On the Shelf
By Paul Guffin
3 min read
Books That I Recommend
As I did in my final column for 2022, in this final column for 2023 I am looking back over the books I have read this year, so that I might select some of my favorites (for a whole bunch of different reasons) and recommend them to you for your own reading pleasure. And, to make the list more useful to you, I have only included books that can be found on the shelves of the Downieville Library.
A Christmas Book, by Joan Walsh Anglund (easy reader)
Love Makes a Family, by Sophie Beer (easy reader)
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume (juvenile)
The Fall, by Albert Camus
Rafa Counts on Papá, by Joe Cepeda (easy reader)
The Mousetrap, by Agatha Christie (play)
Passenger to Frankfurt, by Agatha Christie (thriller)
Mrs. Brisby’s Remembering Game, by E.K. Davis (easy reader)
Llama Llama Gram and Grandpa, by Anna Dewdney (easy reader)
I’m So Glad You Were Born: Celebrating Who You Are, by Ainsley Earhardt (easy reader non-fiction)
Olivia, by Ian Falconer (easy reader)
This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History, by Dan Flores (non-fiction)
My Favorite Thing, by Gyo Fujikawa (easy reader)
Teddy Bears Cure a Cold, by Susanna Gretz (easy reader)
Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America, by Pekka Hämäläinen (non-fiction)
The Urban Bestiary, by Lyanda Lynn Haupt (non-fiction)
My Thoughts Are Clouds: Poems for Mindfulness, by Georgia Heard (juvenile non-fiction)
Imagine, by Juan Felipe Herrera (easy reader)
American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis, by Adam Hochschild (non-fiction)
Black: The Many Wonders of My World, by Nancy Johnson James (easy reader)
The Boy with Flowers in His Hair, by Jarvis (easy reader)
Until Someone Listens, by Estela Juarez (easy reader non-fiction // also Hasta Que Alguien Me Escuche)
The Power of Geography: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of the World, by Tim Marshall (non-fiction)
Kafka on the Shore, by Huraki Murakami
The Doctors Blackwell, by Janice P. Nimura (non-fiction)
Delta of Venus, by Anaïs Nin
Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell
Big Nate Nailed It!, by Lincoln Peirce (juvenile graphic novel)
Gifts of the Heart, by Patricia Polacco (juvenile)
Old Bones, by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child (thriller)
The Last Bit-Bear: A Fable, by Sandra Chisholm Robinson (juvenile)
Empire Falls, by Richard Russo
Dissolution, by C.J. Sansom (and the rest of the Matthew Shardlake series)
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, by V.E. Schwab
Sierra Visions: First Collection & Sierra Visions: IV, by Sierra County Arts Council (poetry & writings)
Beautiful You, Beautiful Me, by Tasha Spillett-Sumner (easy reader)
Alice Waters Cooks Up a Food Revolution, by Diane Stanley (juvenile non-fiction)
Fatima’s Great Outdoors, by Ambreen Tariq (easy reader)
I Survived the Great Chicago Fire, 1871, by Lauren Tarshis (juvenile graphic novel)
On the Night You Were Born, by Nancy Tillman (easy reader)
Nina: A Story of Nina Simone, by Traci N. Todd (juvenile non-fiction)
The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing, by Jacqueline Winspear (biography)