Category: Book Talk

Every year AudioFile Sync offers free YA audiobooks. From now until the end of July, we can download two new audiobooks every week! Their selections are a mix of fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary reads, and a variety of genres. I’m especially excited about They Went Left by Monica Hesse (available from May 6-May 12) about a Holocaust survivor searching for her younger brother in a German displaced persons camp.

To get started, visit the Audiobook Sync website and enter your email into the registration form. From there, you’ll get instructions on how to access the audiobooks through the Sora, the student reading app from OverDrive. You can also sign up for email or text reminders, so you get a notice every week when new titles are available.

The first week’s titles, Come On In by Adi Alsaid, and Illegal by Francisco X. Stork, are available to download through Wednesday, May 5^th. On Thursday, May 6^th, two new titles will become available. All the titles are only available for a week, but they will remain in your Sora app once you’ve downloaded them.

Happy Listening!

Emily

Early Bird Book Club will return in May on a new day of the week! Our next book club will be on Thursday, May 20^th at 8:30am. We will be reading the cozy mystery, Books Can be Deceiving by Jen McKinlay. Let us know if you would like to read with us and we’ll get you a copy.

If you have a book club of your own, we are happy to help your members get their next read. Book club kits with multiple copies of a selected title and a discussion guide are also available to check out thanks to Marshall-Lyon County Library and Plum Creek.

Here are some favorite selections from all of our book clubs and stories featuring book clubs.

Favorite Book Club Reads

• And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
• Moo by Sharon Creech
• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
• Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
• Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
• The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White

Books Featuring Book Clubs

• The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams
• The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald
• Murder at Spirit Falls by Barbara Deese
• The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix
• Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson
• Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

-Emily

Our next set of Winter Reading Bingo recommendations are all historical fiction. This list of new titles will take you anywhere from 1650s Amsterdam to 1950s Mexico. If you really love historical fiction and want to read multiple books with historical settings for your bingo card, there are books on the list that could also count as mystery, romance, inspirational, YA, and sci-fi/fantasy. If you’re looking to listen to a historical fiction audiobook, there are plenty of good choices through Plum Creek’s Overdrive/Libby.

• In the Lion’s Den by Barbara Taylor Bradford
• A Rogue of One’s Own by Evie Dunmore
• The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner
• Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce
• Something Worth Doing by Jane Kirkpatrick
• The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline
• Murder in Old Bombay by Nev March
• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• The Librarian of Boone’s Hollow by Kim Vogel Sawyer
• The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys
• Midnight Blue by Simone Van Der Glugt
• The Enigma Game by Elizabeth Wein

For more historical fiction recommendations, check out this blog post on WWII stories.

-Emily

One of my favorite things about the Winter Reading Program is doing the bingo card. It gets me to try genres and formats I normally don’t read, which is always a fun way to start my reading year. We’ll be offering suggestions for the Winter Reading Program Bingo categories for the next few weeks and today we start with some of our new mysteries!

• Take It Back by Kia Abdullah
• For Whom the Book Tolls by Laura Gail Black
• Little Bookshop of Murder by Maggie Blackburn
• Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine
• The Searcher by Tana French
• Cross Her Heart by Melinda Leigh
• The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O’Donnell
• All the Devils Are Here by Louise Penny
• Murder Most Sweet by Laura Jensen Walker
• Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder by T. A. Willberg

-Emily

Yesterday was Grandparents Day (and my grandma’s 91^st birthday!), so here are some books for all ages featuring fantastic grandparents.

Picturebooks

• Leave Me Alone by Vera Brosgol
• Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Pena, illustrated by Christian Robinson
• The Purple Coat by Amy Hest, illustrated by Amy Schwartz
• Drawn Together by Minh Le, illustrated by Dan Santat
• In Plain Sight by Richard Jackson, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney

Middle Grade

• Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
• Merci Suarez Changes Gears by Meg Medina
• Chirp by Kate Messner
• As Brave As You by Jason Reynolds
• Clean Getaway by Nic Stone

Young Adult

• A Heart in a Body in the World by Deb Caletti
• We Walked the Sky by Lisa Fielder
• I Love So Mochi by Sarah Kuhn
• From Twinkle, With Love by Sandhya Menon
• The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X. R. Pan

Adult

• Secrets by Kristen Heitzmann
• Life and Other Inconveniences by Kristan Higgins
• The Second Half by Lauraine Snelling
• A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
• In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner

-Emily

August is Romance Awareness Month and we couldn’t let it pass by without highlighting some of the amazing romance reads available at the library!

• Contemporary
  • Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev
  • The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory
  • Beach Read by Emily Henry
  • The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
  • Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop by Roselle Lim

• Historical
  • The Widow of Rose House by Diana Biller
  • The Last Train to Key West by Chanel Cleeton
  • Wicked and the Wallflower by Sarah MacLean
  • A Tender Thing by Emily Neuberger
  • A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby by Vanessa Riley

• Inspirational
  • Like a Love Song by Camille Eide
  • A Reluctant Bride by Kathleen Fuller
  • Shine Like the Dawn by Carrie Turansky
  • Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Beth K. Vogt
  • Hometown Girl by Courtney Walsh

• Rom Coms
  • Fix Her Up by Tessa Bailey
  • Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie
  • You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle
  • The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren
  • Would Like to Meet by Rachel Winters

• Supernatural
  • Burn for Me by Ilona Andrews
  • The Waking Land by Callie Bates
  • Moon Called by Patricia Briggs
  • The Goblins of Bellwater by Molly Ringle
  • Morrigan’s Cross by Nora Roberts

• Young Adult
  • Love from A to Z by S. K. Ali
  • This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story by Kacen Callendar
  • I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo
  • There’s Something about Sweetie by Sandhya Menon
  • Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Today’s First Chapter Friday read is Lumberjanes: Unicorn Power! written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Brooke Allen. This book is full of summer camp shenanigans, supernatural adventures, and friendship to the max. Click here to find out more about this book on the Plum Creek Library catalog.

Today’s First Chapter Friday read is The Season of Styx Malone by Kekla Magoon. This book is a fun romp about two brothers, their new friend, and a summer full of adventures. To read the rest of the story, you can visit the Plum Creek Library catalog and put the book on hold.

Today’s First Chapter Friday selection is Tome Raider, written by Michael Dahl and illustrated by Nelson Evergreen. To hear the rest of this thrilling tale and more entries in the Library of Doom series, visit Ebooks Minnesota or the Plum Creek Library catalog.

Today’s First Chapter Friday read is The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson. It’s a fun middle grade mystery about new friends, family history, and secret treasures. This book is available from the in print, as an ebook, and as an e-audiobook.