The wait is over—the latest global Libby Reads program is officially underway! From now through July 23, readers around the world can borrow I See You’ve Called in Dead by John Kenney with no waitlists or holds through participating libraries. Thousands of libraries across the globe are already taking part, and if your library previously opted out, there’s still time to join by contacting your Account Manager.

Additional benefits to participating in this program include:

• Programming suggestions centered around the book’s themes,
• A ready-to-use marketing kit from the Resource Center to help spread the word,
• A discussion board to allow patrons to connect with other readers all around the world, and
• A free virtual event featuring author John Kenney and Book Lounge by Libby‘s Joe Skelley.

Register to attend Libby Reads LIVE with John Kenney on July 23 

Once your patrons fall for Kenney’s signature blend of dark humor and heartfelt storytelling, keep the momentum going with these five read-alike recommendations they’ll want to borrow next: 

Cammy Sitting Shiva by Cary Gitter 

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This stirring debut novel is an unflinching, darkly funny look at loss, family, and coming home—perfect for fans of This Is Where I Leave You and Competitive Grieving. 

When Cy Adler dies, it’s a shock to everyone, especially his daughter, Cammy. Almost thirty, slightly aimless, and stuck in a basement apartment in Queens, she’s forced to return to River Hill, her one-square-mile New Jersey hometown, to sit shiva. Cammy’s fraught relationship with her mother, Beth, has never been easy. And now, with her beloved father gone, she would rather be anywhere but back in her childhood room, in a house filled with guests noshing on snacks and offering their condolences. So Cammy does whatever she can to make it through seven turbulent days of mourning. 

Amid getting stoned, reconnecting with her best friend and her high school crush, evading the rabbi, and spending a debauched night in Atlantic City, Cammy must reckon with her roots—with the place she fled for the glamour of New York, where she thought she belonged. But is she really any better off than those she left behind? While navigating the swirl of emotions that accompany grief, Cammy also uncovers hidden truths about her father, which lead her to doubt how well she knew the man she adored. Then again, does she even know herself? 

Fueled by wry, lively prose, Cammy Sitting Shiva is a deeply relatable fish-out-of-water story, grappling with how it feels to be adrift and to find that a hard trip home may be what it takes to anchor you. 

I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue 

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In this wildly funny and heartwarming office comedy, an admin worker accidentally gains access to her colleagues’ private emails and DMs and decides to use this intel to save her job—a laugh-till-you-cry romantic comedy debut you’ll be eager to share with your entire list of contacts, perfect for fans of Anxious People and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. 

As far as Jolene is concerned, her interactions with her colleagues should start and end with her official duties as an admin for Supershops, Inc. Unfortunately, her irritating, incompetent coworkers don’t seem to understand the importance of boundaries. Her secret to survival? She vents her grievances in petty email postscripts, then changes the text color to white so no one can see. That is until one of her secret messages is exposed. Her punishment: sensitivity training (led by the suspiciously friendly HR guy, Cliff) and rigorous email restrictions. 

When an IT mix-up grants her access to her entire department’s private emails and DMs, Jolene knows she should report it, but who could resist reading what their coworkers are really saying? And when she discovers layoffs are coming, she realizes this might just be the key to saving her job. The plan is simple: gain her boss’s favor, convince HR she’s Supershops material, and beat out the competition. 

But as Jolene is drawn further into her coworkers’ private worlds, this slow burn office romance begins to heat up as her carefully constructed walls begin to crumble—especially around Cliff, who she definitely cannot have feelings for. Eventually she will need to decide if she’s ready to leave the comfort of her cubicle, even if that means coming clean to her colleagues. 

Crackling with laugh-out-loud dialogue and relatable observations, I Hope This Finds You Well is a fresh and surprisingly tender workplace comedy about loneliness and love beyond our computer screens. This sparkling debut novel will open your heart to the everyday eccentricities of work culture and the undeniable human connection that comes along with it. 

The Threat by Nathaniel Stein 

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The Threat tells the darkly comic story of Melvin Levin, a middle-aged man who is dissatisfied with his dull and mediocre life. That is, until he receives a mysterious death threat in the mail. Terrified at first, Levin soon becomes accustomed to the threat—and then, increasingly, delighted with it, thrilled with his newfound importance as a “threatened man.” But as his obsession with maintaining this identity becomes all-consuming, he risks blinding himself to the twin dangers of the threat itself and—perhaps worse—his own deranged mind. 

At once absurdist, moving, and savagely funny, The Threat is a timeless parable of the comic lengths to which people go to protect the delusions that validate them. 

Dirty Birds by Morgan Murray 

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In late 2008, as the world’s economy crumbles and Barack Obama ascends to the White House, the remarkably unremarkable Milton Ontario – not to be confused with Milton, Ontario – leaves his parents’ basement in Middle-of-Nowhere, Saskatchewan, and sets forth to find fame, fortune, and love in the Euro-lite electric sexuality of Montreal; to bask in the endless twenty-something Millennial adolescence of the Plateau; to escape the infinite flatness of Saskatchewan and find his messiah – Leonard Cohen. Hilariously ironic and irreverent, in Dirty Birds, Morgan Murray generates a quest novel for the twenty-first century—a coming-of-age, rom-com, crime-farce thriller—where a hero’s greatest foe is his own crippling mediocrity as he seeks purpose in art, money, power, crime, and sleeping in all day. 

Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hession 

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A disarming novel that asks a simple question: Can gentle people change the world? 

In this charming and truly unique debut, popular Irish musician Ronan Hession tells the story of two single, thirty-something men who still live with their parents and who are . . . nice. They take care of their parents and play board games together. They like to read. They take satisfaction from their work. They are resolutely kind. And they realize that none of this is considered . . . normal. 

Leonard and Hungry Paul is the story of two friends struggling to protect their understanding of what’s meaningful in life. It is about the uncelebrated people of this world — the gentle, the meek, the humble. And as they struggle to persevere, the book asks a surprisingly enthralling question: Is it really them against the world, or are they on to something?