The Top 15 Most Borrowed Books - Fiction

Wondering what everyone else is reading? Not sure what to read next? Check out this list of "The Books Most Borrowed in U.S. Libraries" that the folks at Library Journal compiled as of October 15, 2014. (Click on the covers below to place your holds.)

1. The Heist

2. The Goldfinch

3. Personal

4. Big Little Lies

5. Invisible

6. Top Secret Twenty-One

7. All The Light We...

8. The Silkworm

9. A Perfect Life

10. Gone Girl

11. Cut and Thrust

12. Unlucky 13

13. Mean Streak

14. Mr. Mercedes

15. The Target

The Top Ten . . .

Want to know which new books librarian's across the country love? According to the August issue of Library Journal, here are the top ten:

1. One Kick: A Kick Lannigan Novel by Chelsea Cain (Mystery/Suspense): A debut installment in a new series by the author of the Archie Sheridan/Gretchen Lowell best-sellers introduces Kick Lannigan, a famous kidnapping survivor who as an adult uses her martial-arts mastery and affiliation with a wealthy patron to find and rescue missing children.
2. Lucky Us by Amy Bloom (Historical Fiction): Forging a life together after being abandoned by their parents, half sisters Eva and Iris share decades in and out of the spotlight in golden-era Hollywood and mid-twentieth-century Long Island.
3. Heroes Are My Weakness by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Contemporary Romance): A down-on-her-luck actress reduced to staging kids' puppet shows finds herself trapped on a remote island off the coast of Maine with a sexy horror novelist who knows a dozen ways to kill with his bare hands.
4. Lock In by John Scalzi (Science Fiction): When a new virus causes one percent of the population to become completely paralyzed in body but not in mind, the United States pursues a scientific initiative to develop a virtual-reality world for victims, with unexpected consequences.
5. The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton (Historical Fiction): Engaging the services of a miniaturist to furnish a cabinet-sized replica of her hew home, Nella Oortman, the wife of a merchant in seventeenth-century Amsterdam, discovers that the artist's tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways.
6. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty (Mystery/Suspense): Follows three mothers, each at a crossroads, and their potential involvement in a riot at a school trivia night that leaves one parent dead in what appears to be a tragic accident, but which evidence shows might have been premeditated.
7. The Truth About Leo by Katie MacAlister (Historical Romance): When she finds English spy Leopold Ernst George Mortimer left for dead and without his memory, Dagmar Marie Sophie, an impoverished Danish princess, marries him in order to escape the country and avoid an arranged marriage.
8. An Unwilling Accomplice by Charles Todd (Mystery/Historical Fiction): While home on leave, World War I battlefield nurse Bess Crawford finds her career, honor, and life in jeopardy when the wounded soldier she is supposed to accompany to Buckingham Palace commits murder and then disappears.
9. The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman (Fantasy Fiction): Visiting his magical college after being cast out of the land of Fillory, Quentin Coldwater, accompanied by Plum, encounters practitioners of gray magic before discovering a spell that could dissolve the boundaries between Fillory and Earth. (Third in the Magician's Trilogy. Start with The Magicians)
10. The Story Hour by Thrity Umrigar (Psychological Fiction): Befriending a young Indian woman named Lakshmi--who is suicidal, lonely, and trapped in a loveless marriage--psychologist Maggie finds their relationship warped by conflicting expectations and threatened by the revelation of long-buried secrets.

100 Books to Read in a Lifetime

Are you looking for a book to read this weekend? The folks at Amazon, with the help of readers at Goodreads, have complied a list that may help! Readers voted on the top 100 books that are on their bucket list of books they believe should be read in a lifetime. Here are the top 10 available at the Community Library. (To see the full list click here.)

1. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee: The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin: Elizabeth Bennet's chances of happiness are endangered by the foibles of human nature in this classic nineteenth-century novel.
3. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank: Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, Anne Frank's remarkable diary has since become a world classic—a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit.
4. 1984 by George Orwell: Thought Police. Big Brother. Orwellian. These words have entered our vocabulary because of George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel, 1984. The story of one man’s nightmare odyssey as he pursues a forbidden love affair through a world ruled by warring states and a power structure that controls not only information but also individual thought and memory, 1984 is a prophetic, haunting tale.
5. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling: A winner of England's National Book Award, the acclaimed debut novel tells the outrageously funny, fantastic adventure story of Harry Potter, who escapes a hideous foster home thanks to a scholarship to The Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry.
6. The Lord of the Rings trilogy starting with The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolken: After discovering the true nature of the One Ring, Bilbo Baggins entrusts it to the care of his young cousin, Frodo, who is charged with bringing about its destruction and thus foiling the plans of the Dark Lord.
7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: A young man newly rich tries to recapture the past and win back his former love, despite the fact that she has married.
8. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White: Charlotte's spiderweb tells of her feelings for a little pig named Wilbur, who simply wants a friend. They also express the love of a girl named Fern, who saved Wilbur's life when he was born the runt of his litter. E. B. White's Newbery Honor Book is a tender novel of friendship, love, life, and death that will continue to be enjoyed by generations to come. 
9. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: Little Women, the adored classic of four sisters and their enduring devotion to and protection of one another, was loosely based on Louisa May Alcott's own life. Alcott drew from her own personality to create a unique protagonist: Jo, willful, headstrong, and undoubtedly the backbone of the March family, is a heroine unlike any seen before. Follow the sisters from innocent adolescence to sage adulthood, with all the joy and sorrow of life in between, and fall in love with them and this endearing story.
10. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolken: Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, well-to-do hobbit, lives comfortably in his hobbit-hole until the day the wandering wizard Gandalf chooses him to take part in an adventure from which he may never return. Set in the imaginary world of Middle-earth, at once a classic myth and a modern fairy tale, The Hobbit is one of literature's most enduring and well-loved novels.

To see more of the list visit "100 Books to Read in a Lifetime: Reader's Picks."

Top 5 Funniest Science Fiction Books

These novels prove that "humorous science fiction" is not a contradiction in terms.  Fans of funny sci-fi, try these top 5 funniest science fiction books available from Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library:

1. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - After Earth is demolished to make way for a new hyperspatial expressway, Arthur Dent begins to hitchhike through space.  This phenomenally popular book also has five humorous sequels, starting with The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
2. The Wizard of Karres - It just wasn't fair! Captain Pusart had foiled the deadliest of space pirates and eliminated the threat of the Worm World, yet his troubles kept piling up.  There was only one thing to do - run away and join the circus! An interstellar traveling circus, that is.
3. Emperor Mollusk versus the Sinister Brain -  Bored after retirement, Emperor Mollusk--former super-villain, mad genius, and intergalactic menace--finds himself defending, rather than attacking, Earth when the planet is threatened by assassins and an up-and-coming megalomaniac.  Somewhat like the movie Megamind.
4. Shades of Grey - (don't worry, no relation to 50 Shades of Grey) - Color Control Agency employee and House of Red member Eddie Russet experiences discontent with his limited vision when he meets Gray Nightseer Jane, who suggests that their color-blind world was brought about by a disaster that nobody is allowed to acknowledge
5. The Android's Dream - (not to be confused with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which was the basis for the movie Blade Runner) - To avoid an interstellar incident, ex-cop and hacker Harry Creek searches for a rare type of sheep to be used in an alien race's coronation ceremony, following a trail that leads to pet store owner Robin Baker, whose genes contain traces of the sheep DNA.

Disagree with these rankings?  Please leave comments or suggestions!  For funny fantasy novels, try books by Terry Pratchett, Robert Asprin, or Christopher Moore.

50 Most Influential Books

What would make it on your list of the 50 most influential (not necessarily the 50 greatest) books of the past 50 years?  Compare your list to the one at superscholar.org.  Intrigued by some of their selections?  Read these books (and many more) at Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library.

2011's Top Ten Debut Novels

Enjoy sampling new literary talent?  Debut novels are almost always high-quality, because publishers will only gamble on an unknown author if they really believe in his or her book.  Plus, reading debuts allows you to discover a new author before anyone else does!  In this article from Booklist, the top ten debut novels of 2011 are highlighted.  Some, like The Family Fang, The Language of Flowers, and The Submission have been featured previously on this blog.  Other first novels on the list available from your Community Library include The Arriviste, The Art of Fielding, The Borrower, Swamplandia!, The Taker, When God was a Rabbit, and The World Beneath.  Are there any 2011 debuts you especially enjoyed?  Leave a comment!

What exactly is a catcher in the rye?

Asked to list classic books, many people will name The Catcher in the Rye without really even really knowing what it's about.  If this is you, perhaps it's time to read (or re-read) this famous 1951 literary work, listed in Modern Library's 100 best novels of all time.  The Catcher in the Rye tells the story of Holden Caulfield, a cynical high school student on a crusade against adult phoniness, hypocrisy, and censorship (ironic given the frequency with which the book itself has been challenged).  The title refers to a scene in which Holden expresses his desire to protect children's innocence by symbolically catching them in the rye field.

Have there ever been any classics you faked reading?  No really, have there?  Share your stories by commenting!