Readers' Advisory: ACPL 2021 Roundup

It is the story of Angola, a former plantation-turned-maximum-security prison in Louisiana that is filled with Black men who work across the 18,000-acre land for virtually no pay.

With the help of his misfit cousin Freddie, Carney deals in stolen jewelry on the side. After a crew of bandits raid the Hotel Theresa, Carney hopes his involvement does not lead to his own murder.

When their sons are murdered in a drive-by shooting, Ike Randolph and Buddy Lee team up to avenge their untimely death.

In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist.

Taste is a reflection on the intersection of food and life, filled with anecdotes about his growing up in Westchester, New York; preparing for and shooting the foodie films.

Somebody's Daughter steps into the world of growing up a poor Black girl in Indiana with a family fragmented by incarceration, exploring how isolating and complex such a childhood can be.

Patrick Radden Keefe tells the sweeping story of the rise and fall of an American dynasty, a family obsessed with emblazoning its name across museums and galleries all while largely obscuring any connection between its name and the drug that killed so many people.

“The Woman They Could Not Silence tells the captivating story of Elizabeth Packard, a forgotten heroine whose harrowing ordeal in an insane asylum seems straight from the mind of Stephen King—except every word is true.

Doudna, who grew up being told that women can't involve themselves with science, would become one of America's greatest thinkers and kindest genetic researchers.

As Fjerda's massive army prepares to invade, Nikolai Lantsov will summon every bit of his ingenuity and charm—and even the monster within—to win this fight.

Early on, Simon essentially abandons Penny and Baz because he finds it too painful to be around their magic, which reminds him too much of what he has lost.

Once upon a time, there was a boy with a wicked tongue. Before he was a cruel prince or a wicked king, he was a faerie child with a heart of stone .

The graphic novel combines ancient Greek mythology and ancient customs with a contemporary setting to create something brand new.

Dune, Frank Herbert's epic science-fiction masterpiece set in the far future amidst a sprawling feudal interstellar society, tells the story of Paul Atreides as he and his family accept control of the desert planet Arrakis.

Fifteen-year-old Morgan has a secret: She can't wait to escape the perfect little island where she lives. She's desperate to finish high school and escape her sad divorced mom, her volatile little brother, and worst of all, her great group of friends... who don't understand Morgan at all.

A wedding. A trip to Spain. The most infuriating man. And three days of pretending. Or in other words, a plan that will never work.

A forgotten history. A secret network of women. A legacy of poison and revenge. Welcome to The Lost Apothecary...

A tense, page-turning psychological drama about the making and breaking of a family--and a woman whose experience of motherhood is nothing at all what she hoped for--and everything she feared

This Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick is gripping mystery about a woman who thinks she's found the love of her life—until he disappears.

Grieving widow Mariana Andros' life is turned upside-down one evening when she receives a fateful call from her niece, Zoe, a student at Cambridge University.

Billy Summers is an ex-Marine sniper, now killer for hire, who only kills 'bad people'. He takes one last job which will be the biggest payday of his career and set him up for the rest of his life.

Set in the near future, the novel centers on junior high (middle) school-teacher-turned-astronaut Ryland Grace, who wakes up from a coma afflicted with amnesia.

Set in the U.S. in an unspecified future, the book is told from the point of view of Klara, a solar-powered AF (Artificial Friend), who is chosen by Josie, a sickly child, to be her companion.

At the height of the Jedi's Golden Age, a massive hyperspace disaster rocks the Outer Rim and exposes the Republic to a group of dangerous Marauders who want to spark a war with the Jedi.

The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green is a book of 44 short thought pieces on the wonders and dangers of human activity on Earth.

The Comfort Book explores how depression feels like and its effects on our mind and body, and how we can overcome it by taking small, but significant steps in that direction, starting with finding hope, being more present at the moment, and acknowledging that we're enough.

In this urgent book, Jane Goodall, the world's most famous living naturalist, and Douglas Abrams, the internationally bestselling co-author of The Book of Joy, explore through intimate and thought-provoking dialogue one of the most sought after and least understood elements of human nature: hope.

From the business ideas that she wants to pitch to Shark Tank to the reason why Jenny can never go back to the post office, Broken leaves nothing to the imagination in the most satisfying way.

Emmy Award-winner Leslie Jordan regales fans with entertaining stories about the odd, funny, and unforgettable events in his life in this unmissable essay collection that echoes his droll, irreverent voice.

In his new book, Nick takes a humorous, inspiring, and elucidating trip to America's trails, farms, and frontier to examine the people who inhabit the land, what that has meant to them and us, and to the land itself, both historically and currently.

Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold to look after her fragile mother.

The Inheritance Games ended with a bombshell, and now Avery has to pick up the pieces and find the man who might hold the answers to all of her questions – including why Tobias Hawthorne left his entire fortune to Avery, a virtual stranger, rather than to his own daughters or grandsons.

Chiamaka and Devon discover a secret society, going back decades, that allows two Black students to enroll in the school every 5 years, building them up the first few years, and then eventually making their lives miserable and forcing them to drop out and abandon their dreams.

Alice, Felix, Eileen, and Simon are still young--but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they get together, they break apart.

What happens when you mix 1 (accidental) murder with 2 thousand wedding guests, and then toss in a possible curse on 3 generations of an immigrant Chinese-Indonesian family? 

Cloud Cuckoo Land follows five characters whose stories, despite spanning nearly six centuries, are bound together by their mutual love for a single book.

Poppy and Alex are complete opposites. But miraculously, they're also best friends, and ever since college, they've taken an annual summer vacation together.

The Love Hypothesis centres on Olive Smith, a PhD student who is determined and headstrong. Then after a series of mishaps, she winds up fake dating the university's most hated professor.

The novel is about a woman named August Landry, a cynical pseudo detective, who finds love in a woman she meets on a subway named Jane Su, a punk Lesbian from the 1970s who has been misplaced in time and is trapped on the subway.

A Court of Silver Flames follows Nesta and Cassian as they deal with the blazing fire between them while they face their haunting pasts, battle monsters and find acceptance and healing in each other's arms, amidst battle and betrayal.

Bitter lawyer Wallace Price dies of a heart attack and is shocked to find that only five people are attending his funeral: his three partners at his law firm, his ex-wife, and a strange woman he's never seen before.

Poppy never dreamed she would find the love she's found with Prince Casteel. She wants to revel in her happiness but first they must free his brother and find hers.

Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she's been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together.

Born with an unnatural ability his mom urges him to keep secret, Jamie can see what no one else can see and learn what no one else can learn.

On the surface, it is a story of murder in small town America. But just beneath the surface lies biting social satire on Indigenous displacement and gentrification, as well as a heartbreaking portrait of a young girl who escapes the trauma of her life through slasher films.

Malibu Rising is a story about one unforgettable night in the life of a family: the night they each have to choose what they will keep from the people who made them . . . and what they will leave behind.

Fearful of the future, when Elsa wakes to find her husband has fled, she is forced to make the most agonizing decision of her life.

A female apothecary secretly dispenses poisons to liberate women from the men who have wronged them—setting three lives across centuries on a dangerous collision course.

After losing both of her parents on a scientific expedition, her older brother Dev is now the only family she has. Ready to prove herself, Ana and her class are off to a top-secret weekend trial at sea.

In a city of ghost tours and tombs, raucous music and all kinds of magic, Cass could get lost in all the colourful, grisly local legends. And the city's biggest surprise is a foe Cass never expected to face: a servant of Death itself.

A young Asian girl notices that her eyes look different from her peers. She realizes that her eyes are like her mother's, her grandmother's, and her little sister's. They have eyes that kiss in the corners and glow like warm tea, crinkle into crescent moons, and are filled with stories of the past and hope for the future.