A Book for Every Mood

In the mood for a thriller, a mystery, a funny or challenging read? Or, would you just like to try something new? No matter what you're in the mood to read, we've got something for you. Take a look at a few gems from our collection.

Arthur and George by Julian Barnes [MYS BAR}
In this Booker Prize-nominated novel, half-Indian solicitor George Edalji is wrongly imprisoned. Arthur Conan Doyle, his social opposite, becomes his defender. A crisis upsets the lives of both men and they become each other's salvation. A witty and profound meditation on fate, guilt, innocence, identity and truth.

Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before [910.92 HOR, CAS]
James Cook's three epic journeys in the eighteenth century were the last great voyages of discovery. When he embarked for the Pacific in 1768, a third of the blobe remained unexplored. By the time he died, Cook had explored more of the earth's surface than anyone in history. Horwitz recreates this journey and, with his inimitable storytelling capability, vividly captures the characters involved, the adventure, and the price paid.

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim: Essays by David Sedaris [FIC SED]
Humorist Sedaris takes the everyday and makes it hilarious. These essays will keep you in stitches. Sedaris is edgy, funny, humane, and wonderfully readable.

Due Preparations for the Plague by Janette Turner Hospital [FIC HOS]
Turner tells the story of two strangers whose parents were killed during a plane hijacking. As an adult, Samantha, one of the children set free by the terrorists, has become obsessed with the hijacking. Under the guise of her senior thesis, she pulls Lowell, the son of a victim, into a web of error, death and betrayal that he has spent his adult life trying to forget. This is a fascinating tale of family and national histories, espionage, intelligence gathering, and what it means to survive.

Empress Orchid by Anchee Min [FIC MIN}
This historical novel tells the story of a young concubine who becomes China's last empress. The beautiful Tzu Hsi, known as Orchid, is a country girl who seized power through seduction, murder, and endless intrigue. When China is threatened by enemies, she alone seems capable of holding the country together.

Evening by Susan Minot [FIC MIN]
Ann Lord is dying of cancer. As relatives hold vigils by her beside, Ann's medicine-induced haze takes her down memory lane. She focuses on a weekend she spent in Maine 25 years ago. It was a weekend that proved to be a turning point in her life. The prose is elegant and lean and the story mesmerizing.

If you liked The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, you may like...

Charms for an Easy Life by Kaye Gibbons [FIC GIB, CAS]

The Guilded Chamber: A Novel of Queen Esther by Rebecca Kohn [FIC KOH]

The Midwife and The Midwife's Advice by Gay Courter [FIC COU]

Midives by Chris Bohjalian [FIC BOU, CAS]

Quarantine by Jim Crace [FIC CRA]

A Vision of Light by Judith Merkle Riley [FIC RIL]

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The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates [FIC OAT]
A man on his honeymoon at Niagara Falls commits suicide by plunging over the falls. His new bride, now a widow, waits for seven days by the falls until his body is recovered. Waiting by her side is a man who falls in love with her. The shadow of the tragedy that brought them together follows them throughout their lives. This story of secrets, greed, sins, and even murder will keep you spellbound.

The Inheritance of Loss by Anita Desai [FIC DES]
This novel won both the Booker Prize and the National Books Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Set in 1980s India, which is on the cusp of the Nepalese movement for an independent state, the story features a judge, trying to raise his orphaned granddaughter, and the judge's cook, whose son is struggling to make a living in New York. By turns funny and serious, the tale vividly shows how each of these characters struggles with cultural identity.

The Keeper's Son by Homer Hickam [FIC HIC]
This is an adventure story set in the early 1940s. A courageous Coast Guard officer battles German U-boats off the coast of North Carolina even as he continues to battle his guilt over a brother lost at sea. One of those U-boat captains just might know something about the missing brother. Add a bit of romance to this suspenseful tale and you have one heck of a fascinating yarn.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruin Zafon [MYS ZAF]
Set in Spain at the peak of Franco fascism, a boy grieves for his dead mother. To distract him, his father, a rare-book dealer, takes him to a secret library where he selects a book called The Shadow of the Wind by an author named Julian Carax. When the boy searches for Carax's other books, it begins to dawn on him, to his horror, that someone has been systematically detroying every copy of every book the man has ever written. Soon the boy that the mystery of the author's identity holds the key to an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love that someone will go to any lengths to keep secret.

The Summer Guest by Justin Cronin [FIC CRO]
On an evening in late summer, the great financier Harry Wainwright, nearing the end of his life, arrives at a rustic fishing camp in a remote area of Maine. He comes bearing two things: his wish for a day of fishing in a place that has brought him solace for thirty years, and an astonishing bequest that will forever change the lives of those around him.

The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig [FIC DOI]
Set in early 1900s Montana, this nostalgic, bittersweet story is about a widower, his three sons, and the year these boys spend in a one-room country schoolhouse. The father, Oliver, hires a widowed housekeeper (her advertisement reads "Can't Cook but Doesn't Bite"). She arrives with her unconventional brother, Morrie, who soon finds himself pressed into service as a replacement teacher. During the course of the novel, these intriguing and unpredictable characters come together in surprising and uplifting ways.

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