Brooks Public Library Online Book Club

Welcome to the Club!

2010-12-01T14:57:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the Brooks Public Library's Online Book Club.

Our Online Book Club has come to an end, and will offically go offine on July 1, 2011. You are welcome to view and comment on of all the past book club picks by scrolling through the lists on the right hand side of your page.

Thank you for checking out the Brooks Public Library's Online Book Club.

Check out the 2011 Brooks Reads Winner
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Fiction/Best Seller - Winter 2011

2010-12-01T00:10:00.001-07:00

The Matter with Morris
by David Bergen
ISBN: 9781554687749

From the publisher: When Morris Schutt, a prominent newspaper columnist, surveys his life over the past year, he sees disaster everywhere. His son has just been killed in Afghanistan, and his newspaper has put him on indefinite leave; his psychiatrist wife, Lucille, seems headed for the door; he is strongly attracted to Ursula, the wife of a dairy farmer from Minnesota; and his daughter appears to be having an affair with one of her professors.

What is a thinking man to do but turn to Cicero and Plato and Socrates in search of the truth? Or better still, call one of those discreet “dating services” in search of happiness? But happiness, as Morris discovers, is not that easy to find.

David Bergen’s most accomplished novel yet is an unforgettable story with a vitality and charm and intelligence all its own. Bergen proves once again that he is one of our finest writers, dazzling us with his wit and touching us with his compassion.

Check out this book today from BPL

Find out more from Harper Collins Canada

Non-Fiction/Biography - Winter 2011

2010-12-01T00:09:00.000-07:00

The Boy in the Moon: a father'ssearch for his disabled son
by Ian Brown
ISBN: 9780307357106

From the Publisher: Walker Brown was born with a genetic mutation so rare that doctors call it an orphan syndrome: perhaps 300 people around the world also live with it. Walker turns twelve in 2008, but he weighs only 54 pounds, is still in diapers, can’t speak and needs to wear special cuffs on his arms so that he can’t continually hit himself. “Sometimes watching him,” Brown writes, “is like looking at the man in the moon – but you know there is actually no man there. But if Walker is so insubstantial, why does he feel so important? What is he trying to show me?”

In a book that owes its beginnings to Brown’s original Globe and Mail series, he sets out to answer that question, a journey that takes him into deeply touching and troubling territory. “All I really want to know is what goes on inside his off-shaped head,” he writes, “But every time I ask, he somehow persuades me to look into my own.”

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from Random House

Find out more about Cardiofaciocutaneous Syndrome and the families struggling with the disease from CFC International

Mystery/Thriller - Winter 2011

2010-12-01T00:08:00.000-07:00

The Birthing House
by Christopher Ransom
ISBN: 9780312385842

From the publisher: When Morris Schutt, a prominent newspaper columnist, surveys his life over the past year, he sees disaster everywhere. His son has just been killed in Afghanistan, and his newspaper has put him on indefinite leave; his psychiatrist wife, Lucille, seems headed for the door; he is strongly attracted to Ursula, the wife of a dairy farmer from Minnesota; and his daughter appears to be having an affair with one of her professors.

What is a thinking man to do but turn to Cicero and Plato and Socrates in search of the truth? Or better still, call one of those discreet “dating services” in search of happiness? But happiness, as Morris discovers, is not that easy to find.

David Bergen’s most accomplished novel yet is an unforgettable story with a vitality and charm and intelligence all its own. Bergen proves once again that he is one of our finest writers, dazzling us with his wit and touching us with his compassion.

Check out this book today from BPL

Have you seen this trailer for 'the Birthing House'?

Find out more from Macmillan

Learn more about author Christopher Ransom from his official website.

Fiction/Bestseller - Fall 2010

2010-09-09T13:07:00.002-06:00

The Solitude of Prime Numbers
by Paolo Giordano
ISBN: 9780385616249

From the Publisher: A prime number is inherently a solitary thing: it can only be divided by itself, or by one; it never truly fits with another. Alice and Mattia also move on their own axes, alone with their personal tragedies. As a child Alice's overbearing father drove her first to a terrible skiing accident, and then to anorexia. When she meets Mattia she recognises a kindred spirit, and Mattia reveals to Alice his terrible secret: that as a boy he abandoned his mentally-disabled twin sister in a park to go to a party, and when he returned, she was nowhere to be found. These two irreversible episodes mark Alice and Mattia's lives for ever, and as they grow into adulthood their destinies seem irrevocably intertwined: they are divisible only by themselves and each other. But then a chance sighting by Alice of a woman who could be Mattia's sister forces a lifetime of secret emotion to the surface. A meditation on loneliness and love, The Solitude of Prime Numbers asks, can we ever truly be whole when we're in love with.

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from Pamela Dorman Books (Penguin Group)

Find out more about author Paolo Giordano from his official website

Non-Fiction/Biography - Fall 2010

2010-09-09T13:06:00.003-06:00

The Survivors Club : the secrets and science that could save your life
by Ben Sherwood
ISBN: 9780446580243

From the Publisher: Which is the safest seat on an airplane? Where is the best place to have a heart attack? Why does religious observance add years to your life? How can birthdays be hazardous to your health?

Each second of the day, someone in America faces a crisis, whether it's a car accident, violent crime, serious illness, or financial trouble. Given the inevitability of adversity, we all wonder: Who beats the odds and who surrenders? Why do some people bound back and others give up? How can I become the kind of person who survives and thrives? The fascinating, hopeful answers to these questions are found in The Survivors Club. In the tradition of Freakonomics and The Tipping Point, this book reveals the hidden side of survival by combining astonishing true stories, gripping scientific research, and the author's adventures inside the U.S. military's elite survival schools and the government's airplane crash evacuation course. With The Survivors Club, you can also discover your own Survivor IQ through a powerful Internet-based test called the Survivor Profiler. Developed exclusively for this book, the test analyzes your personality and generates a customized report on your top survivor strengths. There is no escaping life's inevitable struggles. But The Survivors Club can give you an edge when adversity strikes.

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from Grand Central Publishing (Hachett Book Group)

Find out more about author Ben Sherwood from his official website

Amazing stories about surviving almost anything and more can be found on The Place for Surviving and Thriving

Mystery/Thriller - Fall 2010

2010-09-09T13:05:00.002-06:00

The Law of Nines
by Terry Goodkind
ISBN: 9780385667388

From the Publisher: Trouble will find you. They watch you through mirrors; “Your mother was twenty-seven when it came to her. Now you’re twenty-seven, and it’s come to you.” The skin of Alex’s arms tingled with goose bumps. By her twenty-seventh birthday insanity had come to his mother. Turning twenty-seven may be terrifying for some, but for Alex, a struggling artist living in the mid-western United States, it is cataclysmic. Inheriting a huge expanse of land should have made him a rich and happy man; but something about this birthday, his name, and the beautiful woman whose life he just saved, has suddenly made him — and everyone he loves — into a target. A target for extreme and uncompromising violence. Where do you turn when your own reflection spells doom? .

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from Doubleday (Random House)

Find out more about author Terry Goodkind from his official website

Science Fiction/Fantasy - Fall 2010

2010-09-09T13:04:00.001-06:00

The Walking Dead: days gone by
by Robert Kirkman
ISBN: 1582403589

From the Publisher: An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe, causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months, society has crumbled: There is no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV. Rick Grimes finds himself one of the few survivors in this terrifying future. A couple months ago he was a small town cop who had never fired a shot and only ever saw one dead body. Separated from his family, he must now sort through all the death and confusion to try and find his wife and son. In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally begin living.

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this graphic novel from Image Comics

Find out more about creator Robert Kirkman from his official website

Coming this Halloween from AMC: The Walking Dead

Christian Fiction - Fall 2010

2010-09-09T13:03:00.002-06:00

Fields of Grace
by Kim Vogel Sawyer
ISBN: 9780764205088

From the Publisher: With their eldest son nearly to the age when he will be drafted into military service, Reinhardt and Lillian Vogt decide to immigrate to America, the land of liberty, with their three sons and Reinhardt's adopted brother, Eli. But when tragedy strikes during the ocean voyage, Lillian and Eli are forced into an agreement neither desires.

Determined to fulfill his obligation to Reinhardt, Eli plans to see Lillian and her sons safely settled on their Kansas homestead--and he's equally determined that the boys will be reared in the Mennonite faith. What he doesn't expect is his growing affection for Lillian--and the deep desire to be part of a family.

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from Bethany House

Find out more about author Kim Vogel Sawyer from her official website

Romance - Fall 2010

2010-09-09T13:02:00.001-06:00

Insatiable
by Meg Cabot
ISBN: 9780061735066

From the Publisher: Sick of hearing about vampires? So is Meena Harper. But her bosses are making her write about them anyway, even though Meena doesn't believe in them.Not that Meena isn't familiar with the supernatural. See, Meena Harper knows how you're going to die. (Not that you're going to believe her. No one ever does.) But not even Meena's precognition can prepare her for what happens when she meets-then makes the mistake of falling in love with-Lucien Antonescu, a modern-day prince with a bit of a dark side. It's a dark side a lot of people, like an ancient society of vampire hunters, would prefer to see him dead for.The problem is, Lucien's already dead. Maybe that's why he's the first guy Meena's ever met whom she could see herself having a future with. See, while Meena's always been able to see everyone else's future, she's never been able look into her own.And while Lucien seems like everything Meena has ever dreamed of in a boyfriend, he might turn out to be more like a nightmare. Now might be a good time for Meena to start learning to predict her own future. . . if she even has one.

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from William Morrow (HarperCollins)

Find out more about author Meg Cabot from her official website

Teen Picks - Fall 2010

2010-09-09T13:01:00.000-06:00

The Hunger Games
by Suzanne Collins
ISBN: 9780439023481

From the Publisher:Twenty-four are forced to enter. Only the winner survives.

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Each year, the districts are forced by the Capitol to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the Hunger Games, a brutal and terrifying fight to the death – televised for all of Panem to see.

Survival is second nature for sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who struggles to feed her mother and younger sister by secretly hunting and gathering beyond the fences of District 12. When Katniss steps in to take the place of her sister in the Hunger Games, she knows it may be her death sentence. If she is to survive, she must weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from Scholastic

Find out more about author Suzanne Collins from hier official website

Fiction/Bestseller - Summer 2010

2010-06-01T01:08:00.000-06:00

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
by Stieg Larsson
ISBN: 978-0-307-45454-6

From the Publisher: Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate.

Starting his investigation, Mikael realizes that Harriet’s disappearance is not a single event, but rather linked to series of gruesome murders in the past. He now crosses paths with Lisbeth Salander, a young computer hacker, an asocial punk and most importantly, a young woman driven by her vindictiveness.

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from Knopf/Random House

Find out more about author Stieg Larsson from his official website

Check out the trailer for the Swedish film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Trailer in English)

Non-Fiction/Biography - Summer 2010

2010-06-01T01:06:00.000-06:00

Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat
by David Dosa, M.D., M.P.H.
ISBN: 9781401323233

From the Publisher: When Oscar arrived at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rhode Island he was a cute little guy with attitude. He loved to stretch out in a puddle of sunlight and chase his tail until he was dizzy. Occasionally he consented to a scratch behind the ears, but only when it suited him. In other words, he was a typical cat. Or so it seemed. It wasn’t long before Oscar had created something of a stir.

Apparently, this ordinary cat possesses an extraordinary gift: he knows instinctively when the end of life is near.

Oscar is a welcome distraction for the residents of Steere House, many of whom are living with Alzheimer’s. But he never spends much time with them—until they are in their last hours. Then, as if this were his job, Oscar strides purposely into a patient’s room, curls up on the bed, and begins his vigil. Oscar provides comfort and companionship when people need him most. And his presence lets caregivers and loved ones know that it’s time to say good-bye.

Oscar’s gift is a tender mercy. He teaches by example: embracing moments of life that so many of us shy away from.

Making Rounds with Oscar is the story of an unusual cat, the patients he serves, their caregivers, and of one doctor who learned how to listen. Heartfelt, inspiring, and full of humor and pathos, this book allows readers to take a walk into a world rarely seen from the outside, a world we often misunderstand.

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from Hyperion Books

Find out more about author Dr. David Dosa from his official website

Mystery/Thriller - Summer 2010

2010-06-01T01:05:00.000-06:00

The Brutal Telling
by Louise Penny
ISBN: 9780755341047

***WINNER OF THE 2010 AGATHA AWARD***

From the Publisher: As families prepare to head back to the city and children say goodbye to summer, a stranger is found murdered in the village bistro and antiques store. Once again, Chief Inspector Gamache and his team are called in to strip back layers of lies, exposing both treasures and rancid secrets buried in the wilderness.

No one admits to knowing the murdered man, but as secrets are revealed, chaos begins to close in on the beloved bistro owner, Olivier. How did he make such a spectacular success of his business? What past did he leave behind and why has he buried himself in this tiny village? And why does every lead in the investigation find its way back to him?

As Olivier grows more frantic, a trail of clues and treasures— from first editions of Charlotte’s Web and Jane Eyre to a spider web with the word “WOE” woven in it—lead the Chief Inspector deep into the woods and across the continent in search of the truth, and finally back to Three Pines as the little village braces for the truth and the final, brutal telling.

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from Minotaur Books

Find out more about author Louise Penny from her official website

What is an Agatha Award? Learn more about it fromMalice Domestic

Science Fiction/Fantasy - Summer 2010

2010-06-01T01:04:00.000-06:00

Under the Dome
by Stephen King
ISBN: 9781439148501

From the Publisher: On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day, a small town is suddenly and inexplicably sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and rain down flaming wreckage. A gardener’s hand is severed as the dome descends. Cars explode on impact. Families are separated and panic mounts. No one can fathom what the barrier is, where it came from, and when—or if—it will go away.

Now a few intrepid citizens, led by Iraq vet turned short-order cook Dale Barbara, face down a ruthless politician dead set on seizing the reins of power under the dome. But their main adversary is the dome itself. Because time isn’t just running short. It’s running out.

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from Simon & Schuster

Find out more about author Stephen King from his official website

Christian Fiction - Summer 2010

2010-06-01T01:03:00.000-06:00

The Intervention
by Terri Blackstock
ISBN: 9781439148501

From the Publisher: Barbara Covington has one more chance to save her daughter from a devastating addiction: staging an intervention. But the intervention was supposed to help Barbara's family---not thrust them into a new nightmare. When her 18-year-old daughter, Emily, is escorted to drug treatment, the therapist is murdered and Emily vanishes. Barbara and her 14-year-old son are frantic. The police think Emily's the killer---but what if they're wrong? And where is she now?

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from Zondervan

Find out more about author Terri Blackstock from her official website

Romance - Summer 2010

2010-06-01T01:02:00.001-06:00

Stay a little longer
by Dorothy Garlock
ISBN: 9780446540209

From the Publisher: Rachel Watkins has her hands full. Her mother had been the town midwife, but after her daughter Alice died under her care, she refused to assist in a childbirth ever again. Since then Rachel has assumed the work. She also takes care of Alice's six-year old, Charlotte, because the child's father was lost in World War I. But Rachel's principal job is running the boardinghouse that is the family's main source of income. One day, Charlotte befriends a stranger ill with influenza, a man who has taken refuge in an old cabin in the woods nearby. Although badly scarred by wounds suffered in the War, he is strong and slowly recovers. When he gradually takes on odd jobs around the house, Rachel accepts his help. She is drawn to him despite his disfigurement, and his voice is comforting, vaguely familiar...

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from Hachette Book Group

Find out more about author Dorothy Garlock from her official website

Teen Picks - Summer 2010

2010-06-01T01:01:00.000-06:00

Airhead
by Meg Cabot
ISBN: 978-0-307-45454-6

From the Publisher: Emerson Watts didn’t even want to go to the new SoHo Stark Megastore grand opening. But someone needed to look out for her sister Frida, whose crush, British heartthrob Gabriel Luna, would be singing and signing autographs there—along with the newly appointed Face of Stark, teen supermodel sensation Nikki Howard.

How was Em to know that disaster would strike, changing her—and life as she’d known it—forever? One devastating accident later, and Em Watts, always the tomboy, never the party princess, is no longer herself. Literally.

Now getting her best friend Christopher to notice that she’s actually a girl is the least of Em’s problems.

But what Em’s pretty sure she’ll never be able to accept might just turn out to be the one thing that’s going to make her dream come true….

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from Point

Find out more about author Meg Cabot from her official website

Fiction/Bestseller - Spring 2010

2010-03-17T13:07:00.001-06:00

The Help
by Kathryn Stockett
ISBN: 9781400052172

From the Publisher: Be prepared to meet three unforgettable women:

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women—mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends—view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don’t.

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from the Penguin Group

Find out more about author Kathryn Stockett from her official website

Non-Fiction/Biography - Spring 2010

2010-03-17T13:06:00.003-06:00

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot
ISBN: 9781400052172

From the Publisher: Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia—a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo—to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.

Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family—past and present—is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family—especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah, who was devastated to learn about her mother’s cells. She was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Did it hurt her when researchers infected her cells with viruses and shot them into space? What happened to her sister, Elsie, who died in a mental institution at the age of fifteen? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance?

Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from Random House

Find out more about author Rebecca Skloot from her official website.

Mystery/Thriller - Spring 2010

2010-03-17T13:05:00.002-06:00

The Complaints
by Ian Rankin
ISBN: 9780752889511

From the Publisher: 'Mustn't complain' - but people always do . . .

Nobody likes The Complaints - they're the cops who investigate other cops. Complaints and Conduct Department, to give them their full title, but known colloquially as 'The Dark Side', or simply 'The Complaints'. It's where Malcolm Fox works. He's just had a result, and should be feeling good about himself. But he's a man with problems of his own. He has an increasingly frail father in a care home and a sister who persists in an abusive relationship - something which Malcolm cannot seem to do anything about.

But, in the midst of an aggressive Edinburgh winter, the reluctant Fox is given a new task. There's a cop called Jamie Breck, and he's dirty. The problem is, no one can prove it. But as Fox takes on the job, he learns that there's more to Breck than anyone thinks. This knowledge will prove dangerous, especially when a vicious murder intervenes far too close to home for Fox's liking.

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from Orion Books

Find out more about the author from his official website.

Science Fiction/Fantasy - Spring 2010

2010-03-17T13:04:00.003-06:00

Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America
by Robert Charles Wilson
ISBN: 9780765319715

From the Publisher: In the reign of President Deklan Comstock, a reborn United States is struggling back to prosperity. Over a century after the Efflorescence of Oil, after the Fall of the Cities, after the Plague of Infertility, after the False Tribulation, after the days of the Pious Presidents, the sixty stars and thirteen stripes wave from the plains of Athabaska to the national capital in New York City. In Colorado Springs, the Dominion sees to the nation’s spiritual needs. In Labrador, the Army wages war on the Dutch. America, unified, is rising once again.

Then out of Labrador come tales of a new Ajax—Captain Commongold, the Youthful Hero of the Saguenay. The ordinary people follow his adventures in the popular press. The Army adores him. The President is…troubled. Especially when the dashing Captain turns out to be his nephew Julian, son of the falsely accused and executed Bryce.

Treachery and intrigue dog Julian’s footsteps. Hairsbreadth escapes and daring rescues fill his days. Stern resolve and tender sentiment dice for Julian’s soul, while his admiration for the works of the Secular Ancients, and his adherence to the evolutionary doctrines of the heretical Darwin, set him at fatal odds with the hierarchy of the Dominion. Plague and fire swirl around the Presidential palace when at last he arrives with the acclamation of the mob.

As told by Julian’s best friend and faithful companion, a rustic yet observant lad from the west, this tale of the 22nd Century asks— and answers—the age-old question: “Do you want to tell the truth, or do you want to tell a story?”

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from Macmillan

Find out more about author Robert Charles Wilson from his official website.

Christian Fiction - Spring 2010

2010-03-17T13:03:00.003-06:00

A Merry Heart
by Wanda E. Brunstetter
ISBN: 159789298X

From the Publisher: Miriam Stoltzfus, an Amish schoolteacher, is bitter because her old boyfriend jilted her. Amos Hilty wants to court Miriam, but she’s certain that he only wants a mother for his daughter. Miriam forms a friendship with Nick McCormick, a newspaper reporter, outside her Amish faith. Will Miriam ever let go of her bitter spirit and surrender her will to God, or will she leave the Amish faith and find what she longs for in the outside world?

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from Barbour Books

Find out more about Wanada E. Brunstetter from her official website.

Romance - Spring 2010

2010-03-17T13:02:00.002-06:00

The Last Song
by Nicholas Sparks
ISBN: 9780446547567

From the Publisher: Seventeen year old Veronica "Ronnie" Miller's life was turned upside-down when her parents divorced and her father moved from New York City to Wilmington, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains angry and alientated from her parents, especially her father...until her mother decides it would be in everyone's best interest if she spent the summer in Wilmington with him. Ronnie's father, a former concert pianist and teacher, is living a quiet life in the beach town, immersed in creating a work of art that will become the centerpiece of a local church.
The tale that unfolds is an unforgettable story of love on many levels--first love, love between parents and children -- that demonstrates, as only a Nicholas Sparks novel can, the many ways that love can break our hearts...and heal them.

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from Hachette Book Group

Find out more about this best selling author from his official website.

Now a major motion picture starring Miley Cyrus and Greg Kinnear. View the trailer and go behind the scenes here.

Teen Picks - Spring 2010

2010-03-17T13:01:00.004-06:00

Marcelo In The Real World
by Francisco X. Stork
ISBN: 0-545-05474-5

From the Publisher: Marcelo Sandoval hears music that nobody else can hear — part of an autism-like condition that no doctor has been able to identify. But his father has never fully believed in the music or Marcelo's differences, and he challenges Marcelo to work in the mailroom of his law firm for the summer . . . to join "the real world."
There Marcelo meets Jasmine, his beautiful and surprising coworker, and Wendell, the son of another partner in the firm. He learns about competition and jealousy, anger and desire. But it's a picture he finds in a file — a picture of a girl with half a face — that truly connects him with the real world: its suffering, its injustice, and what he can do to fight.

Reminiscent of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in the intensity and purity of its voice, this extraordinary novel is a love story, a legal drama, and a celebration of the music each of us hears inside.

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about this book from Scholastic

Find out more about author Francisco X. Stork from his official website.

Fiction/Bestseller - Winter 2010

2010-01-06T17:07:00.003-07:00

Wolf Hall
by Hilary Mantel
ISBN: 978-1554687732

***2009 MAN BOOKER PRIZE WINNER***

From the Publisher: England, the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is his chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. Into this atmosphere of distrust and need comes Thomas Cromwell, first as Wolsey's clerk, and later his successor. Cromwell is a wholly original man: the son of a brutal blacksmith, a political genius, a briber, a charmer, a bully, a man with a delicate and deadly expertise in manipulating people and events. Ruthless in pursuit of his own interests, he is as ambitious in his wider politics as he is for himself. His reforming agenda is carried out in the grip of a self-interested parliament and a king who fluctuates between romantic passions and murderous rages.

From one of our finest living writers, Wolf Hall is that very rare thing: a truly great English novel, one that explores the intersection of individual psychology and wider politics. With a vast array of characters, and richly overflowing with incident, it peels back history to show us Tudor England as a half-made society, moulding itself with great passion and suffering and courage.

Learn more about this book from Harper Collins Publishers

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about the Man Booker Prize HERE.

Non-Fiction/Biography - Winter 2010

2010-01-06T17:06:00.003-07:00

Superfreakonomics
by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
ISBN: 978-1554686087

From the Publisher: New York Times bestselling authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with more iconoclastic insight and observations in this long-awaited follow-up to their blockbuster Freakonomics.

In 2005, Freakonomics exploded in the culture, forever changing our understanding of how the world works, how we really make decisions—even how we name our children. This revolutionary book spent two years on the New York Times bestseller list, sold more than 3 million hardcover copies, single-handedly spawned a new genre of books, and led to a column in the New York Times Magazine and a blog on the New York Times website. Now, University of Chicago economist Steven D. Levitt and award-winning writer Stephen J. Dubner return with this all-new book that is bigger, more provocative, and sure to challenge the way we think all over again.

SuperFreakonomics is based on all-new, revolutionary research and original studies by Steven Levitt. This provocative material has never been seen before.

Learn more about this book from Harper Collins Publishers

Check out this book from BPL

Find the hidden side of everything, Read the Freakonomics blog.

Mystery/Thriller - Winter 2010

2010-01-06T17:05:00.005-07:00

The Taken
by Inger Ash Wolfe
ISBN: 978-0771088988

From the Publisher: DI Hazel Micallef is still recovering from back surgery when a report comes in that a body has been found in a nearby lake, snagged under several feet of water. But as DC Wingate says, the whole thing is way too eerie. The first installment of a story has just been published in the local paper: a passage that describes in detail just such a discovery. Real life is far too close to fiction for coincidence.

The second novel featuring Hazel Micallef is a stunning and suspenseful exploration of the obsessive far reaches of love. It will confirm Inger Ash Wolfe as one of the best mystery writers there is.

Learn more about this book from McClelland and Stewart

Check out this book from BPL

Who is Inger Ash Wolfe? Check out this real life CanLit mystery HERE.

Science Fiction/Fantasy - Winter 2010

2010-01-06T17:04:00.002-07:00

Gwenhwyfar: The White Spirit
by Mercedes Lackey
ISBN: 978-0756405854

From the Publisher: Gwenhwyfar moves in a world where gods walk among their pagan worshipers, where nebulous visions warn of future perils, and where there are two paths for a woman: the path of the Blessing or the rarer path of the Warrior. Gwenhwyfar chooses the latter, giving up the power that she is born into. Yet the daughter of a King is never truly free to follow her own calling. Acting as the "son" her father never had, when called upon to serve another purpose by the Ladies of the Well, she bows to circumstances to become Arthur's queen — only to find herself facing temptation and treachery, intrigue and betrayal, but also love and redemption.

Learn more about this book from DAW - Penguin Group

Check out this book from BPL

Mercedes Lackey tells how she was inspired to write this novel on her official website.

Christian Fiction - Winter 2010

2010-01-06T17:03:00.003-07:00

Winter Wonders
by Melody Carlson
ISBN: 9781602852099

From the Publisher: When Louise's daughter Cynthia brings home a famous home-and-garden expert to write a children's book, the Howard sisters' peaceful lives are turned upside down. And now Alice has gone and gotten herself involved in the local dog racing. The dogs are being mistreated, and she's jumped into the cause, head first, becoming far more involved than she'd ever intended. One thing is certain, life is never dull in Acorn Hill, particularly at the Grace Chapel Inn Bed and Breakfast, where long winter days are filled with wonders. Once you visit the charming village of Acorn Hill, tucked away in rural Pennsylvania, you'll never want to leave. Townsfolk relax on their porch swings or gather to discuss the day's events at the Coffee Shop over homemade pie. It's the kind of town where friendship and faith flow together.

Learn more about this book from Center Pont Large Print

Check out this book from BPL

Find out more about author Melody Carlson from her official website.

Romance - Winter 2010

2010-01-06T17:02:00.005-07:00

The Cinderella Pact
by Sarah Strohmeyer
ISBN: 978-0525949572

Nola Devlin has a secret identity. By day she is an overweight, frumpy, and overlooked editor at Sass! (the "celebrity magazine with an edge!"), but by night she slips behind her keyboard and into her alter-ego: Belinda Apple. Belinda is thin, gorgeous, British and the author of a trendy advice column— she is, in effect, the latest Carrie Bradshaw. Not even her two best friends or her self-absorbed sister (who worships Belinda as the "sister she never had") know her secret.

When "Belinda" jots off a column about how easy it is to lose weight, Nola is shocked when her best friends take her own lies to heart and urge her to follow Belinda's weight loss program. Since Nola can't reveal herself as the real Belinda Apple, she bites the bullet and joins her friends in making the "Cinderella Pact" — a last ditch attempt to lose weight (again!) and transform their lives for good.

But as the pounds come off, things don't turn out the way the three friends expect. Their journey of self-discovery leads to the rediscovery of an old love and the unmasking of new problems. Meanwhile, Nola finds herself torn between two different men as she stomps out fires caused by her deception as Belinda Apple and falls in love with the man who just might be her prince — or the rat in coachman's clothing.

Learn more about this book from Dutton

Check out this book from BPL

Check out other great books by author Sarah Strohmeyer from her official website.

Teen Picks - Winter 2010

2010-01-06T17:01:00.006-07:00

Going Bovine
by Libba Bray
ISBN: 978-0385733977

All 16-year-old Cameron wants is to get through high school—and life in general—with a minimum of effort. It’s not a lot to ask. But that’s before he’s given some bad news: he’s sick and he’s going to die. Which totally sucks. Hope arrives in the winged form of Dulcie, a loopy punk angel/possible hallucination with a bad sugar habit. She tells Cam there is a cure—if he’s willing to go in search of it. With the help of a death-obsessed, video-gaming dwarf and a yard gnome, Cam sets off on the mother of all road trips through a twisted America into the heart of what matters most.

Learn more about this book from Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Check out this book from BPL

What's she up to now? Check out author Libba Bray's blog.

Fiction/Bestseller - Fall 2009

2009-09-01T14:07:00.005-06:00

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
by Mary Ann Shaffer
ISBN: 978-0-385-34099-1

From the Publisher: "I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.” January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb.

As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.

Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.

Learn more about this book from Random House

Check out this book from BPL

Strange name, awesome club. Check out the official book website HERE.

Non-Fiction/Biography - Fall 2009

2009-09-01T14:06:00.003-06:00

Outliers: the story of success
by Malcolm Gladwell
ISBN: 9780316017923

From the Publisher: In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

Learn more about this book from Little, Brown, and Company

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about Malcolm Gladwell from his official website.

Mystery/Thriller - Fall 2009

2009-09-01T14:05:00.002-06:00

The Lovely Bones
by Alice Sebold
ISBN: 9780316666343

From the Publisher: When we first meet 14-year-old Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. This was before milk carton photos and public service announcements, she tells us; back in 1973, when Susie mysteriously disappeared, people still believed these things didn't happen. In the sweet, untroubled voice of a precocious teenage girl, Susie relates the awful events of her death and her own adjustment to the strange new place she finds herself. It looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets. With love, longing, and a growing understanding, Susie watches her family as they cope with their grief, her father embarks on a search for the killer, her sister undertakes a feat of amazing daring, her little brother builds a fort in her honor and begin the difficult process of healing. In the hands of a brilliant novelist, this story of seemingly unbearable tragedy is transformed into a suspenseful and touching story about family, memory, love, heaven, and living.

Learn more about this book from Little, Brown, and Company

Check out this book from BPL

Coming this December to Theaters! The Lovely Bones movie.

Science Fiction/Fantasy - Fall 2009

2009-09-01T14:04:00.001-06:00

Of Bees and Mist
by Erick Setiawan
ISBN: 9781416596240

From the Publisher: Raised in a sepulchral house where ghosts dwell in mirrors, Meridia grows up lonely and miserable. But at age sixteen, she has a chance at happiness when she falls in love with Daniel-a caring and naive young man. Soon they marry, and Meridia can finally escape to live with her husband's family, unaware that they harbor dark secrets of their own. There is a grave hidden in the garden, there are two sisters groomed from birth to despise each other, and there is Eva-the formidable matriarch and the wickedest mother-in-law imaginable-whose grievances swarm the air in an army of bees. As Meridia struggles to keep her life and marriage together, she discovers long-buried secrets about her own past as well as shocking truths about her new family that inexorably push her love, courage, and sanity to the brink.

Of Bees and Mist is an engrossing fable that chronicles three generations of women under one family tree over a period of thirty years-their galvanic love and passion, their shifting alliances, their superstitions and complex domestic politics-and places them in a mythical town where spirits and spells, witchcraft and demons, and prophets and clairvoyance are an everyday reality. Erick Setiawan's astonishing debut is a richly atmospheric and tumultuous ride of hope and heartbreak that is altogether touching, truthful, and entirely memorable.

Learn more about this book from Simon and Schuster

Check out this book from BPL

Check out the official book site.

Christian Fiction - Fall 2009

2009-09-01T14:03:00.004-06:00

Any Minute
by Joyce Meyer
ISBN: 9780446552349

From the Publisher: Sarah Harper is driven to achieve success no matter what the cost. She wants to do good and not hurt the people she loves -especially her son, Mitchell, and her husband, Joe - but her desire to succeed in her career too often leaves little time for family.

One cold, autumn afternoon, all of that changes when Sarah's car plunges off a bridge and into a river. She is pronounced clinically dead to those on the "outside," but Sarah's spirit is still very much alive. What she discovers on the other side transforms everything about Sarah's view of life - past, present, and future.

When Sarah is revived, she is a changed woman. And the unsuspecting world around her will never be the same again.

Learn more about this book from Faith Words

Check out this book from BPL

Find out more about one of America's most influencial ministers at joycemeyer.org

Romance - Fall 2009

2009-09-01T14:02:00.001-06:00

Matters of the Heart
by Danielle Steel
ISBN: 9780446552349

From the Publisher: Hope Dunne has carved out a name for herself as a top photographer, known the joys of marriage and motherhood, and the heartbreak of loss. In her chic SoHo loft, Hope is content with her life, finding serenity and beauty through the lens of her camera. She isn’t looking for a man or excitement. But these things find her when she accepts a last- minute assignment to fly to London at Christmas and photograph one of the world’s most celebrated writers—an Irish-American author known for novels of thrilling literary darkness.

To Hope’s surprise, Finn O’Neill exudes warmth and a boyish charm. Enormously successful, he is a perfect counterpoint to Hope’s quiet, steady grace—and he’s taken instantly by her. He courts her as no one ever has before, whisking her away to his palatial, isolated Irish estate.

Hope finds it all, and him, irresistible. Finn’s magnetism and brilliance are undeniable. But soon cracks begin to appear in his stories: gaps in his history, a few innocent lies, and bouts of jealousy unnerve her. Suddenly Hope is both in love and suspicious, caring and deeply in doubt, and ultimately frightened of the man she loves. Alone, thousands of miles from home, her mind is reeling. Is she just being paranoid? How many lies has he told? Are there more secrets to come? Is it possible that this adoring, attentive man—like the characters in his novels—is hiding something even worse? The spell cast by a brilliant sociopath has her trapped in his web, too confused and dazzled to escape as he continues to tighten his grip on her.

Learn more about this book from Delacorte Press

Check out this book from BPL

Find out more about the master of Romance at Danielle Steel: The Official Site

Teen Picks - Fall 2009

2009-09-01T14:01:00.003-06:00

Suite Scarlett
by Maureen Johnson
ISBN: 978-0545096324

From the Publisher: Her new summer job comes with baggage.

Scarlett Martin has grown up in a most unusual way. Her family owns the Hopewell, a small hotel in the heart of New York City, and Scarlett lives there with her four siblings - Spencer, Lola, and Marlene.

When each of the Martins turns fifteen, they are expected to take over the care of a suite in the once elegant, now shabby Art Deco hotel. For Scarlett's fifteenth birthday, she gets both a room called the Empire Suite, and a permanent guest called Mrs. Amberson.
Scarlett doesn't quite know what to make of this C-list starlet, world traveler, and aspiring autobiographer who wants to take over her life. And when she meets Eric, an astonishingly gorgeous actor who has just moved to the city, her summer takes a second unexpected turn.
Before the summer is over, Scarlett will have to survive a whirlwind of thievery, Broadway glamour, romantic missteps, and theatrical deceptions. But in the city where anything can happen, she just might be able to pull it off.

Learn more about this book from Scholastic

Check out this book from BPL

She Tweets! She Blogs! She's got her own site! Interact with author Maureen Johnson at her official site!

Fiction/Bestseller - Summer 2009

2009-05-28T13:41:00.007-06:00

Still Alice
by Lisa Genova
ISBN: 978-1401303389

From the Publisher: Alice Howland is proud of the life she worked so hard to build. At fifty years old, she's a cognitive psychology professor at Harvard and a world-renowned expert in linguistics with a successful husband and three grown children. When she begins to grow disoriented and forgetful, a tragic diagnosis changes her life -- and her relationship with her family and the world -- forever.

At once beautiful and terrifying, this extraordinary debut novel by Lisa Genova is a moving and vivid depiction of life with early-onset Alzheimer's Disease that is as compelling as A Beautiful Mind and as unforgettable as Ordinary People.

Learn more about this book from Hyperion Books

Check out this book from BPL

Non-Fiction/Biography - Summer 2009

2009-05-28T13:18:00.004-06:00

Always Looking Up: the adventures of an incurable opimist
by Michael J. Fox
ISBN: 978-1401303389

From the Publisher: There are many words to describe Michael J. Fox: Actor. Husband. Father. Activist. But readers of Always Looking Up will soon add another to the list: Optimist. Michael writes about the hard-won perspective that helped him see challenges as opportunities. Instead of building walls around himself, he developed a personal policy of engagement and discovery: an emotional, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual outlook that has served him throughout his struggle with Parkinson’s disease. Michael’s exit from a very demanding, very public arena offered him the time–and the inspiration–to open up new doors leading to unexpected places. One door even led him to the center of his own family, the greatest destination of all.

Always Looking Up is a memoir of this last decade, told through the critical themes of Michael’s life: work, politics, faith, and family. The book is a journey of self-discovery and reinvention, and a testament to the consolations that protect him from the ravages of Parkinson’s.

Learn more about this book from Hyperion Books

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research at michaeljfox.org

Mystery/Thriller - Summer 2009

2009-05-27T16:43:00.005-06:00

The Language of Bees
by Laurie R. King
ISBN: 9780007317233

From the Publisher: In a case that will push their relationship to the breaking point, Mary Russell must help reverse the greatest failure of her legendary husband’s storied past—a painful and personal defeat that still has the power to sting…this time fatally.

For Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, returning to the Sussex coast after seven months abroad was especially sweet. There was even a mystery to solve—the unexplained disappearance of an entire colony of bees from one of Holmes’s beloved hives. But the anticipated sweetness of their homecoming is quickly tempered by a galling memory from her husband’s past.

Mary had met Damian Adler only once before, when the promising surrealist painter had been charged with—and exonerated from—murder. Now the talented and troubled young man was enlisting their help again, this time in a desperate search for his missing wife and child. When it comes to communal behavior, Russell has often observed that there are many kinds of madness. And before this case yields its shattering solution, she’ll come into dangerous contact with a fair number of them.

From suicides at Stonehenge to a bizarre religious cult, from the demimonde of the Café Royal at the heart of Bohemian London to the dark secrets of a young woman’s past on the streets of Shanghai, Russell will find herself on the trail of a killer more dangerous than any she’s ever faced—a killer Sherlock Holmes himself may be protecting for reasons near and dear to his heart.

Learn more about this book from Bantam Dell

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about Mary Russell's adventures and read about more of Laurie R. King's works on her offical website!

Science Fiction/Fantasy - Summer 2009

2009-05-27T15:15:00.006-06:00

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún
by J.R.R. Tolkien
ISBN: 9780007317233

From the Publisher: The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún tells in narrative verse the saga of a Norse hero‚ Sigurd‚ prophesied to defend the gods of Valhalla against the Ragnarok‚ the apocalypse‚ and his adventures that see him battle a mighty dragon for its hoard of treasure‚ win the love of a Valkyrie‚ and suffer at the hands of treachery; and the events following his death whereby his widow‚ Gudrun‚ takes bloody revenge upon the Niflungs who betrayed him.

Since first encountering as a boy the myths and legends of the mysterious Viking North‚ captured in the 10th century poetry of the Elder Edda and in William Morris′ translation of The Story of Sigurd the Volsung‚ J.R.R. Tolkien had been captivated by the epic tales of giants‚ heroes‚ dwarves‚ monsters‚ magic and dragons. But during the following centuries some of the original lays‚ or poems‚ had been lost and much of Sigurd′s story become corrupted; Morris′ translation was thus based on incomplete and significantly altered prose.

Tolkien therefore decided to attempt to unify the various original lays by recreating the missing parts of Sigurd′s story‚ and write them as narrative poems using modern English but in the Old Norse style. These ′New Lays′ of Sigurd and Gudrún‚ comprising between them over 500 stanzas‚ were completed in the 1930s but have never before been published or quoted from. They are accompanied by an introduction by J.R.R. Tolkien‚ drawn from one of his own lectures on Norse literature‚ and commentary and notes on the poems by Christopher Tolkien.

The ancient poetry of the Elder Edda remained a deep force in J.R.R. Tolkien′s life′s work. Here‚ at last‚ in The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún‚ is presented the source of the wellspring that would lead to The Hobbit‚ The Lord of the Rings and The Children of Húrin. It is the first full flourishing of a rich narrative style and powerful and dramatic storytelling that was destined to become famous throughout the world.

Learn more about this book from Harper Collins

Check out this book from BPL

Christian Fiction - Summer 2009

2009-05-27T14:54:00.007-06:00

One More Sunrise
by Michael Landon Jr. and Tracie Peterson
ISBN: 9780764203626

From the Publisher: After his dreams of being a WWII flying ace are dashed, Joe settles for a dead-end job, crop-dusting his neighbors' farms and finishing out the evening slouched at the bar in the local tavern. One morning Joe's usual crop-dusting routine turns into something else entirely when his beat-up Stearman begins a long spiral toward earth . . . Joe doesn't die that morning, but he begins an odyssey whose twists and turns head him back toward life, love, and true devotion.

Learn more about this book from Bethany House Publishers

Check out this book from BPL

Read an excerpt of this book from Tracie Peterson's offical website!

Romance - Summer 2009

2009-05-21T14:50:00.007-06:00

Vision in White
by Nora Roberta
ISBN: 9780006392590

From the Publisher: Wedding photographer Mackensie “Mac” Elliot is most at home behind the camera, but her focus is shattered moments before an important wedding rehearsal when she bumps into the bride-to-be’s brother…an encounter that has them both seeing stars.

A stable, safe English teacher, Carter Maguire is definitely not Mac’s type. But a casual fling might be just what she needs to take her mind off bridezillas. Of course, casual flings can turn into something more when you least expect it. And Mac will have to turn to her three best friends - and business partners — to see her way to her own happy ending.

Learn more about this book from Penguin Books

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about author Nora Roberts from her official website!

Teen Picks - Summer 2009

2009-05-21T13:55:00.011-06:00

The Airborn Trilogy
by Kenneth Oppel

Airborn ISBN: 9780006392590
Skybreaker ISBN: 9780060532277
Starclimber ISBN: 9780002007450

*** Airborn: Winner of the 2004 Governor General's Award ***

From the Publisher: Enter a past in which airplanes have never been invented, giant airships rule the skies and the glittering skyscrapers of Lionsgate City, Canada’s greatest metropolis, rise near the Pacificus Ocean.

In Airborn, Matt Cruse, cabin boy on the luxury airship Aurora, fearlessly performs a dramatic rescue to save an old man from his damaged hot air balloon, he doesn’t know what events he’s setting in motion. Will he and the balloonist’s fiery granddaughter, Kate de Vries, be able to solve the mystery of impossible flying creatures seen among the clouds? And will they figure it out before pirates and shipwreck end their voyage forever?

In Skybreaker, the decrepit training ship Flotsam makes an astonishing discovery before being forced to descend. Adrift at 20,000 feet is a tattered, ice-crusted airship bearing the name Hyperion. Could it really be the legendary lost craft, now a vast treasure, a frozen mausoleum to a ghostly crew?

In Starclimber, Canada wants to reach space first, and the Canadian Minister of Air wants Kate to join the first expedition as an expert in aerial zoology. There's a place for Matt, too - if he can pass the gruelling tests to become one of the world's first astralnauts on board the incredible ship Starclimber.

Learn more about this book from Harper Collins

Check out these books from BPL

Learn more about author Kenneth Oppel from his official website!

Beyond the book - get extra info on the story and the science behind many of the ideas in the trilogy by visiting the official book site.

Fiction/Bestseller - Spring 2009

2009-02-26T13:07:00.003-07:00

Nation
by Terry Pratchett
ISBN: 9780385613705

From the Publisher: The sea has taken everything.

Mau is the only one left after a giant wave sweeps his island village away. But when much is taken, something is returned, and somewhere in the jungle Daphne—a girl from the other side of the globe—is the sole survivor of a ship destroyed by the same wave.

Together the two confront the aftermath of catastrophe. Drawn by the smoke of Mau and Daphne's sheltering fire, other refugees slowly arrive: children without parents, mothers without babies, husbands without wives—all of them hungry and all of them frightened. As Mau and Daphne struggle to keep the small band safe and fed, they defy ancestral spirits, challenge death himself, and uncover a long-hidden secret that literally turns the world upside down . . .

Learn more about this book from Harper Collins

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about author Terry Pratchet from his offical website!

Got a 'second life'? Choose to sign up and join the Nation island on Second Life.

Non-Fiction/Biography - Spring 2009

2009-02-26T13:06:00.003-07:00

Dewey: A Small-Town Library Cat who Touched the World
by Vicki Myron
ISBN: 9780446407410

From the Publisher: DEWEY is the heartwarming story of Dewey Readmore Books, the beloved library cat of Spencer, Iowa, as told by his owner and companion of nineteen years, Vicki Myron, the librarian who found him on a frigid January morning when he was abandoned as a kitten in the book drop slot. It is also the story of a remarkable small town, which burned down at the beginning of the Depression, only to rebuild itself, and which was almost shuttered during the farm crisis of the 1980s, before regrouping and rededicating itself to small town American values. Dewey's local charm and worldwide fame became a symbol of hope for this recovering town. Through Dewey's antics, we come to know and love many of the colorful and inspiring people of Spencer. But perhaps the most inspiring person in Spencer is Vicki Myron herself, a single mother who survived the bankruptcy of her family farm and working in a box factory to put two of her brothers through college to become one of the leaders of the Iowa library system. Dewey is one lovable, roguish cat who managed to transform an entire town and inspire people across the globe.

Learn more about this book from Hachette Book Group

Check out this book from BPL

Join Dewey's Fan Club and learn more about the Spencer Public Library at the official book website

Mystery/Thriller - Spring 2009

2009-02-26T13:05:00.003-07:00

Tin Roof Blowdown
by James Lee Burke
ISBN: 978-1416548485

From the Publisher: In the waning days of summer, 2005, a storm with greater impact than the bomb that struck Hiroshima peels the face off southern Louisiana.

This is the gruesome reality Iberia Parish Sheriff's Detective Dave Robicheaux discovers as he is deployed to New Orleans. As James Lee Burke's new novel, The Tin Roof Blowdown, begins, Hurricane Katrina has left the commercial district and residential neighborhoods awash with looters and predators of every stripe. The power grid of the city has been destroyed, New Orleans reduced to the level of a medieval society. There is no law, no order, no sanctuary for the infirm, the helpless, and the innocent. Bodies float in the streets and lie impaled on the branches of flooded trees. In the midst of an apocalyptical nightmare, Robicheaux must find two serial rapists, a morphine-addicted priest, and a vigilante who may be more dangerous than the criminals looting the city.

Learn more about this book from Simon & Schuster

Check out this book from BPL

Contests, F.A.Q. and Message Boards! Take a look through author James Lee Burke's official website

Science Fiction/Fantasy - Spring 2009

2009-02-26T13:04:00.003-07:00

The Host
by Stephenie Meyer
ISBN: 978-0316068048

From the Publisher: Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. The earth has been invaded by a species that take over the minds of their human hosts while leaving their bodies intact, and most of humanity has succumbed.

Wanderer, the invading "soul" who has been given Melanie's body, knew about the challenges of living inside a human: the overwhelming emotions, the too vivid memories. But there was one difficulty Wanderer didn't expect: the former tenant of her body refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.

Melanie fills Wanderer's thoughts with visions of the man Melanie loves-Jared, a human who still lives in hiding. Unable to separate herself from her body's desires, Wanderer yearns for a man she's never met. As outside forces make Wanderer and Melanie unwilling allies, they set off to search for the man they both love.

Featuring what may be the first love triangle involving only two bodies, THE HOST is a riveting and unforgettable novel that will bring a vast new readership to one of the most compelling writers of our time.

Learn more about this book from Little, Brown and Company

Check out this book from BPL

Read reviews, check out fan sites, and see the official book play list at Stephenie Meyers' official website

Christian Fiction - Spring 2009

2009-02-26T13:02:00.003-07:00

This Side of Heaven
by Karen Kingsbury
ISBN: 978-1599956787

From the Publisher: Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. The earth has been invaded by a species that take over the minds of their human hosts while leaving their bodies intact, and most of humanity has succumbed.

Wanderer, the invading "soul" who has been given Melanie's body, knew about the challenges of living inside a human: the overwhelming emotions, the too vivid memories. But there was one difficulty Wanderer didn't expect: the former tenant of her body refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.

Melanie fills Wanderer's thoughts with visions of the man Melanie loves-Jared, a human who still lives in hiding. Unable to separate herself from her body's desires, Wanderer yearns for a man she's never met. As outside forces make Wanderer and Melanie unwilling allies, they set off to search for the man they both love.

Featuring what may be the first love triangle involving only two bodies, THE HOST is a riveting and unforgettable novel that will bring a vast new readership to one of the most compelling writers of our time.

Learn more about this book from Center Street

Check out this book from BPL

Learn everything you've ever wanted to know about author Karen Kingsbury at her official website

Romance - Spring 2009

2009-02-26T13:01:00.003-07:00

Sundays at Tiffany's
by James Patterson
ISBN: 978-0316014779

From the Publisher: AN IMAGINARY FRIEND
Jane Margaux is a lonely little girl. Her mother, the powerful head of a New York theater company, makes time for her only once a week, for their Sunday trip to admire jewelry at Tiffany's. Jane has only one friend: a handsome, comforting, funny man named Michael. He's perfect. But only she can see him. Michael can't stay forever, though. On Jane's eighth birthday he leaves, promising that she'll forget him soon. He was there to help her until she was old enough to manage on her own, and now there are other children who need his help.

AN UNEXPECTED LOVE
Years later, in her thirties, Jane is just as alone as she was as a child. And despite her own success as a playwright, she is even more trapped by her overbearing mother. Then she meets Michael again--as handsome, smart and perfect as she remembers him to be. But not even Michael knows the reason they've really been reunited.

AND AN UNFORGETTABLE TWIST
Sundays at Tiffany's is a heart-wrenching love story that surpasses all expectations of why these people have been brought together. With the breathtaking momentum and gripping emotional twists that have made James Patterson a bestseller all over the world, Sundays at Tiffany's takes an altogether fresh look at the timeless and transforming power of love.

Learn more about this book from Little, Brown and Company

Check out this book from BPL

Which movies does James Patterson recommend? Learn this and other cool things about this best selling author at his official website

Teen Picks - Spring 2009

2009-02-26T13:00:00.003-07:00

City of Bones
by Cassandra Clare
ISBN: 9781416955078

From the Publisher: When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder -- much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It's hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing -- not even a smear of blood -- to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?

This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It's also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace's world with a vengeance, when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know. . . .

Learn more about this book from Simon and Schuster

Check out this book from BPL

Read Cassandra Clare's blog and hear her answers to all your FAQ's at her official website

Fiction/Bestseller - Winter 2009

2008-12-01T12:59:00.002-07:00

The Hour I First Believed
by Wally Lamb
ISBN: 978-0060393496

From the Publisher: When forty-seven-year-old high school teacher Caelum Quirk and his younger wife, Maureen, a school nurse, move to Littleton, Colorado, they both get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999, Caelum returns home to Three Rivers, Connecticut, to be with his aunt who has just had a stroke. But Maureen finds herself in the school library at Columbine, cowering in a cabinet and expecting to be killed, as two vengeful students go on a carefully premeditated, murderous rampage. Miraculously she survives, but at a cost: she is unable to recover from the trauma. Caelum and Maureen flee Colorado and return to an illusion of safety at the Quirk family farm in Three Rivers. Bujavascript:void(0)t the effects of chaos are not so easily put right, and further tragedy ensues.

While Maureen fights to regain her sanity, Caelum discovers a cache of old diaries, letters, and newspaper clippings in an upstairs bedroom of his family's house. The colorful and intriguing story they recount spans five generations of Quirk family ancestors, from the Civil War era to Caelum's own troubled childhood. Piece by piece, Caelum reconstructs the lives of the women and men whose legacy he bears. Unimaginable secrets emerge; long-buried fear, anger, guilt, and grief rise to the surface.

As Caelum grapples with unexpected and confounding revelations from the past, he also struggles to fashion a future out of the ashes of tragedy. His personal quest for meaning and faith becomes a mythic journey that is at the same time quintessentially contemporary—and American.

Learn more about this book from Harper Collins

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about author Wally Lamb from Harper Collins

Find out more information on the Columbine High School massacre at Wikipedia

Non-Fiction/Biography - Winter 2009

2008-12-01T12:58:00.003-07:00

The Last Lecture
by Randy Pausch
ISBN: 978-1401323257

From the Publisher: A lot of professors give talks titled “The Last Lecture.” Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can’t help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn’t have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave—“Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”—wasn’t about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because “time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think”). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

Learn more about this book from Hyperion Books

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about author Randy Pausch from the official book site

Watch video of Randy Pausch delivering his "Last Lecture" at YouTube (Courtesy of Carnegie Mellon University)

Mystery/Thriller - Winter 2009

2008-12-01T12:57:00.002-07:00

Quicksand
by Iris Johansen
ISBN: 9780312368067

From the Publisher: Do you still miss your little Bonnie?

This one sentence, spoken by a male voice in anonymous phone call, is all it takes to drag Eve Duncan right back to that horrifying moment years ago when her only daughter vanished without a trace. Since then, Eve’s life has become an obsession to find her daughter’s remains. Only one man—a brilliant, ruthless killer—knows the truth about what happened to Bonnie. But taunting Eve might be his first and last mistake . . .

For Eve is armed with more than just her talent as a forensic sculptor. She brings with her former Navy SEAL Joe Quinn, an Atlanta detective who will do anything to help Eve put the pain of Bonnie’s death to rest. Even if he has to lie to the woman he cares about the most. And even if this killer wants nothing more than to lure Eve further and further into his swamp of madness . . .

Learn more about this book from Macmillan

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about author Iris Johansen from her official site.

Science Fiction/Fantasy - Winter 2009

2008-12-01T12:56:00.003-07:00

The Time Traveler's Wife
by Audrey Nifenegger
ISBN: 9780312368067

From the Publisher:The Time Traveler's Wife is the story of Clare, a beautiful artist, and Henry, an adventuresome librarian, who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-three and Henry thirty-one. Impossible but true, because Henry finds himself periodically displaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity from his life, past and future. His disappearances are spontaneous, his experiences unpredictable, alternately harrowing and amusing.

The Time Traveler’s Wife depicts the effects of time travel on Henry and Clare's marriage and their passionate love for each other, as the story unfolds from both points of view. Clare and Henry attempt to live normal lives, pursuing familiar goals -- steady jobs, good friends, children of their own. All of this is threatened by something they can neither prevent nor control, making their story intensely moving and entirely unforgettable.

Learn more about this book from Vintage Canada

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about author Audrey Nifenegger from her official site.

Coming to theaters in 2009! Read about and discuss the movie starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana at The Internet Movie Database

Christian Fiction - Winter 2009

2008-12-01T12:55:00.002-07:00

The Shack
by William P. Young
ISBN: 978-0964729230

From the Publisher: Mackenzie Allen Philips’ youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever.

Learn more about this book from Windblown Media

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about author William P. Young from his official site.

Read more about this novel from the official book site!

Romance - Winter 2009

2008-12-01T12:54:00.003-07:00

The Friday Night Knitting Club
by Kate Jacobs
ISBN: 978-0399154096

From the Publisher: Walker and Daughter is Georgia Walker's little yarn shop, tucked into a quiet storefront on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The Friday Night Knitting Club was started by some of Georgia's regulars, who gather once a week to work on their latest projects and to chat-and occasionally clash-over their stories of love, life, and everything in between.

Georgia has her hands full, juggling the demands of running the store and raising her spunky teen daughter, Dakota, by herself. Thank goodness for Anita, her mentor and dear friend, and the rest of the members of the knitting club-who are just as varied as the skeins of yarn in the shop's bins. There's Peri, a prelaw student turned handbag designer; Darwin, a somewhat aloof feminist grad student; and Lucie, a petite, quiet woman who's harboring some secrets of her own.

However, unexpected changes soon throw these women's lives into disarray, and the shop's comfortable world gets shaken up like a snow globe. James, Georgia's ex, decides that he wants to play a larger role in Dakota's life-and possibly Georgia's as well. Cat, a former friend from high school, returns to New York as a rich Park Avenue wife and uneasily renews her old bond with Georgia. Meanwhile, Anita must confront her growing (and reciprocated) feelings for Marty, the kind neighborhood deli owner. And when the unthinkable happens, they realize what they've created: not just a knitting club, but a sisterhood.

Learn more about this book from GP Putnam And Sons

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about author Kate Jacobs from her official website.

Read more about this novel from the official book site.

Teen Picks - Winter 2009

2008-12-01T12:53:00.002-07:00

The City of Ember
by Jeanne Duprau
ISBN: 978-0375822742

From the Publisher: The city of Ember was built as a last refuge for the human race. Two hundred years later, the great lamps that light the city are beginning to flicker. When Lina finds part of an ancient message, she’s sure it holds a secret that will save the city. She and her friend Doon must decipher the message before the lights go out on Ember forever! This stunning debut novel offers refreshingly clear writing and fascinating, original characters.

Learn more about this book from Yearling Books

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about author Jeanne Duprau from her official site.

Now a Major Motion Picture! Play the "Switchworks" game and check out photos of the cast at the official Movie website!

Fiction/Bestseller - Fall 2008

2008-09-09T11:07:00.003-06:00

Wicked:The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
by Gregory Maguire
ISBN: 9780060987107

From the Publisher: When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?

Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

Learn more about this book from Harper Collins

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about author Gregory Maguire from his official site

See how the book translates into one of Broadway's Biggest Shows - Wicked: The Musical!

Non-Fiction/Biography - Fall 2008

2008-09-09T11:06:00.002-06:00

Jack the Ripper and the East End
Introduction by Peter Ackroyd
ISBN: 978-0-7011-8247-2

From the Publisher: In 1888, Whitechapel was in the heart of London’s inner East End, and was the most infamous place in Britain, widely perceived as an area of the blackest and deepest depravity. Its streets and alleys were seen as dark, dangerous places teeming with poverty and crime. In this highly readable study, David Spence uncovers the reality of East End life in his examination of topics such as slum housing, immigration and attitudes to women, poverty, violence and crime. He will also look at just how the Ripper’s brutal crimes were reported, and the police attempts to identify the murderer. A final section will demonstrate how Jack the Ripper has shaped our vision of London and influenced popular culture. The illustrations for the book will include rare and unpublished photographs, sections of the Booth Map of Poverty, detectives’ reports and original letters.

Learn more about this book from Random House

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about the exhibit from the Museum in Docklands official site.

Mystery/Thriller - Fall 2008

2008-09-09T11:05:00.001-06:00

Devil Bones
by Kathy Reichs
ISBN: 978-0743294386

From the Publisher: In a house under renovation, a plumber uncovers a cellar no one knew about, and makes a rather grisly discovery -- a decapitated chicken, animal bones, and cauldrons containing beads, feathers, and other relics of religious ceremonies. In the center of the shrine, there is the skull of a teenage girl. Meanwhile, on a nearby lakeshore, the headless body of a teenage boy is found by a man walking his dog.

Nothing is clear -- neither when the deaths occurred, nor where. Was the skull brought to the cellar or was the girl murdered there? Why is the boy's body remarkably well preserved? Led by a preacher turned politician, citizen vigilantes blame devil worshippers and Wiccans. They begin a witch hunt, intent on seeking revenge.

Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan -- "five-five, feisty, and forty-plus" -- is called in to investigate, and a complex and gripping tale unfolds in this, Kathy Reichs's eleventh taut, always surprising, scientifically fascinating mystery.

Learn more about this book from Random House

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about Canadian Author Kathy Reich at her official site.

Watch the television show Bones based on the books by Kathy Reich.

Science Fiction/Fantasy - Fall 2008

2008-09-09T11:04:00.002-06:00

Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley
ISBN: 9780764137815

From the Publisher: Perhaps the most famous gothic novel in all literature, this is the story of Dr. Frankenstein, his experiments that sought to produce human life, and his creation of the legendary monster. The attractive and rapidly growing Graphic Classics series uses the graphic novel format to introduce children to many of the world's greatest literary works. The atmospheric illustrations are of unusually high quality, and the narratives are paced to attract and hold young readers' interest. In addition to the story, each Graphic Classic features a brief biography summarizing its author's life, a list of his or her important works, a time line of historic events that helped inspire the story, general notes, and an index. These books make ideal introductions to the riches of world literature to junior and senior high school students--and especially to those young readers who are hesitant to delve into the books in their original form. All Graphic Classics are available in both paperback and hardcover editions.

Learn more about the graphic novel classic from Barron's

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about Author Mary Shelley at Wikipedia.

Christian Fiction - Fall 2008

2008-09-09T11:03:00.001-06:00

House
by Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker
ISBN:159554156X

From the Publisher: Enter House - where you'll find yourself thrown into a killer's deadly game in which the only way to win is to lose...and the only way out is in.

The stakes of the game become clear when a tin can is tossed into the house with rules scrawled on it. Rules that only a madman - or worse - could have written. Rules that make no sense yet must be followed.

One game. Seven players. Three rules. Game ends at dawn.

Learn more about this book from Thomas Nelson

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about Author Ted Dekker at his offical website.

Romance - Fall 2008

2008-09-09T11:02:00.002-06:00

Everlastin'
by Mickee Madden
ISBN: 978-0786000036

From the Book Jacket: Some 150 years after a Scottish man is murdered during his honeymoon, Beth Staples vacations in the fated mansion, where she meets the seductive Lachlan Baird--and learns that he is a ghost.

Meet the Publisher Kensington Publishing Corporation

Check out this book from BPL

Check out the complete list of books by Mickee Madden from Amazon.com

Teen Picks - Fall 2008

2008-09-09T11:01:00.001-06:00

Twilight
by Stephenie Meyer
ISBN: 9780316160179

From School Library Journal: Headstrong, sun-loving, 17-year-old Bella declines her mom's invitation to move to Florida, and instead reluctantly opts to move to her dad's cabin in the dreary, rainy town of Forks, WA. She becomes intrigued with Edward Cullen, a distant, stylish, and disarmingly handsome senior, who is also a vampire. When he reveals that his specific clan hunts wildlife instead of humans, Bella deduces that she is safe from his blood-sucking instincts and therefore free to fall hopelessly in love with him. The feeling is mutual, and the resulting volatile romance smolders as they attempt to hide Edward's identity from her family and the rest of the school. Meyer adds an eerie new twist to the mismatched, star-crossed lovers theme: predator falls for prey, human falls for vampire. This tension strips away any pretense readers may have about the everyday teen romance novel, and kissing, touching, and talking take on an entirely new meaning when one small mistake could be life-threatening. Bella and Edward's struggle to make their relationship work becomes a struggle for survival, especially when vampires from an outside clan infiltrate the Cullen territory and head straight for her. As a result, the novel's danger-factor skyrockets as the excitement of secret love and hushed affection morphs into a terrifying race to stay alive.

Learn more about the book from Little, Brown, and Company.

Check out this book from BPL

Listen to the offical soundtrack for the book and learn everything you would ever want to know about the Twilight series at Stephenie Meyer's offical site.

Coming to the Big Screen this fall: Twilight: The Movie

Fiction/Best Seller - Summer 2008

2008-06-17T14:06:00.003-06:00

Remember Me?
by Sophie Kinsella
ISBN: 978-0-385-33872-1

From the Publisher: When twenty-eight-year-old Lexi Smart wakes up in a London hospital, she’s in for a big surprise. Her teeth are perfect. Her body is toned. Her handbag is Vuitton. Having survived a car accident—in a Mercedes no less—Lexi has lost a big chunk of her memory, three years to be exact, and she’s about to find out just how much things have changed.

Somehow Lexi went from a twenty-five-year-old working girl to a corporate big shot with a sleek new loft, a personal assistant, a carb-free diet, and a set of glamorous new friends. And who is this gorgeous husband—who also happens to be a multimillionaire? With her mind still stuck three years in reverse, Lexi greets this brave new world determined to be the person she…well, seems to be. That is, until an adorably disheveled architect drops the biggest bombshell of all.

Suddenly Lexi is scrambling to catch her balance. Her new life, it turns out, comes complete with secrets, schemes, and intrigue. How on earth did all this happen? Will she ever remember? And what will happen when she does?

Learn more about this book from Random House

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about author Sophie Kinsella from her official site

Non-Fiction/Biography - Summer 2008

2008-06-17T14:05:00.004-06:00

If I am Missing Or Dead: A Sister’s Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation
by Janine Latus
ISBN: 978-0-7432-9653-3

From the Publisher: In April 2002, Janine Latus's youngest sister, Amy, wrote a note and taped it to the inside of her desk drawer. Today Ron Ball and I are romantically involved, it read, but I fear I have placed myself at risk in a variety of ways. Based on his criminal past, writing this out just seems like the smart thing to do. If I am missing or dead this obviously has not protected me... That same spring Janine Latus was struggling to leave her marriage -- a marriage to a handsome and successful man. A marriage others emulated. A marriage in which she felt she could do nothing right and everything wrong. A marriage in which she felt afraid, controlled, inadequate, and trapped.

Ten weeks later, Janine Latus had left her marriage. She was on a business trip to the East Coast, savoring her freedom, attending a work conference, when she received a call from her sister Jane asking if she'd heard from Amy. Immediately, Janine's blood ran cold. Amy was missing. Helicopters went up and search dogs went out. Coworkers and neighbors and family members plastered missing posters with Amy's picture across the county. It took more than two weeks to find Amy's body, wrapped in a tarpaulin and buried at a building site. It took nearly two years before her killer, her former boyfriend Ron Ball, was sentenced for her murder.

Amy died in silent fear and pain. Haunted by this, Janine Latus turned her journalistic eye inward. How, she wondered, did two seemingly well-adjusted, successful women end up in strings of physically or emotionally abusive relationships with men? If I Am Missing or Dead is a heart-wrenching journey of discovery as Janine Latus traces the roots of her own -- and her sister's -- victimization with unflinching candor. This beautifully written memoir will move readers from the first to the last page. At once a confession, a call to break the cycle of abuse, and a deeply felt love letter to her baby sister, Amy Lynne Latus, If I Am Missing or Dead is an unforgettable read.

Learn more about this book from Simon and Schuster

Check out this book from BPL

Find out more about Janine Latus from her official site

Mystery/Thriller - Summer 2008

2008-06-17T14:04:00.005-06:00

The Bourne Betrayal
by Eric Van Lustbader
ISBN: 9780446618809

From the Publisher: Already devastated by loss, Bourne is shattered by a report that his last friend in the world, Martin Lindros, has gone missing. A CI deputy director, Lindros was in Ethiopia tracking suspicious shipments of yellowcake uranium and atomic bomb weaponry. His last lifeline to humanity, Bourne will not let Lindros go. Despite his hatred for CI, Bourne sets out to rescue his friend and finish the job: dismantling a terrorist network determined to build nuclear armaments by cutting off their source of money. But Bourne doesn't realize that these men, Islamic supremacists, are leaders of an incredibly dangerous, technologically savvy group with ties from Africa, across the Middle East, and into Eastern Europe and Russia. They have predicted Bourne's every move, and are counting on his unwitting help in their plans to destroy America.

Learn more about this book from Hachette Book Group USA

Check out this book from BPL

Find out more about Eric Van Lustbader from his official site

Science Fiction/Fantasy - Summer 2008

2008-06-17T14:03:00.005-06:00

The Orc King
by R. A. Salvatore
ISBN: 978-0-7869-4340-1

From the Publisher: An uneasy peace between the dwarves of Mithral Hall and the orcs of the newly established Kingdom of Many-Arrows can't last long. The orc tribes united under Obould begin to fight each other, and Bruenor is determined to finish the war that nearly killed him and almost destroyed everything he's worked to build. But it will take more than swords and axes to bring a lasting peace to the Spine of the World. Powerful individuals on both sides may have to change the way they see each other. They may have to start to talk. But it won't be easy.

Learn more about this book from Wizards of the Coast

Check out this book from BPL

Find out more about R. A. Salvatoe from his official site

Christian Fiction - Summer 2008

2008-06-17T14:02:00.006-06:00

The Secret Magdalene
by Ki Longfellow
ISBN: 978-0-307-34667-4

From the Publisher: Raised like sisters, Mariamne and Salome are indulged with riches, position, and learning-a rare thing for females in Jerusalem. But Mariamne has a further gift: an illness has left her with visions; she has the power of prophecy. It is her prophesying that drives the two girls to flee to Egypt, where they study philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy in the Great Library of Alexandria.

After seven years they return to a Judaea where many now believe John the Baptizer is the messiah. Salome too begins to believe, but Mariamne, now called Magdalene, is drawn to his cousin, Yeshu’a, a man touched by the divine in the same way she was during her days of illness. Together they speak of sharing their direct experience of God; but Yeshu’a unexpectedly gains a reputation as a healer, and as the ill and the troubled flock to him, he and Magdalene are forced to make a terrible decision.

This radical retelling of the greatest story ever told brings Mary Magdalene to life-not as a prostitute or demon-possessed-but as an educated woman who was truly the “apostle to the apostles.”

Learn more about this book from Random House

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about author Ki Longfellow from her official site

Read more about the book from the offical book site

Teen Picks - Summer 2008

2008-06-17T14:01:00.008-06:00

Splintering
by Eireann Corrigan
ISBN: 0606314415

From the Publisher: It's about the aftermath. It's about what happens after a stranger breaks into a house and attacks a family. It's about the sisters who must barricade themselves behind a splintering door while tethered on the phone to 911. It's about the father who nearly dies. It's about the son who hides. And everything after. Told in alternating perspectives, this is a powerful, moving story about a family that has its facade shattered by a random act of violence - and must deal with what is discovered underneath.

Learn more about this book from Scholastic

Check out this book from BPL

Learn more about author Eireann Corrigan from PUSH

Have some fun and create your own poems online at Shocked Poetry

Your Choice

2008-06-17T14:00:00.000-06:00

Have you read a book that you think other people should know about? Post your comments and tell everyone about the books they should read and those they should stay away from.

Fiction/Best Seller - Spring 2008

2008-01-08T10:55:00.006-07:00

The Outlander by Gil Adamson
ISBN:9780887842108

From the Publisher: In 1903 a mysterious, desperate young woman flees alone across the west, one quick step ahead of the law. She has just become a widow by her own hand.
Gil Adamson's extraordinary novel opens in heart-pounding mid-flight and propels the reader through a gripping road trip with a twist -- the steely outlaw in this story is a grief-struck nineteen-year-old woman. As the young widow encounters characters of all stripes -- unsavoury, wheedling, greedy, lascivious, self-reliant, and occasionally generous and trustworthy -- Adamson weds her brilliant literary style to the gripping, moving, picaresque tale of one woman's deliberate journey into the wild.

Learn more about this book from House of Anansi

Check this book out from BPL

Learn more about author Gil Adamson from her Official Site

Non-Fiction/Biography - Spring 2008

2008-01-08T10:52:00.008-07:00

The Heroin Diaries:A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star by Nikki Sixx
ISBN:0743486285

From NikkiSixx.net: Set against the frenzied world of heavy metal super stardom, the co founder of the most legendary rock band of the eighties—Mötley Crüe—offers an unflinching and utterly gripping look at his own descent into drug addiction.
Few bands were as influential as Mötley Crüe in making the 1980s the heavy metal decade. Theirs is a cyclonic story of runaway success and its price, blending outrageous record sales and arena headline tours with smashed up cars, jail sentences, models, drugs, breakups, reunions and more breakups.
In this candid memoir, Nikki Sixx—Mötley Crüe’s bassist and main songwriter—recounts the band’s heyday. The Heroin Diaries takes readers along on one of the most breathless and harrowing roller coaster rides in the history of pop music. At its heart lies the author’s nightmare come true: a punishing heroin addiction that brought him and the band to the edge of losing much more than just their spot on the charts. Serving up snapshots of rock culture at its most manic, this insider’s look at triumph and tragedy is every bit as explosive as the musical odyssey it chronicles.

Read more about Nikki Sixx from his Official Site

Learn more about this book from Pocket Books

Check this book out from BPL

Mystery/Thriller - Spring 2008

2008-01-08T10:48:00.006-07:00

The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld
ISBN:0805080988

From the Publisher: In the summer of 1909, Sigmund Freud arrived by steamship in New York Harbor for a short visit to America. Though he would live another thirty years, he would never return to this country. Little is known about the week he spent in Manhattan, and Freud's biographers have long speculated as to why, in his later years, he referred to Americans as "savages" and "criminals."
The story unfurls on a sweltering August evening in 1909 as Freud disembarks from the steamship George Washington, accompanied by Carl Jung, his rival and protege. Across town, in an opulent apartment high above the city, a stunning young woman is found dangling from a chandelier—whipped, mutilated, and strangled. The next day, a second beauty—a rebellious heiress who scorns both high society and her less adventurous parents—barely escapes the killer. Yet Nora Acton, suffering from hysteria, can recall nothing of her attack. Asked to help her, Dr. Stratham Younger, America’s most committed Freudian analyst, calls in his idol, the Master himself, to guide him through the challenges of analyzing this high-spirited young woman whose family past has been as complicated as his own.
The Interpretation of Murder leads readers from the salons of Gramercy Park, through secret passages, to Chinatown—even far below the currents of the East River where laborers are building the Manhattan Bridge. As Freud fends off a mysterious conspiracy to destroy him, Younger is drawn into an equally thrilling adventure that takes him deep into the subterfuges of the human mind.

Richly satisfying, elegantly crafted, The Interpretation of Murder marks the debut of a brilliant, spectacularly entertaining new storyteller.

Learn more about the book from Picador USA

Check out this book from BPL

Explore early 20th Century New York City at
the Official Book Site

Fantasy/Science Fiction - Spring 2008

2008-01-08T10:42:00.009-07:00

Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
ISBN: 9780375424861

From the Publisher: Doctor Impossible—evil genius, diabolical scientist, wannabe world dominator—languishes in a federal detention facility. He's lost his freedom, his girlfriend, and his hidden island fortress.
Over the years he's tried to take over the world in every way imaginable: doomsday devices of all varieties (nuclear, thermonuclear, nanotechnological) and mass mind control. He's traveled backwards in time to change history, forward in time to escape it. He's commanded robot armies, insect armies, and dinosaur armies. Fungus army. Army of fish. Of rodents. Alien invasions. All failures. But not this time. This time it’s going to be different...
Fatale is a rookie superhero on her first day with the Champions, the world's most famous superteam. She's a patchwork woman of skin and chrome, a gleaming technological marvel built to be the next generation of warfare. Filling the void left by a slain former member, we watch as Fatale joins a team struggling with a damaged past, having to come together in the face of unthinkable evil.
Soon I Will Be Invincible is a thrilling first novel; a fantastical adventure that gives new meaning to the notions of power, glory, responsibility, and (of course) good and evil.

Learn more about the book from Pantheon Books

Check out this book from BPL

Click here to view the book's Official Site

Christian Fiction - Spring 2008

2008-01-08T10:28:00.008-07:00

Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon
ISBN:9780670018253

From Barnes and Noble:With Home to Holly Springs, New York Times-bestselling author Jan Karon launches a new series, The Father Tim Novels, featuring the retired Episcopal priest that her readers have come to love. With all the deep feeling, insight, and humor that fans of the Mitford series cherish, Karon in this novel takes Father Tim on a journey to his hometown of Holly Springs, Mississippi. A host of fascinating encounters with people along the way ensure that the trip is colorful, though as Father Tim arrives in response to a mysterious summons, he may discover that home is where the heart is but also where secrets are hidden.

Read more about this book from Penguin Books (Canada)

Check out this book from BPL

Click here and learn all about author Jan Karon

Teen Picks - Spring 2008

2008-01-08T10:20:00.011-07:00

Slam by Nick Hornby
ISBN: 9780399250484

From Nick Hornby's Official Site: Just when everything is coming together for Sam, his girlfriend Alicia drops a bombshell. Make that ex-girlfriend–because by the time she tells him she’s pregnant, they’ve already called it quits. Sam does not want to be a teenage dad. His mom had him at sixteen and has made it very clear how having a baby so young interrupted her life. There’s only one person Sam can turn to–his hero, skating legend Tony Hawk. Sam believes the answers to life’s hurdles can be found in Hawk’s autobiography.
But even Tony Hawk isn’t offering answers this time–or is he? Inexplicably, Sam finds himself whizzed into the future, for a quick glimpse of what will be…or what could be. In this wonderfully witty, poignant story about a teenage boy unexpectedly thrust into fatherhood, it’s up to Sam to make the right decisions so the bad things that could happen, well, don’t.

Learn more about this book from Penguin Books Ltd.

Read more about the author on the publisher's Official Site for Nick Hornby.

Check this book out from BPL

Get the inside scoop! Read Nick Hornby's Blog!

Fiction/Best Seller - Winter 2008

2008-01-01T15:06:00.000-07:00

Late Nights on Air
by Elizabeth Hay

WINNER OF THE 2007 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE

From the Publisher: Harry Boyd, a hard-bitten refugee from failure in Toronto television, has returned to a small radio station in the Canadian North. There, in Yellowknife, in the summer of 1975, he falls in love with a voice on air, though the real woman, Dido Paris, is both a surprise and even more than he imagined. Dido and Harry are part of the cast of eccentric, utterly loveable characters, all transplants from elsewhere, who form an unlikely group at the station. Their loves and longings, their rivalries and entanglements, the stories of their pasts and what brought each of them to the North, form the centre. One summer, on a canoe trip four of them make into the Arctic wilderness (following in the steps of the legendary Englishman John Hornby, who, along with his small party, starved to death in the barrens in 1927), they find the balance of love shifting, much as the balance of power in the North is being changed by the proposed Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline, which threatens to displace Native people from their land.

Learn more from McClelland & Stewart

Check out more from the author on Elizabeth Hay’s Site

Non-Fiction/Biography - Winter 2008

2008-01-01T15:05:00.002-07:00

The Year Of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest To Follow The Bible As Literally As Possible
by A.J. Jacobs

From Amazon.com: Jacobs, a New York Jewish agnostic, decides to follow the laws and rules of the Bible, beginning with the Old Testament, for one year. (He actually adds some bonus days and makes it a 381-day year.) He starts by growing a beard and we are with him through every itchy moment. He enlists the aid of counselors along the way; Jewish rabbis, Christians of every stripe, friends and neighbors.
In an open-minded way he also visits with atheists, Evangelicals Concerned (a gay group), Jerry Falwell, snake handlers, Red Letter Christians--those who adhere to the red letters in the Bible, those words spoken by Jesus Himself, and even takes a trip to Israel and meets Samaritans. Through it all, he keeps a healthy skepticism, but continues to pray and is open to the flowering of real faith. In the end, he says, "I'm now a reverent agnostic. Which isn't an oxymoron, I swear. I now believe that whether or not there's a God, there is such a thing as sacredness. Life is sacred."

Learn more about this book from Simon and Schuster

Read more of A.J. Jacobs’ work at his official website

Check this book out from the Brooks Public Library

Mystery/Suspense - Winter 2008

2008-01-01T15:05:00.001-07:00

Angels and Demons
by Dan Brown

From Amazon.com: Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is shocked to find proof that the legendary secret society, the Illuminati--dedicated since the time of Galileo to promoting the interests of science and condemning the blind faith of Catholicism--is alive, well, and murderously active. Brilliant physicist Leonardo Vetra has been murdered, his eyes plucked out, and the society's ancient symbol branded upon his chest. His final discovery, antimatter, the most powerful and dangerous energy source known to man, has disappeared--only to be hidden somewhere beneath Vatican City on the eve of the election of a new pope. Langdon and Vittoria, Vetra's daughter and colleague, embark on a frantic hunt through the streets, churches, and catacombs of Rome, following a 400-year-old trail to the lair of the Illuminati, to prevent the incineration of civilization.

Learn more about this book from Simon and Schuster

Check out the official site for author Dan Brown

Fantasy/Science Fiction - Winter 2008

2008-01-01T15:04:00.001-07:00

World War Z: an Oral History of the Zombie War
by Max Brooks

From the Publisher: The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.

Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.

Calculate your chances of surviving a zombie invasion at the Official World War Z Site

Learn more about the book from Crown Publishing

Check out this book from the Brooks Public Library

Christian Fiction - Winter 2008

2008-01-01T15:02:00.001-07:00

The Choosing
by Jim and Terri Kraus

From the Publisher: When Tucker Abbott rejects his parents' dream--for him to become a pastor in their small Minnesota town--and instead chooses to minister in Chicago, he enters a new world of opportunities and choices. A decent, single, Christian guy is a rare prize in his new neighborhood, and Tucker soon has the attention of the ladies--young and old alike. His refrigerator stays well stocked and his dinner calendar filled. When his senior pastor warns Tucker that the wrong choice for a date--or a wife--can harm an up-and-coming pastor, he feels himself drawn to one particular woman. But Annie doesn't live up to the standards imposed upon them both. What is Tucker willing to give up for the choices he makes?

Read more about this book from Barbour Publishing

Check out this book from the Brooks Public Library

For Teens - Winter 2008

2008-01-01T15:01:00.001-07:00

Being
by Kevin Brooks

From Teenreads.com: Sixteen-year-old Robert Smith thinks he has grown up just like every other teenager in Essex, England. Sure, he can't remember much of his childhood. Memories about his birth parents feel manufactured. Hopping around from foster home to foster home through the years, he doesn't recall ever getting sick or seriously injured. All he has are his dreams, and those bad dreams feel real enough.
Dr. Andrews tells Robert that his surgery will be a routine endoscopy, which will check for a stomach ulcer. Everything is going as planned until the anesthesia stops working and Robert wakes up. Doctors are calling for more doctors. Men with holstered pistols stand guard around the room. The confusion increases as the doctors try to figure out what they're seeing. "What the hell are you?" one of them asks. That single line sets Robert off. He has to get out of there. Whatever he does, he must escape.
Stolen cars, guns, fraudulent news stories, murders, kidnapping, fake IDs and secret societies --- the intense chain of events that follows will have readers grasping for answers right along with Robert. Who are these mysterious men in the hospital? What are they looking for? Everyone wants something, especially men packing guns in an operating room. Who are they working for? Who, or what, do they think Robert is?

Learn more about this book from Scholastic

What IS Robert? Join the debate at whatisrobert.co.uk

Check out this book from Brooks Public Library

Fiction/Bestseller - Fall 2007

2007-09-01T15:06:00.004-06:00

The Thirteenth Tale
by Diane Setterfield
ISBN: 978-0-385-66284-0

From the Publisher:Biographer Margaret Lea returns one night to her apartment above her father's antiquarian bookshop. On her steps she finds a letter. It is a hand-written request from one of Britain’s most prolific and well-loved novelists, Vida Winter. The request takes Margaret by surprise–she doesn’t know the author, nor has she read any of Miss Winter’s dozens of novels.
While pondering whether to accept the task, Margaret begins to read her father’s rare copy of Miss Winter’s Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation. She is spellbound by the stories and confused when she realizes the book only contains twelve stories. Where is the thirteenth tale? Intrigued, Margaret agrees to act as her biographer.
As Vida unfolds her story, she shares with Margaret the dark family secrets that she has long kept hidden. Margaret carefully records Miss Winter’s account and finds herself more and more deeply immersed in the strange and troubling story. In the end, both women have to confront their pasts and the weight of family secrets.

Learn more about this book from RandomHouse.ca

Visit The Thirteenth Tale Official Website

Check this book out from the Brooks Public Library

Non-Fiction/Biography - Fall 2007

2007-09-01T15:06:00.003-06:00

Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil
by Deborah Rodriguez and Kristin Ohlson
ISBN: 978-1-58836-607-8

From the Publisher: Soon after the fall of the Taliban, in 2001, Deborah Rodriguez went to Afghanistan as part of a group offering humanitarian aid to this war-torn nation. Surrounded by men and women whose skills–as doctors, nurses, and therapists–seemed eminently more practical than her own, Rodriguez, a hairdresser and mother of two from Michigan, despaired of being of any real use. Yet she soon found she had a gift for befriending Afghans, and once her profession became known she was eagerly sought out by Westerners desperate for a good haircut and by Afghan women, who have a long and proud tradition of running their own beauty salons. Thus an idea was born.

With the help of corporate and international sponsors, the Kabul Beauty School welcomed its first class in 2003. Well meaning but sometimes brazen, Rodriguez stumbled through language barriers, overstepped cultural customs, and constantly juggled the challenges of a postwar nation even as she learned how to empower her students to become their families’ breadwinners by learning the fundamentals of coloring techniques, haircutting, and makeup. Yet within the small haven of the beauty school, the line between teacher and student quickly blurred as these vibrant women shared with Rodriguez their stories and their hearts. Through these and other stories, Rodriguez found the strength to leave her own unhealthy marriage and allow herself to love again, Afghan style.

Learn more about this book from RandomHouse.ca

Visit the Official Site for the Kabul Beauty School

Check out this book from the Brooks Public Library

Fantasy/ Science Fiction - Fall 2007

2007-09-01T15:05:00.001-06:00

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
by J.K. Rowling
ISBN: 9781551929781

From the Book Jacket: In this final, seventh installment of the Harry Potter series Harry has been burdened with a dark, dangerous and seemingly impossible task: that of locating and destroying Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes. Never has Harry felt so alone, or faced a future so full of shadows. But Harry must somehow find within himself the strength to complete the task he has been given. He must leave the warmth, safety and companionship of The Burrow and follow without fear or hesitation the inexorable path laid out for him.

Learn more about this book from Raincoast.com

Visit J.K. Rowling’s Official Site

Check out this book from the Brooks Public Library

Mystery/ Thriller - Fall 2007

2007-09-01T15:04:00.001-06:00

The Good Guy
By Dean Koontz
ISBN: 9780553804812

From the Publisher: Timothy Carrier, having a beer after work at his friend’s tavern, enjoys drawing eccentric customers into amusing conversations. But the jittery man who sits next to him tonight has mistaken Tim for someone very different—and passes to him a manila envelope full of cash.
“Ten thousand now. You get the rest when she’s gone.”
The stranger walks out, leaving a photo of the pretty woman marked for death, and her address. But things are about to get worse. In minutes another stranger sits next to Tim. This one is a cold-blooded killer who believes Tim is the man who has hired him.
Thinking fast, Tim says, “I’ve had a change of heart. You get ten thousand—for doing nothing. Call it a no-kill fee.” He keeps the photo and gives the money to the hired killer. And when Tim secretly follows the man out of the tavern, he gets a further shock: the hired killer is a cop. Suddenly, Tim Carrier, an ordinary guy, is at the center of a mystery of extraordinary proportions, the one man who can save an innocent life and stop a killer far more powerful than any cop…and as relentless as evil incarnate. But first Tim must discover within himself the capacity for selflessness, endurance, and courage that can turn even an ordinary man into a hero, inner resources that will transform his idea of who he is and what it takes to be The Good Guy.

Learn more about this book from RandomHouse.ca

Visit the Official Dean Koontz Website

Check out this book from the Brooks Public Library

Christian Fiction - Fall 2007

2007-09-01T15:03:00.001-06:00

Even Now
by Karen Kingsbury
ISBN: 9780310247531

Shane Galanter is ready to put down roots after years of searching. But is he making the right choice? Or is there a woman somewhere who remembers a love that hasn’t faded with time? Lauren Gibbs is a successful international war correspondent who gave up on happily-ever-after years ago—when it was ripped away from her. So why is life so empty? Emily Anderson is a college freshman raised by her grandparents, about to take her first internship as a journalist. But before she can move ahead, she discovers a love story whose tragic ending came with her birth. As a result, she is drawn to look back and search out the mother she’s never met, and the father she never knew. With hallmark tenderness and power, Karen Kingsbury weaves a tapestry of life, loss, love, faith—and the miracle of resurrection.

Learn more about this book from Zondervan.com

Visit Karen Kingsbury’s Official Site

Check out this book from the Brooks Public Library

For Teens - Fall 2007

2007-09-01T15:01:00.002-06:00

The Golden Compass
By Philip Pullman
ISBN: 0679879242

From the Publisher: Lyra Belacqua’s carefree life among the scholars at Oxford's Jordan College is shattered by the arrival of two powerful visitors. Lord Asriel, her fearsome uncle, appears with evidence of mystery and danger in the far North, including photographs of a mysterious celestial phenomenon called Dust and the dim outline of a city suspended in the Aurora Borealis that he suspects is part of an alternate universe. He leaves Lyra in the care of Mrs. Coulter, an enigmatic scholar and explorer who offers to give Lyra the attention her uncle has long refused her. In this multilayered narrative, however, nothing is as it seems. Lyra sets out for the top of the world in search of her kidnapped playmate, Roger, bearing a rare truth-telling instrument, the compass of the title. All around her children are disappearing—victims of so-called "Gobblers"—and being used as subjects in terrible experiments that separate humans from their daemons, creatures that reflect each person's inner being. And somehow, both Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter are involved.

Meet Your Daemon on the Official Golden Compass Movie Website!

Learn more about the author at philip-pullman.com

Check out this book from the Brooks Public Library

Fiction/Best Seller - Summer 2007

2007-06-01T14:07:00.001-06:00

The Birth House by Ami McKay
Published by Vintage Canada

From the Publisher: The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare, the first daughter to be born in five generations of Rares. As a child in an isolated village in Nova Scotia, she is drawn to Miss Babineau, an outspoken Acadian midwife with a gift for healing. Dora becomes Miss B.’s apprentice, and together they help the women of Scots Bay through infertility, difficult labours, breech births, unwanted pregnancies and even unfulfilling sex lives. Filled with details as compelling as they are surprising, The Birth House is an unforgettable tale of the struggles women have faced to have control of their own bodies and to keep the best parts of tradition alive in the world of modern medicine.

Learn more from Vintage Canada

Check out the Official Book Site

Check out this book from the Brooks Public Library

Non-Fiction/Biography - Summer 2007

2007-06-01T14:06:00.001-06:00

Dog Years: a memoir by Mark Doty
Published by Harper Collins

From the Publisher: When Mark Doty decides to adopt a dog as a companion for his dying partner, he finds himself bringing home Beau, a large golden retriever, malnourished and in need of loving care. Beau joins Arden, the black retriever, to complete their family. As Beau bounds back into life, the two dogs become Mark Doty's intimate companions, his solace, and eventually the very life force that keeps him from abandoning all hope during the darkest days. Their tenacity, loyalty, and love inspire him when all else fails.

Learn more about this book from Harper Collins Canada

Learn more about the book from Mark Doty’s Official website

Check out this book from the Brooks Public Library

Check out this book from theBrooks Public Library

Mystery/Suspense - Summer 2007

2007-06-01T14:05:00.001-06:00

Echo Park by Michael Connelly
Published by Little, Brown and Company

From the Publisher: In 1993 Marie Gesto disappeared after walking out of a supermarket. Harry Bosch worked the case but couldn't crack it, and the twenty-two-year-old was never found. Now, more than a decade later, with the Gesto file still on his desk, Bosch gets a call from the District Attorney.
A man accused of two heinous murders is willing to come clean about several others, including the killing of Marie Gesto. Taking the confession of the man he has sought-and hated-for thirteen years is bad enough. Discovering that he missed a clue back in 1993 that could have stopped nine other murders may just be the straw that breaks Harry Bosch.

Learn more about this book from Little, Brown and Company

Check out the official site for author Michael Connelley

Chcek this book out from the Brooks Public Library

Fantasy/Science Fiction - Summer 2007

2007-06-01T14:04:00.001-06:00

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Published by Dell Publishing

From the Publisher: Claire Randall is leading a double life. She has a husband in one century, and a lover in another. In 1945, Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon--when she innocently touches a boulder in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an "outlander"—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of our Lord...1743. Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire's destiny in soon inextricably intertwined with Clan MacKenzie and the forbidden Castle Leoch. She is catapulted without warning into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life ...and shatter her heart. For here, James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a passion so fierce and a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire...and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

Learn more about Diana Gabaldon from her Official Site

Learn more about the book from Dell Publishing

Check out this book from the Brooks Public Library

Christian Fiction - Summer 2007

2007-06-01T14:03:00.002-06:00

Left Behind by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.
Published by Tyndale House Publishers

From the Publisher: Passengers aboard a Boeing 747 en route to Europe disappear. Instantly. Nothing remains except their rumpled piles of clothes, jewelry, fillings, surgical pins, and the like. Vehicles, suddenly unmanned, careen out of control. People are terror-stricken as loved ones vanish before their eyes. Some blame space aliens. Others claim a freak of nature. Still others say it was a high-tech military attack by a world conqueror. But airline captain Rayford Steele's wife had warned him of this very event. If Irene Steele was right, both she and their young son have disappeared. What about their older daughter? Lake Rayford, Chloe had been skeptical. In the midst of global chaos, Rayford must search for his family, for answers, for truth. As devastating as the disappearances have been, the darkest days may lie ahead. Terror and chaos continues worldwide as the cataclysm unfolds. For those left behind, the apocalypse has just begun. In this moving novel, Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye offer an account of what life might be like for those left behind when millions vanish. Left Behind will intrigue you, entertain you, and challenge you. And when you realize it represents an event that millions believe will actually occur, it could change your life.

Read more about this book from Tyndale House Publishers

Read more about this series from the Official Site

Check this book out from the Brooks Public Library

For Teens - Summer 2007

2007-06-01T14:02:00.002-06:00

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Published by Random House

From the Publisher: It all starts when Nick asks Norah to be his girlfriend for five minutes. He only needs five minutes to avoid his ex-girlfriend, who’s just walked in to his band’s show. With a new guy. And then, with one kiss, Nick and Norah are off on an adventure set against the backdrop of New York City—and smack in the middle of all the joy, anxiety, confusion, and excitement of a first date.

Learn more about this book from Random House

NICK AND NORAH'S INFINATE PLAY LIST IS NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE! Check out the the trailer, and make your own playlist here on the official movie site!

Check out this book from the Brooks Public Library