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THE PARIS ARCHITECT

One of our recommended books for 2017 is The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure

Like most gentiles in Nazi-occupied Paris, architect Lucien Bernard has little empathy for the Jews. So when a wealthy industrialist offers him a large sum of money to devise secret hiding places for Jews, Lucien struggles with the choice of risking his life for a cause he doesn’t really believe in. Ultimately he can’t resist the challenge and begins designing expertly concealed hiding spaces—behind a painting, within a column, or inside a drainpipe—detecting possibilities invisible to the average eye. But when one of his clever hiding spaces fails horribly and the immense suffering of Jews becomes incredibly personal, he can no longer deny reality.

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BURN BABY BURN

While violence runs rampant throughout New York, a teenage girl faces danger within her own home in Meg Medina’s riveting coming-of-age novel.

Nora Lopez is seventeen during the infamous New York summer of 1977, when the city is besieged by arson, a massive blackout, and a serial killer named Son of Sam who shoots young women on the streets. Nora’s family life isn’t going so well either: her bullying brother, Hector, is growing more threatening by the day, her mother is helpless and falling behind on the rent, and her father calls only on holidays.

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SYMPHONY FOR THE CITY OF THE DEAD

One of our recommended books is Symphony For The City Of The Dead by M. T. Anderson

National Book Award winner M. T. Anderson delivers a brilliant and riveting account of the Siege of Leningrad and the role played by Russian composer Shostakovich and his Leningrad Symphony.

In September of 1941, Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht surrounded Leningrad in what was to become one of the longest and most destructive sieges in Western history—almost three years of bombardment and starvation that culminated in the harsh winter of 1943. More than a million citizens perished. Survivors recall corpses littering the frozen streets; their relatives having neither the means nor the strength to bury them. Residents burned books,

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THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS

This Is Where It Ends

New York Times Bestseller and Indie Next Pick!
Goodreads – YA Best Books of the Month
Buzzfeed – 5 YA Books You Should Be Reading This January
Bustle.com – 18 of 2016’s Most Anticipated YA Novels
BookRiot – 15 Books Out in 2016 You Should Mark Down Now

10:00 a.m.: The principal of Opportunity High School in Alabama finishes her speech, welcoming the entire student body to a new semester and encouraging them to excel and achieve.

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CAN’T WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING MORE PLEASANT?

One of our recommended books for 2017 is Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant by Roz Chast

Through words and illustrations, with evident pain and remarkable humor, Roz Chast revisits the struggle she went through with her aging parents as their physical and mental abilities gradually declined and they eventually became unable to care for themselves.

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THE READERS OF BROKEN WHEEL RECOMMEND

One of our recommended books for 2017 is The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald

Once you let a book into your life, the most unexpected things can happen…

Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara, who traveled all the way from Sweden just to meet her book-loving pen pal, Amy. When she arrives, however, she finds Amy’s funeral guests just leaving. The residents of Broken Wheel are happy to look after their bewildered visitor—there’s not much else to do in a dying small town that’s almost beyond repair.

You certainly wouldn’t open a bookstore. And definitely not with the tourist in charge. You’d need a vacant storefront (Main Street is full of them),

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