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Omaha Picks: Too Late for Top Shelf 2023

Sometimes books on OPL's annual "Top Shelf" list don't make it on there simply because of timing. The books on this list are titles published in 2023 that would have made it on to Top Shelf if they'd been read sooner. For all the titles that did make it to the Top Shelf page this year, see topshelf.omahalibrary.org.

12 items

  • Adult fiction - "The international crew members of the space station come wonderfully alive in 'Orbital,' a space novel that prizes lyricism over sci-fi conventions." - Colby J.
    Book, 2023New York : Grove Press, 2023. — FICTION Harvey 2023
  • Adult fiction - "One of the most disturbing horror novels I have ever read. It used multiple unreliable narrators in an interesting way." - David D.
    Book, 2023New York : Nightfire/Tor Publishing Group, 2023. — FICTION Rumfitt 2021
  • Adult fiction - "Jenny Erpenbeck's 'Kairos,' a telescopic novel of love and history, is now available to English readers." - Colby J.
    Book, 2023New York : New Directions Publishing Corporation, [2023] — FICTION Erpenbeck 2023
  • Adult fiction - "Catriona Ward's 'Looking Glass Sound' is a twisty, addictive psychological horror novel. The writer protagonist tries to make sense of the terrors of his past by penning a final work, but the lines between reality, memory and…
    Book, 2023New York : Nightfire/Tor Publishing Group, 2023. — FICTION Ward 2023
  • Adult fiction - "A bleak sci fi novella about a neuro scientist linking her mind to wolves and her collapsing marriage. A brutal, pessimistic story, born out of the malaise of the roughest parts of 2020." - David D.
    Book, 2023New York : Tordotcom/Tor Publishing Group, 2023. — SCIENCE FICTION Mandelo 2023
  • When Crack Was King

    a People's History of a Misunderstood Era

    Ramsey, Donovan X.,
    Adult nonfiction - "If you enjoyed Matthew Desmond's 'Evicted' or Michelle Alexander's 'The New Jim Crow,' I highly recommend checking out 'When Crack Was King.' The story alternates between a historical overview with a focus on hard data and a more…
    Book, 2023New York : One World, [2023] — 362.29 Ramsey 2023
  • The Men With the Pink Triangle

    the True, Life-and-death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps

    Heger, Heinz,
    Adult nonfiction - "A memoir of Josef Kohout's experience as a gay man in the Nazi concentration camps. A book like this is so significant because we have so few accounts from gay men due to persecution from the Ally societies all the same." - Tyler…
    Book, 2023Chicago, IL : Haymarket Books, 2023. — 940.5472 Heger 2023
  • Adult nonfiction - "Robert Darnton emphasizes how crucial contemporary systems of information were to the spirit of 1789." - Colby J.
    Book, 2023New York : W. W. Norton & Company, 2023. — 944.361 Darnton 2023
  • Adult nonfiction - "Anishinaabe teachings to aid us in finding our connections to each other. A book like this guides the reader to confront and realize how much we take for granted is really just socialized into us." - Tyler H.
    Book, 2023Burnsville, MN : James Vukelich, 2023 — 133.9 Kaagegaa 2023
  • Cobalt Red

    How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives /

    Kara, Siddharth,
    Adult nonfiction - "This is an important book to read for pretty much anyone. It makes the reader face a conflict that does not nearly get the attention it should as well as the level of inhumanity and oppression we rely on for our technology and…
    Book, 2023New York : St. Martin's Press, 2023. — 338.2 Kara 2023
  • Adult nonfiction - "To 2040 is Jorie Graham's most recent collection of bracing, openhearted poems." - Colby J.
    Book, 2023Port Townsend, Washington : Copper Canyon Press, [2023] — 811 Graham 2023
  • YA graphic novel - "The latest installment (but thankfully not the last) in the love story between Nick and Charlie. The writing is great, the illustrations are great, and the series is able to discuss difficult topics while overall being incredibly…
    Graphic Novel, 2023New York, NY : Graphix, an imprint of Scholastic, [2023] — GRAPHIC NOVEL Oseman