Books & Beyond

Check out some of the newest cds to be added to the Teen collection. Mary Blige: My Life II ... The Journey Continues (Act 1) The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond Tim McGraw: Emotional Traffic David Nail: The Sound of a Million Dreams

In a world turned inside-out and upside-down, the unconscionable government of Panem selects twenty-four children from its territories to brutally fight one another until only one remains.  In the mining territory, Prim is rescued by her sister, Katniss, when she volunteers to take Prim's place in the nationally televised  Hunger Games.   Katniss is a strong and resourceful character with a survivor's instinct.  Peeta, also from the mining territory, is the gentle, understanding type.  The relationships between characters are real and draw you into the plot.  The action is fast paced and the dilemmas daunting.  This is one book you cannot put down.

Looking for a good mystery?  Look no further .... here are two with a third on the way.  The Agency: A Spy in the House is the first mystery in a series of three by Y.S. Lee.  The books are set in Victorian London at a time when you could be executed for stealing.  Such was the life of Mary Quinn a young girl orphaned and left to somehow make a life for herself.  Mary stole to survive!!  Then, she was caught and ultimately rescued by Miss Scrimshaw's Academy for Girls.  So with a new identity and education Mary began life as a spy in London.  The second book The Agency: The Body at the Tower continues the brief but heartfelt romance between Mary and James.  The third and last book in the series is due out at the end of this month.  Hopefully, The Agency: The Traitor and the Tunnel will answer some of my lingering questions about Mary Quinn!!       

If you're looking for a good book try The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler.  Jay Asher is the New York Times bestselling author of Th1rteen R3asons Why  and Carolyn Mackler is the Printz Honor winning author of The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things .  The story is set in 1996 when the internet is brand new and AOL is the internet provider of choice.  When Josh gives his next door neighbor, Emma, an AOL disc to install on her new laptop neither one of them expects to run into something called Facebook .  It takes time and patience for Emma and Josh to realize that Facebook is offering them a glimpse at their lives fifteen years in the future.  Josh loves his wife and his life in 2011 while Emma is completely distressed by the choices she has made and the life she seems destined to live.  Or, can history be changed?

     There's a lot of new music in the Teen library.  Some of the newest cds to be added to the collection include four Country artists so check out Jason Aldean's My Kinda Party , Blake Shelton's latest Red River Blue , Sara Evans' Stronger  or Toby Keith's Clancy's Tavern .   If you enjoy Pop look for 4 by Beyonce, F.A.M.E . by Chris Brown, Love Me Back by Jazmine Sullivan, Fantasia's Back to Me or Loud by Rihanna.  If Punk Rock interests you then try Fountains of Wayne's Sky Full of Holes or Flogging Molly's Speed of Darkness .   If you are looking for Rock try the  Foo Fighters' Wasting Light  or If Not Now, When? by Incubus.  Watch the Throne by Jay-Z and Kanye West or Tha Carter IV by Lil Wayne if you want to listen to hip-hop.  For a little Metal Rock try Th1rt3en by Megadeath or for Electronica check out Robbie Rivera's Juicyibiza 2011 ....

The Best Books for Young Adults committee of the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Asociation, has selected the following books as  Best Fiction for Young Adults .   Ship Breaker by Bacigalupi, Paolo   Revolution by Donnelly, Jennifer Finnikin of the Rock by Marchetta, Melina The Things a Brother Knows by Reinhardt, Dana Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Saenz, Benjamin Alire Revolver by Sedgwick, Marcus

The fall video game season is in full swing and is forcing gamers to make some difficult choices. Already Gears of War 3, Forza Motorsports 4, Batman: Arkham City, and Battlefield 3, have hit the shelves to rave reviews and record sales. To the casual observer it would seem that fall tidal wave of new games is over…but the biggest have yet to drop. On Tuesday, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 , the undisputed First-person Shooter juggernaut, is unleashed on gaming-dom. Just three days later, on Friday, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim enters the scene to the joy of RPGers everywhere. Finally on the fifteenth, the final chapter of Ezio de Auditore di Firenze grand adventure concludes in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. For shooter fans there are many great, albeit very different, games before them. Gears 3 , concludes the fantastic story of humanity’s desperate fight against the Locust horde, a group of mutant creatures that burst forth from the depths of the earth and have humanity on the b...