Book: The Last Unicorn

TITLE: The Last Unicorn
AUTHOR: Peter S. Beagle
PUBLISHED: 1968
GENRE: Fantasy
CATEGORY: I say it's adult as all the characters are adult, but I've seen it shelved as both YA and Childrens and adult so...
PAGES: 294
SUMMARY:  The unicorn, alone in her enchanted wood, discovers that she may be the last of her kind. Reluctant at first, she sets out on a journey to find her fellow unicorns.

Series: The Oz series

SERIES: Oz series
AUTHOR: Frank L. Baum
ORDER OF BOOKS: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Marvelous Land of Oz
Ozma of Oz
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz
The Road to Oz
The Emerald City of Oz
The Patchwork Girl of Oz
The Tok of Oz
The Scarecrow of Oz
Rinkitink in Oz
The Lost Princess of Oz
The Magic of Oz
Glinda of Oz
STARTED: 1900
COMPLETED: 1920
GENRE: Fantasy
CATEGORY: Childrens/Middle-grade/Classic
SUMMARY OF FIRST BOOK ON GOODREADS: The classic American fairy tale of Dorothy Gale and her dog, Toto, one of the true staples of American literature, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has stimulated the imagination of young and old alike for generations.

Book: On My Honor

TITLE: On My Honor
AUTHOR: Marion Dane Bauer
CATEGORY: Childrens/Middle-Grade
GENRE: Realistic Fiction
PUBLISHED: 1986
PAGES: 96
SUMMARY ON GOODREADS: Joel dares his best friend, Tony, to a swimming race in a dangerous river. Both boys jump in, but when Joel reaches the sandbar, he finds Tony has vanished. How can he face their parents and the terrible truth?

Note: this author has written several more books, but this one is probably her most well known.

Book: Hope Was Here

TITLE: Hope Was Here
AUTHOR: Joan Bauer
CATEGORY: Young Adult
GENRE: Realistic Fiction
PUBLISHED: 2000
PAGES: 186
SUMMARY ON GOODREADS: When Hope and her aunt move to small-town Wisconsin to take over the local diner, Hope's not sure what to expect. But what they find is that the owner, G.T., isn't quite ready to give up yet - in fact, he's decided to run for mayor against a corrupt candidate. And as Hope starts to make her place at the diner, she also finds herself caught up in G.T.'s campaign - particularly his visions for the future. After all, as G.T. points out, everyone can use a little hope to help get through the tough times... even Hope herself.

Notes: Newbery Honoree and has won several other awards.

Also look into some of the author's other many books: Close to Famous

Almost Home

Peeled

Rules of the Road series

Trilogy: The Door Within

TRILOGY: The Door Within
AUTHOR: Wayne Thomas Batson
ORDER OF BOOKS: The Door Within
The Rise of the Wyrm Lord
The Final Storm
CATEGORY: Middle-Grade
GENRE: Fantasy/Christian
STARTED: 2005
COMPLETED: 2006
SUMMARY OF FIRST BOOK ON GOODREADS: Aidan Thomas is miserable. Within two weeks, Aidan’s life is completely uprooted as his parents move the family across the country to care for his ailing grandfather. The quiet but imaginative Aidan is struggling with attending a new school and fitting in with a new group of friends. But when he begins having nightmares and eerie events occur around his neighborhood, Aidan finds himself drawn to his grandfather's basement—where he discovers three ancient scrolls and a mysterious invitation to another world.

No longer confined to the realm of his own imagination, Aidan embarks on an adventure where he discovers a long-fought war between good and evil. With the fate of two worlds hanging in the balance, Aidan faces Paragory, the eternal enemy with unfathomable power. Will Aidan be willing to risk everything and trust the unseen hand of the one true King?

Good for: Chronicles of Narnia fans, Christian Fiction fans

Book: Company

TITLE: Company
AUTHOR: Max Barry
PUBLISHED: 2006
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Realistic Fiction
PAGES: 338
SUMMARY ON GOODREADS: Stephen Jones is a shiny new hire at Zephyr Holdings. From the outside, Zephyr is just another bland corporate monolith, but behind its glass doors business is far from usual: the beautiful receptionist is paid twice as much as anybody else to do nothing, the sales reps use self help books as manuals, no one has seen the CEO, no one knows exactly what they are selling, and missing donuts are the cause of office intrigue. While Jones originally wanted to climb the corporate ladder, he now finds himself descending deeper into the irrational rationality of company policy. What he finds is hilarious, shocking, and utterly telling.

Series: Peter and the Starcatchers

SERIES: Peter and the Starcatchers
AUTHOR: Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
ORDER OF BOOKS: Peter and the Starcatchers
Peter and the Shadow Thieves
Peter and the Secret of Rundoon
Peter and the Sword of Mercy
CATEGORY: Middle-Grade
STARTED: 2004
COMPLETED: 2009
GENRE: Fantasy/Retelling-Reimagining
SUMMARY OF FIRST BOOK ON GOODREADS: A fast-paced, impossible-to-put-down adventure awaits as the young orphan Peter and his mates are dispatched to an island ruled by the evil King Zarboff. They set sail aboard the NeverLand, a ship carrying a precious and mysterious trunk in its cargo hold, and the journey quickly becomes fraught with excitement and danger. 
Discover richly developed characters in the sweet but sophisticated Molly, the scary but familiar Black Stache, and the fearless Peter. Treacherous battles with pirates, foreboding thunderstorms at sea, and evocative writing immerses the reader in a story that slowly and finally reveals the secrets and mysteries of the beloved Peter Pan. 

Note: there are many companion series/books to this series. It was also made into a Broadway musical.

Book: The Lace Reader

TITLE: The Lace Reader
AUTHOR: Brunonia Barry
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Magical Realism/Historical Fiction/Drama
PUBLISHED: 2006
PAGES: 390
SUMMARY ON GOODREADS: Every gift has a price . . . every piece of lace has a secret.

Towner Whitney, the self-confessed unreliable narrator, hails from a family of Salem women who can read the future in the patterns in lace, and who have guarded a history of secrets going back generations. Now the disappearance of two women is bringing Towner back home to Salem—and is bringing to light the shocking truth about the death of her twin sister.

Also look into her other book: The Map of True Places

Series: Merlin

Series: Merlin
Author: T. A. Barron
Order of Books: The Lost Years of Merlin
The Seven Songs of Merlin
The Fires of Merlin
The Mirror of Merlin
The Wings of Merlin
Started: 1996
Completed: 2000
Category: Middle-Grade
Genre: Fantasy/Classic Book Referencing/Wizards
Summary of First Book: When Merlin, suffering from a case of severe amnesia, discovers his strange powers, he becomes determined to discover his identity and flees to Fincayra where he fulfills his destiny, saving Fincayra from certain destruction and claiming his birthright and true name.

Also look into: The Great Tree of Avalon Trilogy by the same author

Series: Jane Austen Mysteries

Series: Jane Austen Mysteries
Author: Stephanie Barron
First Book: Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrove Manor
Most Recent Book (number 12): Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas
Started: 1996
Category: Adult
Genre: Historical Mystery, Austen-Referencing
Summary of First Book on Goodreads: On a visit to the estate of her friend, the young and beautiful Isobel Payne, Countess of Scargrave, Jane bears witness to a tragedy. Isobel's husband,a gentleman of mature years, is felled by a mysterious and agonizing ailment. The Earl's death seems a cruel blow of fate for the newly married Isobel. Yet the bereaved widow soon finds that it's only the beginning of her misfortune...as she receives a sinister missive accusing her and the Earl's nephew of adultery and murder. Desperately afraid that the letter will expose her to the worst sort of scandal, Isobel begs Jane for help. And Jane finds herself embroiled in a perilous investigation that will soon have her following a trail of clues that leads all the way to Newgate Prison and the House of Lords' trail that may well place Jane's own person in the gravest jeopardy.

Book: Peter Pan

Title: Peter Pan
Author: J. M. Barrie
Category: Classic, Childrens/Middle-Grade
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure
Pages: around 200 pages, depending on the version
Published: 1902
Summary on Goodreads: Neverland is home to Peter Pan, a young boy who has never grown up. On one of his visits to London, Peter makes the acquaintance of young Wendy Darling, whom he invites to travel with him to Neverland and become the mother of his gang of Lost Boys. Flying through the night sky to Neverland, Wendy and her brothers are soon caught up in adventures.

Series: Booktown Mystery

Series: Booktown Mysteries
Author: Lorna Barrett
First Book: Murder is Binding
Most Recent Book (book 9): A Fatal Chapter
Category: Adult
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Started: 2008
Summary of Series on Goodreads: Tricia Miles, runs a mystery bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue, and the cat Miss Marple, in fictional small-town Stoneham, New Hampshire, a town full of bookstores and solves mysteries on the side.

Series: Anna Pigeon

Series: Anna Pigeon
Author: Nevada Barr
Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery
Summary of Series on Goodreads: National Park Ranger Anna Pigeon goes beyond the call of duty in this Agatha and Anthony Award-winning mystery series. She travels to National Parks around the country, solving mysteries in the wilderness and historic locales. Author Nevada Barr draws on her own experience as a former park ranger to craft these award-winning novels. 
Started: 1993

First Book: Track of the Cat

Latest Book (number 18 so far!): Destroyer Angel

Book: Two-Way Street

Title: Two-Way Street
Author: Lauren Barnholdt
Published: 2007
Pages: 288
Category: YA
Genre: Realistic Fiction, Romance, Break-Ups
Summary on Goodreads: There are two sides to every breakup.

This is Jordan and Courtney, totally in love. Sure, they were an unlikely high school couple. But they clicked; it worked. They're even going to the same college, and driving cross-country together for orientation.

Then Jordan dumps Courtney -- for a girl he met on the Internet.

It's too late to change plans, so the road trip is on. Courtney's heartbroken, but figures she can tough it out for a few days. La la la -- this is Courtney pretending not to care.

But in a strange twist, Jordan cares. A lot.

Turns out, he's got a secret or two that he's not telling Courtney. And it has everything to do with why they broke up, why they can't get back together, and how, in spite of it all, this couple is destined for each other.

Other Books the author has written to look into: One Night That Changes Everything
Sometimes It Happens
Aces Up
The Thing About the Truth
Right of Way
Through to You
Witches of Santa-Anna series

Book: The Sense of an Ending

Title: The Sense of an Ending
Author: Julian Barnes
Published: 2011
Pages: 163
Category: Adult
Genre: Realistic Fiction, Family/Personal Drama
Summary on Goodreads: This intense novel follows Tony Webster, a middle-aged man, as he contends with a past he never thought much about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony thought he left this all behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.

Awards: Man Booker Prize, European Literature Prize, ALA Notable Book

Author has also written several other books: Arthur and George
A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters
Flaubert's Parrot
and many more

Series: The Naturals

Series: The Naturals
Order of Series: The Naturals
Killer Instinct
All In (coming November 3rd)
Possible forth book depending on how things go
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Started: 2013
Category: YA
Genre: Mystery, Paranormal/Urban Fantasy, People with Powers
Summary of First Book: Seventeen-year-old Cassie is a natural at reading people. Piecing together the tiniest details, she can tell you who you are and what you want. But it’s not a skill that she’s ever taken seriously. That is, until the FBI come knocking: they’ve begun a classified program that uses exceptional teenagers to crack infamous cold cases, and they need Cassie.

What Cassie doesn’t realize is that there’s more at risk than a few unsolved homicides—especially when she’s sent to live with a group of teens whose gifts are as unusual as her own. Sarcastic, privileged Michael has a knack for reading emotions, which he uses to get inside Cassie’s head—and under her skin. Brooding Dean shares Cassie’s gift for profiling, but keeps her at arm’s length.

Soon, it becomes clear that no one in the Naturals program is what they seem. And when a new killer strikes, danger looms closer than Cassie could ever have imagined. Caught in a lethal game of cat and mouse with a killer, the Naturals are going to have to use all of their gifts just to survive.

Good for: Jennifer Lynn Barnes fans, Mystery fans, NCIS/CSI fans, Body Finder fans, Urban Fantasy fans

Trilogy: Raised by Wolves

Trilogy: Raised by Wolves
Order of Books: Raised by Wolves
Trial by Fire
Taken by Storm
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Started: 2010
Category: YA
Genre: Urban Fantasy/Werewolves
Summary of First Book on Goodreads: Adopted by the Alpha of a werewolf pack after a rogue wolf brutally killed her parents right before her eyes, fifteen-year-old Bryn knows only pack life, and the rigid social hierarchy that controls it.  That doesn't mean that she's averse to breaking a rule or two.  

But when her curiosity gets the better of her and she discovers Chase, a new teen locked in a cage in her guardian's basement, and witnesses him turn into a wolf before her eyes, the horrific memories of her parents' murders return. Bryn becomes obsessed with getting her questions answered, and Chase is the only one who can provide the information she needs.

But in her drive to find the truth, will Bryn push too far beyond the constraints of the pack, forcing her to leave behind her friends, her family, and the identity that she's shaped?

Book: Nightwood

Title: Nightwood
Author: Djuna Barnes
Published: 1936
Category: Adult, Modern Classic
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Pages: 182
Summary on Goodreads: Nightwood, Djuna Barnes' strange and sinuous tour de force, "belongs to that small class of books that somehow reflect a time or an epoch" (TLS). That time is the period between the two World Wars, and Barnes' novel unfolds in the decadent shadows of Europe's great cities, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna—a world in which the boundaries of class, religion, and sexuality are bold but surprisingly porous. The outsized characters who inhabit this world are some of the most memorable in all of fiction—there is Guido Volkbein, the Wandering Jew and son of a self-proclaimed baron; Robin Vote, the American expatriate who marries him and then engages in a series of affairs, first with Nora Flood and then with Jenny Petherbridge, driving all of her lovers to distraction with her passion for wandering alone in the night; and there is Dr. Matthew-Mighty-Grain-of-Salt-Dante-O'Connor, a transvestite and ostensible gynecologist, whose digressive speeches brim with fury, keen insights, and surprising allusions. Barnes' depiction of these characters and their relationships (Nora says, "A man is another person—a woman is yourself, caught as you turn in panic; on her mouth you kiss your own") has made the novel a landmark of feminist and lesbian literature. Most striking of all is Barnes' unparalleled stylistic innovation, which led T. S. Eliot to proclaim the book "so good a novel that only sensibilities trained on poetry can wholly appreciate it." Now with a new preface by Jeanette Winterson, Nightwood still crackles with the same electric charge it had on its first publication in 1936.

Trilogy: Regeneration

Series: Regeneration
Author: Pat Barker
Category: Adult
Genre: Historical Fiction
Started: 1991
Order of Books: Regeneration
The Eye in the Door
The Ghost Road
Summary of First Book on Goodreads: Regeneration, one in Pat Barker's series of novels confronting the psychological effects of World War I, foc.uses on treatment methods during the war and the story of a decorated English officer sent to a military hospital after publicly declaring he will no longer fight. Yet the novel is much more. Written in sparse prose that is shockingly clear -- the descriptions of electronic treatments are particularly harrowing -- it combines real-life characters and events with fictional ones in a work that examines the insanity of war like no other.

Series: Abarat

Series: Abarat
Author: Clive Barker
Started: 2002
Category: YA
Genre: Fantasy
Order of Books: Abarat
Days of Magic, Nights of War
Absolute Midnight
A forth book is expected to be released, but no word yet on when.
Summary of First Book on Goodreads: Candy lives in Chickentown USA: the most boring place in the world, her heart bursting for some clue as to what her future may hold. She is soon to find out: swept out of our world by a giant wave, she finds herself in another place entirely...

The Abarat: a vast archipelago where every island is a different hour of the day, from the sunlit wonders of Three in the Afternoon, where dragons roam, to the dark terrors of the island of Midnight, ruled by Christopher Carrion.

Candy has a place in this extraordinary world: she has been brought here to help save the Abarat from the dark forces that are stirring at its heart. Forces older than time itself, and more evil than anything candy has ever encountered. 

Trilogy: Grisha

Series: Grisha Trilogy
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Started: 2012
Category: YA
Genre: Fantasy
Order of Books: Shadow and Bone
Siege and Storm
Ruin and Rising
Summary of First Book on Goodreads: Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee.

Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.

Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha . . . and the secrets of her heart.

Book: No Time For Goodbye

Book: No Time For Goodbye
Author: Linwood Barclay
Published: 2007
Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 338
Summary on Goodreads: Fourteen-year-old Cynthia Bigge woke one morning to discover that her entire family, mother, father, brother had vanished. No note, no trace, no return. Ever. Now, twenty-five years later, she'll learn the devastating truth

Sometimes better not to know. . . 

Cynthia is happily married with a young daughter, a new family. But the story of her old family isn't over. A strange car in the neighborhood, untraceable phone calls, ominous gifts, someone has returned to her hometown to finish what was started twenty-five years ago. And no one's innocence is guaranteed, not even her own. By the time Cynthia discovers her killer's shocking identity, it will again be too late . . . even for goodbye.

Note: There is a companion book to this called No Safe House about different characters.

Trilogy: Breathless

Trilogy: Breathless
Author: Maya Banks
Category: Adult
Genre: Romance, Erotica, Realistic Fiction
Started: 2013
Order of Books: Rush
Fever
Burn
Summary of Series on Goodreads: The series follows three billionaires—Gabe Hamilton, Jace Crestwell and Ash McIntyre—who are best friends and business partners. The men dominate both in the boardroom and in the bedroom. Each novel in the trilogy will explore the relationship of one of the men as he discovers the woman he will love.

Note: This author has written several other contemporary erotica romances, this is just her most well known.

Series: Huxtable Quintet

Series: Huxtable Quintet
Author: Mary Balogh
Started: 2009
Category: Adult
Genre: Historical Romance
Order of Books: First Comes Marriage
Then Comes Seduction
At Last Comes Love
Seducing an Angel
A Secret Affair
Gist of series: Another series of historical romances centered around a family.

Series: Bedwyn Saga

Series: Bedwyn Saga
Author: Mary Balogh
Started: 2003
Category: Adult
Genre: Historical Romance
Order of Books: Slightly Married
Slightly Wicked
Slightly Scandalous
Slightly Tempted
Slightly Sinful
Slightly Dangerous
Prequels: One Night For Love
A Summer to Remember

Gist: A category romance series revolving around a family of brothers and their romances with various women. Each one is a different love story.

Book: Empire of the Sun

Title: Empire of the Sun
Author: J. G. Ballard
Published: 1984
Category: Adult
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 351
Summary on Goodreads: Jim is separated from his parents in a world at war. To survive, he must find a strength greater than all the events that surround him.

Shanghai, 1941 -- a city aflame from the fateful torch of Pearl Harbor. In streets full of chaos and corpses, a young British boy searches in vain for his parents. Imprisoned in a Japanese concentration camp, he is witness to the fierce white flash of Nagasaki, as the bomb bellows the end of the war...and the dawn of a blighted world.

Awards: Man Booker Prize Nominee

Guardian Fiction Award

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction

Book: The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Title: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Author: Muriel Barbury
Published: 2005 (2008 in the US)
Category: Adult
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Pages: 325
Summary on Goodreads: We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Renée, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, Renée is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With humor and intelligence she scrutinizes the lives of the building's tenants, who for their part are barely aware of her existence.

Then there's Paloma, a twelve-year-old genius. She is the daughter of a tedious parliamentarian, a talented and startlingly lucid child who has decided to end her life on the sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday. Until then she will continue behaving as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not an outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter.

Paloma and Renée hide both their true talents and their finest qualities from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. They discover their kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building. Only he is able to gain Paloma's trust and to see through Renée's timeworn disguise to the secret that haunts her. This is a moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.

Check out the author's other book: Gourmet Rhapsody

Book: The Sea

Title: The Sea
Author: John Banville
Published: 2005
Category: Adult
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Pages: 195
Summary on Goodreads: In this luminous new novel about love, loss, and the unpredictable power of memory, John Banville introduces us to Max Morden, a middle-aged Irishman who has gone back to the seaside town where he spent his summer holidays as a child to cope with the recent loss of his wife. It is also a return to the place where he met the Graces, the well-heeled family with whom he experienced the strange suddenness of both love and death for the first time. What Max comes to understand about the past, and about its indelible effects on him, is at the center of this elegiac, gorgeously written novel -- among the finest we have had from this masterful writer. 

Note: Won the Man Booker Prize and others in 2005

Also check out some of the author's other books: The Freddie Montgomery Trilogy
The Untouchable
Ancient Light
The Infinities

Series: The Indian in the Cupboard

Series: Indian in the Cupboard
Author: Lynne Reid Banks
Started: 1980
Category: Childrens/Middle-Grade
Genre: Magical Realism
Order of Books: The Indian in the Cupboard
The Return of the Indian
The Secret of the Indian
The Mystery of the Cubboard
The Key to the Indian
Summary of first book on Goodreads: At first, Omri is unimpressed with the plastic Indian toy he is given for his birthday. But when he puts it in his old cupboard and turns the key, something extraordinary happens that will change Omri's life for ever. 
For Little Bull, the Iroquois Indian brave, comes to life...

Book: The Fairy Rebel

Title: The Fairy Rebel
Author: Lynne Reid Banks
Published: 1985
Category: Childrens/Middle-grade
Genre: Fantasy, Faeries
Pages: 117
Summary on Goodreads: The Fairy Queen strictly forbids fairies from using their magic power on humans. But after Tiki accidentally meets Jan, a woman who is desperate for a baby daughter, she finds it impossible to resist fulfilling her wish. Now up against the dark and vicious power of evil, this fairy rebel must face the Queen's fury with frightening and possibly fatal results.

Book: The Wasp Factory

Title: The Wasp Factory
Author: Iain Banks
Published: 1984
Category: Adult/YA (can count as both)
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Pages: 184
Summary on Goodreads: Frank — no ordinary sixteen-year-old — lives with his father outside a remote Scottish village. Their life is, to say the least, unconventional. Frank's mother abandoned them years ago; his elder brother Eric is confined to a psychiatric hospital; and his father measures out his eccentricities on an imperial scale. Frank has turned to strange acts of violence to vent his frustrations. In the bizarre daily rituals there is some solace. But when news comes of Eric's escape from the hospital Frank has to prepare the ground for his brother's inevitable return — an event that explodes the mysteries of the past and changes Frank utterly.

If you like this, check out the author's many other books: The Crow Road
Complicity
The Bridge
Whit
Espedair Street
Dead Air
The Business
Walking On Glass
The Steep Approach to Garbadale
and many more, the author has written almost thirty books

Book: The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing

Title: The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing
Author: Melissa Bank
Published: 1998
Category: Adult
Genre: Realistic Fiction, Romance
Pages: 288
Summary on Goodreads: Generous-hearted and wickedly insightful, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing maps the progress of Jane Rosenal as she sets out on a personal and spirited expedition through the perilous terrain of sex, love, and relationships as well as the treacherous waters of the workplace. With an unforgettable comic touch, Bank skillfully teases out issues of the heart, puts a new spin on the mating dance, and captures in perfect pitch what it's like to be a young woman coming of age in America today.

Also check out the author's other book: The Wonder Spot

Series: Chasing Vermeer

Series: Chasing Vermeer
Author: Blue Balliett
Category: Childrens/Middle-Grade
Started: 2004
Genre: Mystery
Order of Books: Chasing Vermeer
The Wrights
The Calder Game
Pieces and Players
Summary of first book on Goodreads: A puzzling art theft is solved by two sixth-grade sleuths in a first-rate first novel by Blue Balliett, illustrated by Series of Unfortunate Events artist Brett Helquist. Cut from similar cloth to The Da Vinci Code while harkening back to E. L. Konigsburg and Agatha Christie, Balliett's book follows young Petra Andalee and Calder Pillay as they piece together separate, seemingly disconnected events to locate The Lady Writing, a Vermeer painting that gets stolen en route to Chicago's Art Institute. Going on the theory that there are no coincidences, the two wonder about the link between their teacher's statements, Petra's dreams, a book Petra finds in the library, and other clues that set the reader guessing as to their significance as well. But after they learn of the culprit's aim to correct untruths about Vermeer's life and art -- which spurs them into full-throttle detective work -- the pieces all come together in a brilliant ending sure to make readers cheer, "Ah ha!"

Author: James Baldwin

Author: James Baldwin
Category: Modern Classic, Non-Fiction
Mostly wrote: during the 50s and 60s, a few during the 70s
Genre mostly wrote: Realistic Fiction, Essays
Some of His Major Books: Go Tell It on the Mountain
Giovanni's Room
Notes of a Native Son
The Fire Next Time
Another Country
If Beale Street Could Talk
Sonny's Blues
Going to Meet the Man
Tell Me How Long The Train's Been Gone
Nobody Knows My Name

Book: Absolute Power

Title: Absolute Power
Author: David Baldacci
Published: 1995
Category: Adult
Genre: Realistic Fiction, Politics, Mystery/Thriller
Pages: 550
Summary on Goodreads: A grizzled professional cat burglar gets trapped inside the bedroom closet of one of the world's richest men, only to witness, through a one-way mirror, two Secret Service agents kill the billionaire's trampy young wife as she tries to fight off the drunken sexual advances of the nation's chief executive. Running for his life, but not before he picks up a bloodstained letter opener that puts the president at the scene of the crime, the burglar becomes the target of a clandestine manhunt orchestrated by leading members of the executive branch.

Meanwhile, Jack Graham, once a public defender and now a high-powered corporate attorney, gets drawn into the case because the on-the-lam burglar just happens to be the father of his former financee, a crusading Virginia prosecutor. 

Embroidering the narrative through assorted plot whorls are the hero's broken romance; his conflict over selling out for financial success; the prosecutor's confused love-hate for her burglar father; the relentless investigation by a northern Virginia career cop; the dilemma of government agents trapped in a moral catch-22; the amoral ambitions of a sexy White House Chief of Staff; and the old burglar's determination to bring down the ruthless president. 

Meanwhile, lurking at the novel's center like a venomous spider is the sociopathic president.

Also check out Baldacci's many other books (he's written over fifty), which all tend to fall under political thriller/mystery:

Camel Club series

Sean King and Michelle Maxwell series

Will Robbie series

John Puller series

A. Shaw books

and several other standalones