S1/2
BOOKS TO STRETCH YOU
THRILLER AND SUSPENSE
RELATIONSHIPS
FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION
FUTURE WORLDS
HISTORICAL
CONFLICT
SHORT STORIES
BIOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
THILLER AND SUSPENSE
CROSS, Gillian
Tightrope
Eddie Beale looks after his friends, as long as they entertain him. When he takes notice of Ashley, she is happy to put on a show and be part of the excitement. Then she realises someone is stalking her and leaving messages that get uglier. Can Eddie help? And if he does, what price will she pay?
McILLVANNEY, William
Laidlaw
Glasgow detective Jack Laidlaw is given the job of hunting down the killer of a young girl.
NAIDOO, Beverley
The Other Side of Truth
Based on recent events in Nigeria and Somalia, this book tells the story of Sade and Femi, the children of an outspoken Nigerian journalist smuggled to London on false passports following their mother's murder.
RANKIN, Ian
Black and Blue
In the 60s, "Bible John" terrorized Glasgow, raping and murdering three women. Now a copy-cat killer has been nicknamed "Bible Johnny" by the media and is targeting not only Glasgow, but also Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Investigating another murder, Rebus runs head on into the media circus.
There is a wide selection of Rebus novels to choose from including ?Mortal Causes? and ?Set in Darkness?.
RENDELL, Ruth
A New Lease of Death
Chief Inspector Wexford has to reinvestigate a 15 year old murder case.
Some of the Wexford novels touch on topical issues, such as the public reaction to the release of a paedophile into the community in ?Harm Done? and protests against new roads in ?Road Rage?.
RHUE, Martin
The Wave
A classroom experiment in history in an American High School goes too far and a Nazi-style system sweeps through the school.
ROSE, Malcolm
Flying Upside Down
Glynn?s mother gets held at knifepoint in her own kitchen, all because Glynn?s been given a lousy present. It?s Duncan Brown who tells Glynn the true value of his gift. But being friendly with a loser like Duncan is a bad idea and someone is determined both boys will suffer for it.
RELATIONSHIPS
AUSTEN, Jane
Pride and Prejudice
Set in the early 19th Century, this is the classic story of the five Bennet sisters, especially Elizabeth, and her relations with the rich but proud Mr Darcy.
You could also try 'Emma'
HICYILMAZ,
Gaye The Girl in Red
Teenager Frankie lives in a run-down council block near the sea at Dover. He is captivated by the Roma girl, Emilia. But Frankie's mother starts a campaign against the gypsies that becomes a focus for the expression of racial hatred.
MAGORIAN, Michelle
Goodnight Mr Tom
The story of Willie Beech, evacuated during the War to the care of Tom.
MAHY, Margaret
Memory
A young man searching for the truth of his own past becomes involved with an old lady who needs protection.
VOIGHT, Cynthia
Homecoming
The four Tillerman children, inexplicably abandoned by their mother, make their way across America to try to find a home.
There are a whole series of novels about the Tillerman family; try ?A Solitary Blue?.
ZEPHANIAH, Benjamin
Refugee Boy
Alem is on holiday with his father for a few days in London. He has never been out of Ethiopia before and is very excited. They have a great few days together until one morning when Alem wakes up in the bed and breakfast they are staying at to find his father has left him. Because of the political problems in Ethiopia both he and Alem's mother felt Alem would be safer in London - even though it is breaking their hearts to do this. Alem is now on his own, in the hands of the social services and the Refugee Council. He lives from letter to letter, waiting to hear from his father, and in particular about his mother.
FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION
ASIMOV, Issac
I, Robot
In these stories, Asimov creates the three Laws of Robotics and Ushers in the Robot Age.
BRADBURY, Ray
Something Wicked this Way Comes
Two boys watch as strange things happen when a carnival comes to town.
They will soon discover the show's awful mystery. It is a mystery that will alter the life of everyone it touches. Lots of short story collections by this writer to choose from also. Try ?Quicker than they Eye? or ??The Toynbee Convector?.
CLARKE, Arthur
2001
On the moon an enigma is uncovered. So great are the implications of the discovery that, for the first time, men are sent out deep into the solar system. But before they can reach their destination, things begin to go horribly wrong. First in a series.
DICKINSON, Peter
Eva
Eva wakes up in hospital after a horrifying car accident, an eight-month coma, and an astounding medical experiment. She has been given a totally new kind of life. For although her mind and personality are unchanged, her brain is being kept alive in the body of a chimpanzee.
GIBBON, Alan
The Shadow of the Minotaur
This is a novel about a boy, Phoenix, the son of a computer geek who creates a virtual reality game that gets a bit too real. Phoenix becomes Theseus pursued by the Minotaur, and Perseus and confronting the Gorgon.
HERBERT, James
The Rats
For millions of years man and rats had been natural enemies. But now, for the first time ? suddenly, shockingly, horribly ? the balance of power had shifted and the rats began to prey on the human population.
You could also try ?The Magic Cottage?.
LAWRENCE, Louise
Ben Harran?s Castle
Ben Harran is the ?Controller? in charge of our galaxy. He takes inhabitants from three planets to his castle to help decide on central question. Should he allow planets free-will even if they destroy themselves?
PRICE, Susan
The Sterkarm Handshake
The Sterkarms have plundered the borders of England and Scotland for generations. Now, in the 16th Century, their way of life is threatened by elves, intruders from a polluted 21st Century. The needs and values of the two centuries cannot be reconciled and a bloody battle follows.
PULLMAN, Philip
Northern Lights
A powerful fantasy of an alternative world, where each human is accompanied by their personal daemon, and armoured bears rule the North Pole.
The story continues in 'The Subtle Knife' and 'The Amber Spyglass'.
STEVENSON, Robert Louis
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
A nightmare fantasy about the nature of good and evil. This is the tragic story of how one man?s experiments to find out about his own nature went horribly wrong.
TOLKIEN, J R R
Lord of the Rings
The epic story of the quest of the hobbit, Frodo Baggins and his companions to save Middle Earth by destroying the ruling ring of the evil Sauron.
WYNDHAM, John
Day of the Triffids
The triffids are a monstrous species of stinging plant; they walk, they talk, they dominate the world. The narrator of this novel wakes up in hospital to find that, by missing the end of the world, he has survived to witness a fantastic and horrific new world.
WELLS, HG
The War of the Worlds
One man's account of the terrifying Martian invasion of earth.
FUTURE WORLDS
ANDERSON, Rachel
The Scavenger?s Tale
This novel deals with the strength of a family on the run from a harsh technological state which is putting electronic tags on all its citizens.
BLACKMAN, Malorie
Noughts and Crosses
Sephy and Callum have been best friends since childhood, but Callum is a nought--a second-class citizen in a world dominated by the Crosses--and Sephy is a Cross, and the daughter of one of the most powerful men in the country. The barriers they would have to cross to be together at first seem little more than minor obstacles to the two idealistic teenagers, but soon those barriers threaten not only their friendship but also their lives.
LAWRENCE, Louise
Children of the Dust
A hopeful account of society disintegrating and then beginning to recreate itself after a nuclear war.
O?BRIEN, Robert
Z for Zachariah
The diary of Ann Burden, who believes herself to be the only survivor of a nuclear war, until one day a man comes into the valley wearing a radiation-proof suit.
URE, Jean
Plague
After the Plague
Watchers on the Shrine
How would you cope if you arrived home to find the streets deserted, your neighbourhood quarantined and your family dead after a plague? The story is continued after a gap of several generations in the follow up books.
SWINDELLS, Robert
Daz 4 Zoe
Daz lives in the inner city, a fenced and impassable ghetto of decay for the inhabitants called Chippies. Zoe is a Subby, living in an outer-ring suburb of conformity and boredom. How they meet is nail-biting enough, but then they escape.
HISTORICAL
DICKINSON, Peter
The Kin
The adventures of four children from the Moonhawk Kin are told in the four linked books that make up this novel. Suth, Noli, Ko and Mana survive volcanic eruption, earthquake, floods, man-eating lions and other events in this book about the nature of our world and the birth of the human race.
GAVIN, Jamila
Coram Boy
This novel is set in the 18th Century. The 'Coram Man' is a shady figure who 'helps' women in distress by relieving them of their illegitimate children and supposedly taking them to a safe, new life at the Coram Hospital.
GERAS, Adele
Troy
A magnificent re-working of the ancient legend of Troy, this book describes the fall of Troy through the eyes of two young Trojan sisters.
McCAFFREY, Anne
Black Horses for the King
A young boy helps bring a troop of black Libyan stallions to England to the court of King Arthur to help to drive the Saxons back.
CONFLICT
CARTER, Peter
The Hunted
A powerful and emotional adventure which tells of an Italian soldier?s heroic attempt to save a young Jewish boy from the death camps during World War II.
CRANE, Stephen
The Red Badge of Courage
Young Henry Fleming has very idealised views of war and dreams of performing heroic deeds in battle. But as a new recruit in the American Civil War the reality of war is quickly brought home to him.
CRONIN, Michael
Against the Day
It?s 1941 and the Nazis have invaded Britain. Two boys find themselves caught up in the Resistance movement; a thrilling account of history as it might have happened.
ORWELL, George
Animal Farm
Having got rid of their human master, the animals of Manor Farm look forward to a life of freedom and plenty. But as a clever, ruthless elite among them takes control, the other animals find themselves hopelessly ensnared in the old ways.
SHORT STORIES
ASIMOV, Isaac
I Robot
In these stories, Asimov creates three Laws of Robotics and Ushers in the Robot Age.
BRADBURY, Ray
The Toynbee Convector
In this selection of tales the world?s only time-traveller reveals his secret ? a hundred years after the event and a ghost is given new life by a particularly perceptive nurse.
You could also try ?Quicker than the Eye?.
DAHL, Roald
The Great Automatic Grammatizator
A collection of stories of the unexpected ? often bizarre and macabre.
POE, Edgar Allan
Tales of Mystery and Imagination
Haunting Tales by the originator of the horror genre.
ECCLESHARE, Julia (Ed)
Masque of the Red Death
A collection of classic short stories by Lawrence, Poe, Mansfield, De Maupassant, Waugh, Saki, M R James, Pushkin and Chekov.
BIOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
BROWN, Christy
My Left Foot (362.4)
Christy Brown was born in Dublin in 1932 with cerebral palsy. Behind the helpless child, who many people wrote off, was an articulate, imaginative writer. His mother always believed in him and helped him to learn to communicate against the odds. This is his autobiography.
BRYSON, Bill
Notes from a Small Island (914.2)
After nearly twenty years in Britain, Bill Bryson decided to move back to the USA. Before leaving his much loved home in Yorkshire, he took one last trip around the UK, and in this book he takes an affectionate but ironic look at his adopted country.
FERGUSON, Alex
Managing my Life (796.334)
This is the autobiography of Alex Ferguson ? he runs the Manchester United Football players with a rod of iron, but is respected for his managerial style and for the way he cares for the welfare of his players.
McCOURT, Frank
Angela's Ashes
In this memoir, Frank McCourt looks back with sadness and affection at his first 18 years growing up in New York and Ireland. The book combines stories of poverty and social deprivation with a celebration of the human spirit.
MAH, Adeline Yen
Falling Leaves (951)
This is a Chinese woman?s story of how she suffered appalling emotional deprivation and rejection by her family as a child growing up in China and Hong Kong in the 40s and 50s, and of its consequences in her adult life.
MURPHY, Dervla
Full Tilt (915)
Dervla Murphy recounts her epic journey to India on a bicycle
BOOKS TO STRETCH YOU
THRILLER AND SUSPENSE
RELATIONSHIPS
FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION
FUTURE WORLDS
HISTORICAL
CONFLICT
SHORT STORIES
BIOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
THILLER AND SUSPENSE
CROSS, Gillian
Tightrope
Eddie Beale looks after his friends, as long as they entertain him. When he takes notice of Ashley, she is happy to put on a show and be part of the excitement. Then she realises someone is stalking her and leaving messages that get uglier. Can Eddie help? And if he does, what price will she pay?
McILLVANNEY, William
Laidlaw
Glasgow detective Jack Laidlaw is given the job of hunting down the killer of a young girl.
NAIDOO, Beverley
The Other Side of Truth
Based on recent events in Nigeria and Somalia, this book tells the story of Sade and Femi, the children of an outspoken Nigerian journalist smuggled to London on false passports following their mother's murder.
RANKIN, Ian
Black and Blue
In the 60s, "Bible John" terrorized Glasgow, raping and murdering three women. Now a copy-cat killer has been nicknamed "Bible Johnny" by the media and is targeting not only Glasgow, but also Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Investigating another murder, Rebus runs head on into the media circus.
There is a wide selection of Rebus novels to choose from including ?Mortal Causes? and ?Set in Darkness?.
RENDELL, Ruth
A New Lease of Death
Chief Inspector Wexford has to reinvestigate a 15 year old murder case.
Some of the Wexford novels touch on topical issues, such as the public reaction to the release of a paedophile into the community in ?Harm Done? and protests against new roads in ?Road Rage?.
RHUE, Martin
The Wave
A classroom experiment in history in an American High School goes too far and a Nazi-style system sweeps through the school.
ROSE, Malcolm
Flying Upside Down
Glynn?s mother gets held at knifepoint in her own kitchen, all because Glynn?s been given a lousy present. It?s Duncan Brown who tells Glynn the true value of his gift. But being friendly with a loser like Duncan is a bad idea and someone is determined both boys will suffer for it.
RELATIONSHIPS
AUSTEN, Jane
Pride and Prejudice
Set in the early 19th Century, this is the classic story of the five Bennet sisters, especially Elizabeth, and her relations with the rich but proud Mr Darcy.
You could also try 'Emma'
HICYILMAZ,
Gaye The Girl in Red
Teenager Frankie lives in a run-down council block near the sea at Dover. He is captivated by the Roma girl, Emilia. But Frankie's mother starts a campaign against the gypsies that becomes a focus for the expression of racial hatred.
MAGORIAN, Michelle
Goodnight Mr Tom
The story of Willie Beech, evacuated during the War to the care of Tom.
MAHY, Margaret
Memory
A young man searching for the truth of his own past becomes involved with an old lady who needs protection.
VOIGHT, Cynthia
Homecoming
The four Tillerman children, inexplicably abandoned by their mother, make their way across America to try to find a home.
There are a whole series of novels about the Tillerman family; try ?A Solitary Blue?.
ZEPHANIAH, Benjamin
Refugee Boy
Alem is on holiday with his father for a few days in London. He has never been out of Ethiopia before and is very excited. They have a great few days together until one morning when Alem wakes up in the bed and breakfast they are staying at to find his father has left him. Because of the political problems in Ethiopia both he and Alem's mother felt Alem would be safer in London - even though it is breaking their hearts to do this. Alem is now on his own, in the hands of the social services and the Refugee Council. He lives from letter to letter, waiting to hear from his father, and in particular about his mother.
FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION
ASIMOV, Issac
I, Robot
In these stories, Asimov creates the three Laws of Robotics and Ushers in the Robot Age.
BRADBURY, Ray
Something Wicked this Way Comes
Two boys watch as strange things happen when a carnival comes to town.
They will soon discover the show's awful mystery. It is a mystery that will alter the life of everyone it touches. Lots of short story collections by this writer to choose from also. Try ?Quicker than they Eye? or ??The Toynbee Convector?.
CLARKE, Arthur
2001
On the moon an enigma is uncovered. So great are the implications of the discovery that, for the first time, men are sent out deep into the solar system. But before they can reach their destination, things begin to go horribly wrong. First in a series.
DICKINSON, Peter
Eva
Eva wakes up in hospital after a horrifying car accident, an eight-month coma, and an astounding medical experiment. She has been given a totally new kind of life. For although her mind and personality are unchanged, her brain is being kept alive in the body of a chimpanzee.
GIBBON, Alan
The Shadow of the Minotaur
This is a novel about a boy, Phoenix, the son of a computer geek who creates a virtual reality game that gets a bit too real. Phoenix becomes Theseus pursued by the Minotaur, and Perseus and confronting the Gorgon.
HERBERT, James
The Rats
For millions of years man and rats had been natural enemies. But now, for the first time ? suddenly, shockingly, horribly ? the balance of power had shifted and the rats began to prey on the human population.
You could also try ?The Magic Cottage?.
LAWRENCE, Louise
Ben Harran?s Castle
Ben Harran is the ?Controller? in charge of our galaxy. He takes inhabitants from three planets to his castle to help decide on central question. Should he allow planets free-will even if they destroy themselves?
PRICE, Susan
The Sterkarm Handshake
The Sterkarms have plundered the borders of England and Scotland for generations. Now, in the 16th Century, their way of life is threatened by elves, intruders from a polluted 21st Century. The needs and values of the two centuries cannot be reconciled and a bloody battle follows.
PULLMAN, Philip
Northern Lights
A powerful fantasy of an alternative world, where each human is accompanied by their personal daemon, and armoured bears rule the North Pole.
The story continues in 'The Subtle Knife' and 'The Amber Spyglass'.
STEVENSON, Robert Louis
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
A nightmare fantasy about the nature of good and evil. This is the tragic story of how one man?s experiments to find out about his own nature went horribly wrong.
TOLKIEN, J R R
Lord of the Rings
The epic story of the quest of the hobbit, Frodo Baggins and his companions to save Middle Earth by destroying the ruling ring of the evil Sauron.
WYNDHAM, John
Day of the Triffids
The triffids are a monstrous species of stinging plant; they walk, they talk, they dominate the world. The narrator of this novel wakes up in hospital to find that, by missing the end of the world, he has survived to witness a fantastic and horrific new world.
WELLS, HG
The War of the Worlds
One man's account of the terrifying Martian invasion of earth.
FUTURE WORLDS
ANDERSON, Rachel
The Scavenger?s Tale
This novel deals with the strength of a family on the run from a harsh technological state which is putting electronic tags on all its citizens.
BLACKMAN, Malorie
Noughts and Crosses
Sephy and Callum have been best friends since childhood, but Callum is a nought--a second-class citizen in a world dominated by the Crosses--and Sephy is a Cross, and the daughter of one of the most powerful men in the country. The barriers they would have to cross to be together at first seem little more than minor obstacles to the two idealistic teenagers, but soon those barriers threaten not only their friendship but also their lives.
LAWRENCE, Louise
Children of the Dust
A hopeful account of society disintegrating and then beginning to recreate itself after a nuclear war.
O?BRIEN, Robert
Z for Zachariah
The diary of Ann Burden, who believes herself to be the only survivor of a nuclear war, until one day a man comes into the valley wearing a radiation-proof suit.
URE, Jean
Plague
After the Plague
Watchers on the Shrine
How would you cope if you arrived home to find the streets deserted, your neighbourhood quarantined and your family dead after a plague? The story is continued after a gap of several generations in the follow up books.
SWINDELLS, Robert
Daz 4 Zoe
Daz lives in the inner city, a fenced and impassable ghetto of decay for the inhabitants called Chippies. Zoe is a Subby, living in an outer-ring suburb of conformity and boredom. How they meet is nail-biting enough, but then they escape.
HISTORICAL
DICKINSON, Peter
The Kin
The adventures of four children from the Moonhawk Kin are told in the four linked books that make up this novel. Suth, Noli, Ko and Mana survive volcanic eruption, earthquake, floods, man-eating lions and other events in this book about the nature of our world and the birth of the human race.
GAVIN, Jamila
Coram Boy
This novel is set in the 18th Century. The 'Coram Man' is a shady figure who 'helps' women in distress by relieving them of their illegitimate children and supposedly taking them to a safe, new life at the Coram Hospital.
GERAS, Adele
Troy
A magnificent re-working of the ancient legend of Troy, this book describes the fall of Troy through the eyes of two young Trojan sisters.
McCAFFREY, Anne
Black Horses for the King
A young boy helps bring a troop of black Libyan stallions to England to the court of King Arthur to help to drive the Saxons back.
CONFLICT
CARTER, Peter
The Hunted
A powerful and emotional adventure which tells of an Italian soldier?s heroic attempt to save a young Jewish boy from the death camps during World War II.
CRANE, Stephen
The Red Badge of Courage
Young Henry Fleming has very idealised views of war and dreams of performing heroic deeds in battle. But as a new recruit in the American Civil War the reality of war is quickly brought home to him.
CRONIN, Michael
Against the Day
It?s 1941 and the Nazis have invaded Britain. Two boys find themselves caught up in the Resistance movement; a thrilling account of history as it might have happened.
ORWELL, George
Animal Farm
Having got rid of their human master, the animals of Manor Farm look forward to a life of freedom and plenty. But as a clever, ruthless elite among them takes control, the other animals find themselves hopelessly ensnared in the old ways.
SHORT STORIES
ASIMOV, Isaac
I Robot
In these stories, Asimov creates three Laws of Robotics and Ushers in the Robot Age.
BRADBURY, Ray
The Toynbee Convector
In this selection of tales the world?s only time-traveller reveals his secret ? a hundred years after the event and a ghost is given new life by a particularly perceptive nurse.
You could also try ?Quicker than the Eye?.
DAHL, Roald
The Great Automatic Grammatizator
A collection of stories of the unexpected ? often bizarre and macabre.
POE, Edgar Allan
Tales of Mystery and Imagination
Haunting Tales by the originator of the horror genre.
ECCLESHARE, Julia (Ed)
Masque of the Red Death
A collection of classic short stories by Lawrence, Poe, Mansfield, De Maupassant, Waugh, Saki, M R James, Pushkin and Chekov.
BIOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
BROWN, Christy
My Left Foot (362.4)
Christy Brown was born in Dublin in 1932 with cerebral palsy. Behind the helpless child, who many people wrote off, was an articulate, imaginative writer. His mother always believed in him and helped him to learn to communicate against the odds. This is his autobiography.
BRYSON, Bill
Notes from a Small Island (914.2)
After nearly twenty years in Britain, Bill Bryson decided to move back to the USA. Before leaving his much loved home in Yorkshire, he took one last trip around the UK, and in this book he takes an affectionate but ironic look at his adopted country.
FERGUSON, Alex
Managing my Life (796.334)
This is the autobiography of Alex Ferguson ? he runs the Manchester United Football players with a rod of iron, but is respected for his managerial style and for the way he cares for the welfare of his players.
McCOURT, Frank
Angela's Ashes
In this memoir, Frank McCourt looks back with sadness and affection at his first 18 years growing up in New York and Ireland. The book combines stories of poverty and social deprivation with a celebration of the human spirit.
MAH, Adeline Yen
Falling Leaves (951)
This is a Chinese woman?s story of how she suffered appalling emotional deprivation and rejection by her family as a child growing up in China and Hong Kong in the 40s and 50s, and of its consequences in her adult life.
MURPHY, Dervla
Full Tilt (915)
Dervla Murphy recounts her epic journey to India on a bicycle
© 2002-2005. All Rights Reserved. Site by J-Scharf & G-Coupar.