AJ's Staff Picks


Showing 1 - 20 of 38  There are a total of 63 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "And then I woke up"
Star rating for And then I woke up
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
In a world reeling from an unusual plague, monsters lurk in the streets while terrified survivors arm themselves and roam the countryside in packs. Or perhaps something very different is happening. When a disease affects how reality is perceived, it's hard to be certain of anything. Spence is one of the "cured" living at the Ironside rehabilitation facility. Haunted by guilt, he refuses to face the changed world until a new inmate challenges him to...
Book cover for "The ballad of Black Tom"
Star rating for The ballad of Black Tom
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"When [Charles Thomas Tester] delivers an occult book to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, [he] opens a door to a deeper realm of magic, and earns the attention of things best left sleeping"--Page 4 of cover.
Book cover for "Black tide"
Star rating for Black tide
Average Rating:
2.2 stars
Description:
"Jones debuts with [a] romp through a postapocalyptic world. Financially unstable Beth makes another in a string of questionable decisions when she has a one-night stand with the neighbor at her current house sitting gig, washed-up film producer Mike, who's still grieving the death of his wife. The world ends the night of their hookup, when an alien invasion disguised as a meteor shower leaves the planet devastated. Masses of people are missing and...
Book cover for "Bloodchild and other stories"
Star rating for Bloodchild and other stories
Average Rating:
4 stars
Book cover for "The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao"
Star rating for The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao
Average Rating:
3.6 stars
Description:
Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who--from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister--dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú--a curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The...
Book cover for "The Canterbury tales"
Star rating for The Canterbury tales
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
Chaucer's celebrated work begins at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, England, where a group of pilgrims has assembled on their way to Canterbury. The inkeeper suggests a contest: whoever tells the best tale "Shall have supper at our aller cost".
Book cover for "Circe"
Star rating for Circe
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
Follows Circe, the banished witch daughter of Helios, as she hones her powers and interacts with famous mythological beings before a conflict with one of the most vengeful Olympians forces her to choose between the worlds of the gods and mortals.
Book cover for "A clockwork orange"
Star rating for A clockwork orange
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:

A vicious fifteen-year-old droog is the central character of this 1963 classic. In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. And when the state undertakes

...
Book cover for "Family business"
Star rating for Family business
Description:
"When Diya Burman's best friend Angie dies, it feels like her own life is falling apart. Wanting a fresh start, she joins Slough & Sons--a family firm that cleans up after the deceased. Old love letters. Porcelain dolls. Broken trinkets. Clearing away the remnants of other people's lives, Diya begins to see things. Horrible things. Things that get harder and harder to write off as merely her grieving imagination...If Diya's not careful, she might...
Book cover for "The final girl support group"
Star rating for The final girl support group
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
"A fast-paced, thrilling horror novel that follows a group of heroines to die for, from the brilliant New York Times bestselling author of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires. In horror movies, the final girl is the one who's left standing when the credits roll. The one who fought back, defeated the killer, and avenged her friends. The one who emerges bloodied but victorious, a victim and a hero. But after the sirens fade and the audience...
Book cover for "Fingersmith"
Star rating for Fingersmith
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
Growing up as a foster child among a family of thieves, orphan Sue Trinder hopes to pay back that kindness by playing a key role in a swindle scheme devised by their leader, who is planning to con a fortune out of the naive Maud Lilly.
Book cover for "Fledgling"
Star rating for Fledgling
Average Rating:
4.6 stars
Description:
A young girl suffering from amnesia wakes up to find that she's actually a middle-aged vampire. Shori is a young amnesiac girl whose needs and abilities lead her to a shocking discovery: she is in fact a 53-year-old vampire, genetically modified to survive daylight. The sole survivor of a horrific slaughter, Shori must now struggle to rebuild her family and learn who would want--and still wants--to destroy her.
Book cover for "Galatea"
Star rating for Galatea
Average Rating:
3.6 stars
Description:
In this reimagining of the myth of Galatea and Pygmalion, "a skilled marble sculptor has been blessed by a goddess who has given his masterpiece--the most beautiful woman the town has ever seen--the gift of life. After marrying her, he expects Galatea to please him, to be obedience and humility personified. But she has desires of her own and yearns for independence"--Publisher marketing.
Book cover for "The great Gatsby"
Star rating for The great Gatsby
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
A young man newly rich tries to recapture the past and win back his former love, despite the fact that she has married. This edition is the enduring original text, updated with the author's own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with a new introduction by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published by Scribner in 1925, this...
Book cover for "How to sell a haunted house"
Star rating for How to sell a haunted house
Average Rating:
3.6 stars
Description:
"New York Times bestselling author Grady Hendrix takes on the haunted house in a hilarious and terrifying new novel that explores the way your past-and your family-can haunt you like nothing else.... Louise's parents have passed away, and she's returning to the small Southern town where she grew up to get their house ready to sell. It means she'll have to spend time with her younger brother-and their old grudges make that a terrifying prospect. But...
Book cover for "I am legend"
Star rating for I am legend
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:

The basis for the film starring Academy Award nominee Will Smith, I Am Legend is a classic of horror and suspense.

In I Am Legend, a terrible plague has decimated the world, and those who were unfortunate enough to survive are transformed into bloodthirsty creatures of the night. Robert Neville is the last living man on earth. Every other man, woman, and child has become a vampire, and they are all hungry for Neville's blood. By day, he is

...
Book cover for "The Importance of Being Earnest"
Star rating for The Importance of Being Earnest
Average Rating:
4 stars
Book cover for "Just like home"
Star rating for Just like home
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
""Come home." Vera's mother called and Vera obeyed. In spite of their long estrangement, in spite of the memories - she's come back to the home of a serial killer. Back to face the love she had for her father and the bodies he buried there, beneath the house he'd built for his family. Coming home is hard enough for Vera, and to make things worse, she and her mother aren't alone. A parasitic artist has moved into the guest house out back and is slowly...

19. Kindred

Book cover for "Kindred"
Star rating for Kindred
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned across the years to save him. After this first summons, Dana is drawn back, again and again, to the plantation to protect Rufus and ensure that he will grow to manhood and father...
Book cover for "Lord of the flies"
Star rating for Lord of the flies
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
The tale begins after a plane wreck deposits a group of English school boys, aged six to twelve on an isolated tropical island. Their struggle to survive and impose order quickly evolves from a battle against nature into a battle against their own primitive instincts. Golding's portrayal of the collapse of social order into chaos draws the fine line between innocence and savagery. The classic study of human nature which depicts the degeneration of...