Mystery/Suspense/Horror

Suggested Titles

Almond, David: Clay (Available on Overdrive)
The developing relationship between teenager Davie and a mysterious new boy in town morphs into something darker and more sinister when Davie learns firsthand of the boy's supernatural powers.

Barron, Ruth: Defriended (Available on Follett Shelf)
Jason spends most of his nights talking online with Lacey, who seems to be the perfect girl, but when Lacey refuses to meet him in person, Jason does some Internet searching and discovers that Lacey died a year ago, and Jason must figure out what is going on before it is too late.

Bray, Libba: Beauty Queens (Available on Follett Shelf)
When a plane crash strands thirteen teen beauty contestants on a mysterious island, they struggle to survive, to combat the island's other diabolical occupants, and to learn their dance numbers in case they are rescued in time for the competition.

Hiaason, Carl: Skink No Surrender With the help of an eccentric ex-governor, a teenaged boy searches for his missing cousin in the Florida wilds.

Lake, Nick: Blood Ninja
After his father is murdered and a ninja saves his life, Taro discovers the connection between ninjas and vampires and finds himself being dragged into a bitter conflict between the rival lords ruling Japan.

Gardner, Sally: Maggot Moon (Available on Follett Shelf)
Friendship and trust inspire Standish to rise up against an oppressive regime and expose the truth about a planned moon landing.

Popular authors in this genre:

Jay Asher, Ally Carter, John Feinstein, Susan Beth Pfeffer,

Richard Yancy, Stephen King, Joe Hill, Neil Gaiman

Non-Fiction

Suggested Titles

Anderson, Jodi Lynn: Americapedia: Taking the Dumb Out of Freedom This book is aimed at teens who want to know more about the day-to-day workings of the United States government and it provides a crash course for understanding critical events in America and the world.

Cain, Susan: Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking Explores the role introverts play in a world that is geared towards those who enjoy communicating with others and offers practical suggestions at how introverts can make sure their message is heard.

Dosa, David: Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat (Student Favorite) (Available on Follett Shelf) The author, a doctor at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rhode Island, shares stories of Oscar, a resident cat that seems to know instinctively when patients are at the end of their lives.

Fainru-Wada, Mark: League of Denial: the NFL, Concussions, and the Battle for Truth (Available on Follett Shelf) Reveals how the NFL, over a period of nearly two decades, sought to cover up and deny mounting evidence of the connection between football and brain damage. This narrative moves between the NFL trenches, America's research labs and the boardrooms where the NFL went to war against science; it examines how the league used its power and resources to attack independent scientists and elevate its own flawed research.

Gladwell, Malcolm: David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants Argues that the obstacles and disadvantages experienced by the underdog require adaptations that can lead to benefits and success in professional life, and draws upon examples from the world of business, sports, and culture.

Gutfeld, Greg: Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War on You In Not Cool, Greg Gutfeld, bestselling author of The Joy Of Hate, lays out the battle plan for reclaiming the real American ideal of cool--building businesses, protecting freedom at home and abroad, taking responsibility for your actions, and leaving other people alone to live as they damn well please. Not Cool fights back against the culture of phonies, elitists, and creeps who want your soul. It's not a book, it's a weapon--and one should be armed with it at all times.

Selzer, Adam: The Smart Aleck's Guide to American History (Available on Follett Shelf) This book presents a humorous discussion of obscure trivia relating to United States history, covering details about presidents such as John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, and other leaders who are often overlooked.

Sherwood, Ben: The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life Combining science, interviews, and reporting with survivor stories and analysis, this book presents insights on survival. It argues that surviving near fatal phenomenon has as much to do with luck as with training, worldview, and faith.

Simmons, Bill: The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy (Available on Follett Shelf) This book presents a discussion of a wide variety of topics pertaining to professional basketball. It covers the best players and teams, reevaluates the NBA Hall of Fame inductee system, and examines the secrets of the game through a conversation with an NBA superstar.

Kishtainy, Niall: The Economics Books: Big Ideas Simply Explained (Available on Follett Shelf) Provides explanations and step-by-step diagrams on economics, with quotes and witty illustrations to enhance understanding of its concepts.

Stuart, Tristram: Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal Tracing the problem of world hunger along the length of the food chain, the author argues that consumers in North America and Europe discard half their food while crops in developing countries rot because there is no way to process or get them to market. The author offers a plan to rectify the problem by reducing, redistributing, and recycling.

Thacker, Lloyd,: College Unranked: Ending the College Admissions Frenzy This collection of essays by veteran college admissions counselors provides advice on the college selection and admission process.

Krakauer, Jon - Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town The Department of Justice investigated 350 sexual assaults reported to the Missoula police between January 2008 and May 2012. Few of these assaults were properly handled by either the university or local authorities. Chronicles the... experiences of several women in Missoula -- the nights when they were raped; their fear and self-doubt in the aftermath; the way they were treated by the police, prosecutors, defense attorneys; the public vilification and private anguish; their bravery in pushing forward and what it cost them.

Thompson, Clive: Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better (Available on Follett Shelf) Argues that technology is changing the way we think for the better and that modern technology is making us smarter, better connected, and often deeper-both as individuals and as a society.

Greenwald, Glenn: No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State Glenn Greenwald provides an in-depth look into the NSA scandal that has triggered a national debate over national security and information privacy.

Stier, Debbie: The Perfect Score Project (Available on Overdrive) Debbie Stier, who took the SAT seven times and sampled a multitude of test-prep options in order to find the best option for her son, shares tips for taking the SAT, revealing why the SAT has become so important and what works in preparing for the test.

Historical Fiction

Suggested Titles

Abi-Ezzi, Nathalie: A Girl Made of Dust
This is a coming-of-age story told by eight-year-old Ruba who lives with her family in a small Christian village outside of Beirut during the 1982 Israeli invasion.

McBride, James: The Good Lord Bird (Available on Follett Shelf)
Henry Shackleford, a slave boy from the Kansas Territory, is caught up in John Brown's crusade for freedom of slaves and when he escapes from his master's home, he must disguise himself as a girl in order to stay safe and is nicknamed Onion by John.

Benioff, David: City of Thieves (Available on Follett Shelf)
Seventeen-year-old Lev Beniov, having been arrested for looting the corpse of a German paratrooper, is given the opportunity to be released from jail if he, along with a soldier imprisoned for desertion, can secure twelve eggs to be used in the colonel's daughter's wedding cake by traversing the dangerous streets of Leningrad.

Bandele-Thomas, Biyi: The King's Rifle
Fourteen-year-old Ali Banana, a blacksmith's apprentice in rural West Africa, joins the British Army in 1944 and soon finds himself trekking through the Burmese jungle, facing death from every side.

Cornwell, Bernard: The Fort
This fictionalized account of the Penobscot Expedition of the American Revolution relates how colonial ships and infantry were decimated by a small Scottish force in the battle that led to an unsuccessful court-martial of Paul Revere. By the author of Agincourt

Dana, Barbara: A Voice of Her Own: Becoming Emily Dickinson
This is a fictionalized first-person account of revered American poet Emily Dickinson's girlhood in the mid-nineteenth-century.

Charyn, Jerome: I Am Abraham: A Novel of Lincoln and the Civil War.
Traces the historic arc of Lincoln's life from his picaresque days as a gangly young lawyer in Sangamon County, Illinois, through his improbable marriage to Kentucky belle Mary Todd, to his 1865 visit to war-shattered Richmond only days before his assassination

Doig, Ivan: The Eleventh Man
The "Supreme Team" was Treasure State University's 1941 undefeated football team whose WWII exploits are reported by teammate Ben Reinking, the eleventh man, whose war record tests the law of averages.

Kent, Kathleen: The Heretic's Daughter (Available on Follett Shelf)
Ten-year-old Sarah Chapman, recovering from smallpox in 1752, is caught up in another life and death battle when her mother, Martha, is accused of witchcraft by her uncle who wants the plot of land on which the Chapman family is living. The rest of the community, looking for a scapegoat for their own troubles, joins the campaign to have Martha hanged.

Mantel, Hilary: Wolf Hall (Available on Follett Shelf)
Henry VIII, anxious about the consequences of dying without a male heir, is denied permission to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The power struggle between the Church and the Crown is mediated by astute politician Thomas Cromwell, who manages to get the king what he wants while keeping his eye on the prize of a free England.

Kidd, Sue Monk: The Invention of Wings (Available on Follett Shelf)
The story follows Hetty "Handful" Grimke, a Charleston slave, and Sarah, the daughter of the wealthy Grimke family. The novel begins on Sarah's eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership over Handful, who is to be her handmaid and follows the next thirty-five years of their lives"--Provided by publisher.

Mullen, Thomas: The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers (Available on Follett Shelf)
Brothers and bank robbers Jason and Whit Fireson cheat death on a number of occasions, while committing crimes and avoiding capture during the Great Depression.

Other Authors:

Ursula Hegi, Dan Brown, Willa Cather, Julia Otsuka, Tracy Chevalier, Lauren Hillenbrand

Fantasy/Science Fiction

Suggested Titles

Brown, Pierce: Morning Star (Red Rising #3)
Born a lowly Red in the mines of Mars, Darrow lost his beloved wife to the treacherous Gold overlords. Vowing to fight for the future that his wife believed in, Darrow joins a secret revolutionary group and is remade into a Gold so that he can infiltrate the ruling class and bring them down from the inside. Now, after years of hiding amongst the Golds, Darrow is finally ready to declare open revolution and throw off the chains of oppression. Nothing in Darrow's world has been easily won, and this final fight will be the most harrowing of all

Boulle, Pierre: Planet of the Apes (Available on Follett Shelf)
Explorers in space find a planet that is identical to Earth, with the exception that on the planet Betelgeuse the roles of ape and human are reversed.

Cronin, Justin: The Passage (Available on Follett Shelf)
FBI agent Brad Wolgast vows to protect six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte after a government military experiment she was involved in goes bad, unleashing a toxic virus that turns humans into bloodthirsty monsters.

Walker, Karen Thompson: The Age of Miracles (Available on Follett Shelf)
Julia struggles as she comes of age when she learns, along with the rest of the world, that the Earth has begun to slow its rotation, drastically changing gravity and the environment.

Shannon, Samantha: The Bone Season
In the mid-21st century major world cities are controlled by a formidable security force and clairvoyant underworld cell member Paige commits acts of psychic treason before being captured by an otherworldly race that would make her a part of their supernatural army.

Meyers, Scott: Off to be the Wizard
Martin Banks is just a normal guy who has made an abnormal discovery: he can manipulate reality, thanks to reality being nothing more than a computer program. With every use of this ability, though, Martin finds his little 'tweaks' have not escaped notice. Rather than face prosecution, he decides instead to travel back in time to the Middle Ages and pose as a wizard... and train to become a full-fledged master of his powers

Other Authors

Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Robin McKinley, Suzanne Collins, Paolo Bacigalupi, Allastair Reynolds, John Scalzi, Orson Scott Card, Philip K. Dick

Biography, Autobiography, Memoir

Suggested Titles

Beah, Ishmael: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (Available on Follett Shelf)
Ishmael Beah describes his experiences after he was driven from his home by war in Sierra Leone and picked up by the government army at the age of thirteen. He served as a soldier for three years before being removed from fighting by UNICEF and eventually moving to the United States.

McBride, James: Kill 'em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul
A biography of American singer and songwriter James Brown, looking at his roots in the American South and the influence he has had on American pop music.

Schmidt, Jason - A List of Things that Didn't Kill Me
In his memoir, Jason Kovacs tells the story of growing up with an abusive father, who contracted HIV and ultimately died of AIDS when Jason was a teenager. A List of Things That Didn't Kill Me is a funny, disturbing memoir full of brutal insights and unexpected wit that explores the question: How do you find your moral center in a world that doesn't seem to have one?

Leavy, Jane: Pete Rose: An American Dilemma.
Examines the life of polarizing sports legend Pete Rose, from his record-setting career to being banished from the game for being an unrepentant gambler, and discusses the complex moral issues keeping him out of the Hall of Fame.

Jahren, Hope - Lab Girl
Jahren has built three laboratories in which she's studied trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. She tells about her childhood in rural Minnesota with an uncompromising mother and a father who encouraged hours of play in his classroom's labs; about how she found a sanctuary in science, and the disappointments, triumphs and exhilarating discoveries of scientific work. Yet at the core of this book is the story of a relationship Jahren forged with Bill, who becomes her lab partner and best friend. Their sometimes rogue adventures in science take them over the Atlantic to the ever-light skies of the North Pole and to tropical Hawaii, where she and her lab currently make their home

Ottaviani, Jim: Feynman
This book is a graphic novel overview of the life and accomplishments of Nobel-winning quantum physicist, adventurer, and musician Richard Feynman.

Sotomayor, Sonia: My Beloved World (Available on Follett Shelf)
Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor shares details about her life, discussing her childhood, education, health, career, appointment, and more.

Knisley, Lucy: Relish: My Life in the Kitchen (Available on Follett Shelf)
Presents a graphic novel memoir of cartoonist Lucy Knisley and her obsession with cooking and food.

Sundquist, John - We Should Hang Out Sometime: Embarrassingly, a True Story
At the age of twenty-five, Josh Sundquist, who had Ewing's sarcoma as a child and is now a paralympic ski racer, looks back to try to understand why he has never had a steady girlfriend.

Hartzler, Aaron: Rapture Practice (Available on Follett Shelf)
All his life, Aaron Hartlzer's ultraconservative, evangelical Christian parents exhorted him to live to honor the Lord. But as he begins to listen to secular music, drink, and experiment sexually, he struggles to reconcile his secret lifestyle with his parents' expectations. This is a captivating, honest, and relatable memoir about a teen's search for his true identity and for love.

Realistic Fiction

Suggested Titles

Efaw, Amy: After (Available on Follett Shelf) Devon Davenport, a straight-A student and prominent player on her school's soccer team,is linked to an abandoned baby found in the trash and accused of attempted murder.

Harbach, Chad: The Art of Fielding: (Available on Follett Shelf) At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big-league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five people are upended.

Armistead, Cal: Being Henry David (Available on Follett Shelf) "Seventeen-year-old 'Hank,' who can't remember his identity, finds himself in Penn Station with a copy of Thoreau's Walden as his only possession and must figure out where he's from and why he ran away."--

LaCour, Nina: Hold Still (Available on Follett Shelf) Caitlin wrestles with her feelings of devastation and helplessness after her friend Ingrid commits suicide. She turns to her family and newfound friends for help while encountering love, and using Ingrid's journal to heal.

Meyers, Randy Susan: The Murderer’s Daughter (Available on Follett Shelf) After Lulu and Merry's mother is killed in a drunken rage by their father, who is sent to prison, they become orphans and are sent to a terrifying group home where they cling to each other for support. Thirty years later, the girls have yet to come to terms with the events and each has a different view of their incarcerated father.

Crucet, Jennine Capo: Make Your Home Among Strangers This is a collection of stories in which animals confront situations which resemble aspects of human life, including the title selection in which a squirrel and a chipmunk find their love for one another threatened by their disapproving family.

Donoghue, Emma: Room Five-year-old Jack has spent his life living in an eleven-by-eleven foot space his mother calls Room. While Jack uses his imagination to create wondrous fantasies to entertain himself, his mother dreads the day her son begins to question why they must remain in Room and tries to find a way to escape.

Wizner, Jake: Spanking Shakespeare (Available on Follett Shelf) Shakespeare Shapiro has always hated his name, having been teased about it all the way through school. However, he may get his revenge through his memoirs, a school project, that chronicles every detail of his life. Klay, Phil: Redeployment (Available on Overdrive) Phil Klay's Redeployment takes readers to the frontlines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned. Interwoven with themes of brutality and faith, guilt and fear, helplessness and survival, the characters in these stories struggle to make meaning out of chaos.

Popular authors in this genre

Toni Morrison, Kurt Vonnegut, Mitch Albom, Jonathan Franzen, John Green, Nicholas Sparks, Ellen Hopkins, David Levithan