Amy's Suggestions

The Mouse that Roared

by Leonard Wibberley

280 pages

Synopsis: The basis of the 1959 film starring Peter Sellers, this classic cold war satire-cum-parable-cum-political farce was first serialized in the Saturday Evening Post almost 50 years ago, appearing under the title The Day New York Was Invaded. At the time, the U.S. was afraid of a nuclear attack by Russia — the idea of an attack by a small country was so absurd as to seem comical. Wibberley’s tiny European nation is furious about unfair U.S. trading practices, so they send an army to invade New York City, march up Broadway, and accidentally capture the world’s newest and most destructive bomb. Then they have to figure out what to do with it. A whimsical cross between Kubrick and Kafka, The Mouse That Roared is a quirky classic of world literature, a poignant tale of political morality, and a hilarious, ultimately triumphant portrait of international relations from the perspective of the little guy.

The Book of Lost Things

by John Connolly

480 pages

Synopsis: High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns the death of his mother. He is angry and alone, with only the books on his shelf for company. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness, and as he takes refuge in his imagination, he finds that reality and fantasy have begun to meld. While his family falls apart around him, David is violently propelled into a land that is a strange reflection of his own world, populated by heroes and monsters, and ruled over by a faded king who keeps his secrets in a mysterious book... The Book of Lost Things.

An imaginative tribute to the journey we must all make through the loss of innocence into adulthood, John Connolly's latest novel is a book for every adult who can recall the moment when childhood began to fade, and for every adult about to face that moment. The Book of Lost Things is a story of hope for all who have lost, and for all who have yet to lose. It is an exhilarating tale that reminds us of the enduring power of stories in our lives.

The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag

by Alan Bradley

400 pages

Synopsis: Flavia de Luce, a dangerously smart eleven-year-old with a passion for chemistry and a genius for solving murders, thinks that her days of crime-solving in the bucolic English hamlet of Bishop’s Lacey are over—until beloved puppeteer Rupert Porson has his own strings sizzled in an unfortunate rendezvous with electricity. But who’d do such a thing, and why? Does the madwoman who lives in Gibbet Wood know more than she’s letting on? What about Porson’s charming but erratic assistant? All clues point toward a suspicious death years earlier and a case the local constables can’t solve—without Flavia’s help. But in getting so close to who’s secretly pulling the strings of this dance of death, has our precocious heroine finally gotten in way over her head? (In paperback February, 2011)