Publisher: Consortium Book Sales & Dist
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 2/21/2008
ISBN: 9781932859461
ISBN-10: 1932859462

The staff at a Nottingham Hospital fall victim to a series of brutal attacks that don’t end their lives but do ruin their careers in this superior police procedural featuring English copper Charlie Resnick. Resnick, with his penchant for jazz, cats and the perfect sandwich, is a likeable and compelling character and should be much more well-known in this country. This book is the third in a series of ten. Start with Harvey’s Lonely Hearts if you’d like to read it beginning to end.

Publisher: Fawcett Columbine
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 9/1/1996
ISBN: 9780449910894
ISBN-10: 044991089X

Smiley captures perfectly the pacing and voice of a medieval saga in this grim tale of the European settlement in Greenland in its dying days. Starvation, disease, hostile and demonized natives, and internal strife all combine to bring about the settlement’s destruction. Not the least of the colonists’ enemies is their own fatalism: “He was a man of the old style; full of fate.” A captivating and thoroughly enjoyable read full of timeless human themes. Save it for a summer heat wave—it will cool you off!

First Chapter  

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 10/20/2000
ISBN: 9780812235760
ISBN-10: 0812235762

A bizarre and rather quirky tale of the man who “terrorized” London by stalking women and—gasp—cutting their clothing! Rhynwick Williams, the man farcically tried for the assaults, is considered one of the first media celebrities. A good, clean, weird read. (Google “Jack the Snipper” for modern renditions of this bizarre type of crime.)

First Chapter  Table of Contents  

Publisher: Vintage International
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 2/1/2001
ISBN: 9780375725845
ISBN-10: 0375725849

Set in 18th century France, this international bestseller evokes the best of German Romanticism in the bizarre story of a man who has a keenly developed sense of smell but no scent of his own. His obsession with finding the perfect scent that will make him fully human leads to tragic consequences.

First Chapter  

Publisher: Image Entertainment
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 1/1/1957
UPC: 00037429124529

This surreal and gorgeous film portrays a man in a chess game against the Grim Reaper. Set during the time of the Black Death, it is an existential delight as the man seeks answers about life, death and the existence of god. The beautiful black and white images will stay with you for a long, long time.

Publisher: HarperTorch
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 9/1/2005
ISBN: 9780060745240
ISBN-10: 006074524X

Shortly after graduating from finishing school, newly orphaned Francesca is sent to live with her grandfather, Count Tarconti, in the Papal States.  Francesca’s pleasant, pampered life is disturbed as she becomes aware of the pitiful life of the peasants and the daring escapades of the Falcon, a masked brigand who helps the peasants and urges Italian unification.  Francesca’s interactions with the Falcon make her fear for his safety and her own. 

First Chapter  

Publisher: Modern Library
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/1/2002
ISBN: 9780812966114
ISBN-10: 0812966112

The elusive Scarlet Pimpernel rescues French aristocrats from the guillotine.  This is an historical novel with humor, romance and adventure.

First Chapter  

Publisher: Dutton
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 2/3/2005
ISBN: 9780525948605
ISBN-10: 0525948600

Eloise Kelley is in London working on her PhD dissertation about spies during the French Revolution.  She has plenty of information about the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian but she longs to discover the identity of the elusive Pink Carnation.  She thinks her luck may have turned when a descendant of the Purple Gentian offers to let her look through some old family papers.  The elderly woman is charming but her nephew Colin seems hostile both to Eloise’s research and Eloise herself.  Will Eloise be able to identify the Pink Carnation and perhaps find some romance for herself as well?

First Chapter  

Publisher: Fox Home Entertainment
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 1/1/1940
UPC: 00024543061007

Tyrone Power stars as Don Diego Vega, a member of the landed gentry in Spanish controlled California.  Secretly he is Zorro, a masked man who fights for the rights of the people and to overthrow the tyrannical Alcalde.  With a black cape, mask and sword, Tyrone Power is a very convincing romantic hero in this black and white film.

Publisher: Orchard Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 4/1/2002
ISBN: 9780439293075
ISBN-10: 0439293073

Trying to save the family pasta business, Al Dente invents a portable pasta machine to compete with the local pizza delivery run by Mari Nara.  Humor and heroism abound in this picture book that can be enjoyed by children and adults.

Publisher: Viking
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 10/18/2007
ISBN: 9780670062485
ISBN-10: 0670062480

Averie is a general’s daughter who follows her father to a new land, Chiarrin. There she tags along with her father and fiancée Morgan as they try to control a new land. Quickly things turn dangerous, and the lives of her father and family are at stake. She meets a new friend in the market, but betrayal is imminent, and she questions her love for her fiancé and a new soldier enters her life. The most pressing question however, is will she and her family make it back to their homeland alive? A great suspenseful and thought provoking novel that grabs you from the get go. 

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 3/25/2008
ISBN: 9781416910077
ISBN-10: 1416910077

Money can change everything. Indigo was perfectly happy with her life, her job and her boyfriend. This all changed the day someone left her a 2.5 million dollar tip. It is said that money doesn’t change people, but will it change Indigo? A wonderful story from an amazing teen author. Check out some of her other books, The Nature of Jade, The Queen of Everything and Honey, Baby, Sweetheart.

Publisher: Viking
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 4/22/2008
ISBN: 9780670010882
ISBN-10: 067001088X

Ruby's mother is unpredictable, so it was no surprise when she got up and left Ruby to fend for herself. She managed to live on her own for awhile, but got caught and was sent to live with her sister and brother in-law, the sister she feels abandoned her with her alcoholic mother. It's hard to fit in, but their relationship is mending and a new one is forming with a boy named Nate...who has secrets of his own. Sarah Dessen is the quintessential teen voice, and she doesn't disappoint in her newest books. Check out some of her other teen books, Just Listen, This Lullaby and How to Deal.

Publisher: Delacorte Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 2/12/2008
ISBN: 9780385734752
ISBN-10: 0385734751

Star Beck is a teenage pop star, with an overbearing mother and a meandering publicist. She always questioned who her father was, but when she finds out her mom has been keeping secrets she embarks on a crazy journey to St. Petersburg, Florida. There she is disguised and can lead a normal life, even attracting the attention of a normal boy. However, she can’t stay hidden for long and quickly her pop star life catches up with her. This is a really cute teen romance, filled with all things that teens like, pop music, romance and intrigue.

Publisher: Viz Media
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 12/4/2007
ISBN: 9781421515885
ISBN-10: 1421515881

Sachie's mother has just passed away, and her grandfather has decided to take care of her. The only problem is he is the head of a Yakuza gang, a modern type Japanese mafia! Did I mention her new cute bodyguard Rakuto? A great beginning to a fun, lighthearted series that follows her life as part of the Yakuza.

Publisher: Hyperion Books for Children
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 10/10/2007
ISBN: 9780786849000
ISBN-10: 0786849002

Gratuity (“Tip”) Tucci is eleven years old when the Boov arrive on Earth (which they call Smekland) on Christmas Eve (Smekday) and abduct her mother.  Meanwhile, the Boov are insisting that all Earth humans take rocketpods to Florida, where they will all live together, leaving the rest of the planet for the Boov.  Tip rebels, grabs her cat Pig, hops into her mother’s car, and heads south.  Along the way she meets up with a renegade Boov named JLo, and the motley crew journey on together (in the car, which JLo has modified in a distinctly Boovian way), eventually making their way across the country to Arizona, fighting off the Boov’s enemy Gorg, and learning a lot about each other on the way.  The text is interspersed with illustrations and cartoons. 

Publisher: Scholastic Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 3/1/2007
ISBN: 9780439813785
ISBN-10: 0439813786

This year’s Caldecott Medal winner for best picture book for children is quite a departure.  For one thing, it’s 500 pages long, and about 200 of those pages are text.  The others are double-page spreads that move the story forward through textless illustrations.  Hugo Cabret is an orphan who lives in the walls of a train station in Paris in the 1930s.  He keeps the station’s clocks wound, and works to complete an automaton that his uncle left unfinished.  He meets a girl named Isabelle, who introduces him to her grandfather, the legendary French filmmaker George Melies (“A Trip to the Moon” 1902).  All of these elements blend into a beautifully, if unusually, told story.

Publisher: HarperTempest
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 1/1/2007
ISBN: 9780060890353
ISBN-10: 0060890355

The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean is this year's Michael L. Printz award winner, for excellence in writing for young adults. It's a fascinating book, beautifully written and intricately plotted. The narrator, Sym, is 14 years old and hard of hearing. She is obsessed with Antarctica, and in particular with Captain Lawrence (Titus) Oates, a member of Scott's ill-fated 1911 attempt to reach the South Pole. Sym implicitly trusts her uncle Victor, but when he takes her on a trip to Antarctica, things start to fall apart. Sym is slow to realize that Victor is not the genius and hero she thought, but rather a devious man with a strange and compelling obsession. Fortunately, she has some assistance, in the form of a boy named Sigurd and especially her ever-present mental companion, Titus Oates. I will definitely re-read this book, as knowledge of all the facts would surely make for a completely different reading experience.

First Chapter  

Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 5/1/2007
ISBN: 9780060852559
ISBN-10: 0060852550

This is a nonfiction narrative about a year that a family spent eating local, mostly home-grown, food.  They moved from Arizona to a farm in Virginia, where they raised a lot of their own food and bought most of the rest from nearby. Interspersed with the narrative of the year are sidebars by Kingsolver's husband, mostly about the politics and economics of food production, and her older daughter, mostly about nutrition and recipes. I listened to the audio version, with Kingsolver reading the narrative, and her husband and daughter reading their parts. It was delightful to listen to Kingsolver's tales of raising and preparing food. And who knew that turkey sex could be so hilarious? While the book is wholly entertaining, it is also a thought-provoking statement about how we use the world's resources, and about mindful eating and mindful living.

First Chapter  Table of Contents  

Publisher: Doubleday
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 10/1/1996
ISBN: 9780385471893
ISBN-10: 0385471890

Fraser points out in this book that lots of people know that the Gunpowder Plot involved Guy Fawkes and took place on the 5th of November, but very few know the year (1605) or much about what actually happened.  Fraser remedies that in this extremely well-researched but highly readable account of the conspiracy in which a group of Catholic noblemen stored gunpowder under the Houses of Parliament, with the intention of blowing up King James I, his wife and son, and a good many of the country’s nobility at the opening of Parliament on November 5, 1605 (the explosion never happened).  Fraser expertly explains the political and religious situation that followed the death of Queen Elizabeth I, sympathetically describes all the major players, untangles the plot, and guides the reader through the show trials, the executions, and the public reaction immediately after and through the centuries since.

Publisher: Clarion Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 10/16/2006
ISBN: 9780618714667
ISBN-10: 0618714669

Benny only likes to eat one thing: hamburgers.  His Mother worries that he’s going to turn into a burger, and one day, it happens!  Now Benny has to run from all the hungry people who think he’s a burger, and not a boy!

Publisher: Candlewick Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 5/8/2007
ISBN: 9780763630546
ISBN-10: 0763630543

This chapter book is also a comic strip.  Meet Sticky Burr!  He gets along with most of the animals and plants in Burrwood Forest.  One day, a pack of wild dogs come uninvited to his village.  Sticky Burr must find a way to save his friends.

Publisher: Cricket Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 6/1/2003
ISBN: 9780812626889
ISBN-10: 0812626885

There’s just the right number of scary tales to read and tell.  Some may be scary, and others may surprise you.  Find out which ones you’ll like!  If you read this book, and want more, also try: Double-dare to be scared, and its sequel, Triple-dare to be scared.  Each book has thirteen scary stories for you to enjoy!

Publisher: Macmillan
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 2/1/1990
ISBN: 9780027936216
ISBN-10: 002793621X

Did you know that the Chinese have been in California and Canada since the mid-1800s?  They came from the southern Chinese province of Guangdong and established many Chinatowns, a few of which still exist today. Here are eight scary stories and original folk tales that give an idea of why the Chinese came over to North America, and what it took for them to survive prejudice and dangerous work

Publisher: Hyperion Paperbacks for Children
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 8/26/2008
ISBN: 9781423105169
ISBN-10: 1423105168

Capricorn Anderson, a.k.a. Cap, has never been to a public school because he’s been homeschooled by his adoptive grandmother, Rain.  When Rain is sent to the hospital after falling off a ladder, Cap must learn to survive in a scary place - middle school!  He moves in with his social worker and her teen daughter, is unknowingly elected student body president, and watches TV for the first time.  Find out about Cap’s other hilarious adventures and first experiences, and check out this book!