Paper Towns: Official Movie Trailer!

Paper Towns, another novel of esteemed YA author John Green, will be released on the silver screen this July! There's still plenty of time to read the book before seeing the movie and make sure you check out the official movie trailer below!

One month before graduating from his Central Florida high school, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen basks in the predictable boringness of his life until the beautiful and exciting Margo Roth Spiegelman, Q's neighbor and classmate, takes him on a midnight adventure and then mysteriously disappears. (Publisher Summary)

A Patron Recommends Author Charles Martin

Are you familiar with the work of New York Times bestselling Charles Martin? One of our patrons highly recommends his work, so why not take a chance and get lost in one of Martin's novels this weekend? Here are just a small sample of the many titles available:
Water from My Heart

Charlie Finn had to grow up fast, living alone by age sixteen. Highly intelligent, he earned a life-changing scholarship to Harvard, where he learned how to survive and thrive on the outskirts of privileged society. (Publisher Summary)

A Life Intercepted

After being falsely accused of a horrible crime and serving time, a former top NFL draft pick tries to get his wife back and keep football in his life. (Publisher Summary)

Unwritten

Sunday, who lives a reclusive life on board his boat off the Florida coast, grants a favor to one of his few friends and becomes involved in helping a troubled actress fake her own death. (Publisher Summary)

Where the River Ends

Ten years into their marriage, Doss Michaels and Abbie Coleman face Abbie's life-threatening illness, and they steal away from the hospital to embark on a 130-mile trip down the St. Mary's River, a voyage that he had promised her early in their courtship. (Publisher Summary)

Have You Read the Neapolitan Novels?

If not, you're missing out on the epic tale of lifelong friendship between Elena and Lila, two girls from Naples. With the fourth and final book releasing this fall, now's the perfect time to get swept away by Ferrante's beautiful prose and the ups and downs of life in a down and out neighborhood in Southern Italy.

"The world of Elena and Lila, Neapolitan girls growing up after the Second World War, is small, casually violent, and confined to their poor neighborhood where everyone knows everyone and the few prosperous families dominate. There are rules and expectations, and everyone knows and lives by them. Except Lila: smarter and bolder than the others, she does what she wants, drawing Elena, who narrates the story, in her wake. But this is more than a conventional up-from-poverty tale. Elena completes her schooling; Lila does not. Elena leaves the neighborhood and eventually Naples and Southern Italy; Lila does not. Yet it is Lila and her dreams and caprices that drive everything." Publisher Weekly Reviews

Best Summer Beach Reads of All Time!

Check out the best summer beach reads according to Alex Posey (editorial curator at Scribd and Mallory Farrugia (Sbribd's editorial director):

An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin

Lacey Yeager is young, captivating, and ambitious enough to take the NYC art world by storm. Groomed at Sotheby's and hungry to keep climbing the social and career ladders put before her, Lacey charms men and women, old and young, rich and even richer with her magnetic charisma and liveliness. Her ascension to the highest tiers of the city parallel the soaring heights--and, at times, the dark lows--of the art world and the country from the late 1990s through today. (Publisher Summary)

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

Follows a young Italian innkeeper and his almost-love affair with a beautiful American starlet, which draws him into a glittering world filled with unforgettable characters. 

The acclaimed, award-winning author of the national bestseller The Financial Lives of the Poets returns with his funniest, most romantic, and most purely enjoyable novel yet: the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the Italian coast in 1962 . . . and is rekindled in Hollywood fifty years later. (Publisher Summary)

Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews

In the grand spy-tale tradition of John le Carré…comes this shocking thriller written with insider detail known only to a veteran CIA officer.

Drafted against her will to serve the regime of Vladimir Putin as an intelligence seductress, Dominika Egorova is assigned to operate against first-tour CIA officer Nathaniel Nash, with whom she engages in a charged effort of deception and tradecraft before a forbidden attraction threatens their careers and the security of America's most valuable mole in Moscow. (Publisher Summary)

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom. Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle--and people in general--has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. (Publisher Summary) The Vacationers by Emma Straub An irresistible, deftly observed novel about the secrets, joys, and jealousies that rise to the surface over the course of an American family’s two-week stay in Mallorca. For the Posts, a two-week trip to the Balearic island of Mallorca with their extended family and friends is a celebration: Franny and Jim are observing their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, and their daughter, Sylvia, has graduated from high school. The sunlit island, its mountains and beaches, its tapas and tennis courts, also promise an escape from the tensions simmering at home in Manhattan. But all does not go according to plan: over the course of the vacation, secrets come to light, old and new humiliations are experienced, childhood rivalries resurface, and ancient wounds are exacerbated. (Publisher Summary) Click here to read the full article.

Debut Collection of Short Stories by Lauren Acampora

In her stunning debut collection, The Wonder Garden, Lauren Acampora brings to the page with enchanting realism the myriad lives of a suburban town and lays them bare. These linked stories take a trenchant look at the flawed people of Old Cranbury, incisive tales that reveal at each turn the unseen battles we play out behind drawn blinds, the creeping truths from which we distract ourselves, and the massive dreams we haul quietly with us and hold close. (Publisher Summary)

The Wonder Garden received a starred review from Booklist: "Acampora not only meticulously conveys the allure of an outwardly paradisiacal suburban community, with its perfectly restored Victorian homes and well-tended lawns; she also clearly captures the inner turmoil of its residents, homing in on their darkest impulses and beliefs."