Thursday, September 3, 2:45 in room 207: Sign-up
Thursday, October 8, 2:45 in the school library
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Chosen by Mr. Domzalski
Nonagenarian Jacob Jankowski reflects back on his wild and wondrous days with a circus. It's the Depression Era and Jacob, finding himself parentless and penniless, joins the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. There he meets the freaks, grifters, and misfits that populate this world. He introduces us to Marlena, beautiful star of the equestrian act; to August, her charismatic but twisted husband (and the circus's animal trainer); and to Rosie, the seemingly untrainable elephant Jacob cares for. Beautifully written, with a luminous sense of time and place, Water for Elephants tells of love in a world in which love's a luxury few can afford.
Thursday, November 19, 2:45 in the school library
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
Chosen by Valerie Yenco
It’s 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma’s reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she’s been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence’s most powerful girls—and their foray into the spiritual world—lead to?
Thursday, December 10, 2:45 in the school library
Mesmerized by Gayle Lynds
Chosen by Jessie Mimms
In Mesmerized, Gayle Lynds delivers a modern-day story of passion and treachery, packed with authentic detail, politics, history, and romance. From the corridors of the FBI's Hoover building to the dangerous streets of the new Moscow, Mesmerized will take you on the roller-coaster ride of a lifetime, climaxing in a great showdown at the home of American democracy itself.
After a heart transplant saves brilliant Washington attorney Beth Convey, she inexplicably acquires new tastes and abilities, and finds herself haunted by strange dreams — or are they memories? Her search for answers leads Beth to former FBI operative-turned-reporter Jeff Hammond. Together they hunt down the truth and discover terrifying top-secret information that could re-ignite the Cold War.
Thursday, January 14, 2:45 in the school library
Castleview by Gene Wolfe
Chosen by Mr. Gotch
Arthurian legend collides with Main Street, USA, in Gene Wolfe's classic fantasy adventure. Castleview, Illinois, got its name from occasional sightings of a phantom castle on stormy nights--a place where the barrier between past and present is weak and strange things happen.
Thursday, February 11, 2:45 in the school library
In the Forest of the Night by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Chosen Kateri Piggford
I was born to the name of Rachel Weatere in the year 1684, more than three hundred years ago.
The one who changed me named me Risika, and Risika I became, though I never asked what it meant. I continue to call myself Risika, even though I was transformed into what I am against my will.
By day, Risika sleeps in a shaded room in Concord, Massachusettts. By night, she hunts the streets of New York City. She is used to being alone.
But now someone is following Risika. Someone has left her a black rose, the same sort of rose that sealed her fate three hundred years ago.
Three hundred years ago Risika had a family — a brother and a sister who loved her. Three hundred years ago she was human.
Now she is a vampire, a powerful one. And her past has come back to torment her.
This atmospheric, haunting tale marks the stunning debut of a promising fourteen-year-old novelist.
Thursday, March 11, 2:45 in the school library
Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman
Chosen by Andrew Minor
The Coldfire trilogy tells a story of discovery and battle against evil on a planet where a force of nature exists that is capable of reshaping the world in response to psychic stimulus. This terrifying force, much like magic, has the power to prey upon the human mind, drawing forth a person's worst nightmare images or most treasured dreams and indiscriminately giving them life. This is the story of two men: one, a warrior priest ready to sacrifice anything and everything for the cause of humanity's progress; the other, a sorcerer who has survived for countless centuries by a total submission to evil. They are absolute enemies who must unite to conquer an evil greater than anything their world has ever known.
Thursday, April 15, 2:45 in the school library
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Chosen by Alex Kontur
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan's last thirty years — from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding — that puts the violence, fear, hope and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives — the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness — are inextricable from the history playing out around them.
Propelled by the same storytelling instinct that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once a remarkable chronicle of three decades of Afghan history and a deeply moving account of family and friendship. It is a striking, heartwrenching novel of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love — a stunning accomplishment.
Thursday, May 13, 2:45 in the school library
Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
Chosen by Francine Jones
Rachel has always been a good girl--until her thirtieth birthday, when her best friend Darcy throws her a party. That night, after too many drinks, Rachel ends up in bed with Darcy's fiancé Dex. Rachel is horrified to discover that she has genuine feelings for Dex. She prays for fate to intervene, but when she makes a choice she discovers that the lines between right and wrong are blurry, endings aren't always neat, and you have to risk all to win true happiness.