Pagan's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 04 Dec 2024 14:07:32 -0800 60 Pagan's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention� and How to Think Deeply Again]]> 57933306 Our ability to pay attention is collapsing. From the New York Times bestselling author of Chasing the Scream and Lost Connections comes a groundbreaking examination of why this is happening--and how to get our attention back.

In the United States, teenagers can focus on one task for only sixty-five seconds at a time, and office workers average only three minutes. Like so many of us, Johann Hari was finding that constantly switching from device to device and tab to tab was a diminishing and depressing way to live. He tried all sorts of self-help solutions--even abandoning his phone for three months--but nothing seemed to work. So Hari went on an epic journey across the world to interview the leading experts on human attention--and he discovered that everything we think we know about this crisis is wrong.

We think our inability to focus is a personal failure to exert enough willpower over our devices. The truth is even more disturbing: our focus has been stolen by powerful external forces that have left us uniquely vulnerable to corporations determined to raid our attention for profit. Hari found that there are twelve deep causes of this crisis, from the decline of mind-wandering to rising pollution, all of which have robbed some of our attention. In Stolen Focus, he introduces readers to Silicon Valley dissidents who learned to hack human attention, and veterinarians who diagnose dogs with ADHD. He explores a favela in Rio de Janeiro where everyone lost their attention in a particularly surreal way, and an office in New Zealand that discovered a remarkable technique to restore workers' productivity.

Crucially, Hari learned how we can reclaim our focus--as individuals, and as a society--if we are determined to fight for it. Stolen Focus will transform the debate about attention and finally show us how to get it back.]]>
357 Johann Hari 0593138511 Pagan 0 4.22 2022 Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention— and How to Think Deeply Again
author: Johann Hari
name: Pagan
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/04
date added: 2024/12/04
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[In My Blood: Six Generations of Madness & Desire in an American Family]]> 19275432 While working on his second novel, John Sedgwick spiraled into a depression so profound that it very nearly resulted in suicide. An author acclaimed for his intimate literary excursions into the rarified, moneyed enclave of Brahmin Boston, he decided to search for the roots of his malaise in the history of his own storied family—one of America's oldest and most notable. Following a bloodline that travels from Theodore Sedgwick, compatriot of George Washington and John Adams, to Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol's tragic muse, John Sedgwick's very personal journey of self-discovery became something far greater: a spellbinding study of the evolution of an extraordinary American family.

]]>
442 John Sedgwick Pagan 0 currently-reading 3.71 2007 In My Blood: Six Generations of Madness & Desire in an American Family
author: John Sedgwick
name: Pagan
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/14
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin]]> 188148
From her small hometown of Port Arthur, Texas, to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, from the intimate coffeehouses to the supercharged concert halls, from the glitter of worldwide fame to her tragic end in a Hollywood hotel, here is all the fire and anguish of an immortal, immensely talented, and troubled performer who devoured everything the rock scene had to offer in a fatal attempt to make peace with herself and her era. Yet, in an eloquent introduction recently written by the author, Joplin emerges from her "ugly duckling" childhood as a woman truly ahead of her time, an outrageous rebel, a defiant outcast and artist of incomparable authenticity who, almost in spite of herself, became to so many a symbol of triumph over adversity.

This edition also contains an afterword detailing the whereabouts of a large and colorful cast of characters who were part of Joplin's life, as well as "We Remember Janis," a new chapter of poignant and affectionate anecdotes told by friends.]]>
400 Myra Friedman 0517586509 Pagan 0 3.92 1973 Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin
author: Myra Friedman
name: Pagan
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1973
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/25
date added: 2024/08/25
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere]]> 112093865 From “weird, scary, ingenious� (The New York Times) stand-up comedian Maria Bamford, a brutally honest and hilariously frenetic memoir about show business, mental health, and the comfort of rigid belief systems—from Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, to Suzuki violin training, to Richard Simmons, to 12-step programs.

Maria Bamford is a comedian’s comedian (an outsider among outsiders) and has forever fought to find a place to belong. From struggling with an eating disorder as a child of the 1980s, to navigating a career in the arts (and medical debt and psychiatric institutionalization), she has tried just about every method possible to not only be a part of the world, but to want to be a part of it.

In Bamford’s signature voice, Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult, brings us on a quest to participate in something. With sincerity and transparency, she recounts every anonymous fellowship she has joined (including but not limited Debtors Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, and Overeaters Anonymous), every hypomanic episode (from worrying about selling out under capitalism to enforcing union rules on her Netflix TV show set to protect her health), and every easy 1-to-3-step recipe for fudge in between.

Singular and inimitable, Bamford’s memoir explores what it means to keep going, and to be a member of society (or any group she’s invited to) despite not being very good at it. In turn, she hopes to transform isolating experiences into comedy that will make you feel less alone (without turning into a cult following).]]>
276 Maria Bamford 1982168560 Pagan 0 3.71 2023 Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere
author: Maria Bamford
name: Pagan
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/28
date added: 2024/04/28
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[No Priest But Love: The Journals, 1824-1826]]> 2129601 —The Women's Review of Books
"An interesting historical record, edited with great sensitivity . . . . [Lister] reveals her lesbian affairs with remarkable honesty, offering a rare insight into the mores of the time."
� Sunday Independent
"As a document of one woman's revolt against convention and as a celebration of love between women, this is an uplifting book."
� The Independent
Upon publication, the first volume of Anne Lister's diaries, I Know My Own Heart , met with celebration, delight, and some skepticism. How could an upper class Englishwoman, in the first half of the nineteenth century, fulfill her emotional and sexual needs when her sexual orientation was toward other women? How did an aristocratic lesbian manage to balance sexual fulfillment with social acceptability?
Helena Whitbread, the editor of these diaries, here allows us an inside look at the long-running love affair between Anne Lister and Marianna Lawton, an affair complicated by Anne's infatuation with Maria Barlow. Anne travels to Paris where she discovers a new love interest that conflicts with her developing social aspirations. For the first time, she begins to question the nature of her identity and the various roles female lovers may play in the life of a gentrywoman. Though unequipped with a lesbian vocabulary with which to describe her erotic life, her emotional conflicts are contemporary enough to speak to us all.
This book will satisfy the curiosity of the many who became acquainted with Lister through I Know My Own Heart and are eager to learn more about her revealing life and what it suggests about the history of sexuality.]]>
1 Anne Lister 081475077X Pagan 0 4.34 1993 No Priest But Love: The Journals, 1824-1826
author: Anne Lister
name: Pagan
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/01
shelves:
review:

]]>
Crummy Mummy and Me 492301 'I don't think my mum's fit to be a parent, really I don't.'

How would you feel if your mother had royal-blue hair and wore lavender fishnet tights? But Minna's whole family (including her mum's punk boyfriend, Crusher Maggot) is a bit unusual. Being the only sensible one is not easy for Minna...]]>
128 Anne Fine 0140328769 Pagan 0 3.47 1994 Crummy Mummy and Me
author: Anne Fine
name: Pagan
average rating: 3.47
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/31
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Winter Solstice: The Sacred Traditions of Christmas]]> 2464620 256 John Matthews 0835607690 Pagan 0 4.27 1998 The Winter Solstice: The Sacred Traditions of Christmas
author: John Matthews
name: Pagan
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/31
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks]]> 154924
For eighteen years Ed Viesturs pursued climbing’s holy to stand atop the world’s fourteen 8,000-meter peaks, without the aid of bottled oxygen. But No Shortcuts to the Top is as much about the man who would become the first American to achieve that goal as it is about his stunning quest. As Viesturs recounts the stories of his most harrowing climbs, he reveals a man torn between the flat, safe world he and his loved ones share and the majestic and deadly places where only he can go.

A preternaturally cautious climber who once turned back 300 feet from the top of Everest but who would not shrink from a peak (Annapurna) known to claim the life of one climber for every two who reached its summit, Viesturs lives by an unyielding motto, “Reaching the summit is optional. Getting down is mandatory.� It is with this philosophy that he vividly describes fatal errors in judgment made by his fellow climbers as well as a few of his own close calls and gallant rescues. And, for the first time, he details his own pivotal and heroic role in the 1996 Everest disaster made famous in Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air.

In addition to the raw excitement of Viesturs’s odyssey, No Shortcuts to the Top is leavened with many funny moments revealing the camaraderie between climbers. It is more than the first full account of one of the staggering accomplishments of our time; it is a portrait of a brave and devoted family man and his beliefs that shaped this most perilous and magnificent pursuit.]]>
368 Ed Viesturs 0767924703 Pagan 0 4.11 2006 No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks
author: Ed Viesturs
name: Pagan
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/31
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[A Book of One's Own: People and Their Diaries]]> 691578 314 Thomas Mallon 1886913021 Pagan 0 3.93 1984 A Book of One's Own: People and Their Diaries
author: Thomas Mallon
name: Pagan
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/31
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Annotated Pride and Prejudice]]> 110824 Pride and Prejudice with more than 2,300 annotations on facing pages, including:

Ěýâ€� Explanations of historical context

Rules of etiquette, class differences, the position of women, legal and economic realities, leisure activities, and more.

Ěýâ€� Citations from Austen’s life, letters, and other writings

Parallels between the novel and Austen’s experience are revealed, along with writings that illuminate her beliefs and opinions.

Ěýâ€� Definitions and clarifications

Archaic words, words still in use whose meanings have changed, and obscure passages are explained.

Ěýâ€� Literary comments and analyses

Insightful notes highlight Austen’s artistry and point out the subtle ways she develops her characters and themes.

Ěýâ€� Maps and illustrations

of places and objects mentioned in the novel.

Ěýâ€� An introduction, a bibliography, and a detailed chronology of events

 Of course, one can enjoy the novel without knowing the precise definition of a gentleman, or what it signifies that a character drives a coach rather than a hack chaise, or the rules governing social interaction at a ball, but readers of The Annotated Pride and Prejudice will find that these kinds of details add immeasurably to understanding and enjoying the intricate psychological interplay of Austen’s immortal characters.]]>
780 Jane Austen 0307278107 Pagan 0 4.56 1813 The Annotated Pride and Prejudice
author: Jane Austen
name: Pagan
average rating: 4.56
book published: 1813
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/31
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Shooting the Boh: A Woman's Voyage Down the Wildest River in Borneo]]> 911876 256 Tracy Johnston 0679740104 Pagan 0 3.88 1992 Shooting the Boh: A Woman's Voyage Down the Wildest River in Borneo
author: Tracy Johnston
name: Pagan
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/31
shelves:
review:

]]>
Cosmos 55030
The book also explores spacecraft missions of discovery of the nearby planets, the research in the Library of ancient Alexandria, the human brain, Egyptian hieroglyphics, the origin of life, the death of the Sun, the evolution of galaxies and the origins of matter, suns and worlds.

Sagan retraces the fifteen billion years of cos-mic evolution that have transformed matter into life and consciousness, enabling the Cosmos to wonder about itself. He considers the latest findings on life elsewhere and how we might communicate with the beings of other worlds.

Cosmos is the story of our long journey of discovery and the forces and individuals who helped to shape modern science, including Democritus, Hypatia, Kepler, Newton, Huy-gens, Champollion, Lowell and Humason. Sagan looks at our planet from an extra-terrestrial vantage point and sees a blue jewel-like world, inhabited by a lifeform that is just beginning to discover its own unity and to ven-ture into the vast ocean of space.]]>
384 Carl Sagan 0375508325 Pagan 0 4.39 1980 Cosmos
author: Carl Sagan
name: Pagan
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/31
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death]]> 38212121
“Doughty chronicles [death] practices with tenderheartedness, a technician’s fascination, and an unsentimental respect for grief.� ―Jill Lepore, The New Yorker Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty embarks on a global expedition to discover how other cultures care for the dead. From Zoroastrian sky burials to wish-granting Bolivian skulls, she investigates the world’s funerary customs and expands our sense of what it means to treat the dead with dignity. Her account questions the rituals of the American funeral industry―especially chemical embalming―and suggests that the most effective traditions are those that allow mourners to personally attend to the body of the deceased. Exquisitely illustrated by artist Landis Blair, From Here to Eternity  is an adventure into the morbid unknown, a fascinating tour through the unique ways people everywhere confront mortality. 45 illustrations]]>
256 Caitlin Doughty 0393356280 Pagan 0 currently-reading 4.30 2017 From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death
author: Caitlin Doughty
name: Pagan
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/31
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays]]> 40121993 224 Esmé Weijun Wang 1555978274 Pagan 3 4.14 2019 The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays
author: Esmé Weijun Wang
name: Pagan
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/01
date added: 2023/08/01
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands]]> 59069071 Celebrated cartoonist Kate Beaton vividly presents the untold story of Canada.

Before there was Kate Beaton, New York Times bestselling cartoonist of Hark A Vagrant fame, there was Katie Beaton of the Cape Breton Beatons, specifically Mabou, a tight-knit seaside community where the lobster is as abundant as beaches, fiddles, and Gaelic folk songs. After university, Beaton heads out west to take advantage of Alberta’s oil rush, part of the long tradition of East Coasters who seek gainful employment elsewhere when they can't find it in the homeland they love so much. With the singular goal of paying off her student loans, what the journey will actually cost Beaton will be far more than she anticipates.

Arriving in Fort McMurray, Beaton finds work in the lucrative camps owned and operated by the world’s largest oil companies. Being one of the few women among thousands of men, the culture shock is palpable. It does not hit home until she moves to a spartan, isolated worksite for higher pay. She encounters the harsh reality of life in the oil sands where trauma is an everyday occurrence yet never discussed. Her wounds may never heal.

Beaton’s natural cartooning prowess is on full display as she draws colossal machinery and mammoth vehicles set against a sublime Albertan backdrop of wildlife, Northern Lights, and Rocky Mountains. Her first full-length graphic narrative, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is an untold story of Canada: a country that prides itself on its egalitarian ethos and natural beauty while simultaneously exploiting both the riches of its land and the humanity of its people.]]>
430 Kate Beaton 1770462899 Pagan 5 4.41 2022 Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands
author: Kate Beaton
name: Pagan
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/01/24
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Step Aside, Pops (Hark! A Vagrant, #2)]]> 23848561 The sequel to the hit comic collection Hark! a Vagrant, which appeared on best of lists from Time, NPR and USA Today; spent five months on the New York Times bestseller list; and won Harvey, Ignatz, and Doug Wright awards.

Cartoonist Kate Beaton returns with all-new sidesplitting comics that showcase her irreverent love of history, pop culture, and literature. Collected from her wildly popular website, readers will guffaw over “Strong Female Characters,� the wicked yet chivalrous Black Prince, “Straw Feminists in the Closet,� and a disgruntled Heathcliff. Delight in what the internet has long known—Beaton’s humour is as sharp and dangerous as a velocipedestrienne, so watch out!]]>
168 Kate Beaton 1770462082 Pagan 0 4.04 2015 Step Aside, Pops (Hark! A Vagrant, #2)
author: Kate Beaton
name: Pagan
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/08
shelves:
review:

]]>
Hark! A Vagrant 10767466 Hark! A Vagrant is an uproarious romp through history and literature seen through the sharp, contemporary lens of New Yorker cartoonist and comics-sensation Kate Beaton. No era or tome emerges unscathbed as Beaton rightly skewers the Western world's revolutionaries, leaders, sycophants, and suffragists while equally honing her wit on the hapless heroes, heroines, and villains of the best-loved fiction. She deftly points out what really happened when Brahms fell asleep listening to Liszt, that the world's first hipsters were obviously the Incroyables and the Merveilleuses from eighteenth-century France, that Susan B. Anthony is, of course, a "Samantha," and that the polite banality of Canadian culture never gets old. Hark! A Vagrant features sexy Batman, the true stories behind classic Nancy Drew covers, and Queen Elizabeth doing the albatross. As the 5600.000 unique monthly visitors to already know, no one turns the ironic absurdities of history and literature into comedic fodder as hilarious as Beaton.]]> 168 Kate Beaton 1770460608 Pagan 0 4.21 2011 Hark! A Vagrant
author: Kate Beaton
name: Pagan
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/08
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case For A More Joyful Christmas]]> 199367
Working through their local churches, McKibben and his colleagues found that people were hungry for a more joyful Christmas season. For many, trying to limit the amount of money they spent at Christmas to about a hundred dollars per family was a real spur to their creativity--and a real anchor against the relentless onslaught of commercials and catalogs that try to say Christmas is only Christmas if it comes from a store.

McKibben shows how the store-bought Christmas developed and how out of tune it is with our current lives, when we're really eager for family fellowship, for community involvement, for contact with the natural world, and also for the blessed silence and peace that the season should offer. McKibben shows us how to return to a simpler and more enjoyable holiday.

Christmas is too wonderful a celebration to give up on, too precious a time simply to repeat the same empty gestures from year to year. This book will serve as a road map to a Christmas far more joyful than the ones you've known in the past.]]>
96 Bill McKibben 068485595X Pagan 0 3.69 1998 Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case For A More Joyful Christmas
author: Bill McKibben
name: Pagan
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/08
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster]]> 1898
Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author of the bestseller Into the Wild. On assignment for Outside Magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the mountain, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas as a client of Rob Hall, the most respected high-altitude guide in the world. A rangy, thirty-five-year-old New Zealander, Hall had summited Everest four times between 1990 and 1995 and had led thirty-nine climbers to the top. Ascending the mountain in close proximity to Hall's team was a guided expedition led by Scott Fischer, a forty-year-old American with legendary strength and drive who had climbed the peak without supplemental oxygen in 1994. But neither Hall nor Fischer survived the rogue storm that struck in May 1996.

Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people -- including himself -- to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.]]>
368 Jon Krakauer Pagan 0 4.24 1997 Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Pagan
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/08
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts]]> 30852 204 Maxine Hong Kingston 0679721886 Pagan 0 3.74 1976 The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts
author: Maxine Hong Kingston
name: Pagan
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1976
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/08
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness]]> 13547180 New York Times bestseller that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, Brain on Fire is the powerful account of one woman’s struggle to recapture her identity.

When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she’d gotten there. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: at the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened?

In a swift and breathtaking narrative, Cahalan tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family’s inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis that nearly didn’t happen.]]>
250 Susannah Cahalan 145162137X Pagan 5 4.06 2012 Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
author: Susannah Cahalan
name: Pagan
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2020/11/17
date added: 2020/11/17
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened]]> 17571564
Pictures
Words
Stories about things that happened to me
Stories about things that happened to other people because of me
Eight billion dollars*
Stories about dogs
The secret to eternal happiness*

*These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!]]>
371 Allie Brosh 1451666179 Pagan 5 4.16 2013 Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened
author: Allie Brosh
name: Pagan
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/10/30
shelves:
review:

]]>
Solutions and Other Problems 51323365
Solutions and Other Problems includes humorous stories from Allie Brosh’s childhood; the adventures of her very bad animals; merciless dissection of her own character flaws; incisive essays on grief, loneliness, and powerlessness; as well as reflections on the absurdity of modern life.

This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features all-new material with more than 1,600 pieces of art.]]>
519 Allie Brosh 1982156945 Pagan 5 4.21 2020 Solutions and Other Problems
author: Allie Brosh
name: Pagan
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/10/30
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister]]> 9505358 An alternate cover edition can be found here.

Anne Lister defied the role of womanhood seen in the novels of Jane Austen: she was bold, fiercely independent, a landowner, industrialist, traveler, and a lesbian. She kept extensive diaries of her life and loves, written partly in code. Made up of Greek letters mingled with other symbols of her own devising, Anne referred to the code as her "crypthand," and the use of it allowed her the freedom to describe her intimate life in great detail. Her diaries have been edited by Helena Whitbread, who spent years decoding and transcribing them.]]>
422 Anne Lister Pagan 0 3.91 1992 The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister
author: Anne Lister
name: Pagan
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at: 2020/08/10
date added: 2020/08/10
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith]]> 10847
A multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. This is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior.

Jon Krakauer’s literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. In Under The Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, he shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders. At the core of his book is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this "divinely inspired" crime, Krakauer constructs a multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. Along the way, he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest-growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.

Krakauer takes readers inside isolated communities in the American West, Canada, and Mexico, where some forty-thousand Mormon Fundamentalists believe the mainstream Mormon Church went unforgivably astray when it renounced polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the leaders of these outlaw sects are zealots who answer only to God. Marrying prodigiously and with virtual impunity (the leader of the largest fundamentalist church took seventy-five "plural wives," several of whom were wed to him when they were fourteen or fifteen and he was in his eighties), fundamentalist prophets exercise absolute control over the lives of their followers, and preach that any day now the world will be swept clean in a hurricane of fire, sparing only their most obedient adherents.

Weaving the story of the Lafferty brothers and their fanatical brethren with a clear-eyed look at Mormonism’s violent past, Krakauer examines the underbelly of the most successful homegrown faith in the United States, and finds a distinctly American brand of religious extremism. The result is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior.]]>
400 Jon Krakauer 0330419129 Pagan 5 4.01 2003 Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Pagan
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/07/28
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Denali's Howl: The Deadliest Climbing Disaster on America's Wildest Peak]]> 18668022 Denali’s Howl is the white-knuckle account of one of the most deadly climbing disasters of all time.

In 1967, twelve young men attempted to climb Alaska’s Mount McKinley—known to the locals as Denali—one of the most popular and deadly mountaineering destinations in the world. Only five survived.

Journalist Andy Hall, son of the park superintendent at the time, investigates the tragedy. He spent years tracking down survivors, lost documents, and recordings of radio communications. In Denali’s Howl, Hall reveals the full story of an expedition facing conditions conclusively established here for the first time: At an elevation of nearly 20,000 feet, these young men endured an “arctic super blizzard,� with howling winds of up to 300 miles an hour and wind chill that freezes flesh solid in minutes. All this without the high-tech gear and equipment climbers use today.

As well as the story of the men caught inside the storm, Denali’s Howl is the story of those caught outside it trying to save them—Hall’s father among them. The book gives readers a detailed look at the culture of climbing then and now and raises uncomfortable questions about each player in this tragedy. Was enough done to rescue the climbers, or were their fates sealed when they ascended into the path of this unprecedented storm?]]>
272 Andy Hall 0525954066 Pagan 4 3.82 2014 Denali's Howl: The Deadliest Climbing Disaster on America's Wildest Peak
author: Andy Hall
name: Pagan
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2020/07/28
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women]]> 31409135 The incredible true story of the women who fought America's Undark danger

The Curies' newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War.

Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" are the luckiest alive—until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.

But the factories that once offered golden opportunities are now ignoring all claims of the gruesome side effects, and the women's cries of corruption. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America's early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers' rights that will echo for centuries to come.

Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the "wonder" substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

]]>
479 Kate Moore 149264935X Pagan 4 4.13 2016 The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women
author: Kate Moore
name: Pagan
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2020/07/28
shelves:
review:

]]>