We love to read books, and to talk about books. Check out our entire series here! Need more book chatting and suggestions in your life? Listen to our Books and Beverages podcast!

La Belle Sauvage (Book of Dust #1) by Philip Pullman

I haven’t technically started this book yet because I’m just about finished rereading the original series. This series has always been a favorite, and returning to the world(s) of daemons, witches, gyptians, smart and determined kids and Arctic adventuring has been so fun! I’m so excited to see what this prequel has in store!

“Eleven-year-old Malcolm Polstead and his dæmon, Asta, live with his parents at the Trout Inn near Oxford. Across the River Thames (which Malcolm navigates often using his beloved canoe, a boat by the name of La Belle Sauvage) is the Godstow Priory where the nuns live. Malcolm learns they have a guest with them, a baby by the name of Lyra Belacqua”

And if you need to do some rereading of your own, or if you have yet to discover this awesome series, here are the books that make up His Dark Materials:

• The Golden Compass
• The Subtle Knife
• The Amber Spyglass

Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes, and it also has many  interesting books. In this series, we are sharing some of the books we like from Minnesota, or Minnesota authors.

We are mapping our literary journey around Minnesota, so you can see all the interesting places where our books are set. Follow our progress on our Google Map, accessible by clicking that link or searching for the title CMLE Reads Across Minnesota!

This was another reader suggestion – and another book I had not heard about until it was suggested. Thanks to everyone sending in Minnesota books!

From Amazon: “Teenage Linda lives with her parents in the austere woods of northern Minnesota, where their nearly abandoned commune stands as a last vestige of a lost counter-culture world. Isolated at home and an outsider at school, Linda is drawn to the enigmatic Lily and new history teacher Mr. Grierson. When Mr. Grierson is faced with child pornography charges, his arrest deeply affects Linda as she wrestles with her own fledgling desires and craving to belong. And then the young Gardner family moves in across the lake and Linda finds herself welcomed into their home as a babysitter for their little boy. But with this new sense of belonging comes expectations and secrets she doesn’t understand and, over the course of a summer, Linda makes a set of choices that reverberate throughout her life. One of the most daring literary debuts of the year and a national bestseller, History of Wolves is an agonizing and gorgeously written novel from an urgent, new voice in American fiction.”

We love to read books, and to talk about books. Check out our entire series here! Need more book chatting and suggestions in your life? Listen to our Books and Beverages podcast!

Is there anything more fun than reading a  book about a librarian solving a mystery? Well, add in the ghost of another librarian to help solve the mystery and you are really going to enjoy Death Ovedue, by Allison Brooks!

“Carrie Singleton is just about done with Clover Ridge, Connecticut until she’s offered a job as the head of programs and events at the spooky local library, complete with its own librarian ghost. Her first major event is a program presented by a retired homicide detective, Al Buckley, who claims he knows who murdered Laura Foster, a much-loved part-time library aide who was bludgeoned to death fifteen years earlier. As he invites members of the audience to share stories about Laura, he suddenly keels over and dies.

The medical examiner reveals that poison is what did him in and Carrie feels responsible for having surged forward with the program despite pushback from her director. Driven by guilt, Carrie’s determined to discover who murdered the detective, convinced it’s the same man who killed Laura all those years ago. Luckily for Carrie, she has a friendly, knowledgeable ghost by her side. But as she questions the shadows surrounding Laura’s case, disturbing secrets come to light and with each step Carrie takes, she gets closer to ending up like Al.

Now it’s due or die for Carrie in Death Overdue, the delightful first in a new cozy series by Allison Brook.”

We love to read books, and to talk about books. Check out our entire series here! Need more book chatting and suggestions in your life? Listen to our Books and Beverages podcast!

I love retellings of fairy tales, so when I heard about this book being marketed as a “feminist fantasy reimagining of Snow White” of course I was interested!

So far I’m really enjoying the book (hurrying to finish so I avoid an overdue fine!) and the setting of a chilly castle trapped in the season of winter fits perfectly with our Minnesota weather. The two main characters are strong and determined to discover their own identities despite lots of obstacles, some of them magic-related. There’s definitely a sense of something ominous coming and I can’t wait to find out what happens next!

Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust
“Entwining the stories of both Lynet and Mina in the past and present, Girls Made of Snow and Glass traces the relationship of two young women doomed to be rivals from the start. Only one can win all, while the other must lose everything—unless both can find a way to reshape themselves and their story.”