October Staff Picks
Looking for your next great read? Need to fill some spots in our 26 in ’26 Reading Challenge? Here’s three books our staff have loved recently.
In need of more recommendations? Check out past Staff Pics on our What We’re Reading page, or complete a short form and we’ll email you a list of personalized recommendations.
Lesley says,
“While I wait for more episodes of The Other Bennet Sister, I took the time to enjoy A Perfect Hand, a belowstairs historical romance written by an American author who really did her research. Alice Lockey is a tenant farmer’s daughter with the smarts and skills to become a lady’s maid. Alice evades all of her mother’s matchmaking efforts, while spending her days dealing with Lady Jemima’s pungent boots and underwear. She also finds time to read the pamphlets and novels left behind by Lady Jemima’s aunt, who lives a bohemian, unmarried life. When Alice and a visiting valet, Charlie Wells, fall in love, they plot to bring their two employers together in London so that they, the servants, can marry and keep their jobs. In the city, Alice is befriended by Emmeline Pankhurst, the real-life British suffragette and activist, and has to make some decisions about what will really make her happy ever after.”
Jack says,
“One of our reading challenges asked me to choose a book solely because of its cover, and titles are part of the cover, right? And really, how do you walk past a title like that? My Heart is a Chainsaw is about small towns, grief, trauma, and slasher movies. Lots and lots of slasher movies. Jade, a withdrawn high schooler and town loner, knows the genre inside and out. She understands assignments from her history teacher, ignores them, and turns in papers that read like chapters from a master’s thesis on Friday the 13th. She becomes convinced that a real-life slasher movie is happening in her hometown. Her obsession becomes a way of making sense of both the danger around her and the pain she carries. I picked this up because of its killer title, and ended up with a backlog of books by the author.”
Ruthie says,
“Christine Kuehn knew that her father was born in Germany, lived in Hawaii with his Jewish family during World War II, and later enlisted in the U.S. military, so she was shocked when she received a letter from a screenwriter asking about her family spying for the Nazis. Family of Spies details Kuehn’s investigation into her family’s history and the unearthing of their unbelievable story. On the surface, this is a story about family secrets and the lengths that people will go to in order to keep the shameful moments of their pasts hidden, but it’s also about how bringing those secrets into the open can set their keepers free. As Kuehn says at the end of the book, ‘Secrets eat love like acid. But love regenerates.’ ”