How would you like to give away free copies of your favorite book?

Sign up now to be a giver for World Book Night 2012, an annual celebration designed to spread a love of reading and books. Following its highly successful launch in the U.K. in 2011, World Book Night will be held in the U.S. on April 23, 2012, and will see tens of thousands of people go out into their communities to spread the joy of reading by handing out free World Book Night paperbacks. You’ll help promote the value of reading, printed books, bookshops and libraries to everyone all year.

How you can do it:

Sign up to be a giver. Receive free books. Give them away.

It’s as easy as going to the World Book Night website. Need some ideas? Consider these… Distribute Peace Like a River at the Trax station near the main library. Hand out The History of Love at the Senior Centre. Give out Wintergirls at your neighborhood school.

By signing up to be a giver, you’ll join thousands of givers on April 23rd in spreading the love of reading and books in your community. Remember, sign up only throughout the month of January.

Editor’s note: Meet Meyer when she reads from and signs her book, Wednesday, January 11, 7 p.m.

Cinder, Marissa Meyer

Debut author Meyer takes Cinderella into the future with enough twists and turns to keep readers very interested. Her Cinder is a Cyborg, a second class citizen with a really nasty stepmother. New Beijing has a lot of problems, including a plague and impending threat of invasion from the lunar queen. Readers are going to be clamoring for the sequel because we will all want to know how Cinder actually gets Prince Kai. Fun read! – Macmillan, $17.99, (for ages 12 and up)

Seldom does a community receive a gift as glorious as our new Natural History Museum of Utah. And what could be better for the whole family than a membership, or tickets to visit, paired with a book from TKE that will enrich the experience? No book fills the bill better than The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True (Free Press, $29.95) by the formidable, world-famous scientist Richard Dawkins whose reputation is belied by the family-friendly contents of this page-turning, graphically intriguing (illustrations by Dave McKean) tale of scientific experiments, facts, discoveries, all designed to show the dazzle of scientific reality—just as does NHMU! Or, on a global note, another treasure for the whole family, not brand-new but breathtaking, is Smithsonian’s Natural History: The Ultimate Visual Guide (DK, $50) which features, in glorious color, the full and formidable complexity of the flora and fauna that swim or fly below or above and otherwise inhabit our earth. Encyclopedic, compendious, and chockfull of dazzling photographs.
To break science down into elements, just as the different floors and spaces of the museum do, The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe by Theodore Gray and Nick Mann (Black Dog and Leventhal, $29.95) shows us the elements of the Periodic Table in context, the lavish photos and companion text detailing their properties, yes, but also their locations and, interestingly, their uses, however quirky. Another book that addresses a particular section of the museum, again not brand-new (it came out last fall), but a must after wandering among the towering skeletal forms of those most amazing extinct creatures and seeing their shadow-shapes on the museum’s canyon-like half walls, is The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs by Gregory S. Paul (Princeton, $35), a critical addition to the library of amateur paleontologists, old or young. And Evolution: The Human Story by Dr. Alice Roberts (DK, $30), a doctor, anatomist, osteoarchaeologist, and anthropologist, not only takes us back 8 million years and shows the sweep of evolution from primates through Hominids, hunters and gatherers, to Neolithic, but also reveals the amazing models and cutting-edge research that inform in a whole new way.

For the library of the bird lover, Bird Watch: A Survey of Planet Earth’s Changing Ecosystems by Martin Walters (Chicago, $45) is an illustrated tour of endangered birds and their habitats from the tropics to the deserts, the northern forests to the Mediterranean to ocean islands. Stunning and frightening—especially in light of the next on our list, On Rare Birds, by storyteller and artist nonpareil Anita Albus (Lyons, $24.95), a blend of natural history expertise and investigative reporting that tells tales of disappearing species in witty, graceful prose, wonderfully illustrated. Finally, step outside the museum to peer at the night sky through their wonderful telescopes, or give the whole family a Stellarscope (sculptures jeux, $50), an actual star-finder for both hemispheres!

For the literati in your life, there is a deliciously perfect pair of literary novels that, wrapped in a single package, would make any fiction lover’s heart beat fast. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (Knopf, $23.95), which just won this year’s Man Booker Prize, and Booker Prize-winning Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Table (Knopf, $26), both small, wonderfully told tales with memory as a theme, are quite simply the best of the best this year. Hats off to Knopf! For a darker sensibility, pair either with We the Animals by Justin Torres (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $18), another small and incandescent book about boys, or with Turn of Mind, by Alice LaPlante (Atlantic Monthly Press, $24) a brilliant literary mystery that inhabits the most interesting mind we’ve come across in years. And the most spectacular (and expensive) literary gift of the year is the wondrous new 3-volume deluxe boxed set of The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights (Penguin, $200). A. S. Byatt said of this new translation by Malcolm C. Lyons, “Sweet, sad, obscene and marvelous.”

For the literary seafarer, lover of Patrick O’Brian and C. S. Forester, we have much to recommend. Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch (Doubleday, $25.95) tells the tale of a young boy rescued from the jaws of a tiger by the owner of a Victorian menagerie only to be sent to sea with his friend. His adventures on the high seas, rousing, exuberant, and gripping, are by turns harrowing and haunting, and are laced with a humanity that explains its Booker Prize nomination. Or, there’s Nathaniel Philbrick’s Why Read Moby-Dick? (Viking, $25) a lovely little book that brilliantly evokes not just the great classic itself but also the sea and ships. Pair it with a deluxe paperback copy of Melville’s Moby-Dick (Penguin, $18) or with Moby-Dick in Pictures (Tin House, $39.95 in paper, $69.95 slip-cased in hardcover), Matt Kish’s intense, vibrant re-imagining of America’s most famous tale—an absolute tour-de-force and the perfect gift for the avant-garde artist, the seafarer, or the literary junkie, evocative as it is of Melville’s watery, tempest-tossed world and of the men who attempted to control it.

And for the lover of the erudite, the abstruse, the mysterious, what better gift than the slyly satanic tale of conspiracies and forgeries, shadowy intrigues, clandestine gatherings and flagrant anti-Semitism that the world-famous Umberto Eco has wrought in The Prague Cemetery (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27) Pair it with Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 (Knopf, $30.50), another huge and convoluted, abstruse and suspenseful novel mixing themes of religious fanaticism and Orwellian intrigue, and you have the most mesmerizing and menacing duet of literary thrillers imaginable.

Leaving the world of literary fiction, your local literati might love Jonathan Lethem’s The Ecstasy of Influence (Doubleday, $27.95) which, in a series of sparkling essays on everything from Bob Dylan to 9/11, book tours to film to art to comics to politics, attempts to place writers inside the context of the culture in which they live and work. For an interesting cultural arc, pair Lethem’s latest with a posthumous collection from a previous generation, Higher Gossip: Essays and Criticism by John Updike (Knopf, $40). Like all of Updike’s work, this is layered, intriguing, brilliant in its evocation of the moment. Essays on contemporary writers, of course, on art, on humor, on culture in general make an admirable match for The Ecstasy of Influence. Or, for that matter, for A. N. Wilson’s Dante in Love (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, $35), a lucid, illuminating, and thoroughly readable examination not just of Dante’s life and work, but of the world in which his genius came of age. Like Updike—and for that matter Lethem—Wilson writes nonfiction with a brilliance one thinks of as the stuff of the best fiction. Finally, for beloved bibliophiles of any stripe, pair Books: A Living History (Getty, $34.95) by Martin Lyons with On Rereading by Patricia Meyer Spacks (Belknap, Harvard, $26.95), or give either singly. The former is a lovingly illustrated and fascinating history of books from bibles to chapbooks, encyclopedias to Anime, the Codex to the e-book, while On Rereading lingers on the individual pleasures (and sometimes the disappointments) waiting to be experienced when one picks up a beloved book for the second (or third or fifth) time.

For poetry lovers, we have a slew of temptations. Beginning with the classics, the newly translated The Iliad by Homer (Simon & Schuster, $35) is a must. Stephen Mitchell offers a reinvigorated interpretation of this epic, exhilarating work that Tolstoy dubbed a miracle—an essential not merely for the poetry lover, but for anyone interested in revisiting one of the most enduring works of literature. For the more exotically inclined poetry enthusiast, The Conference of the Birds illustrated by Peter Sis (The Penguin Press, $27.95) is a confluence of haunting lyricism and lavish visual delight. Sis’ luminous illustrations breathe new life into this classic 12th century Persian poem. Straddling both the classic and the contemporary worlds, Nox by Anne Carson (New Directions, $35) is perfect for the poetry aficionado. Infamous for her hybrid poems that marry the ancient to the avante-garde, Carson has created a groundbreaking, beautifully assembled work that is an epitaph to her brother, superimposing it on a translation of Poem 101 by Catullus “for his brother who died in the Troad.” Part poem, part physical object, an utterly original work from an artist whom Ondaatje once called the most exciting poet writing in English today.

Moving into the great and glorious world of contemporary poetry, one would do well to pick up Beautiful and Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry by David Orr (HarperCollins, $25.99). Orr takes the reader on an erudite and impassioned tour of the ever-exciting, if daunting, realm of modern verse, encouraging us not to be afraid—ideal for the modern poetry enthusiast and the poetry curious alike. Pair with Horoscopes for the Dead by Billy Collins (Random House, $24), a must-have for the contemporary poetry buff. Using his abundant lyrical gifts to confront the eternal themes of love, loss, life and death, the former U.S. poet laureate reminds us why he was once referred to as “America’s most popular poet.” Lovers of the lyrically unorthodox will no doubt be soul-soothed by Jim Harrison’s Songs of Unreason (Copper Canyon Press, $22), a philosophical collection from the ever-adventurous and idiosyncratic poet and novelist that brims with life-affirming verse. And for a lyrical and local offering, try Terrible Grace by Susan Sample (Finishing Line Press, $14), a lovely, slim volume of haunting, imagistic meditations on grief rendered in verse at once razor-sharp and beautifully mellifluous.

The film buff in your life might covet a book TKE just named best-packaged book of the year, The Film Book: A Complete Guide to the World of Cinema by Ronald Bergan (DK USA, $25). While it’s true that one can’t judge a book by its cover, this mix of, among many other things, film history, insider gossip, photos, lists of 10 (best films, best directors, etc.), all encased in a reel box (a real tin reel box) is as good as its packaging promises. As is Harry Potter Page to Screen: The Complete Filmmaking Journey, by Bob McCabe (Harper, $75) which reassures those who may be worried that we might be finished with Harry Potter. This 540-page, full-color, coffee table book is full of “never seen before ” artwork, insider secrets, photographs and cinematic details  that faithful Muggles will love. And for those more interested in the politics of film, Hollywood Left and Right: How Movies Shaped American Politics by Steve J Ross (Oxford, $29.95) is a deeply researched look at the ways Hollywood stars influenced the course of the nation, sometimes driving it left, sometimes right. Pair it with My Song: A Memoir by Harry Belafonte with Michael Shnayerson (Knopf, $30.50) to deliver a liberal education on the history of film—not to mention music.

For the philosophically bent, those with a meditative (perhaps slightly morbid) turn of mind, a perfect gift would be Losing It by William Ian Miller (Yale, $27), a wry, philosophical examination of the experience of growing old that is part classic intellectual inquiry, part anxious lamentation. Equally ideal for the grim philosopher in your life is A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age by Steven Nadler (Princeton, $29.95). Nadler tells the story of philosopher Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise, a publication once denounced as having been penned by the devil himself. A must-have for anyone curious about the nefarious and notorious origins of our modern beliefs. Moving from hell to virtue, Truth, Beauty and Goodness Reframed by Howard Gardner (Basic Books, $25.94) traces the changes in our relationship to virtues over the course of history. A great read for anyone curious about the evolution of our most fundamental values. And for the lavishly philosophical and the foodie alike, My Last Supper, The Next Course by Melanie Dunea (Rodale, $39.99) examines the philosophical quandary of death through the lens of dinner. Dunea asks 50 of the world’s chefs and culinary celebrities what their last meal on earth would be, complete with drink, music and companion choices. The answers are disarmingly simple in some cases (fish cooked by her grandfather for Rachael Ray) and positively Roman in others (fois gras and caviar for Wolfgang Puck)—a fascinating philosophical meditation on death, which awakens our sense of what it is to be alive.

Speaking of food, for the epicure in your life, Larousse Wine (Clarkson Potter, $65) will intoxicate connoisseurs and enthusiasts alike. Beautifully illustrated with regional maps of the world’s wine regions, this stunning compendium offers a grand and glorious look at the grape—a lavish, gustatory treat for oenophiles as well as the wine-curious. Moving from wine to the all-important matter of dinner, Bocca Cookbook by Jacob Kenedy (Bloomsbury, $45) is a must-have for both the gourmand and the voracious. A famed London restaurateur, Kennedy offers an alluring, appetite-inducing culinary trek through regional Italy—from Bolognan sausages to Venetian risotto to fried Roman street food—complete with gorgeous, eat-off-the-page recipes. Though dinner is in itself a celebration, sometimes one needs a little more oomph. For the entertainer in your life, Martha’s Entertaining by Martha Stewart (Clarkson Potter, $75) is another must-have, offering easy and sumptuous tips for the celebratory affair. Abundant with gorgeous illustrations and picture-perfect recipes, Martha’s elegant and classic style evokes the festive aspect of any occasion.

When it comes to holiday cooking, it’s sometimes best to bring in the big culinary guns. For the aspiring chef, Holiday Dinners with Bradley Ogden by Bradley Ogden (Running Press, $30) offers 150 gorgeously festive recipes to grace your table and fill your holidays with edible memories. And a lavish gift for both the culinary enthusiast and bibliophile, Menus for Chez Panisse with art by Patricia Curtan (Princeton Architectural Press, $40) offers a beautifully illustrated retrospective of one of America’s most celebrated culinary institutions. This artfully rendered, mouth-watering collection of menus provides as much gorgeous sustenance as the meals they describe.

For the home cook and the gastrophile alike, The Great American Cookbook by Clementine Paddleford (Rizzoli, $45) is a reissued American culinary classic that cannot be missed. Paddleford, the first-ever American food journalist, takes an edible journey through America state by state—the first and greatest book of regional American cuisine, now revised and updated for today’s home cook. Moving from the classic to the contemporary, American Flavor by Andrew Carmellini (HarperCollins, $34.99) offers a culinary trek through American cuisine as it is today—from regional delights to ethnic delectables. Part madcap travelogue, part mouthwatering cookbook—a must for the adventure-hungry… or the merely hungry.  For those for whom weekend bliss is found in the kitchen, The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Weekends by Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Swift (Potter, $40) cannot be missed. Offering 100 sumptuous recipes—from the leisurely and lavish to the earthy and comforting—this is an ideal gift for anyone for whom the journey of cooking is more than the destination. Both the comfort food lover and hopeful chef will be made happy by Made in America: Our Best Chefs Reinvent Comfort Food by Lucy Lean and Joseph Bastianich (Welcome Books, $45). This illustrated bible of contemporary culinary comfort food offers a bevy of traditional American favorites reinterpreted by the best chefs in the country.

Those who love hearth and home, particularly those arts and crafts houses that abound in our city, are likely to covet Greene & Greene: Developing a California Architecture by Bruce Smith and Alex Vertikoff (Gibbs Smith, $50), a lavish and learned look at the architecture so frequently evidenced in many of Salt Lake’s more beautiful bungalows. The straightforward elegance of style of Greene & Greene is unmistakable and fascinating to study. And on a very different note, the same publisher has given us the ideal gift for those who own second homes and cabins, The Cabin Companion (Gibbs Smith, $24.99); just leave it on the counter for guests to write in and to read owners’ instructions and advice on everything from House Rules to Fishing Holes, to Utilities. At the other end of the spectrum, Living in a Modern Way: California Design 1930-1965 edited by Wendy Kaplan (MIT, $60) features everything from furniture to graphic design, jewelry to fashion to textiles and accompanies an L.A. County Museum of Art exhibition. Pair it with a plane ticket! Finally, to bring the indoors outside (or vice versa) American Eden by Ward Graham (Harper, $35), subtitled “from Monticello to Central Park to our Backyards: What Our Gardens Tell Us about Who We Are,” is a definitive and beautifully illustrated look not only at gardens in history but those who created them, blending art, biography and story into a new kind of cultural history.

For those who find their beauty in art, and for the Renaissance fiend in particular, The Louvre: All the Paintings by Erich Lessing and Vincent Pomarede (Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, $75) is THE ultimate gift. This lavishly illustrated compendium offers a page-turning tour through the museum’s masterpieces minus the crowds and velvet ropes. Still decadent and of the period, The Renaissance Portrait: From Donatello to Bellini edited by Keith Christiansen and Stefan Weppelman (Yale University Press, $65) features beautiful illustrations from a landmark exhibition in Berlin as well as incisive essays on the artists and their works—perfect for anyone interested in this fascinating, groundbreaking period in the history of art.  Another literary and visual treat for the art-lusty, Renaissance People: Lives that Shaped the Modern Age (Getty, $39.99) provides a dazzlingly illustrated look at the period through portraits of its most significant figures—artists, intellectuals and rulers—bringing the Renaissance alive through words and pictures.

Lovers of movement and light will delight in Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement by Richard Kendall and Jill DeVonyar (Royal Academy of Arts, $65), perfect for devotees of Impressionism. Abundantly illustrated with sketches and paintings of the artist’s infamous study of dancers, this work details the story behind Degas’ haunting and luminous images. Moving from Impressionism to Modernism, from luminary brush strokes to revolutionary pencil scratches, Picasso’s Drawings 1890-1921: Reinventing Tradition by Susan Grace Galassi (Yale University Press, $60), will please Picasso lovers and Modernist enthusiasts alike. This literary and visual compendium provides a gloriously illustrated, in-depth look at one of the pioneering artist’s most significant mediums—a work which no art lover’s shelf should be without. For both the artistic and the literary woman in your life, Forbidden Fruit: A History of Women and Books in Art by Christine Inmann (Prestel USA, $29.95) offers a beautifully illustrated cultural history of women reading. From medieval trailblazer Christine de Pizan to Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters, these literary women come alive through lavish reproductions of renowned artworks which illuminate their achievements as well as the fascinating worlds they inhabited.

Finally, bring the arts home, literally, for the artisan in your house, with Design*Sponge at Home by Grace Bonney (Artisan, $35) which is chockfull of ingenious ideas and techniques to transform not just rooms but furniture, flowers, any-and-everything.
For those who prefer their pastimes to be active, this is a BIG year for BIG sports books, our favorite being Guts and Glory: The Golden Age of American Football by Neil Leifer (Taschen, $49.99). This is the perfect present for anyone who remembers when football was hard work and the players were truly heroes—it even opens with quote from Vince Lombardi. Sports Illustrated has two new collections this season, The College Basketball Book and The Baseball Book (both from Hachette, $29.95) both jam-packed with up-to-date photos and facts from two of America’s favorite pastimes. And new for boxing fans is Sugar Ray Leonard’s new memoir, The Big Fight: My Life in and Out of the Ring (Viking, $25.95). For those of you who have already visited the first 50, Chris Santella has Fifty More Places to Fly Fish Before You Die (Stewart, Tabori, & Chang, $24.95). And not to be outdone, The Onion offers up The Ecstasy of Defeat with a foreword by Anabolic Steroids (Hyperion, $21.99). SCORE!
The ideal match for the Western History buff in your life would be Kearny’s March: The Epic Creation of the American West, 1846-1847 by Winston Groom  (Knopf, $27.95) our own Will Bagley’s So Rugged and Mountainous: Blazing the Trails to Oregon and California 1812-1845 (University of Oklahoma, $45). Singly or together, these wondrous tales of a nation hell-bent on expansion combine the sweep of history and storytelling in ways guaranteed to delight the armchair historian of the West.

If local color is of historical interest, pair Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism by Terry Givens and Matthew Grow (Oxford, $34.95) with a signed copy of William Adler’s profoundly moving The Man Who Never Died: The Life, Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill, American Labor Icon (Bloomsbury, $30), books that tell engrossing, but very different tales of two men in the West who died violently, one a polygamous Mormon theologian who was murdered, the other a labor hero hung for a murder he probably didn’t commit.

For those stricken with wanderlust, pair a plane (or train or bus) ticket with The New York Times 36 Hours: 50 Weekends in the USA and Canada (Taschen, $39.95), taken from NYT’s weekly sojourns, and thumb-indexed for user ease (TKE is on page 418!). This wonderful—and colorful—compendium will fuel trip after trip, whether in your car or your imagination. And if trains are your passion and maps your art of choice, browsing through Railway Maps of the World by Mark Ovenden (Viking, $35) takes you from the railroad systems of Corinth to the Trans-Siberian Express, Canada’s Intercontinental Railroad to the Underground of London—and you don’t even have to leave your chair. Finally, for armchair adventurers made of sterner stuff, the Smithsonian’s lavishly illustrated Mountaineers by Ellen Nanney (DK, $40) is peopled with history’s famous climbers and explorers from Caspar Wolf to Tenzing Norgay, Lucy Wallace to Kitty Calhoun, and will fill many hours of adrenalized interest.

Last but by no means least, for those who want to end your holiday not with a bang but a giggle, look no further than Ellen Degeneres’ Seriously…I’m Kidding (Grand Central, $26.99). It’s a little about her life and a lot of laughs. Having a hard time expressing yourself? Let Chewbacca say it for you in his new book, How to Speak Wookiee: A Manual for Intergalactic Communication (Chronicle, $16.95). For example, “aargh-arghoo wooush!” means “You look fabulous!” Don’t worry, it comes with its own translator. And we know you’ll agree that no holiday will be complete without, Shatner Rules: Your Guide to Understanding the Shatnerverse and the World at Large by (who else?) William Shatner (Dutton, $21.95). You’ve been warned. Finally, another offering from The Onion, one designed to complete your holiday joy, is Christmas Exposed (Quirk, $12.95). Give yourself plenty of time to read this one before you wrap it; or better yet, buy one for your coffee table too.

Happy Holidays to one and all—and happy reading!

Oracle of Stamboul, Michael David Lukas

Early one morning Eleanora, an 8-year-old girl whose mother has died, stows away in a trunk of carpets, intending to follow her father to Stamboul where he means to spend a month with an old friend, Moncef Bay. Eleanora is a savant and has already attracted the attention of an American, Yale-educated spy and the admiration of her Turkish host when her father dies in an explosion that might or might not be an accident. The spy becomes her tutor, her host a kind of father, and rumors of her prodigious intelligence begin to drift across the city, ultimately attracting the attention of the Sultan himself.

The year is 1877, the Russians are baiting the Turks in hopes of acquiring more territory, the Germans are attempting an alliance for their own reasons, the British hover, alert for advantage and the Americans are in the game as well. The game in question is the ravaging of the Sultan’s once-vast Ottoman Empire. And at the heart of all this intrigue is Eleanora.

If all of this sounds like some improbable fairy tale, that’s exactly what it is: a gently told fairy tale set in a real world in real time yet embracing the enchanting improbabilities of magical realism. The Oracle of Stamboul is not just a great read for those in the mood to be swept away, but a perfect book for young readers as well, the ideal stocking stuffer for just about anyone.

“Where there is no imagination there is no horror.”   Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

There is an abundant crop of imaginative new dystopian fiction for young adults ready to harvest this fall, and we’d like to tell you a bit more about 3 of our favorites…

Ashes, Ilsa J. Bick
Dystopic books rule, and this book is the new king of the pile! Alexandra is in the back country to spread her parents’ ashes at a favorite spot, when the world she knows comes to an end. An Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) is broadcast across the world, and the consequences are devastating. Alex is witness to the death of 10-year-old Ellie’s grandfather. Later, when they are attacked by deranged humans, they are rescued by Tom, and this fledgling “family” must somehow learn to survive on this new and terrible version of Earth. When the three decide to walk out of the woods to find other survivors, the tale becomes even more compelling and fast-paced—and a little creepy. Readers will be clamoring for the sequel.  – Margaret Brennan Neville, Egmont, $17.99 (14 and up) Limited signed copies available.

The Death Cure, James Dashner
As the final installment in James Dashner’s Maze Runner trilogy, The Death Cure does not disappoint. The mind-eating virus, nick-named The Flare, is steadily infecting those closest to Thomas. With close friends now infected, Thomas is forced to hastily decide whether or not he will help WICKED, the government organization set in place to find a cure for the ravening disease, or if he should instead stick with his gut and get as far away from WICKED’s headquarters as geographically possible. Just as The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trial hooked readers on the fast-paced and multi-adventurous narrative, The Death Cure will keep readers glued to its pages from start to finish. – Rachel Heath, Delacorte, $17.99 (12 and up) Limited signed copies available.

Crossed, Ally Condie
Local author Ally Condie’s eagerly awaited sequel to Matched has been worth the wait! Readers get to hear both Ky and Cassia’s point of view in alternating chapters. Both characters are willing to take risks, to find the other. In the much harsher environment of the Outer Province, Ky struggles to save his own life, and Cassia is desperate to find him. But Xander is not out of the picture, and he surprises Cassia over and over again. The twists and turns of the story bring this dystopian love story to a surprising place. This is a sequel that lives up to the excitement and promise of the first book, a very difficult thing to do!  — Margaret Brennan Neville, $17.99, Penguin (12 and up) Meet Ally and get your copy signed at the bookstore on Tuesday, November 1 at 7 p.m.

Once in a while a book appears that is what we in the book business call a crossover—a book that sells to adults and to young adults as well. The Night Circus, a new adult novel, has the magic and romance that make it a natural for young adults and we probably sell as many copies of Ashes, a so-called “young adult” novel to grownups as we do to kids.

Erin Morganstern’s glittering The Night Circus is the story of two young people raised to be competitors in an unwilling game of magical mastery. The game’s board is a black and white circus which travels the world and is open only at night, each of its tents its own magical universe, one more astounding than the next. The tale’s players are the circus creators and denizens, colorfully imagined and artfully wrought; around the edges of this magically imagined world lurk two grey men who pull the strings of the couple at the tale’s center: Celia and Marco. Are they destined for the competition for which they have both been trained almost from birth? Or are they meant for the love that likewise seems their fate? Who can they trust and to whom should they be loyal?

In Ashes that same issue haunts Alex. On a hike in the northern woods to mourn her dead parents, she encounters a belligerent young girl and her grandfather. The grandfather dies, suddenly and violently and for some reason everything that is digitally powered goes dead as well. As Alex, the child she adopts, and a young soldier team up, it is hard to tell not just who can be trusted but worse, who is or is not human.

In their very different ways Ashes and The Night Circus are prototypical fairy tales, full of dark undercurrents that delve into hidden recesses of the human psyche. Both are tales of survival in a world gone mad. But the real magic in each is a story that holds the reader in thrall from one luminous, terrifying page to the next.

ERIN MORGENSTERN is a writer and multimedia artist who describes all her work as “fairy tales in one way or another. She lives in Massachusetts and this is her first novel.

ILSA J. BICK is a child psychiatrist, film scholar, former Air Force major, and full time author. She also wrote the award-winning, Draw the Dark and lives in rural Wisconsin.

Previously broadcast on KUER, 90.1.

Almost all those who love fiction and poetry revere Michal Ondaatje. Justin Torres, a newcomer to the world of fiction, has just published a book, We the Animals, that bears comparison to Ondaatje’s—at least to his most recent novel, The Cat’s Table. That’s a large claim to make, but the similarities between the two novels are striking, and the differences work to open up both books to the reader. In each, three feral boys savage the landscape in which they find themselves. In both books the three boys study the adult world, trying to make sense of it, and in each their perceptions and misperceptions color their eventual fates.

In We the Animals three boys run wild in their own home, alternately savaging and loving their mother, their neighbors, the landscape in which they reside. Their father, who drinks, and skips in and out of their lives, loves his sons ferociously but is also capable of ferocious cruelty. Their mother loves joyously—when she’s not too depressed to love at all. The boys themselves are three untamed puppies, growling and biting, licking and panting, running in mad circles. The narrator, the youngest, gradually gains a more distinct voice, separating out from the pack in this beautiful, mad, wilderness of violent familial love.

In The Cat’s Table three preadolescent boys vaguely supervised but essentially alone, also run wild, this time on the deck of a ship. In the place of family they have their fellow passengers. One of the boys, Myna, narrates, his voice skipping seamlessly from present to future and back again. He and his friends are also puppy-like in their manic energy and their curiosity, unattended as they slip from deck to deck, cabin to cabin. Like the boys of Torres’ imagination they weave the fragments of the lives they witness, the bits and pieces of conversation they overhear, into a mysterious tapestry of their own design—a design that turns out to bear only partial relationship to reality.

In The Cat’s Table, however, the journey and the tale proceed at a deceptively quiet pace, suddenly coming to a full boil as the boys engage in surprising escapades and encounter characters in shocking situations, then quieting again as Myna views these startling events through the hindsight of memory. The misperceptions of youth, its ardent loyalties and heedless heroics, the distant, bloodless vistas of adult recall, the unexpected connections and the missed chances are all stitched together with vivid threads of love, whether that love be boyish adulation or adult passion.

Such love is even more viscerally evident in We the Animals, the language so immediate that I laughed and wept, cringed and occasionally shut the book to breathe. For the reading experience of a lifetime, read them back-to-back. Both blend passion and adventure, metaphor and memory, into blindingly good and unforgettable works of fiction.

JUSTIN TORRES’ writing has appeared in Granta, Tin House, and Glimmer Train. A graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, he is a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford. He’s worked as a famhand, a dog walker, and creative writing teacher and a bookseller. He will appear along with poet Alberto Rios at Westminster College on Friday, October 21, 7 p.m. in an event sponsored by the Utah Humanities Book Festival and the Anne Newman Sutton Poetry Series.

MICHAEL ONDAATJE is the author of five previous novels, a memoir, a nonfiction book on film, and several books of poetry. The English Patient won the Booker Prize; Anil’s Ghost won the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, the Scotiabank Giller prize and the Prix Médicis. Born in Sri Lanka, he now lives in Toronto.

Previously broadcast on KUER, 90.1.

Contemporary, literary and fantasy fiction author Michelle Davidson Argyle read from her suspense novel, Monarch. Michelle graduated from Utah Valley University with a Bachelor’s Degree in English/Creative Writing in 2002 and has served as the editor-in-chief of Utah Valley University’s literary magazine and has won awards for her short stories. There was even a “monarch” in attendance! Check out the slideshow below. You can find out more at her WEBSITE.

Next up was Jessica McQuinn, who read from and discussed her second published book, Indivisible, a realistic, and romantic look at the hardships and troubles Charlie and Gideon, a Navy SEAL, face when he is deployed. McQuinn is a great writer, and the scenes are heart-warming and heart-breaking at the same time. And you should visit her WEBSITE!

We also welcomed poet Melissa Menatti, whose work, Welcome to My Soul, is thoughtful and creative, its very construction, as loose-leaf pages bound in a soft suede wrap, inform the readers experience. Menatti is an author, photographer and voice artist. You can find out more at her WEBSITE.

Dorothy J. Varney struck gold when she uncovered a bit of her family history that had all the makings for a intriguing story. Told in three volumes, California Gold: Benjamin, Ben, and Franklin, Varney traces one family through three generations starting with the fast-moving pace of the Gold Rush. Historical fiction rich with detail, Varney’s books are available at The King’s English.

In fact, all of these local author’s books now have a place on our shelves. Come in and discover a local author today.

EVERYONE is invited to create a video of themselves! So pick your favorite banned or challenged book (see a current list HERE) and upload it to a special Banned Books Week channel.

Find instructions on how to upload your own video is available here and more information is also available here.

Celebrate the freedom to read!