Lake Bluff Library Adult Reading Lists

Susan Orlean—the beloved New Yorker staff writer hailed as “a national treasure” by The Washington Post and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Library Book—gathers a lifetime of musings, meditations, and in-depth profiles about animals. (Description from Amazon)

After two and a half years of ISIS occupation, and months of fighting between the militants and government forces, the Mosul Zoo was one of the few outdoor attractions still standing in Iraq's second city, its inhabitants kept alive by Abu Laith, a square-set 50-something mechanic and passionate animal lover. As the animals began to starve under the siege by advancing Iraqi army forces, Abu Laith, the "Father of Lions" and his protegees and family risked their lives to keep the animals alive. (Description from NoveList.)

Join "America's funniest science writer" (Peter Carlson, Washington Post) Mary Roach on an irresistible investigation into the unpredictable world where wildlife and humans meet. What's to be done about a jaywalking moose? A grizzly bear caught breakingand entering? A murderous tree? As New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science. (Description from catalog)

A true story and simple guide to teaching a dog to talk from a speech-language pathologist who has taught her dog to communicate using simple paw-sized buttons associated with different words. (Description from catalog)

When Helen Macdonald's father died suddenly on a London street, she was devastated. An experienced falconer, Helen had never before been tempted to train one of the most vicious predators, the goshawk, but in her grief, she saw that the goshawk's temperament mirrored her own. Resolving to purchase and raise the deadly creature as a means to cope with her loss, she adopted Mabel, and turned to the guidance of T.H. White's chronicle The Goshawk to begin her challenging endeavor.
(Description from catalog)

Blending together natural history, philosophy and science, this stunning meditation on the extraordinary lives of whales takes readers on an exploration of the natural world to reveal what whales can teach us about ourselves, our planet and our relationship to other species. (Description from NoveList.)

The @1bike1world Instagram sensation shares the full story of his life-changing relationship with his rescue cat, Nala, and their inspiring bicycle journeys through the refugee camps, remarkable terrains, and animal shelters of the world. (Description from catalog.)

Sensing something is wrong with his owner, a domesticated crow abandons the only life he ever knew to discover that humans are turning into zombies and must use knowledge gleaned from his TV-viewing to save them. - description from Novelist

Mimi Lee is in over her head. There's her new Los Angeles pet grooming shop to run, her matchmaking mother to thwart, her talking cat Marshmallow to tend to--oh, and the murder of a local breeder to solve...now if only Mimi hadn't landed herself on top of the suspect list.
(Description from catalog)

Ninety-something-year-old Jacob Jankowski remembers his time in the circus as a young man during the Great Depression, and his friendship with Marlena, the star of the equestrian act, and Rosie, the elephant, who gave them hope. (Description from NoveList)

As his search for clues in the mysterious drowning death of a boy takes him across the city of Mumbai, Inspector Chopra begins to suspect there may be a connection between the death and a baby elephant. (Description from NoveList.)

Coexisting in the lush hidden spaces of Paris until cold weather arrives, an escaped racehorse and her companion, a German shorthaired pointer, forge a bond with a boy living in seclusion with his nonagenarian grandmother in an ivy-covered house. (Description from NoveList)