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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

  • Galway's Edge
  • A Fashionably French Murder
  • The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne
  • The Case of the Elusive Bombay Duck
  • The Antique Hunter's Death on the Red Sea
  • The Railway Conspiracy
  • The Library Game
  • Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (On a Dead Man)
  • Murder by Memory
  • The Girl from Greenwich Street
  • 1. Never Flinch
  • 2. Hidden Nature
  • 3. The Knight and the Moth
  • 4. Great Big Beautiful Life
  • 5. Nightshade
  • 6. My Friends
  • 7. The Emperor of Gladness
  • 8. Shield of Sparrows
  • 9. Onyx Storm
  • 10. The Perfect Divorce
  • 11. James
  • 12. Return to Sender
  • 13. Broken Country
  • 14. The Wedding People
  • 15. Strangers in Time
  • 1. Never Flinch
  • 2. Hidden Nature
  • 3. The Knight and the Moth
  • 4. Great Big Beautiful Life
  • 5. Nightshade
  • 6. My Friends
  • 7. The Emperor of Gladness
  • 8. Shield of Sparrows
  • 1. Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again
  • 2. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
  • 3. Mark Twain
  • 4. Abundance
  • 5. Big Dumb Eyes: Stories from a Simpler Mind
  • 6. Uncommon Favor: Basketball, North Philly, My Mother, and the Life Lessons I Learned from All Three
  • 7. Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company
  • 8. Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
  • 9. The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780
  • 10. My Next Breath
  • 11. Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity
  • 12. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World
  • 13. Steve Martin Writes the Written Word: Collected Written Word Works
  • 14. Remember Us: American Sacrifice, Dutch Freedom, and a Forever Promise Forged in World War II
  • 15. Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI
  • 1. Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again
  • 2. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
  • 3. Mark Twain
  • 4. Abundance
  • 5. Big Dumb Eyes: Stories from a Simpler Mind
  • 6. Uncommon Favor: Basketball, North Philly, My Mother, and the Life Lessons I Learned from All Three
  • 7. Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company
  • 8. Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
  • Hardly a Gentleman
  • The Outsider
  • Gold Coast Dilemma
  • What Happens in Amsterdam
  • My Best Friend's Honeymoon
  • Chef's Kiss
  • The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen
  • Here We Go Again
  • An Island Princess Starts a Scandal
  • All The Right Notes
  • Hardly a Gentleman
  • The Outsider
  • Gold Coast Dilemma
  • What Happens in Amsterdam
  • My Best Friend's Honeymoon
  • Chef's Kiss
  • The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen
  • Here We Go Again

Resources for Readers

Boundless
Boundless logo

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
Hoopla logo

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
Libby logo

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
Literary Reference Source logo

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 2025 (K–Grade 3)

Bluestem 2025 (Grades 3–5)

Caudill 2025 (Grades 4–8)

Lincoln 2025 (High School)