Lake Bluff Library Adult Reading Lists

In Furiously Happy, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jenny Lawson explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea. But terrible ideas are what Jenny does best. (Description from catalog)

A writer and performer on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" and her sister write with humor and heart to share absurd anecdotes about everyday experiences of racism. (Description from catalog)

A memoir based on the author's one-woman show describes growing up with celebrity parents, her early success in "Star Wars," battle with addiction and mental illness, turbulent romances, role as a single mother, and struggle for recovery and healing. (Description from NoveList)

A collection of biographical essays on gender, sexuality, race, beauty, Hollywood and the realities of modern women also shares the author's wrenching experiences as a survivor of sexual assault.
(Description from catalog)

Noah's path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother, at the time such a union was punishable by five years in prison. As he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist, his mother is determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.
(Description from catalog)

A Washington Post pop-culture writer presents an irreverent, deeply researched portrait of the enigmatic Hollywood star that includes coverage of Goldblum's experiences as a remarkable character actor, family man, pianist and style influencer. (Description from catalog)

The comedian and author of the memoir Sleepwalk with Me shares laugh-out-loud observations on the haphazard journey of parenting as experienced by him and his poet wife that inspired a Broadway production. (Description from NoveList.)

The stand-up comedienne presents an uproarious and poignant collection of autobiographical essays that reflect her disadvantaged youth as a foster child in South Central Los Angeles; her discovery of her talent for comedy; and her struggles with gender, race and class boundaries in the entertainment industry. (Description from NoveList)

Inspired by the "editorial" he delivers at the end of each episode of Real Time, this hilarious work of commentary about American life speaks exactly to the moment we're in, covering free speech, cops, drugs, race, religion, cancel culture, the media, show biz, romance, health and more.
(Description from catalog)

a witty, fast-paced mystery series, following struggling suspense novelist and single mom Finlay Donovan, whose fiction treads dangerously close to the truth as she becomes tangled in real-life murder investigations.
(Description from catalog)

Meet the women of American Housewife. They wear lipstick, pearls, and sunscreen, even when it&#x;s cloudy. They casserole. They pinwheel. And then they kill a party crasher, carefully stepping around the body to pull cookies from the oven. Taking us from a haunted pre-war Manhattan apartment building to the unique initiation ritual of a book club, these twelve delightfully demented stories are a refreshing and wicked answer to the question: What do housewives do all day? (Description from catalog)

Receiving an invitation to his ex-boyfriend's wedding, Arthur, a failed novelist on the eve of his fiftieth birthday, embarks on an international journey that finds him falling in love, risking his life, reinventing himself, and making connections with the past.
(Description from catalog)

Three generations of a boisterous Irish family are upended by a matriarch's shoplifting activities and an upbeat American home aide whose initial support catapults the family into the worst crisis they have ever faced.
(Description from catalog)

Envisioning a summer vacation in the humble Singapore home of a boy she hopes to marry, Chinese American Rachel Chu is unexpectedly introduced to a rich and scheming clan that strongly opposes their son's relationship with an American girl. (Description from catalog)

When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius--his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There's only one problem: Alex has a beef with an actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.
(Description from catalog)

When Meddelin Chan ends up accidentally killing her blind date, her meddlesome mother calls for her even more meddlesome aunties to help get rid of the body. Unfortunately, a dead body proves to be a lot more challenging to dispose of than one might anticipate-especially when it is accidentally shipped in a cake cooler to the over-the-top billionaire wedding that Meddy, her Ma, and her aunties are working, at an island resort on the California coastline.
(Description from catalog)

Solutions and Other Problems includes humorous stories from Allie Brosh's childhood; the adventures of her very bad animals; merciless dissection of her own character flaws; incisive essays on grief, loneliness, and powerlessness; as well as reflections on the absurdity of modern life. (Description from catalog)