The Friends of the Arlington Public Library (FOAL) will not be accepting book donations from April 13-25 due to the Spring Book Sale taking place April 16–19 at Central Library. Please do not leave donations at library locations during this time.
Financial donations can be made via the FOAL website.
"March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb," as the saying goes. So far, we’ve already had snow and several perfect spring days. Luckily, no matter what the weather is doing, there are great books coming out this month to enjoy.
The "Number Five Wayside Inn and World Travel Hub" journeys the universe, housing all sorts of paranormal guests. When it lands on earth, it gets stuck due to the planet's lack of magic. Josie, a single mother and down on her luck, moves in with her son. Suddenly, they find themselves at home among vegan zombies, faeries and gargoyles. The hotel might be what Josie needs to restart her life, and she might be what the Inn needs to restart its magic. Elizabeth Everett’s Magic and Mischief at the Wayside Hotel is a delightful romance with a great cast of characters.
Kaede loves classic crimes stories but needs her grandfather’s help to solve real-world mysteries. During her visits, she brings him clues, maps and diagrams, and they work to solve the puzzle. His Lewy body dementia gives him realistic hallucinations that can help him find the solutions despite the heartbreaking reality of his ailing health. Tender and bittersweet, My Grandfather, the Master Detective by Masateru Konishi, translated by Louise Heal Kawai, is full of references to classic crime novels and is the first in a bestselling series in Japan.
The entertaining Dangerous Shore details the work of the civilians defending the East Coast during WWII. From the civilian pilots patrolling the waters to detect U-boats and guide rescue ships, to the mob bosses keeping spies off the docks, to the scientists breaking codes and developing new technology, Sara Vladic introduces a little-explored side of the American home front. Full of vivid detail, it introduces a wide cast of characters showing how involved and complex the effort was up and down the coast.
Sportswriter Simon Kuper has attended almost every world cup since Italy's in 1990. Mixing cultural history with memoir, World Cup Fever reflects on three decades' worth of tournaments and how they have grown and changed. Weaving game recaps and interviews with sharp observations about politics, globalization and identity, Kuper is always looking for the heart of soccer in the more recent tournaments that have been full of scandal. Delightful and engaging, it’s essential reading in the lead-up to the 2026 World Cup.
On April 18, 1906, Cora makes her way down to the docks, only for the earth to split open and trap her underground with Chi, a girl she just met. As the girls free themselves and make their way back to the surface, they reunite with Cora’s friend Oliver, but the trio must dodge fires, crumbling buildings and looters as they desperately try to reunite with their families. Jennifer A. Nielsen’s Magnitude is a gripping and thrilling middle grade adventure about surviving the Great San Francisco Earthquake.
Teen readers will want to pick up the darkly humorous and page-turning thriller Most Likely to Murder by Lish McBride. When last year’s yearbooks arrive at Meadowvale High, someone has changed the superlatives for the senior class. Initially written off as a tasteless prank, students become worried when a guidance counselor labeled "Most Likely to Sleep with the Fishes" ends up dead in a local lake. Rick and his best friend Martina, labeled "Homecoming’s Cutest Corpses," team up with other threatened students to find the killer. But just because the body count is mounting doesn’t mean you don’t still have homework.
Universal Class is an easy way to explore a new hobby or build a fresh skill. With more than 500 self‑paced online courses, you can learn something practical, creative or just plain fun. All on your own schedule and from almost any device.
All courses include video lessons, assignments and optional certificates of completion. First time users must create an account to access Universal Class.
Celebrate Pi (π) Day, March 14, with a delicious list of pie (
) books.
Library Director Diane Kresh shares her picks for Women's History Month.
Civil rights icon Rev. Jesse Louis Jackson (1941–2026), a protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and two-time presidential candidate who led the Civil Rights Movement for decades after the revered leader's assassination, leaves behind a monumental legacy of advancing equality, dismantling oppressive systems and amplifying voices of the underserved.
In 1965, the year after his college graduation, Jackson marched with Dr. King and others at Selma to demand Black voting rights. He was with Dr. King on April 4, 1968, when the civil rights leader was slain.
Jackson went on to found the organizations Operation PUSH in 1971, a tool to improve the economic conditions of Black communities, and the National Rainbow Coalition during his first presidential campaign in 1984, which sought equal rights for all Americans.
In 1996, both organizations merged to become the Rainbow Push Coalition. The diverse alliance of Blacks, Whites, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans and LGBTQIA+ people sought to protect, defend and gain civil rights by leveling the economic and educational playing fields and to promote peace and justice around the world.
Poster with headline “Vote Jesse Jackson '84 for president.” Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-42733
In the 1980s, Jackson ran twice for president (1984 and 1988) and paved the way for other democratic candidates, galvanizing both Black and White voters from diverse spectrums.
Jackson’s campaign and civil rights work would eventually pave the way for a more progressive wing of the Democratic Party and the election of the first Black president Barack Obama.
He led a lifetime of crusades in the United States and abroad, advocating for the poor and underrepresented on issues from voting rights and job opportunities to education and health care.
In 2008, during a victory speech by former President-elect Barack Obama at Chicago’s Grant Park, Jackson was caught on camera with tears in his eyes. He later explained “… that he was thinking about all those who made it possible and who were not there. People like Ralph Abernathy, Dr. King, Medgar Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer… those in the movement in the South.”
Discover more about Jackson’s legacy and life from our collections.
Discover the work and life of Rev. Jesse Jackson and many other civil rights icons.
January ended with snow and ice, but these new books coming out in February give us something to look forward to, regardless of the weather.
Amie Teller has been stuck in a time loop, reliving September 17 every day for two years. But one day she wakes up, and it’s actually tomorrow. As she struggles to remember how to face a new day, she learns that her neighbor was murdered yesterday. As someone who knows that day better than anyone, she’s determined to solve the case in Katie Siegel’s "Out of the Loop."
In 1920s Montreal, Agnes Aubert runs her cat shelter with meticulous care and has absolutely no tolerance for magicians. But the only space she can afford contains a covert magic shop in the basement, run by an infamous and irritating magician who’s also allergic to cats. As they face a police investigation and a threat that could destroy the city, they must form an uneasy truce and Agnes needs to decide how much chaos, and love, she can let into her life in "Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter" by Heather Fawcett.
From a 19th century maker of handmade playing cards to one of the most influential entertainment companies in the world, Nintendo’s story is anything but conventional. "Super Nintendo" by Keza MacDonald traces the company’s evolution through the people, ideas and games that reshaped how the world plays. Part cultural history, part love letter to play, this energetic and deeply researched history captures how a quirky company built on experimentation and risk-taking came to enchant generations of players and continues to shape what games can be.
For more than a decade, Joseph Stalin waged a relentless, secret war against his most dangerous rival: the exiled revolutionary Leon Trotsky. In "The Death of Trotsky," Josh Ireland traces the global manhunt that followed Trotsky from Europe to a guarded compound in Mexico City, where the long pursuit ended in August 1940, with a single, devastating blow from an ice pick. Moving between Moscow, Paris and Mexico, Ireland reconstructs the deadly game of cat and mouse through a vivid cast of spies, artists, idealists and operatives, culminating in an unforgettable portrait of the Soviet agent who infiltrated Trotsky’s inner circle and carried out the assassination.
Henrietta Wood was born enslaved and emancipated as an adult, only to be kidnapped and sold back into bondage. When she was once again emancipated at the end of the Civil War, she sued the man who kidnapped her and won the largest reparations ever awarded to a formerly enslaved person in the United States. Combining Selene Castrovilla’s free verse text with Erin K. Robinson’s striking illustrations, "Twice Enslaved" is an illuminating biography for middle grade readers.
When Persepolis is abruptly removed from Chicago Public School classrooms and libraries, students at one high school are quick to recognize the bitter irony of banning a book about life under censorship. Inspired by the real 2013 CPS controversy, this powerful graphic novel follows an ensemble of teens as they grapple with the order, investigate how it happened and decide whether and how to resist. The teen graphic novel "Wake Now in the Fire" by Jarrett Dapier and illustrated by AJ Dungo captures the transformative power of collective action and the stakes of defending intellectual freedom.
Celebrate George Washington’s birthday month with a premier resource from The University of Virginia Press. "The Papers of George Washington Digital Edition" unites five series and Washington’s complete diaries; 83 volumes of scholarship in one searchable platform. Browse content by date, author or recipient. Follow linked cross‑references and delve into the documents that shaped the early United States as we celebrate Arlington 250.
In 2026, Arlington Reads turns 20 and Arlington Public Library will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States by looking at American life, history and culture through the lens of food.
In 2026, the library’s premier author talk program Arlington Reads will stir it up with eight award-winning cookbook authors and food celebrities, celebrating the intersection of food and culture.
Additional library programs will feature live cooking demonstrations, local “Chef Talks,” a community cookbook with favorite family recipes and a “Great Arlington Bakeoff.”
The author series will examine the various aspects of food—how it crafts community, dishes up our collective history and cultivates cultural connections.
The delectable menu of authors will consist of:
Arlington Reads is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Friends of the Arlington Public Library (FOAL). Other County and community partners include Arlington Video Group, independent bookstore One More Page Books and Arlington Food Assistance Center.
Dr. Ashanté M. Reese is a writer, anthropologist, and associate professor of African and African Diaspora at The University of Texas at Austin.
Reese will discuss the intersection of critical food studies and Black geographies, examining the ways Black people produce and navigate food-related spaces while navigating inequity.
Her first book "Black Food Geographies: Race, Self- Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C." won the 2020 Best Monograph Prize from the Association for the Study of Food and Society and the 2020 Margaret Mead Award jointly awarded by the Association of American Anthropologists and the Society for Applied Anthropology.
Mark Easter is the author of the award-winning popular science book "The Blue Plate: A Food Lover’s Guide to Climate Chaos," published by Patagonia Books. In it, he explores the question “Can we eat our way out of the climate crisis?” In 2025, The Blue Plate was awarded an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Gold Medal and was a James Beard Award Nominee and finalist for The Colorado Book Award.
Mark is an ecologist and greenhouse gas accountant who has researched the carbon emissions from food, forestry and fiber in academia and private industry for more than two decades. He spent much of his career working with farmers, ranchers, foresters and scientists around the world, researching how historical and modern agriculture contributed to the warming climate, and identifying both new and old farming and ranching methods that not only reduce the dangerous climate emissions behind our daily plates of food, but reverse those emissions wherever possible by drawing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere back into the Earth’s ecosystems.
Mark is a longtime resident of Fort Collins, CO, and spent most of his work career at Colorado State University, from which he retired in 2023 but continues working as an affiliate scientist. He loves to read, work in his garden, cook, hike, backcountry ski and spend time with his wife and their Australian Shepherd.
Priya Krishna is a food reporter, video host and former restaurant critic at the New York Times, as well as the New York Times best-selling author of multiple cookbooks, including “Indian-ish” and “Priya's Kitchen Adventures: A Cookbook for Kids.”
During her early career, Krishna worked at the food magazine Lucky Peach and was a contributing writer and video host at Bon Appétit. Krishna has been nominated for awards by the James Beard Foundation and the International Association of Culinary Professionals and was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2021.
Francis Lam is the host of The Splendid Table, produced by American Public Media.
Lam is the former Eat columnist for The New York Times Magazine and is Vice President and Editor-in-Chief at Clarkson Potter, a division within Penguin Random House that is a leader in cookbook publishing. For two seasons, Lam was a regular judge on Bravo’s hit show, Top Chef Masters. An award-winning writer, Lam has written for numerous publications, including Gourmet, Bon Appetít and Food & Wine.
Lam will be joined in conversation by former Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema.
Antoni Porowski is a New York Times bestselling author, Emmy-winning producer/TV personality and a globally-renowned culinary expert with a lifelong passion for food.
Porowski most recently starred in and was the executive producer of National Geographic’s docuseries "No Taste Like Home," published by Gordon Ramsay's Studio Ramsay Global. The show explores the diverse cultural heritages of global celebrities by way of their ancestors’ culinary traditions, techniques and experiences. "No Taste Like Home" received a Critics’ Choice Real TV award for Best Structured Series in 2025, and was also nominated for a Cinema Eye Honors Award as well as two Realscreen Awards.
He is also known as the food and wine expert on Netflix’s award-winning series "Queer Eye," which recently wrapped production on its tenth and final season. The series has won twelve Emmy Awards, including six consecutive wins for “Outstanding Structured Reality Program,” breaking the category record for most wins. As a producer on the series, the 75th Emmy Awards marked the first time that Porowski was recognized with an Emmy trophy in his name, along with his co-hosts.
Amongst other television projects and endeavors, Porowski is the author of two cookbooks—“Antoni in the Kitchen” and “Antoni: Let's Do Dinner.”
He is an outspoken advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights everywhere, especially in his family’s native Poland. Porowski serves on the Food Council of City Harvest and is a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations World Food Programme. These organizations respectively aim to end hunger in New York City, where he resides, and across the world.
Anne Byrn is an American cookbook author and the former food editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Tennessean.
Byrn is a New York Times bestselling food writer and author of “American Cake.”
Her latest book, “Baking in the American South,” was a finalist for the 2025 Tennessee Book Award and was named one of 12 Essential Cookbooks for 2025 by the American Library Association.
Byrn’s previous titles include “The Cake Mix Doctor,” deemed one of Southern Living’s top 100 cookbooks of all time.
Jessica B. Harris is an American culinary historian, college professor, cookbook author and journalist. Harris is professor emerita at Queens College, City University of New York, where she taught for 50 years and is also the author of 15 books, including “Braided Heritage.”
She has won two James Beard Foundation Awards, including for Lifetime Achievement in 2020, and her book “High on the Hog” was adapted in 2021 as a four-part Netflix series.
Benjamin Dylan Hollis is a Bermudian-American social media personality, baker and author of “Baking Yesteryear” and “Baking Across America: A Vintage Recipe Road Trip.”
Dylan Hollis is a baking entertainer, bestselling author and viral social media personality known for breathing new life into forgotten recipes.
Born and raised in Bermuda, Hollis pursued jazz piano at the University of Wyoming before stumbling into baking and internet fame during the pandemic.
What began as a quirky video exploring an old cookbook quickly turned into a phenomenon, with millions tuning in to watch him whip up everything from potato chip cookies to tomato soup cake.
Preparing for the SAT can feel overwhelming. There’s a lot of material, a lot of advice and not much time. Brainfuse HelpNow, an Arlington Public Library eResource, is offering a free SAT Prep Webinar Series that breaks the test into clear, manageable steps and focuses on strategies that actually work.
These live, online workshops run 6-7 p.m., Eastern Time, and are led by Brian Stewart, author of Barron’s SAT/ACT prep books. Each session highlights real shortcuts, smart time-saving techniques and common traps that can cost students points. Students may attend a single session or follow the full series.
You can attend one session or the entire series.
Please note: the Monday, March 9 session requires separate registration. To attend any sessions, be sure to register using the links below.
For the Wed. Weekly Series
For the Mon. in March
The SAT webinar series is only one part of what Brainfuse HelpNow provides through the Library.
Beyond these workshops, Brainfuse HelpNow includes:
Brainfuse HelpNow is available online with a valid library card.
Arlington readers know that every month sees more amazing books released than they can possibly keep up with! In 2025, nearly 2,500 books received a starred review.
Arlington fell in love with some of those books critics raved about, but with so many to choose from, some inevitably flew beneath our radar.
The books are sorted into subcategories: fiction, nonfiction, graphic, detective, science fiction and fantasy teen, elementary/middle grade and picture books/early readers. And much like browsing the library’s shelves, you're sure to find something unexpected and delightful!
To see which books Arlington readers checked out the most this year, check out our companion list: Arlington's Top Reads in 2025.
2025 was another excellent year for Arlington readers with over 3.6 million checkouts.
Arlington's reading choices span a wide array of genres, including cookbooks, romance novels, biographies and picture books. We listened to eAudiobooks, read on our phones and stacked paper books on our nightstands. Still, certain titles stood out as particularly popular.
Here is a breakdown of the most popular adult, kids and young adult titles.
Two titles had more than 4,000 checkouts this year:
The Empyrean series by Rebecca Yarros was a big hit with all three titles in the top ten.
Emily Henry had two titles this year with "Funny Story" and "Great Big Beautiful Life."
"The Women," "Funny Story" and "Iron Flame" are on the list for the second year in a row while "Fourth Wing," "Remarkably Bright Creatures" and "Demon Copperhead" are in their third year of being one of Arlington’s most popular reads!
"Throne of Glass" by Sarah J. Maas is one of the most popular teen reads for the third year in a row, but the rest of the top five are all books from The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, with "Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" keeping its position at number one.
Just like last year, our younger readers couldn’t get enough of "Wimpy Kid" by Jeff Kinney!
We’re excited to see what books Arlington will fall in love with in 2026.
Of course, there are always great books that don’t get the buzz and popularity and sometimes are overlooked.
Curious about the other excellent releases you might have missed this year? We have a curated list of Great Books You Missed in 2025 to help you find some hidden gems in our catalog.
Always free. Always open. Always reading!
Learning platforms saw strong engagement as well. O’Reilly and LinkedIn Learning offered courses in artificial intelligence, technology, business and creative skills. Patrons especially enjoyed diving into top courses "WordPress: Ecommerce, Project Management Foundations" and "Pre-investing: Before Investing in Real Estate," and "Writing: The Craft of Story"—all designed to sharpen professional skills or introduce new hobbies and opportunities to online learners.
Mango Languages kept language learners busy with sessions in everything from Spanish to Japanese to American Sign Language, often right from their phones.
Value Line gave investors reliable financial research, Consumer Reports guided smart shopping decisions and Bookflix made reading fun for families by pairing children’s books with engaging videos. News lovers stayed informed with full access to the Washington Post Digital and Global Newsstream.
We welcomed several new eCollections this year. You can stream films and series through Access Video On Demand: Master Collection and Biblio+, explore American and global cuisines with AtoZ Food America, AtoZ World Food, and Eat Your Books and dive into research using AtoZ Databases and Social Explorer.
Career seekers will find guidance and opportunities in Vault Career Intelligence. With more than 70 eCollections available, there’s something for everyone.
This November, we express our gratitude for the imagination and dedication of authors who give us stories to enjoy.
Marisa Kashino’s "Best Offer Wins" skewers the local real estate market in a twisted and darkly humorous novel of domestic suspense. After being outbid 11 times in 18 months for various houses in the D.C. area suburbs, Margo’s getting desperate. When she hears of a wonderful house that will soon hit the market, she’ll stop at nothing to get it.
Nils knows today is his last day on earth, but still goes to work as a ferry operator. As the passengers embark, he sees they are all ghosts from his past. Sailing his route through the Norwegian fjords for the final time, he waits for the ghost of his recently deceased wife in the wistful and quiet story "The Ferryman and His Wife" by Frode Grytten and translated by Alison McCullough.
While trying to negotiate a lighter sentence by returning stolen art from previous heists, an officer tells thief Myles Conner that only a Rembrandt would save him. So, while out on parole, Conner steals a Rembrandt in an audacious daytime theft from Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Anthony M. Amore’s "The Rembrandt Heist" gets into all the action and intrigue of a story that’s stranger than fiction.
In 1834, David Ruggles opened the first Black bookstore in the U.S., selling abolitionist literature and creating a place for Black people to gather and learn. It’s a template many Black bookstores to come would follow, despite harassment from the FBI and IRS, racism, gentrification and a shifting publishing marketplace. "Black-Owned" by Char Adams traces the history of the Black bookstore and the role those bookstores have played in their communities.
Middle grade readers will want to check out "How to Free a Jinn" by Raidah Shah Idil. When Insyirah and her mother move from Australia to Malaysia to take care of her ailing grandmother, Insyirah learns the women in her family can see jinn. As she gets used to life in a new place, she must also confront an evil spirit haunting her new school in this energetic adventure that blends family, mythology and faith.
Annie Fairfax has been cursed by the finfolk—vengeful creatures that live beneath the waves and were responsible for the shipwreck that killed her parents. Annie is a young female head of the whaling company that her village depends on for survival. Responsibility weighs heavily on her shoulders while the curse is getting worse. There might be a cure, but the cost may be too high in "Break Wide the Sea" by Sara Holland. Teen readers will be drawn in by this roiling and atmospheric tale blending horror, folklore and love.
Friday, Oct. 24, was the first full day of our twice-yearly Friends of the Arlington Public Library (FOAL) used book sale, and Arlington’s longest running "recycling" program. I just ended my morning shift having rung up scores of shoppers who exited the library garage, weighted down by bags of books. I met young adults, older adults, retirees, babies, teachers, librarians and some furloughed federal employees who found themselves, sadly, with time on their hands.
All of them united by a love of books and reading.
The book sale is one of my favorite library events. A chance for me and the staff to engage with residents and patrons we might not usually see and whose generosity we depend on. Every penny that is earned by the book sales goes back to the library to pay for author talks, game nights, summer and winter reading challenges, equipment for The Shop and more.
Everything you can think of to keep our community educated, entertained and engaged.
As I worked the sale I talked with job seekers, home schoolers, young families and students. Many in our community are struggling. Costs of goods and unemployment are rising. Businesses are closing including Pirouette, across the street from Central Library and a warm and welcoming place to gather after a library event. There is no end in sight for the government shutdown and there is a lot of uncertainty and fears of what might come next.
One thing you can be sure of: Arlington Public Library is not going anywhere. Our doors are still open for reference help, quiet study, meeting friends or making new ones at our jigsaw puzzle tables.
If you haven’t stepped through our doors in a while, please do. If you’re a regular, thank you. We are all in this together.
Always Free. Always Open. Always Dependable.
Diane Kresh
Director, Arlington Public Library
MUSICAL CODA