Question about your records as a reader

Dear Once (and Future?) Students,

I’m curious about your use of the reading record.  Are you using it?  Did you ever use it (I know some of you were supposed to)?  If you can answer yes to either question, I want to know how it worked for you as a reader (I’m not interested in how much it satisfied your teachers).  Is it useful or interesting to keep track of the books you read?  Do you use all the columns?  Any information you want to add or delete?

I’m asking this because, recently, my local library asked for submissions of favorite books from 2013.  I couldn’t remember all the books I enjoyed from last year, much less all the books I read.  Recently, I’ve been consuming books for distraction, and I don’t remember them much later.  Wanting to change that, I pulled out the reading record and have tried to keep track.

While I’m using it, I find I want to tweak it a bit (Tweak!  Not twerk.)  Maybe add a few words to help me recall the plot or a few words about why I abandoned a book.  Maybe cut the genre column, especially since most fiction not aimed at teens doesn’t really have a distinct genre (ANOTHER naturalistic, depressing coming-of-age/critique of post-modern social values).  Have any of you taken steps to make it work for you?  Ever wanted to?  Let me know what it does for you to keep track of your books.

Cheers,

Josiah

The Plague by Albert Camus

The Nobel prize-winning Albert Camus, who died in 1960, could not have known how grimly current his existentialist novel of epidemic and death would remain. Set in Algeria, in northern Africa, The Plague is a powerful study of human life and its meaning in the face of a deadly virus that sweeps dispassionately through the city, taking a vas.t percentage of the population with it

Stronghold by Melanie Rawn

With her widely acclaimed, best-selling fantasy trilogy, DRAGON PRINCE, Melanie Rawn opened an enchanted gateway to a spellbinding universe of Sunrunner's magic and sorcerous evil, of a ruler fighting to bring peace to a world of warring kingdoms, and of the dragons- deadly dangerous yet holding the secret to wealth beyond imagining.

Now, in STRONGHOLD, the first novel of Melanie's new DRAGON STAR trilogy, there is a devastating new challenge to the power of both the High Prince Rohan and Andry, Lord of the Sunrunners at Goddess Keep, as a mysterious and seemingly unstoppable invasion force swarms across their lands.  For Andry it signals the start of a nightmare made real, the horrifying fulfillment of his of his long ago visions of his homeland in flames, and he will draw upon even the forbidden sorcerer's magic in an attempt to the enemy which is bent on the extermination of all Sunrunners.

Rohan and his son Pol will also fight the enemy with every weapon at their command- from their valiant warriors, to conjurations with sun, moons, and stars, to the terrifying presence of the dragons, to the unforgiving wrath of the desert itself.  Yet soon they begin to fear that this invasion may prove not only the end of their dream of an unbreakable peace but the beginning of the end of their entire world....

Divergent

In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself..   During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

Op Center Acts of War by Tom Clancy

Kurdish terrorists have attacked a dam inside the borders of Turkey, threatening the water supply of their very homeland. It is not insanity, but the fist step in a deceptively simple plan: force all-out war in the Middle East, drawing in the major players in the new world order.

What the terrorist don’t know is that a new Regional Op-Center is now on-line in Turkey. A mobile version of the permanent crisis management facility, the ROC is a cutting-edge surveillance and information mecca. And its team can see exactly what the Kurdish rebels are trying to do.

But the terrorist are more resourceful than anyone thinks. They also have ways of obtaining classified information. And the Regional Op-Center—the United States’ newest toy—is a prize not to be passed up…

The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien

The Fellowship was scattered. Some were bracing hopelessly for war against the ancient evil of Sauron. Some were contending with the treachery of the wizard Saruman. Only Frodo and Sam were left to take the accursed Ring of Power to be destroyed in Mordor–the dark Kingdom where Sauron was supreme. Their guide was Gollum, deceitful and lust-filled, slave to the corruption of the Ring. Thus continues the magnificent, bestselling tale of adventure begun in The Fellowship of the Ring, which reaches its soul-stirring climax in The Return of the King.

Digitial Fortress by Dan Brown

When the NSA's invincible code-breaking machine encounters a mysterious code it cannot break, the agency calls its head cryptographer, Susan Fletcher, a brilliant, beautiful mathematician. What she uncovers sends shock waves through the corridors of power. The NSA is being held hostage--not by guns or bombs -- but by a code so complex that if released would cripple U.S. intelligence. Caught in an accelerating tempest of secrecy and lies, Fletcher battles to save the agency she believes in. Betrayed on all sides, she finds herself fighting not only for her country but for her life, and in the end, for the life of the man she loves.

The Unseen By Joseph Citro

On the most rugged mountains, int the deepest woods of Vermont, they say nothing human lives...

   Butin the dorkest shadows, something huge, something feral has been waiting. Watchung. Protecting the land. Guarding against intruders. Now,as it emerges from the forests, the time for waiting is over. And all the old backwood legends, all the old sleep-shattering nightmares will suddenly become as terrifying and as real as death itself.

The Bookseller of Kabul

The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad follows the life of Sultan. This mesmerizing portrait of a proud man who, through three decades and successive repressive regimes, heroically braved persecution to bring book tot he people of Kabul. Sultan is a wealthy man, who has a large family and unbelievable passion. With wits and luck, he has endured many hardships befallen upon him for his love of books.

The History Of Iran By Elton L. Daniel

With almost three thousand years of history, Iran is home to one of the world's richest and most complex cultures. Yet to the average American the name Iran probably conjures up an image of a remote and upstart country inhabited by a people whose religious fanaticism is matched only by the intensity of their disdain for the United States and its values, who speak an obscure tongue called Farsi, and whose identity is not clearly distinguished from that of their Arab neighbors. This work offers an objective and engagingly written portrait of the Iranian people and their complex history from the perspective of one of the world's foremost experts on the country. It is ideal for student use and for the interested reader.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

       Facing annihilation at the hands of the warlike Vogons is a curious time to have a craving for tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his curious comrades in arms as they hurtle across space powered by pure improbability--and desperately in search of a place to eat.
Among Arthur's motley shipmates are Ford Prefect, a longtime friend and expert contributor to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the three-armed, two-headed ex-president of the galaxy; Tricia McMillan, a fellow Earth refugee who's gone native (her name is Trillian now); and Marvin, the moody android who suffers nothing and no one very gladly. Their destination? The ultimate hot spot for an evening of apocalyptic entertainment and fine dining, where the food (literally) speaks for itself.

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin

In the aftermath of a colossal battle, Daenerys Targaryen rules with her three dragons as queen of a city built on dust and death. But Daenerys has thousands of enemies, and many have set out to find her. Fleeing from Westeros with a price on his head, Tyrion Lannister, too, is making his way east—with new allies who may not be the ragtag band they seem. And in the frozen north, Jon Snow confronts creatures from beyond the Wall of ice and stone, and powerful foes from within the Night’s Watch. In a time of rising restlessness, the tides of destiny and politics lead a grand cast of outlaws and priests, soldiers and skinchangers, nobles and slaves, to the greatest dance of all.

A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin

It seems too good to be true. After centuries of bitter strife and fatal treachery, the seven powers dividing the land have decimated one another into an uneasy truce. Or so it appears. . . . With the death of the monstrous King Joffrey, Cersei is ruling as regent in King’s Landing. Robb Stark’s demise has broken the back of the Northern rebels, and his siblings are scattered throughout the kingdom like seeds on barren soil. Few legitimate claims to the once desperately sought Iron Throne still exist—or they are held in hands too weak or too distant to wield them effectively. The war, which raged out of control for so long, has burned itself out.

But as in the aftermath of any climactic struggle, it is not long before the survivors, outlaws, renegades, and carrion eaters start to gather, picking over the bones of the dead and fighting for the spoils of the soon-to-be dead. Now in the Seven Kingdoms, as the human crows assemble over a banquet of ashes, daring new plots and dangerous new alliances are formed, while surprising faces—some familiar, others only just appearing—are seen emerging from an ominous twilight of past struggles and chaos to take up the challenges ahead.

It is a time when the wise and the ambitious, the deceitful and the strong will acquire the skills, the power, and the magic to survive the stark and terrible times that lie before them. It is a time for nobles and commoners, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and sages to come together and stake their fortunes . . . and their lives. For at a feast for crows, many are the guests—but only a few are the survivors.

A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin

Of the five contenders for power, one is dead, another in disfavor, and still the wars rage as violently as ever, as alliances are made and broken. Joffrey, of House Lannister, sits on the Iron Throne, the uneasy ruler of the land of the Seven Kingdoms. His most bitter rival, Lord Stannis, stands defeated and disgraced, the victim of the jealous sorceress who holds him in her evil thrall. But young Robb, of House Stark, still rules the North from the fortress of Riverrun. Robb plots against his despised Lannister enemies, even as they hold his sister hostage at King’s Landing, the seat of the Iron Throne. Meanwhile, making her way across a blood-drenched continent is the exiled queen, Daenerys, mistress of the only three dragons still left in the world. . . .

But as opposing forces maneuver for the final titanic showdown, an army of barbaric wildlings arrives from the outermost line of civilization. In their vanguard is a horde of mythical Others--a supernatural army of the living dead whose animated corpses are unstoppable. As the future of the land hangs in the balance, no one will rest until the Seven Kingdoms have exploded in a veritable storm of swords. . .

Champion

June and Day have sacrificed so much for the people of the Republic—and each other—and now their country is on the brink of a new existence. June is back in the good graces of the Republic, working within the government’s elite circles as Princeps Elect while Day has been assigned a high level military position. But neither could have predicted the circumstances that will reunite them once again. Just when a peace treaty is imminent, a plague outbreak causes panic in the Colonies, and war threatens the Republic’s border cities. This new strain of plague is deadlier than ever, and June is the only one who knows the key to her country’s defense. But saving the lives of thousands will mean asking the one she loves to give up everything he has. 

The Valcourt Heiress

The Valcourt Heiress by Catherine Coulter is about a man named Garron of Kersey. When Garron of Kersey returns home from the kings service to claim his tittle as Baron Wareham, he's shocked to find Wareham Castle very nearly destroyed by a man called the Black Demon.

According to the last surving servants inside the castle walls, the Black Demon was looking for silver belonging to Garron's brother Arthur. Among his remaining servants is the enigmatic Merry, the child of the castle's priest. Garron quickly suspects that she is much more than a servant: She reads and writes and makes lists, just as he does. They work together to bring Wareham back to its former splendor.

But this is only the beggining. Did Arthur have a cache of silver? Who is the Black Demon? And the biggest question of all: who is Merry?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor. Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space.

Aviation: The First 100 Years by Bill Gunston

In 2003, the world will mark the hundredth anniversary of the Wright brothers' historic first flight over Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. This handsome volume celebrates humanity's first century of aviation with lavish illustrations and an exciting chronological account of aeronautical development. Following the Wright brothers came a number of pioneer designers and flyers from several European countries, including Voisin and Bleriot in France and Zeppelin in Germany. World War I saw the birth of fighter and bomber planes, while the decades between the wars witnessed the glamour of competition flying, including Lindbergh's first flight across the Atlantic and Wiley Post's seven-day flight around the world. This era also saw the dawn of commercial flight, which started as airmail service and slowly developed to include passenger service. It was the era of pioneering passenger-carrying aircraft such as the Ford Trimotor and the revolutionary Douglas DC-3. Also covered in detail are the fighters and bombers of World War II, the dawn of the jet age, the evolution of helicopters, and the birth of supersonic flight. An account of the burgeoning of the intercontinental commercial airline industry brings readers to the present, which is marked by intense competition between Boeing of the United States and Airbus of Europe, both vying for the lion's share of the market. Other topics covered in this superlative history include development of general (private) aviation, and a look at radically innovative planes, such as the Concorde SST and the Stealth military aircraft. Hundreds of photos and drawings, most of them in color, enhance an intensely readable text.

Escape from Zobadak by: Brad Gallagher

It could be dangerous in there. Probably not a good place for kids. But the adults aren't listening - and even if they were, they would never believe it.

Around the world in 80 days by Jules Verne

Before there were airplanes and high speed travel, Phileas Fogg, an English gentleman best 20,000 pounds that he can travel around the world in 80 days. En route he meets a beautiful Indian Princess gets mistaken for a notorious criminal and is pursued by a detective with a warrant for his arrest. follow his fantastic adventures through four continents in his daring race against time. It's a fast paced, action-packed, high-spirited journey filled with romance, danger and adventure.