Character-driven books rich with language -- you'll find a lot to enjoy and discuss in these titles selected by our librarians. Descriptions adapted from from Kirkus Review of Books. (Updated February 2020)
The Topeka School
A family drama set in the American Midwest at the turn of the century: a tale of adolescence, transgression, and the conditions that have given rise to the trolls and tyrants of the new right. (NoveList)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
View The Topeka SchoolLost Children Archive
A novel about a family of four, on the cusp of fracture, who take a trip across America--a story told through varying points of view, and including archival documents and photographs. (NoveList)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
View Lost Children ArchiveSeverance
A post-apocalyptic—and pre-apocalyptic—debut. (Kirkus)
Format: Book
Availability: All copies in use
View SeveranceA Burning
An opportunistic gym teacher and a starry-eyed misfit find the realization of their ambitions tied to the downfall of an innocent Muslim girl who has been wrongly implicated in a terrorist attack. (NoveList)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
View A BurningThose Who Knew
From the award-winning author of Ways to Disappear, a taut, timely novel about what a powerful politician thinks he can get away with and the group of misfits who finally bring him down. (NoveList)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
View Those Who KnewHamnet
Imagining the life of the family Shakespeare left behind in Stratford makes an intriguing change of pace for a veteran storyteller. (Kirkus)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
View HamnetThe Memory Police
An Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance finds a young novelist hiding her editor from mysterious authorities who would erase all memories of people who once existed. (NoveList)
Format: Book
Availability: All copies in use
View The Memory PoliceThe Need
A woman grapples with the complex dualities of motherhood -- joy and dread, tenderness and anxiety -- after confronting a masked intruder in her home. (NoveList)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
View The NeedThe Alice Network
In 1947, pregnant Charlie St. Clair, an American college girl banished from her family, arrives in London to find out what happened to her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, and meets a former spy who, torn apart by betrayal, agrees to help her on her mission. (NoveList)
Format: Book
Availability: All copies in use
View The Alice NetworkSuch A Fun Age
The relationship between a privileged white mom and her black babysitter is strained by race-related complications. (Kirkus)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
View Such A Fun Age