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Author Byron Lane based his book, A Star is Bored, on the life of Carrie Fisher (he had been her assistant).  In the novel, a movie star called Kathi Kannon, who has made it big playing Priestess Talara in a runaway sci-fi movie sensation, hires Charlie B

In her latest collection of linked short stories Secrets of Happiness (2021), Joan Silber writes about the impacts of a father’s secrets on his extended family and the people in their lives.

In A Holidaze is a Christmas romance centered on Maelyn, who is in her mid-twenties, hates her job, and is unhappily single. The one happy place in Maelyn’s life is the cabin where her family always spends the holidays with her parents’ college friends and their children (including Andrew, Maelyn’s longtime crush). Unfortunately, this Christmas is the end of an era: the cabin is being sold.

I recently asked Laurel, a member of our circulation team, for a recommendation. Laurel was deep into We Begin at the End (2021) by British author Chris Whitaker.

Still Life by Sarah Winman is a love letter to the city of Florence, Italy, its art, and its inhabitants. An ode to chance encounters, love and found family. A delightful story of a tender-hearted English soldier and an eccentric art historian who serendipitously meet on the outskirts of Florence towards the end of WWII. Filled wi

In The Colour of Magic, part 1 of the Discworld Series, Terry Pratchett introduces readers to a flat earth-like planet held up

Get ready to embark on a fun, quirky adventure with Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts (2019) by Kate Racculia. After eccentric billionaire Vincent Price dies, he invites Boston residents to join a treasure hunt. Tuesday Mooney is a loner, researcher, and reluctant socializer. She has secrets (who doesn’t?) and soon becomes engaged in the quest to solve the puzzle.

Fun fact: a section of The Dearly Beloved, Cara Wall’s debut novel, is set in Wheaton, Illinois!

Part eco fiction, part family saga, Greenwood by Michael Christie follows the story of the ill-fated Greenwood family through several generations.

What do you do when your whole world changes? That is the question Vasya must answer in Katherine Arden’s gorgeous story of Russian history and mythology.

Vasilisa Petrovna has always been a strange girl. Everyone in her village says so; her face looks like a frog’s, she runs around in the woods like some sort of wild thing, and she has a habit of talking to the air. What the villagers don’t know is Vasya has the sight and can speak with the chyruthi – spirits of nature and the home. And the chyruthi are afraid.

Brit Bennett‘s debut novel, The Mothers, earned well-deserved attention in 2016. 

I picked up Strange Weather by Joe Hill because I often turn to collections of short (horror) stories when I need a little pick me up. Something to take the edge off put the edge on. I’m sure Joe Hill is tired of people saying it by now, but for anyone who hasn’t read Joe Hill before, the apple does not fall far from the familial tree and I hope Stephen King is a proud papa.