About halfway through May and the days keep getting longer, my puppy keeps growing bigger, and my days at work seem ever more monotonous as I watch carefree bluebirds fly around outside on the occasional sweet spring breeze. I hear my name being called from the roster of some grand quest. This invitation to run free certainly hasn’t helped my motivation at work. My eyes grow fuzzy, staring beyond my laptop to the horizon of adventure. I’m sure this is a feeling shared by many. And while I can’t hop a plane and fly to France to find my great Perhaps, I can instead head to Diane’s Books to find an escape within books. For this month’s book list indulge in hilarity and fiction, be enthralled and entertained. Take a much deserved break from the day to day and sit down with these books, let them become old friends, and enjoy these delicate few weeks when spring breathlessly and silently metamorphosizes into summer.
6 and Under
Winnie-the-Pooh, A.A. Milne
The adventures of Christopher Robin and his friends in which Pooh Bear uses a balloon to get honey, Piglet meets a Heffalump, and Eeyore has a birthday. These characters and their stories are timeless treasures of childhood that continue to speak to all of us with the kind of freshness and heart that distinguishes true storytelling.
The Story of Ferdinand, Murno Leaf
Ferdinand is the world’s most peaceful–and–beloved little bull. While all of the other bulls snort, leap, and butttheir heads, Ferdinand is content to just sit and smell the flowers under his favorite cork tree. Leaf’s simple storytelling paired with Lawson’s pen-and-ink drawings make The Story of Ferdinand a true classic.
Oh the Places You’ll Go, Dr. Suess
From soaring to high heights and seeing great sights to being left in a lurch on a prickle-ly perch, Dr. Seuss addresses life’s ups and downs with his trademark humorous verse and whimsical illustrations. The inspiring and timeless message encourages readers to find the success that lies within, no matter what challenges they face. A perennial favorite and a perfect gift for anyone starting a new phase in their life!
7-13
The Secret of the Old Clock, Caroline Keene
Nancy, unaided, seeks to find a missing will. To the surprise of many, the Topham family will inherit wealthy Josiah Crowley’s fortune, instead of deserving relatives and friends who were promised inheritances. Nancy determines that a clue to a second will might be found in an old clock Mr. Crowley had owned and she seeks to find the timepiece. Her search not only tests her keen mind, but also leads her into a thrilling adventure.
The Dragonet Prophecy (Wings of Fire #1), Tui T. Sutherland
A thrilling new series soars above the competition and redefines middle-grade fantasy fiction for a new generation! The seven dragon tribes have been at war for generations, locked in a battle over the rights to succession. A secret movement called the Talons of Peace is determined to end the fighting, with the help of a prophecy. Five dragonets are collected to fulfill the prophecy, raised in a hidden cave and enlisted, against their will, to end the war. But not every dragonet wants a destiny…
Spark and the League of Ursus, Robert Repino
Spark is not your average teddy bear. At night she fulfills her sacred duty: to protect the household from monsters. Spark’s owner Loretta is growing up and thinks she doesn’t need her teddy anymore. When a monster unlike any other descends on their home, everything changes. Children are going missing, and the monster wants Loretta next. Only Spark can stop it. She must call upon the ancient League of Ursus—a secret alliance of teddy bears who are pledged to protect their human friends. The bears are all that stands between our world and the one that lies beneath.
14-17
Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell
Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you’ll remember your own first love and just how hard it pulled you under.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Jesse Andrews
It is a universally acknowledged truth that high school sucks. But on the first day of his senior year, Greg Gaines thinks he’s figured it out. The answer to the basic existential question: How is it possible to exist in a place that sucks so bad? His strategy: remain at the periphery at all times. Keep an insanely low profile. This plan works for exactly eight hours.
The Rest of Us Just Live Here, Patrick Ness
What if you aren’t the Chosen One? The one who’s supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever the heck this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death? What if you’re like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again. Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week’s end of the world, and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life. Even if your best friend is worshipped by mountain lions.
College
The Odyssey Translated by Emily Wilson, Homer
The first great adventure story in the Western canon, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty, and power; about marriage and family; about travelers, hospitality, and the yearning for home. You’ve read The Odyssey before, but not like this. In this fresh, authoritative version―the first English translation of The Odyssey by a woman―this stirring tale of shipwrecks, monsters, and magic comes alive in an entirely new way. Written in iambic pentameter verse and a vivid, contemporary idiom, this engrossing translation is one of the very few that matches the number of lines in the Greek original, thus striding at Homer’s sprightly pace and singing with a voice that echoes Homer’s music.
Into the Wild, Jack Krauker
In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How Christopher Johnson McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer
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 of an exhilarating, affecting, often hilarious, and ultimately healing journey.
Grown-Ups
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan
The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon away from life as a San Francisco web-design drone and into the aisles of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. But after a few days on the job, Clay discovers that the store is more curious than either its name or its gnomic owner might suggest. The customers are few, and they never seem to buy anything―instead, they “check out” large, obscure volumes from strange corners of the store. Suspicious, Clay engineers an analysis of the clientele’s behavior, seeking help from his variously talented friends. But when they bring their findings to Mr. Penumbra, they discover the bookstore’s secrets extend far beyond its walls.
Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens
For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life–until the unthinkable happens.
The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
One spring afternoon, the Devil, trailing fire and chaos in his wake, weaves himself out of the shadows and into Moscow. Mikhail Bulgakov’s fantastical, funny, and devastating satire of Soviet life combines two distinct yet interwoven parts, one set in contemporary Moscow, the other in ancient Jerusalem, each brimming with historical, imaginary, frightful, and wonderful characters. Written during the darkest days of Stalin’s reign, and finally published in 1966 and 1967, The Master and Margarita became a literary phenomenon, signaling artistic and spiritual freedom for Russians everywhere.
