Thousand Autumns of
Jacob de Zoet
Recommended by Mary-Ann, North Vancouver

This is the best book I have ever read. It really is. Based loosely on a true story of a clerk for a Dutch shipping company stationed on a small artificial Island in Japan in 1799, this novel weaves together multiple stories of dozens of characters so deftly that you won't even know where the stories begin and end. I was keenly disappointed when this book ended and am already anticipating Mitchell's next book.

Language of Flowers
Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Recommends Stephanie Jane at Surrey

Wow, poor Victoria is struggling to sort out her young life after a childhood of foster care. Her skill at intuitively matching up people with life changing floral arrangements helps her through some heart wrenching situations. This one has really got my compassionate juices flowing. Can't wait for her next book.

Is Everyone Hanging
Out Without Me?
Recommended by Orsi at South Surrey

Mindy Kaling is fearless, smart, and very opinionated, but above of all she is very, very funny.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (and other concerns) is a hilarious account of some her adventures as a professional writer and performer through success and failure. Though Mindy dedicates a whole chapter describing the "make-up, and pimple check" photographs taken with her smartphone she also has insightful opinions about relationship, friendship, diets, or simply just living a life that most women can relate.

Snakes and Ladders
Sean Slater
Recommended by Lesley at Mission

Homicide investigator Jacob Striker's latest story leads him to investigate a Mental Institution where patients are dying under suspicious circumstances.

Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn
Recommended by Brenda at Mission

Nick and Amy are preparing for their fifth wedding anniversary when Amy disappears. The investigators feel the diary she has left behind giving them the clues that point to the husband as the kidnapper. Nick insists on his innocence.

Who is responsible for Amy's, the daughter of doting parents and the wife of a loving husband, disappearence?

Very fast-paced read.

 

Waging Heavy Peace
Neil Young
Recommended by Caitlin at Broadway

Waging Heavy Peace is Neil Young's first autobiography the way only he can tell it.

Into the Darkest Cor
Elizabeth Haynes
Recommended by Le-Anne

Catherine believes she had found the catch of a lifetime in the gorgeous Lee. But soon her life turns into a nightmare when Lee's caring and attentivness turns into raging jealousy. She successfully plans and executes her escape.

Years pass, Lee is behind bars. Catherine, now Cathy, feels she is ready for a new relationship. Unfortunately she realizes that the shadows of the past still have a hold on her. Because it would be impossible for Lee who is in jail, to sneak into her appartment and rearrange certain things? Wouldn't it?

Sweet Tooth
Ian McEwan
Recommended by Michele&Trish, Guildford

Now in Paperback!

The year is 1972.

Serena, a compulsive reader, daughter of an anglican bishop, finds herself recruited for the Intelligence Service and is sent on a secret mission. She meets Tom Haley, a promising young writer. First, she loves his stories, then she begins to love the man. Can she maintain her undercover life? Who is deceiving whom? To answer these questions, Serena must abandon the first rule of espionage—trust no one.

Beautiful Ruins
Jess Walter
Recommended by Melanee at North Van

At a small village near Cinque Terre, Italy, Pasquale Torsi sees a small boat approaching with a beautiful woman who is an extra in the movie “Cleopatra”. What would ensue over the next 50 years is the tangled lives of over a dozen unforgettable, flawed characters and the choices they have made. What a fascinating book, you will be surprised how it all ends.

Unsaid
Neil Abramson
Recommended by Melanee, North Van

Helena, a veterinarian, has died but still lingers as she observes life and the people she left behind. When her last project, Cindy, a chimpanzee is scheduled for a research experiment, Helena's lawyer husband is called in to represent Cindy in the courtroom. A fascinating and heart-warming novel that will make you wonder the cost when animals are used in scientific experiments to find cures for diseases.

Lady Cyclist's Guide
to Kashdar
Suzanne Joinson

Now in Paperback!

Like "Major Pettigrew's Last Stand" or "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society," a wondrous, richly conceived, irresistible debut novel that sweeps the reader away to a different world.

Tell it to the Trees
Anita Rau Badami
Recommended by Melanee at North Van

Badami tells the gripping and haunting story of the Dharma’s, an East Indian family living in a very remote part of BC. The book opens with the discovery of their tenant’s frozen body. From there, the events leading up to the discovery are recounted along with many family secrets.

The Immortal Life of
Henrietta Lacks
Rebecca Skloot

How can one be immortal without being a teenage vampire? Henrietta Lacks and her constantly multiplying cancer cells are the answer.

The book is the story of a young, African-American woman who was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951. Before starting treatment the attendee took a small sample of her cancer cell to pass it down to the lab. Thus the HeLe cell line was born. After sixty years it’s still growing and going strong. The cells have been sent out and got experienced with all over the world. They have been to space, they have helped many scientists to achieve the Nobel-prize, including for finding the cure for polio.

Henrietta Lacks died few month after the diagnosis but to date, among all cell lines, hers is the most common and easiest to use.

This book is a beautiful combination of science, 20^th century American, and African-American history. The reader explores the details of the story along with the writer and some of the Lacks family members who until the seventies weren’t even aware that their mother was still “alive”.

 

Orsi, Semiahmoo Shopping Centre

Art of Racing
in the Rain
by Garth Stein

How do you write a review for a book that is “that good”? From start to finish, this humorous and poignant story is told through the voice of a dog named Enzo as he watches his people family go through life’s trials and tribulations. Looking the next great book to read? This is definitely it!