en-US Sat, 01 Mar 2025 09:18:54 -0800 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 60730951 "Men see women in two separate categories. There are the women they sleep with, and the women they fall in love with. And they will treat you differently based on that."

From the day they first meet as teenagers Fern and Jessica are best friends. Despite their differences, they are there for each other throughout everything, navigating the difficulties of growing up and fitting in. That is until Jessica crosses a line that Fern can't forgive.

But now, more than ten years later, Jessica has unexpectedly reappeared in Fern's life.

A lot has changed for them both - but can their relationship be different now they are older? Is it possible for either of them to rewrite the role that they have been cast in? Or will their shared history ultimately be doomed to repeat itself again?

Set between the present day and the past, GIRL FRIENDS is a blisteringly funny and devastating novel: both a joyful celebration of female friendship and a razor-sharp look at the damage we can all cause to those we claim to love the most.]]> 448 Holly Bourne 1529301572 Jem 0 to-read, romance-friendship 4.07 2022
author: Holly Bourne
name: Jem
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: to-read, romance-friendship
review:

]]> 11588 497 Stephen King 0450040186 Jem 0 to-read 4.28 1977
author: Stephen King
name: Jem
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1977
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 21686 369 Dennis Lehane 038073186X Jem 0 to-read, crime-mystery 4.12 2003
author: Dennis Lehane
name: Jem
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: to-read, crime-mystery
review:

]]> 21671
Twenty-five years later, Sean is a homicide detective. Jimmy is an ex-con who owns a corner store. And Dave is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay -- demons that urge him to do terrible things. When Jimmy's daughter is found murdered, Sean is assigned to the case. His investigation brings him into conflict with Jimmy, who finds his old criminal impulses tempt him to solve the crime with brutal justice. And then there is Dave, who came home the night Jimmy's daughter died covered in someone else's blood.

A tense and unnerving psychological thriller, Mystic River is also an epic novel of love and loyalty, faith and family, in which people irrevocably marked by the past find themselves on a collision course with the darkest truths of their own hidden selves.]]> 416 Dennis Lehane 0060584750 Jem 0 to-read 4.17 2001
author: Dennis Lehane
name: Jem
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 200539015 My heart has made its mind up
And I'm afraid it's you.

The Orange and Other Poems provides the perfect introduction to Wendy Cope, one of Britain's wittiest, best-selling, and best-loved poets.

In poems that go from laugh-out-loud funny to deeply moving, Cope offers reflections on love and life. From the joy of falling—and being—in love to how to manage a painful break-up to cherishing the memories of people loved and lost, this is a collection to savour and share.]]> 53 Wendy Cope 057138952X Jem 0 to-read, poetry 4.14 2023
author: Wendy Cope
name: Jem
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/07
shelves: to-read, poetry
review:

]]> 424055 94 Franz Kafka 1600964222 Jem 0 3.83 1915
author: Franz Kafka
name: Jem
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1915
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/04
date added: 2024/10/04
shelves: culture-sociology, ethics-morality, loss-grief-trauma, renowned, classics, books-i-own
review:

]]> 40672036
In this timely and enlightening book, the bestselling author of Deep Work introduces a philosophy for technology use that has already improved countless lives.

Digital minimalists are all around us. They're the calm, happy people who can hold long conversations without furtive glances at their phones. They can get lost in a good book, a woodworking project, or a leisurely morning run. They can have fun with friends and family without the obsessive urge to document the experience. They stay informed about the news of the day, but don't feel overwhelmed by it. They don't experience "fear of missing out" because they already know which activities provide them meaning and satisfaction.

Now, Newport gives us a name for this quiet movement, and makes a persuasive case for its urgency in our tech-saturated world. Common sense tips, like turning off notifications, or occasional rituals like observing a digital sabbath, don't go far enough in helping us take back control of our technological lives, and attempts to unplug completely are complicated by the demands of family, friends and work. What we need instead is a thoughtful method to decide what tools to use, for what purposes, and under what conditions.

Drawing on a diverse array of real-life examples, from Amish farmers to harried parents to Silicon Valley programmers, Newport identifies the common practices of digital minimalists and the ideas that underpin them. He shows how digital minimalists are rethinking their relationship to social media, rediscovering the pleasures of the offline world, and reconnecting with their inner selves through regular periods of solitude. He then shares strategies for integrating these practices into your life, starting with a thirty-day "digital declutter" process that has already helped thousands feel less overwhelmed and more in control.

Technology is intrinsically neither good nor bad. The key is using it to support your goals and values, rather than letting it use you. This book shows the way.]]> 302 Cal Newport 052553654X Jem 0 4.06 2019
author: Cal Newport
name: Jem
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/04
shelves: career, non-fiction, self-help, to-read
review:

]]> 5297
In this celebrated work Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in late-19th-century England. Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book centers on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world. For over a century, this mesmerizing tale of horror and suspense has enjoyed wide popularity. It ranks as one of Wilde's most important creations and among the classic achievements of its kind.]]> 272 Oscar Wilde Jem 0 4.13 1890
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Jem
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1890
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/04
shelves: renowned, ethics-morality, classics, crime-mystery, to-read
review:

]]> 11996 "As far back as I can recall, I have been in the bunker."

A young woman is kept in a cage underground with thirty-nine other females, guarded by armed men who never speak; her crimes unremembered... if indeed there were crimes.

The youngest of forty—a child with no name and no past—she survives for some purpose long forgotten in a world ravaged and wasted. In this reality where intimacy is forbidden—in the unrelenting sameness of the artificial days and nights—she knows nothing of books and time, of needs and feelings.

Then everything changes... and nothing changes.

A young woman who has never known men—a child who knows of no history before the bars and restraints—must now reinvent herself, piece by piece, in a place she has never been... and in the face of the most challenging and terrifying of unknowns: freedom.]]> 208 Jacqueline Harpman 0380731819 Jem 0 to-read, loss-grief-trauma 4.22 1995
author: Jacqueline Harpman
name: Jem
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/01
shelves: to-read, loss-grief-trauma
review:

]]> 480479
Frances Mayes entered a wondrous new world when she began restoring an abandoned villa in the spectacular Tuscan countryside. There were unexpected treasures at every turn: faded frescos beneath the whitewash in her dining room, a vineyard under wildly overgrown brambles in the garden, and, in the nearby hill towns, vibrant markets and delightful people. In Under the Tuscan Sun, she brings the lyrical voice of a poet, the eye of a seasoned traveler, and the discerning palate of a cook and food writer to invite readers to explore the pleasures of Italian life and to feast at her table.]]> 304 Frances Mayes 0767900383 Jem 0 to-read, travel 3.77 1996
author: Frances Mayes
name: Jem
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves: to-read, travel
review:

]]> 7697487 318 Dorothy M. Richardson 1440051437 Jem 0 3.31 1915
author: Dorothy M. Richardson
name: Jem
average rating: 3.31
book published: 1915
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/01
shelves: to-read, biographies-memoirs, classics, streams-of-consciousness
review:

]]> 2784 John Berger’s Classic Text on Art

Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and the most influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the (London) Sunday Times a critic commented: "This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures." By now he has.

"Berger has the ability to cut right through the mystification of the professional art critics . . . He is a liberator of images: and once we have allowed the paintings to work on us directly, we are in a much better position to make a meaningful evaluation" —Peter Fuller, Arts Review

"The influence of the series and the book . . . was enormous . . . It opened up for general attention to areas of cultural study that are now commonplace" —Geoff Dyer in Ways of Telling.]]> 176 John Berger 0140135154 Jem 0 3.93 1972
author: John Berger
name: Jem
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1972
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/27
shelves: art-creativity, non-fiction, philosophy, renowned
review:

]]> 24213
When Alice sees a white rabbit take a watch out of its waistcoat pocket she decides to follow it, and a sequence of most unusual events is set in motion. This mini book contains the entire topsy-turvy stories of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, accompanied by practical notes and Martina Pelouso's memorable full-colour illustrations.]]> 239 Lewis Carroll Jem 0 4.07 1871
author: Lewis Carroll
name: Jem
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1871
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/24
date added: 2024/08/24
shelves: classics, magical-realism-fantasy
review:

]]> 206305528
But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride�) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.

Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.]]> 404 Bonnie Garmus Jem 0 4.24 2022
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: Jem
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/04
shelves: to-read, cooking, gender, history, science
review:

]]> 37424706 A transformative exploration of the power, purpose, and benefits of gatherings in our lives: at work, at school, at home and beyond.

Every day we find ourselves in gatherings, Priya Parker says in The Art of Gathering. If we can understand what makes these gatherings effective and memorable, then we can reframe and redirect them to benefit everyone, host and guest alike. Parker defines a gathering as three or more people who come together for a specific purpose. When we understand why we gather, she says -- to acknowledge, to learn, to challenge, to change -- we learn how to organize gatherings that are relevant and memorable: from an effective business meeting to a thought-provoking conference; from a joyful wedding to a unifying family dinner. Drawing on her experience as a strategic facilitator who's worked with such organizations as the World Economic Forum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the retail company Fresh, Parker explains how ordinary people can create remarkable occasions, large and small. In dozens of fascinating examples, she breaks down the alchemy of these experiences to show what goes into the good ones and demonstrates how we can learn to incorporate those elements into all of our gatherings. The result is a book that's both journey and guide, full of big ideas with real-world applications that will change the way you look at a business meeting, a parent-teacher conference, and a backyard barbecue.]]> 304 Priya Parker 1594634920 Jem 0 3.96 2018
author: Priya Parker
name: Jem
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/04
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, romance-friendship
review:

]]> 62791240
Investing is a huge part of building wealth, which is why Victoria’s second book is all about learning how and why to invest, and taking confident action to create an investment portfolio that will set you up for security and prosperity later in life.

Start by understanding your money mindset, risk profile and why you can’t afford not to invest � especially if you’re a woman (thanks, gender inequality!). Dive deep into the various ways you can invest in the stock market and learn more about property investment. Discover how your superannuation has already made you an investor, and get the low-down on ethical investing before creating your own investment strategy that reflects your goals and values.

Covering all this and more, Victoria’s straightforward guidance and practical activities in Investing with She’s on the Money will have you feeling educated, empowered and ready to grow your future wealth in no time. Everyone has different starting points but it’s never too early or too late to begin your investing journey � so let’s do this!]]> 315 Victoria Devine 1760146382 Jem 0 to-read, non-fiction 3.89
author: Victoria Devine
name: Jem
average rating: 3.89
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/20
shelves: to-read, non-fiction
review:

]]> 57519711 The ultimate millennial money guide, from the creator of Australia’s #1 finance podcast.

Through her phenomenally popular and award-winning podcast, She’s on the Money, Victoria Devine has built an empowered and supportive community of women finding their way to financial freedom.

Honest, relatable, non-judgemental and motivating, Victoria is a financial adviser who knows what millennial life is really like and where we can get stuck with money stuff. (Did someone say ‘Afterpay’�?) So, to help you hit your money goals without skimping on brunch, she’s put all her expert advice into this accessible guide that will set you up for a healthy and happy future.

Learn how to be more secure, independent and informed with your money � with clear steps on how to budget, clear debts, build savings, start investing, buy property and much more. And along with all the practical information, Victoria will guide you through the sometimes-tricky psychology surrounding money so you can establish the values, habits and confidence that will help you build your wealth long-term.

Just like the podcast, the book is full of real-life money stories from members of the She’s on the Money community who candidly share their experiences, wins and lessons learned to inspire others to turn their stories around, too. And with templates and activities throughout, plus a twelve-month plan to get you started, you can immediately put Victoria’s recommendations into action in your own life.

You are not alone on your financial journey, and with the money principles in this book you’ll go further than you ever thought possible.]]> 320 Victoria Devine 1761044133 Jem 0 to-read, non-fiction 4.00
author: Victoria Devine
name: Jem
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/20
shelves: to-read, non-fiction
review:

]]> 18490 This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 9780141439471

'Now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart ...'

Obsessed with creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life with electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear. Mary Shelley's chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley near Byron's villa on Lake Geneva. It would become the world's most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity.

Based on the third edition of 1831, this volume contains all the revisions Mary Shelley made to her story, as well as her 1831 introduction and Percy Bysshe Shelley's preface to the first edition. This revised edition includes as appendices a select collation of the texts of 1818 and 1831 together with 'A Fragment' by Lord Byron and Dr John Polidori's 'The Vampyre: A Tale'.]]> 288 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Jem 0 3.77 1818
author: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
name: Jem
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1818
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/20
shelves: to-read, classics, ethics-morality, loss-grief-trauma, crime-mystery, renowned, history, books-i-own
review:

]]> 17491 213 Enid Blyton 0749748001 Jem 0 4.24 1939
author: Enid Blyton
name: Jem
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1939
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/20
date added: 2024/05/19
shelves:
review:

]]> 134119018 A history and investigation of a world ruled by algorithms, which determine the shape of culture itself.

From trendy restaurants to city grids, to TikTok and Netflix feeds the world round, algorithmic recommendations dictate our experiences and choices. The algorithm is present in the familiar neon signs and exposed brick of Internet cafes, be it in Nairobi or Portland, and the skeletal, modern furniture of Airbnbs in cities big and small. Over the last decade, this network of mathematically determined decisions has taken over, almost unnoticed—informing the songs we listen to, the friends with whom we stay in touch—as we’ve grown increasingly accustomed to our insipid new normal.

This ever-tightening web woven by algorithms is called “Filterworld.� Kyle Chayka shows us how online and offline spaces alike have been engineered for seamless consumption, becoming a source of pervasive anxiety in the process. Users of technology have been forced to contend with data-driven equations that try to anticipate their desires—and often get them wrong. What results is a state of docility that allows tech companies to curtail human experiences—human lives—for profit. But to have our tastes, behaviors, and emotions governed by computers, while convenient, does nothing short of call the very notion of free will into question.

In Filterworld, Chayka traces this creeping, machine-guided curation as it infiltrates the furthest reaches of our digital, physical, and psychological spaces. With algorithms increasingly influencing not just what culture we consume, but what culture is produced, urgent questions What happens when shareability supersedes messiness, innovation, and creativity—the qualities that make us human? What does it mean to make a choice when the options have been so carefully arranged for us? Is personal freedom possible on the Internet?

To the last question, Filterworld argues yes—but to escape Filterworld, and even transcend it, we must first understand it.]]> 290 Kyle Chayka Jem 0 3.66 2024
author: Kyle Chayka
name: Jem
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/16
shelves: to-read, art-creativity, consumption-capitalism, culture-sociology, essays, history, non-fiction
review:

]]> 343 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder.

In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift—an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille's genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the "ultimate perfume"—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity.]]> 263 Patrick Süskind Jem 0 4.05 1985
author: Patrick Süskind
name: Jem
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/04
shelves: to-read, crime-mystery, renowned, art-creativity, classics, history
review:

]]> 41880609 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born � a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam � and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one's own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.]]> 246 Ocean Vuong 0525562028 Jem 0 4.06 2019
author: Ocean Vuong
name: Jem
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2024/03/27
date added: 2024/03/27
shelves: family, gender, race, renowned
review:

]]> 166997
John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.]]> 292 John Williams 1590171993 Jem 0 4.35 1965
author: John Williams
name: Jem
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1965
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/20
shelves: to-read, family, history, loss-grief-trauma, philosophy, romance-friendship
review:

]]> 23841432 89 Ocean Vuong Jem 0 to-read, poetry 4.20 2016
author: Ocean Vuong
name: Jem
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/16
shelves: to-read, poetry
review:

]]> 50403480 “C³ó´Ç³¦´Ç±ô²¹³Ùâ€� soldier with the French army during World War I. When his friend Mademba Diop, in the same regiment, is seriously injured in battle, Diop begs Alfa to kill him and spare him the pain of a long and agonizing death in No Man’s Land.

Unable to commit this mercy killing, madness creeps into Alfa’s mind as he comes to see this refusal as a cruel moment of cowardice. Anxious to avenge the death of his friend and find forgiveness for himself, he begins a macabre ritual: every night he sneaks across enemy lines to find and murder a blue-eyed German soldier, and every night he returns to base, unharmed, with the German’s severed hand. At first his comrades look at Alfa’s deeds with admiration, but soon rumors begin to circulate that this super soldier isn’t a hero, but a sorcerer, a soul-eater. Plans are hatched to get Alfa away from the front, and to separate him from his growing collection of hands, but how does one reason with a demon, and how far will Alfa go to make amends to his dead friend?

Peppered with bullets and black magic, this remarkable novel fills in a forgotten chapter in the history of World War I. Blending oral storytelling traditions with the gritty, day-to-day, journalistic horror of life in the trenches, David Diop's At Night All Blood is Black is a dazzling tale of a man’s descent into madness.

Selected by students across France to win the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens, David Diop’s English-language, historical fiction debut At Night All Blood is Black is a “powerful, hypnotic, and dark novel� (Livres Hebdo) of terror and transformation in the trenches of the First World War.]]> 145 David Diop 0374266972 Jem 0 3.82 2018
author: David Diop
name: Jem
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/16
shelves: to-read, abnormal-psych, history, loss-grief-trauma, renowned, war-conflict
review:

]]> 6288
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,� are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.]]> 241 Cormac McCarthy 0307265439 Jem 0 3.99 2006
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Jem
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/15
shelves: to-read, family, home, loss-grief-trauma, renowned, war-conflict
review:

]]> 52578297
When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.

The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren't always what she imagined they'd be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger.

Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?]]> 288 Matt Haig 0525559477 Jem 0 3.96 2020
author: Matt Haig
name: Jem
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2024/02/21
date added: 2024/03/14
shelves: fig-tree, renowned, books-i-own
review:

]]> 18144590 The Alchemist has become a modern classic, selling millions of copies around the world and transforming the lives of countless readers across generations.

Paulo Coelho's masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different—and far more satisfying—than he ever imagined. Santiago's journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, most importantly, following our dreams.]]> 182 Paulo Coelho 0062315005 Jem 0 4.01 1988
author: Paulo Coelho
name: Jem
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at: 2024/02/29
date added: 2024/03/14
shelves: fig-tree, renowned, books-i-own, classics, philosophy, religion, travel
review:

]]> 6514 294 Sylvia Plath 0571268862 Jem 0 4.05 1963
author: Sylvia Plath
name: Jem
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at: 2024/03/08
date added: 2024/03/14
shelves: abnormal-psych, renowned, books-i-own, biographies-memoirs, fig-tree, loss-grief-trauma, writing
review:

]]> 52715989 Euphoria, Lily King returns with an unforgettable portrait of an artist as a young woman.

Blindsided by her mother's sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she's been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey's fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink.

Writers & Lovers follows Casey--a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist--in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Written with King's trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, Writers & Lovers is a transfixing novel that explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another.]]> 324 Lily King 0802148530 Jem 0 3.99 2020
author: Lily King
name: Jem
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2024/03/14
date added: 2024/03/14
shelves: art-creativity, fig-tree, hope, loss-grief-trauma, romance-friendship, books-i-own
review:

]]> 567678
The Wasp Factory is a work of horrifying compulsion: horrifying, because it enters a mind whose realities are not our own, whose values of life and death are alien to our society; compulsive, because the humour and compassion of that mind reach out to us all. A novel of extraordinary originality, imagination and comic ferocity.]]> 184 Iain Banks 0684853159 Jem 0 3.78 1984
author: Iain Banks
name: Jem
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/14
shelves: to-read, abnormal-psych, coming-of-age, family, loss-grief-trauma
review:

]]> 58894458
Cinnamon Gardens Nursing Home is nestled in the quiet suburb of Westgrove, Sydney � populated with residents with colourful histories, each with their own secrets, triumphs and failings. This is their safe place, an oasis of familiar delights � a beautiful garden, a busy kitchen and a bountiful recreation schedule.

But this ordinary neighbourhood is not without its prejudices. The serenity of Cinnamon Gardens is threatened by malignant forces more interested in what makes this refuge different rather than embracing the calm companionship that makes this place home to so many. As those who challenge the residents� existence make their stand against the nursing home with devastating consequences, our characters are forced to reckon with a country divided.

Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens is about family and memory, community and race, but is ultimately a love letter to story-telling and how our stories shape who we are.]]> 384 Shankari Chandran 1761150316 Jem 0 4.15 2022
author: Shankari Chandran
name: Jem
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/14
shelves: to-read, culture-sociology, home
review:

]]> 17061
In Coraline's family's new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close.

The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall, until the day Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own.

Only it's different.

At first, things seem marvelous in the other flat. The food is better. The toy box is filled with wind-up angels that flutter around the bedroom, books whose pictures writhe and crawl and shimmer, little dinosaur skulls that chatter their teeth. But there's another mother, and another father, and they want Coraline to stay with them and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go.

Other children are trapped there as well, lost souls behind the mirrors. Coraline is their only hope of rescue. She will have to fight with all her wits and all the tools she can find if she is to save the lost children, her ordinary life, and herself.

Critically acclaimed and award-winning author Neil Gaiman will delight readers with his first novel for all ages.]]> 176 Neil Gaiman 0061139378 Jem 0 to-read 4.13 2002
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Jem
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 6294 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

Sophie has the great misfortune of being the eldest of three daughters, destined to fail miserably should she ever leave home to seek her fate. But when she unwittingly attracts the ire of the Witch of the Waste, Sophie finds herself under a horrid spell that transforms her into an old lady. Her only chance at breaking it lies in the ever-moving castle in the hills: the Wizard Howl's castle. To untangle the enchantment, Sophie must handle the heartless Howl, strike a bargain with a fire demon, and meet the Witch of the Waste head-on. Along the way, she discovers that there's far more to Howl—and herself—than first meets the eye.]]> 329 Diana Wynne Jones 006441034X Jem 0 to-read 4.30 1986
author: Diana Wynne Jones
name: Jem
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 95784
This book tells the story from three perspectives: of the Japanese soldiers who performed it, of the Chinese civilians who endured it, and of a group of Europeans and Americans who refused to abandon the city and were able to create a safety zone that saved many.]]> 290 Iris Chang 0140277447 Jem 0 4.23 1997
author: Iris Chang
name: Jem
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/12
shelves: to-read, history, law-politics-economics, non-fiction, race, renowned, war-conflict
review:

]]> 18749 A masterly, haunting new novel from a writer heralded by The Washington Post Book World as “the 21st-century daughter of Chinua Achebe,� Half of a Yellow Sun re-creates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria in the 1960s, and the chilling violence that followed.

With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor’s beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna’s twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and the three must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another.

Epic, ambitious, and triumphantly realized, Half of a Yellow Sun is a remarkable novel about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race—and the ways in which love can complicate them all. Adichie brilliantly evokes the promise and the devastating disappointments that marked this time and place, bringing us one of the most powerful, dramatic, and intensely emotional pictures of modern Africa that we have ever had.]]> 435 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 1400044162 Jem 0 4.34 2006
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Jem
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/11
shelves: to-read, colonialism, history, race, renowned
review:

]]> 5211
The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.

As the characters move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love, A Fine Balance creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit in an inhuman state.]]> 603 Rohinton Mistry 140003065X Jem 0 4.38 1995
author: Rohinton Mistry
name: Jem
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/10
shelves: to-read, history, home, renowned, romance-friendship
review:

]]> 44279110
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn’t she? She’s young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.]]> 289 Ottessa Moshfegh 0525522131 Jem 0 3.62 2018
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: Jem
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/07
shelves: to-read, abnormal-psych, loss-grief-trauma
review:

]]> 428 Play It as It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the reader. Set in a place beyond good and evil - literally in Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the barren wastes of the Mojave Desert, but figuratively in the landscape of an arid soul - it remains more than three decades after its original publication a profoundly disturbing novel, riveting in its exploration of a woman and a society in crisis and stunning in the still-startling intensity of its prose.
]]> 231 Joan Didion 0374529949 Jem 0 3.94 1970
author: Joan Didion
name: Jem
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1970
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/29
shelves: to-read, culture-sociology, gender, loss-grief-trauma
review:

]]> 60429220 289 Natasha Lunn Jem 0 4.17 2021
author: Natasha Lunn
name: Jem
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/29
shelves: romance-friendship, essays, non-fiction, to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 59357120
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.

But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.]]> 329 R.F. Kuang Jem 0 3.84 2023
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Jem
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/29
shelves: to-read, culture-sociology, ethics-morality, loss-grief-trauma, race, renowned, romance-friendship, satire-dystopian, writing, books-i-own
review:

]]> 33585392 From the best-selling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists comes a powerful new statement about feminism today--written as a letter to a friend.

A few years ago, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie received a letter from a dear friend from childhood, asking her how to raise her baby girl as a feminist. Dear Ijeawele is Adichie's letter of response.

Here are fifteen invaluable suggestions--compelling, direct, wryly funny, and perceptive--for how to empower a daughter to become a strong, independent woman. From encouraging her to choose a helicopter, and not only a doll, as a toy if she so desires; having open conversations with her about clothes, makeup, and sexuality; debunking the myth that women are somehow biologically arranged to be in the kitchen making dinner, and that men can "allow" women to have full careers, Dear Ijeawele goes right to the heart of sexual politics in the twenty-first century. It will start a new and urgently needed conversation about what it really means to be a woman today.]]> 63 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Jem 0 4.51 2017
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Jem
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/29
shelves: to-read, books-i-own, essays, gender, non-fiction
review:

]]> 15796700 477 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Jem 0 4.32 2013
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Jem
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/29
shelves: to-read, books-i-own, home, race, romance-friendship
review:

]]> 22738563 We Should All Be Feminists, a personal, eloquently-argued essay—adapted from her much-viewed TEDx talk of the same name—by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the award-winning author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun.

With humor and levity, here Adichie offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century—one rooted in inclusion and awareness. She shines a light not only on blatant discrimination, but also the more insidious, institutional behaviors that marginalize women around the world, in order to help readers of all walks of life better understand the often masked realities of sexual politics. Throughout, she draws extensively on her own experiences—in the U.S., in her native Nigeria, and abroad—offering an artfully nuanced explanation of why the gender divide is harmful for women and men, alike.

Argued in the same observant, witty and clever prose that has made Adichie a bestselling novelist, here is one remarkable author’s exploration of what it means to be a woman today—and an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists.]]> 65 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Jem 0 4.42 2012
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Jem
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/29
shelves: to-read, gender, non-fiction, books-i-own
review:

]]> 58696 882 Charles Dickens Jem 0 4.02 1850
author: Charles Dickens
name: Jem
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1850
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/29
shelves: to-read, biographies-memoirs, classics, coming-of-age, fig-tree, renowned, comedy, writing, family, romance-friendship, books-i-own
review:

]]> 75555793 *The Sunday Times and Global number one bestseller*
*Winner of Novel of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards*
*A Book of the Year in The Times, the Guardian, the Irish Times and the Financial Times*

Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he'd like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend Eileen is getting over a break-up and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood.

Alice, Felix, Eileen and Simon are still young - but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they worry about sex and friendship and the times they live in. Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world?]]> 337 Sally Rooney 0571365442 Jem 0 3.50 2021
author: Sally Rooney
name: Jem
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/29
shelves: to-read, romance-friendship, travel
review:

]]> 62226126
An old friend in the antiques business has been killed, and a dangerous package he was protecting has gone missing.

As the gang springs into action they encounter art forgers, online fraudsters and drug dealers, as well as heartache close to home.

With the body count rising, the package still missing and trouble firmly on their tail, has their luck finally run out? And who will be the last devil to die?]]> 421 Richard Osman 0241512441 Jem 0 to-read 4.44 2023
author: Richard Osman
name: Jem
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 22609341
Researchers have spent the last decade trying to develop a “pink pill� for women to function like Viagra does for men. So where is it? Well, for reasons this book makes crystal clear, that pill will never exist—but as a result of the research that’s gone into it, scientists in the last few years have learned more about how women’s sexuality works than we ever thought possible, and Come as You Are explains it all.

The first lesson in this essential, transformative book by Dr. Emily Nagoski is that every woman has her own unique sexuality, like a fingerprint, and that women vary more than men in our anatomy, our sexual response mechanisms, and the way our bodies respond to the sexual world. So we never need to judge ourselves based on others� experiences. Because women vary, and that’s normal.

Second lesson: sex happens in a context. And all the complications of everyday life influence the context surrounding a woman’s arousal, desire, and orgasm.

Cutting-edge research across multiple disciplines tells us that the most important factor for women in creating and sustaining a fulfilling sex life, is not what you do in bed or how you do it, but how you feel about it. Which means that stress, mood, trust, and body image are not peripheral factors in a woman’s sexual wellbeing; they are central to it. Once you understand these factors, and how to influence them, you can create for yourself better sex and more profound pleasure than you ever thought possible.

And Emily Nagoski can prove it.]]> 400 Emily Nagoski 1476762090 Jem 0 4.28 2015
author: Emily Nagoski
name: Jem
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/29
shelves: medicine-health, non-fiction, romance-friendship, sex, to-read
review:

]]> 28923995
Born in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens―on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles―the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: "I'd die in the same bedroom I'd grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that've been there since '68 quake." Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe that his father's pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family's financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that's left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral.

Fueled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town's most famous resident―the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins―he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court.]]> 289 Paul Beatty 1786070154 Jem 0 3.62 2015
author: Paul Beatty
name: Jem
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/25
shelves: to-read, culture-sociology, renowned, satire-dystopian
review:

]]> 5308
A story of classic simplicity, based on a Mexican folk tale, The Pearl explores the secrets of man’s nature, greed, the darkest depths of evil, and the luminous possibilities of love.]]> 96 John Steinbeck 0142000698 Jem 0 3.52 1947
author: John Steinbeck
name: Jem
average rating: 3.52
book published: 1947
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/25
shelves: to-read, family, hope, renowned
review:

]]> 9593 ³Ò²¹±ôá±è²¹²µ´Ç²õ takes the reader back one million years, to A.D. 1986. A simple vacation cruise suddenly becomes an evolutionary journey. Thanks to an apocalypse, a small group of survivors stranded on the ³Ò²¹±ôá±è²¹²µ´Ç²õ Islands are about to become the progenitors of a brave, new, and totally different human race. In this inimitable novel, America’s master satirist looks at our world and shows us all that is sadly, madly awry—and all that is worth saving.]]> 324 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 0385333870 Jem 0 3.89 1985
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Jem
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/24
shelves: to-read, classics, renowned, satire-dystopian, travel
review:

]]> 5293573 336 Alain de Botton 037542444X Jem 0 3.64 2008
author: Alain de Botton
name: Jem
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/23
shelves: to-read, career, non-fiction, philosophy
review:

]]> 18796
For this authoritative English-language edition, D. J. Enright has revised the late Terence Kilmartin’s acclaimed reworking of C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s translation to take into account the new definitive French editions of À la recherche du temps perdu (the final volume of these new editions was published by the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade in 1989).]]> 4211 Marcel Proust 0812969642 Jem 0 4.34 1913
author: Marcel Proust
name: Jem
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1913
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/23
shelves: to-read, classics, philosophy, romance-friendship, art-creativity
review:

]]> 23425
Anyone who’s ever lost sleep over an unreturned phone call or the neighbor’s Lexus had better read Alain de Botton’s irresistibly clear-headed new book, immediately. For in its pages, a master explicator of our civilization and its discontents explores the notion that our pursuit of status is actually a pursuit of love, ranging through Western history and thought from St. Augustine to Andrew Carnegie and Machiavelli to Anthony Robbins.

Whether it’s assessing the class-consciousness of Christianity or the convulsions of consumer capitalism, dueling or home-furnishing, Status Anxiety is infallibly entertaining. And when it examines the virtues of informed misanthropy, art appreciation, or walking a lobster on a leash, it is not only wise but helpful.]]> 306 Alain de Botton 0375725350 Jem 0 3.89 2004
author: Alain de Botton
name: Jem
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/23
shelves: to-read, culture-sociology, law-politics-economics, consumption-capitalism, philosophy, non-fiction
review:

]]> 23422 where we ought to travel, but only Alain de Botton will tell us how and why. With the same intelligence and insouciant charm he brought to How Proust Can Save Your Life, de Botton considers the pleasures of anticipation; the allure of the exotic, and the value of noticing everything from a seascape in Barbados to the takeoffs at Heathrow.

Even as de Botton takes the reader along on his own peregrinations, he also cites such distinguished fellow-travelers as Baudelaire, Wordsworth, Van Gogh, the biologist Alexander von Humboldt, and the 18th-century eccentric Xavier de Maistre, who catalogued the wonders of his bedroom. The Art of Travel is a wise and utterly original book. Don’t leave home without it.]]> 272 Alain de Botton 0375725342 Jem 0 3.83 2002
author: Alain de Botton
name: Jem
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/23
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, philosophy, travel
review:

]]> 12651
These are the famous opening words of a treatise that has not ceased to stir vigorous debate since its first publication in 1762. Rejecting the view that anyone has a natural right to wield authority over others, Rousseau argues instead for a pact, or ‘social contract�, that should exist between all the citizens of a state and that should be the source of sovereign power. From this fundamental premise, he goes on to consider issues of liberty and law, freedom and justice, arriving at a view of society that has seemed to some a blueprint for totalitarianism, to others a declaration of democratic principles.]]> 168 Jean-Jacques Rousseau 0143037498 Jem 0 3.80 1762
author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
name: Jem
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1762
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/23
shelves: to-read, classics, culture-sociology, ethics-morality, history, philosophy, non-fiction
review:

]]> 15823480 Anna Karenina provides a vast panorama of contemporary life in Russia and of humanity in general. In it Tolstoy uses his intense imaginative insight to create some of the most memorable characters in all of literature. Anna is a sophisticated woman who abandons her empty existence as the wife of Karenin and turns to Count Vronsky to fulfil her passionate nature - with tragic consequences. Levin is a reflection of Tolstoy himself, often expressing the author's own views and convictions.

Throughout, Tolstoy points no moral, merely inviting us not to judge but to watch. As Rosemary Edmonds comments, 'He leaves the shifting patterns of the kaleidoscope to bring home the meaning of the brooding words following the title, 'Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.]]> 964 Leo Tolstoy 0345803922 Jem 0 4.11 1878
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Jem
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1878
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/23
shelves: to-read, classics, culture-sociology, history, romance-friendship, renowned
review:

]]> 656
War and Peace broadly focuses on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both men.

As Napoleon’s army invades, Tolstoy brilliantly follows characters from diverse backgrounds—peasants and nobility, civilians and soldiers—as they struggle with the problems unique to their era, their history, and their culture. And as the novel progresses, these characters transcend their specificity, becoming some of the most moving—and human—figures in world literature.


Tolstoy gave his personal approval to this translation, published here in a new single volume edition, which includes an introduction by Henry Gifford, and Tolstoy's important essay `Some Words about War and Peace'.]]> 1392 Leo Tolstoy 0192833987 Jem 0 4.14 1869
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Jem
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1869
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/23
shelves: to-read, classics, culture-sociology, family, history, law-politics-economics, loss-grief-trauma, romance-friendship, renowned, war-conflict
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]]> 18386
How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth?

This short novel was an artistic culmination of a profound spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life, a nine-year period following the publication of Anna Karenina during which he wrote not a word of fiction.
A thoroughly absorbing, and, at times, terrifying glimpse into the abyss of death, it is also a strong testament to the possibility of finding spiritual salvation.]]> 86 Leo Tolstoy Jem 0 4.12 1886
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Jem
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1886
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/23
shelves: to-read, classics, loss-grief-trauma, philosophy, renowned
review:

]]> 16631 Steppenwolf is a poetical self-portrait of a man who felt himself to be half-human and half-wolf. This Faust-like and magical story is evidence of Hesse's searching philosophy and extraordinary sense of humanity as he tells of the humanization of a middle-aged misanthrope. Yet his novel can also be seen as a plea for rigorous self-examination and an indictment of the intellectual hypocrisy of the period. As Hesse himself remarked, "Of all my books Steppenwolf is the one that was more often and more violently misunderstood than any of the others".]]> 256 Hermann Hesse 0140282580 Jem 0 4.15 1927
author: Hermann Hesse
name: Jem
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1927
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/23
shelves: to-read, abnormal-psych, classics, renowned, philosophy
review:

]]> 52036 152 Hermann Hesse Jem 0 4.07 1922
author: Hermann Hesse
name: Jem
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1922
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/23
shelves: to-read, classics, philosophy, renowned
review:

]]> 152057 352 Simone de Beauvoir 0393308456 Jem 0 4.18 1946
author: Simone de Beauvoir
name: Jem
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1946
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/23
shelves: to-read, culture-sociology, history, magical-realism-fantasy, philosophy, romance-friendship, renowned
review:

]]> 7144 671 Fyodor Dostoevsky Jem 0 4.26 1866
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Jem
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1866
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/23
shelves: to-read, abnormal-psych, ethics-morality, renowned, history, crime-mystery, philosophy
review:

]]> 406235 178 James Baldwin Jem 0 4.40 1956
author: James Baldwin
name: Jem
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1956
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/23
shelves: to-read, classics, culture-sociology, ethics-morality, gender, loss-grief-trauma, romance-friendship, history
review:

]]> 4934
This award-winning translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky remains true to the verbal inventiveness of Dostoevsky’s prose, preserving the multiple voices, the humor, and the surprising modernity of the original. It is an achievement worthy of Dostoevsky’s last and greatest novel.]]> 796 Fyodor Dostoevsky 0374528373 Jem 0 4.36 1880
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Jem
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1880
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/22
shelves: to-read, classics, crime-mystery, family, ethics-morality, philosophy, renowned, loss-grief-trauma, history
review:

]]> 1772910 82 Fyodor Dostoevsky Jem 0 4.16 1848
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Jem
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1848
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/22
shelves: to-read, classics, romance-friendship
review:

]]> 18839 Orlando 'The longest and most charming love letter in literature', playfully constructs the figure of Orlando as the fictional embodiment of Woolf's close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West. Spanning three centuries, the novel opens as Orlando, a young nobleman in Elizabeth's England, awaits a visit from the Queen and traces his experience with first love as England under James I lies locked in the embrace of the Great Frost. At the midpoint of the novel, Orlando, now an ambassador in Constantinople, awakes to find that he is now a woman, and the novel indulges in farce and irony to consider the roles of women in the 18th and 19th centuries. As the novel ends in 1928, a year consonant with full suffrage for women. Orlando, now a wife and mother, stands poised at the brink of a future that holds new hope and promise for women.]]> 336 Virginia Woolf 0141184272 Jem 0 3.88 1928
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Jem
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1928
rating: 0
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]]> 14942 194 Virginia Woolf 0151009988 Jem 0 3.80 1925
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Jem
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1925
rating: 0
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]]> 338798
According to Declan Kiberd, "Before Joyce, no writer of fiction had so foregrounded the process of thinking". Ulysses chronicles the peripatetic appointments and encounters of Leopold Bloom in Dublin in the course of an ordinary day, 16 June 1904. Ulysses is the Latinised name of Odysseus, the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey, and the novel establishes a series of parallels between the poem and the novel, with structural correspondences between the characters and experiences of Bloom and Odysseus, Molly Bloom and Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus and Telemachus, in addition to events and themes of the early 20th-century context of modernism, Dublin, and Ireland's relationship to Britain.

The novel is highly allusive and also imitates the styles of different periods of English literature. Since its publication, the book has attracted controversy and scrutiny, ranging from an obscenity trial in the United States in 1921 to protracted textual "Joyce Wars." The novel's stream-of-consciousness technique, careful structuring, and experimental prose—replete with puns, parodies, and allusions—as well as its rich characterisation and broad humour have led it to be regarded as one of the greatest literary works in history; Joyce fans worldwide now celebrate 16 June as Bloomsday.']]> 783 James Joyce Jem 0 3.72 1922
author: James Joyce
name: Jem
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1922
rating: 0
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]]> 2156 249 Jane Austen 0192802631 Jem 0 4.15 1817
author: Jane Austen
name: Jem
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1817
rating: 0
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]]> 14935 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141439662

'The more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!'

Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love—and its threatened loss—the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.

This edition includes explanatory notes, textual variants between the first and second editions, and Tony Tanner's introduction to the original Penguin Classic edition.]]> 409 Jane Austen 0141439661 Jem 0 4.10 1811
author: Jane Austen
name: Jem
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1811
rating: 0
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]]> 6867
On a hot summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses the flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant. But Briony’s incomplete grasp of adult motives and her precocious imagination bring about a crime that will change all their lives, a crime whose repercussions Atonement follows through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century.]]> 351 Ian McEwan 038572179X Jem 0 3.94 2001
author: Ian McEwan
name: Jem
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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]]> 15997 Paradise Lost is one of the greatest epic poems in the English language. It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of innocence pitted against corruption, in which God and Satan fight a bitter battle for control of mankind's destiny. The struggle rages across three worlds - heaven, hell, and earth - as Satan and his band of rebel angels plot their revenge against God. At the center of the conflict are Adam and Eve, who are motivated by all too human temptations but whose ultimate downfall is unyielding love.

Marked by Milton's characteristic erudition, Paradise Lost is a work epic both in scale and, notoriously, in ambition. For nearly 350 years, it has held generation upon generation of audiences in rapt attention, and its profound influence can be seen in almost every corner of Western culture.]]> 453 John Milton 0140424393 Jem 0 3.83 1667
author: John Milton
name: Jem
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1667
rating: 0
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]]> 15645
A groundbreaking bilingual edition of Dante's masterpiece that includes a substantive Introduction, extensive notes, and appendixes that reproduce Dante's key sources and influences. Of the great poets, Dante is one of the most elusive and therefore one of the most difficult to adequately render into English verse. With this major new translation, Anthony Esolen has succeeded brilliantly in marrying sense with sound, poetry with meaning, capturing both the poem's line-by-line vigor and its allegorically and philosophically exacting structure, yielding an Inferno that will be as popular with general readers as with scholars, teachers, and students. For, as Dante insists, without a trace of sentimentality or intellectual compromise, even Hell is a work of divine art.

Esolen's edition also provides a critical ntroduction and endnotes, with appendices containing Dante's most important sources—from Virgil to Saint Thomas Aquinas and beyond —that deftly illuminate the religious universe the poet inhabited.

Verse Translation by Anthony Esolen
Illustrations by Gustave Doré]]> 490 Dante Alighieri 0812970063 Jem 0 4.02 1320
author: Dante Alighieri
name: Jem
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1320
rating: 0
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]]> 8869 Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary... - thus begins perhaps the most-quoted poem ever written in the English Language. Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven is illustrated with Alen James Robinson's masterful etchings and wood engravings.]]> 40 Edgar Allan Poe 1559211784 Jem 0 4.18 1845
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Jem
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1845
rating: 0
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]]> 18405 1037 Margaret Mitchell 0446365386 Jem 0 4.30 1936
author: Margaret Mitchell
name: Jem
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1936
rating: 0
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]]> 298275 Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form he ruthlessly catalogues his every feeling and sensation about the world and people around him.

His thoughts culminate in a pervasive, overpowering feeling of nausea which "spread at the bottom of the viscous puddle, at the bottom of our time, the time of purple suspenders and broken chair seats; it is made of wide, soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain."

Roquentin's efforts to try and come to terms with his life, his philosophical and psychological struggles, give Sartre the opportunity to dramatize the tenets of his Existentialist creed.

The introduction for this edition of Nausea by Hayden Carruth gives background on Sartre's life and major works, a summary of the principal themes of Existentialist philosophy, and a critical analysis of the novel itself.]]> 178 Jean-Paul Sartre 0811201880 Jem 0 3.96 1938
author: Jean-Paul Sartre
name: Jem
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1938
rating: 0
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]]> 16981 Invisible Man is one of those rare novels that have changed the shape of American literature. For not only does Ralph Ellison's nightmare journey across the racial divide tell unparalleled truths about the nature of bigotry and its effects on the minds of both victims and perpetrators, it gives us an entirely new model of what a novel can be.

As he journeys from the Deep South to the streets and basements of Harlem, from a horrifying "battle royal" where black men are reduced to fighting animals, to a Communist rally where they are elevated to the status of trophies, Ralph Ellison's nameless protagonist ushers readers into a parallel universe that throws our own into harsh and even hilarious relief. Suspenseful and sardonic, narrated in a voice that takes in the symphonic range of the American language, black and white, Invisible Man is one of the most audacious and dazzling novels of our century.]]> 581 Ralph Ellison Jem 0 3.91 1952
author: Ralph Ellison
name: Jem
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1952
rating: 0
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]]> 14891 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident. The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness -- in a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as incredibly rich moments of universal experience.]]> 496 Betty Smith 0061120073 Jem 0 4.29 1943
author: Betty Smith
name: Jem
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1943
rating: 0
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]]> 9328
The House of the Spirits is an enthralling saga that spans decades and lives, twining the personal and the political into an epic novel of love, magic, and fate.]]> 448 Isabel Allende 0553383809 Jem 0 4.26 1982
author: Isabel Allende
name: Jem
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1982
rating: 0
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]]> 4406
Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aaron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness enveloped by a mysterious darkness.

First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.]]> 601 John Steinbeck 0142000655 Jem 0 4.41 1952
author: John Steinbeck
name: Jem
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1952
rating: 0
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]]> 17690 The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, The Trial has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers.]]> 255 Franz Kafka Jem 0 4.00 1925
author: Franz Kafka
name: Jem
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1925
rating: 0
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]]> 49455 Notes from Underground marks the dividing line between nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction, and between the visions of self each century embodied. One of the most remarkable characters in literature, the unnamed narrator is a former official who has defiantly withdrawn into an underground existence. In complete retreat from society, he scrawls a passionate, obsessive, self-contradictory narrative that serves as a devastating attack on social utopianism and an assertion of man’s essentially irrational nature.

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, whose Dostoevsky translations have become the standard, give us a brilliantly faithful edition of this classic novel, conveying all the tragedy and tormented comedy of the original.]]> 136 Fyodor Dostoevsky 067973452X Jem 0 4.21 1864
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Jem
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1864
rating: 0
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]]> 91950 The Myth of Sisyphus transformed twentieth-century philosophy with its impassioned argument for the value of life in a world without religious meaning.]]> 192 Albert Camus 0141182008 Jem 0 4.25 1942
author: Albert Camus
name: Jem
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1942
rating: 0
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]]> 11991
The Fall (French: La Chute) is a philosophical novel by Albert Camus. First published in 1956, it is his last complete work of fiction. The Fall explores themes of innocence, imprisonment, non-existence, and truth. In a eulogy to Albert Camus, existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre described the novel as "perhaps the most beautiful and the least understood" of Camus' books.]]> 147 Albert Camus 0679720227 Jem 0 4.07 1956
author: Albert Camus
name: Jem
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1956
rating: 0
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]]> 11989
It tells the story from the point of view of a narrator of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. The narrator remains unknown until the start of the last chapter, chapter 5 of part 5. The novel presents a snapshot of life in Oran as seen through the author's distinctive absurdist point of view.

The book tells a gripping tale of human unrelieved horror, of survival and resilience, and of the ways in which humankind confronts death, The Plague is at once a masterfully crafted novel, eloquently understated and epic in scope, and a parable of ageless moral resonance, profoundly relevant to our times. In Oran, a coastal town in North Africa, the plague begins as a series of portents, unheeded by the people. It gradually becomes an omnipresent reality, obliterating all traces of the past and driving its victims to almost unearthly extremes of suffering, madness, and compassion.

The Plague is considered an existentialist classic despite Camus' objection to the label. The novel stresses the powerlessness of the individual characters to affect their destinies. The narrative tone is similar to Kafka's, especially in The Trial, whose individual sentences potentially have multiple meanings; the material often pointedly resonating as stark allegory of phenomenal consciousness and the human condition.]]> 308 Albert Camus Jem 0 4.05 1947
author: Albert Camus
name: Jem
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1947
rating: 0
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]]> 6149 Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby.

Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison.]]> 325 Toni Morrison Jem 0 3.96 1987
author: Toni Morrison
name: Jem
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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]]> 18373 Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, the powerful, classic story about a man who receives an operation that turns him into a genius...and introduces him to heartache.
Ìý
Charlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ, he has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence � a procedure that has already been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon.

As the treatment takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment appears to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance, until Algernon suddenly deteriorates. Will the same happen to Charlie?]]> 311 Daniel Keyes 015603008X Jem 0 4.19 1966
author: Daniel Keyes
name: Jem
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1966
rating: 0
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]]> 31242
“Jarndyce and Jarndyce� is an infamous lawsuit that has been in process for generations. Nobody can remember exactly how the case started but many different individuals have found their fortunes caught up in it. Esther Summerson watches as her friends and neighbours are consumed by their hopes and disappointments with the proceedings. But while the intricate puzzles of the lawsuit are being debated by lawyers, other more dramatic mysteries are unfolding that involve heartbreak, lost children, blackmail and murder.

The fog and cold that permeate Bleak House mirror a Victorian England mired in spiritual insolvency. Dickens brought all his passion, brilliance, and narrative verve to this huge novel of lives entangled in a multi-generational lawsuit—and through it, he achieved, at age 41, a stature almost Shakespearean.]]> 1017 Charles Dickens 0143037617 Jem 0 4.01 1853
author: Charles Dickens
name: Jem
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1853
rating: 0
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]]> 18254
The story of Oliver Twist - orphaned, and set upon by evil and adversity from his first breath - shocked readers when it was published. After running away from the workhouse and pompous beadle Mr Bumble, Oliver finds himself lured into a den of thieves peopled by vivid and memorable characters - the Artful Dodger, vicious burglar Bill Sikes, his dog Bull's Eye, and prostitute Nancy, all watched over by cunning master-thief Fagin. Combining elements of Gothic Romance, the Newgate Novel and popular melodrama, Dickens created an entirely new kind of fiction, scathing in its indictment of a cruel society, and pervaded by an unforgettable sense of threat and mystery.

This Penguin Classics edition of Oliver Twist is the first critical edition to faithfully reproduce the text as its earliest readers would have encountered it from its serialisation in Bentley's Miscellany, and includes an introduction by Philip Horne, a glossary of Victorian thieves' slang, a chronology of Dickens's life, a map of contemporary London and all of George Cruikshank's original illustrations.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.]]> 608 Charles Dickens Jem 0 3.88 1838
author: Charles Dickens
name: Jem
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1838
rating: 0
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]]> 5326
Introduction and Afterword by Joe Wheeler
To bitter, miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, Christmas is just another day. But all that changes when the ghost of his long-dead business partner appears, warning Scrooge to change his ways before it's too late.

Part of the Focus on the Family Great Stories collection, this abridged edition features an in-depth introduction and discussion questions by Joe Wheeler to provide greater understanding for today's reader. "A Christmas Carol" captures the heart of the holidays like no other novel.]]> 184 Charles Dickens 1561797464 Jem 0 to-read, classics 4.06 1843
author: Charles Dickens
name: Jem
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1843
rating: 0
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shelves: to-read, classics
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]]> 2623
Pip must discover his true self, and his own set of values and priorities. Whether such values allow one to prosper in the complex world of early Victorian England is the major question posed by Great Expectations, one of Dickens's most fascinating, and disturbing, novels.

This edition includes the original, discarded ending, Dickens's brief working notes, and the serial instalments and chapter divisions in different editions. It also uses the definitive Clarendon text.]]> 544 Charles Dickens 0192833596 Jem 0 3.78 1861
author: Charles Dickens
name: Jem
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1861
rating: 0
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]]> 2165 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

This short novel, already a modern classic, is the superbly told, tragic story of a Cuban fisherman in the Gulf Stream and the giant Marlin he kills and loses—specifically referred to in the citation accompanying the author's Nobel Prize for literature in 1954.]]> 96 Ernest Hemingway 0684830493 Jem 0 3.81 1952
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Jem
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1952
rating: 0
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]]> 4395 The Grapes of Wrath is a landmark of American literature. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. Although it follows the movement of thousands of men and women and the transformation of an entire nation, The Grapes of Wrath is also the story of one Oklahoma family, the Joads, who are driven off their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity.

First published in 1939, The Grapes of Wrath summed up its era in the way that Uncle Tom's Cabin summed up the years of slavery before the Civil War. Sensitive to fascist and communist criticism, Steinbeck insisted that "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" be printed in its entirety in the first edition of the book—which takes its title from the first verse: "He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored." At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s fictional chronicle of the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s is perhaps the most American of American Classics.]]> 455 John Steinbeck Jem 0 3.88 1939
author: John Steinbeck
name: Jem
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1939
rating: 0
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]]> 1953 A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens’s great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author’s novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores many of his enduring themes—imprisonment, injustice, social anarchy, resurrection, and the renunciation that fosters renewal.]]> 489 Charles Dickens 0141439602 Jem 0 3.86 1859
author: Charles Dickens
name: Jem
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1859
rating: 0
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]]> 6185 You can find the redesigned cover of this edition HERE.

At the centre of this novel is the passionate love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff - recounted with such emotional intensity that a plain tale of the Yorkshire moors acquires the depth and simplicity of ancient tragedy.

This best-selling Norton Critical Edition is based on the 1847 first edition of the novel. For the Fourth Edition, the editor has collated the 1847 text with several modern editions and has corrected a number of variants, including accidentals. The text is accompanied by entirely new explanatory annotations.

New to the fourth Edition are twelve of Emily Bronte's letters regarding the publication of the 1847 edition of Wuthering Heights as well as the evolution of the 1850 edition, prose and poetry selections by the author, four reviews of the novel, and poetry selections by the author, four reviews of the novel, and Edward Chitham's insightful and informative chronology of the creative process behind the beloved work.

Five major critical interpretations of Wuthering Heights are included, three of them new to the Fourth Edition. A Stuart Daley considers the importance of chronology in the novel. J. Hillis Miller examines Wuthering Heights's problems of genre and critical reputation. Sandra M. Gilbert assesses the role of Victorian Christianity plays in the novel, while Martha Nussbaum traces the novel's romanticism. Finally, Lin Haire-Sargeant scrutinizes the role of Heathcliff in film adaptations of Wuthering Heights.

A Chronology and updated Selected Bibliography are also included.]]> 464 Emily Brontë Jem 0 3.89 1847
author: Emily Brontë
name: Jem
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1847
rating: 0
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]]> 77203 371 Khaled Hosseini 159463193X Jem 0 4.34 2003
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Jem
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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]]> 18135 Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a violent world, in which two young people fall in love. It is not simply that their families disapprove; the Montagues and the Capulets are engaged in a blood feud.

In this death-filled setting, the movement from love at first sight to the lovers� final union in death seems almost inevitable. And yet, this play set in an extraordinary world has become the quintessential story of young love. In part because of its exquisite language, it is easy to respond as if it were about all young lovers.]]> 281 William Shakespeare 0743477111 Jem 0 3.74 1597
author: William Shakespeare
name: Jem
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1597
rating: 0
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]]> 8852
This shocking tragedy - a violent caution to those seeking power for its own sake - is, to this day, one of Shakespeare’s most popular and influential masterpieces.]]> 249 William Shakespeare 0743477103 Jem 0 3.90 1623
author: William Shakespeare
name: Jem
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1623
rating: 0
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]]> 5129 Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine� (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New Worldd likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.

"Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." —Chicago Tribune]]> 268 Aldous Huxley 0060929871 Jem 0 3.99 1932
author: Aldous Huxley
name: Jem
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1932
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/22
shelves: to-read, classics, culture-sociology, ethics-morality, law-politics-economics, our-future, satire-dystopian, renowned
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