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Staff Favorites 2019

From children's books to biographies, bestselling romance to National Book Award winners, here are the favorite books read by the Silas Bronson Library staff in 2019.

 

 

Biography

 

 

 

   

Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home

In this gorgeous, moving memoir, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Caldwell reflects on her own coming-of-age in midlife, as she learns to open herself to the power and healing of sharing her life with a best friend.

 

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Elton John, Me

In his first and only official autobiography, music icon Elton John reveals the truth about his extraordinary life.

 

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Robert Hilburn, Paul Simon: The Life

Finally, Simon has opened up--for more than one hundred hours of interviews--to Robert Hilburn. The result is a landmark book that will take its place as the defining biography of one of America's greatest artists.

 

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Book

 

 

 
 

 

   

 

Children's Books

 
   

Alma Flor Ada & F. Isabel Campoy, Mamá Goose: Bilingual Lullabies - Nanas

Presents lullabies, finger plays, nursery rhymes, games, riddles, proverbs, and more in Spanish and English.

 

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 Board Book

 

   

 

 

Tracey Baptiste, Rise of the Jumbies

Suspicion falls on half-jumbie Corinne when local children from her Caribbean island home begin to disappear, and she is forced to go deep into the ocean to seek the help of a dangerous jumbie who rules the waves.

 

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Aaron Blabey, Piranhas Don't Eat Bananas

Told in rhyming text, Brian tries to get his fellow piranhas to try his fruit and vegetable platter, but they all prefer meat--like those human feet dangling in the water.

 

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Eric Carle, Can A Cat Do That?

Shows different animals behaving as they normally do, such as running or pinching, and asks if a cat can do the same. Includes word list and follow-up questions.

 

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Book

 

   
   

Yvonne Lin, The A-Z of Wonder Women

Celebrate historic and contemporary wonder women from around the world, from Ada Lovelace to Zaha Hadid.

 

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Rick Riordan, The Tyrant's Tomb

The fourth book in the bestselling series, The Trials of Apollo.

 

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Susan Verde, I Am Human: A Book of Empathy

A child recognizes his own humanity, his capacity for doing harm and being harmed, his ability to feel joy and sadness, and his belief in hope and promise to keep learning.

 

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Jonah Winter & Bryan Collier, Thurgood

Thurgood Marshall--the first black justice on the Supreme Court and a giant of the civil rights movement--jumps to life in this inspiring picture-book biography.

 

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Book

   

 

 

Barry Wittenstein & Jerry Pinkney, A Place to Land: Martin Luther King, Jr. And The Speech That Inspired A Nation

The true story behind the writing of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech.

 

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Book

 

 

   
 

Fiction

 

 


 

 

Marie Benedict, The Only Woman in the Room

Based on the incredible true story of Hedy Lamarr, the glamour icon and scientist whose groundbreaking invention revolutionized modern communication.

 

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Elizabeth Chadwick, Templar Silks

England, 1219. Lying on his deathbed, William Marshal, England's greatest knight, sends a trusted servant to bring to him the silk Templar burial shrouds that returned with him from the Holy Land thirty years ago. It is time to fulfil his vow to the Templars and become a monk of their order for eternity.

 

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Vannetta Chapman, Deep Shadows

Shelby Sparks and Max Berkman are hiking above the Colorado Bend River in Texas when the night sky is filled with the aurora borealis. A beautiful sight, Shelby realizes that it also signals the end of life as they know it. As Deep Shadows stretch across the land, Shelby and Max will be pushed to their limits, where they'll discover if they have the faith and strength to become a part of the Remnant of Christ.

 

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Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Water Dancer

Even as he's enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, all Hiram wants is to return to the Walker Plantation to free the family he left behind--but to do so, he must first master his magical gift and reconstruct the story of his greatest loss.

 

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Catherine Coulter, Labyrinth

Agent Sherlock risks losing her career -- and her sanity -- over a case that is more complicated and twisted than any she's ever encountered.

 

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Esi Edugyan, Washington Black

The surprising adventures of Washington Black, born into slavery on a Barbados sugar plantation, then taken on as a manservant to Christopher Wilde, a naturalist, explorer, adventurer, and abolitionist.

 

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Louise Erdrich, Future Home of the Living God

A tale set in a world of reversing evolution and a growing police state follows pregnant thirty-two-year-old Cedar Hawk Songmaker, who investigates her biological family while awaiting the birth of a child who may emerge as a member of a primitive human species.

 

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Erica Ferencik, The River At Night

A high stakes drama set against the harsh beauty of the Maine wilderness, charting the journey of four friends as they fight to survive the aftermath of a white water rafting accident, The River at Night is a nonstop and unforgettable thriller.

 

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Dorothea Benton Frank, Queen Bee

Queen Bee is a classic Lowcountry Tale--warm, wise and hilarious, it roars with humanity and a dropperful of whodunit added for good measure by an unseen hand. In her twentieth novel, Dorothea Benton Frank brings us back to her beloved island with an unforgettable story where the Lowcountry magic of the natural world collides with the beat of the human heart.

 

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Elizabeth Gilbert, City of Girls

Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.

 

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Nicola Harrison, Montauk

Montauk, Long Island, 1938. Beatrice Bordeaux was looking forward to a summer of reigniting the passion between her and her husband, Harry. Instead, tasked with furthering his investment interest in Montauk as a resort destination, she learns she'll be spending twelve weeks sequestered with the high society wives at The Montauk Manor, a two-hundred room seaside hotel.

 

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Sophie Kinsella, I Owe You One

An irresistible story of love and empowerment about a young woman with a complicated family, a handsome man who might be "the one," and an IOU that changes everything.

 

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Anna Loan-Wilsey, A Lack of Temperance

On the eve of the presidential election of 1892, Miss Hattie Davish, a traveling secretary, arrives in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, to discover her new employer, the leader of a temperance group, has been murdered.

 

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Large Print Book

 

 

 

   

Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

Patroclus, an awkward young prince, follows Achilles into war, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they have learned, everything they hold dear. And that, before he is ready, he will be forced to surrender his friend to the hands of Fate. Set during the Trojan War.

 

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Erin Morgenstern, The Starless Sea

The starless sea is a place of lost cities and seas of honey, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead.  Zachary Rawlins travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly-soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose in life.

 

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Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

Falling in love with your roommate is probably a terrible idea... especially if you've never met.

 

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B. A. Paris, Bring Me Back

She went missing. He moved on. A whole world of secrets remained, until now. A tour de force of psychological suspense, Bring Me Back will have you questioning everything and everyone until its stunning climax.

 

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Signe Pike, The Lost Queen

The Mists of Avalon meets the world of Philippa Gregory in the thrilling first novel of a debut trilogy that reveals the untold story of Languoreth--a forgotten queen of sixth-century Scotland--twin sister of the man who inspired the legend of Merlin.

 

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Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, Old Bones

Nora Kelly, a young but successful curator with a series of important excavations already under her belt, is approached by the handsome Historian, Guy Porter, to lead an expedition unlike any other.

 

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Lucinda Riley, The Royal Secret

An ambitious young journalist unravels a dangerous mystery that threatens to devastate the British monarchy.

 

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J. D. Robb, Vendetta In Death

She calls herself Lady Justice. And once she has chosen a man as her target, she makes herself as alluring and seductive as possible to them. Once they are in her grasp, they are powerless. The first victim is wealthy businessman Nigel McEnroy. If Eve Dallas can't stop this vigilante, there's no telling how much blood may be spilled.

 

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Catherine Steadman, Something In The Water

Erin is a documentary filmmaker on the brink of a professional breakthrough, Mark a handsome investment banker with big plans. Passionately in love, they embark on a dream honeymoon to the tropical island of Bora Bora, where they enjoy the sun, the sand, and each other. Then, while scuba diving in the crystal blue sea, they find something in the water. . . .

 

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Jesmyn Ward, Sing, Unburied, Sing

Jojo and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their grandparents, Mam and Pop, and the occasional presence of their drug-addicted mother, Leonie, on a farm on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. When the white father of Leonie's children is released from prison, she packs her kids and a friend into her car and sets out across the state for Parchman farm, the Mississippi State Penitentiary, on a journey rife with danger and promise.

 

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Jennifer Weiner, Who Do You Love

From the "hilarious, heartbreaking, and insightful" (The Miami Herald) bestselling author Jennifer Weiner comes a sweeping, modern day fairy tale about first romance and lasting love.

 

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Beatriz Williams, The Golden Hour

The Bahamas, 1941. Newly-widowed Leonora "Lulu" Randolph arrives in Nassau to investigate the Governor and his wife for a New York society magazine. After all, American readers have an insatiable appetite for news of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, that glamorous couple whose love affair nearly brought the British monarchy to its knees five years earlier. What more intriguing backdrop for their romance than a wartime Caribbean paradise, a colonial playground for kingpins of ill-gotten empires?

 

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Lauren Willig, The Summer Country

Barbados, 1854: Emily Dawson has always been the poor cousin in a prosperous English merchant clan. Everyone knows that the family's lucrative shipping business will go to her cousin, Adam, one day. But when her grandfather dies, Emily receives an unexpected inheritance: Peverills, a sugar plantation in Barbados, a plantation her grandfather never told anyone he owned.

 

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 Graphic Novels  
   
 

 

Dan Ariely, Amazing Decisions

Dan Ariely, the New York Times bestselling author of Predictably Irrational, and illustrator Matt R. Trower present a playful graphic novel guide to better decision-making, based on the author’s groundbreaking research in behavioral economics, neuroscience, and psychology.

 

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Ebony Flowers, Hot Comb

Hot Comb offers a poignant glimpse into black women’s lives and coming-of-age stories as seen across a crowded, ammonia-scented hair salon while ladies gossip and bond over the burn.

 

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Jeff Lemire & Dustin Nguyen, Ascender

Set 10 years after the conclusion of Descender's story line, here magic has taken the place of machinery and the rules are very different indeed... Mila spends her days exploring the lonely wilds of the planet Sampson and trying to stay out of the clutches of the evil disciples of the all powerful vampire witch known only as Mother. But when a certain robot pal of her dad's shows up, nothing will ever be the same!

 

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Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda, Monstress

Set in an alternate world of art deco beauty and steampunk horror, Monstress tells the epic story of Maika Halfwolf, a teenage survivor of a cataclysmic war between humans and their hated enemies, the Arcanics.

 

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George Takei, They Called Us Enemy

A stunning graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei's childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon -- and America itself -- in this gripping tale of courage, country, loyalty, and love.

 

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Non-Fiction

 
   


 

Daniel Immerwahr, How To Hide An Empire

A pathbreaking history of the United States’ overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empire.

 

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Patrick Marnham, Resistance and Betrayal

Biography of Jean Moulin, who was captured by the Gestapo in 1943 and subsequently tortured and killed, becoming an icon of the French Resistance.

 

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Susan Orlean, The Library Book

Susan Orlean reopens the unsolved mystery of the most catastrophic library fire in American history, and delivers a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution--our libraries.

 

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Tara Swart, The Source

Tara Swart, a neuroscientist and Senior Lecturer at MIT, reveals the surprising science that supports "The Law of Attraction" as an effective tool for self-discovery and offers a guide to discovering your authentic self to access your best life now.

 

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Tom Wolfe, The Painted Word

The Painted Word is an incisive critique of contemporary art, and the world that surrounds it, written by Tom Wolfe, the prolific journalist and novelist, in 1975.

 

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Teen/Young Adult

 
 
   

Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. She pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers. When she is invited to join her school's slam poetry club, she can't stop thinking about performing her poems.

 

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Yaunda Micheaux Nelson, No Crystal Stair

Told by a banker that he should sell fried chicken rather than books, since "Negroes don't read", Lewis Michaux defies the odds to build Harlem's National Memorial African Bookstore, an intellectual center and gathering place from 1939 to 1975.

 

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L. C. Rosen, Jack of Hearts (And Other Parts)

Rumors have always swirled about Jack's unapologetically queer sex life. When Jack starts writing a teen sex advice column for an online site, he begins to receive creepy and threatening love letters that attempt to force Jack to curb his sexuality and personality. Now it's up to Jack and his best friends to uncover the stalker--before their love becomes dangerous.

 

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Rainbow Rowell & Faith Erin Hicks, Pumpkinheads

Deja and Josiah are seasonal best friends. Every autumn, all through high school, they've worked together at the world's best pumpkin patch. They say good-bye every Halloween, and they're reunited every September 1. But this Halloween is different. Josiah and Deja are finally seniors. It's their last season at the Patch, their last shift together--their last good-bye.

 

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Neal Shusterman, Scythe

In a world where disease has been eliminated, the only way to die is to be randomly killed (gleaned) by professional reapers (scythes). Citra and Rowan are teenagers who have been selected to be scythe's apprentices, and despite wanting nothing to do with the vocation they must learn the art of killing and come to understand the necessity of what they do.

 

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