Kara Rockwell

It always seems to happen at the most inopportune time. You need to fix your car or small engine, but you don’t have a repair manual. What’s more, the library is closed.  Don’t worry!  Instead of waiting for the library to open and driving all the way there, you can get the same information at home using two of our online databases. Best of all, they are available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Auto Repair Reference Center has information on cars including repairs, wiring diagrams, bulletins, and more. Small Engine Repair has information on all types of small engines, including outdoor equipment, motorcycles, tractors, and more.

This readalike is in response to a patron's book-match request. If you would like personalized reading recommendations, fill out the book-match form and a librarian will email suggested titles to you. Available for adults, teens, and kids.  You can browse the book matches here.

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane: "In 1954, U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels and partner Chuck Aule arrive at Shutter Island's federal institution for the criminally insane to apprehend an escaped prisoner but instead begin to feel that someone is trying to drive them crazy." (Library Journal)

If you liked Shutter Island, and in particular psychological thrillers with twists and mysteries, you may also like these titles:

Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson 
An amnesiac attempts to reconstruct her past by keeping a journal and discovers the dangerous inconsistencies in the stories of her husband and her secret doctor. (Catalog summary) 
 

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn 
On the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, Nick's wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police immediately suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they aren't his. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone. So what really did happen to Nick's beautiful wife? (Catalog summary) 

This readalike is in response to a patron's book-match request. If you would like personalized reading recommendations, fill out the book-match form and a librarian will email suggested titles to you. Available for adults, teens, and kids.  You can browse the book matches here.

Ciao America! by Beppe Severgnini: "In the wry but affectionate tradition of Bill Bryson,Ciao, America! is a delightful look at America through the eyes of a fiercely funny guest -- one of Italy's favorite authors who spent a year in Washington, D.C. When Beppe Severgnini and his wife rented a creaky house in Georgetown they were determined to see if they could adapt to a full four seasons in a country obsessed with ice cubes, air-conditioning, recliner chairs, and, of all things, after-dinner cappuccinos. From their first encounters with cryptic rental listings to their back-to-Europe yard sale twelve months later, Beppe explores this foreign land with the self-described patience of a mildly inappropriate beachcomber, holding up a mirror to America's signature manners and mores."

If you like Ciao America! by Beppe Severgnini, then you may also like these titles and authors.

I'm A Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America after 20 Years Away by Bill Bryson
The master humorist and bestselling author of A Walk in the Woods now guides us on an affectionate, hysterically funny tour of America's most outrageous absurdities. After living in Britain for two decades, Bill Bryson recently moved back to the United States with his English wife and four children (he had read somewhere that nearly three million Americans believed they had been abducted by aliens--as he later put it, "it was clear my people needed me"). They were greeted by a new-and-improved America that boasts microwave pancakes, twenty-four-hour dental-floss hotlines, and the staunch conviction that ice is not a luxury item. Delivering the brilliant comic musings that are a Bryson hallmark, I'm a Stranger Here Myself recounts his sometimes disconcerting reunion with the land of his birth.  (Catalog summary)

The Muse is Always Half-Dressed in New Orleans by Andrei Codrescu
These essays by the sharp and ingratiating Codrescu ( Road Scholar ) rove all over the place, and readers should be ready to do likewise. The author, a Transylvanian-born poet, a longtime resident of the U.S. and a commentator for National Public Radio, takes up subjects just as incongruously diverse as himself in his 26th book. As his fans will be glad to find, Codrescu stays in character: he is passionate, informal, maverick and ragingly funny, unwilling to behave.
(Publishers Weekly)
 

This readalike is in response to a patron's book-match request. If you would like personalized reading  recommendations, fill out the book-match form and a librarian will email suggested titles to you. You can browse our book matches here.

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
After the suspicious death of her mother in 1895, sixteen-year-old Gemma returns to England, after many years in India, to attend a finishing school where she becomes aware of her magical powers and ability to see into the spirit world.

Don't miss the rest of the books in the Gemma Doyle Trilogy: Rebel Angles and The Sweet Far Thing

Here are some other titles I hope you can't put down:

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
In a small South Carolina town, where it seems little has changed since the Civil War, sixteen-year-old Ethan is powerfully drawn to Lena, a new classmate with whom he shares a psychic connection and whose family hides a dark secret that may be revealed on her sixteenth birthday. (First in the Beautiful Creatures series)

Bewitching Season by Marissa Doyle
In 1837, as seventeen-year-old twins, Persephone and Penelope, are starting their first London Season they find that their beloved governess, who has taught them everything they know about magic, has disappeared. Followed by Betraying Season.

Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz
Select teenagers from some of New York City's wealthiest and most socially prominent families learn a startling secret about their bloodlines. (First in the Blue Bloods series)
 

Chime by Franny Billingsley
In the early twentieth century in Swampsea, seventeen-year-old Briony, who can see the spirits that haunt the marshes around their town, feels responsible for her twin sister's horrible injury until a young man enters their lives and exposes secrets that even Briony does not know about. 

This readalike is in response to a patron's book-match request. If you would like personalized reading recommendations, fill out the book-match form and a librarian will email suggested titles to you. Available for adults, teens, and kids.  You can browse the book matches here.

The Black Echo by Michael Connelly is a mystery:  "LAPD homicide cop Harry Bosch -- hero, maverick, nighthawk -- the body in the drainpipe at Mulholland Dam is more than another anonymous statistic. This one is personal. The dead man, Billy Meadows, was a fellow Vietnam 'tunnel rat' who fought side by side with him in a nightmare underground war that brought them to the depths of hell. Now, Bosch is about to relive the horror of Nam. From a dangerous maze of blind alleys to a daring criminal heist beneath the city to the tortuous link that must be uncovered, his survival instincts will once again be tested to their limit. Joining with an enigmatic and seductive female FBI agent, pitted against enemies inside his own department, Bosch must make the agonizing choice between justice and vengeance, as he tracks down a killer whose true face will shock him." (Book Description)

If you like The Black Echo by Michael Connelly, you may also like these titles and authors.

The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy.
The Black Dahlia is a roman noir on an epic scale: a classic period piece that provides a startling conclusion to America's most infamous unsolved murder mystery--the murder of the beautiful young woman known as The Black Dahlia. (Catalog summary)

Early Autumn by Robert B. Parker
A bitter divorce is only the beginning. First the father hires thugs to kidnap his son. Then the mother hires Spenser to get the boy back. But as soon as Spenser senses the lay of the land, he decides to do some kidnapping of his own. With a contract out on his life, he heads for the Maine woods, determined to give a puny 15-year-old a crash course in survival and to beat his dangerous opponents at their own brutal game. (worldcat.org)

 

This readalike is in response to a patron's book-match request. If you would like personalized reading recommendations, fill out the book-match form and a librarian will email suggested titles to you. Available for adults, teens, and kids.  You can browse the book matches here.

The Peacemaker by Lori Copeland: "Bull-headed Wynne Elliot has one goal in mind: to track down Cass Claxton and shoot him dead for leaving her at the altar and running off with her money. But when Cass's brother Cole shows up, Wynne finds herself on an unexpected adventure, and she just might lose her heart." (catalog summary)

If you like The Peacemaker, you may also enjoy these titles:

Land of My Heart by Tracie Peterson.
Peterson paints an unforgettable portrait of this rich, rugged landscape, populated by strong and spirited characters. When Dianne Chadwick urges her family to move to a ranch in the Montana Territory, she has no idea that her new life in the rugged frontier will not be the idyllic adventure she expects.  (Catalog summary)

Love Comes Softly by Janette Oke.
Marty and Clark Davis' tragic circumstances brought them to a "marriage of convenience" on the frontier prairies during the mid 1800s. The story of how Clark's patient, caring love mirrored that of the heavenly Father, drawing Marty to faith and to love, has captured the hearts and imaginations of many readers.  (Adapted from the book description)


 

This readalike is in response to a patron's book-match request. If you would like personalized reading  recommendations, fill out the book-match form and a librarian will email suggested titles to you.  Available for adults, teens, and kids.

Transfer of Power by Vince Flynn: "On a busy Washington morning, the stately calm of the White House is shattered in a deadly terrorist attack on the executive mansion. The president is evacuated to an underground bunker, but not before nearly one hundred hostages are taken. Mitch Rapp, the CIA's top counterterrorism operative sent in to take control of the crisis, determines that the president is not as safe as Washington's power elite had thought. Indeed, Rapp has made a chilling discovery that could rock Washington to its core: someone within his own government wants his rescue attempt to fail." (Book description)

If you like Transfer of Power by Vince Flynn, here are some titles and authors that you may enjoy:

The Black Echo by Michael Connelly
LAPD homicide detective Hieronymus Bosch attempts to solve the murder of Billy Meadows, a soldier he knew while serving in Vietnam.  (worldcat.org)

By Order of the President by W.E.B. Griffin
When a leased Boeing 727 mysteriously vanishes after two passengers murder the pilot, Army intelligence officer Major Carlos Guillermo Castillo, a veteran of the Special Forces, is called in by the president of the United States to uncover the truth and embarks on an undercover investigation into a case with frightening implications. (worldcat.org)

EBooks are one of the hottest things around right now.  Luckily, you can read eBooks on your reader for free just by borrowing them from your library.  Although the library has a couple of eBook services available, one particularly popular service is OverDrive.

OverDrive has popular fiction and nonfiction books available and right now, it’s the only place you can borrow eBooks for your Amazon Kindle (other formats are also available).  

This readalike is in response to a patron's book-match request. If you would like personalized reading recommendations, fill out the book-match form and a librarian will email suggested titles to you. Available for adults, teens, and kids.  You can browse the book matches here.

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier: Based on local history and family stories passed down by the author's great-great-grandfather, Cold Mountain is the tale of a wounded soldier Inman, who walks away from the ravages of the war and back home to his prewar sweetheart, Ada. Inman's odyssey through the devastated landscape of the soon-to-be-defeated South interweaves with Ada's struggle to revive her father's farm, with the help of an intrepid young drifter named Ruby. As their long-separated lives begin to converge at the close of the war, Inman and Ada confront the vastly transformed world they've been delivered." (Book description)

If you like Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, you might like these titles:

Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles
The Colleys are farmers in the Missouri Ozarks. Although Southerners, the family tries to remain neutral, a fact ignored by the Union militia who confiscate their livestock and arrest their daughter, Adair, on charges of "enemy collaboration." Yet as Adair soon discovers, fate can be a double-edged sword. (Catalog summary)
 

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
With ravishing beauty & unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burned man who lies in an upstairs room & whose memories of passion, betrayal, & rescue illuminates this book like flashes of heat lightening. (Catalog summary)

This readalike is in response to a patron's book-match request. If you would like personalized reading recommendations, fill out the book-match form and a librarian will email suggested titles to you. Available for adults, teens, and kids.  You can browse the book matches here.

Shotgun Bride by Linda Lael Miller: "One ranch. Three sons. Only one will inherit...and on one condition. Tired of waiting for his sons to settle down, Arizona-territory rancher Angus McKettrick announces a competition: the first son to marry and produce a grandchild will inherit Triple M ranch. Now, three distinctly different, equally determined cowboys are searching high and low for brides. Kade McKettrick’s got five mail-order brides-to-be camped out at the local hotel, all more than eager to provide him with the heir that will win him the Triple M ranch. But Kade, the newly appointed marshal, has his hands full with a troublesome outlaw gang. Why, then, is he so easily distracted by pretty “Sister Mandy”--who most assuredly is not the nun she claims to be?" (Book description)

If you like Shotgun Bride by Linda Lael Miller, you may also like these titles and authors:

Larkspur by Dorothy Garlock.
Kristin Anderson, a 23-year-old "spinster", heads for Montana to take possession of Larkspur, the ranch she has inherited. But she discovers that in order to keep the ranch, she must face many obstacles -- including gunslingers and landgrabbers. But these trials pale in comparison to the havoc the ranch foreman wreaks on Kristin's heart when together they fight for the land they both love.  (Catalog summary)

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.
A love story and an epic of the frontier, Lonesome Dove is the grandest novel ever written about the last, defiant wilderness of America. Richly authentic, beautifully written, Lonesome Dove is a book to make readers laugh, weep, dream and remember.  (From the catalog summary)