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Litchfield MN 55355

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While all Pioneerland Library System buildings remain closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Curbside Pick-up of library items is available. You may place items on hold using the online catalog. Library staff will call you to schedule a pickup time once your hold is ready. Pickup days/times vary by location. Please contact your library if you have questions or need assistance in using this service.

Friday, September 11, 2015

This fall's harvest of books

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

Now that it’s fall, you might be looking for a good book to curl up with as the days get cooler.  I looked through some of the lists of the most anticipated books of this fall, and there are several that are mentioned over and over.  Your friends might be talking about these books in the coming months.

Purity by Jonathan Franzen was released September 1.  It’s on the bestseller lists, but it has gotten mixed reviews.  Some reviewers think it’s meandering and magnificent, while others think it’s meandering and monotonous.  Purity, or Pip, is a college debt-saddled young woman with a troubled mother who goes to work for a Wikileaks-type organization in an attempt to find out who her father is.  Franzen is considered one of the most important American novelists, though not without some controversy.

In The Art of Memoir, Syracuse professor Mary Karr presents what the New York Times Book Review is calling a “master class” in the form.  Karr’s best-seller The Liar’s Club brought about a revival of the memoir form in 1995.  She also had bestsellers with Cherry and Lit. Her student Cheryl Strayed wrote the more recent memoir phenomenon, Wild.  With examples from her own life and her favorite memoirs, Karr presents an entertaining and insightful guide to writing as a way to make sense of one’s own experiences.  This book will be published on September 15.

John Grisham has a new novel coming out October 20.  Rogue Lawyer features a very colorful attorney whose office is a swanky bulletproof van driven by a heavily armed bodyguard/law clerk/golf caddie.  He defends clients other lawyers won’t take, and he is willing to break the rules to get anyone a fair trial.  Sounds like an attorney’s escapist fantasy to me.  Grisham’s books are always bestsellers.

Robert Galbraith had hits with the first two Cormoran Strike novels, The Cuckoo’s Calling and The Silkworm.  The third, Career of Evil, will be released October 20.  Galbraith is better known as J.K. Rowling.  My adult book club at the library loved the first book in the series and some of them are eagerly awaiting the third.  These are mysteries that feature private eye Strike and his assistant Robin.

Humorist Mindy Kaling has a follow-up to her bestseller Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?  Her new book Why Not Me? will come out on September 15.  Kaling is the creator and star of the TV show The Mindy Project.  Her new book is a collection of funny personal essays about life in Hollywood.

Finally, Lisbeth Salander is back, even though Stieg Larsson died.  The Girl in the Spider’s Web is a continuation of the Millennium series, now written by David Lagercrantz.  Swedish, British, and American reviewers are saying that the new author did a seamless job of picking up the characters, and he may have written them even better than Larsson himself did.  This book came out September 1.


If the cooler days inspire you to pick up a good book, place an order for one of these or stop in to browse other new books we have on hand. The pickings are always good at the library.