Lake Bluff Library Adult Reading Lists

An unforgettable and heartwarming debut about how a chance encounter with a list of library books helps forge an unlikely friendship between two very different people in a London suburb.

Reluctantly accepting a job at her estranged father's law firm in the aftermath of her mother's passing, Drue is tangled in a decades-old mystery that threatens everyone she loves. (Description from NoveList)

What are you looking for? So asks Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian. For Sayuri Komachi is able to sense exactly what each visitor to her library is searching for and provide just the book recommendation to help them find it.
(Description from Amazon)

Arthur, a widower, meets Maddy, an angry and friendless teenage girl, while visiting his late wife at the cemetery, where he goes every day for lunch. Against all odds, the two strike up a friendship that pulls them out of a serious rut. They band together with Arthur's nosy neighbor Lucille, to create lives that are truly worth living.
(Description from catalog)

Sylvia Bergstrom Compson is contemplating the future of her beloved Elm Creek Quilts. Unexpected financial difficulties have beset them and the Bergstrom family’s 19th-century manor, and she needs new resources to maintain the family legacy. Summer Sullivan, a founding Elm Creek Quilter, arrives to discuss an antique quilt that she wants to display at an upcoming quilt exhibit.
(Description from NoveList)

Nina Redmond is a librarian with a gift for finding the perfect book for her readers. But can she write her own happy-ever-after?
(Description from catalog)

Seventeen-year-old Lenni Pettersson lives on the Terminal Ward at the Glasgow Princess Royal Hospital. Though the teenager has been told she’s dying, she still has plenty of living to do. Joining the hospital’s arts and crafts class, she meets Margot, an 83-year-old, purple-pajama-wearing, fruitcake-eating rebel, who transforms Lenni in ways she never imagined. As their friendship blooms, a world of stories opens for these unlikely companions who, between them, have been alive for one hundred years. Though their days are dwindling, both are determined to leave their mark on the world.
(Description from Amazon)

"A taut, lyrical, and life-affirming debut, All That Life Can Afford is a tale of aspirations, high society, and the bittersweet journey of turning over a new leaf while staying true to one's roots. I would arrive, blank like a sheet of notebook paper, and write myself new. As a child, Eva devoured London through library books-savoring its soft, dreamlike edges of castles and dances, a far cry from her life of co-pays and Craigslist and caring for her diabetic mother. She wanted to climb through the pagesand live there. But when she arrives after college to a mildewed flat full of mousetraps, the real London, that free, intoxicating life of plenty, feels just as inaccessible as it did from America. Then she meets the Wilders-her stubborn, brilliant tuteePippa, who whisks her off to Saint Tropez for winter lessons, and sphinxlike Faye, who dolls Eva up in her clothing and makeup, toting her around like a shiny new bauble. From Lisbon to Highgate, Eva is thrown into a heady whirlpool of luxury and excess,uncovering a hidden side of Europe, one where confidence is a birthright and blue blood runs through bulletproof veins. This life feels like a play upon a high, distant stage, but when Eva starts to take the role a little too seriously, she risks forgetting who she is underneath her borrowed clothes"-- Provided by publisher.

Harold Fry is convinced that he must deliver a letter to an old love in order to save her, meeting various characters along the way and reminiscing about the events of his past and people he has known, as he tries to find peace and acceptance. (Description from catalog)

In the fifth book in the sensational, cozy Before the Coffee Gets Cold series translated from Japanese, the mysterious café where customers arrive hoping to travel back in time welcomes four new guests. They must follow the café's strict rules, however, and come back to the present before their coffee goes cold.
(Description from NoveList)

Joan Sample is not living the life she expected. Now a widow and an empty-nester, she has become by her own admission something of a recluse. But after another birthday spent alone, she is finally inclined to listen to her sister, who has been begging Joan to reengage with the world. With her support, Joan gathers the courage to take some long-awaited steps: hiring someone to tame her overgrown garden, joining a grief support group, and even renting out a room to a local college student. Before long Joan is starting to feel a little like herself again.
(Description from catalog)

Fearing she's losing her teen daughter to her "other family" a Seattle salon owner is shocked when her ex-husband is arrested and her daughter convinces her to take in her stepmother, desperate for a friend.
(Description from NoveList)

In a Cornish seaside village, Nova Davies and her dysfunctional book club members become amateur sleuths after a theft threatens their community center, a murder implicates a missing member, and secrets among them complicate their quest to solve the case and restore order.
(Description from NoveList)

After the death of her beloved grandmother, Anna Kate travels to Wicklow, Alabama to settle her estate and sell the cafe she ran, but finds herself drawn to the quirky town and the mysterious blackbird pie everyone is talking about. (Description from NoveList)

Madeline Hill and her mom have lived alone on their farm in Coalfield, Tennessee, since her dad left; one day Reuben Hill pulls up in a PT Cruiser and announces she’s his half-sister, and he wants Mad to join him for a crazy road trip to find their father and half siblings.
(Description from NoveList)