Dogs are the best. Except when they’re the worst, of course. For dog lovers and skeptics alike, here are some heartwarming tales of doggie redemption: The Puppy Diaries: raising a dog named Scout by Jill Abramson Following Atticus: forty-eight high peaks, one little dog, and an extraordinary friendship by Tom Ryan Devoted: 38 extraordinary tales […]

When you are desperately under-read, where will you turn? You could ask your many “chums” for advice, I suppose. But perhaps they have terrible taste and will only tell you to read the latest Schlocky McBestseller. And then they will follow up by asking what you thought of it. Ugh. Just no. Listen to the […]

We at the library love to read! I’ve rounded up some of the favorite books of our staff members, and it’s a great list.  Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty My Family and Other Animals by […]

If you’re like me, you know that the best way to survive in the wild is to never go into the wild. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t experience the terror and peril vicariously. Instead of chasing thrills, the smart reader will turn to great lists like Book Riot’s 100 Must-Read Nonfiction Adventure Books. National […]

In Gail Honeyman’s novel, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, she has created a beautifully imagined character in Eleanor. Prudish and precise, lonely and devoid of social skills, Eleanor’s life begins to change when she becomes infatuated with a local musician.  Her touching certainty that meeting him will lead to true love leads her to tentative attempts at […]

Who’s Walter Mosley? He’s the guy with 40-plus books under his belt who wrote the hard-boiled Easy Rawlins series, to start with. Set in post-WWII Los Angeles, the first book in the series, Devil in a Blue Dress, deals with the African-American Rawlins’ experience with murder, racism, and political thuggery. He’s written science fiction, nonfiction about political […]

In Emma Flint’s compelling new crime novel,Little Deaths, Rose Malone is a complicated woman. A cocktail waitress and single mother of two, she likes booze and men and flashy clothes and lots of makeup.  This makes her unpopular with the dowdy and narrow-minded mothers in her Queens neighborhood; when her two young children go missing, and are […]

Maybe you’ve never been into poetry, but wish you could be. Now’s a good time – April is National Poetry Month, and you can celebrate with the library. Enjoy a live poetry reading on April 25, at 6:00 p.m.  on our Facebook page with L. Luis Lopez and others. Naturally, we also have some mighty fine […]

Does finishing a great book fill you with feelings of impending doom? What if you don’t have another good one lined up already? Better you should avoid the tedious sniveling that could ensue (or is that just me?), by going directly to the Book Reviews and Recommendations page on the Mesa County Libraries website. There you will find […]

Taking a break from my usual diet of treacherous-women/lecherous-men fiction, I happened on Man at the Helm, by Nina Stibbe. It was just what I needed to expel the bitter aftertaste of the psychological thrillers I habitually feast upon. A charming specimen of the eccentric-British-family-novel (see these classic examples), Man at the Helm begins with ten-year-old Lizzie and her family moving […]