Pearl's Picks for October

Pearl's Picks provides monthly reading suggestions from Nancy Pearl, the most widely known librarian of our time. These richly diverse book suggestions provide great reading experiences for readers of all ages and interests.

October · September · August

The Manual of Detection

by Jedediah Berry

Jedediah Berry's The Manual of Detection is a prime example of one of those peculiar and intriguing novels that occasionally come across my desk. It's the sort of fiction that is really impossible to characterize with any accuracy. Somehow, Berry's novel is neither this nor that: the plot is not straightforward; the setting is surreal yet oddly familiar . . . Read more · Place hold

The Night Inspector: A Novel

by Frederick Busch

Frederick Busch's novel The Night Inspector isn't nearly as well known as it should be. (In fact, I fear that Busch himself is known to a relatively small group of readers.) The Night Inspector will please fans of historical fiction, those who simply love good writing . . . Read more · Place hold

The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the World

by Paul Collins

It's only a slight exaggeration for me to say that I am such a fan of Paul Collins' books that if he happened to write one about — say — the history of the Los Angeles, California, Yellow Pages, I'd immediately request it . . . Read more · Place hold

He Who Fears the Wolf

by Karin Fossum

One of the trends we've been seeing over the last few years is translations into English of mysteries by Scandinavian writers. One of the best, and — sadly — least well known, is Norwegian Karin Fossum . . . Read more · Place hold

The Caveman's Valentine

by George Dawes Green

Although he went on to write two nicely reviewed novels, including The Juror and the just published Ravens, I found the latter two to be a bit too scary for my taste. So if you want an exciting mystery and well-developed characters, but nothing absolutely too awful to bear to happen . . . Read more · Place hold

The Skull Mantra

by Eliot Pattison

I've never stopped suggesting Eliot Pattison's first thriller, The Skull Mantra, to mystery fans. It won a well-deserved Edgar award for Best First Novel when it was published in 1999. In his first novel, Pattison introduced . . . Read more · Place hold

The Unknown Soldier

by Gerald Seymour

Gerald Seymour's exciting, indeed, almost irresistible The Unknown Soldier moves the spy novel ever more decisively in the direction it's been going — no more bad Russians, good-bye le Carré's Karla, and hello terrorists . . . Read more · Place hold

Stitches: A Memoir

by David Small

To that shortish list of great memoirs using the format of the graphic novel (Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, and Craig Thompson's Blankets), we can now add . . . Read more · Place hold

When You Reach Me

by Rebecca Stead

Some extraordinary teen fiction has been published recently (E. Lockhart's The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, for one), and now we have an equally outstanding novel for middle grade readers . . .. Read more · Place hold

Brat Farrar

by Josephine Tey

If I had to choose a favorite mystery novel, I think I'd pick Josephine Tey's Brat Farrar. I have now read Brat Farrar so many times that I've had to replace several worn out copies . . . Read more · Place hold

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