Staff Favorites

Patrons often ask our staff to suggest books to read.The titles on this list were compiled by asking our staff to recommend their favorite books and describe great books they have read and enjoyed.

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Place Hold	Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner Historical Fiction/Western Call#: F Stegner The odyssey of Susan Burling Ward's life and the challenges she faced as she followed her husband across the untamed Western frontier of the 1870's are revealed in letters found years later by her grandson. Wallace Stegner won the Pulitzer Prize for this many-layered story of relationships defined by a delicately balanced tension. Submitted by Jane Cooper
Place Hold	Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery Young Adult Call#: YF Montgomery Who doesn't love Anne Shirley, on a fiction's most hopeless romantics? Gilbert Blythe may be the only male literary character who isn't a bum! Submitted by Telesa Rountree & Natalie Giauque
Place Hold Write a Review	The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas Classic Call#: F Dumas This is a masterpiece of French literature that follows the adventures of a wrongfully imprisoned sailor as he skillfully plots revenge against his accusers. Read the translation by Robin Buss - a five star book! Submitted by Madalene Cuglietta 8/09
Place Hold Write a Review	The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy Classics, General Fiction Call#: F Galsworthy Chronicling the lives of three generations of the well-to-do Forsyte family, The Forsyte Saga is a brilliant social satire of the acquisitiveness of an upper class in its final glory. And it is the story of Jolyon Forsyte, Irene, and others as they break away from the family preoccupation with "property". Submitted by Bonnie Bradford 8/08
Place Hold	Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte General Fiction Call #: F Bronte This is my all-time favorite book. As a young girl it swept me off my feet and continues to do so even today. It's a novel that has stood the test of time and serves as one of the greatest romances ever written. Submitted by Judy Yaka & Ruby Cheesman
Place Hold Write a Review	Lois The Witch by Elizabeth Gaskell Classic F Gaskell A young girl from England is orphaned and is advised by friends to journey to America and live with her Puritan relatives in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. This short novella delves right to the heart of the prejudice, fear and mistrust of an insular society. Submitted by Joni Kohagen 11/10
Place Hold Write a Review	Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell Classics fiction F Gaskell Mary Barton is a young and industrious young woman growing up in semi poverty in Manchester, England in the mid 19th century. She and her family and loved ones work hard every day and still have empty stomachs and purses by the end of the week. This is the author’s first novel and the lessons that one learns about class structure and the haves and have-nots will remain vivid in the readers mind for a long time. Submitted by Joni Kohagen 10/10
Place Hold Write a Review	Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf Classics Call#: F Woolf A novel about just one day, begins with Mrs. Dalloway buying flowers. Throughout the day the reader learns about Clarissa Dalloway's past and present life from her own thoughts to the thoughts of those around her as she prepares for her party that night. Meanwhile, Septimus Harding a "mad" war veteran talks to trees and makes a decision that effects everyone around him, including Clarissa Dalloway though they have never met. Submitted by Samantha Hastings 6/08
Place Hold Write a Review	North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell Classics Call#: F Gaskell Social classes collide when Margaret Hale from England's rural south moves with her family to England's industrial north. Margaret is proud, educated, well connected, and of a higher social class, but her family is poor. Mr. Thornton is a mill owner of the north who is wealthy and respected in Milton, but prejudiced against the society and laziness of the south. Can the north and the south meet? Can these two people ever understand or love each other? Submitted by Samantha Hastings 6/08
Place Hold	The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran Nonfiction Call#: 892.78 Gib I believe that true romance, expressed in literature, is really ideal love. It is expressed and exists in togetherness. Gibran's chapter "On Marriage," is simply beautiful poetry. It speaks of lovers playing together as a lute, but also taking the time to be alone. I have loved this book since I was a teen, dreamed of having a love like this of my own and wished it upon many others. Submitted by Wanda Casady
Place Hold	Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare Nonfiction Call#: 822.33 Sha A tragic story of star-crossed lovers or a woeful tale of irrational teenagers? I prefer to believe the former. Who can resist the beautiful language that Shakespeare has employed, "But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun." Submitted by Anna Zanarini
Place Hold	Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning Nonfiction Call#: 821.8 Bro Written at the start of her budding relationship with husband Robert Browning, this sequence of 44 sonnets is a celebration of love and marriage. A shy Browning was reluctant to share the poetry with even her husband until after they had been married for three years and yet, even today, the sonnets stand as some of the most romantic words ever written. Submitted by Christa Warren & Ruby Cheesman
Place Hold Write a Review	The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte Classic F Bronte Helen Huntingdon falls in love and marries a man who turns out to be entirely wrong for her sensitive nature. She and her child leave him to seek refuge and eventually find peace at Wildfell Hall. The author writes with honesty and precision about the plight and lack of choices for women in nineteenth century England. Submitted by Joni Kohagen 5/11