The New York Times Bestseller List

Every week The New York Times publishes several lists of bestselling books. There are several lists, because each list is for a different category. For example, there's a fiction list, a nonfiction list, a children's list, a graphic novel list, etc.

Being a Times bestseller is a huge accomplishment for an author and the publishing company. The publisher's are so proud that they often say on the cover of the author's book, New York Times Bestselling Book, or New York Times Bestselling Author.

If you don't receive The New York Times, the bestseller list is also available online. I have included the link below. The online edition of the bestseller list is updated every Saturday. I would highly recommend that you check out the list. In addition to seeing what books are popular, The Times writes reviews for books that they feel deserve a review. They may write a review for a book they feel is superb, but they may also write a review for a book that is highly criticized, or is often considered provocative.

The New York Times bestseller list is another great way to discovered great books.

The New York Times Bestseller List

The Book Thief: Different & Astounding

I finished this book, The Book Thief, earlier this year before I created The Bookshelf. It is, so far, the best book that I have read this year.

Different. This book is certainly different. The narrator is Death. Yes, I said Death, as in the opposite of life. Death starts the book by telling about how he (or she? it?) sees the majority of humans, how he thinks they're selfish monsters. Then Death goes on to talk about the one person that narrowly escaped his wrath, multiple times throughout her life. This one person was Liesel Meminger.

Liesel's story starts when she was eleven years old, and was traveling with her mother and younger brother. They are Germans, and it is World War II time. Liesel's mother is sending her two children into foster care, because she is unable to care for them during this difficult time. While on their way to the foster home, Liesel's brother abruptly dies. Mortified, Liesel watches as her little brother is quickly buried in an unknown setting. Before Liesel travels the rest of the way to her new home, she finds a book left behind by the gravedigger. When no one is looking, she steals the book. And thus begins her life as a book thief.

The story continues to tell the next four years of Liesel's life. She learns to read with the help of her kind foster father. She comes to love her new tough-love foster mother. She makes friends with a neighbor down the street. And she quickly befriends a Jew that her family hides in their basement. And, of course, she continues to steal books. This is extremely dangerous, but these books are what get her through the troubling times.

Astounding. This 600-paged book has received numerous awards and hundreds of accolades. Markus Zusak uses unique, lyrical writing to tell this story. This book is written like no other. I knew the end of the book, by the middle of the book. This is not because it was a predictable book, this book was extremely unpredictable. I knew the ending, because the narrator, Death, told me about it. Death, and I quote, doesn't enjoy surprises. Death, at least in this book, is like that. He has a surprisingly strange sense of humor, and can be very blunt. Even knowing the ending, I was still shocked when I got to the end of the book.

Not many authors can do that.

Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars

Back-to-School Reads

It's that time of the year again. Back-to-school time. A time when you spend your weekends shopping for school supplies, clothes, and (hopefully) books. Whether you're excited for the new school, or dreading its return, one thing's for sure: you're going to get books. Of course, you'll receive your textbooks for your classes, but you'll probably need a book for leisure reading, too.

You will probably have to read a book, that you don't want to read, this school year. It will most likely be a classic, filled with metaphors, allegories, and hard-to-decipher sentences. While these books can be good, you wouldn't want to read only them. You would want to read some more relaxed, immersible books.

I have created a list of leisure books that I think would be good to balance out the old, dry, books that you may have to read this year. I have not read all these books, but all of them have received great reviews. For each book (or series), I have included the title, author, and a short blurb. To learn more about the book click on title of the book.

• The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins - Sometime in the future, lies the country Panem, formally known as the United States of America. The Capitol, the city which houses the leaders of Panem, is cruel to the country's citizens. The Capitol does many horrid things, including sending kids and teens on a fight to the death. Worst of all, the fight is televised, and the people at home are forced to watch.

• Uglies by Scott Westerfeld - I have not read this one, but I have heard great things from people who have. This book also takes place in the future, where everyone undergoes a surgery at the age of sixteen to become "pretty". The title makes this book seem kind of...shallow, but it actually isn't. Also, despite the title, this book can be read by boys and girls. It is written by a male author, Scott Westerfeld. Westerfeld is a great author, and I will have to give this book a try.

• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling - First book in the series. Everybody's probably already heard of this one. :)
  

• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - A great WWII Holocaust book about a young orphaned girl, who steals books to help get through the challenges in her life. This is a great read for book lovers, and it has won tons of awards.

• The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer - Surely you've heard of it. If you haven't, you must be living under a rock. :) The series is not my first choice, but if can get you to read, it can't be so bad. Blurb: Love and love triangles between humans, vampires, and werewolves.

• Eragon by Christopher Paolini - First book in the Inheritance Cycle, a series about dragons and their riders. This book has many similarities to The Lord of the Rings, so if you liked LOTR, you may want to check this series out. However, if you like LOTR, you may not want to check this series out. Many readers claim that the book is just a rip-off off Tolkien's classic.

That's enough books to get you started for this school year. My new school year begins on the 24th-only ten days away! Hopefully, this book list will help you as you head into a new school year.

The Results Are In! (Polls #3 and #4)

The polls are closed, and the results are in! There was two polls this time, each receiving the same amount of votes. The questions for the two polls were very similar, while also being very different at the same time. Poll question #1: What is your favorite genre(s) of fiction?, and #2: What is your favorite genre(s) of nonfiction? Both polls received twelve votes. This is a new record for The Bookshelf! This is great, but I believe that we can do better! On our next poll (which will be coming soon), let's strive for over twelve votes. Even if it's only thirteen! :) Now on to the results...

Romance was the big winner among the genres of fiction, and biographies/memoirs dominated the genres of nonfiction. You can view the rest of the poll results on the polls themselves (right side of the page under the "about me" section). They show the amount of votes each answer option received, and its percentage out of the total votes placed.

I would like to give big THANK YOU to everyone who voted, and to remind everyone to look forward to a new poll coming soon!

What I'm Reading (08/7/10)

I am currently reading the book Fire by Kristin Cashore. I was planning to write a review for this book when I was finished it, but it is the second in the series, and too many spoilers would be revealed from the first book. This book, while published after the first book in the series, is a prequel to the first book. Even though it's a prequel, it still gives away spoilers. However the publisher's synopsis doesn't give anything away:

It's not a peaceful time in the Dells. The young King Nash clings to the throne while rebel lords in the north and south build armies to unseat him. The mountains and forests are filled with spies and thieves and lawless men.

This is where Fire lives. Fire is the last remaining human monster. Equally hated and adored, she has the unique ability to control minds, but she guards her power, unwilling to steal the secrets of innocent people. Especially when she has so many of her own.

Then Prince Brigan comes to bring her to King City. The royal family needs her help to uncover the plot against the king. Far away from home, Fire begins to realize there's more to her power than she ever dreamed. Her power could save the royal family and the kingdom.

If only she weren't afraid of becoming the monster her father was.

Like I said earlier, this is the second book in a series. The first book was just okay, and I'm already 1/3 of the way through this book, and it's just so-so. The writing is fairly good, but the plot is inconsistent. Honestly, I probably would not recommend this book. I'm just reading it because I've already read the first.

On another, completely different note:
I have been trying to post as much as possible this month. This blog has been online since May, and May has so far been the month with the most posts. The month of May had ten posts, while June and July both had seven posts. I'm trying to make August The Bookshelf's most posted month! Wish me luck!

The Forest of Hands and Teeth: A Gruesome Delight

Gruesome. Delight. It's not often when you find those two words together, but there's no other way to describe The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan.

The main character of this book, Mary, lives with her family and friends in a village that's surrounded on all sides by fence. Outside the fence is a supposedly never-ending forest. In this forest are hordes of the living dead, better known as zombies! The zombies, which are known as the Unconsecrated, claw at the chain-linked fence all day, desperate to reach the humans in the village.

The Sisterhood, a group of very religious unmarried women, are the leaders of this isolated village. While the Guardians, a very loose "army", protect the villagers and guard the fence. The villagers are taught to trust these leading figures.

Mary lives through her adolescent life believing and trusting the leaders of the village. But one day, when the fence is breached, Mary's life is turned upside down. Everything that Mary once believed is now untrue. And at the brink of death, Mary and her friends escape the village, and travel into the forest. She now must face a world that she never knew existed. She must confront her friends on issues that she never dreamed of facing. She must learn to live in a new world.

I found this book a pleasurable and enjoyable read. I was amazed how the author, despite this being a zombie book, was able to use very descriptive and poetic words to create this novel.

This is the first book in a trilogy. The second book, The Dead-Tossed Waves, was also a great book. However, I won't be reviewing it, because it would give away too many spoilers from The Forest of Hands and Teeth. The final book in the trilogy will be released in March of next year.

Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars

Windows, and Firefox, and Israel! Oh, my!

A few days ago, I discovered a feature by Blogger (the program I use to create my blog) that allows you to view statistics about your blog. These stats include the amount of people who have viewed your blog, which Internet browser and operating system is most popular among my readers, and which countries I get views from. These stats can provide me with information and ideas of how to make my blog a better place to visit. Here's what I learned about my readers:

Windows. The majority of the people who have visited my blog have Windows installed on their computers. 96% of my readers use Windows, 3% use Mac, and 1% use an unspecified operating system. Looks like Mac people don't like me (or maybe they're not readers :D).

Firefox. Internet browsers retrieve, present, and traverse information resources on the World Wide Web. They are what you use to search the Internet. The most popular Internet browser, that my readers use is Mozilla Firefox with 79%. Internet Explorer is next with 15%, Safari (not to be confused with Shelfari) with 5%, and Java with 1%.

Israel. I would have thought that the people who have viewed my blog were residents of the U.S., but I was wrong. I have received three page views from Canada, and surprisingly one page view from Israel. A note for my foreign readers: Keep visiting!

A few other stats:
1. On average, I receive 5-30 page views per day
2. The slide show with pictures from my trip to Europe was viewed twenty-two times
3. The least amount of views to my blog occurred between June 19th-June 30th, roughly the time when I was in Europe, and unable to post.
4. Fourteen viewers have found my blog through Google searches

Well, I think that's all have to say for now. Look for a loooonnnng overdue review of The Forest of Hands and Teeth tomorrow. I finished it about two weeks ago, but I keep forgetting to update! :)