en-US Tue, 17 Dec 2024 12:40:05 -0800 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 203578847 The long-awaited explosive climax to the first arc of the #1 New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive―the iconic epic fantasy masterpiece that has sold more than 10 million copies, from acclaimed bestselling author Brandon Sanderson.

Dalinar Kholin challenged the evil god Odium to a contest of champions with the future of Roshar on the line. The Knights Radiant have only ten days to prepare―and the sudden ascension of the crafty and ruthless Taravangian to take Odium’s place has thrown everything into disarray.

Desperate fighting continues simultaneously worldwide―Adolin in Azimir, Sigzil and Venli at the Shattered Plains, and Jasnah at Thaylen City. The former assassin, Szeth, must cleanse his homeland of Shinovar from the dark influence of the Unmade. He is accompanied by Kaladin, who faces a new battle helping Szeth fight his own demons . . . and who must do the same for the insane Herald of the Almighty, Ishar.

At the same time, Shallan, Renarin, and Rlain work to unravel the mystery behind the Unmade Ba-Ado-Mishram and her involvement in the enslavement of the singer race and in the ancient Knights Radiants killing their spren. And Dalinar and Navani seek an edge against Odium’s champion that can be found only in the Spiritual Realm, where memory and possibility combine in chaos. The fate of the entire Cosmere hangs in the balance.]]> 1344 Brandon Sanderson 1250319188 Clay 0 currently-reading 4.35 2024
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Clay
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2024
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]]> 35100 Battle Cry of Freedom will unquestionably become the standard one-volume history of the Civil War.

James McPherson's fast-paced narrative fully integrates the political, social, and military events that crowded the two decades from the outbreak of one war in Mexico to the ending of another at Appomattox. Packed with drama and analytical insight, the book vividly recounts the momentous episodes that preceded the Civil War--the Dred Scott decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry--and then moves into a masterful chronicle of the war itself--the battles, the strategic maneuvering on both sides, the politics, and the personalities. Particularly notable are McPherson's new views on such matters as the slavery expansion issue in the 1850s, the origins of the Republican Party, the causes of secession, internal dissent and anti-war opposition in the North and the South, and the reasons for the Union's victory.

The book's title refers to the sentiments that informed both the Northern and Southern views of the conflict: the South seceded in the name of that freedom of self-determination and self-government for which their fathers had fought in 1776, while the North stood fast in defense of the Union founded by those fathers as the bulwark of American liberty. Eventually, the North had to grapple with the underlying cause of the war--slavery--and adopt a policy of emancipation as a second war aim. This "new birth of freedom," as Lincoln called it, constitutes the proudest legacy of America's bloodiest conflict.

This authoritative volume makes sense of that vast and confusing "second American Revolution" we call the Civil War, a war that transformed a nation and expanded our heritage of liberty.]]> 867 James M. McPherson 019516895X Clay 0 currently-reading 4.38 1988
author: James M. McPherson
name: Clay
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1988
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date added: 2024/06/11
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]]> 16127347 A Short History of England sheds light on all the key individuals and events, bringing them together in an enlightening and engaging account of the country's birth, rise to global prominence and then partial eclipse.]]> 319 Simon Jenkins 1846684633 Clay 0 currently-reading 3.71 2011
author: Simon Jenkins
name: Clay
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2011
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date added: 2024/05/08
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]]> 128130332
We all know how the Civil War was by courageous Yankees who triumphed over the South. But as veteran journalist Howell Raines shows, it was not only soldiers from Northern states who helped General William Tecumseh Sherman burn Atlanta to the ground, but also an unsung regiment of 2,066 Alabamian yeoman farmers—including at least one member of Raines’s own family.

Called the First Alabama Cavalry, USA, these “Mountain Unionists� were the point of the spear that Sherman drove through the heart of the Confederacy. The famed general hailed their skills and courage. So why don’t we know anything about them? 

Silent Cavalry is one part epic American history, one part family saga, and one part scholarly detective story. Drawing on the lore of his native Alabama, and investigative skills honed by six decades in journalism, Raines brings to light a conspiracy that sought to undermine the accomplishments of these renegade Southerners—part of the “Lost Cause� effort to restore glory to white Southerners after the war, no matter the facts.

Raines exposes this tangled web, implicating everyone from a former Confederate general, a gaggle of Lost Cause historians in the Ivy League, and a sanctimonious former keeper of the Alabama State Archives. By reversing the erasure of the First Alabama, Silent Cavalry is a testament to the immense power of historians to destroy, as well as to redeem.]]> 576 Howell Raines Clay 0 currently-reading 3.50 2023
author: Howell Raines
name: Clay
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2023
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]]> 11220541 � Washington Post “Tim Powers is a brilliant writer.�
—William Gibson The remarkable Tim Powers—who ingeniously married the John Le Carrè spy novel to the otherworldly in his critically acclaimed Declare —brings us pirate adventure with a dazzling difference. On Stranger Tides features Blackbeard, ghosts, voodoo, zombies, the fable Fountain of Youth…and more swashbuckling action than you could shake a cutlass at, as reluctant buccaneer John Shandy braves all manner of peril, natural and supernatural, to rescue his ensorcelled love. Nominated for the Locus and World Fantasy Awards, On Stranger Tides is the book that inspired the motion picture Pirates of the On Stranger Tides —non-stop, breathtaking fiction from the genius imagination that conceived Last Call, Expiration Date, and Three Days to Never .]]> 339 Tim Powers Clay 0 currently-reading 3.96 1987
author: Tim Powers
name: Clay
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1987
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date added: 2023/09/23
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]]> 42527866 A graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei's childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon -- and America itself.

Long before George Takei braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father's -- and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future.

In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten "relocation centers," hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard.

They Called Us Enemy is Takei's firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.]]> 204 George Takei 1603094504 Clay 0 currently-reading 4.40 2019
author: George Takei
name: Clay
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2019
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date added: 2019/12/13
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