@ Your Library
Books are marvelous, magical entries into other worlds and we believe they make some of the best gifts ever. Last week I talked about books to give to kids, today I’ll focus on books for adults.
With all that the year has thrown at us, Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year: A little book of festive joy by Beth Kempton is a marvelous book for helping your loved ones figure out the elements of Christmas (and life) most important and how to enjoy the winter months.
Ree Drummond, ‘the Pioneer Woman’ has written a memoir Frontier Follies: adventures in marriage and motherhood in the middle of nowhere for all cooking show fans. And there are always plenty of marvelous cookbooks to share including Five Marys Ranch Raised Cookbook by Mary Hefferman and Kim Laidlaw for homegrown recipes from our family to yours, Modern Comfort Food: a Barefoot Contessa Cookbook by Ina Garten and Time to Eat: Delicious meals for busy lives by Nadiya Hussain. The puzzler and cook will appreciate Hungry Games by Kate Heddings. This book provides ‘recipe repairs, word searches and crosswords for the food lover.’
Baseball fans will enjoy this story of baseball’s fastest pitcher and the forces that kept ultimate greatness just beyond reach in Dalko: the untold story of the world’s fastest pitcher by Bill Dembski, Alex Thomas and Brian Vikander.
Brad Meltzer is primarily known for his political thrillers. He treads new ground, maybe in The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time. The Rescuer by Jason Sautel and D.R. Jacobsen is ‘one firefighter’s story of courage, darkness and the relentless love that saved him.’
Nicholas Sparks has a new novel about the need to go back to where it began to move forward in The Return. Stories of redemption, love, veterans, healing and inheritances all combine in this bestselling author’s newest. David Baldacci is now three books into a series that began in 2018 with Long Road to Mercy, followed in 2019 with A Minute to Midnight with the latest Atlee Pine being Daylight. Sandra Brown another bestselling author, just released Thick as Thieves. This romantic suspence novel centers on a woman returning to the family home to get answers after the disappearance of her father years earlier. John Grisham returns to a character from his 1989 A Time to Kill in this year’s A Time for Mercy.
Books about books make great gifts and The Call Me Ishmael Phone-book: an interactive guide to life-changing books by Stephanie Kent and Logan Smalley began as a lark after they set up a phone number for people to call to leave voicemails about their favorite books. Ex-Libris: 100+ Books to Read and Reread by Michiko Kakutani, former chief book critic of the New York Times, provides a survey of important works and why they are significant.
Of course we always include a Christmas story and A Christmas Carol Murder by Heather Redmond is a Dickens of a Crime to include on this year’s list.