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Book reviews by library staff and guest contributors

A craving for spaghetti con aglio e olio

Cover of Taste: My Life Through Foo
A review of Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci

Taste: My Life Through Food is actor and cookbook author Stanley Tucci's culinary autobiography. It makes an excellent gift book for food lovers and is perfect for this time of year. The recipes that frame Stanley Tucci's life are shared lovingly and with an expertise that is inspiring and comforting.  This guy knows his way around the kitchen, the fire pit, the wine cellar, all of it.

Dec 16, 2021

The magic of baking

Cover of A Wizard's Guide to Defens
A review of A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher

Yes, Mona is a wizard, but her specialty is bread. Which is wonderful for keeping muffins from burning or convincing biscuits that they are not overworked, but significantly less so for defending the her city from an internal coupe and foreign invaders. Mona is a reluctant hero, who very rightly points out that she wouldn't have needed to BE a hero if the people in charge had just done what they were supposed to.

Dec 14, 2021

High stakes of middle school

Cover of Power Up
A review of Power Up by Sam Nisson, illustrated by Darnell Johnson

Although Miles and Rhys attend the same school, they don't know each other in real life, but in the online game Mecha Melee they are triumphant besties known as Gryphon and Backslash. The action in the book switches back and forth between in-game action and real-life family and middle school drama. The students at their school make up a diverse cast of background characters. Miles and his family are Black, and Rhys and his family have light brown skin and straight, dark hair.

Dec 10, 2021

Don't worry, the dog is okay

Cover of Not a Sound
A review of Not a Sound by Heather Gudenkauf

As this thriller opens Amelia Winn is leaving her shift as a trauma nurse when she's hit by a car. That accident leaves her profoundly deaf. In the immediate aftermath of the accident and the realization of just what her life has become, Amelia retreated into an alcoholic haze and it's only when her marriage falls apart and she's in danger of losing any chance of contact with her young step-daughter that she hit rock bottom.

Dec 9, 2021

Amber Ruffin's sister looks nothing like Harriet Tubman

Cover of You'll Never Believe What
A review of You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism by Amber Ruffin

This is the best/worst book featuring outrageous stories of racist things that have happened to comedy writer and talk show host Amber Ruffin's sister Lacey Lamar. Most of the stories take place in Omaha, Nebraska. A fair number take place across the state border in Iowa. All of them take place in the modern-day and a vast majority take place at work. At work!  

Dec 7, 2021

The science of love

Cover of The Love Hypothesis
A review of The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

I've been hearing about Ali Hazelwood's STEM-based debut for months and I'd been vacillating on reading it. If you read my reviews, you know I do read romance, but I read far more paranormal, historical, heck, aliens, then I do contemporary. When I think of the why of that fact I think it comes down to what I can let slide. Tropes that work for me in most other romance are a little harder to just go with in a realistic contemporary setting. But I kept hearing about how good this particular contemporary romance was, so I decided to take the plunge.

Dec 6, 2021

Cold cases and basket cases

Cover of The Awkward Squad
A review of The Awkward Squad by Sophie Henaff

Anne Capestan knew she’d be punished for her itchy trigger finger, but the sentence is like no other she’d ever heard of. After firing one too many bullets, the Parisian police commissaire was lucky to still have her job, but is stunned when she learns that she is to lead a new police squad in charge of cold cases. But Capestan’s squad consists entirely of the police officers that have run afoul of the police judiciare, and since they cannot be fired, they can at least be relegated to some brigade, starved of funds and support until they quit in frustration.

Dec 2, 2021

At what point does a slow fire turn into a conflagration?

Cover of A Slow Fire Burning
A review of A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins

Paula Hawkin's latest mystery thriller takes the reader on a twisty tour down a London towpath full of murder and mayhem. A towpath in England is a path beside a canal or river, used by people or animals towing boats, also called a towing path. A considerable amount of action in this novel takes place on the towpath as characters travel to and from a neighborhood of houseboats. This provides a noteworthy setting. 

Nov 30, 2021

So much bookish goodness

Cover of Best Books Lists
Best Books Lists

With the announcement of NPR's Books We Love I realized it's that time of year. The lists of best books are pouring in and I know that not only are we interested in them as readers ourselves, they also give us great ideas for books to gift to the other readers in our lives. So for those of you searching for your next read or even more desperately searching for that perfect gift, here is a by-no-means-comprehensive best lists to give you a start.

Nov 29, 2021

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