Melissa's Staff Picks

I'm a librarian at Southeast Regional Library, and these are some of my favorite reads! Feel free to email me at melissa.schultz@wakegov.com if you enjoyed one of these books!

Showing 21 - 34 of 34  There are a total of 208 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Sea of Tranquility"
Star rating for Sea of Tranquility
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
The "author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time, love, and plague that takes the reader from an island off Vancouver in 1912 to a dark colony of the moon three hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and planets"--
Book cover for "The searcher"
Star rating for The searcher
Author:
Series:
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
"Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a bucolic Irish village would be the perfect escape. After twenty-five years in the Chicago police force and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But when a local kid whose brother has gone missing arm-twists him into investigating, Cal uncovers layers of darkness beneath his picturesque retreat, and starts to realize that even small...
Book cover for "Smarter faster better"
Star rating for Smarter faster better
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"At the core of [this book] are eight key concepts--from motivation and goal setting to focus and decision making--that explain why some people and companies get so much done. Drawing on the latest findings in neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics--as well as the experiences of CEOs, educational reformers, four-star generals, FBI agents, airplane pilots, and Broadway songwriters--this ... book explains that the most productive people,...
Book cover for "Southern Lady Code"
Star rating for Southern Lady Code
Author:
Average Rating:
3.1 stars
Description:
"A fiercely funny collection of essays on marriage and manners, thank you notes and three-ways, ghosts, gunshots, gynecology, and the Calgon-scented, onion-dipped, monogrammed art of living as a Southern Lady" --

25. Spare

Book cover for "Spare"
Star rating for Spare
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother's coffin as the world watched in sorrow and horror. As Diana, Princess of Wales, was laid to rest, billions wondered what the princes must be thinking and feeling, and how their lives would play out from that point on. For Harry, this is that story at last. With its raw, unflinching honesty, Prince Harry shares a landmark publication...
Book cover for "Such a fun age"
Star rating for Such a fun age
Author:
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
"Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar....
Book cover for "The survivors"
Star rating for The survivors
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
"Coming home dredges up deeply buried secrets ... Kieran Elliott's life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences. The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal community he once called home. Kieran's parents are struggling in a town where fortunes are forged by the sea. Between them all is his absent brother, Finn. When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held...
Book cover for "These precious days"
Star rating for These precious days
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
A literary alchemist, Ann Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: engaging and moving pieces that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Turning her writer's eye on her own experiences, she transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew, and reminds how fleeting and enigmatic life can be.
Book cover for "A tree grows in Brooklyn"
Star rating for A tree grows in Brooklyn
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
An autobiographical novel concerning a young daughter of German immigrants growing up in the slums of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in the early 20th century.
Book cover for "The underground railroad"
Star rating for The underground railroad
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
A magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South.
Book cover for "White fragility"
Star rating for White fragility
Average Rating:
2 stars
Description:
Explores counterproductive reactions white people have when discussing racism that serve to protect their positions and maintain racial inequality
Book cover for "A woman is no man"
Star rating for A woman is no man
Author:
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
Three generations of Palestinian-American women in contemporary Brooklyn are torn by individual desire, educational ambitions, a devastating tragedy, and the strict mores of traditional Arab culture.
Book cover for "A world of curiosities"
Star rating for A world of curiosities
Average Rating:
4.6 stars
Description:
"Chief Inspector Armand Gamache returns in the eighteenth book in Penny's series. It's spring and Three Pines is reemerging after the harsh winter. But not everything buried should come alive again. Not everything lying dormant should reemerge. But something has. As the villagers prepare for a special celebration, Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir find themselves increasingly worried. A young man and woman have reappeared in the Sûreté du Québec...
Book cover for "You'll be the death of me"
Star rating for You'll be the death of me
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
Estranged friends Ivy, Mateo, and Cal witness a murder while skipping school, and the only way they can solve it is by revealing what they have been hiding from one another--and themselves.