Patrick's Staff Picks


Showing 1 - 20 of 30  There are a total of 33 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "The age of innocence"
Star rating for The age of innocence
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:

The Age of Innocence is an intimate portrayal of East Coast American society in the 19th century—and the human lives that came into conflict with it. Newland Archer is heir to one of New York City's first families, and his bride-to-be is everything he ever hoped. Then his fiancee's older cousin leaves her European husband and appears in New York, where she refuses to conform to society and her family's wishes. Archer is at first angered

...
Book cover for "Anna Karenina"
Star rating for Anna Karenina
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Book cover for "The Anthropocene reviewed"
Star rating for The Anthropocene reviewed
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this ... symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ... podcast, bestselling author John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale--from the QWERTY keyboard and sunsets to Canada geese and Penguins of Madagascar"--
Book cover for "The bee sting"
Star rating for The bee sting
Average Rating:
3.4 stars
Description:
"The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie's once-lucrative car business is going under--but rather than face the music, he's spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to...
Book cover for "Black Swan Green"
Star rating for Black Swan Green
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas | Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize
Selected by Time as One of the Ten Best Books of the Year | A New York Times Notable Book | Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post Book World, The Christian Science Monitor, Rocky Mountain News, and Kirkus Reviews | A Los Angeles Times
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Book cover for "The blind assassin"
Star rating for The blind assassin
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
Iris describes the 1945 death of her sister, who drives her car off a bridge, followed, two years later, by the death of her husband, in a story that features a novel-within-a-novel about two unnamed lovers who meet in a dark backstreet room.
Book cover for "The brothers Karamazov"
Star rating for The brothers Karamazov
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
The violent and vengeful lives of three sons are exposed when their despicable father is murdered, and each man struggles to come to terms with the guilt over his involvement in the crime.
Book cover for "The Count of Monte Cristo"
Star rating for The Count of Monte Cristo
Average Rating:
4.6 stars
Description:
Edmund Dantes, unjustly convicted of aiding the exiled Napoleon, escapes after fourteen years of imprisonment and seeks revenge in Paris.
Book cover for "Crime and punishment"
Star rating for Crime and punishment
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Dostoyevsky's great novel of damnation and redemption evokes a world where the lines between innocence and corruption, good and evil, blur. It tells the story of Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, who wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be beyone conventional and moral laws. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a police...
Book cover for "Crying in H Mart"
Star rating for Crying in H Mart
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
"From the indie rockstar of Japanese Breakfast fame, and author of the viral 2018 New Yorker essay that shares the title of this book, an unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean-American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity."--
Book cover for "Exciting times"
Star rating for Exciting times
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
An intimate, bracingly intelligent debut novel about a millennial Irish expat who becomes entangled in a love triangle with a male banker and a female lawyer. Ava, newly arrived in Hong Kong from Dublin, spends her days teaching English to rich children. Julian is a banker. A banker who likes to spend money on Ava, to have sex and discuss fluctuating currencies with her. But when she asks whether he loves her, he cannot say more than "I like you a...
Book cover for "The galaxy, and the ground within"
Star rating for The galaxy, and the ground within
Series:
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
When a freak technological failure halts traffic to and from the planet Gora, three strangers are thrown together unexpectedly, with seemingly nothing to do but wait. Pei is a cargo runner at a personal crossroads, torn between her duty to her people, and her duty to herself. Roveg is an exiled artist, with a deeply urgent, and longed for, family appointment to keep. Speaker has never been far from her twin but now must endure the unendurable: separation....
Book cover for "The housekeeper and the professor"
Star rating for The housekeeper and the professor
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
A relationship blossoms between a brilliant math professor suffering from short-term memory problems following a traumatic head injury and the young housekeeper, the mother of a ten-year-old son, hired to care for him.
Book cover for "Howards End"
Star rating for Howards End
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:

Howards End is a masterful discussion of changing social class-consciousness. Three families from different levels of society become intertwined: the rich capitalists, the intellectual bourgeoisie and the struggling poor. Forster does not suggest that relationships between the classes are easy, but he does think them vitally important. The social philosophy inherent in the novel is significant and beautifully written.

Book cover for "Last night at the Telegraph Club"
Star rating for Last night at the Telegraph Club
Author:
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
"Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can't remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father--despite...
Book cover for "The library book"
Star rating for The library book
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICK

A WASHINGTON POST TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR * A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER and NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018

"A constant pleasure to read...Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book." —The Washington Post

"CAPTIVATING...DELIGHTFUL." —Christian Science Monitor...
Book cover for "The long way to a small, angry planet"
Star rating for The long way to a small, angry planet
Series:
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
"When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn't expecting much. The patched-up ship has seen better days, but it offers her everything she could possible want: a spot to call home, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy and some distance from her past. And nothing could be further from what she's known than the crew of the Wayfarer."--Page [4] of cover
Book cover for "The luminaries"
Star rating for The luminaries
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
Arriving in New Zealand in 1866 to seek his fortune in the goldfields, Walter Moody finds himself drawn into a series of unsolved crimes and complex mysteries.
Book cover for "North woods"
Star rating for North woods
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
"When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths a mass grave--only to discover that the...
Book cover for "Notes from underground"
Star rating for Notes from underground
Average Rating:
3.8 stars