Kirkus Reviews has put together a list of the top 10 new novels perfect for summer reading:
Developing a taste for zombies after World War Z? Here are 10 more zombie novels to whet your appetite.
1. Feed by Mira Grant. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED. Now, twenty years after the Rising, Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives–the dark conspiracy behind the infected.
2. The End Games by T. Michael Martin. In the rural mountains of West Virginia, seventeen-year-old Michael Faris tries to protect his fragile younger brother from the horrors of the zombie apocalypse.
3. Z by Thomas Michael Ford. In the year 2032, after a virus that turned people into zombies has been eradicated, Josh is invited to join an underground gaming society, where the gamers hunt zombies and the action is more dangerous than it seems.
4. The Walking Dead : The Road to Woodbury by Robert Kirkman & Jay Bonansinga. The zombie plague unleashes its horrors on the suburbs of Atlanta without warning, pitting the living against the dead. At first, Woodbury seems like a perfect sanctuary. A mysterious self-proclaimed leader named Philip Blake keeps the citizens safe. But all is not as it seems. . . . Blake, who has recently begun to call himself The Governor, has disturbing ideas about law and order.
5. Zone One by Colson Whitehead. A plague has sorted humanity into two types: the uninfected and the infected, the living and the living dead. The novel unfolds over three surreal days, as it depicts the impossible job of coming to grips with the fallen world. And then things start to go wrong.
6. Zom-B by Darren Shan. When news reports start appearing of a zombie outbreak in Ireland, B’s racist father thinks it’s a joke– but even if it isn’t, he figures, it’s ok to lose a few Irish. That is, until zombies attack the school. B is forced on a mad dash through the serpentine corridors of high school, making allegiances with anyone with enough gall to fight off their pursuers.
7. Paul is Undead: the British Zombie Invasion by Alan Goldsher. Can the Beatles sublimate their hunger for gray matter, remain on top of the charts, and stay together for all eternity? After all, three of the Fab Four “are” zombies, and zombies live forever …
8. Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry. In a post-apocalyptic world where fences and border patrols guard the few people left from the zombies that have overtaken civilization, fifteen-year-old Benny Imura is finally convinced that he must follow in his older brother’s footsteps and become a bounty hunter.
9. The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan. 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.
10. The New Dead : a Zombie Anthology. 19 provocative, haunting, and genuinely unsettling original stories in this zombie anthology move the genre beyond its usual apocalyptic wastelands. Includes stories by Kelley Armstrong, Max Brooks, Joe Hill, and David Liss.
Bullying is a topic that is the focus of many fiction and non-fiction books. Partially because of the tragic stories in recent years about both the bullied and the bullies. Part of the interest is also because just about everyone has felt like they have been bullied or on the outside looking in for at least some point in their lives. Some of the young adult and children’s fiction that focuses on bullying as part of the plot line or the everyday lives of the characters is extremely powerful. Here are five of the children’s and young adult books about bullying that I have found to be the easiest to relate to, or most moving.
1. How to Beat the Bully Without Really Trying by Scott Starkey is a children’s chapter book about Rodney, an admitted coward, who moves to Ohio where the middle school bully immediately singles him out, but through accident gains an undeserved reputation as a tough guy.
2. Dear Life, You Suck by Scott Blagden is a young adult novel about seventeen-year-old Cricket Cherpin who lives under the watchful eye of Mother Mary at a Catholic boys’ home in Maine. He has such bleak prospects he is considering suicide when Wynona Bidaban steps into his world.
3. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is a young adult book in which a traumatic event near the end of the summer has a devastating effect on Melinda’s freshman year in high school.
4. Everybody Sees the Ants by Amy Sarig King is a young adult book, and 2014 Nutmeg Award Nominee, about overburdened fifteen-year-old Lucky Linderman who begins dreaming of being with his grandfather, who went missing during the Vietnam War.
5. Keep Holding On by Susane Colasanti is a young adult book about high school junior Noelle who is bullied at school and neglected by her mother at home. She reaches her breaking point after a classmate commits suicide.
Other fiction about bullying that I recommend are; Crazy Dangerous by Andrew Klavan(YA), Jake and Lily by Jerry Spinelli(J), The Other Felix by Keir Graff(J), How I Survived Bullies, Broccoli, and Snake Hill by James Patterson (J),and The Odd Squad: Bully Bait by Michael Fry (J).
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut is our July pick for the Cheshire Cats Classics Club. It was chosen largely to appeal to men and to those who like more modern classics. This is not my typical fare, necessarily, and was not even on my to-read list. Far from it, actually.
I’m not sure what I thought Slaughterhouse Five was going to be, but whatever notions I had where quickly dispelled. I think I heard that it included a fictional planet, and time-travel and thought “Not for me…” First impressions are often wrong, prejudiced, and just down right stupid.
Slaughterhouse Five is a crisp 275 pages, easily read, and likely easily misunderstood. Some may find the scenes of Tralfamadore ridiculous, the war depictions brutal, the episodes of sex raunchy, but they unfortunately have missed the essence of the book. And don’t let the ease of reading the book fool you: Vonnegut is trying to send an important message on the destructiveness of war, finding happiness, and mental illness.
Slaughterhouse Five, to me, is an anti-war novel on the surface. The subtitle, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death alludes to the fact that so many of the men who bravely fight our wars are merely boys. They are dancing with death in a way many of us will never experience.
What Billy Pilgrim experiences and views at the bombing of Dresden forever changes him and shapes the novel. Billy’s “strange” behavior of time traveling and episodes on Tralfamadore are manifestations of his PTSD. Knowing that Vonnegut himself saw the bombing of Dresden makes you wonder how much of this was truly Billy Pilgrim’s story and how much of it was autobiographical. Anyone who has seen actual warfare is never the same.
I listened to this book, as I try to do with all of the classics we read for the club. Ethan Hawk was the reader for this version, which included an interview with Vonnegut. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised with this book, having gone in with low expectations. Hawk’s reading of it was admirable, although the mixing on the recording was very low and he was often difficult to hear, and the story moved.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars (but it’s a hearty 3 stars)
Julie Hyzy
One of cozy mystery’s premier authors, Julie Hyzy, recently wrote a very interesting article for the Huffington Post about cozy mysteries. Her new book, Grace Takes Off, was published July 2.
Here are some other cozy mysteries out this month:
1. Tarnished and Torn (A Witchcraft Mystery) by Juliet Blackwell
2. Tulle Death Do Us Part (A Vintage Magic Mystery) by Annette Blair
3. A Custom-Fit Crime (A Magical Dressmaking Mystery) by Melissa Bourbon
4. Woof at the Door (A Call of the Wilde Mystery) by Laura Morrigan
5. Final Sentence (A Cookbook Nook Mystery) by Daryl Wood Gerber
6. Laced With Poison (A Sweet Nothings Lingerie Mystery) by Meg London
7. Dyeing Wishes (A Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery) by Molly MacRae
8. Yarn To Go (A Yarn Retreat Mystery) by Betty Hechtman
9. One Dead Cookie (A Cookie Cutter Shop Mystery) by Virginia Lowell
To view a previously published post about Cozy Mysteries, click here.
The Cheshire Library Blog 