Librarian Reads Round-Up

Dearest Bookworms,

It's a Librarian Favorites Wrap up! Ever wonder what kind of books the staff at the Brooklyn Public Library reads? The answer is actually pretty much anything!! But if you've ever wondered what we loved, this is the blog post for you! Below is a list of books and statements from just a handful of our staff of books they loved recently. 

Just a note: these books are mostly Adult. If you feel Adult is too old for you but you are interested in the book leave us a comment and we can recommend a Young Adult Read-a-like!

1. The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso  Kembral Thorne is at a sumptuous New Year's party, hoping only to have an enjoyable time away from her newborn for the first time in two months.  However, when the guests start dropping like flies, she must use her Hound (private detective in this 'verse) training to figure out what's going on.  Further complicating matters are her archrival Rika Nonesuch, a highly trained Cat (thief and spy) who is also at the party, and a mysterious clock which not only sends things back several hours each time it chimes, but sends them down another Echo level (an Echo being a layer of reality; the further you get from Prime, the more the physical laws get weirder and more optional).  Each time reality resets, a mysterious and sinister figure performs a variation on a bloody and deadly ritual.  Kem and Rika must figure out who is behind this, and what their macabre goal is, and how to save the party guests and indeed their city itself before the final chime of the mysterious clock.  With an intricate plot, interesting characters, fascinating world-building (and descriptions thereof), and loads of suspense and surprises, this novel kept me riveted the whole way through.  Melissa Caruso has upped her already high-level game with her latest.
2. On muscle : the stuff that moves us and why it matters by Bonnie Tsui we all have bodies, and most of us can do more than we think, but this dive by Bonnie Tsui into memoir, history, and anatomy does more than motivate us to get moving. (The bestselling author of Why We Swim presents a mind-expanding exploration of muscle--from our ancient obsession with the ideal human form to the modern science of this amazing and adaptable tissue--that will change how you think about what moves us through the world.)
3. Paladin's Grace by T. Kingfisher A fun, (mostly) fluffy fantasy romance about a paladin struggling to find his place in the aftermath of his god dying and a perfumer trying to move on from a past she'd rather leave behind. It's got fantasy swearing, balls, murder investigations, and two deeply damaged people learning how to heal and be the person the other one deserves. First in a series of what the author calls "fluffy paladin romances."
4. Everybody Says It's Everything by Xhenet Aliu I'm an adoptee that is ALWAYS on the hunt for accurate representation of the adoptee experience and this book is one of the first I read in ages that really gets at the core of adoptee life and all it's complexities. Story is told in multiple POVs and it's both a heart wrenching and beautiful story that will stay with me.
5. We will be jaguars : a memoir of my people by Nemonte Nenquimo The absolute BEST nonfiction book I ever read. It's a powerful book and highlights climate change and indigenous voices. Everyone needs to read this book.
6. Womb: The Inside Story of Where We All Began Leah Hazard This was by far one of the best (and more interesting) non-fiction books I've read in a while! Really love it when authors narrate their own books, I feel like it adds that extra something that sometimes nonfiction really needs.