Staff Picks
LibraryReads for January 2024
- Sarah C.
- Saturday, December 16, 2023
Collection
Each month, LibraryReads lists the top upcoming titles recommended by librarians across the country. All these books will be published in January 2024, so stay ahead of the curve and get on the holds list now!
Who Owns This Sentence?
A History of Copyrights and Wrongs
Published in 2024
"Copyright is everywhere. Your smartphone incorporates thousands of items of intellectual property. Someone owns the reproduction rights to photographs of your dining table. At this very moment, battles are raging over copyright in the output of artificial intelligence programs. Not only books but wallpaper, computer programs, pop songs, cartoon characters, snapshots, and cuddly toys are now deemed to be intellectual properties--making copyright a labyrinthine construction of laws with colorful and often baffling rationales covering almost all products of human creativity. It wasn't always so. Copyright has its roots in eighteenth-century London, where it was first established to limit printers' control of books. But a handful of little-noticed changes in the late twentieth century brought about a new enclosure of the cultural commons, concentrating ownership of immaterial goods in very few hands. Copyright's metastasis can't be understood without knowing its backstory, a long tangle of high ideals, low greed, opportunism, and word-mangling that allowed poems and novels (and now, even ringtones and databases) to be treated as if they were no different from farms and houses. Principled arguments against copyright arose from the start and nearly abolished it in the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, countless revisions have made copyright ever stronger"-- Provided by publisher.
The Busy Body
A Novel
Published in 2024
"It's a dream assignment. Former Senator Dorothy Gibson, aka that woman, is the most talked-about person in the country right now, though largely for the wrong reasons. As an independent candidate for President of the United States, Dorothy split the vote and is being blamed for the shocking result. After her very public defeat, she's retreated to her home in rural Maine, inviting her ghostwriter to join her. Her collaborator is impressed by Dorothy's work ethic and steel-trap mind, not to mention the stunning surroundings (and one particularly gorgeous bodyguard). But when a neighbor dies under suspicious circumstances, Dorothy is determined to find the killer in their midst. And when Dorothy Gibson asks if you want to team up for a top secret, possibly dangerous murder investigation, the only answer is: 'Of course!' The best ghostwriters are adept at asking questions and spinning stories two talents, it turns out, that also come in handy for sleuths. Dorothy's political career, meanwhile, has made her an expert at recognizing lies and double-dealing. Working together, the two women are soon untangling motives and whittling down suspects, to the exasperation of local police. But this investigation--much like the election--may not unfold the way anyone expects"-- Provided by publisher.
First Lie Wins
A Novel
Published in 2024
"Evie Porter has everything a nice, Southern girl could want: a perfect, doting boyfriend, a house with a white picket fence and a garden, a fancy group of friends. The only catch: Evie Porter doesn't exist. The identity comes first: Evie Porter. Once she's given a name and location by her mysterious boss Mr. Smith, she learns everything there is to know about the town and the people in it. Then the mark: Ryan Sumner. The last piece of the puzzle is the job. Evie isn't privy to Mr. Smith's real identity, but she knows this job will be different. Ryan has gotten under her skin, and she's starting to envision a different sort of life for herself. But Evie can't make any mistakes--especially after what happened last time. Because the one thing she's worked her entire life to keep clean, the one identity she could always go back to-her real identity-just walked right into this town. Evie Porter must stay one step ahead of her past while making sure there's still a future in front of her. The stakes couldn't be higher--but then, Evie has always liked a challenge.."-- Provided by publisher.
Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands
A Novel
Published in 2024
"When mysterious faeries from other realms appear at her university, curmudgeonly professor Emily Wilde must uncover their secrets before it's too late in this second installment of the Emily Wilde series"-- Provided by publisher.
Family Family
A Novel
Published in 2024
"India Allwood grew up wanting to be an actress. Armed with a stack of index cards and a hell of a lot of talent, she goes from awkward 16-year-old to Broadway ingenue to tv star. But while promoting her most recent project, a film about adoption, India does what you should never do - she tells a journalist the truth: it's a bad movie. Like so many movies about adoption, it tells only one story, a tragic one. But India's an adoptive mom herself and knows there's so much more to her family than tragedy. Soon she's at the center of a media storm, battling accusations from the press and the paparazzi, from protesters on the right and advocates on the left. Her daughter Fig knows they need help - and who better to call for help than family? Because India's not just an adoptive mom. She also had a baby she gave up for adoption her senior year of high school. That baby is now sixteen, excited to meet her birth mother and eager to help, but she also has an agenda and secrets of her own. It turns out what makes a family isn't blood and it isn't love because no matter how they're formed, the hallmark of true family is this: it's complicated"-- Provided by publisher.
Diva
Published in 2024
"New York Times bestselling author Daisy Goodwin returns with a story of the scandalous love affair between the most celebrated opera singer of all time and one of the richest men in the world. In the glittering and ruthlessly competitive world of opera, Maria Callas was known simply as la divina: the divine one. With her glorious voice, instinctive flair for the dramatic and striking beauty, she was the toast of the grandest opera houses in the world. But her fame was hard won: raised in Nazi-occupied Greece by a mother who mercilessly exploited her golden voice, she learned early in life to protect herself from those who would use her for their own ends. When she met the fabulously rich Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, for the first time in her life, she believed she'd found someone who saw the woman within the legendary soprano. She fell desperately in love. He introduced her to a life of unbelievable luxury, showering her with jewels and sojourns in the most fashionable international watering holes with celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. And then suddenly, it was over. The international press announced that Aristotle Onassis would marry the most famous woman in the world, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, leaving Maria to pick up the pieces. In this remarkable novel, Daisy Goodwin brings to life a woman whose extraordinary talent, unremitting drive and natural chic made her a legend. But it was only in confronting the heartbreak of losing the man she loved that Maria Callas found her true voice and went on to triumph"-- Provided by publisher.
The Heiress
A Novel
Published in 2024
"When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she's not only North Carolina's richest woman, she's also its most notorious. The victim of a famous kidnapping as a child and a widow four times over, Ruby ruled the tiny town of Tavistock from Ashby House, her family's estate high in the Blue Ridge mountains. In the aftermath of her death, that estate--along with a nine-figure fortune and the complicated legacy of being a McTavish--pass to her adopted son, Camden. But to everyone's surprise, Cam wants little to do with the house or the money--and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes. Instead, he rejects his inheritance, settling into a normal life as an English teacher in Colorado and marrying Jules, a woman just as eager to escape her own messy past. Ten years later, Camden is a McTavish in name only, but a summons in the wake of his uncle's death brings him and Jules back into the family fold at Ashby House. Its views are just as stunning as ever, its rooms just as elegant, but coming home reminds Cam why he was so quick to leave in the first place. Jules, however, has other ideas, and the more she learns about Cam's estranged family--and the twisted secrets they keep--the more determined she is for her husband to claim everything Ruby once intended for him to have. But Ruby's plans were always more complicated than they appeared. As Ashby House tightens its grip on Jules and Camden, questions about the infamous heiress come to light. Was there any truth to the persistent rumors following her disappearance as a girl? What really happened to those four husbands, who all died under mysterious circumstances? And why did she adopt Cam in the first place? Soon, Jules and Cam realize that an inheritance can entail far more than what's written in a will--and that the bonds of family stretch far beyond the grave"-- Provided by publisher.
The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years
Published in 2024
"Rebecca meets Fatima Farheen Mirza in this sweeping, gorgeously atmospheric novel about a ruined mansion by the sea, and a young girl who unearths the true story of the tragedy that happened there a hundred years ago Akbar Manzil was once a grand estate off the coast of South Africa. Now, nearly a century since it was built, it stands in ruins-a boardinghouse for misfits, where people come to forget or be forgotten. Seeking a new home after a painful tragedy, Sana and her effusive father are Akbar Manzil's newest residents. There they find a community of eccentrics, each suffering their own losses and likewise searching for something-escape, solace, absolution. As Sana becomes increasingly entwined in their stories, she finds herself irresistibly drawn to the history of the mansion itself: to the overgrown garden and its strange assortment of bones; to the eerie and forgotten East Wing, home to a clutter of broken and abandoned objects; and to a dusty old bedroom, unopened for decades, where she finds faded photographs of Akbar Manzil's first residents and a worn diary with entries she cannot translate. As she explores the mansion's whispering corners, she dredges up its longest resident: a djinn, the only remnant of Akbar Manzil's dark past. With its help, she discovers the story of a young woman named Meena from a hundred years prior, the original owner's second wife, who lived in the East Wing at the height of Akbar Manzil's glory, whose tragic fate is the house's ultimate secret-and whose story is the answer that Sana had been searching for all along. Sublime, heart-wrenching, and lyrically stunning-with a cast of characters that will have you crying from both laughter and sorrow-Paper Flowers is a haunting, a love story, and a mystery, all twined beautifully into one young girl's search for belonging"-- Provided by publisher.
Mislaid in Parts Half-known
Published in 2024
When Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children's mean girl discovers her talent for finding absolutely anything, new student Antsy searches for a way back to the Shop Where Lost Things Go to be sure Vineta and Hudson are keeping their promise.
The Fury
Published in 2024
Spending Easter with Lana Farrar, a reclusive ex-movie star and one of the most famous women in the world, on her idyllic private Greek island, her guests, concealing hatred and desire for revenge, become trapped when the night ends in violence and murder.
The Clinic
A Novel
Published in 2024
"Meg works for a casino in LA, catching cheaters and popping a few too many pain pills to cope, following a far different path than her sister Haley, a famous actress. But suddenly reports surface of Haley dying at the remote rehab facility where she had been forced to go to get her addictions under control. There are whispers of suicide, but Meg can't believe it. She decides that the best way to find out what happened to her sister is to check in herself - to investigate what really happened from the inside. Battling her own addictions and figuring out the truth will be much more difficult than she imagined, far away from friends, family - and anyone who could help her"-- Provided by publisher.
Come and Get It
A Novel
Published in 2024
"It's 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie Cousins, a senior resident assistant, wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity, she jumps at the chance. But Millie's starry-eyed hustle becomes jeopardized by odd new friends, vengeful dorm pranks, and illicit intrigue."-- Provided by publisher.
Midnight Ruin
Published in 2024
"A scorchingly hot modern retelling of Eurydice and Orpheus and Charon. Eurydice Dimitriou has always been the innocent sister, but she's finally ready to step out of the long shadow cast by her powerful family...and the ex who shattered her heart. Perhaps rough hands on soft skin are exactly what she needs to forget her heartbreak once and for all? Charon Ariti has been Hades's right-hand man for years. He's given everything to the lower city, but now he's ready to take something for himself. He's only too happy to give Eurydice a special kind of education...but is her heart really free enough to be claimed? Orpheus Makos will do whatever it takes to make things right. Once the golden boy of the upper city, he's now a shadow of his former self. He'll do anything to get Eurydice back...even if it means she's not coming into his arms alone. Three hearts. Three futures. Countless ways to get it wrong. But with enemies slipping through Olympus's faltering barrier to lay siege on the lower city, a trio of broken hearts will be the least of these would-be lovers' worries..."-- Provided by publisher.
Everyone on This Train is a Suspect
A Novel
Published in 2024
"On a famous Australian train between Darwin and Adelaide for the Mystery Writers' Society one of the attendees is murdered for real in the new mystery from the author of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone"-- Provided by publisher.
Twenty-seven Minutes
A Novel
Published in 2024
"In this stunning and propulsive debut, a town grieves the loss of a young girl-but some fight to keep the truth about her death a secret. For fans of Jane Harper, Ashley Flowers, and Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. The question For the last ten years, the small, claustrophobic town of West Wilmer has been struggling to understand one thing: Why did it take young Grant Dean twenty-seven minutes to call for help on the fateful night of the car accident that took the life of his beloved sister, Phoebe? If he'd called sooner, she might still be alive. The secret As the anniversary of Phoebe's death approaches, Grant is consumed by memories of that night on the bridge and everything he lost: his future, his reputation, his little sister. And the secret he's been keeping all these years is suffocating him. But he and Phoebe weren't the only ones in the car that night. Becca was there. She knows what happened-and she will do anything to help Grant keep his secret. The truth Everyone in West Wilmer remembers Phoebe, but only June remembers that another person was lost that night. Her brother Wyatt has been missing for ten years and now June is alone-no family, no friends. Until someone appears at her door. Someone who may know where Wyatt went all those years ago. Someone who knows what really happened on the bridge that night. Someone who is ready to tell the truth. Taking place over three days and culminating in a shocking twist that will leave you breathless, Twenty-Seven Minutes is a gripping story about what happens when grief becomes unbearable, dark secrets are unearthed, and the horrifying truth is revealed"-- Provided by publisher.
Only if You're Lucky
A Novel
Published in 2024
"A sharp and twisty exploration of female friendship from the New York Times bestselling author of A Flicker in the Dark and All the Dangerous Things. Lucy Sharpe is larger than life. Magnetic, addictive. Bold and dangerous. Especially for Margot, who meets Lucy at the end of their freshman year at a liberal arts college in South Carolina. Margot is the shy one, the careful one, always the sidekick and never the center of attention. But when Lucy singles her out at the end of the year, a year Margot spent studying and playing it safe, and asks her to room together, something in Margot can't say no--something daring, or starved, or maybe even envious. And so Margot finds herself living in an off-campus house with three other girls, Lucy, the ringleader; Sloane, the sarcastic one; and Nicole, the nice one, the three of them opposites but also deeply intertwined. It's a year that finds Margot finally coming out of the shell she's been in since the end of high school, when her best friend Eliza died three weeks after graduation. Margot and Lucy have become the closest of friends, but by the middle of their sophomore year, one of the fraternity boys from the house next door has been brutally murdered... and Lucy Sharpe is missing without a trace. From the author of A Flicker in the Dark and All the Dangerous Things comes a tantalizing thriller about the nature of friendship and belonging, about loyalty, envy, and betrayal--another gripping novel from an author quickly becoming the gold standard in psychological suspense"-- Provided by publisher.
All Rhodes Lead Here
Published in 2021
Losing people you love is hard. Aurora De La Torre knows moving back to a place that was once home isn't going to be easy. Starting your whole life over probably isn't supposed to be. But a small town in the mountains might be the perfect remedy for a broken heart. Checking out her landlord across the driveway just might cure it too.-- Amazon.com