Staff Picks
I Like My Characters Quirky
- Kristin A.
- Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Collection
Do you prefer interesting, unique characters? Check out this curated list of quirky, likeable, and relateable characters. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll want to read them over and over. Not finding what you are looking for? Ask your local librarian for even more suggestions!
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
A Novel
Published in 2015
"From the author of the internationally bestselling A Man Called Ove, a charming, warmhearted novel about a young girl whose grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters, sending her on a journey that brings to life the world of her grandmother's fairy tales"-- Provided by publisher.
The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend
Published in 2016
"Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara, who traveled all the way from Sweden just to meet her pen pal, Amy. When she arrives, however, she finds that Amy's funeral has just ended. Luckily, the townspeople are happy to look after their bewildered tourist--even if they don't understand her peculiar need for books. Marooned in a farm town that's almost beyond repair, Sara starts a bookstore in honor of her friend's memory. All she wants is to share the books she loves with the citizens of Broken Wheel and to convince them that reading is one of the great joys of life. But she makes some unconventional choices that could force a lot of secrets into the open and change things for everyone in town. Reminiscent of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, this is a warm, witty book about friendship, stories, and love"-- Provided by publisher.
The Flood Girls
A Novel
Published in 2016
"Welcome to Quinn, Montana, population: 956. A town where nearly all of the volunteer firemen are named Jim, where The Dirty Shame--the only bar in town--refuses to serve mixed drinks (too much work), where the locals hate the newcomers (then again, they hate the locals, too), and where the town softball team has never even come close to having a winning season. Until now. Rachel Flood has snuck back into town after leaving behind a trail of chaos nine years prior. She's here to make amends, but nobody wants to hear it, especially her mother Laverna. But with the help of a local boy named Jake and a little soul-searching, she just might make things right"--Amazon.com.
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
A Novel
Published in 2017
""Move over, Ove (in Fredrik Backman's A Man Called Ove)--there's a new curmudgeon to love."--Booklist (starred review). "Eleanor Oliphant is a truly original literary creation: funny, touching, and unpredictable. Her journey out of dark shadows is absolutely gripping."--Jojo Moyes, #1New York Times bestselling author of Me Before You. "Deft, compassionate and deeply moving -- Honeyman's debut will have you rooting for Eleanor with every turning page." -- Paula McClain, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Wife and Circling the Sun. No one's ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine. Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond's big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one. Smart, warm, uplifting, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is the story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes, The only way to survive is to open your heart"-- Provided by publisher.
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper
Published in 2017
Sixty-nine-year-old Arthur Pepper gets out of bed at precisely 7:30 a.m., just as he did when his wife, Miriam, was alive. He dresses in the same gray slacks and mustard sweater-vest, waters his fern Frederica, and heads out to his garden. But on the one-year anniversary of Miriam's death, Arthur finds an exquisite gold charm bracelet he's never seen before among Miriam's possessions. He embarks on an odyssey to find out the truth about his wife's life before they met. It takes him from London to Paris and India, on a journey that leads him to find hope, healing, and self-discovery in the most unexpected places.
The Library of Lost and Found
Published in 2019
A shy librarian whose kind heart is often exploited receives a mysterious book of fairy tales from the beloved grandmother she believed dead and embarks on a perspective-changing journey of astonishing family secrets.
Where'd You Go, Bernadette
Published in 2012
Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom. Then Bernadette disappears.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Published in 2008
As London is emerging from the shadow of World War II, writer Juliet Ashton discovers her next subject in a book club on Guernsey--a club born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi after its members are discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island.
The Rosie Project
A Novel
Published in 2013
Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a "wonderful" husband, his first reaction is shock. Yet he must concede to the statistical probability that there is someone for everyone, and he embarks upon The Wife Project. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which he approaches all things, Don sets out to find the perfect partner. He sets up a project designed to find him the perfect wife, starting with a questionnaire that has to be adjusted a little as he goes along. She will be punctual and logical, most definitely not a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver. Then he meets Rosie Jarman, who is everything he's not looking for in a wife. Rosie is all these things. She is also beguiling, fiery, intelligent, and on a quest of her own. She is looking for her biological father, a search that a certain DNA expert might be able to help her with. Don's Wife Project takes a back burner to the Father Project and an unlikely relationship blooms, forcing the scientifically minded geneticist to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie, and the realization that love is not always what looks good on paper.
Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore
Published in 2012
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.
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill
Published in 2019
"Abbi Waxman is both irreverent and thoughtful."—#1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Giffin The author of Other People's Houses and The Garden of Small Beginnings delivers a quirky and charming novel chronicling the life of confirmed introvert Nina Hill as she does her best to fly under everyone's radar. Meet Nina Hill: A young woman supremely confident in her own...shell. The only child of a single mother, Nina has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner and a cat named Phil. If she sometimes suspects there might be more to life than reading, she just shrugs and picks up a new book. When the father Nina never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews, Nina is horrified. They all live close by! They're all—or mostly all—excited to meet her! She'll have to Speak. To. Strangers. It's a disaster! And as if that wasn't enough, Tom, her trivia nemesis, has turned out to be cute, funny, and deeply interested in getting to know her. Doesn't he realize what a terrible idea that is? Nina considers her options. 1. Completely change her name and appearance. (Too drastic, plus she likes her hair.) 2. Flee to a deserted island. (Hard pass, see: coffee). 3. Hide in a corner of her apartment and rock back and forth. (Already doing it.) It's time for Nina to come out of her comfortable shell, but she isn't convinced real life could ever live up to fiction. It's going to take a brand new family, a persistent suitor, and the combined effects of ice cream and trivia to make her turn her own fresh page.
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
A Novel
Published in 2014
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.