Best Seller Read-Alikes for the Week of October 21st

Can’t wait to get your hands on the latest best-seller, but the hold list is too long? To tide you over, every week we’ll offer similar titles and authors to the week’s fiction and nonfiction best sellers.

Fiction

At #1 this week in fiction is J.K. Rowling's much-anticipated novel The Casual Vacancy. Rowling's first venture into adult fiction centers on the small English village of Pagford and begins with the sudden death of a councilman. The empty seat on the council set off a fierce fight between the haves and the have-nots, the differing cultures and between the generations of Pagford. A darkly humorous satire, Rowling explores the far less magical battles between good and evil in small-town life. 

Books similar to Rowling's The Casual Vacancy include:

A False Sense of Well Being by Jeanne Braselton - After eleven years of marriage, thirty-eight-year-old Jessie Maddox finds herself in the middle of a midlife crisis as she begins to experience a number of dark fantasies about her husband's untimely end. Black humor suffuses Jessie's attempts to explain and alleviate her boredom as she confides in other women and finally return to her hometown in Alabama, searching for some kind of comfort.

Below Stairs:  The Classic Kitchen Maid's Memoir that Inspired 'Upstairs, Downstairs' by Margaret Powell (Biog. Powell)- A memoir written by a kitchen maid in 1920's England, detailing the daily drudgery of domestic service, the inequities between social classes and the dynamic between the family of the house and those who served them. Powell writes with unsentimental wit and bluntness that is refreshing and entertaining.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson - Set in the small British village of Edgecombe St. Mary, where Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired) leads a quiet life until his brother's death sparks an unexpected friendship with Mrs. Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper from the village. Drawn together by their shared love of literature and the loss of their respective spouses, the Major and Mrs. Ali soon find their friendship blossoming into something more. But will their relationship survive in a society that considers Ali a foreigner? An engaging love story that explores the social and politcal boundaries of small-town life.

Click here for more fiction bestsellers... 

Nonfiction

At #1 in non-fiction is Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot, Bill O'Reilly & Michael Dugard's follow-up to their bestseller detailing President Lincoln's assassination (Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever). O'Reilly and Dugard take the same route here, retelling the events leading up to the assassination of President Kennedy and how the event affected the nation and the world.

Books similar to Killing Kennedy include:

Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Vincent Bugliosi (973.922092 BUG) - Best known as the prosecutor of the Manson murders, Bugliosi presents a thorough analysis of the assassination of JFK and its surrounding conspiracy theories draws on forensic evidence, key witness testimonies, and other sources to explain what really happened and why conspiracy theories have become so popularized.

Jack Kennedy, Elusive Hero by Chris Matthews (Biog. Kennedy) - Based on interviews with some of his closest associates, Matthew creates a portrait of the thirty-fifth president, discussing his privileged childhood, military service, struggles with a life-threatening disease, and career in politics. More thoughtful that shocking, this biography delves deeper into the personal life of JFK.

The Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Medicine, Madness and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard (973.84 MIL) - A narrative account of James Garfield's political career offers insight into his background as a scholar and Civil War hero, his battles against the corrupt establishment, and Alexander Graham Bell's failed attempt to save him from an assassin's bullet.

Click here for more nonfiction bestsellers ...

If you'd like more recommendations, stop by the Recommendations Desk on the first floor, check out NoveList Plus on the library's website, or visit W. 11th & Bluff next week for more reading suggestions. Or submit a Personal Recommendations request, and we'll create a reading list just for you!

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

The Age of Miracles begins with a momentous discovery - the rotation of the Earth has begun to slow. No one knows why, if it will continue or even how to adapt. Though one thing is for sure: life as we know it has changed forever.

Against this backdrop, our narrator, 11-year-old Julia has embarked on her own life-changing journey - adolescence. Julia, her family, the world around her attempt to carry on as usual at first, but drastic adaptations must be made. How these changes affect Julia, the people around her and the experience of growing up is a central theme in this novel. However, it is not just a novel of the end of the world or of civilization. In fact, it is more about how life continues on, more or less unchanged, in the face of drastic global change.

The titular "age of miracles" refers not to the the crisis the world is enduring, but the upheaval of adolescence. As the rest of the planet discovers that life as they knew it has changed forever, so does Julia, as her own personality, identity and family go through momentous changes. While some are directly brought about - or at least prompted by - the slowing, many are part of the inevitable passage from childhood into adulthood.

The first few chapters are heavy with profound and meaningful statements, which are, I suppose, necessary to communicate the depth of what is happening, it tends to get a bit heavy-handed. Fortunately, as the story progresses, this tendency towards the over-dramatic lessens (although, it could be argued that adolescence itself is by definition over-dramatic and filled with intense meaning.)

You know that Julia survives at least the first years of the slowing, since much of the the narrative is in the past-tense. So it's not really about survival - as in books like Life As We Knew It - but life going on against the backdrop of a world catastrophe. In many ways, the books is a hopeful one, in that even the slowing of the Earth itself cannot stop the awful awkwardness and trials of puberty.

I might have enjoyed more about the science surrounding the slowing and its effects, and more about what was going on in the wider world. But, that isn't really what the book is about. It's about middle school and adolescence, and in those respects, the author is incredibly accurate. Some of the situations and feelings Julia describes are so true, so familiar, that they made my toes curl (wasn't middle school just so, so awful?)

I was surprised to find this book in the adult collection, as the story and style would be highly appealing to young adult readers, too. It stands well on its own, but a sequel, perhaps from other points of view from different places around the world, would be well-received. The book has both a website and a trailer (below).



Happy reading!

~ Allison, Adult Services

Spotlight: Debut authors

All readers - avid and occasional alike - look forward to the next book written by their favorite author. Fans of James Patterson usually don't have long to wait for his newest novel, while fans of authors like George R.R. Martin may have to wait years for his next tome. Or, perhaps you've grown tired of the same ol' stories. So what's a reader to do?  How about trying something written by a brand-new author!

Hundreds of debut authors enter the writing scene every year, from every genre. Some are instant bestsellers, while others gain readers more slowly through word of mouth. Some debut authors have had success in magazines or online, with self-published ebooks.

What sets these authors apart from more familiar names is that this is their first go in the national book publishing scene - their first chance to make a good impression on thousands of readers.  Debut authors don't have to work within expectations, which allows them to take risks that more established authors might not, for fear of losing their loyal readership. Without the benefit of reputation or name recognition, though, it can be difficult to really make an impact.

We add hundreds of debut authors to our collection every year. Here's some of the most promising we've seen in the past few months:

Albert of Adelaide by Howard Anderson (Fiction Anderson) - After escaping from Australia's Adelaide Zoo, a duck-billed platypus encounters a number of Australian animals, including a pyromaniac wombat, drunk bandicoots, and a wrestling Tasmanian devil as he embarks on a journey through the outback searching for liberty and peace.

Diary of a Mad Fat Girl by Stephanie McAfee (Fiction McAfee) - Graciela "Ace" Jones – a high school art teacher in a small Mississippi town - tries to right a number of wrongs, including a friend's cheating husband and her own boyfriend, who proposed three years too late. Funny and engaging, and full of romance and intrigue in the tradition of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum.

The Book of Madness and Cures by Regina O'Melveny (Fiction O'Melveny) -  When 16th-century Venetian doctor Gabriella Mondini is barred from practicing medicine, she sets off across Europe in search of her father, a respected doctor who left under mysterious circumstances 10 years ago to gather material for his Book of Diseases. As a rare female doctor, Gabriella needs his mentorship, but his letters have grown increasingly incoherent; as she follows his route, she hears disturbing stories about his erratic behavior.


Wide Open by Deborah Coates (Science Fiction Coates ) - When Sergeant Hallie Michaels returns home to South Dakota from Afghanistan on ten days' compassionate leave, her sister Dell's ghost is waiting at the airport to greet her. The sheriff says that Dell's death was a suicide, but Hallie doesn't believe it. As Hallie pushes for answers, she attracts more ghosts--local women who disappeared without a trace - and discovers a disturbing pattern. Now she needs to not just figure out what happened to Dell but to make sure no one else shares her fate

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey (Fiction Ivey) - A childless couple working a farm in the brutal landscape of 1920 Alaska discover a little girl living in the wilderness, with a red fox as a companion, and begin to love the strange, almost-supernatural child as their own.

Firelight by Kristen Callihan (Romance Callihan) - Forced to wed London's most nefarious nobleman to save her family from financial ruin, Miranda Ellis, who is gifted with exceptional abilities, discovers that her new husband is no ordinary man when she must enter a world of dark magic to save his soul

Stop by the first floor to browse our display of debut authors for even more!