It’s a brand new year, and you may have already decided on a few goals you want to take on in 2018. The library is here to help you get through any reading resolutions you have on your list.
If you want to read more this year but need help figuring out where to begin, get some personalized suggestions from What Do I Read Next? Visit jmrl.org/WDIRN to answer a few questions about your reading preferences and within three days you’ll receive a few titles from one of our librarians trained in reader’s advisory.
If you want to finally get around to reading the books that were on your list from last year, here are a few titles that were popular in 2017 and no longer have a wait list:
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi – Two half-sisters, unknown to each other, are born into different villages in 18th-century Ghana and experience profoundly different lives and legacies throughout subsequent generations marked by wealth, slavery, war, coal mining, the Great Migration and the realities of 20th-century Harlem.
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Stout – After an appendix operation puts her in the hospital, New York writer Lucy Barton reconnects with her estranged mother as the pair reminisce about the past.
The Underground Railroad by Colston Whitehead – After Cora, a slave in pre-Civil War Georgia, escapes with another slave, Caesar, they seek the help of the Underground Railroad as they flee from state to state and try to evade a slave catcher, Ridgeway, who is determined to return them to the South.
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren – A memoir by an award-winning paleobiologist traces her childhood in her father’s laboratory, her longtime relationship with a brilliant but wounded colleague and the remarkable discoveries they have made both in the lab and during extensive field research assignments.
Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult – When her reluctance to treat the newborn of a white supremacist couple results in the child’s death, a black nurse is placed on trial and is aided by a white public defender who urges her not to bring up race in the courtroom.
The Whistler by John Grisham – Lacy Stoltz, an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct, takes on a case involving a corrupt judge, a Native American casino, and the mafia when a previously disbarred lawyer approaches her on behalf of a client who claims to know the truth.