Skip to content

The Book Drop: Creston library staff recommends books for the summer

I’ve invited members of the library staff to help me out by recommending some great summer reads...
30221crestonFrancis_aaron_library
Aaron Francis is the chief librarian at the Creston and District Public Library.

Here at the library, we love books. It’s what we do best. And with summer fast approaching, I’ve invited members of the library staff to help me out by recommending some great summer reads.

Pat Tomasic (library assistant) — One Hundred Names by Cecelia Ahern: Cecelia Ahern’s books are quintessential summer reads; light, fast paced and with just enough of a message to not define them as fluffy. Her latest release is One Hundred Names and centres on failed, disgraced journalist Kitty Logan, who is trying to fulfill the final assignment of her recently deceased friend and mentor. Constance has left behind a list of one hundred names, and it is Kitty’s ambition to find them and the thread between them. Along the way, she finds that everyone, no matter how disparate in personality and circumstance, has a hidden story to tell. And it takes a special person to bring it out.

Teresa Fletcher (office manager) — Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny: Louise Penny is an award winning Canadian author whose wonderfully written stories take place in Quebec. The main character is Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Quebec, and her first book, Still Life, takes place in a little village outside of Montreal populated by people you are sure you’ve met before and you just want to sit and have coffee with. Penny continues to develop her characters in subsequent books and there are many twists and turns you can’t see coming. I could not put the books down and read all eight books in a two-week period!

Andrew Feltham (library technician) — Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett: Terry Pratchett is my favourite fantasy author and this book is one of my favourites. The basic story involves the Auditors (the accountants of the universe) trying to freeze time so that they can remove the chaos (people) from the universe and create order. Trying to stop them are the Personification of Death, Death’s granddaughter Susan (it’s complicated), and the history monks Lu-Tze, “The Sweeper”, and his apprentice Lobsang Ludd. This book has many fun scenes such as chocolate warfare, an apocalypse, shattering all of time, martial arts and sweeping.

Margaret Basaraba (library assistant) — Minding Frankie by Maeve Binchy: I am reading Minding Frankie by Maeve Binchy and am finding it a touching story. If you like to really get to know the characters in a book this is the author for you. The story revolves around a young man who becomes a single father to a newborn after the mother’s death. The entire community of friends and neighbors helps him to begin raising his little girl. His situation is complicated by the fact that he is a recovering alcoholic. The story really highlights the fact that it does take a community to raise a child.

Pat Tomasic (library assistant) — Life After Life by Kate Atkinson: On a cold February day in 1910, a baby girl is born, and dies. End of story? Not quite. This is only the first venture for Ursula Todd in Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life. Atkinson weaves a set of stories of Ursula’s lives and deaths that takes her from idyllic and tumultuous childhoods, from war torn London, to war torn Germany, from marriage and motherhood to spinsterhood. Through Ursula, Atkinson demonstrates how what appears to be a simple choice can have drastic consequences in one’s life. This is a gripping book that may make you think about your own choices.

I’ll be back next month with a couple of my own picks. In the meantime, happy reading!

Aaron Francis is the chief librarian at the Creston and District Public Library.