Local bookseller recommendations

Yes, Chef

By: Marcus Samuelsson

Narrated by: Marcus Samuelsson

Length: 11 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

JAMES BEARD AWARD NOMINEE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY VOGUE • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“One of the great culinary stories of our time.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times
 
It begins with a simple ritual: Every Saturday afternoon, a boy who loves to cook walks to his grandmother’s house and helps her prepare a roast chicken for... Read more

If Walls Could Talk

By: Lucy Worsley

Narrated by: Anne Flosnik

Length: 9 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Why did the flushing toilet take two centuries to catch on? Why did medieval people sleep sitting up? When were the two "dirty centuries?" Why did gas lighting cause Victorian ladies to faint? Why, for centuries, did rich people fear fruit?

In her brilliantly and creatively researched book, Lucy Worsley takes us through the bedroom, bathroom,... Read more

The Cranes Dance

By: Meg Howrey

Narrated by: Justine Eyre

Length: 11 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

I threw my neck out in the middle of Swan Lake tonight.So begins the tale of Kate Crane, a soloist in a celebrated New York City ballet company. Kate is struggling to keep her place in a very demanding world, a world she can't help satirizing even as she balances injury and self-doubt to maintain her place within it. At every turn she is haunted... Read more

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

By: Milan Kundera

Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie

Length: 9 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

When The Unbearable Lightness of Being was first published in English, it was hailed as ""a work of the boldest mastery, originality, and richness"" by critic Elizabeth Hardwick and named one of the best books of 1984 by the New York Times Book Review. It went on to win the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction and quickly became an... Read more

The False Prince (The Ascendance Series, Book 1)

By: Jennifer A. Nielsen

Narrated by: Charlie McWade

Length: 8 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

New York Times bestseller The False Prince thrills with wild twists and turns, danger and deceit, and the revelation of hidden identities that will have readers rushing breathlessly to the end.In a discontented kingdom, civil war is brewing. To unify the divided people, Conner, a nobleman of the court, devises a cunning plan to find an... Read more

Taking a Shot

By: Jaci Burton

Narrated by: Lucy Malone

Length: 8 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

The last thing Jenna Riley needs is more sports in her life. While her brothers are off being athletic superstars, she's stuck running the family's sports bar, whether she likes it or not. Then, in walks pro hockey stud Tyler Anderson. As much as Jenna would like to go to the boards with him, she's vowed to never fall for a jock—even one as hot... Read more

Theft of Swords

By: Michael J. Sullivan

Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds

Length: 22 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

Royce Melborn, a skilled thief, and his mercenary partner, Hadrian Blackwater, make a profitable living carrying out dangerous assignments for conspiring nobles—until they are hired to pilfer a famed sword. What appears to be just a simple job finds them framed for the murder of the king and trapped in a conspiracy that uncovers a plot far... Read more

The Orphan Master's Son

By: Adam Johnson

Narrated by: Tim Kang, Josiah D. Lee, James Kyson Lee & Ada...

Length: 19 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

The Pulitzer Prize–winning, New York Times betselling novel of North Korea: an epic journey into the heart of the world’s most mysterious dictatorship.

“Imagine Charles Dickens paying a visit to Pyongyang, and you see the canvas on which [Adam] Johnson is painting here.”—The Washington Post

Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother—a singer... Read more

Cinder

By: Marissa Meyer

Narrated by: Rebecca Soler

Length: 10 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

The #1 New York Times Bestselling Series!

A wicked mash-up of fairy tale and Terminator—set in a Star Wars kind of world—Marissa Meyer's Cinder is a fresh and fiercely ingenious futuristic retelling of Cinderella

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar... Read more

Queen Bees and Wannabes

By: Rosalind Wiseman

Narrated by: Lee Adams

Length: 11 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

“My daughter used to be so wonderful. Now I can barely stand her and she won’t tell me anything. How can I find out what’s going on?”

“There’s a clique in my daughter’s grade that’s making her life miserable. She doesn’t want to go to school anymore. Her own supposed friends are turning on her, and she’s too afraid to do anything. What can I... Read more

Lisbon

By: Neill Lochery

Narrated by: Robin Sachs

Length: 8 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

Throughout the Second World War, Lisbon was at the very center of the world’s attention and was the only European city in which both the Allies and the Axis powers openly operated. Portugal was frantically trying to hold on to its self-proclaimed wartime neutrality but in reality was increasingly caught in the middle of the economic, and naval,... Read more

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

By: Avi

Narrated by: Alexandra O'Karma

Length: 6 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

Thirteen-year-old Charlotte Doyle is excited to return home from her school in England to her family in Rhode Island in the summer of 1832. But when the two families she was supposed to travel with mysteriously cancel their trips, Charlotte finds herself the lone passenger on a long sea voyage with a cruel captain and a mutinous crew. Worse yet,... Read more

Zone One

By: Colson Whitehead

Narrated by: Beresford Bennett

Length: 9 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

In this wry take on the post-apocalyptic horror novel, a pandemic has devastated the planet. The plague has sorted humanity into two types: the uninfected and the infected, the living and the living dead.

Now the plague is receding, and Americans are busy rebuild­ing civilization under orders from the provisional govern­ment based in Buffalo.... Read more

The Scorpio Races

By: Maggie Stiefvater

Narrated by: Steve West & Fiona Hardingham

Length: 12 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

Some race to win. Others race to survive. It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die. At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has... Read more

Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King

By: William Joyce & Laura Geringer

Narrated by: Gerard Doyle

Length: 3 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

Forget naughty or nice—this is a battle of good vs. evil.

Discover the origins of St. Nick and follow along as the Guardians start their quest to rid the world of nightmares in the first Guardians chapter book from Academy Award winner William Joyce that inspired the beloved film, The Rise of the Guardians.

Before SANTA was SANTA, he was North,... Read more

Arguably

By: Christopher Hitchens

Narrated by: Simon Prebble

Length: 28 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

"All first-rate criticism first defines what we are confronting," the late, great jazz critic Whitney Balliett once wrote. By that measure, the essays of Christopher Hitchens are in the first tier. For nearly four decades, Hitchens has been telling us, in pitch-perfect prose, what we confront when we grapple with first principles-the principles... Read more

The Language of Flowers

By: Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Narrated by: Tara Sands

Length: 10 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

A mesmerizing, moving, and elegantly written debut novel, The Language of Flowers beautifully weaves past and present, creating a vivid portrait of an unforgettable woman whose gift for flowers helps her change the lives of others even as she struggles to overcome her own troubled past.

The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey... Read more

A Sea of Troubles

By: Donna Leon

Narrated by: David Colacci

Length: 8 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Dona Leon has amassed devoted fans around the world for her atmospheric and intelligent Commissario Brunetti series. A Sea of Troubles offers a rare glimpse into the scrupulous Commissario’s personal life. When Brunetti investigates the murder of two local fishermen on the island of Pellestrina, the small community closes ranks, forcing him to... Read more

Stone Arabia

By: Dana Spiotta

Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers

Length: 7 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

Stone Arabia is about family, obsession, memory, and the urge to create—in isolation, at the margins of our winner-take-all culture.In the sibling relationship, "there are no first impressions, no seductions, no getting to know each other," says Denise Kranis. For her and her brother Nik, now in their forties, no relationship is more... Read more

Silver Sparrow

By: Tayari Jones

Narrated by: Rosalyn Coleman-Williams & Heather Alicia Simms

Length: 10 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

With the opening line of Silver Sparrow, “My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist,” author Tayari Jones unveils a breathtaking story about a man’s deception, a family’s complicity, and two teenage girls caught in the middle. Set in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon’s two families—the public one and the secret... Read more

Beauty Queens

By: Libba Bray

Narrated by: Libba Bray

Length: 14 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

From bestselling, Printz Award-winning author Libba Bray, the story of a plane of beauty pageant contestants that crashes on a desert island.From bestselling, Printz Award-winning author Libba Bray, the story of a plane of beauty pageant contestants that crashes on a desert island.Teen beauty queens. A "Lost"-like island. Mysteries and dangers.... Read more

Embassytown

By: China Miéville

Narrated by: Susan Duerden

Length: 12 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

China Miéville doesn’t follow trends, he sets them. Relentlessly pushing his own boundaries as a writer—and in the process expanding the boundaries of the entire field—with Embassytown, Miéville has crafted an extraordinary novel that is not only a moving personal drama but a gripping adventure of alien contact and war.

In the far future, humans... Read more

Fingersmith

By: Sarah Waters

Narrated by: Juanita McMahon

Length: 23 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

New York Times best-selling author of Affinity (H1551), Sarah Waters was named Author of the Year at the 2003 British Book Awards. Fingersmith was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the Booker Prize, and was chosen as book of the year 2002 by more organizations than any other novel. Orphaned as an infant, Susan Trinder was raised by Mrs.... Read more

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

By: Catherynne M. Valente

Narrated by: Catherynne M. Valente

Length: 7 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

"This is a kind of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by way of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland—it's the sort of book one doesn't want to end." —Publisher's Weekly, starred reviewSeptember is a girl who longs for adventure. When she is invited to Fairyland by a Green Wind and a Leopard, well, of course she accepts. (Mightn’t you?) But Fairyland is in... Read more