Booklist 2008
1. Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
This epic tale of family history, family secrets, and music centers on four sisters and their relationships with each other and with their father. Set in the coal-mining communities of Nova Scotia in the early part of this century, the story also shifts to the battlefields of World War I and the jazz scene of New York City in the 1920s.

2. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
When Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon decide to spy on a presentation her uncle, the commanding Lord Asriel, is making to the elders of Jordan College they have no idea that they will become witnesses to an attempted murder. And so Lyra's journey through alternate universe begins.

3. The Subtle Knive by Philip Pullman
Lyra and her daemon return as she and 12-year-old Will Parry are in a desperate flight for Will's life. They are drawn closer to Will's father and to the Subtle Knife, a deadly, magical, ancient tool that cuts windows between worlds. Through it all, the pair are drawn deeper and deeper into a fierce battle they may not survive.

4. Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella
Lexi Smart wakes up to find she not only has amnesia but that her once imperfect life is now... perfect. How did this happen? Will she ever remember? And what will happen when she does? From the bestselling author of the SHOPAHOLIC series.

5. The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
In the finale to the His Dark Materials trilogy, Lyra and Will are in unspeakable danger. With help from Iorek Byrnison, the armored bear, they must journey to a dank and gray-lit world where no living soul has ever gone.

6. Weg van Lila by Patrick van Rhijn
Djon works for MTV London. Wild parties and one, two, three night stands. But then he meets Mikki from Sweden. He changes his life. They get married and very soon Lila is born. Parenthood really changes Djon, although the marriage doesn't last very long and Mikki decides to go back to Sweden. At first she leaves her daugther behind but after a year she wants her daughter to move to Sweden as well. They meet again in court. After taking care of his daughter for three years he loses her when the judge decides she should be with her mother.

7. 24 Declassified: Chaos Theory by John Whitman
A brilliant madman has dark plans for the US. Only one man can prevent the nightmare: CTU operative Jack Bauer. But Bauer's been cut loose, is wanted for murder, and is running from the police, who have orders to shoot to kill.

8. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
A man brings his 10-year-old son Daniel one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book from the shelves and pulls out 'La Sombra del Viento' by Julian Carax. But as he grows up, several people seem inordinately interested in his find. Then, one night, as he is wandering the old streets Daniel is approached by a figure who reminds him of a character from La Sombra del Viento, a character who turns out to be the devil. What begins as a case of literary curiosity turns into a race to find out the truth behind the life and death of Julian Carax and to save those he left behind.

9. Hippie Hippie Shake by Richard Neville
The dreams, the trips, the trials, the love-ins, the screw ups: the sixties. A memoir by Richard Neville, editor of the Australian satirical magazine Oz, and chronicles his relationship with girlfriend Louise Ferrier, the launch of the London edition of Oz amidst the 1960s counterculture, and the staff's trial for distributing a sexually explicit issue.

10. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Elizabeth is in her thirties, she has a husband, a house, they're trying for a baby - and she doesn't want any of it. A bitter divorce and a turbulent love affair later, she emerges battered and bewildered and realises it is time to pursue her own journey in search of three things she has been missing: pleasure, devotion and balance.

11. The Cider House Rules by John Irving
This book tells the story of Dr. Wilbur Larch--saint and obstetrician, founder and director of the orphanage in the town of St. Cloud's, ether addict and abortionist. It is also the story of Dr. Larch's favorite orphan, Homer Wells, who is never adopted.

Booklist 2007
1. Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
The lives of the Berry family members are seen through the eyes of John, who reflects upon his often chaotic existence as the son of a hapless dreamer, a brother to eccentric siblings, and friend to a vaudevillian named Freud.

2. Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
As teenager Blue van Meer tells her story, we are hurled into a dizzying world of murder and butterflies, womanizing and wandering, American McCulture, political radicalism and juvenile crushisms. Blue's wickedly funny yet poignant tale reveals how the imagination finds meaning in the most bewildering times, the ways people of all ages strive for connection, and how the darkest of secrets can set us free.

3. Shopaholic & Baby by Sophie Kinsella
Becky Brandon is pregnant! She couldn't be more overjoyed--especially since shopping cures morning sickness. But when the celebrity must-have obstetrician turns out to be her husband's glamorous ex-girlfriend, Becky's perfect world starts to crumble.

4. From Baghdad, With Love by Jay Kopelman
A Marine, the war, and a dog named Lava... Jay Kopelman tells a story that is both tender and thought-provoking--candidly portraying the ugly conditions in wartime Iraq, while also describing his (and his fellow Marines') growing attachment to a scruffy stray puppy.

5. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Eleven-year-old Owen Meany, playing in a Little League baseball game in New Hampshire, hits a foul ball and kills his best friend's mother. Owen does not believe in accidents and believes he is God's instrument. What happens to Owen after that 1953 foul is both extraordinary and terrifying.

6. The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld
A warmly sympathetic coming-of-age novel about a young woman's fantasies of life and romance colliding with the challenges and realities of adult life.

7. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
A non-fiction novel that tells the tale of novelist Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters. In the 1960s, Kesey led a group of psychedelic sympathizers around the country in a painted bus, presiding over LSD-induced "acid tests" all along the way. Long considered one of the greatest books about the history of the hippies.

8. 24 Declassified: Cat's Claw by John Whitman
The world's most powerful leaders are gathering in Los Angeles for the G-8 summit, unaware that they have been targeted by two separate terrorist groups, each with it's own lethal agenda. Uncovering and disarming one bomb would be difficult enough; eliminating both will be nearly impossible. If agent Jack Bauer does nothing, in twenty-four hours the entire planet may be plunged into chaos, it's primary heads of state ruthlessly destroyed. But if he acts, his daughter Kim will die instead.

9. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The classic story of Bilbo Baggins and his adventures through Rivendell, Mirkwood and Erebor. Tolkien's epic tale of elves, dwarves, trolls, goblins, myth, magic and adventure, with its reluctant hero Bilbo Baggins, has become a timeless classic.

10. Thom. Single. Man. by Thom Arisman
Thom is a freelance journalist in his mid thirties, but above all very single. With a lot of humor he talks about his life. Horrible blind dates, one-night-stands and sad single parties. He loves his freedom but is scared to spend the rest of his life alone. Thom is a happy single but of course he's waiting for the love of his life.

11. Mr. Single by Thom Arisman
For a while there Thom thought he found his perfect match but nope, he's still going single. He talks about the couples, searching singles, internet dates and unhappy ex-girlfriends in his life. All why still searching for something special. But he's rather a happy single than unhappy together.

12. De Droomfotograaf by Janneke Jonkman
23 Year old Nada sometimes takes men home with her and she takes pictures of them while they're asleep. Stuck in her own life, she's going on a trip to visit her aunt and grandma in Germany. She learns more about herself, life itself and the secrets of her family. Her grandma teaches her to dream and how important dreams really are. Fairytale-like.

13. Until It's Over by Nicci French
Young and athletic, London cycle courier Astrid Bell is bad luck for other people. First Astrid's neighbour is found bludgeoned to death in an alley. Then a few days later, Astrid is asked to pick up a package from a wealthy woman, only to find the client murdered in the hall of her home. For the police it's more than coincidence. For Astrid and her six housemates it's the beginning of a nightmare: because if it's true that bad luck comes in threes, who will be the next to die?

14. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the approval of his father and resolves to win the local kite-fighting toumament, to prove that he has the makings of a man. His loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. Neither of the boys could foresee what happens to Hassan on the afternoon of the tournament. 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 that his new world cannot grant him: redemption.

15. Zoet! by Yoyo van Gemerde
Manuela is living her life to the fullest: she just finished the Academy of Arts and her work will be exposed in a gallery already. She lives in Amsterdam in a beautiful old house, her new hirer is becoming a good friend. But then she receives a strange phonecall. An anonymous person forces his way into her life in a horrible way...

16. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry the troubled and bitter Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, in a climate of growing unrest, tragedy strikes fifteen-year-old Laila, who must leave her home and join Mariam's unhappy household. Laila and Mariam are to find consolation in each other, their friendship to grow as deep as the bond between sisters, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. With the passing of time the Taliban takes over over Afghanistan and the women's endurance is tested beyond their worst imaginings.

17. 24 Declassified: Vanishing Point by Marc Cerasini
Jack Bauer is in Nicaragua to recover stolen military secrets and track down a CTU agent with Colombian assassins hot on his trail, but the killers are one step ahead of him and Jack's comrade is shot down in a hail of bullets right in front of his eyes. Back stateside Jack must find the out who is leaking all the top–secret military technology, but to do it he must go under cover and wage war against an army of ruthless cartel killers out for revenge and a shadowy Chinese agent who can play the espionage game as well as anyone. To win he'll have to go undercover in Las Vegas, infiltrate Area 51, turn back an all out assault on the Groom Lake military facility and face his past life as a Delta Force assassin in Central America.

18. Summer of Love by Lisa Mason
Sent from the 25th century to track down an individual crucial to the preservation of the timestream, time-traveler Chiron Cat's Eye in Draco plunges headlong into the myth and mania of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury scene of 1967-the legendary "summer of love."

19. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
This is the story of Clare, a beautiful art student, and Henry, a librarian, who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-two and Henry thirty. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself misplaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity in his life, past and future. Intensely moving and entirely unforgettable.

20. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
The brilliant, breathtaking conclusion.

21. Lottery by Patricia Wood
Perry Crandall has an IQ of 76, but is not retarded; his IQ would need to be less than 75 for that. Perry lives with his wisecracking grandmother Gram, whose gems of folk wisdom help him along. But when Gram dies, Perry's selfish, money-grubbing family members swoop in and swindle him out of the proceeds from the sale of her house—and then come a-knocking again when Perry wins $12 million in the Washington State Lottery.

Booklist 2006
1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
"Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird". This is a lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of the story--a black man charged with raping a white girl in the 1930s.

2. The Stranger by Albert Camus
The story of an ordinary man who unwittingly gets drawn into a senseless murder on a sun-drenched Algerian beach, and goes on trial for this pointless murder.

3. Generation X by Douglas Coupland
Andy, Dag and Claire have been handed a society priced beyond their means. Representing the lost Generation X, they work in low-pay, low-prestige, no-future jobs in the service industry and tell disturbing stories that reveal their inner world.

4. Night by Elie Wiesel
A terrifying account of the Nazi death camp horror that turns a young Jewish boy into an agonized witness to the death of his family... the death of his innocence... and the death of his God. Night awakens the shocking memory of evil at its absolute and carries with it the unforgettable message that this horror must never be allowed to happen again.

5. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
A series of letters to an unknown correspondent reveals the coming-of-age trials of a high-scholar named Charlie. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie is navigating through the strange worlds of love, drugs, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", and dealing with the loss of a good friend and his favourite aunt.

6. Villa Serena by Marion Pauw
During her honeymoon Fillis gets attacked by her husband and almost gets killed. Andrew says he heard voices in his head that made him do it. Andrew is being admitted to a therapeutical centre. A year later Fillis decides to go back to the hotel to deal with her past.

7. Losing You by Nicci French
Nina is supposed to be taking her two children on holiday with her new boyfriend. But the road away from the isolated winter bleakness of Sandling Island seems to be littered with obstacles, frustrating her plans at every turn. Most pressingly of all, her fifteen-year-old daughter, Charlie, has yet to return from a night out... Minute by minute, as Nina's unease builds to worry and then panic, every mother's worst nightmare begins to unravel.

8. The Curious Incident with the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
A murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen and has Asperger's, a form of autism. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched. He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour's dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down.

9. The White Masai by Corinne Hoffman
During a vacation to Kenia a young woman falls in love with a Masai warrior. At home she breaks up with her boyfriend, leaves everything behind and travels back to Kenia to be with her new love. A new life begins; different conditions, loneliness, hunger, poverty, malaria. She keeps believing in their love, but after many fights with her Masai warrior, she eventually flees back to Switzerland with their baby.

10. The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella
Samantha Sweeting is rocketing up the legal ladder. But when she makes a career-threatening mistake, she walks out of the office and quite mistakenly into a new life... as a housekeeper. How she takes a deep breath and begins to cope (and falls in love) is a story as delicious as anything she learns to bake.

11. Shopaholic & Sister by Sophie Kinsella
Another Shopaholic novel, which feature the irresistible one-woman shopping phenomenon Becky Bloomwood. Now Becky's back in a hilarious, heart warming tale of married life, best friends, and long-lost sisters (and the perils of simply having to own an Angel handbag!).

12. Komt een Vrouw bij de Dokter by Kluun
Stijn and Carmen belong to the ‘healthy and wealthy’. They both have their own company, a one year old daughter named Luna and enough friends and money. But then Carmen gets diagnosed with breast cancer. A barefaced story by a man in the prime of his life while his wife is dying of cancer.

13. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
Lee Fiora is an intelligent, observant fourteen-year-old when her father drops her off in front of her dorm at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. She leaves her animated, affectionate family in South Bend, Indiana, at least in part because of the boarding school's glossy brochure, in which boys in sweaters chat in front of old brick buildings, girls in kilts hold lacrosse sticks on pristinely mown athletic fields, and everyone sings hymns in chapel. A portrait of the painful and thrilling adolescence universal to us all. Prep, is an insightful, achingly funny coming-of-age story as well as a brilliant dissection of class, race, and gender in a hothouse of adolescent angst and ambition.

14. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
Berlin, 1942. When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move from their home to a new house far far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence running alongside stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people he can see in the distance. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different to his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.

15. Veronika Decides To Die by Paulo Coelho
Veronika seems to have it all--youth, beauty, a good job, and loving family. But one morning she wakes up and tries to kill herself. The attempt fails, but leaves her damaged with only a few days to live. In her final days she embarks on a transforming self-discovery.

16. Brave New Girl by Louisa Luna
A 14-year-old trying to find her way in the world, Doreen is as much an outcast at school as she is at home. Marginalized by her peers, misunderstood by her parents, in mourning for her lost brother, Doreen is forced into adulthood kicking and screaming - not to mention swearing.

17. The World According To Garp by John Irving
This is the life and times of T. S. Garp, the bastard son of Jenny Fields--a feminist leader ahead of her times. This is the life and death of a famous mother and her almost-famous son; theirs is a world of sexual extremes--even of sexual assassinations. This is the novel with the famous last line: "In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases."

18. 24 Declassified: Veto Power by John Whitman
Jack Bauer finds himself embroiled in a convoluted plot against the President, desperately trying to work out whether or not the threat is real; and if it is, who is it coming from?

19. 24 Declassified: Trojan Horse by Marc Cerasini
When an online "Trojan Horse" detected by the CTU cyber unit sends up red flags, Jack Bauer is called in to prevent an unthinkable act of death and destruction from occurring.

20. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Features the rhythms of 1950s underground America, jazz, sex, generosity, chill dawns and drugs, with Sal Paradise and his hero Dean Moriarty, traveller and mystic, the living epitome of Beat.