Lake Forest Reads

Lake Forest Reads

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One Book, One Community

Since 2012, Lake Forest Reads has encouraged Lake Foresters to come together and read one book with the purpose of fostering literacy, a culture of reading, and a sense of community. Lake Forest Library and community partners present a month-long series of events and activities focusing on themes in the novel, culminating in a Meet the Author event. We encourage you to deepen your experience with the book by attending events and hosting your own book discussions! Learn more about the history of Lake Forest Reads.

Lake Forest Reads 2024

2024 Selection

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“Shelby Van Pelt has done the impossible. She’s created a perfect story with imperfect characters, that is so heartwarming, so mysterious, and so completely absorbing, you won’t be able to put it down because when you’re not reading this book you’ll be hugging it.”
— Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“Remarkably Bright Creatures is the rarest of feats: a book that manages to be wry and wise, charming and surprising, and features one of the most intriguing and satisfying characters I’ve encountered in fiction in a very long time—Marcellus the Octopus. I don’t know how Shelby Van Pelt managed to make this uncommon tale sing so beautifully, but sing it does, and I defy you to put it down once you’ve started.”
— Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of Good Company and The Nest

“Remarkably Bright Creatures is a beautiful examination of how loneliness can be transformed, cracked open, with the slightest touch from another living thing. Shelby Van Pelt makes good on this wild conceit, somehow making me love a misanthropic octopus, but her writing is so finely tuned that it’s a natural element of a larger story about family, about loss, and the electricity of something found.”
— Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here

About the Book

 

For fans of A Man Called Ove, a luminous debut novel about a widow’s unlikely friendship with a giant Pacific octopus reluctantly residing at the local aquarium—and the truths she finally uncovers about her son’s disappearance 30 years ago.

After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in the Puget Sound over 30 years ago.

As she works, Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine, but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight tentacles for his human captors—until he forms an unlikely friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. As his affection for Tova grows, Marcellus must use every trick his old, invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late.

Charming, compulsively readable, and full of wit, Shelby Van Pelt’s debut novel is a beautiful exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope–a reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.

Go to the catalog to borrow Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

About the Author

When Shelby Van Pelt isn't writing, she's herding cats and wrangling children. Her debut novel, "Remarkably Bright Creatures, was an Instant New York Times Bestseller and has sold over two million copies in the United States alone. In 2023, she was awarded the Heartland Prize for Fiction and the McLaughlin-Esstman-Stearns First Novel Prize from The Writer's Center. Born and raised in Tacoma, Washington, she now misses the mountains in the Chicago area with her family.

Learn more about Shelby Van Pelt.

 

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