Hilda C. Landers Library & Archives

The staff book club has selected Tana French’s The Likeness for April. In The Likeness Detective Cassie Maddox goes undercover as a graduate student at Trinity College in Dublin. Her cover, a murder victim who looks just like her. Even her new housemates think she’s the victim. The novel is more psychological thriller than police procedural. It’s the relationships and tensions between the characters that drive the book. Kate Ward of EW is impressed with “the author’s ability to convey the distinct eccentricities of Lexie’s literature-loving roommates, particularly Rafe, a messy, musically inclined, heavy-drinking rageaholic calmed only by a good joke.” NPR likes French’s “snappy dialogue and crisp prose.”

Although The Likeness is the second in French’s murder squad mystery series, don’t worry if you haven’t read the first, In the Woods. Despite what the New York Times says, each title in the series works as a stand-alone. The Likeness was the first one I read and I was blissfully unaware it was a sequel. Each book in the series focuses on a different member of the squad so you don’t need to read them in order.

The book club will meet on April 25 at 12pm in the Library Boardroom. You can also participate online by rating or reviewing the book, attendance is not required.

Want to check it out? The library has copies of the book on the library’s Kindles and a print copy is on order. You can also borrow it from the St. Mary’s County Library.

–Pamela Mann

The staff book club has selected John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars for its March book. This YA (young adult) title about teens with cancer has adults crying across the country. According to Time Magazine, The Boston Globe, and the Atlantic Wire, who rated it Most Worthy of Our Tears, it is one of the Best Books of 2012. St. Mary’s alum, Jordan Gaines, highly recommended it last year for readers “looking for a quick, unique, and moving read,” in her review on the library’s summer reading blog.

The book club will meet on Thursday, March 28 at 12pm in the Library Boardroom. You can also participate online by rating or reviewing the book, attendance is not required.

Want to check it out? The library has copies of the book in print and on the Kindle.

-Pamela Mann

Welcome to the St. Mary’s College of Maryland Staff Book Club. Organized by the staff and open to everyone on campus. The book club meets in person on the last Thursday of the month at 12:00pm in the Library Boardroom. You can also participate online by rating or reviewing a book, attendance is not required.

On February 28 the book club will discuss Peter Heller’s, The Dog Stars described by The San Francisco Chronicle as a “ravishing doomsday novel.”  This post-apocalyptic novel centers around Hig, one of the few survivors of a superflu that wiped out most of the United States. According to The Boston Globe, “Peter Heller serves up an insightful account of physical, mental, and spiritual survival unfolded in dramatic and often lyrical prose, a difficult tale in which unexpected hope persistently flickers amid darkness.”

I hope you will read with us, if not in person – online.

— Pamela Mann