NHCPL Reads discussion

I am reading Dawn on a Distant Shore by Sara Donati. This is the #2 book in her Into the Wilderness series. For those of you who are having a hard time waiting for Diana Gabaldon's next Outlander book, this series was highly recommended by Ms. Gabaldon. I really liked the first one.

I'll Be Seeing You Our group, The Downtown Readers Book Club, is reading "I'll Be Seeing You" by Suzanne Hayes and Loretta Nyhan this month. It's an epistolary novel about the experiences of two military wives during WWII.

Hello!!! I'm new here but excited to discuss books with people in my area! I read "Between The World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates last week. It was amazing and is so important. I am currently reading "Boy, Snow, Bird" by Helen Oyeyemi. I've just started it but have previously read her book "Mr. Fox" and I hope this one is as great as that was. I'm sure it will be. I'm also listening on audible to "Alexander Hamilton" by Ron Chernow.

This weekend I read Al Capone Does My Shirts and Al Capone Shines My Shoes by Gennifer Choldenko. Both were great historical fiction reads for children and even featured a character with autism before that was the word used to describe what we now know as autism. I always see these books on the return carts and had them on a long list of books to read one day.

I am currently reading Anonymous Lawyer by Andrew Bachman. I picked it up because the library recently launched a blog and I wanted to promote books in our collection that were written in a blog format. Very engaging read about life as a lawyer.

P.S. Welcome Ashley! :)

Hello, everyone!
I recently picked up Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. Looks like an interesting read. I do it to myself every time. I get the book they've made into a movie and then grumble watching the movie that the book was SOOO much better.
I did pick up "I'll be seeing you" by Suzanne Hayes also in hopes to make it to the next Downtown Readers book club so thank you for posting about it Lizzie. I'll talk all day about books. Glad to find others who will too. I've been looking for a book club.

I just finished All the Missing Girls and Wilde Lake. Both were Advanced Reader Copies as the books come out in June and May respectively. Now I've moved on to Jane Doe January: My Twenty-Year Search for Truth and Justice by Emily Winslow.

Fans of psychological thrillers will love All the Missing Girls. It tells the story of two mysterious disappearances in the same town 10 years apart but is told backwards. I was skeptical at first about this but it really works.

Wilde Lake is a standalone book by Laura Lippman, the author of the popular Tess Monaghan series. She does it again with this book, focusing on a newly elected state attorney and a routine case that brings up secrets from her past. I enjoy her mysteries because while there is a suspense aspect, she has great character development.

Jane Doe January is a true crime type novel focusing on a woman's journey to convict a man who committed a crime against her after 20+ years. It focuses on her battle through the legal system but also about how she was able to cope. I'm enjoying it so far, as it gives an interesting perspective on our legal system through the eyes of one woman who is trying to navigate it.

Ashley wrote: "Hello!!! I'm new here but excited to discuss books with people in my area! I read "Between The World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates last week. It was amazing and is so important. I am currently readin..."

I've had Boy, Snow, Bird on my tbr list for a long time. Let me know if it's as good as I've heard. :)

Hey all! I'm currently reading Lady Midnight, the first book in Cassandra Claire's new series as a bit of research into what's snatching up YA readers. So far it's pretty good, if a bit on the long side.

I just finished The Madwoman Upstairs, a first novel by Catherine Lowell. Samantha Whipple, the last surviving collateral descendant of the Bronte family, is a student at Old College, Oxford and is trying to unravel her father's mysterious bequest of "The Warnings of Experience." I ended up feeling that the novel never quiet made up its mind whether it wanted to be a romantic-suspense novel (which it did pretty well) or to say Something Significant about the ways books, writers, and readers affect each other. Probably the intent was some of both, and it's interesting that I'm wondering about this considering all the arguments Samantha and her "smoking hot" tutor have over the question of whether or not authorial intent is a valid consideration in the analysis of literature.
At any rate, this is a good quick read which would be especially interesting to fans of the Brontes or of fiction set in academia.

Over the weekend I read Rosalie Lightning: A Graphic Memoir, a graphic memoir about Hart's experience losing his daughter unexpectedly when she was young. Fans of Maus and Persepolis will enjoy this one, although be prepared for a heartbreaking tale told through pictures.

I also read The Mourning Hours by Paula DeBoard. A woman returns to her hometown after being away for years and must face what happened years before. This is a mystery in the sense that the reader is trying to piece together what happens but most of the story is focused on the family and their life leading up to the tragic events of the past (the narrator's brother is accused of killing his high school girlfriend, although no evidence is found to bring him to trial). If you like mysteries that focus on characters and plot, give this one a try. It is similar to Laura Lippman's novels because they are heavy on character development.