November 2025 Staff PicksLike this list

18 items

• All of Us Murderers

  Charles, KJ,

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  In a satisfying genre blend of gothic mystery and gay romance, author KJ Charles takes readers on a spooky adventure at a British country house, packed to the brim with resentful relatives, surly servants, a host with hidden motives, and possibly…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Buckeye

  a Novel

  Ryan, Patrick, 1965-

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  Ryan's Buckeye is a warmhearted, old-fashioned novel featuring the entwined lives of two married couples in the fictional small town of Bonhomie, Ohio over a period of decades. Cal Jenkins can't serve in WWII because one of his legs is two inches…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Cinder House

  Marske, Freya

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  Ella is a ghost who tragically died at the age of 16, but her spirit remains earthbound in the house she grew up in. Far from having a liberated existence, Ella is expected to pick up right where she left off - cleaning and doing chores for her…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Don't Go

  Stories of Segregation and How to Disrupt It /

  Johnson, Tonika Lewis,

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  While commuting to high school at Lane Tech in Roscoe Village from her home in Englewood, 2025 MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Tonika Lewis Johnson noted the differences between her majority Black South Side neighborhood and those she passed…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The El

  Van Alst, Theodore C., 1965-

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  "Chicago has always been Indian Country." So Teddy, a half-native teen, tells us in this novella that blends The Warriors with Tommy Orange's There There. Set over the course of one hot summer day in 1979 Chicago, the story follows Teddy and his…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Everything Is Tuberculosis

  the History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

  Green, John, 1977-

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  Tuberculosis is a curable disease that threatens public health around the globe, year after year. To Green, though, it's more than a disease. It's a commentary on the social conditions in which it persists. Using highly digestible and engaging…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• F*cked Up Fairy Tales

  Sinful Cinderellas, Prince Alarmings, and Other Timeless Classics

  Gotauco, Liz,

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  This laugh-out-loud funny and unfailingly clever collection of fairytales from around the world is based on the popular TikTok series of the same name. Gotauco is very clearly a librarian because, in addition to being wildly entertaining, this book…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Flashlight

  a Novel

  Choi, Susan, 1969-

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  Spanning continents and decades, this haunting, evocative family saga lingers in the memory. The story opens with ten-year-old Louisa and her father walking on the breakwater at night in a small Japanese beach town. Later Louisa wakes up in shallow…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Heart the Lover

  King, Lily,

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  In this compulsively readable novel from Lily King, an undergraduate falls for Sam, who takes her back to the professor's residence where he is housesitting with his friend Yash. Sam and his friends, charmingly bright grad students, jokingly refer…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Hollow Spaces

  a Novel

  Suthammanont, Victor,

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  John Lo, the sole Asian American partner at his law firm, is acquitted of murder in the death of an associate lawyer, Jessica DeSalvo. His children, Brennan and Hunter, forced to reconnect as their mother is dying of cancer, find they are still at…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• How to Be a Saint

  An Extremely Weird and Mildly Sacrilegious History of the Catholic Church's Biggest Names

  Sidley, Kate,

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  This equally hilarious and informative book explores the Catholic Church's process of canonization. Sidley, a writer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (who writes the introduction), tells the gruesome, weird and goofy stories of Catholic…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• I Know How This Ends

  Smale, Holly,

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  Margo is a complete and utter disaster. She just got out of a toxic, decade-long relationship, quit her job, and moved to another city. As she hits rock bottom, she begins having visions containing snippets of her future. Each one lasts only an…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Katabasis

  a Novel

  Kuang, R. F. (Rebecca F.),

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  Alice Law's path to getting her PhD in Magick has hit a major stumbling block: her advisor, Professor Jacob Grimes of Cambridge University is dead. Putting aside the fact that she may or may not have accidentally caused it, her biggest problem is…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• King of Kings

  the Iranian Revolution : a Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation

  Anderson, Scott, 1959-

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  For 2,500 years, the monarchs of Persia ruled a vast empire in south Asia, exerting influence far and wide as numerous "Persianate" societies developed and their empires of various names – Achaemenid, Persian, Parthian, and others – came into…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Martians

  the True Story of An Alien Craze That Captured Turn-of-the-century America

  Baron, David, 1964-

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  Most readers have heard the famous story of how Orson Welles terrified listeners in 1938 with his radio broadcast production of The War of the Worlds, which confused some listeners into wondering if Earth was being invaded by aliens. Decades…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Moderation

  Castillo, Elaine,

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  This literary romance tells the story of Girlie Delmundo, a crackerjack content moderator with a strong stomach for the worst of what internet trolls can dish out. When Girlie is recruited by fledgling VR company Playground, she can't afford to turn…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Mother Mary Comes to Me

  Roy, Arundhati,

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  Roy's difficult mother memoir is on par with both her fiction and her journalism, which is to say, it's spectacular. Mary Roy, a prominent public figure in her own right, was a mercurial and volatile single parent who lashed out at and demeaned her…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Salvage

  a Novel

  Salam, Anbara

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  It's 1962 and Marta, a marine archeologist, has been sent to a small Scottish island on a diving expedition to salvage some historic artifacts. However, adjusting to the eccentric ways of the islanders proves quite the task. They aren't friendly to…Read moreRead more of this annotation