These books are chosen from best-seller lists and recommendations from readers. Titles range from science fiction, to romance, to horror, to cookbooks, to mystery, to humor...and more.

Feel free to browse through the collection, located near the Java City Cafe on the first floor of Hunter Library. Want to enjoy a book on the go? We also have Ebooks and Audiobooks for you to download to your computer or MP3 player.

Here are some recommendations from the folks at Hunter Library: Horror - Mystery - Non-fiction - Romance - Science Fiction

Want to tell us what you thought of your last leisure read or recommend a title for others? Send your thoughts to hmartin@email.wcu.edu and we’ll post them here!

Your guide - Bob Strauss

In the summer, ones thoughts turn to the ocean and to the pleasures thereof. Sometimes things are not so pleasurable along the coast, as these two recent novels show. If  Jaws was a favorite of yours, these might give you more of the same thrills.

Natural Selection, by Dave Freedman shows a creature with a very large, toothy mouth on the cover. The novel doesn’t disappoint and deals with “what if” a dangerous new predator were evolving in the ocean. What if it decided to move onto the shore? The cast of characters, mostly scientists, is interesting and the book moves along quickly.

The second novel, over 800 pages long, is certainly what one would call a great beach read. The Swarm, by Frank Schatzing was originally released in German before being translated and published here. This story also moves well and is exciting, dealing with an intelligent entity taking over the oceans, and beginning to fight mankind on the land. There are excellent underwater scenes.

Mystery

Your guide - Eva Cook

Blind Alley - By Iris Johansen

Iris Johansen is one of my favorite authors and I really enjoy her Eve Duncan series.  As a forensic sculptor it is Eve Duncan’s job to put a face to nameless victims.  Working from a skull she works her magic creating a face to help identify the victim and bring them home to their family.  In the opening of Blind Alley a body is found with no face only the skull remains, but the rest of the body is only slightly decayed.  As Eve begins working on creating the face she makes a startling discovery, she the victim looks like her adopted daughter.  She and her husband Joe Quinn believe their daughter is in danger and make it their mission to project her from a serial killer.

Non-fiction

Your guide - Heidi Buchanan

Get Crafty This Summer!

Summer break is a great time to take up a new hobby. Learn to crochet, make a lovely purse out of popsicle sticks, and turn your old T-shirts into pieces of high fashion! 

How to crochet : the definitive crochet course complete with step-by-step techniques, stitch libraries and projects for your home and family

The Craftster guide to nifty, thrifty, and kitschy crafts : fifty fabulous projects from the fifties and sixties

Generation T : 108 ways to transform a T-shirt

Your guide - Sharon McLaurin

A Double Dose of Rashi’s Daughters

Our romance collection proudly presents two great works from Maggie Anton:

Rashi’s Daughters, Book 1: Joheved and Rashi’s Daughters, Book 2: Miriam.  Anton won the 2006 PMA Benjamin Franklin Award for Best New Voice award for Book 1.  Rich in Jewish background and tradition, both stories relate fascinating tales of these women’s lives in 11^th Century medieval France.

Joheved is the eldest of Rashi’s daughters.  I was hooked on the first page of her story as she lies in bed thinking of why her family has cats, which are there to protect her father’s precious scholarly manuscripts from being eaten by mice.  They only have three cats; some more serious scholars have seven or eight!  Since the father, Rashi, has no sons, it falls upon him to teach his daughters what his manuscripts contain—all of the details  that make up Talmudic commentary—and this in a time when women were not allowed to be Jewish scholars.  Both Joheved and Miriam are captured as strong Jewish women who lead valuable and interesting lives.  Do either of them fall in love?  They wouldn’t be in our romance section if they didn’t! Note: The author has an interesting blog called “Rashi’s Daughters” at http://www.rashisdaughters.com/blog/

Your guide - Jill Ellern

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

I was on my way back to my office after looking over the science fiction books on the leisure reading shelves when out of nowhere this patron stopped me and shook this book at me.  I didn’t know who he was but he said “this is not a book that you recommend – it’s one you grab a person by the hand and shake them with it.” I then ran to my office and wrote down his quote because I thought it would be the perfect book to recommend this month.  It’s a modern day Apocalypse story.  But with Terry Pratchett in one of the author’s chairs, you know it’s going to be funny.  Consider yourself taken by the hand and having this book shaken at you!