2022 Staff Recommended Reads
2022 has been a great year for reading. I asked staff to recommend their favorite book they read in 2022. What was your favorite book you read in 2022?
Angels in the ER: Inspiring true stories from an emergency room doctor by Robert Leslie MD
Recommended by Jen G.
Twenty-five years in the ER could become a résumé for despair, but for best-selling author Dr. Robert D. Lesslie, it’s a foundation for inspiring stories of everyday angels – friends, nurses, doctors, patients, and even strangers who offer love, help, and support in the midst of trouble.
The ER is a difficult and challenging place to be. Yet the same pressures and stresses that make this place so challenging also provide an opportunity to experience some of life’s greatest wonders and mysteries. Dr. Lesslie illuminates messages of hope while sharing fast-paced, captivating stories about discovering lessons from the ER frontline, watching everyday miracles unfold, holding on to faith during tragedy and triumph, and embracing the healing balm of hope.
For anyone who enjoys true stories of the wonders of the human spirit, this immensely popular book is a reminder of the power of angels.
Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
Recommended by Rick
The cabin had always been a special retreat for Isherwood Williams, a haven from the demands of society. But one day while hiking, Ish was bitten by a rattlesnake, and the solitude he had so desired took on dire new significance.
He was sick for days―and often delirious―waking up to find two strangers peering in at him from the cabin door. Yet oddly, instead of offering help, the two ran off as if terrified. Not long after, the coughing began. Ish suffered chills and fever, and a measles-like rash on his skin. He was one of the few people in the world to live through that peculiar malady, but he didn’t know it then.
Ish headed home when he finally felt himself again―and noticed the strangeness almost immediately. No cars passed him on the road; the gas station not far from his cabin looked abandoned; and he was shocked to see the body of a man on the roadside near a small town.
Without a radio or phone, Ish had no idea of humanity’s abrupt demise. He had escaped death, yet could not escape the catastrophe―and with an eerie detachment he found himself curious as to how long it would be before all traces of civilization faded from Earth.
Every Other Four: the Journal of Cpl. Matthew D. Wojtecki, Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion 25th Marines, Mobile Assault Team Eight
Recommended by Kim
Every Other Four is a firsthand account into the life of Cpl Wojtecki, A Marine Infantryman in Weapons Company 3/25 based out of Akron, OH. The day-by-day journal of the Marine describes what it felt like to be in some of the most hostile areas in the Al-An bar province and gives you the real story of what went on during those 10 months of training and combat. The 23-year-old college student describes life in a war-zone, constantly keeping watch on the roadways as a member of a Mobile Assault Platoon. Cpl. Wojtecki’s platoon fought an ongoing battle against insurgents such as Zarkowi and the Mouja-Haadine terrorist group that planted IED’s and mines on roadways, making it a difficult fight by blending into the local population and then fleeing to lawless river towns. This journal is dedicated to the 48 Marines and Sailors that died serving our country from 3/25. “Hopefully” he says, “the words in this journal will live forever and carry on their legacy”.
The Foundling by Paul Joseph Fronczak
Recommended by Julie
The Foundling tells the incredible and inspiring true story of Paul Fronczak, a man who recently discovered via a DNA test that he was not who he thought he was – and set out to solve two 50-year-old mysteries at once. Along the way he upturned the genealogy industry, unearthed his family’s deepest secrets, and broke open the second longest cold case in US history, all in a desperate bid to find out who he really is.
In 1964 a woman pretending to be a nurse kidnapped an infant boy named Paul Fronczak from a Chicago hospital.
Two years later police found a boy abandoned outside a variety store in New Jersey. The FBI tracked down Dora Fronczak, the kidnapped infant’s mother, and she identified the abandoned boy as her son. The family spent the next 50 years believing they were whole again – but Paul was always unsure about his true identity.
Then, four years ago – spurred on by the birth of his first child, Emma Faith – Paul took a DNA test. The test revealed definitively that he was not Paul Fronczak. From that moment on, Paul has been on a tireless mission to find the man whose life he’s been living – and to discover who abandoned him and why.
This is the story of Paul’s heart-wrenching and tortuous journey to solve both mysteries and finally learn the truth about his identity.
The Girls in the Stilt House by Kelly Mustian
Recommended by Chris
Ada promised herself she would never go back to the Trace, to her hard life on the swamp and her harsh father. But now, after running away to Baton Rouge and briefly knowing a different kind of life, she finds herself with nowhere to go but back home. And she knows there will be a price to pay with her father.
Matilda, daughter of a sharecropper, is from the other side of the Trace. Doing what she can to protect her family from the whims and demands of some particularly callous locals is an ongoing struggle. She forms a plan to go north, to pack up the secrets she’s holding about her life in the South and hang them on the line for all to see in Ohio.
As the two girls are drawn deeper into a dangerous world of bootleggers and moral corruption, they must come to terms with the complexities of their tenuous bond and a hidden past that links them in ways that could cost them their lives.
The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas
Recommended by Syrena
During the overthrow of the Mexican government, Beatriz’s father was executed and her home destroyed. When handsome Don Rodolfo Solórzano proposes, Beatriz ignores the rumors surrounding his first wife’s sudden demise, choosing instead to seize the security that his estate in the countryside provides. She will have her own home again, no matter the cost.
But Hacienda San Isidro is not the sanctuary she imagined.
When Rodolfo returns to work in the capital, visions and voices invade Beatriz’s sleep. The weight of invisible eyes follows her every move. Rodolfo’s sister, Juana, scoffs at Beatriz’s fears—but why does she refuse to enter the house at night? Why does the cook burn copal incense at the edge of the kitchen and mark the doorway with strange symbols? What really happened to the first Doña Solórzano?
Beatriz only knows two things for certain: Something is wrong with the hacienda. And no one there will save her.
Desperate for help, she clings to the young priest, Padre Andrés, as an ally. No ordinary priest, Andrés will have to rely on his skills as a witch to fight off the malevolent presence haunting the hacienda and protect the woman for whom he feels a powerful, forbidden attraction. But even he might not be enough to battle the darkness.
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Recommended by Lisa
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.
But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.
The Librarian of Crooked Lane by C J Archer
Recommended by Mallory
Librarian Sylvia Ashe knows nothing about her past, having grown up without a father and a mother who refused to discuss him. When she stumbles upon a diary that suggests she’s descended from magicians, she’s skeptical. After all, magicians are special, and she’s just an ordinary girl who loves books. She seeks the truth from a member of the most prominent family of magicians, but she quickly learns that finding the truth won’t be easy, especially when he turns out to be as artless as her, and more compelling and dangerous than books.
War hero Gabe is gifted with wealth, a loving family, and an incredible amount of luck that saw him survive four harrowing years of a brutal war without injury. But not all injuries are visible. Burying himself in his work as a consultant for Scotland Yard, Gabe is going through the motions as he investigates the theft of a magician-made painting. But his life changes when he unwittingly gets Sylvia dismissed from her job and places her in danger.
After securing her new employment in a library housing the world’s greatest collection of books about magic, Gabe and Sylvia’s lives become entwined as they work together to find both the painting and the truth about Sylvia’s past before powerful people can stop them.
But sometimes the past is better left buried…
Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica
Recommended by Jamie
People don’t just disappear without a trace….
Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold.
Now, 11 years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they’ll find….
Nightwork by Nora Roberts
Recommended by Paula
Greed. Desire. Obsession. Revenge . . . It’s all in a night’s work.
Harry Booth started stealing at nine to keep a roof over his ailing mother’s head, slipping into luxurious, empty homes at night to find items he could trade for precious cash. When his mother finally succumbed to cancer, he left Chicago—but kept up his nightwork, developing into a master thief with a code of honor and an expertise in not attracting attention?or getting attached.
Until he meets Miranda Emerson, and the powerful bond between them upends all his rules. But along the way, Booth has made some dangerous associations, including the ruthless Carter LaPorte, who sees Booth as a tool he controls for his own profit. Knowing LaPorte will leverage any personal connection, Booth abandons Miranda for her own safety—cruelly, with no explanation—and disappears.
But the bond between Miranda and Booth is too strong, pulling them inexorably back together. Now Booth must face LaPorte, to truly free himself and Miranda once and for all.
Reborn on the Run: My Journey from Addiction to Ultramarathons by Catra Corbett
Recommended by Jim
Aside from her rock star looks, Catra Corbett is a standout in the running world on her accomplishments alone. Catra is the first American woman to run over 100 miles or more on more than 100 occasions and the first to run 100 and 200 miles in the Ohlone Wilderness, and she holds the fastest known double time for the 425-miles long John Muir Trail, completing it in 12 days, four hours, and 57 minutes.
And, unbelievably, she’s also a former meth addict.
After two years of addiction, Catra is busted while selling, and a night in jail is enough to set her straight. She gives up drugs and moves back home with her mother, abandoning her friends, her boyfriend, and the lifestyle that she came to depend on. Her only clean friend pushes her to train for a 10K with him, and surprisingly, she likes it and decides to run her first marathon after that.
The River by Peter Heller
Recommended by Denise
Wynn and Jack have been best friends since college orientation, bonded by their shared love of mountains, books, and fishing. Wynn is a gentle giant, a Vermont kid never happier than when his feet are in the water. Jack is more rugged, raised on a ranch in Colorado where sleeping under the stars and cooking on a fire came as naturally to him as breathing. When they decide to canoe the Maskwa River in northern Canada, they anticipate long days of leisurely paddling and picking blueberries, and nights of stargazing and reading paperback Westerns. But a wildfire making its way across the forest adds unexpected urgency to the journey.
One night, with the fire advancing, they hear a man and woman arguing on the fog-shrouded riverbank; the next day, a man appears on the river, paddling alone. Is this the same man they heard? And if he is, where is the woman? From this charged beginning, master storyteller Peter Heller unspools a headlong, heart-pounding story of desperate wilderness survival.
Things to Look Forward to: 52 large and small joys for today and every day by Sophie Blackall
Recommended by Jan
In these pages, beloved author and illustrator Sophie Blackall has gathered a collection of joys for all of us—reminders of everyday magic, like the sun coming up and new babies being born. With wisdom, whimsy, and compassion, the 52 illustrated ideas in this book offer moments of uplift and serendipity for yourself and your loved ones. Suggestions range from baking muffins for a friend to drawing a face on an egg and putting it in the fridge where it will smile at you each time you open the door.
A message of hope and solace in hard times and of joyful anticipation at times of new beginnings—whether you’re grieving a loss or starting a new chapter, and for all the days in between—Things to Look Forward To is full of gentle reminders of the objects, occasions, gestures, and ideas that warm our hearts. There is always something bright on the horizon, and sometimes that horizon can be a lot closer than we think.
This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger.
Recommended by Denise
In the summer of 1932, on the banks of Minnesota’s Gilead River, Odie O’Banion is an orphan confined to the Lincoln Indian Training School, a pitiless place where his lively nature earns him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee after committing a terrible crime, he and his brother, Albert, their best friend, Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own.
Over the course of one summer, these four orphans journey into the unknown and cross paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. With the feel of a modern classic, This Tender Land is an enthralling, big-hearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole.
Twice in a Blue Moon by Christina Lauren
Recommended by Kimberly
Sam Brandis was Tate Jones’s first: Her first love. Her first everything. Including her first heartbreak.
During a whirlwind two-week vacation abroad, Sam and Tate fell for each other in only the way that first loves do: sharing all of their hopes, dreams, and deepest secrets along the way. Sam was the first, and only, person that Tate—the long-lost daughter of one of the world’s biggest film stars—ever revealed her identity to. So when it became clear her trust was misplaced, her world shattered for good.
Fourteen years later, Tate, now an up-and-coming actress, only thinks about her first love every once in a blue moon. When she steps onto the set of her first big break, he’s the last person she expects to see. Yet here Sam is, the same charming, confident man she knew, but even more alluring than she remembered. Forced to confront the man who betrayed her, Tate must ask herself if it’s possible to do the wrong thing for the right reason… and whether “once in a lifetime” can come around twice.
Verity by Colleen Hoover
Recommended by Ellen
Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish.
Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity’s notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn’t expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity’s recollection of the night her family was forever altered.
Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents could devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen’s feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife’s words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue loving her.
Write for Your Life by Anna Quindlen
Recommended by Liz
What really matters in life? What truly lasts in our hearts and minds? Where can we find community, history, humanity? In this lyrical new book, the answer is clear: through writing. This is a book for what Quindlen calls “civilians,” those who want to use the written word to become more human, more themselves.
Write for Your Life argues that there has never been a more important time to stop and record what we are thinking and feeling. Using examples from past, present, and future—from Anne Frank to Toni Morrison, from love letters written after World War II to journal reflections from nurses and doctors today—Write for Your Life vividly illuminates the ways in which writing connects us to ourselves and to those we cherish. Drawing on her personal experiences not just as a writer but as a mother and daughter, Quindlen makes the case that recording our daily lives in writing is essential.