Most Popular Books Spring 2005 at Chas Best Library
To request any of these titles (or any other title in our OPAC)
All the days of her life – Lurlene McDaniel
Out of control - that's how Lacey Duval feels in almost every aspect of her life. There's nothing she can do about her parents divorce, there's nothing she can do about the death of her young friend, there's nothing she can do about having diabetes - that's what Lacey believes.
After a special summer at Jenny House, Lacey is determined to put her problems behind her. When she returns to high school, she is driven to become a part of the in crowd and win the attention of gorgeous Todd Larson. But Lacey thinks fitting in means losing weight and hiding her diabetes. She starts skipping meals and experimenting with her medication - sometimes ignoring it all together.
Angus, thongs and full-frontal snogging – Louise Rennison
This is the hilarious Bridget Jones-like diary of 14-year-old Georgia, who has a rather wild cat named Angus, a three-year-old sister who pees in her bed, and a best friend who is in love with the vegetable seller's son. Georgia discusses kissing (snogging) lessons, which she needs because she has just met the "Sex God" of her dreams; what to wear to parties and school; and how to spy on your crush's girlfriend (this is where thongs come into play). In typical teen manner, Georgia lives in her own world; she thinks she is ugly, is convinced that her parents are weird, positively abhors schoolwork, and has a deep desire to be beautiful and older. Yet she still has time to enjoy the mad antics of her cat and indulge her odd but sweet sister.
Beauty – Robin McKinley
This much-loved retelling of the classic French tale Beauty and the Beast elicits the familiar magical charm, but is more believable and complex than the traditional story. In this version, Beauty is not as beautiful as her older sisters, who are both lovely and kind. Here, in fact, Beauty has no confidence in her appearance but takes pride in her own intelligence, her love of learning and books, and her talent in riding. She is the most competent of the three sisters, which proves essential when they are forced to retire to the country because of their father's financial ruin.
Confessions of a shopaholic – Sophie Kinsella
London's chic boutiques and glamorous socialites star in this comic novel about binge shopping for clothes and makeup. Kinsella wickedly sets up shopping addict and financial writer Becky Bloomwood at Successful Savings , a second-rate trade magazine. Becky, for whom saving is a concept for other people, relieves the tedium of meaningless work with giddy sprees she can ill afford. As her debt grows ever more unmanageable, Becky's self-justifying obbligatos become ever more shrill, and her white lies turn steadily darker. In one self-delusional attempt to find a better paying job, she bolsters her resume with fluency in Finnish, only to come face to face with the CEO of the Bank of Helsinki. But when Becky gets her teeth into a real news story, she discovers her limits are far greater than she had imagined.
The Da Vinci code – Dan Brown
While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci -- clues visible for all to see -- yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.
Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion -- an actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others.
In a breathless race through Paris, London, and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who seems to anticipate their every move. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory’s ancient secret -- and an explosive historical truth -- will be lost forever.
Feeling sorry for Celia – Jaclyn Moriarty
Life isn't going well for high school student Elizabeth Clarry. Her absentee father just moved back to Australia from Canada for a year, and now he wants to spend "quality time" with her. She's getting anonymous love notes from a boy who refuses to tell her his name. Worst of all, her best friend has run away and joined the circus. In this funny, engaging novel-told as a series of notes and letters-Elizabeth deals with imperfect parents and romantic disappointments as well as tragedies large and small. Over the course of the story, she confronts everything from pimples and forgotten homework to the death of a pet and a suicide attempt by her best friend. Eventually, Elizabeth learns to stop obsessing over the flighty, thoughtless Celia and comes to appreciate her own gifts. Her intelligence and wry sense of humor come through strongly in her letters to her mother and her friends.
Girlfriend in a coma – Douglas Coupland
Coupland cuts to the chase and addresses our most unspeakable fears: the fear of loneliness, the fear of the meaninglessness of our lives, the fear of becoming useless, or God forbid, helpless, in this brave new world we are all helping to create for ourselves. And, fear of what the future will be like.
His character, Karen, looks at our modern-day world and asks, what happened to free time? Everyone is so busy working, working, working, and being efficient, with all our technology and gadgets, but what is the point if we are no happier than before? She suspects her friends to be working, drinking and doing drugs to avoid facing the hole in their lives where values and meaning should be.
The golden compass – Philip Pullman
In an alternative world in which every human being is accompanied by an animal familiar, the disappearance of several children prompts Lyra and her bear protector to undertake a journey to the frozen Arctic in pursuit of kidnappers.
The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy – Douglas Adams
Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of the The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out of work actor. Together this dynamic pair begin their journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitch Hiker's Guide "A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have" and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers.
Holes – Louis Sachar
Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnats. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the warden makes the boys "build character" by spending all day, every day, digging holes: five feet wide and five feet deep. It doesn't take long for Stanley to realize there's more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment--and redemption.
On the bright side, I’m now the girlfriend of a sex god – Louise Rennison
Georgia Nicolson has started dating the Sex God (aka Robbie). So life should be perfect...except in Georgia's life, nothing is ever perfect. Her cat, Angus (the size of a small Labrador), is terrorizing the neighborhood. Her sister, Libby (who is slightly mad), hides her pooey knickers at the bottom of Georgia's bed. Her mother is clearly devoted to making Georgia's life miserable, and even her best friend, Jas, is "half girl, half turnip."
Then the Sex God breaks it off because she's too young. It's time for a plan. It's time for a Red Herring. It's time for Georgia to become a "heartless boy magnet!"
The valley of horses – Jean M. Auel
Here is an unforgettable odyssey into a world of awesome mysteries, into a distant past made vividly real, a novel that carries us back to the exotic, primeval world we experienced in The Clan Of The Cave Bear -- and to beautiful Ayla, the bold woman who captivates us with her fierce courage and questing heart. Cruelly cast out by the ancient Clan that adopted her as a child, Ayla now travels alone in a land of glacial cold and terrifying beasts. She is searching for the Others, a race as tall, blond, and blue-eyed as she. But Ayla finds only a hidden valley, where a herd of hardy steppe horses roams. Here, she is granted a unique kinship with animals, enabling her to learn the secrets of fire and raw survival -- but still, her need for human companionship and love remains unfulfilled. then fate brings her a stranger, handsome Jondolar, and Ayla is torn between fear and hope -- and carried to an awakening of desire that would shape the future of mankind.
