Staff Book Picks for July 2010

The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives
by Lola Shoneyin

Baba Segi should have read Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point. Then maybe he would have had second thoughts about adding a fourth wife—a university graduate, no less—to a household already complicated by the personalities, needs, wants, demands of three women and their seven children. Bolanle's arrival in the household not only changed the dynamics, but threatened the foundation on which it was built. Shoneyin gives us wonderful sketches of characters, culture, and circumstances and teases us along with a carefully unfolding plot.
—Laura

Blockade Billy
by Stephen King

Stephen King has always been a great storyteller, but his technical chops as a writer have refined over time. Both skills are on their best display here in Blockade Billy, King's love song to 1950s American baseball, and the included novella "Morality," about a financially strapped couple persuaded into sin. No gory slasher schlock, no gibbering phantasms here; just excellent stories and clean, stripped-down prose of slowly dawning psychological intimacy and horror.
—Kimberly

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
by Stieg Larsson

If you have not been reading Stieg Larsson's books, you are the only one. The long-awaited third book, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, has arrived and delivers. My experience with all of these books went something like this: Start reading Monday on the sofa, move to bed, back to sofa, finish, ask myself, "It's Wednesday, did I leave the house?" So if you have not read any Stieg Larsson, you must begin with the first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but be prepared, like me, to lose days of your life. Really, they are that addictive.
—Erin

Faithful Place
by Tana French

In this hard-edged mystery set in Dublin, Tana French introduces a new police detective, Frank Makey. Frank must return to his old neighborhood, after twenty-two years, to answer old questions and resolve old relationships. I hope this is the beginning of a new series.
—Linda

I Thought You Were Dead
by Pete Nelson

Stella is Paul's best friend, greeting him with warm and sometimes sarcastic comments (she says, "I thought you were dead" every time she doesn't see him for several hours), but she is always there for him, which is good since Paul's life is unraveling. Stella is an aging Labrador Retriever, but is constantly at the ready with advice for Paul. This is a touching novel of how best friends (be they human, canine, or other) can help keep a person sane.
—Teresa

Magic Bleeds
by Ilona Andrews

Kate Daniels the sword-slinging, Jeep-driving mercenary is back in this fourth book set in an alternate Atlanta plagued by destructive waves of magic and techological breakdowns. Ilona Andrews has a flair for humor and action scenes that knocks her above most urban fantasy writing. And the prospect of downtown Atlanta overrun by cranky werewolves and evil, sentient virus-fungi is deeply entertaining.
—Kimberly

The Taken
by Inger Ash Wolfe

The second mystery by mysterious Inger Ash Wolfe opens with Hazel recuperating from back surgery in the basement of her ex-husband's house, tended by her mother and her ex-husband's wife. She is feeling decidedly sorry for herself and perhaps too dependent on pain medication. She is jolted out of her convalescence by a deadly scavenger hunt. She and her team are racing the clock trying to save an unknown victim from an unknowable fate, led on by the weekly serial in the town paper and a disturbing live computer feed. Whoever is behind the Inger Ash Wolfe pseudonym is a master—braiding together an utterly human and appealing detective in Hazel Micallef, an inhuman and riveting plot, and enough grounding in time, place, and supporting characters to make a well-rounded whole.
—Laura

Broken
by Karin Slaughter 

Broken continues to merge the stories of Special Agent Will Trent and Dr. Sara Linton. They are both in Grant County and dealing with deaths both current and past. This new hardback and Slaughter's new paperback, Undone, are among my favorites.
—Linda

The Passage
by Justin Cronin

At the sight of a military experiment, the world forever changes within 32 minutes, ending all of life as we know it, and creating a new world, one full of danger for the few remaining survivors. The Passage is an epic novel of allegiance and endurance, the subtitle of which could be When Government Experiments Go Horribly Awry. What Cronin has created is a story that is entertaining and absorbing and, although it is uniquely different, reminiscent of Stephen King's The Stand.
—Teresa

Kraken
by China Miéville

If Paul the Psychic Soccer Octopus hasn't convinced you that there's something eerie about cephalopods, Kraken will with its darkly amusing take on the titular tentacled terror of the sea. A giant squid vanishes mysteriously from the guarded halls of London's Natural History Museum, triggering a wave of government magical conspiracies, squabbling scientists, and more Lovecraftian eldritch horrors than you can shake a prehensile arm at.
—Kimberly

For Children

Baby & Kindergarten

Dogs Don't Do Ballet
by Anna Kemp

Dogs don't do ballet! Or do they? Biff wants nothing more than to be a ballet dancer and he will do anything to make him dream come true.
—Teresa

Teen

Linger
by Maggie Stiefvater

Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver was one of my favorite young adult novels of the past year, an understated romance between a teenage girl and an awkwardly charming werewolf. Now Grace and Sam return in this winning sequel that's as beautifully designed as a physical book as it is written.
—Kimberly