A Few of Our Favorite Things 2023

Wake County Public Libraries wishes you a joyous holiday season and a Happy New Year. Our Adult Services Librarians have created our annual gift to you - this list featuring some of our favorite recent books. From novels of all genres to nonfiction and biographies, you are sure to find some books to love among these librarian favorites.

Showing 41 - 50 of 50  There are a total of 50 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Talk of champions"
Star rating for Talk of champions
Description:
"A riveting memoir from Kenny Smith ("Kenny the Jet")-superstar basketball commentator, host of top-rated Inside the NBA, and two-time NBA champion. Smith reveals his thoughtful views on race, the NBA, his upbringing, and an abundance of poignant, colorful inside stories about the star players, coaches, and mentors who taught and inspired him along the way. In his playing career, Kenny Smith was a star at the University of North Carolina before beginning...
Book cover for "Thank you for listening"
Star rating for Thank you for listening
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
An audiobook narrator, former actress Sewanee Chester, after having a one-night stand with a handsome stranger in Las Vegas, returns home to narrate a romance novel and forms a connection with the anonymous author, but when his identity is finally revealed, she must risk everything for desire.
Book cover for "This isn't going to end well"
Star rating for This isn't going to end well
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
"The author tries to come to terms with the life and death of his multitalented longtime friend and brother-in-law, who had been his biggest hero and inspiration"--
Book cover for "This time tomorrow"
Star rating for This time tomorrow
Author:
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice's life isn't terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn't exactly the one she expected. She's happy with her apartment, her romantic status, her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But something is missing. Her father, the single parent who raised her, is ailing and out of reach. How did they get here so fast? Did she take too much for granted along the way? When Alice wakes up the next morning...
Book cover for "This world does not belong to us"
Star rating for This world does not belong to us
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
Lucas was just a child when his father sold him to another farmer as a laborer. Years later, Lucas returns, full of resentment and burning for revenge. After years away, Lucas returns uninvited to the home he was expelled from as a child. The garden has been conquered by weeds, which blanket his mother's beloved flowerbeds and his father's grave alike. A lot has changed since Eloy and Felisberto were invited into the family home to work for Lucas's...
Book cover for "Tress of the emerald sea"
Star rating for Tress of the emerald sea
Series:
Secret projects volume 1.
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"#1 New York Times Bestselling author Brandon Sanderson brings us deeper into the Cosmere universe with a rollicking, riveting tale that will appeal to fans of The Princess Bride. The only life Tress has known on her island home in an emerald-green ocean has been a simple one, with the simple pleasures of collecting cups brought by sailors from faraway lands and listening to stories told by her friend Charlie. But when his father takes him on a voyage...
Book cover for "Upgrade"
Star rating for Upgrade
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Ramsay can feel his brain changing--and his body, too. He's becoming something other than himself. Maybe even something other than human. As he sets out to discover who did this to him, and why, his transformation threatens everything: his family, his job, even his freedom. Because the truth of what's happened to him is more disturbing than he could possibly imagine. His DNA has been rewritten with a genetic-engineering breakthrough beyond anything...
Book cover for "Why fathers cry at night"
Star rating for Why fathers cry at night
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Kwame Alexander shares snapshots of a man learning how to love. He takes us through stories of his parents--from being awkward newlyweds in the sticky Chicago summer of 1967 to the sometimes-confusing ways they showed their love to each other, and for him. He explores his own relationships--his difficulties as a newly wedded, twenty-two-year-old father and the precariousness of his early marriage while working in a jazz club with his second wife....
Book cover for "You look beautiful tonight"
Star rating for You look beautiful tonight
Description:
"Mia Anderson is an invisible woman. An unremarkable thirty-two-year-old Tennessee librarian, she's accustomed to disappearing in a crowd, unseen and unheard. Then she receives an anonymous note: You look beautiful today. It doesn't stop there. The attentive stranger--a secret admirer named Adam--has plans for Mia. With each new text comes a suggestion for her hair, clothes, or attitude, and for the first time in memory, Mia feels noticed. Slowly,...
Book cover for "Young Mungo"
Star rating for Young Mungo
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
"Douglas Stuart's first novel Shuggie Bain is one of the most successful literary debuts of the century so far. It was awarded the 2020 Booker Prize, and is now published or forthcoming in forty territories, having already sold more than a million copies worldwide. Now Stuart returns with Young Mungo, his extraordinary second novel. Five years in the writing, it is both a page-turner and literary tour de force, a vivid portrayal of working-class life...