Recommended Books & More

Staff Pick of the Month: June

Lost Horizon

By James Hilton

Four people board a plane in India to avoid a revolution that is taking place. Instead of flying westward, the plane heads to an unknown group of mountains in the East. The pilot dies landing the plane, but the four hijacked passengers are lead from the wreckage to a hidden valley where they encounter modern comforts and even more mysteriously, people who do not ever leave the valley.  Not all four of the outsiders enjoy the creature comforts and delights of their new home, Shangri-la, and therein lies the problem.  Will they stay? How will they leave? Who started this hidden paradise, and why? Why were they brought there?  And are they being lulled into accepting their loss of freedom by being offered some marvelous gifts?  

Why I like it: The question of whether having a way of life imposed on one is worth losing personal freedom is what draws me most to this book.

Three words or phrases that describe this book:  Open to different interpretations, haunting, provocative.  Also, I love the trivia fact that this is the first book ever published as a “mass-market” paperback, inexpensive and sized to fit the pocket!

You might want to pick up this book if: You want to try a dystopian book, but find some of the offerings in that genre a bit too techie or scientific.

If you like this book you may also like: Legend by Marie Lu, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, or Omega Place by Graham Marks.

Reviewed by Sharon M., Library Associate. Find more great books in our Staff Picks Archive.

 

For more suggestions, head over to the teen librarian's page on Bibliocommons, our web catalog. From there, you can look through lists of recommendations (and even some required school reading lists!) and click to follow her to keep up with the latest reviews.
 
Sign up for our email book club and get a few minutes of a book delivered to your email daily! The current selection is:

                 Get latest book and library news on Facebook:
 
Check out the 2012-13 William Allen White Award  nominees list on Bibliocommons, our web catalog. Find past winners of this award as well as other award winners to discover your next read.                 For information and recommendations on movies, music, video games, and graphic novels, click here.

 

Is there a great book, movie, CD, or game we haven't added to our collection yet? Let us know about it on the Suggestion for Purchase Form.