B&N Recommends

When first told to try the Southern Vampire Series, I was skeptical at first since I had heard about a show on HBO (True Blood) based on them and it didn't really seem like "my thing." I was so wrong! Dead Until Dark is the first of 9 (for now) books by Charlaine Harris about the feisty heroine, Sookie Stackhouse. It took me less than one day to finish and I bought all of the rest the next day so I didn't have to wait for the next book should I finish while the bookstore was closed for the night. This book (and the rest that followed) were laugh-out-loud funny! Sookie is such a dynamic character and she fills the pages with uproarious wit and stubborn panache. Her exploits, while firmly in the realm of fantasy, are so well-written that I felt as though I was right there with her, tending tables at Merlotte's.

The premise behind the Southern Vampire Series is also part of the appeal of the novels. While reading vampire novels in the past, I have always wondered what it would be like if the vampires were no longer condemned to the hidden underworld. Charlaine Harris begins her first novel of the series by answering this very question. In the series, vampires have just "come out of the coffin" due to the invention of synthetic blood. Since they have synthetic blood, they do not need to be a danger to humans and announce themselves to the world. Sookie sees the announcement on television and her bar, Merlotte's begins to carry True Blood, just in case. Sookie meets her first vampire when he comes into the bar for a drink and is drawn into the vampires' no-longer-hidden world due to her own abilities as a psychic and her blossoming relationship with the small town's very own resident bloodsucker.

Dead Until Dark combines so many elements of fiction, I recommend it to everyone. If you are looking for humor, fantasy, romance, drama, or just something new to try, I very highly recommend trying out Dead Until Dark. In the style of truly entertaining reading, it is extremely addictive and very hard to put down so beware! Should you wind up hooked on them as myself and so many others, the next books are Living Dead in Dallas (Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Series #2),  Club Dead (Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Series #3),  Dead to the World (Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Series #4),  Dead As a Doornail (Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Series #5),  Definitely Dead (Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Series #6),  All Together Dead (Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Series #7) , From Dead to Worse (Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Series #8), and  Dead and Gone (Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Series #9) .

How does memory constitute identity?  What is it to be human?  Such immense questions underlie much of the gripping drama in Stephanie Meyer's latest novel, The Host.  Melanie, a protagonist of this psychological thriller, guides her other part using memories and her internal voice.  She helps her other part to adapt to new challenging emotions, pains, and relationships.  Trapped between two societies, they find themselves on a quest to find loved ones and learn who can be trusted.  If you did not find any interest to read Meyer's Twilight series, than perhaps you were waiting for her to exhibit her talent in this science fiction novel that is likely to be the premiere of a new exciting series.

I have always loved fantasy novels. Growing up I loved to spend time in Narnia, Middle Earth, and Redwall, and even now as somewhat of a grown up, some of my favorite haunts can be found between the covers of a fantasy novel, And maybe that is why I fell in love with The Magicians so quickly. I could really relate to Quentin Coldwater, who even though he is near the end of high school he is still in love with the books of Fillory (think Chronicles of Narnia) even though they are much to young for him. Of course he knows that magic isn't real, that is, until he finds himself in upstate New York at Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy.

This isn't just Harry Potter dressed in a new robe. Lev Grossman has created an original, engaging story that melds literary fiction with that of the fantasy genre while paying tribute to some of our favorite fantasy worlds. The narrative really zips along, and I found myself reading it at every opprotunity. Don't expect any "happily everafters" here though, as this one is certainly for the adult audience. Quentin and his friends often find themselves in darker and darker places, as growing up is never as clean and simple as we pretend it will be. 

If you are looking for that next fantastic place to escape to, you can't go wrong with The Magicians.  

I've never read a book that moved me the way The Book Thief did.  Narrated by Death, it tells the story of Liesel Meminger, a young girl who spends her childhood living with a foster family in Germany during World War II.  Naturally, a book with that setting has its fair share of tragedy, and though this one does have one of the saddest endings I've ever seen, at the same time, it is also one of the most uplifting books I've ever read.  The characters are what makes this book so special; each one has traits that are likeable and detestable.  They are among the most human characters that I've ever seen, and I came to care about what happened to each and every one of them.  By the time I reached the climax of the book, I was so emotionally invested in the characters, that I couldn't keep from crying, and yet I still can't think of a book that I've read recently that I enjoyed more than this one.

This is a wonderful book.  I can't recommend it highly enough.

This is one of my all-time favorite books. I have read it more times than I can count and have given it as a gift to every friend, family member, or person I don't know very well who needed a gift because it is great for all age groups and different types of people. You don't have to be a science fiction fan to enjoy it, although Ender's Game and its sequel, Speaker for the Dead, both won the Hugo and Nebula awards for outstanding sci fi. I first found Ender's Game in my middle school library and picked it up because it said something about gifted children and I had been in gifted classes so I thought it might be about something like that. I read it in a little under a week and was completely hooked. I immediately wanted everyone I knew to read it because I felt like it was something that needed to be shared. I read it a few years later in high school and found whole new aspects of it I'd never noticed the first time. I started following the rest of the series, which divides and follows two main characters (I followed both). The next books that follow the character, Bean, stay in the same difficulty level. The ones that follow Ender turn into more hard-core science fiction, but were still thrilling. For this reason, the book is sometimes coded as children's, sometimes teen, and sometimes adult science fiction. It can definitely be read and enjoyed at any age! The story itself is essentially about an Earth of the future, united under a world government that formed when the "Buggers" attacked Earth decades earlier. Since that time the International Fleet has started taking incredibly bright young children away to Battle School, a space station designed solely for training future soldiers. Andrew (Ender) Wiggin is an illegal "third" in the population controlled world but the International Fleet has already turned down his older brother, Peter, and older sister, Valentine, for Battle School so his parents are allowed a third child. Ender winds up in Battle School having to participate with his "army" in a series of war-games. Meanwhile his brother and sister manipulate Earth's politics and we learn more about the International Fleet. The conclusion is shocking and hits hard, leaving you hoping there's more. And there is of course!

Right before I started reading The Time Traveler's Wife, I read Octavia Butler's Kindred.  It was a strange transition to make since they both deal with involuntary time travel, but it was easy to appreciate both books.  In Kindred, Dana, a modern, African-American woman is pulled back in time to a plantation in the early 1800s.  There, she saves the life of Rufus, a young, white, slave-holding boy, whom she later discovers is one of her ancestors.  Dana is then pulled back in time again and again in order to help save Rufus's life, their relationship growing both closer and more contentious as time goes on.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed The Time Traveler's Wife, I felt that Butler did a better job than Niffenegger at examining the potential ramifications of time travel.  For example, would you save a person if you knew that he was going to end up raping a woman, but if you also knew that that act would lead to your own birth?  Butler manages to deal expertly with that issue and others, such as slavery.  This was one of the most thought-provoking novels I've ever read.

Octavia Butler was a terrific story-teller, and if you haven't read any of her books yet, this would be a good place to start.

This little gem has the potential to be overlooked by most folks, so don't be fooled by the little dog on the cover!

Once the physical shortcomings of age begin to emerge, Alex and Ruth must move after 45 years of living in their current New York City co-op. Forced to find a building with an elevator to cope with their infirmity, they begrudgingly set up an open house so they can begin the mission of uprooting the lives they planted so long ago. The night before their open house, they are met with a distressing surprise: their (also elderly) Daschund, Dorothy seems to be paralyzed. Being a devoted childless couple, they embark on what ends up being a journey, to get little Dot to the animal hospital before the unthinkable happens. They are then met with yet another surprise which has put the city in a public frenzy, citizens and officials alike panicking about the possibilities of another terrorist attack.

At this point, the book becomes very fast-paced, with predicaments and celebrations continually unfolding over the course of less than 72 hours. Despite the bipolar conditions illustrated, the story remains convincing. Ultimately, it paints a humorous and touching, yet realistic portrait of an old (but modern) family struggling with an era of mass hysteria. It reads like a short story, and although somewhat light, it maintains a strong literary quality—reminiscent of Flannery O'Connor.

Although I hate to end in a cliche here, you should know that this book made me laugh out loud, and of course, cry.

This is the third book in Koontz's gripping adaptation of Mary Shelley's original "Frankenstein".  The biggest difference being that Mary Shelley's fictional account was not fiction at all.  Dr. Frankenstein and the original Frankenstein monster are still alive after 200 years.  Dr. Frankenstein seemingly has perfected his creation of of human-like beings and is on the verge of unleashing a sinister plan to replace humankind with his own New Race. 

It's been over 3 years since the release of the last book in the series, Frankenstein : City of Night. I, like many other fans, were eagerly awaiting this third installment.  Three years of wondering "what's in the tank" can really be nerve-racking.  As I waited for the release date, I wondered if I should go back and reread books 1 and 2  for a refresher as to what had happened and where the story left off.  I decided not to reread the other books, and after just a few pages of  "Dead and Alive" it all came rushing back anyway. 

As with anything that is waited for over a long period of time, there is always that nagging feeling that once you get it you may be let down.  This was NOT one of those experiences.  This third installment is as gripping, though-provoking, and action-packed as much as the other two.  I devoured the book in less than a week and definitely found it difficult to put down.

This book should come with a disclaimer: not for everyone.

But don't let that stop you from picking it up, especially if you like the odd, the quirky, the -- unique. Geek Love is the story of a family of carnival freaks. While at its center is an dwarf albino hunchback who's brother is has fins for arms and legs and who's sisters are conjoined twins, at the book's heart is family. Even though the family is different than the majority of the book's readers, and though we might never be able to imagine life in a carnival, with people staring and pointing at us, we can understand how family works.

I read this book for a class on contemporary literature, and I admit I was a bit hesitant at first. I like good-hearted, happy stories most of the time. I like reading about things and people I can identify with. But Geek Love got to me emotionally. It really struck me as the kind of book that examines the human heart and mind as being the same, no matter the person, no matter the circumstance. 

To mark the 50th anniversary of The Tin Drum, a new translation of Nobel Prize Winner Gunter Grass's masterpiece has been released.    Featuring one of literature's most unforgettable characters, Oskar Matzerath, The Tin Drum effectively examines the German psyche during and after World War II.  It shows the brutality of the Nazis and the absurdity of war through the eyes of a boy who refuses to grow out of childhood.  Even after fifty years, it remains just as poignant and relevant today as it was when it was first published.

The Tin Drum has rightly earned its place in the pantheon of great books.  If you appreciate excellent world literature, but haven't had the chance to read this yet, take the opportunity that this new translation presents to you to introduce yourself to it.  It is a book that will challenge you, but it is worth it.

Introducing Thursday Next, Jasper Fforde's no-nonsense, smart, funny, and loving heroine of his first series.  We meet Thursday in an alternate mid-1980s Great Britain - one still fighting in the Crimea with Russia - and she is hot on the trail of forgers, Shakespeare impersonators, and book thieves.  Everyone is mad for literature including Acheron Hades, the most wanted man in Britain, and it is Thursday's job to catch him once Jane Eyre is kidnapped from her book leaving the remaining pages of the beloved novel blank.  Fforde's first novel is laugh-out-loud funny, including obscure literary in-jokes that even the most well-read bibliophile might miss, with a drop or two of sci-fi tech, and also quite terrifying when Thursday fights for her life atop the blazing Thornfield Hall.  Fforde uses Thursday's world to comment on certain aspects of our own society including government interference by large corporations (signified by the hulking Goliath Corporation), over-commercialization, and the decline in literacy.  Fforde's books suck you in, which is great because you'll want to follow Thursday through the rest of her books: Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten, Thursday Next, and one more Thursday novel due sometime in 2010 (or so Jasper says); Thursday learns about the Bookworld and Jurisfiction, apprentices with Miss Havisham, fights grammasites in the Well, tracks the Minotaur, takes the indecisive Dane of Denmark under her wing, and saves Pride and Prejudice from the degredation of reality TV (now I've really got you wondering...I guess you'll have to read all the books now ) - it's all very accessibly, absurd, and fun to read.  Once you've finished Thursday's published books, and need a tide-over until the next one, you can start on Fforde's Nursery Crime series (Big Over Easy and The Fourth Bear), following DCI Jack Spratt and his partner, Mary Mary, as they solve hard-boiled nursery rhyme crime in Reading, and his new series, Paint by Numbers, will debut in December 2008.  

Why to John Flagman's Ranger's Apprentice Series, of course. 

In this series Mr... Flanagan has created a world similar to that of our medieval world. Complete with castles, knights, kingdoms and adventure. When we meet will he is an orphan and ward of castle Redmont in the Kingdom of Araluen. Will is a small boy, but makes good use of his size and ability to sneak. That is to move without being seen. As well as his ability to climb anything that offers a good foothold. Both of these talents combined to get him into some trouble with the castle chef over some pilfered pastries. 

Will had heard tell that his father was a brave warrior killed in battle, and would like nothing more than to become a knight like his father. However his size does present a problem, in that he is too small to train as a knight. When it seems all is lost and Will won't be chosen to apprentice anyone a spectral being steps from the shadows and whispers something in the baron's ear. The spectral being, is none other than the famously feared ranger, Halt. It is said he possesses some black magic that allows him to move unseen and blend with the shadows. Is it true? You will have to read the books to find that out. 

What I will tell you, and as the series' title gives away is this; Halt takes Will to be his apprentice. And through his apprenticeship we get a look at the training and day-to-day life of a ranger of the Kingdom of Araluen. Exciting stuff, and that is just the beginning. 

Adventures abound for Will and his friends. Each one helping to shape them into what they are truly meant to be. Heroes.

So far there have been six books released in the series, and not one disappoints!

As today is the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, I can't help but think of what a monumental achievement that was.  There have been many books written about it, and about the space race in general, but the piece of writing that has stuck with me the most through the years was actually a short story that was only tangentially related to the moon landing.

Jhumpa Lahiri's collection Interpreter of Maladies  contains many excellent stories about the Indian-American experience, but my favorite story was "The Third and Final Continent."  In it, a newly arrived immigrant finds a room to rent in the home of a 103 year old woman at the same time as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were landing on the moon.  It was the woman's age that caught my attention.  Even if she just barely missed it herself, the idea that it was possible for someone to be alive for both the Civil War and the moon landing fascinated me.  Just over 100 years after a bloody war between the North and South,  Americans went to the moon in a lander designed in New York, propelled by a rocket designed in Alabama.  This story made me realize the potential of man to overcome differences in a short period of time to accomplish common goals.

As I mentioned above, the other stories in this collection are excellent as well, good enough to earn Lahiri a Pulitzer Prize.  It is well worth reading.

For fans of Year of Wonders  by Geraldine Brooks, and Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth, Company of Liars is a book you should pick up right now!  It takes place in England during the Plague year of 1348 and follows a group of pilgrims desperately trying to get away from the spread of the plague.  The story is narrated by Camelot, a disfigured person who sells relics along the road and at town fairs.  Each character has a secret, and as the novel progresses, secrets are revealed and the tension builds towards a surprise conclusion.  The author writes an amazing novel, and puts you firmly on the road with the pilgrims, feeling each cold night, laying outside in a miserably drenching rain.  You feel the hunger, pain, and anxiety of the characters as each looks at the other with growing suspicion.  It really is a great story with memorable characters--Narigorm, the just plain creepy albino girl who throws runes;  Cygnet, the one-armed storyteller, and Pleasance, the herbalist.   Just when you think you've got it figured out, there's a twist.  Highly recommended!