Thursday, August 23, 2012

Top ten books that dare their readers to think for themselves

Sara Grant was born and raised in Washington, Indiana, a small town in the Midwestern United States. She graduated from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, with degrees in journalism and psychology, and later she earned a master’s degree in creative and life writing Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Grant is senior commissioning editor for Working Partners, a London-based company creating series fiction for children. She has worked on ten different series and edited more than 75 books.

About Dark Parties, her first young adult novel: Booklist noted that "it's really the heart-pounding rush of twists that will induce extreme page turning."

For the Guardian, Grant named her ten favorite books that dare their readers to think for themselves, including:
A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly

This is a story within a story about two young women whose lives link in the summer of 1906 at Big Moose Lake. The end of one life is revealed in letters discovered by the other. There's murder and romance, but at its core is one young writer struggling to realise her dream. I've read this book twice – once for sheer pleasure and the second time with pencil in hand. I wanted to dissect it and figure out how it captivated me in a way few books have before or since. I realised that I may be able to diagram its many plots and list its cast of characters but what Donnelly has created takes a little bit of magic.
Read about another novel on the list.

Visit Sara Grant's website and Facebook page.

My Book, The Movie: Dark Parties.

Writers Read: Sara Grant.

--Marshal Zeringue