Book of the Week (1/5/2026)

Be The Pig II: Life Lessons In and Out of Recovery by Todd A. Schillinger (Independently published, 2025)

Life in recovery isn’t just about giving up alcohol—it’s about learning how to live.  In Be The Pig II: Life Lessons In and Out of Recovery, Todd A. Schillinger shares the hard-won lessons he’s learned on the road from addiction to long-term sobriety.  With honesty, humor, and heart, Todd explores the challenges, victories, and everyday choices that shape a meaningful life in recovery.  This is a book for anyone seeking hope, inspiration, or a reminder that transformation is always possible— one step, one day, and one choice at a time. --Publisher's blurb

About the author:

Todd A. Schillinger is a writer, speaker, and longtime member of the recovery community from Keene, New  Hampshire.  Sober since October 10, 2006, he shares his story through his books Be The Pig and Be The Pig II: Life Lessons In and Out of Recovery.  Todd’s mission is simple: to inspire hope, offer honest insight into the ups and downs of recovery, and remind others that transformation is always possible.  When he’s not writing or speaking, he enjoys family, laughter, and the everyday lessons life keeps teaching.

Join Todd at The Toadstool Bookshop in Keene, NH on Friday, January 9, 2026 at 6 pm where he will be presenting his newest book.

3 on a Theme: Houses

A House of Her Own: Women Writers of New England and Their Homes by Beth Luey

Tales of a Not So Tiny House by Chloe Barcelou & Brandon Batchelder

A Doubtful House by Alice B. Fogel 

Book of the Week (12/29/2025)

Headless in Hancock, 1882 by Sebastian Lockwood (LUX Press, 2025)

"Headless in Hancock, 1882" is a historical fiction novel set in the New England village of Hancock at the close of the nineteenth century. At the center of town stands the Hancock Inn where stagecoaches bring travelers from Boston, Concord, and beyond. Each arrival brings new stories—adventure, conflict, romance, and danger—that ripple through the quiet village.

Innkeepers Jarvis and Susan Blood, with Jeanette Winterstone at the front desk and Caleb in the barn, keep the tavern running as strangers arrive with tales to tell and secrets to hide. Among the visitors are both imagined and real figures: Ralph Waldo Emerson, frail but still profound; Washington Irving, haunted by his Headless Horseman; and Fly Rod Crosby, America’s first professional woman guide, challenging expectations of her time.

The novel immerses readers in the texture of nineteenth-century New England—autumn storms sweeping over Mount Monadnock, stone walls marking the fields, blizzards that test every roof beam, and suppers of cider-braised pork and johnny cakes by the fire. Folklore and superstition linger in the shadows, even as science and modern ideas reshape the world. --Publisher's blurb

About the author:

Storyteller and podcaster Sebastian Lockwood tells the great epics: Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Caesar, Beowulf and Monkey. His studies in Classics and Anthropology at Boston University and Cambridge University in the UK laid the foundation for bringing these great tales into performance. Lockwood’s performances are designed to take complex texts and make them accessible and exciting for audiences from 5 to 95. Lockwood has tutored and taught classes in higher education for 25 years. Lockwood launched two storytelling podcasts in 2022: Blowing Up Stumps- tales from New and Old England (with Maine storyteller Matt Gile), and Monkey- the Journey to the West.  He now concentrates on performance, podcasting, workshops, and audiobook narration. Lockwood lives under New Hampshire's Crotched Mountain in a 1792 house with his wife, jazz singer and LUX Lifestyle founder, Nanette Perrotte.

Join Sebastian at The Toadstool Bookshop in Keene, NH on Sunday, January 11, 2026 at 2 pm where he will be presenting his newest book!

2025 Ladybug Picture Book Award Winner!

New Hampshire children have chosen The Bakery Dragon by Devin Elle Kurtz as the winner of the 2025 Ladybug Picture Book Award!

There were 22,057 votes cast this year at 170 sites throughout the state. The winning book received 6,032 votes. A flyer with the complete list of voting results will be available on the Ladybug Picture Book Award website soon.

Book of the Week (12/22/2025)

This Spells Disaster by Tori Anne Martin (Berkley, 2023)

Fake dating gets a magical twist in this enchanting queer romantic comedy where a witch worries that the real feelings brewing between her and her crush were sparked by an accidental love potion, and the only way out of the disastrous spell is a healthy dose of the truth—drink up, witches.

Potion maker and self-proclaimed “messy witch” Morgan Greenwood is sure she was hexed at birth. Not only did she drunkenly offer to fake date the woman of her dreams during the biennial New England Witches’ festival, but Rory Sandler, spellcasting champion and brilliant elemental witch—for reasons known only to the Goddess—accepted. It’s like every good luck spell Morgan ever cast came through at once, and it doesn’t take a crystal ball to predict this charade will end with a broken heart.

Or is the magic between them real? As Morgan and Rory prepare to fool everyone at the festival, their relationship starts to feel a whole lot less fake—right until Morgan realizes she might have screwed up the common relaxation potion she made for Rory and given her a love potion instead, breaking one of the most sacred Witch Council Laws.

To fulfill her promise to Rory, Morgan must somehow keep playing pretend while under the watchful eyes of Rory’s family and legion of fans. But to break the love potion, she’ll also have to prove how incompatible she and Rory really are. For a screwup like her, ruining their relationship should be easy—except every day, Morgan is becoming more bewitched by Rory herself. --Publisher's blurb

About the author:

Tori Anne Martin is the USA Today bestselling author of "This Spells Disaster", as well as romance and fantasy under other not-so-secret names. She lives in New Hampshire, along with her partner and their two cats, where she collects pen names, tattoos, and hoodies in shades of gray and black. If you can’t find her online, it’s because she’s lost in the woods.

Now Accepting 2026 Ladybug Nominations

We will be accepting preliminary nominations for the 2026 Ladybug Picture Book Award through Sunday, January 11, 2026!

The nomination form for the 2026 Ladybug Picture Book Award can be found here: 
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Ladybug2026nomination

In addition to bibliographical information about your nominee, we are asking for a sentence or two explaining why you chose to nominate the book.

Please nominate a picture book that meets the following criteria: 

•    Be published, in its current edition, within the last three years (2023-2025)
•    be currently in print
•    possess strong child appeal
•    have artistic quality with text that supports the illustrations
•    not be a title previously nominated as a finalist. (See previous nominations here: https://tinyurl.com/ladybugNOM)

****NEW THIS YEAR: Due to librarian input, we will be opening up the Ladybug Picture Book Award to include 4th graders. If you are able to include 4th graders in the Ladybug process, please do so!****

You may nominate as many books as you’d like, but they must follow the above criteria and you will need to complete the nomination survey separately for each nominated book.

The long-list of nominated titles will be announced in late January. 

Book of the Week (12/15/2025)

Whispers in the Pines: A Teenage Killer and the Silence of New Hampshire by Jacobson P. Stewart (Independently published, 2025)

In the still woods of small-town New Hampshire, a single gunshot shattered the quiet and the belief that everyone knew everyone.

In 1985, local mechanic Daniel Paquette was found dead in his driveway, one bullet through the chest. For twenty years, the case sat cold. No suspects. No closure. Only silence thick as pine sap and just as suffocating.

But truth doesn’t die. It hides behind loyalty, fear, and the fragile code of a town that prefers to forget. When the past finally cracked open, it revealed more than a killer: it exposed teenage secrets, buried guilt, and a community forced to reckon with what its silence had cost.

Whispers in the Pines: A Teenage Killer and the Silence of New Hampshire blends deep reporting with a restrained, haunting narrative to follow the investigation, confession, trial, and the long echo that reshaped an entire town. It asks the question no verdict can settle:

When everyone shares the secret, who carries the blame? --Publisher's blurb