Check out these book and movie reviews written by the staff of the Marathon County Public Library, featuring works of fiction and nonfiction for adults, children and teens! Our book reviews also are published at Goodreads.com; follow us for the latest updates.
Most true crime fans like a new Charles Manson book. Often, they tell the same story. Creepy-crawly. Sharon Tate. The Family. Drugs and Helter Skelter. But so often, those books have a timeless, placeless kind of quality; the crimes shrouded in a haze of smoke and lies. Meet Tom O’Neill. As a freelance journalist, he was approached to write an article...
All unfinished, unwritten books are held in hells library in the Unwritten wing (a neutral place within hell). The books are sentient and want terribly to escape to their author, to beg to be finished.It's the job of the Head Librarian to keep them contained. This novel is refreshing, and wonderfully written, a great read for bibliophiles and...
This book is a wonderful holiday read about a wombat who loves carrots, naps, and scratching. This love of carrots takes him on an adventure, a holiday adventure though wombats don't celebrate holidays, and have no concept of what Christmas or Santa is. The wombat finds himself face to face with reindeer (he names them strange creatures) who he battles with...
Do you have a pet? What kinds of animals do you like? Have you ever given your pets names like Bambino, You Know, Catterina, Mooky, Littless Kitty, Friendless, or Colonel Eggbert? In this read you will learn about the pets and animals 20 famous authors loved! Author Kathleen Krull offers insight into the backgrounds of the authors from childhood to...
“Writers and Their Pets: True Stories of Famous Authors and Their Animal Friends” By Kathleen Krull Art by Violet Lemay Do you have a pet? What kinds of animals do you like? Have you ever given your pets names like Bambino, You Know, Catterina, Mooky, Littless Kitty, Friendless, or Colonel Eggbert? In this read you will learn...
If you’re an inhabitant of planet Earth, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of Elton John. Maybe you’re familiar with some of the wild outfits and costumes he’s worn over the years, or you know a couple of his (many) hit songs. Perhaps you know him from his work on Disney’s The Lion King, or you’ve seen the 2019 biopic Rocketman. If you know anything about...
Approximately a decade after a mysterious plague killed nearly all of the world’s female population, a father (Casey Affleck) and his 11 year=old daughter, Rag (Anna Pniowsky), are on the run. Rag, it turns out, is immune to the illness and has survived all these years while her mother (played by Elizabeth Moss in flashbacks) did not. Seeing all females...
Augusten Burroughs, well-known writer and memoirist of such books as Running with Scissors and Lust & Wonder, has been keeping a secret from almost everyone in his life. But in his latest work, Toil & Trouble, Burroughs finally comes clean and reveals a part of himself that he’s never shared with the world before – the fact that he’s a witch....
Tess, who runs a charity that focuses on trying to help those wrongly convicted of crimes, gets her newest case: Carrie, charged with the brutal murder of her husband’s mistress. Carrie has maintained her innocence for three years, and she wants nothing more than to be released to be with her pregnant daughter. The case brings Tess back to the hometown...
The Girl and the Wolf by Katherena Vermette is a wonderful retelling of the classic Red Riding Hood tale. With gorgeous illustrations and lyrical dialogue, Vermette walks you through the woods as a little girl who has wandered too far and finds herself alone and lost. A wolf comes upon her, and what follows is a twist on the original...
Craft beer and microbreweries are popular everywhere these days, especially here in the Midwest. Author J. Ryan Stradal harnesses this as the focal point of his latest novel The Lager Queen of Minnesota, which follows a family of women through multiple decades, each one with ties to the beer-making industry. The book opens with Edith, a woman in her 60s...
In today’s world, more and more people want to know about the food they eat, where it comes from, and how it’s grown. But what does the future hold for consumers – and the food on their plates – in a world that’s getting increasingly hotter, drier and that has more extreme weather? In The Fate of Food, author Amanda Little explores the different...
Puss Jekyll is the perfect pet, cuddly and sweet, but she has a secret. At night she becomes Cat Hyde, mischievous hunter of small critters, not an ideal house pet. How can these two distinct personalities coexist in one furry cat body? Puss Jekyll lounges in the sun, warming her paws, while Cat Hyde prowls the streets wreaking havoc. What trouble will...
Author Ruth Ware has done it again! Easily one of my favorite authors, this utterly absorbing novel is her newest fantastic creation. Readers meet Rowan Caine, who finds an ad for a live-in nanny position in the picturesque Scottish Highlands. Beautiful surroundings, a very generous salary, and a luxurious home make this opportunity seem too good...
Look Out for the Fitzgerald-Trouts is a book you feel like you’ve dreamed up. Its realistic elements are: the four Fitzgerald-Trout children need to go to school, they need to eat, they need to do laundry and - most importantly - they need a better place to live. Its fantastical twist is: they have two terrible mothers and two (or three) awful fathers...
Nine year-old Bixby Alexander Tam - also known as Bat - loves animals, struggles to get along with his big sister, and also happens to be on the autism spectrum. Author Elana K. Arnold allows us to experience Bat’s world first hand, and we find ourselves rooting for Bat as he cares for an orphaned baby skunk and learns to navigate his first friendship...
Courtroom dramas almost always focus exclusively on the plaintiff and defendant at the heart of a trial. After all, that’s where some of the most compelling storytelling tends to reside. The Body in Question, however, switches things up by following a six-person jury assigned to a murder trial in central Florida, where a teenage girl is accused of setting...
This story is written as reminiscences of the times and adventures a group of friends shared in high school, and how their adult lives are altered by events that lead to a mystery. Tony Webster (the narrator); his three friends Alex, Colin and Adrian; and Tony's girlfriend, Veronica, grow and change over the years. The narration is...
Rufus really wants to get a dog but his father won't even consider it. Then his mom brings home a guinea pig. She runs, fetches, sits and even plays Frisbee! Rufus and Fido have a number of funny adventures. We have guinea pigs and I wish they were trained like Fido! This book is a great read-together bedtime story for kids and their...
Olive is the maid of honor at her twin sister's wedding and is standing up opposite Ethan, someone she could care less for. Ethan is her new brother-in-law's brother, and Olive think that it was just bad luck that paired them together. Was it fate, luck or their opposite personalities that caused Olive and Ethan to be the only ones that didn't...
This book allows its readers to meet the Sad Little Fact and many other little facts along the way. The Sad Little Fact lives in a world in which facts are dismissed and ultimately deemed "fake," then thrown away. The authorities of the world declare that lies are facts, and the world grows dark and dreary. However, hope is on the horizon as...
Step inside the restless, forward-thinking mind of one of the best chefs in the world with author Jeff Gordiner's account of years spent on-and-off with Rene Redzepi. Redzepi is the owner and head chef of Noma, the Copenhagen, Denmark restaurant consistently ranked one of the best (sometimes the best) restaurants in the world. It's difficult to...
Enzo loves his family, and loves car racing nearly as much. It just so happens that Enzo is also a dog. This is the story of Enzo reflecting back on his family, and how he sees the world, during his last moments on Earth. Does he want thumbs just like humans? Yes. Can he bark two times to tell Denny, his owner, to drive faster? Yes...
In the summer of 2015, two inmates – Richard Matt and David Sweat – escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Dannemora, New York. A massive manhunt followed the escape for nearly a month afterward, with many police, government and prison officials dumbfounded by how such an elaborate escape was possible. Escape at...
This story takes place in Paris in 1942 during World War II. While so many people are struggling, the wealthy entrepreneurs are building factories and need architects to design them. Lucien Bernard is one of these architects, and is offered large amounts of money to build secret hiding places for Jews. Although he struggles with the risk that he is...
