Take the Banned Books Reading Challenge
Reading Challenge

Take the Banned Books Reading Challenge

Ready for a fun and thought-provoking way to stretch your reading? Join AAPLD’s Banned Book Reading Challenge, running through the month of September. Signing up is easy! Just log into Beanstack, select the Banned Books Challenge, and read one book from the Banned Books Reading List. We have selections for adults, kids and teens, so everyone in the family can […]

Oh, the Horror! (09/27/2022): The Invited
Book Clubs

Oh, the Horror! (09/27/2022): The Invited

In a quest for a simpler life, Helen and Nate have abandoned the comforts of suburbia to take up residence on forty-four acres of rural land where they will begin the ultimate, aspirational do-it-yourself project: building the house of their dreams. When they discover that this beautiful property has a dark and violent past, Helen, a former history teacher, becomes consumed by the local legend of Hattie Breckenridge, a woman who lived and died there a century ago.

With her passion for artifacts, Helen finds special materials to incorporate into the house—a beam from an old schoolroom, bricks from a mill, a mantel from a farmhouse—objects that draw her deeper into the story of Hattie and her descendants, three generations of Breckenridge women, each of whom died suspiciously. As the building project progresses, the house will become a place of menace and unfinished business: a new home, now haunted, that beckons its owners and their neighbors toward unimaginable danger. […]

Get the Spin on our Newest Collection!
Music

Get the Spin on our Newest Collection!

Music lovers, listen up! AAPLD has a brand new collection just for you. Vinyl records are now available for check-out at the Main Library on Harnish Drive. In addition to timeless classics such as the Beatles’ Abbey Road,  Carole King’s Tapestry, and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, you’ll also find plenty of hot newer releases, including these best sellers from 2021’s Top […]

Library Reads (09/15/2022): The Midnight Library
Book Clubs

Library Reads (09/15/2022): The Midnight Library

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?

In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place. […]

Enjoying the Classics (09/21/2022): Nostromo
Book Clubs

Enjoying the Classics (09/21/2022): Nostromo

Joseph Conrad’s multilayered masterpiece tells of one nation’s violent revolution and one hero’s moral degeneration. Conrad convincingly invents an entire country, Costaguana, and sets it afire as warlords compete for power and a fortune in silver.

Señor Gould, adamant that his silver should not become spoil for his enemies, entrusts it to his faithful longshoreman, Nostromo, a local hero of sorts whom Señor Gould believes to be incorruptible. Nostromo accepts the mission as an opportunity to increase his own fame. But when his exploit fails to win him the rewards he had hoped for, he is consumed by a corrupting resentment.

Nostromo, relevant both as literature and as a brilliant social study, ambitiously brings to life Latin American history and the politics of an underdeveloped country. […]

The Nail Biters (09/20/2022): Untamed Shore
Book Clubs

The Nail Biters (09/20/2022): Untamed Shore

Baja California, 1979. Viridiana spends her days watching the dead sharks piled beside the seashore, as the fishermen pull their nets. There is nothing else to do, nothing else to watch, under the harsh sun. She’s bored. Terribly bored. Yet her head is filled with dreams of Hollywood films, of romance, of a future beyond the drab town where her only option is to marry and have children.

Three wealthy American tourists arrive for the summer, and Viridiana is magnetized. She immediately becomes entwined in the glamorous foreigners’ lives. They offer excitement, and perhaps an escape from the promise of a humdrum future. When one of them dies, Viridiana lies to protect her friends. Soon enough, someone’s asking questions, and Viridiana has some of her own about the identity of her new acquaintances. Sharks may be dangerous, but there are worse predators nearby, ready to devour a naïve young woman who is quickly being tangled in a web of deceit. […]

Happily Ever After (09/19/2022): The Siren of Sussex
Book Clubs

Happily Ever After (09/19/2022): The Siren of Sussex

Evelyn Maltravers understands exactly how little she’s worth on the marriage mart. As an incurable bluestocking from a family tumbling swiftly toward ruin, she knows she’ll never make a match in a ballroom. Her only hope is to distinguish herself by making the biggest splash in the one sphere she excels: on horseback. In haute couture. But to truly capture London’s attention she’ll need a habit-maker who’s not afraid to take risks with his designs—and with his heart.

Half-Indian tailor Ahmad Malik has always had a talent for making women beautiful, inching his way toward recognition by designing riding habits for Rotten Row’s infamous Pretty Horsebreakers—but no one compares to Evelyn. Her unbridled spirit enchants him, awakening a depth of feeling he never thought possible.

But pushing boundaries comes at a cost and not everyone is pleased to welcome Evelyn and Ahmad into fashionable society. With obstacles spanning between them, the indomitable pair must decide which hurdles they can jump and what matters most: making their mark or following their hearts? […]

Unicorns and Spaceships (09/13/2022): The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
Book Clubs

Unicorns and Spaceships (09/13/2022): The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

In the vein of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Life After Life, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is New York Times bestselling author V. E. Schwab’s genre-defying tour de force.

A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget.

France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever—and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.

Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name. […]

Find Your Next Great Read!
Book Lists

Find Your Next Great Read!

Summer Reading is over, but there are still plenty of great books waiting to be discovered! If you’re not sure what to read next, we can help. AAPLD has some fun and easy-to-use tools to help you find your next great read. Whether it’s an online database that can suggest more titles like your favorite series or author, or a […]