Adult Fiction
All the Glimmering Stars by Mark T. Sullivan.
"Anthony Opoka and Florence Okori are coming of age in Uganda in the 1990s. They are both outstanding students and good kids before they are kidnapped and forced into the fanatical Lord's Resistance Army. In a legion of young recruits, no one gets closer than Anthony to powerful messianic warlord Joseph Kony and his darkest secrets. To stay sane as he spirals through chaos, Anthony clings to his childhood lessons about being a good human. Florence's upbringing grounds her, too, helping her keep her dreams alive even as she's pulled deeper into the insanity of Kony's war. At the lowest points of their lives, certain they'll never go home, Anthony and Florence meet by chance, fall in love, and begin to dream of surviving their captivity. They devote their lives to helping their fellow child soldiers escape bondage and return to their families -- and redemption -- by following the stars."-- Provided by publisher.
Spilled Milk by K. L. Randis.
Based on a true story, Brooke Nolan is a battered child who makes an anonymous phone call about the escalating brutality in her home. When social services jeopardize her safety condemning her to keep her father’s secret, it’s a glass of spilled milk at the dinner table that forces her to speak about the cruelty she’s been hiding. In her pursuit for safety and justice Brooke battles a broken system that pushes to keep her father in the home. When jury members and a love interest congregate to inspire her to fight, she risks losing the support of family and comes to the realization that some people simply do not want to be saved.
It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover.
Lily hasn't always had it easy, but that's never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She's come a long way from the small town where she grew up--she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. And when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily's life seems too good to be true. Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He's also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn't hurt. Lily can't get him out of her head. But Ryle's complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his "no dating" rule, she can't help but wonder what made him that way in the first place. As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan--her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.
Adult Non-Fiction
The Singularity is Nearer by Ray Kurzweil.
Since it was first published in 2005, Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near and its vision of an exponential future have spawned a worldwide movement. Kurzweil's predictions about technological advancements have largely come true, with concepts like AI, intelligent machines, and biotechnology now widely familiar to the public. In this entirely new book Ray Kurzweil brings a fresh perspective to advances toward the Singularity--assessing his 1999 prediction that AI will reach human level intelligence by 2029 and examining the exponential growth of technology--that, in the near future, will expand human intelligence a millionfold and change human life forever. Among the topics he discusses are rebuilding the world, atom by atom with devices like nanobots; radical life extension beyond the current age limit of 120; reinventing intelligence by connecting our brains to the cloud; how exponential technologies are propelling innovation forward in all industries and improving all aspects of our well-being such as declining poverty and violence; and the growth of renewable energy and 3-D printing. He also considers the potential perils of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, including such topics of current controversy as how AI will impact employment and the safety of autonomous cars, and "After Life" technology, which aims to virtually revive deceased individuals through a combination of their data and DNA.
Getting to Know Death by Gail Godwin.
Ingmar Bergman once said that an artist should always have one work between himself and death. When renowned author Gail Godwin tripped and broke her neck while watering the dogwood tree in her garden at age eighty-five, a lifetime of writing and publishing behind her and a half-finished novel in tow, Bergman's idea quickly unfurled in front of her, forcing her to confront a creative life interrupted. In Getting to Know Death, Godwin shares what spoke to her while in a desperate place. Remembering those she has loved and survived, including a brother and father lost to suicide, and finding meaning in the encounters she has with other patients as she heals, she takes stock of a life toward the end of its long graceful arc, finding her path through the words she has written and the people she has loved.
Easy/Juvenile/Young Adult/Graphic Novel
Shock the Monkey by Neal Shusterman. J
Noah Prime never expected to wind up a fugitive hunted by aliens. To be honest, he had never even believed in aliens...until a team of them blew up his house. He escaped--and managed to save the world--by using his mysterious ability to harness the traits of every animal on earth. Now he's in hiding, and thinks all is well...Until his friend Ogden buys a star for Claire, the most popular girl in school. However, instead of a quaint romantic notion, it turns out to be an actual real estate deal--and aliens from that star system abduct Claire to take her to the nasty, trash-filled planet she now owns. It's up to Noah, Sahara, and Ogden to cross the cosmos in search of Claire to save her and her strange new world from the evilest body-snatching worms in the galaxy. This time it's going to take a lot more than walrus blubber, cheetah speed, or skunk funk to save the day...it's going to take friendship of the most extraordinary and extraterrestrial variety.
Snowglobe by Soyoung Park. YA
Enclosed under a vast dome, Snowglobe is the last place on Earth that's warm. Outside Snowglobe is a frozen wasteland, and every day, citizens face the icy world to get to their jobs at the power plant, where they produce the energy Snowglobe needs. Their only solace comes in the form of twenty-four-hour television programming streamed directly from the domed city. The residents of Snowglobe have everything: fame, fortune, and above all, safety from the desolation outside their walls. In exchange, their lives are broadcast to the less fortunate outside, who watch eagerly, hoping for the chance to one day become actors themselves. Chobahm lives for the time she spends watching the shows produced inside Snowglobe. Her favorite? Goh Around, starring Goh Haeri, Snowglobe's biggest star--and, it turns out, the key to getting Chobahm her dream life. Because Haeri is dead, and Chobahm has been chosen to take her place. Only, life inside Snowglobe is nothing like what you see on television. Reality is a lie, and truth seems to be forever out of reach.
Brooke County Public Libraries Wellsburg (304) 737-1551 Follansbee (304) 527-0860
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