EDITOR'S NOTE: We asked Nancy Pearl, Seattle Public Library's tireless book evangelist and model for the famed librarian action figure, to suggest some books worth checking out now that the new Central Library is open. Books I'd like to see people reading in the new library:

  • The Cheerleader,
  • by Ruth Doan McDougall, is a sensitive novel for grown-ups about what it was like to be a teenage girl in the 1950s: the discovery of boys and sex, and figuring out who you are and what you want to be.

  • The Towers of Trebizond,
  • by Rose Macaulay. The novel (originally published in 1956) is the story of an eccentric group of travelers on a car trip throughout Turkey, from Istanbul to the towers of the title, who constantly meet up with equally eccentric fellow travelers. In addition to being both funny and sad (frequently on the same page), it has one of the best opening lines of any book I've ever read.

  • Dan Chaon's Among the Missing, an amazing collection of often unsettling short stories -- "Big Me," about a 12-year-old boy who believes that the older man who has recently moved to his town is himself -- grown up, and my particular favorite, "Here's a Little Something To Remember Me By," in which an adult recalls the defining event of his adolescence: the disappearance of one of his contemporaries.

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  • Science fans won't want to miss Jonathan Weiner's captivating The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time, as well as his brand new book, His Brother's Keeper: A Story From the Edge of Medicine, an account of Jamie Heywood's attempt to find a cure for ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis -- better known as Lou Gehrig's disease) in order to save his younger brother Stephen's life.

  • Tim Winton is one of Australia's best novelists, and his best novel just happens to be my favorite: Cloudstreet, set in Australia following World War II, and featuring the Pickles and the Lambs, two families brought together first by their difficult situations after the war and then by marriage.

  • Mystery lovers looking for a new author will be delighted with the new series by P.J. Tracy, a mother/daughter writing team that produced Monkeewrench and Live Bait, both set in the Twin Cities, and both featuring police detective Leo Magozzi. Good plots, good writing and Tracy displays a real talent for creating three-dimensional characters.

  • Edward Ormondroyd's David and the Phoenix, first published in 1957 (when I first read it), is the story of a young boy who meets a 500-year-old fabulous bird (in the very funny first meeting of the two, the phoenix is studying Spanish verbs); together they must foil the plans of a scientist who wants to capture the phoenix and study him.

  • In Gregor the Overlander
  • by Suzanne Collins, 11-year-old Gregor and his younger sister, Boots, find themselves in an Underland beneath New York City. While Gregor is mainly interested in getting the two home, he becomes involved in an ongoing war between humans and giant rats. The heart-racing adventure has a heartwarming ending, and hints, as well, of a sequel.

  • You'll find it difficult to pull yourself away from reading the fascinating memoir, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders, by Jennifer Finney Boylan. It relates her life's experiences that led her to sex reassignment -- male to female -- when she was in her early 40s. There's also a very honest epilogue by novelist Richard Russo, who was James Boylan's officemate at the college where they both taught, and who had difficulty accepting Jennifer's sex change.

  • Debra Magpie Earling's Perma Red is a wonderful first novel -- lyrically written, evocative of its setting (the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana in the 1940s) and filled with complicated and interesting characters, including the stubborn and beautiful Louise White Elk and the three men who love her.

  • Reading poet David Kirby's books -- two I especially like are The House of Blue Light and The Ha-Ha -- is pure delight. Kirby's poems are a bit like stream-of-consciousness short stories, with the added benefit that it's impossible to predict when you begin one exactly where you'll end up. His poetry is perfect for people who believe poetry is all sterile solemnity.

  • Dog lovers as well as those readers looking for humorous books shouldn't miss Uncle Boris in the Yukon and Other Shaggy Dog Stories, in which Daniel Pinkwater -- in writing that is affectionate, wise, and very funny -- celebrates denizens of the doggy world whom he has known and loved.

  • And, of course, I hope people will read my book, Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason, too!
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