Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl

Carl is chasing his ex-girlfriend’s show-winning Persian cat Princess Donut in the middle of the night when the apocalypse happens. One minute, he’s literally in a parking lot in his underwear and bare feet begging a cat to come down out of a tree. The next, Carl, who is still just in his undies and bare feet, and Princess Donut are just trying to survive a sadistic multi-level dungeon game show brought to the masses by their new alien overlords. Complications ensue.

A special thank you to Chelsea for recommending the book to me and to Jen for enthusiastically seconding the recommendation! It’s a highly entertaining and hilarious read.

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Book Buzz: Hockey Romances, Romantasies, Reborn Space Pilots, 19th Century Chinese Americans, Jack the Ripper, the Scottish Hebrides, Korean Epic Fantasy, Rom Com Audiobooks, and Patriotic Eats

Every month, we’re profiling new-ish releases that are getting critical and commercial buzz. For September, we’re looking at the first book in two very different romance series, a space opera, the latest Lisa See book, a historical suspense novel that involves Jack the Ripper, a novel that made the Booker Longlist this year, an epic fantasy written by an author known as the Korean J. R. R. Tolkien, a rom com set on a ship, and nonfiction about iconic American food.

Continue reading “Book Buzz: Hockey Romances, Romantasies, Reborn Space Pilots, 19th Century Chinese Americans, Jack the Ripper, the Scottish Hebrides, Korean Epic Fantasy, Rom Com Audiobooks, and Patriotic Eats”

Free to Be: September

This year marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It’s an important historical birthday for the United States, and we will be celebrating it all year-round with our new Free to Be series. With respect to Marlo Thomas, our Free to Be posts will be celebrating unique freedoms we enjoy as Americans. And this month, we’re looking at how we’re free to create.

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Exploring Genres: Science Fiction

Stuck in a reading rut? Want to expand your reading horizons in 2026? You’re in luck! Every month this year, we will be delving deep into popular genres at the library. If you’re already a fan, find readalike suggestions for popular authors and ideas for similar genres to explore. If you’re brand new to the genre in question, you will find a helpful explanation of the hallmarks of the genre, a breakdown of its most common subgenres, and explanations of what readers find so appealing about the most popular authors writing those types of books. Let’s explore science fiction for August since we made pigs fly earlier this month when we opened our new building. 🙂

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Maggie O’Farrell’s Land

Maggie O’Farrell has been having quite a moment as a writer in 2026. Earlier this year, she was Oscar-nominated for cowriting the screenplay for Hamnet, based on her own 2020 novel, and now, she had a new bestseller with Land this summer.

O’Farrell has been writing literary fiction for years now, with an increasing focus on historical figures. In her two previous novels, she concentrated on relatively famous figures–William Shakespeare and his wife for Hamnet and Lucrezia de’ Medici for The Marriage Portrait. For her latest, she picks an equally real but more obscure historical person to center the novel on, her own great-great-grandfather.

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Free to Be: August

This year marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It’s an important historical birthday for the United States, and we will be celebrating it all year-round with our new Free to Be series. With respect to Marlo Thomas, our Free to Be posts will be celebrating unique freedoms we enjoy as Americans. And this month, as we plan to open our new facility, we’re looking at how we’re free to play.

Continue reading “Free to Be: August”

You’re Invited to Our Grand Opening!

We hope to see you at the Grand Opening of the new  Berryville Library on Friday, August 7!

We will be doing the ribbon cutting at 10 am and then hosting the Grand Opening until 2 pm.

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Exploring Genres: Historical Fiction

Stuck in a reading rut? Want to expand your reading horizons in 2026? You’re in luck! Every month this year, we will be delving deep into popular genres at the library. If you’re already a fan, find readalike suggestions for popular authors and ideas for similar genres to explore. If you’re brand new to the genre in question, you will find a helpful explanation of the hallmarks of the genre, a breakdown of its most common subgenres, and explanations of what readers find so appealing about the most popular authors writing those types of books. Let’s explore historical fiction for July as we’re making history moving to our new library!

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