Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Meg's Picks: January 2016, part 2

I know, I know. The holidays have me running around like a maniac, too. Some years, I'm organized and coasting by now. This year? Is not one of those years. I have a feeling I'll be shopping and wrapping right up to the eleventh hour this time around.

However!

I do have some things organized and planned out months in advance, like ordering new fiction for the library! Here are some of my picks for great reads in the New Year.




Love in Lowercase, by Francesc Miralles. This little modern fable is a bestseller in 18 countries already, so I have a feeling that this will hit a sweet spot with readers here in the US this winter, especially since it's being likened to recent favorites like Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Project, among others. Here, forlorn bachelor and linguistics professor Samuel is led through a series of unexpected events leading him to a second chance at love. Expect this to hit you right in the feels. I'm also recommending this to readers who enjoyed Nina George's The Little Paris Bookshop, just FYI.

Swans of Fifth Avenue, by Melanie Benjamin. It's likely that Benjamin's name rings a bell or two with readers after her splash a couple of years ago with The Aviator's Wife. Now she brings us to New York in the 1950s and 60s, where Truman Capote rides high on his early literary successes and delights in his circle of "swans," a group of wealthy, married women who flock to him both for his charisma and his love of good gossip. Chief among them is Barbara "Babe" Paley, wife of CBS president William S. Paley, but when Capote betrays his swans by publishing their darkest secrets, things get ugly. I expect this to be a hit among historical fiction fans and book clubs, among others.

Eleanor, by Jason Gurley. This is not your average debut fiction. Described as literary fantasy, the novel was originally self-published, only to sell like wildfire and garner lots of praise before being snapped up by a big publisher (Crown) and reworked before republication. Eleanor loses her identical twin in a terrible accident, and in the aftermath, her mother drowns her sorrow in drink and her father walks out. By the time she's a teenager, strange things are happening to Eleanor, culminating in her finding herself in another land and led by a mysterious guide to what may save her family. Think a grown-up version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, only gritty and more somber.

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