Not Sure What to Read? Be Thankful for Choices!

November is when the nights get longer, the weather starts to cool down, school semesters ramp up for the final stretch before winter break, and the holiday season truly starts. Fall weather, early sunsets, and some long weekends are all great motivations for settling down with a good book. Not sure what to read? The good news is that your library is always adding new titles from many genres aimed at a variety of reading interests. No matter what time of year it is, your local library is sure to have something new that’s right up your alley. Here’s a random sampling of newly added titles.

Fans of dystopian fiction should check out “Poster Girl” by Veronica Roth. While many dystopian novels concern a totalitarian future, “Poster Girl” takes the novel approach of looking at the world after the fall of a mysterious surveillance state run by a now-overthrown dictatorship. Roth’s novel is about the ugly discoveries one former employee of the old regime learns as she tries to earn her freedom.

If you prefer a sinister past to a dystopian future, Lev AC Rosen—an up-and-coming name in suspense fiction—has a new historical mystery out entitled “Lavender House.” Grounded in the real history of gay Americans in the early 1950s, this variation on the well-known trope of the old-money family with a dark secret behind their fortune will keep you turning pages as fast as you can read them.

Barbara Kingsolver is a well-known writer and her latest novel riffs on one of the greatest novels by an even more famous writer—Charles Dickens. Kingsolver’s latest, “Demon Copperhead,” recasts Dickens’ story of early Victorian urban-industrial poverty to modern-day rural Appalachia. It’s an audacious and bracing move, and she makes the most of it. Sharing Dickens’ genuine compassion for the poor and the socially forgotten, she’s written a great example of fiction as both social criticism and art.

Another highly-regarded author, John Irving, has a new novel out—and if you’re looking for a meaty book you can get lost in, Irving’s latest will do the trick. “The Last Chairlift” is around 900 pages and is stuffed with characters, side plots, narrative asides, moments of tenderness, and intermittent bursts of violence and death. In other words—it’s a John Irving novel. The author is in his 80s now and has stated this will be his last “long” novel. There’s a lot going on in this one, and longtime readers will be sure to welcome his first book in several years.

Those are just a few randomly sampled books that have recently been put on the shelves at Prince William Public Libraries. Come on in and find something for yourself!

Written by Kirk Johnson, Prince William Public Libraries Materials Services Division