What are Loan Stars, and how can I get one?
Have you heard of the Loan Stars program? It's a new readers' advisory initiative put together by various Canadian library-related organizations. Every month, library staff across the country are invited to read galleys of new books that are coming out soon, and to vote on their favourites. (Librarianship has its privileges.) The result: we get to read books before they come out, and you get to know which ones we think deserve your urgent attention. Win-win, amirite?
I'll be posting the August Loan Stars list in a few days, but for now, here are some finalists from the past few months that I've read and enjoyed:
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Dark Matter by Blake Crouch This was fun. Have you ever wondered what would happen if you had made different choices, if your life had taken a different turn? Probably! But! Have you ever followed that thought through to its logical conclusion? Blake Crouch does in this fast-paced, science-fiction-ish thriller, to mindboggling and occasionally hilarious effect.
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Security by Gina Wohlsdorf If Ellen Raskin's 1970s children's classic The Westing Game had been updated for adults with a new emphasis on nonstop, graphic sex and violence, it might look something like this. An eccentric billionaire builds a luxury hotel with a state-of-the-art security system; on the eve of its grand opening, two hit men break in and attempt to kill off the motley staff, one by one. Odd, feverish, original. |
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Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi I've just started reading this sprawling epic about two Ghanaian sisters, separated at birth, and the fates of their respective families in Africa and America over the next 300 years. While it has receive mixed reviews*, it did garner a seven-figure advance in the lead-up to last year's London Book Fair (!!), so we'll see. *(Note: you can also read the New Yorker review via our Zinio e-magazine service - it's in the May 30th edition.) |
And here are the number one titles for each month since the program started back in May:
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JULY Everything I Don't Remember by Jonas Hassen Khemiri From the LoanStars site: "One of Sweden’s most celebrated young writers and activists spins an exhilarating, innovative, and gripping murder mystery reminiscent of the hit podcast Serial." |
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JUNE Barkskins by Annie Proulx From the Loan Stars site: "From Annie Proulx—the Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning author of The Shipping News and “Brokeback Mountain” — comes her masterwork: an epic, dazzling, violent, magnificently dramatic novel about the taking down of the world’s forests." |
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MAY I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh From the Loan Stars site: "The next blockbuster thriller for those who loved The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl... “a finely crafted novel with a killer twist.” (Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train) |
(So many books, so little time. If you're itching to hear about the Man Booker Prize longlist — released this morning – the good people over at Book Buzz have got you covered.)
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