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Book Wizards

In the sleepy English countryside of decades past, there is a town that has stood on a jut of granite for six hundred years. And immediately to the east stands a high stone wall, for which the village is named. Here in the town of Wall, Tristran Thorn has lost his heart to the hauntingly beautiful Victoria Forester. One crisp October night, as they watch, a star falls from the sky, and Victoria promises to marry Tristran if he’ll retrieve that star and bring it back for her. It is this promise that sends Tristran through the only gap in the wall, across the meadow, and into the most unforgettable adventure of his life. […]

Your January Reading Resolution…Famous and Infamous
Reading Challenge

Your January Reading Resolution…Famous and Infamous

The 2021 Reading Resolutions Challenge kicks off with the theme “Famous and Infamous,” which invites you to read a biography, autobiography or memoir. What’s the difference? According to Oxford Languages/Google, a biography is an account of someone’s life written by someone else. An autobiography is an account of someone’s life written by that person. A memoir is similar to an […]

Your January Reading Resolution…Famous and Infamous
Reading Challenge

Time to Make Your Reading Resolutions!

  Make 2021 your best reading year yet, with a fun reading challenge that continues all year long! Reading Resolutions encourages you to read a book that fits a different theme each month. For each month you participate, you’ll be entered into a monthly prize drawing, and a grand prize drawing at year’s end. These are the twelve monthly themes: […]

Nite Readers (01/21/2021): All the Light We Cannot See
Nite Readers

Nite Readers (01/21/2021): All the Light We Cannot See

From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the stunningly beautiful instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.

Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Ten years in the writing, a National Book Award finalist, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never fail to thrill” (Los Angeles Times). […]

Winter Reading Begins! (Plus, a few suggestions to get you started)
Reading Challenge

Winter Reading Begins! (Plus, a few suggestions to get you started)

So far, snow hasn’t been falling, but books are definitely calling, as AAPLD opens its 2020-21 Winter Reading program.  The program officially kicked off on Monday, December 14, and runs through February 1. Signing up is easy! If you created a Beanstack account for 2020 Summer Reading, just go to aapld.beanstack.org  or use the Beanstack app. Log-in and follow the […]

Soon To Be Famous Illinois Manuscr
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Soon To Be Famous Illinois Manuscript Contest is now open!

Calling all local authors! If you have a finished work of Adult fiction that’s not yet published, consider entering it in the 2021 Soon To Be Famous Illinois Manuscript Contest! Sponsored by The Illinois Author Project, a collaboration between the the Illinois Library Association, the Reaching Across Illinois Library System, and other contributors, the contest recognizes the best unpublished Adult […]

Book Clubbers (01/07/2021): The Last Collection
Book Clubbers

Book Clubbers (01/07/2021): The Last Collection

An American woman becomes entangled in the intense rivalry between iconic fashion designers Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli in this vivid novel from the acclaimed author of The Beautiful American.
Paris, 1938. Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli are fighting for recognition as the most successful and influential fashion designer in France, and their rivalry is already legendary. They oppose each other at every turn, in both their politics and their designs: Chanel’s are classic, elegant, and practical; Schiaparelli’s bold, experimental, and surreal.
When Lily Sutter, a recently widowed American teacher, travels to Paris to visit her brother, Charlie, he insists on buying her a couture dress for her birthday—a Chanel. Lily reluctantly agrees but wants a Schiaparelli, not a Chanel. Charlie’s beautiful and socially prominent girlfriend begins wearing Schiaparelli’s designs as well, and soon much of Paris is following in her footsteps.
Schiaparelli offers budding artist Lily a job at her store, and suddenly, Lily finds herself increasingly involved with Schiaparelli and Chanel’s personal war. Their fierce competition reaches new and dangerous heights as the Nazis and the looming threat of World War II bear down on Paris. […]

Cozy Corner (01/06/2021): Bearly Departed
Cozy Corner

Cozy Corner (01/06/2021): Bearly Departed

The Silver Bear Shop and Factory might be the cutest place around, but there’s nothing warm and fuzzy about murder . . .
As manager of the family teddy bear shop and factory, thirty-one-year-old Sasha Silverman leads a charmed life. Well, except for the part about being a single divorcée with a ticking biological clock in small-town Silver Hollow. And that’s just kid’s stuff compared to Will Taylor, the sales rep who’s set on making drastic changes to the business her parents built from scratch—with or without Sasha’s approval . . .
But before Will digs his claws in, someone pulls the stuffing out of his plan . . . and leaves his dead body inside the factory. Reeling from shock, Sasha’s hit with more bad news—police suspect her hot-tempered Uncle Ross may have murdered him. Sasha knows her uncle would never do such a thing, and she’s launching her own little investigation to expose the truth. As she tracks Will’s biggest rivals and enemies for clues, Sasha can’t get too comfy—or she’ll become the next plaything for a killer . . .
“A twisty mystery tale with a likable protagonist and a colorful supporting cast. Sure to be a very enjoyable series!”—Livia J. Washburn, bestselling author of Black and Blueberry Die
“Cute and cuddly on the outside, murder and mayhem on the inside—I love this book!!! Totally adorable.”—Duffy Brown, bestselling author of Braking for Bodies […]