LibraryAware November 2023

Adult Fiction

Hercule Poirot's Silent Night: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery
by Sophie Hannah

Just before Christmas 1931, Hercule Poirot and Scotland Yard Inspector Catchpool visit Catchpool's family (including his acerbic mother) in a decaying coastal manor in order to solve a murder. This "stellar" (Publishers Weekly) 5th Hercule Poirot mystery by Sophie Hannah features a well-drawn Poirot and a twisty plot. Read-alikes: Anthony Horowitz; P.D. James's The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories.

Stars in Your Eyes
by Kacen Callender

Cast as love interests in a highly anticipated film, Hollywood bad boy Logan Gray and rising star Matthew "Mattie" Cole embark on a show-mance that soon turns into the real thing. Read-alikes: Kosoko Jackson's I'm So Not Over You; Ava Wilder's How to Fake It in Hollywood; Lucy Parker's Act Like It.

Blood Sisters
by Vanessa Lillie

Syd Walker, an archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and a member of the Cherokee Nation, goes on assignment back home in Oklahoma. While there, she hopes to find her missing sister...and she'll also deal with memories of a violent event from 15 years before. Read-alike: Marcie R. Rendon's Cash Blackbear novels.

Murder by Degrees
by Ritu Mukerji

This acclaimed debut stars Dr. Lydia Weston, a professor at Philadelphia's Women's Medical College in 1875 who also runs a low-cost clinic. When a maid she'd treated disappears and a body is later found, Lydia is allowed to help with the autopsy and the case. Read-alikes: Sujata Massey's Perveen Mistry novels; Ariana Franklin's Mistress of the Art of Death books.

Let Us Descend
by Jesmyn Ward

In pre-Civil War North Carolina, an enslaved woman secretly teaches her daughter, Annis, survival skills. Those lessons plus old spirits help teenage Annis as she is marched to New Orleans and endures life on a sugarcane plantation in this vivid, haunting tale. Read-alike: The Known World by Edward P. Jones; The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Jewel Box
by E. Lily Yu

This "trove of fantastical treasures" (Kirkus Reviews) by E. Lily Yu (On Fragile Waves) contains 22 of the acclaimed speculative fiction author's short stories, including the Hugo-, World Fantasy-, and Nebula Award-nominated "The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees."

Land of Milk and Honey
by C Pam Zhang

In this lyrical, near-future novel, smog covers the earth. At a mysterious facility near Italy, our unnamed narrator is the new chef, and she cooks with fresh food for the first time in years. But what are her wealthy boss and his intriguing daughter up to? Read-alikes: Chang-rae Lee's On Such a Full Sea; Lydia Kiesling's Mobility.

Adult Nonfiction

Black AF history: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America
by Michael Harriot

TheGrio columnist and former The Root writer Michael Harriot offers an irreverent and "essential" (Kirkus Reviews) retelling of American history that eschews Eurocentric narratives by placing Black lives and achievements front and center. Read-alike: Defining Moments in Black History: Reading Between the Lies by Dick Gregory.

A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial
by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen (The Sympathizer) incisively explores "the thin border between / history and memory" in his nonlinear memoir detailing how colonization, war, and a fractured sense of self have impacted him as the child of Vietnamese refugees. Read-alike: The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui.

How to Say Babylon: A Memoir
by Safiya Sinclair

Whiting Award-winning poet Safiya Sinclair (Cannibal) recounts her flight from her strict Rastafarian upbringing in this evocative Read with Jenna Book Club Pick. For fans of: Educated by Tara Westover.

Flee North: A Forgotten Hero and the Fight for Freedom in Slavery's Borderland
by Scott Shane

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Scott Shane evocatively spotlights the pivotal yet little-known role freedman Thomas Smallwood and white abolitionist Charles Torrey played in helping hundreds of enslaved people escape to Canada in the 1840s; Smallwood himself gave the Underground Railroad its name. Read-alike: Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo.

Youth Fiction

The Blackwoods
by Brandy Colbert

Cousins Hollis and Ardith Blackwood grew up in the spotlight, thanks to the Black Hollywood dynasty their great-grandmother Bebe established. Everything changes when Bebe’s death shines unwanted light on the cousins’ secrets. Told in three perspectives, this compelling family saga examines the cost of fame

How This Book Got Red
by Margaret Chiu Greanias; illustrated by Melissa Iwai

Red is frustrated that books about pandas focus on black-and-white giant pandas instead of red pandas like her. She could fix that by writing her own book – but would anyone read it? Adorable artwork amps up the charm of this fable about representation.

Remember Us
by Jacqueline Woodson

Twelve-year-old Sage loves her 1970s Bushwick neighborhood and her friends at the basketball court. After some sad and scary incidents, though, she’s left doubting if she really belongs. Poetic writing and short chapters will pull you in to this moving read by popular author Jacqueline Woodson.

Contact your librarian for more great books!