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  • Grimm, Most Wanted

    Most Wanted: November 2011

    08.11.11 | Permalink | Comment?

    Here’s the top ten most reserved young adult items for November. New entries include Daughter of Smoke & Bone – a supernatural romance/thriller about angels and devils set in exotic parts (well, Marrakesh, and Prague for example) – Clockwork Prince –  the second in the Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare – Hades – the angelic follow up to Halo – and Crossed – sequel to Matched, in which Cassia journeys to the Outer Provinces to find Ky. Happy reserving!

    1. People’s Republic, Robert Muchamore [no change]
    2. Inheritance, Christopher Paolini [up 1]
    3. The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins [down 1]
    4. Silence, Becca Fitzpatrick [up 1]
    5. Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins [down 1]
    6. Clockwork Prince, Cassandra Clare [new]
    7. Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins [down 1]
    8. Hades, Alexandra Adornetto [new]
    9. Crossed, Ally Condie [new]
    9. Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Laini Taylor [new]
    9. The Power of Six, Pittacus Lore [down 2]

    Now, back to Angry Birds!


  • Grimm, Most Wanted

    Most Wanted: October 2011

    07.10.11 | Permalink | Comment?

    Here’s the top ten most reserved young adult items for October. Enjoy!

    1. People’s Republic, Robert Muchamore [no change]
    2. The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins [no change]
    3. Inheritance, Christopher Paolini [up 1]
    4. Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins [up 5]
    5. Silence, Becca Fitzpatrick [up 2]
    6. Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins [no change]
    7. The Power of Six, Pittacus Lore [down 2]
    8. Passion, Lauren Kate [down 5]
    9. Bloodlines, Richelle Mead [up 1]
    10. Pretty Little Liars, Sara Shepard [down 2]

    Also new and popular in town: Hades, by Alexandra Adornetto (sequel to Halo), All These Things I’ve Done by Gabrielle Zevin, and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Plus also, also Ouran High School Host Club 7 and Vampire Knight 13.


  • Grimm, Most Wanted

    Most Wanted: September 2011

    08.09.11 | Permalink | Comment?

    Here’s the top ten most reserved young adult items, as of now, the second week of September. They’re a melting pot of what’s hot in young adult fiction: spies, thrillers, dystopias, angels, aliens, action, romance, fantasy, exclusive academies, movie and tv-show adaptations. Enjoy!

    1. People’s Republic, Robert Muchamore [up 5]
    2. The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins [no change]
    3. Passion, Lauren Kate [down 2]
    4. Inheritance, Christopher Paolini [new]
    5. The Power of Six, Pittacus Lore [up 5]
    6. Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins [up 3]
    7. Silence, Becca Fitzpatrick [new]
    8. Pretty Little Liars, Sara Shepard [down 4]
    9. Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins [no change]
    10. Bloodlines, Richelle Mead [new]


  • Grimm, Most Wanted

    Most Wanted: May 2011

    02.05.11 | Permalink | Comment?

    These are the 10(ish) most requested and taken home young adult items at the moment. City of Fallen Angels is still number one, and Cassandra Clare will actually be in Wellington next week. Here’s more about the details!

    1. City of Fallen Angels, Cassandra Clare [no change]
    2. Passion, Lauren Kate [up 2]
    3. Angel, James Patterson [down 1]
    4. I Am Number Four, Pittacus Lore [down 1]
    5. Plague, Michael Grant [up 3]
    5. Scorpia Rising, Anthony Horowitz [new]
    7. Megamind, DVD [new]
    8. Glee: The Music: Volume 5 [down 2]
    8. Awakened, P C and Kristin Cast [up 2]
    10. Midnight, L J Smith [no change]
    10. Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins [no change]


  • Grimm, New

    New Books

    19.04.11 | Permalink | Comment?

    August, Bernard Beckett (204 pages, New Zealand author) – Tristan and Grace are in a car wreck, waiting for rescue (if it happens!). As they wait, as one does, they review their very different lives and philosophies. “A compelling novel about will, freedom and what it means to live” (cover).

    First sentence: For a moment the balance was uncertain.

    Scorpia Rising, Anthony Horowitz (402 pages) – the final mission, the cover declares! No! Alex must put Scorpia out of business, once and for all, but is this the mission to end all missions, and to end Alex? We hope not!

    First sentence: The man in the black cashmere coat climbed down the steps of his private, six-seater Learjet 40 and stood for a moment, his breath frosting in the chill morning air.

    Where She Went, Gayle Forman (260 pages) – the follow up to the über popular If I Stay. Three years after Mia ended it with Adam they’re back together for one night in New York City, a chance to put things to rest (or to respark something?).

    First sentence: Every morning I wake up and I tell myself this: it’s just one day, one twenty-four-hour period to get yourself through.

    Plague, Michael Grant (526 pages) – the fourth in the Gone series. Quelle horreur, this one sounds ghastly. There is a plague threatening Perdido Beach (one that is described in graphic detail on the back cover! Guts! Being eaten away from the inside out!), and there’s still the grim reality of what happens to you at fifteen.

    First sentence: He stood poised on the edge of a sheet of glass.

    Invincible, Sherrilyn Kenyon (420 pages) – The second on the Chronicles of Nick series. Poor Nick is once again challenged by the presence of all manner of horrific supernatural creatures, affecting his life in so many ways, from the inconvenient (his principal thinks he’s gone to the bad, making school a problematic place) to the downright deadly; he must figure out how to raise the dead or he might find himself counted as one of them.

    First sentence: They say when you’re about to die, you see your entire life flash before your eyes.

    The Running Dream, Wendelin Van Draanen (332 pages) – Puts one’s own annoying, minor running injuries into perspective. Jessica is a runner, until she’s involved in a terrible accident and loses a leg. A story of coming to terms with a significant loss, reestablishing your identity and your place, and overcoming odds.

    First sentence: My life is over.

    All You Get is Me, Yvonne Prinz (279 pages) – Roar’s father goes all green on her, installing  them on an organic farm, where she must spend the summer adjusting  from her city sensibilities, coping with falling in love, the fact that her mother is gone, and with the fallout from her father’s crusade against the bad working conditions of Mexican farm workers.

    First sentence: My mom always promised me she would keep me safe, and then she disappeared.

    As Easy as Falling off the Face of the Earth, Lynne Rae Perkins (352 pages) – Ry’s train strands him in the middle of seriously nowhere and he’s got to get to somewhere, a journey that is peppered by a series of scrapes, mishaps and “comedic calamities” (catalogue).

    First sentences: Wait a minute. Was the – had the train just moved?

    The Floating Islands, Rachel Neumeier (388 pages) – “The adventures of two teenaged cousins who live in a place called The Floating Islands, one of whom is studying to become a mage and the other one of the legendary island flyers” (library catalogue).

    First sentence: Trei was fourteen the first time he saw the Floating Islands.

    The Education of Hailey Kendrick, Eileen Cook (256 pages) – Hailey is the perfect girl who never does anything wrong, until one night, together with a secret accomplice, she does something quite wrong and gets into a rather lot of trouble, which her secret accomplice escapes. Now her friends don’t want to know her, her teachers don’t trust her, everything’s a mess, and she’s keeping quiet about the identity of said secret accomplice. Is it worth it?

    First sentence: There was a matter of life and death to deal with, and instead we were wasting our time discussing Mandy Gallaway’s crotch.


  • Grimm, Most Wanted

    Most Wanted: April 2011

    08.04.11 | Permalink | Comment?

    Here they are, the Most Wanted for April 2011, resplendant and somewhat belated.

    1. City of Fallen Angels, Cassandra Clare [no change]
    2. Angel, James Patterson [no change]
    3. I Am Number Four, Pittacus Lore [new]
    4. Passion, Lauren Kate [up 6]
    5. Grey Wolves, Robert Muchamore [down 1]
    6. Glee: The Music: Volume 5 [new]
    7. The Third Day, The Frost, John Marsden [no change]
    8. Plague, Michael Grant [new]
    8. Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins [no change]
    10. Midnight, L J Smith [new]
    10. Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins [no change]
    10. Awakened, P C and Kristin Cast [down 5]


  • Exclusive academies for rich kids who form cliques, Fantasy, Grimm, New, Sport

    More New Books

    05.04.11 | Permalink | Comment?

    Rose Sees Red, Cecil Castellucci (197 pages) – It is 1982 in New York and Rose is a ballet dancer who attends the High School of Performing Arts. Yrena is Rose’s neighbour, a visiting Russian dancer who, due to the Cold War between USSR and the United States, is all but a prisoner in her apartment. One night Yrena, intent on experiencing New York life, escapes through Rose’s apartment window, and the two hit the town for a wild night of adventure.

    First sentence: I was black inside so I took everything black.

    The Children of the Lost, David Whitley (357 pages) – the second book in the Agora trilogy that began with The Midnight Charter. Mark and Lily are exiled from the city of Agora, and find refuge in a small nearby village. Lily is happy, but Mark longs to return to Agora to take revenge and find answers.

    First sentence: Gradually, Lily became aware that she was being watched.

    Kick, Walter Dean Myers and Ross Workman (197 pages) – Ross Workman wrote to Walter Dean Myers saying he was a fan of his books and Walter Dean Myers replied saying let’s write a book together, so they did. True story. Kick is about a troubled boy who’s an excellent football (soccer) player, on his way to the state cup final, until he ends up in jail. Can he and his mentor, a policeman called Sergeant Brown, turn his life around?

    First sentence: Bill Kelly and I had been friends since we played high school basketball together.

    I Was Jane Austen’s Best Friend, Cora Harrison (342 pages) – Jenny Cooper is Jane’s cousin, and goes to live with the Austens, which is an education in the world of balls, beautiful dresses, turns about the room, gossip, and other such things. When she (Jenny) falls in love, Jane is there to help her out.

    First sentence: It’s a terrible thing to write: Jane looks like she could die – but it’s even worse to have the thought jumping into your mind every few minutes.

    Pathfinder, Orson Scott Card (657 pages) – Rigg is able to see into people’s paths, a secret he shares only with his father. When his father dies, Rigg learns that he’s been keeping a whole lot of other secrets, about Rigg and his family. Rigg has other powers…

    First sentence: Rigg and Father usually set the traps together, because it was Rigg who had the knack of seeing the paths that the animals they wanted were still using.

    Firespell, Chloe Neill (278 pages) – Lily is a new girl at an exclusive academy and she doesn’t fit in and has no friends apart from her roommate Scout. When she discovers that Scout has magical powers and protects the city from supernatural monsters, Lily is keen to help, but can she, if she has no powers of her own?

    First sentence: They were gathered around a conference table in a high-rise, eight men and women, no one under the age of sixty-five, all of them wealthy beyond measure.

    The Body at the Tower, Y S Lee (344 pages) – the second book in the Agency Victorian detective series (the first is A Spy in the House). Mary Quinn, under cover, investigates the mysterious scandals surrounding the building of the Houses of Parliament, but there are distractions (suspicious workmates, past secrets, and the return of James Easton).

    First sentence: A sobbing man huddles on a narrow ledge, clawing at his eyes to shield them from the horror far below.

    The Doomsday Box, Herbie Brennan (328 pages) – a Shadow Project book. Time travel is possible, trouble is someone (secret codename Cobra) has used it to transport the black plague into the 21st Century. The supernatural teen spies of the Shadow Project must avert disaster, while also averting their own disaster, on the run from the KGB in Moscow in the 1960s.

    First sentence: Opal fastened the strap around her ankle and stood up to admire her new shoes.

    Zora and Me, Victoria Bond and T R Simon (170 pages) – based on events in the life of author Zora Neale Hurston. When a young man’s body is found on train tracks in a small Florida town Zora thinks she knows who did it, so she and her friends set out to prove her theory and search for the truth. Narrated by Zora’s best friend Carrie, hence the title.

    First sentence: It’s funny how you can be in a story but not realise until the end that you were in one.

    The False Princess, Eilis O’Neal (319 pages) – Nalia believes herself to be princess of Thorvaldor, but discovers she’s actually a stand in. She’s cast out, called Sinda, and sent to live with her unwelcoming aunt in a village where she (Sinda) learns she has magic, which is Sinda’s ticket out, albeit a dangerous ticket. This one is called “A dazzling first novel” and “an engrossing fantasy full of mystery, action, and romance”, which sounds great.

    First sentence: The day they came to tell me, I was in one of the gardens with Kiernan, trying to decipher a three-hundred-year-old map of the palace grounds.

    Fallout, Ellen Hopkins (663 pages) – the companion to Crank and Glass. About Kristina’s three oldest children, who must climb out from under their mother’s meth addiction and the hold it has over the family. Novel in verse form.

    First sentence: That life was good / before she / met / the monster, / but those page flips / went down before / our collective / cognition.

    Accomplice, Eireann  Corrigan (259 pages) – Two friends stage a kidnapping as a joke and in order to gain notoreity. Of course this is going to be a very bad idea indeed.

    First sentence: The picture they usually use is one from the Activities spread of the yearbook.

    Pride, Robin Wasserman (231 pages) – one in the Seven Deadly Sins series, and we have the complete set.


  • Grimm, Most Wanted

    Most Wanted: March 2011

    01.03.11 | Permalink | Comment?

    Expected publication/arrival dates for popular reserves are: City of Fallen Angels – April; Angel – this month; Passion – June.

    In the mean time you can read the first chapter of CoFA here. Cassandra Clare led her readers on a merry chase around the internet for the full text of the first chapter last month. Visit her blog for more fun timewasting as it happens.

    1. City of Fallen Angels, Cassandra Clare [up 2]
    2. Angel, James Patterson [up 6]
    3. Shadow Wave, Robert Muchamore [down 2]
    4. Grey Wolves, Robert Muchamore [up 2]
    5. Last Sacrifice, Richelle Mead [down 3]
    5. Awakened, P C and Kristin Cast [down 1]
    7. The Third Day, The Frost, John Marsden [up 2]
    8. Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins [back again]
    9. Tomorrow When the War Began, John Marsden [down 4]
    10. Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins [back again]
    10. Entice, Carrie Jones [new]
    10. Twilight, Stephenie Meyer [down 1]
    10. Passion, Lauren Kate [new]


  • Grimm, Most Wanted

    Most Wanted: February 2011

    01.02.11 | Permalink | Comment?

    The first three books in the Tomorrow series by John Marsden feature this month (#5, #6 and #9) so if you’re reading your way through the series at the moment we suggest you reserve the next couple soon (they’re Darkness Be My Friend and Burning For Revenge) since the crowd hasn’t caught up with them just yet. We’ve got the DVD of Tomorrow, When the War Began now as well, so you can relive some skillful dump truck driving (and some rather silly standing in windows instead of hiding under pieces of furniture).

    1. Shadow Wave, Robert Muchamore [no change]
    2. Last Sacrifice, Richelle Mead [no change]
    3. City of Fallen Angels, Cassandra Clare [up 5]
    4. Awakened, P C and Kristin Cast [new]
    5. Tomorrow When the War Began, John Marsden [no change]
    6. Grey Wolves, Robert Muchamore [new]
    6. The Dead of the Night, John Marsden [up 2]
    8. Angel, James Patterson [new, on order]
    9. The Third Day, The Frost, John Marsden [new]
    9. Twilight, Stephenie Meyer [down 5]


  • Grimm, Most Wanted

    Most Wanted: January 2011

    10.01.11 | Permalink | Comment?

    2011 starts where 2010 left off, in a list of espionage, dystopias and supernatural romance. Note that the fourth book in the Mortal Instruments series (City of Fallen Angels) will be published in April. Also note that Bruno Mars is amazing, just the way he is.

    1. Shadow Wave, Robert Muchamore [no change]
    2. Last Sacrifice, Richelle Mead [no change]
    3. Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins [no change]
    4. Twilight, Stephenie Meyer [back]
    5. Torment, Lauren Kate [up 1]
    5. Tomorrow When the War Began, John Marsden [up 2]
    5. Doo-wops and Hooligans, Bruno Mars [new]
    8. The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins [back]
    8. Dead of the Night, John Marsden [down 3]
    8. Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer [back]
    8. City of Fallen Angels, Cassandra Clare [new, on order]


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