First Read: Vote in the Poll!

Vote for the book you would most like to read! Remember when voting to think on how easy it'll be for you to get a hold of a copy, and if it is something you would like to discuss in more detail.

One
Private by Kate Brian
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Fifteen year old Reed Brennan wins a scholarship to Easton Academy,- the gold ticket away from her pill-popping mother and run-of-the-mill suburban life. But when she arrives on the beautiful, tradtion-stepped campus of Easton, everyone is just a bit more sophistaticated, a bit more gorgeous, and a lot wealthier than she had ever thought possible. Reed realizes that even though she has been accepted to Easton, Easton has not accepted her. She feels like she's on the outside looking in.

Until she meets the Billings Girls.

They are the most beautiful, intelligent, and intensly confident girls on campus. And they know it. They hold all the power in a world where power is fleeting but means everything. Read vows to do whatever it takes to be accepted into their inner circle.

Reed uses every part of herself- the good, the bad, the beautiful to get closer to the Billings Girls. She quickly discovers that inside their secret parties and mountains of attitude, hanging in their designer clothing-packed closets the Billings Girls have skeletons. And they'll do anything to keep their secrets privite.

Two
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
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Pi spends a beguiling boyhood in Pondicherry, India, as the son of a zookeeper. Growing up beside the wild beasts, Pi gathers an encyclopedic knowledge of the animal world. His curious mind also makes the leap from his native Hinduism to Christianity and Islam, all three of which he practices with joyous abandon. In his 16th year, Pi sets sail with his family and some of their menagerie to start a new life in Canada. Halfway to Midway Island, the ship sinks into the Pacific, leaving Pi stranded on a life raft with a hyena, an orangutan, an injured zebra and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. After the beast dispatches the others, Pi is left to survive for 227
days with his large feline companion on the 26-foot-long raft, using all his knowledge, wits and faith to keep himself alive. The scenes flow together effortlessly, and the sharp observations of the young narrator keep the tale brisk and engaging. Martel's potentially unbelievable plot line soon demolishes the reader's defenses, cleverly set up by events of young Pi's life that almost naturally lead to his biggest ordeal. This richly patterned work, Martel's second novel, won Canada's 2001 Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. In it, Martel displays the clever voice and tremendous storytelling skills of an emerging master.

Three
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
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What happens when the most beautiful girl in the world marries the handsomest prince of all time and he turns out to be...well...a lot less than the man of her dreams? As a boy, William Goldman claims, he loved to hear his father read the "S.
Morgenstern classic, The Princess Bride. But as a grown-up he discovered that the boring parts were left out of good old Dad's recitation, and only the "good parts" reached his ears.

Now Goldman does Dad one better. He's reconstructed the "Good Parts Version" to delight wise kids and wide-eyed grownups everywhere.

What's it about? Fencing. Fighting. True Love. Strong Hate. Harsh Revenge. A Few Giants. Lots of Bad Men. Lots of Good Men. Five or Six Beautiful Women. Beasties monstrous and Gentle. Some Swell Escapes and Captures. Death, Lies, Truth, Miracles, and a Little Sex.

In short, it's about everything.

Four
Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman
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Callum is a nought - a second-class citizen in a world run by the ruling Crosses...

Sephy is a Cross, the daughter of one of the most powerful men in the country...

In their world, noughts and Crosses simply don't mix. And as hostility turns to violence, can Callum and Sephy possibly find a way to be together? The are determined to try.

And then the bomb explodes...

Sephy and Callum have been best friends since childhood, and now they are older and they realise they want more from each other. But the harsh realities of lives lived in a segregated society are beginning to take their toll: Callum is a nought--a second-class citizen in a world dominated by the Crosses--and Sephy is a Cross, and the daughter of one of the most powerful men in the country. The barriers they would have to cross to be together at first seem little more than minor obstacles to the two idealistic teenagers, but soon those barriers threaten not only their friendship but their lives.

Five
Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
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Twelve-year-old Artemis Fowl is a millionaire, a genius- and, above
all, a criminal mastermind. But even Artemis doesn't know what he's taken on when he kidnaps a fairy, Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon Unit. These aren't the fairies of bedtime stories- they're dangerous! Full of unexpected twists and turns, Artemis Fowl is a riveting, magical adventure.

Six
The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas
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In this classic swashbuckling tale---one of the great adventures if all time---Alexandre Dumas's Three Musketeers are pitted against one another in a terrifying fight of the throne of Francee. The adventure begins deep inside the bastille,where a twenty-year0old prisoner called "Philippe" has languished for eight long years, unaware of his true identitiy or what crime he has committed. When Aramis, one of the original Three Muskateers, bribes his way into his cell, the shocking secret that has kept Philippe locked away from the world is revealed--- a secret that could destroy King Louis XIV. What follows may divide Athos, Porthos, and D'Artagnan forever and cause Aramis to betray his sacred vow of "All for one, and one for all!

With its daring jailbreak, brilliant masquerade, and heart-stopping sword play, The Man in the Iron Mask contains all the pomp, pageantry, and colorful history that make the novels of Alexandre Dumas so wonderful to read. It is an incomparable tale of honor and loyalty, adventure and derring-do.

Seven
The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez-Reverte
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A fifteenth-century painting by a Flemish master is about to be auctioned when Julia, a young art restorer, discovers a peculiar inscription hidden in a corner: Who killed the knight?

In the painting, the Duke of Flanders and his knight are locked in a game of chess, and a dark lady lurks mysteriously in the background. Julia is determined to solve the five-hundred-year-old murder, but as she begins to look for clues, several of her friends in the art world are brutally murdered in quick succession. Messages left with the bodies suggest a crucial connection between the chess game in the painting, the knight's
murder, the sordid underside of the contemporary art world, and the latest deaths. Just when all of the players in the mystery seem to be pawns themselves, events race toward a shocking conclusion. A thriller like no other, The Flanders Panel presents a tantalizing puzzle for any connoisseur of mystery, chess, art, and history.

Eight
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
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It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some
words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .

Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out
a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.

This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.

Nine
Prowlers by Christopher Golden
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"The charade was over. The beasts were loose."

"There were no more screams, but he could still hear snarling. Jack stared down at the field through the netting and the wire mesh backstop, and he could see them out there...

Four enormous beasts were tearing at the dead men with long fangs and thick powerful talons."

Ten
The Way Between the Worlds by Ian Irvine
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Once there were three worlds, each with their own people. Then, fleeing out of the void, on the edge of extinction, came the Charon. And the balance changed forever.

The alliance had failed. There is a dark full moon on midwinter's day - sign that the foretelling had come to pass. Karan is held captive in desolate Carcharon Tower.
Karan's lover, Llian, is in chains, falsely accused of betraying her to the enemy.

Rulke the Charon is unstoppable now, and the dark moon rises, he begins to open the way between the worlds. If he succeeds the world will be overwhelmed by the dread armies of the void...

Eleven
The Kite Runner by Khaleed Hosseini
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Twelve-year old Amir is desperate to gain the approval of his father and resolves to win the local kite-fighting tournament, to prove that he has the makings of a man. His loyal friend Hassan promises to help him - fir he always helps Amir - but this is 1970s Afghanistan and Hassan is merely a low-caste servant who is jeered at in the street, although Amir feels jealous of his natural courage and the place he holds in his father's heart. But neither of the boys could forsee what would happen to Hassan on the afternoon of the tournament, which was to shatter their lives. After the Russians invade and the family is forced to flee to America, Amir realises that one day he must return, to find the one thing Afghanistan can not grant him: redemption.

Choose wisely!

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