This year, our theme at the library is What A Wonderful World. We’re focusing on a different color for each month, and September’s is treasure turquoise. To that end, we’re highlighting books at the library with that color (or something close to it) on the cover!
If you like historical fiction:
Alice Hoffman’s The Museum of Extraordinary Things (2014)
It’s Coney Island in the early 1910s. Coralie is the mermaid in her father’s boardwalk “museum,” which is really just a glorified freak show. She then meets a handsome photographer, Eddie. He’s a Russian-Jewish immigrant who has left his community to pursue his career, and when they embark on an affair, complications ensue.
Recommended for those who enjoy the work of Anne Tyler and Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus.
If you love YA:
Emma Chastain’s Confessions of a High School Disaster (2017)
Chloe Snow’s first year of high school is not going well–at least not in her eyes. The boy she really likes has a girlfriend, her best friend is getting on her nerves, and her mom has left the family for Mexico. Despite Chloe’s troubles, it’s a light, breezy book. First book in a series.
Recommended for those looking for a high school version of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary.
If you enjoy speculative fiction:
Margarita Montimore’s Oona Out of Order (2020)*
Oona is not out of order because she’s a broken vending machine but rather because each new year for her is completely random. It all starts when she’s eighteen in the early 1980s, and it’s New Year’s Eve. She expects to wake up as a nineteen year old, but instead, she awakes thirty-two years in the future in her fifties. And so it goes each year, with Oona jumping forward and going backward in time in her life.
Recommended for those who enjoy the work of Audrey Niffenegger and Liane Moriarty.
*Ebook and audiobook also available on Libby.
If you prefer memoirs:
Rhoda Janzen’s Mennonite in a Little Black Dress (2009)
Rhoda Janzen was raised in a Mennonite home but left her family’s religion and culture to pursue an academic career. She earned a PhD in English from UCLA and worked as a professor before her whole world came crashing down. Not only did her beloved husband leave her but she was also seriously injured in a car wreck, so she moved back home with her loving parents. The well-meaning but inevitable culture clash between Janzen and her parents provides the fuel for this humorous memoir.
Recommended for those who enjoy memoirs about starting over by returning home.
If you want audiobooks:
Michael Scott’s The Alchemyst (2010)*
Medieval alchemist Nicholas Flamel is said to have died in the 1400s, but actually he’s just hanging out in his tomb, as one does when you’ve discovered the secrets to eternal life but everyone thinks you’re dead. However, when a villain sets his sights on stealing Nicholas’s secrets, the only ones who can protect the world are twins Josh and Sophia. First book in a series.
Recommended for those who enjoy the work of Rick Riordan.
*Ebook and audiobook also available on Libby.
What books with turquoise covers are you reading? What are you reading in September? Tell us in the comments! As always, please follow this link to our online library catalog for more information on any of these items or to place them on hold.
Berryville Book Buzz 