Library Journal's Reader's Shelf

From the Stacks of Downers Grove: Favorite 2010 Titles

Staff Picks from the Librarians at the Downers Grove Public Library in Illinois

The Swan Thieves By Kostova, Elizabeth 2010-11 - Back Bay Books 9780316065795 Check Our Catalog Kostova's masterful new novel travels from American cities to the coast of Normandy, from the late 19th century to the late 20th, from young love to last love, to create a story of obsession, history's losses, and the power of art to preserve human hope. …More

Blacklands By Bauer, Belinda 2010-01 - Simon & Schuster 9781439149447 Check Our Catalog BookPage Notable Title Bauer pens a psychological thriller about the cat-and-mouse game between a boy desperately seeking the truth about this uncle's murder and the murderer himself. …More

Brains: A Zombie Memoir By Becker, Robin 2010-06 - Eos 9780061974052 Check Our Catalog After the zombie apocalypse, can zombies and humans live together in peace and harmony? College professor-cum-zombie Jack Barnes is determined to try, in this wonderfully stylish and humorous debut novel. …More

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand By Simonson, Helen 2010-11 - Random House Trade 9780812981223 Check Our Catalog Edgecombe St. Mary, a small village in the English countryside, is filled with rolling hills, thatched cottages, and contains a cast of characters both hilariously original and as familiar as the members of readers' own families. Their interactions are both hilarious and heartbreaking. …More

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms By Jemisin, N. K. 2010-02 - Orbit 9780316043915 Check Our Catalog BookPage Notable Title Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, Yeine is summoned to the majestic city of Sky. There, to her shock, she is named an heiress to the king. …More

Paradise Under Glass: An Amateur Creates a Conservatory Garden By Kassinger, Ruth 2010-05 - William Morrow & Company 9780061547744 Check Our Catalog A witty and absorbing memoir about one woman's unlikely desire to build, stock, and tend a small conservatory in her suburban home, interwoven with the history of conservatories from the Renaissance to today. …More

Red Hook Road By Waldman, Ayelet 2010-07 - Doubleday Books 9780385517867 Check Our Catalog BookPage Notable Title Set on the coast of Maine over the course of four summers, "Red Hook Road" tells the story of two families and of the ways in which their lives are unraveled and stitched together by misfortune, by good intentions and failure, and by love and calamity. …More