Shelfology Book Pairing

A Novel

by Sally Rooney

LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE: A wondrously wise, genuinely unputdownable new novel from Sally Rooney, winner of the 2017 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award (at 26, tied with Zadie Smith for the youngest-ever recipient)--the quintessential coming-of-age love story for our time. Connell Waldron is one of the most popular boys in his small-town high school--he is a star of the football team, an excellent student, and never wanting for attention from girls. The one thing he doesn't have is money. Marianne Sheridan, a classmate of Connell's, has the opposite problem. Marianne is plain-looking, odd, and stubborn, and while her family is well-off, she has no friends to speak of. There is, however, a deep and undeniable connection between the two teenagers, one that develops into a secret relationship. Everything changes when both Connell and Marianne are accepted to Trinity College. Suddenly Marianne is well-liked and elegant, holding court with her intellectual friends while Connell hangs at the sidelines, not quite as fluent in language of the elite. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle each other, falling in and out of romance but never straying far from where they started. And as Marianne experiments with an increasingly dangerous string of boyfriends, Connell must decide how far he is willing to go to save his oldest friend. Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a novel that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the inescapable challenges of family and friendships. Normal People is a book that you will read in one sitting, and then immediately share with your friends.

by Arthur Conan Doyle

Dr. James Mortimer asks Sherlock Holmes for advice following the death of his friend, Sir Charles Baskerville. Sir Charles was found dead on the grounds of his Devonshire estate, Baskerville Hall. Mortimer now fears for Sir Charles's nephew and sole heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, who is the new master of Baskerville Hall. The death was attributed to a heart attack, but Mortimer is suspicious, because Sir Charles died with an expression of horror on his face, and Mortimer noticed "the footprints of a gigantic hound" about 50 yards from where Sir Charles lay dead. The Baskerville family has supposedly been under a curse since the era of the English Civil War when ancestor Hugo Baskerville allegedly offered his soul to the devil for help in abducting a woman and was reportedly killed by a giant spectral hound. Sir Charles believed in the curse and was apparently fleeing from something in fright when he died. Intrigued, Holmes meets with Sir Henry, newly arrived from Canada.