NOBODY CRIES AT BINGO

By: Dumont, Dawn

he uptown girls are headed downtown as Serena and Jenny take on their new fabulous roles as rock-star model girlfriends of New York's hottest band, The Raves. Meanwhile, Dan is too busy drowning his sorrows in empty bottles to notice a mysterious French beauty who has a penchant for dirty, Jim Morrison-wannabe lead singers. Blair takes residence at the Plaza to think about her future. Will she become a gun-toting international spy or Manhattan's snobbiest society hostess? Decisions are so difficult! Sounds like everyone needs a day off at the spa. And Senior Spa Day promises to serve up further doses of scandal for New York's busiest private-school vixens. TitlePeek

HUNGER JOURNEY


By: De Vries, Maggie

"First, that is a lie. You are not trying to take a train to Germany. Second, your papers are false. Do you think you can trump up false papers and just walk onto one of our trains?" (Hunger Journeys) It's World War Two in Amsterdam. Lena leaves her starving family to travel by train with her friend Sofie to Almelo, a town close to the German border, in search of food. It's a risky plan. The girls have false papers and are quickly pulled off the train by German soldiers. Only by fluke do they get back on again'with the help of Albert, one of the soldiers. After Lena discovers that the train had also been used to transport Jews to concentration camps, she fears her new friendship with the well-meaning Albert may lead her into more danger. Sofie, too, befriends a soldier, a relationship that quickly turns serious and has unfortunate consequences for both girls. TitlePeek

TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY


By: Le Carre, John

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is not only le Carre's masterpiece, not only perhaps the greatest spy novel ever written, but it is also a great work of serious fiction. Few works of fiction examine so many types of betrayal: of country, of friends, of lovers, of ideals. In none of the espionage master's other works are so many layers of meaning revealed, all inseparable from a highly entertaining cat-and-mouse adventure yarn. The story of supposedly retired spy George Smiley's efforts to ferret out a mole within British intelligence has almost mythic dimensions. Michael Jayston, who plays Peter Gwillam, Smiley's legman, in the television adaptation of the novel, delivers a perfect reading, creating distinctive voices for the dozens of characters, and offering a marvelous rendition of Alec Guinness's distinctive drone as Smiley. Highly recommended. TitlePeek

THE HOLY MAN'S JOURNEY


By: Trott, Susan

"Being nice is good luck," explains Anna, a spirited Irish healer, to her five-year-old son. "Why didn't I come up with that in all these years?" laughs Joe, a 73-year-old holy man with advanced heart disease. Like last year's fable, The Holy Man, this sequel charms by not taking the holy man role too seriously. "People are holy, every last one of them," Joe announces as he leaves his mountain hermitage in an undisclosed land. Dying and determined to deliver a healing lesson to Chen, his own teacher, Joe journeys to Chen's lavish "Universe-city" accompanied by Anna, his chosen successor. Along the way, the kind but inexperienced Anna is treated to life lessons. She listens as Joe helps a bitter, unfulfilled cab driver find his true calling; she watches incredulously as Joe disarms a knife-wielding thief with openhearted generosity; she learns, as Joe defuses a fight between two taxi drivers whose vehicles collided, that taking the blame in a situation "even if you didn't do it, smoothes the knottiest situation spectacularly and immediately." Finally, grappling with her dislike of Chen, whom she condemns as self-aggrandizing and greedy, Anna comes to grasp Joe's ultimate message of loving tolerance and self-knowledge. Some of the lessons sound like Psychotherapy 101 ("my theory about obsessive collecting is that it is repressed creativity"). Yet, Trott is as wily as her sweet-spirited holy man, using her no-pressure storytelling style to lull readers into unexpected moments of wit and illumination. Dutch rights sold to Uitgeverij Bzztoh. TitlePeek

TILT


By: Cumyn, Alan

Stan is an intense sixteen-year-old loner who desperately wants to make the junior varsity basketball team. And it seems that he may be about to do so, until he's blindsided by the unexpected attentions of Janine Igwash. Suddenly Stan is no longer thinking about jump shots. Instead he is obsessed with Janine's spiky hair, her milky white shoulders and the mysterious little tattoo at the base of her neck, not to mention the heat of her breath, her dark eyes, wide hips and . . . Then Stan's father arrives on the scene with Stan's four-year-old half brother, and things become truly insane.Tilt is a wonderfully droll and insightful story about a sensitive, intelligent and gently funny young man living through an impossibly absurd time of life. This book is a rare achievement ? a witty, sexy compulsively readable work of high literary quality. TitlePeek

NO SAFE PLACE

By: Ellis, Deborah

Finalist for the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children's Book Award Orphaned and plagued with the grief of losing everyone he loves, fifteen-year-old Abdul has made a long, fraught journey from his war-torn home in Baghdad, only to end up in The Jungle ? the squalid, makeshift migrant community in Calais. When an altercation at the soup kitchen ends up with him accidently stabbing a policeman, Abdul has to flee, and in desperation he takes a spot in a small boat heading to England. A sudden skirmish leaves the boat stalled in the middle of the Channel, the pilot dead, and four young people remaining ? Abdul; Rosalia, a Romani girl who has escaped from the white slave trade; Cheslav, gone AWOL from a Russian military school; and Jonah, the boat pilot's ten-year-old nephew. The four of them end up hijacking a yacht and, despite their fear and mistrust, they form a kind of makeshift family. And as the authorities close in on them, they find refuge in an unusual place ? a child's secret cave on the English coast. TitlePeek

I'LL VE WATCHING

By: Porter, Pamela Paige

In a small prairie town like Argue, Saskatchewan, everyone knows everybody else's business. Everyone knows that the Loney family has been barely hanging on - the father, George, reduced to drink and despair since the loss of his farm and the death of his wife, Margaret. And that the four Loney children do not get along with George's second wife, the pious, bitter Effie. When George dies in a drunken stupor and Effie takes off with a traveling Bible salesman, it looks as though the children are done for. Who's to save them when everyone in town is coping with the lingering Depression and the loss of their young men to the war? But by drawing good people to them and by rising to the occasion themselves, sixteen-year-old Ran, fourteen-year-old Nora, twelve-year-old Jim and little Addie find a way to make ends meet under the watchful eye of their ghostly parents. TitlePeek

A HARE IN THE ELEPHANT'S TRUNK

By: Coates, Jan

In the little village of Duk Padiet in southern Sudan, a boy named Jacob Deng thrives on the love of his mother, the companionship of his sisters, the excitement of learning how to look after his uncle's herds of cattle. The year is 1987, and suddenly in the night soldiers from the north invade the village, looting, burning, and killing. The war has arrived, and the life of Jacob will never be the same.   This novel is based on the real life experiences of a Sudanese boy who, with thousands of other boys from the region, fled for his life and spent seven years walking through deserts, grasslands and forests, crossing crocodile-infested rivers, surviving life in massive refugee camps. The so-called Lost Boys of Sudan -- as they were called by an American aid organization -- numbered as many as 27,000, and while many died -- from starvation, attacks by wild animals, drowning, or through the brutality of the military -- many survived. Jacob never returned to his village, but though he was only seven years old when he had to flee, he somehow managed to live through an almost unimaginable ordeal.   Throughout the seven years covered in this story, Jacob resists the temptation to join the liberation army. Steadily Jacob finds himself more and more adhering to his mother's advice that getting an education is crucial to escaping the cycle of violence that afflicts his country. Jacob's struggle, then, is to persist in seeking out teachers and eventually a school where his ambition to learn about the world can be met. Through it all he learns about loyalty and love for close friends who have been thrust together with him on this extraordinary journey, and also about the guiding light provided by the memory of his mother. TitlePeek

FISHTAILING

By: Phillips, Wendy

Teen violence, bullying and the burning quest to fit in are presented in the poems of four unforgettable high school students: Natalie, Kyle, Tricia, Miguel. Their stories unfold in this explosive new book told in free verse. A story of teen angst like no other, it is based on fictional characters but is rooted in the realities of the teen experience. When Natalie moves to a new high school she befriends three unwitting victims into her spider-web of manipulations, lies and deceit. Through the poetry and assignments of an English class we glimpse the world of the four teens. Natalie, whose alcoholic parents, years of neglect and ultimate rape by her father's friend has shaped her into a cruel and manipulative teen; Tricia, dealing with her blended family, is drawn into Natalies' forbidden world of partying and rebellion; Kyle, a would-be musician is in love with Tricia and Miguel who lusts for Natalie while hiding the secrets of his family. The story weaves us through their poetry, their lives and culminates at a party where the four lives fishtail out of control. English class will never be the same. TitlePeek

BLOOD RED ROAD

By: Young, Moira

This fast-paced YA debut novel has it all: smart, savvy characters making their way through an eerily dystopian society, with all the requisite action, adventure and romance characteristic of the genre vividly and at times, chillingly, portrayed. In a wild and lawless future, where life is cheap and survival is hard, eighteen-year-old Saba lives with her father, her twin brother Lugh, her young sister Emmi and her pet crow Nero. Theirs is a hard and lonely life. The family resides in a secluded shed, their nearest neighbour living many miles away and the lake, their only source of water and main provider of food, gradually dying from the lack of rain. But Saba's father refuses to leave the place where he buried his beloved wife, Allis, nine years ago. Allis died giving birth to Emmi, and Saba has never forgiven her sister for their mother's death. But while she despises Emmi, Saba adores her twin brother Lugh. Golden-haired and blue-eyed, loving and good, he seems the complete opposite to dark-haired Saba, who is full of anger and driven by a ruthless survival instinct. To Saba, Lugh is her light and she is his shadow, he is the day, she is the nighttime, he is beautiful, she is ugly, he is good, she is bad. So Saba's small world is brutally torn apart, when a group of armed riders arrives five day's after the twin's eighteenth birthday snatch Lugh away. Saba's rage is so wild, that she manages to drive the men away, but not before they have captured Lugh and killed their father. And here begins Saba's epic quest to rescue Lugh, during which she is tested by trials she could not have imagined, and one that takes the reader on breathtaking ride full or romance, physical adventure and unforgettably vivid characters, making this a truly sensational YA debut novel. TitlePeek

VIVA LA REPARTEE CLEVER COMEBACKS AND WITTY RETORTS FROM...


By: Grothe, Mardy

This collection of history's cleverest comebacks and other truly great replies features contributions from Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, Mae West, Groucho Marx, Winston Churchill, Dolly Parton, and scores more. TitlePeek

ODYSSEY


By: Homer

Lombardo's Odyssey offers the distinctive speed, clarity, and boldness that so distinguished his 1997 Iliad. Lombardo has created a Homeric voice for his contemporaries: fresh, quick and verbally engaging to the modern ear, as the original was to the ancient. His characters come alive as real people expressing real feelings with urgency and verve. This would be very welcome for classroom use.TitlePeek

HOLES


By: Sachar, Louis

Stanley Yelnats tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment and redemption. TitlePeek

HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE


By: Rowling, J.K.

For use in schools and libraries only. After 10 miserable years with his aunt and uncle, Harry Potter is invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Each book follows another year in Harry's education while more of his frightening destiny is revealed. TitlePeek

THE GIRL IN THE GREEN SWEATER: A LIFE IN HOLOCAUST'S SHADOW


By: Chiger, Krystyna

In 1943, with Lvov's 150,000 Jews having been exiled, killed, or forced into ghettos and facing extermination, a group of Polish Jews daringly sought refuge in the city's sewer system. The last surviving member this group, Krystyna Chiger, shares one of the most intimate, harrowing and ultimately triumphant tales of survival to emerge from the Holocaust. The Girl in the Green Sweater is Chiger's first-person account of the fourteen months she spent with her family in the fetid sewers of Lvov. The Girl in the Green Sweater is also the story of Leopold Socha, the group's unlikely savior. A Polish Catholic and former thief, Socha risked his life to help Chiger's underground family survive, bringing them food and supplies. A moving memoir of life under unimaginable circumstances, The Girl in the Green Sweater is ultimately a tale of intimate survival, friendship, and redemption. TitlePeek

EXTREMELY LOUD &INCREDIBLY CLOSE


By: Foer, Jonathan Safra

Jonathan Safran Foer emerged as one of the most original writers of his generation with his best-selling debut novel, Everything Is Illuminated. Now, with humor, tenderness, and awe, he confronts the traumas of our recent history. Nine-year-old Oskar Schell has embarked on an urgent, secret mission that will take him through the five boroughs of New York. His goal is to find the lock that matches a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11. This seemingly impossible task will bring Oskar into contact with survivors of all sorts on an exhilarating, affecting, often hilarious, and ultimately healing journey. TitlePeek

ERAGON


By: Paolini, Christopher

Now in paperback! Fifteen-year-old Eragon believes that he is merely a poor farm boy--until his destiny as a Dragon Rider is revealed. Gifted with only an ancient sword, a loyal dragon, and sage advice from an old storyteller, Eragon is soon swept into a dangerous tapestry of magic, glory, and power. Now his choices could save--or destroy--the Empire. A New York Times Bestseller A USA Today Bestseller A Wall Street Journal Bestseller A Book Sense Bestseller. TitlePeek

CESAR'S WAY: THE NATURAL, EVERYDAY GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING...


By: Millan, Cesar

"I rehabilitate dogs. I train people." --Cesar Millan There are at least 68 million dogs in America, and their owners lavish billions of dollars on them every year. So why do so many pampered pets have problems? In this definitive and accessible guide, Cesar Millan--star of National Geographic Channel's hit show Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan --reveals what dogs truly need to live a happy and fulfilled life. From his appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show to his roster of celebrity clients to his reality television series, Cesar Millan is America's most sought-after dog-behavior expert. But Cesar is not a trainer in the traditional sense--his expertise lies in his unique ability to comprehend dog psychology. Tracing his own amazing journey from a clay-walled farm in Mexico to the celebrity palaces of Los Angeles, Cesar recounts how he learned what makes dogs tick. In Cesar's Way , he shares this wisdom, laying the groundwork for you to have stronger, more satisfying relationships with your canine companions. Cesar's formula for a contented and balanced dog seems impossibly simple: exercise, discipline, and affection, in that order. Taking readers through the basics of dog psychology and behavior, Cesar shares the inside details of some of his most fascinating cases, using them to illustrate how common behavior issues develop and, more important, how they can be corrected. Whether you're having issues with your dog or just want to make a good bond even stronger, this book will give you a deeper appreciation of how your dog sees the world, and it will help make your relationship with your beloved pet a richer and more rewarding one. Learn what goes on inside your dog's mind and develop a positive, fulfilling relationship with your best friend In Cesar's Way , Cesar Millan--nationally recognized dog expert and star of National Geographic Channel's hit show Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan --helps you see the world through the eyes of your dog so you can finally eliminate problem behaviors. You'll learn: • What your dog really needs may not be what you're giving him • Why a dog's natural pack instincts are the key to your happy relationship • How to relate to your dog on a canine level • There are no "problem breeds," just problem owners • Why every dog needs a job • How to choose a dog who's right for you and your family • The difference between discipline and punishment • And much more! Filled with fascinating anecdotes about Cesar's longtime clients, and including forewords by the president of the International Association of Canine Professionals and Jada Pinkett Smith, this is the only book you'll need to forge a new, more rewarding connection with your four-legged companion. Also available as a Random House AudioBook From the Hardcover edition. TitlePeek

BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP: A NOVEL


By: Waston, S.J.

Christine wakes up every morning in an unfamiliar bed with an unfamiliar man. She looks in the mirror and sees an unfamiliar, middle-aged face. And every morning, the man she has woken up with must explain that he is Ben, he is her husband, she is forty-seven years old, and a terrible accident two decades earlier decimated her ability to form new memories. But it's the phone call from a Dr. Nash, a neurologist who claims to be working with Christine without her husband's knowledge, that directs her to her journal, hidden in the back of her closet. For the past few weeks, Christine has been recording her daily activities -- tearful mornings with Ben, sessions with Dr. Nash, flashes of scenes from her former life -- and rereading past entries, relearning the facts of her life as retold by the husband she is completely dependent upon. As the entries build up, Christine asks many questions. What was life like before the accident? Why did she and Ben never have a child? What has happened to Christine's best friend? And what exactly was the horrific accident that caused such a profound loss of memory? Every day, Christine must begin again the reconstruction of her past. And the closer she gets to the truth, the more unbelievable it seems. TitlePeek