One of These Titles is Not Like the Other…

Posted on May 29, 2026May 19, 2026 by abbiebourelle

This year I have been keeping a reading journal. It is just a blank journal, but I keep track of what I read each month and write my thoughts down on the books that I finish. This allows me to be blunt, honest, and able to scream and gush about my interests in a controlled fashion. I rank the book that I read between 1 and 5 stars depending on what I thought of it. It will be thrilling to go back through it at the end of the year and relive my adventures.

Anyway, while reviewing my reads for April I noticed that I had a trend going. Usually I read a variety of genres. In April I seem to have stuck to only one in particular, with one exception. I wish to share my reads with you, Dear Reader, and perhaps you can guess which one is not like the others!

Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

I am a sucker for a good Gothic thriller and Lock Every Door provided what I sought. I will admit outright that the main character in this one is not the brightest bulb in the shack. She is the epitome of a stereotypical horror movie character that never spots the red flags and makes all of the wrong choices. But if she made the correct choices would we actually have a good thrilling tale? Probably not. Sometimes the characters need to make the wrong choices so that we, the readers, can be entertained.

Jules is down on her luck. She lost her job, her boyfriend cheated on her, she lost her apartment, and now she is sleeping on her best friend’s couch with barely a penny to her name. When Jules reads an ad in the paper for an apartment sitting job at the prestigious Bartholomew she believes it to be too good to be true. The Bartholomew is one of the oldest apartment buildings in New York, home to the rich and famous and impossible to access. Jules applies and gets the job. She finds herself living in luxury on the top floor of the building, getting a very nice paycheck, a gorgeous view of Central Park, and she even has her very own gargoyle statue outside of her bedroom window. An added perk is the very attractive doctor living in the apartment next door. The Bartholomew, however, may not be all it seems. Jules soon finds out about its dark past and that previous apartment sitters have been disappearing. Can Jules uncover the truth of The Bartholomew before she becomes the next victim?

I want to say I obsessed over this one for a while and I very highly recommend it. Just the setting had me. I could imagine myself living there. (I have a thing for Gothic settings, no matter how creepy). The mystery was very consuming and the threat had me almost biting my nails and wanting to scream at the main character to not do certain things that were sure to result in something bad happening. I thoroughly enjoyed this one and I hope you will as well, Dear Reader.

Click HERE to request Lock Every Door!

Continue reading →

Fiction, Horror

What’s Scared Me Lately?

Posted on May 15, 2026May 14, 2026 by Sydney Anderson

Being a horror fan is weird sometimes. Every so often, I’ll finish a book or a movie that was well-crafted and thematically compelling, but for all that, just wasn’t scary – and there’s just no replacement for those shivers up your spine, that urge to look over your shoulder, that sinking feeling in your stomach. The books I’m going to talk about today don’t have that problem. Though they represent many different subgenres and settings, every single one of these books gave me the genuine creeps, and I mean that as the highest compliment. Let’s get started!

Helpmeet by Naben Ruthnum

I’m fascinated by the thematic depths that can be found in the very best works of body horror. These stories delve into how unfair it is that our bodies and those of the people we love are fragile and finite, and into what might lead a person to embrace a metamorphosis that others perceive as “horrifying”. Naben Ruthnum’s Helpmeet unites all of these threads of body horror into a novella made of emotional dynamite. Set amidst the restrictive backdrop of the 19th century, Helpmeet is told from the perspective of Louise Wilk, a former hospital worker who caused a scandal by marrying a man of a higher social station. Since then, Louise has endured the infidelity of her husband Edward and the scorn of society at large. When her husband contracts mysterious disease that eats away at his body bit by bit, Louise becomes his primary caretaker. Louise believes she is about to watch her husband die, until she discovers that what is taking place may not be a disease at all, but rather a metamorphosis for both of them. The characterization in Helpmeet is just as masterful as the body horror, inviting the reader at every turn to sympathize with these deeply flawed characters. This is a book that stayed with me long after the final page was turned.

Continue reading →

Adult, Fiction

Bookstores Full of Stories

Posted on April 24, 2026April 10, 2026 by abbiebourelle

Dear readers, one of the many things I love about library work is seeing the variety of books that this world has to offer. Truly there is something for everyone. One of my favorite tasks is sorting and putting away the cart of new books. (This has resulted in the extreme growth of my ‘want to read’ list). As of late, I cannot help but notice the variety and abundance of books where the setting or theme revolves around a bookstore. These stories come in pretty much every genre! Dear reader, I wish to share with you a few titles that have caught my eye regarding this theme. Perhaps, like me, some of these will end up on your ‘want to read’ list.

The Bookstore Diaries by Susan Mallery

Many of the bookstore related books I have seen lately have been romances. The Bookstore Diaries is no exception, though the plot really caught my eye! The bookstore featured is called The Painted Lady Bookstore and is located in a gorgeous Victorian mansion. The Painted Lady Bookstore is run by Jax, a bit of a control freak. Though, as of late, everything around Jax seems to be going out of control. Her ex recently became engaged to another person. Her sister, Ryleigh, is looking to move away in search of a husband. To try to dissuade Ryleigh from moving away Jax hired on a handsome contractor. However, the contractor seems to instead be interested in Jax!

An odd quirk of the town is that everyone with a diary keeps it in a special lockbox inside The Painted Lady bookstore. Jax’s life suddenly becomes very interesting when the numbers on the lockboxes are somehow erased. The only way to find the owner of each is to read the diary! Secrets and scandals come to light resulting in a delightful drama.

If you are in the mood for some juicy drama and romance, give The Bookstore Diaries a read!

Click HERE to request The Bookstore Diaries!

Continue reading →

Fantasy, Fiction, Genre, Historical, Uncategorized

Great Historical Fantasy

Posted on April 17, 2026April 16, 2026 by Sydney Anderson

Genre fusions are having a bit of a moment right now, so today I want to talk about one of my favorites: historical fantasy. Plenty of fantasy novels have, for lack of a better word, historical vibes: most people are familiar with the basics of the ‘generic medieval fantasy setting’, even if they don’t read much fantasy themselves. But today I want to go beyond that, and explore books that introduce fantastical elements into real-world history. In a historical fantasy novel, an author has an opportunity to inject the unexpected into the familiar, and a historically inspired setting provides a window to explore what fantasy can be outside of the ‘medieval Europe but not quite’ formula. Here’s a selection of works of historical fantasy, all available through the Monarch Library System, that will appeal readers who love both genres and what happens when the two combine.

She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

In the middle of the 14th century, China is wracked by famine and scarred by war. This is the time of the Yuan Dynasty, the period of the Mongol Empire’s rule. After the death of her brother, a young girl assumes his identity to become Zhu Chongba, rising from obscurity to become a great military commander – but when faced with the brutal calculus of war, she must make an unspeakable choice. She Who Became The Sun bears some similarities to the legend of Hua Mulan, but readers shouldn’t expect anything like Disney’s cheery musical rendition of the story. Rather, Zhu Chongba resembles the thorny antiheroines of Seth Dickinson’s The Traitor Baru Cormorant and R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy War. The setting of this book is brilliantly realized: the bleak portrait of the famine-stricken village of Zhu Chongba’s childhood forms one of the most effective prologues I’ve read in a genre novel in some time. Parker-Chan also presents a brilliant antivillain in Ouyang, a captive who has risen high in the army and royal court of Henan. I couldn’t put this book down, and the ending left me with a fierce book hangover. Luckily, She Who Became The Sun is the first of a completed duology, and the conclusion, He Who Drowned The World, is also on the shelf at Mead, ready for avid readers to pick up right away.

Continue reading →

Uncategorized

Hear me out: audiobook recommendations

Posted on April 10, 2026April 9, 2026 by Corrina

Dear reader, within the last several years I have really grown to appreciate audiobooks. I began listening to them when I first started going on vacation with my brother and one his friends, utilizing them as an effective way to fill up the many hours – some of them very monotonous – of staring out the window at freeway scenery. Since I have moved out into my own apartment, however, I have come to appreciate audiobooks even more! I listen to them mainly while I’m cooking dinner, cleaning, or putting together a puzzle.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the sometimes total silence of my apartment, especially since back at my parent’s house the TV seemed to be on almost constantly, but every once in a while I feel a need to fill that silence, and not with music. I’ve had people tell me they’ll put on a TV show in the background while they’re doing something, but I’ve never been in that habit. Audiobooks strike that perfect balance of filling the void of silence, while also engaging my brain. They also have the added benefit of making it seem like the people are right in my apartment with me, giving the illusion of companionship. Maybe that sounds weird, but as someone who is living on her own for the first time in her life, I find it comforting.

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien

Inspired by The Hobbit and begun in 1937, The Lord of the Rings is a trilogy that J.R.R. Tolkien created to provide “the necessary background of history for Elvish tongues”. From these academic aspirations was born one of the most popular and imaginative works in English literature.

The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume in the trilogy, tells of the fateful power of the One Ring. It begins a magnificent tale of adventure that will plunge the members of the Fellowship of the Ring into a perilous quest and set the stage for the ultimate clash between the powers of good and evil.

Dear reader, The Lord of the Rings trilogy was one I have always wanted to read, but knew I would never be able to get through the actual books, so I turned to the audiobooks. What an adventure those were! The ability of the narrator, Rob Inglis, to embody all the different characters really brought them to life. That is one of the true superpowers of audiobooks, I believe. They can immerse you in books you never would have read otherwise. I knew the physical books would have been too dense and plodding for me because I’m not much of a fantasy fan, but the audiobooks struck a perfect balance of variety with the differently voiced characters, and a densely layered story that was brought to life.

Clocking in at 20 hours, this remains one of the longest audiobooks I’ve ever listened to, but it was a joy to listen to from start to finish. I would highly recommend the audiobooks if you’ve always wanted to read The Lord of the Rings trilogy but have been intimidated by it, as I was. Audiobooks have a way of making accessible to all readers the stories that once seemed out of reach, or unconquerable.

Continue reading →

Uncategorized

A Cat to Guide You and a Letter to Bring You Home

Posted on February 20, 2026 by Corrina

Dear reader, I have returned with more comforting Japanese reads for you. Every time I write this type of blog post I feel as if I am collecting my favorite throw pillows to sit amongst on my favorite couch. The pillows may be mismatched but all have the same theme, whether it be a print, color, design, etc. And each pillow has a story behind it. I hope to tell those stories well in today’s post.

Days at the Torunka Cafe by Satoshi Yagisawa

Tucked away on a narrow side street in Tokyo is the Torunka Café, a neighborhood nook where the passersby are as likely to be local cats as tourists. Its regulars include Chinatsu Yukimura, a mysterious young woman who always leaves behind a napkin folded into the shape of a ballerina; Hiroyuki Numata, a middle-aged man who’s returned to the neighborhood searching for the happy life he once gave up; and Shizuku, the café owner’s teenage daughter, who is still coming to terms with her sister’s death as she falls in love for the first time.

While Café Torunka serves up a perfect cup of coffee, it provides these sundry souls with nourishment far more lasting. Satoshi Yagisawa brilliantly illuminates the periods in our lives where we feel lost—and how we find our way again.

As with many other Japanese novels I have read, the business in question has its solidified customer base that knows how to find it, and it is always hard to find except by those who need its mysterious healing powers and the camaraderie of its inhabitants. The Torunka Cafe happens to be down a narrow alleyway and there is always a cat to guide you to its door.

This book is as much about the nourishing properties of a well made cup of coffee as it is about the customers finding healing and the ability to forgive both themselves and others. Each chapter is written in the first person from the perspective of a different character. I found this perspective switch hard to follow at first, but quickly got used to it as the book went on.

In a particular conversation one of the characters tells another, “When things don’t go well, you might think ‘damn it’, but sooner or later what happened to you is going to become something that sustains you in the future. And when you start something new, there’ll be hassles too, but it’ll be exciting, won’t it?” This is a theme carried throughout the book with all three of the main characters.

There is also an interesting backstory on the cafe’s name that sent me down a rabbit hole, but I’ll leave you to discover that on your own, dear reader!

Continue reading →

Adult, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Love Across Time

Posted on February 13, 2026February 4, 2026 by Sydney Anderson

Romance, particularly where it overlaps with fantasy and science fiction, needs a challenge for the main characters to overcome in order to be together. Could anything be more challenging to overcome than time itself? Today, I’m spotlighting a trendy subgenre that doesn’t seem to have an official name, but that I like to call “timestream romance”. These books feature characters who fall in love amidst the tangles of time travel, time loops, and multiple reincarnations across the centuries. Let’s get started!

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

The story of This Is How You Lose The Time War unfolds as a series of letters between Red and Blue, agents of two enemy organizations whose battlefield is time itself. As Red and Blue leave messages for one another across time, their enmity first thaws into respect, and then blossoms into love. But what will it cost for the two of them to be together? This book is both exquisitely written and emotionally honest in spite of the out-of-this-world situation it portrays, with character voices that expertly thread the delicate needle of being witty and charming while still feeling real. I found it pretty refreshing to read an enemies-to-lovers romance that focused on a meeting of the minds rather than flashy duels. This book is an intense emotional journey in a small package, certain to stay with you even after the final page is turned.

Continue reading →

Uncategorized

New Year Old Books

Posted on January 16, 2026January 15, 2026 by Molly

People generally look ahead in the New Year, to the dawning possibilities and the existential dread of endless choice. It’s not for me, this embarrassment of variety, this perversion of content creation, this deluge of intellectual property. Let’s, you and I, with the power of library catalog software, look at some of the books that have been available for checkout since their publication or since Mead first opened its doors in 1897.

The Overcoat (1842) by Nikolai Gogol
The Russians are great to read in winter. I love feeling desolate. Gogol is my particular favorite among them. His writing is bleak and luminous, much like some winter days. This short story is considered his greatest.

The Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie Collins
Collins is often credited for writing some of the first stories we could compare to modern mystery fiction. As a fan of classical mysteries myself, I have found Collins to be slightly long-winded and dusty, but others will revel in his gilded language. He is contemporaneous to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who I encountered first, and who is still my Victorian ideal for mystery/adventure writing.

The Hamlet (1940) by William Faulkner
Faulkner makes my head hurt. He is not for me. I find the prose dense and hard to parse. The rest of the world disagrees, and the rest of the world has a bigger, higher-functioning brain than I, with which to comprehend Faulkner. Visit any library in the country and you are likely to find something by William Faulkner, and Mead is no exception.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943) by Betty Smith
I have never read this book but I always knew about it. There was this gag in a 1940s Looney Tunes cartoon in which a bunch of tough New York City dogs are getting ready to kick Bugs Bunny’s ass, so he grasps around him and holds something out to defend himself. All of a sudden all the dogs RACE away from Bugs, which is when we learn the title of the book: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. That’s right. A dog pee joke. Mid 20th century animation has provided me with an education in the humanities, and has made me the refined citizen I am today.

Anyhoo, I bet the book is worth a read since it has been in continual circulation since its publication.

The Once and Future King (1958) by T.H. White
This is the five-book collection of White’s definitive retelling of the Arthurian legend. The first book, The Sword in the Stone, was published in 1938, and is an abiding classic. Mead’s copy was published in 1958 and has been in constant circulation since. Do you get a sense of time and place from old objects like books? I do.

Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962) by C.G. Jung
The esteemed Swiss psychiatrist and physiotherapist spent his last days finalizing this autobiographical work. His contribution to the field of psychiatry has impacted the study of religion, philosophy, archeology, anthropology, and literature. The man defined the concepts of introversion and extroversion, for one, and we all frame ourselves through this lens. Read all about it, in his own words here.

Never Cry Wolf (1963) by Farley Mowat
Hey, I never read this book either, but I HAVE seen the movie. There is a scene relating to canines and canine urine in this story, which I think dovetails nicely with my remarks about A Tree Grows In Brooklyn.

Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) by Jean Rhys
Remember how Mr. Rochester was keeping his crazy wife hidden in the attic? Yeah, that wasn’t so cool, was it? The mad wife has a name, Antoinette Cosway, and this is her story.

Twiggy: How I probably just came along on a white rabbit at the right time, and met the smile on the face of the tiger (1968) by Twiggy
This book is tall and thin, just like Twiggy. Damn her, for pushing these unrealistic beauty standards on printed material.

I Sing the Body Electric! And Other Stories (1969) by Ray Bradbury
Isn’t that the title of a song from the hit 1980 musical, Fame? That’s what I thought for a long time until I became familiar with the work of Walt Whitman. We all learn at a different pace.

As for Bradbury, his work doesn’t need promoting. He is easily one of the most beloved authors of the 20th century. We had to read one of the Illustrated Man short stories in 6th grade English class and then we had to read the same story in freshman English four years later. Sheboygan Area School District’s failure to branch out from “The Veldt” in the 1990s is a failing I won’t soon forgive.

How does Mead staff decide what stays on the shelf and what goes? Once material has been added to the collection, it mostly depends on how often something circulates. Books that sit unmoving for three years are usually removed from the collection, or “weeded”, to make way for newer, more sought-after titles. This material is donated to the Friends of the Mead Public Library, who then use it to stock their fabulous annual book sale. I love the process of managing the collections at our library, and I love the ecosystem of access it creates.

What are your favorite books published in the 20th century or earlier? What is the earliest-published book you have ever read? Mine is The Pillow Book of Sai Shonagon, first published in Heian-era Japan in the year 1002. Available now in the Monarch catalog!

Adult, Fantasy, Fiction, Horror

Great Speculative Fiction from 2025

Posted on January 9, 2026January 7, 2026 by Sydney Anderson

It’s that time of year again! Last year, I surveyed a sampling of the years’ greatest sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. You can read that post here – all of those books still come highly recommended. Now the time has come to do the same for the new releases of 2025. The same caveat from last year applies: I’m only one person, I can only read so many books in a year. Therefore I couldn’t possibly include every amazing new speculative fiction release from the past year, no matter how much I might like to. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t point out that 2025 has been an absolute banner year for horror, and this list leans a lot more towards that genre than last years’. With the preamble out of the way, let’s get started!

The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes

In the city of Tilliard, opera is bloodsport, perfume is politics, and one person can have many names over the course of a life. We view this city through the eyes of Guy Moulène, one of the rank and file of Tilliard’s pest control companies. On a routine job, Guy discovers an insect the size of a dragon – one that may be even more dangerous after it’s slain. Guy’s story entwines with that of Asteritha Vost, perfumer to Tilliard’s elite. When Aster becomes entangled with Mallory vont Passant, a newcomer to Tilliard with a past shrouded in mystery, she unearths secrets that may shake the city to its core – that touch upon the past of her ruthless employer, Grand Marshal Maximian Sorav. As a work of horror fantasy, The Works of Vermin is no less than the total package. Tilliard’s atmosphere of rotten beauty is pitch-perfect, calling to mind Jeff Vandermeer’s Ambergris and China Miéville’s New Crobuzon. Innes also delivers on pacing and plot – there’s a sequence of plot twists about three quarters of the way through that literally made my jaw drop. Prospective readers should definitely exercise discretion about content, as this story goes to some extremely dark places. That said, it’s also suffused with some welcome macabre humor: when things get that bad, sometimes there’s nothing to do but laugh. The Works of Vermin was a privilege to read, a book over four-hundred pages that I wish was longer. If Ennes ever wants to return to the Tilliard setting, I’ll happily come along, bugs and all.

Continue reading →

Uncategorized

When your ship hasn’t come in yet

Posted on December 5, 2025 by Corrina

Dear reader, although November has come and gone, the shipping season on the great lakes won’t end until the Soo Locks close at 11:59pm on January 15th 2026. And even once they do close we can still talk about ships because how else will us ship nerds survive the long barren winter?

But there’s more to wait for than the reopening of the Soo Locks on March 25th 2026. What’s that, you ask? The new book about the Edmund Fitzgerald, The Gales of November by John U. Bacon. This book was released just ahead of the 50th anniversary of the ship’s sinking. However, I can’t talk about it because I haven’t read it yet! The last time I checked I’m still number 32 in the holds queue for it. Isn’t there something exciting about checking your placement in the holds queue for a book you really want? It’s like Christmas day when you finally get the notification that it’s available for checkout!

So while you wait for your copy of The Gales of November to come in, I’ll spend our time together talking about other books either about the Fitzgerald sinking or other shipwrecks that have happened on the Great Lakes.

The Gales of November by John U. Bacon

For three decades following World War II, the Great Lakes overtook Europe as the epicenter of global economic strength. The region was the beating heart of the world economy, possessing all the power and prestige Silicon Valley does today. And no ship represented the apex of the American Century better than the 729-foot-long Edmund Fitzgerald—the biggest, best, and most profitable ship on the Lakes.

But on November 10, 1975, as the “storm of the century” threw 100 mile-per-hour winds and 50-foot waves on Lake Superior, the Mighty Fitz found itself at the worst possible place, at the worst possible time. When she sank, she took all 29 men onboard down with her, leaving the tragedy shrouded in mystery for a half century.

In The Gales of November, award-winning journalist John U. Bacon presents the definitive account of the disaster, drawing on more than 100 interviews with the families, friends, and former crewmates of those lost. Bacon explores the vital role Great Lakes shipping played in America’s economic boom, the uncommon lives the sailors led, the sinking’s most likely causes, and the heartbreaking aftermath for those left behind—”the wives, the sons, and the daughters,” as Gordon Lightfoot sang in his unforgettable ballad.

Focused on those directly affected by the tragedy, The Gales of November is both an emotional tribute to the lives lost and a propulsive, page-turning narrative history of America’s most-mourned maritime disaster.

Dear reader, one thing I love the most about nonfiction books is the fact that they not only give an in-depth account of the topic they’re covering, they also give you the backstory leading up to it, such as the political climate, social attitudes, etc. It’s especially fascinating to read about such things when you haven’t grown up in the time period the book is covering.

For instance, in a recent documentary I watched on the Edmund Fitzgerald it was mentioned how the Coast Guard was trying to cut costs by automating certain lighthouses. It was strongly advised not to automate the Whitefish Point lighthouse, which was a crucial point to warn sailors of dangerous shoals, but automated it was and on the night of the Fitzgerald’s sinking the infamous storm had knocked out power to the lighthouse, thus depriving the Fitzgerald’s crew of yet another point of navigation. In the same documentary it said while the Fitzgerald was at the ore dock in Superior, WI a crane operator had damaged the ship’s navigational equipment, so by the time they were out in open water and in the thick of the storm they were basically running blind. One speculation on the cause of the Fitzgerald’s sinking is, due to this lack of navigational equipment, they inadvertently steamed too close to the shoals of Caribou Island and damaged the hull of the ship unknowingly. Even 50 years later we still do not know what ultimately led to the Fitzgerald’s tragic sinking. Her final resting place in Canadian waters was in 2006 declared a gravesite due to the remains of all 29 crew members still being on board, so there are no longer dives down to the wreck to investigate it.

When she was built the Fitzgerald was the largest and fastest ship on the Great Lakes. In fact, when she was launched into the water for the first time she was the largest to have done so. In the same documentary it mentioned how her accommodations for visiting dignitaries and their families were appointed with the most up to date technology and luxuries of the time. She was the star of her fleet and consistently broke old records and created new ones for the most cargo hauled in a season. She was also the first ship to have a welded hull. This allowed her to be built in record time. Here lies another speculation on the cause of her sinking, with some saying it was this accelerated, welded design that led to a compromise in structural integrity.

This theme of being the largest ship on the Great Lakes also applies to another shipwreck, that of the Carl D. Bradley, which sank in Lake Michigan in 1958.

Continue reading →