Thursday, January 31, 2013

Fiction Pick of the Week: Warm Bodies Movie Tie-In!

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

R is having a no-life crisis--he is a zombie. He has no memories, no identity, and no pulse, but his is a little different from his fellow Dead. He may occasionally eat people, but he'd rather be riding abandoned airport escalators, listening to Sinatra in the cozy 747 he calls home, or collecting souvenirs from the ruins of civilization. And then he meets a girl. First as his captive, then his reluctant house guest, Julie is a blast of living color in R's gray landscape, and something inside him begins to bloom. He doesn't want to eat this girl--although she looks delicious--he wants to protect her. But their unlikely bond will cause ripples they can't imagine, and their hopeless world won't change without a fight.

Movie playing in theaters tomorrow!

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Teen Pick of the Week: Beautiful Creatures Movie Tie-In!

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia

Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power, and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever. Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

Coming out in Theaters on February 14, 2013!

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Friday, January 25, 2013

Fiction Pick of the Week: The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor by Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga

In the Walking Dead universe, there is no greater villain than The Governor. The despot who runs the walled-off town of Woodbury, he has his own sick sense of justice, whether it's forcing prisoners to battle zombies in an arena for the townspeople's amusement or chopping off the appendages of those who cross him. This is the story of Philip Blake, his daughter Penny, and his brother Brian. Along with two of Philip's friends, this ragtag group of survivors attempts to make it to Atlanta as the zombie apocalypse rages around them. But as their journey becomes more and more dangerous, Philip will realize that he must do whatever it takes to save his friends and family...and his own soul in the process.

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Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Teen Pick of the Week: A World Away

A World Away by Nancy Grossman

 Sixteen-year-old Eliza Miller has never made a phone call, never tried on a pair of jeans, never sat in a darkened theater waiting for a movie to start. She's never even talked to someone her age who isn't Amish, like her. When she leaves her close-knit family to spend the summer as a nanny in a suburb of Chicago, a part of her can't wait to leave behind everything she knows. She can't imagine the secrets she will uncover, the friends she will make, the surprises and temptations of a way of life so different from her own. Every minute Eliza spends with her new friend Josh feels as good as listening to music for the first time, and she wonders whether there might be a place for her in this world. But as summer wanes, she misses the people she has left behind and the Plain life she once took for granted. Eliza will have to decide for herself where she belongs. Whichever choice she makes, she knows she will lose someone she loves.

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

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Thursday, January 17, 2013

Fiction Pick of the Week: Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker

Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini
In a life that spanned nearly a century and witness some of the momentous events in American history, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley was born a slave. She earned her freedom by the skill of her needle and won the friendship of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln with her devotion. In her sweeping historical novel, Chiaverini illuminates the extraordinary relationship the two women shared, beginning in the hallowed halls of the White House during the trials of the Civil War and enduring almost, but not quite, to the end of Mrs. Lincoln's days. Elizabeth Keckley made her professional reputation in Washington, DC, making expertly fashioned dresses for the city's elite, among them Mrs. Jefferson Davis and Mrs. Robert E. Lee. In March 1861, Mrs. Lincoln chose her from among numerous applicants to be her personal "modiste," responsible for creating the First Lady's beautiful gowns and dressing her for important occasions. In this role, Elizabeth Keckley was quickly drawn into the intimate life of the Lincoln family, a clear-eyed but compassionate witness to events within the private quarters of the White House. 

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Teen Pick of the Week: The Forsaken

The Forsaken by Lisa Stasse

Alenna Shawcross hasn't seen her parents since they were dragged out of her house by government soldiers of the UNA, a new nation formed from the remnants of Canada, the USA, and Mexico. And now, as a sixteen-year-old orphan, she has failed a government personality test designed to diagnose subversive tendencies. As punishment, Alenna is banished to the wheel, a mysterious island where all the kids who fail get sent. A place where the conditions are brutal, and a civil war rages between two very different tribes of teenagers. So when Alenna meets Liam, a charismatic warrior who is planning to escape, she must find the strength to make a difficult decision to either accept her new life on the wheel or to embark on a journey that will uncover shocking secrets about the UNA--and her own identity as well.

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

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Friday, January 11, 2013

Fiction Pick of the Week: Tiger Rag

Tiger Rag by Nicholas Christopher

New Orleans, 1900. The virtuoso cornet player Charles "Buddy Bolden invents jazz, but after a life consumed by tragedy, the groundbreaking sound of his horn vanishes with him. Rumors persist, though, that Bolden recorded a phonograph cylinder, and over the course of a century it evolves into the elusive holy grail of jazz. Florida, the present day. Dr. Ruby Cardillo's life is falling apart. Her husband, a prominent cardiologist, has left her for a twenty-six-year-old. Her daughter, Devon, a once promising jazz pianist, has recently finished an enforced stint picking up trash along the interstate after a drug conviction. Ruby's estranged mother has just died, but not before conjuring up ghosts that Ruby thought she had put behind her long ago. After a long career as a well-respected anesthesiologist, Ruby suddenly jumps the tracks, forgetting to sleep and eat, indulging her every whim, wearing only purple, consuming only bottles of 1988 Chateau Latour. Then Ruby enlists Devon to accompany her on an impulsive road trip to New York, and both mother and daughter get more than they bargained for, discovering that their own shrouded family history is connected to the tantalizing search for Buddy Bolden's long-lost cylinder.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Teen Pick of the Week: Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls

Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls by Mary Downing Hahn

Tomorrow will be the last day of Nora's junior year. Nora heads for the party in the park, laughing and chatting with her friends, eager to leave her usual quiet, careful self behind. Other kids are drinking beer, flirting, pairing off, dancing. Even the hostile presence of a jealous ex-boyfriend can't spoil the fun. In a few hours, though, Mister Death will make his move. Nora hasn't yet seen his shadow, but we know he's getting ready. He's the man who isn't there, the man no one notices, and he has a rifle. And he's going into the dark woods to use it. Nora and his classmates and their town will find out about him soon enough.

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Saturday, January 5, 2013

Nonfiction Pick of the Week!

Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon

Solomon's startling proposition is that diversity is what unites us all. He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, multiple severe disabilities, with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who transgender. While each of these characteristics is potentially isolating, the experience of difference within families is universal, as are the triumphs of love Solomon documents in every chapter. All parenting turns on a crucial question: to what extent parents should accept their children for who they are, and to what extent they should help them become their best selves. Drawing on forty thousand pages of interview transcripts with more than three hundred families, Solomon mines the eloquence of ordinary people facing extreme challenges. Whether considering prenatal screening for genetic disorders, cochlear implants for the deaf, or gender reassignment surgery for transgender people, Solomon narrates a universal struggle toward compassion.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Teen Pick of the Week: False Memory

False Memory by Dan Krokos

Miranda North wakes up alone on a park bench with no memory. In her panic, she releases a mysterious energy that incites pure terror in everyone around her. Except for Peter, a boy who isn't at all surprised by Miranda's shocking ability. Left with no choice but to trust this stranger, Miranda discovers that she was trained to be a weapon and is part of an elite force of genetically altered teens who possess flawless combat skills and powers strong enough to destroy a city. But readjusting to her old life isn't easy--especially with Noah, the boyfriend she can't remember loving. Then Miranda uncovers a dark truth that sets her team on the run. Suddenly her past doesn't seem to matter...when there may not be a future.

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

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