Staff Picks: Dec. 2024

Jessamine County Public Library staff love these books!

Updated December 4, 2024
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No exit : a novel
Adams, Taylor
Paper Book
"What a box of tricks! This full-throttle thriller, dark and driving, rivals Agatha Christie for sheer ingenuity and James Patterson for flat-out speed. Swift, sharp, and relentless." -- A. J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window A brilliant,...
Interesting facts about space
Austin, Emily R.
Paper Book
A fast-paced, hilarious, and ultimately hopeful novel for anyone who has ever worried they might be a terrible person--from the bestselling author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead. Enid is obsessed with space. She can tell you all about black...
Longbourn
Baker, Jo.
Paper Book
* Pride and Prejudice was only half the story *   If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she'd most likely be a sight more careful with them.   In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs...
Senlin ascends
Bancroft, Josiah
Paper Book
The first book in the word-of-mouth phenomenon debut fantasy series about one man's dangerous journey through a labyrinthine world. "One of my favorite books of all time" -- Mark Lawrence The Tower of Babel is the greatest marvel in the world. Immense as a mountain,...
The little shop of found things
Brackston, Paula
Paper Book
New York Times bestselling author of The Witch's Daughter Paula Brackston returns to her trademark blend of magic and romance guaranteed to enchant in The Little Shop of Found Things, the first book in a new continuing series. An antique shop haunted by a...
Chronicles of the Black Company
Cook, Glen.
Paper Book
Darkness wars with darkness as the hard-bitten men of the Black Company take their pay and do what they must. They bury their doubts with their dead. Then comes the prophecy: The White Rose has been reborn, somewhere, to embody good once more... This omnibus edition...
The last kingdom : a novel
Cornwell, Bernard.
Paper Book
The first installment of Bernard Cornwell's bestselling series chronicling the epic saga of the making of England, "like Game of Thrones, but real" (The Observer, London)--the basis for The Last Kingdom, the hit Netflix television series. This is the exciting--yet little known--story...
Liar, dreamer, thief
Dong, Maria
Paper Book
A young woman's carefully constructed fantasy world implodes in this brilliantly conceived novel that blurs distinctions between right and wrong, comedy and tragedy, imagination and reality: "Surreal . . . filled with technicolor lies and terrible truths" (Alix E. Harrow, New York Times<...
Dog flowers : a memoir
Geller, Danielle
Paper Book
A daughter returns home to the Navajo reservation to retrace her mother's life in a memoir that is both a narrative and an archive of one family's troubled history.   "A candid and achingly fractured memoir of [Geller's] mother, her family, her Navajo heritage and her own...
Maybe you should talk to someone : a therapist, her therapist, and our lives revealed
Gottlieb, Lori
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! "Rarely have I read a book that challenged me to see myself in an entirely new light, and was at the same time laugh-out-loud funny and utterly absorbing."--Katie Couric "This is a daring, delightful, and transformative...
These silent woods : a novel
Grant, Kimi Cunningham
Paper Book
A father and daughter living in the remote Appalachian mountains must reckon with the ghosts of their past in Kimi Cunningham Grant's These Silent Woods, a mesmerizing novel of suspense. No electricity, no family, no connection to the outside world. For...
Plainsong
Haruf, Kent.
Paper Book
A heartstrong story of family and romance, tribulation and tenacity, set on the High Plains east of Denver. In the small town of Holt, Colorado, a high school teacher is confronted with raising his two boys alone after their mother retreats first to the bedroom, then altogether. A teenage girl...
The loop
Johnson, Jeremy Robert
Paper Book
The year's most brutal, cinematic thrill ride is also one of its most critically acclaimed novels. Dazed and Confused meets 28 Days Later in this "wickedly entertaining," (Kirkus Reviews) "volcano of a book" (Nathan Ballingrud, author of Wounds) as a lonely young woman...
Small things like these
Keegan, Claire
Paper Book
**OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK, DECEMBER 2024** **NEW YORK TIMES BOOK CLUB PICK, DECEMBER 2024** NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING CILLIAN MURPHY A New York Times Bestseller * Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize * Winner of...
Maeve fly
Leede, CJ
Paper Book
A USA Today bestseller! Winner of the Golden Poppy Octavia E. Butler Award * Winner of the Splatterpunk Award for Best Novel * A Bram Stoker Award Nominee * One of Esquire's Best Horror Books of the Year * An Indie Next Pick!...
The problem of pain
Lewis, C. S.
Paper Book
Why Must We Suffer? "If God is good and all-powerful, why does he allow his creatures to suffer pain?" And what about the suffering of animals, who neither deserve pain nor can be improved by it? The greatest Christian thinker of our time sets out to disentangle these knotty issues. With...
I am Alfonso Jones
Medina, Tony
Paper Book
The Hate U Give meets The Lovely Bones in this unflinching graphic novel about the afterlife of a young man killed by an off-duty police officer, co-illustrated by New York Times bestselling artist John Jennings. Alfonso Jones can't wait to play the role of...
Smile and look pretty
Pellegrino, Amanda
Paper Book
"[A] 9 to 5 for the Instagram generation... Darkly funny and bitingly modern." --Andrea Bartz, author of Reese's Book Club Pick We Were Never Here HIGHLY ANTICIPATED BY FORTUNE ⋅ FEMINIST BOOK CLUB ⋅ THE NERD DAILY ⋅ BOOKISH...
Passions in death
Robb, J. D.
Paper Book
Homicide Detective Eve Dallas hunts a killer who turns a wedding party into a murder scene in the next novel by the #1 New York Times bestselling author, J.D. Robb, Passions in Death. On a hot August night, Lt. Eve Dallas and her husband, Roarke, speed through the...
Miss Julia speaks her mind : a novel
Ross, Ann B.
Paper Book
When Wesley Lloyd Springer passed away, he left his proper Southern wife two legacies. The first, as befits a gentleman of means, is the whole of his sizeable estate. The second, so astonishing thereupon hangs this wonderful and witty tale. Miss Julia, recently bereaved and newly wealthy widow,...
Discrimination and disparities
Sowell, Thomas
Paper Book
An enlarged edition of Thomas Sowell's brilliant examination of the origins of economic disparities Economic and other outcomes differ vastly among individuals, groups, and nations. Many explanations have been offered for the differences....
City of secrets
Tracy, P. J.
Paper Book
LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan returns in P. J. Tracy's City of Secrets, the next book in the series praised by the New York Times Book Review: "Tracy seems to have found her literary sweet spot." Los Angeles Police Detective Margaret Nolan and her partner have...
The Polar Express
Van Allsburg, Chris
Paper Book
This beautiful hardcover edition of The Polar Express is the perfect gift for all those--of any age--who believe, come Christmas Eve, that they too will hear the sweet sound of a reindeer's silver bell. This edition includes a keepsake ornament. A young boy, lying awake one Christmas Eve,...
What have we here? : portraits of a life
Williams, Billy Dee
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A film legend recalls his remarkable life of nearly eight decades--a heralded actor who's played the roles he wanted, from Brian's Song to Lando in the Star Wars universe--unchecked by the racism and typecasting so rife in the mostly all...
Shadow & claw
Wolfe, Gene.
Paper Book
The Book of the New Sun is unanimously acclaimed as Gene Wolfe's most remarkable work, hailed as "a masterpiece of science fantasy comparable in importance to the major works of Tolkien and Lewis" by Publishers Weekly. Shadow & Claw brings together the first two...

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