Top 5 Library Finds (FFF Day 1)

Hello, and welcome to day 1 of the Five Fall Favorites bookish blog party! Today’s category is library finds, which was surprisingly (or not so surprising) difficult to narrow down, given at least half, if not the majority of the books I read are from the library. I tried to narrow it down a little to books I found at the library, or was at least pleasantly surprised to find my library had.

1. Whose Waves These Are by Amanda Dykes

*sighs* I love this book so much…the cover is beautiful, the writing is beautiful, the story is beautiful. It just feels…so real and beautiful. This is the book I think of whenever I think of prose that weaves a story bit by bit, pulling the threads together. It feels like a rather ordinary story in a way, but it’s just so…beautiful and well-written for lack of better words to describe it.

I had heard about this one for a while and was wandering the library thinking vaguely of what last names authors I might consider reading had, as I ran my pointer finger along the alphabetized library labels. I’m surprised I even remembered Dykes as one at the time, but I was so happy when I saw it was there. A lot of time my library only has the books I want in ebook format, but for this one, it was so nice to see that cover on real paper and to just hold and read it in a solid, real-life state.

2. Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes

This one was such a fun, random find! I think I was just meandering around the children’s fiction section and saw how fun the cover looked and well…that it was about a dog, and figured I may as give it a try, being a dog person and all. I didn’t have all that high of expectations for it but I ended up loving it so much. So sweet and fun.

3. The Way It Should Be by Christina Suzann Nelson

I think I originally found this one casually scrolling through the Christy Award finalists, which is normally not how I find books. The synopsis drew me in immediately, so on a whim, I looked it up on my library website, discovered the ebook was available. and started reading.

It was so much more than what I had expected from the semi-ordinary still-life-painting style cover. It was deep. It was hard. It was gracious. It did an excellent job taking a lot of very real, honest stories and pulling them into a compelling story. The characters very well could have been real. There are, at least, real people who exist who would be in many, many ways like the characters in this contemporary story. Some rough subjects and some beautiful subjects sort of wove their way through this book…drug abuse, foster care, goats, domestic violence/abuse, gardening, struggling to want the calling God gives, grief, struggling to let go of the dreams you thought you could pursue, puppies, feeling stuck between choosing your family or what it seems God has called you to, hard choices, harder choices, coming face to face with our own powerlessness in the face of temptation, and so on.

It was good, it was a touch convicting, it was honest, it was beautiful, and I was sooo glad I had picked it up and read it despite the pretty, but semi-boring cover.

4. Story Peddler by Lindsay A. Franklin

I had seen this one around for a while before I finally bothered to look it up and discovered it my library had it in ebook format. I think solely the fact that it was from Enclave Publishing and the cover and synopsis were intriguing were what sold me to try it out.

It was great. I loved this whole series. I was a little skeptical about how the fantasy/magic side of things would swing when I saw some of the later covers for the series, but it won me over pretty fast. I loved the emphasis on the importance of stories and weaving light combined with the fantasy/kingdom element.

5. Cloak of Light by Chuck Black

This one I had heard about from several friends and then finally a passing conversation with a new friend at my church convinced me to go ahead and see if my library had it.

I had read some Chuck Black before and I remember liking it, but didn’t think it was particularly high-quality writing or storytelling. This was different. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I really don’t read the genre very often at all, but I really liked this one and am looking forward to finishing the series!

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And that’s a wrap!

(Did I re-get some of these from the library just to take pictures of them? Maaaybe…)

Make sure to check out the blog party host blog @ onceuponanordinary.wordpress.com/blog/ to hear about Kate’s favorite library finds and follow along with the rest of the Five Fall Favorites blog party and giveaway.

What’s the most interesting way you’ve found a book at the library? Have you ever been surprised by a book you got from the library or surprised to find a book at the library?