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 1 - 20 of 61  There are a total of 208 valid entries on the list.

1. All the light we cannot see: a novel

Book cover for "All the light we cannot see"
Star rating for All the light we cannot see
Author:
Doerr, Anthony, 1973-
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Formats:
Book, Audiobook, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
"From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six,...

2. Apples never fall: a novel

Book cover for "Apples never fall"
Star rating for Apples never fall
Author:
Moriarty, Liane
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Formats:
Book, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
"A novel that looks at marriage, sibling rivalry, and the lies we tell others and ourselves"-- "After fifty years of marriage, Stan and Joy Delaney are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. One night a stranger named Savannah knocks on Stan and Joy's door. She says she chose their house because it looked the friendliest. And since Savannah is bleeding after a fight with her boyfriend, the Delaneys are more than happy to give...

3. Babel: or, the necessity of violence : an arcane history of the Oxford Translators' Revolution

Book cover for "Babel"
Star rating for Babel
Author:
Kuang, R. F. (Rebecca F.)
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Formats:
Book, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
"From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire. Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious...

4. Between the world and me

Book cover for "Between the world and me"
Star rating for Between the world and me
Author:
Coates, Ta-Nehisi
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Formats:
Book, Audiobook, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT
Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary...

5. Big little lies

Book cover for "Big little lies"
Star rating for Big little lies
Author:
Moriarty, Liane
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Formats:
Book, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
Follows three mothers, each at a crossroads, and their potential involvement in a riot at a school trivia night that leaves one parent dead in what appears to be a tragic accident, but which evidence shows might have been premeditated.

6. The book woman of Troublesome Creek: a novel

Book cover for "The book woman of Troublesome Creek"
Star rating for The book woman of Troublesome Creek
Author:
Richardson, Kim Michele
Series:
Book woman of Trouble Creek volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Formats:
Book, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
"Cussy Mary Carter is the last of her kind, her skin the color of a blue damselfly in these dusty hills. But that doesn't mean she's got nothing to offer. As a member of the Pack Horse Library Project, Cussy delivers books to the hill folk of Troublesome, hoping to spread learning in these desperate times. But not everyone is so keen on Cussy's family or the Library Project, and the hardscrabble Kentuckians are quick to blame a Blue for any trouble...

7. The bookish life of Nina Hill

Book cover for "The bookish life of Nina Hill"
Star rating for The bookish life of Nina Hill
Author:
Waxman, Abbi
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Formats:
Book, Large Print
Description:
"Nina Hill's life may not seem like much, but for a person battling anxiety, it's more than enough. She enjoys her job at a bookstore and her small circle of friends. Until a visit from a lawyer changes everything...The father that Nina never knew existed has died, leaving behind an enormous extended family. Nina now has innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, and cousins all living within a twenty-mile radius--some welcoming and some not...

8. Caste: the origins of our discontents

Book cover for "Caste"
Star rating for Caste
Author:
Wilkerson, Isabel
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Formats:
Book, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
"In this ... Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate....

9. Catch and kill: lies, spies, and a conspiracy to protect predators

Book cover for "Catch and kill"
Star rating for Catch and kill
Author:
Farrow, Ronan, 1987-
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Formats:
Book, Audiobook, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
Now an HBO documentary series streaming on HBO Max. 
One of the Best Books of the Year  Time * NPR * Washington Post * Bloomberg News * Chicago Tribune * Chicago Public Library * Fortune * Los Angeles Times * E! News * The Telegraph * Apple * Library Journal  In...

10. Commonwealth: a novel

Book cover for "Commonwealth"
Star rating for Commonwealth
Author:
Patchett, Ann
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Formats:
Book, Audiobook, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
"The acclaimed, bestselling author--winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize--tells the enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families' lives. One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly--thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining...

11. Counterfeit: a novel

Book cover for "Counterfeit"
Star rating for Counterfeit
Author:
Chen, Kirstin, 1981-
Average Rating:
3.4 stars
Formats:
Book, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
Ava Wong has always played it safe. As a strait-laced, rule-abiding Chinese American lawyer with a successful surgeon as a husband, a young son, and a beautiful home, she's built the perfect life. But beneath this facade, Ava's world is crumbling: her marriage is falling apart, her expensive law degree hasn't been used in years, and her toddler's tantrums are pushing her to the breaking point. Enter Winnie Fang, Ava's enigmatic college roommate from...

12. The dry

Book cover for "The dry"
Star rating for The dry
Author:
Harper, Jane (Jane Elizabeth)
Series:
Aaron Falk novels volume 1.
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Formats:
Book, Audiobook, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
"A small town hides big secrets in The Dry. After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend, Luke. Twenty years ago when Falk was accused of murder, Luke was his alibi. Falk and his father fled under a cloud of suspicion, saved from prosecution only because of Luke's steadfast claim that the boys had been together at the time of the...

13. The Dutch house: a novel

Book cover for "The Dutch house"
Star rating for The Dutch house
Author:
Patchett, Ann
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Formats:
Book, Audiobook, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
"At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. The story is told by Cyril's son Danny, as he and his older...

14. Eight perfect murders: a novel

Book cover for "Eight perfect murders"
Star rating for Eight perfect murders
Author:
Swanson, Peter, 1968-
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Formats:
Book, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
Years ago, bookseller and mystery aficionado Malcolm Kershaw compiled a list of the genre's most unsolvable murders, those that are almost impossible to crack--which he titled "Eight Perfect Murders"--chosen from among the best of the best including Agatha Christie's A. B. C. Murders, Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train, Ira Levin's Deathtrap, A. A. Milne's The Red House Mystery, Anthony Berkeley Cox's Malice Aforethought, James M. Cain's Double...

15. Emma

Book cover for "Emma"
Star rating for Emma
Author:
Austen, Jane, 1775-1817
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Formats:
Book, Audiobook, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
Content with her life and not interested in marriage, Emma Woodhouse, a rich and beautiful heiress, causes complications with her matchmaking schemes.

16. The goldfinch

Book cover for "The goldfinch"
Star rating for The goldfinch
Author:
Tartt, Donna
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Formats:
Book, Audiobook, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
"A young boy in New York City, Theo Decker, miraculously survives an accident that takes the life of his mother. Alone and abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by a friend's family and struggles to make sense of his new life. In the years that follow, he becomes entranced by one of the few things that reminds him of his mother: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the art underworld. Composed with the skills...

17. The gown: a novel of the royal wedding

Book cover for "The gown"
Star rating for The gown
Author:
Robson, Jennifer, 1970-
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Formats:
Book, Audiobook, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook
Description:
London, 1947: Besieged by the harshest winter in living memory, burdened by onerous shortages and rationing, the people of postwar Britain are enduring lives of quiet desperation despite their nation's recent victory. Among them are Ann Hughes and Miriam Dassin, embroiderers at the famed Mayfair fashion house of Norman Hartnell. Together they forge an unlikely friendship, but their nascent hopes for a brighter future are tested when they are chosen...

18. The handmaid's tale

Book cover for "The handmaid's tale"
Star rating for The handmaid's tale
Author:
Atwood, Margaret, 1939-
Series:
Handmaid's tale volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Formats:
Book, Audiobook, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
"This visionary novel. in which God and Government are joined, and America is run as a Puritanical Theoracy, can be read as a companion volume to Orwell's 1984-its verso, in fact. It gives you the same degree of chill, even as it suggests the varieties of tyrannical experience; it evokes the same kind of horror even as its mordant wit makes you smile." --E.L.Doctorow.

19. The huntress: a novel

Book cover for "The huntress"
Star rating for The huntress
Author:
Quinn, Kate
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Formats:
Book, Audiobook, Large Print, OverDrive eBook
Description:
Stranded behind enemy lines, brave bomber pilot Nina Markova becomes the prey of a lethal Nazi murderess known as the Huntress and joins forces with a Nazi hunter and British war correspondent to find her before she finds them.

20. The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks

Book cover for "The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks"
Star rating for The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
Author:
Skloot, Rebecca, 1972-
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Formats:
Book, Audiobook, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
Documents the story of how scientists took cells from an unsuspecting descendant of freed slaves and created a human cell line that has been kept alive indefinitely, enabling discoveries in such areas as cancer research, in vitro fertilization, and gene mapping.