The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Title: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Author: Mark Haddon
Blurb: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is 15 and has Aspergers Syndrome, he knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists/patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched. He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own but when he finds a neighbours dog murdered, he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down.


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Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Title: The Virgin Suicides
Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Blurb: The shocking thing about the girls was how nearly normal they seemed when their mother let them out for the one and only date of their lives. Twenty years on, their enigmatic personalities are embalmed in the memories of the boys who worshipped them and who now recall their shared adolescence: the brassiere draped over a crucifix belonging to the promiscuous Lux; the sisters' breathtaking appearance on the night of the dance; and the sultry, sleepy street across which they watched a family disintegrate and fragile lives disappear.

The haunting, humourous and tender story of the brief lives of the five entrancing Lisbon sisters, now a major film.

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A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

Title: A Long Way Down
Author: Nick Hornby
Blurb: For disgraced TV presenter Martin Sharp the answer's pretty simple: he has in his own words, "pissed his life away". And on New Year's Eve he's going to end it all...But not, as it happens, alone. Because first single-mum Maureen, then eighteen-year-old Jess and lastly American rock-god JJ turn up and crash Martin's private party. They've stolen his idea - but brought their own reasons.

Yes it's hard to jump when you've got an audience queuing impatiently behind you. A few heated words and some slices of cold pizza later and these four strangers are suddenly allies. But is their ulikely friendship a good enough reason to carry on living?

Film rights were rumoured to have been bought, by Hollywood actor Johnny Depp, before this book even made it to publication. It is currently in pre-production, and is currently set to star Emile Hirsch, Pierce Brosnan and Toni Collette (subject to change, of course), with a release date of "2013".


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The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Title: The Book Thief
Author: Markus Zusak
Blurb: Here is a small fact: You are going to die.

1939. Nazi Germany.  The country is holding its breath. Death has never been so busy.

Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall.

Some important information: This novel is narrated by death.

It's a small story, about:

• a girl
• an accordionist
• some fanatical Germans
• a Jewish fist fighter
• and quite a lot of thievery.

Another thing you should know: Death will visit the book thief three times.

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Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

Title: Howl's Moving Castle
Author: Diana Wynne Jones
Blurb: In the land of Ingary, where seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, Sophie Hatter attracts the unwelcome attention of the Witch of the Waste, who puts a curse on her. Determined to make the best of things, Sophie travels to the one place where she might get help - the moving castle which hovers on the nearby hills.

But the castle belongs to the dreaded Wizard Howl who appetite, they say, is satisfied only by the hearts of young girls...

The first book in the Howl Series.

Adapted to a motion picture, by Studio Ghibli, and voiced by Jean Simmons, Christian Bale, Josh Hutcherson, Billy Crystal and Emily Mortimer.


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Catching Fire by Suzanne Collings

Title: Catching Fire
Author: Suzanne Collins
Blurb: Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark are still alive. Katniss should be relieved, but now there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol - a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.

As the nation watches Katniss and Peeta, the stakes are higher than ever. One false move and the consequences will be imaginable.

This is the second book in the popular Hunger Games series, and is due to be made into a motion picture (release date is currently November 2013).

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This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes

Title: This Book Will Save Your Life
Author: A.M. Homes
Blurb: Trading stocks and shares out of his beautiful LA home, Richard Novak sees no one except his trainer, housekeeper and nutritionist, who delivers regular supplies of macrobiotic, low card food. He is so out of touch with his feelings that his life has slowed almost to a standstill. Following an attack of inexplicable and excruciating pain that lands him in the emergency room, Richard befriends Anhil, a doughnut shop owner. His solitary routine broken, and his diet sabotaged by sugary baked goods, Richard's dramatic emotion thaw begins...

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We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver

Title: We Need to Talk about Kevin
Author: Lionel Shriver
Blurb: Shortly before his sixteenth birthday, Kevin Khatchadourian kills seven of his fellow high-school students, a cafeteria worker and a teacher. He is visited in prison by his mother, Eva, who narrates in a series of letters to her estranged husband, Franklin, the story of Kevin's upbringing.

Now a motion picture starring Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly.

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Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

Title: Northern Lights
Author: Philip Pullman
Blurb: When Lyra's friend Roger disappears, she her her daemon, Pantalaimon, determine to find him. The ensuing quest leads them to the bleak splendour of the North, where armoured bears rule the ice and witch-queens fly through the frozen skies - and where a team of scientists is conducting experiments too horrible to be spoken about.

Lyra overcomes these strange terrors, only to find something yet more perilous waiting for her - something with consequences which may even reach beyond the Northern Lights...

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School's Out by Christopher Dufosse

Title: School's Out
Author: Christophe Dufosse
Blurb: When a fellow teacher at his school is found dead, Pierre Hoffman assumes responsibility for class 9F and finds himself tutor to a group of well-behaved but strangely menacing pupils. Refusing to embrace the hostility felt towards the class by his colleagues, Hoffman initially takes it easy with his precocious charges. But a series of bizarre and disturbing episodes cause him to question their motivations and the circumstances of their previous teacher's apparent suicide.

Dismissing his growing unease as the product of an over-active imagination, Hoffman supports his preternaturally self-aware pupils' decision to organise a school trip to the Normandy coast and agrees to accompany them. But it is only once the trip has begun that Hoffman finally begins to understand his pupils' true intentions.

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The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Title: The Hunger Games
Author: Suzanne Collings
Blurb: Winning will make you famous. Losing means certain death.

In a dark vision of the near future, twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to appear in a live TV show called The Hunger Games. There is only one rule: kill or be killed.

When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen steps forward to take her sister's place in the games, she sees it as a death sentence. But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature.

First book in the ground-breaking Hunger Games Trilogy.

Adapted into a motion picture, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks.

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Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

Title: Juliet, Naked
Author: Nick Hornby
Blurb: Annie's put fifteen years into safe, slightly obsessive Duncan, and now she'd like her money back, please. It's time to move on. But she lives in Gooleness, the north's answer to a question nobody asked, Is she really going to find real, proper, feel-it-deep-down-in-your-boots love on a damp and windy seafront? Or perhaps she should follow her heart and pursue Tucker, the reclusive American rock star, who keeps emailing her his smart advice.

But between Annie and her second chance lie a few obstacles. There's Malcolm, the world's most judgemental therapist, and Barnesy, the north's most extrovert dancer. There's what men and women will do and won't do for love. And of course, there's Tucker...

Hilarious and tender, Juliet, Naked will move you in ways both profound and surprising.

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Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland

Title: Girlfriend in a Coma
Author: Douglas Coupland
Blurb: It's 15 December 1979, and Richard's girlfriend Karen has entered a deep coma. She only took a couple of valium washed down with a cocktail, but now she's locked away in suspended animation, oblivious to the passage of time. What if she were to wake up decades later - a 17-year-old in a distant future, a future where world has gone dark?

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