Mary Phillips - Young Adult Librarian
The following reflect adult reading content, not necessarily a list for teens unless they are reading adult books.

Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris
I know that The New York Times said this was a rehash of his previous works, but if you haven’t read David Sedaris this can be real Holiday treat.  It starts with Macy’s elves and proceeds through a variety of sometimes macabre and cynical Christmas events from that cheery Christmas Letter to the dreaded “Secret Santa” gifts.  A great antidote to the usual saccharine Christmas dreck.

Child 44 by Tom Robb Smith
For anyone who remembers the real Cold War or anyone who wants to understand it, Tom Robb Smith has taken us into Stalinist U.S.S.R. where a child-murdering serial killer is on the loose in the “Workers Paradise.”  Officially such a crime cannot exist, and MGB agent Leo Demidov forfeits his future, his parents’ well-being and his wife in pursuit of this monster. 

Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff
A floating dead lake monster, an ex-hippie mother turned to religion , her graduate school daughter returning home after an affair with her married professor and a team of middle-aged early morning joggers all piece together a story of a family and community in an upstate New York town.  The present is impacted by the characters and events from the past.  A real treat for history aficionados and fans of James Fennimore Cooper.

Cancer Vixen: a true story by Maria Acocella Marchetto
Don’t let the graphic novel format fool you into relegating this story to juvenile literature.  Maria Marchetto is a talented cartoonist who has had her work appear in The New Yorker Magazine.  She discovered that she had breast cancer just weeks before her marriage and without health insurance, she chronologizes the emotional and physical devastation of the disease along with her sense of humor and the absurdities of life.

Kathy Bachor - Technical Services

The Father Christmas Letters by J.R.R. Tolkien is a compilation of the letters Tolkien wrote to his children each year.  In England, Father Christmas is the one who brings gifts.  Instead of only bringing gifts for their stockings, "Father Christmas" left a personal letter on the mantle each year, describing the adventures hilarious or alarming at the North Pole.  The book is filled with beautiful illustrations of his house, his friends North Polar Bear and the elves and the surrounding countryside, including the northern lights.  Tolkien drew fancy stamps and decorated all the envelopes.  The illustrations are initialled "F.C." if you look carefully.  This is a delightful book to share with your own children.

Circulation Services

Barbara -

Death Angel by Linda Howard
Sail by James Patterson
Tailspin by Catherine Coulter
Too Close to Home by Linwood Barclay
A Week From Sunday by Dorothy Garlock
Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

Caroline -

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

Gail -

The Painter from Shanghai by Jennifer Cody Epstein
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
Resistance by Owen Sheers
The Space Between Us by Thrity N. Umrigar
The Crime Writer by Greg Hurwitz
No One You Know by Michelle Richmond
Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance by Lloyd Jones

Theresa -

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

Janet -

Sally Pellegrini - Head of Community Relations

I Shall Not Want by Julia Spencer-Fleming
The sixth in this exciting mystery series that takes place east of of Saugerties and features Episcopal minister, Clare Fergusson. Claire and her companion Sheriff Russ VanAlstyne are thrown into illegal immigrant and drug trafficking crises in the sleepy town. A whopper of an ending too! Readers new to the series should start with the first, In the Bleak Midwinter.

Kathy Bachor - Technical Services

The Myth of Multitasking: How Doing It All Gets Nothing Done by Dave Crenshaw
It's a quick read and makes a lot of sense -- good ideas on how to improve time management skills at work and at home.

MEG: A Novel of Deep Terror by Steve Alten
It's action-packed and reads quickly!  A great cross between "Jaws" and "Jurassic Park.  A perfect beach read, as long as you don't plan to go swimming!

The Alexandria Link by Steve Berry
A combination of ancient hidden knowledge,  international intrigue, desert sands and librarians!!  WOW! Lots of fun!

The Once and Future King by T.H.White
A re-telling of the Arthur legend, starting when Arthur was a young boy and ending with the serious story about betrayal and familial loyalty -- It's presented in four distinct sub-books.  A great introduction to the age-old tale. Disney's "The Sword in the Stone" was based on the first portion of this work.  Great characters and fun dialogue.

The original Majipoor books by Robert Silverberg:
Lord Valentine's Castle,  Majipoor Chronicles, Valentine Pontifex
This is  hard to find, but I've recommended it to my college age kids, and they love it. It's fantasy with SciFi influences --
It's like a visit to the Renaissance Faire with amnesia on a planet that is 90 percent ocean! Lots of fun if this is your kind of story - try the first one.

Arlene Sandner - Children's Librarian

Three Cups Of Tea: One Man's Mission To Promote Peace...One School At A Time by Greg  Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Mortenson wanders off the trail to the summit of K2 (one of the world's tallest mountains) and collapses near the remote Pakistani village of Korphe.  After he is nursed back to health by the town's people, he vows to devote his life to building schools in this impoverished, backward corner of the world.

I Feel Bad About My Neck:  And Other Thoughts On Being A Woman by Nora Ephron
Any writer who can make me laugh out loud about being over sixty is truly gifted.  This is a hilarious
collection of short stories on the subject of aging, and a few other topics as well.
 
Rashi's Daughters, Book I: Joheved by Maggie Anton
Rashi is a well-known Talmudic scholar who lived in France during the 11th century. This well-researched, engaging story about his daughters gives detailed description of everyday life in a thriving medieval Jewish community, and is packed with interesting background on the origins of many traditional practices.

Away by Amy Bloom
This is not a typical turn-of-the-century immigration story.  Lillian arrives in New York penniless, determined to do whatever it takes to survive, and then work her way back to Russia to find the young daughter who disappeared in a pogrom.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Christians, Muslims and Jews are brought together in a suspenseful quest for the famous missing rare book, The Sarejevo Haggadah. It is also a journey through time, beginning in 1480 Spain, where the exquisitely illustrated manuscript was created.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
If you enjoyed The Kite Runner, this story of the tragic lives of two women in Afghanistan will find a place in your heart. It also gives an intimate look at the oppression of women under the rule of the Taliban.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: a Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
Kingsolver tells about the year her family experimented with eating only home-grown and locally grown food. It is also an education on the agricultural industry, and why it is so important to support local farms.

How To Steal A Dog by Barbara O'Connor
Though the intended audience for this book is Grades 3-7, adults will appreciate how the author portrays the difficult topic of homelessness with a light touch that is both unsentimental and realistic. After Dad takes off permanently, Georgina and her family suffer the humiliation of being evicted from their apartment. While mom struggles to hold down two jobs to raise money for the rent, Georgina devises a brilliant plan to save the day.

Kiki Strike: Inside The Shadow City by Kirsten Miller
You don't have to be twelve years old to enjoy this adventure into the vast network of hidden tunnels and rooms far beneath the concrete in New York City.

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand". That sums up the advice of Pausch, who was given only a few months to live at the time this book was written.

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
A 17-year-old victim of bullying shows up at school one day with four loaded guns, which he uses to retaliate against his tormentors. The death of nine students and one teacher could have been prevented, if only the folks in this small New Hampshire town were more perceptive.

Susan Schuler - Head of Children's Services

The Night Journal  by Elizabeth Crook
Meg is the great-granddaughter of Hannah Bass, a woman whose journals about frontier life in new Mexico (dating 1891 to 1902) have become famous thanks to Meg's grandmother Claudia Bass (Bassie), a historian who built her career promoting the diaries.  On a trip with Bassie to their ancestral home in New Mexico, Meg finally reads Hannah's journals and embarks on a journey into her family's past and the history of the American Southwest.

Nice to Come Home To by Rebecca Flowers
Planner, list maker, D.C. resident Prudence Whistler has lost her job and just when she thinks Rudy will propose - he dumps her.  Pru gets her life back on track with humor and the support of a great cast of characters.

Mary Modern by Camille DeAngelis
In this story inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Lucy Morrigan, a young geneticist, discovers she's infertile.  She remedies the situation with a bit of genetic engineering and must deal with the consequences.

Family Baggage by Monica McInerney
Harriet has led hundreds of tours for her family's travel agency but is off guard when her sister Lara fails to show for their next tour.  Suddenly alone and navigating the Cornwall countryside with a group of eccentric seniors and a washed-up TV star, Harriet attempts to discover Lara's whereabouts and uncovers family secrets.

Anniversary Party by Liane Moriarity
Sophie Honeywell inherits a house on the famous Scribbly Gum Island from her ex-boyfriend's aunt.  A mystery surrounding the family, the house, and much hilarity ensue.

The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
Grace came to serve in the house as a girl.  She left as a woman after the suicide of a famous poet at the property's lake.  Though she has kept the family's secrets for decades, memories flood back to life when a young filmmaker calls with questions about how the poet really died - and why the Ashbury sisters never again spoke to each other afterward.

Bloodline by Fiona Mountain
Genealogist Natasha Blake stumbles upon a mystery when her client turns up shot to death in his garden.  Could his murder be connected to the family tree Natasha is researching?

Slummy Mummy by Fiona Neill
Lucy Sweeney gave up her high-powered journalism career to stay home in London with her three sons.  Can she find her true self amid the clutter of her family life?

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Cassandra wants to be a writer.  Unfortunately, she's the daughter of a once-famous author with a severe writer's block.  Her family -- beautiful sister Rose, brooding father James, and stepmother -- is barely scraping by in a crumbling English castle they leased long ago.  Now there's very little furniture, hardly any food, and just a few pages of notebook paper left to write on.  Bravely making the best of things, Cassandra gets hold of a journal and begins her literary apprenticeship.  Isolated life in their strange lonely house ends when the handsome and mysterious Cotton brothers take over a neighboring estate.  A witty and fun read, reminiscent of Jane Austen from the author of 101 Dalmatians!

Karen Vetrano - Community Relations

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan
Racial prejudice in rural Mississippi at the conclusion of WWII is no light subject. But this tale of a white farm family and its family of black tenants pulls you in from the very beginning. An unlikely (and unacceptable) friendship between two returning veterans, the farmer’s brother and the tenant’s son, sets off a chain of events that unflinchingly characterizes the inhumanity of the Jim Crow South. Anger, horror and sympathy will have you hoping against all odds for a happy ending.

Enlightenment by Maureen Freely
Set in current day and Cold War Turkey, this book follows the lives of a group of teens --both native and American -- as they react to the politics and history of this complex country. While the situations and characters were compelling, all the twist and turns left me with more questions then they answered.

The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
These inter-linking stories follow the generations of a small town in North Dakota that is populated by both Native Americans and whites. A lynching in the early 1900s ties together the families of both the victims and the murderers, and the consequences continue to affect the actions and relationships of their descendants. Despite the tragic circumstances portrayed, Erdrich adds enough humor and irony to her tales to prevent you from being mired by the unfortunate history.

The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
Ninety-eight-year-old Grace recounts the story of an upper-class British family just prior to WWI that watches both the world they are used to and the ties that bind them crumble into ruin. At 14, Grace went into domestic service at the manor house. Forsaking her own youthful dreams, she remains loyal to the two sisters until a suicide compels her into a life of her own. The details of the lives Morton portrays are very vivid and all the loose ends introduced throughout the book are neatly tied up in the end.

The Well and the Mine by Gin Phillips
Set in Depression-era Alabama, this is the engaging story of a lower working class family struggling to survive. When 9-year-old Tess witnesses a woman throw a baby down her family’s well, the bubble of security and harmony that she had spent her childhood within is dramatically popped. As Tess and her family deal with the fallout of this event against the backdrop of dangerous mining work, racial tension and failing health, the author  stresses the simple pleasures of a rural summer and a tight-knit family’s love for one another. The characters are beautifully fleshed out and endearing. The writing is wonderful. A great book.

 The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
Edgar lives an idyllic life with his parents, raising a fictional breed of compassionate, intelligent dogs. When his father suddenly dies and Edgar suspects his uncle of murder, his plans to unmask the man backfire dramatically, sending Edgar on a journey of escape through the woods of Wisconsin with three of his young dogs. Though well reviewed, I didn’t initially expect to enjoy this book: the story of a mute boy and his dogs. But the fact is, it hooked me from the very beginning, pulling me effortlessly through almost 600 pages. Very well written, beautiful scenery, compelling characters.

Home by Marilynne Robinson
This Pulitzer-prize winning author spins the very involved tale of a pastor’s family. The Reverend Robert Boughton is just about finished with this life. His 38-year-old daughter Glory, a former school teacher who had a disastrous affair with a married man, comes home to look after him. But it is the return after 20 years of his most troublesome, yet most beloved, child Jack that this novel pivots on. A troubled teen turned alcoholic who never felt he truly belonged in the family, Jack seeks forgiveness. The issues of family, religion and race are all woven into a drama that refuses to get sentimental, but is touching all the same.

The Tenth Gift by Jane Johnson
This is a story of two women born 400 years apart but connected by a book of 17^th century embroidery patterns. Julia Lovat receives the book as a good-bye gift from her married boyfriend and finds amongst the patterns the diary of its original owner, Catherine Ann Tregenna. Catherine was stolen from her church in 1625 by Muslim pirates to be sold into slavery. In her quest to find the true story behind this woman’s life, Julia sets out for Morocco. An interesting, entertaining read.