Book News and Deals: November 21, 2014

On November 19, 2014, Barnes & Noble announced its New Nook Audiobook App for Android. The new app is available in the Google Play store or on your Nook.

Barnes & Noble is also offering two free audiobooks from a selection of five books for first-time downloaders. The offer is available from November 18, 2014 to January 31, 2015, and the selection of books will change each week until January 31, 2015. The current selections are Charlotte's Web by E.B. White, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, The Heist by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg and Seabiscuit by Lauren Hillenbrand.

Don't forget that Barnes & Noble also offers a free book, app and video each Friday. Today's book selection is Code of Honor (Intrepid Heroines Series, Book 1) by Andrea Pickens.




Title: The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle #1)
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Price: $2.99
“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

This book has an average of 4.02 out of 5 stars on Goodreads. I rated this 4 out of 5 stars. I adore Maggie Stiefvater, and I really enjoy this series. You can read Kayla's review here.

Please remember to check prices before buying. These prices are subject to change without notice.

Joint Review: Night by Elie Wiesel

Back to the Classics Challenge



Title: Night
Author: Elie Wiesel
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Acquired Via: Library (Kayla) & Personal Collection (Amber)
Release Date: 1960
Night is Elie Wiesel's masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. This new translation by Marion Wiesel, Elie's wife and frequent translator, presents this seminal memoir in the language and spirit truest to the author's original intent. And in a substantive new preface, Elie reflects on the enduring importance of Night and his lifelong, passionate dedication to ensuring that the world never forgets man's capacity for inhumanity to man.

Night offers much more than a litany of the daily terrors, everyday perversions, and rampant sadism at Auschwitz and Buchenwald; it also eloquently addresses many of the philosophical as well as personal questions implicit in any serious consideration of what the Holocaust was, what it meant, and what its legacy is and will be.

Our Review

Night by Elie Wiesel is the first book that we have chosen to read for our Back to the Classics Challenge.

Kayla: I'm glad that we read Night first because it was the book I was most likely to put off reading. (I swear I didn't - January was a busy month.) The Holocaust always makes me extremely emotional, but I was surprised by my lack of reaction to Night. Don't get me wrong, I was horrified by the situations Elie Wiesel faced, but I never cried. How did the book make you feel?

Amber: Mostly I felt sad and angry while reading it. Obviously sad about everything that Wiesel went through, but also just that it happened and it happened to so many people. But also sad for the things that Wiesel lost besides his family and his possessions. He lost his faith in himself and in his God. He also lost a little of his humanity. I'm also angry that there are still people in the world that believe that the Holocaust never happened. Then, I just thought it was so crazy that at the beginning of Night, Wiesel talks about how the people he knew were saying that they didn't believe that Hitler was really going to kill the Jewish people. Then they let the Nazis into their homes, then they let the Nazis kick them out of their homes, etc. I wonder if it was because they wanted to believe that human beings couldn't be that awful. Or if they, like most people, think that something bad will never happen to them.

Do you think that your lack of reaction was due to how Night was written? To me, it seemed very matter-of-fact and almost clinical.

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Goals for 2014

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Top Ten Bookish Goals for 2014

1. Read 304 Books in 2014
In 2013, I read 303 books, so I would like to read one more book than last year.

2. Read One Classic a Month
This will be helped along by Kayla’s and my participation in the Back to the Classics Challenge 2014 hosted by Books and Chocolate. We are starting this month with Night by Elie Wiesel. We have 6 categories that we must read, and then if we complete those, another 5 optional categories. Are you doing this challenge? Are you doing other challenges? Let us know in the comments!

3. Read One Award-Winning Book a Month
This is my own personal challenge. I’m starting this month with Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein which won several awards including being a Printz Honor Book. If you have any other great award winning novels that I need to read, let me know in the comments!

4. Finish Series That I Started