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To escape the heat this summer, you will inevitably find yourself plunked down in a plush theater seat, popcorn in hand, ready to enjoy some Hollywood entertainment. But before you head to the movies, read the books that inspired them! http://www.powells.com/books-to-movies
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“The literary beach read of the summer is here! Three friends hang around one summer and talk about sex, ambition, and everything that is wrong with them. Originally published in 1968 from real tape-recorded dialogue.”
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Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
“A really good literary thriller, and truly heartfelt. The novel is structured so that points of view shift between family members allowing the reader to become engulfed in the tension, and grief, and their struggles with history.”
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Bread and a Dog by Natsuko Kuwahara
I cannot overstate how amazingly cute this book is. It features pictures of a dog (and sometimes a cat) sniffing at tasty-looking food, with companion recipes listed in the back! A true treasure… so much cute.
— Tiffany
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Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
A timeless classic about everybody’s favorite busybody. One of the best middle-reader characters out there.
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Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
Unfortunately, this great polemic will never be irrelevant! — Chaz
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Roll Deep by Major Jackson
Poems centered upon the body, mining experience for that which is eternal and that which disappears.
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Bobby loves Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
“Dystopian world? Check. Earthquaking, mind-bending god powers? Check. One of the strongest, most complex heroes in recent YA history? Yahp! The writing is excellent and every character is full of life. This world is so clear you’ll dream about it. Victoria Aveyard’s Red Queen is an absolute thrill.
This novel is set in a world where the red-blooded working class serves the elite silver-blooded rulers. Silver-blooded people have godlike power. Red-blooded people do not. Silver-bloods live in the crystal/steel equivalent of Mount Olympus. Red-bloods just work there.
Our hero, Mare Barrow, and her family live in “The Stilts,” a working-class red-blood town where nobody gets enough to eat. She lands a waitress job in the kingdom “The Hall of the Sun,” a massive glass and steel city. She explodes with power she never should have had. A red-blooded girl with the ability to manipulate (even create) electricity? Impossible. A miracle. A threat to all sense of order. The kingdom comes after her.
Rare, rare, rare do we get a plot so thrilling and a character so real and complex. Every plot twist ensnares Mare’s identity further. Every turn is integral to Mare’s personal growth. Everyone in the world is trying to tell her who she is, force her to represent something to their advantage.
This book reflects how hard it can be for anyone to be anyone. How we can feel like everyone and everything is pulling us in different directions. We don’t know who to trust. The world can feel so murky, we can’t tell where we stand. Red Queen is a testament and contribution to the universal journey through identity formation, and easily one of my favorite novels of 2015.”
Check out the rest of the Love and Other Stuff books!
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We would love to hear your top picks!
Share a photo of you with your favorite recent read, tell us why you loved it, and we might reblog you. Use the hashtag #heypowells to get our attention.
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Jordan’s top pick of 2015 is All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
“This isn’t a young adult novel about something as black and white as cancer. All the Bright Places lives in a world of gray. Being mentally unwell — whether it’s depression, bipolar disorder, or grief — is difficult for other people to really understand, and it’s the difficulty Violet and Finch face each day. Love won’t solve anything; it isn’t that simple. But to have experienced it, at least, is nice. A fantastic new YA voice who doesn’t make you feel something — you just do.”
See the rest of our Staff Top Fives.