Booklists: suggested reading

 

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Alex Awards: The Necessary Beggar
If You Like Susan Palwick Booklist

 

If you like books that are often set in the near future, and are thought provoking, entertaining. . .

 

• The Necessary Beggar
  Author: Palwick, Susan
  Publisher: Tor $ 24.95 ISBN: 076531097x Date: 2005
  Booklist PW LJ
  Alex Award
  A compelling new contemporary fantasy novel from the award-winning author of Flying in Place.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Contemporary Fantasy
  Updated 10.24.05

These booklists include adult titles suggested for teens - not all books are suitable for all readers. Please use your judgement when considering these titles.

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

 

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• Parable of the Sower
  Author: Butler, Octavia E.
  PW
  Publisher: Seven Stories $ 19.95 ISBN: 1888363258 Date: 1993
  In a time of urban squalor, rampant violence, and deadly decay, anarchy rules. But for Lauren Olamina, a new hope is dawning when she leaves the chaos of L.A. and flees north with a tiny band of followers.
  Updated 5.22.06
• Bijapur (Blood of the Goddess)
  Dalkey, Kara
  Tor Books Date: 1997-04 $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312860013 Date: 1997
  Publishers Weekly
  The second volume in a rich fantasy trilogy set in India in the 1500s, Bijapur follows Thomas, a young English apothecary's apprentice, as he is led by the lovely woman Aditi and his own dark dreams. Trilogy includes: Goa, bk 1 and Bhagavati, bk 3
• Midnight Robber
  Author: Hopkinson, Nalo
  Publisher: Warner Aspect $ 13.95 (trade paper) ISBN: 0446675601 Date: 2000
  PW Library Journal
  The Caribbean-colonized planet of Toussaint is the setting for this exciting new science fiction novel by the author of the award-winning Brown Girl in the Ring. After her father commits a deadly crime, Tan-Tan must flee to a savage world which forces her to reach into the heart of myth to become the Robber Queen.
  Suggested Reading: African American Stars
• Four Ways to Forgiveness
  Author: Le Guin, Ursula K.
  Publisher: Harper Prism $ 20 ISBN: 0061052345 Date: 1995
  PW
  The most highly respected living author of science fiction and the only author in the genre to win the National Book Award, Ursula K. Le Guin delivers a stunning new collection of four interlinked novellas. These powerful, exquisitely-told stories exhibit the artistry of a major writer at the height of her powers.
  Updated 5.22.06
• The Telling
  Author: LeGuin, Ursula K.
  Publisher: Harcourt $ 24 ISBN: 0151005672 Date: 2000
  LJ PW
  The bestselling author of The Left Hand of Darkness delivers the latest novel in the Hainish Cycle. Sutty, an observer from Earth, has been assigned to a new world in which past beliefs are outlawed and every citizen must be a producer-consumer. Sutty discovers the remnants of a banned religion and a hidden culture and learns a lot about herself.
• Changing Planes: Stories
  Author: LeGuin, Ursula K.
  Publisher: Harcourt $ 22 ISBN: 0151009716 Date: 2003
  Library Journal Kirkus
  The misery of waiting for a connecting flight at an airport leads to the accidental discovery of alighting on other planes - not airplanes but planes of existence - in this humorous and poignant series of stories by National Book Award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin.
  Updated 4.24.03
• Child of a Rainless Year
  Author: Lindskold, Jane
  Publisher: Tor $ 25.95 ISBN: 0765309378 Date: 2005
  Booklist
  Shot through with magic and the atmosphere of the Southwest, this stand-alone contemporary fantasy has all the storytelling vigor of Lindskold's popular Firekeeper series.
  Updated 5.9.05
• The Speed of Dark
  Author: Moon, Elizabeth
  Publisher: Ballantine $ 23.95 ISBN: 0345447557 Date: 2002
  Kirkus
  Written with love and expertise by the mother of an autistic teenager, The Speed of Dark is a riveting exploration into the mind of an autistic man as he struggles with the question of whether he should risk a medical procedure that could make him "normal."
  Updated 10.31.02
• Thinner Than Thou
  Author: Reed, Kit
  Publisher: Tor $ 24.95 ISBN: 0765307626 Date: 2004
  PW Booklist
  Alex Award
  In the tomorrow of Thinner Than Thou, the cult of the body has become the one true religion. The Dedicated Sisters are a religious order sworn to help anorexic, bulimic, and morbidly obese youth. Throughout the land, houses of worship have been replaced by the health clubs of the Crossed Triceps. And through hypnotically powerful evangelical infomercials, the Reverend Earl preaches the heaven of the Afterfat, where you will look like a Greek god and can eat anything you want. Just sign over your life savings and come to Sylphania, the most luxurious weight-loss spa in the world, where the Reverend himself will personally supervise your attainment of physical perfection.
  But the glory of youth and thinness that America worships conceals a hidden world where teens train for the competitive eating circuit, where fat porn and obese strippers feed people's dark desires, and where an underground railroad of rebellious religions remember when people worshipped God instead of the Afterfat. - Publisher Marketing
  Updated 6.15.04
• Fifty Degrees Below
  Author: Robinson, Kim Stanley
  Publisher: Bantam $ 25 ISBN: 0553803123 Date: 2005
  PW
  The award-winning author continues his groundbreaking trilogy, begun in Forty Signs of Rain, with this second novel, set in a near-future Washington, D.C., and inspired by headline-making scientific and environmental research.
  Updated 10.11.05
• Angelica: A Novel of Samaria
  Author: Shinn, Sharon
  Publisher: Ace $ 23.95 ISBN: 044101013x Date: 2003
  PW
  The bestselling author of The Alleluia Files makes her long-awaited journeyback to Samaria for the story of Archangel and Angelica, as the future of the planet hangs in the balance.
  Updated 2.20.03
• Playing God
  Author: Zettle, Sarah
  Publisher: Aspect $ 22 ISBN: 0446523224 Date: 1998
  PW
  The fierce Dedelphi have unleashed a biological weapon that has poisoned the planet. Now, Lynn Nussbaumer and her Bioverse company have been hired to clean up the ecosystem. But some groups want to use the humans and their advanced technology to exterminate their enemies. Lynn becomes trapped in a devastating showdown.