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| Uprooted by Naomi Novik |
Selected from nominations from library staff across the country (LibraryReads), here are the top 10 books that librarians are thrilled about sharing in May 2015:
1. Uprooted by Naomi Novik - In this awesome book by the author of the Temeraire novels, a young girl is uprooted from her family and thrown into a world of magic and war. In order to protect her home and village, Agnieszka must help the Dragon wizard fight against the corrupting forces of The Wood. Naomi Novik draws from folklore and legends to create a new take on old stories. (Release: 5/19/2015)
2. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas - A new book and series by the author of Throne of Glass, A Court of Thorns and Roses borrows elements from an old fairy tail: the beauty and the beast. A Court of Thorns and Roses is the first book in Sarah J. Maas's new series about a young huntress who kills a wolf and gets kidnapped by a beast in the woods. The beast turns out to be one of the immortal and powerful faeries in the land, and he wants retribution for the wolf that she killed. As prisoner, Feyre comes to fall in love with the beast, but soon must figure out a way to defeat the shadow that threatens to destroy the beast's land. (Release: 5/5/2015)
3. A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson - This is a companion book to Kate Atkinson's Life After Life, so you don't have to read Life After Life to enjoy A God in Runs. In Life After Life, Ursula Todd found himself reliving the events of last century again and again. In A God in Ruins, Ursula's younger brother Teddy, a poet and bomber pilot, husband and father, navigates the dangers of the 20th century as he comes of age. (Release: 5/5/2015)
4. A Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi - As a southern California in the midst of a very long drought, Paolo Bacigalupi's dystopian thriller strikes true in the center of my fears. In the American Southwest, Nevada, Arizona, and California fight over the remaining shares of water for the Colorado River. (Release: 5/26/2015)
5. The Knockoff by Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza - An outrageously stylish, wickedly funny novel of fashion in the digital age, Imogen Tate, editor in chief of Glossy magazine, finds her twenty-something former assistant Eve Morton plotting to knock Imogen off her pedestal, take over her job, and reduce the magazine, famous for its lavish 768-page September issue, into an app. (Release: 5/19/2015)
6. Early Warning by Jane Smiley - This second installment of Jane Smiley's trilogy brings the journey of a remarkable family with roots in the Iowa heartland into mid-century America. Early Warning opens in 1953 with the Langdon family at a crossroads. Their stalwart patriarch, Walter, who with his wife, Rosanna, sustained their farm for three decades, has suddenly died, leaving their five children, now adults, looking to the future. Only one will remain in Iowa to work the land, while the others scatter to Washington, D.C., California, and everywhere in between. As the country moves out of post–World War II optimism through the darker landscape of the Cold War and the social and sexual revolutions of the 1960s and ’70s, and then into the unprecedented wealth—for some—of the early 1980s, the Langdon children each follow a different path in a rapidly changing world. (Release: 4/28/2015)
7. Seveneves by Neal Stephenson - A thought-provoking science fiction epic in which a catastrophic event ushers in the Earth's impending doom. Nations around the world unite to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space. The complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain. Five thousand years later, their progeny—seven distinct races now three billion strong—embark on yet another journey into the unknown . . . to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth. (Release: 5/19/2015)
8. The Ghost Fields by Elly Griffiths - Book 7 of the Ruth Galloway mystery series. The chilling discovery of a downed World War II plane with a body inside leads Ruth and DCI Nelson to uncover a wealthy family’s secrets. (Release: 5/19/2015)
9. Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf - A bittersweet yet inspiring story of a man and a woman who, in old age, come together to wrestle with the events of their lives and their hopes for the imminent future.
In Holt, Colorado, Addie Moore pays an unexpected visit to a neighbor, Louis Waters. Her husband died years ago, as did his wife, and in such a small town they naturally have known of each other for decades; in fact, Addie was quite fond of Louis’s wife. His daughter lives hours away in Colorado Springs, her son even farther away in Grand Junction, and Addie and Louis have long been living alone in houses now empty of family, the nights so terribly lonely, especially with no one to talk with. (Release: 5/26/2015)
10. Little Black Lies - Sharon Bolton - In such a small community as the Falkland Islands, a missing child is unheard of. When another child goes missing, and then a third, it's no longer possible to believe that their deaths were accidental, and the villagers must admit that there is a murderer among them. And suddenly, in this wild and beautiful place that generations have called home, no one feels safe and the hysteria begins to rise. But three islanders--Catrin, her childhood best friend, Rachel, and her ex-lover Callum--are hiding terrible secrets. And they have two things in common: all three of them are grieving, and none of them trust anyone, not even themselves. (Release: 5/19/2015)
Thanks for reading! Which titles are you interested in? Is there a title you think that should make this list?
