Check Out: What Montgomery County Was Reading in November

Montgomery County Public Libraries (MCPL) maintain an extensive collection of materials for county residents to check out. Have you ever wondered what the county’s library visitors are reading? We turned to our county’s librarians to find out.

For the month of November, the most read books by genre are:

Juvenile Fiction

• Squad Struggles by Jake Maddox
  Tam is new to the cheer squad, and from the first day of practice Maren, the squad captain, seems determined to make her look unprepared and incompetent–but with the backing of a new friend she finally finds the courage to stand up to the bullying.
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.
• The Great Treehouse War by Lisa Graff
  An epic treehouse sleepover with an awesome group of friends, This is an exciting new book from National Book Award finalist Lisa Graff. Winnie’s last day of fourth grade ended with a pretty life-changing surprise. That was the day Winnie’s parents got divorced and decided that Winnie would live three days a week with each of them and spend Wednesdays by herself in a treehouse between their houses, to divide her time perfectly evenly. It was the day Winnie’s seed of frustration with her parents was planted, a seed that grew until it felt like it was as big as a tree itself.
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.
• The Way to Bea by Kat Yeh
  Recently estranged from her best friend and weeks away from shifting from only child to big sister, seventh grader Beatrix Lee consoles herself by writing haiku in invisible ink and hiding the poems, but one day she finds a reply–is it the librarian with all the answers, the editor of the school paper who admits to admiring her poetry, an old friend feeling remorse, or the boy obsessed with visiting the local labyrinth?
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.
• Holly Farb and the Princess of the Galaxy by Gareth Wronski
  Kidnapped by alien pirates, Holly Farb must face bounty hunters, giant worms, perky holograms, and more as she tries to find the real princess and get home before her big test.
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.

Juvenile Non-Fiction

• Awesome LEGO Creations with Blocks You Already Have by Sarah Dees
  Shares instructions on how to build exciting LEGO creations, including robots, race cars, and jet planes.
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.
• The Big Book of Trains National Railway Museum by Doring Kindersley Limited
  Describes the locomotives, cars, tunnels, stations, and functions of such trains as freight trains, channel tunnel trains, bullet trains, mountain trains, and snow trains.
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.
• Dinosaurs: Fossils and Feathers by M K Reed
  Dig into dinosaurs! North America, 68,000,000 years ago: a T.rex stalks its prey. England, 200 years ago: Mary Anning unearths a strange fossilized skull. Right now: our ideas about dinosaurs are changing… fast! This book introduces these ancient beasts in their natural habitats and follows paleontologists through history as they piece together the greatest mystery of all: what happened to the dinosaurs?
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.
• Girls Who Code: Learn to Code and Change the World by Reshma Saujani
  Introduces the relevance of coding and shares down-to-earth explanations about coding principles and real-life stories of women programmers who work at such places as Pixar and NASA.
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.

Young Adult

• Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
  An ode to Put the Damn Guns Down, this is National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestseller Jason Reynolds’s fiercely stunning novel that takes place in sixty potent seconds–the time it takes a kid to decide whether or not he’s going to murder the guy who killed his brother.
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.
• Renegades by Marissa Meyer
  From #1 New York Times-bestselling author Marissa Meyer, comes a high-stakes world of adventure, passion, danger, and betrayal. Secret Identities. Extraordinary Powers. She wants vengeance. He wants justice. The Renegades are a syndicate of prodigies—humans with extraordinary abilities—who emerged from the ruins of a crumbled society and established peace and order where chaos reigned. As champions of justice, they remain a symbol of hope and courage to everyone…except the villains they once overthrew. Nova has a reason to hate the Renegades, and she is on a mission for vengeance. As she gets closer to her target, she meets Adrian, a Renegade boy who believes in justice—and in Nova. But Nova’s allegiance is to the villains who have the power to end them both.
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.
• The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo
  Inspired by myth, fairy tale, and folklore, #1 New York Times-bestselling author Leigh Bardugo has crafted a deliciously atmospheric collection of short stories filled with betrayals, revenge, sacrifice, and love.
  Travel to a world of dark bargains struck by moonlight, of haunted towns and hungry woods, of talking beasts and gingerbread golems, where a young mermaid’s voice can summon deadly storms and where a river might do a lovestruck boy’s bidding but only for a terrible price.
  Perfect for new readers and dedicated fans, the tales in The Language of Thorns will transport you to lands both familiar and strange–to a fully realized world of dangerous magic that millions have visited through the novels of the Grishaverse.
  This collection of six stories includes three brand-new tales, each of them lavishly illustrated and culminating in stunning full-spread illustrations as rich in detail as the stories themselves.
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.
• I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika Sanchez
  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian meets Jane the Virgin in this poignant but often laugh-out-loud funny contemporary young adult story about losing a sister and finding yourself amid the pressures, expectations, and stereotypes of growing up in a Mexican-American home.Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents’ house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family.But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga’s role.
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.

Adult Fiction

• The People vs. Alex Cross by James Patterson
  The charges: explosive Alex Cross has never been on the wrong side of the law-until now. Charged with gunning down followers of his nemesis Gary Soneji in cold blood, Cross is being turned into the poster child for trigger-happy cops who think they’re above the law. Cross knows it was self-defense. But will a jury see it that way? The evidence: shockingAs Cross fights for his professional life and his freedom, his former partner John Sampson brings him a gruesome, titillating video tied to the mysterious disappearances of several young girls. Despite his suspension from the department, Cross can’t say no to Sampson. The illicit investigation leads them to the darkest corners of the Internet, where murder is just another form of entertainment. The People vs Alex Cross: the trial of the centuryAs the prosecution presents its case and the nation watches, even those closest to Cross begin to doubt his innocence. If he can’t convince his own family that he didn’t pull the trigger with intent to kill, how can he hope to persuade a jury? But even with everything on the line, Cross will do whatever it takes to stop a dangerous criminal-even if he can’t save himself.
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.
• End Game by David Baldacci
  #1 New York Times bestselling author David Baldacci returns with his most breathtaking thriller yet . . . Will Robie and Jessica Reel are two of the most lethal people alive. They’re the ones the government calls in when the utmost secrecy is required to take out those who plot violence and mass destruction against the United States. And through every mission, one man has always had their backs: their handler, code-named Blue Man.But now, Blue Man is missing.Last seen in rural Colorado, Blue Man had taken a rare vacation to go fly fishing in his hometown when he disappeared off the grid. With no communications since, the team can’t help but fear the worst.Sent to investigate, Robie and Reel arrive in the small town of Grand to discover that it has its own share of problems. A stagnant local economy and a woefully understaffed police force have made this small community a magnet for crime, drugs, and a growing number of militant fringe groups. But lying in wait in Grand is an even more insidious and sweeping threat, one that may shake the very foundations of America. And when Robie and Reel find themselves up against an adversary with superior firepower and a home-court advantage, they’ll be lucky if they make it out alive, with or without Blue Man . . .
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.
• Hardcore Twenty-four by Janet Evanovich
  Janet Evanovich’s #1 New York Times bestselling sensation Stephanie Plum returns in her twenty-forth thriller as mutilated corpses litter the streets of New Jersey.
  Trouble comes in bunches for Stephanie Plum. First, professional grave robber and semi-professional loon, Simon Diggery, won’t let her take him in until she agrees to care for his boa constrictor, Ethel. Stephanie’s main qualification for babysitting an extremely large snake is that she owns a stun gun–whether that’s for use on the wandering serpent or the petrified neighbors remains to be seen.
  Events take a dark turn when headless bodies start appearing across town. At first, it’s just corpses from a funeral home and the morgue that have had the heads removed. But when a homeless man is murdered and dumped behind a church Stephanie knows that she’s the only one with a prayer of catching this killer.
  If all that’s not enough, Diesel’s back in town. The 6-foot-tall, blonde-haired hunk is a man who accepts no limits–that includes locked doors, closed windows and underwear. Trenton’s hottest cop, Joe Morelli isn’t pleased at this unexpected arrival nor is Ranger, the high-powered security consultant who has his own plans for Stephanie.
  As usual Jersey’s favorite bounty hunter is stuck in the middle with more questions than answers. What’s the deal with Grandma Mazur’s latest online paramour? Who is behind the startling epidemic of mutilated corpses? And is the enigmatic Diesel’s sudden appearance a coincidence or the cause of recent deadly events?
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.
• The Power by Naomi Alderman
  In The Power, the world is a recognizable place: there’s a rich Nigerian boy who lounges around the family pool; a foster kid whose religious parents hide their true nature; an ambitious American politician; a tough London girl from a tricky family. But then a vital new force takes root and flourishes, causing their lives to converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls now have immense physical power—they can cause agonizing pain and even death. And, with this small twist of nature, theworld drastically resets.From award-winning author Naomi Alderman, The Power is speculative fiction at its most ambitious and provocative, at once taking us on a thrilling journey to an alternate reality, and exposing our own world in bold and surprising ways.
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.

Adult Non-fiction

• Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House by Donna Brazile
  From Donna Brazile, former DNC chair and legendary political operative, an explosive and revealing new look at the 2016 election: the first insider account of the Russian hacking of the DNC and the missteps by the Clinton campaign and Obama administration that enabled a Trump victory.
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.
• The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President by Brandy Lee
  The New York Times bestseller! More than two dozen psychiatrists and psychologists offer their consensus view that Trump’s mental state presents a clear and present danger to our nation and individual well-being.
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.
• The Story of the Jews Volume Two: Belonging: 1492-1900 by Simon Schama
  In the second of two volumes of this magnificently illustrated cultural history–the tie-in to the PBS and BBC series The Story of the Jews–Simon Schama details the story of the Jewish people, spanning from their expulsion from Spain during the Inquisition across six hundred years to the present day.
  It is a story like no other: an epic of endurance against destruction, of creativity in the face of oppression, joy amidst grief, the affirmation of life against the steepest of odds.
  It spans the centuries and the continents–from the Iberian Peninsula and the collapse of “the golden age” to the shtetls of Russia to the dusty streets of infant Hollywood. Its voices ring loud and clear, from the philosophical musings of Spinoza to the poetry written on slips of paper in concentration camps. Within these pages, the Enlightenment unfolds, a great diaspora transforms a country, a Viennese psychiatrist forever changes the conception of the human mind.
  And a great story unfolds. Not–as often imagined–of a people apart, but of a Jewish culture immersed in and imprinted by the peoples among whom they have dwelled. Which, as Simon Schama so brilliantly demonstrates, makes the story of the Jews everyone’s story, too.
  The Story of the Jews Volume 2 features 24 pages of color photos, numerous maps, and printed end papers.
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.
• Where the Past Begins: A Writer’s Memoir by Amy Tan
  In Where the Past Begins, bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and The Valley of Amazement Amy Tan is at her most intimate in revealing the truths and inspirations that underlie her extraordinary fiction. By delving into vivid memories of her traumatic childhood, confessions of self-doubt in her journals, and heartbreaking letters to and from her mother, she gives evidence to all that made it both unlikely and inevitable that she would become a writer. Through spontaneous storytelling, she shows how a fluid fictional state of mind unleashed near-forgotten memories that became the emotional nucleus of her novels.
  Click here to see availability at Montgomery County Public Libraries.

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