The Buzz...About Books

Loan Stars is a readers’ advisory service that allows library staff across Canada to collaboratively select their favourite forthcoming titles. Library staff nominate and vote for their favourite picks and a top ten list of the most popular titles is distributed each month. 

November Loan Stars Top Ten:

1. Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa by Haruki Murakami
   • eBook
   
   A deeply personal, intimate conversation about music and writing between the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author and his close friend, the former conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

   Haruki Murakami's passion for music runs deep. Before turning his hand to writing, he ran a jazz club in Tokyo, and from The Beatles' Norwegian Wood to Franz Liszt's Years of Pilgrimage, the aesthetic and emotional power of music permeates every one of his much-loved books.
   Now, in Absolutely on Music, Murakami fulfills a personal dream, sitting down with his friend, acclaimed conductor Seiji Ozawa, to talk, over a period of two years, about their shared interest. Transcribed from lengthy conversations about the nature of music and writing, here they discuss everything from Brahms to Beethoven, from Leonard Bernstein to Glenn Gould, from record collecting to pop-up orchestras, and much more. Ultimately this book gives readers an unprecedented glimpse into the minds of the two maestros.

   It is essential reading for book and music lovers everywhere.

2. Under the Midnight Sun by Keigo Higashino
   • eBook
   
   This is the compelling story of a brutal crime and the two teenagers — Ryo, the son of the murdered man, and Yukiho, the daughter of the main suspect — whose lives remain inextricably linked over the 20-year search for the truth behind the crime. In Osaka in 1973, the body of a murdered man is found in an abandoned building. Investigating the crime, Detective SasagakI is unable to find the killer. Over the next 20 years, through the lens of a succession of characters, Higashino tells the story of two teens, Ryo and Yukiho, whose lives are most affected by the crime, and the obsessed detective, Sasagaki, who continues to investigate the murder, looking for the elusive truth. Under the Midnight Sun is a complex, psychological novel about crime and its after-effects by one of the most read and most accomplished contemporary mystery authors. A twisting, compelling work that will astonish and delight Higashino's old fans and new readers alike.
3. Faithful by Alice Hoffman
   • Audiobook
   • eAudiobook
   • eBook
   • Talking Book (restricted to Print Disabled patrons)

   Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her best friend’s future is destroyed in an accident, while Shelby walks away with the burden of guilt. What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky? Faithful is the story of a survivor, filled with emotion — from dark suffering to true happiness — a moving portrait of a young woman finding her way in the modern world. A fan of Chinese food, dogs, bookstores and men she should stay away from, Shelby has to fight her way back to her own future. In New York City she finds a circle of lost and found souls — including an angel who’s been watching over her ever since that fateful icy night.

4. The Twenty-Three by Linwood Barclay
   • eBook
   
   From international bestselling author Linwood Barclay comes the third and final thriller in the Promise Falls trilogy.

   Everything has been leading to this. It's the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, and the small town of Promise Falls, New York, has found itself in the midst of a full-blown catastrophe. Hundreds of people are going to the hospital with similar symptoms — vomiting, dizziness, loss of consciousness — and dozens are dying. And those investigating the cause of the epidemic quickly zero in on the water supply. But the question for many, including private investigator Cal Weaver, remains: Who would benefit from poisoning this town? And what is their motivation? Meanwhile, as tragedies mount and the number of suspects grows larger, Detective Barry Duckworth is faced with another problem. The killer of Olivia Fisher and Rosemary Gaynor is still out there. And what's more, he knows that the mystery behind the significance of the number 23 is growing and is linked to a much larger scheme than he'd originally imagined. 

5. Stone Coffin by Kjell Eriksson
   • eBook
   
   International suspense superstar Kjell Eriksson produces another masterful work of murder, intrigue and page-turning action in this latest thriller, featuring his popular series-detective Ann Lindell. One sunny summer morning, a young woman and her six-year-old daughter are run over by a car. Both are killed immediately. Is it an accident, or did someone kill them on purpose? The same morning the husband of the deceased young woman disappears. During the police investigation, it turns out that the husband had recently bought a property that nobody knew anything about. Later a macabre discovery is made in a forest nearby…
6. Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey by Elena Ferrante
   • eAudiobook
   • eBook
   
   This book invites readers into Elena Ferrante’s workshop. It offers a glimpse into the drawers of her writing desk, those drawers from which emerged her three early standalone novels and the four installments of My Brilliant Friend, known in English as the Neapolitan Quartet. Consisting of over 20 years of letters, essays, reflections and interviews, it is a unique depiction of an author who embodies a consummate passion for writing.
7. To Capture What We Cannot Keep by Beatrice Colin
   • eBook
   
   Set against the construction of the Eiffel Tower, this novel charts the relationship between a young Scottish widow and a French engineer who, despite constraints of class and wealth, fall in love. In February 1887, Caitriona Wallace and Émile Nouguier meet in a hot air balloon, floating high above Paris, France — a moment of pure possibility. But back on firm ground, their vastly different social strata become clear. She is a widow in a precarious financial situation. His bourgeois family expects him to join the business and choose a suitable wife. As the Eiffel Tower rises, a marvel of steel and air and light, the subject of extreme controversy and a symbol of the future, Cait and Émile must decide what their love is worth.
8. Inherit the Bones by Emily Littlejohn
   • eBook
   
   Secrets and lies can’t stay buried forever in Cedar Valley. Season by season, year after year, time passes and the lies, like the aspens and evergreens that surround the town, take root and spread deep. Now, someone has uncovered the lies, and it is his murder that continues a chain of events that began almost 40 years ago. Detective Gemma Monroe tracks a killer who will stop at nothing to keep those secrets buried.
9. The Mayakovsky Tapes by Robert Littell
   • eBook
   
   In March 1953, four women meet in Room 408 of Moscow’s deluxe Hotel Metropol. They have gathered to reminisce about Vladimir Mayakovsky, the poet who in death had become a national idol of Soviet Russia. In life, however, he was a much more complicated figure. As they piece together their conflicting memories of him, a portrait of the artist as a young idealist emerges. The Mayakovsky Tapes is an ambitious, impressive novel that brings to life the tumultuous Stalinist era and the predicament of the artists ensnared in it.
10. Testimony by Robbie Robertson
    • Audiobook
    • eAudiobook
    • eBook
    • Talking Book (restricted to Print Disabled patrons)

    Robbie Robertson’s singular contributions to popular music have made him one of the most beloved songwriters and guitarists of his time. In this captivating memoir, written over five years of reflection, Robertson employs his unique storyteller’s voice to weave together the journey that led him to some of the most pivotal events in music history.