Staff Picks

Nonfiction (biographical, historical, how-to, philosophical, and travelogues nonfiction) and Fiction (comedic, historical and romantic fiction)

Showing 1 - 20 of 33  There are a total of 74 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Anne of Green Gables"
Star rating for Anne of Green Gables
Series:
Average Rating:
4.8 stars
Description:
Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her.
Book cover for "Aru Shah and the end of time"
Star rating for Aru Shah and the end of time
Series:
Pandava volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.6 stars
Description:
Twelve-year-old Aru Shah has the tendency to stretch the truth to fit in at school. One day, three schoolmates show up at Aru's doorstep to catch her in a lie. They don't believe her claim that the museum's Lamp of Bharata is cursed, and they dare Aru to prove it. But lighting the lamp has dire consequences. Her classmates and beloved mother are frozen in time, and it's up to Aru to save them.
Book cover for "Big little lies"
Star rating for Big little lies
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
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.
Book cover for "Born in ice"
Star rating for Born in ice
Series:
Born In trilogy volume 2.
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
Even though the harsh winters of western Ireland keep visitors away from Brianna's bed-and-breakfast inn, she expects Grayson Thane, a successful American mystery author, who plans to spend the winter alone writing his new novel. But sometimes fate has a plan of its own. Sometimes fire can be born in ice.
Book cover for "Chasing fire"
Star rating for Chasing fire
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
Little else in life is as dangerous as fire jumping. But there's also little else as thrilling--at least to Rowan Tripp. Being a Missoula smoke jumper is in Rowan's blood: her father is a legend in the field. At this point, returning to the wilds of Montana for the season feels like coming home--even with reminders of the partner she lost last season still lingering in the air. One of the best of this year's rookie crop, Gulliver Curry is a walking...
Book cover for "Code name Verity"
Star rating for Code name Verity
Series:
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
In 1943, a British fighter plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France and the survivor tells a tale of friendship, war, espionage, and great courage as she relates what she must to survive while keeping secret all that she can.
Book cover for "Daisy Jones & the Six"
Star rating for Daisy Jones & the Six
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go-Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it's the rock and roll she loves most. By the time she's twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things. Another band getting noticed is The Six, led by the brooding Billy Dunne....
Book cover for "Ella Minnow Pea"
Star rating for Ella Minnow Pea
Average Rating:
3.5 stars

9. Emma

Book cover for "Emma"
Star rating for Emma
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
Content with her life and not interested in marriage, Emma Woodhouse, a rich and beautiful heiress, causes complications with her matchmaking schemes.
Book cover for "The gifted school"
Star rating for The gifted school
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"This deliciously sharp novel captures the relentless ambitions and fears that animate parents and their children in modern America, exploring the conflicts between achievement and potential, talent and privilege. Set in the fictional town of Crystal, Colorado, The Gifted School is a keenly entertaining novel that observes the drama within a community of friends and parents as good intentions and high ambitions collide in a pile-up with long-held...
Book cover for "The gown"
Star rating for The gown
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
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...
Book cover for "Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone"
Star rating for Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone
Average Rating:
4.8 stars
Description:
Rescued from the outrageous neglect of his aunt and uncle, a young boy with a great destiny proves his worth while attending Hogwarts School for Wizards and Witches.
Book cover for "The Hunger Games"
Star rating for The Hunger Games
Series:
Hunger Games volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.8 stars
Description:
In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss's skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister's place. "In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol...
Book cover for "In a holidaze"
Star rating for In a holidaze
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
"Love Actually meets Groundhog Day in the quintessential holiday romance by the New York Times bestselling author of The Honey-Don't List"--
Book cover for "The Island of Sea Women"
Star rating for The Island of Sea Women
Author:
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"A new novel from Lisa See, the New York Times bestselling author of The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, about female friendship and family secrets on a small Korean island. Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls living on the Korean island of Jeju, are best friends that come from very different backgrounds. When they are old enough, they begin working in the sea with their village's all-female diving collective, led by Young-sook's mother. As the girls take...
Book cover for "The lightning thief"
Star rating for The lightning thief
Average Rating:
4.6 stars
Description:
Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson learns he is a demigod, the son of a mortal woman and Poseidon, god of the sea. His mother sends him to a summer camp for demigods where he and his new friends set out on a quest to prevent a war between the gods.
Book cover for "Longbourn"
Star rating for Longbourn
Author:
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
A reimagining of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" from the perspectives of its below-stairs servants captures the drama of the Bennet household from the sideline viewpoint of Sara, an orphaned housemaid. In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to Pride and Prejudice, the servants take center stage. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household....
Book cover for "The maid"
Star rating for The maid
Author:
Series:
Maid novels volume 1.
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
"A charmingly eccentric hotel maid discovers a guest murdered in his bed, turning her once orderly world upside down--and inspiring a motley crew of unexpected allies to band together to solve the mystery--in this utterly original debut. Molly Dunn is not like everyone else. She struggles with social skills and interprets people literally. Her gran used to interpret the world for her, codifying it into simple rules that Molly could live by. Since...
Book cover for "The man who died twice"
Star rating for The man who died twice
Series:
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
"Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim--the Thursday Murder Club--are still riding high off their recent real-life murder case and are looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet at Cooper's Chase, their posh retirement village. But they are out of luck. An unexpected visitor--an old pal of Elizabeth's (or perhaps more than just a pal?)--arrives, desperate for her help. He has been accused of stealing diamonds worth millions from the wrong men and he's...
Book cover for "Mockingjay"
Star rating for Mockingjay
Series:
Hunger Games volume 3.
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
Katniss Everdeen's having survived the Hunger games twice makes her a target of the Capitol and President Snow, as well as a hero to the rebels who will succeed only if Katniss is willing to put aside her personal feelings and serve as their pawn.