2019 Holiday Book Buying Guide
November 29, 2019
Books are a great gift for all ages!
Here are some great suggestions from library staff members:
The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson
“Bill Bryson, bestselling author of A Short History of Nearly Everything, takes us on a head-to-toe tour of the marvel that is the human body. As compulsively readable as it is comprehensive, this is Bryson at his very best, a must-read owner’s manual for everybody. Bill Bryson once again proves himself to be an incomparable companion as he guides us through the human body–how it functions, its remarkable ability to heal itself, and (unfortunately) the ways it can fail. Full of extraordinary facts (your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this) and irresistible Bryson-esque anecdotes, The Body will lead you to a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and you in particular. As Bill Bryson writes, “We pass our existence within this wobble of flesh and yet take it almost entirely for granted.” The Body will cure that indifference with generous doses of wondrous, compulsively readable facts and information.”
Book Love by Debbie Tung
Bookworms rejoice! These charming comics capture exactly what it feels like to be head-over-heels for hardcovers. And paperbacks! And ebooks! And bookstores! And libraries!
No Judgements by Meg Cabot
“The storm of the century is about to hit Little Bridge Island, Florida–and it’s sending waves crashing through Sabrina “Bree” Beckham’s love life… When a massive hurricane severs all power and cell service to Little Bridge Island–as well as its connection to the mainland–twenty-five-year-old Bree Beckham isn’t worried… at first. She’s already escaped one storm–her emotionally abusive ex–so a hurricane seems like it will be a piece of cake. But animal-loving Bree does become alarmed when she realizes how many islanders have been cut off from their beloved pets. Now it’s up to her to save as many of Little Bridge’s cats and dogs as she can… but to do so, she’s going to need help–help she has no choice but to accept from her boss’s sexy nephew, Drew Hartwell, the Mermaid Café’s most notorious heartbreaker. But when Bree starts falling for Drew, just as Little Bridge’s power is restored and her penitent ex shows up, she has to ask herself if her island fling was only a result of the stormy weather, or if it could last during clear skies too.”
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
“Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage–and lost his mother and all memory of her when he was a child–but he is also gifted with a mysterious power. Hiram almost drowns when he crashes a carriage into a river, but is saved from the depths by a force he doesn’t understand, a blue light that lifts him up and lands him a mile away. This strange brush with death forces a new urgency on Hiram’s private rebellion. Spurred on by his improvised plantation family, Thena, his chosen mother, a woman of few words and many secrets, and Sophia, a young woman fighting her own war even as she and Hiram fall in love, he becomes determined to escape the only home he’s ever known. So begins an unexpected journey into the covert war on slavery that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the deep South to dangerously utopic movements in the North. Even as he’s enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, all Hiram wants is to return to the Walker Plantation to free the family he left behind–but to do so, he must first master his magical gift and reconstruct the story of his greatest loss. This is a bracingly original vision of the world of slavery, written with the narrative force of a great adventure. Driven by the author’s bold imagination and striking ability to bring readers deep into the interior lives of his brilliantly rendered characters, The Water Dancer is the story of America’s oldest struggle–the struggle to tell the truth–from one of our most exciting thinkers and beautiful writers”
Additional Recommendations:
A Christmas Gathering: A Novel by Anne Perry
A Cowboy for Christmas by Sara Richardson
A Jensen Family Christmas by William Johnstone
A Snowy Little Christmas by Fern Michaels
An Alaskan Christmas by Jennifer Snow
Christmas Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke
Christmas Cocoa Murder by Carlene O’Connor
Christmas from the Heart by Sheila Roberts
Christmas in Vermont by Anita Hughes
Christmas Shopaholic: A Novel by Sophie Kinsella
Country Music: An Illustrated History by Dayton Duncan
Dinner for Everyone by Mark Bittman
Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer
Edison by Edmund Morris
Fifty Things That Aren’t My Fault by Cathy Guisewite
Finding Christmas: A Novel by Karen Schaler
History of the World, Map by Map by DK and Smithsonian Institution
I’ll Take You There by Wally Lamb
Janis: Her Life and Music by Holly George-Warren
Lanny by Max Porter
Quick Cooking by Mary Berry
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell
The 19th Christmas by James Patterson
The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power
The New Pie by Chris Taylor
The Smart Neanderthal: Bird Catching, Cave Art, and the Cognitive Revolution by Clive Finlayson
The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
You Suck at Cooking by Anonymous
