Henry Holt's bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 15 Apr 2025 08:48:13 -0700 60 Henry Holt's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[If You Love It, Let It Kill You]]> 217387666 A refreshingly irreverent novel about art, desire, domesticity, freedom, and the intricacies of the twenty-first-century female experience, by the acclaimed novelist Hannah Pittard

Divorced and childless by choice, Hana P. has built a cozy life in Lexington, Kentucky, teaching at the flagship university, living with her boyfriend ( a fellow academic ) and helping raise his pre-teen daughter. Her sister’s sprawling family lives just across the street, and their long-divorced, deeply complicated parents have also recently moved to town.

One day, Hana learns that an unflattering version of herself will appear prominently—and soon—in her ex-husband’s debut novel. For a week, her life continues largely unaffected by the news—she cooks, runs, teaches, entertains—but the morning after baking mac ’n� cheese from scratch for her nephew’s sixth birthday, she wakes up changed. The contentment she’s long enjoyed is gone. In its place: nothing. A remarkably ridiculous midlife crisis ensues, featuring a talking cat, a visit to the dean’s office, a shadowy figure from the past, a Greek chorus of indignant students whose primary complaints concern Hana’s autofictional narrative, and a game called Dead Body.

Steeped in the subtleties and strangeness of contemporary life, If You Love It, Let It Kill You is a deeply nuanced and disturbingly funny examination of memory, ownership, and artistic expression for readers of Miranda July’s All Fours and Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend.]]> 304 Hannah Pittard 1250910277 Henry Holt 5 4.03 2025 If You Love It, Let It Kill You
author: Hannah Pittard
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/15
date added: 2025/04/15
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]]> The Hounding 217388147 The Crucible meets The Virgin Suicides in this haunting debut about five sisters in a small village in eighteenth century England whose neighbors are convinced they’re turning into dogs.

Even before the rumors about the Mansfield girls begin, Little Nettlebed is a village steeped in the uncanny, from strange creatures that wash up on the riverbed to portentous ravens gathering on the roofs of people about to die. But when the villagers start to hear barking, and one claims to see the Mansfield sisters transform before his very eyes, the allegations spark fascination and fear like nothing has before.

The truth is that though the inhabitants of Little Nettlebed have never much liked the Mansfield girls—a little odd, think some; a little high on themselves, perhaps—they’ve always had plenty to say about them. As the rotating perspectives of five villagers quickly make clear, now is no exception. Even if local belief in witchcraft is waning, an aversion to difference is as widespread as ever, and these conflicting narratives all point to the same ultimate conclusion: something isn’t right in Little Nettlebed, and the sisters will be the ones to pay for it.

As relevant today as any time before, The Hounding celebrates the wild breaks from convention we’re all sometimes pulled toward, and wonders if, in a world like this one, it isn’t safer to be a dog than an unusual young girl.]]> 240 Xenobe Purvis 1250366380 Henry Holt 5 4.17 2025 The Hounding
author: Xenobe Purvis
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/15
date added: 2025/04/15
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]]> The Nimbus 217387673 A brilliant debut novel about a child whose literal enlightenment sets the stage for an exuberant tragicomedy of marriage, religion, and parenthood.

On an otherwise ordinary fall day on a university campus in Chicago, the toddler son of an ambitious divinity school professor named Adrian Bennett mysteriously starts to glow. The nimbus, as the strange, soft light comes to be known, offers no clues to its origin and frustrates every attempt at rational explanation.

Though the nimbus appears only intermittently, and not to everyone, the otherworldly glow quickly upends the lives of all those who encounter it, including Paul Harkin, Adrian’s broke and feckless graduate student, who likes being a graduate student a little too much for his own good; Renata Bennett, Adrian’s omnicompetent wife, who can’t see her son glowing even though the nimbus is turning her life upside down; and Warren Kayita, a down-on-his-luck librarian and aging divinity school alumnus on the run from a violent criminal. As news about the nimbus spreads around the university and beyond, Adrian, Paul, Renata, and Warren are set on a collision course that will threaten their lives and put their deepest convictions to the test.

At once a rollicking intellectual satire, a searing portrait of a family in crisis, and a thrilling metaphysical page-turner, The Nimbus offers a comic and profound examination of the persistence of spiritual belief in a secular age and humanity’s timeless search for meaning.]]> 352 Robert P. Baird 1250392659 Henry Holt 0 currently-reading 4.33 The Nimbus
author: Robert P. Baird
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.33
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/15
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]]> The Accidental Favorite 217387721 From the New York Times bestselling author of Amazing Grace Adams comes a wryly resonant and deeply moving family dramedy investigating the question so many of us have asked ourselves: do my parents have a favorite?

Vivienne and Patrick Fisher have done an excellent job raising their three daughters, Alex, Nancy, and Eva. They’re well-adjusted women with impressive careers, caring partners, exciting hobbies, and sweet children. So it’s with great anticipation that three generations of Fishers gather at a beautiful glass house in the English countryside for a weeklong celebration of Vivienne’s seventieth birthday. But when Patrick’s reaction to a freak accident on the first day of the trip inadvertently reveals that he has a favorite daughter, no one is prepared for the shockwaves it sends through the family.

Decades-old unresolved sibling rivalries are suddenly unmasked. And be it newly uncovered smoking habits, ancient crushes, or private doubts about life decisions both big and small, no one’s secrets are safe. Still-tender wounds are reopened amid an audience of friends, husbands, grandchildren, and even coworkers, and as the family's past is re-written, they find themselves suddenly unmoored.

In a lively, poignant examination of memory, sisterhood, and family ties, Fran Littlewood reminds us just why it is that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.]]> 320 Fran Littlewood 1250857112 Henry Holt 5 3.81 2025 The Accidental Favorite
author: Fran Littlewood
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/08
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]]> The Once and Future Me 217387959 Dark Matter meets Girl, Interrupted in this gripping psychological thriller about a young woman teetering on the edge of reality.

Virginia 1954. When a young woman wakes on a patient transport bus arriving at Hanover State Psychiatric Hospital, she remembers nothing of her life before that moment, none of the dark things she must’ve seen and done that forged her into the skillful and cunning fighter she is. Doctors tell her she’s Dorothy Frasier, a paranoid schizophrenic, committed by the state for her violent delusions. She’s certain they’re wrong � until disturbing visions of a dystopian future in which frantic scientists urge her to complete “the mission� and save mankind begin to invade her reality.

Believing it’s Hanover causing the hallucinations, she tells no one and focuses only on escaping � until there’s a visitor. A man whose loving face � and touch � she remembers, a man who knows all about her visions, because he’s spent years helping her cope with them: her husband, Paul Frasier.

Now she’s sure of nothing, caught between two realities. Believe in the future, and she might save the world. Believe in her husband and doctors� plans for her treatment, and she might save herself. She needs answers, but to get them, she’ll have to face the darkness inside her and use it as she risks her freedom, mind, and ultimately her life in a heart-stopping quest for the truth.]]> 384 Melissa Pace 1250358671 Henry Holt 5 4.08 The Once and Future Me
author: Melissa Pace
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.08
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/08
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]]> The Irish Goodbye 222376716 In this debut, for fans of J. Courtney Sullivan and Mary Beth Keane, three adult sisters grapple with a shared tragedy over a Thanksgiving weekend spent in their childhood home, navigating complex relationships and old tensions.

It’s been years since the three Ryan sisters were all home together at their family’s beloved house on the eastern shore of Long Island. Two decades ago, their lives were upended by an accident on their brother Topher’s a friend’s brother was killed, the lawsuit nearly bankrupted their parents, and Topher spiraled into a depression, eventually taking his life. Now the Ryan women are back for Thanksgiving, eager to reconnect, but each carrying a heavy secret. The eldest, Cait, still holding guilt for the role no one knows she played in the boat accident, rekindles a flame with her high school crush, Topher’s best friend and the brother of the boy who died. Middle sister Alice’s been thrown a curveball threatening the career she’s restarting and faces a difficult decision that may doom her marriage. And the youngest, Maggie, is finally taking the risk to bring the woman she loves home to her devoutly Catholic mother. Infusing everything is the grief for Topher that none of the Ryans have figured out how to carry together.

When Cait invites a guest to Thanksgiving dinner, old tensions boil over and new truths surface, nearly overpowering the flickering light of their family bond. Far more than a family holiday will be ruined unless the sisters can find a way to forgive themselves—and one another.]]> 288 Heather Aimee O'Neill 1250408156 Henry Holt 5 4.10 The Irish Goodbye
author: Heather Aimee O'Neill
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.10
book published:
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/04/01
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]]> One of Us 222376809 A playfully macabre and utterly thrilling tale about orphaned twins on the run from their murderous uncle who find refuge in a bizarre travelling carnival, from one of the masters of literary horror

It’s 1915 and the world is transforming, but for thirteen-year-old Bolt and Eleanor—twins so close they can literally read each other’s minds—life is falling apart. When their mother dies, they are forced to leave home under the care of a vicious con man who claims he’s their long-lost uncle Charlie, the only kin they have left. When, during a late-night poker game, one of his rages ends in murder, they decide to flee.

Salvation arrives in the form of Mr. Jengling, founder of the Emporium of Wonders, and father to its many members. He adopts Bolt and Eleanor, and the twins travel by train across the vast, sometimes brutal American frontier with their new family, watching as the exhibitions spark amazement wherever they go. There’s Minnie the three-legged lady, and Dr. Chui who stands over seven feet tall; Thistle Britches, the clown with no nose, and Rosalie, who can foretell the death of anyone she meets.

After a lifetime of having only each other, Eleanor and Bolt are finally part of something bigger. But as Bolt falls in deeper with their new clan, he finds Eleanor pulling further away from him. And when Uncle Charlie picks up their trail, the twins find themselves facing a peril as strange as it is terrifying, one which will forever alter the trajectory of their lives.

An ode to the misfits and the marginalized, One of Us is a riotous and singularly creepy celebration of the strange and the spectacular and of family in its many forms.]]> 288 Dan Chaon 1250175232 Henry Holt 5 currently-reading 4.67 One of Us
author: Dan Chaon
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.67
book published:
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama]]> 217388145 From a New Yorker staff writer and PEN Award winner, a blend of memoir, history, and reportage on one of the most complex and least understood states in America.

“In Alabama, we exist at the border of blessing and disaster�.�

Alexis Okeowo grew up in Montgomery, Alabama—the former seat of the Confederacy—as the daughter of Nigerian immigrants. Here, she weaves her family’s story with her state’s, from Alabama’s forced removal of the Creek Nation, making room for enslaved West Africans, to present-day legislative battles for “evolution disclaimers� in biology textbooks. She immerses us in a landscape today dominated not by cotton fields but by auto plants and Amazon warehouses. Defying stereotypes at every turn, Okeowo shows how people can love their home while still acknowledging its sins.

In this perspective-shifting work that is both an intimate memoir and a journalistic triumph, Okeowo investigates her life, other Alabamians� lives, and the state’s lesser-known histories, to examine why Alabama has been the stage for the most extreme results of the American experiment.]]> 272 Alexis Okeowo 1250206227 Henry Holt 5 4.40 Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama
author: Alexis Okeowo
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.40
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
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]]> Ink Ribbon Red 217388378 Knives Out meets Saltburn in this wickedly plotted thriller where a group of friends play a deadly game that unwraps a motive for murder, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and Alex Michaelides.

Anatol invites five of his oldest friends to his family home in the Wiltshire countryside to celebrate his thirtieth birthday. At his request, they play a game of his invention: Motive Method Death. The rules are simple: everyone chooses two players at random and imagines a scenario where one kills the other, then writes it down as a short story.

Points are given for making the murders feel real, as Anatol explains to the group. Of course, when given this assignment, it’s only natural to use what you know. Secrets. Grudges. Affairs. But once you’ve put it in a story, that secret is out. It’s not long before the game has reawakened old resentments and brought private matters into the light of day. So with each fictional murder, someone new gets a very real motive.

Ink Ribbon Red ultimately asks: When a real murder is headed your way, will you be able to spot it in time?]]> 320 Alex Pavesi 1250755956 Henry Holt 5 3.10 Ink Ribbon Red
author: Alex Pavesi
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.10
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/15
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]]> Speak to Me of Home 218720419 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jeanine Cummins comes a deeply felt multigenerational family story that asks: What does it mean to call a place home?

On her wedding day in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1968, Rafaela Acuña y Daubón has mild misgivings, but she marries Peter Brennan Jr. anyway, in a blaze of romantic optimism. She has no way of knowing how dramatically her life will change when she uproots her young family to start over in the American Midwest, unleashing a fleet of disappointments. Against the backdrop of her mother’s isolation in St. Louis, Missouri in the 1980s, Rafaela’s daughter, Ruth Brennan, longs only to belong. Eager to fit in, Ruth lets go of her language, habits, and childhood memories of Puerto Rico. It's not until decades later, when Ruth’s own daughter, Daisy, returns to Puerto Rico that her mother and grandmother begin to truly reflect on the choices that have come to define their lives.

When a hurricane ravages the island in 2023, leaving Daisy critically injured, Rafaela and Ruth return to the city where it all began. As they gather at Daisy’s bedside, they’re confronted by the pasts that brought them to this point. We follow them as they come of age, fall in love, take risks, and contend with all the heartbreaks, triumphs, and reversals of fortune � both good and bad � that make up a meaningful life. As old memories come to light, so do buried secrets, leaving everyone in the family wondering exactly where it is that they belong.

A striking, resonant examination of marriage, family, and identity, Speak to Me of Home is ultimately a story of mothers and daughters that asks: how can three women who share geography and genetics have such wildly different ideas of where it is they come from? And more importantly, can they discover the common language to find their way home?]]> 384 Jeanine Cummins 1250759366 Henry Holt 5 4.30 Speak to Me of Home
author: Jeanine Cummins
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.30
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Ideological Brain: The Radical Science of Flexible Thinking]]> 213263145 Why do some people become radicalized?
How do ideologies shape the human brain?
And how can we unchain our minds from toxic dogmas?

In The Ideological Brain, Leor Zmigrod reveals the deep connection between political beliefs and the biology of the brain. Drawing on her own pioneering research, she uncovers the complex interplay between biology and environment that predisposes some individuals to rigid ways of thinking, and explains how ideologies take hold of our brains, fundamentally changing the way we think, act and interact with others. She shows how ideologues of all types struggle to change their thought patterns when faced with new information, culminating in the radical message that our politics are not superficial but are woven into the fabric of our minds.

This authoritative, accessible and playful blend of psychology, politics and philosophy explores the cutting-edge of the emerging field of political neuroscience. Zmigrod examines its historical roots before she looks to the future, considering the broader social and political implications of her groundbreaking research. Guiding readers through her experiments, she eventually describes what a free, authentic, and tolerant brain looks like, and explains how anyone can keep their mind open and flexible in the face of extremist ideologies.]]> 304 Leor Zmigrod 125034459X Henry Holt 5 3.99 2025 The Ideological Brain: The Radical Science of Flexible Thinking
author: Leor Zmigrod
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/12
date added: 2024/12/12
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]]> We Pretty Pieces of Flesh 211003695 An exuberant and ribald debut novel about three adolescent girls coming of age in a gritty post-industrial town in Yorkshire, England in the �90s who are as sweetly vulnerable and funny as they are cunning and tough

“Ask anyone non-Northern, they’ll only know Donny as punchline of a joke or place they changed trains once ont way to London.� But it’s also the home of Rach, Kel, and Shaz, bezzies since childhood. From scheming one another’s first kisses, to sneaking vodka (or the occasional Cointreau) into school in water bottles, to accompanying one another to Family Planning for pregnancy tests, the girls come of age together, Donny lasses through and through. Never mind that Rach is skeptical of Shaz’s bolder plots; or that Shaz, who comes from a rougher end of town, feels left behind when the others begin plotting a course to uni; or that Kel sometimes feels split in two trying to keep the peace � the girls are inseparable, their friendship as indestructible as they are. But as the girls grow up and away from each other, a long-festering secret threatens to rip the trio apart. Is their shared past enough to keep them close?

Written in a Yorkshire dialect that brings a place and its people magnificently to life, We Pretty Pieces of Flesh spans decades and continents as its heroines come of age, never shying from the ugly truths of girlhood. Like Trainspotting and Shuggie Bain, it tracks hard-edged lives and makes them sing, making one overlooked and forgotten place the very center of the world.]]> 336 Colwill Brown 1250342880 Henry Holt 5 4.19 2025 We Pretty Pieces of Flesh
author: Colwill Brown
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/12
date added: 2024/12/12
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]]> What Will People Think? 217387713 Mia’s secret comedy career, forbidden office crush, and a long-guarded family secret take center stage, threatening her newfound confidence and her one shot at fame in this hilarious, heartfelt coming-of-age story perfect for fans of Curtis Sittenfeld and Etaf Rum.

Mia Almas has a secret. By day, she works at a respectable job as a media fact checker—a position her conservative, Arab grandparents approve of—and, by night, she takes to the stages of New York City comedy clubs. She holds herself back in a lot of ways, especially in the romance department, but being on stage lights her up and makes being a wallflower the rest of the time more bearable. That is, until Phaedra, her stylish and bold new neighbor, inspires Mia to take a few risks.

As Mia pursues a forbidden romance with her boss, her standup gets better and bolder, leading to a surprise spotlight that exposes her secret gig. Horrified and worried that her rebellious act could mean big consequences for her reserved Palestinian-American family, Mia frantically dives into damage control. But all of her efforts to pull back from the spotlight expose a family scandal from the 1940s that could change everything�

Equal parts funny and tender, What Will People Think? is a heart-bursting exploration of what it means to discover and embrace the hidden parts of yourself, and how love in all forms can make you whole.]]> 336 Sara Hamdan 1250329817 Henry Holt 5 4.35 2025 What Will People Think?
author: Sara Hamdan
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/18
date added: 2024/11/18
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]]> What It's Like in Words 203578775 Eliza Moss's intoxicating debut novel is a dark, intense, and compelling account of what happens when a young woman falls in love with the wrong kind of man.

Enola is approaching 30 and everything feels like a lot. The boxes aren’t ticked and she feels adrift in a way she thought she would have beaten by now. She wants to be a writer but can't finish a first draft; she romanticizes her childhood but won’t speak to her mother; she has never been in a serious relationship but yearns to be one half of a couple that DIYs together at the weekends.

Enter: enigmatic writer. Enola falls in love and starts to dream about their perfect future: the wedding, the publishing deals, the house in Stoke Newington. But the reality is far from perfect. He’s distant. But she’s a Cool Girl, she doesn’t need to hear from him every day. He hangs out with his ex. But she's a Cool Girl, she’s not insecure. Is she? He has dark moods. But he’s a creative, that’s part of his ‘process�. Her best friend begs her to end it, but Enola can’t. She's a Cool Girl.

She might feel like she’s going crazy at times, but she wants him. She needs him. She would die without him...That's what love is, isn’t it? Over the next twenty-four hours (and two years), everything that Enola thinks she knows is about to unravel, and she has to think again about how she sees love, family, and friendship and—most importantly—herself.

With notes of Fleabag & I May Destroy You but with the sparseness and emotional accuracy of writers like Ali Smith and Lily King, What It's Like In Words is a close examination of what it means to experience the intense emotional uncertainty of first love.]]> 320 Eliza Moss 1250355052 Henry Holt 5 3.65 2024 What It's Like in Words
author: Eliza Moss
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/30
date added: 2024/10/30
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]]> <![CDATA[Black Power Scorecard: Measuring the Racial Gap and What We Can Do to Close It]]> 211004887 From the creator of “a unified field theory of racism� (NPR’s Planet Money), a dollars-and-cents reckoning of the state of Black America and a new framework to close the power gap

Historically, Black Americans� quest for power has been understood as an attempt to gain equal protections under the law. But power in America requires more than basic democratic freedoms. It is inextricably linked with economic influence and ownership—of one’s self, home, business, and creations.

Andre M. Perry draws on extensive research and analysis to quantify how much power Black Americans actually have. Ranging from property, business, and wealth to education, health, and social mobility, Black Power Scorecard moves across the country, evaluating people’s ability to set the rules of the game and calculating how that translates into the ultimate means of power—life itself, and the longevity of Black communities. Along the way, Andre M. Perry identifies woefully overlooked areas of investment that could close the racial gap and benefit all.

An expansive take on power supported by documentation and data, Black Power Scorecard is a fresh contribution to the country’s reckoning with structural inequality, one that offers a new approach to redressing it.]]> 256 Andre M. Perry 1250869714 Henry Holt 5 3.97 Black Power Scorecard: Measuring the Racial Gap and What We Can Do to Close It
author: Andre M. Perry
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.97
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/30
date added: 2024/10/30
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]]> <![CDATA[I'll Love You Forever: Notes from a K-Pop Fan]]> 211004200 Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror meets Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings in a meditation that blends memoir and cultural criticism to explore how the author’s love affair with K-pop has shaped her sense of self, charting K-pop’s complex coming-of-age through some of its biggest idols.

I’ll Love You Forever: Notes from a K-Pop Fan is a smart, poignant, constantly surprising essay collection that considers the collision between stratospherically popular music and our inescapably personal selves. Giaae Kwon explores the influence of K-pop artists, from H.O.T. to Taeyeon to IU to Suga from BTS, and reveals how each one illuminated and shaped her own life.

In centering intimate experiences to explore larger cultural topics, this singular work breaks new ground in its consideration of K-pop. I’ll Love You Forever blends the critical with the personal while spanning the history of K-pop from the perspective of a bilingual and bicultural Korean American. Kwon interweaves profiles of different K-pop idols with topics such as Korea’s obsession with academics, and its attitudes toward plastic surgery, and female sexuality and desire, among others. Combining insightful critique and adoring analysis, I’ll Love You Forever provides readers with a fuller picture of a culturally and socially complex industry and the machine and heart behind its popularity. Through it all, Kwon offers up the passion of a superfan, finding joy in K-pop along the way.]]> 336 Giaae Kwon 1250886236 Henry Holt 5 3.96 2025 I'll Love You Forever: Notes from a K-Pop Fan
author: Giaae Kwon
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/17
date added: 2024/10/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Worlds Elsewhere: Journeys Around Shakespeare's Globe]]> 29782692 A book about how Shakespeare became fascinated with the world, and how the world became fascinated with Shakespeare - the first book of its kind

There are 83 copies of the First Folio in a vault beneath Capitol Hill, the world's largest collection. Well over 150 Indian movies are based on Shakespeare's plays - more than in any other nation. If current trends continue, there will soon be more high-school students reading The Merchant of Venice in Mandarin Chinese than in early-modern English. Why did this happen - and how? Ranging ambitiously across four continents and 400 years, Worlds Elsewhere is an eye-opening account of how Shakespeare went global. Seizing inspiration from the playwright's own fascination with travel, foreignness and distant worlds, Dickson takes us on an extraordinary journey - from Hamlet performed by English actors tramping through Poland in the early 1600s to twenty-first-century Shanghai, where Shashibiya survived Mao's Cultural Revolution to become an honored Chinese author.

En route we visit Nazi Germany, where Shakespeare became an unlikely favorite, and delve into the history of Bollywood, where Shakespearian stories helped give birth to Indian cinema. In Johannesburg, we discover how Shakespeare was enlisted into the fight to end apartheid. In California, we encounter him as the most popular playwright of the American frontier.

Both a cultural history and a literary travelogue, the first of its kind, Worlds Elsewhere explores how Shakespeare became the world's writer, and how his works have changed beyond all recognition during the journey.]]> 514 Andrew Dickson 080509735X Henry Holt 0 winter-2016 3.50 2016 Worlds Elsewhere: Journeys Around Shakespeare's Globe
author: Andrew Dickson
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: winter-2016
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]]> <![CDATA[Me, Who Dove into the Heart of the World]]> 19188047 A transporting and brilliant comic novel narrated by an unforgettable woman: Karen Nieto, an autistic savant whose idiosyncrasies prove her greatest gifts

As intimate as it is profound, and as clear-eyed as it is warmhearted, Me, Who Dove into the Heart of the World marks an extraordinary debut by the award-winning Mexican playwright, journalist, and poet Sabina Berman.

Karen Nieto passed her earliest years as a feral child, left alone to wander the vast beach property near her family's failing tuna cannery. But when her aunt Isabelle comes to Mexico to take over the family business, she discovers a real girl amidst the squalor. So begins a miraculous journey for autistic savant Karen, who finds freedom not only in the love and patient instruction of her aunt but eventually at the bottom of the ocean swimming among the creatures of the sea. Despite how far she's come, Karen remains defined by the things she can't do—until her gifts with animals are finally put to good use at the family's fishery. Her plan is brilliant: Consolation Tuna will be the first humane tuna fishery on the planet. Greenpeace approves, fame and fortune follow, and Karen is swept on a global journey that explores how we live, what we eat, and how our lives can defy even our own wildest expectations.]]> 252 Sabina Berman Henry Holt 0 4.02 2010 Me, Who Dove into the Heart of the World
author: Sabina Berman
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/28
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]]> <![CDATA[Live to See the Day: Coming of Age in American Poverty]]> 74831636 An indelible portrait of three children struggling to survive in the poorest neighborhood of the poorest large city in America

Kensington, Philadelphia, is distinguished only by its poverty. It is home to Ryan, Giancarlos, and Emmanuel, three Puerto Rican children who live among the most marginalized families in the United States. This is the story of their coming-of-age, which is beset by violence—the violence of homelessness, hunger, incarceration, stray bullets, sexual and physical assault, the hypermasculine logic of the streets, and the drug trade. In Kensington, eighteenth birthdays are not rites of passage but statistical miracles.

One mistake drives Ryan out of middle school and into the juvenile justice pipeline. For Emmanuel, his queerness means his mother’s rejection and sleeping in shelters. School closures and budget cuts inspire Giancarlos to lead walkouts, which get him kicked out of the system. Although all three are high school dropouts, they are on a quest to defy their fate and their neighborhood and get high school diplomas.

In a triumph of empathy and drawing on nearly a decade of reporting, sociologist and policymaker Nikhil Goyal follows Ryan, Giancarlos, and Emmanuel on their mission, plunging deep into their lives as they strive to resist their designated place in the social hierarchy. In the process, Live to See the Day confronts a new age of American poverty, after the end of “welfare as we know it,� after “zero tolerance� in schools criminalized a generation of students, after the odds of making it out are ever slighter.]]> 353 Nikhil Goyal 125085007X Henry Holt 5 4.11 2023 Live to See the Day: Coming of Age in American Poverty
author: Nikhil Goyal
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/09/27
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]]> <![CDATA[T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us]]> 58456042 Misunderstood. Mythologized. Controversial.

A Harvard evolutionary biologist debunks the myths and cultural stereotypes surrounding testosterone and reveals its far-reaching effects on gender and sexuality, sports, relationships, and many more aspects of our everyday lives.

The biological source of virility and masculinity has inspired fascination, investigation, and controversy since antiquity. From the eunuchs in the royal courts of ancient China to the booming market for “elixirs� of youth in nineteenth-century Europe, humans have been obsessed with identifying and manipulating what we now know as testosterone. And the trends show no signs of slowing down—the modern market for testosterone supplements is booming. Thanks to this history and the methods of modern science, today we have a rich body of research about testosterone’s effects in both men and women.

The science is testosterone is a major, invisible player in our relationships, sex lives, athletic abilities, childhood play, gender transitions, parenting roles, violent crime, and so much more. But there is still a lot of pushback to the idea that it does, in fact, cause sex differences and significantly influence behavior.

Carole Hooven argues in T that acknowledging testosterone as a potent force in society doesn’t reinforce stifling gender norms or patriarchal values. Testosterone and evolution work together to produce a huge variety of human behavior, and that includes a multitude of ways to be masculine or feminine. Understanding the science sheds light on how we work and relate to one another, how we express anger and love, and how we can fight bias and problematic behavior to build a more fair society.]]> 346 Carole Hooven 125023607X Henry Holt 0 spring-2021 4.26 2021 T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us
author: Carole Hooven
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: spring-2021
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle]]> 23878032 WINNER OF THE PHI BETA KAPPA AWARD IN SCIENCEThe story behind the stunning, extreme weapons we see in the animal world--teeth and horns and claws--and what they can tell us about the way humans develop and use arms and other weaponsIn Animal Weapons, Doug Emlen takes us outside the lab and deep into the forests and jungles where he's been studying animal weapons in nature for years, to explain the processes behind the most intriguing and curious examples of extreme animal weapons—fish with mouths larger than their bodies and bugs whose heads are so packed with muscle they don't have room for eyes. As singular and strange as some of the weapons we encounter on these pages are, we learn that similar factors set their evolution in motion. Emlen uses these patterns to draw parallels to the way we humans develop and employ our own weapons, and have since battle began. He looks at everything from our armor and camouflage to the evolution of the rifle and the structures human populations have built across different regions and eras to protect their homes and communities. With stunning black and white drawings and gorgeous color illustrations of these concepts at work, Animal Weapons brings us the complete story of how weapons reach their most outsized, dramatic potential, and what the results we witness in the animal world can tell us about our own relationship with weapons of all kinds.]]> 288 Douglas J. Emlen 142994739X Henry Holt 0 fall-2014 4.16 2014 Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle
author: Douglas J. Emlen
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: fall-2014
review:

]]> Let's Not Do That Again 58258994 "Hilarious, suspenseful, and whip smart."
—Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

Meet the Harrisons!
A mother running for Senate, a son running from his problems, and a daughter running straight into trouble...

From Grant Ginder, the author of The People We Hate at the Wedding, comes a poignant, funny, and slyly beguiling novel which proves that, like democracy, family is a messy and fragile thing —perfect for fans of Veep’s biting humor, the family drama of Succession, and the joys of Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here.

Nancy Harrison is running for Senate, and she’s going to win, goddamnit. Not that that’s her slogan, although it could be. She’s said all the right things. Passed all the right legislation. Chapped her lips kissing babies. There’s just one her grown children.

Greta and Nick Harrison are adrift. Nick is floundering in his attempts to write a musical about the life of Joan Didion (called Hello to All That!). And then there’s his little sister Greta. Smart, pretty, and completely unmotivated, allowing her life to pass her by like the shoppers at the Apple store where she works.

One morning the world wakes up not to Nancy making headlines, but her daughter, Greta. She’s in Paris. With extremist protestors. Throwing a bottle of champagne through a beloved bistro’s front window. In order to save her campaign, not to mention her daughter, Nancy and Nick must find Greta before it’s too late.

Smart, funny, and surprisingly tender, Let's Not Do That Again shows that family, like politics, can hurt like a mother.]]> 304 Grant Ginder 1250243769 Henry Holt 5 winter-2022 3.80 2022 Let's Not Do That Again
author: Grant Ginder
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves: winter-2022
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Merchants in the Temple: Inside Pope Francis's Secret Battle Against Corruption in the Vatican]]> 27420714 From a bestselling author with unprecedented access to Pope Francis, an investigative look at the recent financial scandals at the highest levels of the VaticanA veritable war is waging in the on one side, there is Pope Francis’s strong message for one church of the poor and all; on the other, there is the old Curia with its endless enemies, and the old and new lobbies struggling to preserve their not-so-Christian privileges.The old guard do not back down, they are ready to use all means necessary to stay in control and continue the immoral way they conduct their business. They resist reforms sought by Pope Francis and seek to delegitimize their opponents, to isolate those who want to eliminate corruption. It’s a war that will determine the future of the church. And if he loses the battle against secular interests and blackmail, Pope Francis could resign, much like his predecessor. Based on confidential information—including top secret documents from inside the Vatican, and actual transcripts of Pope Francis’s admonishments to the papal court about the lack of financial oversight and responsibility—Merchants in the Temple illustrates all the undercover work conducted by the Pope since his election and shows the reader who his real enemies are. It reveals the instruments Francis is using to reform the Vatican and rid it, once and for all, of the overwhelming corruption traditionally encrusted in the Roman Catholic Church.Merchants in the Temple is a startling book that will shock every reader. It’s a story worthy of a Dan Brown novel, with its electrifying details of the trickery and scheming against the papacy—except that it is real.]]> 240 Gianluigi Nuzzi 1627798641 Henry Holt 5 3.62 2015 Merchants in the Temple: Inside Pope Francis's Secret Battle Against Corruption in the Vatican
author: Gianluigi Nuzzi
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/09/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Hotbox: Inside Catering, the Food World's Riskiest Business]]> 43838464 Matt Lee and Ted Lee take on the competitive, wild world of high-end catering, exposing the secrets of a food business few home cooks or restaurant chefs ever experience.

Hotbox reveals the real-life drama behind cavernous event spaces and soaring white tents, where cooking conditions have more in common with a mobile army hospital than a restaurant. Known for their modern take on Southern cooking, the Lee brothers steeped themselves in the catering business for four years, learning the culture from the inside-out. It’s a realm where you find eccentric characters, working in extreme conditions, who must produce magical events and instantly adapt when, for instance, the host’s toast runs a half-hour too long, a hail storm erupts, or a rolling rack of hundreds of ice cream desserts goes wheels-up.

Whether they’re dashing through black-tie fundraisers, celebrity-spotting at a Hamptons cookout, or following a silverware crew at 3:00 a.m. in a warehouse in New Jersey, the Lee brothers guide you on a romp from the inner circle—the elite team of chefs using little more than their wits and Sterno to turn out lamb shanks for eight hundred—to the outer reaches of the industries that facilitate the most dazzling galas. You’ll never attend a party—or entertain on your own—in the same way after reading this book.]]> 288 Matt Lee 1627792627 Henry Holt 5 henry-holt 4.11 2019 Hotbox: Inside Catering, the Food World's Riskiest Business
author: Matt Lee
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves: henry-holt
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Spellbound: My Life as a Dyslexic Wordsmith]]> 213664678 The A-list comedian tells the story of his unlikely path to success while struggling with severe dyslexia.

When Phil Hanley entered first grade, he realized something that would forever set him apart from his schoolmates, he couldn’t read. His teachers were ill-equipped to assist him and wrote him off as a hopeless case. Phil slipped through the school's cracks, year by year falling farther and farther behind his friends, only passing to each next grade because of his mother’s interventions. Finally, he was diagnosed with dyslexia, a learning disability that would shape the rest of his life.

In Spellbound, Phil Hanley shares his experience living with debilitating dyslexia. Unable to pursue college or a traditional job, Phil was thrust into a life to be defined by unconventional twists. He moved to Europe and became a successful runway model, a job that suitably kept him away from pens and paper. In search of fulfillment that couldn’t be found posing for a Docker’s ad, Phil retreated home to Vancouver where, desperate to manage the mental health issues connected to living with dyslexia, he turned to an all-consuming obsession with Transcendental Meditation. Finally, he found himself on a stage with a microphone, a spotlight, and five minutes of jokes. Stand-up became the first pursuit that the more Phil put into it, the more he got out, and something that he compellingly argues, saved his life. Spellbound is a story of humor and also of struggle and heartbreak, of constantly living in a world that sees things differently than you, and of triumph over adversity.

Phil shows us that dyslexia can be a huge challenge, but having it does not spell certain condemnation (nor can he). Just that the dyslexia has been more than a blessing in his life–it’s been his north star.]]> 272 Phil Hanley 1250860156 Henry Holt 5 4.34 2025 Spellbound: My Life as a Dyslexic Wordsmith
author: Phil Hanley
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/15
date added: 2024/09/15
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]]> <![CDATA[They Went Another Way: A Hollywood Memoir]]> 206101596 A darkly comic memoir about being a working creative person in a world that is growing ever more dysfunctional, by acclaimed New Yorker cartoonist and television writer Bruce Eric Kaplan.

In January 2022, Bruce Eric Kaplan found himself confused and upset by the state of the world and the state of his life as a television writer in Los Angeles. He started a journal to keep from going mad, which eventually became They Went Another Way.

The book’s through line traces his attempt to get a television project set up in the increasingly Byzantine world of Hollywood. But as he details the project’s ups and downs, Kaplan finds himself ruminating not only on show business but also on today’s political and social issues, on old movies and TV shows and music, on his family, on his friends, on his past, on his failing heating system, and on all the dead birds that keep showing up in his backyard.

This hilarious and surprisingly moving book is about life—about art, about love, about alienation, about connection, about ugliness and beauty, about disappointment, wonder, and hope. In short, it is about everything.]]> 272 Bruce Eric Kaplan 1250370337 Henry Holt 5 3.42 They Went Another Way: A Hollywood Memoir
author: Bruce Eric Kaplan
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.42
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/15
date added: 2024/09/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Stalin Affair: The Impossible Alliance That Won the War]]> 203578717 From internationally bestselling historian Giles Milton comes the remarkable true story of the motley group of Allied men and women who worked to manage Stalin’s mercurial, explosive approach to diplomacy during four turbulent years of World War II.

In the summer of 1941, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, shattering what Stalin had considered an ironclad partnership. There were real fears that Stalin’s forces would be defeated or that the Soviet leader would once again strike a deal with Hitler. Either eventuality would spell catastrophe for both Britain and the United States.

Enter W. Averell Harriman: a railroad magnate and, at the start of the war, the fourth-richest man in America. At Roosevelt’s behest he traveled to Britain to serve as a liaison between the president and Churchill and to spearhead what became known as the Harriman Mission. Together with his fashionable young daughter Kathy, an unforgettable cast of British diplomats, and Churchill himself, he would eventually manage to wrangle Stalin into the partnership the Allies needed to defeat Hitler.

Based on unpublished diaries, letters, and secret reports, The Stalin Affair reveals troves of new material about the path to Allied victory, full of vivid scenes between celebrated and infamous World War II figures.

Includes eight-page, color photograph insert.]]> 336 Giles Milton 1250247586 Henry Holt 5 4.26 2024 The Stalin Affair: The Impossible Alliance That Won the War
author: Giles Milton
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/05
date added: 2024/09/05
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]]> Mazeltov 211003738 In a glorious debut, a boy confronts queer lust, shame, the threat of war, and the plague of family on the day he becomes a man.

At a banquet hall, at the onset of war, Adam Weizmann’s bar mitzvah party turns into a glorious catastrophe. On the cusp of manhood—and the verge of a nervous breakdown—Adam has been bracing for his special day, mired in family neuroses and national dysfunction.

In a chorus of voices, a fractious cast of well-wishers narrates Adam’s coming-of-age in Israel: his newly devout father and the mystic rituals he practiced on his young son; his best friend, Abbie, who points the way to joyful transgression; Khalil, a Palestinian poet, who offers a glimpse of a different way to be; and Adam himself, filled with shame and desire as he faces the brokenness of his world.

At once tender and lustful, a work of scathing satire and piercing insight, Mazeltov is a wholly original vision of a young man’s quest to know his own heart.]]> 208 Eli Zuzovsky 1250345278 Henry Holt 5 3.40 2025 Mazeltov
author: Eli Zuzovsky
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/05
date added: 2024/09/05
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]]> Deadly Animals 203579073 Finding a dead body is not normal. But Ava is not a normal teenager. In this chillingly beautiful mystery, only the obsessive spirit of youth can save a desperate town from the savagery within.

Ava Bonney is a compassionate and studious fourteen-year-old girl with a dark secret: she has an obsessive interest in the macabre. She is fascinated by the rate at which dead animals decompose. The highway she lives by regularly offers up gifts of roadkill, and in the dead of night Ava loves nothing more than to pull her latest discovery into her roadside den and record her findings.

One night, she stumbles across the body of her classmate and, fearing that her secret ritual could be revealed, she makes an anonymous call to the police. But when Detective Seth Delahaye is given the case, Ava won’t step back—not while teenagers continue to go missing.

Racing alongside the police or against them, Ava is determined to figure out who is hunting her classmates before she becomes the next prey. How hard can it be to track a killer?]]> 354 Marie Tierney 1250357594 Henry Holt 5 fall-2024 3.79 2024 Deadly Animals
author: Marie Tierney
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/15
date added: 2024/08/15
shelves: fall-2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Selling Sexy: Victoria’s Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon]]> 61793530 The story of how Victoria’s Secret skyrocketed from a tiny chain of boutiques to a retail phenomenon with more than $8 billion in annual sales at its peak—all while defining an impossible beauty standard for generations of American women—before the brand’s tight grip on the industry finally slipped

Victoria’s Secret is one of the most influential and polarizing brands to ever infiltrate the psyche of the American consumer. Almost right at its start in the late 1970s, the company developed a cult following for its glamorous catalogs. Back then, shoppers had few alternatives to the stodgy department stores that sold most of the nation’s intimate apparel. By 1982, the founders of Victoria’s Secret avoided bankruptcy by selling to Les Wexner, the fast-fashion pioneer behind the Limited, whose empire of mall brands would go on to dominate American retail for forty years.

Wexner turned Victoria’s Secret into a multibillion-dollar business, and the brand’s cultural influence soared thanks to its airbrushed advertisements and annual televised fashion show, which drew millions of viewers each year. Its supermodel spokeswomen, the sweet but sultry Angels, personified a new American beauty standard.

But as our definition of beauty expanded, Victoria’s Secret failed to evolve and reached a crisis point. Meanwhile, Wexner became increasingly known for his complicated relationship with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, his former financial adviser and confidant.

Selling Sexy expertly draws from sources within Victoria’s Secret and across the industry to examine the unprecedented rise of one of the most innovative brands in retail history—a brand that today, under new ownership, is desperately trying to seduce shoppers again.]]> 256 Lauren Sherman 1250850959 Henry Holt 5 4.36 2024 Selling Sexy: Victoria’s Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon
author: Lauren Sherman
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/15
date added: 2024/08/15
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]]> Curdle Creek 203578885 For fans of “The Lottery� and The Hunger Games, this novel set in a small town with a sinister tradition is chilling in the best possible way.

�Curdle Creek is a thoughtful, sinister tour-de-force.�
―Tananarive Due, L.A. Times Book Prize-winning author of The Reformatory


Welcome to Curdle Creek, a place just dying to make you feel at home. Osira, a forty-five-year-old widow, is an obedient follower of the strict conventions of Curdle Creek, an all-Black town in rural America stuck in the past and governed by a tradition of ominous rituals. Osira is considered blessed, but her luck changes when her children flee, she comes second to last in the Running of the Widows and her father flees when his name is called in the annual Moving On ceremony.

Forced into a test of allegiance, Osira finds herself transported back in time, then into another realm where she must answer for crimes committed by Curdle Creek. Exile forces her to jump realms again, landing Osira even farther away from home, in rural England. Safe as long as she sticks to the rules, she quickly learns there are consequences for every kindness. Each jump could lead Osira anywhere but back home.

Curdle Creek is a unique, inventive novel exploring themes of home, belonging, motherhood and what we inherit from society. This American gothic offers a mash-up of the surreal and literary horror that will appeal to fans of Ring Shout, The Underground Railroad and Lovecraft Country. Yvonne Battle-Felton’s fever dream of a tale is enthralling, layered and quite unlike anything else.]]> 304 Yvonne Battle-Felton 1250362016 Henry Holt 5 2.83 2024 Curdle Creek
author: Yvonne Battle-Felton
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 2.83
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/15
date added: 2024/08/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Financial Diet: A Total Beginner's Guide to Getting Good with Money]]> 35343345 How to get good with money, even if you have no idea where to start.

The Financial Diet is the personal finance book for people who don’t care about personal finance. Whether you’re in need of an overspending detox, buried under student debt, or just trying to figure out how to live on an entry-level salary, The Financial Diet gives you tools to make a budget, understand investments, and deal with your credit. Chelsea Fagan has tapped a range of experts to help you make the best choices for you, but she also knows that being smarter with money isn’t just about what you put in the bank. It’s about everything—from the clothes you put in your closet, to your financial relationship habits, to the food you put in your kitchen (instead of ordering in again). So The Financial Diet gives you the tools to negotiate a raise and the perfect cocktail recipe to celebrate your new salary.

The Financial Diet will teach you:
� how to get good with money in a year.
� the ingredients everyone needs to have a budget-friendly kitchen.
� how to talk about awkward money stuff with your friends.
� the best way to make (and stick to!) a budget.
� how to take care of your house like a grown-up.
� what the hell it means to invest (and how you can do it).

]]> 208 Chelsea Fagan 1250176166 Henry Holt 5 winter-2018 3.60 2018 The Financial Diet: A Total Beginner's Guide to Getting Good with Money
author: Chelsea Fagan
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/07/14
shelves: winter-2018
review:

]]> A Pair of Wings 199068883 An airline captain crafts a riveting, adventurous novel inspired by the remarkable true life of pioneer aviatrix Bessie Coleman, a Black woman who learned to fly at the dawn of aviation and found freedom in the air

A few years after the Wright brothersâ€� first flight, Bessie was working the Texas cotton ï¬elds with her family when an airplane flew over their heads. It buzzed so low she thought she could catch it in her hands. Bessie was fearless. She knew there was freedom in those wings.

The daughter of a woman born into slavery, Bessie answers the call of the Great Migration. She moves to Chicago, where she wins the backing of two wealthy, powerful Black men—Robert Abbott, creator and publisher of the Chicago Defender, and Jesse Binga, the founder of Chicago’s first Black bank. Abbott becomes her mentor, while Binga becomes her lover. Her true first love, though, remains flying.

But in 1920, no one in the United States will train a Black woman to fly. So, twenty-eight-year-old Bessie learns to speak French and sets off for Europe. Two years ahead of Amelia Earhart, Bessie earns her pilot's license, and later she learns death-defying stunts from French and German dogfighting combat pilots.

While she finds no prejudice in the air, Bessie wrestles with other challenges on the ground. A plane crash nearly kills her, her brothers seem to be crumbling under the weight of Jim Crow, and, while grappling with tough truths about Binga, Bessie begins to wonder if the freedom she finds in the sky means she must otherwise fly solo.

With tenderness and mastery, Carole Hopson imagines the breathtaking moxie Bessie Coleman harnessed in order to lift herself out of poverty and become known as “Queen Bess.â€]]> 432 Carole Hopson 1250347211 Henry Holt 5 summer-2024 4.04 2024 A Pair of Wings
author: Carole Hopson
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/02
date added: 2024/07/02
shelves: summer-2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Over Work: Transforming the Daily Grind in the Quest for a Better Life]]> 203578897 “Brigid Schulte is a vital voice on the future of work, and her carefully researched book lights the way to fewer hours, less stress, and more meaning.�
―Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and Hidden Potential, and host of the podcast WorkLife

From the New York Times bestselling author of Overwhelmed, a deeply reported exploration of why American work isn’t working and how our lives can be made more meaningful

Following Overwhelmed, Brigid Schulte’s groundbreaking examination of time management and stress, the prizewinning journalist now turns her attention to the greatest culprit in America’s quality-of-life crisis: the way our economy and culture conceive of work. Americans across all demographics, industries, and socioeconomic levels report exhaustion, burnout, and the wish for more meaningful lives. This full-system failure in our structure of work affects everything from gender inequality to domestic stability, and it even shortens our lifespans.

Drawing on years of research, Schulte traces the arc of our discontent from a time before the 1980s, when work was compatible with well-being and allowed a single earner to support a family, until today, with millions of people working multiple hourly jobs or in white-collar positions where no hours are ever off duty.

She casts a wide net in search of solutions, exploring the movement to institute a four-day workweek, introducing Japan’s Housewives Brigade—which demands legal protection for family time—and embedding with CEOs who are making the business case for humane conditions. And she demonstrates the power of a collective and creative demand for change, showing that work can be organized in an infinite number of ways that are good for humans and for business.

Fiercely argued and vividly told, rich with stories and informed by deep investigation, Over Work lays out a clear vision for ending our punishing grind and reclaiming leisure, joy, and meaning.]]> 432 Brigid Schulte 1250801729 Henry Holt 5 3.89 Over Work: Transforming the Daily Grind in the Quest for a Better Life
author: Brigid Schulte
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.89
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/02
date added: 2024/07/02
shelves:
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]]> The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Henry Holt 5 4.11 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/06/13
shelves:
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]]> The Militia House 198902270 Longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize

“An extraordinary novel about the quiet and not so quiet horrors of war.� —Roxane Gay

Stephen King meets Tim O’Brien in John Milas’s The Militia House, a spine-tingling and boldly original gothic horror novel.

It’s 2010, and the recently promoted Corporal Loyette and his unit are finishing up their deployment at a new base in Kajaki, Afghanistan. Their duties here are straightforward—loading and unloading cargo into and out of helicopters—and their days are a mix of boredom and dread. The Brits they’re replacing delight in telling them the history of the old barracks just off base, a Soviet-era militia house they claim is haunted, and Loyette and his men don’t need much convincing to make a clandestine trip outside the wire to explore it.

It’s a short, middle-of-the-day adventure, but the men experience a mounting agitation after their visit to the militia house. In the days that follow they try to forget about the strange, unsettling sights and sounds from the house, but things are increasingly . . . not right. Loyette becomes determined to ignore his and his marines� growing unease, convinced that it’s just the strain of war playing tricks on them. But something about the militia house will not let them go.

Meticulously plotted and viscerally immediate in its telling, The Militia House is a gripping and brilliant exploration of the unceasing horrors of war that’s no more easily shaken than the militia house itself.]]> 272 John Milas 1250857082 Henry Holt 5 3.00 2023 The Militia House
author: John Milas
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/03
date added: 2024/05/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch]]> 198902275 The first and definitive history of the use of food in United States law and politics as a weapon of conquest and control, a Fast Food Nation for the Black Lives Matter era

In 1779, to subjugate Indigenous nations, George Washington ordered his troops to “ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more.� Destroying harvests is just one way that the United States has used food as a political tool. Trying to prevent enslaved people from rising up, enslavers restricted their consumption, providing only enough to fuel labor. Since the Great Depression, school lunches have served as dumping grounds for unwanted agricultural surpluses.

From frybread to government cheese, Ruin Their Crops on the Ground draws on over fifteen years of research to argue that U.S. food law and policy have created and maintained racial and social inequality. In an epic, sweeping account, Andrea Freeman, who pioneered the term “food oppression,� moves from colonization to slavery to the Americanization of immigrant food culture, to the commodities supplied to Native reservations, to milk as a symbol of white supremacy. She traces the long-standing alliance between the government and food industries that have produced gaping racial health disparities, and she shows how these practices continue to this day, through the marketing of unhealthy goods that target marginalized communities, causing diabetes, high blood pressure, and premature death.

Ruin Their Crops on the Ground is a groundbreaking addition to the history and politics of food. It will permanently upend the notion that we freely and equally choose what we put on our plates.]]> 254 Andrea Freeman 1250871042 Henry Holt 5 3.97 2024 Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch
author: Andrea Freeman
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/17
date added: 2024/05/17
shelves:
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]]> Off the Books 198902253 A captivating debut following a cross-country road trip that will make you believe in the goodness of people, Off the Books sheds light on the power in humanity during the most troubled of times.

Recent Dartmouth dropout Mei, in search of a new direction in life, drives a limo to make ends meet. Her grandfather convinces her to allow her customers to pay under the table, and before she knows it, she is working as a routine chauffeur for sex workers. Mei does her best to mind her own business, but her knack for discretion soon leads her on a life changing trip from San Francisco to Syracuse with a new client.

Handsome and reserved, Henry piques Mei’s interest. Toting an enormous black suitcase with him everywhere he goes, he’s more concerned with taking frequent breaks than making good time on the road. When Mei discovers Henry's secret, she does away with her usual close-lipped demeanor and decides she has no choice but to confront him. What Henry reveals rocks her to her core and shifts this once casual, transactional road trip to one of moral stakes and dangerous consequences.

An original take on the great American road trip, Off the Books is a beautifully crafted coming of age story that showcases the resilience of the human spirit and the power of doing the right thing. The spirit of Frazier’s characters will stay with readers long after they have arrived at their destination.]]> 224 Soma Mei Sheng Frazier 1250872715 Henry Holt 5 3.62 2024 Off the Books
author: Soma Mei Sheng Frazier
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/17
date added: 2024/05/17
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI]]> 127282778 Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction
Named one of the best books of the year by Publishers Weekly.

A riveting story of what it means to be human in a world changed by artificial intelligence, revealing the perils and inequities of our growing reliance on automated decision-making

On the surface, a British poet, an UberEats courier in Pittsburgh, an Indian doctor, and a Chinese activist in exile have nothing in common. But they are in fact linked by a profound common experience—unexpected encounters with artificial intelligence. In Code Dependent, Murgia shows how automated systems are reshaping our lives all over the world, from technology that marks children as future criminals, to an app that is helping to give diagnoses to a remote tribal community.

AI has already infiltrated our day-to-day, through language-generating chatbots like ChatGPT and social media. But it’s also affecting us in more insidious ways. It touches everything from our interpersonal relationships, to our kids� education, work, finances, public services, and even our human rights.

By highlighting the voices of ordinary people in places far removed from the cozy enclave of Silicon Valley, Code Dependent explores the impact of a set of powerful, flawed, and often-exploitative technologies on individuals, communities, and our wider society. Murgia exposes how AI can strip away our collective and individual sense of agency, and shatter our illusion of free will.

The ways in which algorithms and their effects are governed over the coming years will profoundly impact us all. Yet we can’t agree on a common path forward. We cannot decide what preferences and morals we want to encode in these entities—or what controls we may want to impose on them. And thus, we are collectively relinquishing our moral authority to machines.

In Code Dependent, Murgia not only sheds light on this chilling phenomenon, but also charts a path of resistance. AI is already changing what it means to be human, in ways large and small, and Murgia reveals what could happen if we fail to reclaim our humanity.]]> 320 Madhumita Murgia 1250867398 Henry Holt 5 4.08 2024 Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI
author: Madhumita Murgia
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/04/18
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[We Are Not Able to Live in the Sky: The Seductive Promise of Microfinance]]> 198902271 A deeply reported work of journalism that explores the promises and perils of microfinance, told through the eyes of international lenders and women borrowers in West Africa

In the mid-1970s, Muhammad Yunus, an American trained Bangladeshi economist, met a poor female stool maker who needed money to expand her business. In an act widely known as the beginning of microfinance, Yunus lent $27 to forty-two women, hoping small credit would help the women pull themselves out of poverty. Soon, Yunus’s Grameen Bank was born, and the idea of giving very small, high-interest loans to poor people took off. In 2006, Yunus and the Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize for “efforts to create economic and social development from below.�

But there’s a problem with this story. There are mounting concerns that these small loans are as likely to bury poor people in debt as they are to pull them from poverty, with borrowers from India to Kenya facing consequences such as jail time and forced land sales. Reportedly hundreds have even committed suicide.

What happened? Did microfinance take a wrong turn, or was it flawed from the beginning?

Mara Kardas-Nelson’s We Are Not Able to Live in the Sky is about unintended consequences, blind optimism, and the decades-long ramifications of seemingly small policy choices. The book is rooted in the stories of women borrowers in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Their narratives, woven through a deep history of modern international development, are set against the rise of Yunus’s vision that tiny loans would “put poverty in museums.� Kardas-Nelson asks: What is missed with a single, financially focused solution to global inequity that ignores the real drivers of poverty? Who stands to benefit and, more important, who gets left behind?]]> 400 Mara Kardas-Nelson 1250817226 Henry Holt 5 4.14 2024 We Are Not Able to Live in the Sky: The Seductive Promise of Microfinance
author: Mara Kardas-Nelson
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/15
date added: 2024/04/15
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[All the Worst Humans: How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians]]> 198902261 New York Times Editors' Choice
Named a best book of the year by Amazon

"A rollicking, unexpectedly affecting story. . . It’s going to be one of the big, buzzy Beltway books of the year."
�Politico

A bridge-burning, riotous memoir by a top PR operative in Washington who exposes the secrets of the $129-billion industry that controls so much of what we see and hear in the media—from a man who used to pull the strings, and who is now pulling back the curtain.

After nearly two decades in the Washington PR business, Elwood wants to come clean, by exposing the dark underbelly of the very industry that’s made him so successful. The first step is revealing exactly what he’s been up to for the past twenty years—and it isn’t pretty.

Elwood has worked for a murderer’s row of questionable clients, including Gaddafi, Assad, and the government of Qatar. In All the Worst Humans, Elwood unveils how the PR business works, and how the truth gets made, spun, and sold to the public—not shying away from the gritty details of his unlikely career.

This is a piercing look into the corridors of money, power, politics, and control, all told in Elwood’s disarmingly funny and entertaining voice. He recounts a four-day Las Vegas bacchanal with a dictator’s son, plotting communications strategies against a terrorist organization in Western Africa, and helping to land a Middle Eastern dictator’s wife a glowing profile in Vogue on the same time the Arab Spring broke out. And he reveals all his slippery tricks for seducing journalists in order to create chaos and ultimately cover for politicians, dictators, and spies—the industry-secret tactics that led to his rise as a political PR pro.

Along the way, Phil walks the halls of the Capitol, rides in armored cars through Abuja, and watches his client lose his annual income at the roulette table. But as he moved up the ranks, he felt worse and worse about the sleaziness of it all—until Elwood receives a shocking wake-up call from the FBI. This risky game nearly cost Elwood his life and his freedom. Seeing the light, Elwood decides to change his ways, and his clients, and to tell the full truth about who is the worst human.]]> 272 Phil Elwood 1250321573 Henry Holt 5 3.84 2024 All the Worst Humans: How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians
author: Phil Elwood
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/15
date added: 2024/04/15
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]]> The Stranger at the Wedding 198902265 Before love at first sight, there were things no one saw.


Annie never much believed in love. That is, until meeting Mark. After crossing paths on morning commutes, they connect at a group counseling session for trauma survivors. Each recognizes something in the other, though both hide their own troubled pasts.

It’s a whirlwind romance that propels Annie through their courtship, all the way to her wedding day—a day she couldn’t have predicted for herself once upon a time yet now feels surer about than anything in her life.

But as Annie stands at the altar, casting her eyes over the rows of well-wishers, she spots a stranger in the crowd, and she soon learns that her new life isn’t going to be the happily ever after that she had planned. Who is the stranger at the wedding? What really happened to Mark’s first wife? And was Annie and Mark’s meeting as random as it first appeared, or is something more sinister at work?

A sizzling thriller, A. E. Gauntlett's The Stranger at the Wedding will make you think twice before saying “I do.â€]]> 288 A.E. Gauntlett 1250343364 Henry Holt 5 3.03 2024 The Stranger at the Wedding
author: A.E. Gauntlett
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.03
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/12
date added: 2024/04/12
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]]> <![CDATA[The White Bonus: Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America]]> 127282154 A genre-bending work of journalism and memoir by award-winning writer Tracie McMillan tallies the cash benefit—and cost—of racism in America.

In The White Bonus, McMillan asks a provocative question about racism in America: When people of color are denied so much, what are white people given? And how much is it worth—not in amorphous privilege, but in dollars and cents?

McMillan begins with three generations of her family, tracking their modest wealth to its roots: American policy that helped whites first. Simultaneously, she details the complexities of their advantage, exploring her mother’s death in a nursing home, at 44, on Medicaid; her family's implosion; and a small inheritance from a banker grandfather. In the process, McMillan puts a cash value to whiteness in her life and assesses its worth.

McMillan then expands her investigation to four other white subjects of different generations across the U.S. Alternating between these subjects and her family, McMillan shows how, and to what degree, racial privilege begets material advantage across class, time, and place.

For readers of Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility and Heather McGhee’s The Sum of Us, McMillan brings groundbreaking insight on the white working class. And for readers of Tara Westover’s Educated and Kiese Laymon’s Heavy, McMillan reckons intimately with the connection between the abuse we endure at home and the abuse America allows in public.]]> 464 Tracie McMillan 1250619424 Henry Holt 5 3.78 2024 The White Bonus: Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America
author: Tracie McMillan
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/12
date added: 2024/03/12
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]]> <![CDATA[A Fatal Inheritance: How a Family Misfortune Revealed a Deadly Medical Mystery]]> 198902282 Named a best book of the year by Amazon and Kirkus

Weaving his own moving family story with a sweeping history of cancer research, Lawrence Ingrassia delivers an intimate, gripping tale that sits at the intersection of memoir and medical thriller

Ingrassia lost his mother, two sisters, brother, and nephew to cancer—different cancers developing at different points throughout their lives. And while highly unusual, his family is not the only one to wonder whether their heartbreak is the result of unbelievable bad luck, or if there might be another explanation.

Through meticulous research and riveting storytelling, Ingrassia takes us from the 1960s—when Dr. Frederick Pei Li and Dr. Joseph Fraumeni Jr. first met, not yet knowing that they would help make a groundbreaking discovery that would affect cancer patients for decades to come—to present day, as Ingrassia and countless others continue to unpack and build upon Li and Fraumeni’s initial discoveries, and to understand what this means for their families.

In the face of seemingly unbearable loss, Ingrassia holds onto hope. He urges us to “fight like Charlie,� his nephew who battled cancer his entire life starting with a rare tumor in his cheek at the age of two—and to look toward the future, as gene sequencing, screening protocols, CRISPR gene editing, and other developing technologies may continue to extend lifespans and perhaps, one day, even offer cures.]]> 320 Lawrence Ingrassia 1250837227 Henry Holt 5 4.28 2024 A Fatal Inheritance: How a Family Misfortune Revealed a Deadly Medical Mystery
author: Lawrence Ingrassia
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/12
date added: 2024/03/12
shelves:
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]]> The House of Broken Bricks 127282259 Every marriage has its seasons...It’s autumn when we meet Tess, but her relationship with Richard is in a deep, cold winter. A winter so harsh, their union may never see the bright light of spring.

Tess is a Londoner whose relationship with Richard transports her from a Jamaican diaspora in the city to the English countryside, where predatory birds hover over fields, buses run twice a day, neighbors barter honey for cider, and no one looks like her.

As Tess and Richard settle in, the dramatic arrival of their fraternal twins—one who presents as black and the other as white—recasts the family dynamic, stirring up complicated feelings and questions of belonging. Tess yearns for the comforting chaos of life as it once was, instead of Max and Sonny tracking dirt through the kitchen where cooking Caribbean food becomes her sole comfort. And Richard obsesses over getting his crops planted rather than deal with the conversation he cannot bear to have.

In Fiona Williams� quartet of unforgettable, alternating perspectives, secrets and vines clamber over the house’s broken red bricks, and although its inhabitants seem to be withering, Sonny knows that something is stirring. . . . As the seasons change and the cracks let in more light, the family might just be able to start to heal.]]> 352 Fiona Williams 1250896762 Henry Holt 5 3.74 2024 The House of Broken Bricks
author: Fiona Williams
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/15
date added: 2024/02/15
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]]> Piglet 127282554 A New York Times Book Review Editors� Choice
A Belletrist Book Club Pick

An elegant, razor-sharp debut about women's ambitions and appetites—and the truth about having it all

Outside of a childhood nickname she can’t shake, Piglet’s rather pleased with how her life’s turned out. An up-and-coming cookbook editor at a London publishing house, she’s got lovely, loyal friends and a handsome fiancé, Kit, whose rarefied family she actually, most of the time, likes, despite their upper-class eccentricities. One of the many, many things Kit loves about Piglet is the delicious, unfathomably elaborate meals she’s always cooking.

But when Kit confesses a horrible betrayal two weeks before they’re set to be married, Piglet finds herself suddenly…hungry. The couple decides to move forward with the wedding as planned, but as it nears and Piglet balances family expectations, pressure at work, and her quest to make the perfect cake, she finds herself increasingly unsettled, behaving in ways even she can’t explain. Torn between a life she’s always wanted and the ravenousness that comes with not getting what she knows she deserves, Piglet is, by the day of her wedding, undone, but also ready to look beyond the lies we sometimes tell ourselves to get by.

A stylish, uncommonly clever novel about the things we want and the things we think we want, Piglet is both an examination of women’s often complicated relationship with food and a celebration of the messes life sometimes makes for us.]]> 320 Lottie Hazell 125028984X Henry Holt 5 3.40 2024 Piglet
author: Lottie Hazell
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/15
date added: 2024/02/15
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]]> Prima Facie 133287123 This is not life, this is law�

Tessa Ensler loves her job. She’s worked her way up to being a top criminal defense barrister against all the odds, and fights to defend those pleading not guilty. Tessa believes in the law, believes in the system. Her quick-witted cross-examinations and intelligence in the courtroom see her clocking up win after win - including securing freedom for men accused of rape and sexual assault. Innocence until proven guilty is, after all, the bedrock of a civilized society.

But when Tessa is raped by a coworker, she struggles to find the strength to bring him to justice in the face of the barriers and opposition within that same system. Determined to have her day in court, Tessa is forced to confront the stark reality that the law was not written for victims, and that she is the one on trial. She fights on, even as her evidence is manipulated to make her look like a liar, even while she is retraumatized in the stand.

Based on the Olivier and Tony Award-winning play, Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie is an unforgettable story of what happens when a victim is asked to navigate a system that is not set up to accommodate the lived experience of sexual assault survivors.]]> 288 Suzie Miller 1250292204 Henry Holt 5 4.35 2018 Prima Facie
author: Suzie Miller
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/31
date added: 2024/01/31
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]]> <![CDATA[The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution]]> 127283004 Semafor's Best Political Book of 2023

A riveting insider account of the progressive movement in Congress centering A.O.C., Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Ayanna Pressley, and Ilhan Omar—their rise, their efforts to set an ambitious agenda for the country, and their struggle to find their footing within the Democratic party.

The Squad is the definitive, must-read book about the most exciting figures defining our new era. The story is urgent, and the stakes are high—for the country and the world—and Grim, an experienced political reporter who covered the Squad before they were the Squad, is uniquely qualified to tell it.

When Bernie Sanders, an obscure Vermont senator, launched his quixotic 2016 presidential campaign, few could have seen just how radically the Democratic Party would transform in just a few short years—or that such a transformation could be led by a Bronx bartender volunteering for Bernie in her spare time. The world as it was when that campaign began is almost unrecognizable today, and the Squad has both shaped and been shaped by the seismic social, cultural, and political changes underway.

Referred to informally as the Squad, led by the preternaturally politically savvy Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the group laid down a marker for an aggressive left-wing agenda. Grim takes you behind the scenes as that new energy makes impact with Washington, and the Squad spends as much time fending off assaults from Donald Trump—who regularly singled them out and led chants of “send them back� at rallies—as they did battling their own party’s sclerotic leadership. As they’ve grown in office, they’ve had to contend with the eternal question that confronts outsiders who power their way into the inside: Are they still radical organizers willing and able to lead a political revolution?]]> 336 Ryan Grim 1250869072 Henry Holt 5 3.99 The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution
author: Ryan Grim
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.99
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/31
date added: 2024/01/31
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]]> The Night Tiger 39863482 A sweeping historical novel about a dancehall girl and an orphan boy whose fates entangle over an old Chinese superstition about men who turn into tigers.

When 11-year-old Ren's master dies, he makes one last request of his Chinese houseboy: that Ren find his severed finger, lost years ago in an accident, and reunite it with his body. Ren has 49 days, or else his master's soul will roam the earth, unable to rest in peace.

Ji Lin always wanted to be a doctor, but as a girl in 1930s Malaysia, apprentice dressmaker is a more suitable occupation. Secretly, though, Ji Lin also moonlights as a dancehall girl to help pay off her beloved mother's Mahjong debts. One night, Ji Lin's dance partner leaves her with a gruesome souvenir: a severed finger. Convinced the finger is bad luck, Ji Lin enlists the help of her erstwhile stepbrother to return it to its rightful owner.

As the 49 days tick down, and a prowling tiger wreaks havoc on the town, Ji Lin and Ren's lives intertwine in ways they could never have imagined. Propulsive and lushly written, The Night Tiger explores colonialism and independence, ancient superstition and modern ambition, sibling rivalry and first love. Braided through with Chinese folklore and a tantalizing mystery, this novel is a page-turner of the highest order.

Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick, Amazon Spotlight Pick for Best Book of the Month, NYTimes and Publisher's Weekly Bestseller. Starred Kirkus, Booklist, and Publisher's Weekly reviews.]]> 372 Yangsze Choo 1250175453 Henry Holt 5 3.81 2019 The Night Tiger
author: Yangsze Choo
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/01/09
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]]> <![CDATA[The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships]]> 61796648 A prison escape, a bear on the loose, botched lyrics. What more could go wrong with Crow Valley’s most anticipated night of the year?

A year after forest fires ravaged the town of Crow Valley and claimed the life of Dale Jepson—karaoke legend, local prison guard, and all-around good guy—the community hosts a high-stakes karaoke competition. But when a convicted murderer escapes from nearby Crow Valley Correctional, residents discover there’s more on the line than local, perhaps even national, karaoke fame.

In this darkly comedic, fast-paced ride through an unforgettable small town, five residents with intimate connections to Dale and drastically different goals for the night will collide into, conspire with, and aid one another as they scramble to make it successfully through the evening under the scrutinizing watch of neighbors.

To the soundtrack of classics belted out with abandon, voices will crack, cars will be stolen, marriages will falter, and kids will slip away in search of trouble. And maybe, just maybe, lives will be transformed for the better.]]> 304 Ali Bryan 1250863430 Henry Holt 0 3.48 2023 The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships
author: Ali Bryan
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> Say Anarcha 61353782 A compelling reckoning with the birth of women’s health that illuminates the sacrifices of a young woman who changed the world only to be forgotten by it―until now

For more than a century, Dr. J. Marion Sims was hailed as the “father of modern gynecology.� He founded a hospital in New York City and had a profitable career treating gentry and royalty in Europe, becoming one of the world’s first celebrity surgeons. Statues were built in his honor, but he wasn’t the hero he had made himself appear to be.

Sims’s greatest medical claim was the result of several years of experimental surgeries―without anesthesia―on a young enslaved woman known as Anarcha; his so-called cure for obstetric fistula forever altered the path of women’s health.

One medical text after another hailed Anarcha as the embodiment of the pivotal role that Sims played in the history of surgery. Decades later, a groundswell of women objecting to Sims’s legacy celebrated Anarcha as the “mother of gynecology.� Little was known about the woman herself. The written record would have us believe Anarcha disappeared; she did not.

Through tenacious research, J. C. Hallman has unearthed the first evidence of Anarcha’s life that did not come from Sims’s suspect reports. Hallman reveals that after helping to spark a patient-centered model of care that continues to improve women’s lives today, Anarcha lived on as a midwife, nurse, and “doctor woman.�

Say Anarcha excavates history, deconstructing the biographical smoke screen of a surgeon who has falsely been enshrined as a medical pioneer and bringing forth a heroic Black woman to her rightful place at the center of the creation story of modern women’s health care.]]> 448 J.C. Hallman 1250868467 Henry Holt 5 summer-2023 3.82 2023 Say Anarcha
author: J.C. Hallman
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/01/03
shelves: summer-2023
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dream Town: Shaker Heights and the Quest for Racial Equity]]> 61796651 Ohioana Book Award Finalist

 Can a group of well-intentioned people fulfill the promise of racial integration in America?

In this searing and intimate examination of the ideals and realities of racial integration, award-winning Washington Post journalist Laura Meckler tells the story of a decades-long pursuit in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and uncovers the roadblocks that have threatened progress time and again—in housing, in education, and in the promise of shared community.

In the late 1950s, Shaker Heights began groundbreaking work that would make it a national model for housing integration. And beginning in the seventies, it was known as a crown jewel in the national move to racially integrate schools. The school district built a reputation for academic excellence and diversity, serving as a model for how white and Black Americans can thrive together. Meckler—herself a product of Shaker Heights—takes a deeper look into the place that shaped her, investigating its complicated history and its ongoing challenges in order to untangle myth from truth. She confronts an enduring, and troubling, question—if Shaker Heights has worked so hard at racial equity, why does a racial academic achievement gap persist?

In telling the stories of the Shakerites who have built and lived in this community, Meckler asks: What will it take to fulfill the promise of racial integration in America? What compromises are people of all races willing to make? What does success look like, and has Shaker achieved it? The result is a complex and masterfully reported portrait of a place that, while never perfect, has achieved more than most and a road map for communities that seek to do the same.

Includes black-and-white images.]]> 400 Laura Meckler 1250834414 Henry Holt 5 4.05 2023 Dream Town: Shaker Heights and the Quest for Racial Equity
author: Laura Meckler
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Where Have All the Democrats Gone?: The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes]]> 77920703 A Wall Street Journal best political book of 2023

A much-needed wake-up call for the Democrats, which reveals how the party has lost sight of its core principles and endangered its political future—from the authors of “one of the most influential political books of the 21st century� (The New York Times)

For decades, American politics has been plagued by a breakdown between the Democratic and Republican parties, in which victory has inevitably led to defeat and vice versa. Both parties have lost sight of the people at the center of the American electorate, leading to polarization and paralysis. In Where Have All the Democrats Gone?, John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira reveal the tectonic changes shaping the country’s current political landscape that both pundits and political scientists have missed.

The Democratic Party, once the preserve of small towns as well as big cities and of the industrial working class and the newly immigrated, has abandoned and even actively alienated many of these voters. In this clarion call and essential argument for common sense and common ground, Judis and Teixeira reveal the transformation of American politics and provide a razor-sharp critique of where the Democrats have gone awry and how they can avoid political disaster in the days ahead.]]> 321 John B. Judis 1250877490 Henry Holt 5 3.94 Where Have All the Democrats Gone?: The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes
author: John B. Judis
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.94
book published:
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against "The Apocalypse"]]> 60741855 Award-winning author and critic Emily Raboteau crafts a powerfully moving meditation on race, climate, environmental justice—and what it takes to find shelter.

Lessons for Survival is a probing series of pilgrimages from the perspective of a mother struggling to raise her children to thrive without coming undone in an era of turbulent intersecting crises.

With camera in hand, Raboteau goes in search of birds, fluttering in the air or painted on buildings, and city parks where her children may safely play while avoiding pollution, pandemics, and the police. She ventures abroad to learn from Indigenous peoples, and in her own family and community, she discovers the most intimate examples of resilience. Raboteau bears witness to the inner life of Black womanhood, motherhood, the brutalities and possibilities of cities, while celebrating the beauty and fragility of nature. This innovative work of reportage and autobiography stitches together multiple stories of protection, offering a profound sense of hope.]]> 295 Emily Raboteau Henry Holt 5 4.14 2024 Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against "The Apocalypse"
author: Emily Raboteau
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/03
date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> The Fox Wife 127278666 Some people think foxes are similar to ghosts because we go around collecting qi, but nothing could be further than the truth. We are living creatures, just like you, only usually better looking . . .

Manchuria, 1908.
In the last years of the dying Qing Empire, a courtesan is found frozen in a doorway. Her death is clouded by rumors of foxes, which are believed to lure people by transforming themselves into beautiful women and handsome men. Bao, a detective with an uncanny ability to sniff out the truth, is hired to uncover the dead woman’s identity. Since childhood, Bao has been intrigued by the fox gods, yet they’ve remained tantalizingly out of reach—until, perhaps, now.

Meanwhile, a family who owns a famous Chinese medicine shop can cure ailments but can’t escape the curse that afflicts them—their eldest sons die before their twenty-fourth birthdays. When a disruptively winsome servant named Snow enters their household, the family’s luck seems to change—or does it?

Snow is a creature of many secrets, but most of all she’s a mother seeking vengeance for her lost child. Hunting a murderer, she will follow the trail from northern China to Japan, while Bao follows doggedly behind. Navigating the myths and misconceptions of fox spirits, both Snow and Bao will encounter old friends and new foes, even as more deaths occur.

New York Times bestselling author Yangsze Choo brilliantly explores a world of mortals and spirits, humans and beasts, and their dazzling intersection. Epic in scope and full of singular, unforgettable characters, The Fox Wife is a stunning novel about old loves and second chances, the depths of maternal love, and ancient folktales that may very well be true.]]> 390 Yangsze Choo 1250266017 Henry Holt 5 3.97 2024 The Fox Wife
author: Yangsze Choo
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/03
date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> Glorious Exploits 127278133 An utterly original celebration of that which binds humanity across battle lines and history.

On the island of Sicily amid the Peloponnesian War, the Syracusans have figured out what to do with the surviving Athenians who had the gall to invade their city: they’ve herded the sorry prisoners of war into a rock quarry and left them to rot. Looking for a way to pass the time, Lampo and Gelon, two unemployed potters with a soft spot for poetry and drink, head down into the quarry to feed the Athenians if, and only if, they can manage a few choice lines from their great playwright Euripides. Before long, the two mates hatch a plan to direct a full-blown production of Medea. After all, you can hate the people but love their art. But as opening night approaches, what started as a lark quickly sets in motion a series of extraordinary events, and our wayward heroes begin to realize that staging a play can be as dangerous as fighting a war, with all sorts of risks to life, limb, and friendship.

Told in a contemporary Irish voice and as riotously funny as it is deeply moving, Glorious Exploits is an unforgettable ode to the power of art in a time of war, brotherhood in a time of enmity, and human will throughout the ages.]]> 304 Ferdia Lennon 1250893690 Henry Holt 5 4.15 2024 Glorious Exploits
author: Ferdia Lennon
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/12/20
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]]> Family Family 127282881 “Not all stories of adoption are stories of pain and regret. Not even most of them. Why don’t we ever get that movie?�

India Allwood grew up wanting to be an actor. Armed with a stack of index cards (for research/line memorization/make-shift confetti), she goes from awkward sixteen-year-old to Broadway ingenue to TV superhero.

Her new movie is a prestige picture about adoption, but its spin is the same old tired story of tragedy. India is an adoptive mom in real life though. She wants everyone to know there’s more to her family than pain and regret. So she does something you should never do—she tells a journalist the truth: it’s a bad movie.

Soon she’s at the center of a media storm, battling accusations from the press and the paparazzi, from protesters on the right and advocates on the left. Her twin ten-year-olds know they need help–and who better to call than family? But that’s where it gets really messy because India’s not just an adoptive mother�

The one thing she knows for sure is what makes a family isn’t blood. And it isn’t love. No matter how they’re formed, the truth about family is this: it's complicated.]]> 400 Laurie Frankel 1250236800 Henry Holt 5 3.95 2024 Family Family
author: Laurie Frankel
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/07
date added: 2023/12/07
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]]> <![CDATA[A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy]]> 77920745 WINNER OF THE 2024 PULITZER PRIZE FOR GENERAL NON-FICTION

Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, The Economist, Time, The New Republic, and the Financial Times.

Immersive and gripping, an intimate story of a deadly accident outside Jerusalem that unravels a tangle of lives, loves, enmities, and histories over the course of one revealing, heartbreaking day.

Five-year-old Milad Salama is excited for a school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem. On the way, his bus collides with a semitrailer. His father, Abed, gets word of the crash and rushes to the site. The scene is chaos—the children have been taken to different hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank; some are missing, others cannot be identified. Abed sets off on an odyssey to learn Milad’s fate. It is every parent’s worst nightmare, but for Abed it is compounded by the maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must navigate because he is Palestinian. He is on the wrong side of the separation wall, holds the wrong ID to pass the military checkpoints, and has the wrong papers to enter the city of Jerusalem. Abed’s quest to find Milad is interwoven with the stories of a cast of Jewish and Palestinian characters whose lives and histories unexpectedly converge.

In A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, Nathan Thrall—hailed for his “severe allergy to conventional wisdom� (Time)—offers an indelibly human portrait of the struggle over Israel/Palestine and a new understanding of the tragic history and reality of one of the most contested places on earth.]]> 272 Nathan Thrall 1250854970 Henry Holt 5 4.34 2023 A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy
author: Nathan Thrall
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/07
date added: 2023/12/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey]]> 57771211 From “America’s illustrator in chief� (Fast Company), a stunning graphic memoir of a childhood in Cuba, coming to America on the Mariel boatlift, and a defense of democracy, here and there

Hailed for his iconic art on the cover of Time and on jumbotrons around the world, Edel Rodriguez is among the most prominent political artists of our age. Now for the first time, he draws his own life, revisiting his childhood in Cuba and his family’s passage on the infamous Mariel boatlift.

When Edel was nine, Fidel Castro announced his surprising decision to let 125,000 traitors of the revolution, or “worms,� leave the country. The faltering economy and Edel’s family’s vocal discomfort with government surveillance had made their daily lives on a farm outside Havana precarious, and they secretly planned to leave. But before that happened, a dozen soldiers confiscated their home and property and imprisoned them in a detention center near the port of Mariel, where they were held with dissidents and criminals before being marched to a flotilla that miraculously deposited them, overnight, in Florida.

Through vivid, stirring art, Worm tells a story of a boyhood in the midst of the Cold War, a family’s displacement in exile, and their tenacious longing for those they left behind. It also recounts the coming-of-age of an artist and activist, who, witnessing American’s turn from democracy to extremism, struggles to differentiate his adoptive country from the dictatorship he fled. Confronting questions of patriotism and the liminal nature of belonging, Edel Rodriguez ultimately celebrates the immigrants, maligned and overlooked, who guard and invigorate American freedom.]]> 304 Edel Rodriguez 125075397X Henry Holt 5 4.57 Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey
author: Edel Rodriguez
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.57
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/15
date added: 2023/11/15
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]]> <![CDATA[You Only Call When You're in Trouble]]> 127278269 —Jane Green, New York Times bestselling author

“Funny, poignant, joyous, explosive, but most of all affirming of our connections to one another. You Only Call When You're in Trouble is a book to cherish. A book that loves you back. What more could you want, my gosh? Read it!�
—Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less Is Lost

Is it ever okay to stop caring for others and start living for yourself?

After a lifetime of taking care of his impossible but irresistible sister and his cherished niece, Tom is ready to put himself first. An architect specializing in tiny houses, he finally has an opportunity to build his masterpiece—“his last shot at leaving a footprint on the dying planet.� Assuming, that is, he can stick to his resolution to keep the demands of his needy family at bay.

Naturally, that’s when his phone rings. His niece, Cecily—the real love of Tom’s life, as his boyfriend reminded him when moving out—is embroiled in a Title IX investigation at the college where she teaches that threatens her career and relationship. And after decades of lying, his sister wants him to help her tell Cecily the real identity of her father.

Tom does what he’s always done—answers the call. Thus begins a journey that will change everyone’s life and demonstrate the beauty or dysfunction (or both?) of the ties that bind families together and sometimes strangle them.

Warm, funny, and deeply moving, You Only Call When You’re in Trouble is an unforgettable showcase for Stephen McCauley’s distinctive voice and unique ability to create complex characters that jump off the page and straight into your heart.]]> 336 Stephen McCauley 125029679X Henry Holt 5 3.35 2024 You Only Call When You're in Trouble
author: Stephen McCauley
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/15
date added: 2023/11/15
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]]> If You Would Have Told Me 77920725 New York Times Bestseller

�...I love him, and I respect him, and I need him. We all do.�
—from the foreword by Jamie Lee Curtis

If you would have told a young John Stamos flipping burgers at his dad’s fast-food joint that one day he’d be a household name and that, at the height of his success, he’d be living alone, divorced, with no kids, high on a cocktail of forgetting, he might’ve asked, “You want fries with that?�

John burst onto the scene in General Hospital, propelling him into the teen idol stratosphere, a place that’s often a point of no return. But Stamos beat the odds and over the past four decades has proved himself to be one of his generation’s most successful and beloved actors. Whether showing off his comedic chops on Full House or his dramatic skills on ER, pushing the boundaries on Broadway or living out his youthful dreams as an honorary Beach Boy, John has surprised everyone, most of all himself.

A universal story about friendship, love, loss, and the courage to embrace love once more, John Stamos’s memoir is filled with some of the most memorable names in Hollywood, both old and new. Funny, deeply poignant, and brutally honest, If You Would Have Told Me is a portrait of a boy who went from believing in Disney magic to a man who learns that we have to create our own magical moments in life.]]> 333 John Stamos 1250890977 Henry Holt 5 3.78 2023 If You Would Have Told Me
author: John Stamos
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/13
date added: 2023/10/13
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]]> Please Report Your Bug Here 60741772 “An unexpected, inventive, heartfelt riff on the workplace novel—startup realism with a multiverse twist.� —Anna Wiener, author of Uncanny Valley

Introducing Josh Riedel's adrenaline-packed debut novel about a dating app employee who discovers a glitch that transports him to other worlds

Once you sign an NDA it's good for life. Meaning legally, I shouldn't tell you this story. But I have to.

A college grad with the six-figure debt to prove it, Ethan Block views San Francisco as the place to be. Yet his job at hot new dating app DateDate is a far cry from what he envisioned. Instead of making the world a better place, he reviews flagged photo queues, overworked and stressed out. But that's about to change.

Reeling from a breakup, Ethan decides to view his algorithmically matched soulmate on DateDate. He overrides the system and clicks on the profile. Then, he disappears. One minute, he’s in a windowless office, and the next, he’s in a field of endless grass, gasping for air. When Ethan snaps back to DateDate HQ, he’s convinced a coding issue caused the blip. Except for anyone to believe him, he’ll need evidence. As Ethan embarks on a wild goose chase, moving from dingy startup think tanks to Silicon Valley’s dominant tech conglomerate, it becomes clear that there’s more to DateDate than meets the eye. With the stakes rising, and a new world at risk, Ethan must choose who—and what—he believes in.

Adventurous and hypertimely, Please Report Your Bug Here is an inventive millennial coming-of-age story, a dark exploration of the corruption now synonymous with Big Tech, and, above all, a testament to the power of human connection in our digital era.]]> 288 Josh Riedel 1250813794 Henry Holt 5 2.94 2023 Please Report Your Bug Here
author: Josh Riedel
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 2.94
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/09
date added: 2023/10/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Pegasus: How a Spy in Your Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy]]> 59808055 Featuring an introduction by Rachel Maddow, Pegasus: How a Spy in Our Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy is the behind-the-scenes story of one of the most sophisticated and invasive surveillance weapons ever created, used by governments around the world.

Pegasus is widely regarded as the most effective and sought-after cyber-surveillance system on the market. The system’s creator, the NSO Group, a private corporation headquartered in Israel, is not shy about proclaiming its ability to thwart terrorists and criminals. “Thousands of people in Europe owe their lives to hundreds of our company employees,� NSO’s cofounder declared in 2019. This bold assertion may be true, at least in part, but it’s by no means the whole story.

NSO’s Pegasus system has not been limited to catching bad guys. It’s also been used to spy on hundreds, and maybe thousands, of innocent people around the world: heads of state, diplomats, human rights defenders, political opponents, and journalists.

This spyware is as insidious as it is invasive, capable of infecting a private cell phone without alerting the owner, and of doing its work in the background, in silence, virtually undetectable. Pegasus can track a person’s daily movement in real time, gain control of the device’s microphones and cameras at will, and capture all videos, photos, emails, texts, and passwords—encrypted or not. This data can be exfiltrated, stored on outside servers, and then leveraged to blackmail, intimidate, and silence the victims. Its full reach is not yet known. “If they’ve found a way to hack one iPhone,� says Edward Snowden, “they’ve found a way to hack all iPhones.�

Pegasus is a look inside the monthslong worldwide investigation, triggered by a single spectacular leak of data, and a look at how an international consortium of reporters and editors revealed that cyber intrusion and cyber surveillance are happening with exponentially increasing frequency across the globe, at a scale that astounds.

Meticulously reported and masterfully written, Pegasus shines a light on the lives that have been turned upside down by this unprecedented threat and exposes the chilling new ways authoritarian regimes are eroding key pillars of democracy: privacy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech.]]> 336 Laurent Richard 1250858690 Henry Holt 5 winter-2023 3.85 2023 Pegasus: How a Spy in Your Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy
author: Laurent Richard
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/09
date added: 2023/10/13
shelves: winter-2023
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]]> My Last Innocent Year 60741808 An incisive, deeply resonant debut novel about a nonconsensual sexual encounter that propels one woman’s final semester at an elite New England college into controversy and chaos—and into an ill-advised affair with a married professor.

It’s 1998 and Isabel Rosen, the only daughter of a Lower East Side appetizing store owner, has one semester left at Wilder College, a prestigious school in New Hampshire. Desperate to shed her working-class roots and still mourning the death of her mother four years earlier, Isabel has always felt like an outsider at Wilder but now, in her final semester, she believes she has found her place—until a nonconsensual sexual encounter with one of the only other Jewish students on campus leaves her reeling.

Enter R. H. Connelly, a once-famous poet and Isabel’s writing professor, a man with secrets of his own. Connelly makes Isabel feel seen, beautiful, talented: the woman she longs to become. His belief in her ignites a belief in herself, and the two begin an affair that shakes the foundation of who Isabel thinks she is, for better and worse. As the lives of the adults around her slowly come apart, Isabel discovers that the line between youth and adulthood is less defined than she thought.

A coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, Daisy Alpert Florin's My Last Innocent Year is a timely and wise portrait of a young woman learning to trust her voice and move toward independence while recognizing the beauty and grit of where she came from.]]> 304 Daisy Alpert Florin 1250857031 Henry Holt 5 3.70 2023 My Last Innocent Year
author: Daisy Alpert Florin
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/09
date added: 2023/10/13
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]]> Künstlers in Paradise 60784564 There was a time when the family Künstler lived in the fairy-tale city of Vienna. Circumstances transformed that fairy tale into a nightmare, and in 1939 the Künstlers found their way out of Vienna and into a new fairy tale: Los Angeles, California, United States of America.

For years Mamie Künstler, ninety-three-years-old, as clever and glamorous as ever, has lived happily in her bungalow in Venice, California with her inscrutable housekeeper and her gigantic St. Bernard dog. Their tranquility is upended when Mamie’s grandson, Julian, arrives from New York City. Like many a twenty-something, he has come to seek his fortune in Hollywood. But it is 2020, the global pandemic sweeps in, and Julian’s short visit suddenly has no end in sight.

Mamie was only eleven when the Künstlers escaped Vienna in 1939. They made their way, stunned and overwhelmed, to sunny, surreal Los Angeles where they joined a colony of distinguished Jewish musicians, writers and intellectuals also escaping Hitler. Now, faced with months of lockdown and a willing listener, Mamie begins to tell Julian the buried stories of her early years in Los Angeles: her escapades with eminent émigrés like Arnold Schoenberg, Christopher Isherwood, Thomas Mann. Oh, and Greta Garbo. While the pandemic cuts Julian off from the life he knows, Mamie’s tales open up a world of lives that came before him. They reveal to him just how much the past holds of the future.]]> 272 Cathleen Schine 1250805902 Henry Holt 5 3.40 2023 Künstlers in Paradise
author: Cathleen Schine
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/29
date added: 2023/10/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family]]> 60741807 A family reunion gives way to an unforgettable genealogical quest as relatives reconnect across lines of color, culture, and time, putting the past into urgent conversation with the present.

In 1791, Thomas Jefferson hired a Black man to help survey Washington, DC. That man was Benjamin Banneker, an African American mathematician, a writer of almanacs, and one of the greatest astronomers of his generation. Banneker then wrote what would become a famous letter to Jefferson, imploring the new president to examine his hypocrisy, as someone who claimed to love liberty yet was an enslaver. More than two centuries later, Rachel Jamison Webster, an ostensibly white woman, learns that this groundbreaking Black forefather is also her distant relative.

Acting as a storyteller, Webster draws on oral history and conversations with her DNA cousins to imagine the lives of their shared ancestors across eleven generations, among them Banneker’s grandparents, an interracial couple who broke the law to marry when America was still a conglomerate of colonies under British rule. These stories shed light on the legal construction of race and display the brilliance and resistance of early African Americans in the face of increasingly unjust laws, some of which are still in effect in the present day.]]> 368 Rachel Jamison Webster 1250827302 Henry Holt 5 winter-2023 3.85 2023 Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family
author: Rachel Jamison Webster
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/10/13
shelves: winter-2023
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]]> <![CDATA[The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho]]> 60784624 Named one of NPR's Books We Love

It’s finally time for Charles Ignatius Sancho to tell his story, one that begins on a slave ship in the Atlantic and ends at the very center of London life. . . . A lush and immersive tale of adventure, artistry, romance, and freedom set in eighteenth-century England and based on a true story

It’s 1746 and Georgian London is not a safe place for a young Black man. Charles Ignatius Sancho must dodge slave catchers and worse, and his main ally—a kindly duke who taught him to write—is dying. Sancho is desperate and utterly alone. So how does the same Charles Ignatius Sancho meet the king, write and play highly acclaimed music, become the first Black person to vote in Britain, and lead the fight to end slavery? Through every moment of this rich, exuberant tale, Sancho forges ahead to see how much he can achieve in one short life: “I had little right to live, born on a slave ship where my parents both died. But I survived, and indeed, you might say I did more.â€]]> 432 Paterson Joseph 1250880378 Henry Holt 5 winter-2023 3.61 2022 The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho
author: Paterson Joseph
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2022
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/10/13
shelves: winter-2023
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]]> Activate Your Greatness 77920735 Alex Toussaint, the Peloton star who counts everyone from Roger Federer and the Golden State Warriors to the Today Show ’s Carson Daly as fans, hops off the bike and gives readers the inspiration and motivation they need to activate their greatness in every aspect of their lives.

Alex Toussaint is known for his grueling workouts where he promises “to kick your ass� � yet thousands keep coming back for more. Why? Because he might be the most motivational teacher out there right now. His mantra is “Feel Good, Look Good, Do Better.� He expects more from you, and from himself. Yet so much of what he talks about is NOT about the bike.

Alex’s enthusiasm for life is infectious –“You woke up today!� “Breathe in confidence, exhale doubt.� Because Alex knows what it is like to be overlooked and undervalued, to be the underdog. He knows what it’s like to not expect the best from yourself. The child of Haitian immigrants who sacrificed so much to give him an education, he knows what it is like to be one of the few Black kids growing up in East Hampton. After a turbulent adolescence that saw him being sent to military school, Toussaint dropped out of college and was mopping floors at a gym. A few years later, he's one of the most iconic cycling instructors on Peloton, helping thousands of users along their fitness journeys through his inspirational workouts.

Finally, Alex gets off the bike to help readers activate their own greatness in every aspect of their lives. Part self-help, part memoir, Activate Your Greatness details Toussaint’s mental and physical practices, on and off the bike, that have influenced his daily habits, fueled his motivation, and that have ultimately contributed to his astronomical success and shows readers how they can do the same.]]> 256 Alex Toussaint 125085203X Henry Holt 5 4.08 Activate Your Greatness
author: Alex Toussaint
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.08
book published:
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/10/10
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]]> Where You End 127278989 A Good Morning America Buzz Pick
A Mary Calvi Book Club Pick

“A perfectly paced, addictive thriller with a vicious twist.� —Paula Hawkins

When Kat Bird wakes up from a coma, she sees her mirror image: Jude, her twin sister. Jude’s face and name are the only memories Kat has from before her accident. As Kat tries to make sense of things, she believes Jude will provide all the answers to her most pressing questions: What happened? Where am I? Who am I?

Amid this tragedy, Jude sees an irresistible opportunity: she can give her sister a brand-new past, one worlds away from the lives they really led. She spins tales of an idyllic childhood, exotic travels, and a bright future.

But if everything was so perfect, who are the mysterious people following Kat? And what explains her uncontrollable flashes of violent anger, which begin to jeopardize a sweet new romance?

Duped by the one person she trusted, Kat must try to untangle fact from fiction. Yet as she pulls at the threads of Jude’s elaborate tapestry, she has no idea of the catastrophe she’s inviting.

Intensely creepy and beautifully written, Abbott Kahler’s Where You End is an unforgettable tale of intrigue, revenge, and the quest for redemption.]]> 336 Abbott Kahler 125087324X Henry Holt 5 3.12 2024 Where You End
author: Abbott Kahler
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.12
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/10/04
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]]> Green Dot 127282597
At twenty-four, Hera is a clump of unmet potential. To her, the future is nothing but an exhausting thought exercise, one depressing hypothetical after another. She’s sharp in more ways than one, adrift in her own smug malaise, until her new job moderating the comments section of an online news outlet—a role even more mind-numbing than it sounds—introduces her to Arthur, a middle-aged journalist. Though she's preferred women to men for years now, she soon finds herself falling into an all-consuming affair with him. She is coming apart with want and loving every second of it! Well, except for the tiny hiccup that Arthur has a wife—and that she has no idea Hera exists.

With its daringly specific and intimate voice, Green Dot is a darkly hilarious and deeply felt examination of the joys and indignities of coming into adulthood against the pitfalls of the twenty-first century and the winding, tortuous, and often very funny journey we take in deciding who we are and who we want to be.]]> 320 Madeleine Gray 1250890594 Henry Holt 5 3.62 2024 Green Dot
author: Madeleine Gray
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/10/04
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]]> Amazing Grace Adams 61796633 A New York Times Bestseller
A TODAY Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick

Bernadette, Eleanor Oliphant, Rosie, Ove� meet Amazing Grace Adams, the funny, touching, unforgettable story of an invisible everywoman pushed to the brink—who finally pushes back.

Grace Adams gave birth, blinked and now suddenly she is forty-five, perimenopausal and stalled —the unhappiest age you can be, according to the Guardian. And today she’s really losing it. Stuck in traffic, she finally has had enough. To the astonishment of everyone, Grace gets out of her car and simply walks away.

Grace sets off across London, armed with a £200 cake, to win back her estranged teenage daughter on her 16th birthday. Because today is the day she’ll remind her daughter that no matter how far we fall, we can always get back up again. Because Grace Adams used to be amazing. Her husband thought so. Her daughter thought so. Even Grace thought so. But everyone seems to have forgotten. Grace is about to remind them …and, most importantly, remind herself.]]> 272 Fran Littlewood 1250857015 Henry Holt 5 3.48 2023 Amazing Grace Adams
author: Fran Littlewood
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/14
date added: 2023/09/14
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]]> Small Town Sins 61796658 EDGAR AWARD FINALIST

Ken Jaworowski’s Small Town Sins is a gripping Rust Belt thriller that captures the characters of a down-and-out Pennsylvania town, revealing their troubled pasts and the crimes that could cost them their lives.

In Locksburg, Pennsylvania, a former coal and steel town whose best days seem long past, five thousand residents have toughed it out, and have reasons for both worry and hope as this neglected place teeters between decay and renewal. For some of them, their biggest troubles have just arrived.

After years of just scraping by, three restless souls have their lives upended: Nathan, a volunteer fireman who uncovers a secret stash of money in a burning building and takes it; Callie, a nurse whose tender patient may not have long to live, despite the girl’s fundamentalist parents� ardent beliefs; and Andy, a recovering heroin addict who undertakes a nightmare mission to hunt down and stop a serial predator.

Before long, Nathan’s stolen riches threaten to destroy everyone around him as he tries to cover his haphazard trail of lies. Callie risks her career to grant her young patient a final, and likely illegal, wish. And Andy’s hunger for vigilante justice becomes a fierce obsession that may end in violence.

As their stories barrel toward unexpected ends, Nathan, Callie, and Andy struggle to endure—or escape. They each face their pasts and gamble on their futures, and confront the underside of their rough Rust Belt town. Riveting, evocative, and unforgettable, Small Town Sins is a debut novel that marks the arrival of a major new talent.]]> 272 Ken Jaworowski 1250881676 Henry Holt 5 3.85 2023 Small Town Sins
author: Ken Jaworowski
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/02
date added: 2023/08/02
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]]> The Peach Seed 61796657 Fletcher Dukes and Altovise Benson reunite after decades apart� and a mountain of secrets—in this debut exploring the repercussions of a single choice and how an enduring talisman challenges and holds a family together.

On a routine trip to the Piggly Wiggly in Albany, Georgia, widower Fletcher Dukes smells a familiar perfume, then sees a tall woman the color of papershell pecans with a strawberry birthmark on the nape of her neck. He knows immediately that she is his lost love, Altovise Benson. Their bond, built on county fairs, sit-ins, and marches, once seemed a sure and forever thing. But their marriage plans were disrupted when the police turned a peaceful protest violent.

Before Altovise fled the South, Fletcher gave her a peach seed monkey with diamond eyes. As we learn via harrowing flashbacks, an enslaved ancestor on the coast of South Carolina carved the first peach seed, a talisman that, ever since, each father has gifted his son on his thirteenth birthday.

Giving one to Altovise initiated a break in tradition, irrevocably shaping the lives of generations of Dukeses. Recently, Fletcher has made do on his seven acres with his daughter Florida’s check-ins, his drop biscuits, and his faithful dog. But as he begins to reckon with long-ago choices, he finds he isn’t the only one burdened with unspoken truths.

An indelible portrait of a family, The Peach Seed explores how kin pass down legacies of sorrow, joy, and strength. And it is a parable of how a glimmer of hope as small as a seed can ripple across generations.]]> 448 Anita Gail Jones 1250872057 Henry Holt 5 3.81 2023 The Peach Seed
author: Anita Gail Jones
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/02
date added: 2023/08/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Strip Tees: A Memoir of Millennial Los Angeles]]> 61796659 Strip Tees is a fever dream of a memoir—Hunter S. Thompson meets Gloria Steinem—about a recent college graduate and what happens when her feminist ideals meet the real world.

At the turn of the new millennium, LA is the place to be. “Hipster� is a new word on the scene. Lauren Conrad is living her Cinderella story in the “Hills� on millions of television sets across the country. Paris Hilton tells us “That’s hot� from behind the biggest sunglasses imaginable, while beautiful teenagers fight and fall in love on The O.C.

Into this most glittering of supposed utopias, Kate Flannery arrives with a Seven Sisters diploma in hand and a new job at an upstart clothing company called American Apparel. Kate throws herself into the work, determined to climb the corporate fashion ladder. Having a job at American Apparel also means being a part of the advertising campaigns themselves, stripping down in the name of feminism.
She slowly begins to lose herself in a landscape of rowdy sex-positivity, racy photo shoots, and a cultlike devotion to the unorthodox CEO and founder of the brand. The line between sexual liberation and exploitation quickly grows hazy, leading Kate to question the company’s ethics and wrestle with her own.

Strip Tees captures a moment in our recent past that’s already sepia toned in nostalgia, and also paints a timeless portrait of a young woman who must choose between what business demands and self-respect requires.]]> 240 Kate Flannery 1250827280 Henry Holt 5 3.67 2023 Strip Tees: A Memoir of Millennial Los Angeles
author: Kate Flannery
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/17
date added: 2023/07/17
shelves:
review:

]]> Every Rising Sun 61884971 Named one of NPR's Books We Love

In this riveting take on One Thousand and One Nights, Shaherazade, at the center of her own story, uses wit and political mastery to navigate opulent palaces brimming with treachery and the perils of the Third Crusade as her Persian homeland teeters on the brink of destruction.

In twelfth century, Persia, clever and dreamy Shaherazade stumbles on the Malik’s beloved wife entwined with a lover in a sun-dappled courtyard. When Shaherazade recounts her first tale, the story of this infidelity, to the Malik, she sets the Seljuk Empire on fire.

Enraged at his wife’s betrayal, the once-gentle Malik beheads her. But when that killing does not quench his anger, the Malik begins to marry and behead a new bride each night. Furious at the murders, his province seethes on rebellion’s edge. To suppress her guilt, quell threats of a revolt, and perhaps marry the man she has loved since childhood, Shaherazade persuades her beloved father, the Malik’s vizier, to offer her as the next wife. On their wedding night, Shaherazade begins a yarn, but as the sun ascends she cuts the story short, ensuring that she will live to tell another tale, a practice she repeats night after night.

But the Malik’s rage runs too deep for Shaherazade to exorcise alone. And so she and her father persuade the Malik to leave Persia to join Saladin’s fight against the Crusaders in Palestine. With plots spun against the Seljuks from all corners, Shaherazade must maneuver through intrigue in the age’s greatest courts to safeguard her people. All the while, she must keep the Malik enticed with her otherworldly tales—because the slightest misstep could cost Shaherazade her head.

This suspenseful first-person retelling is vividly rendered through the voice of a fully imagined Shaherazade, a book lover whose late mother bestowed the gift of story that becomes her power. Created over fourteen years of writing and research, Jamila Ahmed’s gorgeously written debut is a celebration of storytelling and a love letter to the medieval Islamic world that brings to life one of the most enduring and intriguing woman characters of all time.]]> 432 Jamila Ahmed 1250887070 Henry Holt 5 3.91 2023 Every Rising Sun
author: Jamila Ahmed
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/17
date added: 2023/07/17
shelves:
review:

]]> The Talk 61796675 Winner of the NAACP Image Award in Outstanding Graphic Novels
Winner of an Alex Award from the American Library Association
Winner of the Libby Award for Best Comic/Graphic Novel of the Year
Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in Nonfiction
Nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Graphic Memoir
Nominated for an Ignatz Award for Outstanding Graphic Novel
Named The Year's Best Graphic Novel by Publishers Weekly
Named one of Publishers Weekly's Top Ten Best Books of 2023
Named one of NPR's Books We Love
Named one of Kirkus ' Best 2023 Books
Named one of the Washington Post's 10 best graphic novels of 2023
One of TIME Magazine's Must-Read Books of the Year
Shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction 2024
Booklist Editors' Choice: Graphic Novels, 2023
New York Public Library's Best New Comics of 2023 Top Ten Pick
Chicago Public Library's Best Books of 2023 Top Ten Pick
Named one of School Library Journal's Best Graphic Novels of 2023
Named one of The Guardian's Best Graphic Novels of 2023

Darrin Bell was six years old when his mother told him he couldn’t have a realistic water gun. She said she feared for his safety, that police tend to think of little Black boys as older and less innocent than they really are.

Through evocative illustrations and sharp humor, Bell examines how The Talk shaped intimate and public moments from childhood to adulthood. While coming of age in Los Angeles—and finding a voice through cartooning—Bell becomes painfully aware of being regarded as dangerous by white teachers, neighbors, and police officers and thus of his mortality. Drawing attention to the brutal murders of African Americans and showcasing revealing insights and cartoons along the way, he brings us up to the moment of reckoning when people took to the streets protesting the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. And now Bell must decide whether he and his own six-year-old son are ready to have The Talk.]]> 352 Darrin Bell 1250805147 Henry Holt 5 4.64 2023 The Talk
author: Darrin Bell
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.64
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/14
date added: 2023/06/14
shelves:
review:

]]> Through the Groves: A Memoir 13167779 �Hypnotic and tender, this book reminds us that even if we leave our homes, our homes never leave us.�
—Oprah Daily

“[Hull] has that sly eye for sublime details, but also a killer instinct for tight storytelling.�
�Carl Hiaasen, New York Times Book Review

A richly evocative coming-of-age memoir set in the Florida orange groves of the 1960s by a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist

Anne Hull grew up in rural Central Florida, barefoot half the time and running through the orange groves her father’s family had worked for generations. The ground trembled from the vibrations of bulldozers and jackhammers clearing land for Walt Disney World. “Look now,� her father told her as they rode through the mossy landscape together. “It will all be gone.� But the real threat was at home, where Hull was pulled between her idealistic but self-destructive father and her mother, a glamorous outsider from Brooklyn struggling with her own aspirations. All the while, Hull felt the pressures of girlhood closing in. She dreamed of becoming a traveling salesman who ate in motel coffee shops, accompanied by her baton-twirling babysitter. As her sexual identity took shape, Hull knew the place she loved would never love her back and began plotting her escape.

Here, Hull captures it all—the smells and sounds of a disappearing way of life, the secret rituals and rhythms of a doomed family, the casual racism of the rural South in the 1960s, and the suffocating expectations placed on girls and women.

Vividly atmospheric and haunting, Through the Groves will speak to anyone who’s ever left home to cut a path of their own.]]> 224 Anne Hull 0805093370 Henry Holt 5 3.79 2023 Through the Groves: A Memoir
author: Anne Hull
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/14
date added: 2023/06/14
shelves:
review:

]]> The Guest Room 61796663 Tess has a bad habit. She can’t stop snooping through her guests' belongings . . .

When Tess is forced to rent out her late sister’s old room to pay the bills, the urge to rummage through her guests� belongings overtakes her every thought. Teasing herself with forbidden glimpses into the lives of strangers is a momentary thrill, but it’s the closest she’s felt to anyone since the mysterious death of her sister, Rosie.

After her newest lodger, Arran, takes the room, Tess finds his salaciously detailed diary, which chronicles his infatuation with a beautiful stranger. The diary, which appears harmless at first, slowly takes a darker, more menacing tone with each new entry. Is this a crush or an obsession?

Her compulsion to know the truth leads to Tess shadowing Arran through the streets of London, hoping to catch a glimpse of this unnamed woman. And as she continues to peruse his diary, she can’t help but notice the similarities between the woman on the pages and herself.

Tasha Sylva's thrilling debut, perfect for readers of A.J. Finn and Lucy Foley, will keep you asking, Who has truly been watching whom?]]> 368 Tasha Sylva 1250863953 Henry Holt 5 3.28 2023 The Guest Room
author: Tasha Sylva
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/03
date added: 2023/06/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?]]> 61796683 REESE'S BOOK CLUB MAY 2023 PICK

BOOK OF THE MONTH MAY 2023 PICK

A multigenerational saga that traverses the glamour of old Hollywood and the seductive draw of modern-day showbiz

When Kitty Karr Tate, a White icon of the silver screen, dies and bequeaths her multimillion-dollar estate to the St. John sisters, three young, wealthy Black women, it prompts questions. Lots of questions.

A celebrity in her own right, Elise St. John would rather focus on sorting out Kitty’s affairs than deal with the press. But what she discovers in one of Kitty’s journals rocks her world harder than any other brewing scandal could—and between a cheating fiancé and the fallout from a controversial social media post, there are plenty.

The truth behind Kitty's ascent to stardom from her beginnings in the segregated South threatens to expose a web of unexpected family ties, debts owed, and debatable crimes that could, with one pull, unravel the all-American fabric of the St. John sisters and those closest to them.

As Elise digs deeper into Kitty's past, she must also turn the lens upon herself, confronting the gifts and burdens of her own choices and the power that the secrets of the dead hold over the living. Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? is a sprawling page-turner set against the backdrop of the Hollywood machine, an insightful and nuanced look at the inheritances of family, race, and gender—and the choices some women make to break free of them.]]> 416 Crystal Smith Paul 1250815304 Henry Holt 5 summer-2023 3.70 2023 Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?
author: Crystal Smith Paul
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/03
date added: 2023/06/03
shelves: summer-2023
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Daddy Diaries: The Year I Grew Up]]> 63132337 The Instant New York Times Bestseller!

New York Times bestselling author Andy Cohen goes from bottle service to baby bottles in a hilarious, heartwarming, and name-dropping account of the most important year of his life.

Andy Cohen has taken on the most important job of his life—father� and boy (and girl!) does he have a lot to say about it!

One of Andy Cohen’s most momentous years starts off with a hangover the morning after an epic New Year’s Eve broadcast. But Andy doesn’t have time to dwell on the drama, as his role as media mogul is now matched with the responsibilities, joys, and growing pains of parenthood.

This fast-paced, mile-a-minute look behind the scenes of living the so-called glamorous life in Manhattan now takes firm aim at life at home. With a three-year-old son, Ben, and a daughter, Lucy, born in May, stories of late-night parties are replaced by early mornings with Ben, drama at the play-ground, and the musings of a single dad trying to navigate having it all. All this is set against the backdrop of constant Housewives drama, hijinks behind the scenes at Watch What Happens Live, a revolving door of famous faces, and a worried mother (and newly minted grandmother) in St. Louis.

Buckle up, bottle up, and get ready for a laugh-out-loud and surprisingly poignant look at the ways in which family changes everything and the superficial gets very real. Watch what happens!]]> 288 Andy Cohen 1250890926 Henry Holt 5 3.82 2023 The Daddy Diaries: The Year I Grew Up
author: Andy Cohen
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/03
date added: 2023/06/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better]]> 61796680 � Ezra Klein, The New York Times

A bold call to reexamine how our government operates―and sometimes fails to � from President Obama’s former deputy chief technology officer and the founder of Code for America

Just when we most need our government to work―to decarbonize our infrastructure and economy, to help the vulnerable through a pandemic, to defend ourselves against global threats―it is faltering. Government at all levels has limped into the digital age, offering online services that can feel even more cumbersome than the paperwork that preceded them and widening the gap between the policy outcomes we intend and what we get.

But it’s not more money or more tech we need. Government is hamstrung by a rigid, industrial-era culture, in which elites dictate policy from on high, disconnected from and too often disdainful of the details of implementation. Lofty goals morph unrecognizably as they cascade through a complex hierarchy. But there is an approach taking hold that keeps pace with today’s world and reclaims government for the people it is supposed to serve. Jennifer Pahlka shows why we must stop trying to move the government we have today onto new technology and instead consider what it would mean to truly recode American government.]]> 336 Jennifer Pahlka 1250266777 Henry Holt 5 summer-2023 4.40 2023 Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better
author: Jennifer Pahlka
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/03
date added: 2023/06/03
shelves: summer-2023
review:

]]> Tell Me Everything 62971594 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A Washington Post best celebrity memoir of 2023
An Audible best celebrity memoir of 2023

“A timely, urgent portrait of working-class American women.�
—Gabrielle Union

In her highly anticipated memoir Tell Me Everything, Minka Kelly shares a story as powerful as it is page-turning.

Fans know her as the spoiled, rich cheerleader Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights or as the affluent, mysterious Samantha on the HBO megahit Euphoria. But as revealed for the first time in these pages, Minka Kelly’s life has been anything but easy.

Raised by a single mother who worked as a stripper and struggled with addiction, Minka spent years waking up in strange apartments as she and her mom bounced around the country, relying on friends and relatives to take them in. At times they even lived in storage units. She reconnected with her father, Aerosmith’s Rick Dufay, and eventually made her way to Los Angeles, where she landed the role of a lifetime on Friday Night Lights.

Now an established actress and philanthropist, Minka takes this next step in her career as a writer. She has poured her soul into the pages of this book, which ultimately tells a story of triumph over adversity, and how resilience and love are all we have in the end.]]> 288 Minka Kelly 1250852064 Henry Holt 5 summer-2023 4.30 2023 Tell Me Everything
author: Minka Kelly
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/09
date added: 2023/05/04
shelves: summer-2023
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy]]> 60784541 A Fortune best nonfiction book of 2023

In a revelatory dispatch from the frontier of capitalist extremism, an acclaimed historian of ideas shows how free marketeers are realizing their ultimate goal: an end to nation-states and the constraints of democracy.

Look at a map of the world and you’ll see a colorful checkerboard of nation-states. But this is not where power actually resides. Over the last decade, globalization has shattered the map into different legal spaces: free ports, tax havens, special economic zones. With the new spaces, ultracapitalists have started to believe that it is possible to escape the bonds of democratic government and oversight altogether.

Crack-Up Capitalism follows the most notorious radical libertarians—from Milton Friedman to Peter Thiel—around the globe as they search for the perfect space for capitalism. Historian Quinn Slobodian leads us from Hong Kong in the 1970s to South Africa in the late days of apartheid, from the neo-Confederate South to the former frontier of the American West, from the medieval City of London to the gold vaults of right-wing billionaires, and finally into the world’s oceans and war zones, charting the relentless quest for a blank slate where market competition is unfettered by democracy.

A masterful work of economic and intellectual history, Crack-Up Capitalism offers both a new way of looking at the world and a new vision of coming threats. Full of rich details and provocative analysis, Crack-Up Capitalism offers an alarming view of a possible future.]]> 352 Quinn Slobodian 1250753899 Henry Holt 0 winter-2023 4.11 2023 Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy
author: Quinn Slobodian
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/04
shelves: winter-2023
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture]]> 61144950 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A Book Riot best book of 2023
A Science Friday best book of 2023
An Audible best well-being audiobook of 2023

By the time they reach kindergarten, most kids believe that “fat� is bad. By middle school, more than a quarter of them have gone on a diet. What are parents supposed to do?

Kids learn, as we’ve all learned, that thinness is a survival strategy in a world that equates body size and value. Parents worry if their kids care too much about being thin, but even more about the consequences if they aren’t. And multibillion-dollar industries thrive on this fear of fatness. We’ve fought the “war on obesity� for over forty years and Americans aren’t thinner or happier with their bodies. But it’s not our kids—or their weight—who need fixing.

In this illuminating narrative, journalist Virginia Sole-Smith exposes the daily onslaught of fatphobia and body shaming that kids face from school, sports, doctors, diet culture, and parents themselves—and offers strategies for how families can change the conversation around weight, health, and self-worth.

Fat Talk is a stirring, deeply researched, and groundbreaking book that will help parents learn to reckon with their own body biases, identify diet culture, and empower their kids to navigate this challenging landscape. Sole-Smith draws on her extensive reporting and interviews with dozens of parents and kids to offer a provocative new approach for thinking about food and bodies, and a way for us all to work toward a more weight-inclusive world.]]> 384 Virginia Sole-Smith 1250831210 Henry Holt 5 winter-2023 4.28 2023 Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture
author: Virginia Sole-Smith
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/14
date added: 2023/05/04
shelves: winter-2023
review:

]]> <![CDATA[STFU: The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World]]> 60741798 “Entertaining, illuminating, and inspiring! More than a book, it’s a public service announcement that we’d all do well to―well, STFU and listen to!�
―Sarah Knight, New York Times bestselling author of Calm the F*ck Down
New York Times bestselling author Dan Lyons is here to tell you - and don't take this the wrong way - that you really need to shut the f*ck up!

Our noisy world has trained us to think that those who get in the last word win, when in fact it’s those who know how to stay silent who really hold the power. STFU is a book that unlocks this power and will change your life, freeing you to focus on what matters. Lyons combines leading behavioral science with actionable advice on how to communicate with intent, think critically, and open your mind and ears to the world around you.

Talk less, get more. That’s what STFU is all about. Prescriptive, informative, and addictively readable, STFU gives you the tools to become your better self, whether that’s in the office, at home, online, or in your most treasured relationships. Because, after all, what you say is who you are.

So take a deep breath, turn the page, and quietly change your life.]]> 272 Dan Lyons 1250850347 Henry Holt 5 winter-2023 3.73 2023 STFU: The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World
author: Dan Lyons
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/09
date added: 2023/05/04
shelves: winter-2023
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking]]> 60505565 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Audie Award Finalist
An Amazon best business and leadership book of 2023

Win Every Argument shows how anyone can communicate with confidence, rise above the tit for tats on social media, and triumph in a successful and productive debate in the real world.

MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan isn’t one to avoid arguments. He relishes them as the lifeblood of democracy and the only surefire way to establish the truth. Arguments help us solve problems, uncover new ideas we might not have considered, and nudge our disagreements toward mutual understanding. A good argument, made in good faith, has intrinsic value—and can also simply be fun.

Arguments are everywhere—and especially given the fierce debates we’re all embroiled in today, everyone wants to win. In this riveting guide to the art of argument and rhetoric, Hasan shows you how. As a journalist, anchor, and interviewer who has clashed with politicians, generals, spy chiefs, and celebrities from across the world, Hasan reveals his tricks of the trade for the first time.

Whether you are making a presentation at work or debating current political issues with a friend, Mehdi Hasan will teach you how to sharpen your speaking skills to make the winning case.]]> 336 Mehdi Hasan 1250853478 Henry Holt 5 winter-2023 4.02 2023 Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking
author: Mehdi Hasan
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/05/04
shelves: winter-2023
review:

]]> Promises of Gold 60784597 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
Named one of NPR's Books We Love

“How many bad lovers have gotten poems? How many crushes? No disrespect to romantic love�but what about our friends ? Those homies who are there all along—cheering for us and reminding us that love is abundant.�

In this groundbreaking collection of poems, José Olivarez explores every kind of love—self, brotherly, romantic, familial, cultural. Grappling with the contradictions of the American Dream with unflinching humanity, he lays bare the ways in which “love is complicated by forces larger than our hearts.�

Whether readers enter this collection in English or via the Spanish translation by poet David Ruano González, these extraordinary poems are sure to become beloved for their illuminations of life—and love.

“¿Cuántas malas parejas han inspirado poemas? ¿Cuántos crush es? Sin faltarle el respeto al amor romántico—pero ¿qué hay de los amigos? Esos compas que están ahí todo el tiempo—animándonos y recordándonos que elamor es abundante�.

En esta innovadora colección de poemas, José Olivarez explora cada tipo de amor—el propio, fraternal, romántico, familiar, cultural. Lidiando con las contradicciones del sueño americano, con una humanidad inquebrantable, deja al descubierto las maneras en que “el amor se va complicando por fuerzas más grandes que nuestros corazones�.

Ya sea que los lectores entren a esta colección en inglés o a partir de la traducción al español del poeta David Ruano González, estos extraordinarios poemas serán amados seguramente por sus iluminaciones sobre el amor y la vida.]]> 320 José Olivarez 1250878497 Henry Holt 5 winter-2023 4.37 2023 Promises of Gold
author: José Olivarez
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/09
date added: 2023/05/04
shelves: winter-2023
review:

]]> The End of Drum-Time 60741781 FINALIST FOR THE 2023 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

An epic love story in the vein of Cold Mountain and The Great Circle, about a young reindeer herder and a minister’s daughter in the nineteenth century Arctic Circle

In 1851, at a remote village in the Scandinavian tundra, a Lutheran minister known as Mad Lasse tries in vain to convert the native Sámi reindeer herders to his faith. But when one of the most respected herders has a dramatic awakening and dedicates his life to the church, his impetuous son, Ivvár, is left to guard their diminishing herd alone. By chance, he meets Mad Lasse’s daughter Willa, and their blossoming infatuation grows into something that ultimately crosses borders—of cultures, of beliefs, and of political divides—as Willa follows the herders on their arduous annual migration north to the sea.

Gorgeously written and sweeping in scope, Hanna Pylväinen's The End of Drum-Time immerses readers in a world lit by the northern lights, steeped in age-old rituals, and guided by passions that transcend place and time.]]> 368 Hanna Pylväinen 1250822904 Henry Holt 5 winter-2023 3.88 2023 The End of Drum-Time
author: Hanna Pylväinen
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/09
date added: 2023/05/04
shelves: winter-2023
review:

]]> <![CDATA[It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs]]> 60741787 An Instant New York Times Bestseller

“This voice-driven, relatable, heartfelt and emotional story will make any parent tear up.�
—Good Morning America, �15 Delightful Books Perfect for Spring Reading�

Operating Instructions meets Glennon Doyle in this new book by famed NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly that is destined to become a classic—about the year before her son goes to college—and the joys, losses and surprises that happen along the way.

The time for do-overs is over.

Ever since she became a parent, Mary Louise Kelly has said “next year.� Next year will be the year she makes it to her son James’s soccer games (which are on weekdays at 4 p.m., right when she is on the air on NPR’s All Things Considered, talking to millions of listeners). Drive carpool for her son Alexander? Not if she wants to do that story about Ukraine and interview the secretary of state. Like millions of parents who wrestle with raising children while pursuing a career, she has never been cavalier about these decisions. The bargain she has always made with herself is this: this time I’ll get on the plane, and next year I’ll find a way to be there for the mom stuff.

Well, James and Alexander are now seventeen and fifteen, and a realization has overtaken Mary Louise: her older son will be leaving soon for college. There used to be years to make good on her promises; now, there are months, weeks, minutes. And with the devastating death of her beloved father, Mary Louise is facing act three of her life head-on.

Mary Louise is coming to grips with the reality every parent faces. Childhood has a definite expiration date. You have only so many years with your kids before they leave your house to build their own lives. It’s what every parent is supposed to want, what they raise their children to do. But it is bittersweet. Mary Louise is also dealing with the realities of having aging parents. This pivotal time brings with it the enormous questions of what you did right and what you did wrong.

This chronicle of her eldest child’s final year at home, of losing her father, as well as other curve balls thrown at her, is not a definitive answer―not for herself and certainly not for any other parent. But her questions, her issues, will resonate with every parent. And, yes, especially with mothers, who are judged more harshly by society and, more important, judge themselves more harshly. What would she do if she had to decide all over again?

Mary Louise’s thoughts as she faces the coming year will speak to anyone who has ever cared about a child or a parent. It. Goes. So. Fast. is honest, funny, poignant, revelatory, and immensely relatable.]]> 240 Mary Louise Kelly 1250859859 Henry Holt 5 winter-2023 3.84 2023 It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs
author: Mary Louise Kelly
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/14
date added: 2023/05/04
shelves: winter-2023
review:

]]> Kantika 60741785 A dazzling Sephardic multigenerational saga that moves from Istanbul to Barcelona, Havana, and New York, exploring displacement, endurance, and family as home.

A kaleidoscopic portrait of one family’s displacement across four countries, Kantika—“song� in Ladino—follows the joys and losses of Rebecca Cohen, feisty daughter of the Sephardic elite of early 20th-century Istanbul. When the Cohens lose their wealth and are forced to move to Barcelona and start anew, Rebecca fashions a life and self from what comes her way—a failed marriage, the need to earn a living, but also passion, pleasure and motherhood. Moving from Spain to Cuba to New York for an arranged second marriage, she faces her greatest challenge—her disabled stepdaughter, Luna, whose feistiness equals her own and whose challenges pit new family against old.

Exploring identity, place and exile, Kantika also reveals how the female body—in work, art and love—serves as a site of both suffering and joy. A haunting, inspiring meditation on the tenacity of women, this lush, lyrical novel from Elizabeth Graver celebrates the insistence on seizing beauty and grabbing hold of one’s one and only life.]]> 304 Elizabeth Graver 1250869846 Henry Holt 0 3.96 2023 Kantika
author: Elizabeth Graver
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2023/05/04
date added: 2023/05/04
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Waco Rising: David Koresh, the FBI, and the Birth of America's Modern Militias]]> 60741802 Named one of The New Yorker's "Best Books of 2023"

A news-making account of the war between David Koresh’s Branch Davidians and the FBI, and how their standoff launched today’s militias

In 1993, David Koresh and a band of heavily armed evangelical Christians took on the might of the US government. A two-month siege of their compound in Waco, Texas, ended in a firefight that killed seventy-six, including twenty-five children. America is still picking up the pieces, and we still haven’t heard the full story.

Kevin Cook, who revealed the truth behind a mythic, misunderstood murder in his 2014 Kitty Genovese, finally provides the full story of what happened at Waco. He gives readers a taste of Koresh’s deadly charisma and takes us behind the scenes at the Branch Davidians� compound, where “the new Christ� turned his followers into servants and sired seventeen children by a dozen “wives.� In vivid accounts packed with human drama, Cook harnesses never-reported material to reconstruct the FBI’s fifty-one-day siege of the Waco compound in minute-to-minute detail. He sheds new light on the Clinton administration’s approval of a lethal governmental assault in a new, definitive account of the firefight that ended so many lives and triggered the rise of today’s militia movement. Waco drew the battle lines for American extremists—in Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh’s words, “Waco started this war.� With help from sources as diverse as Branch Davidian survivors and the FBI’s lead negotiator during the siege, Cook draws a straight line from Waco’s ashes to the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol and insurrections yet to come.

Unmissable reading for anyone interested in the truth of what happened in Texas three decades ago, Waco Rising is chillingly relevant today. Here is the spark that ignited today’s antigovernment militias.]]> 288 Kevin Cook 125084052X Henry Holt 5 3.85 2023 Waco Rising: David Koresh, the FBI, and the Birth of America's Modern Militias
author: Kevin Cook
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/05/04
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]]> <![CDATA[A Diary of the Plague Year: An Illustrated Chronicle of 2020]]> 56347308
Artist Elise Engler set herself a task five years to illustrate the first headline she heard on her bedside radio every morning. The idea was to create a pictorial record of one year of listening to the news. But when Donald Trump was elected, the headlines turned too wild for her to stop the experiment.

Then 2020 happened. Was there ever such a year? Headlines about the death of Kobe Bryant and Donald Trump's impeachment began to give way to news of a mysterious virus in China, and Engler’s pages were quickly filled with the march of schools closing their doors, hospitals overflowing, graveyards full to capacity. Day by day, Engler drew every shocking turn of the the police murder of George Floyd and protests around the globe; a war against science and those who preached it; fires consuming California; a vicious election, absurdly contested. Other stories appeared, “Harvey Weinstein Sentenced,� “Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospitalized,� “China Extends Control over Hong Kong,� and―on repeat―“Stock Market Plunges.�

The result is a powerful visual record of an unprecedented time, collected in A Diary of the Plague Year , which follows the headlines from the first appearance of the coronavirus to the inauguration of President Joe Biden. Made in real time, Engler’s vibrant, immediate images recapture what it was like to live through 2020, bringing texture, feeling, and even charm to what we might not remember and what we will never forget.]]> 304 Elise Engler 1250824699 Henry Holt 0 winter-2022 3.78 2022 A Diary of the Plague Year: An Illustrated Chronicle of 2020
author: Elise Engler
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/04
shelves: winter-2022
review:

]]> Rouge Street: Three Novellas 57771220 Already compared to Hemingway and Murakami, Shuang Xuetao is one of the most highly celebrated young Chinese writers—his English-language debut Rouge Street collects three dazzling novellas of Northeast China, mixing realism, mysticism, and noir

An enterprising inventor dreams of escaping his drab surroundings in a flying machine. A criminal, trapped beneath a frozen lake, transforms into a giant fish. A strange girl pledges to ignite a field of sorghum stalks.

Rouge Street collects three novellas by Shuang Xuetao, the lauded young Chinese writer whose frank, fantastical short fiction has already inspired comparisons to Ernest Hemingway and Haruki Murakami. Located in China’s frigid Northeast, Shenyang, the author’s birthplace, boasts an illustrious past—legend holds that the emperor’s makeup was manufactured here. But while the city enjoyed renewed importance as an industrial hub under Mao Zedong, China’s subsequent transition from communism to a private economy led to an array of social ills—unemployment, poverty, alcoholism, domestic violence, divorce, suicide—which gritty Shenyang epitomizes.

Orbiting the toughest neighborhood of a postindustrial city whose vast, inhospitable landscape makes every aspect of life a struggle, these many-voiced missives are united by Shuang Xuetao’s singular style—one which balances hardscrabble naturalism with the transcendent, and faces the bleak environs with winning humor. Lyrical, masterful, Rouge Street illuminates not only the hidden pains of those left behind in an extraordinary economic boom, but also the unlikely, nourishing grace they, nevertheless, manage to discover.]]> 240 Shuang Xuetao 1250835879 Henry Holt 0 winter-2022 3.82 2022 Rouge Street: Three Novellas
author: Shuang Xuetao
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/04
shelves: winter-2022
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]]> Age of Cage 56347309
Nicolas Cage is many things, but love him, or laugh at him, there's no denying two things: you’ve seen one of his many films, and you certainly know his name. But who is he, really, and why has his career endured for over forty years, with more than a hundred films, and birthed a million memes?

Age of Cage is a smart, beguiling book about the films of Nicolas Cage and the actor himself, as well as a sharp-eyed examination of the changes that have taken place in Hollywood over the course of his career. Critic and journalist Keith Phipps draws a portrait of the enigmatic icon by looking at―what else?―Cage’s expansive filmography.

As Phipps delights in charting Cage’s films, Age of Cage also chronicles the transformation of film, as Cage’s journey takes him through the world of 1980s comedies (Valley Girl, Peggy Sue Got Married, Moonstruck), to the indie films and blockbuster juggernauts of the 1990s (Wild at Heart, Leaving Las Vegas, Face/Off, Con Air), through the wild and unpredictable video-on-demand world of today.

Sweeping in scope and intimate in its profile of a fiercely passionate artist, Age of Cage is, like the man himself, surprising, insightful, funny, and one of a kind. So, snap out of it, and enjoy this appreciation of Nicolas Cage, national treasure.]]> 267 Keith Phipps 1250773040 Henry Holt 0 winter-2022 3.74 2022 Age of Cage
author: Keith Phipps
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/04
shelves: winter-2022
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]]> <![CDATA[Lorraine Hansberry: The Life Behind A Raisin in the Sun]]> 49672267 The moving story of the life of the woman behind A Raisin in the Sun, the most widely anthologized, read, and performed play of the American stage, by the New York Times bestselling author of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee

Written when she was just twenty-eight, Lorraine Hansberry’s landmark A Raisin in the Sun is listed by the National Theatre as one of the hundred most significant works of the twentieth century. Hansberry was the first Black woman to have a play performed on Broadway, and the first Black and youngest American playwright to win a New York Critics� Circle Award.

Charles J. Shields’s authoritative biography of one of the twentieth century’s most admired playwrights examines the parts of Lorraine Hansberry’s life that have escaped public knowledge: the influence of her upper-class background, her fight for peace and nuclear disarmament, the reason why she embraced Communism during the Cold War, and her dependence on her white husband—her best friend, critic, and promoter. Many of the identity issues about class, sexuality, and race that she struggled with are relevant and urgent today.

This dramatic telling of a passionate life—a very American life through self-reinvention—uses previously unpublished interviews with close friends in politics and theater, privately held correspondence, and deep research to reconcile old mysteries and raise new questions about a life not fully described until now.]]> 384 Charles J. Shields 1250205530 Henry Holt 5 winter-2022 3.73 2022 Lorraine Hansberry: The Life Behind A Raisin in the Sun
author: Charles J. Shields
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2022
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/05/04
shelves: winter-2022
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]]> Chevy in the Hole 57771221 Named a Michigan Notable Book for 2023
Finalist for the 2022 Heartland Booksellers Award

A gorgeous, unflinching love letter to Flint, Michigan, and the resilience of its people, Kelsey Ronan's Chevy in the Hole follows multiple generations of two families making their homes there, with a stunning contemporary love story at its center.

In the opening pages of Chevy in the Hole , August “Gus� Molloy has just overdosed in a bathroom stall of the Detroit farm-to-table restaurant where he works. Shortly after, he packs it in and returns home to his family in Flint. This latest slip and recommitment to sobriety doesn’t feel too terribly different from the others, until Gus meets Monae, an urban farmer trying to coax a tenuous rebirth from the city’s damaged land. Through her eyes, he sees what might be possible in a city everyone else seems to have forgotten or, worse, given up on. But as they begin dreaming up an oasis together, even the most essential resources can’t be counted on.

Woven throughout their story are the stories of their families―Gus’s white and Monae’s Black―members of which have had their own triumphs and devastating setbacks trying to survive and thrive in Flint. A novel about the things that change over time and the things that don’t, Chevy in the Hole reminds us again and again what people need from one another and from the city they call home.]]> 304 Kelsey Ronan 125080390X Henry Holt 0 winter-2022 3.50 2022 Chevy in the Hole
author: Kelsey Ronan
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/04
shelves: winter-2022
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]]> Cost of Living: Essays 57771230 The searing intimacy of Girl, Interrupted combined with the uncomfortable truths of The Empathy Exams in a collection of essays chronicling one woman’s experiences as both patient and caregiver, giving a unique perspective from both sides of the hospital bed.

What does it cost to live?

When we fall ill, our lives are itemized on a spreadsheet. A thousand dollars for a broken leg, a few hundred for a nasty cut while cooking dinner. Then there are the greater costs for even greater misfortunes. The car accidents, breast cancers, blood diseases, and dark depressions.

When Emily Maloney was nineteen she tried to kill herself. An act that would not only cost a great deal personally, but also financially, sending her down a dark spiral of misdiagnoses, years spent in and out of hospitals and doctor’s offices, and tens of thousands owed in medical debt. To work to pay off this crippling burden, Emily becomes an emergency room technician. Doing the grunt work in a hospital, and taking care of patients at their most vulnerable moments, chronicling these interactions in searingly beautiful, surprising ways.

Shocking and often slyly humorous, Cost of Living is a brilliant examination of just what exactly our troubled healthcare system asks us to pay, as well as a look at what goes on behind the scenes at our hospitals and in the minds of caregivers.]]> 240 Emily Maloney 1250213290 Henry Holt 0 winter-2022 3.57 2022 Cost of Living: Essays
author: Emily Maloney
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/04
shelves: winter-2022
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]]> Sleepwalk 57771216 A high speed and darkly comic road trip through a near future America with a big hearted mercenary, from beloved and acclaimed novelist Dan Chaon

³§±ô±ð±ð±è·É²¹±ô°ì’s hero, Will Bear, is a man with so many aliases that he simply thinks of himself as the Barely Blur. At fifty years old, he’s been living off the grid for over half his life. He’s never had a real job, never paid taxes, never been in a committed relationship. A good-natured henchman with a complicated and lonely past and an LSD microdosing problem, he spends his time hopscotching across state lines in his beloved camper van, running sometimes shady, often dangerous errands for a powerful and ruthless operation he’s never troubled himself to learn too much about. He has lots of connections, but no true ties. His longest relationships are with an old rescue dog with posttraumatic stress, and a childhood friend as deeply entrenched in the underworld as he is, who, lately, he’s less and less sure he can trust.

Out of the blue, one of his many burner phones heralds a call from a twenty-year-old woman claiming to be his biological daughter, Cammie. She says she’s the product of one of his long-ago sperm donations; he’s half certain she’s AI. She needs his help. She’s entrenched in a widespread and nefarious plot involving Will’s employers, and continuing to have any contact with her increasingly fuzzes the line between the people Will is working for and the people he’s running from.

With his signature blend of haunting emotional realism and fast-paced intrigue, Chaon populates his fractured America with characters who ring all too true. Gazing both back to the past and forward to an inevitable enough seeming future, Sleepwalk examines where we’ve been and where we’re going, and the curses and joys of being human that will never change, no matter how far we travel to dodge them, or how cleverly we hide.]]> 320 Dan Chaon 1250175216 Henry Holt 5 spring-2022 3.61 2022 Sleepwalk
author: Dan Chaon
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2022
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/05/04
shelves: spring-2022
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]]> <![CDATA[The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Change Your World]]> 57771229
What you believe can make it so.

You’ve heard of the placebo effect and how sugar pills can accelerate healing. But did you know that sham heart surgeries often work just as well as placing real stents? Or that people who think they’re particularly prone to cardiovascular disease are four times as likely to die from cardiac arrest? Such is the power and deadly importance of the expectation effect—how what we think will happen changes what does happen.

Melding neuroscience with narrative, science journalist David Robson takes readers on a deep dive into the many life zones the expectation effect permeates. We see how people who believe stress is beneficial become more creative when placed under strain. We see how associating aging with wisdom can add seven plus years to your life. People say seeing is believing but, over and over, Robson proves that the converse is truer: believing is seeing.

The Expectation Effect is not woo-woo. You cannot think your way into a pile of money or out of a cancer diagnosis. But just because magical thinking is nonsense doesn’t mean rational magic doesn’t exist. Pointing to accepted psychology and objective physiology, Robson gives us the practical takeaways we need to improve our fitness, productivity, intelligence, and happiness.]]> 336 David Robson 1250827639 Henry Holt 0 winter-2022 4.14 2022 The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Change Your World
author: David Robson
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/04
shelves: winter-2022
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]]> <![CDATA[Start Without Me (I'll Be There in a Minute)]]> 56347312 From New York Times bestselling author Gary Janetti comes Start Without Me, a collection of hilarious, laugh out loud, true life stories about the small moments that add up to a big life.

Gary Janetti is bothered. By a lot of things. And thank God he’s here to tell us.

In Start Without Me, Gary returns with his acid tongue firmly in cheek to the moments and times that defined him. He takes us by the hand as we follow him through the summers he spends in his twenties, pursuing both the perfect tan and the perfect man to no avail and much regret. At his Catholic high school, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with a nun who shares Gary's love of soap operas, which becomes a salvation to them both. And don't get him started on how a bad hotel room can ruin even the best vacation. This laugh-out-loud collection of true-life stories from the man “behind his generation’s greatest comedy� (The New York Times) is for anyone who has felt the joy in holding a decade-long grudge.

Whether you are a new convert to Janetti or one of the million who follow him on social media for a daily laugh, Start Without Me will have you howling at Gary's frustrations and nodding along in agreement at the outrages of life's small slights. It's the literary equivalent of a night out with your funniest friend that you wish would never end.]]> 208 Gary Janetti 125022585X Henry Holt 0 winter-2022 3.87 2022 Start Without Me (I'll Be There in a Minute)
author: Gary Janetti
name: Henry Holt
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/04
shelves: winter-2022
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