Category: historical fiction (books)

2016 Library Challenge: A Book Set in a Different Country

For our last challenge, we stayed close to home, exploring books with Carroll County settings. I figured for this edition, we’d venture away from Arkansas and, indeed, the United States to do a literary tour of all seven continents.

These suggestions are specifically designed to meet the 2016 Library Challenge of reading a book set in a different country, but these recommendations are also perfect even if you’re not participating in the challenge. I selected 3 books for each continent and also tried to include a nice range of genres, everything from literary fiction to mysteries to nonfiction to romance. As always, if you’re interested in learning more about any of these books, just follow this link to our online catalog. From there, you can read more information, as well as check availability and place holds.

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2016 Library Challenge: A Book Set in Your Hometown

Since the library’s theme this month is “Home is where the heart is,” we thought it seemed logical to cover the “Read a book set in your hometown” challenge now.

For the purposes of this challenge, we’re letting people define hometown however they want to–whether it’s the town they were born, the town they were raised, the town they’ve lived the longest, etc. And since this, of course, varies for every person, we thought we’d highlight books in our collection with a Carroll County setting.

Even if you’re not participating in the challenge–or if your hometown isn’t in Carroll County–you can still enjoy these books. (And, while we’re on that subject, if your hometown isn’t in Carroll County and you’re stumped trying to find a book to meet this requirement, just contact the library. We’ll help you find something that will work!)

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2016 Library Challenge: A Book Your Mom or Dad Loves

Every month at the Berryville Public Library, we celebrate a theme with our displays and programs. For February, our theme is “Home is where the heart is.” We have all sorts of displays highlighting this theme, ranging from home improvement/interior decorating books to music about romance and relationships.

I decided to blog about all of the challenges that seemed related to heart and home from the 2016 Library Book Challenge this month, as well, and “Read a book your mom or dad loved” seems like a perfect start. So far, we’ve been providing lists of suggestions to help you make selections, but this challenge is so uniquely personal for everybody that I decided to instead write a more reflective piece on the books that my parents–and grandparents, who helped raise me–shared with me.

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Rennie Airth’s River of Darkness (1999)

River of Darkness

Recently, the Berryville Library purchased Rennie Airth’s John Madden mystery series. The first book in the series, River of Darkness, is set in 1920s England, when the specter of World War I still permeated the country’s psyche and Freudian psychological theories were still new and just starting to gain traction. In the novel, Scotland Yard Inspector John Madden is summoned to assist with the investigation of a shocking crime in a pastoral English village. Here, a local family has been brutally slaughtered, and the details simply do not add up for Madden. Several of his colleagues suspect the crime is the result of a robbery gone very wrong, but Madden thinks too many clues suggest that the murders were the killer’s (or killers’) focus.

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2016 Library Book Challenge: A Book with Antonyms in the Title

Happy National Opposites Day! Yes, it’s a holiday.

One of the reasons we thought the 2016 Book Challenge would be fun and, well, challenging is finding books to match the categories. As I was looking through the different requirements, one that initially stumped me was “Read a book with antonyms in the title.” I know antonyms are words that mean the opposite of each other, but the only book I could think of that worked was Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

However, I knew there had to be other books out there that also met the requirement. So, in honor of National Opposite Day, here are several other titles that feature antonyms.

As always, if one of the books interests you, just click on the cover. You’ll be linked to our online catalog. Search for the title, and you can read more about it and even request it.

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