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Holiday Titles, Favorites Recommended by the Belmont Library Staff 2015

Atwood, Margaret. Year of the Flood. Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2009.*+ By turns dark, tender, violent,thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her mostbrilliant and inventive. A. Moore, Reference Librarian

Burrowes, Grace. The Captive. Sourcebooks, Casablanca, 2014. + Struggling with Society life, Christian Severn, who lost his wife, son and will to live, finds an ally in the Countess of Greendale, who helps him stay strong for his surviving daughter, but refuses his proposal of marriage even though romance has blossomed between them. C.Chan, Reference Librarian

Butcher, Jim. The Aeronauts Windlass. ROC, 2015. *+ “This is Jim Butcher at his best, drawing a fully realized, richly detailed, and downright fun literary world where fearless aeronauts ride the aether, brilliant wizards struggle with doorknobs,and a thirty-pound feline warrior keeps a pet human named Little Mouse. It’s steampunk meets magic with a dose of sci-fi for seasoning. Buy it and read it.You’ll be glad you did.”—New York Times bestselling author David Weber.L.Cassidy, Circulation

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me. Spiegel & Grau, 2015.+   Coates takes readers along on his journey through America’s history of race and its contemporary resonances through a series of awakenings–moments when he discovered some new truth about our long, tangled history of race, whether through his myth-busting professors at Howard University, a trip to a Civil War battlefield with a rogue historian, a journey to Chicago’s South Side to visit aging survivors of 20th century America’s long war on black people, or a visit with the mother of a beloved friend who was shot down by the police.  D.Barnes, Administration

Davidson, Carli. Shake Cats. Harper Design. 2015. + The fur flies in this irresistible third installment in the bestselling Shake series by popular pet photographer Carli Davidson, featuring adorable and hysterical color photographs of more than sixty cats caught mid-shake. M. Carter, Reference Librarian and Cat-Lover

Ferrante, Elena. My Brilliant Friend. Europa Editions, 2012. *+ A modern masterpiece from one of Italy’s most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante’s inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship. M. Carter, Reference Librarian

Heyer, Georgette. These Old Shades. Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2009. *+ Set in pre-Revolutionary France, These Old Shades follows a twisting course as young Léon (or is it Léonie?) is swept up in a dangerous mystery: how to account for the page’s amazing resemblance to the sinister Compte de Saint Vire, for example; and why will this man go to any lengths to get the youth in his power? “Reading Georgette Heyer is the next best thing to reading Jane Austen.” Publisher’s Weekly. C.Chan, Reference Librarian

Malerman, Josh. The Bird Box. Ecco, An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2014. *+ In Bird Box, brilliantly imaginative debut author Josh Malerman captures an apocalyptic near-future world, where a mother and her two small children must make their way down a river, blindfolded. One wrong choice and they will die. And something is following them — but is it man, animal, or monster? N. McColm, Reference Librarian

Me, My Hair and I, Twenty-Seven Women Untangle an Obsession edited by Elizabeth Benedict. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2015. + In this collection of essays, women talk about their hair-and in doing so, offer up reflections and revelations about family, race, religion, ritual, culture, motherhood, politics, and celebrity. Layered into these essays you’ll find surprises, insights, hilarity, and the resonance of common experience. Many things in life matter more than hair, but few bring as much pleasure as a really great hairdo. D.Barnes, Administration

McCullough, David. The Wright Brothers. Simon & Schuster, 2015.*+  “As he did so brilliantly in The Great Bridge andThe Path Between the Seas, David McCullough once again tells a dramatic story of people and technology, this time about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly, Wilbur and Orville Wright.” E. Reardon, Coordinator of Adult Services

Pepin, Jacques. The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen. Houghton Mifflin, 2003. In simple, light, unpretentious prose, chef  and cooking teacher extraordinaire Pepin recounts his life in food and cooking. Born in a village near Lyon, he endured the privations of World War II, which taught him to appreciate the humblest ingredients thoughtfully prepared. K. Maultsby, Reference Librarian

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: Complete, Authoritative Text with Biographical, Historical, and Cultural Contexts, Critical History, and Essays from Five Contemporary Critical Perspectives. New American Library, 2000.*+ The first gothic novel everwritten. A tale of horror written 198 years ago, usually given credit as the story that gave birth to the Science Fiction genre. Where did we come from? Where are we going? Can one person change the fate of all? Where science meets philosophy, and ethics meets imagination… dreams can meet nightmares. The mysteries of life are met, challenged, and resolved in this tale of the true horror of the humanity that can come from within. All in search of an answer to that lingering question…WHY? Meet Victor Frankenstein. (He almost doomed us all). P. Struzziero, Library Director

Szabo, Magda. The Door. NYRB Classics, 2015.+  The Door is an unsettling exploration of the relationship between two very different women. Magda is a writer, educated, married to an academic, public-spirited, with an on-again-off-again relationship to Hungary’s Communist authorities. Emerence is a peasant, illiterate, impassive, abrupt,seemingly ageless. Winner of the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize and the Prix Femina Étranger. M. Carter, Reference Librarian

Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace. Vintage Classics, 2008. *+ War and Peace broadly focuses on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both men. M. MacNair, Reference Librarian

Trevor, William. Love and Summer. Viking, 2009. *+ Living an unfulfilling existence at the side of a tragic husband, shy orphan Ellie Dillahan begins an affair that forces her to choose between an uncertain future with the man she loves and the desolate life she has built for herself. K. Maultsby, Reference Librarian

Qiu Xiaolong. Death of A Red Heroine. Soho, 2000.+ Set a decade earlier in Shanghai, this political mystery offers a peek into the tightly sealed, often crooked world of post-Tiananmen Square. K. Sparks, Young Adult Librarian

Ware, Ruth. In a  Dark, Dark Wood. Scout Press, 2015. *+ What should be a cozy and fun-filled weekend deep in the English countryside takes a sinister turn in Ruth Ware’s suspenseful, compulsive, and darkly twisted psychological thriller.

Weir, Andy. The Martian. Crown Publishers, 2014. *+ Astronaut Mark Watney finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive–and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills–and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit–he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

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