book lists

  • 2025 Staff Faves: Adult Fiction

    2025 Staff Faves: Adult Fiction

    Each year we ask our staff across the library for their favorite books published in the current year. Below you will find some of the fiction books that stood out to library staff in 2025. Find the full list of staff faves in our catalog: Seattle Staff Faves 2025: Fiction, Part 1 and Seattle Staff… Continue reading

  • Seattle Staff Faves 2021: Nonfiction

    We asked our staff across the city for their favorite nonfiction books published in 2021 — and what a great list we created together! Here’s a tease of some excellent nonfiction for adults, with a link at the end to the full list of 29 recommendations from your library staff. A Little Devil in America:… Continue reading

  • (NOT) The Ten Best Books of 2019

    That time of year has rolled around again when all the “Best Of” lists begin to appear, those tempting listicles claiming to reveal the best books of the year, decade, and century. We all click on them: they’re irresistible. I’m kind of over these “best of” lists. The premise that something so magnificently multivariate as… Continue reading

  • Library Reads for September 2018

    New novels from Kate Atkinson and Gary Shteyngart, a new book in the October Daye series by local fantasy author Seanen McGuire, and another installment in a mystery series set in a library (by Jenn McKinlay) — plus six more books librarians across the U.S. are excited to see on the shelves next month. Continue reading

  • Library Reads: May 2018 books

    Library Reads: May 2018 books

    Psychogical suspense, historical fiction, thrillers, fantasy and general fiction — 10 novels that librarians across the U.S. nominated as their top picks for May 2018. We await your holds! Furyborn by Claire Legrand: Fierce, independent women full of rage, determination, and fire. The first novel in the Empirium trilogy holds appeal for both young adult and… Continue reading

  • Five horror novels to read now

    Five horror novels to read now

    Why wait until everyone else is looking for ghost stories and horror to enjoy the gothic, the ghoulish and the ghastly? We see a big uptick in horror readers in October, but YOU can get ahead of the curve by diving into horror novels right now, mid April, when the days are getting longer (sunset… Continue reading

  • The 2016 Elections: Library Resources

    The mission of The Seattle Public Library is to bring people, information and ideas together to enrich lives and build community. We value equality, inclusion and openness and strive to be welcoming safe spaces. No matter what the current events are locally and beyond, the Library provides a collection of materials to patrons of all ages,… Continue reading

  • David Bowie’s Favorite Books, at your library.

    Music legend, movie star, icon, iconoclast, and yes – reader. As part of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s 2013 exhibit “David Bowie Is,” Bowie shared an eclectic list of 100 favorite books. Here they are, in reverse chronological order, linked to the library catalog. Still looking for a reading challenge for the next year, or five? This… Continue reading

  • Money Smart Week at the Library, April 18-28

    Interested in learning how to live within a monthly budget, manage debt and maintain good credit, and more? Come check out our Money Smart Week programs! As part of the national Money Smart Week movement, which you can check out at moneysmartweek.org, The Seattle Public Library has offerings including: Free Financial Family Fun Fest (it will… Continue reading

  • Seattle Rep’s ‘The Comparables’ — incomparable!

    We are excited about the opening of Laura Schellhardt’s new play The Comparables, at the Seattle Repertory Theatre on Friday, March 6! Schellhardt, who created the 2011 hit “The K of D, an Urban Legend,” about a girl with a lethal kiss, now presents a world premier neo-feminist satire that tips the good old boy… Continue reading

  • Columbia Branch Staff’s Favorites

    The Columbia Branch staff put up a popular Staff Picks display throughout July to celebrate this year’s Summer Reading Program. Here are some of the books the Columbia Branch staff loved: Blankets by Craig Thompson This graphic novel tells a story of coming of age, first love and early adulthood. Thompson captures those timeless themes perfectly… Continue reading

  • Go-to read-aloud picture books

    One thing I have learned as a parent is that every family has its own sense of humor. I have also learned that some children’s books you looked forward to reading to your own children aren’t always as awesome as you remembered them. Continue reading

  • Nightstand Reads: Novelist Kim Fay shares her favorites

    Seattle native Kim Fay’s debut novel The Map of Lost Memories has been wowing the critics: Publisher’s Weekly called it “…intricate page-turner that will keep readers breathless and guessing,” while Booklist raved “Every word of this evocative literary expedition feels deliberately chosen, each phrase full of meaning.” Fay shared with us some of her favorite titles. Continue reading

  • Crime: Blood and Circuses.

    Recently I read a story as part of Thrilling Tales, Seattle Public Library’s storytime for grownups, that was a bit out there even for me: “Spurs,” by the obscure pulp writer Tod Robbins. (You can listen to it here – Fair warning: I had a cold, and I really chewed the scenery on this one). Published in 1923,… Continue reading

  • Murder at the Olympic Games

    I foolishly tried to resist getting caught up in the fervor, but it’s no use: once again my attention has been totally dominated by the Olympic Games. Such is the case for many of our patrons if the small talk at our service desk is any indication. There’s also been a run on all of our books about the Games,… Continue reading

  • London Calling: a Reading List.

    “London itself perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play & a story & a poem, without any trouble, save that of moving my legs through the streets… To walk alone in London is the greatest rest.”   ~ Virginia Woolf, Diary, March 28, 1930. So you say your tickets to the London Olympics got lost the… Continue reading

  • Beautiful in the Mouth: On the Reading and Writing of Poetry

     What is a poem on a page but a Field of Light and Shadow where For Love of Common of Words, A Radiant Curve catches 19 Varieties of Gazelle gazing into Darkening Water becoming Human Dark with Sugar going Heart First into the Forest Meaning a Cloud, Torn Awake is coming to be torch song… Continue reading

  • Crime: Evil under the Rising Sun.

    Watching the cherry blossoms burst forth and fade always makes me think of Japan. But my Japan is not a place of samurai, ninja and serene Zen temples. The Japan I think of is lit by neon rather than a rising sun. A place of tailored suits, leather jackets, discos and hostess bars, a place where… Continue reading