Hi everyone, here are our five suggested reads of the week!
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Drive Me Crazy by Lizzy Dent
Chloe Coleman has been obsessed with Formula 1 racing for her entire life, and now she’s getting the chance of her dreams, with a new job managing an F1 team. It’s an underdog team, but Chloe is sure she can take it to the top–until the infamous world champion Matt Warner is also hired. Matt was Chloe’s first crush, her first boyfriend, and her first heartbreak–she can deal with that. The bigger problem is that Matt has lost his edge after a disastrous crash seriously injured his teammate and best friend. Ever since, Matt doesn’t trust himself, continually becoming frozen by fear, and his winning career seems now to be a thing of the past. He’s not happy to be on a perpetually losing team, but he’s not upset that Chloe is his new boss. She always had a good eye and a clever mind; if there’s anyone who can turn his career around, it’s her. As they work together, Chloe and Matt’s old spark reappears, stronger than ever and peaking at the worst possible time.
VERDICT Dent (Just One Taste) offers an engaging, fast-paced sports romance with well-developed protagonists. -Library Journal Review
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Inharmonious by Tammye Huf
Horrified after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, friends Lee, Benny, and Roscoe enlist. Because of his light complexion, Benny is put into the white unit instead of the segregated Black unit. Lee, after a rough childhood, is desperate to prove he is good enough for Cora, Benny’s sister and his secret girlfriend. Unbeknownst to Lee, Benny and his friend Roscoe devise a plan to ensure Benny’s mom and Cora will be taken care of if Benny dies in the war: Roscoe, who has always had a crush on Cora, will marry her before he reports for duty. Cora, who takes Lee’s enlistment as a sign he does not love her, reluctantly agrees to the plan. Navigating between the wartime experiences of Lee, Roscoe, and Benny with Cora’s life at home, Huf (A More Perfect Union, 2020) shines a light on the courage and mistreatment of Black soldiers during WWII. Huf also shows how racist policies like redlining and restrictive covenants kept Black veterans from the same economic prosperity of their white counterparts once they returned home. Inspired by the author’s own family history, this compelling and layered narrative will appeal to book clubs, readers of WWII fiction, and Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half (2020). – Starred Booklist Review
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Meet the Newmans A Novel by Jennifer Niven
Bestselling Niven (Breathless) channels the 1950s sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet in this story about a family of proto-reality TV stars. Del, Dinah, Guy, and Shep Newman become famous for their hit radio show and eventually transition to television, where they play fictionalized versions of themselves as the quintessential all-American family. The Newmans perform a version of their lives on screen for millions of viewers, and then go home together to lead their private lives. Patriarch Del, who writes and directs the show, also curates every aspect of the family’s TV personas until he is involved in an accident that almost kills him. With Del’s life hanging in the balance and their show’s future in limbo, his wife Dinah takes over writing the script, while son Guy handles directing duties. While Del is indisposed, Dinah is able to use her voice (during a time when women rarely were allowed to), Guy has a chance to spread his wings, and younger son Shep finally gets to be the person he wants rather than the person his father has portrayed him as. Niven’s revisionist tale of life in the early 1960s is more emotionally satisfying than it is historically accurate, but it’s a fast-paced, enjoyable novel with endearing characters.
VERDICT A solid purchase for libraries where Niven’s books are popular.–Library Journal Review
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One & Only by Maureen Goo
YA author Goo’s (Throwback) adult debut is certain to steal readers’ hearts. As a matchmaker (like generations of her matriarchs before her), Cassia Park takes the concept of soulmates very seriously as she steers people to their fated partners. However, she has almost given up on finding her own soulmate. Then she meets Ellis, a younger man to whom she feels an instant pull. They have a fling that feels like it could develop into something more, but then Ellis introduces her to Daniel, his boss, who Cassia discovers is fated to be her soulmate. With the help of her family, Cassia navigates imperfect love and finds that the answers are not as clear as she always believed they’d be. Now attracted to two very different men, she learns that love is messier and more chaotic when she has to make her own choice. When it comes to deciding between Daniel and Ellis, Cassia has to pick adventure or safety.
VERDICT A must-buy title that’s perfect for book groups, with themes of love, generational ties, and harmony – Starred Library Journal Review
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The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop by Takuya Asakura & Yuka Maeno
Asakura’s first novel to be translated into English hits all the notes of the healing fiction trend: a bit of magical realism, coffee, books, and a cat, mixed in with people who are looking for emotional guidance in life. The Sakura Bookshop is special, appearing only during cherry blossom season, and only to those who happen to be reading the same book at the same time as the shop owner Sakura and her cat Kobako. Then they can find the path and encounter the magical shop that allows them to revisit memories, to help with closure and understanding. The healing journey looks a little different in each of the four stories included here, but each character finds a sense of peace they were looking for in their varied circumstances. The stories are slightly uneven, with some stronger than others, but the overall effect is pure bookish escapism.
VERDICT This charming book follows the tropes of this genre closely but adds a metafictional twist at the end. It’s particularly bookish, focusing on both Western and Japanese titles, and should hold extra appeal for readers of Satoshi Yagisawa’s Days at the Morisaki Bookshop or Kim Jee Hye’s. Starred Library Journal Review
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Happy reading!
Linda Reimer, SSCL
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Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.
Weekly Suggested Reading Five postings are usually published on Wednesdays, unless Monday is a holiday and then they are published later in the week.
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Information on the four library catalogs
The Digital Catalog aka Libby: https://stls.overdrive.com/
The Digital Catalog, is an online catalog containing eBooks, eAudiobooks, and digital magazines. You can use your library card and checkout content on a PC; you can also use the companion app, Libby, to access titles on your mobile devices; so you can enjoy eBooks and eAudiobooks on the go!
All card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can check out items from the Digital Catalog.
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Hoopla Catalog: https://www.hoopladigital.com/
The Hoopla Catalog features on demand checkouts of eBooks, eAudiobooks, comic books, albums, movies and TV shows. Patron check out limit is 10 items per month.
Hoopla is a Southeast Steuben County Library service available to all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders.
The Hoopla companion app, also called Hoopla is available for mobile devices, smart TVs & media streaming players.
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Kanopy Catalog: https://www.kanopy.com/en
The Kanopy Catalog features thousands of streaming videos available on demand.
The Kanopy Catalog is available for all Southern Tier Library System member library card holders, including all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders!
You can access the Kanopy Catalog through a web browser, or download the app to your phone, tablet or media streaming player (i.e. Roku, Google or Fire TV).
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StarCat: The catalog of physical/traditional library materials: https://starcat.stls.org
Card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can access StarCat to search for and request materials available at libraries through out the Southern Tier Library System.
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Have questions about how to access Internet based content (i.e. eBooks, eAudios)? Feel free to drop by the Reference Desk or call the library and we will assist you! The library’s telephone number is: 607-936-3713.
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Tech & Book Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.

















