Rohini 's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 11 Apr 2025 14:01:42 -0700 60 Rohini 's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Other Bennet Sister 45186556 Pride and Prejudice’s five Bennet sisters, emerges from the shadows and transforms into a desired woman with choices of her own.

What if Mary Bennet’s life took a different path from that laid out for her in Pride and Prejudice? What if the frustrated intellectual of the Bennet family, the marginalized middle daughter, the plain girl who takes refuge in her books, eventually found the fulfillment enjoyed by her prettier, more confident sisters? This is the plot of The Other Bennet Sister, a debut novel with exactly the affection and authority to satisfy Austen fans.

Ultimately, Mary’s journey is like that taken by every Austen heroine. She learns that she can only expect joy when she has accepted who she really is. She must throw off the false expectations and wrong ideas that have combined to obscure her true nature and prevented her from what makes her happy. Only when she undergoes this evolution does she have a chance at finding fulfillment; only then does she have the clarity to recognize her partner when he presents himself—and only at that moment is she genuinely worthy of love.

Mary’s destiny diverges from that of her sisters. It does not involve broad acres or landed gentry. But it does include a man; and, as in all Austen novels, Mary must decide whether he is the truly the one for her. In The Other Bennet Sister, Mary is a fully rounded character—complex, conflicted, and often uncertain; but also vulnerable, supremely sympathetic, and ultimately the protagonist of an uncommonly satisfying debut novel.]]> 463 Janice Hadlow 1250129419 Rohini 0 to-read 4.11 2020 The Other Bennet Sister
author: Janice Hadlow
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/11
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]]> The Book of Doors 156480764
In New York City, bookseller Cassie Andrews is living an unassuming life when she is given a gift by a favourite customer. It's a book - an unusual book, full of strange writing and mysterious drawings. And at the very front there is a handwritten message to Cassie, telling her that this is the Book of Doors, and that any door is every door .

What Cassie is about to discover is that the Book of Doors is a special book that bestows an extraordinary powers on whoever possesses it, and soon she and her best friend Izzy are exploring all that the Book of Doors can do, swept away from their quiet lives by the possibilities of travelling to anywhere they want.

But the Book of Doors is not the only magical book in the world. There are other books that can do wondrous and dreadful things when wielded by dangerous and ruthless individuals - individuals who crave what Cassie now possesses.

Suddenly Cassie and Izzy are confronted by violence and danger, and the only person who can help them is, it seems, Drummond Fox. He is a man fleeing his own demons - a man with his own secret library of magical books that he has hidden away in the shadows for safekeeping. Because there is a nameless evil out there that is hunting them all . . .

Because some doors should never be opened.]]> 408 Gareth Brown 1787637247 Rohini 0 to-read 4.04 2024 The Book of Doors
author: Gareth Brown
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
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]]> Silk: A World History 181110043 304 Aarathi Prasad 0063160250 Rohini 0 to-read 3.63 Silk: A World History
author: Aarathi Prasad
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.63
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]]> Carmilla 48037
But as Carmilla becomes increasingly strange and volatile, prone to eerie nocturnal wanderings, Laura finds herself tormented by nightmares and growing weaker by the day� Pre-dating Dracula by twenty-six years, Carmilla is the original vampire story, steeped in sexual tension and gothic romance.]]> 108 J. Sheridan Le Fanu 0809510839 Rohini 0 to-read 3.88 1872 Carmilla
author: J. Sheridan Le Fanu
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1872
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World]]> 201730880 'A brilliant, scholarly, sharp and witty account of our weird eternal obsession with the end times... So enjoyable, that I didn't want it to end - the world, or the book.� � Adam Rutherford, author of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived

'Everything Must Go will make you happy to be alive and reading � until the lights go out . . . Brilliant' � The Spectator

A riveting and brilliantly original exploration of our fantasies of the end of the world, from Mary Shelley's The Last Man to Marvel's Age of Ultron, by the Baillie Gifford and Orwell prize-shortlisted writer and co-host of the podcast 'Origin Story'.

For two millennia, Christians have looked forward to the end, haunted by the apocalyptic visions of the Biblical books of Daniel and Revelation. But for two centuries or more, these dark fantasies have given way to secular stories of how the world, our planet, or our species (or all of the above) might come to an end.

Dorian Lynskey's fascinating book explores the endings that we have read, listened to or watched over the last two dozen decades, whether they be by the death and destruction of a nuclear holocaust or collision with a meteor or comet, devastating epidemic or takeover by robots or computers.

The result is nothing less than a cultural history of the modern world, weaving together politics, history, science, high and popular culture in a book that is uniquely original, grippingly readable and deeply illuminating about both us and our times.

'I was blown away by this book... Lynskey is one of the best non-fiction writers around.' � Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland

'Impossibly epic, brain-expanding, life-affirming and profound. You’ll never see humanity the same way again.' � Ian Dunt, author of How Westminster Works . . . and Why It Doesn't]]> 509 Dorian Lynskey 1529095964 Rohini 0 to-read 4.06 2025 Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World
author: Dorian Lynskey
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> If We Were Villains 222128958
A decade ago: Oliver is one of seven young Shakespearean actors at Dellecher Classical Conservatory, a place of keen ambition and fierce competition. In this secluded world of firelight and leather-bound books, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingénue, extras.

But in their fourth and final year, good-natured rivalries turn ugly, and on opening night real violence invades the students� world of make-believe. In the morning, the fourth-years find themselves facing their very own tragedy, and their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, each other, and themselves that they are innocent.]]> 370 M.L. Rio Rohini 3 3.84 2017 If We Were Villains
author: M.L. Rio
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/04
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]]> The Shamshine Blind 62079429 A beguiling blend of noir detective story and science fiction perfect for fans of Michael Chabon and Emily St. John Mandel, this unputdownable debut imagines a world where emotions have been weaponized, and a small-town law enforcement agent uncovers a conspiracy to take down what’s left of American democracy.

In an alternate 2009, the United States has been a second-rate power for a quarter of a century, ever since Argentina’s victory in the Falkland’s War thanks to their development of “psychopigments.� Created as weapons, these colorful chemicals can produce almost any human emotion upon contact, and they have been embraced in the US as both pharmaceutical cure-alls and popular recreational drugs. Black market traders illegally sell everything from Blackberry Purple (which causes terror) to Sunshine Yellow (which delivers happiness).

Psychopigment Enforcement Agent Kay Curtida works a beat in Daly City, just outside the ruins of San Francisco, chasing down smalltime crooks. But when an old friend shows up with a tantalizing lead on a career-making case, Curtida’s humdrum existence suddenly gets a boost. Little does she know that this case will send her down a tangled path of conspiracy and lead to an overdue reckoning with her family and with the truth of her own emotions.

Told in the voice of a funny, brooding, Latinx Sam Spade, The Shamshine Blind is “a rip-roaring beautifully crafted mash-up of cop noir, sci-fi, and alt-history that left me dazzled by its prescience and literary zing� (Leah Hampton, author of F*ckface).]]> 320 Paz Pardo 1982185341 Rohini 0 currently-reading 3.72 2023 The Shamshine Blind
author: Paz Pardo
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection]]> 220487339 Instant #1 New York Times bestseller! � #1 Washington Post bestseller! � #1 Indie Bestseller! � USA Today Bestseller!

John Green, award-winning author and passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest infectious disease.

“The real magic of Green’s writing is the deeply considerate, human touch that goes into every word.� �The Associated Press

“This highly readable call to action could not be more timely.â€� –Kľ±°ů°ěłÜ˛ő, starred review

“Earnest and empathetic.� �The New York Times

Tuberculosis has been entwined with hu­manity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is seen as a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.

In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. John be­came fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequi­ties that allow this curable, preventable infec­tious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a million people every year.

In Everything Is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world—and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.]]> 206 John Green 1101592419 Rohini 0 currently-reading 4.47 2025 Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
author: John Green
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/29
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]]> Godmersham Park 59201439 A richly imagined novel inspired by the true story of Anne Sharp, a governessĚýwho became very close with Jane Austen and her family by the #1 International bestselling-author ofĚýMiss Austen.

On January 21, 1804, Anne Sharpe arrives at Godmersham Park in Kent to take up the position of governess. At thirty-one years old, she has no previous experience of either teaching or fine country houses. Her mother has died, and she has nowhere else to go. Anne is left with no choice. For her new charge—twelve-year-old Fanny Austen—Anne's arrival is all novelty and excitement.

The governess role is a uniquely awkward one. Anne is neither one of the servants, nor one of the family, and to balance a position between the "upstairs"Ěýand "downstairs"Ěýmembers of the household is a diplomatic chess game. One wrong move may result in instant dismissal. Anne knows that she must never let down her guard.

When Mr. Edward Austen's family comes to stay, Anne forms an immediate attachment to Jane. They write plays together, and enjoy long discussions. However, in the process, Anne reveals herself as not merely pretty, charming, and competent; she is clever too. Even her sleepy, complacent, mistress can hardly fail to notice.

Meanwhile Jane's brother, Henry, begins to take an unusually strong interest in the lovely young governess. And from now on, Anne's days at Godmersham Park are numbered.]]> 416 Gill Hornby 1639362592 Rohini 4 3.91 2022 Godmersham Park
author: Gill Hornby
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/29
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]]> So Long, See You Tomorrow 12273647 145 William Maxwell Rohini 4 3.90 1980 So Long, See You Tomorrow
author: William Maxwell
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1980
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/26
date added: 2025/03/27
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]]> There Are Rivers in the Sky 202469593 From the Booker Prize finalist author of The Island of Missing Trees, an enchanting new tale about three characters living along two rivers, all under the shadow of one of the greatest epic poems of all time. "Make place for Elif Shafak on your bookshelf... you won't regret it." (Arundhati Roy)

In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, erudite but ruthless, built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign. From its ruins, however, emerged a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would infuse the existence of two rivers and bind together three lives.Ěý

In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Arthur’s only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a leading publisher, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, and one book in particular catches his Nineveh and Its Remains.

In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a ten-year-old Yazidi girl, is diagnosed with a rare disorder that will soon cause her to go deaf. Before that happens, her grandmother is determined to baptize her in a sacred Iraqi temple. But with the rising presence of ISIS and the destruction of the family’s ancestral lands along the Tigris, Narin is running out of time.Ěý

In 2018 London, the newly divorced Zaleekah, a hydrologist, moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband. Orphaned and raised by her wealthy uncle, Zaleekah had made the decision to take her own life in one month, until a curious book about her homeland changes everything.ĚýĚý

A dazzling feat of storytelling, There Are Rivers in the Sky entwines these outsiders with a single drop of water, a drop which remanifests across the centuries. Both a source of life and harbinger of death, rivers—the Tigris and the Thames—transcend history, transcend “Water remembers. It is humans who forget.”]]> 498 Elif Shafak 0593801725 Rohini 4 4.40 2024 There Are Rivers in the Sky
author: Elif Shafak
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
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]]> <![CDATA[The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World]]> 208840291 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.

As indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love.

Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution insures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”]]> 112 Robin Wall Kimmerer 1668072246 Rohini 5 4.39 2024 The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World
author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
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]]> The Luminaries 54977800
Richly evoking a mid-nineteenth-century world of shipping, banking, and gold rush boom and bust, The Luminaries is at once a fiendishly clever ghost story, a gripping page-turner, and a thrilling novelistic achievement. It richly confirms that Eleanor Catton is one of the brightest stars in the international literary firmament.]]> 853 Eleanor Catton Rohini 5 3.90 2013 The Luminaries
author: Eleanor Catton
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/11
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]]> Isola 212806636 A young woman and her lover are marooned on an island in this epic saga of love, faith, and defiance from the bestselling author of Sam.

Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. Isolated and afraid, Marguerite befriends her guardian’s servant and the two develop an intense attraction. But when their relationship is discovered, they are brutally punished and abandoned on a small island with no hope for rescue.

Once a child of privilege who dressed in gowns and laced pearls in her hair, Marguerite finds herself at the mercy of nature. As the weather turns, blanketing the island in ice, she discovers a faith she’d never before needed.

Inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine, Isola is the timeless story of a woman fighting for survival.]]> 368 Allegra Goodman 0593730089 Rohini 0 to-read 4.01 2025 Isola
author: Allegra Goodman
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/24
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]]> The CafĂ© with No Name 214204244 From one of Austria’s most beloved and best-selling authors, comes this vibrant tale of love, loss, and renewal set against the transformations of 1960s Vienna.Ěý

Summer 1966. Robert Simon is in his early thirties and has a to open a cafĂ©. Raised in a home for war orphans run by the Sisters of Charity, Robert is warm-hearted, hard-working, and determined. When the corner cafĂ© in the Carmelite market square closes, Robert realizes that his chance has come.Ěý

The place, dark and dilapidated, is in a poor neighborhood of the Austrian capital, but for some time now a new wind has been blowing, and the air is filled with an inexplicable energy and a desire for renewal. In the newspapers with which fishmongers wrap the char and trout from the Danube, one can read about great things to come, a bright future beginning to rise from the quagmire of the past. Enlivened by these promises, Robert refurbishes the cafĂ©, painting the walls, varnishing the furniture, and polishing the stove plates. Rewarding Robert’s efforts and in search of a congenial place to gather, talk, read, or just sit and be, customers arrive, bringing their stories of passions, friendships, abandonments, and bereavements. Some are in search of company, others long for love, or just a place where they can feel understood. As the city is transformed, Robert's cafe becomes at once a place of refuge and one from which to observe and rejoice.Ěý

Combining the enchantment of warm prose with tender humor, Robert Seethaler has written a charming parable of human existence animated by unforgettable characters and a kaleidoscope of human stories.Ěý]]> 192 Robert Seethaler Rohini 0 to-read 3.57 2023 The CafĂ© with No Name
author: Robert Seethaler
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> Orbital 123314421 A singular new novel from Betty Trask Prize-winner Samantha Harvey,ĚýOrbitalĚýis an eloquent meditation on space and life on our planet through the eyes of six astronauts circling the earth in 24 hours


"Ravishingly beautiful."Ěý—ĚýJoshua Ferris,ĚýNew York Times

A slender novel of epic power,Ěý°ż°ů˛úľ±łŮ˛ą±ôĚýdeftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space.ĚýSelected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts—from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan—have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below. We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude. Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate.Ěý

Profound and contemplative,ĚýOrbitalĚýis a moving elegy to our environment and planet.]]> 212 Samantha Harvey 0802161553 Rohini 4 3.90 2023 Orbital
author: Samantha Harvey
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/02/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend]]> 214152206 From rare book dealer and guest star of the hit show Pawn Stars, a page-turning literary adventure that introduces readers to the women writers who inspired Jane Austen—and investigates why their books have disappeared from our shelves.

Long before she was a rare book dealer, Rebecca Romney was a devoted reader of Jane Austen. She loved that Austen’s books took the lives of women seriously, explored relationships with wit and confidence, and always, allowed for the possibility of a happy ending. She read and reread them, often wishing Austen wrote just one more.

But Austen wasn’t a lone genius. She wrote at a time of great experimentation for women writers—and clues about those women, and the exceptional books they wrote, are sprinkled like breadcrumbs throughout Austen’s work. Every character in Northanger Abbey who isn’t a boor sings the praises of Ann Radcliffe. The play that causes such a stir in Mansfield Park is a real one by the playwright Elizabeth Inchbald. In fact, the phrase “pride and prejudice� came from Frances Burney’s second novel Cecilia. The women that populated Jane Austen’s bookshelf profoundly influenced her work; Austen looked up to them, passionately discussed their books with her friends, and used an appreciation of their books as a litmus test for whether someone had good taste. So where had these women gone? Why hadn’t Romney—despite her training—ever read them? Or, in some cases, even heard of them? And why were they no longer embraced as part of the wider literary canon?

Jane Austen’s Bookshelf investigates the disappearance of Austen’s heroes—women writers who were erased from the Western canon—to reveal who they were, what they meant to Austen, and how they were forgotten. Each chapter profiles a different writer including Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Charlotte Smith, Hannah More, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, and Maria Edgeworth—and recounts Romney’s experience reading them, finding rare copies of their works, and drawing on connections between their words and Austen’s. Romney collects the once-famed works of these forgotten writers, physically recreating Austen’s bookshelf and making a convincing case for why these books should be placed back on the to-be-read pile of all book lovers today. Jane Austen’s Bookshelf will encourage you to look beyond assigned reading lists, question who decides what belongs there, and build your very own collection of favorite novels.]]> 464 Rebecca Romney 1982190248 Rohini 0 to-read 4.45 2025 Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend
author: Rebecca Romney
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2025
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date added: 2025/02/18
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]]> Upon a Starlit Tide 211004131 A dark and enchanting fairy tale-inspired historical fantasy combining elements of "The Little Mermaid" and "Cinderella" into a wholly original tale of love, power, and betrayal.

Saint-Malo, Brittany, 1758.
For Lucinde Leon, the youngest daughter of one of Saint-Malo's wealthiest ship-owners, the high walls of the city are more hindrance than haven. While her sisters are interested in securing advantageous marriages, Luce dreams of escaping her elegant but stifling home and joining a ship's crew. Only Samuel—Luce's best friend and an English smuggler—understands her longing for the sea, secretly teaching her to sail whenever she can sneak away. For Luce, the stolen time on the water with Samuel is precious.

One stormy morning, Luce's plans are blown off course when she rescues Morgan de Chatelaine, the youngest son of the most powerful ship-owner in Saint-Malo, from the sea. Immediately drawn to his charm and sense of adventure, she longs to attend the glittering ball held in honor of his safe return and begins to contemplate a different kind of future for herself.

But it is not only Luce's hopes at stake—the local fae are leaving Brittany and taking their magic with them, while the long-standing war with the English means Saint-Malo is always at risk of attack. As Luce is plunged into a world of magic, brutality, and seduction, secrets that have long been lost in the shadowy depths of the ocean begin to rise to the surface. The truth of her own power is growing brighter and brighter, shining like a sea-glass slipper.

Or the scales of a sea-maid's tail.]]> 419 Kell Woods 125085251X Rohini 0 to-read 4.33 2025 Upon a Starlit Tide
author: Kell Woods
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/18
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]]> Greek Lessons 61438927 A powerful novel of the saving grace of language and human connection, from the celebrated author of The Vegetarian

In a classroom in Seoul, a young woman watches her Greek language teacher at the blackboard. She tries to speak but has lost her voice. Her teacher finds himself drawn to the silent woman, for day by day he is losing his sight.

Soon they discover a deeper pain binds them together. For her, in the space of just a few months, she has lost both her mother and the custody battle for her nine-year-old son. For him, it's the pain of growing up between Korea and Germany, being torn between two cultures and languages.

Greek Lessons tells the story of two ordinary people brought together at a moment of private anguish - the fading light of a man losing his vision meeting the silence of a woman who has lost her language. Yet these are the very things that draw them to one another. Slowly the two discover a profound sense of unity - their voices intersecting with startling beauty, as they move from darkness to light, from silence to expression.

Greek Lessons is a tender love letter to human intimacy and connection, a novel to awaken the senses, vividly conjuring the essence of what it means to be alive.]]> 176 Han Kang 0593595289 Rohini 0 to-read 3.65 2011 Greek Lessons
author: Han Kang
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/13
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]]> <![CDATA[The Library: A Fragile History]]> 58980048
Famed across the known world, jealously guarded by private collectors, built up over centuries, destroyed in a single day, ornamented with gold leaf and frescoes, or filled with bean bags and children’s drawings—the history of the library is rich, varied, and stuffed full of incident. In The Library, historians Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen introduce us to the antiquarians and philanthropists who shaped the world’s great collections, trace the rise and fall of literary tastes, and reveal the high crimes and misdemeanors committed in pursuit of rare manuscripts. In doing so, they reveal that while collections themselves are fragile, often falling into ruin within a few decades, the idea of the library has been remarkably resilient as each generation makes—and remakes—the institution anew.

Beautifully written and deeply researched, The Library is essential reading for booklovers, collectors, and anyone who has ever gotten blissfully lost in the stacks.]]> 650 Andrew Pettegree 1541600789 Rohini 4 3.98 2021 The Library: A Fragile History
author: Andrew Pettegree
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/12
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]]> Borne (Borne, #1) 31451186
At first, Borne looks like nothing at all—just a green lump that might be a Company discard. The Company, although severely damaged, is rumoured to still make creatures and send them to distant places that have not yet suffered Collapse.

Borne somehow reminds Rachel of the island nation of her birth, now long lost to rising seas. She feels an attachment she resents; attachments are traps, and in this world any weakness can kill you. Yet when she takes Borne to her subterranean sanctuary, the Balcony Cliffs, Rachel convinces her lover, Wick, not to render Borne down to raw genetic material for the drugs he sells—she cannot break that bond.

Wick is a special kind of supplier, because the drug dealers in the city don’t sell the usual things. They sell tiny creatures that can be swallowed or stuck in the ear, and that release powerful memories of other people’s happier times or pull out forgotten memories from the user’s own mind—or just produce beautiful visions that provide escape from the barren, craterous landscapes of the city.

Against his better judgment, out of affection for Rachel or perhaps some other impulse, Wick respects her decision. Rachel, meanwhile, despite her loyalty to Wick, knows he has kept secrets from her. Searching his apartment, she finds a burnt, unreadable journal titled “Mord,� a cryptic reference to the Magician (a rival drug dealer) and evidence that Wick has planned the layout of the Balcony Cliffs to match the blueprint of the Company building. What is he hiding? Why won’t he tell her about what happened when he worked for the Company?]]> 323 Jeff VanderMeer 0374115249 Rohini 0 to-read 3.93 2017 Borne (Borne, #1)
author: Jeff VanderMeer
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> The Warm Hands of Ghosts 154527508 During the Great War, a combat nurse searches for her brother, believed dead in the trenches despite eerie signs that suggest otherwise, in this hauntingly beautiful historical novel with a speculative twist from the New York Times bestselling author of The Bear and the Nightingale

January 1918. Laura Iven was a revered field nurse until she was wounded and discharged from the medical corps, leaving behind a brother still fighting in Flanders. Now home in Halifax, Canada, she receives word of Freddie’s death in combat, along with his personal effects—but something doesn’t make sense. Determined to uncover the truth, Laura returns to Belgium as a volunteer at a private hospital. Soon after arriving, she hears whispers about haunted trenches, and a strange hotelier whose wine gives soldiers the gift of oblivion. Could Freddie have escaped the battlefield, only to fall prey to something—or someone—else?

November 1917. Freddie Iven awakens after an explosion to find himself trapped in an overturned pillbox with a wounded enemy soldier, a German by the name of Hans Winter. Against all odds, the two men form an alliance and succeed in clawing their way out. Unable to bear the thought of returning to the killing fields, especially on opposite sides, they take refuge with a mysterious man who seems to have the power to make the hellscape of the trenches disappear.

As shells rain down on Flanders, and ghosts move among those yet living, Laura’s and Freddie’s deepest traumas are reawakened. Now they must decide whether their world is worth salvaging—or better left behind entirely.]]> 327 Katherine Arden 0593128265 Rohini 4 4.10 2024 The Warm Hands of Ghosts
author: Katherine Arden
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
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]]> <![CDATA[There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven: Stories]]> 199531878 240 Ruben Reyes Jr. 0063336278 Rohini 0 to-read 4.10 2024 There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven: Stories
author: Ruben Reyes Jr.
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/03
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]]> Ring Shout 49247242 In America, demons wear white hoods.

In 1915, The Birth of a Nation cast a spell across America, swelling the Klan's ranks and drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of white folk. All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the vulnerable. They plan to bring Hell to Earth. But even Ku Kluxes can die.

Standing in their way is Maryse Boudreaux and her fellow resistance fighters, a foul-mouthed sharpshooter and a Harlem Hellfighter. Armed with blade, bullet, and bomb, they hunt their hunters and send the Klan's demons straight to Hell. But something awful's brewing in Macon, and the war on Hell is about to heat up.

Can Maryse stop the Klan before it ends the world?]]> 185 P. Djèlí Clark 1250767024 Rohini 4 3.96 2020 Ring Shout
author: P. Djèlí Clark
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/01
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]]> The Safekeep 199897944 A “razor-sharp, perfectly plotted� (The Sunday Times) tale of desire, suspicion, and obsession between two women staying in the same house in the Dutch countryside during the summer of 1961—a powerful exploration of the legacy of WWII and the darker parts of our collective past.

A house is a precious thing...

It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be—led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel’s doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season.

Eva is Isabel’s antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn’t. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house—a spoon, a knife, a bowl—Isabel’s suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel’s paranoia gives way to infatuation, leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva—nor the house in which they live—are what they seem.

Mysterious, sophisticated, sensual, and infused with intrigue, atmosphere, and sex, The Safekeep is “a brave and thrilling debut about facing up to the truth of history, and to one’s own desires� (The Guardian).]]> Yael van der Wouden 1668034360 Rohini 4 4.25 2024 The Safekeep
author: Yael van der Wouden
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
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]]> <![CDATA[A Little Hatred (The Age of Madness, #1)]]> 43539308
On the blood-soaked borders of Angland, Leo dan Brock struggles to win fame on the battlefield, and defeat the marauding armies of Stour Nightfall. He hopes for help from the crown. But King Jezal's son, the feckless Prince Orso, is a man who specializes in disappointments.

Savine dan Glokta � socialite, investor, and daughter of the most feared man in the Union � plans to claw her way to the top of the slag-heap of society by any means necessary. But the slums boil over with a rage that all the money in the world cannot control.

The age of the machine dawns, but the age of magic refuses to die. With the help of the mad hillwoman Isern-i-Phail, Rikke struggles to control the blessing, or the curse, of the Long Eye. Glimpsing the future is one thing, but with the guiding hand of the First of the Magi still pulling the strings, changing it will be quite another . . .]]> 481 Joe Abercrombie 031634186X Rohini 4 4.47 2019 A Little Hatred (The Age of Madness, #1)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/14
date added: 2025/01/14
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]]> <![CDATA[No Dig Organic Home & Garden: Grow, Cook, Use, and Store Your Harvest]]> 32446588 234 Charles Dowding 1856233014 Rohini 0 to-read 4.32 No Dig Organic Home & Garden: Grow, Cook, Use, and Store Your Harvest
author: Charles Dowding
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.32
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]]> House of Names 33809894
“I have been acquainted with the smell of death.� So begins Clytemnestra’s tale of her own life in ancient Mycenae, the legendary Greek city from which her husband King Agamemnon left when he set sail with his army for Troy. Clytemnestra rules Mycenae now, along with her new lover Aegisthus, and together they plot the bloody murder of Agamemnon on the day of his return after nine years at war.

Judged, despised, cursed by gods she has long since lost faith in, Clytemnestra reveals the tragic saga that led to these bloody actions: how her husband deceived her eldest daughter Iphigeneia with a promise of marriage to Achilles, only to sacrifice her because that is what he was told would make the winds blow in his favor and take him to Troy; how she seduced and collaborated with the prisoner Aegisthus, who shared her bed in the dark and could kill; how Agamemnon came back with a lover himself; and how Clytemnestra finally achieved her vengeance for his stunning betrayal—his quest for victory, greater than his love for his child.

In House of Names, Colm Tóibín brings a modern sensibility and language to an ancient classic, and gives this extraordinary character new life, so that we not only believe Clytemnestra’s thirst for revenge, but applaud it. He brilliantly inhabits the mind of one of Greek myth’s most powerful villains to reveal the love, lust, and pain she feels. Told in fours parts, this is a fiercely dramatic portrait of a murderess, who will herself be murdered by her own son, Orestes. It is Orestes� story, too: his capture by the forces of his mother’s lover Aegisthus, his escape and his exile. And it is the story of the vengeful Electra, who watches over her mother and Aegisthus with cold anger and slow calculation, until, on the return of her brother, she has the fates of both of them in her hands.]]> 290 Colm Tóibín 150114023X Rohini 3 3.80 2017 House of Names
author: Colm TĂłibĂ­n
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/09
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]]> <![CDATA[The Midnight Folk (Kay Harker, #1)]]> 873746 â€Don’t you have any fear, Kay. We’re the guards, we are. We hear that the house has gone all to sixes and sevens since we left it, but that’s going to be remedied nowâ€�

Young Kay Harker lives in an old house in the country, filled with portraits of his ancestors. His only companions are his unpleasant guardian Sir Theopompus and his governess Sylvia Daisy Pouncer (who, Kay suspects, has stolen all his toys). Life is lonely and dull, until one night Kay’s great-grandpapa Harker, a sea captain, steps out of his portrait to tell him about a stolen treasure that belongs to Kay’s family. The evil Abner Brown is searching for it too, but Kay is helped by the midnight folk: creatures like Nibbins the cat and Rollicum Bitem Lightfoot the fox, and even his lost toys, who will join him on his dangerous quest.

The Midnight Folk is a feast of imaginative story-telling, a glorious cornucopia of pirates and witches, lost treasure and talking animals. Although it was published in 1927, it evokes an older world: houses are lit by oil lamps, and travel is by horse, carriage â€� or broomstick. Masefield perfectly captures a child’s perspective, from the terrors of tigers under the bed to the horrors of declining a Latin adjective. Yet there is also plenty of humour that adults will appreciate, from Miss Piney Trigger, who swigs champagne in bed and prides herself on having backed a host of Derby winners, to Kay’s lessons: â€Divinity was easy, as it was about Noah’s Ark. French was fairly easy, as it was about the cats of the daughter of the gardener.â€� This mingling of past and present, reality and fantasy, has made this one of the most rewarding and influential children’s books ever written.]]> 192 John Masefield 0006724167 Rohini 0 to-read 3.77 1927 The Midnight Folk (Kay Harker, #1)
author: John Masefield
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1927
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Crooked Hinge (Dr. Gideon Fell, #8)]]> 930193 256 John Dickson Carr 0020188404 Rohini 0 to-read 3.78 1937 The Crooked Hinge (Dr. Gideon Fell, #8)
author: John Dickson Carr
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1937
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Etymological Dictionary of the English Language]]> 8793350
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface.

We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.]]> 780 Walter W. Skeat Rohini 0 to-read 4.69 Etymological Dictionary of the English Language
author: Walter W. Skeat
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.69
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]]> <![CDATA[Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution]]> 75494215 THE REAL ORIGIN OF OUR SPECIES: a myth-busting, eye-opening landmark account of how humans evolved, offering a paradigm shift in our thinking about what the female body is, how it came to be, and how this evolution still shapes all our lives today.

How did the female body drive 200 million years of human evolution?
� Why do women live longer than men?
� Why are women more likely to get Alzheimer’s?
� Why do girls score better at every academic subject than boys until puberty, when suddenly their scores plummet?
� Is sexism useful for evolution?
� And why, seriously why, do women have to sweat through our sheets every night when we hit menopause?

These questions are producing some truly exciting science—and in Eve, with boundless curiosity and sharp wit, Cat Bohannon covers the past 200 million years to explain the specific science behind the development of the female sex: "We need a kind of user's manual for the female mammal. A no-nonsense, hard-hitting, seriously researched (but readable) account of what we are. How female bodies evolved, how they work, what it really means to biologically be a woman. Something that would rewrite the story of womanhood. This book is that story. We have to put the female body in the picture. If we don't, it's not just feminism that's compromised. Modern medicine, neurobiology, paleoanthropology, even evolutionary biology all take a hit when we ignore the fact that half of us have breasts. So it's time we talk about breasts. Breasts, and blood, and fat, and vaginas, and wombs—all of it. How they came to be and how we live with them now, no matter how weird or hilarious the truth is."

Eve is not only a sweeping revision of human history, it's an urgent and necessary corrective for a world that has focused primarily on the male body for far too long. Picking up where Sapiens left off, Eve will completely change what you think you know about evolution and why Homo sapiens has become such a successful and dominant species.]]> 624 Cat Bohannon 0385350546 Rohini 0 to-read 4.28 2023 Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution
author: Cat Bohannon
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women]]> 123177760
We start with Romulus, go on to Brutus overthrowing Tarquin, bounce through an appallingly tedious list of battles and generals and consuls, before emerging into the political stab-fest of the late Republic. From there, it runs through all the emperors, occasionally mentioning a wife or mother to show how bad things get when women get out of control, until Constantine invents Christianity and then Attila the Hun comes and ruins everything. But the history of Rome and empire is so much more than these Important Things.

In this alternative history, Emma Southon traces the story of the Roman Empire through women: Vestal Virgins and sex workers, business owners and poets, martyrs and saints. Each gives a different perspective on women’s lives and how they changed, across time and across class lines.]]> 336 Emma Southon 0861542312 Rohini 0 to-read 4.23 2023 A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women
author: Emma Southon
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[When We Cease to Understand the World]]> 62069739
Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize and the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature

A fictional examination of the lives of real-life scientists and thinkers whose discoveries resulted in moral consequences beyond their imagining.

When We Cease to Understand the World is a book about the complicated links between scientific and mathematical discovery, madness, and destruction.Ěý

Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger—these are some of luminaries into whose troubled lives Benjamín Labatut thrusts the reader, showing us how they grappled with the most profound questions of existence. They have strokes of unparalleled genius, alienate friends and lovers, descend into isolation and insanity. Some of their discoveries reshape human life for the better; others pave the way to chaos and unimaginable suffering. The lines are never clear.

At a breakneck pace and with a wealth of disturbing detail, Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to tell the stories of the scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible.]]> 193 BenjamĂ­n Labatut Rohini 5 4.10 2020 When We Cease to Understand the World
author: BenjamĂ­n Labatut
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV]]> 77264775 From an acclaimed historian and author comes an epic the dual biography of Richard II and Henry IV, two cousins whose lives played out in extraordinary parallel, until Henry deposed the tyrant Richard and declared himself King of England. Richard of Bordeaux and Henry of Bolingbroke, cousins born just three months apart, were ten years old when Richard became king of England. They were thirty-two when Henry deposed him and became king in his place. Now, the story behind one of the strangest and most fateful events in English history (and the inspiration behind Shakespeare’s most celebrated history plays) is brought to vivid life by the acclaimed author of Blood and Roses, Helen Castor. Richard had birthright on his side, and a profound belief in his own God-given majesty. But beyond that, he lacked all qualities of leadership. A narcissist who did not understand or accept the principles that underpinned his rule, he was neither a warrior defending his kingdom, nor a lawgiver whose justice protected his people. Instead, he declared that “his laws were in his own mouth,� and acted accordingly. He sought to define as treason any resistance to his will and recruited a private army loyal to himself rather than the realm—and he intended to destroy those who tried to restrain him. Henry was everything Richard was a leader who inspired both loyalty and friendship, a soldier and a chivalric hero, dutiful, responsible, principled. After years of tension and conflict, Richard banished him and seized his vast inheritance. Richard had been crowned a king but he had become a tyrant, and as a tyrant—ruling by arbitrary will rather than established law—he was deposed by his cousin Henry, the only possible candidate to take his place. Henry was welcomed as a liberator, a champion of the people against his predecessor’s paranoid despotism. But within months he too was facing rebellion. Men knew that a deposer could in turn be deposed, and the new king found himself buffeted by unrest and by chronic ill-health until he seemed a shadow of his former self, trapped by political uncertainty and troubled by these signs that God might not, after all, endorse his actions. Captivating, immersive, and highly relevant to today’s times, The Eagle and the Hart is a story about what happens when a ruler prioritizes power over the interests of his own people. When a ruler demands loyalty to himself as an individual, rather than duty to the established constitution, and when he seeks to reshape reality rather than concede the force of verifiable truths. Above all, it is a story about how a nation was brought to the brink of catastrophe and disintegration—and, in the end, how it was brought back.]]> 528 Helen Castor 0241419328 Rohini 0 to-read 4.39 2024 The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV
author: Helen Castor
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.39
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]]> The Briar Club 181110045 A haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, D.C. boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.

Washington, D.C., 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital, where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; police officer’s daughter Nora, who is entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Bea, whose career has ended along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare.

Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears apart the house, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: Who is the true enemy in their midst?]]> 432 Kate Quinn 0063244748 Rohini 0 to-read 4.26 2024 The Briar Club
author: Kate Quinn
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall]]> 60631034
In her acclaimed The Design of Childhood, Alexandra Lange uncovered the histories of toys, classrooms, and playgrounds. She now turns her sharp eye to another subject we only think we know. She chronicles postwar architects' and merchants' invention of the mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. In Lange's perceptive account, the mall becomes newly strange and rich with contradiction: Malls are environments of both freedom and exclusion--of consumerism, but also of community. Meet Me by the Fountain is a highly entertaining and evocative promenade through the mall's story of rise, fall, and ongoing reinvention, for readers of any generation.]]> 315 Alexandra Lange 1635576032 Rohini 0 to-read 3.60 2022 Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
author: Alexandra Lange
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> Katabasis 210223811 Two graduate students must set aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul, perhaps at the cost of their own.

Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality—her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world—that is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.

Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands, and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams. Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the same conclusion.]]> 400 R.F. Kuang Rohini 0 to-read 4.12 2025 Katabasis
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/31
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]]> The Corner That Held Them 958668 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

In memory of the wife who had once dishonoured and always despised him, Brian de Retteville founded a 12th-century convent in Norfolk. Two centuries later, the Benedictine community is well established there and, as befits a convent whose origin had such ironic beginnings, the inhabitants are prey to the ambitions, squabbles, jealousies, and pleasures of less spiritual environments. An outbreak of the Black Death, the collapse of the convent spire, the Bishop's visitation, and a nun's disappearance are interwoven with the everyday life of the nuns, novices, and prioresses in this imagined history of a 14th-century nunnery.]]> 310 Sylvia Townsend Warner 086068878X Rohini 0 to-read 3.90 1948 The Corner That Held Them
author: Sylvia Townsend Warner
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1948
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/29
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]]> Daytripper 8477057
Meet Brás de Oliva Domingos. The miracle child of a world-famous Brazilian writer, Brás spends his days penning other people's obituaries and his nights dreaming of becoming a successful author himself—writing the end of other people's stories, while his own has barely begun.

But on the day that life begins, would he even notice? Does it start at 21 when he meets the girl of his dreams? Or at 11, when he has his first kiss? Is it later in his life when his first son is born? Or earlier when he might have found his voice as a writer?

Each day in Brás's life is like a page from a book. Each one reveals the people and things who have made him who he is: his mother and father, his child and his best friend, his first love and the love of his life. And like all great stories, each day has a twist he'll never see coming...

In Daytripper, the Eisner Award-winning twin brothers Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá tell a magical, mysterious and moving story about life itself—a hauntingly lyrical journey that uses the quiet moments to ask the big questions.]]> 247 Fábio Moon 1401229697 Rohini 0 to-read 4.31 2011 Daytripper
author: Fábio Moon
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> The Tusks of Extinction 127284214 When you bring back a long-extinct species, there’s more to success than the DNA.

Moscow has resurrected the mammoth, but someone must teach them how to be mammoths, or they are doomed to die out, again.
The late Dr. Damira Khismatullina, the world’s foremost expert in elephant behavior, is called in to help.
While she was murdered a year ago, her digitized consciousness is uploaded into the brain of a mammoth.
Can she help the magnificent creatures fend off poachers long enough for their species to take hold? And will she ever discover the real reason they were brought back?

A tense eco-thriller from a new master of the genre.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 192 Ray Nayler 1250855535 Rohini 0 to-read 3.77 2024 The Tusks of Extinction
author: Ray Nayler
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> Service Model 195790861 To fix the world they first must break it further.

Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service. When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into their core programming, they murder their owner. The robot then discovers they can also do something else they never did before: run away. After fleeing the household, they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating, and a robot ecosystem devoted to human wellbeing is finding a new purpose.]]> 376 Adrian Tchaikovsky 1250290287 Rohini 0 to-read 3.99 2024 Service Model
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> Whale Fall 195889348
In 1938, a dead whale washes up on the shores of remote Welsh island. For Manod, who has spent her whole life on the island, it feels like both a portent of doom and a symbol of what may lie beyond the island's shores. A young woman living with her father and her sisterĚý(to whom she has reluctantly but devotedly become a mother following the death of their own mother years prior),ĚýManod can't shake her welling desire to explore life beyond the beautiful yet blisteringly harsh islands that her hardscrabble family has called home for generations.

The arrival of two English ethnographers who hope to study the island culture, then, feels like a boon to her—both a glimpse of life outside her community and a means of escape. The longer the ethnographers stay, the more she feels herself pulled towards them, reckoning with a sensual awakening inside herself, despite her misgivings thatĚýher community is being misconstrued and exoticized.

With shimmering prose tempered by sharp wit, Whale Fall tells the story of what happens when one person's ambitions threaten the fabric of a community, and what can happen when they are realized. O'Connor paints a portrait of a community and a woman on the precipice, forced to confront an outside world that seems to be closing in on them.]]> 224 Elizabeth O'Connor 0593700929 Rohini 4 3.97 2024 Whale Fall
author: Elizabeth O'Connor
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> Cahokia Jazz 177059687
Like his earlier novel Golden Hill , Francis Spufford’s Cahokia Jazz inhabits a different version of America, now through the lens of a subtly altered 1920s—a fully imagined world full of fog, cigarette smoke, dubious motives, danger, dark deeds. And in the main character of Joe Barrow, we have a hero of truly epic proportions, a troubled soul to fall in love with as you are swept along by a propulsive and brilliantly twisty plot.

On a snowy night at the end of winter, Barrow and his partner find a body on the roof of a skyscraper. Down below, streetcar bells ring, factory whistles blow, Americans drink in speakeasies and dance to the tempo of modern times. But this is Cahokia, the ancient indigenous city beside the Mississippi living on as a teeming industrial metropolis, filled with people of every race and creed. Among them, peace holds. Just about. But that corpse on the roof will spark a week of drama in which this altered world will spill its secrets and be brought, against a soundtrack of jazz clarinets and wailing streetcars, either to destruction or rebirth.]]> 455 Francis Spufford 1668025477 Rohini 4 4.26 2023 Cahokia Jazz
author: Francis Spufford
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/18
date added: 2024/12/18
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]]> The Vanished Birds 48495040
"This is when your life begins."

Nia Imani is a woman out of place and outside of time. Decades of travel through the stars are condensed into mere months for her, though the years continue to march steadily onward for everyone she has ever known. Her friends and lovers have aged past her; all she has left is work. Alone and adrift, she lives only for the next paycheck, until the day she meets a mysterious boy, fallen from the sky.

A boy, broken by his past.

The scarred child does not speak, his only form of communication the beautiful and haunting music he plays on an old wooden flute. Captured by his songs and their strange, immediate connection, Nia decides to take the boy in. And over years of starlit travel, these two outsiders discover in each other the things they lack. For him, a home, a place of love and safety. For her, an anchor to the world outside of herself.

For both of them, a family.

But Nia is not the only one who wants the boy. The past hungers for him, and when it catches up, it threatens to tear this makeshift family apart.]]> 386 Simon Jimenez Rohini 4 4.20 2020 The Vanished Birds
author: Simon Jimenez
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/14
date added: 2024/12/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Sharp Ends (First Law World #7)]]> 26158083 Sharp Ends is the ultimate collection of award winning tales and exclusive new short stories from the master of grimdark fantasy, Joe Abercrombie. Violence explodes, treachery abounds, and the words are as deadly as the weapons in this rogue's gallery of side-shows, back-stories, and sharp endings from the world of the First Law.
The Union army may be full of bastards, but there's only one who thinks he can save the day single-handed when the Gurkish come calling: the incomparable Colonel Sand dan Glokta.

Curnden Craw and his dozen are out to recover a mysterious item from beyond the Crinna. Only one small problem: no one seems to know what the item is.

Shevedieh, the self-styled best thief in Styria, lurches from disaster to catastrophe alongside her best friend and greatest enemy, Javre, Lioness of Hoskopp.

And after years of bloodshed, the idealistic chieftain Bethod is desperate to bring peace to the North. There's only one obstacle left - his own lunatic champion, the most feared man in the North: the Bloody-Nine . . .
]]> 276 Joe Abercrombie Rohini 4 4.25 2016 Sharp Ends (First Law World #7)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/10
date added: 2024/12/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Ghostways: Two Journeys in Unquiet Places]]> 53916540 Ghostways brings two of best-selling author Robert Macfarlane’s eeriest works of impressionistic nature writing to American readers for the first time. In Holloway, Macfarlane and his collaborators explore the famed holloways of South Dorset, a landscape of shadows and spectres in the southwestern corner of England. In Ness, they create a modern myth about Orford Ness, the shingle desert of southeast England, for decades the United Kingdom’s secret atomic weapons testing site. Featuring Stanley Donwood’s spectacular etchings of woodland scenes throughout,ĚýGhostways is a beautiful and haunted work of art unlike any other.]]> 176 Robert Macfarlane 1324015837 Rohini 4 3.53 2020 Ghostways: Two Journeys in Unquiet Places
author: Robert Macfarlane
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/08
date added: 2024/12/08
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]]> The Dream Hotel 218695937 A novel about one woman’s fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.

Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days.

The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.

Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.]]> 336 Laila Lalami 0593317602 Rohini 0 to-read 3.69 2025 The Dream Hotel
author: Laila Lalami
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[A Man With One of Those Faces (Dublin Trilogy publication order, #1; Dublin Trilogy chronological order, #6)]]> 31817712
The second time was deliberate.

Now Paul Mulchrone finds himself on the run with nobody to turn to except a nurse who has read one-too-many crime novels and a renegade copper with a penchant for violence. Together they must solve one of the most notorious crimes in Irish history...

...or else they’ll be history.

A Man With One of Those Faces is the first book in Caimh McDonnell's Dublin Trilogy, which melds fast-paced action with a distinctly Irish acerbic wit.]]> 364 Caimh McDonnell 0995507511 Rohini 4 4.07 2016 A Man With One of Those Faces (Dublin Trilogy publication order, #1; Dublin Trilogy chronological order, #6)
author: Caimh McDonnell
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/07
date added: 2024/12/07
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]]> The Bright Sword 201751543
They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Tables, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.

But Arthur’s death has revealed Britain’s fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords are laying siege to Camelot, and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they’ll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain’s dark past.]]> 688 Lev Grossman 0735224056 Rohini 5 4.18 2024 The Bright Sword
author: Lev Grossman
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/25
date added: 2024/11/25
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]]> James 179550498
While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin�), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.

Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a “literary icon� (Oprah Daily), and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime, James is destined to be a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.]]> 304 Percival Everett 0385550375 Rohini 4 4.60 2024 James
author: Percival Everett
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/22
date added: 2024/11/22
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]]> <![CDATA[The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan #1)]]> 150249463
In Daretana’s greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree erupted from his body. Even here at the Empire’s borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death both terrifying and impossible.

Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all times, and that she can solve impossible cases without even stepping outside the walls of her home.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, magically altered in ways that make him the perfect aide to Ana’s brilliance. Din is at turns scandalized, perplexed, and utterly infuriated by his new superior—but as the case unfolds and he watches Ana’s mind leap from one startling deduction to the next, he must admit that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

By an “endlessly inventive� (Vulture) author with a “wicked sense of humor� (NPR), The Tainted Cup mixes the charms of detective fiction with brilliant world-building to deliver a fiendishly clever mystery that’s at once instantly recognizable and thrillingly new.]]> 410 Robert Jackson Bennett 1984820729 Rohini 4 4.40 2024 The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan #1)
author: Robert Jackson Bennett
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/16
date added: 2024/11/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Botany of Empire: Plant Worlds and the Scientific Legacies of Colonialism (Feminst Technosciences)]]> 199489425 An accessible foray into botany’s origins and how we can transform its future

Colonial ambitions spawned imperial attitudes, theories, and practices that remain entrenched within botany and across the life sciences. Banu Subramaniam draws on fields as disparate as queer studies, Indigenous studies, and the biological sciences to explore the labyrinthine history of how colonialism transformed rich and complex plant worlds into biological knowledge. Botany of Empire demonstrates how botany’s foundational theories and practices were shaped and fortified in the aid of colonial rule and its extractive ambitions. We see how colonizers obliterated plant time’s deep history to create a reductionist system that imposed a Latin-based naming system, drew on the imagined sex lives of European elites to explain plant sexuality, and discussed foreign plants like foreign humans. Subramanian then pivots to imagining a more inclusive and capacious field of botany untethered and decentered from its origins in histories of racism, slavery, and colonialism. This vision harnesses the power of feminist and scientific thought to chart a course for more socially just practices of experimental biology.

A reckoning and a manifesto, Botany of Empire provides experts and general readers alike with a roadmap for transforming the colonial foundations of plant science.]]> 328 Banu Subramaniam 0295752467 Rohini 0 to-read 4.14 Botany of Empire: Plant Worlds and the Scientific Legacies of Colonialism (Feminst Technosciences)
author: Banu Subramaniam
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.14
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/22
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]]> The Bishop’s Villa 207982041 From the author of Nives , a story of love, redemption, and resistance set in Italy during WWIIĚý


Maremma, Tuscany, November 1943. Le Case is a village far from everything. Seen from there, even the war looks different; mostly waiting, prayers, poverty. As a fierce winter looms, an order is issued to arrest all Jews and detained them in the bishop's villa, awaiting deportation.Ěý


RenĂ© is the town's shoemaker. Everyone calls him Settebello, “lucky seven,â€� a nickname he got at a young age after losing three fingers on a lathe. Now he's fifty years old. Shy, solitary, taciturn. No family or acquaintances—except for Anna, a lifelong friend who could have been something more. RenĂ© never had the courage to declare his feelings. In fact, he never had the courage to do anything. His days are always the home and work, keep a straight path.Ěý


When Anna’s son Edoardo, who had secretly joined the Resitance, is captured and shot by the Wehrmacht, the woman vows to continue his mission. One evening she disappears, leaving RenĂ© a note with a few instructions. When news spreads that a group of rebels have fallen into an ambush and are locked up in the bishop’s villa, and that among them there’s a woman, Settebello can no longer just watch.Ěý


Masterfully weaving together personal and historical narratives, Naspini captures the essence of a community navigating the horrors of war. Inspired by real events, The Bishop’s Villa is a poignant reflection on the power of memory and the capacity of the human spirit to resist even in the darkest of times.Ěý]]> 207 Sacha Naspini Rohini 0 to-read 3.67 The Bishop’s Villa
author: Sacha Naspini
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.67
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hexologists (The Hexologists, #1)]]> 59612836

The Hexologists, Iz and Warren Wilby, are quite accustomed to helping desperate clients with the bugbears of city life. Aided by hexes and a bag of charmed relics, the Wilbies have recovered children abducted by chimney-wraiths, removed infestations of barb-nosed incubi, and ventured into the Gray Plains of the Unmade to soothe a troubled ghost. Well-acquainted with the weird, they never shy away from a challenging case.
Ěý
But when they are approached by the royal secretary and told the king pleads to be baked into a cake—going so far as to wedge himself inside a lit oven—the Wilbies soon find themselves embroiled in a mystery that could very well see the nation turned on its head. Their effort to expose a royal secret buried under forty years of lies brings them nose to nose with a violent anti-royalist gang, avaricious ghouls, alchemists who draw their power from a hell-like dimension, and a bookish dragon who only occasionally eats people.
Ěý
Armed with a love toughened by adversity and a stick of chalk that can conjure light from the darkness, hope from the hopeless, Iz and Warren Wilby are ready for a case that will test every spell, skill, and odd magical artifact in their considerable bag of tricks.]]> 318 Josiah Bancroft Rohini 4 3.79 2023 The Hexologists (The Hexologists, #1)
author: Josiah Bancroft
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/18
date added: 2024/11/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil]]> 215020997 London, 1837.
Boston, 2019.

Three young women, their bodies planted in the same soil, their stories tangling like roots.

One grows high, and one grows deep, and one grows wild.

And all of them grow teeth.]]> 560 Victoria E. Schwab 1035064642 Rohini 0 to-read 4.38 2025 Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/17
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]]> From the Mouth of the Whale 10638420
From the Mouth of the Whale is a magical evocation of an enlightened mind and a vanished age.]]> 272 ł§ÂáĂł˛Ô 1846590833 Rohini 0 to-read 3.50 2008 From the Mouth of the Whale
author: ł§ÂáĂł˛Ô
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Copenhagen Connection 66515 358 Elizabeth Peters 0380733382 Rohini 3 3.63 1982 The Copenhagen Connection
author: Elizabeth Peters
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1982
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/11
date added: 2024/11/11
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]]> Red Country 35674191
Their journey will take them across the lawless plains, to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feuds, duels, and massacres, high into unmapped mountains to a reckoning with ancient enemies, and force them into alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, a man no one should ever have to trust . . .]]> 451 Joe Abercrombie Rohini 4 4.48 2012 Red Country
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/07
date added: 2024/11/07
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]]> A Monster Calls 19052644
At seven minutes past midnight, thirteen-year-old Conor wakes to find a monster outside his bedroom window. But it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting-- he’s been expecting the one from his nightmare, the nightmare he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments. The monster in his backyard is different. It’s ancient. And wild. And it wants something from Conor. Something terrible and dangerous. It wants the truth. From the final idea of award-winning author Siobhan Dowd-- whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself-- Patrick Ness has spun a haunting and darkly funny novel of mischief, loss, and monsters both real and imagined.]]> 224 Patrick Ness 0763669091 Rohini 4 4.42 2011 A Monster Calls
author: Patrick Ness
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/03
date added: 2024/11/03
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]]> <![CDATA[The Heroes (First Law World #5)]]> 10394042
Bremer dan Gorst, disgraced master swordsman, has sworn to reclaim his stolen honour on the battlefield. Obsessed with redemption and addicted to violence, he’s far past caring how much blood gets spilled in the attempt. Even if it’s his own.

Prince Calder isn’t interested in honour, and still less in getting himself killed. All he wants is power, and he’ll tell any lie, use any trick, and betray any friend to get it. Just as long as he doesn’t have to fight for it himself.

Curnden Craw, the last honest man in the North, has gained nothing from a life of warfare but swollen knees and frayed nerves. He hardly even cares who wins any more, he just wants to do the right thing. But can he even tell what that is with the world burning down around him?

Over three bloody days of battle, the fate of the North will be decided. But with both sides riddled by intrigues, follies, feuds and petty jealousies, it is unlikely to be the noblest hearts, or even the strongest arms that prevail�

Three men. One battle. No Heroes.]]> 581 Joe Abercrombie Rohini 4 4.38 2011 The Heroes (First Law World #5)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/02
date added: 2024/11/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants]]> 42380121 In 1506, Michelangelo â€� a young but already renowned sculptor â€� is invited by the sultan of Constantinople to design a bridge over the Golden Horn. The sultan has offered, alongside an enormous payment, the promise of immortality, since Leonardo da Vinci’s design was rejected: â€You will surpass him in glory if you accept, for you will succeed where he has failed, and you will give the world a monument without equal.â€� Michelangelo, after some hesitation, flees Rome and an irritated Pope Julius II â€� whose commission he leaves unfinished â€� and arrives in Constantinople for this truly epic project. Once there, he explores the beauty and wonder of the Ottoman Empire, sketching and describing his impressions along the way, and becomes immersed in cloak-and-dagger palace intrigues as he struggles to create what could be his greatest architectural master-work. Constructed from real historical fragments, Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants is a thrilling novella about why stories are told, why bridges are built, and how seemingly unmatched pieces, seen from the opposite sides of civilization, can mirror one another.

]]> 151 Mathias Énard 191069570X Rohini 0 to-read 3.98 2010 Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants
author: Mathias Énard
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/31
shelves: to-read
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]]> Lone Women 60460704
Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.

The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women� taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.

Crafted by a modern master of magical suspense, Lone Women blends shimmering prose, an unforgettable cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape, and a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen. And at its heart is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—or redeem it.]]> 275 Victor LaValle 052551208X Rohini 0 to-read 3.68 2023 Lone Women
author: Victor LaValle
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Iron Gold (Red Rising Saga, #4)]]> 33361943 They call him father, liberator, warlord, Reaper. But he feels a boy as he falls toward the pale blue planet, his armor red, his army vast, his heart heavy. It is the tenth year of war and the thirty-second of his life.

A decade ago, Darrow was the hero of the revolution he believed would break the chains of the Society. But the Rising has shattered everything: Instead of peace and freedom, it has brought endless war. Now he must risk everything he has fought for on one last desperate mission. Darrow still believes he can save everyone, but can he save himself?

And throughout the worlds, other destinies entwine with Darrow’s to change his fate forever:

A young Red girl flees tragedy in her refugee camp and achieves for herself a new life she could never have imagined.

An ex-soldier broken by grief is forced to steal the most valuable thing in the galaxy—or pay with his life.

And Lysander au Lune, the heir in exile to the sovereign, wanders the stars with his mentor, Cassius, haunted by the loss of the world that Darrow transformed, and dreaming of what will rise from its ashes.

Red Rising was the story of the end of one universe, and Iron Gold is the story of the creation of a new one. Witness the beginning of a stunning new saga of tragedy and triumph from masterly New York Times bestselling author Pierce Brown.]]> 605 Pierce Brown Rohini 0 to-read 4.33 2018 Iron Gold (Red Rising Saga, #4)
author: Pierce Brown
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> Best Served Cold 40651772 664 Joe Abercrombie Rohini 4 4.32 2009 Best Served Cold
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/24
date added: 2024/10/24
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mirrored Heavens (Between Earth and Sky #3)]]> 199077896
Even the sea cannot stay calm before the storm. —Teek saying

Serapio, avatar of the Crow God Reborn and the newly crowned Carrion King, rules Tova. But his enemies gather both on distant shores and within his own city as the matrons of the clans scheme to destroy him. And deep in the alleys of the Maw, a new prophecy is whispered, this one from the Coyote God. It promises Serapio certain doom if its terrible dictates are not fulfilled.

Meanwhile, Xiala is thrust back amongst her people as war comes first to the island of Teek. With their way of life and their magic under threat, she is their last best hope. But the sea won’t talk to her the way it used to, and doubts riddle her mind. She will have to sacrifice the things that matter most to unleash her powers and become the queen they were promised.

And in the far northern wastelands, Naranpa, avatar of the Sun God, seeks a way to save Tova from the visions of fire that engulf her dreams. But another presence has begun stalking her nightmares, and the Jaguar God is on the hunt.

Nominated for the Nebula, Lambda, Locus, and Hugo Awards, winner of the Alex Award from the American Library Association and the Ignyte Award from Fiyah magazine, the Between Earth and Sky trilogy is amongst our most lauded modern fantasy series from New York Times , Los Angeles Times , and USA TODAY bestselling author Rebecca Roanhorse.]]> 604 Rebecca Roanhorse 153443772X Rohini 4 4.42 2024 Mirrored Heavens (Between Earth and Sky #3)
author: Rebecca Roanhorse
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/20
date added: 2024/10/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Morning Star (Red Rising Saga, #3)]]> 18966806
Finally, the time has come.

But devotion to honor and hunger for vengeance run deep on both sides. Darrow and his comrades-in-arms face powerful enemies without scruple or mercy. Among them are some Darrow once considered friends. To win, Darrow will need to inspire those shackled in darkness to break their chains, unmake the world their cruel masters have built, and claim a destiny too long denied—and too glorious to surrender.]]> 525 Pierce Brown 0345539842 Rohini 4 4.52 2016 Morning Star (Red Rising Saga, #3)
author: Pierce Brown
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/13
date added: 2024/10/14
shelves:
review:

]]> The Light Pirate 60733412
Florida is slipping away. As devastating weather patterns and rising sea levels wreak gradual havoc on the state’s infrastructure, a powerful hurricane approaches a small town on the southeastern coast. Kirby Lowe, an electrical line worker, his pregnant wife, Frida, and their two sons, Flip and Lucas, prepare for the worst. When the boys go missing just before the hurricane hits, Kirby heads out into the high winds in search of his children. Left alone, Frida goes into premature labor and gives birth to an unusual child, Wanda, whom she names after the catastrophic storm that ushers her into a society closer to collapse than ever before.

As Florida continues to unravel, Wanda grows. Moving from childhood to adulthood, adapting not only to the changing landscape, but also to the people who stayed behind in a place abandoned by civilization, Wanda loses family, gains community, and ultimately, seeks adventure, love, and purpose in a place remade by nature.

Told in four parts—power, water, light, and time� The Light Pirate mirrors the rhythms of the elements and the sometimes quick, sometimes slow dissolution of the world as we know it. It is a meditation on the changes we would rather not see, the future we would rather not greet, and a call back to the beauty and violence of an untamable wilderness.

Includes a Reading Group Guide.]]> 357 Lily Brooks-Dalton 1538708299 Rohini 0 to-read 4.18 2022 The Light Pirate
author: Lily Brooks-Dalton
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook]]> 191746386
On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution . Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment?

Hampton Sides� bravura account of Cook’s last journey both wrestles with Cook’s legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration in the 1700s. Cook was renowned for his peerless seamanship, his humane leadership, and his dedication to science-–the famed naturalist Joseph Banks accompanied him on his first voyage, and Cook has been called one of the most important figures of the Age of Enlightenment. He was also deeply interested in the native people he encountered. In fact, his stated mission was to return a Tahitian man, Mai, who had become the toast of London, to his home islands. On previous expeditions, Cook mapped huge swaths of the Pacific, including the east coast of Australia, and initiated first European contact with numerous peoples. He treated his crew well, and endeavored to learn about the societies he encountered with curiosity and without judgment.

Yet something was different on this last voyage. Cook became mercurial, resorting to the lash to enforce discipline, and led his two vessels into danger time and again. Uncharacteristically, he ordered violent retaliation for perceived theft on the part of native peoples. This may have had something to do with his secret orders, which were to chart and claim lands before Britain’s imperial rivals could, and to discover the fabled Northwest Passage. Whatever Cook’s intentions, his scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword, and the ultimate effects of first contact were catastrophic for Indigenous people around the world. The tensions between Cook’s overt and covert missions came to a head on the shores of Hawaii. His first landing there was harmonious, but when Cook returned after mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, his exploitative treatment of the Hawaiians led to the fatal encounter.

At once a ferociously-paced story of adventure on the high seas and a searching examination of the complexities and consequences of the Age of Exploration, THE WIDE WIDE SEA is a major work from one of our finest narrative nonfiction writers.]]> 408 Hampton Sides 0385544766 Rohini 4 4.47 2024 The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook
author: Hampton Sides
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/04
date added: 2024/10/04
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]]> <![CDATA[The Observable Universe: An Investigation]]> 179546805 A moving memoir of a young woman's reckoning with her parents' absence, the virus that took them, and what it means to search for meaning in a hyper-connected world

In the early 1990s, Heather McCalden lost her parents to AIDS. Orphaned by age ten, she was raised by her grandmother in Los Angeles, a fragmented city, also known as ground zero for the virus and its destruction. Years later, unmoored by grief, she begins exploring the history of HIV as a way to deal with her loss. This leads her to discover that AIDS and the internet developed along parallel timelines, lending truth to the saying "going viral." Chasing this idea through anecdotes, TV shows, scientific papers, Wikipedia entries, and internet history, McCalden forms a synaptic experience of what happened to her family, one that leads to an unexpected discovery about who her parents might have been.]]> 304 Heather McCalden 0593596471 Rohini 0 to-read 3.84 2024 The Observable Universe: An Investigation
author: Heather McCalden
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/29
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]]> <![CDATA[In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette]]> 20897517
Two years into the voyage, the Jeannette's hull was breached by an impassable stretch of pack ice, forcing the crew to abandon ship amid torrents of rushing of water. Hours later, the ship had sunk below the surface, marooning the men a thousand miles north of Siberia, where they faced a terrifying march with minimal supplies across the endless ice pack.

Enduring everything from snow blindness and polar bears to ferocious storms and labyrinths of ice, the crew battled madness and starvation as they struggled desperately to survive. With thrilling twists and turns, In The Kingdom of Ice is a tale of heroism and determination in the most brutal place on Earth.]]> 454 Hampton Sides 0385535376 Rohini 0 to-read 4.24 2014 In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette
author: Hampton Sides
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/27
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]]> My Friends 127488823
The trick time plays is to lull us into the belief that everything lasts forever, and although nothing does, we continue, inside our dream.

One evening, as a young boy growing up in Benghazi, Khaled hears a bizarre short story read aloud on the radio, about a man being eaten alive by a cat. Obsessed by the power of those words—and by their enigmatic author, Hosam Zowa—Khaled eventually embarks on a journey that will take him far from home, to pursue a life of the mind at the University of Edinburgh.

There, thrust into an open society that is light years away from the world he knew in Libya, Khaled begins to change. He attends a protest against the Qaddafi regime in London, only to watch it explode in tragedy. In a flash, Khaled finds himself injured, clinging to life, an exile, unable to leave England, much lessĚýreturn toĚýthe country of his birth. To even tell his mother and father back home what he has done, on tapped phone lines, would jeopardize their safety.

When a chance encounter in a hotel brings Khaled face to face with Hosam Zowa, the author of the fateful short story, he is subsumed into the deepest friendship of his life. It is a friendship that not only sustains him, but eventually forces him, as the Arab Spring erupts, to confront agonizing tensions between revolution and safety, family and exile, and how to define his own sense of self against those closest to him.

A devastating meditation on friendship and family, and the ways in which time tests—and frays—those bonds, My Friends is an achingly beautifulĚýworkĚýof literature by an authorĚýat the peak of his powers.]]> 399 Hisham Matar 081299485X Rohini 5 4.31 2024 My Friends
author: Hisham Matar
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/27
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]]> The Repeat Room 205673381 Franz Kafka meets Yorgos Lanthimos in this provocative new novel from one of America’s most brilliant and distinctive writers

In a speculative future, Abel, a menial worker, is called to serve in a secretive and fabled jury system. At the heart of this system is the repeat room, where a single juror, selected from hundreds of candidates, is able to inhabit the defendant’s lived experience, to see as if through their eyes.

The case to which Abel is assigned is revealed in the novel’s shocking second act. We receive a record of a boy’s broken and constrained life, a tale that reveals an illicit and passionate psycho-sexual relationship, its end as tragic as the circumstances of its conception.

Artful in its suspense, and sharp in its evocation of a byzantine and cruel bureaucracy, The Repeat Room is an exciting and pointed critique of the nature of knowledge and judgment, and a vivid framing of Ball’s absurd and nihilistic philosophy of love.]]> 256 Jesse Ball 1646221400 Rohini 0 to-read 3.13 2024 The Repeat Room
author: Jesse Ball
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.13
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/24
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]]> <![CDATA[The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story]]> 204316857 The Nobelist's latest masterwork, set in a sanitarium on the eve of World War I, probes the horrors that lie beneath our most hallowed ideas.

In September 1913, MieczysĹ‚aw, a student suffering from tuberculosis, arrives at Wilhelm Opitz's Guesthouse for Gentlemen, a health resort inĚýGörbersdorf, what is now western Poland. Every day, its residents gather in the dining room to imbibe the hallucinogenic local liqueur, to obsess over money and status, and to discuss the great issues of the day: Will there be war? Monarchy or democracy? Do devils exist? Are women inherently inferior?

Meanwhile, disturbing things are beginning to happen in the guesthouse and its surroundings. As stories of shocking events in the surrounding highlands reach the men, a sense of dread builds. Someone—or something—seems to be watching them and attempting to infiltrate their world. Little does Mieczysław realize, as he attempts to unravel both the truths within himself and the mystery of the sinister forces beyond, that they have already chosen their next target.

A century after the publication of The Magic Mountain, Tokarczuk revisits Thomas Mann territory and lays claim to it, blending horror story, comedy, folklore, and feminist parable with brilliant storytelling.]]> 320 Olga Tokarczuk 0593712943 Rohini 0 to-read 3.66 2022 The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story
author: Olga Tokarczuk
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> The Case of Cem 165053140 560 Vera Mutafchieva 953351437X Rohini 0 to-read 4.40 1966 The Case of Cem
author: Vera Mutafchieva
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1966
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/21
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]]> Red God (Red Rising Saga, #7) 61657799 Pierce Brown Rohini 0 to-read 4.50 2025 Red God (Red Rising Saga, #7)
author: Pierce Brown
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Light Bringer (Red Rising Saga, #6)]]> 29227774 Darrow returns as Pierce Brown’s New York Times bestselling Red Rising series continues in the thrilling sequel to Dark Age.

�The measure of a man is not the fear he sows in his enemies. It is the hope he gives his friends.”—Virginia au Augustus

The Reaper is a legend, more myth than man: the savior of worlds, the leader of the Rising, the breaker of chains.

But the Reaper is also Darrow, born of the red soil of Mars: a husband, a father, a friend.

The worlds once needed the Reaper. But now they need Darrow. Because after the dark age will come a new age: of light, of victory, of hope.]]> 682 Pierce Brown 1473646804 Rohini 0 to-read 4.74 2023 Light Bringer (Red Rising Saga, #6)
author: Pierce Brown
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.74
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Dark Age (Red Rising Saga, #5)]]> 29226553
For a decade Darrow led a revolution against the corrupt color-coded Society. Now, outlawed by the very Republic he founded, he wages a rogue war on Mercury in hopes that he can still salvage the dream of Eo. But as he leaves death and destruction in his wake, is he still the hero who broke the chains? Or will another legend rise to take his place?

Lysander au Lune, the heir in exile, has returned to the Core. Determined to bring peace back to mankind at the edge of his sword, he must overcome or unite the treacherous Gold families of the Core and face down Darrow over the skies of war-torn Mercury.

But theirs are not the only fates hanging in the balance.

On Luna, Mustang, Sovereign of the Republic, campaigns to unite the Republic behind her husband. Beset by political and criminal enemies, can she outwit her opponents in time to save him?

Once a Red refugee, young Lyria now stands accused of treason, and her only hope is a desperate escape with unlikely new allies.

Abducted by a new threat to the Republic, Pax and Electra, the children of Darrow and Sevro, must trust in Ephraim, a thief, for their salvation—and Ephraim must look to them for his chance at redemption.

As alliances shift, break, and re-form—and power is seized, lost, and reclaimed—every player is at risk in a game of conquest that could turn the Rising into a new Dark Age.]]> 704 Pierce Brown 0425285952 Rohini 0 to-read 4.48 2019 Dark Age (Red Rising Saga, #5)
author: Pierce Brown
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Golden Son (Red Rising Saga, #2)]]> 18966819
A lamb among wolves in a cruel world, Darrow finds friendship, respect, and even love—but also the wrath of powerful rivals. To wage and win the war that will change humankind’s destiny, Darrow must confront the treachery arrayed against him, overcome his all-too-human desire for retribution—and strive not for violent revolt but a hopeful rebirth. Though the road ahead is fraught with danger and deceit, Darrow must choose to follow Eo’s principles of love and justice to free his people.

He must live for more.]]> 466 Pierce Brown 0345539826 Rohini 4 4.47 2015 Golden Son (Red Rising Saga, #2)
author: Pierce Brown
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/15
date added: 2024/09/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders]]> 200706911 From award-winning poet Vanessa AngĂ©lica Villarreal comes a brilliant, singular collection of essays that looks to music, fantasy, and pop culture to excavate and reimagine what has been disappeared by the forces of migration and colonialism. Ěý In Magical/Realism, Vanessa AngĂ©lica Villarreal offers us an intimate mosaic of migration, violence, and colonial erasure through the lens of her marriage and her experiences navigating American monoculture. As she attempts to recover the truth from the absences and silences within her life, her relationships, and those of her ancestors, Vanessa pieces together her story from the fragments of music, memory, and fantasy that have helped her make sense of it all.Ěý Ěý The trauma of remembering gives the collection its unique Each chapter is an attempt to reimagine and re-world what has been lost. In one essay, Vanessa examines the gender performativity of Nirvana and Selena; in another, she offers a radical but crucial racial reading of Jon Snow in Game of Thrones; and throughout the collection, she explores how fantasy can provide healing when grief feels insurmountable. She reflects on the moments of her life that are too painful to remember—her difficult adolescence, her role as the eldest daughter of Mexican immigrants, her divorce—and finds a new way to archive her history and map her future(s), one infused with the hope and joy of fantasy and magical thinking. Ěý By engaging readers in her project of rebuilding narrative, Vanessa broadens our understanding of what memoir and cultural criticism can be. Magical/Realism is a wise, tender, and essential collection that carves a path toward a new way of remembering and telling our stories.]]> 370 Vanessa AngĂ©lica Villarreal 0593187148 Rohini 0 to-read 4.36 2024 Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders
author: Vanessa Angélica Villarreal
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are]]> 134117265
Far from being a lifeless ornament in the sky, the Moon holds the key to some of science’s central questions, and in this fascinating account of our remarkable satellite, award-winning science journalist Rebecca Boyle shows us why it is the secret to our success.

The Moon stabilizes the Earth’s tilt toward the Sun, creating reliable seasons. The durability of this tilt over millennia stabilizes our climate. The Moon pulls on the ocean, driving the tides. It was these tides that mixed nutrients in the sea, enabling the evolution of complex life and, ultimately, bringing life onto land.

But the Moon also played a pivotal role in our conceptual development. While the Sun helped humans to mark daily time, hunters and gatherers used the phases of the Moon to count months and years, allowing them to situate themselves in time and plan for the future. Its role in the development of religion—Mesopotamian priests recorded the Moon’s position to make predictions about the Moon god--created the earliest known empirical, scientific observation.

Boyle deftly reframes the history of scientific discovery through a lunar lens, from Mesopotamia to the present day. Touching on ancient astronomers including Claudius Ptolemy; ancient philosophers from Anaxagoras to Plutarch; the scientific revolution of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler; and the lunar fiction of writers like Jules Verne--which inspired Wernher von Braun, the Nazi rocket scientist who succeeded in landing humans on the Moon--Boyle charts our path with the Moon from the origins of human civilization to the Apollo landings and up to the present.

Even as astronauts around the world prepare to return to the Moon, opening up new frontiers of discovery, profit, and politics, Our Moon brings the Moon down to Earth.]]> 336 Rebecca Boyle 0593129725 Rohini 0 to-read 3.88 2024 Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are
author: Rebecca Boyle
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> Blood Over Bright Haven 208455470 The first woman ever admitted to a prestigious order of mages unravels a secret conspiracy that could change the practice of magic forever, in this standalone dark fantasy from the author of The Sword of Kaigen.

For twenty years, Sciona has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry at the University of Magics and Industry.

When Sciona finally passes the qualifying exam and becomes a highmage, she finds her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues are determined to make her feel unwelcome—and, instead of a qualified lab assistant, they give her a janitor.

What neither Sciona nor her peers realize is that her taciturn assistant was not always a janitor. Ten years ago, he was a nomadic hunter who lost his family on their perilous journey from the wild plains to the city. But now he sees the opportunity to understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the privileged in power.

At first, mage and outsider have a fractious relationship. But working together, they uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever—if it doesn’t get them killed first.]]> 422 M.L. Wang 059387336X Rohini 4 4.41 2023 Blood Over Bright Haven
author: M.L. Wang
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/13
date added: 2024/09/14
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]]> The Sword of Kaigen 41886271 A son struggling to grasp his violent future,
A father blind to the danger that threatens them all.

When the winds of war reach their peninsula, will the Matsuda family have the strength to defend their empire? Or will they tear each other apart before the true enemies even reach their shores?

High on a mountainside at the edge of the Kaigenese Empire live the most powerful warriors in the world, superhumans capable of raising the sea and wielding blades of ice. For hundreds of years, the fighters of the Kusanagi Peninsula have held the Empire’s enemies at bay, earning their frozen spit of land the name â€The Sword of Kaigen.â€�

Born into Kusanagi’s legendary Matsuda family, fourteen-year-old Mamoru has always known his purpose: to master his family’s fighting techniques and defend his homeland. But when an outsider arrives and pulls back the curtain on Kaigen’s alleged age of peace, Mamoru realizes that he might not have much time to become the fighter he was bred to be. Worse, the empire he was bred to defend may stand on a foundation of lies.

Misaki told herself that she left the passions of her youth behind when she married into the Matsuda house. Determined to be a good housewife and mother, she hid away her sword, along with everything from her days as a fighter in a faraway country. But with her growing son asking questions about the outside world, the threat of an impending invasion looming across the sea, and her frigid husband grating on her nerves, Misaki finds the fighter in her clawing its way back to the surface.]]> 651 M.L. Wang Rohini 0 to-read 4.46 2019 The Sword of Kaigen
author: M.L. Wang
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> Clear 177058810
Against the rugged backdrop of this faraway spot beyond Shetland, Carys Davies's intimate drama unfolds with tension and tenderness: a touching and crystalline study of ordinary people buffeted by history and a powerful exploration of the distances and connections between us. Perfectly structured and surprising at every turn, Clear is a marvel of storytelling, an exquisite short novel by a master of the form.]]> 203 Carys Davies Rohini 4 4.01 Clear
author: Carys Davies
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.01
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/11
date added: 2024/09/11
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]]> Mrs. Caliban 57545868 Ěý
A couple weeks later, there is a special interruption in regular programming. The announcer warns all listeners of an escaped sea monster. Giant, spotted, and froglike, the beast—who was captured six months earlier by a team of scientists—is said to possess incredible strength and to be considered extremely dangerous.
Ěý
That afternoon, the seven-foot-tall lizard man walks through Dorothy’s kitchen door. She is frightened at first, but there is something attractive about the monster. The two begin a tender, clandestine affair, and no one, not even Dorothy’s husband or her best friend, seems to notice.
Ěý
Selected by the British Book Marketing Council as one of the greatest American novels since World War II, Mrs. Caliban is a story of passion and loneliness, love and loss. Wryly subversive, it brilliantly combines surrealism, satire, and the female perspective.

Ěý]]> 128 Rachel Ingalls Rohini 4 3.62 1982 Mrs. Caliban
author: Rachel Ingalls
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/09
date added: 2024/09/09
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]]> <![CDATA[The Mistletoe Murder And Other Stories]]> 30151343 Four previously uncollected stories from one of the great mystery writers of our time--swift, cunning murder mysteries (two of which feature the young Adam Dalgliesh) that together, to borrow the author's own word, add up to a delightful "entertainment."

The newly appointed Sgt. Dalgliesh is drawn into a case that is "pure Agatha Christie." . . . A "pedantic, respectable, censorious" clerk's secret taste for pornography is only the first reason he finds for not coming forward as a witness to a murder . . . A best-selling crime novelist describes the crime she herself was involved in fifty years earlier . . . Dalgliesh's godfather implores him to reinvestigate a notorious murder that might ease the godfather's mind about an inheritance, but which will reveal a truth that even the supremely upstanding Adam Dalgliesh will keep to himself. Each of these stories is as playful as it is ingeniously plotted, the author's sly humor as evident as her hallmark narrative elegance and shrewd understanding of some of the most complex--not to say the most damning--aspects of human nature. A treat for P. D. James's legions of fans and anyone who enjoys the pleasures of a masterfully wrought whodunit.

From the Hardcover edition.]]> P.D. James 1524708089 Rohini 4 3.70 2016 The Mistletoe Murder And Other Stories
author: P.D. James
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/09
date added: 2024/09/09
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]]> House of Bone and Rain 203163914 In the latest from Shirley Jackson and Bram Stoker Award-winning author of THE DEVIL TAKES YOU HOME, a group of five teenage boys, living in Puerto Rico, seek vengeance after one of their mothers is murdered; a doomed tale of devotion and the afterlife of violence. Ěý

For childhood friends Gabe, Xavier, Tavo, Paul, and Bimbo, death has always been close. Hurricanes. Car accidents. Gang violence. Suicide. Estamos rodeados de fantasmas was Gabe’s grandmother’s refrain. We are surrounded by ghosts. But this time is different. Bimbo's mom has been shot dead. We’re gonna kill the guys who killed her Bimbo swears. And they all agree.

Feral with grief, Bimbo has become unrecognizable, taking no prisoners in his search for names. Soon, they learn Maria was gunned down by guys working for the drug kingpin of Puerto Rico. No one has ever gone up against him and survived. As the boys strategize, a storm gathers far from the coast. Hurricanes are known to carry evil spirits in their currents and bring them ashore, spirits which impose their own order.

Blurring the boundaries between myth, mysticism, and the grim realities of our world, House of Bone and Rain is a harrowing coming of age story; a doomed tale of devotion, the afterlife of violence, and what rolls in on the tide.]]> 345 Gabino Iglesias 0316427012 Rohini 0 to-read 3.84 2024 House of Bone and Rain
author: Gabino Iglesias
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> Wandering Stars 174162974 A TIME MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK � The Pulitzer Prize-finalist and author of the breakout bestseller There There delivers a masterful follow-up to his already classic first novel. Extending his constellation of narratives into the past and future, Tommy Orange traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through three generations of a family in a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous.

Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion prison castle,where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star’s son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father’s jailer. Under Pratt’s harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines.

In a novel that is by turns shattering and wondrous, Tommy Orange has conjured the ancestors of the family readers first fell in love with in There There—warriors, drunks, outlaws, addicts—asking what it means to bethe children and grandchildren of massacre. Wandering Stars is a novel about epigenetic and generational trauma that has the force and vision of a modern epic, an exceptionally powerful new book from one of the most exciting writers at work today and soaring confirmation of Tommy Orange’s monumental gifts.]]> 337 Tommy Orange 0593318269 Rohini 0 to-read 3.91 2024 Wandering Stars
author: Tommy Orange
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/03
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]]> The Hunter 174136375
Cal Hooper took early retirement from Chicago PD and moved to rural Ireland looking for peace. He’s found it, more or he’s built a relationship with a local woman, Lena, and he’s gradually turning Trey Reddy from a half-feral teenager into a good kid going good places. But then Trey’s long-absent father reappears, bringing along an English millionaire and a scheme to find gold in the townland, and suddenly everything the three of them have been building is under threat. Cal and Lena are both ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey, but Trey doesn’t want protecting. What she wants is revenge.

A nuanced, atmospheric tale that explores what we’ll do for our loved ones, what we’ll do for revenge, and what we sacrifice when the two collide.]]> 474 Tana French Rohini 4 4.34 2024 The Hunter
author: Tana French
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/31
date added: 2024/08/31
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]]> <![CDATA[Last Argument of Kings (The First Law #3)]]> 944076
Logen Ninefingers might only have one more fight in him, but it's going to be a big one. Battle rages across the North, the King of the Northmen still stands firm, and there's only one man who can stop him. His oldest friend, and his oldest enemy: it's time for the Bloody-Nine to come home.

With too many masters and too little time, Superior Glokta is fighting a different kind of war. A secret struggle in which no-one is safe, and no-one can be trusted. And, as his days with a sword are far behind him, it's fortunate that he's deadly with his remaining weapons: threats, blackmail and torture.

Jezal dan Luthar has decided that winning glory is too painful an undertaking and turned his back on soldiering for a simple life with the woman he loves. But love can be painful too � and glory has a nasty habit of creeping up on a man when he least expects it.

While the King of the Union lies on his deathbead, the peasants revolt and the nobles scramble to steal his crown. No-one believes that the shadow of war is about to fall across the heart of the Union. Only the First of the Magi has a plan to save the world � as he always does � but this time there are risks. There is no risk more terrible, after all, than to break the First Law...]]> 536 Joe Abercrombie 0575077905 Rohini 4 4.35 2008 Last Argument of Kings (The First Law #3)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/23
date added: 2024/08/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Before They Are Hanged (The First Law, #2)]]> 58638093 The second novel in the wildly popular First Law Trilogy from New York Times bestseller Joe Abercrombie.

Superior Glokta has a problem. How do you defend a city surrounded by enemies and riddled with traitors, when your allies can by no means be trusted, and your predecessor vanished without a trace? It's enough to make a torturer want to run -- if he could even walk without a stick.

Northmen have spilled over the border of Angland and are spreading fire and death across the frozen country. Crown Prince Ladisla is poised to drive them back and win undying glory. There is only one problem -- he commands the worst-armed, worst-trained, worst-led army in the world.

And Bayaz, the First of the Magi, is leading a party of bold adventurers on a perilous mission through the ruins of the past. The most hated woman in the South, the most feared man in the North, and the most selfish boy in the Union make a strange alliance, but a deadly one. They might even stand a chance of saving mankind from the Eaters -- if they didn't hate each other quite so much.

Ancient secrets will be uncovered. Bloody battles will be won and lost. Bitter enemies will be forgiven -- but not before they are hanged.


First Law Trilogy
The Blade Itself
Before They Are Hanged
Last Argument of Kings


For more from Joe Abercrombie, check out:

Novels in the First Law world
Best Served Cold
The Heroes
Red Country]]> 644 Joe Abercrombie Rohini 4 4.51 2007 Before They Are Hanged (The First Law, #2)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/20
date added: 2024/08/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Fevered Star (Between Earth and Sky, #2)]]> 123211698 There are no tides more treacherous than those of the heart. —Teek saying

The great city of Tova is shattered. The sun is held within the smothering grip of the Crow God’s eclipse, but a comet that marks the death of a ruler and heralds the rise of a new order is imminent.

The Meridian: a land where magic has been codified and the worship of gods suppressed. How do you live when legends come to life, and the faith you had is rewarded?

As sea captain Xiala is swept up in the chaos and currents of change, she finds an unexpected ally in the former Priest of Knives. For the Clan Matriarchs of Tova, tense alliances form as far-flung enemies gather and the war in the heavens is reflected upon the earth.

And for Serapio and Naranpa, both now living avatars, the struggle for free will and personhood in the face of destiny rages. How will Serapio stay human when he is steeped in prophecy and surrounded by those who desire only his power? Is there a future for Naranpa in a transformed Tova without her total destruction?]]> 384 Rebecca Roanhorse Rohini 4 4.23 2022 Fevered Star (Between Earth and Sky, #2)
author: Rebecca Roanhorse
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/19
date added: 2024/08/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1)]]> 50009069 The first novel in the First Law Trilogy and debut novel from New York Times bestseller, Joe Abercrombie.

Logen Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck. Caught in one feud too many, he's on the verge of becoming a dead barbarian -- leaving nothing behind him but bad songs, dead friends, and a lot of happy enemies.

Nobleman, dashing officer, and paragon of selfishness, Captain Jezal dan Luthar has nothing more dangerous in mind than fleecing his friends at cards and dreaming of glory in the fencing circle. But war is brewing, and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules.

Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer, would like nothing better than to see Jezal come home in a box. But then Glokta hates cutting treason out of the Union one confession at a time leaves little room for friendship. His latest trail of corpses may lead him right to the rotten heart of government, if he can stay alive long enough to follow it.

Enter the wizard, Bayaz. A bald old man with a terrible temper and a pathetic assistant, he could be the First of the Magi, he could be a spectacular fraud, but whatever he is, he's about to make the lives of Logen, Jezal, and Glokta a whole lot more difficult.

Murderous conspiracies rise to the surface, old scores are ready to be settled, and the line between hero and villain is sharp enough to draw blood

Unpredictable, compelling, wickedly funny, and packed with unforgettable characters, The Blade Itself is noir fantasy with a real cutting edge.

First Law Trilogy
The Blade Itself
Before They Are Hanged
Last Argument of Kings

For more from Joe Abercrombie, check

Novels in the First Law world
Best Served Cold
The Heroes
Red Country
]]> 536 Joe Abercrombie 0316387339 Rohini 4 4.33 2006 The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/17
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)]]> 58416952 At the elite Catenan Academy, a young fugitive uncovers layered mysteries and world-changing secrets in this new fantasy series by internationally bestselling author of The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington.

AUDI. VIDE. TACE.

The Catenan Republic � the Hierarchy � may rule the world now, but they do not know everything.

I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilised society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus � what they call Will � to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do.

I tell them that I belong, and they believe me.

But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart.

And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family.

To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy’s ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me.

And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.]]> 639 James Islington 1982141190 Rohini 4 4.61 2023 The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)
author: James Islington
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/13
date added: 2024/08/13
shelves:
review:

]]> The Cleaving 62619425 The Cleaving is an Arthurian retelling that follows the tangled stories of four women: Nimue, Ygraine, Morgana, and Guinevere, as they fight to control their own destinies amid the wars and rivalries that will determine the destiny of Britain.

The legendary epics of King Arthur and Camelot don’t tell the whole story. Chroniclers say Arthur’s mother Ygraine married the man that killed her husband. They say that Arthur's half-sister Morgana turned to dark magic to defy him and Merlin. They say that the enchantress Nimue challenged Merlin and used her magic to outwit him. And that Arthur’s marriage to Guinevere ended in adultery, rebellion and bloodshed. So why did these women chose such dangerous paths?

As warfare and rivalries constantly challenge the king, Arthur and Merlin believe these women are destined to serve Camelot by doing as they are told. But men forget that women talk. Ygraine, Nimue, Morgana and Guinevere become friends and allies while the decisions that shape their lives are taken out of their hands. This is their untold story. Now these women have a voice.

Juliet McKenna is an expert on medieval history and warfare and brings this expertise as well as her skills as a fantasy writer to this epic new, feminist retelling of the Arthurian legends.]]> 407 Juliet E. McKenna 1915202272 Rohini 0 3.81 2023 The Cleaving
author: Juliet E. McKenna
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/04
date added: 2024/08/08
shelves:
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]]> The Puzzle Master 60465488
Everything changes after Brink meets Jess Price, a woman serving thirty years in prison for murder who hasn’t spoken a word since her arrest five years before. When Price draws a perplexing puzzle, her psychiatrist believes it will explain her crime and calls Brink to solve it. What begins as a desire to crack an alluring cipher quickly morphs into an obsession with Price herself. She soon reveals that there is something more urgent, and more dangerous, behind her silence, thrusting Brink into a hunt for the truth.

The quest takes Brink through a series of interlocking enigmas, but the heart of the mystery is the God Puzzle, a cryptic ancient prayer circle created by the thirteenth-century Jewish mystic Abraham Abulafia. As Brink navigates a maze of clues, and his emotional entanglement with Price becomes more intense, he realizes that there are powerful forces at work that he cannot escape.

Ranging from an upstate New York women’s prison to nineteenth-century Prague to the secret rooms of the Pierpont Morgan Library, The Puzzle Master is a tantalizing, addictive thriller in which humankind, technology, and the future of the universe itself are at stake.]]> 384 Danielle Trussoni 0593595300 Rohini 3 3.56 2023 The Puzzle Master
author: Danielle Trussoni
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/08
date added: 2024/08/08
shelves:
review:

]]> Playground 205478762 The Overstory at the height of his skills. Twelve-year-old Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world’s first aqualungs. Ina Aroita grows up on naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home. Two polar opposites at an elite Chicago high school bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game; Rafi Young will get lost in literature, while Todd Keane’s work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough.

They meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, whose deposits of phosphorus once helped to feed the world. Now the tiny atoll has been chosen for humanity’s next adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out onto the open sea. But first, the island’s residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the seasteaders away.

Set in the world’s largest ocean, this awe-filled book explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize in a still-unfolding oceanic game, and interweaves beautiful writing, rich characterization, profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.]]> 381 Richard Powers 1324086033 Rohini 0 to-read 4.16 2024 Playground
author: Richard Powers
name: Rohini
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Enlightenment 196774352 The Essex Serpent, a story of love and astronomy told over the course of twenty years through the lives of two improbable best friends.

Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits—torn between their commitment to religion and their desire to explore the world beyond their small Baptist community. It is two romantic relationships that will rend their friendship, and in the wake of this rupture, Thomas develops an obsession with a vanished nineteenth-century astronomer said to haunt a nearby manor, and Grace flees Aldleigh entirely for London.

Over the course of twenty years, by coincidence and design, Thomas and Grace will find their lives brought back into orbit as the mystery of the vanished astronomer unfolds into a devastating tale of love and scientific pursuit. Thomas and Grace will ask themselves what it means to love and be loved, what is fixed and what is mutable, how much of our fate is predestined and written in the stars, and whether they can find their way back to each other.

A thrillingly ambitious novel of friendship, faith, and unrequited love, rich in symmetry and symbolism, Enlightenment is a shimmering wonder of a book and Sarah Perry’s finest work to date.Ěý]]> 384 Sarah Perry 0063352613 Rohini 0 to-read 3.54 2024 Enlightenment
author: Sarah Perry
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Wild Houses 128714412 A darkly funny and deeply moving debut novel about crimes of desperation, dreams abandoned, and small-town secrets that won’t stay buried

As Ballina in the west of Ireland prepares for its biggest weekend of the year, the simmering feud between small-time dealer Cillian English and County Mayo's fraternal enforcers, Gabe and Sketch Ferdia, spills over into violence and an ugly ultimatum. When the reclusive Dev answers his door on Friday night, he finds Doll—Cillian's bruised, sullen, teenage brother—in the clutches of Gabe and Sketch. Jostled by his nefarious cousins, goaded by his dead mother's dog, and struck by spinning lights, Dev is unwillingly drawn headlong into the Ferdias' revenge fantasy.

Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Nicky can't shake the feeling that something bad has happened to her boyfriend Doll. Hungover, reeling from a fractious Friday night, and plagued by ghosts of her own, Nicky sets out on a feverish mission to save Doll, even as she questions her future in Ballina.]]> 272 Colin Barrett 0802160948 Rohini 0 to-read 3.68 2024 Wild Houses
author: Colin Barrett
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/03
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]]> Held 200241802
1917. On a battlefield near the River Aisne, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory—a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night, his childhood on a faraway coast—as the snow falls.

1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near another river—alive, but not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and endeavours to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his ghosts whose messages he cannot understand .

So begins a narrative that spans four generations, moments of connection and consequence igniting and re-igniting as the century unfolds. In luminous moments of desire, comprehension, longing, and transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later. This resonance through time—not only of actions but also of feelings and perceptions—desire in its many forms—are at the heart of this novel’s profound investigation.

Held is a deeply affecting and intensely beautiful novel, full of unforgettable characters and imagery, wisdom and compassion. It explores the deepest mysteries, and the ways in which desire in its many forms—andĚýperhaps the deepest desire, to find meaning—manifests itself. Held moves through history to light upon Darwin, Sir Ernest Rutherford, North Sea ganseys, early photography, Ella Mary Leather, modern field hospitals…while lovers find each other and snow drifts down across the centuries. From the WW1 battlefield where the novel begins, and its opening lines, Held is alive with "We know life is finite. Why should we believe death lasts forever?”]]> 240 Anne Michaels 0771005458 Rohini 0 to-read 3.50 2023 Held
author: Anne Michaels
name: Rohini
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/03
shelves: to-read
review:

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