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Book of the Week


THIS WEEK

Design-It-Yourself Clothes : Patternmaking Simplified (cover)Design-It-Yourself Clothes : Patternmaking Simplified
by Cal Patch

If you’ve always wanted to make your own clothes, this book by Cal Patch, a crafting heavyweight and former designer with Urban Outfitters, will help you translate that design in your head into a made-to-fit garment. And with fifteen super-cute styles to choose from, you won’t have trouble finding a project to suit your style.  The designs have a pretty, demure, and naïve quality about them that recalls the effortless, understated cool of A.P.C. and the quirky girlishness of Built By Wendy.  The instructions, while clear and logical, are laid-back and encourage experimentation.  Most importantly, they demystify what often comes across in other sewing books as a really intimidating process.  So, grab a copy of the book and unleash your inner designer.

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January | February

Jan 4-10

Food, Girls and Other Things I Can't Have (cover)Food, Girls and Other Things I Can't Have
by Allen Zadoff

Life used to be so simple for Andrew Zansky–hang with the Model UN guys, avoid gym class, and eat and eat and eat. He’s used to not fitting in: into his family, his sports-crazed school, or his size 48 pants. But not anymore. Andrew just met April, the new girl at school and the instant love of his life! He wants to find a way to win her over, but how? When O. Douglas, the heartthrob quarterback and high-school legend, saves him from getting beaten up by the school bully, Andrew sees his chance to get in with the football squad. Is it possible to reinvent yourself in the middle of high school? Andrew is willing to try. But he’s going to have to make some changes. Fast. Can a funny fat kid be friends with a football superstar? Can he win over the Girl of his Dreams? Can he find a way to get his mom and dad back together? How far should you go to be the person you really want to be? Andrew is about to find out.

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Jan 11-17

The Reformed Vampire Support Group (cover)The Reformed Vampire Support Group
by Catherine Jinks

Twilight fans, this book is not really for you; an unromanticized, irreverent, hilarious look at the blood-sucking life, through the eyes of Nina Harrison, fanged at 15 and still living with her mother. She's stuck in a support group for reformed vamps that has never had anything exciting happen to them...until one of them is murdered. With the help of a priest and Nina's mom soon the whole cast of weak misfit vampires bands together to surprise themselves: saving a werewolf, solving a mystery and keeping the world safe from blood-thirsty unreformed vamps. Through it all, Nina learns to stop fighting fate, accepts that she's a vampire, and realizes she actually kind of does like that cute Dave guy even if he's a vampire.

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Jan 18-24

I Can't Keep my own Secrets: Six Word Memoirs by Teens Famous & Obscure  (cover)I Can't Keep my own Secrets: Six Word Memoirs by Teens Famous & Obscure
by the editors of Smith Magazine

One life. Six words. What's yours? True tales of love, loss, good friends, and bad hair days filled Not Quite What I Was Planning, the New York Times bestselling first book in the Six-Word Memoir series—and an international phenomenon. Some of the most compelling were by teens, so now SMITH Magazine has compiled a book written entirely by these bold, brash truth-tellers. From cancer to creativity, prom dates to promiscuity, and breaking hearts to breaking laws, the memoirs in this collection reveal that often the youngest writers have the most fascinating stories to tell.

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Jan 25-31

Forest of Hands and Teeth (cover)Forest of Hands and Teeth
by Carrie Ryan

In Mary's world there are simple truths. The Sisterhood always knows best. The Guardians will protect and serve. The Un-consecrated will never relent. And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth. But, slowly, Mary’s truths are failing her. She’s learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, and the Guardians and their power, and about the Un-consecrated and their relentlessness. When the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, she must choose between her village and her future—between the one she loves and the one who loves her. And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death?

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Feb 1-7

The Magicians (cover)The Magicians
by Lev Grossman

Quentin is a gifted, nerdy-but-cool high school student who's just flaked out on his shot at calling Princeton University his alma mater when he is mysteriously transported to another institution of higher learning. Only it isn't the Ivy League, and it isn't life as most of us know it. Quentin has just become the newest co-ed at Brakebills College, a post-secondary school of magic. At Brakebills, Quentin soon learns that magic isn't - well, all that magical. It's actually kind of boring. But he does learn about sex and romance, drugs, and the other highs and lows usually attending a newly minted adult. Feeling increasingly adrift as he sinks further into an unfulfilling life of parties and not much else, Quentin discovers that his beloved Fillory - a magical land from a series of books he grew up obsessed with - is actually real. And not just real but one in need of his magical skills and moral courage.

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