April: Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
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March: Misery by Stephen King
To purchase, click here
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March: Misery by Stephen King
To purchase, click here
Summary:
“Paul Sheldon. He's a bestselling novelist who has
finally met his biggest fan. Her name is Annie Wilkes and she is more than a
rabid reader - she is Paul's nurse, tending his shattered body after an
automobile accident. But she is also his captor, keeping him prisoner in her
isolated house.”
Summary found at Goodreads
Reviews:
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The New York Times
“Misery had
me on edge for days after I’d finished it… the novel is something else — an
airless, claustrophobic portrait of an egotistic writer pushed to the edge of
madness by pain, pills, incarceration, the expectations of his reading public
and a deadline like he’s never known before. In the book, our hero is as
threatened by the demons within as he is by the madwoman beside his bed. Like
him, you the reader can’t wait to escape; yet you can no more walk away from
Mr. King’s tightly spun yarn than Paul can walk away from his captor.”
Houston Chronicle
“Undiluted
horror…wonderful…A primal storyteller writing about a primal scream.”
USA Today
"Suspenseful,
entertaining, genuinely scary.”
“Paulo Coelho's
enchanting novel has inspired a devoted following around the world. This story,
dazzling in its powerful simplicity and inspiring wisdom, is about an Andalusian
shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the
Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids. Along the way
he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an alchemist, all of
whom point Santiago in the direction of his quest. No one knows what the
treasure is, or if Santiago will be able to surmount the obstacles along the
way. But what starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a
discovery of the treasure found within. Lush, evocative, and deeply humane, the
story of Santiago is an eternal testament to the transforming power of our
dreams and the importance of listening to our hearts.”
Reviews:
Anthony Robbins
“A
remarkable tale about the most magical of all journeys: the quest to fulfill
one’s destiny.”
Neil Patrick Harris
“It’s
a brilliant, magical, life-changing book that continues to blow my mind with
its lessons. [...] A remarkable tome.”
Pharrell Williams
“It changed my whole
life. I realized of all of the people who had conspired to get me to this
place.”
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January: Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
To purchase, click here
Summary:“‘Are you happy with your life?’
Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.
Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.
Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.”
In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.
Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.
From the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy, Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human—a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we’ll go to claim the lives we dream of.”
Summary found at Goodreads
Reviews:
New York Times Book Review
“You’ll
gulp Dark Matter down in one afternoon, or more likely one night…
Alternate-universe science fiction [and] a countdown thriller in which the hero
must accomplish an impossible task to save his family. There’s always another
door to open, and another page to turn.”
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
"A mind-blowing
sci-fi/suspense/love-story mash-up."
NPR.org
“A
fast, tasty read with a killer twist. It’s a whole bag of barbecue
chips…just sitting there waiting for you to devour in one long rush.”
USA Today
“A hard tale to
shake…makes its characters — and readers — wonder what life would have been
like had they made different decisions. Relatable and unnerving.”USA Today
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October: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark HaddonTo purchase, click here
Summary:
“Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world
and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to
animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be
touched. And he detests the color yellow.
Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, for fifteen-year-old Christopher everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning. He lives on patterns, rules, and a diagram kept in his pocket. Then one day, a neighbor's dog, Wellington, is killed and his carefully constructive universe is threatened. Christopher sets out to solve the murder in the style of his favorite (logical) detective, Sherlock Holmes. What follows makes for a novel that is funny, poignant and fascinating in its portrayal of a person whose curse and blessing are a mind that perceives the world entirely literally.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, for fifteen-year-old Christopher everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning. He lives on patterns, rules, and a diagram kept in his pocket. Then one day, a neighbor's dog, Wellington, is killed and his carefully constructive universe is threatened. Christopher sets out to solve the murder in the style of his favorite (logical) detective, Sherlock Holmes. What follows makes for a novel that is funny, poignant and fascinating in its portrayal of a person whose curse and blessing are a mind that perceives the world entirely literally.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
NY Times Sunday Book Review
“Mark Haddon's stark, funny and original first novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the
Night-Time, is presented as a detective story. But it eschews most of the
furnishings of high-literary enterprise as well as the conventions of genre,
disorienting and reorienting the reader to devastating effect.”
The Village Voice
“… Incident meticulously
imagines the frustrations of an autistic's world, where sensory intake is
heightened but the capacity to process information diminished. The hero's brain
chemistry is the book's best safeguard against cuteness. He keeps his distance
because he has no other option, an unwitting hardass to the end.”
The Washington Post
“The essence of good writing is a sort of cataloguing, if you will,
with the author supplying the details of the world he wants to evoke and the
reader supplying the nuances of interpretation. Thanks to the brilliance of
Haddon's prose, this back-and-forth works extremely well in The Curious Incident … In this
striking first novel, Mark Haddon is both clever and observant, and the effect
is vastly affecting.”
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September: American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Summary:
“Locked behind bars for three years, Shadow did his time, quietly
waiting for the magic day when he could return to Eagle Point, Indiana. A man
no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring, all he wanted was to be with
Laura, the wife he deeply loved, and start a new life.
But just days before his release, Laura and Shadow’s best friend are killed in an accident. With his life in pieces and nothing to keep him tethered, Shadow accepts a job from a beguiling stranger he meets on the way home, an enigmatic man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday. A trickster and rogue, Wednesday seems to know more about Shadow than Shadow does himself.
Life as Wednesday’s bodyguard, driver, and errand boy is far more interesting and dangerous than Shadow ever imagined—it is a job that takes him on a dark and strange road trip and introduces him to a host of eccentric characters whose fates are mysteriously intertwined with his own. Along the way Shadow will learn that the past never dies; that everyone, including his beloved Laura, harbors secrets; and that dreams, totems, legends, and myths are more real than we know. Ultimately, he will discover that beneath the placid surface of everyday life a storm is brewing—an epic war for the very soul of America—and that he is standing squarely in its path.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
But just days before his release, Laura and Shadow’s best friend are killed in an accident. With his life in pieces and nothing to keep him tethered, Shadow accepts a job from a beguiling stranger he meets on the way home, an enigmatic man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday. A trickster and rogue, Wednesday seems to know more about Shadow than Shadow does himself.
Life as Wednesday’s bodyguard, driver, and errand boy is far more interesting and dangerous than Shadow ever imagined—it is a job that takes him on a dark and strange road trip and introduces him to a host of eccentric characters whose fates are mysteriously intertwined with his own. Along the way Shadow will learn that the past never dies; that everyone, including his beloved Laura, harbors secrets; and that dreams, totems, legends, and myths are more real than we know. Ultimately, he will discover that beneath the placid surface of everyday life a storm is brewing—an epic war for the very soul of America—and that he is standing squarely in its path.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
of Penn & Teller - Teller
“American Gods is sexy,
thrilling, dark, funny and poetic."
George R.R. Martin
"Original, engrossing, and endlessly inventive; a picaresque
journey across America where the travelers are even stranger than the roadside attractions."
Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Saying Neil Gaiman is a writer is like saying Da Vinci dabbled in the
arts.
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August: Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
To purchase, click here
Reviews:
Chicago Tribune
“What
makes Go Set a Watchman memorable
is its sophisticated and even prescient view of the long march for racial
justice. Remarkably, a novel written that long ago has a lot to say about our
current struggles with race and inequality.”
Time
“The
success of Go Set a Watchman...
lies both in its depiction of Jean Louise reckoning with her father’s beliefs,
and in the manner by which it integrates those beliefs into the Atticus we
know.”
The Independent
“A
coming-of-age novel in which Scout becomes her own woman…Go Set a Watchman’s voice is beguiling and distinctive, and
reminiscent of Mockingbird. (It) can’t be dismissed as literary scraps
from Lee’s imagination. It has too much integrity for that.”
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July: Stardust by Neil Gaiman
To purchase, click here
Summary:
“Young
Tristran Thorn will do anything to win the cold heart of beautiful
Victoria—even fetch her the star they watch fall from the night sky. But to do
so, he must enter the unexplored lands on the other side of the ancient wall
that gives their tiny village its name. Beyond that old stone wall, Tristran
learns, lies Faerie—where nothing, not even a fallen star, is what he imagined.”
(Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
Event
Horizon - Paula Guran
“Like
all great storytellers, Gaiman reworks the jewels of the past into exciting new
shapes that sparkle even more brightly to the modern eye. Stardust is
a beautifully written fairy tale for adults (and precocious children) which
will refresh even the most deflated sense of wonder. It's a shimmering,
shining, iridescent treasure for readers to cherish.”
Philadelphia Inquirer
“Strange...marvelous...Stardust
takes us back to a time when the world was more magical, and, real or not, that
world is a charming place.”
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May: Catch Me if You Can by Frank Abagnale
To purchase, click here
Summary: “I stole
every nickel and blew it on fine threads, luxurious lodgings, fantastic foxes
and other sensual goodies. I partied in every capital in Europe and basked on
all the world's most famous beaches'. Frank W Abagnale, alias Frank Williams,
Robert Conrad, Frank Adams and Ringo Monjo, was one of the most daring con men,
forgers, imposters and escape artists in history. In his brief but notorious
career, Abagnale donned a pilot's uniform and co-piloted a Pan Am jet,
masqueraded as a member of hospital management, practised law without a
licence, passed himself off as a college sociology professor, and cashed over
$2.5 million in forged checks all before he was twenty-one. Known by the police
of twenty-six foreign countries and all fifty states as 'The Skywayman',
Abagnale lived a sumptuous life on the run - until the law caught up with him.
Now recognised as the nation's leading authority on financial foul play,
Abagnale is a charming rogue whose hilarious, stranger-than-fiction
international escapades and ingenious escapes - including one from an aeroplane
- make CATCH ME IF YOU CAN an irresistable tale of deceit.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
Houston
Chronicle
“Irresistable!...touches
that current of larceny that lies within all of us.”
Entertainment
Weekly
“Oddly
enough, despite all of Abagnale's high-wire feats, the most thrilling
accomplishment of Catch Me if You
Can isn't the ease with which Abagnale peddled his snake oil or the
millions he spent living the fat life...No, the book's ultimate rush is how
complicit Abagnale makes you in his sin. You're rooting for a man who would no
sooner look at you than see your face as a giant lollipop with the word sucker printed on it. And why not?
After all, these days, a criminal this good is hard to find.”
Kirkus
Reviews
"Zingingly
told... richly detailed and winning as the devil."
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April: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
To purchase, click here
Summary:
“The
terrifyingly prophetic novel of a post-literate future.
Guy
Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the
source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is
discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of
the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters,
is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read
books.
The
classic dystopian novel of a post-literate future, Fahrenheit 451 stands
alongside Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World as a prophetic account of
Western civilization’s enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity.
Bradbury’s
powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of
technology to create a novel which, decades on from first publication, still
has the power to dazzle and shock.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
The
New York Times
“Brilliant . . . Startling and ingenious . . .
Mr. Bradbury’s account of this insane world, which bears many alarming
resemblances to our own, is fascinating.”
The
Boston Globe
“A
masterpiece . . . A glorious American classic everyone should read: It’s
life-changing if you read it as a teen, and still stunning when you reread it
as an adult.”
The
Washington Post
“One of this country’s most beloved writers .
. . A great storyteller, sometimes even a mythmaker, a true American classic.”
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February: The Princess Bride by William Goldman
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Summary:"What happens when the most beautiful girl in the world marries the handsomest prince of all time and he turns out to be...well...a lot less than the man of her dreams?
As a boy, William Goldman claims, he loved to hear his father read the S. Morgenstern classic, The Princess Bride. But as a grown-up he discovered that the boring parts were left out of good old Dad's recitation, and only the "good parts" reached his ears.
Now Goldman does Dad one better. He's reconstructed the "Good Parts Version" to delight wise kids and wide-eyed grownups everywhere.
What's it about? Fencing. Fighting. True Love. Strong Hate. Harsh Revenge. A Few Giants. Lots of Bad Men. Lots of Good Men. Five or Six Beautiful Women. Beasties Monstrous and Gentle. Some Swell Escapes and Captures. Death, Lies, Truth, Miracles, and a Little Sex.
In short, it's about everything." (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
Newsweek
"[Goldman's] swashbuckling fable is nutball funny . . . A 'classic' medieval melodrama that sounds like all the Saturday serials you ever saw feverishly reworked by the Marx Brothers."
Los Angeles Times
"One of the funniest, most original, and deeply moving novels I have read in a long time."
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January: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
To purchase, click here
Summary:
“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is
the best chronicle of drug-soaked, addle-brained, rollicking good times ever
committed to the printed page. It is also the tale of a long weekend road trip
that has gone down in the annals of American pop culture as one of the
strangest journeys ever undertaken.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Review:
The New York Times - Crawford Woods
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December: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
To purchase, click here
Summary: “The tragic story of the complex bond between two migrant laborers in Central California. They are George Milton and Lennie Small, itinerant ranch hands who dream of one day owning a small farm. George acts as a father figure to Lennie, who is a very large, simple-minded man, calming him and helping to rein in his immense physical strength.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
The New York Times
”Of Mice and Men is a thriller, a gripping tale running to novelette length that you will not set down until it is finished. It is more than that; but it is that. . . . In sure, raucous, vulgar Americanism, Steinbeck has touched the quick in his little story.”
Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
“Brutality and tenderness mingle in these strangely moving pages. . . . The reader is fascinated by a certainty of approaching doom.”
Times Literary Supplement
”A short tale of much power and beauty. Mr. Steinbeck has contributed a small masterpiece to the modern tough-tender school of American fiction.”
November: I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga”A short tale of much power and beauty. Mr. Steinbeck has contributed a small masterpiece to the modern tough-tender school of American fiction.”
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To purchase, click here
Summary:
"What if the world's worst serial killer...was your
dad?
Jasper "Jazz" Dent is a likable teenager. A charmer, one might say.
But he's also the son of the world's most infamous serial killer, and for Dear Old Dad, Take Your Son to Work Day was year-round. Jazz has witnessed crime scenes the way cops wish they could—from the criminal's point of view.
And now bodies are piling up in Lobo's Nod.
In an effort to clear his name, Jazz joins the police in a hunt for a new serial killer. But Jazz has a secret—could he be more like his father than anyone knows?" (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Jasper "Jazz" Dent is a likable teenager. A charmer, one might say.
But he's also the son of the world's most infamous serial killer, and for Dear Old Dad, Take Your Son to Work Day was year-round. Jazz has witnessed crime scenes the way cops wish they could—from the criminal's point of view.
And now bodies are piling up in Lobo's Nod.
In an effort to clear his name, Jazz joins the police in a hunt for a new serial killer. But Jazz has a secret—could he be more like his father than anyone knows?" (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
Joe Hill, author of Horns and Heart-Shaped
Box
"I Hunt Killers is an out-of-control hearse
with one busted headlight, blood on the grille, a madman at the wheel, and
laughter pouring out of the open windows... Climb in, buckle up, and go for a
ride."
Publishers Weekly
"A superb mystery/thriller that explores what
it's like to have a monster for a father...but it's Jazz's internal conflict
about his exposure to his father's evil that adds extra dimension and makes the
book shine."
VOYA
"Lyga brilliantly combines the feel of a true
crime story with mystery, adventure, and psychoanalysis."
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September: SEAL Team Six by Howard Wasdin
To purchase, click here
Summary:
“SEAL
Team Six is a secret unit tasked with counterterrorism, hostage rescue, and
counterinsurgency. In this dramatic, behind-the-scenes chronicle, Howard Wasdin
takes readers deep inside the world of Navy SEALS and Special Forces snipers,
beginning with the grueling selection process of Basic Underwater
Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S)—the toughest and longest military training in the
world.
After
graduating, Wasdin faced new challenges. First there was combat in Operation
Desert Storm as a member of SEAL Team Two. Then the Green Course: the selection
process to join the legendary SEAL Team Six, with a curriculum that included
practiced land warfare to unarmed combat. More than learning how to pick a
lock, they learned how to blow the door off its hinges. Finally as a member of
SEAL Team Six he graduated from the most storied and challenging sniper program
in the country: The Marine’s Scout Sniper School. Eventually, of the 18 snipers
in SEAL Team Six, Wasdin became the best—which meant one of the best snipers on
the planet.
Less
than half a year after sniper school, he was fighting for his life. The
mission: capture or kill Somalian warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. From rooftops,
helicopters and alleys, Wasdin hunted Aidid and killed his men whenever
possible. But everything went quickly to hell when his small band of soldiers
found themselves fighting for their lives, cut off from help, and desperately
trying to rescue downed comrades during a routine mission. The Battle of
Mogadishu, as it become known, left 18 American soldiers dead and 73 wounded.
Howard Wasdin had both of his legs nearly blown off while engaging the enemy.
His dramatic combat tales combined with inside details of becoming one of the
world’s deadliest snipers make this one of the most explosive military memoirs
in years.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
The New York Times
“Mr.
Wasdin's narrative is visceral and as active as a Tom Clancy novel…[it] will
also leave readers with a new appreciation of the training that enabled Seal
Team Six to pull off the bin Laden raid with such precision…adrenaline-laced.”
The Washington Post
“SEAL Team Six pulses with the grit
of a Jerry Bruckheimer production...On his journey to becoming a member of the
Navy's best of the best, Wasdin proved his mettle in Operation Desert Storm and
endured training that would break the back of most mortal men.”
Time
“[SEAL
Team Six] describes the harrowing ops
he undertook as part of the elite Seal Team Six squadron, including the 1993
Battle of Mogadishu that almost killed him....reveals an intimate look at the
rigorous training and perilous missions of the best of the Navy's best.”
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August: Yes Please by Amy Poehler
To purchase, click here
Summary: “In
Amy Poehler’s highly anticipated first book, Yes Please, she offers up a
big juicy stew of personal stories, funny bits on sex and love and friendship
and parenthood and real life advice (some useful, some not so much), like when
to be funny and when to be serious. Powered by Amy’s charming and hilarious, biting
yet wise voice, Yes Please is a book full of words to live by.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews
“The star of Parks and Recreation shares stories from her adolescence, her
star-making tenure at Saturday Night Live and her abiding love of
improvisation.In her debut book, comedian Poehler credits her approach to work
to Carol Burnett, who was "funny and versatile and up for anything"
and "a benevolent captain" on her eponymous variety show. The
author's successful career proves that collaboration, good manners and
gratitude are assets in both business and life. She has written a happy,
angst-free memoir with stories told without regret or shame; rather, Poehler
provides a series of lessons learned about achieving success through ambition
and a resolute spirit. She affectionately recounts her perfect-seeming
childhood and adolescence, including making lifelong friends, waiting tables,
and living and working in the rough, pre-gentrified Greenwich Village. Poehler
is especially grateful to her proud, comical parents and shares their wisdom
with readers: "Make sure he's grateful to be with you," "Ask for
what you want" and "Always overtip." With benevolent humor, she
shares "Obligatory Drug Stories, or Lessons I Learned on Mushrooms"
("I've tried most drugs but avoided the BIG BAD ONES") and explores
why ambivalence is an important component of success in a chapter titled
"Treat Your Career Like a Bad Boyfriend." Along with Meredith Walker
and Amy Miles, Poehler has created a Web series, "Smart Girls at the
Party," to empower and celebrate women and girls who "chang[e] the
world by being themselves." The author conveys the ethos of this project
in pithy statements and reassurances sprinkled throughout the book in large
type—e.g., "If It's Not Funny, You Don't Have To Laugh" and
"Everybody Is Scared Most Of The Time." This is not a treacly
self-help book or spiritual guide but rather motivation from a hilarious and
kindhearted champion. A wise and winning—and polite—memoir and manifesto.”
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July: The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan
To purchase, click here
Summary:
“In 1967, Bashir Al-Khayri, a Palestinian twenty-five-year-old, journeyed to Israel, with the goal of seeing the beloved old stone house, with the lemon tree behind it, that he and his family had fled nineteen years earlier. To his surprise, when he found the house he was greeted by Dalia Ashkenazi Landau, a nineteen-year-old Israeli college student, whose family fled Europe for Israel following the Holocaust. On the stoop of their shared home, Dalia and Bashir began a rare friendship, forged in the aftermath of war and tested over the next thirty-five years in ways that neither could imagine on that summer day in 1967. Based on extensive research, and springing from his enormously resonant documentary that aired on NPR’sFresh Air in 1998, Sandy Tolan brings the Israeli-Palestinian conflict down to its most human level, suggesting that even amid the bleakest political realities there exist stories of hope and reconciliation.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“A graceful, compassionate and unmuddied presentation of Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lives of an Arab and a Jew, strangers who forge a connection and a reconciliation while never veering from their passionate desires for a homeland.”
Time
“Quite simply the most important book I've read for ages...a handbook to understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a narrative that captures its essence through tracing the connected lives of two extraordinary individuals. Literally the single work I’d recommend to anyone seeking to understand why the conflict remains unresolved, and why it continues to dominate the region.”
Seattle Times
“The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East is the story of two people trying to get beyond denial, and closer to a truth they can both live with. By its end, Bashir Khairi and Dalia Eshkenazi are still arguing, talking — and mostly disagreeing. But their natures—intellectual, questing, passionate and committed—may represent the best hope of resolving one of the most intractable disputes in human history…It is very tempting to write off the Israeli-Palestinian standoff as insoluble. But one lesson of The Lemon Tree is the relatively short span of its history. The conflict between the two peoples is little more than a century old.”
Summary:
"Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him & forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded & completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—& even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—& a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?" (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
To purchase, click here
Summary: “The tragic story of the complex bond between
two migrant laborers in Central California. They are George Milton and Lennie
Small, itinerant ranch hands who dream of one day owning a small farm. George
acts as a father figure to Lennie, who is a very large, simple-minded man,
calming him and helping to rein in his immense physical strength.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Summary:
To purchase, click here
Summary:
"Written in his distinctively dazzling manner, Oscar Wilde’s story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is the author’s most popular work. The tale of Dorian Gray’s moral disintegration caused a scandal when it first appeared in 1890, but though Wilde was attacked for the novel’s corrupting influence, he responded that there is, in fact, “a terrible moral in Dorian Gray.” Just a few years later, the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde’s homosexual liaisons, which resulted in his imprisonment. Of Dorian Gray’s relationship to autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, “Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps." (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Summary:
To purchase, click Barnes & Noble
Reviews:
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March: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
February: Run, Brother, Run: A Memoir of a Murder in My Family by David Berg
Summary:
January: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years— promised to protect him, no matter what.
June: The Martian by Andy Weir
To purchase, click here
Summary:
"Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him & forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded & completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—& even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—& a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?" (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
Wall Street Journal
“Brilliant…a celebration of human ingenuity [and] the purest example of real-science sci-fi for many years…Utterly compelling.”
USA Today
“Terrific stuff, a crackling good read that devotees of space travel will devour like candy…succeeds on several levels and for a variety of reasons, not least of which is its surprising plausibility.”
Entertainment Weekly
“An impressively geeky debut…the technical details keep the story relentlessly precise and the suspense ramped up. And really, how can anyone not root for a regular dude to prove the U-S-A still has the Right Stuff?”
To purchase, click here
“Brilliant…a celebration of human ingenuity [and] the purest example of real-science sci-fi for many years…Utterly compelling.”
USA Today
“Terrific stuff, a crackling good read that devotees of space travel will devour like candy…succeeds on several levels and for a variety of reasons, not least of which is its surprising plausibility.”
Entertainment Weekly
“An impressively geeky debut…the technical details keep the story relentlessly precise and the suspense ramped up. And really, how can anyone not root for a regular dude to prove the U-S-A still has the Right Stuff?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May: This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan TropperTo purchase, click here
Summary:
“The
death of Judd Foxman’s father marks the first time that the entire Foxman
family—including Judd’s mother, brothers, and sister—have been together in
years. Conspicuously absent: Judd’s wife, Jen, whose fourteen-month affair with
Judd’s radio-shock-jock boss has recently become painfully public.
Simultaneously mourning the death of his father and the demise of his marriage, Judd joins the rest of the Foxmans as they reluctantly submit to their patriarch’s dying request: to spend the seven days following the funeral together. In the same house. Like a family.
As the week quickly spins out of control, longstanding grudges resurface, secrets are revealed, and old passions reawakened. For Judd, it’s a weeklong attempt to make sense of the mess his life has become while trying in vain not to get sucked into the regressive battles of his madly dysfunctional family. All of which would be hard enough without the bomb Jen dropped the day Judd’s father died: She’s pregnant.
This Is Where I Leave You is Jonathan Tropper's most accomplished work to date, a riotously funny, emotionally raw novel about love, marriage, divorce, family, and the ties that bind—whether we like it or not.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Simultaneously mourning the death of his father and the demise of his marriage, Judd joins the rest of the Foxmans as they reluctantly submit to their patriarch’s dying request: to spend the seven days following the funeral together. In the same house. Like a family.
As the week quickly spins out of control, longstanding grudges resurface, secrets are revealed, and old passions reawakened. For Judd, it’s a weeklong attempt to make sense of the mess his life has become while trying in vain not to get sucked into the regressive battles of his madly dysfunctional family. All of which would be hard enough without the bomb Jen dropped the day Judd’s father died: She’s pregnant.
This Is Where I Leave You is Jonathan Tropper's most accomplished work to date, a riotously funny, emotionally raw novel about love, marriage, divorce, family, and the ties that bind—whether we like it or not.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
The Los Angeles Times
“Hilarious
and often heartbreaking… a novel that charms by allowing for messes, loose ends
and the reality that there's only one sure ending for everyone.”
Entertainment Weekly
“[A]
magnificently funny family saga…. Read and weep with laughter. Grade: A”
Associated Press
“The
novel is artful and brilliant, filled with colorful narratives and witty
dialogue. ... [Tropper] can find the funny in any situation.”
People.com
“Tender
and unexpectedly hilarious."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April: Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine HardenTo purchase, click here
Summary:
“North
Korea is isolated and hungry, bankrupt and belligerent. It is also armed with
nuclear weapons. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people are being held in its political
prison camps, which have existed twice as long as Stalin's Soviet gulags and
twelve times as long as the Nazi concentration camps. Very few born and raised
in these camps have escaped. But Shin Donghyuk did.
In Escape from Camp 14, acclaimed journalist Blaine Harden tells the story of Shin Dong-hyuk and through the lens of Shin's life unlocks the secrets of the world's most repressive totalitarian state. Shin knew nothing of civilized existence-he saw his mother as a competitor for food, guards raised him to be a snitch, and he witnessed the execution of his own family. Through Harden's harrowing narrative of Shin's life and remarkable escape, he offers an unequaled inside account of one of the world's darkest nations and a riveting tale of endurance, courage, and survival.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
In Escape from Camp 14, acclaimed journalist Blaine Harden tells the story of Shin Dong-hyuk and through the lens of Shin's life unlocks the secrets of the world's most repressive totalitarian state. Shin knew nothing of civilized existence-he saw his mother as a competitor for food, guards raised him to be a snitch, and he witnessed the execution of his own family. Through Harden's harrowing narrative of Shin's life and remarkable escape, he offers an unequaled inside account of one of the world's darkest nations and a riveting tale of endurance, courage, and survival.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
Terry Hong, Christian Science Monitor
“A
book without parallel, Escape from Camp 14 is a riveting nightmare
that bears witness to the worst inhumanity, an unbearable tragedy magnified by
the fact that the horror continues at this very moment without an end in sight.”
The Wall Street Journal
“A
remarkable story, [Escape from Camp 14] is a searing account of one man’s
incarceration and personal awakening in North Korea’s highest-security prison.”
CNN
“A
riveting new biography . . . If you want a singular perspective on what goes on
inside the rogue regime, then you must read [this] story. It’s a
harrowing tale of endurance and courage, at times grim but ultimately
life-affirming.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
March: Divergent by Veronica Roth
To purchase, click here
Summary: “In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago world, society
is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a
particular virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless
(the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an
appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to
which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is
between staying with her family and being who she really is--she can't have
both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.
During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are--and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, Tris also learns that her secret might help her save the ones she loves . . . or it might destroy her.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are--and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, Tris also learns that her secret might help her save the ones she loves . . . or it might destroy her.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
BookPage
“You’ll be up all night with Divergent, a brainy
thrill-ride of a novel.”
The
New York Times
“Divergent clearly has thrills, but it also
movingly explores a more common adolescent anxiety—the painful realization that
coming into one's own sometimes means leaving family behind, both ideologically
and physically.”
VOYA
- Leah Kihn
“Beatrice lives in a little community in Chicago.
There are many unique decisions to make in her community. At age sixteen
individuals have to make their biggest decision, one that determines their
future. They must choose to join one of five different factions: Candor-honest,
Abnegation-selfless, Dauntless-brave, Amity-peaceful, and Erudite-intelligent.
The characters are believable people. The book is very thought out, and once
you pick it up you want to know more.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
February: The Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
To purchase, click here
Summary:
“Winner of the 2000 Barnes & Noble Discover Great
New Writers Award! Alex Award winner! Tracy Chevalier transports readers to a
bygone time and place in this richly imagined portrait of the young woman who
inspired one of Vermeer's most celebrated paintings. History and fiction merge seamlessly
in this luminous novel about artistic vision and sensual awakening. Girl with a
Pearl Earring tells the story of sixteen-year-old Griet, whose life is
transformed by her brief encounter with genius...even as she herself is
immortalized in canvas and oil.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
Time magazine
"A portrait of radiance...Chevalier brings the
real artist Vermeer and a fictional muse to life in a jewel of a novel."
The
San Francisco Chronicle
"Superb...vividly captures the world of 17th
century Delft."
The
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"Tracy Chevalier has so vividly imagined the life
of the painter and his subject that you say to yourself: This is the way it
must have been."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
January: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
To purchase, click here
Summary:
“At
the heart of Catch-22 resides the incomparable, malingering
bombardier, Yossarian, a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes to save his
skin from the horrible chances of war.
His problem is Colonel Cathcart, who keeps raising the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions that he's committed to flying, he's trapped by the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, the bureaucratic rule from which the book takes its title: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes the necessary formal request to be relieved of such missions, the very act of making the request proves that he's sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
His problem is Colonel Cathcart, who keeps raising the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions that he's committed to flying, he's trapped by the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, the bureaucratic rule from which the book takes its title: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes the necessary formal request to be relieved of such missions, the very act of making the request proves that he's sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
Harper Lee
"Catch-22 is
the only war novel I've ever read that makes any sense."
The New Republic
“One
of the most bitterly funny works in the language . . . Explosive, bitter,
subversive, brilliant.”
Norman Mailer, Esquire
“It’s
the rock and roll of novels . . . There’s no book like it. . . . Surprisingly
powerful.”
Vanity Fair
“One
of the greatest anti-war books ever written.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
November: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
To purchase, click here
Summary: “The tragic story of the complex bond between
two migrant laborers in Central California. They are George Milton and Lennie
Small, itinerant ranch hands who dream of one day owning a small farm. George
acts as a father figure to Lennie, who is a very large, simple-minded man,
calming him and helping to rein in his immense physical strength.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
The
New York Times
”Of
Mice and Men is a thriller, a gripping tale running to novelette length
that you will not set down until it is finished. It is more than that; but it
is that. . . . In sure, raucous, vulgar Americanism, Steinbeck has touched the
quick in his little story.”
Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
“Brutality
and tenderness mingle in these strangely moving pages. . . . The reader is
fascinated by a certainty of approaching doom.”
Times
Literary Supplement
”A short tale of much power and beauty. Mr. Steinbeck has contributed a small masterpiece to the modern tough-tender school of American fiction.”
”A short tale of much power and beauty. Mr. Steinbeck has contributed a small masterpiece to the modern tough-tender school of American fiction.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
October: Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh
To purchase, click here
Summary:
"This
is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the
back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary
that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely
authoritative--like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it--but I soon discovered
that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just
make a list of things that are in the book:
Pictures
Words
Stories about things that happened to me
Stories about things that happened to other people because of me
Eight billion dollars*
Stories about dogs
The secret to eternal happiness*
*These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Pictures
Words
Stories about things that happened to me
Stories about things that happened to other people because of me
Eight billion dollars*
Stories about dogs
The secret to eternal happiness*
*These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
New York Times - Dwight Garner
“My
wife, who rarely reads a book published after 1910 and who is difficult to make
laugh, wept with pleasure while reading these comic illustrated essays from Ms.
Brosh, who runs a popular web comic and blog. I had to find out what the fuss
was about. The subjects run from light (cakes, dogs) to dark (the author’s own
severe depression), and they foreground offbeat feeling and real intellect. Ms.
Brosh’s inquisitive mind won me over, too.”
Entertainment Weekly
“Now
that the phrase 'LOL' has gotten so overused, it’s hard to imagine that
anything really makes people laugh out loud anymore. But the crudely drawn
cartoons in Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half, culled from her popular blog
and reprinted alongside never-before-seen materials, will make you laugh until
you sob, even when Brosh describes her struggle with depression.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
September: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
To purchase, click here
Summary:
"Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man
who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet
Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim
simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and
Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses
the firebombing of Dresden.
Don't let the ease of reading fool you - Vonnegut's isn't a conventional, or simple, novel. He writes, "There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters."
Slaughterhouse-Five is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is also as important as any written since 1945. Like Catch- 22, it fashions the author's experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority.Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it a unique poignancy - and humor." (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Don't let the ease of reading fool you - Vonnegut's isn't a conventional, or simple, novel. He writes, "There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters."
Slaughterhouse-Five is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is also as important as any written since 1945. Like Catch- 22, it fashions the author's experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority.Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it a unique poignancy - and humor." (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
Boston Globe
“Poignant and hilarious, threaded
with compassion and, behind everything, the cataract of a thundering moral
statement.”
Life
“Splendid art . . . a funny book at
which you are not permitted to laugh, a sad book without tears.”
The New York Times - Christopher
Lehmann-Haupt
"I know, I
know (as Kurt Vonnegut used to say when people told him that the Germans attacked
first). It sounds crazy. It sounds like a fantastic last-ditch effort to make
sense of a lunatic universe. But there is so much more to this book. It is very
tough and very funny; it is sad and delightful; and it works. But is also very
Vonnegut, which mean you'll either love it, or push it back in the
science-fiction corner."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
August: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
"Written in his distinctively dazzling manner, Oscar Wilde’s story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is the author’s most popular work. The tale of Dorian Gray’s moral disintegration caused a scandal when it first appeared in 1890, but though Wilde was attacked for the novel’s corrupting influence, he responded that there is, in fact, “a terrible moral in Dorian Gray.” Just a few years later, the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde’s homosexual liaisons, which resulted in his imprisonment. Of Dorian Gray’s relationship to autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, “Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps." (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Review:
Amazon.com
Review
A lush, cautionary tale
of a life of vileness and deception or a loving portrait of the aesthetic
impulse run rampant? Why not both? After Basil Hallward paints a beautiful,
young man's portrait, his subject's frivolous wish that the picture change and
he remain the same comes true. Dorian Gray's picture grows aged and corrupt
while he continues to appear fresh and innocent. After he kills a young woman,
"as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife," Dorian
Gray is surprised to find no difference in his vision or surroundings.
"The roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as
happily in my garden."
As
Hallward tries to make sense of his creation, his epigram-happy friend Lord
Henry Wotton encourages Dorian in his sensual quest with any number of Wildean
paradoxes, including the delightful "When we are happy we are always good,
but when we are good we are not always happy." But despite its many
languorous pleasures, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an
imperfect work. Compared to the two (voyeuristic) older men, Dorian is a bore,
and his search for ever new sensations far less fun than the novel's
drawing-room discussions. Even more oddly, the moral message of the novel
contradicts many of Wilde's supposed aims, not least "no artist has
ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable
mannerism of style." Nonetheless, the glamour boy gets his just deserts.
And Wilde, defending Dorian Gray, had it both ways: "All excess, as well
as all renunciation, brings its own punishment." --This text
refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
July: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
To purchase, click here
Summary:
“Seconds before the
Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked
off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition
of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been
posing as an out-of-work actor.
Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
Washington Post "The feckless protagonist,
Arthur Dent, is reminiscent of Vonnegut heroes, and his travels afford a wild
satire of present institutions."
Chicago Tribune "Very
simply, the book is one of the funniest SF spoofs ever written, with hyperbolic
ideas folding in on themselves."
School Library Journal "As
parody, it's marvelous: It contains just about every science fiction cliche you
can think of. As humor, it's, well, hysterical."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June: On the Road by Jack Kerouac
To purchase, click Barnes & Noble
Summary:
"On
the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac's years traveling the North
American continent with his friend Neal Cassady, "a sideburned hero of the
snowy West." As "Sal Paradise" and "Dean Moriarty,"
the two roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and experience.
Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of
language as jazz combine to make On
the Road an inspirational
work of lasting importance.
Kerouac's
classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be
"Beat" and has inspired every generation since its initial
publication more than forty years ago." (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
Lancaster Sunday News
“Kerouac wrote with a
sense of language as jazz, and Dillon can read like manic ragtime or weary
blues.”
New York Times
“The most beautifully
executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet made by the
generation Kerouac himself named years ago as 'beat.'.”
David Dempsey
“The incessant and
frenetic moving around is the chief dynamic of On the
Road, partly because this is one of the symptoms of
"beatness" but partly, too, because the hot pursuit of pleasure
enables Mr. Kerouac to serve up the great, raw slices of America that give his
book a descriptive excitement unmatched since the days of Thomas Wolfe. As a
portrait of a disjointed segment of a society acting out of its own neurotic
necessity, On the Road is a stunning
achievement. But it is a road, as far as the characters are concerned, that
leads nowhere - and which the novelist himself can't afford to travel more than
once.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April: Ender's Game (Ender Quintet #1) by Orson Scott CardTo purchase, click Barnes & Noble
Summary:
"In order to develop a secure
defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed
child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew
"Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic
brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister
Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program
but didn't make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting
Battle School for rigorous military training.
Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.
Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives." (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.
Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives." (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
Booklist
“Card has taken the
venerable sf concepts of a superman and interstellar war against aliens, and,
with superb characterization, pacing and language, combined them into a
seamless story of compelling power. This is Card at the height of his very
considerable powers—a major sf novel by any reasonable standards."—Booklist
Houston
Post
"Layers
fold with immaculate timing, transforming an almost juvenile adventure into a
tragic tale of the destruction...."
New
York Times Book Review
"Ender's
Game is an affecting novel."~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
March: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
To purchase, click Barnes & Noble
Summary:
“A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story
of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from
catastrophe—and built her back up again.
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had
lost everything. In the wake of her mother's death, her family scattered and
her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to
lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific
Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington
State—and to do it alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and
the trail was little more than “an idea, vague and outlandish and full of
promise.” But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come
undone.
Strayed faces down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail. Told with great suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Strayed faces down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail. Told with great suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
Dani Shapiro
“…a spectacular book…at once a
breathtaking adventure tale and a profound meditation on the nature of grief
and survival…the two tales Strayed tells, of her difficult past and challenging
present, are delivered in perfect balance. Not only am I not an adventurer
myself, but I am not typically a reader of wilderness stories. Yet I was
riveted step by precarious step through Strayed's encounters with bears,
rattlesnakes, mountain lion scat, ice, record snow and predatory men.”
—The New York Times Book Review
—The New York Times Book Review
Fiona Zublin
“Strayed comes off as a total
screw-up and a wise person at the same time, perhaps because she has the
ineffable gift every writer longs for of saying exactly what she means in lines
that are both succinct and poetic…Some memoirs make the steps between grief and
healing so clear that the path seems easy for readers to follow. Strayed, on
the contrary, respects mystery…No epiphanies here, no signs from the gods. Just
a healthy respect for the uncertainty we all live with, and an inborn talent
for articulating angst and the gratefulness that comes when we overcome it.”
—The Washington Post
—The Washington Post
Dwight Garner
“It's uplifting, but not in the way
of many memoirs, where the uplift makes you feel that you're committing mental
suicide. This book is as loose and sexy and dark as an early Lucinda Williams
song. It's got a punk spirit and makes an earthy and American sound…[Strayed]
hammers home her hard-won sentences like a box of nails. The cumulative welling
up I experienced during Wild was partly
a response to that too infrequent sight: that of a writer finding her voice,
and sustaining it, right in front of your eyes.”
—The New York Times
—The New York Times
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
February: Run, Brother, Run: A Memoir of a Murder in My Family by David Berg
To purchase, click Barnes & Noble
Summary:
"A searing family memoir of a tempestuous Texas boyhood that led to
the vicious murder of the author’s brother As William Faulkner said, “The past
is not dead, it’s not even past.” This observation seems especially true in
matters of family, when the fury between generations is often never resolved
and instead secretly carried, a wound that cannot heal. For David Berg, this is
truer than for most, and once you read the story of his family, you will
understand why he held it privately for so long and why the betrayals between
parent and child can be the most wrenching of all.
In 1968 David Berg’s brother, Alan, was murdered
by Charles Harrelson, a notorious hit man and father of actor Woody Harrelson.
Alan was only thirty-one when he disappeared; six months later his remains were found in a ditch in Texas. Run, Brother, Run is Berg’s story of the murder. But
it is also his account of the psychic destruction of the Berg family by the
author’s father, who allowed a grievous blunder at the age of twenty-three to
define his life. The event changed the fate of a clan and fell most heavily on
Alan, the firstborn son, who tried to both redeem and escape his father yet
could not.
This achingly painful family history is also a
portrait of an iconic American place, playing out in the shady bars of Houston,
in small-town law offices and courtrooms, and in remote ranch lands where bad
things happen—a true-crime murder drama, all perfectly calibrated. Writing with
cold-eyed grief and a wild, lacerating humor, Berg tells us first about the
striving Jewish family that created Alan Berg and set him on a course for
self-destruction and then about the gross miscarriage of justice that followed.
As with the best and most powerfully written
memoirs, the author has kept this horrific story to himself for a long time. A
scrappy and pugnacious narrator, Berg takes his account into the darkest human
behaviors: the epic battles between father and son, marital destruction,
reckless gambling, crooked legal practices, extortion, and, of course,
cold-blooded murder. Run, Brother, Run is a raw, furious, bawdy, and scathing
testimonial about love, hate, and pain— and utterly unforgettable." (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
Nashville Scene
“Berg is a very fine writer — thorough, lucid and logical, but never dry. The emotional resonance and sheer vital force of this story extend far beyond its pages. It is the story of a bond so strong that his older brother's absence still wakes Berg up in the middle of the night.”
“Berg is a very fine writer — thorough, lucid and logical, but never dry. The emotional resonance and sheer vital force of this story extend far beyond its pages. It is the story of a bond so strong that his older brother's absence still wakes Berg up in the middle of the night.”
Jon Meacham
"David Berg has written a funny and haunting memoir of a very particular family in a very particular place and time. It is also a universally American story of hope in the face of defeat. Suffused with a tragic sense of humor and deep pathos, one can't help but think of Willy Loman with a Texas twang when reading Run, Brother, Run."
"David Berg has written a funny and haunting memoir of a very particular family in a very particular place and time. It is also a universally American story of hope in the face of defeat. Suffused with a tragic sense of humor and deep pathos, one can't help but think of Willy Loman with a Texas twang when reading Run, Brother, Run."
New York Times
"What is remarkable about the book, though, is Mr. Berg’s writing. He
elegantly brings to life the rough-and-tumble boomtown that was 1960s-era
Houston, and conveys with unflinching force the emotional damage his brother’s
death did to his family."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
January: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
To purchase, click Barnes & Noble
Summary:
“Sussex,
England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral.
Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end
of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl,
Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie
in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an
ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes
flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to
have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.
Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years— promised to protect him, no matter what.
A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare
understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to
reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring,
terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing
as a knife in the dark.” (Summary found at Goodreads.com)
Reviews:
Chicago Tribune on THE
OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE
“[W]ry and freaky and
finally sad. . . . This is how Gaiman works his charms. . . . He crafts his
stories with one eye on the old world, on Irish folktales and Robin Hood and
Camelot, and the other on particle physics and dark matter.”
USA Today on THE OCEAN
AT THE END OF THE LANE
“[W]orthy of a sleepless
night . . . a fairy tale for adults that explores both innocence lost and the
enthusiasm for seeing what’s past one’s proverbial fence . . . Gaiman is a
master of creating worlds just a step to the left of our own.”
The Washington Post
- Keith Donohue
“…marks the return of
one of the fantastic mythmakers of our time…Gaiman is a magpie, a maker of
collages, creating something new and original out of the bits and pieces of his
wide reading of myth and folklore…This is a novel of nostos—that ineffable
longing for home, for the sensations and feelings of childhood, when the world
was frightening and magical all at once, when anything and everything were
possible…The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a small thing
with much joy and heartache, sacrifice and friendship, beautifully crafted and
as lonesome as the ocean.”
About the Author:
Neil Gaiman was born
November 10, 1960 in Hampshire, England. Gaiman is not only a writer of Young
Adult and Adult Fiction but also writes comics like Sandman. He
has also written for television shows such as Doctor Who and The Simpsons. Some
of his most popular adult books are Stardust and Anansi
Boys. The book we will read, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is
his latest adult novel which has been named 2013’s Book of the Year. 
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