Roald Dahl

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

California

A young boy and his Norwegian grandmother, who is an expert on witches, together foil a witches' plot to destroy the world's children by turning them into mice.

The Witches

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John Green

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Sixteen-year-old Miles' first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and great pranks, but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash. An ALA Best Book for Young Adults & ALA Quick Pick. Reprint.

Looking for Alaska

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Orson Scott Card

The worldwide bestseller, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card comes to the screen at last in a major motion picture event in November 2013. Starring Hugo's Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, and Ben Kingsley, the movie is sure to inspire a new audience of fans to read the book that started it all. Once again, Earth is under attack. An alien species is poised for a final assault. The survival of humanity depends on a military genius who can defeat the aliens. But who? Ender Wiggin. Brilliant. Ruthless. Cunning. A tactical and strategic master. And a child. Recruited for military training by the world government, Ender's childhood ends the moment he enters his new home: Battle School. Among the elite recruits Ender proves himself to be a genius among geniuses. He excels in simulated war games. But is the pressure and loneliness taking its toll on Ender? Simulations are one thing. How will Ender perform in real combat conditions? After all, Battle School is just a game. Isn't it?

Ender's Game

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William Golding

Lois Lowry

Jennifer Buehler

Golding’s iconic 1954 novel, now with a new foreword by Lois Lowry, remains one of the greatest books ever written for young adults and an unforgettable classic for readers of any age. This edition includes a new Suggestions for Further Reading by Jennifer Buehler. At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate. This far from civilization they can do anything they want. Anything. But as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far removed from reality as the hope of being rescued.

Lord of the Flies

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Nina Bawden

“Give this to fans of Lowry’s The Giver.”—Booklist It is the year 2035, and kids are the only ones who matter. In Tom’s world, every family has only one child. “Brother” and “sister” are insults. And the Oldies, like Gandy—Tom’s grandfather—are taken away to Memory Theme Parks. On the way to the Theme Park, Gandy escapes into the Wild Wood, the dangerous world outside their walled city. Tom has no choice but to follow. The wilderness is like nowhere he’s ever been before, and the more he learns at Gandy’s side, the more he wonders: Is the wall meant to keep the Outsiders out, as he’s been taught in school—or the Insiders in? “Nina Bawden’s skill is placing a set of vibrant characters in a compelling plot seasoned with cold reality, the warmth of enduring relationships, and moral ironies.”—Kirkus Reviews

Off the Road

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Sarah Dessen

During the summer of her divorced father's remarriage and her sister's wedding, fifteen-year-old Haven comes into her own by letting go of the myths of the past.

That Summer

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Steven D. Levitt

Stephen J. Dubner

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime? These may not sound like typical questions for an econo-mist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to sports and child-rearing—and whose conclusions turn conventional wisdom on its head. Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They usually begin with a mountain of data and a simple question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics. Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives—how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they explore the hidden side of . . . well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Klu Klux Klan. What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a great deal of complexity and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and—if the right questions are asked—is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.

Freakonomics Rev Ed

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John C. Maxwell

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Becoming the Kind of Person Every Team Wants

Stating that great team players are developed from the inside out, an instructional resource identifies seventeen qualities that make up an in-demand team player while outlining how to embody those qualities.

The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player

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Nate Silver

Why So Many Predictions Fail-But Some Don't

UPDATED FOR 2020 WITH A NEW PREFACE BY NATE SILVER "One of the more momentous books of the decade." —The New York Times Book Review Nate Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair’s breadth, and became a national sensation as a blogger—all by the time he was thirty. He solidified his standing as the nation's foremost political forecaster with his near perfect prediction of the 2012 election. Silver is the founder and editor in chief of the website FiveThirtyEight. Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data. Most predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because most of us have a poor understanding of probability and uncertainty. Both experts and laypeople mistake more confident predictions for more accurate ones. But overconfidence is often the reason for failure. If our appreciation of uncertainty improves, our predictions can get better too. This is the “prediction paradox”: The more humility we have about our ability to make predictions, the more successful we can be in planning for the future. In keeping with his own aim to seek truth from data, Silver visits the most successful forecasters in a range of areas, from hurricanes to baseball to global pandemics, from the poker table to the stock market, from Capitol Hill to the NBA. He explains and evaluates how these forecasters think and what bonds they share. What lies behind their success? Are they good—or just lucky? What patterns have they unraveled? And are their forecasts really right? He explores unanticipated commonalities and exposes unexpected juxtapositions. And sometimes, it is not so much how good a prediction is in an absolute sense that matters but how good it is relative to the competition. In other cases, prediction is still a very rudimentary—and dangerous—science. Silver observes that the most accurate forecasters tend to have a superior command of probability, and they tend to be both humble and hardworking. They distinguish the predictable from the unpredictable, and they notice a thousand little details that lead them closer to the truth. Because of their appreciation of probability, they can distinguish the signal from the noise. With everything from the health of the global economy to our ability to fight terrorism dependent on the quality of our predictions, Nate Silver’s insights are an essential read.

The Signal and the Noise

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Carmen Luke

Jennifer Gore

First Published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy

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Zoje Stage

Afflicted with a chronic debilitating condition, Suzette Jensen nevertheless brought Hanna into the world, pleased and proud to start a family with her husband Alex. Estranged from her own mother, Suzette is determined to raise her daughter with the love, care, and support she was denied. Now seven-years-old, Hanna has yet to utter a word, despite being able to read and write. Defiant and anti-social, she refuses to behave in kindergarten classes and must be homeschooled. But Hanna is becoming more aggressive every day-- only behaving when she's with her father. And now Suzette fears her own life may be in danger. -- adapted from back cover.

Baby Teeth

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Christopher Priest

In 1878, two young stage magicians clash in the dark during the course of a fraudulent séance. From this moment on, their lives become webs of deceit and revelation as they vie to outwit and expose one another.Their rivalry will take them to the peaks of their careers, but with terrible consequences. In the course of pursuing each other's ruin, they will deploy all the deception their magicians' craft can command - the highest misdirection and the darkest science.Blood will be spilled, but it will not be enough. In the end, their legacy will pass on for generations... to descendants who must, for their sanity's sake, untangle the puzzle left to them.Soon to be a major motion picture starring HUGH JACKMAN, SCARLETT JOHANSSON, CHRISTIAN BALE, DAVID BOWIE, MICHAEL CAINE, ANDY SERKIS and directed by CHRISTOPHER NOLAN!

The Prestige

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Madeline Miller

A Novel

A New York Times Bestseller

"At once a scholar's homage to The Iliad and startlingly original work of art....A book I could not put down." --Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House

A thrilling, profoundly moving, and utterly unique retelling of the legend of Achilles and the Trojan War from the bestselling author of Circe

A tale of gods, kings, immortal fame, and the human heart, The Song of Achilles is a dazzling literary feat that brilliantly reimagines Homer's enduring masterwork, The Iliad. An action-packed adventure, an epic love story, a marvelously conceived and executed page-turner, Miller's monumental debut novel has already earned resounding acclaim from some of contemporary fiction's brightest lights--and fans of Mary Renault, Bernard Cornwell, Steven Pressfield, and Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series will delight in this unforgettable journey back to ancient Greece in the Age of Heroes.

"A captivating retelling of The Iliad and events leading up to it through the point of view of Patroclus: it's a hard book to put down, and any classicist will be enthralled by her characterisation of the goddess Thetis, which carries the true savagery and chill of antiquity." -- Donna Tartt, The Times

The Song of Achilles

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Paula Hawkins

The #1 New York Times Bestseller, USA Today Book of the Year, soon to be a major motion picture starring Emily Blunt. The debut psychological thriller that will forever change the way you look at other people's lives. "Nothing is more addicting than The Girl on the Train."--Vanity Fair "The Girl on the Train has more fun with unreliable narration than any chiller since Gone Girl. . . . [It] is liable to draw a large, bedazzled readership."--The New York Times "Marries movie noir with novelistic trickery. . . hang on tight. You'll be surprised by what horrors lurk around the bend."--USA Today "Like its train, the story blasts through the stagnation of these lives in suburban London and the reader cannot help but turn pages."--The Boston Globe "Gone Girl fans will devour this psychological thriller."--People EVERY DAY THE SAME Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and night. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She's even started to feel like she knows them. Jess and Jason, she calls them. Their life--as she sees it--is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost. UNTIL TODAY And then she sees something shocking. It's only a minute until the train moves on, but it's enough. Now everything's changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel goes to the police. But is she really as unreliable as they say? Soon she is deeply entangled not only in the investigation but in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

The Girl on the Train

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Neil Gaiman

Shadow is a man with a past. But now he wants nothing more than to live a quiet life with his wife and stay out of trouble. Until he learns that she's been killed in a terrible accident. Flying home for the funeral, as a violent storm rocks the plane, a strange man in the seat next to him introduces himself. The man calls himself Mr. Wednesday, and he knows more about Shadow than is possible. He warns Shadow that a far bigger storm is coming. And from that moment on, nothing will ever he the same...

American Gods

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Mitch Albom

An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson, 20th Anniversary Edition

Book's ISBN also used for previous editions and printings.

Tuesdays with Morrie

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Samanta Schweblin

Megan McDowell

NOW A FEATURE FILM COMING SOON TO NETFLIX "Genius." —Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker Finalist for the Man Booker International Prize! Experience the blazing, surreal sensation of a fever dream... A young woman named Amanda lies dying in a rural hospital clinic. A boy named David sits beside her. She’s not his mother. He's not her child. Together, they tell a haunting story of broken souls, toxins, and the power and desperation of family. Fever Dream is a nightmare come to life, a ghost story for the real world, a love story and a cautionary tale. One of the freshest new voices to come out of the Spanish language and translated into English for the first time, Samanta Schweblin creates an aura of strange psychological menace and otherworldly reality in this absorbing, unsettling, taut novel.

Fever Dream

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Sandra Cisneros

For Esperanza, a young girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago, life is an endless landscape of concrete and run-down tenements, and she tries to rise above the hopelessness

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