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Red Deer Public Library staff select hot seasonal reads

The time between Christmas and New Year’s is popular for reading.
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Thrillers, prize-winners and fantasy adventures are among the seasonal hot reads at the Red Deer Public Library.

Many Central Albertans love hunkering down with a good book in the cold days between Christmas and New Year’s. Trish Klein, the library’s adult services co-ordinator, said this means once their Christmas shopping is done, dedicated library patrons will come in to stock up on reading material three to four days before the Dec. 25 holiday. “Things will really pick up next week.”

Klein knows readers are eager for a copy of Giller Prize-winning Do Not Say We Have Nothing, by Madeleine Thien, about Chinese musicians before and after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

And “one of the really big ones is Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty.” The Goodreads Choice Award Winner for Best Fiction examines the fault lines in a seemingly happy marriage.

Klein said Red Deer readers are similarly interested in the recently released mystery thrillers The Wrong Wide of Goodbye by Michael Connelly, and Before the Fall by Noah Hawley. Also popular are recent celebrity memoirs, such as Anna Kendrick’s Scrappy Little Nobody and Talking as Fast as I Can by Gilmore Girls star Lauren Graham.

Among teen readers, fantasy and sci-fi still rules.

Jessica Dinan, who works in the youth stacks, heard a lot of buzz about The 5th Wave trilogy by Rick Yancey, about an alien invasion. Although Dinan’s never been keen on stories spread across three books, she said, “I really enjoyed that series.”

Adolescent readers are also into And I Darken, a historical fantasy adventure by Kiersten White, and The Girl From Everywhere, a time-travelling debut by Heidi Heilig. There’s also The Serpent King, a novel by Jeff Zentner, about extreme faith and vipers.

Dinan said two stories particularly relevant to young people are: The First Time She Drowned, about teenage bullying and mental illness, by Kerry Kletter, and This is Where It Ends, examining a school shooting from different perspectives, by Marieke Nijkamp.

In the library’s children’s department, seasonal stories are in demand.

Robert Munch’s Finding Christmas, Robert Kinerk’s Bear’s First Christmas, and Merry Christmas, Ollie! by Olivier Dunrea are frequently checked out — so is the classic The Night Before Christmas, by Clement Clarke Moore.

lmichelin@www.reddeeradvocate.com