November Staff Picks

Shee­lagh says:

“This is a touch­ing explo­ration of fam­i­ly, love, and resilience. The sto­ry fol­lows William Waters, a young man with a trag­ic past, as he finds con­nec­tion with the vibrant Julia Pada­vano and her sis­ters. Through William and Julia’s love sto­ry, we wit­ness the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of human con­nec­tion and the endur­ing strength of fam­i­ly bonds. Napoli­tano’s expres­sive prose and vivid char­ac­ters cre­ate a cap­ti­vat­ing nar­ra­tive that explores themes of grief, loss, and the com­plex­i­ties of fam­i­ly dynam­ics. I cried more than once and the high­ly emo­tion­al end­ing made the sto­ry both mem­o­rable and ful­fill­ing. Well-devel­oped and relat­able char­ac­ters make it easy for a read­er to become ful­ly immersed in this heart-wrench­ing novel.”

Lib­by says:

“I nev­er thought a descrip­tion of a record­ing ses­sion and its sig­nif­i­cance to mod­ern music would have me on the edge of my seat, but here we are. James Kaplan, the defin­i­tive biog­ra­ph­er of Frank Sina­tra, turns his atten­tion to the icon­ic jazz album Kind of Blue with such a keen eye and ear that you will feel the chill of open win­dows and the ten­sion between pro­duc­ers and some of the great­est musi­cians of the last 100 years. Bleak­ly fun­ny, breath­tak­ing­ly researched, and sur­pris­ing­ly fast-paced, even a non-musi­cian will be nod­ding along to the beat.”

Sarah says:

“I read (and loved) Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette? years ago after a patron rec­om­mend­ed it, and I just recent­ly stum­bled across this title from 2016. Sem­ple, who wrote for the show Arrest­ed Devel­op­ment, has such a dry wit. The main character’s behav­ior is tru­ly out­ra­geous, but I relat­ed so much to her inter­nal strug­gles! I’ve told mul­ti­ple peo­ple about her the­o­ry of the ​“help­less trav­el­er” (Hi, it’s me). This book is for any­one who wakes up every day deter­mined to be the best ver­sion of them­selves, and goes to bed know­ing that they have failed yet again. Oh well. There’s always tomorrow.”