Staff Picks

We take great joy in picking out what we hope is an appealing selection of books.  And we love making recommendations to customers.  If only we had time to read them all!

Here are some of our current staff favorites:

The Night Circus (Hardcover)

By Erin Morgenstern
$26.95
ISBN-13: 9780385534635
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Doubleday, 9/2011
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What a fabulous first novel! Two young magicians are pitted against each other in a contest, which will leave only one standing. The stage for this is an amazing circus like none I've ever seen. A magical, dream-like reading experience.

Carol

The Lost Wife (Paperback)

By Alyson Richman
$15.00
ISBN-13: 9780425244135
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Berkley Trade, 9/2011
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Richman's compelling historical novel takes place in 1939 Prague and travels to present day. I couldn't put it down.

Kathy

Driftless (Paperback)

By David Rhodes
$16.00
ISBN-13: 9781571310682
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Milkweed Editions, 5/2009
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This is one of my favorite new reads to recommend.  It takes place in a tiny town in Southwestern Wisconsin (the Driftless area).  It is beautiful writing, and Rhodes skillfully weaves together the stories of the fascinating cast of characters.                                                               Carol

Northwest Angle (Hardcover)

By William Kent Krueger
$24.99
ISBN-13: 9781439153956
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Atria Books, 8/2011
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Krueger's newest finds Cork and his family in a houseboat in the Northwest Angle of Minnesota, just as a major storm hits. And more than natural destruction is left in its wake...

Carol

State of Wonder (Hardcover)

By Ann Patchett
$26.99
ISBN-13: 9780062049803
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Harper, 6/2011
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I love Ann Patchett, and her newest does not disappoint.  A mysterious death, bioethics, the Amazon jungle, and suberb writing add up to a great read.                      Carol

Secret Daughter (Paperback)

By Shilpi Somaya Gowda
$13.99
ISBN-13: 9780061928352
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: William Morrow Paperbacks, 4/2011
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A novel about adoption in the voices of the adoptive mother and the mother from India, who unwillingly gives her child away.  The daughter finds herself living in Mumbai on a journalism scholarchip, and while there, attempts to search out her mother.  While reading, I felt immersed in the Indian culture.                Kathy

A Discovery of Witches (Hardcover)

By Deborah Harkness
$28.95
ISBN-13: 9780670022410
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Viking Adult, 2/2011
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Yes, it's a paranormal story with vampires, but I especially love the witches.  The first in a planned trilogy.        Carol

When She Woke (Hardcover)

By Hillary Jordan
$24.95
ISBN-13: 9781565126299
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 10/2011
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Inspired by The Scarlet Letter, Jordan's second novel is set in a future where an extremist agenda has been implemented with harrowing results.

Carol

The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise (Paperback)

By Julia Stuart
$14.95
ISBN-13: 9780307476913
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Anchor, 8/2011
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A charmingly eccentric story about the Beefeaters, who live where they work in the Tower of London. Balthazar, whose marriage is suffering after the death of his son, is now tasked with creating a Tower zoo for the animals given to the Queen.

Carol

Georgia Bottoms (Hardcover)

By Mark Childress
$24.99
ISBN-13: 9780316033046
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Little, Brown and Company, 2/2011
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This fits the bill for a good summer read.  A faithful churchgoer & seemingly typical Southern woman, Georgia Bottoms earns her living from her bedroom with certain high profile men in this small Southern community. 
Kathy

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader (Paperback)

By Anne Fadiman
$12.00
ISBN-13: 9780374527228
Availability: Special Order - Subject to Availability
Published: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 11/2000
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One of the most delightful books I read this year. In a number of succinct essays Fadiman treats a subject we all love: books! She talks about things like getting married and mixing "her" books with "his", about book topics of her choice--not the most expected ones, I might add--and about just how to treat a book with the right amount of reverence. A funny, light, and delightfully intellectual book.

Eva

Wingshooters (Paperback)

By Nina Revoyr
$15.95
ISBN-13: 9781936070718
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Akashic Books, 3/2011
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Another story set in small town Wisconsin.  It's 1974, and the arrival of the first black couple to fictional Marshfield brings out the worst in some in the community.         Carol

Caleb's Crossing (Hardcover)

By Geraldine Brooks
$26.95
ISBN-13: 9780670021048
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Viking Adult, 5/2011
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Brooks writes superb historical fiction.  In her newest, she tells the story of the first Native American to graduate from Harvard, in 1665.                  Carol

The Most Dangerous Thing (Hardcover)

By Laura Lippman
$25.99
ISBN-13: 9780061706516
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: William Morrow, 8/2011
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An absorbing novel about loss and old secrets.

Norm & Alene

Cutting for Stone (Paperback)

By Abraham Verghese
$15.95
ISBN-13: 9780375714368
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Vintage, 1/2010
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If you haven't yet read this excellent story set in Ethiopia, you are in for a treat.  It's a lovely saga of twin boys born to a British surgeon and an Indian nun, then adopted by two Indian doctors and raised in the mission clinic.                                Carol

The Summer of the Bear (Hardcover)

By Bella Pollen
$24.00
ISBN-13: 9780802119742
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Atlantic Monthly Press, 6/2011
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A mother and her children return to the Outer Isles of Scotland after the death of the father.  The Cold War is at its height, and he was a British diplomat whose role may not have been what it seemed.  The escape of a magical bear adds to this moving story that reads like a thriller.            Carol

As Nora Jo Fades Away: Confessions of a Caregiver (Paperback)

By Lisa Cerasoli
$15.95
ISBN-13: 9781589851900
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Five Star Publications (AZ), 4/2010
Cerasoli, a California actor, returns home to the U.P. to care for her grandmother who has Alzheimer's.  She writes with much humor about a tragic disease.            Kathy               

Turn of Mind (Hardcover)

By Alice LaPlante
$24.00
ISBN-13: 9780802119773
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Atlantic Monthly Press, 7/2011
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A novel narrated by a former hand surgeon with Alzheimer's.  It is at once a fascinating, if startling and haunting glimpse of the disease, as well as a mystery, as the police investigate the murder of her best friend.                   Carol

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Paperback)

By Rebecca Skloot
$16.00
ISBN-13: 9781400052189
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Broadway, 3/2011
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A superb work of non-fiction about the immortal cancer cells gathered from a woman in 1951, the researchers who used, and sometimes profited from, the cells, and the family of Henrietta Lacks.  Excellent for discussions, with issues ranging from medical ethics to race.    Carol

Beauty Queens (Hardcover)

By Libba Bray
$18.99
ISBN-13: 9780439895972
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Scholastic Press, 5/2011
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This is a young adult title, but I highly recommend it to adults, too.

A plane full of teen beauty pageant contestants crashes on a deserted island.  The girls may appear to be vapid stereotypes, but by the end both the reader and the girls have learned the complexity and depth of their characters.  The story is full of adventure, humor, exploration of the girls' sexuality, reality show pirates, product placement, possible war, and an all powerful corporation.  And the pageant sponsor appears to be channeling a certain ex-governor of Alaska...                            Carol

Paradise of the Blind (Paperback)

By Thu Huong Duong, Nina McPherson
$13.99
ISBN-13: 9780060505592
Availability: Special Order - Subject to Availability
Published: William Morrow Paperbacks, 9/2002
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A moving novel about women in North Vietnam. While it takes place during and after the war there, it is not a story of war. Banned in North Vietnam, it is the first Vietnamese novel published in the states.

Carol

Before I Go To Sleep (Hardcover)

By S. J. Watson
$25.99
ISBN-13: 9780062060556
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Harper, 6/2011
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A riveting story about a woman with amnesia who can only remember the current day's events until she falls asleep. Every day she awakes remembering nothing.

Norm & Alene

Birds Without Wings (Paperback)

By Louis De Bernieres
$16.00
ISBN-13: 9781400079322
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Vintage, 6/2005
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An older title my book club recently read, this tells the story of war, politics, and love through the lives of the people in a small village in Turkey in the early 1900's. Politics and intolerance, then as now, have devastating consequences in this beautifully written book.

Carol

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe (Hardcover)

By Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
$24.99
ISBN-13: 9780061732379
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Harper, 3/2011
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A riveting story of women who find ways to survive, and even prosper, amid horrendous cultural changes and oppression.

Alene

The Winter Rose (Paperback)

By Jennifer Donnelly
$15.99
ISBN-13: 9781401307462
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Hyperion, 1/2009
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I could not put this down. It is the second of a trilogy about a woman doctor in 1900 London and a notrious gangster. Jennifer Donnelly also writes great young adult fiction.

Carol

The Devil Colony: A Sigma Force Novel (Hardcover)

By James Rollins
$27.99
ISBN-13: 9780061784781
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: William Morrow, 6/2011
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This was my first book by Rollins, and it was a lot of fun. The mystery involves the founding fathers, Native American mythology, physics, and Fort Knox. An excellent page-turner.

Carol