Wonder by R.J.Palacio

Title: Wonder
Author: R.J.Palacio
Pages: 316
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Book Description:
"I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse."


August Pullman was born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid—but his new classmates can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face. WONDER, now a #1 New York Times bestseller and included on the Texas Bluebonnet Award master list, begins from Auggie’s point of view, but soon switches to include his classmates, his sister, her boyfriend, and others. These perspectives converge in a portrait of one community’s struggle with empathy, compassion, and acceptance. 

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The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Title:The Hobbit
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
Pages: 300
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure
Book Description:
Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely travelling further than the pantry of his hobbit-hole in Bag End. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard, Gandalf, and a company of thirteen dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an unexpected journey ‘there and back again’. They have a plot to raid the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon.

The prelude to The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit has sold many millions of copies since its publication in 1937, establishing itself as one of the most beloved and influential books of the twentieth century.

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Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

Title: Slaughterhouse Five
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Pages: 215
Genre: Historical, War, Classic, Science Fiction
Book Description:
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.

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11/22/63 by Stephen King

Title: 11.22.63
Author: Stephen King
Pages: 849
Genre: History, Mystery, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Thriller
Book Description:
Life can turn on a dime—or stumble into the extraordinary, as it does for Jake Epping, a high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine. While grading essays by his GED students, Jake reads a gruesome, enthralling piece penned by janitor Harry Dunning: fifty years ago, Harry somehow survived his father’s sledgehammer slaughter of his entire family. Jake is blown away...but an even more bizarre secret comes to light when Jake’s friend Al, owner of the local diner, enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession—to prevent the Kennedy assassination. How? By stepping through a portal in the diner’s storeroom, and into the era of Ike and Elvis, of big American cars, sock hops, and cigarette smoke... Finding himself in warmhearted Jodie, Texas, Jake begins a new life. But all turns in the road lead to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald. The course of history is about to be rewritten...and become heart-stoppingly suspenseful.

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Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Title: Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions
Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Pages: 80
Genre: Feminist, Non-Fiction
Book Description:
A few years ago, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie received a letter from a dear friend from childhood, asking her how to raise her baby girl as a feminist. Dear Ijeawele is Adichie's letter of response.

Here are fifteen invaluable suggestions--compelling, direct, wryly funny, and perceptive--for how to empower a daughter to become a strong, independent woman. From encouraging her to choose a helicopter, and not only a doll, as a toy if she so desires; having open conversations with her about clothes, makeup, and sexuality; debunking the myth that women are somehow biologically arranged to be in the kitchen making dinner, and that men can "allow" women to have full careers, Dear Ijeawele goes right to the heart of sexual politics in the twenty-first century. It will start a new and urgently needed conversation about what it really means to be a woman today."

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Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Title: Coraline
Author: Neil Gaiman
Pages: 162
Genre: Fantasy, Gothic, Young Adult
Book Description:
Coraline's often wondered what's behind the locked door in the drawing room. It reveals only a brick wall when she finally opens it, but when she tries again later, a passageway mysteriously appears. Coraline is surprised to find a flat decorated exactly like her own, but strangely different. And when she finds her "other" parents in this alternate world, they are much more interesting despite their creepy black button eyes. When they make it clear, however, that they want to make her theirs forever, Coraline begins a nightmarish game to rescue her real parents and three children imprisoned in a mirror. With only a bored-through stone and an aloof cat to help, Coraline confronts this harrowing task of escaping these monstrous creatures.

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My Dream Bookish Panel

Hey everyone! Today I’m going to be posting something a little different. Eventbrite inspired me to share what my ideal panel of authors would be!

This creative task invites us to think about which authors we would love to meet and why. What kind of things we’d discuss with them and what we could learn. I really enjoyed creating this and invite everyone else to take part in planning their own dream author panel! Big thanks to Eventbrite for giving me this opportunity! If you’re looking for a resource plan or to find conferences in your local area check out their conference management page!

Anyway, onto my panel:

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Title: Mrs Dalloway
Author: Virginia Woolf
Pages: 194
Genre: Classic
Book Description:
Mrs. Dalloway is a novel by Virginia Woolf that details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a fictional high-society woman in post-World War I England. It is one of Woolf's best-known novels.

Created from two short stories, "Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street" and the unfinished "The Prime Minister," the novel addresses Clarissa's preparations for a party she will host that evening. With an interior perspective, the story travels forwards and back in time and in and out of the characters' minds to construct an image of Clarissa's life and of the inter-war social structure.

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The Sinner by Tess Gerritsen | Rizzoli and Isles #3

Title: The Sinner
Author: Tess Gerritsen
Pages: 419
Genre: Crime, Thriller, Mystery
Book Description:
Within the walls of a cloistered convent, a scene of unspeakable carnage is discovered. On the snow lie two nuns, one dead, one critically injured - victims of a seemingly motiveless, brutally savage attack.

Medical examiner Maura Isles' autopsy of the murder victim yields a shocking surprise, but the case takes a disturbing twist. The body of another woman has been found. And someone has gone to a lot trouble to remove her face, hands and feet.

As long buried secrets are revealed so Dr Isles and homicide detective Jane Rizzoli, find themselves part of an investigation that leads to an awful, dawning realisation of the killer's identity...

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My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher

Title: My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece
Author: Annabel Pitcher
Pages: 240
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Book Description:

Ten-year-old Jamie hasn't cried since it happened. He knows he should have—Jasmine cried, Mum cried, Dad still cries. Roger didn't, but then he is just a cat and didn't know Rose that well, really.

Everyone kept saying it would get better with time, but that's just one of those lies that grown-ups tell in awkward situations. Five years on, it's worse than ever: Dad drinks, Mum's gone and Jamie's left with questions that he must answer for himself.

This is his story, an unflinchingly real yet heart-warming account of a young boy's struggle to make sense of the loss that tore his family apart. 

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A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Title: A Little Princess
Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
Pages: 256
Genre: Classic, Children's Literature, Fantasy
Book Description:
Sara Crewe, an exceptionally intelligent and imaginative student at Miss Minchin's Select Seminary for Young Ladies, is devastated when her adored, indulgent father dies. Now penniless and banished to a room in the attic, Sara is demeaned, abused, and forced to work as a servant. How this resourceful girl's fortunes change again is at the center of A Little Princess, one of the best-loved stories in all of children's literature.

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Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Title: Dark Places
Author: Gillian Flynn
Pages: 349
Genre: Mystery, Crime, Thriller
Book Description:
Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice" of Kinnakee, Kansas.” She survived—and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, the Kill Club—a secret secret society obsessed with notorious crimes—locates Libby and pumps her for details. They hope to discover proof that may free Ben. Libby hopes to turn a profit off her tragic history: She’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club—for a fee. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started—on the run from a killer.

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A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon

Title: A Spot of Bother
Author: Mark Haddon
Pages: 503
Genre: Contemporary, Humour
Book Description:
At sixty-one, George Hall is settling down to a comfortable retirement. When his tempestuous daughter, Katie, announces that she is getting married to the deeply inappropriate Ray, the Hall family is thrown into a tizzy. Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind.As parents and children fall apart and come together, Haddon paints a disturbing yet amusing portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely.

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Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Title: Gone Girl
Author: Gillian Flynn
Pages: 422
Genre: Mystery, Crime, Thriller
Book Description:
On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?

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On Writing by Stephen King

Title: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Author: Stephen King
Pages: 320
Genre: Non-Fiction
Book Description:
 Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer's craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King's advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported near-fatal accident in 1999—and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery. Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring, On Writing will empower and entertain everyone who reads it—fans, writers, and anyone who loves a great story well told.

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Title: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Author: Mark Twain

Pages: 327

Genre: Classic, Childrens, Adventure

Book Description:

Of all the contenders for the title of The Great American Novel, none has a better claim than The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Intended at first as a simple story of a boy's adventures in the Mississippi Valley - a sequel toThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer - the book grew and matured under Twain's hand into a work of immeasurable richness and complexity. More than a century after its publication, the critical debate over the symbolic significance of Huck's and Jim's voyage is still fresh, and it remains a major work that can be enjoyed at many levels: as an incomparable adventure story and as a classic of American humor.

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The Whispering Road by Livi Michael

Title: The Whispering Road
Author: Livi Michael
Pages: 404
Genre: Young Adult, Adventure, Fantasy
Book Description:
For Joe and Annie, the choice is escape or die. Manchester. That's where Joe's mom went after leaving him and his little sister at the workhouse. That's where you can have adventures and live life on your own terms—free from abusive Masters. Along the way Joe and Annie meet some kind strangers who offer help, but they also meet swindlers who want to control or even sell them. And no matter how hard he tries, Joe can't hide the fact that Annie is different in a way that makes people want to manipulate her for their own gain. 

When Annie is embraced by the traveling fair as if she's family, Joe is resentful. So resentful that he leaves her behind. He loves running with the gang he joins, but evading the codgers who rule the street is dangerous. Joe might not make it long enough to get Annie back and find out what happened to their mother. 

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The Colour Purple by Alice Walker

Title: The Colour Purple
Author: Alice Walker
Pages: 295
Genre: Historical, Classic, Feminist
Book Description:
Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to "Mister," a brutal man who terrorizes her. Celie eventually learns that her abusive husband has been keeping her sister's letters from her and the rage she feels, combined with an example of love and independence provided by her close friend Shug, pushes her finally toward an awakening of her creative and loving self.

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Flowers in the Attic by Virginia Andrews

Title: Flowers in the Attic
Author: Virginia Andrews
Pages: 389
Genre: Mystery, Young Adult, Horror
Book Description:
It wasn't that she didn't love her children. She did. But there was a fortune at stake--a fortune that would assure their later happiness if she could keep the children a secret from her dying father.

So she and her mother hid her darlings away in an unused attic.
Just for a little while.

But the brutal days swelled into agonizing years. Now Cathy, Chris, and the twins wait in their cramped and helpless world, stirred by adult dreams, adult desires, served a meager sustenance by an angry, superstitious grandmother who knows that the Devil works in dark and devious ways. Sometimes he sends children to do his work--children who--one by one--must be destroyed....

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Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Title: Sense and Sensibility
Author: Jane Austen
Pages: 409
Genre: Classic, Romance
Book Description:
Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love—and its threatened loss—the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.

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