What to Read Next

How Can I Get Book Recommendations?

Our team of expert librarians is ready with a variety of ways to help find your next favorite book! If you need help locating a specific title, please see our Can’t Find It page.

Recommendations in Your Inbox

Book recommendations in the genres of your choice, regularly delivered straight to your inbox! Popular lists are featured below with more available on the sign-up page.

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Bookmatch

Looking for help finding your next favorite book? The Library offers custom reading lists created by expert Librarians based on your preferences!

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Fiction A-Z

  • The Usual Desire to Kill
  • The Catch
  • The Boy From the Sea
  • Run for the Hills: A Novel
  • What Is Wrong with You?
  • Fun for the Whole Family
  • The Emperor of Gladness

Popular Nonfiction

  • Remainders of the Day: A Bookshop Diary
  • Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood
  • Two Old Broads: Stuff You Need to Know That You Didn't Know You Needed to Know
  • Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O'Connell's Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People 
  • Bloodbath Nation
  • The Sugar Jar: Create Boundaries, Embrace Self-Healing, and Enjoy the Sweet Things in Life
  • Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to America
  • To Walk About in Freedom: The Long Emancipation of Priscilla Joyner
  • Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature
  • True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson
  • Illustrated Black History: Honoring the Iconic and the Unseen
  • Remainders of the Day: A Bookshop Diary
  • Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood
  • Two Old Broads: Stuff You Need to Know That You Didn't Know You Needed to Know
  • Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O'Connell's Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People 
  • Bloodbath Nation
  • The Sugar Jar: Create Boundaries, Embrace Self-Healing, and Enjoy the Sweet Things in Life
  • Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to America
  • To Walk About in Freedom: The Long Emancipation of Priscilla Joyner

More Recommendations by Email

  • Murder by Cheesecake
  • No Roast for the Weary
  • The Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin
  • Marble Hall Murders
  • Murder at Gulls Nest
  • This Is Not a Game
  • Big Bad Wool
  • One Death at a Time
  • 1. Atmosphere
  • 2. Edge of Honor
  • 3. Never Flinch
  • 4. Tusk Love
  • 5. A Forbidden Alchemy
  • 6. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
  • 7. Great Big Beautiful Life
  • 8. My Friends
  • 9. Onyx Storm
  • 10. Don't Let Him In
  • 11. The First Gentleman
  • 12. The Knight and the Moth
  • 13. Broken Country
  • 14. The Wedding People
  • 15. A Mother's Love
  • 1. Atmosphere
  • 2. Edge of Honor
  • 3. Never Flinch
  • 4. Tusk Love
  • 5. A Forbidden Alchemy
  • 6. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
  • 7. Great Big Beautiful Life
  • 8. My Friends
  • 1. Behind the Badge: Answering the Call to Serve on America's Homefront
  • 2. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
  • 3.  Abundance
  • 4. Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
  • 5. Mark Twain
  • 6. The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780
  • 7. I'm Glad My Mom Died
  • 8. Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity
  • 9. Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again
  • 10. Uncommon Favor: Basketball, North Philly, My Mother, and the Life Lessons I Learned from All Three
  • 11. Not My Type: One Woman Vs. a President
  • 12. Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI
  • 13. Big Dumb Eyes: Stories from a Simpler Mind
  • 14. Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America
  • 15. They're Coming for You: How Deep State Spies, NGOs, and Woke Corporations Plan to Push You Out of the Economy
  • 1. Behind the Badge: Answering the Call to Serve on America's Homefront
  • 2. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
  • 3.  Abundance
  • 4. Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
  • 5. Mark Twain
  • 6. The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780
  • 7. I'm Glad My Mom Died
  • 8. Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity
  • Dream On, Ramona Riley
  • Along Came Amor
  • Manic Pixie Dream Earl
  • Once Upon You & Me
  • Rebel in the Deep
  • Can't Get Enough
  • Behooved
  • Worth Fighting For

Resources for Readers

Boundless
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Boundless lets you place holds and borrow popular eBooks and audiobooks, plus an extensive library of independently published eBooks that can be borrowed instantly with no waiting! 

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Hoopla
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No holds, no waiting! On hoopla, you can instantly borrow not only eBooks and audiobooks, but also movies, music, comics, and TV shows to enjoy on your devices immediately.

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Libby
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Our most popular app for reading eBooks and listening to audiobooks. Use the Libby app to place holds and check out eBooks, audiobooks,  and magazines to read (or listen to) on your device.

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Literary Reference Source
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Find information about literature including thousands of synopses, critical essays, book reviews, and author biographies from all genres and periods. Plus full-text classic novels, short stories, and poems.

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More Recommendations

Staff Picks

Award Winners

Readers’ Choice Awards

The Illinois Young Readers’ Choice Awards are titles selected by teachers and librarians each year. The Helen Plum Library offers many copies of each of these titles with voting for favorites in February.

Monarch 2026 (K–Grade 3)

Bluestem 2026 (Grades 3–5)

Caudill 2026 (Grades 4–8)

Lincoln 2026 (High School)