Staff Picks

Ever wonder where those odd socks wind up?  It’s a question that must have captured the imagination of Cecelia Ahern because her 2009 novel There’s No Place Like Here offers a fascinating explanation. 

In Ahern’s story the disappearance of a classmate triggers a lifelong obsession that causes Sandy Shortt to search for missing toys, socks, books, scarves and eventually people.  

When one of her investigations lands Sandy in a mysterious haven of missing persons and lost keys, gloves, unclaimed luggage, library cards, etc., it’s exactly what she’s always been looking for.    Her endless searching is finally justified — only now she’s the one who can’t find her way home. 

Stop looking for those lost sunglasses and checkout There’s No Place Like Here by Cecelia Ahern.

It’s the recently deceased who inhabit a surreal city of second chances and magical reunions in Kevin Brockmeier’s The Brief History of the Dead.  Spared from the complications that plague the living (for instance a deadly pandemic that quickly spreads across the globe), the dead spend their time in pursuit of unrealized dreams.   

Luka Sims produces a daily newspaper in the afterlife (I love his devotion to this task!) and the virus that swells his city’s population is front page news.  Graver concerns soon take precedent when individuals, families and entire neighborhoods start to vanish. Read all about it in The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier.

Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist