Winter Reading Recommendations

If there is a book you would like to recommend, email us at nclibraryfriends@gmail.com.

Yvette Pomeranz
The Song of Achilles
by Madeline Miller
This 2012 debut novel embraces a unique reimagining of Homer’s masterpiece, The Iliad. This beautifully written, storytelling prose is free of the labor of epic poetry, taking the reader on an action-packed adventure filled with gods, kings, mortals, and immortals. It was delightful to revisit a classic in a modern form.

Janice and David Henshaw
This is Happiness
by Niall Williams
This is a lovely novel about life in a small, Irish parish of Faha, in county Clare.  The narrator, Noe (age 78) is looking back roughly 60 years to the spring of 1958, to the days before electricity arrived in this self-sufficient village. Upon the death of his mother, Noe drops out of seminary and returns to Faha, the home of his grandparents and childhood memories. This is a story of looking backward with glances of moving forward. It examines grief, faith, and first love, while focusing on the vital role friends and community play in strengthening the human spirit.

Amy Bishop-Ryan
A Long Petal of the Sea
by Isabel Allende
In the late 1930s, civil war grips Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them desires.

Robert Butterfield 
Magpie Murders
by Anthony HorowitzThis 2016 British novel is not your conventional whodunnit. The first portion of the book reads like an Agatha Christie mystery, with several murders and a multitude of suspects. However, Horowitz goes on to develop this contemporary thriller as an ingenious, complex, story within a story. While detective Atticus Pund solves the Magpie Murders, Horowitz layers a second story with insight and parallels to the author’s life.

See the Goodreads Choice Awards 2020.