September 2022 - Staff Reading Suggestions
THE WINNERS
by Fredrik Backman
Fredrik Backman completes his Beartown trilogy with the release of The Winners. You'll want to have read the aforementioned Beartown and Us Against You so you understand the history of the small towns featured and the folks who live and skate there. Being a hockey fan isn't necessary. Backman excels with his storytelling and social observations.
-Molly
SHRINES OF GAIETY
by Kate Atkinson
(Releases September 27, 2022)
Set in 1926, Kate Atkinson's new novel takes place in the debauchery of post-war London. From missing young girls to high-society parties, drugs and prostitution, this story features Nellie Coker, mother of 6 and a resourceful and talented business woman who runs five extremely profitable nightclubs in Soho. Recently released from prison, her empire is being threatened on multiple fronts including by a new police chief, who is as honest as he is unbending and determined to run Nellie out of business. Deftly layering multiple complicated plots and vivid characters, Atkinson creates a pulsating novel with great compassion for her characters and their fates. A fantastic read!
-Lisa
LUCY BY THE SEA
by Elizabeth Strout
Lucy Barton is back! As NYC implodes with the pandemic, Lucy and her ex-husband William escape to Maine. Strout excels again, bringing her reader right into Lucy's head and heart with her clear and stunning prose.
-Laura S
THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT
by Maggie O'Farrell
The newest novel from staff favorite and author of Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell, is a work of beautiful, atmospheric historical fiction set in the Italian Renaissance. Lucrezia is the third daughter of the Duke of Florence. She is married at 15 to the Duke of Ferrara and dead less than one year later. Was her husband responsible? O'Farrell paints a vivid portrait of the true essence of Lucrezia: in the beginning, she is an empathetic, artistic and thoughtful child: and at the end, she is a woman centuries ahead of her time. Lucrezia's spirit will stay with you long after the final chapter.
-Laura S.
TRUST
by Hernan Diaz
Nominated for the 2022 Booker Prize, Trust is a fascinating story of class, money, power and perception set in the 1920's and 1930's. There are questions cloaked in mystery about the life and death of Helen Rask, the wife of the wealthy and reclusive financier Benjamin Rask. The riddle is gradually unveiled in 4 different voices in this powerful and brilliant novel. This mesmerizing story could easily be set in contemporary times and challenges the reader to question the concept of truth. A must read!
-Lisa
THE MOSQUITO BOWL: A GAME OF LIFE AND DEATH IN WORLD WAR II

by Buzz Bissinger
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Buzz Bissinger (Friday Night Lights) effortlessly combines sports and military history in this gritty account of a football game played by U.S. Marines on Guadalcanal in December 1944.
-Kathy
ALL THAT'S LEFT UNSAID
by Tracey Lien
Ky Tran returns to her hometown of Cabramatta, Australia after her brother is brutally beaten to death at a popular restaurant. Occurring in front of many witnesses, Ky is suffocated by her guilt and the fact that no one is coming forward with details or explanations. As she peels back the layers of the night her brother died, the reader is drawn into the intricacies of Vietnamese-Australian immigration and how colonization and the Vietnam War has affected her culture/community. I tore through this deeply moving book of loyalty, friendship, family, and generational trauma.
-Morley
THE FORTUNES OF JADED WOMEN
by Carolyn Huynh
The women of the Vietnamese-American Duong family are estranged and believe that their problems stem from a generations-old curse. When a psychic predicts a death, a wedding and a pregnancy in the family in the upcoming year, the women are forced to reunite. I was dazzled by this debut novel that brims with laughter and tears--it is a celebration of the ways families meddle, mourn and love together.
-Laura S.
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