In honor of the book sale happening at Bethlehem Area Public Library this week (come visit this Saturday 3/24 from 10AM-4PM!), we thought it would be great to have some of our book sale staff and volunteers, as well as some other BAPL readers, recommend a recent favorite book. Check them out for yourself, and you might just find a great new read to pick up!
Josh Berk, Executive Director of BAPL Recommends…
The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron
On the book, he says: “A really interesting book I picked up at the last BAPL book sale is The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. It’s kind of a workbook, so there are all these exercises designed to bring out your creativity and put you in the right frame of mind to do creative work. It’s very cool and something I probably never would have bought if I didn’t see it there calling out to me at the book sale for a dollar. You never know what you’re going to find at the BAPL book sale!”
Laurel Stone, Book Sale Facilitator and Volunteer Coordinator Recommends…
Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
“Man to me is so fascinating. I’ve seen the Mona Lisa in Paris in the Louvre…he [da Vinci] was such a brilliant mind and just reading his biography was amazing. Walter Isaacson is a really good biographer and he writes a lot of good stuff.”
Susan Hytmanek, Book Sale Volunteer Recommends…
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate and Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly
“Before We Were Yours is the story of horrendous adoption processes in the 1950s in the south. It’s fiction based on truth. Those places exist but the tale is fabricated. It was more imaginary than based on actual happenings. Lilac Girls is really interesting. It’s about three different women in entirely different roles in Poland during World War II. Two were prisoners and one was a doctor doing experiments on them.”
Jennifer Khawam, BAPL Intern Recommends…
The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan and The Nix by Nathan Hill
“The Opposite of Loneliness is a really remarkable collection of short stories and essays by Marina Keegan, who unfortunately died in a car accident shortly after graduating from Yale University. Her family, friends, and professors put the collection together after she died. She was an amazing writer and her stories and essays really delve deep into what it’s like to be a young adult in the 21st century. The Nix follows a man whose mother is on trial for assaulting a conservative politician. We get to flash back to his childhood and see the day his mother left him. We also get to see his mother’s point of view when she was going to high school and college, and eventually when she is seen protesting in the 1968 Chicago protests. Both of these books made big emotional impacts on me, which is why I love them so much.”