We love to see and hear what other people are reading. We get the opportunity monthly at Bring Your Own Book Club at Lakeshore Café to get some amazing recommendations from some of our local readers.
In February, we discussed 8 different titles. Check them out below - click on the cover photos to request a copy from the library!
Permanent Astonishment: a Memoir by Tomson Highway
Capricious, big-hearted, joyful: an epic memoir from one of Canada’s most acclaimed Indigenous writers and performers
Tomson
Highway was born in a snowbank on an island in the sub-Arctic, the
eleventh of twelve children in a nomadic, caribou-hunting Cree family.
Growing up in a land of ten thousand lakes and islands, Tomson relished
being pulled by dogsled beneath a night sky alive with stars, sucking
the juices from roasted muskrat tails, and singing country music songs
with his impossibly beautiful older sister and her teenage friends.
Surrounded by the love of his family and the vast, mesmerizing landscape
they called home, his was in many ways an idyllic far-north childhood.
But five of Tomson's siblings died in childhood, and Balazee and Joe Highway, who loved their surviving children profoundly, wanted
their two youngest sons, Tomson and Rene, to enjoy opportunities as big
as the world. And so when Tomson was six, he was flown south by float
plane to attend a residential school. A year later Rene joined him to
begin the rest of their education. In 1990 Rene Highway, a
world-renowned dancer, died of an AIDS-related illness. Permanent Astonishment: Growing Up in the Land of Snow and Sky
is Tomson's extravagant embrace of his younger brother's final words:
"Don't mourn me, be joyful." His memoir offers insights, both hilarious
and profound, into the Cree experience of culture, conquest, and
survival. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/658338/permanent-astonishment-by-tomson-highway/9780385696203
A Stranger in Town by Kelley Armstrong
Detective Casey Butler has noticed fewer and fewer residents coming in to the hidden town of Rockton, and no extensions are being granted. Her boyfriend, Sheriff Eric Dalton, presumes it’s the natural flux of things, but Casey’s not so sure. It seems like something bigger is happening in the small town they call home.
When an injured hiker stumbles from the woods, they find themselves fighting to save the life of an innocent tourist while protecting the privacy of their town. What – or who – attacked this woman, and why?
Good Enough by Jen Petro-Roy
Before she had an eating disorder, twelve-year-old Riley was many things: an aspiring artist, a runner, a sister, and a friend.
But
now, from inside the inpatient treatment center where she's receiving
treatment for anorexia, it's easy to forget all of that. Especially
since under the influence of her eating disorder, Riley alienated her
friends, abandoned her art, turned running into something harmful, and
destroyed her family's trust.
If Riley wants her life back, she
has to recover. Part of her wants to get better. As she goes to therapy,
makes friends in the hospital, and starts to draw again, things begin
to look up.
But when her roommate starts to break the rules,
triggering Riley's old behaviors and blackmailing her into silence,
Riley realizes that recovery will be even harder than she thought. She
starts to think that even if she does "recover," there's no way she'll
stay recovered once she leaves the hospital and is faced with her
dieting mom, the school bully, and her gymnastics-star sister.
Written by an eating disorder survivor and activist, Good Enough
is a realistic depiction of inpatient eating disorder treatment, and a
moving story about a girl who has to fight herself to survive. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250123503/goodenoughanovel
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is
supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love
stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone.
She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and
moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And
there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more
than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.
But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.
Jane.
Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough
edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to
save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes
the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one
big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker.
She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to
have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her.
Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.
Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is
a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes
possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in
time. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250244499/onelaststop
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Four famous siblings throw an epic party to celebrate the end of the summer. But over the course of twenty-four hours, their lives will change forever.
Malibu: August, 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together, the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over—especially as the offspring of the legendary singer, Mick Riva.
The only person not looking forward to the party of the year is Nina herself, who never wanted to be the center of attention, and who has also just been very publicly abandoned by her pro tennis player husband. Oh, and maybe Hud—because it is long past time to confess something to the brother from whom he’s been inseparable since birth.
Jay, on the other hand, is counting the minutes until nightfall, when the girl he can’t stop thinking about promised she’ll be there.
And Kit has a couple secrets of her own—including a guest she invited without consulting anyone.
By midnight the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family’s generations will all come bubbling to the surface.
Malibu Rising is a story about one unforgettable night in the life of a family: the night they each have to choose what they will keep from the people who made them . . . and what they will leave behind. https://taylorjenkinsreid.com/books/malibu-rising/
Splintered Silence by Susan Furlong
It’s hard to bury the past when bodies keep turning up …
After an abrupt end to her tour of duty, former Marine MP Brynn Callahan and
her canine partner, Wilco, arrive stateside—both bearing the scars of
battle. With a mix of affection and misgivings, Brynn heads back to Bone
Gap, Tennessee, and the insular culture she’d escaped when she
enlisted.
The Irish Travellers keep to themselves in the
mountains, maintaining an uneasy coexistence with the “settled”
townspeople of McCreary. But when Wilco’s training as a cadaver dog
leads Brynn to a body in the woods, long-simmering tensions threaten to
boil over. Forming a reluctant alliance with local sheriff Frank Pusser,
Brynn must dig up secrets that not only will rattle her close-knit clan to its core, but may forever changer her perception of who she is... and put her back in the line of fire. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/555431/splintered-silence-by-susan-furlong/9781496711670
Little Thieves by Margaret Owen
Once upon a time, there was a horrible girl...
Vanja
Schmidt knows that no gift is freely given, not even a mother’s love—and
she’s on the hook for one hell of a debt. Vanja, the adopted
goddaughter of Death and Fortune, was Princess Gisele's dutiful servant
up until a year ago. That was when Vanja’s otherworldly mothers demanded
a terrible price for their care, and Vanja decided to steal her future
back… by stealing Gisele’s life for herself.
The real Gisele is
left a penniless nobody while Vanja uses an enchanted string of pearls
to take her place. Now, Vanja leads a lonely but lucrative double life
as princess and jewel thief, charming nobility while emptying their
coffers to fund her great escape. Then, one heist away from freedom,
Vanja crosses the wrong god and is cursed to an untimely end: turning
into jewels, stone by stone, for her greed.
Vanja has just two
weeks to figure out how to break her curse and make her getaway. And
with a feral guardian half-god, Gisele’s sinister fiancé, and an
overeager junior detective on Vanja’s tail, she’ll have to pull the
biggest grift yet to save her own life.
Margaret Owen, author of
The Merciful Crow series, crafts a delightfully irreverent retelling of
“The Goose Girl” about stolen lives, thorny truths, and the wicked girls
at the heart of both. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250191908/littlethieves
Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut's first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a super computer and run completely by machines. Paul's rebellion is vintage Vonnegut - wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/184341/player-piano-by-kurt-vonnegut/
That's all for now! Stay tuned for March's recommended reads from Bring Your Own Book Club!
