Strictly no elephants by Lisa Mantchev (2015)

A boy is excluded from joining his friends' pet club because of his unusual pet.

Tyrannosaurus Drip by Julia Donaldson (2007)

Oroonoko by Aphra Behn (2013)

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (2019)

As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is "as good as anyone." Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, whose mission statement says it provides "physical, intellectual and moral training" so the delinquent boys in their charge can become "honorable and honest men." In reality, the Nickel Academy is a grotesque chamber of horrors where the sadistic staff beats and sexually abuses the students, corrupt officials and locals steal food and supplies, and any boy who resists is likely to disappear "out back." Stunned to find himself in such a vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold onto Dr. King's ringing assertion "Throw us in jail and we will still love you." His friend Turner thinks Elwood is worse than naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. The tension between Elwood's ideals and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades. Formed in the crucible of the evils Jim Crow wrought, the boys' fates will be determined by what they endured at the Nickel Academy.

The Silent Corner by Dean Koontz (2017)

"I very much need to be dead." These are the chilling last words left by a man who had everything to live for but took his own life. In the void that remains stands his widow, FBI agent Jane Hawk, surrounded by questions destined to go unanswered unless she does what all the grief and fury inside her demand: Find the truth, no matter what. People of talent and accomplishment, people seemingly happy and sound of mind, have recently been committing suicide in surprising numbers. A disturbing pattern is beginning to emerge. Jane is determined to give up everything to find out why. And if that means going rogue and becoming America's Most Wanted, then so be it. Those arrayed against her are legion, and devoted to protecting something profoundly important-or terrifying-enough to exterminate any and all in their way. But Jane is as clever as these enemies are cold-blooded, as relentless as they are ruthless. And she is driven by a righteous rage they can never comprehend. Because it is born of love.

Teen Titans Go! by Magnolia Belle (2014)

The Rope by Nevada Barr (2012)

Spook Country by William Gibson (2006)

Tito is in his early twenties. Born in Cuba, he speaks fluent Russian, lives in one room in a NoLita warehouse, and does delicate jobs involving information transfer.Hollis Henry is an investigative journalist, on assignment from a magazine called Node. Node doesn't exist yet, which is fine; she's used to that. But it seems to be actively blocking the kind of buzz that magazines normally cultivate before they start up. Really actively blocking it. It's odd, even a little scary, if Hollis lets herself think about it much. Which she doesn't; she can't afford to.Milgrim is a junkie. A high-end junkie, hooked on prescription antianxiety drugs. Milgrim figures he wouldn't survive twenty-four hours if Brown, the mystery man who saved him from a misunderstanding with his dealer, ever stopped supplying those little bubble packs. What exactly Brown is up to Milgrim can't say, but it seems to be military in nature. At least, Milgrim's very nuanced Russian would seem to be a big part of it, as would breaking into locked rooms.Bobby Chombo is a "producer," and an enigma. In his day job, Bobby is a troubleshooter for manufacturers of military navigation equipment. He refuses to sleep in the same place twice. He meets no one. Hollis Henry has been told to find him.Pattern Recognition was a bestseller on every list of every major newspaper in the country, reaching #4 on the New York Times list. It was also a BookSense top ten pick, a WordStock bestseller, a best book of the year for Publishers Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, and the Economist, and a Washington Post "rave."Spook Country is the perfect follow-up to Pattern Recognition, which was called by The Washington Post (among many glowing reviews), "One of the first authentic and vital novels of the twenty-first century."

Burnt shadows by Kamila Shamsie (2009)

A powerful, sweeping epic crossing generations, cultures and continentsIn a prison cell in the US, a man stands trembling, naked, fearfully waiting to be shipped to Guantanamo Bay. How did it come to this? he wonders...August 9th, 1945, Nagasaki. Hiroko Tanaka steps out onto her veranda, taking in the view of the terraced slopes leading up to the sky. Wrapped in a kimono with three black cranes swooping across the back, she is twenty-one, in love with the man she is to marry, Konrad Weiss.In a split second, the world turns white. In the next, it explodes with the sound of fire and the horror of realisation. In the numbing aftermath of a bomb that obliterates everything she has known, all that remains are the bird-shaped burns on her back, an indelible reminder of the world she has lost.In search of new beginnings, she travels to Delhi two years later. There she walks into the lives of Konrad’s half-sister, Elizabeth, her husband James Burton, and their employee Sajjad Ashraf, from whom she starts to learn Urdu. As the years unravel, new homes replace those left behind and old wars are seamlessly usurped by new conflicts. But the shadows of history – personal, political – are cast over the entwined worlds of the Burtons, Ashrafs and the Tanakas as they are transported from Pakistan to New York, and in the novel’s astonishing climax, to Afghanistan in the immediate wake of 9/11. The ties that have bound them together over decades and generations are tested to the extreme, with unforeseeable consequences.Sweeping in its scope and mesmerising in its evocation of time and place, Burnt Shadows is an epic narrative of disasters evaded and confronted, loyalties offered and repaid, and loves rewarded and betrayed.

Vision in White by Nora Roberts (2009)

Childhood friends Mackensie, Parker, Laurel and Emmeline have formed a very successful wedding planning business together but, despite helping thousands of happy couples to organize the biggest day of their lives, all four women are unlucky in love. Photographer Mackensie Elliott has suffered a tough childhood and has a bad relationship with her mother, which makes her wary of commitment. But when she meets Carter Macguire, she can't stop herself falling for him, although his ex girlfriend is prepared to play dirty to keep him. Mackensie soon realizes she has to put her past demons to rest in order to find lasting love ... ending.

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (2014)

"From the acclaimed writer of The Book of Night Women comes a masterful novel framed as a fictional oral history that explores the events and characters surrounding the attempted assassination of Bob Marley during the political turmoil on Jamaica in the late 1970s"--

Diary of a Bad Year by J. M. Coetzee (2007)

An utterly contemporary and deeply thought-provoking novel which addresses the profound unease of countless people in modern democracies around the world. An eminent, seventy-two-year-old Australian writer is invited to contribute to a book entitled Strong Opinions. It is a chance to air some urgent concerns. He writes short essays on the origins of the state, on Machiavelli, on anarchism, on Al-Qaida, on intelligent design, on music. What, he asks, is the origin of the state and the nature of the relationship between citizen and state? How should the citizen of a modern democracy react to the state’s willingness to set aside moral considerations and civil liberties in its war on terror, a war that includes the use of torture? How does the state handle outsiders? In the laundry-room of his apartment block he encounters an alluring young woman. When he discovers she is between jobs he claims failing eyesight and offers her work typing up his manuscript. Anya has no interest in politics but the job provides a distraction, as does the writer’s evident and not unwelcome attraction toward her. Her boyfriend, Alan, an investment consultant who understands the world in harsh neo-liberal economic terms, has reservations about his trophy girlfriend spending time with this 1960s throwback. Taking a lively interest in his affairs, Alan begins to formulate a plan.

George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt by Lucy Hawking (2009)

George is heartbroken when his neighbor Annie and her space-scientist father move to Florida, but when Annie sends him a secret message telling him she has been contacted by aliens with a terrible warning, he joins her in a galaxy-wide search for answers. Includes scientific essays on space travel.

Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson (2017)

**The eagerly awaited sequel to the #1 *New York Times* bestselling *Words of Radiance*, from epic fantasy author Brandon Sanderson, at the top of his game** In *Oathbringer*, the third volume of the *New York Times* bestselling Stormlight Archive, humanity faces a new Desolation with the return of the Voidbringers, a foe whose numbers are as great as their thirst for vengeance. Dalinar Kholin's Alethi armies won a fleeting victory at a terrible cost: the enemy Parshendi summoned the violent Everstorm, which now sweeps the world with destruction, an din its passing awakens the once peaceful and subservient parshmen to the horror of their millennia-long enslavement by humans. While on a desperate flight to warn his family of the threat, Kaladin Stormblessed must come to grips with the fact that the newly kindled anger of the parshmen may be wholly justified. Nestled in the mountains high above the storms, in the tower city of Urithiru, Shallan Davar investigates the wonders of the ancient stronghold of the Knights Radiant and unearths dark secrets lurking in its depths. And Dalinar realizes that his holy mission to unite his homeland of Alethkar is too narrow in scope. Unless all the nations of Roshar can put aside Dalinar's blood-soaked past and stand together--and unless Dalinar himself can confront that past--even the restoration of the Knights Radiant will not prevent the end of civilization. This description comes from the publisher. *Oathbringer* is the third book of the Stormlight Archive, the first of which is *The Way of Kings*.

Authority by Jeff VanderMeer (2014)

For thirty years, a secret agency called the Southern Reach has monitored expeditions into Area X, a remote and lush terrain mysteriously sequestered from civilization. After the twelfth expedition, the Southern Reach is in disarray, and John Rodriguez is the team's newly appointed head. From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and more than two hundred hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the secrets of Area X begin to reveal themselves.

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson (2009)

After bursting onto the fantasy scene with his acclaimed debut novel, Elantris, and following up with his blockbuster Mistborn trilogy, Brandon Sanderson proves again that he is today’s leading master of what Tolkien called “secondary creation,” the invention of whole worlds, complete with magics and myths all their own. Warbreaker is the story of two sisters, who happen to be princesses, the God King one of them has to marry, the lesser god who doesn’t like his job, and the immortal who’s still trying to undo the mistakes he made hundreds of years ago. Their world is one in which those who die in glory return as gods to live confined to a pantheon in Hallandren’s capital city and where a power known as BioChromatic magic is based on an essence known as breath that can only be collected one unit at a time from individual people. By using breath and drawing upon the color in everyday objects, all manner of miracles and mischief can be accomplished. It will take considerable quantities of each to resolve all the challenges facing Vivenna and Siri, princesses of Idris; Susebron the God King; Lightsong, reluctant god of bravery, and mysterious Vasher, the Warbreaker.

The wolf at the door by Henry Patterson (2008)

Dark men and darker deeds from the New York Times- bestselling author and "dean of intrigue novelists" (St. Louis Post- Dispatch) On Long Island, a trusted operative for the president nudges his boat up to a pier, when a man materializes out of the rain and shoots him. In London, General Charles Ferguson, adviser to the prime minister, approaches his car on a side street, when there is a flash and the car explodes. In New York, a former British soldier, who is also a bit more than that, takes a short walk in Central Park to stretch his legs, when a man comes up fast behind him, a pistol in his hand.And that is only the beginning. Someone is targeting the members of the elite intelligence unit known as "the Prime Minister's private army" and all those who work with them, and whoever is doing it has a lot of resources at his command. Sean Dillon has an idea of who it may be, an old nemesis who has clearly gotten tired of their interference in his schemes. But proving it is going to be a difficult task. And surviving it the hardest task of all. . .

Luka and the Fire of Life (Khalifa Brothers #2) by Salman Rushdie (2010)

This breathtaking new novel centers on Luka, Haroun’s younger brother, who must save his father from certain doom. For Rashid Khalifa, the legendary storyteller of Kahani, has fallen into deep sleep from which no one can wake him. To keep his father from slipping away entirely, Luka must travel to the Magic World and steal the ever-burning Fire of Life. Thus begins a quest replete with unlikely creatures, strange alliances, and seemingly insurmountable challenges as Luka and an assortment of enchanted companions race through peril after peril, pass through the land of the Badly Behaved Gods, and reach the Fire itself, where Luka’s fate, and that of his father, will be decided. Filled with mischievous wordplay and delving into themes as universal as the power of filial love and the meaning of mortality, *Luka and the Fire of Life* is a book of wonders for all ages.

Camp Half-Blood Confidential by Rick Riordan (2017)

A companion guide to THE TRIALS OF APOLLO series, set in the world of PERCY JACKSON. Camp Half-Blood FYI is the funny insider's guide to the demigod training camp in Long Island, narrated by none other than Percy Jackson himself, and other favourite characters will be heard from, too. In response to an awful camp orientation video created by the god Apollo, Percy Jackson and other residents of Camp Half-Blood answer such questions as "What is this place?" and "Do I get to keep the T-shirt?" Newbies can check out the section on the Divine Cabins, read up on Magical Landmarks, and consult the chapter of Training Arenas. But Camp Half-Blood Confidential explores much more than just the buildings and grounds. It includes info that can only be learned from those who live there. For instance, campers do not always co-exist in peace and harmony. The camp is not run with superior efficiency. Prophecies do not flow forth with great regularity. Sprinkled throughout are stories from heroes who have called Camp Half-Blood home or just passed through on their way to places unknown. Chiron himself introduces the book with a brief history of training based on his millennia of experience. And, of course, divine words of wisdom from the god Apollo himself are included, because the demigod authors would prefer not to be struck down by him, thank you very much.

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin (2015)

**A SEASON OF ENDINGS HAS BEGUN.** IT STARTS WITH THE GREAT RED RIFT across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. IT STARTS WITH DEATH, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. IT STARTS WITH BETRAYAL and long-dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy. This description comes from the publisher.