ELLINWOOD — “Bring Up the Bodies” by Hilary Mantel. This international bestseller explores one of the most mystifying and frightening episodes in English history: the downfall of Anne Boleyn. King Henry VIII is disenchanted with the audacious Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son, and she has alienated his friends and the noble families. Over a few terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, and her fate is sealed - but without a fight.
“Pick-Up Game” by Marc Aronson and Charles R. Smith, Jr. This all-star team of young adult authors scores spectacularly with an action-packed anthology about street basketball. Top writers reveal how it all goes down in short stories that ingeniously pick up where the last one ends. Crackling with humor, grit, and philosophy, this anthology is a slam dunk.
“Chime” by Franny Billingsley. Briony has a secret. She believes her secret killed her stepmother, destroyed her twin sister’s mind, and threatens all the children in the Swampsea. She yearns to be rid of her terrible secret, but risks being hanged is she tells a soul. That’s what happens to witches. But then Eldric, with his golden mane and lion eyes, arrives, and everything changes. A haunting mystery and romance.
“Mission to Paris” by Alan Furst. It is the summer of 1938, and Europe is about to explode under the influence of the Nazi political machine. Hollywood film star Fredric Stahl is on his way to Paris to make a movie, and the German attack Stahl for their own purposes. What they don’t know is that Stahl, horrified by the Nazi war on Jews and intellectuals, has become part of an informal spy service being run out of the American embassy in Paris.
“Illusion” by Frank Peretti. When coma victim Many, supposedly dead, awakes in the present as the nineteen-year-old she was in 1970, she is distraught and disoriented in what to her is the future. She is confined to a mental war until she discovers a magical ability to pass invisible through time and space to escape. Alone in a strange world, she uses her mysterious powers to eke out a living as a street magician. Then she accidently meets her former husband, and all changes.
“America Again” by Stephen Colbert. Television personality and comedian Stephen Colbert gives America a dose of his opinions on everything trivial to everything important, all in order to get American back on the right track its’ already on.
“The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg. The author takes the listener to the edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed, bringing a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential for transformation. The key to losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, and achieving success is understanding how habits work.

Sharon Sturgis is the librarian at the Ellinwood School/Commu