Earthly Delights: Corinna Chapman Mystery (Corinna Chapman Mysteries), Kerry Greenwood; Poisoned Pen Press

“Corinna Chapman was once a high profile accountant and banker. Now she is a baker working in her own business, Earthly Delights, in Flinders Lane, Melbourne, Australia. Corinna is living in an eccentric building on the Roman model called Insula. She is quite content with her cat, Horatio, and her shop until a junkie falls half dead on her grate, a gorgeous sabra stalks along her alley and tells her that she is beautiful, and she starts receiving threatening letters accusing her of being a scarlet woman. Life for Corinna has suddenly become interesting. And she still needs to get her bread out in time for the morning rush….”

Liz’s Notes: Entertaining characters, a terrific sense of place and mouthwatering descriptions of food make this Australian mystery absolutely delightful.

English School Of Murder, Ruth Dudley Edwards; Poisoned Pen Press

“Can anyone British teach English as a foreign language? It’s murder…. “Adroit, inspiring, and written with a rare lightness of touch, ”—The London Times Literary Supplement “Believable plotting, a memorable cast of characters, and three—count ‘em—three beguiling sleuths in a warm, gently raunchy, crisp, and literate caper.”—Kirkus Reviews “Amiss is bumblingly appealing and howlingly funny.”—The Chicago Sun Times He’s also a civil servant down on his luck and out of a job—and thus ripe for a post as a police spy at the Knightsbridge School. Robert’s cover will be to teach English as a foreign language. His mission soon becomes, well, murder…. “

Liz’s Note:Edwards grew up reading the classics of the Golden Age of mysteries - Christie, Sayers, Marsh, Innes and Crispin, and it shows in her thoroughly entertaining series. Witty dialogue, clever characters and an intelligent plot make this a treat for lovers of the traditional mystery.

Have Board, Will Travel: The Definitive History Of Surf, Skate, And Snow, Jamie Brisick; HarperEntertainment

“Describes the ins and outs of surfing, skateboarding, and snowboarding, covering the histories of each sport, the best places to ride, leading personalities, performance details, and insider tips.”
Robin’s Note: This sports nonfiction title is a great pick for anyone keen on sports fiction and curious about the real-life talent and skill it takes to succeed.  The major connection here is sports that require boards – surfing, skateboarding, and snowboarding.  Also check out Skate and Destroy (skateboarding) and Streetball (basketball) for more engaging nonfiction titles on sports.  If you prefer memoirs, you might enjoy Senior Year: A Father, A Son, and High School Baseball by Dan Shaugnessy.

Samurai Shortstop, Alan Gratz; Dial Books

“While obtaining a Western education at a prestigious Japanese boarding school in 1890, sixteen-year-old Toyo also receives traditional samurai training which has profound effects on both his baseball game and his relationship with his father.”
Robin’s Note: This title is a bit different from most sports titles, in that it’s historical, but I thought it might appeal, especially since we now have a star Japanese baseball player here in Boston.  The history of baseball in Japan is interesting, and they are likely the only other country that loves the sport as much as Americans do.  Baseball was adopted in Japan early on in the game’s history, and the conflict between the new culture it represented and the traditions of Japan, represented here by samurai culture, was fierce and often personal.

Crackback, John Coy; Scholastic Press

“Miles barely recalls when football was fun after being sidelined by a new coach, constantly criticized by his father, and pressured by his best friend to take performance-enhancing drugs.”
Robin’s Note: This title takes on a harsher aspect of sports by addressing steroids – their appeal and the dangers of using them.  John Coy has written a number of books featuring sports for teens, so if you like this one, there’s more to read.

Knights Of The Hill Country, Tim Tharp; Alfred A. Knopf

“In his senior year, high school star linebacker Hampton Greene finally begins to think for himself and discovers that he might be interested in more than just football.”
Robin’s Note: This is a strong sports title, this time focusing on football.  Tim Tharp is a writer who has a strong sense of language, banter, and what it is to be a part of a team even in how much it can trap you despite love of the sport. 

Fighting Ruben Wolfe, Markus Zusak; Arthur A. Levine Books

“Partly because of their family’s poor finances and partly to prove themselves, brothers Ruben and Cameron take jobs as fighters and find themselves reacting very differently in the boxing ring.”
Robin’s Note: Markus Zusak got a lot of attention recently for his later book, The Book Thief, but this title was his first and is very different though equally good.  It covers everything from boxing to peer pressure to being brothers, and Zusak has a great ear for how conversations actually sound.  The energy of the book is infectious, even as the consequences of getting into illegal boxing start piling up.

Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet, Sherri L. Smith; Delacorte Books For Young Readers

“Disaster strikes when Ana Shen is about to deliver the salutatorian speech at her junior high school graduation, but an even greater crisis looms when her best friend invites a crowd to Ana’s house for dinner, and Ana’s multicultural grandparents must find a way to share a kitchen.”
Robin’s Note:This title is Sherri Smith’s most recent, and features delectable food mixed with family drama, but all of her titles are different and inviting stand alone novels with strong, intelligent teen girls at the core.  I’d very much recommend Lucy the Giant for a different take on needing to be the adult in a family, and the excellent historical novel Flygirl, about a young woman who decides to pass as white in order to become a Women’s Air Service Pilot (or a WASP) during World War II.

Kendra, Coe Booth; PUSH

“High schooler Kendra longs to live with her mother who, unprepared for motherhood at age fourteen, left Kendra in the care of her grandmother.”
Robin’s Note: Coe Booth burst onto the teen novel scene with her first book, Tyrell, which is excellent, and this book follows Kendra’s life as she deals with boys, sex, an overprotective mom, and trying to make her imperfect family be more what she needs.  It can get gritty and is not a fairy-tale type story, but it definitely offers hope by the end.  Booth is another author for those who like Jacqueline Woodson and Sharon Draper.

Make Lemonade, Virginia Euwer Wolff; H. Holt

“In order to earn money for college, fourteen-year-old LaVaughn babysits for a teenage mother.”
Robin’s Note: Virginia Euwer-Wolff writes prose poetry novels (so, they are poetry, but the stories are novel-length), and her sense of character and voice are engaging and honest.  Make Lemonade is the beginning of a trilogy, followed by True Believer and This Full House, and each takes place during one year (so by the finish, LaVaughan is 16.)  Other similar authors to check out in terms of voice, realism, and setting,  include Angela Johnson (First Part Last), Rita Garcia-Williams (Jumped), and Nikki Grimes (Bronx Masquerade).

The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie; Little, Brown Young Readers

“Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.”
Robin’s Note: Sherman Alexie is an extraordinary storyteller—he goes from being hilariously funny to heartbreaking in only a few paragraphs.  This is his first novel aimed at teens, and its incredibly charming.  Junior, the lead, has a strong, sarcastic voice, which leads to many a laugh out loud scene, but the circumstances of his life show you why he needs it: alcoholism is rampant on the reservation where he lives, and the pressure of being perceived as betraying his friends and community at the same time as trying to fit in to an new school is crushing at times.  If you like his style, you should also check out his short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and novels for adults.

Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode The Internet Out Of Idaho, Jon Katz; Villard

“Jesse and Eric were roommates in the tiny town of Caldwell, Idaho, nineteen-year-old working class kids eking out a living with their seven-dollar-an-hour jobs selling and fixing computers. College was never in the cards. Their families had been torn apart by divorce and hard times, separation and illness. They had almost no social lives, and little to look forward to. Geeks is the story of how Jesse and Eric—and others like them—used technology to try and change their lives and alter their destiny.”
Robin’s Note: This is an intriguing memoir about two guys who became part of the dotcom boom in the 1990s, and gives a strong portrait of the time and place that allowed them to escape their fate trapped in a small town with no community outside message boards.  The rise of the internet and internet business is featured in this book, and it’s fascinating to see how much the world has changed since in terms of both the Internet and in terms of the opportunities technology still brings.

Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth Black: And Other Stories, Gordimer, Nadine.; Farrar, Straus And Giroux

“‘You’re not responsible for your ancestry, are you . . . But if that’s so, why have marched under banned slogans, got yourself beaten up by the police, arrested a couple of times; plastered walls with subversive posters . . . The past is valid only in relation to whether the present recognizes it.’ In this collection of new stories Nadine Gordimer crosses the frontiers of politics, memory, sexuality, and love with the fearless insight that is the hallmark of her writing.”
Robin’s Note: If you’re curious about South Africa, there are a few trademark writers, Nadine Gordimer being one of them.  Also check out Doris Lessing and J. M. Coetzee for excellent writers from the same region.  This collection of short stories will give you a taste of what her writing is like, and is a strong recent collection of her work.

Love As A Foreign Language., J. Torres; Oni Press

“Joel hates Korea. Why he agreed to teach there defies his comprehension. He can’t wait to return to normal life. His year of teaching is almost over and then he’ll finally be free. But Joel’s life is about to go from dark dreams to cotton candy kisses and it’s all because of Hana. The very sight of this girl sends him flying straight to cloud nine, but won’t another year in Korea send him crashing back down?”

Robin’s Note: This graphic novels series, now available in two omnibus editions that complete the series, is charming, hilarious, and balances just enough plot with an equal part unabashed heart.  The fish-out-of-water element in the story show Joel’s isolation, and provides a lot of the humor, but his budding romance with Hana turns his world upside-down in the best possible way.  Great for anyone who knows what it’s like being a bit lost in a foreign landscape, and also how wonderful it is to find a connection anyway.  This is a lesser know graphic novel series (undeservedly!) and the romance and humor combination appeal widely.