Lawrence Picks: LPL's Best Books 2024Like this list

27 items

• Lady Macbeth

  a Novel

  Reid, Ava,

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  "This haunting retelling of one of literature’s most famous tragedies puts one of Shakespeare’s most vilified characters at center stage. Sent across the continent to wed the general Macbeth after facing allegations of witchcraft, Roscille…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Nuclear War

  a Scenario

  Jacobsen, Annie,

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  "For generations, we taxpayers have paid billions and billions to support and enable a plan of planetary mass extermination. Many have a vague sense of this, but in Nuclear War, Annie Jacobsen presents the nitty gritty radioactive details…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Light Eaters

  How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth

  Schlanger, Zoë,

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  "My 2024 book of the year. A fascinating look at how plants work, incorporating the latest mind-blowing scientific research in a very readable way. Powered by starlight, plants think, they communicate, they make weather, they mimic…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers

  Sutanto, Jesse Q.

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  "There are so many people who could want Marshall dead. When his body is discovered in her aging tea shop, Vera uses all of her amateur sleuthing skills and culinary prowess to find the culprit. In the process, she will weave together a…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Disney High

  the Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel's Tween Empire

  Spencer, Ashley (Journalist),

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  "I love pop culture history and getting the inside scoop on some of my favorite shows growing up was so fun I could not put this book down. The Disney machine was in full swing in the 2000’s and that created a lot of highs and lows for not…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Ancients

  Larison, John,

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  "Uplifting" and "climate change dystopia" are two descriptors I would never expect to use for the same novel, but here we are. A family is separated as their world literally turns to dust and this chronicles their fraught journeys to find…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Good Material

  a Novel

  Alderton, Dolly,

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  "Dolly Alderton is a household name in England, having written first a dating and then a “Dear Abby” column for the Sunday Times newspaper. Based on how much fun this book is, I predict she’ll gain similar fame in the U.S. It’s a smart,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• James

  a Novel

  Everett, Percival,

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  "James by Percival Everett has earned both the National Book Award and the Kirkus Prize; I concur and hope the forthcoming film adaptation will garner further recognition for a wry retelling of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Impossible Creatures

  Rundell, Katherine,

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  "I imagine it must be quite thrilling and even more intimidating to repeatedly hear your name in the same sentence as fantasy greats Tolkien, Lewis, Pullman, and Rowling, but that’s the company Katherine Rundell keeps these days.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Immortal Dark

  Girma, Tigest,

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  "Kidan Adane’s sister goes missing and every clue Kidan can find leads her to Uxlay University, a historically Black school where humans and vampires coexist and compete for mastery of the twelve houses that surround the school grounds.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• How High We Go in the Dark

  a Novel

  Nagamatsu, Sequoia,

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  "This book DESTROYED me. I think about the roller coasters daily. In this book of short stories linking hundreds of years of Earth’s near-future, you are thrust into a world where melting permafrost has unleashed a heart-breaking disease."…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Assistant to the Villain

  Maehrer, Hannah Nicole,

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  "The infamous “Villain” needs someone to get his office under control so he can keep doing the real work–plaguing the royal guard. He stumbles upon a sunny outcast who desperately needs to get a job to support for her ailing father and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

  Schwab, Victoria

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  "I wanted to crawl inside this book and live there. Don’t pray to the gods who answer after dark. You might be granted complete freedom and immortality, for the low price of being forgotten the second a person leaves the room." - Angela,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Man's Search for Meaning

  Frankl, Viktor E. (Viktor Emil), 1905-1997,

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  "A short book with a dual nature. In part one the author imparts a moving autobiographical account of the experience of life in the concentration camps during World War II. In part two Frankl presents an outline of his psychotherapeutic…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• This Is Happiness

  Williams, Niall, 1958-

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  "A beautifully written coming of age novel set in a small town in Ireland in the 1950s. Electrification is on the horizon, and with it, sweeping changes to the social structure of the community. An engaging plot, laugh-out-loud situations,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Invention of Nature

  Alexander Von Humboldt's New World

  Wulf, Andrea

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  "Although it was published in 2015 it was my favorite read of 2024. It recounts the life and travels of the German naturalist and explorer Alexander Von Humboldt (1769-1859) who was one of the first scientists to postulate nature as a…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Small Things Like These

  Keegan, Claire,

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  "Keegan manages to break your heart with tenderness in so few pages and with such simple language. Everything I’ve read of hers is astonishing." - Terese, Information Services Librarian

• Tokyo These Days

  Matsumoto, Taiyō, 1967-

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  "After the cancellation of his long running manga, Kazuo Shiozawa, a middle aged editor, quits his job and tries to start fresh. But his passion for manga can’t be left behind so easily and he soon starts to enlist his favorite creators to…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• ADHD 2.0

  New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving With Distraction--from Childhood Through Adulthood

  Hallowell, Edward M.,

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  "Hallowell is a game-changer. I first came across Hallowell as a guest on a podcast I love, which led me to pick up the audiobook on Libby. Unlike many experts, Hallowell dives deeper than surface-level quirks—he compassionately explains…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Hundred Years' War on Palestine

  a History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017

  Khalidi, Rashid,

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  "This is a powerful and illuminating read I picked up this summer. Khalidi, a historian and Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, draws from untapped archives and the firsthand accounts of his family—mayors,…Read moreRead more of this annotation