It’s October, the perfect time for everything supernatural, and also Hispanic Heritage month. What better choice could there be for a book blog than a paranormal novel with vampires in Mexico City? Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s book, Certain Dark Things has just been released in paperback format. This reader enjoyed the audio book @libro.fm. If you relished Moreno- Garcia’s Mexican Gothic, you…
Cloud Cuckoo Land. It is literary fiction. It is historical fiction. It is contemporary fiction. It is science fiction. It is a masterpiece. Anthony Doerr, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014 for his great World War II novel All the Light We Cannot See, has returned with an even better, more inventive creation. This genre-bending…
As the 1960s opened, the Libertyville Township Library continued to face the pressing problem of a severe lack of space to serve a growing patron base. In 1960 the population of Libertyville Township, the area served by the library, stood at 19,481. The home of Ansel B. Cook had been a boon to library service…
Readers' Advisor Erica O'Rourke talks up some of the season's best and most buzzed about books. If you need some new reading suggestions or just want to know what titles are worth adding to your TBR pile, you won't want to miss this episode. In This Episode Returning FavoritesColson Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle Anthony Doerr, Cloud…
I now have read all three of Amor Towles’ novels, each published five years apart. The stories are as different as they can be, but all are gems in their own right. Towles’ newest, The Lincoln Highway, confirms to me that he is of one of the great novelists of our time. This road-trip tale,…
This extraordinary novel (which has nothing to do with mixed martial arts or the UFC) tells the story of three generations of women in Toronto. Swiv, the nine-year-old narrator, has a voice unlike any other I've read. Precocious and funny, parroting her relatives, she is writing a letter to her father, who has left her…
I am a firm believer that pets enrich our lives by providing comfort, companionship, purpose, and a whole host of other intangible, but still very real, benefits. If you are lucky enough to be on the receiving end of an animal’s love, then you don’t need me to tell you what’s what because you already…
Libertyville has been home to many Lake County firsts, but did you know it was the first county seat? Through a series of events, including but not limited to surreptitious petitioning and a rather bitter political feud, Libertyville went from a small but upcoming village to county seat, then back to a village. Arriving in…
Twenty years ago, on September 11, our country experienced a horrifying terrorist attack. As we look back on that day, may the following new books on our shelves help us remember and go forward. We've even included a tender picture book to help our youngest patrons understand the meaning of the day. Click on the…
There are not many moments in a person’s life when they can tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing. There are the usual momentous occasions: graduation, wedding day, or the birth of a child, but Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001 is seared in our nation’s collective memory. If you are an American…
