Oskaloosa Picks - January 14, 2015

Over on Facebook, we asked "What book(s) are you reading?" Here's a look at Oskaloosa's picks this week:

How to Fight Presidents*
by Daniel O'Brien

Plenty of historians can tell you which president had the most effective economic strategies, and which president helped shape our current political parties, but can any of them tell you what to do if you encounter Chester A. Arthur in a bare-knuckled boxing fight? This book will teach you how to be better, stronger, faster, and more deadly than the most powerful (and craziest) men in history. You’re welcome.

Unbroken
by Laura Hillenbrand

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared - Lt. Louis Zamperini. Captured by the Japanese and driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor.

Life As We Knew It
by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Through journal entries sixteen-year-old Miranda describes her family's struggle to survive after a meteor hits the moon, causing worldwide tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.

Landline
by Rainbow Rowell

Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply - but that almost seems besides the point now. Maybe that was always besides the point. Two days before they're supposed to visit Neal's family in Omaha for Christmas, Georgie tells Neal that she can't go. She knows that Neal will be upset with her - but she doesn't expect to him to pack up the kids and go without her.

Crown of Midnight
by Sarah J. Maas

As the royal assassin to an evil king, eighteen-year-old Celaena Sardothien must decide what she will fight for - survival, love, or the future of a kingdom.

Unglued
by Lysa TerKeurst

Subtitled "making wise choices in the midst of raw emotions," Unglued teaches how to acknowledge, understand, and manage raw emotions that are commonplace to the average woman.

Revival
by Stephen King

In a small New England town over half a century ago, a boy is playing with his new toy soldiers in the dirt in front of his house when a shadow falls over him. He looks up to see a striking man, the new minister, Jamie learns later, who with his beautiful wife, will transform the church and the town.

Shadowfell*
by Juliet Marillier

Fifteen-year-old Neryn is alone in the land of Alban, where the oppressive king has ordered anyone with magical strengths captured, but when she sets out for Shadowfell, a training ground for a rebel group, she meets a mysterious soldier and the Good Folk, who tell her that she, alone, can save Alban.





If you would like to read any of these books too, you can click on the title and place a hold with your library card number in our online catalog.

Titles marked with a * are not currently available in our catalog. If you'd like to read one of them, we can borrow it from another library through interlibrary loan.

All book descriptions adapted from our catalog or worldcat.org.

Oskaloosa Picks - June 13, 2014

Curious about what others in Oskaloosa are reading? We asked over on Facebook! From classics to zombie lit, our community's reading tastes proved to be diverse. Here's a look at what Oskaloosa picked this past week:

Bleak House
by Charles Dickens

From London's slums to the Court of Chancery, where the endless case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce devours the future of several generations, the author's canvas of Victorian society vividly conveys an indictment of legal corruption, a riveting tale of detection, and a compelling emotional drama.

Love Does
by Bob Goff

In this book of compelling stories coupled with eye-opening truths, Goff shows a new way to live, a way that's drenched with the whimsy of God's love and the spontaneity of following where he leads.

Lost Lake
by Sarah Addison Allen

Suley, Georgia, is home to Lost Lake Cottages and not much else. Which is why it's the perfect place for newly-widowed Kate and her eccentric eight-year-old daughter Devin to heal. Kate spent one memorable childhood summer, had her first almost-kiss, and met a boy named Wes at Lost Lake. It was a place for dreaming. But Kate doesn't believe in dreams anymore, and her Aunt Eby, Lost Lake's owner, wants to sell the place and move on.

Flesh & Bone*
by Jonathan Maberry

Benny, Nix, Lou, and Lilah journey through a fierce wilderness that was once America searching for the jet they saw months ago, while evading fierce animals and a new kind of zombie.

A Thousand Splendid Suns
by Khaled Hosseini

A breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan's last thirty years-from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding-that puts the violence, fear, hope and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives are inextricable from the history playing out around them.

The Snow Child
by Eowyn Ivey

Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart - he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone - but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees.

Second Chance Summer
by Morgan Matson

Taylor Edwards' family might not be the closest-knit - everyone is a little too busy and over-scheduled - but for the most part, they get along just fine. Then Taylor's dad gets devastating news, and her parents decide that the family will spend one last summer all together at their old lake house in the Pocono Mountains. Crammed into a place much smaller and more rustic than they are used to, they begin to get to know each other again.

Words of Radiance
by Brandon Sanderson

Book 2 in Sanderson's Starlight Archive series. The war with the Parshendi moves into a new, dangerous phase, as Dalinar leads the human armies deep into the heart of the Shattered Plains. Meanwhile Shallan searches for the legendary city of Urithuru, and Kaladin, leader of the restored Knights Radiant, masters the powers of a Windrunner.



If you would like to read any of these books too, you can click on the title and place a hold with your library card number in our online catalog.

Titles marked with a * are not currently available in our catalog. If you would like to request that the library purchase one, you can fill out a suggestion for purchase form on our website.

All book descriptions taken from our online catalog or Worldcat.org.

Oskaloosa Picks - April 27, 2014

Over on Facebook, we asked "What are you reading?" Here's a look at some of Oskaloosa's picks this week:

NOS4A2
by Joe Hill

Charles Talent Manx likes to take kids for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4A2 vanity plate. He can slip onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing - and terrifying - playground of amusements he calls "Christmasland." Now, Victoria McQueen, the only kid to ever escape Manx's evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about her. He's on the road again and he's picked up a new passenger: Vic's own son.

Five Days at Memorial*
by Sheri Fink

Physician and reporter Sheri Fink provides a landmark investigation of patient deaths at a New Orleans hospital ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, and a suspenseful portrayal of the quest for truth and justice. She reconstructs 5 days at Memorial Medical Center and draws the reader into the lives of those who struggled mightily to survive and to maintain life amid chaos.

Critical Mass
by Sara Paretsky

V.I. Warshawski's closest friend in Chicago is the Viennese-born doctor Lotty Herschel, who lost most of her family in the Holocaust. Lotty escaped to London in 1939 on the Kindertransport with a childhood playmate, Kitty Saginor Binder. When Kitty's daughter finds her life is in danger, she calls Lotty, who, in turn, summons V.I. to help.

Joyland
by Stephen King

Set in a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973, Joyland tells the story of the summer in which college student Devin Jones comes to work as a carny and confronts the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and the ways both will change his life forever.

Grasshopper Jungle
by Andrew Smith

Austin Szerba narrates the end of humanity as he and his best friend Robby accidentally unleash an army of giant, unstoppable bugs and uncover the secrets of a decades-old experiment gone terribly wrong.

Look Me in the Eye
by John Elder Robison

John Robison longed to connect with other people, but by the time he was a teenager, his odd habits had earned him the label "social deviant." No guidance came from his mother, who conversed with light fixtures, or his father, who spent evenings drunk. No wonder he gravitated to machines, which could be counted on. His savant-like ability to visualize electronic circuits landed him a gig with KISS, for whom he created their legendary fire-breathing guitars.

Long Knives*
by Charles Rosenberg

Jenna James' life has been smooth-sailing since she left the high-powered law firm of Marbury Marfan to become a professor at a prestigious law school. But things take a shocking turn one morning when a student, Primo, comes to Jenna's office seeking her advice about a treasure map he recently inherited. When Primo turns up dead and Jenna is suddenly the prime suspect in a murder investigation, everyone turns on her.

What Remains
by Carole Radziwill

A memoir about a girl from a working class town who becomes an award-winning television producer and marries a prince, Anthony Radziwill, nephew of John F. Kennedy. Carole DiFalco Radziwill grew up in a suburb with a large, eccentric cast of characters. At the age of nineteen, she struck out for New York.





If you would like to read any of these books too, you can click on the title and place a hold with your library card number in our online catalog.

Titles marked with a * are not currently available in our catalog. If you would like to request that the library purchase one, you can fill out a suggestion for purchase form on our website.

All book descriptions taken from WorldCat or our online catalog.

What's Oskaloosa Reading?

Over on Facebook last Sunday, we asked our followers, "What book(s) are you reading?" From classics to hipster lit to contemporary Young Adult, Oskaloosa's reading tastes proved to be diverse! Here's a look at what our community is currently reading:

The Thirteenth Tale
by Diane Setterfield

When her health begins failing, the mysterious author Vida Winter decides to let Margaret Lea, a biographer, write the truth about her life, but Margaret needs to verify the facts since Vida has a history of telling outlandish tales.

Paper Towns*
by John Green

One month before graduating from his Central Florida high school, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen basks in the predictable boringness of his life until the beautiful and exciting Margo Roth Spiegelman, Q's neighbor and classmate, takes him on a midnight adventure and then mysteriously disappears.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore*
by Robin Sloan

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.

Twelve Years a Slave
by Solomon Northup

The story of Solomon Northup is a bizarre and incredible one. Born a free black in New York State in 1808, he was kidnapped in Washington, D.C., in 1841, and spent most of the next 12 years as a slave on a Louisiana cotton plantation. His years in this condition of servitude were filled with abuse, apprehension, and a profound fear for his life.

The Burgess Boys
by Elizabeth Strout

Catalyzed by a nephew's thoughtless prank, a pair of brothers confront painful psychological issues surrounding the freak accident that killed their father when they were boys, a loss linked to a heartbreaking deception that shaped their personal and professional lives.

The Promise*
by Dan Walsh and Gary Smalley

For the last five months, Tom Anderson has been without a job, and hiding the fact from his wife Jean. He leaves each morning and spends his day rotating through two coffee shops and the library, using their wi-fi to search for a job on the Internet. The stress is slowly destroying the bond between Tom and Jean. Can their mutual trust - and love - be restored?

The Night She Disappeared*
by April Henry

Told from various viewpoints, Gabie and Drew set out to prove that their missing co-worker Kayla is not dead, and to find her before she is, while the police search for her body and the man who abducted her.

Infinite Jest
by David Foster Wallace

Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction, features a huge cast and multilevel narrative, and questions essential elements of American culture - our entertainments, our addictions, our relationships, our pleasures, our abilities to define ourselves.

The Goldfinch
by Donna Tartt

A young boy in New York City, Theo Decker, miraculously survives an accident that takes the life of his mother. Alone and abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by a friend's family and struggles to make sense of his new life. In the years that follow, he becomes entranced by one of the few things that reminds him of his mother: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the art underworld.

Love for Sale
by Jill Churchill

Sister and brother Lily and Robert Brewster, raised in the lap of luxury, may no longer have a penny to their names, but at least they have a roof over their heads - which is more than many can say in this bleak November of 1932.






If you would like to read any of these books too, you can click on the title and place a hold with your library card number in our online catalog. Titles marked with a * are not currently available in our catalog. If you would like to request that the library purchase one, you can fill out a suggestion for purchase form on our website.

(All book descriptions taken from WorldCat or our online catalog.)