Deborah Tarbell, who supervises the snack bar in Upstate's Campus Activities Building, is a fan of “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins, the first book in a trilogy which has been made into a movie.

“It's written for the young adult but, believe me, it is excellent,” she promises, explaining that she read the first book “like a madwoman” before devouring the next two.

The series is set in a post-apocalyptic United States, with the country divided into 12 Districts. A Capitol district (called Panem) has all the riches and controls everything. Once a year the districts are required to choose “tributes” via a lottery and send one male and one female between the ages of 12 and 19 to the Hunger Games held in the Capitol. The tributes fight to the death.

Because Panem forbids hunting, Katniss puts herself in great danger in order to prevent her family from starving. She is a teen girl who lost her father in a mining accident and feels responsible for providing food for her mother and little sister, Primm. When Primm is chosen for the Hunger Games, Katniss steps in to take her place.

Tarbell says, “It's a fast, entertaining series that will take you far away from the here and now -- and isn't that why we read fiction?”