In Love With Large Print

It’s Valentine’s Day and I’m working on a deadline to get my Library Detective column written. Naturally the mind turns to love, but in this case not romantic love. Today I would like to share with you my love of large print books. I have a, perhaps, unexpected love of large print fiction, sparked by The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood. I desperately wanted to read the book and the only copy we had was in large print. I took it out with some trepidation (It was longer than I had expected!), but quickly found much to recommend the format. For the first time since elementary school I was able to read a book without glasses. I read in bed with my glasses on the nightstand, so when I fell asleep reading did not knock them off my face.

Large print books are becoming increasingly common, more and more frequently we are seeing simultaneous publication dates for the standard and large print editions, which lead to shorter wait times for those of us who prefer the format. Although we have fewer copies of large print books, the holds lists are also shorter! Not only do you find bestsellers in large print, but many other fiction and non-fiction books as well. The following are a selection of large print books currently available at your library:

The Passage by Justin Cronin
This book has been described as The Andromeda Strain meets the Stand. It’s a reading commitment at 1176 pages in the large print edition (766 pages in the standard), but a worthy adventure. It deals with the aftermath of the end of the world as we know it and the role of secret government experiments in bringing us down.

Deadlock by Iris Johansen
In this action/thriller Emily Hudson and her crew of archaeologists travel to Afghanistan with the mission to rescue Russian antiquities that have been loaned to a museum. The crew is massacred, Emily and her partner Joel Levy are held hostage by a villain seeking information about a missing treasure.

While My Pretty One Knits by Anne Canadeo
This is the first in a series of cozy mysteries centered around Maggie Messina and her Black Sheep Knitting Shop. The series is much like the crafty amateur detective novels of Maggie Sefton, Mary Kruger, and Monica Ferris.

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith
This is the sixth novel in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, featuring the investigator Precious Ramotswe and set in Botswana. It follows the twists and turns in her life as well as those of the other characters we’ve come to know and love (Mma Makutsi and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni in particular).

Short Straw by Stuart Woods
Lawyer Ed Eagle (previously in Santa Fe Rules) is back in Short Straw. The love affair from the previous novel has turned sour and he awakens the day after his 40th birthday to no wife and an empty bank account. Work proves no better with a new client who has all the appearances of more trouble.

Summer on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber
A new knitting class is offered at A Good Yarn in this continuation of Macomber’s Blossom street stories. Knit to Quit aims to help people quit something or someone. The book follows these knitters in their quest to quit and the friendships they gain along the way.

The above are just a handful of the many large print books available at your public library. Come in and fall in love!

Ruth Hamlin-Douglas, Adult Services Librarian