2024 NATIONAL MEDAL
for Museum and Library Service Finalist

Adults

A Cosmology of Monsters

 

Monsters both figurative and very literal stalk the Turner family. The youngest child, Noah, narrates the family history: how in the late '60s, his bookish mother Margaret marries Lovecraft-lover Harry against her better judgment. The couple has two daughters--Sydney, born for the spotlight, and the brilliant but awkward Eunice, a natural writer and storyteller.

Recursion

New York City cop Barry Sutton investigates the devastating phenomenon the media has dubbed False Memory Syndrome-- a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived. Neuroscientist Helena Smith dedicated her life to creating a technology that will let us preserve our most precious moments of our pasts. If she succeeds, anyone will be able to re-experience a first kiss, the birth of a child, the final moment with a dying parent. Together they face a force that attacks not just our minds but the very fabric of the past.

Lost Roses

The runaway bestseller Lilac Girls introduced the world to the real-life heroine Caroline Ferriday. Now, a generation earlier, this sweeping new novel featuring Caroline's mother, Eliza, follows three equally indomitable women from St. Petersburg to Paris under the shadow of World War I.