Staff Pick

Whistling Past the Graveyard, by Susan Crandall takes place during the 1960's, a time of civil unrest. Starla, nine years old, is being raised by her grandmother, who has little patience for her, while her mother pursues a music career in Nashville and her father works offshore on an oil rig.  After an upsetting incident with her grandmother, Starla decides to run away to Nashville to live with her mother only to find herself in a whole new set of disturbing circumstances.  She learns very quickly that she is caught up in a dangerous, racially charged situation, but also learns some unexpected lessons about love.

Lynne Jackson
Information Specialist

Staff Pick

The Known World by Edward P. Jones


This book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2004. It is beautifully written, giving the reader the impression the author did extensive research, basing his novel on actual events. His fictional world becomes real as his imagination and story telling ability is truly magnificent. Set in the antebellum south, The Known World explores whites systematically owning black slaves, as well as the little known chapter in American history: freed blacks who themselves owned slaves.

Jill Wagner
Information Specialist

Staff Picks

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

reviewed by two staff members





In the spirit of The Secret Life of Bees, Kidd follows the story of a woman coming of age.  This time the subject is slavery and subsequently abolition, told through the experiences of Sarah Grimke.  What Kidd doesn't reveal until the Afterword is that Sarah and her sister were flesh and blood Southern elite, living in Charleston, SC.  Read the Afterword first and appreciate the historical context of the novel.

Vanessa Behler
Human Resources Representative


Sarah Grimke was an abolitionist, writer and feminist in the early 19th century. This fictional book was inspired by an important woman's life and the lives of the slaves her family owned in Charleston, South Carolina. "Handful" Grimke is given to Sarah as a gift on her 11th birthday to be her handmaid. Sarah and Handful develop a very complex relationship over 35 years, as they each try to find their place in the world. Even though this is a very intense subject, the book is a quick read and I enjoyed it.

Jill Wagner
Information Specialist

Book Sleuths Book Club

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino

I thoroughly enjoyed this translation of a best-selling Japanese novel. It's a murder mystery; however, the reader is made aware of the culprit by the end of chapter one.  The book's suspense derives from a battle of wits between the physics genius who is trying to help the police solve the mystery and the math genius who is trying to protect the woman he loves.  The suspense continues to mount as the math genius tries to outwit the physics and prevent him from unraveling the whole affair.

Amy Weiler
Cataloging Assistant

FCPL's Book Sleuths book club will discuss this intriguing story on Tuesday, June 24th at 2 at the Post Road Library.  Newcomers are welcome at all our our book clubs.  Please join us if you enjoy the book.

Coffee Talk Book Discussion - July

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett


If The Lost City of Z isn’t your cup of tea, Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder takes you on a slightly tamer ride into the Amazon.  The company, Vogel, is searching for a fertility drug in the Amazon.  While following up on the work, a researcher falls ill and word reaches his family that he passed away.  His co-worker travels to the Amazon to find out exactly what happened to him.  Although the researchers do encounter indigenous tribes, anaconda, and a plethora of insects, the story is much tamer than those following explorers through the jungle in search of lost cities of gold.  While at the same time, it shows how little the Amazon region has been tamed in all these years.  Come join us for Coffee Talk Book Discussion on Tuesday, July 8th at 1:30 p.m (no registration needed). Haven’t read the book yet?  There’s still time, or simply join us and gain insight into the story.

Joan Dudzinski

Collection Support Supervisor

Cumming Library

Staff Picks - Juvenile

The Fellowship for Alien Detection by Kevin Emerson


Greetings carbon-based units!  How are you spending your summer vacation?  Haley and Dodger have each received a two week grant from The Fellowship for Alien Detection to pursue research on mysterious and possibly extraterrestrial activity.  At first Haley is disappointed that she did not receive the Junior Correspondent Fellowship with the New York Daily Times, or the chance to attend the prestigious Thorny Mountain music camp, but when she experiences a Missing Time Field and joins forces with The Alto, she becomes determined to discover the aliens.  Haley later hooks up with Dodger - is he an alien? - and the two may just end  up spending their summer vacation saving the world!

Julie Boyd
Youth Services Supervisor
Cumming Library

Staff Picks - Teen

The Sinclair family of Massachusetts is a family of immense privilege; they have the looks, athleticism, and "old money" wealth. The novel is narrated by Cady Sinclair Eastman,  the oldest grandchild and young heiress who "summers” every year on Beechwood, the Sinclair's own private island off the coast of Cape Cod. Cady, along with two of her cousins and a friend whom Cady finds herself increasingly drawn to, call themselves Liars. Cady's memories can’t be trusted due to a head injury she suffers the summer she is fifteen. The real crux of the story is her piecing together those memories two years after the accident. The Sinclairs appear to lead a fairy tale life, but don’t be fooled. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart startles readers with an ending most won't see coming!

Beth Moore
Information Specialist

Staff Picks

The Hound of the Baskervilles
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Curtain
Agatha Christie






 And Then There Were None
 Agatha Christie

Murder on the Orient Express
Agatha Christie





This past winter, I found myself completely hooked on Masterpiece Mystery's hit television show Sherlock and after realizing that each episode was based on an original Sherlock Holmes story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I decided to revisit his classic mysteries by rereading The Hound of the Baskervilles. A family curse and an ancestral estate on the edge of the lonely and mysterious moor bring Sherlock and Dr. Watson to rural England to investigate the death of the most recent Baskerville who is found dead with the footprints of a giant hound near his body. Is there really a devil hound that haunts the family? Sherlock uses his amazing powers of deduction to find the source of the mystery and who is behind it. The story is full of atmosphere and anticipation. After reacquainting myself with the great Sherlock Holmes, I moved on to the detective stories of Hercule Poirot written by the most popular mystery writer of all time, Agatha Christie. I began with Curtain, which is Poirot’s very last case in which he solves a series of perplexing and subtly connected deaths that Poirot believes to be murder and all masterminded by one of the guests in a boarding house.  Then I indulged in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, an astonishing case involving the deaths of ten people mysteriously summoned to an island home. What do they have in common? Are they all guilty of something? Who is the orchestrator of this frightening experiment? This is one of my all-time favorite mysteries. Christie’s plots are so uniquely original; she was the master of the mystery genre. For another of her stories with a very surprising twist, try Murder on the Orient Express. The best part is that Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were prolific writers and left many stories featuring their clever detectives to keep us guessing for a good long while!

Holly Raus
Information Specialist - Youth Services

Staff Picks

The Fabulist is a witty, fictional version of the public scandal of journalist Stephen Glass, written by the real-life former journalist Stephen Glass who achieved notoriety in 1998 when he was caught fabricating stories that appeared in The New Republic, Rolling Stone and other magazines.  

Glass’s fall from grace and the elaborate techniques he used to perpetrate the hoax on editors, coworkers and readers are fascinating and often hilarious.  Why he did it and what degree of remorse he feels for his deceptions remains debatable. (The California Supreme Court debated just that earlier this year when they denied his admission to the bar.)

But ethics aside, Stephen Glass has penned an insightful and entertaining novel about ego, hubris, the ramifications of lost trust and the public outcry for retribution.   If only Glass had started out writing legitimate fiction in the first place.

Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist

Staff Picks

A socially awkward genetics professor devises a fool-proof method for finding a mate but instead finds himself involved with his polar opposite, the spirited Rosie.   The Rosie Project  had me laughing out loud at the shenanigans.   If you enjoy quirky stories and great characters, this one's highly recommended.  The narrow-minded and egocentric Professor Don Tillman is the literary version of Dr. Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory.    

Alicia Cavitt

Information Specialist