Before the crush of the holiday season sets in (if it hasn’t already), take some time to check out a book featuring the Thanksgiving holiday! The list below includes some Thanksgiving romance, mysteries, cookbooks for your big feast, and Thanksgiving traditions. All the books on this list are available through WGPL.
Fiction
Thanksgiving Night by Richard Bausch
Encumbered with the challenges of his bookstore and his wife’s high-school teaching career, Will Butterfield fears he will soon reach the end of his patience with his wildly eccentric mother and aunt, a situation that is both lightened and complicated by new friendships with the local handyman and his own chaotic family. 
The Ghost at the Table: A Novel by Suzanne Bern
Thanksgiving at the New England home of the second of three sisters marks a reunion between the three Fiske sisters and their long-estranged father, in a portrait of the unraveling of a family.
The Thanksgiving Visitor by Truman Capote
A boy recalls his life with an elderly relative in rural Alabama in the 1930s and the lesson she taught him one Thanksgiving Day about dealing with a bully from school.
The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford
In the fall of 2000, with the results of the presidential election still hanging in the balance, Frank Bascombe confronts the perils of Thanksgiving as he contends with health, marital, and family issues and works as a realtor at the Jersey shore.
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
A satire set in Texas during America’s war in Iraq that explores the gaping national disconnect between the war at home and the war abroad. Follows the surviving members of the heroic Bravo Squad through one exhausting stop in their media-intensive “Victory Tour” at Texas Stadium, football mecca of the Dallas Cowboys, their fans, promoters, and cheerleaders.
Want Not by Jonathan Miles
On Thanksgiving Day a freegan couple living off the grid in Manhattan, a once prominent linguist struggling with midlife, and a New Jersey debt-collection magnate with a second chance at getting things right randomly and briefly collide as the weight of their desires ultimately undoes each of them, leaving them to pick up the pieces from what’s left behind.
A Patchwork Planet by Anne Taylor
Relates the story of Baltimore’s Barnaby Gaitlin, a furniture mover with a history of misdemeanors and a fair-weather girlfriend.
American Boy by Larry Watson
On Thanksgiving Day 1962, the shooting of a young woman sets off a chain of unsettling events in Willow Falls, Minnesota, all revolving around Matthew Garth, who becomes obsessed with the shooting victim and with the lavish lifestyle of a local doctor’s family.
Nothing with Strings: NPR‘s Beloved Holiday Stories by Bailey White
White writes about an almost-gone little town where a spoon player is a guardian angel, an old woman fears that John James Audubon is living in her attic, and a homely governess wins a baby bull in a raffle and loses her heart.
Mystery
Skating Under the Wire by Joelle Charbonneau
“Rebecca Robbins has pulled the rink she inherited off the market. She’s decided to stay in Indian Falls for good. Rebecca is certain that if she can get her maid of honor duties fulfilled and Thanksgiving dinner cooked, life will finally settle down to normal. But when Rebecca is hired to look into a string of home invasions and a dead body turns up at the bridal shower, she is forced to put aside her hopes for a quiet holiday season. With the help of her Elvis-loving grandfather and her sexy, commitment-seeking large animal vet boyfriend, Rebecca has to track down thieves that have eluded the cops for years, solve a murder, get her friend safely married, and somehow cook dinner for an ever-expanding guest list without getting herself killed. Boasting the drama of both madcap wedding hijinks and the infamous Thanksgiving dinner, a puzzling murder, and a wonderful cast, Skating Under the Wire is Joelle Charbonneau’s most exciting mystery yet!”– Provided by publisher.
Strangers at the Feast by Jennifer Vanderbes
A riveting second novel that unfolds over the course of Thanksgiving Day as two families are connected by a horrific crime.
Romance
A Secret Affair by Barbara Taylor Bradford
From the romantic canals of Venice to the streets of New York and the beaches of East Hampton, two very different people–a respected American TV newsman and a talented young artist–struggle to come to terms with their complicated lives after they embark on an illicit but fateful love affair.
A Perfect Proposal by Katie Fforde
Sophie Apperly has been supporting herself since she left school, but as far as her academic family is concerned she’s never had a “proper”‘ job. And because she’s currently in-between work she’s dispatched to look after Uncle Eric while his housekeeper is away. Here, whilst tidying his papers, she discovers a document relating to family business in America. Driven mad by her family and wanting to prove herself to them and bring in some much-needed income for them all, when her best friend Milly invites her over to New York she jumps at the chance –what’s more she’s lined up some nannying work to pay her way. However, she’s hardly been in the country five minutes before disaster strikes. She suddenly finds herself with no work, nowhere to stay, and very little money. Luckily Milly has a corner in her tiny apartment she can camp out in. A jaunt to an art gallery opening throws her into the path of Matilda–a grand old lady who is delighted to find someone who comes from the same part of the world that she grew up in. She is very taken with Sophie and invites her to her house in Connecticut for Thanksgiving. But Matilda’s grandson Luke is very suspicious of Sophie–what exactly does this English girl want? Is she after his grandmother’s money? And he’s determined to nip this growing friendship in the bud.
Eagerly visiting New York to escape her suffocating family, young Englishwoman Sophie clashes with her hostess’s arrogant grandson, who follows her back to England with an unconventional proposal.
Foul Play by Janet Evanovich
Veterinarian Jake Elliot offers Amy Klasse a job as his receptionist after she loses her television job to a chicken, and when the chicken disappears under suspicious circumstances and Amy is blames, they investigate together.
The Grand Finale by Janet Evanovich
Divorcée Berry Knudsen falls out of a tree and meets the man of her dreams, hunky first grade teacher Jake Sawyer. And that’s just the start of their screwball courtship.
Thanksgiving by Janet Evanovich
When Megan Murphy discovers a rabbit gnawing on the hem of her skirt, she is about to give its careless owner a piece of her mind, but Dr. Patrick Hunter turns out to be too attractive to be mad at.
Non fiction
Thanksgiving: how to cook it well by Sam Sifton
From one of America’s finest food writers, the former restaurant critic for The New York Times, comes a definitive, timeless guide to Thanksgiving dinner–preparing it, surviving it, and pulling it off in style. From the planning of the meal to the washing of the last plate, Thanksgiving poses more–and more vexing–problems for the home cook than any other holiday.
The Pioneer Woman Cooks: a year of holidays by Ree Drummond
Ree shows you how to ring in your favorite holidays with inspired menus for breakfasts, brunches, lunches, dinners, parties, deliveries and feasts, accompanied by fun instructions and hundreds of her signature step-by-step photos. Filled with creative and flavorful ideas for intimate dinners, group gatherings, and family meals, The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays included dozens of mouthwatering dishes (with nineteen recipes for Thanksgiving alone!), helping home cooks create a variety of delights.
Lies My Teacher Told Me: everything your American history textbook got wrong by James Loewen
Criticizes the way history is presented in current textbooks, and suggests a fresh and more accurate approach to teaching American history. Includes a chapter titled “The Truth about the First Thanksgiving.”
Turkey Day Game Centennial 1907-2007 by Shawn Greene
Read about the Webster Groves-Kirkwood tradition of the Turkey Day football game.
Downloadable eBooks from OverDrive:
Turkey Day Murder: a Lucy Stone mystery by Leslie Meier
Tinker’s Cove has a long history of Thanksgiving festivities, from visits with TomTom Turkey to the annual Warriors high school football game and Lucy Stone’s impressive pumpkin pie. But this year, someone has added murder to the menu, and Lucy intends to discover who left Metinnicut Indian activist Curt Nolan deader than the proverbial Thanksgiving turkey—with an ancient war club next to his head.
The list of suspects isn’t exactly a brief one. Nolan had a habit of disagreeing with just about everybody he met. Between fixing dinner for twelve and keeping her four kids from tearing each other limb from limb, Lucy has a pretty full plate already. So what’s a little investigation? But if she’s not careful, she just may find herself served up as a last-minute course, stone-cold dead with all the trimmings. . .
Let’s Talk Turkey . . . And All the Trimmings: 100 Delicious Holiday Recipes, Tips, and Ideas from America’s Top Magazines by Hearst
Whether you’re hosting your first turkey dinner or you’re a time-tested pro, you’ll find new recipes and ideas in this collection from Good Housekeeping, Redbook, Country Living, and Woman’s Day that will make this year’s holiday meal super-delicious—and practically stress-free. Tips and illustrated how-tos will guide you every step of the way. There are ideas for easy ways to set a beautiful table, a guide to carving, and help for Turkey Day troubles (like what to do when guests are late). Plus you’ll find menus for the perfect meal, whether you’re serving four or twenty-four.
Several of the books featured at the beginning of the post are also available through OverDrive:
Have any other suggestions for this Thanksgiving book list? Leave them in the comments section!
During the month of June, if Webster Groves and the rest of the Hometown Library Network increase OverDrive* circulation by 25%, improvements will be awarded to your collection! Help us out by heading over to our OverDrive site and downloading any available eBook or Audiobook (or 10)! With your help we’ll be able to hit our goal of 5,935 total checkouts!
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Objects
The Girl Who Fell From the Sky
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