How do you go about finding your next great read? Pekin Public Library Assistant Director Victoria Volckmann recently spoke at the Tazewell County Retired Teachers Association meeting, and answered that very question, while highlighting all the library resources and some of her most recent book recommendations. 

The library’s website, completely redesigned in 2024 to be more user-friendly, has many resources to help you find your next great read! Library staff posts all of the new release books and materials added to the collection on a New Materials List. You can sign up for an e-newsletter and get recommended titles each month on a variety of topics such as mystery, romance, biography, and memoir. The library also offers “Novelist,” a website you can access at the library, or at home with your library card. This website can recommend books for you based on previous titles that you’ve liked, or give you suggestions based on mood, writing style, setting, and more! 

Some of Volckmann’s top book recommendations, which the library holds in various formats including large print, audio, and eBook, are: The Children’s Blizzard, by Melanie Benjamin, an immersive historical fiction story about a real blizzard that struck the Great Plains in the late 1880s. Realistic writing makes you feel the bone-chilling cold and see the struggles of settlers trying to live the American dream on the harsh landscape of the prairie. 

Good Dirt, by Charmaine Wilkerson, is a family drama told through multiple points-of view, with timelines in the past and present. It traces the history of a family’s heirloom stoneware pot and explores themes of grief, legacy, and healing. 

Crow Talk, by Eileen Garvin, is a contemporary fiction novel set on a remote lake in the Pacific Northwest. If you have any interest in bird-watching, even if it’s just the neighborhood birds in your yard at the birdfeeder, you will enjoy learning about bird calls and crows. This book has themes of family, loss, and redemption; as well as beautiful writing about nature. 

The Briar Club, by Kate Quinn, is a stellar historical mystery set in McCarthy-era Washington D.C. Each chapter focuses on a different tenant of an all-female boardinghouse after a murder has taken place there.

If you need assistance with book recommendations or just need help using Novelist or signing up for our e-newsletters, stop into the Pekin Public Library and let your staff help you find your next great read!