Staff Picks

Your Next Great Read Starts Here!
 

Looking for your next great read? Start with a recommendation from the people who know the collection best. Ferguson Library staff share the books they love most, from page-turning fiction to thoughtful nonfiction and standout picks for all ages. Explore their favorites below and discover something new to borrow today.

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What We're Reading: February 2026


Discover stories that inform, inspire and challenge. Our collection highlights Black voices across history, culture and lived experience.

Nonfiction

New Prize for These Eyes: The Rise of America's Second Civil Rights Movement

New Prize for These Eyes: The Rise of America's Second Civil Rights Movement

In this highly anticipated follow-up to Eyes on the Prize, bestselling author Juan Williams turns his attention to the rise of a new 21st-century civil rights movement. More than a century of civil rights activism reached a mountaintop with the arrival of a Black man in the Oval Office. But hopes for a unified, post-racial America were deflated when Barack Obama's presidency met with furious opposition. A white, right-wing backlash was brewing, and a volcanic new movement--a second civil rights movement--began to erupt. In New Prize for These Eyes, award-winning author Juan Williams shines a light on this historic, new movement. Who are its heroes? Where is it headed? What fires, furies, and frustrations distinguish it from its predecessor? In the 20th century, Black activists and their white allies called for equal rights and an end to segregation. They appealed to the Declaration of Independence's defiant assertion that "all men are created equal." They prioritized legal battles in the courtroom and legislative victories in Congress. Today's movement is dealing with new realities. Demographic changes have placed progressive whites in a new role among the largest, youngest population of Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians in the nation's history. The new generation is social media savvy, and they have an agenda fueled by discontent with systemic racism and the persistent scourge of police brutality. Today's activists are making history in a new economic and cultural landscape, and they are using a new set of tools and strategies to do so. Williams brilliantly traces the arc of this new civil rights era, from Obama to Charlottesville to January 6th and a Confederate flag in the Capitol. An essential read for activists, historians, and anyone passionate about America's future, New Prize for These Eyes is more than a recounting of history. It is a forward-looking call to action, urging Americans to get in touch with the progress made and hurdles yet to be overcome.

Fiction

Harlem Rhapsody

Harlem Rhapsody

In 1919, as civil and social unrest grips the country, there is a little corner of America, a place called Harlem where something special is stirring. Here, the New Negro is rising and Black pride is evident everywhere...in music, theatre, fashion and the arts. And there on stage in the center of this renaissance is Jessie Redmon Fauset, the new literary editor of the preeminent Negro magazine The Crisis. W.E.B. Du Bois, the founder and editor of The Crisis, has charged her with discovering young writers whose words will change the world. Jessie attacks the challenge with fervor, quickly finding sixteen-year-old Countee Cullen, seventeen-year-old Langston Hughes, and Nella Larsen, who becomes one of her best friends. Under Jessie's leadership, The Crisis thrives, the writers become notable and magazine subscriptions soar. Every Negro writer in the country wants their work published in the magazine now known for its groundbreaking poetry and short stories. Jessie's rising star is shining bright....but her relationship with W.E.B. could jeopardize all that she's built. The man, considered by most to be the leader of Black America, is not only Jessie's boss, he's her lover. And neither his wife, nor their fourteen-year-age difference can keep the two apart. Their torrid and tumultuous affair is complicated by a secret desire that Jessie harbors - to someday, herself, become the editor of the magazine, a position that only W.E.B. Du Bois has held. In the face of overwhelming sexism and racism, Jessie must balance her drive with her desires. However, as she strives to preserve her legacy, she'll discover the high cost of her unparalleled success.

 


 

Ferguson Library Wrapped: Most Circulated Books of 2025


The results are in! Still chasing the perfect book to kick off the New Year? See our 2025 top ten circulated books for adults, young adult readers and children to get inspired.

Kristin Hannah The Women
#1 Most Circulated Adult Book The Women by Kristin Hannah

Most Circulated Books - Adult 

Funny Story

Funny Story

A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry, Daphne always loved the way Peter told their story. How they met, fell in love, and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. Too bad it turned out to be more of a prequel, a complication to Peter's actual love story, the one that ends with him dumping Daphne before their wedding to begin a relationship with his lifelong best friend, Petra. And so that's how Daphne's story really begins: stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children's librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only other non-Peter-related person she knows: Petra's heartbroken ex, Miles Nowak. Just until she can get a new dream job literally anywhere else. Scruffy and chaotic, Miles is entirely the opposite of buttoned-up Daphne, and they mainly avoid one another until one night, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship. Miles decides he will convince Daphne to give Waning Bay a real shot. He'll show her why he loves this idyllic town and its residents, and if they happen to post deliberately misleading photos of their adventures together-for a particular audience of two-who could blame them? Miles believes Daphne deserves the chance to build a life here, her own life. As she begins to fall for the town, Daphne wonders what this summer is supposed to mean. Is it just for fun? An interlude to her own love story? Or maybe it was never meant to be a love story? Maybe it was just an anecdote to share at future dinner parties: that time she fell in love with her ex-fiancé's new fiancée's ex-boyfriend. Who's to say?

A Court of Thorns and Roses
#1 Most Circulated YA Book A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Most Circulated Books - Young Adult

Dog Man The Scarlet Shedder
#1 Most Circulated
Children's Book
Dog Man: The
Scarlet Shedder by
Dav Pilkey

Most Circulated Books - Children's