What's New? Stacking the Shelves

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews. Hop on over there to ogle what other bloggers got this week.

For review:

I attended a webinar hosted by Sourcebooks previewing their spring titles. I jotted down five or six titles to watch for but couldn't resist requesting one arc:

Don't Get Caught by Kurt Dinan. 331 p. Sourcebooks, April 1, 2016. 9781492630142.

Publisher synopsis: 10:00 tonight at the water tower. Tell no one. -Chaos Club

When Max receives a mysterious invite from the untraceable, epic prank-pulling Chaos Club, he has to ask: why him? After all, he's Mr. 2.5 GPA, Mr. No Social Life. He's Just Max. And his favorite heist movies have taught him this situation calls for Rule #4: Be suspicious. 

But it's also his one shot to leave Just Max in the dust...

Yeah, not so much. Max and four fellow students-who also received invites-are standing on the newly defaced water tower when campus security "catches" them. Definitely a setup. And this time, Max has had enough. It's time for Rule #7: Always get payback.

Let the prank war begin.

Oceans 11 meets The Breakfast Club in this entertaining, fast-paced debut filled with pranks and cons that will keep readers on their toes, never sure who's pulling the strings or what's coming next.

It seems that pranking and heists are a bit of a trend - The Tapper Twins, The Terrible Two, The Great Greene Heist, and Loot. Now we have a YA, and a debut, no less.

Purchased:

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. 256 p. Random House Publishing Group, January, 2016. 

Publisher synopsis: At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.

Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.

I very rarely read books for an adult audience any more but this one caught my eye - partly because I have a son who is a first year neurosurgical resident, partly because I have always been intrigued by medical memoirs and partly because it is getting a tremendous amount of buzz.

A Midsummer Night #nofilter (OMG Shakespeare series) by William Shakespeare, Brett Wright. Random House Children's Books, January, 2016

Publisher synopsis: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one of the greatest stories ever told . . . in texts?!

 
Imagine: What if the fairies and star-crossed lovers of the forest had smartphones? A classic is reborn in this fun and funny adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays!
 
Four lovers who can’t decide who they have a crush on. 
One mischievous fairy with a love potion. 
Total chaos in the fairy world, the human world, and everywhere in between!
 
<3 and h8. The classics just got a whole lot more interesting. ;)
 
tl;dr A Shakespeare play told through its characters texting with emojis, posting photos, checking in at locations, and updating their relationship statuses. The perfect gift for hip theater lovers and teens. 

A glossary and cast of characters are included for those who need it. For example: tl;dr meanstoo long; didn’t read.

Macbeth #killingit by William Shakespeare, Courtney Carbone. OMG Shakespeare series. Random House Children's Books, January, 2016.

Publisher synopsis: Macbeth, one of the greatest stories ever told . . . in texts?!

 
Imagine: What if that tragic couple, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, had smartphones? A classic is reborn in this fun and funny adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays!
 
A prophecy from three witches.
A social-climbing couple committing a murder most foul.
A cover-up that spins way out of control.

<3 and h8. The classics just got a whole lot more interesting. ;)
 
tl;dr A Shakespeare play told through its characters texting with emojis, posting photos, checking in at locations, and updating their relationship statuses. The perfect gift for hip theater lovers and teens. 
 
A glossary and cast of characters are included for those who need it. For example: tl;dr meanstoo long; didn’t read.

I enjoyed the first two in this humorous series and look forward to these.

That's what's new with me. What's new with you?