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fiction (17)

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
library? yes (physical + digital)
urban fantasy · magical realism · science fiction | 400-500 pages
The City We Became takes place in New York City, in a version of the world in which great cities become sentient through human avatars. After the avatar of New York falls into a supernatural coma and vanishes, a group of five new avatars representing the five boroughs come together to fight their common Enemy.
recommendation note: "I read the short story 'The City Born Great' by N.K. Jemisin that this novel is based on and thought it was so weird and so fucking good."
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
library? yes (physical + digital)
feminism · contemporary · LGBTQ+ | 400-500 pages
The twelve central characters of this multi-voiced novel lead vastly different lives: Amma is a newly acclaimed playwright whose work often explores her Black lesbian identity; her old friend Shirley is a teacher, jaded after decades of work in London’s funding-deprived schools; Carole, one of Shirley’s former students, is a successful investment banker; Carole’s mother Bummi works as a cleaner and worries about her daughter’s lack of rootedness despite her obvious achievements. From a nonbinary social media influencer to a 93-year-old woman living on a farm in Northern England, these unforgettable characters also intersect in shared aspects of their identities, from age to race to sexuality to class.
Sparklingly witty and filled with emotion, centering voices we often see othered, and written in an innovative fast-moving form that borrows technique from poetry, Girl, Woman, Other is a polyphonic and richly textured social novel that shows a side of Britain we rarely see, one that reminds us of all that connects us to our neighbors, even in times when we are encouraged to be split apart.
recommendation note: "Maybe I can learn something from this book about my own womanhood and I've been seeing it all over book-tok (the subsection of TikTok dedicated to books) so I want to see what the hype is about."
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
library? yes (physical + digital)
literary · LGBTQ+ | 200-300 pages
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one's own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.
recommendation note: "In case we all feeling like collectively crying for a month!"
Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton
library? yes (physical + digital)
travel · adventure · family drama | 300-400 pages
This book will transport you not only through time, but to the colorful and lively streets of Cuba. Alternating between Havana in 1958 and 2017, this novel delves into Cuba's tumultuous history and enduring culture. In present-day Miami, Marisol has promised to spread her recently departed grandmother's ashes. So Marisol heads to Havana, where her grandmother's childhood stories come to life, and she discovers more about her own culture than she could have imagined.
recommendation note: "It seemed like an interesting plot. I’m always interested in detailed imagery and novels that focus on identity and family history/ relationships so it sounded like a good option. I found it on a Buzzfeed list."
The River at Night by Erica Ferencik
library? yes (physical only)
adventure · thriller · suspense | 300-400 pages
A high-stakes drama set against the harsh beauty of the Maine wilderness, charting the journey of four friends as they fight to survive the aftermath of a white water rafting accident, The River at Night is a nonstop and unforgettable thriller.
recommendation note: "I want to read an adventure novel."
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
library? yes (physical + digital)
adventure | 200-300 pages
The Call of the Wild is a short adventure novel by Jack London, published in 1903 and set in Yukon, Canada, during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush, when strong sled dogs were in high demand. The central character of the novel is a dog named Buck.
recommendation note: "I feel like it’s one of those books that’s referenced a lot as a sort of classic, but I’ve never taken the time to read it. Also we can watch the movie after! Or movies. I think there are 3? I’ve never seen any of them either."
The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
library? yes (physical + digital)
science fiction | <200 pages
In this science-fiction novel by H.G. Wells, published in 1897, the story concerns the life and death of a scientist named Griffin who has gone mad. Having learned how to make himself invisible, Griffin begins to use his invisibility for nefarious purposes, including murder.

Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay
library? yes (physical only)
coming-of-age · young adult · Asian stories · Filipinx stories | 300-400 pages
TW: Death, Drug addiction, Sex trafficking (brief discussion)
Jay Reguero plans to spend the last semester of his senior year playing video games before heading to the University of Michigan in the fall. But when he discovers that his Filipino cousin Jun was murdered as part of President Duterte’s war on drugs, and no one in the family wants to talk about what happened, Jay travels to the Philippines to find out the real story.
Hoping to uncover more about Jun and the events that led to his death, Jay is forced to reckon with the many sides of his cousin before he can face the whole horrible truth — and the part he played in it.
As gripping as it is lyrical, Patron Saints of Nothing is a page-turning portrayal of the struggle to reconcile faith, family, and immigrant identity.
recommendation note: "This book was sort of my doorway to reading more Filipino stories. Felt very good and very strange to be relating to a book about a teenage boy when I was 23/24, but I related to Jay a lot. I think it would be interesting to revisit and would love to hear everyone else's thoughts on it."
What If It's Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera
library? yes (physical + digital)
LGBTQ+ · young adult · romance · coming-of-age | 300-400 pages
Told in two voices, when Arthur, a summer intern from Georgia, and Ben, a native New Yorker, meet it seems like fate, but after three attempts at dating fail they wonder if the universe is pushing them together or apart.
recommendation note: "It looks good and we haven't had a lot of LGBTQ+ content thus far."
Airborn by Kenneth Oppel
library? yes (physical + digital)
steampunk · young adult · alternate history | 300-400 pages
Sharmaine's pickMatt Cruse is a cabin boy on the Aurora, a huge airship that sails hundreds of feet above the ocean, ferrying wealthy passengers from city to city. It is the life Matt's always wanted; convinced he's lighter than air, he imagines himself as buoyant as the hydrium gas that powers his ship. One night he meets a dying balloonist who speaks of beautiful creatures drifting through the skies. It is only after Matt meets the balloonist's granddaughter that he realizes that the man's ravings may, in fact, have been true, and that the creatures are completely real and utterly mysterious.
In a swashbuckling adventure reminiscent of Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson, Kenneth Oppel, author of the best-selling Silverwing trilogy, creates an imagined world in which the air is populated by transcontinental voyagers, pirates, and beings never before dreamed of by the humans who sail the skies.
recommendation note: "There was nothing that enraptured 12 year old me more than a poor (usually white) boy from humble beginnings proving his worth through the goodness of his heart (and mostly luck) to a bunch of people who thought he was absolute shit, including an annoying, classist, "not-like-other-girls-because-i-read" girl with whom he falls in love with (see also the Lightning Thief). Starclimber is the best book in this series but we gotta start at the beginning. - Sharmaine"
The Birth House by Ami McKay
library? yes (physical + digital) | 300-400 pages
The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare, the first daughter to be born in five generations of Rares. As a child in an isolated village in Nova Scotia, she is drawn to Miss Babineau, an outspoken Acadian midwife with a gift for healing. Dora becomes Miss Bs apprentice, and together they help the women of Scots Bay through infertility, difficult labours, breech births, unwanted pregnancies and even unfulfilling sex lives. Filled with details as compelling as they are surprising The Birth House is an unforgettable tale of the struggles women have faced to have control of their own bodies and to keep the best parts of tradition alive in the world of modern medicine.
recommendation note: "I read it in a women's studies class back in 2015(?) and I think it would have good discussion points."
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
library? yes (physical + digital)
classic · adventure | <200 pages
Embark on an imaginative adventure with Mowgli, a young orphaned boy raised by animals in the jungles of India. In a collection of stories about courage and survival, Mowgli must learn the laws of the jungle to defeat the tiger Shere-Khan. Lively characters and a captivating journey of self-discovery make The Jungle Book an ideal gift for young readers that will be treasured for years.
recommendation note: "I never thought to read it before and it would be interesting to compare it to the movie adaptations."
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
library? yes (physical + digital)
historical fiction · romance · comedy | 300-400 pages
Kayla's pickSet in the 1960s, the novel centres around a scientist whose career takes a detour when she becomes the star of a beloved cooking show.
recommendation note: "A friend recommended it and she never misses."
15 Dogs by Andre Alexis
library? yes (physical + digital)
fantasy · satire · animals | <200 pages
Kayla's pickAnd so it begins: a bet between the gods Hermes and Apollo leads them to grant human consciousness and language to a group of dogs overnighting at a Toronto veterinary clinic. Suddenly capable of more complex thought, the pack is torn between those who resist the new ways of thinking, preferring the old 'dog' ways, and those who embrace the change.
The gods watch from above as the dogs venture into their newly unfamiliar world, as they become divided among themselves, as each struggles with new thoughts and feelings. Wily Benjy moves from home to home, Prince becomes a poet, and Majnoun forges a relationship with a kind couple that stops even the Fates in their tracks.

The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
library? yes (physical + digital)
fantasy · comedy · adventure | 200-300 pages
Sarah's pick Alicia's pickSomewhere on the frontier between thought and reality exists the Discworld, a parallel time and place which might sound and smell very much like our own, but which looks completely different. Particularly as it’s carried through space on the back of a giant turtle.
It plays by different rules. But then, some things are the same everywhere. The Disc’s very existence is about to be threatened by a strange new blight: the world’s first tourist, upon whose survival rests the peace and prosperity of the land.
Unfortunately, the person charged with maintaining that survival in the face of robbers, mercenaries and, well, Death, is a spectacularly inept wizard…

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
library? yes (physical)
literary · Swedish · emotional | 300-400 pages
Kayla's pickAt first sight, Ove is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet. He thinks himself surrounded by idiots - neighbours who can't reverse a trailer properly, joggers, shop assistants who talk in code, and the perpetrators of the vicious coup d'etat that ousted him as Chairman of the Residents' Association. He will persist in making his daily inspection rounds of the local streets.
But isn't it rare, these days, to find such old-fashioned clarity of belief and deed? Such unswerving conviction about what the world should be, and a lifelong dedication to making it just so?
In the end, you will see, there is something about Ove that is quite irresistible...

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
library? yes (physical)
coming-of-age · disability· friendship · romance | 400-500 pages
Sharmaine's pickIn this exhilarating novel, two friends--often in love, but never lovers--come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.
recommendation note: "One of my favourite books I've read so far this year. It's getting a lot of praise right now, so the loan queue for it at library is crazy long. If we all place a hold on it now, we can read it in 2024 lmao"
non-fiction (1)

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
library? yes (physical + digital)
memoir · grief · identity · Asian stories | 200-300 pages
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.
As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band—and meeting the man who would become her husband—her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.
recommendation note: "Michelle Zauner is the lead singer and guitarist of popular indie rock band Japanese Breakfast! I've seen this book recommended on so many different forums and I've never cried at an H Mart but I've definitely cried at other Asian grocery stores."