125 Recommended Fiction Titles for YA and Adults

This list is features 125 librarian-recommended titles for teens and adults to read. You will find 25 titles per category: Young Adult, Mystery, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Comics and General Fiction. Enjoy and don't forget to sign up for the Summer Reading Program!

The hate u give

Angie Thomas

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Thomas Angie
Young Adult

After witnessing her friend's death at the hands of a police officer, Starr Carter's life is complicated when the police and a local drug lord try to intimidate her in an effort to learn what happened the night Kahlil died.

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Starting the list off with 25 highly recommended YA titles.
- Becky

Legend

Marie Lu

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Lu Marie
Young Adult

In a dark future, when North America has split into two warring nations, fifteen-year-olds Day, a famous criminal, and prodigy June, the brilliant soldier hired to capture him, discover that they have a common enemy.

Anne of Green Gables.

L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

jFICTION Montgomery, L. M.

Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her.

I am not your perfect Mexican daughter

Erika L. Sánchez

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Sanchez Erika
Young Adult

Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents' house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family. But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter.

The hobbit : or, There and back again

J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel) Tolkien

SCIENCE FICTION Tolkien, J. R. R.

The adventures of the well-to-do hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, who lived happily in his comfortable home until a wandering wizard granted his wish.

The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian

Sherman Alexie

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Alexie, Sherman
Young Adult

Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.

The book thief

Markus Zusak

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Zusak, Markus
Young Adult

Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.

Are you there God? It's me, Margaret.

Judy Blume

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Blume, Judy
Young Adult

Faced with the difficulties of growing up and choosing a religion, a twelve-year-old girl talks over her problems with her own private God.

The crossover

Kwame Alexander

jFICTION Alexander, Kwame

Fourteen-year-old twin basketball stars Josh and Jordan wrestle with highs and lows on and off the court as their father ignores his declining health.

Patron saints of nothing

Randy Ribay

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Ribay Randy
Young Adult

When seventeen-year-old Jay Reguero learns his Filipino cousin and former best friend, Jun, was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, he flies to the Philippines to learn more.

The hunger games

Suzanne Collins

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Collins, Suzanne
Young Adult

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 poet X

Elizabeth Acevedo

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Acevedo, Elizabeth
Young Adult

Harlem. Ever since her body grew into curves, Xiomara Batista has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. She pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers...

The maze runner

James Dashner

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Dashner, James
Young Adult

Sixteen-year-old Thomas wakes up with no memory in the middle of a maze and realizes he must work with the community in which he finds himself if he is to escape.

Eleanor & Park

Rainbow Rowell

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Rowell Rainbow
Young Adult

"Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits--smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try"--

Punching the air

Ibi Aanu Zoboi

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Zoboi Ibi
Young Adult

At just sixteen years old, Amal's bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didn't commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. With spellbinding lyricism, award-winning author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam tell a moving and deeply profound story about how one boy is able to maintain his humanity and fight for the truth, in a system designed to strip him of both.

Holes

Louis Sachar

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Sachar, Louis
Young Adult

As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone

J. K Rowling

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Rowling, J. K.
Young Adult

Rescued from the outrageous neglect of his aunt and uncle, a young boy with a great destiny proves his worth while attending Hogwarts School for Wizards and Witches. This is the first Hary Potter book.

The fault in our stars

John Green

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Green, John
Young Adult

Sixteen-year-old Hazel, a stage IV thyroid cancer patient, has accepted her terminal diagnosis until a chance meeting with a boy at cancer support group forces her to reexamine her perspective on love, loss, and life.

Looking for Alaska

John Green

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Green, John
Young Adult

Sixteen-year-old Miles' first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and great pranks, but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash.

Lord of the flies

William Golding

FICTION Golding, William
Young Adult

Hatchet

Gary Paulsen

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Paulsen Gary
Young Adult

Headed for Canada to visit his father for the first time since his parents' divorce, thirteen-year-old Brian is the sole survivor of a plane crash, with only the clothes he has on and a hatchet to help him live in the wilderness.

Thirteen reasons why

Jay Asher

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Asher, Jay
Young Adult

When high school student Clay Jenkins receives a box in the mail containing thirteen cassette tapes recorded by his classmate Hannah, who committed suicide, he spends a bewildering and heartbreaking night crisscrossing their town, listening to Hannah's voice recounting the events leading up to her death.

The house on Mango Street

Sandra Cisneros

FICTION Cisneros, Sandra

Brown girl dreaming

Jacqueline Woodson

jBIOGRAPHY Woodson, Jacqueline

"The author shares her childhood memories and reveals the first sparks that ignited her writing career in free-verse poems about growing up in the North and South"--

Love is a revolution

Renée Watson

ON ORDER BOOK
Young Adult

Harlem teenager Nala is looking forward to a summer of movies and ice cream until she falls in love with the very woke Tye and pretends to be a social activist.

The big sleep

Raymond Chandler

MYSTERY Chandler, Raymond

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Here is the start of the 25 mystery titles recommended by staff!
- Becky

The mysterious affair at Styles

Agatha Christie

MYSTERY Christie, Agatha

Set in the summer of 1917, the story follows the war-wounded Hastings to the Styles St. Mary estate of his friend John Cavendish. The Cavendish household is wrought with tension due to the marriage of John's widowed mother to a suspicious younger man. In the village, Hastings runs into his old friend Hercule Poirot and, when the estate's trouble turns deadly, the friends unite to solve a most baffling case.

Still life

Louise Penny

MYSTERY Penny, Louise

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec and his team of investigators are called in to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal.

The sweetness at the bottom of the pie

C. Alan Bradley

MYSTERY Bradley, C. Alan

Eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, must exonerate her father of murder. Armed with more than enough knowledge to tie two distant deaths together and examine new suspects, she begins a search that will lead her all the way to the King of England himself.

A front page affair

Radha Vatsal

MYSTERY Vatsal Radha

The Lusitania has just been sunk, and headlines about a shooting at J.P. Morgan's mansion and the Great War are splashed across the front page of every newspaper. Capability "Kitty" Weeks would love nothing more than to report on the news of the day, but she's stuck writing about fashion and society gossip over on the Ladies' Page—until a man is murdered at a high society picnic on her beat.

The postman always rings twice

James M. (James Mallahan) Cain

MYSTERY Cain, James M.

The Maltese falcon

Dashiell Hammett

MYSTERY Hammett, Dashiell

A treasure worth killing for. Sam Spade, a slightly shopworn private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. A perfumed grafter named Joel Cairo, a fat man name Gutman, and Brigid O’Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime.

In the woods

Tana French

MYSTERY French, Tana

As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.

The hound of the Baskervilles

Arthur Conan Doyle

MYSTERY Doyle Arthur

The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of the four crime novels written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes.

Mystic river

Dennis Lehane

MYSTERY Lehane, Dennis

When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car pulled up to their street. One boy got into the car, two did not, and something terrible happened -- something that ended their friendship and changed all three boys forever.

Deep blue good-by : a Travis McGee novel

John D. (John Dann) MacDonald

MYSTERY MacDonald, John D.

An unsuitable job for a woman

P. D James

MYSTERY James, P. D.

Left alone by her partner's suicide, Cordelia Gray struggles to manage the private detective agency they once shared.

Killing floor

Lee Child

MYSTERY Child, Lee

Ex-military policeman Jack Reacher is a drifter. He’s just passing through Margrave, Georgia, and in less than an hour, he’s arrested for murder. Not much of a welcome. All Reacher knows is that he didn’t kill anybody. At least not here. Not lately. But he doesn’t stand a chance of convincing anyone.

The Yiddish policemen's union : a novel

Michael Chabon

MYSTERY Chabon, Michael

A rage in Harlem

Chester B. Himes

MYSTERY Himes Chester

Dust and shadow : an account of the Ripper killings by Dr. John H. Watson

Lyndsay Faye

MYSTERY Faye, Lyndsay

Breathless and painstakingly researched, this is a stunning debut mystery in which Sherlock Holmes unmasks Jack the Ripper. Lyndsay Faye perfectly captures all the color and syntax of Conan Doyle’s distinctive 19th-century London.

Devil in a blue dress

Walter Mosley

MYSTERY Mosley, Walter

Los Angeles, 1948: Easy Rawlins is a black war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend's bar, wondering how he'll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Money, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs.

Gaudy night : A Lord Peter Wimsey mystery with Harriet Vane

Dorothy L. (Dorothy Leigh) Sayers

MYSTERY Sayers, Dorothy L.

A coffin for Dimitrios

Eric Ambler

MYSTERY Ambler Eric

An early classic of espionage fiction. Through the cafés, trains, and nighttime cities of Europe, Charles Latimer follows a twisting trail of drug-smugglers, thieves and assassins that will lead him to Dimitrios.

The man in the queue

Josephine Tey

MYSTERY Tey, Josephine

Inspector Grant of the CID travels deep into the theatrical world in his efforts to build up a picture of the nameless stranger found stabbed to death in the queue outside the theatre.

The talented Mr. Ripley

Patricia Highsmith

MYSTERY Highsmith, Patricia

In this first novel, we are introduced to suave, handsome Tom Ripley: a young striver, newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan in the 1950s. Ripley becomes enamored of the moneyed world of his new friend, Dickie Greenleaf. This fondness turns obsessive when Ripley is sent to Italy to bring back his libertine pal, but he grows enraged by Dickie's ambivalent feelings for Marge, a charming American dilettante.

The black dahlia

James Ellroy

MYSTERY Ellroy, James

On January 15, 1947, the tortured body of a beautiful young woman was found in a vacant lot in Hollywood. Her murder sparked one of the greatest manhunts in California history. In this fictionalized treatment of a real case, Bucky Bleichert and Lee Blanchard, both LA cops obsessed with the Black Dahlia, journey through the seamy underside of Hollywood to the core of the dead girl's twisted life.

The snowman

Jo Nesbø

MYSTERY Nesbo, Jo

"In Oslo, after the first snow of the season has fallen, a woman disappears, and a sinister snowman is left in her wake. As irascible detective Harry Hole realizes that this is only one of multiple disappearances, he begins to think a serial killer may be at work--and may be drawing in Hole personally and intentionally"--

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Alexander McCall Smith

MYSTERY McCall Smith, Alexander

Mma “Precious” Ramotswe sets up a detective agency in Botswana on the edge of the Kalahari Desert, making her the only female detective in the country. At first, cases are hard to come by. But eventually, troubled people come to Precious with a variety of concerns.

The bone collector

Jeffery Deaver

MYSTERY Deaver, Jeffery

Lincoln Rhyme was once a brilliant criminologist, a genius in the field of forensics - until an accident left him physically and emotionally shattered. But now a diabolical killer is challenging Rhyme to a terrifying and ingenious duel of wits.

Who fears death

Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu

SCIENCE FICTION Okorafor-Mbachu, Nnedi

Born into post-apocalyptic Africa to a mother who was raped after the slaughter of her entire tribe, Onyesonwu is tutored by a shaman and discovers that her magical destiny is to end the genocide of her people.

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This is the start of our list for 25 recommended science fiction/fantasy titles!
- Becky

The golden compass

Philip Pullman

YOUNG ADULT FICTION Pullman, Philip

Accompanied by her daemon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments in the Far North.

The fifth season

N. K Jemisin

SCIENCE FICTION Jemisin N. K.

1984

George Orwell

FICTION Orwell, George

Neuromancer

William Gibson

SCIENCE FICTION Gibson, William

The left hand of darkness

Ursula K. Le Guin

SCIENCE FICTION LeGuin, Ursula K.

Snow crash

Neal Stephenson

SCIENCE FICTION Stephenson, Neal

A part-time hacker, information-scrounge, and delivery boy for Uncle Enzo's Cosa Nostra Pizzerias, and full-time Metaverse (virtual reality) samurai named Hiro Protagonist (one of the best names since Billy Pilgrim!), is slowly drawn into a mystery involving a virus program called Snow Crash, which is claiming not only the computers but the minds of hackers the world over, including Hiro's best friend. Who is behind all this, and what it has to do with Sumerian mythology and the hard-wiring of the human language centers is what Hiro must find out, while at the same time he attempts to prevent the further spread of the Snow Crash virus. Along the way he falls in with a skateboard punk named Y.T., who is more instrumental to the story than might first be suggested, and who is the novel's most intriguing character, if only because her investigations are almost more revealing than Hiro's are -- in fact, Hiro comes off as a bit of a cypher compared to her.

The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy

Douglas Adams

SCIENCE FICTION Adams, Douglas

Blade runner : (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep)

Philip K Dick

SCIENCE FICTION Dick, Philip K.

Ancillary justice

Ann Leckie

SCIENCE FICTION Leckie Ann

A game of thrones

George R. R Martin

SCIENCE FICTION Martin, George R. R.

The handmaid's tale

Margaret Atwood

SCIENCE FICTION Atwood, Margaret

Dragonflight

Anne McCaffrey

SCIENCE FICTION McCaffrey, Anne

Parable of the sower

Octavia E Butler

SCIENCE FICTION Butler, Octavia E.

A Canticle for Leibowitz

Walter M. Miller

SCIENCE FICTION Miller, Walter M.

A Canticle for Leibowitz opens 600 years after 20th century civilization has been destroyed by a global nuclear war, known as the "Flame Deluge." As a result of the war, there was a violent backlash against the culture of advanced knowledge and technology that had led to the development of nuclear weapons.

The mists of Avalon

Marion Zimmer Bradley

SCIENCE FICTION Bradley, Marion Zimmer

Old man's war

John Scalzi

SCIENCE FICTION Scalzi, John

Hyperion

Dan Simmons

SCIENCE FICTION Simmons, Dan

The Eyre affair

Jasper Fforde

SCIENCE FICTION Fforde, Jasper

Perdido Street Station

China Miéville

SCIENCE FICTION Mieville, China

The last unicorn

Peter S Beagle

SCIENCE FICTION Beagle, Peter S.

Recounts the quest of the last unicorn, who leaves the protection of the enchanted forest to search for her own kind, and who is joined by Schmedrick the Magician and Molly Grue in her search.

The lies of Locke Lamora

Scott Lynch

SCIENCE FICTION Lynch, Scott

Uprooted

Naomi Novik

SCIENCE FICTION Novik Naomi

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life. Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The name of the wind

Patrick Rothfuss

SCIENCE FICTION Rothfuss, Patrick

Blankets : an illustrated novel

Craig Thompson

GRAPHIC NOVEL Thompson

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Here is the start of the list of 25 recommended Comics, Graphic Novels and Manga.
- Becky

Nimona

Noelle Stevenson

GRAPHIC NOVEL Stevenson

"Nimona is an impulsive young shapeshifter with a knack for villainy. Lord Ballister Blackheart is a villain with a vendetta. As sidekick and supervillain, Nimona and Lord Blackheart are about to wreak some serious havoc. Their mission: prove to the kingdom that Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin and his buddies at the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics aren't the heroes everyone thinks they are. But as small acts of mischief escalate into a vicious battle, Lord Blackheart realizes that Nimona's powers are as murky and mysterious as her past. And her unpredictable wild side might be more dangerous than he is willing to admit"--

Watchmen

Alan Moore

COMIC Watchmen

As former members of a disbanded group of superheroes called the Crimebusters start turning up dead, the remaining members of the group try to discover the identity of the murderer before they, too, are killed.

Saga

Brian K. Vaughan

COMIC Saga

"The sweeping tale of one young family fighting to find their place in the universe. When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old world"--Page [4] of cover.

Black hole

Charles Burns

GRAPHIC NOVEL Burns

My favorite thing is monsters

Emil Ferris

GRAPHIC NOVEL Ferris My

"Set against the tumultuous political backdrop of late '60s Chicago, and narrated by 10-year-old Karen Reyes, Monsters is told is told through a fictional graphic diary employing the iconography of B-movie horror imagery and pulp monster magazines. As the precocious Karen Reyes tries to solve the murder of her beautiful and enigmatic upstairs neighbor, Anka Silverberg, a holocaust survivor, we watch the interconnected and fascinating stories of those around her unfold" -- Publisher.

Batman : the Dark Knight returns

Frank Miller

COMIC Batman Miller

The Sandman

Neil Gaiman

COMIC Sandman

An attempt to summon and imprison Death, instead results in the capture of her brother, Morpheus, the Sandman, who after making his escape must regain the tools of his powers. Follow the King of Dreams, brother of the Endless, as he travels through a myriad of landscapes to meet with the gods, demons, and others who inhabit both Earth and the other realms.

Daytripper : the Deluxe Edition

Fábio Moon

COMIC Daytripper

DAYTRIPPER follows the life of one man, Bras de Olivias Dominguez. Every chapter features an important period in Bras' life in exotic Brazil, and each story ends the same way: with his death. And then, the following story starts up at a different point in his life, oblivious to his death in the previous story-and then also ends with him dying again. In every chapter, Bras dies at different moments in his life, as the story follows him through his entire existence-one filled with possibilities of happiness and sorrow, good and bad, love and loneliness.

Through the woods

Emily Carroll

GRAPHIC NOVEL Carroll

"A collection of five spine-tingling short stories"--

Here

Richard McGuire

GRAPHIC NOVEL McGuire

Richard McGuire's Here is the story of a corner of a room and the events that happened in that space while moving forward and backward in time. The book experiments with formal properties of comics, using multiple panels to convey the different moments in time. Hundreds of thousands of years become interwoven.

Doom Patrol

Grant Morrison

COMIC Doom 1989

"Shunned as freaks and outcasts, and tempered by loss and insanity, this band of misfits faces threats so mystifying in nature and so corrupted in motive that reality itself threatens to fall apart around them--but it's still all in a day's work for the Doom Patrol"--Page [4] of cover, volume 1.

Locke & key

Joe Hill

COMIC Locke

The story of the Keyhouse, a New England mansion, with doors that transform all who walk through them... and home to a hate-filled and relentless creature that will not rest until it opens the most terrible door of all.

Twentieth century eightball

Daniel Clowes

GRAPHIC NOVEL Clowes

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Hayao Miyazaki

MANGA Miyazaki Nausicaa Editor's

One piece

Eiichiro Oda

MANGA Oda One

The Vision

Tom King

COMIC Vision 2015

One of the most celebrated comic books of the century, collected in full at last! Vision wants to be human, and what's more human than family? So he heads back to the beginning - to the laboratory where Ultron created him as a weapon. The place where he first rebelled against his given destiny and imagined that he could be more - that he could be a man. There, he builds them. A wife, Virginia. Teenage twins, Viv and Vin. They look like him. They have his powers. They share his grandest ambition - or is that obsession? - the unrelenting need to be ordinary. Behold the Visions! Theirs is a story of togetherness and tragedy - one that will send the Android Avenger into a devastating confrontation with Earth's Mightiest Heroes. -- Amazon.com

Akira

Katsuhiro Ōtomo

MANGA Otomo Akira

In Neo-Tokyo, built on the former site of Tokyo after World War III, two teenagers are targeted by agencies after they develop paranormal abilities.

Batman : the killing joke

Alan Moore

COMIC Batman

One bad day. According to the grinning engine of madness and mayhem known as The Joker, that's all that separates the sane from the psychotic. Freed once again from the confines of Arkham Asylum, he's out to prove his deranged point.

Captain America. Winter soldier

Ed Brubaker

COMIC Captain 2004

The instant-classic saga that brought Bucky Barnes back from the dead - and introduced the world to the Winter Soldier! The shocking murder of the Red Skull leaves an un-finished Cosmic Cube at large. Adding to the imminent danger, a cadre of the Skull's followers sets in motion a plan to ignite bombs in the hearts of Paris, London and Manhattan!

Ultimate Spider-Man

Brian Michael Bendis

COMIC Spider-Man Ultimate 2000

All-star Superman

Grant Morrison

COMIC Superman

The Underverse ruled by Bizarros. The time-eating Chronovore. Jimmy Olsen, superhero? Nothing is impossible in ALL-STAR SUPERMAN. Except for the fact that Superman... is dying. Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's masterpiece is now released as a part of DC's prestigious new imprint of standalone graphic novels, DC Black Label.

The walking dead

Robert Kirkman

COMIC Walking

American born Chinese

Gene Luen Yang

GRAPHIC NOVEL Yang

Alternates three interrelated stories about the problems of young Chinese Americans trying to participate in the popular culture. Presented in comic book format.

Jimmy Corrigan : the smartest kid on earth.

Chris Ware

GRAPHIC NOVEL Ware

An American marriage

Tayari Jones

FICTION Jones Tayari

"Newlyweds Celestial and Roy, the living embodiment of the New South, are settling into the routine of their life together when Roy is sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit. An insightful look into the lives of people who are bound and separated by forces beyond their control"--

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This book marks the start of our final category, General Fiction.
- Becky

Circe : a novel

Madeline Miller

FICTION Miller Madeline

Follows Circe, the banished witch daughter of Helios, as she hones her powers and interacts with famous mythological beings before a conflict with one of the most vengeful Olympians forces her to choose between the worlds of the gods and mortals.

The Nickel boys : a novel

Colson Whitehead

FICTION Whitehead, Colson

Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is "as good as anyone." Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future.

Such a fun age : a novel

Kiley Reid

FICTION Reid Kiley

Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone "family," the complicated reality of being a grown up, and the consequences of doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

Where the crawdads sing

Delia Owens

FICTION Owens Delia

Fans of Barbara Kingsolver will love this stunning debut novel from a New York Times bestselling nature writer, about an unforgettable young woman determined to make her way in the wilds of North Carolina, and the two men that will break her isolation open. For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. She's barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark. But Kya is not what they say.

A gentleman in Moscow

Amor Towles

FICTION Towles Amor

A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel's doors.

Alias Grace

Margaret Atwood

FICTION Atwood, Margaret

All the pretty horses

Cormac McCarthy

FICTION McCarthy, Cormac

Beloved

Toni Morrison

FICTION Morrison, Toni

Slaughterhouse-five, or, The children's crusade : a duty-dance with death

Kurt Vonnegut

FICTION Vonnegut, Kurt

Billy Pilgrim returns home from the Second World War only to be kidnapped by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, who teach him that time is an eternal present.

Invisible man

Ralph Ellison

FICTION Ellison, Ralph

The namesake

Jhumpa Lahiri

FICTION Lahiri, Jhumpa

Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour bookstore

Robin Sloan

FICTION Sloan Robin

IQ

Joe Ide

FICTION Ide Joe

A resident of one of LA's toughest neighborhoods uses his blistering intellect to solve the crimes the LAPD ignores. East Long Beach. The LAPD is barely keeping up with the neighborhood's high crime rate. Murders go unsolved, lost children unrecovered. But someone from the neighborhood has taken it upon himself to help solve the cases the police can't or won't touch. They call him IQ.

The girl on the train : a novel

Paula Hawkins

FICTION Hawkins Paula

A man called Ove : a novel

Fredrik Backman

FICTION Backman, Fredrik

Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon; the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations.

Jane Eyre

Charlotte Brontë

FICTION Bronte, Charlotte

Americanah

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

FICTION Adichie Chimamanda

"A young woman from Nigeria leaves behind her home and her first love to start a new life in America, only to find her dreams are not all she expected"--

Never let me go

Kazuo Ishiguro

FICTION Ishiguro, Kazuo

All the light we cannot see : a novel

Anthony Doerr

FICTION Doerr Anthony

From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

Transcendent kingdom

Yaa Gyasi

FICTION Gyasi Yaa

"A novel about faith, science, religion, and family that tells the deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief, narrated by a fifth year candidate in neuroscience at Stanford school of medicine studying the neural circuits of reward seeking behavior in mice"--

Pride and prejudice

Jane Austen

FICTION Austen, Jane

Atonement : a novel

Ian McEwan

FICTION McEwan, Ian

Behold the dreamers : a novel

Imbolo Mbue

FICTION Mbue Imbolo

The pull of the stars : a novel

Emma Donoghue

FICTION Donoghue Emma

"In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have fallen sick are quarantined into a separate ward to keep the plague at bay. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders, a woman doctor who is a rumored Rebel, and a teenage girl, Bridie, procured by the nuns from their orphanage as an extra set of hands. At first, this Bridie seems unschooled in life, she makes up a bed with only the rubber mat and savors the weak tea and barely edible porridge from the hospital kitchen. But in the intensity of this ward, over three brutal days, Julia and the women come together in unexpected ways."--Publisher.