2025 Reading Challenge Crossover Books

Book Summary

Emily is a librarian on Martha’s Vineyard, but her desire for a more adventurous life leads her to Ireland. Her favorite author, Siobhan Riordan, has offered her a job helping her write the long-awaiting final novel in her series.

Things would be great if it wasn’t for Siobhan’s grumpy son, Kieran, who runs her bookstore. Tensions escalated with Kieran after Siobhan’s health declined. How can Emily help fulfill Siobhan’s desire to see her final book completed with Kieran?

Book Summary

In 1996, Hanna, a rare-book expert, is offered the job of a lifetime working on the conservation of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, one of the earliest Jewish manuscripts ever illuminated with illustrations. The priceless book was rescued during the Bosnian War.
When Hanna discovers a series of tiny artifacts in the book’s ancient binding—an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—she begins to unlock the book’s mysteries.

Inspired by a true story, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks has created a novel of sweeping historical grandeur. In Bosnia during WWII, a Muslim risks his life to protect the book from the German army. In turn-of-the-century Vienna, the book has become a pawn in the struggle against the city’s rising anti-Semitism. In inquisition-era Venice, a Catholic priest saves the book from being burned. In Barcelona in 1492, the scribe who wrote the text sees his family destroyed by the agonies of enforced exile. And in Seville in 1480, the reason for the Haggadah’s extraordinary illuminations is finally disclosed.

WARNING: This book includes a scene of graphic rape.

Book Summary

Kit is the head librarian in the town of Riverton, New Hampshire, but for her, the library is more than just a job. It is a place of peace. When she’s there, no one expects her to talk about the calamitous events that have recently turned her settled, suburban life completely upside down. Instead, she can submerge herself in books and forget about her real-life problems for a while.

Kit’s quiet sanctuary changes suddenly, however, when a 15-year-old named Sunny is assigned community service at the library for the whole summer. Sunny was arrested for shoplifting a dictionary, and the judge threw the book at her, quite literally. Sunny is bright, curious, and eager to connect with someone other than the off-the-grid hippie parents who school her at home. She’s determined to coax Kit out of her self-imposed isolation.

Then there’s Rusty. He’s a Wall Street high-flyer who has recently crashed down to Earth. In this small town library, this unlikely trio is drawn together, along with a cast of other quirky regulars. They will be forced to examine how their lives have unraveled, but they’ll also help knit them together again.