Anna Karenina
by Leo Tolstoy
(1877)

This story follows the life of the Countess Anna Karenina after she has an affair with the Count Vronsky. This book was written in a Literary Realism style.

Elenore and Park
​by Rainbow Rowell
(2012)

This is the story of a girl named Elenore as she deals with the struggles of a hard family life at home, and the young man Park and the friendship which grows between them. This is a tragic retelling of Romeo and Juliet, and is told in the Literary Realism style.

Five Feet Apart
by Rachael Lippincott
(2018)

In this retelling of Romeo and Juliet there are two teen who are both diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, which means they can never get closer than 5 feet. This book to movie story is sure to pull at your heartstrings. 

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
by Winifred Watson
(2008)

Set in the 1930's Miss Pettigrew is a strict nanny who gets sent to the wrong house. As soon as she arrives she realizes something is wrong. This is a delightful comedy which made the transition from book to movie really well.

Murder at the Vicarage
by Agatha Christie
(1930)

Miss Marple is sent on a case when Colonel Protheroe is found murdered in the local vicarage. Set in the 1930's the investigation of this man's death will keep you on your toes

Cry Wolf
by Patricia Briggs
(2008)

This is a story following Anna and her new friend Charles who are werewolves sent on a mission by the head of the werewolves to investigate a man's death which was too out of control to be allowed to be continued.

-MH

Karigan  G'ladheon has been thinking about her future as she is traveling through the forest of Green Cloak.  She is doing fine alone in the forest until she hears a horse approaching her at a fast pace. A man is slumped over on the horse  as he approaches Karigan, he has two arrows in his back. Karigan finds out from the man before he dies that is the legendary Green Rider, one of the Kings messengers and he is carrying a message that must get to the king. Karigan accepts to take the message to the king after the rider begged her to take it and made her swear an oath on his sword to deliver the message for the sake of the country.  He also gave her his gold winged horse brooch to show her new status as the Green Rider. On his dying breath he gives one more warning to her and it is to watch out for the shadow man. Karigan doesn’t realize how much her life will change until she is chased by assassins, deadly danger and magic, and is hounded by dark beings bent on not allowing her to deliver the message that she swore to deliver. ​

James the computer guy will now take a shot at blog post…

I seem to have an odd taste in reading, and don’t get very much reading done. I was told that perhaps my tastes could give some insight into some of our more eclectic readers. I'm only writing on books I have actually finished, because if it was good enough for me to spend my very limited time on, then it must have been good... maybe.
​
The first I would like to tell about is one that I have finished a while ago, but haven’t found anything quite like in a long time.

Mogworld by Yhatzee Croshaw
 
This is the book that got me back to reading. It is written by a comedy video game reviewer and I would say he has done quite well.
A young mage named Jim is disappointed by his lack of progress in Mage School, but when his college is destroyed by its neighbor, Jim comes back with a new lease on life. Or so he thought now Jim and his zombie compatriots are complaining to their necromancer about pension plans and dental insurance. Morale for zombies is something that was never considered until a certain undead lord had considered they might be sentient.
Follow Jim in his adventure to figure out what is wrong with this new world, and hopefully, he can die in peace.
Content warning: some profanity, used with class (mostly). Mention of rotting corpses but no descriptions of viscera. No sexual content 

​Having not read since Mogworld, I was beginning to give up hope until I found this little gem. It is independently published, so it has a few errors, but I thought it was worth the read still. A bit odd, and a foray into a new genre calling itself LITrpg (for literary role play game).
​
These are books where leveling up as a person and fighting monsters to do so is very much a thing. This book is self-published by the author and it shows. I forgive it because it is so full of humor, I haven’t laughed this hard since reading fool (Christopher Moore). 

​Dungeon born by Dakota Krout
 
Our protagonist is CAL, as in calcium. He is a crystal, but he is sentient and can manipulate the world around him. That makes him a dungeon core. When Cal almost dies, he decides to take matters into his own metaphorical hands and become the strongest dungeon there ever was. This means Cal kills adventurers for fun. Oh and he eats them, definitely eats them.
Content warning: very little if any profanity, no sexual content, geek humor

​Exploring further into this newfound LITrpg genre, I found this neat little story about a goblin and revenge. If you like video games you may just like this next one. It is a trilogy but comes together really well in the end. 

​Life Reset (New Era Online Book 1) by Shemer Kuznits
 
Our protagonist starts out like any other high level character in a video game, bored and apathetic. That is until his entire guild turns on him and transforms him into a level 1 goblin. This is a story of revenge and leveling up. May not be for everyone but I enjoyed it so much I read through all three of them before picking up anything else.
Content Warning: low profanity throughout, anything sexual is ‘fade to black’, ritual sacrifice and dismemberment amongst various battles. 

This is not available at the library currently, but can be read on Kindle Unlimited. 

​The next one started out very interesting with a d list super person that finally found a use for his dumb power, but then something happened. The same tale seemed to be told over and over through the trilogy. I would definitely suggest the first as just the premise alone is worth a look. However, the author seems to retell the rise of power and the sudden attack of Felix more times than there are books in this series. I felt compelled to finish after I had realized this in the second book. If you do make it to the end of the trilogy there is a bit of a lackluster conclusion.
Perhaps I'll just suggest reading the first one then.

Super sales on super heroes by William D. Argand
 
(The blurb does it best so I’ll just leave that here)
In a world full of super powers, Felix has a pretty crappy one.
​He has the ability to modify any item he owns. To upgrade anything.
Sounds great on paper. Almost like a video game.
Except that the amount of power it takes to actually change, modify, or upgrade anything worthwhile is beyond his abilities.
With that in mind, Felix settled into a normal life. A normal job.
His entire world changes when the city he lives in is taken over by a Super Villain. Becoming a country of one city. A city state.
Surprisingly, not a whole lot changed. Politicians were still corrupt. Banks still held onto your money. And criminals still committed crime.
Though the black market has become more readily available.
And in that not so black market, Felix discovers he has a way to make his power useful after all, and grasps a hold of his chance with both hands.
Content warning: This novel contains graphic violence, undefined relationships/partial harem (fade to black), unconventional opinions/beliefs, and a hero who is as tactful as a dog at a cat show. Read at your own risk.

​The last one for me is a book that I wasn’t sure of after seeing the movie. I was assured and was not disappointed the audiobook of ready player one. If you have seen the movie (or even if you haven't) this is quite a ride. Many artistic liberties were taken with the movie, but the real meat of the whole story seemed to be taken out. I highly suggest going back and listening or reading this book. Especially if you like dungeons and dragons, board games, video games, the 1980s or anything my parents aren’t particularly fond of. 

Ready player one by Ernest Cline
 
Living in a fractured home in a dystopian future isn’t that tough, especially if you have a super awesome virtual reality to lose yourself in every day. Wade was one of the last holdouts of Gunters, one of the Easter egg hunters. Many promises were made to the person that could find all the eggs upon the creator’s death, but it has been five years and no person has even had an idea of how to find any of the eggs. Follow wade as he uses useless 1980s trivia knowledge and l33t nerd skills to find the eggs and leave his sorry life behind. Love and conflict will both be found. By the way, way more licensed properties were used in the book than the movie, making it by far the better media for obscure references.
Content warning: violence and language throughout. Twitterpated relationships only, nerd refrences for the most advanced geeks possible.

   Bonus points, if you want to see any of the games mentioned in ready player one, come ask me on game day, I can pull most of them up for you to play :D
-James

Missy

For anyone not quite ready to let go of the creepy, scary, monsters, and magic of Halloween just yet I have a few books that can help you hang on to it for a little while longer.  

The Girl with all the Gifts by M. R. Carey

This book is a really unique read. It’s fast paced and thrilling, following first a girl named Melanie and the rest of really interesting group of characters living on a military base after a big fungal infection wipes out a lot of the population. The blurb on the back is what caught me and it did not disappoint.

“Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.”

The Collection by Bentley Little

This book is a collection of short stories that will really fill the creepy and scary want. I originally read this one years ago and it was still the first one I thought of when I started looking for stories for this blog.
*Some of the short stories can be disturbing, containing violence, assault, and graphic descriptions.   

The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant by Drew Hayes.

They don’t all have to be scary to fit into the theme and Fred the Vampire Accountant is really not scary but it is funny and filled with the supernatural. I listened to the audiobook on Hoopla and loved it. Fred was an uninteresting guy and found himself supremely disappointed when that didn’t change after he turned into a vampire. The book is written almost like a diary and goes through a series or adventures that Fred gets roped into by his growing collection of friends, starting with his high school reunion.  

Hocus Pocus & the All New Sequel by A.W Jantha

I had to mention this one. Hocus Pocus is a movie I’ve watched every year for Halloween. This is a two-part novel that starts with a retelling of the original movie and continues on to a sequel twenty five years later with Max and Allison’s daughter Poppy and her own encounter with the Sanderson Sisters.

Elsewhere by William Blatty

I found a nice haunted house book to round out the list. The story follows Joan Freeboard a tough, New York, real estate agent that is set to sell a mansion for giant commission. The fact that it’s haunted is just another step in the process. She gets herself a plan and a ghost busting team. This book was a fun read with fast pace.

Thanks for the read!
​Crystal

Josh

For this month, with summer reading going on, I thought I’d recommend some bingo picks. Now, even though I have a specific bingo in mind, that doesn’t mean some books can’t be mixed and matched. A few, if not all of the books can fit into multiple categories. Also, I am a big believer in the story being the thing that counts, so even though the bingo is on the adult reading log, the books are a mix of juvenile, young adult, and adult fiction. 

Friends with Boys by Faith Erin Hicks
​
Friends with Boys is a graphic novel about a girl named Maggie who is not only just starting high school, but is also going to public school for the first time. She has only ever been home schooled before. Her only classmates were her brothers. Now she is thrust into a world she doesn’t know how to navigate and is struggling to deal with her brothers having friends and activities that don’t include her. It is a nice coming of age story with budding friendships, the perils of fitting in, and even ghosts. The artwork is really detailed and done well enough that I don’t miss the inner monologue and descriptions that you would find in other novels. 

Other graphic novels you may consider are...

Playing For Pizza by John Grisham
​
            Okay, so this one was the square I was least looking forward to. Sports fiction is not usually my go-to genre, the bingo is definitely doing its job in making me branch out with this one. Playing for Pizza was a surprise. It was really interesting and it draws you in quickly. The character Rick Dockery is a third string quarterback (That’s right, I now know what a quarterback is!) who is in the hospital after what could be considered the single worst performance in NFL history. He took an almost guaranteed win and trip to the super bowl and destroyed it. He is cut from the team and no one else will take his agent's calls, let alone let him near their team. He is getting death threats and his agent is telling him to call it quits, but he won’t. He refuses to give up on his painful career and takes his only offer. He goes to Parma, Italy to play for the Panthers. Playing for Pizza is a light read filled with food and humor.  

Other sports fiction you might consider are...

​The Kept Woman by Karin Slaughter
       The Kept Woman is a really intense read. It is a detective mystery with a few twists and turns that surprised and made it a new favorite of mine. I quickly got caught up in the characters with all their problems surrounding the case and their relationships. The Kept Woman follows GBI's investigator Will Trent while he investigates the murder of an ex-cop and the secrets that surround it. The Kept Woman is actually the eighth in a series that follows Will Trent, but it can be read alone. I started with The Kept Woman and liked it so much that I went back and read the rest.
This book has violence, swearing, and abuse. So be careful. It is a darker book than I usually recommend, but if you don’t mind that, it really is worth it. 

Other Mystery you might consider are...

​The Good Guy by Dean Koontz
            The Good Guy is about a stone mason Timothy Carrier who is at the bar with friends after work when a nervous man sits beside him. He is passed an envelope filled with cash and picture. “Ten thousand now. You get the rest when she’s gone.” So he has a choice, ignore it or help the woman in the photo. With the title “The Good Guy” you can guess what he chose. The problem is the man who was actually hired for the job doesn’t give up that easily, and he does not appreciate someone interfering in his work.
The Good Guy has some creepy, twisted, and violent bits when you’re in the point of view of the killer, but it is a mostly clean read.  

​Other suspense novels you might consider are...

​Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
Ella Enchanted is one of my all-time favorite books and if you have only seen the movie you are missing out. The movie isn’t a bad movie by itself. However, it, like most movies, only scratches the surface of the book, and takes a few too many artistic licenses. The movie is fine and flashy and all that, but the book is so much better. Ella Enchanted, if you haven’t heard of it, is a story about a girl who was given the gift of obedience from a fairy named Lucinda. She has to do whatever she is told to do. When her mother dies and her father remarries Ella is put in a really difficult situation, because her step-mother and step-sisters don’t know about the curse. That doesn’t stop them from using her uncanny obedience though. So at first chance Ella sets out on a quest to find Lucinda the fairy and have her undo the curse.

Other Books Made Into A Movie You Might Consider Are...

If you want more suggestions for a different bingo square let me know, and I’ll get back to you! 
Crystal

Romance is one of my favorite genres and I just wanted to share a few of my top picks.

I’ve Got Your Number By Sophie Kinsella
            I picked up I’ve got your Number By Sophie Kinsella as part of a dare I set for myself on a reading slump. I needed new books to read so I decided to go the thrift store and pick out a few books at random, without reading the back, the plainer they looked the better. The copy of I’ve Got Your Number I found was a hardback without its dust jacket. All I had to go on was the title on a black background (I didn’t have high hopes). When I started reading it I was pleasantly surprised. I loved it. I read it nonstop cover to cover and laughed all the way through. It is a funny story about a woman named Poppy that starts with desperate measures. Poppy’s phone is stolen and her engagement ring is lost. When she finds a phone in the trash can she figures finders keepers she can leave a number for the hotel to call her on when they find her ring, its perfect! Well the phones owner kind of disagrees… What comes after is a funny and surprising string of events. I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to anyone who likes a lot of humor with their stories.

​At Any Price By Brenna Aubrey
            At Any Price is a book I found on one of those free ebook sites. Now if you get a lot of the free romance ebooks you’ll know to read them with a bit of acceptance. A lot of the free ebook romances you find can be a little slapdash and even disappointing in some cases. At Any Price is a brilliant exception to this trend. It is a trilogy about a woman named Mia and her manifesto. Mia has decided that woman’s virginities have been valued and used by men to gain money or influence throughout history and it is high time women have gotten something out of it. She decides to sell her virginity to the highest (thoroughly screened) bidder. She ignores her friend’s protests and when all the bids are in she could have enough to save her mother’s ranch and finish out her schooling. The problem is the winner’s reluctance to claim his prize. The book sounds like it could be a same old same old sort of story but Brenna Aubrey turned a romance trope of a down on her luck girl into an emotional rollercoaster series that is a must read. The first one was a free ebook because they know that after you read the first book you’re hooked. I not only got the other two in ebook, but I ordered them in print for my own collection, and to borrow out.

​The Obsession By Nora Roberts
I have always been a fan of Nora Roberts because of her wide range of topics. She can go from futuristic mystery to fantasy with witches, immortals, and mermaids, and most that’s in-between. The Obsession is one of my favorites of Nora Roberts’s vast collection because it is great at flirting with the line between romance and suspense. This was the first of her books that had a little bit of a Dean Koontz kind of vibe. Now don’t get me wrong, it is a romance book, but when you’re in the perspective of the killer it really is up there with bad guy factor. The Obsession follows a Girl named Naomi from when she is a little girl trying to outrun her daddy’s reputation, to when she grows up, now a successful photographer, and finds a place to settle down in Sunrise Cove. She finds friends and a love interest in Xander Keaten but her past and the sins of her father are never more than a nightmare away… 

​Charming the Prince by Teresa Medeiros
            Charming the prince is a great historical romance and fairytale retelling of Cinderella. Lord Bannor is the pride of the English and the Terror of the French until the war ends and he finds himself overrun with a dozen children he doesn’t know how to deal with let alone raise. It is a war he can’t win alone. He sends out his steward the find them a mother and him a bride. He wants a mother for his children and has no interest in the bride herself, until Lady Willow shows up. He never expected she would join forces with his mischievous kids.
The story is filled with humor and hijinks, and is a must read for anyone who likes a good historical romance.

Jake By Leigh Greenwood
            Jake is another historical romance but this one is a western. Jake is a rancher who just came back from the civil war to find his family ranch in shambles. Isabelle is taking a wagon-load of orphan boys to Santa Fe to try and get them adopted. They pair up. Jake is a help and a protection on their travels and the boys help him in driving his cattle to market. You end up getting to know all the characters and really root for them.
Jake can be read as a standalone but it is the first in the series that has a book for each of the boys. 

Crystal

Bill Hodges Trilogy by Stephen King
​
This series of books is not typical for Stephen King and he calls it his “first hard-boiled detective book”.  Each book starts out very much like the opening scenes in many of Stephen King's books with the reader coming to sympathize with the characters. Then the carnage starts. The main character, Bill Hodges, is a very hardy type and finds purpose with solving the crimes committed by Mr. Mercedes, so named from the opening scene. He comes into contact with some very unconventional people that come together to form an unlikely group to chase a criminal. The suspense abounds as the series continues in Finders Keepers, the second book.  Bill is back with Holly and a few others to continue crime fighting with a new detective agency of the same name. The crime to be solved this time is any book lovers nightmare, an author’s retirement and murder before he published the last two installations in a series of books called the Runner Trilogy. Also well known, is that the missing notebooks are still out there. Suspense builds as the events slip into the unnatural that we have come to love from Stephen King. He must have a touch of mythical added in there! The third novel finds Bill not as well as we hope, but he continues to impress as his drive keeps him on the path to find out what is behind the series of suicides happening around a familiar character, Mr. Mercedes. How will it all end?
*As with all Stephen King books, especially these dealing with crime can be graphic, violent, disturbing, and of course scary!

This book is about a pediatrician whose wife was killed over a decade prior. One day, he receives a message which causes him to question whether or not his wife is really dead. This message spurs him on a search to discover the truth. With a bit of romance thrown in, this is an enjoyable book even for someone who doesn't read mysteries often. Though this is adult fiction, it is not explicit.

This dark and edgy mystery series are thrillers set in England. Would you kill someone to save yourself?...

-Various Staff Members

   With all of the books that are available I can never seem to find enough time to read, which is why I love audiobooks. Suddenly boring tasks like driving, cleaning, and getting ready in the morning become prime listening time and a way to sneak in those extra must read books. The library makes it super easy to access audiobooks as well by offering them through several formats. With your library card, you can access a wide selection of books on cd in both non-fiction and fiction titles. Also available are the Cloud Library and RB Digital apps. Hoopla is also a fantastic app, but is only available if you are a district resident (not a Pocatello resident, sorry!)

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
    If you or the child in your life have ever listened to the audiobook editions of Harry Potter than you are already familiar with the wonder narrations of Jim Dale. The Night Circus is a wonderfully magical tale about a duel of destiny between two magicians who are bound to battle until the complexity of human emotion ruins the game. Throughout all of the varied characters in the world of The Night Circus, Dale makes it easy to forget that you are listening to one solo narrator which, in my opinion, makes this the best kind of audiobook. 

Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari
    I loved watching Aziz Ansari as Tom on Parks and Recreation but I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I saw that he had written a book about love in modern times. This is definitely a book that benefits from being read by its author because throughout his observations on love and life, Ansari mixes in funny personal anecdotes as well as ridiculous voices, and special call outs to listeners. I really enjoyed this book because while many celebrities these days are writing books about love, Ansari actually collaborated with social scientists to take the recurring incidents from his show and see how they fit into a wider picture of love in the twenty-first century. Because this book does talk about love, there is some sexual content listeners should be aware of.

Beartown by Fredrik Backman (Cloud Library)
   Fredrik Backman, the author of library favorites such as A Man Called Ove and My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry is back with Beartown, a moving story of a town that’s all about hockey until a tragic incident forces the residents to look off the rink and inside themselves. If you’ve ever watched Friday Night Lights, then you will be familiar with the setting of a blue collar town that lives for sports, but with a narrative that doesn’t revolve around them exclusively. When I began Beartown, I almost stopped listening because I know nothing about hockey. I was glad that I didn’t however, because Beartown is actually a story about the things in life that keep us going; family, friends, and those special passions that make life worth living. Because of the inclusion of rowdy teenage boys and the nature of the town tradgedy, there is langauge and sexual content throughout this book. Beartown can be found on the Cloud Library app.

​The Night She Won Miss America by Michael Callahan
    On the surface, The Night She Won Miss America might look like your usual chick lit read, but it quickly becomes a suspenseful drama instead. Suspense stories are usually not my cup of tea but the historical and romance novel elements of this one really piqued my interest and made it so I couldn’t stop listening. This audiobook would be a good car trip listen. The Night She Won Miss America does have some adult content. This audiobook can be downloaded from the Hoopla app if you are a district resident.

​The Devil in the White City by Erik  Larson
    When you first look at this book it looks like historical fiction about the worlds fair, but the interwoven true crime narrative brings in a thriller element which kept me listening.
      This book is great for those who are reluctant about true crime and non-fiction! This book unfolds more like a simmering thriller than non-fiction and the historical elements make it a good transition into the true crime genre. Plus, you can get ahead of the game by listening before the movie adaptation with Leonardo Dicaprio is made!

Megan O.