Mailbox Monday-- The Tide Is Beginning to Turn

The tide is beginning to shift a bit. I haven't done anything (until today) about posting more books to my Paperback Swap shelf, so only 3 books went out last week to new foster homes. On the other hand, books started coming through on my PBS wish list, and...ahem...I kinda fell off the wagon. Five books arrived at the Barlow B&B last week. Let me introduce you to my new friends:

--The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan (PBS). "The book begins seven generations after the Return, an undead plague that has ended civilization as we know it. Of course, a zombie outbreak usually means shotguns and mall looting--the very essence of freedom. But more than a century on from the Return, the malls have already been looted, and shotguns are a distant memory. The novel's heroine, Mary, lives in a village surrounded by one last vestige of industrial technology: a chain-link fence, beyond which is a vast forest full of shambling, eternally ravenous undead--the forest of hands and teeth. No villager ever goes outside this fence, unless they want to die. Mary's world is bounded not only by the fence but by the archaic traditions of her people, which are enforced by a religious order called the Sisterhood. Marriages, childbirth, death, every stage of life must be controlled to sustain the village's precarious existence. Even the houses are circumscribed--literally--with passages of scripture carved into every entrance to remind the inhabitants of the rules that sustain human life amid the horrors of the forest. After so long an isolation, the village is beginning to forget. Some doubt that there really was a time before the Return, with giant cities and wondrous technologies. Others believe that nothing at all exists beyond the forest of hands and teeth. And nobody but Mary and her slightly mad mother believes in something called 'the ocean,' a huge and unbounded space beyond the reach of the undead." I have to admit that I do enjoy a good dystopian novel now and then.

--The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne (PBS). "Through the eyes of Bruno, a naive nine-year-old raised in a privileged household by strict parents whose expectations included good manners and unquestioning respect for parental authority, the author describes a visit from the Fury and the family's sudden move from Berlin to a place called Out-With in Poland. There, not 50 feet away, a high wire fence surrounds a huge dirt area of low huts and large square buildings. From his bedroom window, Bruno can see hundreds (maybe thousands) of people wearing striped pajamas and caps, and something made him feel very cold and unsafe. Uncertain of what his father actually does for a living, the boy is eager to discover the secret of the people on the other side. He follows the fence into the distance, where he meets Shmuel, a skinny, sad-looking Jewish resident who, amazingly, has his same birth date. Bruno shares his thoughts and feelings with Shmuel, some of his food, and his final day at Out-With, knowing instinctively that his father must never learn about this friendship."

--The Unquiet Bones, The First Chronicle of Hugh de Singleton Surgeon by Melvin R. Starr (PBS). "A young woman's remains are found in the castle, and a surgeon is challenged to dissect the mystery and uncover the truth." This is the first in a series of medieval mysteries.

--My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme (Target). I keep saying that I'm going to see Julie & Julia, and it better happen this coming Wednesday! I told myself that I didn't need to read either of the books the movie is based on, but-- witness the power of book bloggers! -- someone's review of this book gave me no choice but to get my hands on a copy. I just wish I remembered the name of the blogger so I could give her credit for overcoming my mule-headedness!

--Julie & Julia by Julie Powell (Target). And I thought, since I'd already succumbed to Julia, I might as well give way to Julie!

A big Thank You to Marcia of The Printed Page for hosting this fun meme. If you'd like to see the new books others obtained over the past week, click on that redhead in the flirty skirt at the top of this post to be taken to Marcia's blog. See you next week!