Tag: literary fiction (books)

2016 Library Challenge: A Book That Might Make You Cry

Last week, we looked at books that make you laugh, so this time, I figured we might as well look at the exact opposite–a book that might make you cry.

Now, depending on how given you are to crying while reading, this challenge could be really hard or really easy.

I don’t usually cry when reading (or watching movies or actually much in general), even if the scene is very sad, and when I do cry , it’s usually at some odd scene that’s probably not supposed to be the one that makes you cry. So, it’s probably just as well that, rather than crying, I am more likely to respond to sad books by just feeling incredibly hollow and depressed for days afterward. But every now and then, a book will make me sob uncontrollably.

And so to honor sad books, here’s a round-up of books that might make you cry. As always, be sure to check our online catalog for more details.

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2016 Library Challenge: A Book Over 500 Pages Long

When it comes to recommending 500+ page books, I decided to avoid what is perhaps the most obvious solution to the problem—19th century classics, which regularly top out at well over 500 pages. Instead, I decided to focus on much more recent books that qualify for this category, simply because I’m assuming many readers will already be familiar with a lot of those classics, even ones they’ve never personally read.

In conducting my research, I learned that many contemporary books that are this long fall into one of two categories—literary fiction or fantasy. And, sometimes, they’re literary fiction with fantastical elements or fantasy with literary elements. In any event, I tried to find a little bit of something to appeal to everyone.

As always, follow this link to our online catalog to learn more about any of these books or to place them on hold.

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2016 Library Challenge: Book with a Number in the Title

Happy Pi Day!

Since the 1980s, people have been celebrating the concept of π–the mathematical ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, which is always a constant 3.14 –on March 14th. Sorry to subject you to math lessons early in the morning.

I’m not entirely sure what people gifted in mathematical ability do to celebrate Pi Day because I was an English/history major for a reason. But someone in my classes always brought a pie to class on Pi Day, so I was always a fan of this holiday. I’m not going to argue with any train of thought that results in free pie.

Since I can’t deliver a pie to you through the internet, I thought I might instead offer a list of suggestions for this year’s challenge to “Read a book with a number in the title.”

A quick answer to this question would be to just read one of the many books in either James Patterson’s Woman’s Murder Club series or Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series, both of which always feature numbers in the title.

However, there are a lot of other books in our system that also work for this category, so let’s explore a few of them. As always, if you’re interested in learning more about them, follow this link to our online catalog.

Continue reading “2016 Library Challenge: Book with a Number in the Title”