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Book-Themed Books in Fiction
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The Burning Library
by Gilly MacMillan
A thrilling dark-academia tale of murder, obsession and ruthless ambition set in remote St Andrews, Scotland.
For more than a century, two rival organizations of women have gone to deadly lengths to secure a scrap of fraying embroidery–an artifact–in the hopes of finding the original medieval manuscript from which it was torn. One is The Order of St Katherine, devoted to the belief that women must pull strings in the shadows to exercise control. The other is the Fellowship of the Larks, determined to amass as many overt positions of power for women as possible…so long as their methods of doing so never come to light.
When Dr Anya Brown garners international attention for her translation of the cryptic Folio 9, she is selected by Diana Cornish, a high-ranking member of the Fellowship of the Larks, to join the exclusive Institute of Manuscript Studies in St Andrews. Meanwhile at Scotland Yard, Detective Clio Spicer begins a private investigation into the death of Eleanor Bruton–who, in life, harbored a dark and all-consuming secret.
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All My Bones: An Old Juniper Bookshop Mystery
by P. J. Nelson
Madeline Brimley, new owner of a bookstore in a small Georgia town, finds herself playing sleuth when a friend is charged with the murder of a much-disliked woman.
Madeline Brimley recently inherited a bookstore in Enigma, Georgia. Settling in, Madeline recruits her friend, Gloria Coleman, to help her plant azaleas in the front yard of the bookstore. Turning the soil, however, uncovers the body of one Beatrice Glassie, a troublesome woman who has been missing for the past six months. When her friend Gloria is arrested for the murder, Madeline is determined to prove her innocence, and she soon discovers there aren't many people in town who hadn't wanted to kill Bea Glassie at one point or another. With the help of her not-quite-boyfriend and her deceased aunt's best friend, Madeline plans to set a trap to catch the real murderer—before she becomes the next victim.
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Murder Your Darlings
by Jenna Blum
Bestselling author Jenna Blum offers a contemporary, suspenseful novel about love, loss, and revenge in the world of books.
Simone “Sam” Vetiver is a mid-career novelist finishing a lukewarm publicity tour while facing a deadline for a new book on which she’s totally blocked. Recently divorced, Sam worries where her life is going, until she receives glowing fan mail from stratospherically successful author, William Corwyn. When William and Sam meet, his literary sympathy is as intense as their chemistry, both writers think they’ve found The One. But as in their own novels, things between Sam and William are not what they seem: William has multiple stalkers, including a scarily persistent one named The Rabbit. He lives on a remote Maine island, where his life resembles The Shining. And when writers turn up dead, including from The Darlings support group William runs, Sam has to ask: Is it The Rabbit—William’s #1 Stalker? Another woman scorned? Can William be everything he seems?
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Is This a Cry for Help?
by Emily Austin
A luminous new novel following a librarian who comes back to work after a mental breakdown only to confront book-banning crusaders.
Darcy’s life turned out better than she could have ever imagined. She is a librarian at the local branch, while her wife Joy runs a book binding service. Between the two of them, there is no more room on their shelves with their ample book collections. Rounding out their ideal life is two cats and a sun-soaked house by the lake. But when Darcy receives the news that her ex-boyfriend, Ben, has passed away, she spirals into a pit of guilt and regret, resulting in a mental breakdown and medical leave from the library. When she returns to work, she is met by unrest in her community, and protests surrounding intellectual freedom, resulting in a call for book bans and a second look at the branch’s upcoming DEI programs. Is This a Cry for Help? powerfully explores questions about sexuality, community, and the importance of libraries.
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The Lust Crusade (Raiders of the Lost Heart #3)
by Jo Segura
A plucky librarian and an archaeologist on the run fake an engagement to save their lives.
Daniela Guiterrez has been in love with her brother’s best friend for as long as she can remember—until he went missing a year ago during an archaeological expedition. But on a solo trip to Greece, the intrepid librarian discovers that Theo is very much alive…and is being held hostage. Dr. Theo Galanis, an expert in Ancient Greek archaeology, has been abducted by artifact smugglers in search of a priceless gemstone—the Eye of the Minotaur. Then a little white lie spirals into his captors believing Theo and Dani are engaged, and the pair must utilize Dani's research skills and Theo's expertise to solve the centuries’ old Minoan mystery. Among the ancient ruins and temples they explore is an even bigger adventure: falling in love for real.
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The Bookbinder's Secret
by A. D. Bell
A young bookbinder begins a hunt for the truth after discovering a hidden confession beneath the binding of a burned book.
Lilian "Lily" Delaney, apprentice to a master bookbinder in Oxford in 1901, chafes at the confines of her life. She is trapped between the oppressiveness of her father’s failing bookshop and still being an apprentice in a man’s profession. But when she’s given a burned book during a visit to a collector, she finds, hidden beneath the binding, a fifty-year-old letter speaking of love, fortune, and murder. Lily is pulled into the mystery of the young lovers, a story of forbidden love, and discovers there are more books and more hidden pages telling their story. Lilian becomes obsessed with the story…but she is not the only one looking for the remaining books. What began as a diverting intrigue quickly becomes a very dangerous pursuit.
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Coming of Age in Nonfiction
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Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America
by Beth Macy
A personal and powerful reckoning with the changes that have rocked the author’s small Ohio hometown.
During Beth Macy’s childhood in Urbana, Ohio in the 70s and 80s, the town had a healthy enough economy and residents were proud of its schools, library, and history. Beth loved Urbana, and though she later left to follow a journalism career, she still clung gratefully to the hometown that helped raise her. But when her mother’s health began declining in 2020, she returned to Urbana often and couldn’t shake the feeling that her town had dramatically hardened in ways she couldn’t process. Beth grew up as the paper girl, delivering the local newspaper, which was like civic glue, mirroring the community back to itself. Now there was precious little civic glue: High school graduation rates plummeted as absenteeism soared; A mental health crisis gripped the small city; Urbana’s pride in its institutions waned as parents opted to home school, or transferred their kids elsewhere, in record numbers. Even more painfully, many of her own family members and old friends had gone down the rabbit hole of conspiracies. This courageous and empathetic book asks the essential question: What happened to Urbana?
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Future Boy: Back to the Future and My Journey Through the Space-Time Continuum
by Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox tells the remarkable story of playing two landmark roles at the same time―a slice of entertainment history that’s never been told.
In early 1985, Michael J. Fox was one of the biggest stars on television. His world was about to get even bigger, but only if he could survive the kind of double duty unheard of in Hollywood. Fox’s days were already dedicated to rehearsing and taping the hit sitcom Family Ties, but then the chance of a lifetime came his way. Soon, he committed his nights to a new time-travel adventure film being directed by Robert Zemeckis and produced by Steven Spielberg―Back to the Future. Sitcom during the day, movie at night―day after day, for months. Using new interviews with the cast and crew of both projects, the result is a vividly drawn and eye-opening story of creative achievement by a beloved icon.
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Girl Warrior: On Coming of Age
by Joy Harjo
An inspirational work of wisdom, warmth, and generosity from a three-term US poet laureate.
In Girl Warrior, Harjo speaks directly to Native girls and women, sharing stories about her own coming of age to bring renewed attention to the pivotal moments of becoming that strike us in adolescence. Informed by her own experiences and those of her ancestors, Harjo offers invaluable advice for navigating the many challenges of maturation, from facing mental illness to grappling with parents, friendships, love, and loss. This book also guides young readers toward art, poetry, and music as powerful tools for developing their own ethical sensibility. As inspiring as it is urgent, Girl Warrior illuminates essential moments of becoming, including forgiveness, failure, falling, rising up, and honoring generations past and future.
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Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts
by Margaret Atwood
How does one of the greatest storytellers of our time write her own life? The long-awaited memoir from one of our most lauded and influential cultural figures.
Raised by ruggedly independent, scientifically minded parents–an entomologist father, a dietician mother–Atwood spent most of each year in the wild forest of northern Quebec. This childhood was unfettered and nomadic, sometimes isolated, but also thrilling and beautiful. From this unconventional start, Atwood unfolds the story of her life, linking seminal moments to the books that have shaped our literary landscape. From the cruel year that spawned Cat’s Eye to 1980s Orwellian Berlin where she wrote The Handmaid’s Tale, we travel with her, revealing the connections between real life and art.
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Mother Mary Comes to Me
by Arundhati Roy
A raw and deeply moving memoir from the legendary author of The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.
“Heart-smashed” by her mother Mary’s death in September 2022 yet puzzled and “more than a little ashamed” by the intensity of her response, Arundhati Roy began to write, to make sense of her feelings about the mother she ran from at age eighteen. And so begins this astonishing, sometimes disturbing, and surprisingly funny memoir of the author’s journey from her childhood in Kerala, India, to the writing of her prizewinning novels and essays, through today. Mother Mary Comes to Me is an ode to freedom, a tribute to thorny love and savage grace—a memoir like no other.
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How We Grow Up: Understanding Adolescence
by Matt Richtel
Pulitzer Prize-winning science reporter, Matt Richtel, delivers a groundbreaking investigation into adolescence.
The transition from childhood to adulthood is a natural, evolution-honed cycle that now faces radical change and challenge. The adolescent brain, sculpted for this transition over eons of evolution, confronts a modern world that creates so much social pressure as to regularly exceed the capacities of the evolving mind. The problem comes as a bombardment of screen-based information that pelts adolescents’ growing brains. The result is a neurological mismatch between an ultra-potent environment and a still-maturing brain that can lead to anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges. It is a crisis that is part of modern life but can only be truly grasped through a broad, grounded lens of the biology of adolescence itself. Through this lens, Richtel shows us how adolescents can understand themselves, and how parents and educators can offer better support.
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