Meg Raymond

Facing forty, Benjamin Benjamin finds himself in a dingy church basement attending a class called The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, which is also the name of a poignant novel by Jonathan Evison. Benjamin has lost his home and family, and a caregiver certificate might be his only chance at finding his way back to normalcy.

You've seen the attention-grabbing headlines while you're standing in line at the grocery store. You know you look at them. In the tabloids there are always lurid accounts of death - gruesome, improbable, and even the ones that are funny-except-someone-died. So losing your mum in a botched hold up attempt really doesn't even rate.  Sad, yeah, tragic even, but only to those directly involved.

In Life! Death! Prizes! by Stephen May, Billy Smith is 19, working at a social history museum for his gap year, when his mother is killed. He is suddenly responsible for his six-year-old half-brother, Oscar.  He thinks they're doing fine, but his aunt, the social workers, Oscar's teachers and even his friends think maybe not.  Even Oscar's dad shows up, which he's never done before.

When the courts decide that Oscar will be better off with his aunt, Billy decides there is only one way that he and Oscar can stay together forever.

The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton: During a party at the family farm in the English countryside, sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson has escaped to her childhood tree house and is dreaming of the future. She spies a stranger coming up the road and sees her mother speak to him. Before the afternoon is over, Laurel will witness a shocking crime that challenges everything she knows about her family and especially her mother, Dorothy.

The Secret Keeper is historical, slightly creepy and mysterious, and shows how secrets can reverberate across generations in families.

Some other books that have similar themes include:

The Alphabet Sisters by Monica McInerney
As girls growing up in Clare Valley, Australia, Anna, Bett, and Carrie Quinlan were childhood singing stars known as The Alphabet Sisters. The unbridled enthusiasm of their flamboyant grandmother Lola was the glue that held them together. As adults, though, the women haven't spoken in years.

Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris
When Framboise Simon returns to a small village on the banks of the
Loire, the locals do not recognize her as the daughter of the infamous
woman they hold responsible for a tragedy during the German occupation
years ago.


 

I've got me a new boyfriend and his name is Rick Gavin. I don't actually know him, but he is the author of the darkly comic debut novel Ranchero, which made me cringe and laugh and scribble "I ♥ Rick" in pink glitter pen on all my notebook covers.

Nick Reid was a cop in Southwest Virginia. Something Happened (it's never explained in the book), and Nick ends up as a repo man down in the Mississippi Delta. One day, Nick and his partner Desmond set off on a routine repo to get payment or take back a flat screen TV from Percy Dwayne Dubois.

"But Percy Dwayne wouldn't give in. No, instead he went all white-trash philosophical and figured that since the world was against him, he might as well fight it. He hit Nick over the head with a fireplace shovel, stole the mint-condition calypso coral–colored 1969 Ranchero that Nick had borrowed from his landlady, and went on a rowdy ride across the Mississippi Delta." *

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.

Ghouls Just Haunt to Have Fun by Victoria Laurie: "A demonic guest terrorizes a haunted hotel. When ghost hunter and medium M.J. Holliday appears on a television show called Haunted Possessions, she encounters an evil knife that releases a demon. Now all hell has broken loose in the haunted hotel where M.J. is stayin' and it's up to her to give the uninvited guest an early checkout." (Book summary)

If you like Ghouls Just Haunt to Have Fun by Victoria Laurie, you may also like these titles:

Chocolat by Joanne Harris
In tiny Lansquenet, where nothing much has changed in a hundred years, beautiful newcomer Vianne Rocher and her exquisite chocolate shop arrive and instantly begin to play havoc with Lenten vows.  (from summary)

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
In a garden surrounded by a tall fence, tucked away behind a small, quiet house in an even smaller town, is an apple tree that is rumored to bear a very special sort of fruit....The Waverleys have always been a curious family, endowed with peculiar gifts that make them outsiders even in their hometown of Bascom, North Carolina. Even their garden has a reputation, famous for its feisty apple tree that bears prophetic fruit, and its edible flowers, imbued with special powers.  (from 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.

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay is a historical novel about the roundup and deportation of French Jews in 1942, but it is also a modern tale about families, secrets and loyalties. The story is gripping and moves between modern France and Europe on the verge of the Holocaust.

If you like Sarah's Key, you may like these recommendations. Some are historical, some move back and forth in time and some just have a similar "feel" to the storytelling.

The Blue Bottle Club by Penelope Stokes
In 1929, four friends gathered in a cold, dusty attic on Christmas day to make a solemn pact. "Our dreams for the future," they whispered, placing tiny pieces of paper into a blue bottle...Years later, local news reporter Brendan Delaney stumbles upon the bottle and discovers the most poignant story of her career...and possibly the meaning she's searched for all her life.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
Bruno (is) a naive nine-year-old raised in a privileged household by strict parents...(Bruno) describes a visit from the Fury and the family's sudden move from Berlin to a place called Out-With in Poland.
(from School Library Journal)

Never Apologize for Your Reading Tastes.  Libraries live by this adage from Betty Rosenberg.  But, truthfully?  We're all biased.  There are those who won't get near a bestseller--reading only serious non-fiction, or, perhaps, literary fiction.  My personal eye-rolling, disdainful sniffiness was aimed squarely at paperback romances.  Until I actually, well, read some of them.

Sunshine by Robin McKinley: "There are places in the world where darkness rules, where it's unwise to walk. But there hadn't been any trouble out at the lake for years, and Sunshine just needed a spot where she could be alone with her thoughts. Vampires never entered her mind. Until they found her." (Book summary)

There are lots of lists there to get you started.  Some lists I might start with:

Fantasy Can be Funny:  http://www.librarypoint.org/booklist/3131

Modern Fairy Tales:  http://www.librarypoint.org/

Some series you might enjoy:

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde - A series of books featuring Thursday Next, a literary detective, and head of Jurisfiction in an alternate 1980's Britain.  The first title in the series is The Eyre Affair.




 

Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris - A series featuring Harper Connelly.  After being struck by lightning, Harper discovers that she can find dead people and can "see" their last moments on earth. 

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.

Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner: Popular television personality Valerie Adler turns to her long-forgotten, Illinois hometown friend Addie Downs when she runs into a bit of trouble involving betrayal and loyalty, family history and small-town secrets.

Her books feature heroines who are smart and funny, but very believable.  Some other titles that feature great contemporary women are:

As Husbands Go by Susan Isaacs
Astonished when her seemingly devoted husband is found murdered in a prostitute's apartment, Susie, a mother of four-year-old triplets, bristles at her neighbors' mixed reactions and tackles everyone from her husband's partners to the DA to restore her family's honor.  (from summary)

Chasing Harry Winston by Lauren Weisberger
Book editor Leigh, chef Emmy and wealthy Adriana make a pact to change their disappointing lives within a year. Emmy vows to find the father of her future babies, and Latin temptress Adriana decides to settle on just one of her rich suitors.  (from summary)

It’s 10 p.m.  Your report on wind power is due tomorrow.  It is not even close to being done.  Your teacher has said you can’t use Internet sources.  You have a couple of books, but you need at least one more source.

You can’t decide if you should start faking sick now (like you could fool your mom), go to school tomorrow and try to beg your teacher for an extension (oh, sure), or just ignore the problem and hope it will solve itself (it's never worked before, but...).

There is another option.  Get out your CRRL library card, and visit Congressional Quarterly Researcher online.  Congressional Quarterly Wha...?  If you are writing a report about any “hot button” issue in the news, you need CQ Researcher.