A Note from Samantha: Enjoy Your Last Summer!

Karen Thompson Walker’s debut novel, The Age of Miracles, has been passed around the Warwick’s staff. To date, upwards of eight staff members have finished the book – very unique for a single novel and our diverse staff. If you have yet to hear about The Age of Miracles, let me fill you in. The story takes place in suburban San Diego (Del Mar if you want to be precise), and follows the life of an eleven-year-old girl named Julia. One day, Julia and her family, along with the rest of the world, wake up to learn that the rotation of the earth has slowed down. “The slowing” affects everything – gravity, the magnetic field, plants and animals. As much about “the slowing” as it is about it affects Julia, her family, and her friendships, The Age of Miracles is my favorite book of this summer.

Back to the point. I hate to call The Age of Miracles an ‘apocalyptic’ novel, but there is no denying that “the slowing” changes everything about life as we know it (assuming we were living in Karen Thompson Walker’s fictional world). I hesitate to call it apocalyptic because to many people that kind of story is a turn-off; when they hear “apocalypse” they imagine an asteroid on an inevitable track towards earth, or a widespread outbreak of some contagious, incurable disease. They might even imagine something more recent like last summer’s fictitious Rapture or this year’s coming end to the Mayan calendar. As more and more of my coworkers finished The Age of Miracles, the more we began talking about our favorite end-of-the-world novel. Since the end of the Mayan calendar is the latest and greatest world-ending phenomenon people are buying into, here is a selection of books we recommend so you can “enjoy your last summer!” From a “Maya 2012” travel guide that will take you through Mayan Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras to Tom Perrotta’s rapture-like novel The Leftovers, you have until December 21, 2012 to get through this list. Or maybe not… I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
Pure by Julianne Baggott
Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch
The Passage by Justin Cronin
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
Blindness by Jose Saragamo
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Robopocalypse by Daniel Wilson
World War Z by Max Brooks
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
2012 by Daniel Pinchbeck
Maya 2012 published by Moon
The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta
Now Panic & Freak Out published by Andrews McMeel Publishing
Children of Men by PD James
City of Bohane by Kevin Barry
Alas Babylon by Pat Frank

Samantha is a bookseller at Warwick's

Guest Blogger: A Young Reader Reviews "Monument 14"

Every so often we are able to get kids and teens from our community to read new books and give us feedback. This week, Matthew, an 11-year-old reader, gives us his take on the newly released teen book Monument 14.

Monument 14 is a fantastic book. The story is based in the 2020’s, but unlike most books that are in the future, the world of Monument 14 is fairly similar to 2012, except that they have upgraded iPads called “Big Tabs”. In this book, Dean is just a regular high school kid who has a ridiculous crush on senior Astrid, the popular girl. On the way to school, a 10-foot long piece of hail cracks the bus windshield, which is just the beginning of a giant hailstorm. Following that hailstorm, a chemical spill and a mega tsunami hit. This leads to fourteen kids, some who are 18 and some as young as 6, taking shelter in a superstore.

This book teaches you teamwork and how to work together. It makes you feel several emotions in different parts of the story, such as anger or sorrow. Now, in this book you might find whining Chloe, or brave and courageous Niko, but you will never find two characters the same. The author, Emmy Laybourne expresses each character’s personality very well and detailed—like how Jake is the “dumb jock” and likes silly things, and hates to lose at anything. I think Emmy wrote Monument 14 very well, and she has also made it feel as though you are Dean, living the same experiences as he is. Overall, this book was very well written and it blew my mind. So, thank you Emmy Laybourne.

Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne is currently available in the Warwick's Young Adult section and on our website: www.warwicks.com.

Matthew, an avid reader, is a 5th grader at Stella Maris Academy