Past Staff Picks

"Attachments is a romance with characters who are a little more 3 dimensional than the usual romance. Lincoln is 20-something, lives with his mother, and has been hired to monitor emails at a company to prevent employees from using company time for personal business or chit chat. Beth and Jennifer are emailing about personal business and chit chatting with each other and should be stopped. But based on her emails alone, Lincoln finds himself falling for Beth. Now he has a problem - how to introduce himself to someone he's never met but whom he feels he already knows."  (Recommended by Laura - Maplewood)
 

"Part sci-fi, part historical fiction, Blackout is the story of three Oxford historians who travel from 2060 to 1941 to study Britain during WWII. While the book doesn't go into detail about life in 2060, it does focus on the time travelers' experiences trying to survive the Blitz, air raids and rationing, while trying to blend in at the same time. A very satisfying read!"  (Recommended by Ann - Mounds View)
 

"Take one gentrifying block of London, where mega-millionaire stock traders live next to working class widows next to Pakistani immigrant shopkeepers.  The only thing they all have in common is that everyone on the block has been receiving eerie postcards that read 'You have what we want.'  Next, add in the Financial Crash of 2008, and the neighborhood begins to rock on its shaky, but highly entertaining, axis.  It's satire, but it's also quite good-humored.  As a former English major, I'm even reminded of Dickens." (Recommended by Judy - Roseville)

"Wickedly well written, surprising in its depiction of a much more complex Eisenhower than is usually encountered, and impressive in its accessible but highly informed narrative sweep of both pre and post WWII history. I would call it the best military/political biography I have come across in years. One more thing: it's only 769 pages if you skip the footnotes!" (Recommended by Pete - Maplewood)

"This author has had great success with his popular fiction series featuring Doc Ford, from sunny and tropical Sanibel, FL. Today he has a new heroine, Hannah Smith, who took over her late uncle’s fishing charter company and detective agency. He’s blending in characters from his first fiction group with this new character so it will be fun! Having gone through all his previous fiction titles in eBook, eAudiobook, and in print, I’ve met his new character (and she’s a doozy!), this time, in print form." (Recommended by Heidi - Roseville)

"Meta-fictional account of the two Czechoslovakians who assassinated Himmler's right hand man, Reinhard Heydrich. The book is also about the problems of trying to write historical fiction, and the limitations of language. A unique and intellectual book." (Recommended by Marcus - Roseville)
 

The haunting memoir of a girl growing up in the Moso country in the Himalayas. But even in this land of women, familial tension is eternal. Namu is a strong-willed daughter, and conflicts between her and her rebellious mother lead her to break the taboo that holds the Moso world together--she leaves her mother's house.  "A young girl’s life growing up in a matriarchal minority in China and becoming a world famous opera singer." (Recommended by Carol - Roseville)
 

"This book will definitely appeal to fans of historical fiction. It is a compelling read and Ms. Newman does a fantastic job of character development. Told from the point of view of Mrs. Lincoln through a fictionalized diary, it recalls her teen years all the way through Lincoln's assassination and her struggles with her son Robert as he commits her to a mental facility. I read it as part of a book club and it stands as one of our favorite reads."  (Recommended by Whitney - Roseville)
 

Unavailable for decades, Stella Gibbons's Nightingale Wood is a delightfully modern romance ripe for rediscovery by the many fans of Cold Comfort Farm.  "It's witty and romantic, with lots of social commentary on life in 1930s England. I loved the story's twists and turns, and was unexpectedly moved at several points."  (Recommended by Lucas - Roseville)
 

"Ever wonder what daily life in the year 2100 will be like? Michio Kaku’s wise, head-spinning attempt to answer that question unveils the upcoming technologies that will radically transform our lives in the near future and beyond: Internet-enabled contact lenses, clothes that monitor our vital signs, handheld MRI scanners, driverless cars, nanobots that zap cancer cells, programmable matter, space elevators, and even reverse aging are not only possible, but probable within this century. A well-researched, thoroughly readable work of scientific speculation, grounded in Kaku's grasp of theoretical physics and knowledge of technologies that are already in the works, this is a book that will stir the imagination and impart the reader with visionary thoughts about human destiny."  (Recommended by Charles - Maplewood)
 

"You would think a novel about the economic plans of the 50's Soviet Union would be dull dull dull.  But, you would be wrong to miss out on this gripping tale of dreams, ambitions, and the struggles of a nation."  (Recommended by Marcus - Roseville)
 

"A family drama that unfolds with a son who has come back to northern Minnesota to be with his dying father. The heart of the story starts with the sinking of the Ragnorok back in 1967, in which Olaf was one of the few survivors. Noah learns more about his father as he helps with everyday tasks, treasuring every story told before it's too late. With the changing of the seasons, this is a great yarn that makes one yearn for the sounds and sights of the gales of November from a cozy fireside window. Once you finish this debut novel from the Twin Cities' own Peter Geye, you'll want to jump on the list for his new book, The Lighthouse Road just released this month." (Recommended by Jennifer - Roseville)

"In 1965 Penny Burford takes a single nickel from her husband's overflowing mound of change on the bedroom dresser and hesitantly slips it into the pocket of her housedress. He won't miss it, she decides. With that single act Penny changes the course of her life -- and the lives of untold others. I love a book you can read in an evening and then not stop thinking about."  (Recommended by Sharyn - White Bear Lake)
 

“Dr. Marina Singh, a research scientist for a Minnesota drug company, is sent into the Amazon wilderness to find a co-worker who disappeared there months earlier while working on a promising fertility drug with Dr. Annick Swenson. Singh journeys by pontoon through the insect-and-snake infested jungle, encounters cannibals and discovers the surprising secrets of Swenson’s field research. A fascinating tale of adventure and medical ethics.” (Recommended by Bonnie - Friends of RCL)
 

"Although this is a traditional detective story, the collection of interesting characters makes it feel fresh and new.  Especially Mallory O'Connor's socially inept but brilliant detective and the friends who surround her."  (Recommended by Amy - Maplewood)
 

"A genre mash-up in a horrible world that is better than our own and yet somehow utterly true to our own, The Eyre Affair is a funny, relentlessly clever, witty and miraculously paced and constructed adventure novel that cavorts mischievously in the heart of literature, multi-national corporations, and the, only just a little, budgeable nature of reality. I loved this book with a white hot passion and rue every year that goes by without Jasper Fforde winning the Nobel Prize." (Recommended by Peter - Roseville)
 

Ruth Galloway is called in to investigate when builders, demolishing a large old house in Norwich to make way for a housing development, uncover the bones of a child beneath a doorway -- minus the skull.  "Second mystery in the Ruth Galloway series. Who is the child under the doorway?" (Recommended by Carol - Roseville)

"A single mom and her prodigy son navigate life using the film The Seven Samurai as a guide."  An intellectual tour-de-force, playful, multilayered, and wonderfully readable, "The Last Samurai" is full of stories of remarkable exploits, tables of Japanese grammar, snatches of Greek poetry, passages of Icelandic legend, and ingenious math problems. It is also the tale of a six-year-old child prodigy's search for a father, or even a man heroic enough to be his father, gradually revealing a new and unexpected dimension of love.  (Recommended by Marcus - Roseville)

Cherry Truong's parents have exiled her wayward older brother from their Southern California home, sending him to Vietnam to live with distant relatives. Determined to bring him back, twenty-one-year-old Cherry travels to their homeland and finds herself on a journey to uncover her family's decades-old secrets - hidden loves, desperate choices, and lives ripped apart by the march of war and currents of history.  "Ms. Phan brings us into the secrets and lies within an extended family that spans from the Fall of Saigon to present time and across three continents." (Recommended by Carol - Roseville)
 

Subtitled: From Baskerville Hall to the Valley of Fear, the Real Forensics Behind the Great Detective's Greatest Cases.  "This was a fascinating read, with the proliferation of C.S.I. shows on TV, it was interesting to read about the birth of forensics and how much of Sherlock Holmes was based on fact versus fiction. Check out a  collection of Sherlock Holmes stories to read with this volume and match wits with the greatest detective."  (Recommended by Kay - New Brighton)
 

"Written by the journalist wife of Ian McEwan, it's the very funny story of a duel-to-the-death between an aging female journalist with a heavyweight past (think Martha Gellhorn or Marguerite Higgins) and the 23-year-old celebrity gossip reporter who is trying to pin her down for an interview." (Recommended by Judy - Roseville)
 

A witty philosophical murder mystery with a charming twist: the crack detectives are sheep determined to discover who killed their beloved shepherd.   "A murder mystery from a flock of sheep's POV. Clever without being gimmicky. Funny. Original. What's not to love? On the border of cozy -- but not." (Recommended by Ellen - Shoreview)
 

Paton Walsh completed the unfinished manuscript for this British mystery -- bringing back aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey and his wife, writer Harriet Vane. "There is nothing worse than coming to the end of a series and knowing that the beloved characters are gone with their creator. What a delight when they reappeared years later in this well-written addition to the series!"  (Recommended by Nicole - Technical Services)
 

"Pat Tillman overcame long odds to finally earn a multi-million dollar contract with the NFL -- only to walk away from it and enlist in the Army after 9/11. This book follows Tillman's fascinating journey, ultimately culminating in his death. Krakauer's study -- some of which, through journals, is in Tillman's own words -- reveals a multi-faceted man, who will not be pigeon-holed into a particular ideology, shunned the attention and interviews about his decision, and was prophetic about how his death might be portrayed by the administration and the media."  (Recommended by Jeff - Roseville)