Alex award Winners

•All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, published by Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. (9781476746586). A blind Parisian girl and an orphaned German boy conscripted by the Nazis for his radio skills meet in the chaos of the American bombing of a French coastal resort.

•Bellweather Rhapsody, by Kate Racculia, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company (9780544129917). High-school students gather at the isolated Bellweather Hotel for a statewide music festival only to be trapped by a blizzard with an arrogant fingerless conductor, drunken chaperones, a missing corpse, and perhaps the ghosts of long-dead newlyweds.

•Bingo’s Run, by James A. Levine, published by Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company (9781400068838). The ultimate hustler, Bingo uses his brains and charm to run drugs in a Kenyan slum, but after witnessing a murder he finds himself an art dealer, an adoptee, and someone caught in a dangerous moral dilemma.

•Confessions, by Kanae Minato, translated by Stephen Snyder, published by Mulholland Books, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. (9780316200929). Japanese teacher Yuko knows two middle-school students killed her daughter, and nothing in their explanations of why and how will stop her revenge.

•Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng, published by The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group LLC, a Penguin Random House Company (9781594205712). Lydia is dead. Is it murder? Suicide? As her family grieves for their perfect teen, they learn how little they really knew Lydia and how many secrets died with her.

•Lock In, by John Scalzi, a Tor Book published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC (9780765375865). A virus leaves millions as “Hadens”—locked in and fully aware, but unable to move or speak except when linked to androids. Chris is one of them, working as a rookie FBI agent hunting a murderer who is targeting Hadens.

•The Martian, by Andy Weir, published by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company (9780804139021). Marooned on Mars after a tragic accident, astronaut Mark Watney’s supplies are running low and he has no way to signal Earth. Fortunately Mark can grow space potatoes and has a bold plan to escape the Red Planet.

•The Terrorist’s Son: A Story of Choice, by Zak Ebrahim with Jeff Giles, published by TED Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. (9781476784809). This true account of Zak Ebrahim, whose father was responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is a powerful book about tolerance and choice.

•Those Who Wish Me Dead, by Michael Koryta, published by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. (9780316122559). On the day Jace conquers the highest jump of the quarry, he discovers a murder victim and begins to run for his life.

•Wolf in White Van, by John Darnielle, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (9780374292089). After his face is destroyed, Sean manages to carve out a life for himself as a designer of virtual role-playing games. When two teens take the game too far, Sean is forced to relive all his moves

How many of these books have you read? I have only have read one, so I’ve got more reading to do. Just wish there were more hours in the day.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy