zombie love

halloween is just 10 days away... what are you most afraid of?  zombies, maybe...?

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES by Seth Grahame-Smith (2009)   As a mysterious plague falls upon the village of Meryton and zombies start rising from the dead, Elizabeth Bennett is determined to destroy the evil menace, but becomes distracted by the arrival of the dashing and arrogant Mr. Darcy.

WORLD WAR Z by Max Brooks (2006)  An account of the decade-long conflict between humankind and hordes of the predatory undead is told from the perspective of dozens of survivors who describe in their own words the epic human battle for survival.

THE CELL by Stephen King (2006)  Civilization doesn't end with a bang or a whimper. It ends with a call on your cell phone. What happens on the afternoon of October 1 came to be known as the Pulse, a signal sent though every operating cell phone that turns its user into something...well, something less than human. Savage, murderous, unthinking-and on a wanton rampage. Terrorist act? Cyber prank gone haywire? It really doesn't matter, not to the people who avoided the technological attack. What matters to them is surviving the aftermath.Before long a band of them-"normies" is how they think of themselves-have gathered on the grounds of Gaiten Academy, where the headmaster and one remaining student have something awesome and terrifying to show them on the school's moonlit soccer field. Clearly there can be no escape. The only option is to take them on.

 KISS OF SHADOWS by Laurell K. Hamilton (2000)  Princess Meredith, a fairie, poses as a human in Los Angeles living as a private investigator specializing in supernatural crime. (Meredith Gentry, Book 1)

  FRAGILE THINGS by Neil Gaiman (2006)  A collection of more than twenty-five short fictional works follows a theme of the intersections between life and death, perception and reality, and darkness and light.

THE LIVING DEAD by various authors (2008)  A collection of short stories about zombies includes contributions by Clive Barker, Laurell K. Hamilton, Stephen King, and Neil Gaiman.

BONESHAKER by Cherie Priest (2009)  Inventor Leviticus Blue creates a machine that accidentally decimates Seattle's banking district and uncovers a vein of Blight Gas that turns everyone who breathes it into the living dead. Sixteen years later Briar, Blue's widow, lives in the poor neighborhood outside the wall that's been built around the uninhabitable city. Life is tough with a ruined reputation, but she and her teenage son Ezekiel are surviving--until Zeke impetuously decides that he must reclaim his father's name from the clutches of history.

THE RISING by Brian Keene (2003)  When a horrifying plague turns most of the world into powerful flesh-eating zombies, Jim Thurmond, while on a cross-country quest to save his son, joins forces with an elderly preacher, a scientist, and a reformed prostitute to save civilization from evil.

THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH by Carrie Ryan (2009)  Through twists and turns of fate, orphaned Mary seeks knowledge of life, love, and especially what lies beyond her walled village and the surrounding forest, where dwell the Unconsecrated, aggressive flesh-eating people who were once dead.

JACK AND JILL WENT UP TO KILL: a book of zombie nursery rhymes by Michael Spradlin (2011)
From the author of the "New York Times" bestseller "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Zombies!" and "Every Zombie Eats Somebody Sometime" comes the perfect book for zombie lovers (both literal and figurative) everywhere: a collection of classic nursery rhymes, zombie style

and of course THE WALKING DEAD graphic novel series by Robert Kirkham

(these are on order... but they are coming... for you... eeek!!)

see you in the library

JeNNiFFeR

alexander mccall smith...

If you aren't a fan , you soon will be!

Alexander McCall Smith is the author of several gentle-read series, kids books and also stand-alone books...  here are his series:

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series
Meet Mma Ramotswe, proprietor of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, and follow her adventures as she navigates the cases of her clients and the complexities of her personal life with charm, wisdom, and a healthy dose of humor...

The Isabel Dalhousie Novels
Isabel Dalhousie loves solving probelsm and is particlarly fond of pondering and answering philophical questions posed to her as editor of The Review of Applied Ethics.  But, like McCall Smith's Precious Ramotswe, she often embroils herself in probems that are none of her business, inclduing some that are best left to the police.

The 44 Scotland Street series
All of Alexander McCall Smith's trademark warmth and wit come into play in this series chronicling the lives of the residents of an Edinburgh boardinghouse.  Complete with colorful characters, love triangles, and plenty of light-hearted personal drama, this is an unforgettable portrait of Edinburgh society.

The Portuguese Irregular Verbs series
Welcome to the insane and rarified world of Professor Dr. Moritz-maria von Igelfeld of The Institute of Romance Philosophy.  Von Igelfeld is engaged in a never-ending quest to win the respect he feels certain is due him--a quest whish has a way of going hilariously astray.

Take a minute to visit Alexander McCall Smith's website for more information about the author, the books and all of the other goodies within!

need help after THE HELP?

Kathryn Stockett's book, The Help, is flying off the shelves!!  If you're interested in the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, race relations in the South or the friendships among women, try some of these:

friendships:
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Sula by Toni Morrison
The Color Purple by Alice Walker

the South and race relations:
We Are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg
Your Blues Ain't Like Mine by Bebe Moore Campbell
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
The Air Between Us by Deborah Johnson

or the Civil Rights Movement:
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Summer We Got Saved by Pat Cunningham Devoto
Freshwater Road by Denise Nicholas

and there are a myriad of non-fiction titles that we can help you with too! 

school books

it's september and it's back-to-school time...

• the absolutely true diary of a part-time indian by sherman alexie
• carrie by stephen king
• election by tom perrotta
• the group by mary mccarthy
• the headmaster's dilemma by louis auchincloss
• how opal mehta got kissed, got wild and got a life by kaavya viswanathan
• looking for alaska by john green 
• old school by tobias wolff
• the perks of being a wallflower by stephen chbosky
• prep by curtis sittenfeld
• a secret history by donna tartt
• a separate peace by john knowles
• sloppy firsts by megan mccaffery
• testimony by anita shreve
• we need to talk about kevin by lionel shriver
• the whistling season by ivan doig

have more "school books"?  leave us a comment!

artsy thieves...

here are some books about the fine art of stealing art...

The Rescue Artist by Edward Dolnick

The World to Come by Dara Horn

Vanished Smile: The mysterious theft of Mona Lisa by R. A. Scotti

 

Buy Back by Brian M. Wiprud

moms in fiction...

want to continue celebrating mother's day?  here's some fiction about moms...

· Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout

· Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

· The Bad Mother’s Handbook by Kate Long

· Blue Shoe by Anne Lamott 

· The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan 

· Cane River by Lalita Tademy 

· The Diary by Ellen Goudge

· The Good Mother by Sue Miller

· I Don’t Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson

· Joy Luck Club by Amy Tam

· Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

· Mrs. Dalloway by Virgina Woolf

· Pieces of the Heart by Karen White 

· The Rice Mother by Rani Manicka 

· The Secret Life of Bess by Sue Monk Kidd

· The Seduction of Water by Carol Goodman 

· Shopaholic and Baby by Sophie Kinsella

· Summer Light by Luanne Rice 

· Unless by Carol Shields

· White Oleander : A Novel by Janet Fitch

it’s Black History month

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

by Isabel Wilkerson

In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.



Invisible Man

by Ralph Ellison

The book is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952.  A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century.  The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be.  The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Joyce, and Dostoevsky.



Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

by Barack Obama

Elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, Obama was offered a book contract, but the intellectual journey he planned to recount became instead this poignant, probing memoir of an unusual life. Born in 1961 to a white American woman and a black Kenyan student, Obama was reared in Hawaii by his mother and her parents, his father having left for further study and a return home to Africa. So Obama's not-unhappy youth is nevertheless a lonely voyage to racial identity, tensions in school, struggling with black literature—with one month-long visit when he was 10 from his commanding father. After college, Obama became a community organizer in Chicago. He slowly found place and purpose among folks of similar hue but different memory, winning enough small victories to commit himself to the work. Before going to law school, he finally visited Kenya; with his father dead, he still confronted obligation and loss, and found wellsprings of love and attachment. Obama leaves some lingering questions—his mother is virtually absent—but still has written a resonant book.



Soul on Ice

by Eldridge Cleaver

By turns shocking and lyrical, unblinking and raw, the searingly honest memoirs of Eldridge Cleaver are a testament to his unique place in American history. Cleaver writes in Soul on Ice, "I'm perfectly aware that I'm in prison, that I'm a Negro, that I've been a rapist, and that I have a Higher Uneducation." What Cleaver shows us, on the pages of this now classic autobiography, is how much he was a man.



A Lesson Before Dying

by Ernest J Gaines

A Lesson Before Dying is set in a small Cajun community in the late 1940s. Jefferson, a young black man, is unwitting party to a liquor store shootout in which three men are killed; the only survivor, he is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Grant Wiggins, who left his hometown for the university, has returned to the plantation school to teach. As he struggles with his decision whether to stay or escape to another state, his aunt and Jefferson's godmother persuade him to visit Jefferson in his cell and impart his learning and his pride to Jefferson before his death. In the end, the two men forge a bond as they both come to understand the simple heroism of resisting — and defying — the expected.



The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison

Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in.Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity, Toni Morrisons virtuosic first novel asks powerful questions about race, class, and gender with the subtlety and grace that have always characterized her writing.



The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates
by Wes Moore

Two kids with the same name lived in the same decaying city. One went on to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison. Here is the story of two boys and the journey of a generation.



Ruth and the Green Book

by Calvin A. Ramsey

Ruth was so excited to take a trip in her family's new car! In the early 1950s, few African Americans could afford to buy cars, so this would be an adventure. But she soon found out that black travelers weren't treated very well in some towns. Many hotels and gas stations refused service to black people. Daddy was upset about something called Jim Crow laws...

Finally, a friendly attendant at a gas station showed Ruth's family The Green Book. It listed all of the places that would welcome black travelers. With this guidebook — and the kindness of strangers — Ruth could finally make a safe journey from Chicago to her grandma's house in Alabama.



The Black History of the White House

by Clarence Lusane

The Black History of the White House presents the untold history, racial politics, and shifting significance of the White House as experienced by African Americans, from the generations of enslaved people who helped to build it or were forced to work there to its first black First Family, the Obamas.



Blues Legacies and Black Feminism
by Angela Y. Davis 

Davis provides the historical, social, and political contexts with which to reinterpret the performances and lyrics of many famous women blues singers as the articulation of a black, working-class feminist consciousness at odds with mainstream American culture.



Native Son
by Richard Wright 

Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.



Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong
by Terry Teachout 

Louis Armstrong was the greatest jazz musician of the twentieth century and a giant of modern American culture. He knocked the Beatles off the top of the charts, wrote the finest of all jazz autobiographies - without a collaborator - and created collages that have been compared to the art of Romare Bearden. The ranks of his admirers included Johnny Cash, Jackson Pollock and Orson Welles. Offstage he was witty, introspective and unexpectedly complex, a beloved colleague with an explosive temper whose larger-than-life personality was tougher and more sharp-edged than his worshipping fans ever knew.



Selected Poems of Langston Hughes
by Langston Hughes 

With the publication of his first book of poems, The Weary Blues, in 1926, Langston Hughes electrified readers and launched a renaissance in black writing in America.  The poems Hughes wrote celebrated the experience of invisible men and women: of slaves who "rushed the boots of Washington"; of musicians on Lenox Avenue; of the poor and the lovesick; of losers in "the raffle of night."  They conveyed that experience in a voice that blended the spoken with the sung, that turned poetic lines into the phrases of jazz and blues, and that ripped through the curtain separating high from popular culture.  They spanned the range from the lyric to the polemic, ringing out "wonder and pain and terror-- and the marrow of the bone of life."



Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr

edited by Clayborne Carson

Using Stanford University's voluminous collection of archival material, including previously unpublished writings, interviews, recordings, and correspondence, King scholar Clayborne Carson has constructed a remarkable first-person account of Dr. King's extraordinary life.