Hey, all you cool cats and kittens, we talked about
readalikes this week. Stay with us all the
way to the end of the post for some suggestions for everyone (me included!)
obsessed with Tiger King!
The meeting focused on some heavily waitlisted ebooks and
audiobooks on Overdrive. My hope for
this meeting was to provide some titles to give to your patrons who may be impatient
that long list since it’s very likely many people are placing holds on just a
few titles.
Total attendance: 21
Holley W – Emmet O’Neal
Samuel R – Springville Road
Mary Anne E – BPL Southern History
Judith W – Homewood
Heather C – Homewood
Laura T – Homewood
Erika W – Smithfield
Maura D – Trussville
Polly E – Hoover
Katie Jane M – Hoover
Samantha H – Hoover
Tamiko N – North Birmigham
Jiemin F – BPL Central
Shakera S – BPL Central
Lynn H – BPL Central
Shannon H – Hoover
Reba – sorry, I remember seeing you but not your library
and 4 anonymous people I can’t list because I forgot to save the Zoom chat! Sorry, folx! Email me if you want to be not-anonymous!
The top ebook holdlists:
1) The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICK
USA Today's top 100 books to read while stuck at home social distancing
“I’ve been a huge Jojo Moyes fan. Her characters are so compelling. . . It’s
such a great narrative about personal strength and really captures how books
bring communities together.” –Reese Witherspoon
From the author of Me Before You, set in Depression-era America, a
breathtaking story of five extraordinary women and their remarkable journey
through the mountains of Kentucky and beyond. Based on a true story rooted in
America’s past, The Giver of Stars is unparalleled in its scope and
epic in its storytelling. Funny, heartbreaking, enthralling, it is destined to
become a modern classic--a richly rewarding novel of women’s friendship, of
true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great
beyond.
Readalike suggestions:
The hardscrabble folks of Troublesome Creek have to scrap
for everything - everything except books, that is. Thanks to
Roosevelt's Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project,
Troublesome's got its very own traveling librarian, Cussy Mary Carter. Cussy's
not only a book woman, however, she's also the last of her kind, her skin a
shade of blue unlike most anyone else. Not everyone is keen on Cussy's family
or the Library Project, and a Blue is often blamed for any whiff of trouble. If
Cussy wants to bring the joy of books to the hill folks, she's going to have to
confront prejudice as old as the Appalachias and suspicion as deep as the
holler.
In a small Alabama coal-mining town during the summer of
1931, nine-year-old Tess Moore sits on her back porch and watches a woman toss
a baby into her family’s well without a word. This shocking act of violence
sets in motion a chain of events that forces Tess and her older sister Virgie
to look beyond their own door and learn the value of kindness and lending a
helping hand.
A thrilling tale of secretaries turned spies, of love and
duty, and of sacrifice--inspired by the true story of the CIA plot to
infiltrate the hearts and minds of Soviet Russia, not with propaganda, but with
the greatest love story of the twentieth century: Doctor Zhivago.
Stirring in its storytelling of one woman against the odds
and intimate in its exploration of the complexities of contemporary southern
life, Queen Sugar is an unforgettable tale of endurance and hope.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Heather C. from Homewood compiled this list:
Books Like Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
Three very different women are united against injustice in
poverty-stricken 1924 South Carolina in this atmospheric, compelling, character
driven novel.
This intricately plotted, descriptive, historical novel
features a strong, intelligent half-Cherokee woman raising her five children as
white during a time of conflict between Native Americans and whites in the
post-Civil War West.
This lyrical, atmospheric, historical novel focuses on
13-year-old Maddy. Born illegitimate with a birthmark covering half of her
face, the neglected Maddy leaves to be employed by a wealthy feminist.
2)Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER
Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottleib
Now being developed as a television series with Eva Longoria
and ABC!
"An irresistibly addictive tour of the human
condition." (Kirkus, starred review)
"Rarely have I read a book that challenged me to see
myself in an entirely new light, and was at the same time laugh-out-loud funny
and utterly absorbing." (Katie Couric)
"Wise, warm, smart, and funny. You must read this
book." (Susan Cain, New York Times best-selling author of Quiet)
From a New York Times best-selling author,
psychotherapist, and national advice columnist, a hilarious, thought-provoking,
and surprising new book that takes us behind the scenes of a therapist's world
- where her patients are looking for answers (and so is she).
Readalike suggestions:
The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with
12 children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's
great hope in the quest to understand the disease.
No more hiding or people-pleasing up in here, sisters. No
more being sidelined in your own life. It is time for us to be brave, to claim
our gifts and quirks and emotions. You are set free and set up and set on fire.
Part manifesto, part revelation, this is the story of an
artist struggling with the new rules of exchange in the twenty-first century,
both on and off the Internet. The Art of Asking will inspire readers to rethink
their own ideas about asking, giving, art, and love.
3) American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins (see the audiobook section below for more readalikes for this title)
Already being hailed as "a Grapes of Wrath for
our times" and "a new American classic," Jeanine Cummins's American
Dirt is a rare exploration into the inner hearts of people willing to
sacrifice everything for a glimmer of hope. (Information on the current
controversy surrounding this title may be found by clicking here.)
Afterlife (Hoopla) by Julia Alvarez (
also in the Libby catalog here)
Afterlife is a compact, nimble, and sharply droll novel. Set in this political moment of tribalism and distrust, it asks: What do we owe those in crisis in our families, including—maybe especially—members of our human family? How do we live in a broken world without losing faith in one another or ourselves? And how do we stay true to those glorious souls we have lost?
4) The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
Ann Patchett, the #1 New York Times bestselling
author of Commonwealth, delivers her most powerful novel to date: a
richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the
house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go. The Dutch
House is the story of a paradise lost, a tour de force that digs deeply
into questions of inheritance, love and forgiveness, of how we want to see
ourselves and of who we really are.
Readalike suggestions:
First published in 1993, The Virgin Suicides announced
the arrival of a major new American novelist. In a quiet suburb of Detroit, the
five Lisbon sisters—beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the
neighborhood boys—commit suicide one by one over the course of a single year.
As the boys observe them from afar, transfixed, they piece together the mystery
of the family's fatal melancholy, in this hypnotic and unforgettable novel of
adolescent love, disquiet, and death.
Past the rusted gates and untrimmed hedges, Hill House
broods and waits…. Four seekers have come to the ugly, abandoned old mansion.
At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with
inexplicable noises and self-closing doors, but Hill House is gathering its
powers and will soon choose one of them to make its own.
All This Could Be Yours is a timely, piercing
exploration of what it means to be caught in the web of a toxic man who abused
his power; it shows how those webs can tangle a family for generations and what
it takes to - maybe, hopefully - break free.
Filled with Kevin Wilson's endless creativity, vibrant
prose, sharp humor, and keen sense of the complex performances that unfold in
the relationships of people who love one another, The Family Fang is
a masterfully executed tale that is as bizarre as it is touching.
“Altogether unpredictable.” (
Karin Slaughter, New York
Times best-selling author)
Propulsive and addictive, and perfect for
fans of You,
The
Other Mrs. is the twisty new psychological thriller from
Mary Kubica, the New
York Times best-selling author of
The Good Girl.
A collection of 17 wonderful short stories showing that
two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks is as talented a writer as he is an
actor.
5) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
From the best-selling author of Everything I Never Told You, a riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect
Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their
lives.
Readalike suggestions:
A captivating debut novel about a woman who falls into an
overwhelming mutual obsession with the Upper East Side mother who hires her as
a nanny.
Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and
second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the little lies
that can turn lethal.
Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor,
a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a
way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of
their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality
their lives are changed profoundly and forever, and they discover how hard it
can be to truly live and how easy it is to kill.
Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter
Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: She must return to her tiny
hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, Camille has
hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely
knows: a beautiful 13-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed
in her old bedroom in her family's Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself
identifying with the young victims - a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own
demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants
to get the story - and survive this homecoming.
Little Fires Everywhere is currently a hit TV show on
Hulu. Running on a broad theme of books
that have become successful TV shows:
The top audiobook holdlists:
1) The Guardians by John Grisham
Cullen Post travels the country fighting wrongful
convictions and taking on clients forgotten by the system. With Quincy Miller,
though, he gets far more than he bargained for. Powerful, ruthless people
murdered Keith Russo, and they do not want Quincy Miller exonerated. They
killed one lawyer 22 years ago, and they will kill another without a second
thought.
Readalike suggestions:
Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic,
gifted young lawyer’s coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he
has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true
justice.
Atonement is Ian McEwan’s finest achievement. Brilliant
and utterly enthralling in its depiction of childhood, love and war, England
and class, the novel is at its center a profound–and profoundly
moving–exploration of shame and forgiveness and the difficulty of absolution.
With a foreword by Bryan Stevenson, The Sun Does Shine is
an extraordinary testament to the power of hope sustained through the darkest
times. Destined to be a classic memoir of wrongful imprisonment and freedom won,
Hinton’s memoir tells his dramatic thirty–year journey and shows how you can
take away a man’s freedom, but you can’t take away his imagination, humor, or
joy.
In a twist of the topic, this podcast explores wrongful
non-imprisonment for a crime that should have been punished: the White Lies
podcast.
Listen by clicking here.
2) American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins (see description in ebook
section above)
Readalike suggestions:
A fiercely imaginative new novel about a family whose road
trip across America collides with an immigration crisis at the southwestern
border--an indelible journey told with breathtaking imagery, spare lyricism,
and profound humanity.
Structured around the forty questions volunteer worker
Valeria Luiselli translates from a court system form and asks undocumented
Latin American children facing deportation, Tell Me How It Ends humanizes
these young migrants and highlights the contradiction between the idea of
America as a fiction for immigrants and the reality of racism and fear—here and
back home.
Set in New York and China, The Leavers is a vivid
and moving examination of borders and belonging. It's the story of how one boy
comes into his own when everything he's loved has been taken away - and how a
mother learns to live with the mistakes of her past.
3) Open Book by Jessica Simpson
Jessica reveals for the first time her inner monologue and
most intimate struggles. Guided by the journals she's kept since age 15, and
brimming with her unique humor and down-to-earth humanity, Open Book is
as inspiring as it is entertaining.
Readalike suggestions:
The shocking, never-before-told story of the bizarre world inside
the legendary Playboy Mansion - and finally the secret truth about the man who
holds the key - from one of the few people who truly knows: Hef's former
number-one girlfriend and star of The Girls Next Door.
The outspoken actress, talk show host, and reality
television star offers up a no-holds-barred memoir, including an eye-opening
insider account of her tumultuous and heart-wrenching 30-year-plus association
with the Church of Scientology.
Costello chronicles his musical apprenticeship, a child's
view of his father Ross MacManus' career on radio and in the dancehall; his own
initial almost comical steps in folk clubs and cellar dive before his first
sessions for Stiff Record, the formation of the Attractions, and his frenetic
and ultimately notorious third U.S. tour. He takes readers behind the scenes
of Top of the Pops and Saturday Night Live, and his own
show, Spectacle. The idiosyncratic memoir of a singular man, Unfaithful
Music & Disappearing Ink is destined to be a classic.
In My Lucky Stars Shirley MacLaine talks candidly
and personally about her four decades in Hollywood, especially about the men
and women—her “lucky stars”—who touched and challenged her life.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
Samantha H. from Hoover compiled this list of resources:
4) Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating
new voice, Such a Fun Age is a big-hearted story about race and
privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer,
and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.
Readalike suggestions:
The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell is a humorous,
well-informed take on the world today, tackling a wide range of issues, such as
race relations; fatherhood; the state of law enforcement today; comedians and
superheroes; right-wing politics; left-wing politics; failure; his interracial
marriage; white men; his upbringing by very strong-willed, race-conscious, yet
ideologically opposite parents; his early days struggling to find his comedic
voice, then his later days struggling to find his comedic voice; why he never
seemed to fit in with the black comedy scene...or the white comedy scene; how
he was a black nerd way before that became a thing; how it took his wife and an
East Bay lesbian to teach him that racism and sexism often walk hand in hand;
and much, much more.
A profoundly moving novel about two neighboring families in
a suburban town, the friendship between their children, a tragedy that
reverberates over four decades, and the power of forgiveness.
With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi
Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion - and
doesn’t offer easy answers. Small Great Things is a remarkable
achievement from a writer at the top of her game.
5) a tie between Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng and
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
Little Fires Everywhere has been covered extensively in the
ebook section above. Refer to that for readalike suggestions. The ones listed below are for The Silent
Patient by Alex Michaelides.
The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller
of a woman’s act of violence against her husband - and of the therapist
obsessed with uncovering her motive. Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly
perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she
lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s
most desirable areas. One evening, her husband Gabriel returns home late from a
fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face and then never
speaks another word.
Readalike suggestions:
When Jessica Farris signs up for a psychology study
conducted by the mysterious Dr. Shields, she thinks all she’ll have to do is
answer a few questions, collect her money, and leave. But as the questions
grow more and more intense and invasive and the sessions become outings where
Jess is told what to wear and how to act, she begins to feel as though Dr.
Shields may know what she’s thinking...and what she’s hiding.
In this dark, suspenseful thriller, Alex North weaves a
multi-generational tale of a father and son caught in the crosshairs of an
investigation to catch a serial killer preying on a small town.
In the tradition of
The Girl on the Train,
The Silent Wife, and
Gone Girl comes an enthralling psychological
thriller that spins one woman's seemingly good fortune and another woman's
mysterious fate through a kaleidoscope of duplicity, death, and deception.
Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk
with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy
ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen
lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note.
And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone. In The
Family Upstairs, the master of “bone-chilling suspense” (People) brings us the
can’t-look-away story of three entangled families living in a house with the
darkest of secrets.
Could ten days at a health resort really change you forever?
In Liane Moriarty’s latest page-turner, nine perfect strangers are about to
find out...
With shocking turns and dark secrets that will keep you
guessing until the very end, The Last Mrs. Parrish is a fresh, juicy,
and utterly addictive thriller from a diabolically imaginative talent.
For readers of
Gillian Flynn and
Tana French comes one of
the decade’s most anticipated debuts, to be published in thirty-six languages
around the world and already in development as a major film from Fox: a twisty,
powerful Hitchcockian thriller about an agoraphobic woman who believes she
witnessed a crime in a neighboring house.
Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were
murdered in "The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas". As her family
lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January
snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but she survived, and famously testified
that her 15-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, Ben
sits in prison, and troubled Libby lives off the dregs of a trust created by
well-wishers who've long forgotten her. The Kill Club is a macabre secret
society obsessed with notorious crimes. When they locate Libby and pump her for
details, proof they hope may free Ben, Libby hatches a plan to profit off her
tragic history.
On a lighter note, we haven’t left the kiddos with nothing! Here are some readalikes for popular
children’s books, compiled by Katie Jane M. at the Hoover
Library.
There seems to be a lot of chatter out there about spring
cleaning while quarantined at home, so we brainstormed some similar (and some
different!) offerings like Marie Kondo’s books.
If you don’t want to clean, organize, and declutter, you may enjoy:
This is the first entry in the Simon Brett’s exciting new Decluttering mystery
series,
The Clutter Corpse!
Ellen Curtis runs her own business helping people who are
running out of space. As a declutterer, she is used to encountering all sorts
of weird and wonderful objects in the course of her work. What she has never
before encountered is a dead body…until now. Discovering a link between the
victim and her own past, Ellen sets out to uncover the truth.
And now, for the event you’ve really been waiting for, Tiger
King companion reading/listening!
If you’ve not yet listened to the S-Town podcast, now is the
perfect time.
Tune in here.
NONFICTION
FICTION
No one wants to be a victim, but most find the event too
hypnotic to ignore. In order to save their traveling carnival from bankruptcy,
the Binewskis are creating their own brood of sideshow freaks. Under Al's
careful direction, the pregnant Lil ingests radioisotopes, insecticides, and
arsenic to make her babies "special". As the oldest daughter, albino
dwarf Olympia, puts listeners in the ring-side seat, her family's incredible
drama erupts and spills over into the "normal" world. Not for the
squeamish or faint of heart, this brilliantly daring novel is shocking and
delightful.
Against a backdrop of hauntingly fecund plant life animated
by ancient lizards and lawless hungers, Karen Russell has written an utterly
singular novel about a family’s struggle to stay afloat in a world that is
inexorably sinking. An arrestingly beautiful and inventive work from a vibrant
new voice in fiction.
Turtle Alveston is a survivor. At fourteen, she roams the
woods along the northern California coast. The creeks, tide pools, and rocky
islands are her haunts and her hiding grounds, and she is known to wander for
miles. But while her physical world is expansive, her personal one is small and
treacherous: Turtle has grown up isolated since the death of her mother, in the
thrall of her tortured and charismatic father, Martin. Her social existence is
confined to the middle school (where she fends off the interest of anyone,
student or teacher, who might penetrate her shell) and to her life with her
father. What follows is a harrowing story of bravery and redemption. With
Turtle's escalating acts of physical and emotional courage, the reader watches,
heart in throat, as this teenage girl struggles to become her own hero—and in
the process, becomes ours as well.
The title of this short-story collection tells you
everything you need to know: Marriages are threatened by a batty neighborhood
biologist; another man’s paradise in Florida is hit by waves of plagues. And
yes, exotic animals do make an appearance — one character’s bedroom is sprayed
with raw meat thanks to an African lynx.
Andrew Yancy—late of the Miami Police and soon-to-be-late of
the Monroe County sheriff’s office—has a human arm in his freezer. There’s a
logical (Hiaasenian) explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted
from its shadowy owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation
is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, the sheriff might rescue him from
his grisly Health Inspector gig (it’s not called the roach patrol for nothing).
