pants. It’s 1990.
The Berlin Wall has just come down. The Soviet Union is on the verge of
collapse. A heavy metal band from West Germany, the Scorpions, releases a power
ballad, “Wind of Change.” The song becomes the soundtrack to the peaceful
revolution sweeping Europe — and one of the biggest rock singles ever.
According to some fans, it’s the song that ended the Cold War. Decades later,
New Yorker writer Patrick Radden Keefe hears a rumor from a source: the
Scorpions didn’t actually write “Wind of Change.” The CIA did.
Djuna Barnes' strange and sinuous tour de force,
"belongs to that small class of books that somehow reflect a time or an
epoch" (Times Literary Supplement). That time is the period between
the two World Wars, and Barnes' novel unfolds in the decadent shadows of
Europe's great cities, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna―a world in which the
boundaries of class, religion, and sexuality are bold but surprisingly porous.
Author Elspeth Barker masterfully evokes the harsh climate
of Scotland in this atmospheric gothic tale that has been compared to the works
of the Brontës, Edgar Allan Poe, and Edward Gorey. Immersed in a world of
isolation and loneliness, Barker’s ill-fated young heroine Janet turns to
literature, nature, and her Aunt Lila, who offers brief flashes of respite in
an otherwise foreboding life. People, birds, and beasts move through the
background in a tale that is as rich and atmospheric as it is witty and mordant.
In the middle of tending to the everyday business at her
vintage-clothing shop in Edinburgh and sidestepping her married boyfriend’s
attempts at commitment, Iris Lockhart receives a stunning phone call: Her
great-aunt Esme, whom she never knew existed, is being released from Cauldstone
Hospital—where she has been locked away for more than sixty-one years. If Iris
takes her in, what dangerous truths might she inherit?
Maisie is caught in the middle of a bitter custody battle
between her selfish mother and her selfish father. Through her experiences,
Maisie learns to navigate her complicated situation with insight and
resilience. This timeless novel explores the themes of love, loyalty, and the
power of family.
Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We
Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel
about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that
ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate.
Charles Dickens's Barnaby Rudge is a vivid
portrait of London's descent into anarchy, where 'King Mob' rules the streets,
and innocent lives are swept up in the chaos. Set against the backdrop of the
Gordon Riots of 1780, Barnaby Rudge is a story of mystery and
suspense which begins with an unsolved double murder and goes on to involve
conspiracy, blackmail, abduction and retribution.
Looking to her favourite writers—Milan Kundera, Salman
Rushdie, Ma Jian, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, and Haruki Murakami, to name
a few—Echlin grapples in fresh ways with tyranny, war, sexual violence, and
censorship to bear witness to the past and look to the future. Written in
characteristically unsparing and evocative prose, Tell Others is
an invitation to all readers to acknowledge histories that are difficult to see
and to make meaning from the stories that buried bones tell. The author has one novel, about the rise of the Khmer Rouge regime, titled The Disappeared.
A traditional American woman, a “tradwife” influencer,
suddenly awakens in the brutal reality of 1855—where she must unravel whether
this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or
something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel.
Item descriptions pulled from Amazon, Fantastic Fiction, Rotten
Tomatoes, Crooked Podcasts, and Youtube.
While the O'Neal Library undergoes a major interior renovation, visit the temporary express location in Mountain Brook City Hall. Open Wednesdays 9am -2pm (closes early for city court session), and 9am-5pm the rest of the week. The Library is not open on
weekends. Have a question? Let us know at help@oneallibrary.org!
While the O'Neal Library undergoes a major interior renovation, visit the temporary express location in Mountain Brook City Hall. Open Wednesdays 9am -2pm (closes early for city court session), and 9am-6pm the rest of the week. The Library is not open on
weekends.
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