Lehigh Valley Pocono Library Partnership

The public libraries of Carbon County, Lehigh County, Monroe County and Northampton County are excited to announce the formation of the Multi-District Lehigh Valley Pocono Library Partnership.  

The twenty public libraries will begin directly sharing resources, such as books, DVDs, CDs, and other library materials starting Wednesday, April 3.  

Library patrons will have unprecedented direct access to an incredible number of items – more than 1. 4 million, from 26 library outlets, from across the Lehigh Valley and the Poconos.    

To search all the libraries in the partnership simply choose “Multi-District Lehigh Valley Pocono” from the dropdown menu. You will be contacted when your item is ready to be picked up.

Staff Picks: February

We’d do it all again! We asked out staff what books they wish they could read again for the first time. Here are their answers.


The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
By C.S. Lewis

Lucy is the first to find the secret of the wardrobe in the professor’s mysterious old house. At first her brothers and sister don’t believe her when she tells of her visit to the land of Narnia. But soon Edmund, then Peter and Susan step through the wardrobe themselves. In Narnia they find a country buried under the evil enchantment of the White Witch. When they meet the Lion Aslan, they realize they’ve been called to a great adventure and bravely join the battle to free Narnia from the Witch’s sinister spell
Book/Large Print/CD Audiobook/Overdrive eBook/Overdrive Audiobook/Hoopla Audiobook


The Bridge to Terabithia
By Katherine Paterson

Jess Aarons’ greatest ambition is to be the fastest runner in his grade. He’s been practicing all summer and can’t wait to see his classmates’ faces when he beats them all. But on the first day of school, a new girl boldly crosses over to the boys’ side and outruns everyone.

That’s not a very promising beginning for a friendship, but Jess and Leslie Burke become inseparable. Together they create Terabithia, a magical kingdom in the woods where the two of them reign as king and queen, and their imaginations set the only limits.
Book/CD Audiobook/Overdrive Audiobook/Hoopla eBook/Hoopla Audiobook


The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs
By Jon Scieszka

In this hysterical and clever fracture fairy tale picture book that twists point of view and perspective, young readers will finally hear the other side of the story of “The Three Little Pigs.”
Book/Hoopla Audiobook/Hoopla Movie


The Amulet of Samarkand
By Jonathan Stroud

Nathaniel is a boy magician-in-training, sold to the government by his birth parents at the age of five and sent to live as an apprentice to a master. Powerful magicians rule Britain, and its empire, and Nathaniel is told his is the “ultimate sacrifice” for a “noble destiny.”
Nathaniel is a boy magician-in-training, sold to the government by his birth parents at the age of five and sent to live as an apprentice to a master. Powerful magicians rule Britain, and its empire, and Nathaniel is told his is the “ultimate sacrifice” for a “noble destiny.”
Book


The Cartographers
By Peng Shepherd

Nell Young’s whole life and greatest passion is cartography. Her father, Dr. Daniel Young, is a legend in the field and Nell’s personal hero. But she hasn’t seen or spoken to him ever since he cruelly fired her and destroyed her reputation after an argument over an old, cheap gas station highway map.

But when Dr. Young is found dead in his office at the New York Public Library, with the very same seemingly worthless map hidden in his desk, Nell can’t resist investigating. To her surprise, she soon discovers that the map is incredibly valuable and exceedingly rare. In fact, she may now have the only copy left in existence… because a mysterious collector has been hunting down and destroying every last one—along with anyone who gets in the way.
Book/Overdrive eBook/Hoopla eBook/Hoopla Audiobook


Gone Girl
By Gillian Flynn

Who are you?
What have we done to each other?

These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy’s friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn’t true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren’t made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone.

So what did happen to Nick’s beautiful wife?
Book/Large Print Book/CD Audiobook/Overdrive eBook/Overdrive Audiobook


The Night Circus
By Erin Morgenstern

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.
Book/CD Audiobook/Overdrive eBook/Overdrive Audiobook


Storm of Swords
By George R.R. Martin

Of the five contenders for power, one is dead, another in disfavor, and still the wars rage as alliances are made and broken. Joffrey sits on the Iron Throne, the uneasy ruler of the Seven Kingdoms. His most bitter rival, Lord Stannis, stands defeated and disgraced, victim of the sorceress who holds him in her thrall. Young Robb still rules the North from the fortress of Riverrun. Meanwhile, making her way across a blood-drenched continent is the exiled queen, Daenerys, mistress of the only three dragons still left in the world. And as opposing forces manoeuver for the final showdown, an army of barbaric wildlings arrives from the outermost limits of civilization, accompanied by a horde of mythical Others—a supernatural army of the living dead whose animated corpses are unstoppable. As the future of the land hangs in the balance, no one will rest until the Seven Kingdoms have exploded in a veritable storm of swords…
Book/CD Audiobook/Overdrive eBook/Overdrive Audiobook


The Goldfinch
By Donna Tartt

Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love – and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.
Book/Large Print Book/CD Audiobook/Overdrive eBook/Overdrive Audiobook


The Guest List
By Lucy Foley

On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.

But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.

And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?
Book/Overdrive eBook/Overdrive Audiobook/Hoopla eBook/Hoopla Audiobook


Dracul
By J.D. Barker

It is 1868, and a twenty-one-year-old Bram Stoker waits in a desolate tower to face an indescribable evil. Armed only with crucifixes, holy water, and a rifle, he prays to survive a single night, the longest of his life. Desperate to record what he has witnessed, Bram scribbles down the events that led him here…
Book


The House in the Cerulean Sea
By T.J. Klune

When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he’s given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.

But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.
Book/Overdrive eBook/Overdrive Audiobook/Hoopla Audiobook


The Hobbit
J.R.R. Tolkien

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent. 
Book/CD Audiobook/Overdrive eBook/Overdrive Audiobook/Hoopla eBook/Hoopla Audiobook

Books to Reread

The holidays are fast approaching and maybe you’re starting to feel overwhelmed. You could escape with a comfortable old friend. We asked our staff what some of their favorite books to reread were and here are their answers.

Always the Last to Know
Kristan Higgins

The Frosts are a typical American family. Barb and John, married almost fifty years, are testy and bored with each other…who could blame them after all this time? At least they have their daughters– Barb’s favorite, the perfect, brilliant Juliet; and John’s darling, the free-spirited Sadie. The girls themselves couldn’t be more different, but at least they got along, more or less. It was fine. It was enough.

Until the day John had a stroke, and their house of cards came tumbling down.
Book/CD Audiobook/Hoopla Audiobook


Apples Never Fall
Liane Moriarty

The Delaneys are fixtures in their community. The parents, Stan and Joy, are the envy of all of their friends. They’re killers on the tennis court, and off it their chemistry is palpable. But after fifty years of marriage, they’ve finally sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. So why are Stan and Joy so miserable?
Book/Libby eBook/Libby Audiobook/Hoopla Audiobook


Dance Dance Dance
Haruki Murakami

High-class call girls billed to Mastercard. A psychic 13-year-old dropout with a passion for Talking Heads. A hunky matinee idol doomed to play dentists and teachers. A one-armed beach-combing poet, an uptight hotel clerk and one very bemused narrator caught in the web of advanced capitalist mayhem. Combine this offbeat cast of characters with Murakami’s idiosyncratic prose and out comes Dance Dance Dance.
Book


Good Omens
Terry Pratchet & Neil Gaiman

According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter – the world’s only totally reliable guide to the future – the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just after tea…

People have been predicting the end of the world almost from its very beginning, so it’s only natural to be sceptical when a new date is set for Judgement Day. This time though, the armies of Good and Evil really do appear to be massing. The four Bikers of the Apocalypse are hitting the road. But both the angels and demons – well, one fast-living demon and a somewhat fussy angel – would quite like the Rapture not to happen.

And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist…
Book/Libby Audiobook/Hoopla eBook/Hoopla Audiobook


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry’s eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An incredible adventure is about to begin!
Book/CD Audiobook/Libby eBook/Libby Audiobook/Hoopla eBook/Hoopla Audiobook


The Book Thief
Markus Zusak

By her brother’s graveside, Liesel’s life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger’s Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor’s wife’s library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel’s foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel’s world is both opened up, and closed down.
Book/CD Audiobook/Libby eBook/Libby Audiobook


The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea
Axie Oh

Deadly storms have ravaged Mina’s homeland for generations. Floods sweep away entire villages, while bloody wars are waged over the few remaining resources. Her people believe the Sea God, once their protector, now curses them with death and despair. In an attempt to appease him, each year a beautiful maiden is thrown into the sea to serve as the Sea God’s bride, in the hopes that one day the “true bride” will be chosen and end the suffering.

Many believe that Shim Cheong, the most beautiful girl in the village—and the beloved of Mina’s older brother Joon—may be the legendary true bride. But on the night Cheong is to be sacrificed, Joon follows Cheong out to sea, even knowing that to interfere is a death sentence. To save her brother, Mina throws herself into the water in Cheong’s stead.

Swept away to the Spirit Realm, a magical city of lesser gods and mythical beasts, Mina seeks out the Sea God, only to find him caught in an enchanted sleep. With the help of a mysterious young man named Shin—as well as a motley crew of demons, gods and spirits—Mina sets out to wake the Sea God and bring an end to the killer storms once and for all.

But she doesn’t have much time: A human cannot live long in the land of the spirits. And there are those who would do anything to keep the Sea God from waking…
Book/Libby eBook/Libby Audiobook


The House in the Cerulean Sea
T.J. Klune

Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.

When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he’s given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.
Book/Libby eBook/Libby Audiobook/Hoopla Audiobook


The Innocence of Father Brown
G.K. Chesterton

This first volume of G. K. Chesterton’s mysteries marks the debut of a most unusual detective: Father Paul Brown, a short, stumpy priest with an uncanny ability to spot the evil in human hearts. In twelve stories, Father Brown uses his wisdom, common sense and experience as a confessor to solve baffling crimes – and save lost souls along the way.
Book/Libby eBook/Hoopla eBook/Hoopla Audiobook


Life of Pi
Yann Martel

Life of Pi is a fantasy adventure novel by Yann Martel published in 2001. The protagonist, Piscine Molitor “Pi” Patel, a Tamil boy from Pondicherry, explores issues of spirituality and practicality from an early age. He survives 227 days after a shipwreck while stranded on a boat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.
Book/CD Audiobook/Hoopla eBook/Libby eBook/Libby Audiobook


Night Shift
Stephen King

 collection of tales to invade and paralyse the mind as the safe light of day is infiltrated by the shadows of the night. As you listen, the clutching fingers of terror brush lightly across the nape of the neck, reach round from behind to clutch and lock themselves, white-knuckled, around the throat.

This is the horror of ordinary people and everyday objects that become strangely altered; a world where nothing is ever quite what it seems, where the familiar and the friendly lure and deceive. A world where madness and blind panic become the only reality.
Book


The Poisonwood Bible
Barbara Kingsolver

The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it — from garden seeds to Scripture — is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.
Book/Large Print/CD Audiobook/Hoopla eBook


The Shell Seekers
Rosamunde Pilcher

Artist’s daughter Penelope Keeling can look back on a full and varied life: a Bohemian childhood in London and Cornwall, an unhappy wartime marriage, and the one man she truly loved. She has brought up three children – and learned to accept them as they are. Yet she is far too energetic and independent to settle sweetly into pensioned-off old-age. And when she discovers that her most treasured possession, her father’s painting, The Shell Seekers, is now worth a small fortune, it is Penelope who must make the decisions that will determine whether her family can continue to survive as a family, or be split apart.
Book/Large Print Book/Hoopla Audiobook


The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street
Karina Yan Glaser

The Vanderbeekers have always lived in the brownstone on 141st Street. It’s practically another member of the family. So when their reclusive, curmudgeonly landlord decides not to renew their lease, the five siblings have eleven days to do whatever it takes to stay in their beloved home and convince the dreaded Beiderman just how wonderful they are. And all is fair in love and war when it comes to keeping their home.
Book/Libby eBook/Libby Audiobook/Hoopla eBook/Hoopla Audiobook


My Truck is Stuck!
Kevin Lewis and Daniel Kirk

My Truck Is Stuck. Rotten luck. Can’t go! My truck is stuck. Tug and tow. Two engines roar. But the truck won’t go. Not one inch more. Does anyone know how to make my stuck truck go? In this lyrical read-aloud, young drivers are introduced to the ins and outs of hauling, beeping, and repairing — get ready for a fun ride!
Book

More Board Games

Here are some of our new additions. Check our Board Game Page for a complete list.


5 Second Rule
3-6 Players ages 10+

It should be easy to name 3 breeds of dogs – but can you do it under the pressure of 5 seconds twisting down, and with the other players staring at you, waiting for you to get flustered? Time’s not on your side, so just say what comes to mind and risk ridiculous answers slipping out as time twirls down on the unique twisted timer! It’s all in good fun with this fast-paced game where you have to “Just Spit It Out!”


Clue
2-6 Players ages 8+

The classic detective game! In Clue, players move from room to room in a mansion to solve the mystery of: who done it, with what, and where? Players are dealt character, weapon, and location cards after the top card from each card type is secretly placed in the confidential file in the middle of the board. Players must move to a room and then make a suggestion against a character saying they did it in that room with a specific weapon. The player to the left must show one of any cards mentioned if in that player’s hand. Through deductive reasoning each player must figure out which character, weapon, and location are in the secret file. To do this, each player must uncover what cards are in other players hands by making more and more suggestions. Once a player knows what cards the other players are holding, they will know what cards are in the secret file, and then make an accusation. If correct, the player wins, but if incorrect, the player must return the cards to the file without revealing them and may no longer make suggestions or accusations. A great game for those who enjoy reasoning and thinking things out.


Count Your Chickens
2-4 players ages 3+

The baby chicks have flown the coop! All players work together to help Mother Hen collect her chicks and bring them back to the coop. To start, players place the 40 baby chicks all around the board. Mother Hen is on start. The object of the game is to get all 40 baby chicks back inside the coop before Mother Hen gets to the last space on the board. Players spin and move Mother Hen, counting the number of spaces she travels. For each space travelled, players collect that number of baby chick markers and place them in the coop. But watch out for the fox! If the spinner lands on the fox a baby chick is removed from the coop. Players take turns, but work together – players count aloud together, collect the number chicks together and, if they collect them all, players win together!


Leigh Valley in•a•box
2-6 players ages 8+

Romantic covered bridges, rich Moravian heritage, and a door to the beginning of the industrial revolution, welcome to the Lehigh Valley! A treasure of nostalgia, culture and modern industry, she is also a region of natural splendor. Music is celebrated, wine is relished, and colors are born here. In this valley lies a one-of-a-kind sense of challenge on the Appalachian Trail, in the Velodrome, and in the river itself. The Lehigh Valley holds within it the glory of all that was, all that is, and all that will be. Advertising space was not for sale on this game. The board includes authentic landmarks only.


Mad Gab
2-12 players ages 10+

Read a group of simple words aloud, like “ASK RUDE ARRIVE HER”. Do you “hear” the answer? Try saying them again. Sound familiar? Quick, the timer’s tickin’. Did you hear yourself say “A Screwdriver”?!

You and your teammates have 30 seconds to sound out three puzzles. Guess right and snatch that card! Miss it and the other team can steal the point!

O.K., the timer is set, the card flipper is loaded, and everyone’s ready for a laugh riot! Just remember, that when it comes to scoring points in MAD GAB…

“It’s Not What You SAY, It’s What You HEAR!”


Mancala
2 players ages 5+

The game is played on a board of two rows, each consisting of six round pits. The rows have a large store at either end called the Kalah. A player owns the six pits closest to them and the Kalah on their right side.

The game is started with four (4) seeds in each pit. A player takes all the seeds from one of their pits, and then they are distributed one by one, counterclockwise, in the pits and the player’s own Kalah, but not into the opponent’s store (Kalah). If the last seed is dropped into an opponent’s pit or a non-empty pit of the player, the move ends without anything being captured. If the last seed falls into the player’s Kalah, they must move again. If the last seed is put into an empty pit owned by the player, they capture all contents of the opposite pit together with the capturing piece and puts them in their Kalah. If the opposite pit is empty, nothing is captured. A capture ends the move.

The game ends when one player no longer has any seeds in any of their holes. The remaining pieces are captured by their adversary. The player who has captured the most pieces is declared the winner.


Really Loud Librarians
2-12 players ages 8+

In this game, your useless knowledge will win you useful points.

Think fast, not hard in this merciless word-shouting board game. Start by drawing a category card. Your team will then shout words from that category that begin with the letter on the race track. Move along the track every time you get a word right and race against your opponents to win. This is a simple game for versatile occasions. Play it as a two-player game for a casual night-in or bring it along as a party game for big groups.


Rory’s Story Cubes
1-12 players ages 6+

Players roll the cubes to get pictures of characters, places, and animals that they can use to create and share stories in this game of imagination.


Taco vs Burrito
2-4 players ages 7+

Taco vs. Burito is a deliciously unpredictable card game where players compete to create the weirdest, wildest meal. On your turn:
Draw one card and:

  • Add an ingredient card to a Taco/Burrito – or –
  • Add Tummy Aches to reduce the value of a meal -or-
  • Add a Hot Sauce Boss to double the value of a meal!

– or –
Play an action card

But beware! The Health Inspector and Order Envy can ruin your meal.

Gameplay continues clockwise with players drawing and playing cards until the draw pile is gone. Once any one player is out of cards the game is instantly over and the player with the most points wins!


Twister
2-4 players ages 6+

A large vinyl playing mat is placed on the floor, with a 6 x 4 array of spots, each spot about 6 inches in diameter. The spots are colored red, blue, yellow, and green. A player is chosen to moderate, and the rest of the players, up to 4, stand on the play mat with their feet on different spots.

Each turn consists of the moderator spinning a spinner, which gives a result matching a random color with a random element from the set (left hand, right hand, left foot, right foot). Each player must put the relevant bodypart on the relevant color spot. If the bodypart is already on a spot of that color it is moved to another spot of the same color. No two players bodyparts can share the same spot. If a player falls or touches an elbow or knee to the ground they are eliminated.

Iterate until one player remains.


The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Game Junior
2-6 players

How do you keep from spreading your poison oak rash? How do you get an alligator to let go of your friend’s foot? Based on the best-selling books and games, this game brings the Worst-Case concept to kids, to amaze and educate a whole new way. Players have Tool Cards, that feature common items like a broom or water bottle. The kids hear a scenario and decide which tool can get them out of it. Tap the alligator on the nose with the broom to release your friend’s foot. Use the water bottle to rinse off the plant oil and your poison ivy rash isn’t contagious anymore! Just for fun, What’s Worse? Cards give kids icky choices. Like, What’s Worse: giving your cat a bath by licking it all over OR eating a giant bowl of dog food? Comes with a game board, 50 Tool Cards, 170 Game Cards, six What’s Worse Chips, playing pieces and a die. For 2 to 6 players.


Yahtzee
2-10 players ages 6+

Yahtzee is a classic dice game played with 5 dice. Each player’s turn consists of rolling the dice up to 3 times in hope of making 1 of 13 categories. Examples of categories are 3 of a kind, 4 of a kind, straight, full house, etc. Each player tries to fill in a score for each category, but this is not always possible. When all players have entered a score or a zero for all 13 categories, the game ends and total scores are compared

How Do You Like Your Mysteries?

How do you like your mysteries? Whodunits? Cozies? Police procedurals? We asked our staff how they liked their mysteries and they gave some books and DVDs you might like.


Reading a Mystery


The Maltese Falcon
by Dashiell Hammett

Sam Spade is hired by the fragrant Miss Wonderley to track down her sister, who has eloped with a louse called Floyd Thursby. But Miss Wonderley is in fact the beautiful and treacherous Brigid O’Shaughnessy, and when Spade’s partner Miles Archer is shot while on Thursby’s trail, Spade finds himself both hunter and hunted: can he track down the jewel-encrusted bird, a treasure worth killing for, before the Fat Man finds him?

Book/Large Print/Hoopla Audiobook


The Black Tower
by PD James

Commander Dalgliesh is recuperating from a life-threatening illness when he receives a call for advice from an elderly friend who works as a chaplain in a home for the disabled on the Dorset coast. Dalgliesh arrives to discover that Father Baddeley has recently and mysteriously died, as has one of the patients at Toynton Grange. Evidently the home is not quite the caring community it purports to be. Dalgliesh is determined to discover the truth of his friend’s death, but further fatalities follow and his own life is in danger as he unmasks the evil at the heart of Toynton Grange.

Book/Audiobook


Then She Was Gone
by Lisa Jewell

Ellie Mack was the perfect daughter. She was fifteen, the youngest of three. She was beloved by her parents, friends, and teachers. She and her boyfriend made a teenaged golden couple. She was days away from an idyllic post-exams summer vacation, with her whole life ahead of her. And then she was gone. Now, her mother Laurel Mack is trying to put her life back together. It’s been ten years since her daughter disappeared, seven years since her marriage ended, and only months since the last clue in Ellie’s case was unearthed. So when she meets an unexpectedly charming man in a cafe, no one is more surprised than Laurel at how quickly their flirtation develops into something deeper. Before she knows it, she’s meeting Floyd’s daughters–and his youngest, Poppy, takes Laurel’s breath away. Because looking at Poppy is like looking at Ellie. And now, the unanswered questions she’s tried so hard to put to rest begin to haunt Laurel anew. Where did Ellie go? Did she really run away from home, as the police have long suspected, or was there a more sinister reason for her disappearance? Who is Floyd, really? And why does his daughter remind Laurel so viscerally of her own missing girl?”

Book/Large Print/Hoopla Audiobook/Libby eBook/Libby Audiobook


A Simple Murder
by Linda Castillo

While on vacation with her partner John Tomasetti in Long Lost, Kate discovers that the old house where they’re staying is haunted by a girl who disappeared decades before… An abandoned baby is discovered on the Amish bishop’s front porch in A Hidden Secret, and Kate is called in to investigate. Seeds of Deception unearths the secrets of Kate Burkholder’s own Amish past–and lays the groundwork for her future career in law enforcement. In the midst of a power outage in Painters Mill, a teenage girl is attacked at an Amish party in Only the Lucky. In Dark Company is the story of an injured woman with amnesia who seeks Kate’s help in trying to remember her attacker’s identity…and her own. In Plain Sight leads Kate to what she believes is a straightforward hit-and-run accident–but she soon uncovers a story of teenage passion that may have led to attempted murder.

Book/Hoopla Audiobook


Dog On It
by Spencer Quinn

Chet and Bernie investigate the disappearance of Madison, a teenage girl who may or may not have been kidnapped, but who has definitely gotten mixed up with some very unsavory character

Book/Audiobook/Hoopla Audiobook


Gorky Park
by Martin Cruz Smith

A triple murder in a Moscow amusement center: three corpses found frozen in the snow, faces and fingers missing. Chief homicide investigator Arkady Renko is brilliant, sensitive, honest, and cynical about everything except his profession. To identify the victims and uncover the truth, he must battle the KGB, FBI, and the New York City police as he pursues a rich, ruthless, and well-connected American fur dealer. Meanwhile, Renko is falling in love with a beautiful, headstrong dissident for whom he may risk everything.

Book/Large Print


Murder in the Reading Room
by Ellery Adams

In order to save her boyfriend, who has been kidnapped, Jane Steward is forced to lead his captor to a historic estate that he believes houses Ernest Hemingway’s lost suitcase, a search that leads instead to murder.

Book/Hoopla eBook/Hoopla Audiobook


  Sidetracked
by Henning Mankell

Kurt Wallander is called to a nearby rapeseed field where a teenage girl has been loitering all day long. He arrives just in time to watch her douse herself in gasoline and set herself aflame. The next day he is called to a beach where Sweden’s former Minister of Justice has been axed to death and scalped. The murder has the obvious markings of a demented serial killer, and Wallander is frantic to find him before he strikes again. But his investigation is beset with a handful of obstacles—a department distracted by the threat of impending cutbacks and the frivolity of World Cup soccer, a tenuous long-distance relationship with a murdered policeman’s widow, and the unshakably haunting preoccupation with the young girl who set herself on fire. 

Book/Hoopla ebook/Hoopla Audiobook/Libby eBook/Libby Audiobook


The Complaints
by Ian Rankin

Nobody likes The Complaints–they’re the cops who investigate other cops. It’s a department known within the force as “The Dark Side,” and it’s where Malcolm Fox works. His new case: investigate a cop named Jamie Breck. As Fox takes on the job, he learns that there’s more to Breck than anyone thinks–dangerous knowledge, especially when a vicious murder takes place far too close to home.

Book/Hoopla eBook/Hoopla Audiobook


The Bodies in the Library
by Marty Wingate

Hayley Burke has landed a dream job. She is the new curator of Lady Georgiana Fowling’s First Edition library. The library is kept at Middlebank House, a lovely Georgian home in Bath, England. Hayley lives on the premises and works with the finicky Glynis Woolgar, Lady Fowling’s former secretary. Mrs. Woolgar does not like Hayley’s ideas to modernize The First Edition Society and bring in fresh blood. And she is not even aware of the fact that Hayley does not know the first thing about the Golden Age of Mysteries. Hayley is faking it till she makes it, and one of her plans to breathe new life into the Society is actually taking flight–an Agatha Christie fan fiction writers group is paying dues to meet up at Middlebank House. But when one of the group is found dead in the venerable stacks of the library, Hayley has to catch the killer to save the Society and her new job.

Book/Large Print


A Memory Called Empire
by Arkady Martine

During a time of political instability in the highest echelons of the imperial court, Ambassador Mahit Dzmare arrives in the center of the multi-system Teixcalaanli Empire only to discover that her predecessor, the previous ambassador from their small but fiercely independent mining Station, has died. But no one will admit that his death wasn’t an accident–or that Mahit might be next to die. Now Mahit must discover who is behind the murder, rescue herself, and save her Station from Teixcalaan’s unceasing expansion–all while navigating an alien culture that is all too seductive, engaging in intrigues of her own, and hiding a deadly technological secret–one that might spell the end of her Station and her way of life–or rescue it from annihilation

Book/Hoopla Audiobook


Nate the Great
by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat

Nate the Great has a new case! His friend Annie has lost a picture. She wants Nate to help her find it. Nate the Great must get all the facts, ask the right questions, and narrow the list of suspects so he can solve the mystery.

Book/Libby eBook


The case of the left-handed lady : an Enola Holmes mystery
by Nancy Springer

Pursued by her much older brother, famed detective Sherlock Holmes, fourteen-year-old Enola, disguised and using false names, attempts to solve the kidnapping of a baronet’s sixteen-year-old daughter in nineteenth-century London.

Book/Hoopla Audiobook


One of Us is Lying
by Karen McManus

When the creator of a high school gossip app mysteriously dies in front of four high-profile students all four become suspects. It’s up to them to solve the case.

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Mystery on the Screens


Sherlock

The quirky spin on Conan Doyle’s iconic sleuth pitches him as a “high-functioning sociopath” in modern-day London. Assisting him in his investigations: Afghanistan War vet John Watson, who’s introduced to Holmes by a mutual acquaintance.

DVD


 Shetland

A local police team investigate crimes within the close knit island community of Shetland.

DVD


Kolchak: The Night Stalker

Carl Kolchak is a reporter for a Chicago newspaper. Through more accident than design he ends up investigating homicides, many of which involve supernatural forces. Ultimately, rather than reporting on the crimes, he solves them.

DVD


Mare of Easttown

Academy Award-winner Kate Winslet plays Mare Sheehan, a small-town Pennsylvania detective who investigates a local murder as life crumbles around her. From creator and writer Brad Ingelsby, with all episodes directed by Craig Zobel, the seven-part limited series is an exploration into the dark side of a close community and an authentic examination of how family and past tragedies can define our present.

DVD


Dalgliesh

Based on P.D. James’s global bestsellers, this riveting mystery series stars Bertie Carvel as enigmatic Inspector Adam Dalgliesh. A recent widower and acclaimed poet, Dalgliesh is a cerebral, reserved man but possessed of exceptional empathy and insight. As he investigates complex crimes in 1970s England, he plumbs the darker depths of the human psyche in his pursuit of justice.

DVD/Hoopla


CSI: Miami

Horatio Caine heads a group of investigators who work crimes amid the tropical surroundings and cultural crossroads of Miami. Together, the investigators collect and analyze the evidence to solve the crimes and to vindicate those who often cannot speak for themselves, the victims.

DVD


Alex Cross

Follows the young homicide detective/psychologist as he meets his match in a serial killer. The two face off in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse, but when the mission gets personal, Cross is pushed to the edge of his moral and psychological limits in this taut and exciting action thriller.

DVD


Knives Out

A tribute to mystery mastermind Agatha Christie and a fun, modern-day murder mystery where everyone is a suspect. When renowned crime novelist Harlan Thrombey is found dead at his estate just after his 85th birthday, the inquisitive and debonair Detective Benoit Blanc is mysteriously enlisted to investigate. From Harlan’s dysfunctional family to his devoted staff, Blanc sifts through a web of red herrings and self-serving lies to uncover the truth behind Harlan’s untimely death.

DVD


Jack Reacher

Ex-military investigator Jack Reacher leaps off the pages of Lee Child’s bestselling novel and onto the big screen in this explosive thriller. When an unspeakable crime is committed, all evidence points to the suspect in custody who offers up a single note in defense: Get Jack Reacher! The law has its limits, but Reacher does not when his fight for the truth pits him against an unexpected enemy with a skill for violence and a secret to keep.

DVD


Hot Summer Reads

We asked our staff what books they were looking forward to reading this summer. Here are their answers.

Join the Adult Summer Reading Club to log what you read and win prizes.


Fiction


Hester
By Lauire Lico Albanese

Isobel Gamble is a young seamstress carrying generations of secrets when she sets sail from Scotland in the early 1800s with her husband, Edward. An apothecary who has fallen under the spell of opium, his pile of debts have forced them to flee Edinburgh for a fresh start in the New World. But only days after they’ve arrived in Salem, Edward abruptly joins a departing ship as a medic––leaving Isobel penniless and alone in a strange country, forced to make her way by any means possible.

When she meets a young Nathaniel Hawthorne, the two are instantly drawn to each other: he is a man haunted by his ancestors, who sent innocent women to the gallows––while she is an unusually gifted needleworker, troubled by her own strange talents. As the weeks pass and Edward’s safe return grows increasingly unlikely, Nathaniel and Isobel grow closer and closer. Together, they are a muse and a dark storyteller; the enchanter and the enchanted. But which is which?

Book


The Guest
By Emma Cline

Summer is coming to a close on the East End of Long Island, and Alex is no longer welcome.

A misstep at a dinner party, and the older man she’s been staying with dismisses her with a ride to the train station and a ticket back to the city.

With few resources and a waterlogged phone, but gifted with an ability to navigate the desires of others, Alex stays on Long Island and drifts like a ghost through the hedged lanes, gated driveways, and sun-blasted dunes of a rarified world that is, at first, closed to her. Propelled by desperation and a mutable sense of morality, she spends the week leading up to Labor Day moving from one place to the next, a cipher leaving destruction in her wake.


The Wishing Game
By Meg Shaffer

Years ago, a reclusive mega-bestselling children’s author quit writing under mysterious circumstances. Suddenly he resurfaces with a brand-new book and a one-of-a-kind competition, offering a prize that will change the winner’s life in this absorbing and whimsical novel.


The Violin Conspiracy
By Brendan Slocumb

Ray McMillian loves playing the violin more than anything, and nothing will stop him from pursuing his dream of becoming a professional musician. Not his mother, who thinks he should get a real job, not the fact that he can’t afford a high-caliber violin, not the racism inherent in the classical music world. And when he makes the startling discovery that his great-grandfather’s fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius, his star begins to rise. Then with the international Tchaikovsky Competition—the Olympics of classical music—fast approaching, his prized family heirloom is stolen. Ray is determined to get it back. But now his family and the descendants of the man who once enslaved Ray’s great-grandfather are each claiming that the violin belongs to them. With the odds stacked against him and the pressure mounting, will Ray ever see his beloved violin again?


In The Lives of Puppets
By TJ Klune

In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees, live three robots–fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. They’re a family, hidden and safe.

The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled “HAP,” he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio-a past spent hunting humans.

When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio’s former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe. Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. So together, the rest of Vic’s assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.


The Dry
By Jane Harper

In the grip of the worst drought in a century, the farming community of Kiewarra is facing life and death choices daily when three members of a local family are found brutally slain.
Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk reluctantly returns to his hometown for the funeral of his childhood friend, loath to face the townsfolk who turned their backs on him twenty years earlier.
But as questions mount, Falk is forced to probe deeper into the deaths of the Hadler family. Because Falk and Luke Hadler shared a secret. A secret Falk thought was long buried. A secret Luke’s death now threatens to bring to the surface in this small Australian town, as old wounds bleed into new ones.


The Lie Maker
By Linwood Barclay

In this twisty, fast-paced thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Find You First and Take Your Breath Away, a man desperately tries to track down his father–who was taken into witness protection years ago–before his enemies can get to him.


The benevolent society of ill-mannered ladies
By Alison Goodman

A high society amateur detective at the heart of Regency London uses her wits and invisibility as an ‘old maid’ to protect other women in a new and fiercely feminist historical mystery series from New York Times bestselling author Alison Goodman.


The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
By Becky Chambers

Follow a motley crew on an exciting journey through space-and one adventurous young explorer who discovers the meaning of family in the far reaches of the universe-in this light-hearted debut space opera from a rising sci-fi star.


Nonfiction


The creative act : a way of being
By Rick Rubin

The Creative Act is a beautiful and generous course of study that illuminates the path of the artist as a road we all can follow. It distills the wisdom gleaned from a lifetime’s work into a luminous reading experience that puts the power to create moments–and lifetimes–of exhilaration and transcendence within closer reach for all of us.


A Trillion Trees
By Fred Pearce

Trees keep our planet cool and breathable. They make the rain and sustain biodiversity. They are essential for nature and for us. And yet, we are cutting and burning them at such a rate that many forests are fast approaching tipping points beyond which they will simply shrivel and die. But there is still time, and there is still hope. If we had a trillion more trees, the damage could be undone. So should we get planting? Not so fast. Fred Pearce argues in this inspiring new book that we can have our forests back, but mass planting should be a last resort. Instead, we should mostly stand back, make room and let nature — and those who dwell in the forests — do the rest.


The Greatness Mindset
by Lewis Howes

Through his New York Times best-selling book and podcast The School of Greatness, Greatness Academy, and inspirational events, entrepreneur Lewis Howes has provided millions worldwide with the tools they need to define their mission, craft specific goals, and develop a game plan to get the results they want. In The Greatness Mindset, Lewis takes his results-driven system one step further by taking a deep dive into the mindset shifts you need to truly see and acknowledge your own greatness and allow it to reach its fullest potential.


The Wager
By David Grann

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on The Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.


Quietly hostile
By Samantha Irby

The success of Irby’s career has taken her to new heights. She fields calls with job offers from Hollywood and walks the red carpet with the iconic ladies of Sex and the City. Finally, she has made it. But, behind all that new-found glam, Irby is just trying to keep her life together as she always had.

Her teeth are poisoning her from inside her mouth, and her diarrhea is back. She gets turned away from a restaurant for wearing ugly clothes, she goes to therapy and tries out Lexapro, gets healed with Reiki, explores the power of crystals, and becomes addicted to QVC. Making light of herself as she takes us on an outrageously funny tour of all the details that make up a true portrait of her life, Irby is once again the relatable, uproarious tonic we all need.


Juvenile


The Swifts : a dictionary of scoundrels
By Beth Lincoln

In her family, Shenanigan Swift has always been synonymous with mischief. As Arch-Aunt Schadenfreude always says, “She can’t help her name.” When a family reunion suddenly turns into a murder mystery, Shenanigan is determined to catch the perpetrator. A celebration of words and individuality, this remarkable debut is both brilliantly contemporary and instantly classic.


Young Adult


Four Found Dead
By Natalie D. Richards

Tonight, Tempest Theaters is closing forever, the last remaining business in a defunct shopping mall. The moviegoers have left, and Jo and her six coworkers have the final shift, cleaning up popcorn and mopping floors for the last time.

But after an unexpected altercation puts everyone on edge, the power goes out. Their manager disappears, along with the keys to the lobby doors and the theater safe, where the crew’s phones are locked each shift. Then, the crew’s tension turns to terror when Jo discovers the dead body of one of her co-workers.

Now their only chance to escape the murderer in their midst is through the dark, shuttered mall. With its boarded-up exits and disabled fire alarms, the complex is filled with hiding places for both pursuer and pursued. In order to survive this night, Jo and her friends must trust one another, navigate the sprawling ruins of the mall, and outwit a killer before he kills again.