Young Adult Booklist 2

By Miss H Murray on 27/6/2003

YOUNG ADULT BOOKLIST 2



This is the second of two booklists aimed at S3/4, with some more challenging titles. For some easier titles try Booklist 1

The list is arranged by different genre or type of story as

follows:

Crime & Thriller

Growing up / Relationships / Romance

Fantasy & Science Fiction

Future Worlds

Ghost & Horror

The Comedy Zone

Other Times / Other Places

Short Stories

Biography and Travel



This selection includes old and new titles, but with an emphasis on recent fiction. Each title appears only once, although quite a few of the novels could have fitted into more than one genre. Some sequels have been included, but you should be able to find other books by many of these authors on the library shelves.

Unless otherwise indicated in the lists, you should look for these books in the Fiction Section of the School Library under the Author’s surname. The code numbers for the Biography and Travel Section books are given in brackets after the title.

If the book you want is not on the shelf, ask at the Issue Desk to reserve it.

* Indicates books that might be suitable for mini- RPR







CRIME & THRILLER



BANKS, Iain

* Canal Dreams

Set in Japan, and on the Panama Canal, this book concerns a world famous Japanese cellist who refuses to fly and as a result finds herself involved in the ominous world of global ‘realpolit’.

BROOKMYRE, Christopher

* Country of the Blind

Following the escape of some prisoners, a young solicitor reveals that one of them had placed in her possession a letter which proves his innocence. Journalist Jack Parlabane is intrigued, but someone else is trying to get near – someone with political connections and evil intent.

CORNWELL, Patricia

* Cruel and Unusual

A novel featuring Dr Kay Scarpetta, female Chief Medical Examiner. The electrocution of a murderer and the killing of a 13 year old boy the same night seem unrelated, until Scarpetta recalls that the boy’s body had been arranged in a strikingly similar position to that of the executed man’s victim.

Try also Body of Evidence and Black Witness

FRANCIS, Dick

* High Stakes

Steven Scott owns horses but does not know much about them. He sacks his trainer because he suspects underhand dealings going on. He is soon to find out that moneymaking drives some people to manoeuvring and they will go a long way to protect themselves.

GRISHAM, John

* The Pelican Brief

Late one night Abe Rosenberg, the Supreme Court’s liberal legend, is gunned down in his own home. The same night, Myron Jensen, the court’s youngest and most conservative justice, is strangled. What linked the two men and what caused their deaths? Darby Shaw thinks she knows the answer.

Try also The Chamber and The Firm

HIGHSMITH, Patricia

Strangers on a Train

When Guy Haines meets Charley Bruno on a train, he is pulled into a world of madness, lies and death, from which there is no escape.

JAMES, P D

* Unnatural Causes

Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh had been looking forward to a quiet holiday at his aunt’s cottage on Monksmere Head. But Dalgliesh had reckoned without the macabre discovery of the handless corpse of crime-writer Maurice Seton.

Lots of other titles including The Black Tower and Devices and Desires.

JOHNSTON, Paul

* The Blood Tree

The year is 2026. The United Kingdom has broken down, and Edinburgh is now an independent city state run by the Council of City Guardians. Quintilian Dalrymple is called on to investigate a series of gruesome murders.

Another title in this series is Body Politic



McDERMID, Val

Booked for Murder

Best selling author, Penny Varnavides is murdered in an exact replica of the murder method in her forthcoming book. Her former friend, Lindsay Gordon investigates.

McILLVANNEY, William

* Laidlaw

Glasgow detective Jack Laidlaw is given the job of hunting down the killer of a young girl.

RANKIN, Iain

* 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.

Other titles include Mortal Causes and most recently The Falls

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.





GROWING UP / RELATIONSHIPS / ROMANCE



ATKINSON, Kate

* Behind the Scenes at the Museum

Ruby was born while her father was in pub. Her mother, Bunty, had never wanted to marry him, and dreamt of being swept off to America by a romantic hero, but instead, was stuck in a flat with her three children. This is the family’s story.

Try also Human Croquet

AUSTEN, Jane

* Pride and Prejudice

Set in the early 19th century, the classic story of the five Bennett sisters, especially Elizabeth, and her relations with the rich but proud Mr Darcy.

BINCHY, Maeve

Echoes

Having grown up in a small Irish seaside town in the 1950s, Clare and David meet again years later as students in Dublin. But eventually their home town will draw them back, and it is there that this drama of ambition, betrayal and love reaches its turbulent conclusion.

BURGESS, Melvin

* Junk

A true to life story of 2 teenagers drawn into the dangerous and destructive world of heroin addiction.

DOHERTY, Berlie

* Dear Nobody

When Helen discovers that she is pregnant, she and Chris struggle to cope with the frightening uncertainty of the future.

DU MAURIER, Daphne

* Rebecca

A story of love and suspense set in Cornwall and opening with the famous line "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again".

EVANS, Nicholas

* The Horse Whisperer

In upstate New York, a 13 year old girl and her horse are hit by a 40 ton truck. They both survive, but suffer horrible injuries. When the girl’s mother hears about a man said to have the gift of healing troubled horses, they set off for distant Montana, where their lives are changed for ever.



HARRIS, Joanne

Chocolat

Vianne Rocher and her six-year-old daughter Anouk arrive in the small village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes. To the fury of the parish priest, Vianne opens a chocolate shop opposite the church crammed with the most tempting of confections and offering a mouth-watering variety of hot chocolate drinks.

You could also try Blackberry Wine.

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. Meanwhile, Frankie’s mother starts a campaign against the gypsies that becomes a focus for the expression of racial hatred.

Try also In Flame

HILL, SUSAN

The Service of Clouds

At the far end of the long white gallery is a painting of a woman, in pale flowing clothes and lying on a sofa beside an open window. It is a painting which leads Flora on, beckoning her away from her childhood, her complaining mother, pert younger sister, and the confines of a small community.

.

MAGORIAN, Michelle

* A Little Love Song

A magical summer of love and war is the catalyst that changes Rose from an uncertain, gawky schoolgirl into a confident assured woman.

This love story is written by the author of Goodnight Mister Tom.

OLDHAM, June

Undercurrents

Fergal accompanies his mother when she takes a job for the summer looking after an arthritic old lady on a remote Yorkshire farm. He is 15, tall and serious beyond his years, suffering guilt and anxiety about an incident that occurred in his past. As the unnatural summer begins to cause serious damage to the local dam, mysterious things start to happen.

PLATH, Sylvia

* The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath’s only novel is an account of a young woman’s breakdown – her attempted suicide, hospitalization and recovery.

ZINDEL, Paul

A Begonia for Miss Applebaum

Miss Applebaum was the most special teacher Zelda and Henry had ever met at school. Together, they write the story of the last few months of her life.



FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION



ALDISS, Brian

* Hothouse

In the far distant future when the sun is dying, man, lowly and easily killed, is the last animal species surviving in the all-conquering vegetable world.

BANKS, Iain M

* Excession

Two and a half millennia ago, the artefact appeared in a remote corner of space, beside a trillion year old dying sun from a different universe. It was a perfect black body sphere, and it did nothing. Then it disappeared. Now it is back.

Try also Inversions

BRADBURY, Ray *

Fahrenheit 451

In this disturbing vision of the future, scholars and eccentrics are outcasts of society and books – the source of discord and unhappiness are burnt.

You could also try The Illustrated Man

CLARKE, Arthur C

* 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 wrong. Horribly wrong. First in a series.

Try also The Deep Range

CRICHTON, Michael

* Jurassic Park

The novel which became a Spielberg film of the same name. An island off Costa Rica is to become the world’s most famous theme park – a dinosaur preserve, for a biotechnology company has succeeded in cloning 15 species of dinosaur. But the scientists’ dream turns into a nightmare.



GAARDNER, Jostein

* The Christmas Mystery

Fifty years ago, a girl called Elisabet Hansen disappeared from her home in Norway. In present-day Norway a boy called Joachim acquires a strange old advent Calendar. Hidden in each of the windows he opens in the 24 days up to Christmas is a tiny piece of paper unfolding Elisabet’s story.

GREEN, Simon

Blue Moon Rising

Prince Rupert, the unlikely hero of this novel, is surplus to requirements as the second son of the king of a small country, and he is sent on a quest to kill a dragon and rescue a princess. When he returns not only with the princess but also the dragon, people start to realise he is something special.

KEYES, Daniel

* Flowers for Algernon

Charlie Gordon, who desperately wants to be able to read and write undergoes a brain operation which dramatically improves his intellect. But can his emotional development keep place with the intellectual?

McCAFFREY, Anne

* The Ship who Sang

The brain was perfect, the tiny, crippled body useless. So technology rescued the brain and put it an environment that conditioned it to live in a different kind of body – a spaceship.

PEAKE, Mervyn

* Gormenghast

This trilogy consists of Titus Groan, Gormenghast and Titus Alone. Gormenghast is a vast crumbling castle to which the 77th Earl, Titus Groan, is lord and heir.

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.

SIMAK, Clifford

* The Werewolf Principle

In the middle distant future, Andrew Blake, discovered huddled inside a capsule on a remote star, is brought back to earth suffering from total amnesia. Over 200 years old, he thinks and acts like a man but becomes frighteningly aware of two alien beings that lurk in his body.

Try also The Waystation



FUTURE WORLDS

BLACKMAN, Malorie

Noughts and Crosses

Callum and Sephy 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 their lives. Malorie Blackman tackles the issues of racism and prejudice in a world set in an alternate historical reality.

BURGESS, Melvin

Bloodtide

Set in a frighteningly realistic ravaged London in the near future where two warring families of ganglords appear united by the marriage of Signy Volson to Conor--head of the opposing family. However, Conor's treachery results not in the long-expected truce but the decimation of the Volson family. Only Signy and her hideously disfigured brother Siggy survive the culling, kept apart by circumstance but united in their hate for Conor. They are intent on revenge--no matter how long it takes--or at what cost.

MARSDEN, John

Tomorrow When the War Began

A group of Australian teenagers spend a week in the bust. They return to find the world they knew changed forever.

The first in a series of 6 novels.

WELLS, HG

The War of the Worlds

The classic account of earth being invaded by the Martians



GHOST & HORROR



HERBERT, James

* The Rats

For millions of years man and rats had been natural enemies. But now, for the first time in history suddenly, shockingly, horribly – the balance of power has shifted and the rats begin to prey on the human population.

Try also The Magic Cottage

HILL, Susan

* The Woman in Black

Creeping unease begins with mysterious appearance of a young woman dressed in black at the funeral of the sole inhabitant of Eel Marsh House and builds inexorably to a chilling climax.

Try also The Mist in the Mirror

KING, Stephen

* It

The children saw-and-felt what made Derry so horribly different. In the storm drains in the sewers, It lurked, taking on the shape of every nightmare, each one’s deepest dread. The adults knowing better, knew nothing.

You could also try Misery and Salem’s Lot

KOONTZ, Dean

* Whispers

Bruno Frye succumbs nightly to the whispers’ malicious lullaby. Losing himself in their cries, he is deafened by whispers more piercing than any scream. In the dark recesses of his mind no act is too violent, no deed too shocking. He is driven to kill – even if it means returning from the grave.

Other titles to try are Midnight and The Mask.

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 horrifically wrong.





COMEDY ZONE



GIBBONS, Stella

* Cold Comfort Farm

As the sukebind swells into bud, recently orphaned Flora Poste decides to descend on her eccentric relatives, the Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm, and sets their tangled lives to rights with startling efficiency.

RANKIN, Robert

* A Dog called Demolition

Danny is not sad and lonely any more, because Danny has "the voice", the voice of an imaginary dog called Demolition. The dog tells him what to do, like how to adjust the bar code reader in the shop, so he can read what people are thinking. Soon, Danny can bend others to his will and fears no man.

TOWNSEND, Sue

* The Queen and I

A republican government has just won the General Election, and the Royal Family, stripped of its regal privileges start a new life on a council estate.

WAUGH, Evelyn

* The Loved One

A riotous caper in the graveyards of California. Set against a background of embalming rooms and crematoria Whispering Glades and Memorial Park, the story becomes ludicrous, hilarious and shocking.



OTHER TIMES / OTHER PLACES



DESAI, Anita

* The Village by the Sea

Life in a poor Indian village is shown movingly in this book.

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 human race.

Try also Eva and The Ropemaker

FREUD, Esther

* Hideous Kinky

Life on the road to Morocco with a hippy mother as witnessed by one of her young daughters.

GAVIN, Jamilla

Coram Boy

Set in Eighteenth Century England, this book tells the story of the evil ‘Coram man’ who deals in orphaned or abandoned children, selling them to either a slave ship or the Coram hospital for money. One of these children is Aaron, the illegitimate son of an heir to a great estate and Toby taken at birth from a African slave ship.

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.

HEMINGWAY, Ernest

* The Old Man and the Sea

Set in the Gulf Stream off the Coast of Havana, this is the story of an old man, a young boy and a giant fish.

ROWE, Alick

Voices of Danger

It is 1916, Alex and Seb are cathedral choristers until Alex is threatened with expulsion. The two boys enlist under age, and are sent to the Somme.



SMITH, Rukshana

Rainbows in the Gutter

Growing up in London, Philip and Collette struggle against the daily humiliations, hostilities and injustices which go with being black in a mainly white country. Easygoing, artistic Philip tries to spread his ideal of racial harmony, but when the petty hostility turns to violent hatred, even Philip’s faith is shaken.



SHORT STORIES



ASIMOV, Isaac

* Gold

A collection of stories and writings about science fiction.

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.

Try also Driving Blind

DAHL, Roald

* The Great Automatic Grammatizator

A collection of stories of the unexpected – and often bizarre and macabre.

There are a number of other short story collections by Roald Dahl including

Kiss Kiss

POE, Edgar Allan

* Tales of Horror and Imagination

Haunting tales by the originator of the horror genre.

RENDELL, Ruth

Means of Evil and other stories

Five Inspector Wexford mysteries

WELLS, H G

* The Red Room and other Stories

A collection covering a wide variety of styles and genres ranging from horror to adventure and romance.



STORY COLLECTIONS

These anthologies are kept in the end of the Short Story Section at the end of the Fiction



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

FORSYTH, Frederick (Ed.)

Great Flying Stories

Amongst authors included in this collection are HG Wells, Roald Dahl, Len Deighton and JG Ballard

HERBERT, Rosemary (Ed)

Twelve American Crime Stories

A selection of short stories from Poe to Chandler.

HAMLIN, Mike (Ed.)

Short Stories by Women

A selection of stories from the nineteenth century to the present day.

KEMP, Gene (Ed)

Rebel, Rebel

An anthology of prose and poetry celebrating rebellious girls. The collection includes work by writers from George Eliot to Steve Smith, as well as representing heroines of myth and legend from Eve to Pandora.

POW, Tom (Ed.)

Shouting it Out

Stories from contemporary Scotland



BIOGRAPHY & TRAVEL



BAUBY, Jean-Dominique

* The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (920.BAU)

After suffering a massive stroke, Jean-Dominique Dauby found himself completely paralysed, speechless and only able to move one eyelid. Using this eyelid he "dictated" his autobiography.



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.

COLE, Charlotte (Ed.)

Between You and Me (920)

Real life diaries and letters by women writers.

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.



HOLLIDAY, Laurel (Ed.)

Children’s Wartime Diaries (940.53)

A selection from diaries of twenty three young people, aged between ten and nineteen living in Nazi-occupied Europe and Britain during the war.

HORNBY, Nick

* Fever Pitch (796.334)

Chronicled from the perspective of a besotted ten year old Arsenal fan, through disillusioned adolescence, to an adult "who should know better", this book examines the absurdities, idiosyncrasies and traumas of everyday life and football.

KIM, Elizabeth

Ten Thousand Sorrows (920.KIM)

Elizabeth Kim witnessed the murder of her peasant mother by her grandfather for bearing an illegitimate, mixed-race child to an American GI in Korea. She was then abandoned in a Seoul orphanage, adopted by an American couple, married to an abusive husband, before escaping with her daughter.

LOMAX, Eric

* The Railway Man (940.54)

Eric Lomax writes of his experiences in World War II whwn he was tortured on the Burma-Siam railway. He also tells of how, fifty years later he met one of his tormentors.

McCOURT, Frank

* Angela’s Ashes (920.13)

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.

PELZER, Dave

* A Child called "It" (920.PEL)

This is the author’s story of his childhood as a boy brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother, a mother who played tortuous, unpredictable games – games that left one of her three sons nearly dead.

Sequels: The Lost Boy, A Man called Dave

ROBERTS, Monty

* The Man Who Listens to Horses (920.1)

When Monty Roberts was thirteen years old he went off on his own to the deserts of Nevada to watch mustangs in the wild. What he learned about their methods of communication changed his life forever, turning him into a real life ‘horse whisperer’.

SIMPSON, Joe

* Touching the Void (796.5)

An account of the ascent of the 21,000ft Siula Grande peak in the Peruvian Andes by Joe Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, and the disasters that ensued.

SOBEL, Dava

* Longitude (529)

This book tells the story of John Harrison the self taught Yorkshire clockmaker and his life long obsession with building the perfect timekeeper to measure longitude




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