Summer Reading Recommendations - Three from Melissa Cookson

Recently the Library posted a video on our YouTube Channel with staff recommendations for summer reading.  Here's the "why?" behind some of those recommendations, as well as for other books that didn't make it into the video.

Melissa Cookson is our Cataloging Librarian, and an avid consumer of books, manga, and anime.  Here are her recommendations, most of which are available 24/7 in our OverDrive collection:

In Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, "the last remaining fragment of a warship AI [artificial intelligence] seeks revenge against the person who nearly destroyed her and who killed the person she most cared about. It’s the first book in a trilogy that must be read in order. It took me a while to adjust to the way the world of the trilogy worked and the story’s slow pace, but it was worth it. The first book was gut-wrenching and fascinating, and the second and third books, Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy, were even better. I’d recommend the trilogy as a whole to folks who enjoy science fiction with prominent artificial intelligence characters and a nice 'found family' aspect."

[Note that all three books are also available in print in the General Stacks on the third floor of the Dick Smith Library, with nearly identical call numbers to those provided in the links.  Ancillary Mercy is in OverDrive as an e-audiobook.]

Radiance, by Grace Draven, "is a fantasy romance featuring a political marriage between two beings who find each other physically repulsive. Brishen and Ildiko were a wonderful pair right from the start, determined to make their marriage work out as best as possible. I loved their efforts to be both friendly and honest with each other."

In 14, by Peter Clines, "Nate moves into an unbelievably cheap apartment and gradually discovers that it has more issues than just its massive green cockroach infestation. I loved watching Nate, along with his neighbors, uncover the apartment building’s mysteries. The atmosphere was wonderfully suspenseful and slightly creepy, made even better by Ray Porter’s excellent narration."

[This book is only available in our collection as an audiobook on compact discs, found on the lower level of the Dick Smith Library in the Audiovisual Collection.]