Did you like Marley and Me?  Try some of these other memoirs by animal lovers!

A Cat Named Darwin by William Jordan
A Chimp in the Family by Vince Smith
Chosen by a Horse by Susan Richards
Club George: The Diary of a Central Park Bird Watcher by Bob Levy
Dog Years: A Memoir by Mark Doty
Dreaming in Libro: How a Good Dog Tamed a Bad Woman by Louise Bernikow
Enslaved by Ducks by Bob Tarte
Fowl Weather by Bob Tarte
Good Dog. Stay by Anna Quindlen
The Good Good Pig by Sy Montgomery
My Cat Spit McGhee by Willie Morris
Through Cougar's Eyes: Life Lessons from One Man's Best Friend by David Raber
What the Dog Did by Emily Yoffe
You Belong in a Zoo! by Peter Brazatis

July is werewolf month on the Monster Librarian website.  Find author interviews, short stories, book reviews and more.  Take a bite outta some of the titles in our collection this summer.  Try Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow or Shapeshifter by J.F. Gonzales for a modern take.  Rebecca York's Ghost Moon offers some werewolf romance and the Anita Blake novels by Laurel K. Hamiliton turn it up a notch with the bloody and sensual.

The Orange Broadband Prize was established in 1996.  According to its website, "It is awarded to the woman who, in the opinion of the judges, has written the best eligible full-length novel in English."  This year's winner is Rose Tremain.  Her new novel The Road Home  is about an Eastern European immigrant named Lev who finds his way to London.  Get yourself on the reserve list for this award winner!

With Summer comes severe weather. Read about some of the worst Natural Disasters in history on our Bookspace Disasters page.

I cannot think of a more bleak and yet hopeful book than Cormac McCarthy's The Road.  Taking place in a post-apocalyptic world in which a cloud of ash has blocked the sun and killed virtually everything, a father and son make their way along a desolate road to the coast.  During their journey they encounter few other humans and those that they do have been reduced to cannabalistic survivalists.  What was amazing to me was that I could not put the book down.  The relationship between father and son is so spot-on and powerful that you are driven to find out what happens to them even when any sense of hope is gone.  Sounds fun, huh?  Well, trust me, this story stayed with me for weeks and seems almost like a gift.  Somehow McCarthy brings hope to the fore, perhaps as the only human trait worth saving.  Readers who liked Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood would enjoy this title.  Don't be scared off.  It's worth the risk!

Presented by Mystery Readers International, the Macavity Awards are awarded to  works published in 2007.  The categories include Best First Mystery, Best Short Story, and more. 

Once again I'd like to point you to a new SF Signal Mind Meld article:  Who are tomorrow's big genre stars? + the top 18 genre authors to keep an eye on.  You can find many of them in our catalog including local author Alan DeNiro, Paolo Bacigalupi, Chris Roberson, Vandana Singh et al.  Who have you discovered as a new writer in science fiction, fantasy or horror?

Ever since I read Elizabeth Strout's first novel Amy and Isabelle, I have watched in eager anticipation for anything she writes.  Elizabeth Strout is one of those rare novelists who can stop you in your tracks with one perfect sentence.  Her third book Olive Kitteridge is her best so far.  Strout tried something different here.   In this beautifully written "novel" consisting of thirteen linked short stories, Olive shows up in each as a central, secondary or minor character.   Olive lives in a small coastal town in Maine. Married to gentle pharmacist Henry, she is an outspoken, often tactless retired math teacher.  I disliked her in the first story.  Yet as I continued reading, Olive became a sympathetic human being who started to grow on me.  With its moments of humor and great humanity,  this showcase for Olive Kitteridge is wondrous.

Now available - over 50 teen titles!
Each Book Club Kit contains 8-10 copies of a book, discussion questions, and other resources to help with your book discussion. You can reserve a kit for a specific date and check out the kit for six weeks.
Find out more about Book Club Kits...

I wanted to point you all to a fascinating discussion on SF Signal about Which Medium is Driving Science Fiction...Books or Film/TV? Science Fiction and to some extent fantasy has always had a close relationship with pop culture and visual media, and it often begs the question  - which came first, the book or the movie/TV show/game?  Both mediums inspire and inform the other, but SF professionals such as John Scalzi, Gary K. Wolf, Lou Anders, Joseph Mallozzi, and others bring some fascinating and articulate arguments to bear on the topic.