Country Houses and Aristocrats

Title	Author		Genre
The Head of the House of Coombe	Frances Hodgson	Burnett	adult fiction
Pride and Avarice	Nicholas	Coleridge	adult fiction
Palace Circle	Rebecca	Dean	adult fiction
Troubles	J.G.	Farrell	adult fiction
Snobs	Julian	Fellowes	adult fiction
Fall of Giants	Ken	Follett	adult fiction
Do try to speak as we do	Marilyn	Ford	adult fiction
Howard's End	E.M.	Forster	adult fiction
A Room With a View	E.M.	Forster	adult fiction
The Forsyte Saga	John	Galsworthy	adult fiction
Cold Comfort Farm	Stella	Gibbons	adult fiction
The American Heiress	Daisy	Goodwin	adult fiction
Gone With The Windsors	Laurie	Graham	adult fiction
The Observations	Jane	Harris	adult fiction
The Remains of the Day	Kazuo	Ishiguro	adult fiction
Fiennders Keepers	Jean	Marsh	adult fiction
The House of Elliot	Jean	Marsh	adult fiction
Love in a Cold Climate	Nancy	Mitford	adult fiction
The House at Riverton	Kate	Morton	adult fiction
The Granville Legacy	Una	Parker	adult fiction
Anything by Saki	Hector Hugh Munro	Saki	adult fiction
I capture the castle	Dodie	Smith	adult fiction
The House at Tyneford	Natasha	Solomons	adult fiction
The Little Stranger	Sarah	Waters	adult fiction
Brideshead Revisited	Evelyn	Waugh	adult fiction
Decline and Fall	Evelyn	Waugh	adult fiction
Bertie Wooster and Jeeves series	P.G.	Wodehouse	adult fiction
Wallis and Edward	Michael	Bloch	biography
The Duchess of Windsor	Michael	Bloch	biography
Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey	Countess of	Carvarvon	biography
Rose: My Life in Service to Lady Astor	Rosina	Harrison	biography
Saki	A.J.	Languth	biography
Wodehouse	Robert	McCrumb	biography
Wait for Me! Memoirs	Deborah	Mitford	biography
The Young Churchill	Celia Sandys	Sandys	biography
American Jennie	Anne	Sebba	biography
Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt	Amanda	Stuart	biography
The Disastrous Mrs Weldon	Brian	Thomoson	biography
King Edward VIII	Philip	Ziegler	biography
Atonement			DVD
Brideshead Revisited			DVD	2008
Brideshead Revisited			DVD	1981
Foyle's War			DVD
Gosford Park			DVD
The Buccaneers			DVD
The Duchess of Duke Street (pre-, during and after WWI)			DVD
The Forsyte Saga			DVD
The House of Elliot			DVD
Upstairs/Downstairs			DVD	1971
Upstairs/Downstairs			DVD	2010
Her Royal Spyness series	Rhys	Bowen	mystery
Edwardian Murder Mystery series	Marion	Chesney	mystery
many of Agatha Christie's	Agatha	Christie	mystery
Phrynne Fisher series	Kerry	Greenwood	mystery
country house mysteries by	Susan	Howatch	mystery
Mary Russell series	Laurie	King	mystery
country house mysteries by	Malcolm	MacDonald	mystery
Inspector Alleyn series	Ngaio	Marsh	mystery
Dandy Gilver series	Catriona	McPherson	mystery
The Red House	A.A.	Milne	mystery
A Weekend at Blenheim	J.P.	Morrissey	mystery
Anne Perry's WWI series	Anne	Perry	mystery
Country House crime series	R.T.	Raichev	mystery
Lord Wimsey series	Dorothy	Sayers	mystery
Ian Rutledge series	Charles	Todd	mystery
Maisie Dobbs series	Jacqueline	Winspear	mystery
A Social History of England	Asa	Briggs	non-fiction
At Home	Bill	Bryson	non-fiction
The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy	David	Cannadine	non-fiction
Counting my chickens	Duchess of	Devonshire	non-fiction
Fashion in the 20s and 30s	Jane	Dorner	non-fiction
The World of Downtown Abbey	Jessica	Fellows	non-fiction
Vita Sackville-West Garden Book	Robin	Fox	non-fiction
The English Country House	Michael	Hall	non-fiction
The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Servant	Pamela	Horn	non-fiction
The World Atlas of Wine	Hugh	Johnson	non-fiction
The Titled Americans	Elisabeth	Kehoe	non-fiction
The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family	Mary	Lovell	non-fiction
Hons and Rebels	Nancy	Mitford	non-fiction
Blenheim Revisited	Hugh	Montgomery-Massingberd	non-fiction
Great Houses of Scotland	Hugh	Montgomery-Massingberd	non-fiction
Letters between 6 sisters: The Mitfords	Charlotte	Mosley	non-fiction
Among the Bohemians	Virginia	Nicholson	non-fiction
The National Trust book of the Great Houses of Britain	Nigel	Nicholson	non-fiction
The Perfect Summer: England 1911	Juliet	Nicolson	non-fiction
Essential Manners for Men	Peter	Post	non-fiction
'Below Stairs: The classic kitchen maid's memoir that inspired Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey	Margaret	Powell	non-fiction
Cartier	Phillipe	Tretiack	non-fiction
The Amy Vanderbilt book of Ettiquette	Nancy	Tuckerman	non-fiction
A Shropshire Lad	A.E.	Housman	poetry
Complete Poems	A.E.	Housman	poetry
To Say Nothing of the Dog	Connie	Willis	scifi
A Brief History of Montmaray	Michelle	Cooper	YA
The FitzOsbornes in Exile	Michelle	Cooper	YA

Originally Published as Harry Potter and The Real Magic,

At the Libraries: Harry Potter and The Real Magic, Providence Journal June 28, 2007


By Lexi Henshel



Special to the Journal



July 21, 2007. Whether you are counting down the days in anticipation or in dread, you know it’s coming. The juggernaut that has been the Harry Potter publishing phenomenon continues to shock and awe.

Nearly a month before the book’s release, Amazon.com has already sold more than a million pre-ordered copies, and hundreds of requests are entered into the Ocean State library system. Plot speculation is flooding the Internet, and a generation of readers raised on Harry will have to accept that J.K. Rowling is finished with the series.

It seems unlikely that any magic spell will compel Rowling to return to the fantasy world that made her a billionaire. Teens (and the adults who also followed Harry’s adventures) may be feeling at a loss — after Harry Potter, what else is there to read?

Readers are lucky. There has been a renaissance of a kind in young-adult publishing, largely attributable to Harry Potter’s supernatural popularity. Readers who grew up looking forward to the next installment in Harry’s travails developed a taste for the printed word, and canny authors jumped into writing series fiction, correctly assuming that, as with the Potter books and a certain brand of potato chips, “you can’t try just one.” When you finish that 784th page of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, know that there are some other great series well worth reading — all as addictive as Rowling’s saga.

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, with its gloomy steampunk Victoriana aesthetic, its fantastically ill-fated orphans and its delicate allusions to literary history (Snicket’s love for Beatrice cannot help but remind readers of another narrator with a passion that burned beyond the grave) certainly caught young readers’ attention; the 13 books in the series have sold more than 55 million copies, and this summer they will be released in paperback — “a much more flammable version,” as their sorrowful author put it in an interview recently. From A Bad Beginning to The End, the miserable stories about the wretched Baudelaire children are, paradoxically, a delight.

Another series that wrapped up this year is Cecily von Ziegesar’s Gossip Girl — but don’t think for a second that you won’t be hearing that title anymore. The popular and occasionally controversial book series was often called Sex and the City for teens, and The CW is taking a chance on that; the television network is producing a series based on the novels, and slotting the program right after America’s Next Top Model, a ratings powerhouse. Starring Blake Lively (from the movie version of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) as Serena, and Veronica Mars’s Kristin Bell as the eponymous Gossip Girl, the show seems set to be a success. Before watching the series, though, give the books a read. They are delicious — fast, breezy, catty and fun — and von Zeigesar’s writing in the early books captures that ineffable New York vibe.

While critics as prominent as Naomi Wolf were troubled by the Gossip Girl series, calling it “corruption with a cute overlay,” nothing in these books would shock a teen in modern America, and the characters, while wealthy and slightly dissolute, are very focused on their futures, with college applications, interviews, and acceptances driving a significant portion of the plots. The characters do face repercussions for their actions, and bad decisions are followed by consequences — they live in a moral universe. The original set of characters — Blair, Serena, Nate, et al — move on in the final book, Don’t You Forget About Me, which was published in May. But von Zeigesar intends to continue both the Gossip Girl series (with a new crop of students) and the successful spin-off series, The It Girl, which is already up to title four, Unforgettable, published this June.

By contrast, another huge breakout young-adult series, The Clique, by Lisi Harrison, is set in a world apparently without interested adults or a moral center. These books are immensely popular, and are written for a slightly younger set than the Gossip Girl series. The characters Massie, Alicia, Claire and others — are not experimenting with intoxicants or with sex as do some older teen characters in Gossip Girl, but they are no more innocent for that; rather, these characters are the embodiment of the “mean girl” culture. Rather than practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty, the Clique girls are more likely to randomly cyberbully another student and spend senselessly on designer wear that young readers may be tricked into thinking is stylish. The Clique series is on a roll, however, with Harrison’s eighth book in the series, Sealed with a Diss, due to be released on July 2.

More mature readers, including adults, might turn to Scott Westerfeld’s fantastic trilogy, Uglies, Pretties and Specials. A fourth book, Extras, to be published in October, is set in the same dystopian world as the previous three.

Westerfeld jokes, “It’s set in the same future world as the Uglies trilogy. It’s Uglies Book 4, so to speak. But trilogies only have three books, the pedants among you declare!” No matter the semantics, this is a series worth reading.

These books have it all — fantastic character development and smart, clippy writing, and they address just about every major issue facing teens today, in an entirely non-preachy way. It is a tour de force. The heroine, Tally Youngblood, hurls herself across that line between safety and freedom, defies societal pressures and expectations to be conventionally beautiful, and tries to address the legacy of the environmental destruction left behind by the “Rusties” — us.

This unflinching series is impossible to put down, and impossible to forget, if only for scenes such as the one where Tally, on the run, encounters fields of genetically modified white orchids which have crowded out every other plant. The questions of what is beautiful and of what is natural and of what is right are worth thinking about.

Fans of the supernatural and of fantasy can also find solace in reading the Artemis Fowl series, by Eoin Colfer. These books about fairies, demons, time travel and a teenage criminal mastermind fly off the shelves, as do books from the Cirque du Freak series, by Darren Shan, a dark set of books about vampires, freak shows, werewolves and more.

Readers looking for frothier fare can follow Meg Cabot’s clumsy, funny Princess Mia through 11 Princess Diaries, and laugh and cry with The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants through four well-crafted books by Ann Brashares.

Do not despair, as you finish that last page of Rowling’s finale, Deathly Hallows. Dumbledore tells Harry in 2005’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, “We must try not to sink beneath our anguish, Harry, but battle on.”

We librarians say: we must try not to sink beneath our anguish, but read on. Harry’s greatest wizardry may have been the creation of passionate readers, and no matter what happens to Harry, his legacy is as magical as his stories have been.

Lexi Henshel is young-adult librarian at the West Warwick Public Library.

For Advanced Young Readers "Afraid of the Dark"

It can be so hard when you have a talented, curious, advanced new reader who is looking for challenging books that don't go into some of the "After School Special Issue"  suburban/urban trauma drama things (rape- Speak, murder - Monster, cutting- Cut, suicide - 13 Reasons Why, school shootings - Hate List blah blah blah). Not that these books don't serve a purpose and find their readers, but just like adults want to read fun books, kids do too.
These titles are, to the best of my (usually pretty good!) recollection and sense of wholesomeness (no laughing, ok?) the ones I feel comfortable handing to a friend's very charming and smart 10 year old daughter who was nearly put off reading all together by having ventured into the YA section and got traumatised by a couple of books she chose at random.

In some cases, they are older titles that may seem obvious, but can often be forgotten, because they're not on the New Book shelf at your library, or on the endcaps at the bookstore. Also, if I can be a total judgmental PIA, I'll also list some that I would avoid giving a young reader, and explain why.

In no particular order:

Ballet Shoes, by Noel Streatfeild (1936)
(and the rest of the Shoes series- look for Dancing Shoes, Tennis Shoes, Skating Shoes, Theater Shoes, etc- although Circus Shoes was pretty bad.)
These are, I'd say, age appropriate from 8 on, but the London setting and distinctively English colloquialisms and rather challenging language compared to what is offered to children here today, make them satisfying and interesting reads. Ballet Shoes is, I have to admit, my favorite book, and has been since I was 8. The story of 3 orphans who learn to make their own careers on the stage gives fascinating insight into between the wars London, into the rarefied world of professional performers, and the fantastic characterizations make Pauline, Petrova, and Posy Fossil seem real and like people you would love to meet. Of especial interest to girls with an interest in the arts, the book was made into a 1997 film adaptation starring Emma Watson as Pauline, which was really well done until the very last scene, when it got a bit daft, sadly.


The Grimm Legacy, by Polly Shulman (2011)
Charming and absorbing young fantasy, set in the special collections are of the New York Public Library. The magical objects mentioned in the Grimm fairy tales are kept in the Grimm Collection, but evildoers are out to steal them. Elizabeth Lew, a student in a nearby high school, is one of a handful of workers allowed access to the special collections. The exceedingly far-fetched plot is one of the reasons I think this was more of a children's book than YA, but Shulman's special brand of clean and delightful characters made this a great read. She is an author I often recommend to young readers who are reading above their age level, but aren't ready for some of the darker actual YA out there.  

Enthusiasm, by Polly Shulman (2007)
Jane Austen fanatic finds romance, but sweetly.
Now, I've read Jane Austen, but I've been baffled by the flood of Jane Austen based books lately- everything after Bridget Jones left me high and dry. But this was a blast- with teen female characters who I totally wanted to know, a clean romance that I wanted to work out, interesting characters and language, and it was so much fun. Yay!

.

Cheaper by The Dozen, (1948)  and Belles on Their Toes, (1950) by Ernestine and Frank Gilbreth
When I was 12 or so I think I read Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes over and over and over. About a year ago I found a yard sale copy of Cheaper By The Dozen (with awful movie-tie-in cover- Hillary Duff- spare me) and it went into serious bath-reading rotation, so I was really pleased to get ahold of Belles On Their Toes, the sequel.
After Frank Gilbreth dies, his wife Lillian Moller Gilbreth steps into his shoes running their motion-study business, and their 11 children (Anne, at 18, is the eldest) have to run the household while she tours Europe giving speeches trying to convince the world that a woman can run an engineering consulting firm in the 1920s.
I love these books, the detail and the sense of time and place- the slang, the wet smacks and ukeleles, the flappers, and Martha's big scene at the beach where she refuses to wear a 2 piece bathing dress anymore- I love the way the boys coach Jane into being a bobby-soxer rather than a vamp, I love the warmth of these stories. I cried like a baby at the end- literally sitting there howling. It is so lovely to read something that was clearly written to tell people a good story- a real, loving story. Wonderful.




The Velvet Room, by Zilpha Keately Snyder (1965)
(and other books by her- still writing, incredibly!)
Just a lovely children's book. Migrant farm family has a car breaksdown near a farm with an abandoned mansion nearby. When her father finds work on the farm, Robin finds her way into the round, velvet curtained turret room, and finds an escape in books. This gave a lot of interesting information about circumstances of the Great Depression, and while not depressing, ha ha, may give a curious reader a lot to think about and look into.

Linnets and Valerians, by Elizabeth Goudge (1964)
(and others by the same author- notably, The White Horse)
Really lovely classic English childrens' classic. The Linnet children enter and change the lives of the aristocratic but troubled Valerian family, with hints of pagan magic and a great deal a old fashioned charm.

Scones and Sensibility, by Lindsay Eland (2010)
Well, as weary as I am of the Jane-Austen-tribute books, this was well done, and really cute. Some very funny bits- the main character, Polly Madassa, worships Anne of Green Gables, Elizabeth Bennet, and  the whole classic crew, and tries so hard to speak like them, but it makes her almost incomprehensible to everyone around her. I would definitely recommend this to kids at the library who are looking to read up but aren't looking for heavy issue books.

The Mother-Daughter Book Club series, by Heather Vogel Frederick (2008-2011)
Review from the first of the series:
This was lovely. 4 girls, living in Concord, Mass., are forced by their mothers to spend a year reading Little Women in a book club that meets once a month. Of course, the 4 girls are all very different, mall-crazy Megan, hockey-happy Cassidy, bookish Emma and Goat-Girl Jess, but the book had a gentle, warm feel to it. I enjoyed it tremendously.


A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1905)
Obvious, but sometimes forgotten in the shadow of The Secret Garden. Slightly darker, but still beautifully written, and with language (as in Streatfeild) that will certainly challenge a contemporary reader. For girls who have read and loved A Little Princess, there was a surprisingly good sequel written that they may enjoy, below:
Wishing for Tomorrow, by Hilary McKay (2009)
Very sweet and well done sequel to A Little Princess. This was lovely, and I was so glad that even Lavinia and Miss Minchin were somehow redeemed.

The Haunting on Devil's Den Road, by Karen Chilton (2008)
Pretty fantastic children's/YA book! I'd say this is pretty firmly targeted to tweens, but it was really actually very good, and not just because of the Rhody-local stuff!
That said, it was great fun to read such a South County book- from the tow trucks from 'north of the towers' to the realtor called Lila, I loved all that.
Paige Parker is 13 (almost 14) when she and her mother, a professor who teaches about architectural history, move into the Hazard house, in Heather Hollow (Exeter crossed with Hope Valley, I think). They are both reeling from her father's death, and her mother thought that moving from Providence and their memories there, and taking on the project of restoring the Hazard house would bring them a new start.
Paige is reluctant about the move to start with, and her best friend Amanda adds to her unease by telling Paige about Mercy Brown, the local 'vampire'. As soon as Paige and her mother move in, strange things start happening, and well, I won't say more.
It was really good, though, and had a pretty cool intellectual and feminist flavor. I'll definitely be looking forward to book 2.

Millions, by Frank Cottrell Boyce (2005)
This was fantastic, bizarre, tear-making, hope-filling, funny, and so very very strange. It was a delight.
Damien is an English 11 year old obsessed with saints and his dead mother, and he finds a bag of cash, weeks before the pound switches to the euro. (Yeah, I know- but go with it!) He and his 14 year old brother try to spend it all, without their dad finding out. It was such an odd book, but I loved it.


The King of Mulberry Street, by Donna Jo Napoli (2005)
and other books by the same author
Wonderful book. It's childrens/YA, but I thought it had huge adult appeal- maybe even more appeal for adults than for kids. Dom is 9 years old when he comes, alone, to America from Naples. The story was based on the author's grandfather, and it left a major impression on me. It was harrowing, inspiring, and so so real.
From the book:
“Do you have people waiting for you in New York?”
“No.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.” He gave a brief whistle. “There are plenty of kids on their own in America but it’s hard. Harder than in Napoli. Head for Mulberry Street.”



The Railway Children, by E.Nesbit (1906)
Classic family story, set in an England of barges on canals, friendly station masters, Doctors who made housecalls, Russian exile writers, hawthorne flowers and buns with icing for special occasions. If there's a heaven, it will be that England, for me. I don't think it exists now, and maybe it never did, but should heaven be real, for me it will be a place with bunches of roses and tea and coal fired stoves and friendly bakers and parcels wrapped in newspaper.


The Saturdays, by Elizabeth Enright (1941)
Lovely, warm story of 4 children who pool their allowances so that every fouth Saturday, one of them can go do something splendid.
Randi goes to see an art exhibit, Mona gets her hair bobbed, Rush goes to see the opera, and Tim goes to the circus, in an episodical book- great for reading to a child, I imagine.
A lonely old neighbor turns out to be full of exciting stories and to serve tea with petit fours, and all in all it's kind of a lovely and dreamy book. Before I make it sound too dementedly sappy, let me say too that while reading it I was all lulled along, and thinking how much easier this world seemed, peaceful and trustworthy and safe, and then boom-
"What was it like when the world was peaceful, Cuffy?"
"Ah," said Cuffy, coming up again. "It seemed like a lovely world; anyway on top where it showed. But it didn't last long. First there was a long, bad, war, and then peace like the ham in a sandwich, and now a long, bad bad war again."

The Green Glass Sea, by Ellen Klages (2007)
Ellen Klages wrote a great book here- I found the story gripping and interesting from the start. Great cover, solid, fast writing, and as Dewey's story becomes more entwined with Suze's, I came to feel these characters were very real.
The setting (at Los Alamos before and immediately after the Trinity tests) was an immediate attention catcher, and the conflicts between the scientists over the ethics of their work seemed like it would make this book a great starting point to intense discussion. I also thought that the female scientists, like Suze's mom, were gracefully brought into the story and the differences between them and the female 'computers' could lead to a great group talk too. Suze's character growth didn't feel forced, and Dewey- what a protagonist!
I enjoyed this more than I can possibly express- I will be handing this book to everyone who comes up to me looking for 'something good to read'. This book made me want to reread every other book I've read that was set at Los Alamos, made me want to visit that area, reminded me that abstract ideas can lead to devastating consequences, oh, it was a good good read.


Reel Life Starring Us, by Lisa Grunwald (2011)
and
My Life in Pink and Green, by the same author (2009)
Both are charming and well done, clean and fun. Late middle school protagonists, but with a nice healthy attitude to the world.
Exerpt from reveiw of My Life in Pink And Green:
Lucy is worried that her mom's pharmacy is going out of business, and somehow decides that what they need is a local green grant to create an eco-friendly spa.

Ruby Red, by Kirsten Geir (2011)
International (originally written in German, set in London) sensation. A bit sci fi, a bit steampunk- hugely popular, and despite being written as YA, there's nothing that an advanced reader of 9 or 10 could be upset by, I think. I didn't love it, but a lot of people do, and it might make a great read for girls interested in ghost stories/time travel etc but who don't want to get too spooked out. A hint of romance, but nothing remotely graphic.

Shutout, by Brendan Haplin (2010)
(Some off-scene drinking in this one, not by the protagonist) Published as YA, but clean and healthy, with a focus on girls' soccer, which is nice.
Really wonderful, well done YA  about girl's sports, friendship, sportsmanship, and so much more. Amanda and Lena have been inseparable friends for years, and partners on the soccer field, but when, as freshmen, Lena is chosen for the varsity team and Amanda feels sidelined onto the junior varsity, their friendship is challenged, and they grow apart. This was just so well written, the characters were real and believable, it was great YA without being manipulative or trauma drama.

Little Blog on the Prairie, by Catherine Devitt Bell (2010)
Really fun, sweet book. Genevieve's family goes to prairie camp to live out her mother's dream of experiencing life as it was for the settlers, but Genevieve's furtive and secret text messages to her friends at home gain a life of their own when her friend uses them to create a blog about the pleasures and perils of life in the 1880's. A dash of romance, a splash of 'finding oneself', and a really unusual and creative setting made this a really enjoyable read.

The Popularity Papers: Research for the Social Improvement and General Betterment of Lydia Goldblatt and Julie Graham-Chang, by Amy Ignatow (2010)
Very funny and well drawn young YA/older elementary level book. Lydia and Julie decide to observe what the popular girls at school do, to try to draw a blue print for social success. Field hockey, drama club, and secret keeping feature largely. This was really kind of charming, a girlie version of Diary of a Wimpy Kid.


Running Out of Time, by Margaret Peterson Haddix (1997)
13 year old Jessie lives with her parents in 1840's Indiana, in a small frontier town. Children being dying of diphtheria, and her mother, the town midwife, tells Jessie that she needs to get help from outside- that it's really 1996, and that their entire world is a tourist attraction, and that all the adults had volunteered to 'live in the 1840's" for various reasons of their own. Jessie has to deal with that, and with the modern world, to try to find out why they are being denied modern medicine.

Interesting idea, and funnily enough though, when I watched that "Colonial House" show on PBS where the people volunteered to live like the Plymouth settlers I wondered about the ethics involved with the kids on that show, so I guess Haddix was on to something.

Catherine Called Birdy, by Karen Cushman (1995)
In 1290, Catherine, a 13 year old girl, the daughter of a knight, is keeping a diary of her life at her parents’ manor house. Hilarious, moving, and surprisingly vulgar and violent, Catherine’s diary is a glimpse into life 718 years ago.
From the book:
“12th DAY OF SEPTEMBER
I am commanded to write an account of my days: I am bit by fleas and plagued by family. That is all there is to say.”


City of Ember series, by Jeanne DuPrau (2007-2010)
MUCH better than the movie.
Excerpt from review of the first book, City of Ember
This book was fantastic all the way through. Lina and Doon live in an underground city with failing infrastructure and corrupt officials. They explore and have wild adventures and find an exit, escaping at last and saving most of the residents of Ember.
The plot was intriguing, and plausible, the writing was smooth and clean and the descriptions of Ember were chilling and conveyed the claustrophobia of the underground world. I loved the scenes set in the municipal greenhouses and the fact that farmers were so respected, I loved the appreciation of maintaining infrastructure, Lina and Doon were great characters- it was wonderful.


The Red Blazer Girls series, by Michael Biel (2009, 2010, 2011)
These are clever, math-y, puzzle based mysteries set in a New York Catholic school, with 4 female protagonists who are healthy, smart and proud of it, and not superficially obsessed with clothes etc- that makes them sound so dry and wholesome like ryevita toasts, but they are actually delicious and fun books.
Review from the first of the series:
This was so much fun! A quick, entertaining YA (6th or 7th grade target, I guess) about girls who work together to solve a puzzle that leads to the ring, and all the clues are set out in the book so one could solve them along with the characters, if only one remembered Algebra 1! It kind of reminded me of The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil Frankweiler, it had a lovely feel to it. Looking forward to the next.
The 39 Clues series, by various authors
Really fun, fast paced, and filled with interesting historical tidbits- action adventure, with equal boy/girl appeal. Young, but worthwhile, if your reader hasn't devoured them yet.
Excerpt from review of the first book, The Maze of Bones, by Rick Riordan:
The Cahill family, whose members have included just about every important historical figure, is divided into 4 branches, who are racing each other around the world to solve a set of 39 clues left by the family matriarch in her will. Excellent puzzles, history, setting- this one was Paris, and made me want to crawl around the Catacombs and climb Mont Martre on a stormy night- great (if briefly introduced) characters- this was a wonderful start to what I hope is a great series!



For a slightly older reader ready for some interesting speculation and slightly disturbing bioengineering:
The Adoration of Jenna Fox, by Mary Pearson
This was so good. Wonderfully done, and not just for sci-fi people. There were some things ( her sexuality, for one) that I wish had been addressed that weren't, but maybe that was deliberate, to keep it more all-ages or to keep the 'debate' focused on the point. Loved the image of the butterfly. Plot holes you could drive a truck through, but it didn't even matter. If I had read this book as a young teen, I would have LOVED it. I even kind of loved it now.



 
DO NOT RECOMMEND

Anything by Lisi Harrison. I think she is evil.
This is from a 2007 article I wrote:
(NOTE- NOT RECOMMENDING GOSSIP GIRL TO YOUNG READERS- THIS ARTICLE WAS ABOUT YA BOOKS)
"Another series that wrapped up this year is Cecily von Ziegesar’s Gossip Girl — but don’t think for a second that you won’t be hearing that title anymore. The popular and occasionally controversial book series was often called Sex and the City for teens, and The CW is taking a chance on that; the television network is producing a series based on the novels, and slotting the program right after America’s Next Top Model, a ratings powerhouse. Starring Blake Lively (from the movie version of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) as Serena, and Veronica Mars’s Kristin Bell as the eponymous Gossip Girl, the show seems set to be a success. Before watching the series, though, give the books a read. They are delicious — fast, breezy, catty and fun — and von Zeigesar’s writing in the early books captures that ineffable New York vibe.


While critics as prominent as Naomi Wolf were troubled by the Gossip Girl series, calling it “corruption with a cute overlay,” nothing in these books would shock a teen in modern America, and the characters, while wealthy and slightly dissolute, are very focused on their futures, with college applications, interviews, and acceptances driving a significant portion of the plots. The characters do face repercussions for their actions, and bad decisions are followed by consequences — they live in a moral universe. The original set of characters — Blair, Serena, Nate, et al — move on in the final book, Don’t You Forget About Me, which was published in May. But von Zeigesar intends to continue both the Gossip Girl series (with a new crop of students) and the successful spin-off series, The It Girl, which is already up to title four, Unforgettable, published this June.

By contrast, another huge breakout young-adult series, The Clique, by Lisi Harrison, is set in a world apparently without interested adults or a moral center. These books are immensely popular, and are written for a slightly younger set than the Gossip Girl series. The characters Massie, Alicia, Claire and others — are not experimenting with intoxicants or with sex as do some older teen characters in Gossip Girl, but they are no more innocent for that; rather, these characters are the embodiment of the “mean girl” culture. Rather than practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty, the Clique girls are more likely to randomly cyberbully another student and spend senselessly on designer wear that young readers may be tricked into thinking is stylish. The Clique series is on a roll, however, with Harrison’s eighth book in the series, Sealed with a Diss, due to be released on July 2."

Excerpt from my review of book 1 of The Clique series:
This was one of the most horrific and revolting things I have ever read.

Claire's parents (improbably) move into Massie's parents' guest house. Massie is a dreadful little bitch who is senselessly cruel to Claire, because Claire's parents aren't as rich as Massie's, and because Claire is (at 13) still wearing jeans and keds. Massie makes her 'friends' be cruel to Claire as well. Claire is a cardboard character and a total masochist, so she keeps trying to befriend the sociopathic girls.
Everything about this book was heartbreaking. The fact that it was not only published but is such a huge best-seller is nauseating. It is completely sick.
The cruelty is astonishing, the lack of any kind of adult authority figure is disturbing, the consumerism makes Teen Vogue look wholesome, and the writing is nothing short of astoundingly bad.

Excerpt from my review of book 1 of The Alphas series:

This may have been the worst book ever. Lisi Harrison's manipulative and misogynistic tween writing has hit a new and exceptionally low low. I felt brain cells leaping off cliffs to get away from this drivel as I read it. Wildly depressing.



Anything by Meg Cabot- except maybe the Princess Diaries, which can be sweet, but her newer series Allie Finkel's Rules For Girls is APPALLING.
Excerpt from review:
Allie Finkle is a little bitch in training, her moral compass is broken, her parents should send her to boarding school in Liberia, and I can't believe anyone published this piece of shit.


The Willoughbys, by Lois Lowry
This is a shock, because she is usually so very very good, but this was AWFUL.
Excerpt from review:
It was totally Lemony Snicket-y, and that's been so overdone. Also, it gave away the ending to Little Women. Shame on you, Lois Lowry. You're better than this.
Sarah Dessen. I know, it's heresy, but she is definitely NOT for younger readers, and for older readers, I find her books to be manipulative, predictable, and Hallmarky.

Scandanavian Noir: Crime Fiction To Give You Chills

Some authors to look for:

Denmark:
Peter Hoeg

Iceland:
Arnaldur Indridason
Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
Norway:
Karin Fossum
Jo Nesbø

Sweden:
Karin Alvtegen
Åke Edwardson
Kjell Eriksson
Camilla Läckberg
Asa Larsson
Steig Larsson
Henning Mankell
Liza Marklund
Håkan Nesser
Roslund / Hellström
Johan Theorin
Helene Tursten

Apocalypse and post-apocalyptic fiction

Dystopias, Apocalypses, and Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

It seems that every so often, our collective conscious turns to focus on the distressing topics of our own annihilation. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, understandably, many of our fears dealt with nuclear war, but there has been a resurgence in publishing of books about nuclear war, bio-warfare, asymmetrical warfare, and EMP bombs knocking out telecommunications.

Other key themes in this genre are plagues and pandemics, natural and manmade, and their impact on society. With the recent media frenzies over the last few years of flu strains, and SARS, etc, it is not surprising that speculative fiction pitting human spirit against human flesh and its frailties is on the rise again.
Climate change, and its impacts, too, are a daily news topic, and offer cinematic settings for any story, whether set in the melted tundra or sweltering Bangkok, and the guilt that characters often feel.

Most common though, is speculative looks at our own doom that involve combinations of factors- climate change leading to warfare, bio-warfare leading to pandemic, pandemics leading to migrations and migrations leading to war, in a terrible loop of lost hope and despair. Many (but certainly not all) of these titles do offer hints of possible redemption, of hope that it can all be fixed, that we will not be responsible for the loss of humanity, but they also take the reader to dark places where human responsibility for these possible grim fates must be accepted.

Adult Fiction

War

One Second After, by William Forstchen (2009)
Alas, Babylon, by Pat Frank (1959)
The Execution Channel, by Ken MacLeod (2007)
A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter Miller (1960)
The War After Armageddon, by Ralph Peters (2009)
On The Beach, by Nevil Shute (1957)
A Gift Upon The Shore, by M.K. Wren (1990)


Plagues and Pandemics

Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood (2003)
Clay's Ark, by Octavia Butler (1984)
The White Plague, by Frank Herbert (1982)
The Children of Men, by P.D. James (1992)
In a Perfect World, by Laura Kasischke (2009)
The Stand, by Stephen King (1978)
The Scarlet Plague, by Jack London (1912)
I Am Legend, by Richard Mattheson (1954)
Blindness, by Jose Saramago (1997)
Earth Abides, by George Stewart (1949)
Summer of the Apocalypse, by James Van Pelt (2006)


Climate Change/Environmental Disasters

The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood (2009)
The Drowned World, by J.G. Ballard (1965)
Flood, by Stephen Baxter (2009)
A Friend of the Earth, by T.C. Boyle (2000)
Ultimatum, By Matthew Glass (2009)
The Rapture, by Liz Jensen (2009)
The Book of Dave, by Will Self (2006)


Unspecified or Combination of Factors

Wastelands : stories of the Apocalypse , edited by John Joseph Adams (2008)
The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood (1985)
In the Country of Last Things, by Paul Auster (1987)
The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi (2009)
The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica, by John Calvin Batchelor (1983)
The Pesthouse, by Jim Crace (2007)
Pop Apocalypse, by Lee Konstantinou (2009)
World Made By Hand, by James Howard Kunstler (2008)
The Memoirs of a Survivor, by Doris Lessing (1974)
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy (2006)
Far North, by Marcel Theroux (2009)
But Not for Long, by Michelle Wildgren (2009)
Julian Comstock : a story of 22nd-century America, by Robert Charles Wilson (2009)
Random Acts of Senseless Violence, by Jack Womack (1994)


Rapture/Faith Based Apocalypse

Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth's Last Days, by Tim LeHaye (1995)
The End is Now, by Rob Stennett (2009)


YA

Climate Change/Environmental Disasters

Remembering Green, by Lesley Beake (2010)
Exodus, by Julie Bertagna (2008)
The Other Side of the Island, by Allegra Goodman (2008)
Carbon Diaries 2015, by Saci Lloyd (2009)
Life as We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeiffer (2006)


War

City of Ember series, by Jeanne DuPrau (2003)
How I Live Now, by Meg Rosoff (2004)
Wolf of Shadows, by Whitley Streiber (1986)
Uglies series, by Scott Westerfeld (2005)

"A Year of..."

Alter, Cathy Up for renewal : what magazines taught me about love, sex, and starting over
Anderson, Joan A year by the sea : thoughts of an unfinished woman
Beavan, Colin No impact man : the adventures of a guilty liberal who attempts to save the planet, and the discoveries he makes about himself and our way of life in the process
Beha, Chris The whole five feet : what the great books taught me about life, death, and pretty much everything else
Bongiorni, Sarah A year without "made in China" : one family's true life adventure in the global economy
Carlomagno, Mary Give it up : my year of learning to live better with less
Cheek, Lawrence The year of the boat : beauty, imperfection, and the art of doing it yourself
Cohen, David One year off : leaving it all behind for a round-the-world journey with our children
Denman, Jeffry A year with the Producers : one actor's exhausting (but worth it) journey from Cats to Mel Brooks' mega-hit
Didion, Joan The Year of Magical Thinking
Ehrenreich, Barbara Nickel and dimed : on (not) getting by in America
Gilbert, Elizabeth Eat, pray, love : one woman's search for everything across Italy, India, and Indonesia
Headley, Maria The year of yes : a memoir
Jacobs, A J The year of living biblically : one man's humble quest to follow the Bible as literally as possible
Jacobs, A J The know-it-all : one man's humble quest to become the smartest person in the world
Kingsolver, Barbara Animal, vegetable, miracle : a year of food life
Levine, Judith Not buying it : my year without shopping
Lisik, Beth Helping me help myself : one skeptic, twelve self-help programs, one whirlwind year of improvement
Mayle, Peter A Year in Provence
McDonald, Sam The Urban Hermit
Muller, Charla 365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy
Oxenhandler, Noelle The wishing year : a house, a man, my soul : a memoir of fulfilled desire
Powell, Julie Julie and Julia: 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment kitchen
Rees, Jasper A devil to play : one man's year-long quest to master the orchestra's most difficult instrument
Roose, Kevin The unlikely disciple : a sinner's semester at America's holiest university
Rose, Phyllis The year of reading Proust
Shea, Ammon Reading the OED : one man, one year, 21,730 pages
Spurlock, Morgan Supersize Me
Vincent, Norah Self made man : one woman's journey into manhood and back again
Vincent, Norah Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin
Wallace, Danny Yes Man