• Top Picks
  • Staff-Created List

ARC Top Picks ☀️

Recommended reads that also conveniently meet the prompts for ARC, our Adult Reading Challenge! Consider all these titles recommended to you by a friend! 😎 Pick up a Bingo card at any library location or join the challenge on Beanstack (pickeringlibrary.beanstack.com) to be entered into a draw to win awesome prizes!

Pickering Public Library

20 items

  • Two young women are trapped in a deadly chase through the beautiful, dangerous waters around Australia in this new Popular Pick and award-winning thriller by Canadian author Roz Nay.
    Book[Toronto] : Viking, 2024. — FIC Nay
  • An epic, dazzling tale based on true events illuminates a woman’s rise to power as one of the few purported female pirate captains to sail the Caribbean and a forbidden love story that will shape the course of history in this book with a…
    BookNew York : Atria Books, 2024. — FIC Camer
  • Thirty, flirty, and asexual Joy is secretly in love with her best friend Malcolm. When he unexpectedly announces that he's met the love of his life—and no, it's not Joy—she's heartbroken. Malcolm invites her on a weekend getaway at the…
    BookNew York : Jove, 2022. — FIC Kann
  • This Popular Pick is a suspenseful mystery thriller. Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s life is turned upside down when she gets the call Ellie Black, a girl who disappeared years earlier, has resurfaced in the woods of Washington state—but…
    BookNew York : Simon & Schuster, 2024. — FIC Jean
  • Soledad Barnes is the master of planning and disaster recovery, so when betrayal shatters her life, she embraces single motherhood, but then an unlikely, and forbidden, man enters the picture in this heartwarming and uplifting contemporary…
    BookNew York : Forever, 2024. — FIC Ryan
  • Binti

    the Complete Trilogy

    Okorafor, Nnedi
    Winner of the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novella, this groundbreaking trilogy introduces us to the story of one extraordinary girl's journey from her home planet to the distant intergalactic Oomza University in this science…
    BookNew York, NY : DAW Books, Inc., 2019. — FIC Okora
  • A romance writer ends up spending the summer in the house next to her university writing program rival in this beachiest of beach reads set at the beach!
    BookNew York : Jove, 2020. — FIC Henry
  • A whimsical fantasy travelogue, featuring a girl who loves tea cups, a waterless sea, and a dragon. We can guarantee you've never visited the islands of the Emerald Sea before!
    BookNew York : Tor, 2023. — FIC Sande
  • Prairie Edge by Métis/Ukrainian writer Conor Kerr is a frenetic, propulsive crime thriller about cousins planning a capture of a herd of bison from a national park to set them free in downtown Edmonton.
    BookToronto : Strange Light, 2024. — FIC Kerr
  • Inspired to add this title to the list because we LOVE the cover, this hilarious science fiction 5-star read explores the complicated task of becoming a world-class supervillain.
    BookNew York : Tor, 2023. — FIC Scalz
  • A gorgeously surprising poetry collection about memory, history, and the act of looking back.
    BookToronto, ON : McClelland & Stewart, 2024. — 819.154 Ondaa
  • A dazzling novel about a girl with talent, pride, and a drive to feed the soul that keeps her fire burning bright. Recipes included.
    BookNew York, NY : HarperTeen, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2019. — YA FIC Aceve
  • Meeting at least three of the ARC prompts, including being set in Ontario, this is an astonishing, epic graphic novel memoir by Canadian artist, cartoonist, and illustrator, Maurice Vellekoop, known for his queer cartoons.
    BookToronto : Random House Canada, 2024. — 741.5971 Velle
  • Ants in My Pants

    One Woman's Unexpected Adventures Across Seven Continents

    Perrin, Joyce E.
    Read this book with a green cover, by a local author, and is set in 156 countries! Joyce Perrin shares her fascinating travels on all 7 continents over twenty years. How many of these countries have you visited?
    BookCanada : Making Connections Press, 2023. — 910.4092 Perri
  • In a futuristic Ontario people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness, in this science fiction novel by Métis author Cherie Dimaline.
    BookToronto : Dancing Cat Books, an imprint of Cormorant Books Inc., 2017. — YA FIC Dimal
  • A delicious debut poetry chapbook by local author Joseph Donato, exploring adolescence through the eyes of the mouth.
    BookOttawa : above/ground press, 2023. — 819.154 Donat
  • A tragic plane crash that leaves two women stranded and fighting for their lives kicks off this sweeping and hilarious novel from award-winning Ojibway writer Drew Hayden Taylor that blends thriller, murder mystery, and horror with humour…
    BookToronto : McClelland & Stewart, 2024. — FIC Taylo
  • Dune

    the Graphic Novel. Book 1

    Herbert, Brian
    The definitive graphic novel adaptation of Dune, the groundbreaking science-fiction classic by Frank Herbert, conveniently set in space.
    BookNew York : Abrams ComicArts, 2020. — FIC Herbe V. 1
  • Babel

    Or, The Necessity of Violence : An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution

    Kuang, R. F. (Rebecca F.)
    A book with a map and a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire.
    BookNew York : Harper Voyager, 2022. — FIC Kuang
  • How War Begins

    Dispatches From the Ukrainian Invasion

    Igort, 1958-
    In 2022, Igort, an acclaimed Italian cartoonist, began taking down the testimonies of Ukrainians during the Russian invasion. He turned them into online comics journalism, collected here for the first time in English in this biographical…
    BookSeattle, WA : Fantagraphics Books, Inc., 2024. — 947.7086 Igo