What You Will Be Reading in 2013

It's never too soon to start putting together your next reading list. What's going to be hot coming January? Take a look at the book review links from Kirkus below to gather ideas for your next trip to the library!

THRILLERS! & Mystery/Crime

Fiction & Literature


Nonfiction

Science Fiction and Fantasy


Love,
Your Library

The Gift of a Book!

Every holiday season, we try to post either the best books for 2012, or the most popular books of 2012-so that you have an idea of what to get that veracious reader in your life. This year is no different. Whether it's in hardcover, softcover, audio or electronic format, the gift of a great book often satisfies the most relucant of readers. Here's to a happy, stress-free shopping experience! Happy Holidays.

Amazon's Best Books of 2012

Barnes and Noble Best Books of 2012

New York Times Best Seller List

Good Reads Choice Awards 2012

2012 Man Booker Prize Winner: Bring Up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel

2012 Man Booker Prize winner, Hilary Mantel is the first author ever to win the prize twice with her novel Bring Up the Bodies.  Wolf Hall, the book for which Bring Up the Bodies is the sequel, won the 2009 Man Booker Prize.  Mantel is currently working on The Mirror and the Light, the final title in the trilogy.

"When last we saw Thomas Cromwell, hero of Mantel's 2009 Man Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall, he'd successfully moved emperors, queens, courtiers, the pope, and Thomas More to secure a divorce and a new, younger queen for his patron, Henry the VIII. Now, in the second book of a planned trilogy, Cromwell, older, tired, with more titles and power, has to get Henry out of another heirless marriage. The historical facts are known: this is not about what happens, but about how. And armed with street smarts, vast experience and connections, a ferociously good memory, and a patient taste for revenge, Mantel's Cromwell is a master of how. Like its predecessor, the book is written in the present tense, rare for a historical novel. But the choice makes the events unfold before us: one wrong move and all could be lost. Also repeated is Mantel's idiosyncratic use of "he:" regardless of the rules of grammar, rest assured "he" is always Cromwell. By this second volume, however, Mantel has taught us how to read her, and seeing Cromwell manipulate and outsmart the nobles who look down on him, while moving between his well-managed domestic arrangements and the murky world of accusations and counteraccusations is pure pleasure. Cromwell may, as we learn in the first volume, look "like a murderer," but he's mighty good company." - Publishers Weekly (June)

Pure by Julianna Baggot

Dystopian novels are all the rage right now-and some of them are less than note worthy. But, this adult novel will satisfy even the most discerning of apocalyptic tastes. Set in the future, the world as we know it has been destroyed by bombs. But, a dome built before these bombs were activated contains some of the privledged  few of society. Those that survived the bombs outside of the dome have been horribly mutated and refer to those in the dome as "Pure". When a young man from inside the dome escapes into the outter world to find a mother he believes is still alive, a string of events that will forever change the course of humanity are set into action. -Edith Wheeler Memorial Library

"What lifts PURE from the glut of blood-spattered young adult fiction is not the story Baggott tells but the exquisite precision of her prose...discomfiting and unforgettable." (The New York Times Sunday Book Review )

"Baggott's highly anticipated postapocalyptic horror novel...is a fascinating mix of stark, oppressive authoritarianism and grotesque anarchy...Baggott mixes brutality, occasional wry humor, and strong dialogue into an exemplar of the subgenre." (Publisher's Weekly (STARRED review) )

"A great gorgeous whirlwind of a novel, boundless in its imagination. You will be swept away." (Justin Cronin, New York Times bestselling author of The Passage )

A Book that Really Cooks...and Eat Your Veggies!

Ah, the disappointing life of the cookbook reader. Well, that means me. I love to cook-and I love to browse through the stacks of the library cookbook section-to find new recipes, ideas and inspirations. Being a mom of a 20 month old, finds me constantly trying new ways to prepare vegetables-and I need all the help I can get. Frequently, I find myself drawn in by devastatingly scrumptious looking photographs-only to be less than impressed when I cook the real item at home. I'm not sure how cookbook publishers are able to pack so much deliciousness into a picture, but it sure works and fools me almost every time. Darn those food stylists!

Well, when I came across the book Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld in our Library Parenting Section, I was apprehensive. Sure, Jerry Seinfeld is funny-but can his wife really cook? Additionally, these recipes were all about "masking" vegetable goodness & vitamins, in regular everyday foods. Butternut squash in mac n'cheese, beets in pancakes, cauliflower in scrambled eggs were a few of the recipe ideas. Not the most adventurous cooking-I'll admit-but much needed in my house. Of course, as always, the pictures sold me. So, I borrowed it and gave it a shot.

That is why I'm writing this dear reader-because I was impressed-and so was my family. Not only does this book give the cook of the house great ideas about getting in extra nutrition into every bite-but the recipes are actually good-and accurate to the pictures. Our favorite right now is the Peanut Butter and Jelly muffins made with carrots and yogurt. I almost dropped over in happiness when I ate one this morning! Our daughter-who for the most part cannot be easily fooled by hidden veg-has found these recipes to be favorites as well. For the time being-while she's refusing to eat vegetables in their true form, this book has proven to be a life saver.

So I'm shouting it from the library treetops: Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. A winning cookbook and one that doesn't disappoint. Check it out today!

Adult Services Librarian Recent Read: Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

In her charming debut novel, Simonson tells the tale of Maj. Ernest Pettigrew, an honor-bound Englishman and widower, and the very embodiment of duty and pride. As the novel opens, the major is mourning the loss of his younger brother, Bertie, and attempting to get his hands on Bertie's antique Churchill shotgun—part of a set that the boys' father split between them, but which Bertie's widow doesn't want to hand over. While the major is eager to reunite the pair for tradition's sake, his son, Roger, has plans to sell the heirloom set to a collector for a tidy sum. As he frets over the guns, the major's friendship with Jasmina Ali—the Pakistani widow of the local food shop owner—takes a turn unexpected by the major (but not by readers). The author's dense, descriptive prose wraps around the reader like a comforting cloak, eventually taking on true page-turner urgency as Simonson nudges the major and Jasmina further along and dangles possibilities about the fate of the major's beloved firearms. This is a vastly enjoyable traipse through the English countryside and the long-held traditions of the British aristocracy. (Publisher's Weekly, Reviewed on 1/4/2010)

Book Review: The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock

A compelling and eerie novel, The Devil All the Time follows a demented cast of characters throughout their lives in rural Ohio, during the 1960s. At the center of this story is Arvin Russell, a young boy who watches his father slowly seep into insanity. Arvin subsequently grows to become a dangerous but righteous man himself. Surrounding Arvin's sprial from boyhood to adult are a menage of crazy characters including: crooked Sheriff Bodecker who is more of a villian than a protector, Carl and Sandy Henderson who spend their "vacations" serial killing, and an evangelical preaching duo, Roy and Theodore, who sink to the very pith of blackness they foreworn against. As the story progresses, the character's lives twist and intertwine into one another, creating a dark wreath of sin that circles in on itself and leaves the reader with a most satisfying ending.

See if this book is in at EWML!

Books to Movies 2012

If you are like me, you like to read the book BEFORE you see the movie. For many readers, the book is almost always better than the film. If I see previews for an coming movie that intrigues me-I usually try to find the book that it came from, so I can read that first. Sure, it spoils the movie for me. But, Hollywood really never can seem to get the big screen version to match up to the absolutely wonderful version I dreamed up in my own head anyway. So, in the event that you are looking to do the same for 2012, here's a list of upcoming book to movies for 2012-so you can get ahead of the game yourself. Enjoy!

One for the Money by Janet Evanovich
Woman in Black, A Ghost Story by Susan Hill
Big Miracle by Tom Rose
John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Abrahm Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahm Smith
Borne Legacy by Eric Von Lustbader
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Life of Pi by Yann Martel