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  • Priceless artifacts, female friendship and bringing history to life: One Book, One Village culminates with in-person author event

    It all began with a photo of Kim Kardashian.

    Bestselling author Fiona Davis began Tuesday’s signature One Book, One Village (OBOV) event by sharing the moment that sparked her idea for The Stolen Queen. It all started with an unexpected New York Times article about the 2018 Met Gala involving Kim Kardashian. The piece described how Kardashian posed beside an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus on the red carpet, and how those viral photos ultimately led to the artifact’s repatriation.

    “I read that and I thought, okay, that’s the story,” Davis recalled. “We’ll use the Egyptian wing and this ancient art, and

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  • Local food assistance resources

    Need help?
    In addition to the pantries listed below, many local churches also have food pantries. Google ‘food pantries near 60004’ or call the library at 847-392-0100. Call the location to learn more about what they offer.  

    Local food pantries:

    • Northwest Compass: Call 847-392-2344 or email info@NorthwestCompass.org to access the Food Connection Program at 1300 W. Northwest Highway, Mt. Prospect.
    • Wheeling Township: Call 847-259-7730 to access the Food Pantry. Food Pantry shopping appointments are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9 a.m.-noon or 1-4 p.m.
      • If you have registered for the Food Pantry before, please call for an appointment
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  • Creative cosplay at the Makerplace

    What do Queen Amidala from Star Wars, Rita Repulsa from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Drizella from Cinderella all have in common? They’re just some of the many characters that award-winning cosplayer, costume designer and Makerspace Specialist Lisa Hale has brought to life.

    Graduating from Dominican University with a degree in Fashion Design in 2006, it was just a few years later when Hale discovered the art of cosplay. Cosplay, which is a blend of the words “costume” and “play,” is a type of performance art where costumes are used to bring life to characters from movies, TV shows, video

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NEW TO THE LIBRARY

Lessons in magic and disaster
Anders, Charlie Jane,
A young witch teaches her mother how to do magic--with very unexpected results--in this relatable, resonant novel about family, identity, and the power of love. Jamie is basically your average New England academic in-training--she has a strong queer relationship, an esoteric dissertation proposal, and inherited generational trauma. But she has one extraordinary secret: she's also a powerful witch. Serena, Jamie's mother, has been hiding from the world in an old one-room schoolhouse for several years, grieving the death of her wife and the simultaneous explosion in her professional life. All she has left are memories. Jamie's busy digging into a three-hundred-year-old magical book, but she still finds time to teach Serena to cast spells and help her come out of her shell. But Jamie doesn't know the whole story of what happened to her mom years ago, and those secrets are leading Serena down a destructive path. Now it's up to this grad student and literature nerd to understand the secrets behind this mysterious novel from 1749, unearth a long-buried scandal hinted therein, and learn the true nature of magic, before her mother ruins both of their lives
Starting from here
Saunders, Paula, 1957-
"She could look in the mirror and see it all happening, everything she'd dreamed of, the potential everyone had seen in her blossoming right in front of her eyes, as if her spirit and flesh were merging, being born as one into light. More than anything, René wants to be a dancer. Eve, her mother, supports René despite the overwhelming financial burden and increasing tension her training places on the family. But one thing is clear: René's dreams are never going to come true in Rapid City, South Dakota, circa 1973. Setting in motion a journey that will transform her from the inside out, René is sent to train alongside stick-thin, sculpted girls in Phoenix, then on to Denver and beyond, encountering along the way a dazzling sequence of eccentric, sometimes dangerous, characters: creepy dads, mean girls, predatory radio announcers, kindly ex-opera singers, sham teachers, and avaricious cult leaders. Through it all, René pushes herself, doing everything she can to excel at her art while at the same time finding her way through the trials of adolescence. But leaving home is not the same as escaping it. And try as she might, René can't quite shake the aching she has for someone to love and accept her just the way she is, dancer or not, successful or not, perfect or imperfect"--
The burial tide
Sharpson, Neil,
"Drawing on the creatures and horrors of Irish folklore, The Burial Tide unearths our darkest truths: how far we'd go to win our freedom, and how quickly our desires blur the line between human and monster. A woman who can't remember her death. On an eerily quiet island off the coast of Ireland, a woman with no memory claws her way out of her grave and back to life. But not everyone welcomes the return of Mara Fitch. An island with a terrible secret. Inishbannock. Where strange misshapen figures watch from the trees and the roads are covered in teeth. Where two brothers gamble for nothing, the doctor only treats the dead, and the pub owner speaks in riddles. Where a poet loses and finds his soul. And a husband without a wife claims to know everything about Mara. A past that refuses to stay buried. As Mara returns to her life on this upside-down island, her memories begin to leech their way back to the surface. The more she remembers, the more the village will do anything to stop her . . . But the sea remembers it all"--
The best short stories 2025 : the O. Henry Prize winners
"Continuing a century-long tradition of cutting-edge literary excellence, this year's edition contains twenty prizewinning stories chosen from the thousands published in magazines over the previous year. Guest editor Edward P. Jones has brought his own refreshing perspective to the prize, selecting stories by an engaging mix of celebrated names and emerging voices. The winning stories are accompanied by an introduction by Jones, observations from the winning writers on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines that publish short fiction."--
The killer question
Hallett, Janice,
Janice Hallett, "the new queen of crime" (Electric Literature), returns with a fresh, edge-of-your-seat mystery that takes place at a pub's weekly trivia night, revealed through quiz categories, phone messages, and email correspondence. Sue and Mal Eastwood run an isolated rural pub called The Case is Altered where a weekly trivia game has revived its flagging fortunes--that is, until a body is found in the nearby river. Soon after, a mysterious new team arrives and shakes up the diverse field of regulars by scoring top marks in every round...every week. Meanwhile, Sue and Mal have a secret of their own. Before arriving here, they were caught up in a secret police operation which meant they had to leave town--and whatever happened back then seems to have finally caught up with them. Five years later, the pub lies derelict, and their nephew Dominic is determined to make a documentary about their story. What happened at this unassuming pub? And can a single question really kill?
The vanishing place
Rankin, Zoë,
"A child who ran from the forest. A woman who must return to it. A young girl stumbles out of the bush into a tiny New Zealand town, her clothes smeared with dirt and blood, unable-or unwilling-to speak. No one's ever seen her before, but old-timers insist that she looks just like a girl who disappeared twenty years earlier. Effie has built a life for herself in Scotland, oceans and miles away from the secrets of her past, from a childhood spent in the wilds of New Zealand, hidden away with her family. As a child, she thought that it was her parents' love of the natural world that took them off-grid and into the bush. But as she grew, she began to see how unsafe and unwise their life was, and finally escaped, vowing never to look back. Now she lives on the Isle of Skye, as far from that dark forest as she can get. But the appearance of the strange little girl leads police to a murder scene. And to help solve the mystery of the child who looks so much like her, Effie will finally confront the horrors of her childhood-and head back into the trees"-- Provided by publisher
The kaboom boys
Peake, Elaine Hume,
A historical saga of courage, sacrifice, and the unbreakable bonds of friendship. With the specter of the Great Depression behind him and the horrors of Nazi-occupied Europe ahead, Edward Hume leaves his Pennsylvania coal mining town to volunteer as one of the first US Army captains in the Second World War. Trained alongside the RAF in the English countryside, Hume takes command of an eclectic team of misfits, tasked with the perilous job of defuzing unexploded bombs in the heart of Europe's fiercest battlegrounds. Their chances of survival are slim--most soldiers with this assignment don't make it past ten weeks. The group's journey culminates at the ancient and mystical Mont Saint-Michel, left abandoned by the Nazis in the chaotic aftermath of D-Day. Hume and his squad face not only a deadly cache of jettisoned bombs but also treacherous tides, quicksand, and maritime mines. With each successful defuzing they save countless lives and inch closer to victory. But the cost of failure looms large, as they witness the devastating consequences of explosives left unattended. With the war intensifying, Edward and his men find themselves caught between their duty and their humanity, knowing that each mission could be their last. Based on real events, Elaine Hume Peake and Don Keith deliver a gripping, cinematic tale of bravery and sacrifice, capturing the relentless perseverance of the men and women who answered the call to war
What's with Baum?
Allen, Woody, 1935-
"Asher Baum is quietly losing his mind. Can you blame him? A middle-aged Jewish journalist turned novelist and playwright, consumed with anxiety about everything under the sun, Baum's turgid philosophical books receive tepid reviews and his prestigious New York publisher has dropped him. His third marriage is on the rocks and he suspects his handsome and successful younger brother may have seduced his Harvard-educated wife. He is uneasy with her close relationship with her son, a more successful author than he, and suspicious of her closeness with their neighbor in Connecticut. And in a moment of irrationality, he has impulsively tried to kiss a pretty young journalist during an interview that she is about to go public with. Is it any wonder Baum has started talking to himself? Strangers shake their heads and walk around him on the street. Meanwhile he learns a startling secret that could cause havoc should he expose it. Should he keep it to himself or reveal it and blow up his marriage? What's with Baum? is Woody Allen's first novel and it is everything you would expect of him--and more. A portrait of an intellectual crippled by neurotic concerns about the futility and emptiness of life; an amusing glimpse into the New York publishing establishment; above all, a highly entertaining, tightly plotted, beautifully wrought piece of fiction from one of America's greatest and most versatile cinematic and literary talents. This comic novel will set the literary world on its ear. It is not to be missed"--
Veil. Vol. 1, Temperature of orange
Kotteri,
Like a classic film, he and she encountered each other by chance. He was an on-duty police officer in the city. She was a runaway heiress. When he learned that she is looking for work, he decided to welcome her as the police station's telephone operator... This was the beginning of the everyday lives of he and she, and the delicate distance between them. Enjoy witty dialogue and bold illustrations, in this in full-color manga collection by Kotteri!
Love's a witch
O'Malley, Tricia,
With her twenty-fifth birthday looming--the day witches come into their magic--Sloane MacGregor reluctantly returns to Briarhaven to break the centuries-old curse haunting their bloodline; Knox Douglas, Briarhaven's mayor, has no time for a cursed MacGregor, even if he once crushed on her
The loft
Haushofer, Marlen, 1920-1970,
"An Austrian housewife sits in her loft intent on her drawings of birds and insects. ... Then one day, a package arrives containing extracts from the narrator's diary, written twenty years before. Back then she had been sent away to a remote cottage in a bid to 'cure' her from an episode of unexplained sudden deafness. More mysterious packages containing old diary entries arrive. Who is sending them? And what did happened all those years ago in the forest?"--Flap page 1 of dust jacket
The righteous
Balson, Ronald H.,
"By the end of 1943, nearly all of Europe's Jewish population had fled, been deported, captured, or killed by Hitler. Only Hungary, and its almost 900,000 Jews, remained free from Hitler's subjugation. They lived under government edicts and restrictions but without fear of harm. That changed in March 1944, after the Nazi defeat at Stalingrad, as an avaricious Hitler conquered Hungary and declared his plan for mass extermination of the Jewish people. With the notorious Adolf Eichmann supervising the process, Nazis began rounding up Hungary's Jewish population. In this dramatic new novel, The Righteous, Theresa Weissbach, a professor at the University of Michigan, hasn't heard from her parents in Budapest for over a year. Her best friend, Julia Powers, recently awarded a Distinguished Service Medal for her OSS service in occupied Holland, joins with her to locate and rescue Theresa's family. While there, they become involved in a much larger cause, trying to save as many people as they can. Theresa's father, a leader of the Budapest Jewish community, accompanies them in a desperate effort to rescue their people. Working alongside the newly formed US War Refugee Board, diplomats from neutral nations, and leaders of underground rescue organizations, Julia and Theresa forge relationships with Swiss Vice Consul Carl Lutz and Swedish businessman, Raoul Wallenberg. Their skills and connections in the complex networks of public and secret diplomacy enable Julia, Theresa, and others to take enormous risks in an effort to save thousands of innocent lives."-- Provided by publisher
Black out
Unger, Lisa, 1970-
On the surface, Annie Powers's life in a wealthy Floridian suburb is happy and idyllic. Her husband, Gray, loves her; together, they dote on their beautiful young daughter, Victory. But the bubble surrounding Annie is pricked when she senses that the demons of her past have resurfaced and are now creeping up on her. These are demons she can't fully recall because of a highly dissociative state that allowed her to forget the tragic and violent episodes of her earlier life as Ophelia March and to start over, under the loving and protective eye of Gray, as Annie Powers. Disturbing events, the appearance of a familiar dark figure on the beach, the mysterious murder of her psychologist, trigger strange and confusing memories for Annie, who realizes she has to quickly piece them together before her past comes to claim her future and her daughter--Publisher
Please don't lie : a thriller
Kline, Christina Baker, 1964-
"Two years ago, Hayley Stone lost everything. First, her parents died in a devastating fire. Then, her sister overdosed, leaving Hayley alone and hounded by a media circus that turned her family's tragedy into tabloid fodder. When her new husband suggests a fresh startin the Adirondacks, the promise of anonymity in an isolated mountain town feels like salvation. But the mountains hold darker secrets than she ever imagined. Her once-loving husband grows distant and volatile. The widow down the road keeps spewing vague accusations. Not even their new friends--a free-spirited couple living on the property--can help Hayley shake the creeping sense that something is off. As winter edges closer, Hayley discovers that her sanctuary is anything but safe. Trapped and isolated, she faces a terrifying truth: in trying to escape her past, she may have run straight into something far more dangerous."--Provided by publisher
Ripeness
Moss, Sarah,
Edith, just out of school, has been sent from her quiet English life to rural Italy. It is the 1960s, and her mother has issued strict instructions: tend to her ballerina sister, Lydia, in the final weeks of her scandalous pregnancy; help at the birth; make a phone call that will summon the nuns who will spirit the child away to a new home. Decades later, happily divorced, recently moved, and full of new energy, Edith has fashioned a life of contentment and comfort in Ireland. Then her best friend, Méabh, receives a shocking phone call from an American man. He claims to be a brother she never knew existed: a child her mother gave up and never spoke of again. As Edith helps her friend reckon with this new idea of connection and how it might change her life, her thoughts turn back to Lydia and the fractured history of her own family

Items Coming Soon

  DVDs  

   Blu-rays  

    Books    

 

 
 

Upcoming Programs

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31
Oct

VIRTUAL Culture & Conversation (level: intermediate)
- /Zoom Event

1
Nov

Tiny Art Show Artist Sign up
- /See Description for Location

1
Nov

Beginning ESL
- /ESL/Literacy Office

1
Nov

Family Time
- /Lindsey Room

1
Nov

CANCELED: Día de Los Muertos Celebration
- /First Floor

1
Nov

Music in the Stacks
- /See Description for Location
View full calendar ›
 
 

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