2025 Staff Favorites: Sharon's Favorites

Sharon is the director of the Berwick Public Library. Check out what she has to say about her favorite books she read this past year:

This was a great year for good books and great reading! I have a love for several authors (new to me and long time favorites) who provided me with outstanding books. I also love to read about the connections made with nature, non-human subjects, and the stories of life that we all struggle with. It was wonderful to read such different styles, characters, storylines and count them on the favorites list for such different reasons. Here is my "A" list of 2025:

The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin I picked up this book because I read Crow Talk by the same author and loved it! I hoped that this book would be just as good - and it is! The Music of Bees is an incredibly heartwarming novel that follows three lonely strangers in a rural Oregon town, each working through grief and life's curveballs and challenges. They are all brought together by happenstance on a local honeybee farm where they find surprising friendship, healing--and maybe even a second chance--just when they least expect it. It is the story of kindness, nature and life. Five Stars - as is Crow Talk!

Crow Talk by Eileen Garvin This is a moving story of hope, healing, and unexpected friendship set amidst the wild natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest (which could have been Maine - as I read it, I recognized places in Maine that I had lived and loved). It is such a beautiful story of love, grief, friendship, the healing power of nature and the connections it makes in the darkest of times. Such a gorgeous book!

The Comfort of Crows, A Backyard Year by Margaret Renkl And while we are on the subject of crows - this book is the most beautiful book and is at the top of my "all time best" recommendation list. It is a literary and visual masterpiece. I loved it so much that I bought the book to always have so I can read it again and again. You do not have to be a naturalist, an environmentalist, or an ornithologist to appreciate this book, you just have to be a person who can look deeper into the beauty of nature, surrounding us all. This book will resonate with a person willing to pause and consider how intertwined the human race is with nature, and our responsibility in caring for the earth. There is such wisdom and inspiration written on these pages, but make no mistake, Renkl poignantly reminds us of what is at risk if we don't begin to slow down and take a good, hard look at what we have to lose. The answers are right in our own backyards.

wild by Cheryl Strayed This book is an "oldie but goodie" and since its publication thirteen years ago, many of you have probably already read it. Well, some books don't ever lose their appeal and wild is one of them. This book is about a journey - Strayed's journey to heal her heart, to conquer her demons, and to reset her life and she chose to hike 1,100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail to accomplish it. I really loved this book and couldn't wait to pick it up and find out where she was on the trail and how she was going to keep going. It really was such an incredible adventure that highlighted her willpower and tenacity. One of the things that got her through this incredible journey was her books. She mailed books to herself to pick up along the route in her supply boxes. Her books sustained her and fueled her soul. One book she carried the entire way was The Dream of a Common Language. She writes "I carried it all this way, though I hadn't opened it since that first night on the trail. I hadn't needed to. I knew what it said. Its lines had run all summer through the mix-tape radio station in my head, fragments from various poems and sometimes the title of the book itself, which was also a line from a poem: the dream of a common language." This book sustained her, and for a librarian, I can't tell you how that passage touched me. Her writing, the incredible story, the depth of her healing all made this book a favorite. This book is both timeless and so perfectly human.

The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb

Wow. That is all I could say when I finished this book. Wow. In true Wally Lamb fashion, within the first few chapters, he will make your heart sing and a page later, rip it right out of your chest. I think the easiest way to describe this book is to tell you what it is not. It is not a cozy mystery (prepare to be anything but cozy), or a romance novel (although it is a love story). It is not a thriller or suspense novel (although you will sit on the edge of your seat and have a vice hold on the book through most of it). I guess the best way to describe what the story is, is a story of survival and resilience in the face of unimaginable human tragedy. It is a story that you will have to struggle with, to push through and to commit to reading. I promise you that if you do, it will be so worth it. It is a story of brutal tragedy, healing and recovery, and most of all - the power of love and forgiveness.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Another great book of 2025 is The Correspondent, although it is nothing like The River is Waiting! Isn't that just the greatest thing about reading? You can fall in love with one book and think it is one of the best things you have ever read, and if you are very lucky, you will pick up another novel and it will make you fall in love again for completely different reasons! Virginia Evans is an incredible storyteller to bring you on a beautiful journey through letters. Yes, letter writing! This is the story of Sybil Van Antwerp, who chooses letter writing to make sense of the world around her and her place in it. You will meet her family, closest friends, and random strangers who become part of her life through her letter writing. Her use of the English language is just exquisite to read, and I do love good writing. It is a story of love and loss, motherhood and second chances. If you really want to be completely entertained by this novel, I recommend that you listen to it from the cloud library - it will be worth the wait! The readers (yes, different readers for each character) are fantastic and they really bring this novel to life. Either way, reading or listening, you will love this novel!

My Friends by Fredrik Backman

It is important to know that anytime Fredrik Backman writes a new book, I am going to read it as soon as I can get my hands on it! He is one of my favorite authors of fiction, and My Friends lived up to the long list of Backman title favorites as it takes its rightful place on our library shelves (but it doesn't stay long, so be sure to add your name to the request list)!

The story begins in a coastal town somewhere, it could be here in Maine, or it could be in another country, it really doesn't matter where, because we all know the sea, so fierce and beautiful. The story unfolds around four children, all friends with hardscrabble lives - like so many of Backman's children have. He is a master at developing young characters who have more personality and integrity than the oppressive adults in their lives. He understands what abuse or neglect will do to a child and yet the kids in his books are masters at overcoming adversity and holding onto that innocence that makes childhood so magical. They dream, and play, and take risks together, but they also connect on such a deep emotional level, that each of them becomes the other's hero. By the end of the book, they are all heroes. How does Fredrick Backman come up with such incredibly unique stories in every single book? I don't know, but My Friends reaches for your heart strings, and pulls hard. Unconditional love. This is a book about love of friendship, love of kindness, love of art and all those things that Backman reminds us that we should be working on as humans. He reminds us that maybe all we really need to do is ask a child to show us how. Thanks to Fredrik Backman, we have another great book that you won't be able to put down.

Here are my other "A" list picks: