January is a fresh start to a new year. Wondering what our staff is reading this month? Some of us are rereading some of our favorite comfort reads while others are reading new books. Check out what we're reading and see if any of these will be your next read.
Michael Lang, Director
DB 119203 Orbital by Samantha Harvey
"A slender novel of epic power, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men hurtling through space-not towards the moon or the vast unknown, but around our planet. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts-from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan-have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below. We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude. Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate. So are the marks of civilization far below, encrusted on the planet on which we live." -- Provided by publisher. -- Commercial audiobook.
DB 124838 Blood test by Charles Baxter
"In this fresh take on love and trouble in the American heartland, Brock Hobson, an insurance salesman and Sunday-school teacher, finds his equilibrium disturbed by the results of a blood test. Baxter, a master storyteller, brings us a gradually building rollercoaster narrative, and a protagonist who is impertinent, searching, and hilariously relatable. From his good-as-gold, gentle girlfriend to the excessively macho subcontractor guy his ex-wife left him for, not to mention his well-raised teenage kids, now exploring sex and sexuality, the secondary characters in Brock's life all contribute meaningfully to the drama, as increasing challenges to his sense of self and purpose crash over him. The final battle--no spoilers, but there is one--couldn't be more delightful, as this quick and bracing novel reminds us to choose the best people to love, accept the ones we love even if we didn't choose them, and love them all well"-- Provided by publisher. -- Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
Nataly Renfro, Machine Clerk
DB 122854 The black bird oracle by Deborah Harkness
"Diana Bishop journeys to the darkest places within herself--and her family history--in the highly anticipated fifth novel of the beloved #1 New York Times bestselling All Souls series. Deborah Harkness first introduced the world to Diana Bishop, Oxford scholar and witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew de Clairmont in A Discovery of Witches. Drawn to each other despite long-standing taboos, these two other-worldly beings found themselves at the center of a battle for a lost, enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Since then, they have fallen in love, traveled to Elizabethan England, dissolved the Covenant between the three species, and awoken the dark powers within Diana's family line. Now, Diana and Matthew receive a formal demand from the Congregation: They must test the magic of their seven-year-old twins, Pip and Rebecca. Concerned with their safety and desperate to avoid the same fate that led her parents to spellbind her, Diana decides to forge a different path for her family's future and answers a message from a great-aunt she never knew existed, Gwyneth Proctor, whose invitation simply reads: It's time you came home, Diana. On the hallowed ground of Ravenswood, the Proctor family home, and under the tutelage of Gwyneth, a talented witch grounded in higher magic, a new era begins for Diana: a confrontation with her family's dark past, and a reckoning for her own desire for even greater power-if she can let go, finally, of her fear of wielding it"-- Provided by publisher. -- Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
Ryan Lauber, Library Assistant
DB 94475 Mistborn by Brondon Sanderson
In the prisons of the Lord Ruler, Kelsier discovers he has the powers of the Mistborn. A brilliant thief, Kel recruits a team from the underworld's elite to challenge the Lord Ruler. It's a long shot, until Kel finds the ragged girl Vin, a half-skaa orphan like him. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2006.
Jason Brinkman, Production Manager
DB 123864 The fellowship of the ring: being the first part of the lord of the rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
"Frodo Baggins, a young hobbit, sets out on a perilous journey to the Cracks of Doom, along with a band of warriors from different kingdoms, to destroy the Dark Lord's Ring of Power."-- WorldCat. -- Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
DB 123865 The two towers: being the second part of the lord of the rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
"Frodo and his Companions of the Ring have been beset by danger during their quest to prevent the Ruling Ring from falling into the hands of the Dark Lord by destroying it in the Cracks of Doom. They have lost the wizard, Gandalf, in a battle in the Mines of Moria. And Boromir, seduced by the power of the Ring, tried to seize it by force. While Frodo and Sam made their escape, the rest of the company was attacked by Orcs. Now they continue the journey alone down the great River Anduin-alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go."-- Goodreads. -- Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
DB 123866 The return of the king: being the third part of the lord of the rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
"Presents the adventures of the little hobbit Frodo Baggins and his trusty companion, Sam as they journey from Middle Earth to the land of the Shadow in a final reckoning with the evil power of Sauron."-- From publisher. -- Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
Maggie Witte, Outreach Librarian
DB 113965 The Wager: a tale of shipwreck, mutiny and murder by David Grann
"On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans," it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes. But then ... six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death-for whomever the court found guilty could hang. The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann's recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O'Brian, his portrayal of the castaways' desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann's work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound." -- Provided by publisher. -- Some violence. Commercial audiobook. Bestseller.
DB 110541 A merry little meet cute by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone
"Bee Hobbes (aka Bianca Von Honey) has a successful career as a plus-size adult film star. With a huge following and two supportive moms, Bee couldn't ask for more. But when Bee's favorite producer casts her to star in a Christmas movie he's making for the squeaky-clean Hope Channel, Bee's career is about to take a more family-friendly direction. Forced to keep her work as Bianca under wraps, Bee quickly learns this is a task a lot easier said than done. Though it all becomes worthwhile when she discovers her co-star is none other than childhood crush Nolan Shaw, an ex-boy band member in desperate need of career rehab. Nolan's promised his bulldog manager to keep it zipped up on set, and he will if it means he'll be able to provide a more stable living situation for his sister and mom. But things heat up quickly in Christmas Notch, Vermont, when Nolan recognizes his new co-star from her ClosedDoors account (oh yeah, he's a member). Now Bee and Nolan are sneaking off for quickies on set, keeping their new relationship a secret from the Hope Channel's execs. Things only get trickier when the reporter who torpedoed Nolan's singing career comes snooping around--and takes an instant interest in mysterious newcomer Bee. And if Bee and Nolan can't keep their off-camera romance behind the scenes, then this merry little meet cute might end up on the cutting room floor." -- Provided by publisher. -- Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
DB 115206 Fourth wing by Rebecca Yarros
"Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Yarros. Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general-also known as her tough-as-talons mother-has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. But when you're smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away ... because dragons don't bond to "fragile" humans. They incinerate them. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother's daughter-like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant. She'll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise. Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret. Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda-because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die." -- Provided by publisher. -- Explicit descriptions of sex, some strong language, violence. Commercial audiobook. Bestseller.