Looking for a good book? Staff favourites...week one.


Each week throughout December and January, discover a list of staff favourites (and readalikes) you might like to read.


A Classic romance
Pride and Prejudice/
 Jane Austen
Read or re-read this classic romance by Jane Austen these holidays. Human foibles and early nineteenth-century manners are satirized in this romantic tale of English country family life as Elizabeth Bennet and her four sisters are encouraged to marry well in order to keep the Bennet estate in their family.
Readalikes: 
Evelina by Frances Burnie
Longbourn Jo Baker ( The story as told from the servant's perspective)
Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld (A modern  retelling)
                                                                                                          
A heart-pounding thriller
Killer look /
Linda Fairstein
A heart-pounding thriller that explores the dark secrets of Manhattan’s iconic fashion scene in Linda Fairstein's 18th book in her Alexandra Cooper series.

Readalikes:
Dead connection by Alafair Burke
Pray for silence by Linda Castillo
Woman with a gun by Philip Margolin


Historical Book to movie...
Poldark /
Winston Graham
The first in a series of 12 historical books that have been made into a television series, currently on ABC on Sunday nights. It is a best selling series, loved for it's blend of drama,  romance, memorable characters and evocative Cornish setting. A saga spanning the
Request the books and watch the series (seasons one and two).

Readalikes:
The land of my dreams : war at home, 1916 / Cynthia Harrod-Eagles.
The forgotten room / Karen White, Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig.
Penmarric/ Susan Howatch

    
Coming of age...   
We are all completely beside ourselves /
Karen Fowler
***Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014***
Rosemary's young, just at college, and she's decided not to tell anyone a thing about her family. So we're not going to tell you too much either: you'll have to find out for yourselves, round about page 77, what it is that makes her unhappy family unlike any other.
Readalikes: 
The evolution of Bruno Littlemore/ Benjamin Hale
A beautiful truth/ Colin McAdam
Spill simmer falter wither/ Sara Baume
 

A portrait of India in 1970's...
A fine balance /
Rohinton Mistry
A perennial bestseller, A Fine Balance is consistently acclaimed as a masterpiece from one of the most gifted writers of our time.In mid-1970s urban India - a chaos of wretchedness on the streets and slogans in the offices - a chain of circumstances tosses four varied individuals together in one small flat.The reader first learns the characters' separate, compelling histories of brief joys and abiding sorrows, then watches as barriers of class, suspicion, and politeness are gradually dissolved.

Readalikes:
Howards End/ E.M. Forster
Sea of poppies/Amitav Gosh
Behind the beautiful forevers/ Katherine Boo

Atmospheric mystery 
The Lake House

A moody, suspenseful page-turner filled with mystery and spellbinding secrets.
The morning after the Edevane's exclusive Midsummer Eve party in Cornwall in 1933, their youngest child, Theo, is nowhere to be found. After months of futile searching, the family pack up and leave their beautiful country home, never to return. Until, in 2003, a young female police officer stumbles into the lost gardens surrounding the abandoned house and determines to find out what happened.

Readalikes: 
Black Rabbit Hall/ Eve Chase
The evening spider/ Emily Arsenault
The thirteenth tale/ Diane Setterfield

Want more? 
Looking for something new to read these holidays? Let the Library help! During December and January, fill in the reading profile form on the library website, tell us about the books you like and don't like and we'll suggest a personalised list of 3 books we think you'll love.