Last year, Howard County Library had a record number of entry forms for the Adult Summer Reading Club prize drawing, proving that it isn’t just children and teens who love summer reading! Many of those entry forms included wonderful book reviews that were posted in the branches for all to see. This year, we’re going to post some of the best reviews right here on Highly Recommended!

So this summer, if you read a great book for adults from our collection, complete an entry form (which you can get and submit at any of our branches beginning June 1), and write your review on the back — or if you have more to say than will fit on the page, attach a longer review, but try to keep it to 400 words or less. If we need to, we’ll edit them for spelling, style, and grammar and get your permission to post them on Highly Recommended. We’ve compiled a list of recommended summer reads that you might want to start with — many of which have already been reviewed by Howard County Library staff on Highly Recommended.

Remember, you can enter as many times as you want — one entry for each book you read this summer — and the prizes are great! Good luck, have a great summer, and happy reading!

Dan Curry – Savage Branch

True Blood may seem like your average girl-meets-vampire-but-is-secretly-loved-by-a-wolf-man story, but it is actually much deeper. In this alternate Louisiana, as in much of the United States, there are vampires that dwell among humans. A company realizes the danger of vampires feasting on humans, and develops a synthetic substitute for human blood: True Blood. 

Meet the cast of characters who make up the colorful tapestry in this Southern Gothic romance. In a small rural Louisiana diner, a waitress named Sookie can read people’s minds — except Bill’s, who happens to buy True Blood. Sookie’s best friend is Tara, who is tactless when interacting with others, but tries to be a good daughter to her alcoholic mother. Tara’s cousin is Lafayette, a gay drug dealer who works with Sookie and Tara at the diner. Sookie’s brother Jason loves the ladies, but for some reason the ladies end up dead. And the police think he may be the main suspect…

True Blood is a wildly creative series. Besides telling a supernatural tale sprinkled with romance, it also provides social commentary. Vampires are treated as second-class citizens who must fight for their rights, against those who disagree with the vampire political movement. Meanwhile, some humans hunt the vampires and drain them of their blood for sale as a drug. There are people taking the drug and becoming addicted to it.

The show is based on the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris. Dead Until Dark is the first novel, and provides the main plot line for the first season. Dead Until Dark is available at the Library in book and playaway form (Playaways self-contained digital audio books). There are currently ten books in the series, along with several short stories. There is also a CD featuring music from the series, with songs that vary as much as the characters on the show — including country, rock, swamp, and blues rock. 

For a creative series with colorful characters, I recommend the addictive True Blood. 

Robert Bates – Glenwood Branch

The first page of Team of Rivals finds attorney Abraham Lincoln restless in his modest, sparsely furnished home in Springfield, Illinois, with wife Mary Todd, young sons Robert, William and Tadd, and various other loyal friends. It was May 18, 1860 — the day when the fledgling Republican Party made its decision for a presidential nominee.

Meanwhile, a confident William Henry Seward, the jovial Senator from the state of New York, waited in Auburn, certain that the Republican nomination was his; Ohio governor Salmon Chase gathered his two daughters for a morning reading of Scripture while awaiting the balloting returns; and devoted family man Judge Edward Bates and wife Julia waited with confidence and security for the nomination results.

The election decision — that Lincoln was the nominee — stunned the nation. But this unknown, self-made man raised in poverty became the leader that the country desperately needed as Southern states seceded from the Union and civil war threatened.

His affable, tolerant personality led Lincoln to include Republican rivals in the close embrace of his inner circle. How he accomplished this — and then guided the country through the more difficult years of its history — comprises Goodwin’s 2005 political biography. Included also are the stories of the Lincoln family, as well as the three rivals and their families.

Barack Obama is a fan of this treatment of Lincoln’s presidency. The book gained national recognition after his 2008 election when he announced he was using the model from  A Team of Rivals as a template for the formation his own cabinet.

Doris Kearns Goodwin has won the Pulitzer Prize in history for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II. Her other works include bestsellers Wait Till Next Year, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, and Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream.

Please join the Eclectic Evenings Book Discussion in reflecting on Team of Rivals. Meet on November 10 at 7:00 pm in Howard County Central Library’s story room. Team of Rivals is available for pick-up in Playaway format and on CD, as well as in print at the Central Library Fiction Desk. For further information, call 410.313.7834.

Jeanie Pfefferkorn – Central Library