a desperate swim

When she witnesses a child falling into Lake Champlain,Troy Chance doesn't even think as she dives into the icy waters off a ferry. As the ferry disappears she retrieves the little boy and faces a cold mile-long swim to shore. So starts the novel Learning to Swim by Sara J. Henry. Who is this child who only speaks French? Why is there no press about a missing boy? Her discovery of the child's identity and why he was almost killed is the chilling mystery explored in this novel. Interesting characters and a fast-moving plot make this an exciting read. M.L.

Which Way to Go?

What would you do if you lost everything that mattered to you? The answer is not clear to Alan Christofferson, whose life changes with a tragic accident. He begins to walk from Seattle to the southernmost point in the continental U.S., Key West. The hope that time and daily encounters will be healing keeps him going. The goodness of the ordinary people he meets is inspiring. His story is told in five books, the first is The Walk by Richard Paul Evans. DB

Apocalypse Now

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank is one of the first novels written about nuclear war, published over 50 years ago it is a timeless classic still relevant today. The novel takes place in a small Florida town where the survivors of a global nuclear holocaust are forced to come together as a community in order to survive.

Other post-apocalyptic novels include The Passage by Justin Cronin, The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Left Behind by Tim LaHaye, One Second After by William Forstchen, and Earth Abides by George Stewart. SG

buzzzz for Little Bee...

recommended read and a starred review by Booklist---Little Bee, smart and stoic, knows two people in England, Andrew and Sarah, journalists she chanced upon on a Nigerian beach after fleeing a massacre in her village, one grisly outbreak in an off-the-radar oil war. After sneaking into England and escaping a rural “immigration removal” center, she arrives at Andrew and Sarah’s London suburb home only to find that the violence that haunts her has also poisoned them. In an unnerving blend of dread, wit, and beauty, Cleave slowly and arrestingly excavates the full extent of the horror that binds Little Bee and Sarah together. A columnist for the Guardian, Cleave earned fame and notoriety when his first book, Incendiary, a tale about a terrorist attack on London, was published on the very day London was bombed in July 2005. His second ensnaring, eviscerating novel charms the reader with ravishing descriptions, sly humor, and the poignant improvisations of Sarah’s Batman-costumed young son, then launches devastating attacks in the form of Little Bee’s elegantly phrased insights into the massive failure of compassion in the world of refugees. Cleave is a nerves-of-steel storyteller of stealthy power, and this is a novel as resplendent and menacing as life itself.---Seaman, Donna Copyright 2008 BooklistDistributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. CKW