It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This weekly meme is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date.

I'm still reading: 

I picked this for the Sci-Fi Summer Read-a-Thon earlier this month, but I've had a slow time of it. The style of writing makes it slow to read. I listened to the first two books in the series, and I enjoyed that better. Too bad my library didn't have this one in audio format. Still, I'm determined to finish it!

TITLE: Raging Star

SERIES: Dust Lands, Book #3
AUTHOR: Moira Young

PUBLISHER: Doubleday Canada

PUBLICATION DATE: May 13, 2014

FORMAT: Hardcover
LENGTH: 448 pages

GENRE: Young Adult, Science Fiction/Dystopia

ISBN: 9780385679244

The much-anticipated, thrilling conclusion to Moira Young's Dust Lands trilogy.

When the star reader, Auriel Tai, challenged Saba to seize her destiny and defeat DeMalo and the Tonton, Saba was confident in her purpose. Then she met DeMalo and he confounded all expectations with his seductive vision of a healed earth, a New Eden. DeMalo and Saba had an intense and passionate encounter - physical, emotional and psychic - that changed her life, and now he wants Saba to join him, in life and work, to create and build a healthy, stable, sustainable world...for the chosen few.

Jack's choice is clear: to fight DeMalo and try to stop his dangerous New Eden project. Still uncertain, her connection with DeMalo a secret, Saba commits herself to the fight. Joined by her brother Lugh, anxious for the land in New Eden, Saba leads an inexperienced guerilla band against the powerfully charismatic DeMalo, in command of his settlers and the Tonton militia.

What chance do they have? Saba must act. And be willing to pay the price.

Something from the library. I'm a big Alice Cooper fan, though I'm not a fan of golf!

TITLE: Alice Cooper, Golf Monster: A Rock 'n' Roller's 12 Steps to Becoming a Golf Addict

AUTHOR: Alice Cooper

PUBLISHER: Crown Publishing Group (NY)

PUBLICATION DATE: May 1, 2007

FORMAT: Hardcover
LENGTH: 260 pages

GENRE: Autobiography/Memoir

ISBN: 9780307382658

The man who invented shock rock tells the amazing and, yeah, shocking story of how he slayed his thirsty demons--with a golf club. It started one day when Cooper was watching a Star Trek rerun between concerts, bored and drunk on a quart-of-whiskey-a-day habit; a friend dragged the rocker out of his room and suggested a round of golf. Cooper has been a self-confessed golf addict ever since. Today he and his band still tour the world, playing some one hundred gigs a year . . . and three hundred days out of that year, Cooper is on the course.

Alice Cooper, Golf Monster is Cooper's tell-all memoir; in it he talks candidly about his entire life and career, as well as his struggles with alcohol, how he fell in love with the game of golf, how he dried out at a sanitarium back in the late '70s, and how he put the last nails in his addiction's coffin by getting up daily at 7 a.m. to play 36 holes.

Alice has hilarious, touching, and sometimes surprising stories about so many of his friends: Led Zeppelin and the Doors, George Burns and Groucho Marx, golf legends like John Daly and Tiger Woods . . . everyone is here from Dali to Elvis to Arnold Palmer.

This is the story of Cooper's life, and also a story about golf. He rose from hacker to scratch golfer to serious Pro Am competitor and on to his status today as one of the best celebrity golfers around--all while rising through the rock 'n' roll ranks releasing platinum albums and selling out arenas with his legendary act.

Something from my bookshelf. This is my vintage 1970 edition, which I've kept from my childhood! I'm reading it aloud to my daughter, and our plan is to make our way through the whole series. This is a re-read for me, but I honestly don't remember a thing about it! It read it when I was young.

TITLE: The Marvelous Land of Oz

SERIES: Oz, Book #2
AUTHOR: L. Frank Baum 

PUBLISHER: Scholastic

PUBLICATION DATE: 1970 (first published 1904)

FORMAT: Paperback
LENGTH: 192 pages

GENRE: Children's Fiction, Classics, Fantasy

ISBN: 0590085654

"You'll never bother me again," says Mombi the witch, "once you drink this magic brew."

"What'll it do?" cries poor Tip.

"It will turn you into a marble statue!"

Tip's heart beats wildly.

Can a mere boy escape from a witch's evil power?

But this is Oz -- the marvelous, magical land where anything can happen!

I'm listening to:

Something from my review pile. 

TITLE: Blood Rose Rebellion

SERIES: Blood Rose Rebellion, Book #1

AUTHOR: Rosalyn Eves

NARRATORS: Fiona Hardingham

PUBLISHER: Listening Library

PUBLICATION DATE: March 28, 2017

FORMAT: Unabridged audiobook

LENGTH: 11 hrs and 27 mins

GENRE: Young Adult, Fantasy, Historical

In a world where social prestige derives from a trifecta of blood, money, and magic, one girl has the ability to break the spell that holds the social order in place.

Sixteen-year-old Anna Arden is barred from society by a defect of blood. Though her family is part of the Luminate, powerful users of magic, she is Barren, unable to perform the simplest spells. Anna would do anything to belong. But her fate takes another course when, after inadvertently breaking her sister's debutante spell an important chance for a highborn young woman to show her prowess with magic Anna finds herself exiled to her family s once powerful but now crumbling native Hungary.

Her life might well be over.

In Hungary, Anna discovers that nothing is quite as it seems. Not the people around her, from her aloof cousin Noemi to the fierce and handsome gypsy Gabor. Not the society she's known all her life, for discontent with the Luminate is sweeping the land. And not her lack of magic. Isolated from the only world she cares about, Anna still can't seem to stop herself from breaking spells.

As rebellion spreads across the region, Anna s unique ability becomes the catalyst everyone is seeking. In the company of nobles, revolutionaries, and gypsies, Anna must choose: deny her unique power and cling to the life she s always wanted, or embrace her ability and change that world forever.

I just finished:

TITLE: All the Bright Places

AUTHOR: Jennifer Niven

NARRATORS: Kirby Heybourne and Ariadne Meyers

PUBLISHER: Listening Library

PUBLICATION DATE: January 6, 2015

FORMAT: Unabridged audiobook

LENGTH: 11 hrs and 4 mins

GENRE: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mental Health/Mental Illness

Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister's recent death.
When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it's unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the "natural wonders" of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It's only with Violet that Finch can be himself - a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who's not such a freak after all. And it's only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet's world grows, Finch's begins to shrink.

This is an intense, gripping novel perfect for fans of Jay Asher, Rainbow Rowell, John Green, Gayle Forman, and Jenny Downham from a talented new voice in YA, Jennifer Niven.

What are you reading? Have you read any of these books and, if so, what did you think? Please let me know in the comments and, if you are also participating in this meme, leave me a link to your blog post so that I can stop by!