Jive's reads

On the Road swings to the rhythms of 1950s underground America: jazz, sex, generosity and drugs. It chronicles Jack Kerouac's years travelling North America with his friend Neal Cassady. As 'Sal Paradis' and 'Dean Moriarty', they are the living epitome of the Beat Generation, roaming the country in a quest for self-knowledge and experience.

An early English writer who had the ability to observe and write about people with startling truth. In Out of Town his story is based on two men who start a business studying the idea of 'social imagistics' - concerned that people were becoming only interested in presenting an image This was set in the early sixties. It may sound dry but Priestley's characters are very human and likeable, his observations so true you have to laugh. He writes in such an easy, descriptive style that his perceptions can take you by surprise.

Feeling left out since her long-time best friend started a serious relationship, sixteen-year-old Emily looks forward to a summer program at the Philadelphia College of Art but is not sure she is up to the challenges to be faced there, including finding herself and learning to balance life and art.

Sweet Serendipity is a New York dessert cafe frequented by the rich, the famous and the not so rich and famous. There are tempting photos and interesting stories behind the origins of many of the desserts. Recommended if you want something different, delicious and not too difficult.

A Gothic style novel set in Barcelona during the 1920's - a writer consumed by the need to write, the need to love and the torment those needs bring. Gripping and atmospheric - it's hard to put down!

It is 1498 and the whole of Venice is abuzz. Hidden somewhere in the labyrinthine city is an ancient book, rumoured to contain thorny heresies and secrets of immeasurable power. Luciano, a penniless orphan, has been plucked from the street and taken on as apprentice to the chef at the doge's palace.

Nat Turnbull is dragged from his quiet academic life when his former mentor, Professor Gordon Wolfe, is arrested for stealing top secret…

"Washington DC: Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned at the last minute to deliver an evening lecture in the Capitol Building. Within moments of his arrival, however, a disturbing object - gruesomely encoded with five symbols - is discovered at the epicentre of the Rotunda. It is, he recognises, an ancient invitation, meant to beckon its recipient towards a long-lost world of hidden esoteric wisdom. When Langdon's revered mentor, Peter Solomon - philanthropist and prominent Mason - is brutally kidnapped, Langdon realises that his only hope of saving his friend's life is to accept this mysterious summons and follow wherever it leads him. Langdon finds himself quickly swept behind the façade of America's most powerful city into the unseen chambers, temples and tunnels which exist there."--Publisher description.

A boy named Daniel selects a novel from a library of rare books, enjoying it so much that he searches for the rest of the author's works…