Pegasus Solano Staff Picks

The Book Thief (Paperback)

By Markus Zusak
$12.99
ISBN-13: 9780375842207
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Knopf Books for Young Readers, 9/2007
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A complex and compelling young adult novel about life in World War II Germany.  Death (yes, Death himself, and he’s got a sense of humor!) narrates the adventures of Liesel Meminger (foster child, voracious reader, thief) and the fellow citizens of her town, Molching.  The characters (including an accordionist, a refugee Jew, and a book hoarder) are vividly drawn, and by the end you feel personally involved with each of them.  It’s a tough but wonderful story, and a perfect example of how very sophisticated YA novels can be.  --Emily

The Giver (Mass Market Paperback)

By Lois Lowry
$6.99
ISBN-13: 9780440237686
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Laurel Leaf, 9/2002
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A thought-provoking, intense and all around amazing work, The Giver is an example of a sophisticated young adult classic. I first read this as an adult, and am crushed I didn’t read it as a kid. It’s the kind of book that changes lives. -Emily

One (Hardcover)

By Kathryn Otoshi
$16.95
ISBN-13: 9780972394642
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: KO Kids Books, 10/2008
Simply illustrated with numbers, and colors, Otoshi uncovers a common dilemma for kids leading to an empowering outcome. This is a great book; an introduction and a conclusion to bullying that all kids should read. -Amanda

The Westing Game (Paperback)

By Ellen Raskin
$6.99
ISBN-13: 9780142401200
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Puffin, 4/2004
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I couldn’t tell you how many times I read this as a kid (tons!).  Winner of the Newbery Medal in 1979, this mystery’s insanely kooky cast features judges, bookies, bombers and more, all of whom are in competition to inherit Sam Westing’s $200 million estate.  You’ll love it.-Emily I also read this book a zillion times (as a kid and beyond) and am often given to quoting a certain ditty about an asparagus cooker contained within. A stellar book for anyone who likes a good whodunit (and even for those who don’t). - Julia

The Ear, the Eye and the Arm (Paperback)

By Nancy Farmer

ISBN-13: 9780141311098
Availability: Special Order - Subject to Availability
Published: Firebird, 1/2002
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I now want to live in Zimbabwe (in the year 2194, of course). After all, where else is your local detective agency run by mutants? This book features some of the best characters I’ve ever encountered; I couldn’t put it down! -Emily

Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing (Paperback)

By Judi Barrett, Ronald Barrett
$6.99
ISBN-13: 9780689708077
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 12/1988
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Who wouldn’t love this book?! The pictures are hilarious and the wording simple enough that kids as young as two will laugh their heads off. I definitely recommend this book! -Amanda

Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books (Paperback)

By Francesca Lia Block

ISBN-13: 9780064406970
Availability: Special Order - Subject to Availability
Published: HarperTeen, 5/1998
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“What time are we upon and where do I belong?” Witch Baby asks herself as she roams Los Angeles, full of slamdance punk clubs and backyard canyons full of flowers, Mann’s Chinese Theater and swap meets, hikes through Joshua Tree and stolen swims in stranger’s pools. This collection of the five Weetzie Bat books evokes an ephemeral, gritty, slinkster-cool world in which you’ll love to lose yourself. I promise. --JS

Kindred (Paperback)

By Octavia Butler
$15.00
ISBN-13: 9780807083697
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Beacon Press, 2/2004
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Octavia Butler. What can I say? She’s amazing. While Kindred may not be as real-life, it-might-happen, better-make-an-emergency-bag-and-leave-it-by-the-door scary as Parable of the Sower (which I also can’t recommend highly enough), it still infuses a fantastical situation with a tinge of ‘hey, it could happen.’ Fabulous. Compelling. I couldn’t put it down. --JS

Beat the Reaper (Paperback)

By Josh Bazell
$14.99
ISBN-13: 9780316032216
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Back Bay Books, 9/2009
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This book is ridiculous. I guess you could call it a medical thriller but it really goes beyond that into an unclassifiable genre all its own. It had me  alternately snorting with amusement and gaping in disbelief (as in, “I cannot believe he wrote that”). Not only that, but the last ten pages made me so uncomfortable that I couldn’t even sit still. 

Seriously. Read it. You won’t be bored. --JS

The Savage Detectives (Paperback)

By Roberto Bolaño, Natasha Wimmer
$16.00
ISBN-13: 9780312427481
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Picador, 3/2008
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This book is the best of both worlds. It’s like a great collection of short stories; an endless series of entrapping confessionals from a collection of voices as diverse and imaginative as you will find anywhere. But it is also an epic; the confessionals, spanning thirty-one years and four continents, track the odysseys of two wondering poets. If the masterful blending of literary forms doesn’t sell you on The Savage Detectives, then consider that reading Bolaño dramatically increases your sex appeal. My 50 year old dad was reading this book in public and all of a sudden college girls starting flocking to him, awed by his literary prowess. He swears it’s better than Viagra. --Jael

Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? (Hardcover)

By Judith Butler

ISBN-13: 9781844673339
Availability: Out of Print
Published: Verso, 5/2009
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President Bush refers to photos from Abu Ghraib as “disgusting” rather then “wrong”. Pope Ratzinger asserts that the Prophet Mohammed’s only innovations were “inhuman”. US Soldiers paint “up yours” on missiles aimed toward Iraqi cities. Frames of War examines the way in which such rhetoric reveals a normative system of ethics that leave certain lives outside the frame of grievability and thus less protected from institutionalized violence. Butler challenges us to develop an “aggressive non-violence” that exposes and resists the political power that produces and enforces such norms. Here is a rare book that simultaneously challenges our moral, philosophical and political foundations.  --Jael

The Year of the Flood (Hardcover)

By Margaret Atwood
$26.95
ISBN-13: 9780385528771
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Nan A. Talese, 9/2009
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Sometimes Margaret Atwood writes about people living in small cabins slowly losing their minds. Sometimes she writes about Victorian-era serial killers.  Sometimes she writes about a post-apocalyptic world replete with gene-spliced animals (rakunk, anyone?). This is one of those times.  Set in the fantastical-but-unsettlingly-possible future world of her previous novel Oryx and Crake, this book captivates and disquiets. --JS
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