Castro Valley Library

We have a summer reading program for adults too! Beginning June 8 adults can pick up book review cards at the Castro Valley Library Information Desk. By giving us a brief review of any book or audiobook you will be entered in a prize drawing for great gift cards from local merchants.

You can enter one card per week from June 8 to August 9 for a total of 9 chances to win! The prizes are $20 gift cards from Chipotle, Lucca Italian Delicatessen, Loard’s Ice Cream, Cafe Rumi, Swiss Delices, Knudsen’s Ice Creamery, Top Thai, Karin Johnson Specialty Cakes, and Trader Joe’s. Plus the winner each week will get a $10 gift card from the Friends of the Library Book Store. This prize drawing and all of our summer programs are made possible through the generosity of the Friends of the Library!

Please stop by the Information Desk beginning June 8 for complete details.

Not sure what to read next? We have a great online tool that will help you find your next book. It’s called “Novelist,” and it’s a powerful database of books and authors with many ways to search for what you want.

You can find Novelist in our A to Z Resource List. For children’s books choose Novelist K-8. For young adult and adult titles click on Novelist+. You’ll need to have your library card handy if you are accessing Novelist from your home computer.

Once you are logged in you have a lot of great choices.

Search for a book title and you can find a description of the plot plus book reviews. The description will also tell you about the themes covered in the book plus its tone and writing style.

Let’s say you loved the book Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and you want to read something similar. You can type Gone Girl in the Novelist search field. Below the title Gone Girl in the results list you will see choices for “Title Read-alikes” for books similar to Gone Girl and “Author Read-alikes” for writers similar to Gillian Flynn. If something in the list appeals to you, check our library catalog for availability.

Novelist also has many lists of recommended titles in many specific genres such as Historical Mysteries, Holiday Romances, and Humorous Fantasy just to name a few. You can access these genre lists on the left side of Novelist web page or by clicking on “Spotlight On…Genres” at the top of the page. Plus you can see dozens of lists of award winning books if you click on “Spotlight On…Awards” at the top of the web page.

Please take advantage of Novelist. It’s a book lover’s dream.