** Rating Key **
Audience: A = Adult Audience | YA = YA Audience
Content: D = Death/Grief | L = Strong Language | MH = Mental Health |
P = Political/Social Issues | S = Sexual Content/Relationships | SU = Substance Use | V = Violence
Audience: A
Content: L, D, S, V
All the Pretty Horses (Border, Book 1) by Cormac McCarthy
From the Publisher
* National Book Award Winner * National Bestseller *
The first volume in the Border Trilogy, from the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road.
All the Pretty Horses is the tale of John Grady Cole, who at sixteen finds himself at the end of a long line of Texas ranchers, cut off from the only life he has ever imagined for himself. With two companions, he sets off for Mexico on a sometimes idyllic, sometimes comic journey to a place where dreams are paid for in blood.
Audience: YA
Content: D, P, V
Dune (Dune, Book 1) by Frank Herbert
From the Publisher
* Nebula Award Winner * Hugo Award Winner *
Frank Herbert’s classic masterpiece—a triumph of the imagination and one of the bestselling science fiction novels of all time.
Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of Paul Atreides—who would become known as Muad'Dib—and of a great family's ambition to bring to fruition mankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.
A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.
Audience: A
Content: D, L, P, V
The Gray Man (Gray Man, Book 1) by Mark Greaney
From the Publisher
The first Gray Man novel from #1 New York Times Bestselling author Mark Greaney.
To those who lurk in the shadows, he's known as the Gray Man. He is a legend in the covert realm, moving silently from job to job, accomplishing the impossible and then fading away. And he always hits his target. Always.
But there are forces more lethal than Gentry in the world. Forces like money. And power. And there are men who hold these as the only currency worth fighting for. And in their eyes, Gentry has just outlived his usefulness.
But Court Gentry is going to prove that, for him, there's no gray area between killing for a living and killing to stay alive....
-- GRAPHIC NOVEL--
Audience: YA
Content: V
Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong by Brian Buccellato (Author), Christian Duce (Illustrator)
From the Publisher
The DC Universe is about to get shaken-up when the Legion of Doom unlocks a portal to another dimension, unleashing the fiercest Monsters in the Multiverse.
Godzilla, the King of the Monsters has emerged from the deep seas of Metropolis, interrupting Superman’s proposal to Lois Lane. King Kong is taking on the world’s greatest heroes in his home turf, Skull Island. Can the Justice League send these creatures back to their own dimension before it’s too late?
How do you destroy the Justice League? The question has been plaguing Lex Luthor and his Legion of Doom since the two titanic groups first came to blows. When confronted with the colossal entities of Skull Island, Lex believes he's found the answer to their eternal question.
It's Superman vs. Godzilla, Wonder Woman vs. Behemoth, Green Lantern vs. Scylla, Batman vs. Camazotz, and Supergirl vs. Kong in this all-out battle for the fate of the DC Universe.
Can Superman stand up to the power of Godzilla? Can Lex Luthor harness the primal forces of Skull Island? It's time to find out the answers to these questions and more!
Acclaimed writer Brian Buccellato (Injustice) and bestselling artist Christian Duce (Batman/Fortnite: Zero Point) bring the cataclysmic crossover event of the year as the DC Universe clashes with Legendary's MonsterVerse.
This collection contains: Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong #1-7.
Audience: A
Content: D, P
Arthur : the dog who crossed the jungle to find a home by Mikael Lindnord
From the Publisher
The uplifting true story of an extreme athlete, a stray dog, and how they found each other. "Heroic and heartwarming" (Forbes), this unbelievable adventure will make readers laugh, gasp, cry, and see rescue dogs with a whole new perspective.
When you're racing 435 miles through the jungles and mountains of South America, the last thing you need is a stray dog tagging along. But that's exactly what happened to Mikael Lindnord, captain of a Swedish adventure racing team, when he threw a scruffy but dignified mongrel a meatball one afternoon.
When the team left the next day, the dog followed. Try as they might, they couldn't lose him--and soon Mikael realized that he didn't want to. Crossing rivers, battling illness and injury, and struggling through some of the toughest terrain on the planet, the team and the dog walked, kayaked, cycled, and climbed together toward the finish line, where Mikael decided he would save the dog, now named Arthur, and bring him back to his family in Sweden, whatever it took. Illustrated with candid photographs, Arthur provides a testament to the amazing bond between dogs and people.
Audience: YA
Content: MH, V
Beyond the Board : the untold story of the world's most daring big wave surfer by Maya Gabeira
From the Publisher
In this thrilling YA memoir, pro surfer Maya Gabeira tells the awe-inspiring true story of her journey from unstoppable teenager to the Guinness World Record–holding legend she is today.
Who am I, beyond the board? Surf legend Maya Gabeira is famous for her nerve. Her surfing journey began at the age of fourteen and reached a high when she set (and later broke) a Guinness World Record for highest wave conquered by any big wave surfer—man or woman—after bouncing back from a near-fatal accident.
Gabeira has been heralded as one of the top surfers of her generation. But who is the ferocious personality beyond the board? What are the stories behind the relationships and challenges that shaped her into the indomitable surfer, women’s rights advocate, and champion for mental health awareness she is today?
For the first time ever, Maya looks back on her formative years: the romances, career highs, vulnerabilities, and setbacks that defined her at an early age.
At seventeen, she left her home in Rio de Janeiro in order to chase waves around the world, toting a single backpack and waiting tables to get by. Maya carved her own path as a teen, defining her own remarkable narrative: that of a vulnerable, passionate, and driven young woman who learned never to flinch—even in the face of death.
Audience: A
Content: D, M, P
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
From the Publisher
* National Bestseller *
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. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. This is the unforgettable story of how Christopher Johnson McCandless came to die.
"It may be nonfiction, but Into the Wild is a mystery of the highest order." --Entertainment Weekly
McCandess 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. Not long after, he was dead. Into the Wild is the mesmerizing, heartbreaking tale of an enigmatic young man who goes missing in the wild and whose story captured the world's attention.
Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.
Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless's short life. Admitting an interest that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the drives and desires that propelled McCandless.
When McCandless's innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal, he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naivete, pretensions, and hubris. He is said to have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge. Krakauer brings McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity, and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding--and not an ounce of sentimentality. Into the Wild is a tour de force. The power and luminosity of Jon Krakauer's stoytelling blaze through every page.
Audience: YA
Content: D, P, V
Night Fighter : an insider's story of special ops from Korea to Seal Team 6 by William H. Hamilton
From the Publisher
For readers of American Sniper, the stirring account of a life of service by the "father of the US Navy SEALs"
One month after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, when President John F. Kennedy pressed Congress about America's "urgent national needs," he named expanding US special operations forces along with putting a man on the moon. Captain William Hamilton was the officer tasked with creating the finest unconventional warriors ever seen. Merging his own experience commanding Navy Underwater Demolition Teams with expertise from Army Special Forces and the CIA, and working with his subordinate, Roy Boehm, he cast the mold for sea-, air-, and land-dispatched night fighters capable of successfully completing any mission anywhere in the world. Initially, they were used as a counter to the potential devastation of nuclear war, and later for counterterrorism and hostage rescue. His vision led to the formation of the celebrated SEAL Team 6. In this stirring, action-filled book, Hamilton tells his story for the first time.
Night Fighter is a trove of true adventure from the history of the late twentieth century, which Hamilton lived, from fighter pilot in the Korean War to operative for the CIA in Vietnam, Africa, Latin America, and Europe, from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, and from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the Reagan White House's Star Wars. Like American Sniper, here is the record of a life devoted to patriotic service.
Audience: A
Content: D, L, P, V
Saving Bravo : the greatest rescue mission in Navy SEAL history by Stephan Talty
From the Publisher
From the author of A Captain's Duty, the New York Times best-selling account of Captain Phillips, comes the untold story of the most important rescue mission not just of the Vietnam War, but the entire Cold War.
One American aviator, who knew our most important secrets, crashed behind enemy lines and risked capture by both the North Vietnamese and the Soviets. One Navy SEAL and his Vietnamese partner had to sneak past them all to save him.
At the height of the Vietnam War, few American airmen are more valuable than Lieutenant Colonel Gene Hambleton. His memory is filled with highly classified information that the Soviets and North Vietnamese badly want. When Hambleton is shot down in the midst of North Vietnam's Easter Offensive, US forces place the entire war on hold to save a single man hiding among 30,000 enemy troops and tanks. Airborne rescue missions fail, killing eleven Americans. Finally, Navy SEAL Thomas Norris and his Vietnamese guide, Nguyen Van Kiet, volunteer to go after him on foot. Gliding past hundreds of enemy soldiers, it takes them days to reach Hambleton, who, guided toward his rescuers via improvised radio code, is barely alive, deeply malnourished, and hallucinating after eleven days on the run.
In this deeply researched, untold story, award-winning author Stephan Talty describes the extraordinary mission that led Hambleton to safety. Drawing from dozens of interviews and access to unpublished papers, Saving Bravo is a riveting work of military history, telling the story of one of the greatest rescue missions in the history of the Special Forces.
How did two men succeed where entire airborne missions had failed?
Audience: A
Content: D, V
Thirty Below : the harrowing and heroic story of the first all-wome's ascent of Denali by Cassidy Randall
From the Publisher
The gripping story of a group of female adventurers and their treacherous pioneering ascent of Denali.
Excerpted in Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, and Men's Journal, and named one of the most noteworthy books of the month by the Washington Post.
Cassidy Randall draws on extensive archival research and original interviews to tell an engrossing, edge-of-the-seat adventure story about a forgotten group of climbers who had the audacity to believe that women could walk alone in extraordinary and treacherous heights.
Grace Hoeman dreamed of standing on top of Denali. The tallest peak in North America, the fierce polar mountain loomed large in many climbers' imaginations, and Grace, a doctor in Alaska, had come close to the top, only to be turned back by altitude sickness and a storm that took the lives of seven fellow climbers in one remorseless blow.
Other expeditions denied her a place because of her gender, and when a letter arrived from a climber in California named Arlene Blum, who'd also been barred from expeditions--unless she stayed in base camp and cooked for the men, Grace got a defiant idea: she would organize and lead the first-ever all-female ascent of the frozen Alaskan peak.
Everyone told the "Denali Damsels," as the team called themselves, that it couldn't be done: Women were incapable of climbing mountains on their own. Men had walked on the moon; women still had not stood on the highest points on Earth. But these six women were unwilling to be limited by sexists and misogynists. They pushed past barriers in society at large, the climbing world, and their own bodies.
And then, when disaster struck at the worst time on their expedition, they could either keep their wits and prove their mettle, or die and confirm the worst opinions of men.