Cozy Mysteries

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• Mysteries

Aunt Dimity’s Death
By Nancy Atherton
MYSTERY Atherton
Summoned from her latest dreadful temp job by her lawyers, Lori Shephard discovers that Aunt Dimity--her mother's favorite bedtime story heroine--was a real person who has left her millions and the challenge to solve an eerie mystery.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
By C. Alan Bradley
MYSTERY Bradley
Eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, is propelled into a mystery when a man is found murdered on the grounds of her family's decaying English mansion and Flavia's father becomes the main suspect.

Sleeping Murder
By Agatha Christie
MYSTERY Christie
Although Gwenda and Giles Reed are determined to solve a macabre puzzle involving a hauntingly familiar Victorian villa and a terrifying vision of a strangled woman, Miss Jane Marple advises them not to uncover a long unreported murder.

Body in the Transept
By Jeanne M. Dams
MYSTERY Dams
Struggling through a painful first holiday season after the death of her beloved husband, eccentric amateur sleuth Dorothy Martin finds further trouble when she discovers a dead body, but a handsome chief constable lifts her mood.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder
By Joanne Fluke
MYSTERY Fluke
Cookie-baking sleuth Hannah Swenson must protect her reputation when a popular delivery man is found murdered behind her bakery with Hannah's cookies scattered around him.

Teen Fantasy with Spunky Female Characters

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• Female characters
• Teen books

Graceling
By Kristin Cashore
YA F CASHORE
In a world where some people are born with extreme and often-feared skills called Graces, Katsa struggles for redemption from her own horrifying Grace, the Grace of killing, and teams up with another young fighter to save their land from a corrupt king.

Keturah and Lord Death
By Martine Leavitt
YA F LEAVITT
When Lord Death comes to claim sixteen-year-old Keturah while she is lost in the King's Forest, she charms him with her story and is granted a twenty-four hour reprieve in which to seek her one true love.

Wildwood Dancing
By Juliet Marillier
YA F Marillier
Five sisters who live with their merchant father in Transylvania use a hidden portal in their home to cross over into a magical world, the Wildwood.

Wings
By Aprilynne Pike
YA F PIKE
When a plant blooms out of fifteen-year-old Laurel's back, it leads her to discover the fact that she is a faerie and that she has a crucial role to play in keeping the world safe from the encroaching enemy trolls.

Summers at Castle Auburn
By Sharon Shinn
SCIFI SHINN
Coriel Halsing has spent many summers with her half-sister at Castle Auburn chasing and falling in love with a handsome prince who can never be hers, but now that she is grown she begins to understand the dark side of the magical palace.

Fiction with Great Female Characters

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• Fiction
• Female characters

The Help
By Kathryn Stockett
F STOCKETT
In Jackson Mississippi, in 1962, there are lines that are not crossed. With the Civil Rights Movement exploding all around them, three women start a movement of their own, forever changing a town and the way women – black and white, mothers and daughters – view one another.

These is My Words
By Nancy E. Turner
F TURNER
This is the fictionalized diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 17, who goes from New Mexico to Texas and back, protecting her family with her rifle. She recounts the trials and heartache of settling the Arizona Territory but also the joys of life that helped her to keep moving forward.

The Blue Castle
By L.M. Montgomery
YA F MONTGOMERY
At 29, Valancy has always done what everyone expects of her until she receives a letter from her doctor telling her she only has a short time to live. For the first time in her life she does and says exactly what she wants and soon discovers a world of love and adventure.

Hunger Games
By Suzanne Collins
YA F COLLINS
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.

Mistborn
By Brandon Sanderson
SCIFI SANDERSO
Kelsier, a half-Skaa, finds in himself the powers of a Mistborn. A brilliant thief and natural leader, he recruits the best criminal crew ever assembled to engineer the downfall of the Lord Ruler. The plan seems impossible until Kelsier discovers Vin, a street urchin who has learned to expect betrayal from everyone she meets, and gotten it. She will have to learn to trust, if Kel is to help her master powers of which she never dreamed. This is the first book in the Mistborn Trilogy.

Fairy Tale Retellings

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• Fractured Fairy Tales
• Teen books

Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow
By Jessica Day George
YA F GEORGE
Blessed—or cursed—with an ability to understand animals, the Lass has always been an oddball. When an isbjorn (polar bear) seeks her out and promises that her family will become rich if the Lass will accompany him to his castle, she doesn’t hesitate. But the bear is not what he seems, nor is his castle, which is made of ice and inhabited by silent servants.

Book of a Thousand Days
By Shannon Hale
YA F HALE
When Dashti, a maid, and Lady Saren, her mistress, are shut in a tower for seven years for Saren’s refusal to marry a man she despises, the two prepare for a very long and dark imprisonment. The arrival outside the tower of two suitors brings both hope and great danger, and Dashti must make the desperate choices of a girl whose life is worth more than she knows.

Ella Enchanted
By Gail Carson Levine
YA F LEVINE
At birth, Ella is inadvertently cursed by an imprudent fairy named Lucinda, who bestows on her the "gift" of obedience. Anything anyone tells her to do, Ella must do. But her intelligence and liveliness keep her in good stead as she sets out to track down Lucinda to undo the curse. 

The Thirteenth Princess
By Diane Zahler
J F Zahler
Zita is not an ordinary servant girl—she's the thirteenth daughter of a king who wanted only sons. When she was born, Zita's father banished her to the servants' quarters to work in the kitchens, where she can only communicate with her royal sisters in secret. Then, after Zita's twelfth birthday, the princesses all fall mysteriously ill. The only clue is their strangely worn and tattered shoes.

Thornspell
By Helen Lowe
J F LOWE
Prince Sigismund has grown up in a remote castle, dreaming of going on heroic knightly quests while staring out at the forbidden wood that looms to the west. His great-grandfather placed an interdict on the wood nearly 100 years ago, though no one seems to know exactly why. But for those still young or credulous enough to believe in magic, the rumors and stories abound—of an enchanted castle and a sleeping princess cursed by an evil faie.

Parenting Books

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• Nonfiction books
• Parenting books

Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason
By Alfie Kohn
649.1 KOH 2005
Kohn believes society places undue emphasis on punishments and rewards. He believes children do best with unconditional love, respect, and the opportunity to make choices.

NurtureShock: New Thinking about Children
By Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
305.231 BRO 2009
The central premise of this riveting ground breaker is that many popular strategies for raising children backfire because they ignore key points in the science of child development.

Sleepless in America: Is Your Child Misbehaving…Or Missing Sleep?
By Mary Sheedy Kurcinka
618. KUR 2007
Kurcinka writes excellent books for parents. “Sound sleep is the foundation for good behavior”, is the gist of this book. There are lots of real life solutions.

Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline: The 7 Basic Skills for Turning Conflict into Cooperation
By Becky A. Bailey
649.64 BAI 2000
Bailey contends a parent must model discipline and self-control first. Then the parent can use the 7 basic skills. She dismisses both extremes of permissive and fear inspired discipline. Her message is positive and hopeful.

The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children
By Ross W. Greene
649.153 GRE 1998
Flexibility and tolerance are learned skills, the author claims. Dr. Greene is a pediatric psychologist who teaches at Harvard. He focuses on understanding why the meltdowns occur in the first place and then developing workable strategies for avoidance.

Women's Stories with International Settings

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• Women's literature
• Female characters
• International setting

A Thousand Splendid Suns
By Khalid Hosseini
F HOSSEINI
Two women of different backgrounds share a life under the same roof with the same abusive husband. “A Thousand Splendid Suns” is a story of personal tragedy set against the backdrop of national tragedy in Afghanistan.

Girls of Riyadh
By Rajaa Alsanea
F ALSANEA
A series of emails tells the struggles of four friends. These close girlfriends from upper-class Saudi families attend universities in Riyadh and in Chicago and San Francisco. Searching for love, they cannot escape deep-seated oppressive traditions after they return to Riyadh.

Saffron Kitchen
By Yasmin Crowther
F CROWTHER
The relationship between a mother and daughter grows turbulent when the mother, Maryam, returns to the tiny village in Iran where she grew up to come to terms with her past, especially with the ghost of her father and with her first love, Ali, who has been waiting for her return

Women of the Silk
By Gail Tsukiyama
F TSUKIYAMA
Spanning the years between the world wars, this tale of a young Chinese girl forced to work in a silk factory describes the sisterhood of workers she discovers there.

A Golden Age
By Tahmina Anam
F Anam
As she plans a party for her son and daughter, Rehana Haque's life will be transformed in a story of one family caught in the middle of the 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence, as they face changes and decisions that will have a profound impact on their lives.

Recent Fantasy Novels

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• Fantasy
• Books published in the last 10 years
• Interesting plot lines
• Fast pace
• Interesting characters

His Majesty’s Dragon
By Naomi Novik
SCIFI NOVIK
When a French ship and its priceless cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, are captured by Captain Will Laurence he must give up his ship and join the elite Aerial Corps as a master of the dragon Temaraire, in which role he must match wits with the powerful dragon-borne forces of Napoleon Bonaparte.

The Name of the Wind
By Patrick Rothfuss
SCIFI ROTHFUSS
A hero named Kvothe, now living under an assumed name as the humble proprietor of an inn, recounts his transformation from a magically gifted young man into the most notorious wizard, musician, thief, and assassin in his world.

Shades of Grey
By Jasper Fforde
SCIFI FFORDE
Color Control Agency employee and House of Red member Eddie Russett experiences discontent with his limited vision when he meets Jane, a Gray, who suggests that their color-blind world was brought about by a disaster that nobody is allowed to acknowledge.

Fire
By Kristin Cashore
YA F CASHORE
In a kingdom called the Dells, Fire is the last human-shaped monster, with unimaginable beauty and the ability to control the minds of those around her, but even with these gifts she cannot escape the strife that overcomes her world.

The Red Wolf Conspiracy
By Robert V.S. Reddick
SCIFI REDDICK
Scant years after a terrible war that shook empires, a 600-year-old ship sails for enemy lands and must deal with deadly assassins, treacherous mermaids, and monstrous slavers in order to deliver a young woman whose marriage will seal the peace.

Thud!
By Terry Pratchett
SCIFI PRATCHET
A seemingly routine day in the life of City Watch commander Sam Vimes is abruptly interrupted by an unsolved murder, an impending war, an unwanted new recruit, and a pesky government inspector.

The Curse of Chalion
By Lois McMaster Bujold
SCIFI BUJOLD
Betrayed by an unknown enemy into slavery, former soldier and courtier Lupe dy Cazaril escapes his bondage and returns to the royal household he once served. Entrusted with the teaching of the sister to the heir to the throne of Chalion, Cazaril finds himself drawn into a tangled web of politics and dark magic as he battles a curse that threatens the lives and souls of a family he has come to love.

Interesting Nonfiction

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• Nonfiction

The Omnivore’s Dilemma
By Michael Pollan
394.12 POL
A fascinating look at what we eat, and why we eat it. Pollan visits a number of food related topics in this book from the origins of our food, to the reasons behind our corn based society, to organic farming, and beyond.

Born to Run
By Christopher McDougall
BIO McDougall
McDougall, a sports writer and amateur runner injures his foot on a three mile run. Said injury starts him on the path to discover how a group of native Mexican Indians are able to beat the odds and run amazing distances without the help of modern technology.

Shadow Divers
By Robert Kurson
940.5451 KUR
A fascinating account of two amateur scuba divers who discovered a World War II German submarine off the coast of New Jersey. The wreck was deeper than was normally possible to dive too, and therefore no one the amazing discovery. Adventure, with lots of World War II history thrown in.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames
By David Sedaris
814.54 SED
Another humorous memoir by David Sedaris. Each chapter looks at a different aspect of his life ranging from the frustrations of living in France, to his childhood , to his attempts to give up smoking while living in Japan.

The Homemade Life
By Molly Wizenberg
BIO WIZINBER
Wizenberg is the author of the online food blog Orangette. With each chapter she discusses a certain time in her life, the sites, smells and food associated with it. Each chapter includes the recipe for the particular food that she discusses. A very satisfying, warm, and delicious memoir.

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
By Simon Winchester
423 WIN
The compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary, 70 years in the making, was an intellectually heroic feat with a twist worthy of the greatest mystery fiction: one of its most valuable contributors was a criminally insane American physician, locked up in an English asylum for murder.

Science Fiction for Women

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• Science fiction
• Female Characters

The Quantum Rose
By Catherine Asaro
SCIFI ASARO Kamoj, a young noblewoman, agrees to marry a powerful stranger from another planet in order to save her people.

The Hunger Games
By Suzanne Collins
YA F COLLINS
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.

The Eyre Affair
By Jasper Fforde
SCIFI FFORDE
In a world where one can literally get lost in literature, Thursday Next, a Special Operative in literary detection, tries to stop the world's Third Most Wanted criminal from kidnapping characters, including Jane Eyre, from works of literature.

The Host
By Stephanie Meyer
SCIFI MEYER
A member of a species that takes over the minds of human bodies, Wanderer is unable to disregard his host's love for a man in hiding, a situation that forces both possessor and host to become unwilling allies.

The Morcai Battalion
By Diana Palmer
SCIFI PALMER
In a future where humans are inferior, cloning is common, and war rages among the many alien races that exist, Dr. Madeline Ruszel, fighting for peace and freedom, is captured by the Centurions and forced to operate on their leader.

The Book of Atrix Wolfe
By Patricia A. McKillip
SCIFI MCKILLIP
Summoned to the timeless realm of the Queen of the Wood, mage Atrix Wolfe is entreated to find the Queen's missing daughter, who disappeared twenty years earlier during a bloody war that Atrix refereed.

Well-Written Historical Fiction

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• Historical Fiction

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
By Sijie Dai
F DAI
During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, two boys are sent to the country for reeducation, where their lives take an unexpected turn when they meet the beautiful daughter of a local tailor and stumble upon a forbidden stash of Western literature.

These Is My Words
By Nancy Turner
F TURNER
In 1881, Sarah Agnes Prine, 17, goes from New Mexico to Texas and back, protecting her family with her rifle, and then becoming ranch manager while her second husband serves as a Texas Ranger.

The Rose of Sebastopol
By Katherine McMahon
F MCMAHON
When her fiancé falls ill while serving in the Crimean War, Mariella Lingwood travels to Italy to care for him only to discover that her cousin, a volunteer in Florence Nightingale's nursing corps, has gone missing.

The Killer Angels
By Michael Shaara
F SHAARA
Robert E. Lee and James Longstreet tell the Southern view of the battle at Gettysburg while Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and General John Buford present the Northern view.

The Scarlet Pimpernel
By Baroness Emmuska Orczy
F ORCZY
Sir Percy Blakeney leads titled Englishmen in assisting the escape of emigrés threatened during the terrors of the French Revolution.