This week, we take our traveling book club up to Bellevue, Iowa. Check out the book the library’s director said is popular for the wrong reasons, but should be read.
BELLEVUE, Iowa — With the temperatures plunging outside, it might be the perfect time to curl up at home with a good book. So, allow us to introduce you to three that readers in Jackson County can’t put down!
Every other Wednesday, we check in on a new town for our traveling book club, “Current Reads,” during our 4 p.m. show, The Current. This time, we head north to the Bellevue Public Library, where Library Director Mike Burris pulled these three stories from the shelf.
- “The Book with No Pictures” by B.J. Novak is a #1 New York Times bestseller from award-winning actor and writer, B.J. Novak. While you and your children might think a book with no pictures is boring, there’s a twist here. You have to read everything written on the page… out loud. Even if it’s words such as ‘BLORK’ or “BLUURF.’ It’s been described as cleverly irreverent and irresistibly silly, and one that kids will beg to hear again and again.
- “Evil Genius” by Catherine Jinks is a young adult thriller with darkness and humor. Cadel Piggott has a genius IQ and is fascinated with systems of all kinds. At just seven years old, Cadel was hacking into computers (illegally). Now at 14, he’s studying for his World Domination degree and taking classes like forgery, embezzlement and infiltration. It’s all at the institute founded by criminal mastermind Dr. Phineas Darkkon. Still, no matter how advanced Cadel is, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s a lonely kid at heart. But when Cadel falls for the mysterious and brilliant Kay-Lee, he begins to question the moral implications of his studies. Now, Cadel must figure out if it’s too late to stop Dr. Darkkon from carrying out his evil plot.
- “The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War” by Erik Larson was described by Burris as “currently popular, but probably for the wrong reasons, and deserves to be read for the right ones.” The bestseller brings to life the pivotal five months between Abraham Lincoln’s election and the start of the Civil War. It’s November 1860, with the country bitterly at odds, and Southern extremists are moving closer and closer to destroying the Union. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of the North and South focused on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor, known as Fort Sumter. Author Erik Larson takes readers through the time period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, craven ambitions, enflamed egos and personal betrayals. Drawing on diaries, slave ledgers, plantation records and secret communiques, Larson crafts a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink. It’s a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.
In 2025, the Bellevue Public Library is celebrating 100 years of serving the community.
Take a look inside!
Take a look inside the Bellevue Public Library!
Tune into The Current from 4 to 5 p.m. on weekdays to catch live interviews impacting you, your family and your hometown as well as all of the biggest headlines of the day.
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