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Reading Challenge A book featuring a library or bookstore |
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The charmed library
by Jennifer Moorman
Like many other public libraries, the one in Blue Sky Valley, North Carolina, is a haven for readers. But it's also unlike any other. In this library, fictional characters step off the page into real life. Assistant librarian Stella Parker has no idea. Still reeling from her father's death and--more recently--a breakup, she hasn't noticed. All she knows is she's stuck in a job she's overqualified for and stumped about what to do with her life. Everything changes when she burns her beloved journal.
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The Astral Library
by Kate Quinn
A gorgeously written fantastical adventure which poses the question: Have you ever wished you could live inside a book?Alix, stuck in dead-end jobs and dreaming of adventure, finds solace in the Boston Public Library—until a hidden door leads her to a magical library. There, the ageless Librarian guides lost souls into the worlds of their favorite books, offering escape, discovery, and transformation.
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The library of lost and found
by Phaedra Patrick
Librarian Martha Storm has always found it easier to connect with books than people--though not for lack of trying. She keeps careful lists of how to help others in her superhero-themed notebook. And yet, sometimes it feels like she's invisible. All of that changes when a book of fairy tales arrives on her doorstep. Inside, Martha finds a dedication written to her by her best friend--her grandmother Zelda--who died under mysterious circumstances years earlier.
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The lost bookshop
by Evie Woods
On a quiet street in Dublin, a lost bookshop is waiting to be found. For too long, Opaline, Martha and Henry have been the side characters in their own lives. But when a vanishing bookshop casts its spell, these three unsuspecting strangers will discover that their own stories are every bit as extraordinary as the ones found in the pages of their beloved books. And by unlocking the secrets of the shelves, they find themselves transported to a world of wonder... where nothing is as it seems.
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The little Paris bookshop
by Nina George
Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. Using his intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken hearts and souls. The only person he can't seem to heal through literature is himself; he's still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. She left him with only a letter, which he has never opened.
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Midnight at the Bright Ideas bookstore
by Matthew Sullivan
Lydia Smith lives her life hiding in plain sight. A clerk at the Bright Ideas bookstore, she keeps a meticulously crafted existence among her beloved books, eccentric colleagues, and the BookFrogs--the lost and lonely regulars who spend every day marauding the store's overwhelmed shelves. But when Joey Molina, a young, beguiling BookFrog, kills himself in the bookstore's upper room, Lydia's life comes unglued. Always Joey's favorite bookseller, Lydia has been bequeathed his meager worldly possessions: trinkets and books--the detritus of a lonely, uncared for man. But when Lydia flips through his books she finds them defaced in ways both disturbing and inexplicable.
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The booklover's library
by Madeline Martin
In Nottingham, England, widow Emma Taylor finds herself in desperate need of a job. She and her beloved daughter Olivia have always managed just fine on their own, but with the legal restrictions prohibiting widows with children from most employment opportunities, she is left with only one option: persuading the manager at Boots Booklover's Library to take a chance on her with a job. When the threat of war in England becomes a reality, Olivia must be evacuated to the countryside. In the wake of being separated from her daughter, Emma seeks solace in the unlikely friendships she forms with her neighbors and coworkers, and a renewed sense of purpose through the recommendations she provides to the library's quirky regulars.
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The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
| Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice. What if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. She must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place. |
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The library after dark
by Ande Pliego
A bookseller must escape the infamously haunted library that holds her darkest secrets, but with a murderer in her tour group, escaping alive is not as simple as it seems, in this twisty locked-room thriller from bestselling author of You Are Fatally Invited.
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The library book
by Susan Orlean
Orlean re-opens the unsolved mystery of the most catastrophic library fire in American history and delivers a love letter to the institution of libraries themselves.
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The lions of Fifth Avenue
by Fiona Davis
It's 1913, and on the surface, Laura Lyons couldn't ask for more out of life-her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library, allowing their family to live in an apartment within the grand building, and they are blessed with two children. But headstrong, passionate Laura wants more, and when she takes a leap of faith and applies to the Columbia Journalism School, her world is cracked wide open.
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The personal librarian by Marie Benedict
| In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for the newly built Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture on the New York society scene and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world. She helps build a world-class collection. But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs |
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The woman in the library
by Sulari Gentill
The beautifully ornate reading room at the Boston Public Library is completely silent one weekday morning, until a woman's terrified scream echoes through the room. Security guards immediately appear and instruct everyone inside to stay put until they determine there is no threat. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers who had been sitting in the reading room get to chatting and quickly become friendly. Harriet, Marigold, Whit, and Caine each have their own reasons for being in the reading room that morning--and it just happens that one of them may turn out to be a murderer.
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The starless sea
by Erin Morgenstern
Zachary Ezra Rawlins discovers a mysterious book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Zachary uncovers a series of clues--a bee, a key, and a sword--that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to an ancient library, hidden far below the surface of the earth. Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary discovers his purpose--in both the mysterious book and in his own life.
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The name of the rose
by Umberto Eco
While Brother William of Baskerville is investigating accusations of heresy at a wealthy abbey, his inquiries are disrupted by a series of bizarre deaths. Turning his practiced detective skills to finding the killer, he relies on logic (Aristotle), theology (Thomas Aquinas), empirical insights (Roger Bacon), and his own wry humor and ferocious curiosity. With the aid of his young apprentice, William scours the abbey, from its stables to the labyrinthine library, piecing together evidence, and deciphering cryptic symbols and coded manuscripts to uncover the truth about this place where the most interesting things happen at night.
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The strange library by Haruki Murakami
| In a fantastical illustrated short novel, three people imprisoned in a nightmarish library plot their escape. |
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The village library demon-hunting society
by C. M. Waggoner
Librarian Sherry Pinkwhistle keeps finding bodies - and solving murders. But she's concerned by just how many killers she's had to track down in her quaint village. None of her neighbors seem surprised by the rising body count...but Sherry is becoming convinced that whatever has been causing these deaths is unnatural. But when someone Sherry was close to ends up dead, and her cat, Lord Thomas Crowell, is possessed by what seems to be an ancient demon, Sherry realizes she is going to need an exorcist more than a detective. With the help of her town's new priest and an assortment of friends who dub themselves the Demon Hunting Society, Sherry needs to solve the murder and get rid of the demon. This riotous mix of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Murder, She Wrote is a lesson for demons and murderers alike: Never mess with a librarian.
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Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
by Robin Sloan
A gleeful and exhilarating tale of global conspiracy, complex code-breaking, high-tech data visualization, young love, rollicking adventure, and the secret to eternal life mostly set in a hole-in-the-wall San Francisco bookstore. After a layoff during the Great Recession sidelines his tech career, Clay Jannon takes a job at the titular bookstore in San Francisco, and soon realizes that the establishment is a facade for a strange secret.
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The reading list
by Sara Nisha Adams
Working at the local library, Aleisha reads every book on a secret list she found, which transports her from the painful realities she's facing at home, and decides to pass the list on to a lonely widower desperate to connect with his bookworm granddaughter.
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Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum
| Burned out and lost, Yeongju leaves behind her career and marriage to chase a dream—opening a bookshop in Seoul. As the Hyunam-dong Bookshop becomes a refuge, its visitors—a lonely barista, a struggling writer, and more—find solace and new beginnings, discovering that sometimes, books can help rewrite life itself. |
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The storied life of A. J. Fikry
by Gabrielle Zevin
When his most prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, is stolen, bookstore owner A.J. Fikry begins isolating himself from his friends, family and associates before receiving a mysterious package that compels him to remake his life.
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How to read a book
by Monica Wood
Violet Powell, a twenty-two-year-old from rural Abbott Falls, Maine, is being released from prison after serving twenty-two months for a drunk-driving crash that killed a local kindergarten teacher. Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher who runs the prison book club, is facing the unsettling prospect of an empty nest. Frank Daigle, a retired machinist, hasn't yet come to grips with the complications of his marriage to the woman Violet killed. When the three encounter each other one morning in a bookstore in Portland--Violet to buy the novel she was reading in the prison book club before her release, Harriet to choose the next title for the women who remain, and Frank to dispatch his duties as the store handyman--their lives begin to intersect in transformative ways.
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The in-between bookstore
by Edward Underhill
A whimsical and healing novel about a trans man in New York who-almost 30, laid off, broke-moves back to his small Illinois hometown, walks into the bookstore he worked at in high school. . . and slips through time to come face-to-face with his pre-transition, teenage self.
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The library of Amorlin
by Kalyn Josephson
Kasira, a con artist working off a prison sentence, is offered freedom in exchange for infiltrating and destablizing the magical Library of Amorlin. Disguised as an assistant librarian, she must dismantle its secrets—while resisting a tempting new life and a dangerous attraction to the Librarian.
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The Paris library
by Janet Skeslien Charles
Paris, 1939. Young, ambitious, and tempestuous, Odile Souchet has it all: Paul, her handsome police officer beau; Margaret, her best friend from England; her adored twin brother Remy; and a dream job at the American Library in Paris, working alongside the library's legendary director, Dorothy Reeder. But when World War II breaks out, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear--including her beloved library ... Montana, 1983. Odile's solitary existence in gossipy small-town Montana is unexpectedly interrupted by Lily, her neighbor, a lonely teenager longing for adventure. As Lily uncovers more about Odile's mysterious past, they find they share a love of language, the same longings, the same lethal jealousy.
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The echo of old books
by Barbara Davis
Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer's affinity for books extends beyond the intoxicating scent of old paper, ink, and leather. She can feel the echoes of the books' previous owners-an emotional fingerprint only she can read. When Ashlyn discovers a pair of beautifully bound volumes that appear to have never been published, her gift quickly becomes an obsession. With no trace of how these mysterious books came into the world, Ashlyn is caught up in a decades-old literary mystery, beckoned by two hearts in ruins, whoever they were, wherever they are.
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The Secret, Book & Scone Society
by Ellery Adams
Miracle Springs, North Carolina, is a place of healing. Strangers flock here hoping the natural hot springs, five-star cuisine, and renowned spa can cure their ills. If none of that works, they often find their way to Miracle Books, where, over a fresh-baked zcomforty scone from the Gingerbread House bakery, they exchange their stories with owner Nora Pennington in return for a carefully chosen book. Thats Noras special talent prescribing the perfect novel to ease a persons deepest pain and lighten their heaviest burden.
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The little bookshop on the Seine
by Rebecca Raisin
When bookshop owner Sarah Smith is offered the opportunity for a job exchange with her Parisian friend Sophie, saying yes is a no-brainer--after all, what kind of romantic would turn down six months in Paris?
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The librarians
by Sherry Thomas
In the leafy suburbs of Austin, Texas, a small branch library welcomes the public every day of the week. But the patrons who love the helpful, unobtrusive staff and leave rave reviews on Yelp don't always realize that their librarians are human, too. Hazel flees halfway across the world for what she hopes will be a new beginning. Jonathan, a six-foot-four former college football player, has never fit in anywhere else. Astrid tries to forget her heartbreak by immersing herself in work, but the man who ghosted her six months ago is back, promising trouble. And Sophie, who has the most to lose, maintains a careful and respectful distance from her coworkers, but soon that won't be enough anymore. When two patrons turn up dead after the library's inaugural murder mystery-themed game night, the librarians' quiet routines come crashing down. Something sinister has stirred, something that threatens every single one of them. And the only way the librarians can save the library--and themselves--is to let go of their secrets, trust one another, and band together... All in a day's work.
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