Samantha's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 07 Aug 2024 19:43:45 -0700 60 Samantha's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Queen of Spades and Other Stories]]> 862904 The Queen of Spades and Other Stories is a collection of short fiction showcasing Alexander Pushkin's application of Romantic sensibilities to uncompromising studies of human frailty. This Penguin Classics edition is translated with an introduction by Rosemary Edwards.

'The Queen of Spades', one of Pushkin's most popular and chilling short stories, tells of an inveterate card player who develops a dangerous obsession with the secret of an old lady's luck, which he believes will bring him the wealth he craves. 'The Negro of Peter the Great', a story based on the life Pushkin's own great-grandfather, is a vivid depiction - and criticism - of both French and Russian society, while 'Dubrovsky' is the Byronic tale of a dispossessed young officer. 'The Captain's Daughter' tells of a young man sent to military service - based on the actual events of the rebellion against Catherine II, it demonstrates Pushkin's unparalleled skill at blending fiction and history. Together these four stories display the versatility and innovation that earned Pushkin his reputation as a master of prose and established him as the towering figure in Russian literature.

Rosemary Edmonds's translation is accompanied by an introduction examining Pushkin's simplicity of style and the powerful influence he exerted on his country's literature.
]]> 324 Alexander Pushkin 0140441190 Samantha 5 russian 3.89 1841 The Queen of Spades and Other Stories
author: Alexander Pushkin
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1841
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: russian
review:

]]> The Shipping News 77470
A vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary American family, The Shipping News shows why Annie Proulx is recognized as one of the most gifted and original writers in America today.
--back cover

Cover illustration by David Blackwood

]]> 337 Annie Proulx 0671510053 Samantha 3 novels 3.76 1993 The Shipping News
author: Annie Proulx
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1993
rating: 3
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date added: 2023/08/02
shelves: novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich]]> 17125 The only English translation authorized by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

First published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature. The story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, it graphically describes his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary documents to have emerged from the Soviet Union and confirms Solzhenitsyn's stature as "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dosotevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy"--Harrison Salisbury

This unexpurgated 1991 translation by H. T. Willetts is the only authorized edition available, and fully captures the power and beauty of the original Russian.]]> 182 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Samantha 4 russian 3.98 1962 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1962
rating: 4
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date added: 2023/08/01
shelves: russian
review:

]]> Homo Zapiens 1662390 250 Victor Pelevin 067003066X Samantha 3 russian 3.13 1999 Homo Zapiens
author: Victor Pelevin
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.13
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2019/10/13
shelves: russian
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov]]> 1204063 Lolita, Pale Fire, and Ada, or Ardor, and so many others, comes a magnificent collection of stories.

Written between the 1920s and 1950s, these sixty-five tales—eleven of which have been translated into English for the first time—display all the shades of Nabokov's imagination. They range from sprightly fables to bittersweet tales of loss, from claustrophobic exercises in horror to a connoisseur's samplings of the table of human folly. Read as a whole, The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov offers an intoxicating draft of the master's genius, his devious wit, and his ability to turn language into an instrument of ecstasy.

The Wood-Sprite
Russian Spoken Here
Sounds
Wingstroke
Gods
A Matter of Chance
The Seaport
Revenge
Beneficence
Details of A Sunset
The Thunderstorm
La Veneziana
Bachmann
The Dragon
Christmas
A Letter That Never Reached Russia
The Fight
The Return of Chorb
A Guide to Berlin
A Nursery Tale
Terror
Razor
The Passenger
The Doorbell
An Affair of Honor
The Christmas Story
The Potato Elf
The Aurelian
A Dashing Fellow
A Bad Day
The Visit to the Museum
A Busy Man
Terra Incognita
The Reunion
Lips to Lips
Orache
Music
Perfection
The Admiralty Spire
The Leonardo
In Memory of L.I. Shigaev
The Circle
A Russian Beauty
Breaking the News
Torpid Smoke
Recruiting
A Slice of Life
Spring in Fialta
Cloud, Castle, Lake
Tyrants Destroyed
Lik
Mademoiselle O
Vasiliy Shishkov
Ultima Thule
Solus Rex
The Assistant Producer
That in Aleppo Once
A Forgotten Poet
Time and Ebb
Conversation Piece, 1945
Signs and Symbols
First Love
Scenes From the Life of A Double Monster
The Vane Sisters
Lance]]> 642 Vladimir Nabokov 0140132430 Samantha 4 currently-reading 4.24 1995 The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/08/25
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Lolita 18133 Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov's most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Most of all, it is a meditation on love—love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.]]> 317 Vladimir Nabokov Samantha 5 novels, favorites 3.97 1955 Lolita
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1955
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/03/06
shelves: novels, favorites
review:

]]> Notes from Underground 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 Samantha 5 russian 4.21 1864 Notes from Underground
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1864
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/04/05
shelves: russian
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)]]> 1 652 J.K. Rowling Samantha 4 young-adult 4.57 2005 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2014/04/28
shelves: young-adult
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Overcoat and Other Tales of Good and Evil]]> 537072
The five other "Tales of Good and Evil" in this superb collection demonstrate the broad range of Gogol's literary palette in his short fiction: the fantastic, supernaturally tinged "The Terrible Vengeance," the comic portraiture of "Ivan Fydorovich Shponka and His Aunt," the tragic moral realism of "The Portrait" and "Nevsky Avenue," and the rampaging satire and absurdism of his send-up of Russian upper-class stupidity, "The Nose."

The stories offer the reader the perfect introduction to the imaginative genius of Gogol, which was to flower so triumphantly in his masterpiece, 'Deal Souls'.]]> 271 Nikolai Gogol 0393003043 Samantha 5 russian 4.24 1957 The Overcoat and Other Tales of Good and Evil
author: Nikolai Gogol
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1957
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2013/12/02
shelves: russian
review:

]]> CivilWarLand in Bad Decline 331688
Bizarre but familiar, fierce but always humane, these are stunningly original stories by a master of the form.

Alternate Cover Edition ISBN 1573225797 (ISBN13: 9781573225793)

An alternate cover edition exists here.]]> 179 George Saunders Samantha 4 stories 4.12 1996 CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
author: George Saunders
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/08/11
shelves: stories
review:

]]> The Time Traveler's Wife 207035 (back cover)]]> 546 Audrey Niffenegger Samantha 2 novels 3.98 2003 The Time Traveler's Wife
author: Audrey Niffenegger
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2003
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2013/07/31
shelves: novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?]]> 19634 Birds of America we share a grown woman’s bittersweet nostalgia for the wildness of her youth.
Ěý
The summer Berie was fifteen, she and her best friend Sils had jobs at Storyland in upstate New York where Berie sold tickets to see the beautiful Sils portray Cinderella in a strapless evening gown. They spent their breaks smoking, joking, and gossiping. After work they followed their own reckless rules, teasing the fun out of small town life, sleeping in the family station wagon, and drinking borrowed liquor from old mayonnaise jars. But no matter how wild, they always managed to escape any real danger—until the adoring Berie sees that Sils really does need her help—and then everything changes.]]> 147 Lorrie Moore 1400033829 Samantha 4 novels 3.84 1994 Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?
author: Lorrie Moore
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1994
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2011/07/06
shelves: novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them]]> 623894 Amy Goodman Samantha 4 nonfiction 4.09 2004 The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them
author: Amy Goodman
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2011/06/01
shelves: nonfiction
review:

]]> Love Invents Us 717811 221 Amy Bloom 0375750223 Samantha 3 novels 3.58 1996 Love Invents Us
author: Amy Bloom
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.58
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2011/02/02
shelves: novels
review:

]]> The Heart of a Dog 236592 Bulgakov here assaults the dour utilitarian lives of Soviet citizens with a defiant, boisterous display of nonsense - The Times

A rich, successful Moscow professor befriends a stray and attempts a scientific first by transplanting into it the testicles and pituitary gland of a recently deceased man. A distinctly worryingly human animal is now on the loose, and the professor's hitherto respectable life becomes a nightmare beyond endurance. An absurd and superbly comic story, this classic novel can also be read as a fierce parable of the Russian Revolution.

As high-spirited as it is pointed. Unlike so much satire, it has a splendid sense of fun - Irish Times

A marvellous writer - Michael Frayne]]> 128 Mikhail Bulgakov 0099479338 Samantha 4 russian 3.96 1925 The Heart of a Dog
author: Mikhail Bulgakov
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1925
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2011/01/02
shelves: russian
review:

]]> The Gift 8147 The Gift is the last of the novels Nabokov wrote in his native Russian and the crowning achievement of that period in his literary career.ĚýĚýIt is also his ode to Russian literature, evoking the works of Pushkin, Gogol, and others in the course of its narrative:ĚýĚýthe story of Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, an impoverished Ă©migrĂ© poet living in Berlin, who dreams of the book he will someday write--a book very much like The Gift itself.]]> 403 Vladimir Nabokov 0141185872 Samantha 5 novels, russian 3.99 1937 The Gift
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1937
rating: 5
read at: 2008/07/28
date added: 2008/07/28
shelves: novels, russian
review:

]]> Trance 491996 A Los Angeles Times Book Review Favorite Book of the Year
A Publishers Weekly Top Ten Novel of the Year

It is 1974 and a tiny band of self-styled urban guerrillas, calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), abducts a newspaper heiress, who then takes the guerrilla name"Tania" and shocks the world by choosing to remain with her former captors. Soon most of the SLA are dead, killed in a suicidal confrontation with police in Los Angeles, forcing Tania and her two remaining comrades--the pompous and abusive General Teko and his duplicitous lieutenant, Yolanda--into hiding, where they will remain for the next sixteen months. These are the months of Tania's sentimental education.]]> 528 Christopher Sorrentino 0312425317 Samantha 2 currently-reading 3.46 2005 Trance
author: Christopher Sorrentino
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2005
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2008/07/28
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> My Life in Heavy Metal 147020 205 Steve Almond 0802140130 Samantha 3 stories 3.80 2002 My Life in Heavy Metal
author: Steve Almond
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2007/12/23
shelves: stories
review:

]]> In a Dark Dark House 337629 In a Dark, Dark House is the latest work from Neil LaBute, American theater's great agent provocateur. The play will have its world Premiere in May 2007, Off Broadway at New York's MCC Theater.]]> 94 Neil LaBute 0865479569 Samantha 4 drama 3.59 2007 In a Dark Dark House
author: Neil LaBute
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: drama
review:

]]> Seconds of Pleasure 134062 Seconds of Pleasure, acclaimed award-winning director and playwright Neil LaBute, brings to the page his cutting humor and compelling take on the shadowy terrain of the human heart. Best known for his controversial plays and films, his short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and Playboy. Seductive and provocative, each potent and pithy tale in Seconds of Pleasure finds men and women exploiting -- or at the mercy of -- the hidden fault lines that separate them: In “Time Share,� a woman leaves her family at their vacation home after discovering her husband in a compromising situation; a middle-aged man obsesses over a scab on the calf of a pretty young girl in “Boo-Boo�; and a vain Hollywood actor gets his comeuppance in “Soft Target.� LaBute infuses Seconds of Pleasure with his trademark wit and black humor, and unleashes his imagination in stories that offer unflinching insight into our very human shortcomings and impure urges with shocking candor.]]> 240 Neil LaBute 0802142125 Samantha 4 stories 3.36 2004 Seconds of Pleasure
author: Neil LaBute
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: stories
review:

]]> in the company of men 263003 89 Neil LaBute 0571199313 Samantha 4 drama 3.97 1997 in the company of men
author: Neil LaBute
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: drama
review:

]]> Your Friends and Neighbors 134060
Your Friends & Neighbors is a searing display of the war between the sexes, delivered with the kind of wit used by the great Restoration playwrights to expose the hypocrisies in male/female relationships.

Neil Labute's debut feature, in the company of men, was described by Variety as "a dark, probing, truly disturbing exploration of yuppie angst and male anxieties". In Your Friends & Neighbors, male anxiety is again on show, but in a much wider context, revealing the rabid desire of people-regardless of sex- to serve their own interests at any cost.

]]> 112 Neil LaBute 0571197914 Samantha 4 drama 3.75 1998 Your Friends and Neighbors
author: Neil LaBute
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: drama
review:

]]> This is How it Goes 134059 Belinda and Cody Phipps appear a typical Midwestern couple: teenage sweethearts, children, luxurious home. Typical except that Cody is black--"rich, black, and different," in the words of Belinda, who finds herself attracted to a former (white) classmate. As the battle for her affections is waged, Belinda and Cody frankly doubt the foundation of their initial attraction, opening the door wide to a swath of bigotry and betrayal. Staged on continually shifting moral ground that challenges our received notions about gender, ethnicity, and even love itself, This Is How It Goes unblinkingly explores the myriad ways in which the wild card of race is played by both black and white in America.
]]> 96 Neil LaBute 0571211550 Samantha 4 drama 3.62 2005 This is How it Goes
author: Neil LaBute
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: drama
review:

]]> Autobahn 134063 "Sitting in an automobile was where I first remember understanding how drama works...Hidden in the back seat of a sedan, I quickly realized how deep the chasm or intense the claustrophobia could be inside your average family car." --Neil LaBute

Be it the medium for clandestine couplings, arguments, shelter, or ultimately transportation, the automobile is perhaps the most authentically American of spaces. In Autobahn, Neil LaBute's provocative new collection of one-act plays set within the confines of the front seat, the playwright employs his signature plaintive insight to great effect, investigating the inchoate apprehension that surrounds the steering wheel. Each of these seven brief vignettes explore the ethos of perception and relationship--from a make-out session gone awry to a kidnapping thinly disguised as a road trip, a reconnaissance mission involving the rescue of a Nintendo 64 to a daughter's long ride home after her release from rehab. The result is an unsettling montage that gradually reveals the scabrous force of words left unsaid while illuminating the delicate interplay between intention and morality, capturing the essence of middle America and the myriad paths which cross its surface.
]]> 93 Neil LaBute 0571211100 Samantha 4 drama 3.58 2005 Autobahn
author: Neil LaBute
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: drama
review:

]]> The Distance from Here 134066 96 Neil LaBute 1585673714 Samantha 4 drama 3.45 2003 The Distance from Here
author: Neil LaBute
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: drama
review:

]]> Some Girl(s) 134065 Some Girl(s) is the latest work from Neil Labute, American theater's great agent provocateur. In grand LaBute fashion, this by turns outrageously funny and deadly serious portrait of the artist as a young seducer casts a truthful, hilarious light on a typical young American male as he wanders through the heart of darkness that is himself. This edition includes a deleted scene.]]> 112 Neil LaBute 0571229824 Samantha 5 drama, favorites 3.50 2005 Some Girl(s)
author: Neil LaBute
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: drama, favorites
review:

]]> The Mercy Seat: A Play 134067 69 Neil LaBute 0571211380 Samantha 4 drama 3.68 2003 The Mercy Seat: A Play
author: Neil LaBute
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: drama
review:

]]> Fat Pig 31294 Cow. Slob. Pig. How many insults can you hear before you have to stand up and defend the woman you love? Tom faces just that question when he falls for Helen, a bright, funny, sexy young woman who happens to be plus sized-and then some. Forced to explain his new relationship to his shallow (although shockingly funny) friends, finally he comes to terms with his own preconceptions of the importance of conventional good looks. Neil LaBute's sharply drawn play not only critiques our slavish adherence to Hollywood ideals of beauty but boldy questions our own ability to change what we dislike about ourselves.
]]> 112 Neil LaBute 057121150X Samantha 4 drama 3.50 2004 Fat Pig
author: Neil LaBute
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: drama
review:

]]> The Shape of Things 987144 A startling dissection of cruelty and artistic creation from the author of In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors

In a modern version of Adam's seduction by Eve, The Shape of Things pits gentle, awkward, overweight Adam against experienced, analytical, amoral Evelyn, a graduate student in art. After a chance meeting at a museum, Evelyn and Adam embark on an intense relationship that causes shy and principled Adam to go to extraordinary lengths, including cosmetic surgery, and a betrayal of his best friend, to improve his appearance and character. In the process, Evelyn's subtle and insistent coaching results in a reconstruction of Adam's fundamental moral character. Only in a final and shocking exhibition does Evelyn reveal the nature of her interest in Adam, of her detached artist's perspective and sense of authority--to her, Adam is no more than "flesh.... one of the most perfect materials on earth. Natural, beautiful, and malleable." Labute's latest work is an intense and disturbing study not only of the uses of power within human relationships, but also of the ethics involved in the relationship of art and life. To what extent is an artist licensed to shape and change her medium or to alter the work of another artist? What is acceptable artistic material? At what point does creation become manipulation, and at what point does creation destroy? Or, is the new Adam, handsome and confident if heart broken, an admirable result of the most challenging artistic endeavor? The Shape of Things challenges society's most deeply entrenched ideas about art, manipulation, and love.
]]> 138 Neil LaBute 0571212468 Samantha 5 drama, favorites 3.67 2001 The Shape of Things
author: Neil LaBute
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: drama, favorites
review:

]]> Twentieth Century Eightball 43576 100 Daniel Clowes 1560974362 Samantha 3 4.15 2002 Twentieth Century Eightball
author: Daniel Clowes
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron]]> 30220 Like a Velvet Glove... collects all 10 chapters of the serialized story Eightball. As Clay Loudermilk attempts to unravel the mysteries behind a snuff film, he finds himself involved with an increasingly bizarre cast of characters, including a pair of sadistic cops who carve a strange symbol into the heel of Clay's foot; a horny over-the-hill suburban woman whose sexual encounter with a mysterious water creature produced a grotesquely misshapen, but no less horny, mutant daughter; a dog with no orifices whatsoever (it has to be fed by injection); two ominous victims of extremely bad hair implants; a charismatic Manson-like cult leader who plans to kidnap a famous advice columnist and many more! This edition has a brand new cover, new title and end pages � plus: Clowes being the perfectionist that he is, there are tweaked and re-drawn panels that really make this a transcendent piece of storytelling art!]]> 144 Daniel Clowes 1560971169 Samantha 3 4.09 1993 Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron
author: Daniel Clowes
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1993
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Real Life of Sebastian Knight]]> 71552 The Real Life of Sebastian Knight is a perversely magical literary detective story - subtle, intricate, leading to a tantalizing climax - about the mysterious life of a famous writer. Many people knew things about Sebastian Knight as a distinguished novelist, but probably fewer than a dozen knew of the two love affairs that so profoundly influenced his career, the second one in such a disastrous way. After Knight's death, his half brother sets out to penetrate the enigma of his life, starting with a few scanty clues in the novelist's private papers. His search proves to be a story of mystery and intrigue as any of his subject's own novels, as baffling, and, in the end, as uniquely rewarding.]]> 181 Vladimir Nabokov 0141185996 Samantha 4 russian 3.97 1941 The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1941
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: russian
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle]]> 12187 Ada, or Ardor is one of Nabokov's greatest masterpieces, the glorious culmination of his career as a novelist.ĚýIt tells a love story troubled by incest.ĚýBut more: it is also at once a fairy tale, epic, philosophical treatise on the nature of time, parody of the history of the novel, and erotic catalogue. Ada, or Ardor is no less than the superb work of an imagination at white heat.

This is the first American edition to include the extensive and ingeniouslyĚýsardonic appendix by the author, written under the anagrammatic pseudonym Vivian Darkbloom.]]> 606 Vladimir Nabokov 0679725229 Samantha 4 russian 4.14 1969 Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1969
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: russian
review:

]]> Trash 91872 Trash, Allison's landmark collection, laid the groundwork for her critically acclaimed Bastard Out of Carolina, the National Book Award finalist that was hailed by The New York Times Book Review as "simply stunning...a wonderful work of fiction by a major talent." In addition to Allison's classic stories, this new edition of Trash features "Stubborn Girls and Mean Stories," an introduction in which Allison discusses the writing of Trash and "Compassion," a never-before-published short story.

First published in 1988, the award-winning Trash showcases Allison at her most fearlessly honest and startlingly vivid. The limitless scope of human emotion and experience are depicted in stories that give aching and eloquent voice to the terrible wounds we inflict on those closest to us. These are tales of loss and redemption; of shame and forgiveness; of love and abuse and the healing power of storytelling.

A book that resonates with uncompromising candor and incandescence, Trash is sure to captivate Allison's legion of readers and win her a devoted new following.]]> 240 Dorothy Allison 0452283515 Samantha 3 novels 4.12 1988 Trash
author: Dorothy Allison
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1988
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Special Topics in Calamity Physics]]> 3483
Special Topics in Calamity Physics is a darkly hilarious coming-of-age novel and a richly plotted suspense tale told through the distinctive voice of its heroine, Blue van Meer.]]> 514 Marisha Pessl 067003777X Samantha 3 novels 3.72 2006 Special Topics in Calamity Physics
author: Marisha Pessl
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: novels
review:

]]> Bend Sinister 781614 241 Vladimir Nabokov 0679727272 Samantha 4 russian 3.82 1947 Bend Sinister
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1947
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: russian
review:

]]> We 530787 Before Brave New World...
Before 1984... There was...

We

In the One State of the great Benefactor, there are no individuals, only numbers. Life is an ongoing process of mathematical precision, a perfectly balanced equation. Primitive passions and instincts have been subdued. Even nature has been defeated, banished behind the Green Wall. But one frontier remains: outer space. Now, with the creation of the spaceship Integral, that frontier—will be subjugated to the beneficent yoke of reason.

One number, D-503, chief architect of the Integral, decides to record his thoughts in the final days before the launch for the benefit of less advanced societies. But a chance meeting with the beautiful I-330 results in an unexpected discovery that threatens everything D-503 believes about himself and the One State. The discovery—or rediscovery� of inner space... and that disease the ancients called the soul.

A page-turning SF adventure, a masterpiece of wit and black humor that accurately predicted the horrors of Stalinism, WE is a classic dystopian novel. Its message of hope and warning is as timely at the end of the twentieth century as it was at the beginning.]]> 232 Yevgeny Zamyatin 0380633132 Samantha 4 russian 3.78 1924 We
author: Yevgeny Zamyatin
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1924
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: russian
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]]> <![CDATA[The Man with the Black Coat: Russia's Literature of the Absurd]]> 359963 258 Daniil Kharms 0810115735 Samantha 5 russian 4.38 1971 The Man with the Black Coat: Russia's Literature of the Absurd
author: Daniil Kharms
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1971
rating: 5
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: russian
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]]> The Dreamers 624641
Denied their nightly 'fix' when the French government suddenly orders the Cinémathèque's closure, Théo, Isabelle and Matthew gradually withdraw into a hermetically sealed world of their own creation, an airless universe of obsessive private games, ordeals, humiliations and sexual jousting which finds them shedding their clothes and their inhibitions with equal abandon. A vertiginous free fall interrupted only, and tragically, when the real world outside their shuttered apartment succeeds at last in encroaching on their delirium.

The study of a triangular relationship whose perverse eroticism contrives nevertheless to conserve its own bruised purity, brilliant in its narrative invention and startling in ints imagery, The Dreamers (now a film by Bernardo Bertolucci) belongs to the romantic French tradition of Les Enfants Terribles and Le Grand Meaulnes and resembles no other work in recent British fiction.]]> 208 Gilbert Adair 0571216269 Samantha 5 favorites, novels 3.66 1988 The Dreamers
author: Gilbert Adair
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1988
rating: 5
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shelves: favorites, novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Water from the Sun and Discovering Japan]]> 607900 91 Bret Easton Ellis 0330445820 Samantha 5 favorites 3.46 2006 Water from the Sun and Discovering Japan
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> The Informers 9914 240 Bret Easton Ellis 0330339184 Samantha 5 favorites 3.42 1994 The Informers
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.42
book published: 1994
rating: 5
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> Lunar Park 4031 Lunar Park, is a writer whose first novel Less Than Zero catapulted him to international stardom while he was still in college. In the years that followed, he found himself adrift in a world of wealth, drugs, and fame, as well as dealing with the unexpected death of his abusive father. After a decade of decadence, a chance for salvation arrives; the chance to reconnect with an actress he was once involved with, and their son. But almost immediately his new life is threatened by a freak sequence of events and a bizarre series of murders that all seem to connect to Ellis’s past.

Reality, memoir, and fantasy combine to create not only a fascinating version of this most controversial writer but also a deeply moving novel about love and loss, parents and children, and ultimately forgiveness.]]> 404 Bret Easton Ellis 0375727272 Samantha 4 novels 3.65 2005 Lunar Park
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/12/22
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]]> Glamorama 9913 “Impeccable . . . cold and pitiless and modern.� �The Village Voice

“Compelling and scary. A political thriller bursting with conspiracies, double agents and international terrorism. Glamorama is like a Semtex attack on our superficialities.� �The Face

The author of American Psycho continues to shock and haunt us with his incisive and brilliant dissection of the modern world. In his most ambitious and gripping book yet, Bret Easton Ellis delivers a gripping and brilliant dissection of our celebrity-obsessed culture.

Victor Ward, a twenty-something model in fashion- and celebrity-obsessed Manhattan, is gradually, imperceptibly drawn into a shadowy looking-glass of that society, there and in London and Paris, and then finds himself trapped on the other side, in a much darker place where fame and terrorism and family and politics are inextricably linked and sometimes indistinguishable. At once implicated and horror-stricken, his ways of escape blocked at every turn, he ultimately discovers—back on the other, familiar side—that there was no mirror, no escape, no world but this one in which hotels implode and planes fall from the sky.]]> 546 Bret Easton Ellis 0375703845 Samantha 4 novels 3.55 1998 Glamorama
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.55
book published: 1998
rating: 4
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review:

]]> Selected Poems 626685
The poems in this selection are drawn from eleven volumes published over thirty years.]]> 160 Marina Tsvetaeva 0140187596 Samantha 4 poetry 4.34 1971 Selected Poems
author: Marina Tsvetaeva
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1971
rating: 4
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shelves: poetry
review:

]]> Alabama Wildman 380870 111 Thurston Moore 0934953708 Samantha 4 nonfiction 3.56 2000 Alabama Wildman
author: Thurston Moore
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2000
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: nonfiction
review:

]]> V. 5809 640 Thomas Pynchon 2020418770 Samantha 3 novels 3.97 1963 V.
author: Thomas Pynchon
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1963
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[Gingerbread (Cyd Charisse, #1)]]> 1358857 After being kicked out of a fancy New England boarding school, Cyd Charisse is back home in San Francisco with her parents, Sid and Nancy, in a household that drives her crazy. Lucky for Cyd, she's always had Gingerbread, her childhood rag doll and confidante.
After Cyd tests her parents' permissiveness, she is grounded in Alcatraz (as Cyd calls her room) and forbidden to see Shrimp, her surfer boyfriend. But when her incarceration proves too painful for the whole family, Cyd's parents decide to send her to New York to meet her biological father and his family, whom Cyd has always longed to know.
Summer in the city is not what Cyd Charisse expects -- and Cyd isn't what her newfound family expects, either.
With Gingerbread, debut author Rachel Cohn creates a spirited world of in-your-face characters who are going to stay with readers for a long time.]]> 176 Rachel Cohn 0689843372 Samantha 3 young-adult 3.45 2002 Gingerbread (Cyd Charisse, #1)
author: Rachel Cohn
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2002
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: young-adult
review:

]]> Ordinary Ghosts 473904
Sometimes when life haunts you, you're better off becoming the ghost. Emil Simon feels invisible enough. He counts as a nonentity at his elite preparatory school and makes barely a dent in his father's thoughts. When his older brother runs away, he entrusts Emil with a master key to Caramoor Academy. Soon Emil is sneaking into the school at night to explore ... and falling for a faculty daughter who sneaks in for reasons of her own. This is a novel about living with disappearances... and willing yourself to appear.]]> 380 Eireann Corrigan 0439832438 Samantha 4 young-adult 3.50 2007 Ordinary Ghosts
author: Eireann Corrigan
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2007
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: young-adult
review:

]]> Wide Awake 23231 I can't believe there's going to be a gay Jewish president.

As my mother said this, she looked at my father, who was still staring at the screen. They were shocked, barely comprehending.

Me? I sat there and beamed.

Everything seems to be going right in Duncan's life: The candidate he's been supporting for president has just won the election. Duncan's boyfriend, Jimmy, is with him to celebrate. Love and kindness appear to have won the day.

But all too quickly, things start to go wrong. The election is called into question... and Duncan and Jimmy's relationship is called into question, too. Suddenly Duncan has to decide what he's willing to risk for something he believes in... and how far he's willing to go to hold on to the people we hold dear.]]> 221 David Levithan 0375834664 Samantha 4 young-adult 3.74 2006 Wide Awake
author: David Levithan
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2006
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: young-adult
review:

]]> Are We There Yet? 23227 together. But then Elijah meets Julia, and soon the brothers aren’t together nearly as much. And then Julia meets Danny and soon all three of them are in a mixed-up, turned-around, never-what-you-expect world of brothers, Italy, and love.

Are We There Yet? isn’t about a place on a map, it’s about a place in the heart. David Levithan has written a magical story of a journey definitely worth taking.]]> 215 David Levithan 037582846X Samantha 5 young-adult 3.47 2005 Are We There Yet?
author: David Levithan
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2005
rating: 5
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: young-adult
review:

]]> Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List 23230 And she's kinda in love with him.

Ely loves Naomi.
But he prefers to be in love with boys.

Naomi and Ely have been inseparable since childhood - partially because they've grown up across the hall from each other in the same Manhattan apartment building, and also because they're best friends. Soul mates. Or are they? Just to be safe, they've created a NO KISS LIST - their list of people who are absolutely off-kissing-limits for both of them. The NO KISS LIST protects their friendship and ensures that nothing will rock the foundation of Naomi and Ely: the institution.

Until Ely kisses Naomi's boyfriend. And a fateful piece of chewing gum in the wrong place at the wrong time changes everything.

Soon a rift of universal proportions threatens to destroy their friendship, and it remains to be seen whether Naomi and Ely can find their way toward new soul-mate prospects...and back to one another.

Rachel Cohn and David Levithan have written a love story about love of all kinds, one that reminds us that any great friendship can be as confusing, treacherous, inspiring, and wonderful as any great romance.]]> 230 Rachel Cohn 0375844406 Samantha 3 young-adult 3.43 2007 Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List
author: Rachel Cohn
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2007
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: young-adult
review:

]]> The Realm of Possibility 23232
Endless possibilities.

There's the girl who is in love with Holden Caulfield. The boy who wants to be strong who falls for the girl who's convinced she needs to be weak. The girl who writes love songs for a girl she can't have. The two boys teetering on the brink of their first anniversary. And everyone in between.

As he did in the highly acclaimed Boy Meets Boy, David Levithan gives us a world of unforgettable voices that readers will want to visit again and again. It's the realm of possibility open to us all - where love, joy, and the stories we tell will linger.]]> 210 David Levithan 0375836578 Samantha 5 young-adult 3.93 2004 The Realm of Possibility
author: David Levithan
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2004
rating: 5
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: young-adult
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist]]> 25373
This he said/she said romance told by YA stars Rachel Cohn and David Levithan is a sexy, funny roller coaster of a story about one date over one very long night, with two teenagers, both recovering from broken hearts, who are just trying to figure out who they want to be- and where the next great band is playing.

Told in alternating chapters, teeming with music references, humor, angst, and endearing side characters, this is a love story you'll wish were your very own. Working together for the first time, Rachel Cohn and David Levithan have combined forces to create a book that is sure to grab readers of all ages and never let them go.]]> 183 Rachel Cohn 0375835318 Samantha 4 young-adult 3.71 2006 Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist
author: Rachel Cohn
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2006
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: young-adult
review:

]]> Boy Meets Boy 23228
When Paul meets Noah, he thinks he’s found the one his heart is made for. Until he blows it. The school bookie says the odds are 12-to-1 against him getting Noah back, but Paul’s not giving up without playing his love really loud. His best friend Joni might be drifting away, his other best friend Tony might be dealing with ultra-religious parents, and his ex-boyfriend Kyle might not be going away anytime soon, but sometimes everything needs to fall apart before it can really fit together right.

This is a happy-meaningful romantic comedy about finding love, losing love, and doing what it takes to get love back in a crazy-wonderful world.]]> 185 David Levithan 0375832998 Samantha 5 favorites, young-adult 3.82 2003 Boy Meets Boy
author: David Levithan
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2003
rating: 5
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shelves: favorites, young-adult
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close]]> 4588
The key belonged to his father, he's sure of that. But which of New York's 162 million locks does it open?

So begins a quest that takes Oskar - inventor, letter-writer and amateur detective - across New York's five boroughs and into the jumbled lives of friends, relatives, and complete strangers. He gets heavy boots, he gives himself little bruises and he inches ever nearer to the heart of a family mystery that stretches back fifty years. But will it take him any closer to, or further from, his lost father?]]> 326 Jonathan Safran Foer 0618711651 Samantha 5 novels, favorites 3.98 2005 Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
author: Jonathan Safran Foer
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2005
rating: 5
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shelves: novels, favorites
review:

]]> Running with Scissors 242006 336 Augusten Burroughs 031242227X Samantha 2 novels 3.77 2002 Running with Scissors
author: Augusten Burroughs
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2002
rating: 2
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]]> Pnin 395042 Librarian Note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

Pnin is a professor of Russian at an American college who takes the wrong train to deliver a lecture in a language he cannot master. Pnin is a tireless lover who writes to his treacherous Liza: "A genius needs to keep so much in store, and thus cannot offer you the whole of himself as I do." Pnin is the focal point of subtle academic conspiracies he cannot begin to comprehend, yet he stages a faculty party to end all faculty parties forever.]]> 191 Vladimir Nabokov 0679723412 Samantha 4 russian 3.85 1957 Pnin
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1957
rating: 4
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]]> Tender Is the Night 46164 Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character, Tender Is the Night is lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative.]]> 430 F. Scott Fitzgerald Samantha 4 novels 3.81 1934 Tender Is the Night
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1934
rating: 4
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]]> The Great Gatsby 27451 216 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0684801523 Samantha 5 novels 3.89 1925 The Great Gatsby
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1925
rating: 5
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]]> A Million Little Pieces 1241 Before considering reading this book, please see the BookBrowse note on the book jacket/review page.

BookBrowse Note: January 9th 2006: An article in the Smoking Gun claimed that James Frey (author of A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard) fabricated key parts of his books. They cited police records, court documents and interviews with law enforcement agents which belie a number of Frey's claims regarding criminal charges against him, jail terms and his fugitive status.

In an interview with the Smoking Gun, Frey admitted that he had 'embellished central details' in A Million Little Pieces and backtracked on claims he made in the book.

January 26th 2006. Frey's publisher stated that while it initially stood by him, after further questioning of the author, the house has "sadly come to the realization that a number of facts have been altered and incidents embellished." It will be adding a a publisher's note and author's note to all future editions of A Million Little Pieces.]]> 515 James Frey 0307276902 Samantha 1 novels 3.68 2003 A Million Little Pieces
author: James Frey
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2003
rating: 1
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]]> Garden, Ashes 217984
Andi's search for his father is a poetic, lyrical remembrance of things past. The celebrated Serbian writer Danilo Kis has blended bits of realism, snatches of dreams, and echoes of his own consciousness as a child to shape this magical and memorable novel.]]> 170 Danilo Kiš 156478326X Samantha 4 russian 4.20 1965 Garden, Ashes
author: Danilo Kiš
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1965
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: russian
review:

]]> Naked 4138 Naked, Sedaris turns the mania for memoir on its proverbial ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview—a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable. A tart-tongued mother does dead-on imitations of her young son's nervous tics, to the great amusement of his teachers; a stint of Kerouackian wandering is undertaken (of course!) with a quadriplegic companion; a family gathers for a wedding in the face of imminent death. Through it all is Sedaris's unmistakable voice, without doubt one of the freshest in American writing.]]> 304 David Sedaris Samantha 4 stories 4.10 1997 Naked
author: David Sedaris
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1997
rating: 4
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shelves: stories
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]]> <![CDATA[Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim]]> 10176 --davidsedarisbooks.com]]> 257 David Sedaris 0965904830 Samantha 4 stories 4.12 2004 Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
author: David Sedaris
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2004
rating: 4
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shelves: stories
review:

]]> 84, Charing Cross Road 368916
[text from the back cover of the book]]]> 106 Helene Hanff Samantha 3 novels 4.17 1970 84, Charing Cross Road
author: Helene Hanff
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1970
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: novels
review:

]]> Speak, Memory 394725 here.

The late Vladimir Nabokov always did things his way, and his classic autobiography is no exception. No dry recital of dates, names, and addresses for this linguistic magician--instead, Speak, Memory is a succession of lapidary episodes, in which the factoids play second fiddle to the development of Nabokov's sensibility. There is, to be sure, an impressionistic whirl through the author's family history (including a gallery of Tartar princes and fin-de-siècle oddities). And Nabokov's account of his tenure at St. Petersburg's famous Tenishev School--where he counted Osip Mandelstam among his schoolmates--offers a lovely glimpse into the heart of Russia's silver age. Still, Nabokov is much too artful an autobiographer to present Speak, Memory as a slice of reality--a word, by the way, that he insisted must always be surrounded by quotation marks.]]> 316 Vladimir Nabokov Samantha 2 nonfiction 4.17 1966 Speak, Memory
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1966
rating: 2
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: nonfiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You: Stories]]> 197750
Real people inhabit these pages, the people we know and are, the people we long to be and are afraid to be: a mother and her brave, smart little girl, each coming to terms with the looming knowledge that the little girl will become a man; a wildly unreliable narrator bent on convincing us that her stories are not harmless; a woman with breast cancer, a frightened husband, and a best friend, all discovering that their lifelong triangle is not what they imagined; a man and his stepmother engaged in a complicated dance of memory, anger, and forgiveness. Amy Bloom takes us straight to the center of these lives with rare generosity and sublime wit, in flawless prose that is by turns sensuous, spare, heartbreaking, and laugh-out-loud funny.

These are transcendent stories: about the uncertain gestures of love, about the betrayals and gifts of the body, about the surprises and bounties of the heart, and about what comes to us unbidden and what we choose.

A blind mand can see how much I love you --
Rowing to Eden --
Lionel and Julia (Night vision, Light into dark) --
Stars at elbow and foot --
Hold tight --
The gates are closing --
The story]]> 161 Amy Bloom 0375705570 Samantha 4 stories 3.87 2000 A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You: Stories
author: Amy Bloom
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2000
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: stories
review:

]]> Kiss of the Spiderwoman 435314 281 Manuel Puig 0099801000 Samantha 3 novels 3.77 1976 Kiss of the Spiderwoman
author: Manuel Puig
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1976
rating: 3
read at:
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shelves: novels
review:

]]> Interpreter of Maladies 5439 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in Jhumpa Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations. In "A Temporary Matter," published in The New Yorker, a young Indian-American couple faces the heartbreak of a stillborn birth while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession. Lahiri writes with deft cultural insight reminiscent of Anita Desai and a nuanced depth that recalls Mavis Gallant.]]> 198 Jhumpa Lahiri 0618101365 Samantha 5 stories, favorites 4.18 1999 Interpreter of Maladies
author: Jhumpa Lahiri
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: stories, favorites
review:

]]> Motherless Brooklyn 9818 'A detective novel of winning humour and exhilarating originality.' - Sunday Times

Lionel Essrog is Brooklyn's very own self-appointed Human Freakshow, an orphan whose Tourette's Disease drives him to bark, count, and rip apart our language in startling and original ways. Together with three veterans of the St Vincent's Home for Boys, he works for mobster Frank Minna. But when Frank is fatally stabbed and his widow skips town, Lionel attempts to untangle the threads of the case.]]> 311 Jonathan Lethem 0571226329 Samantha 3 novels 3.91 1999 Motherless Brooklyn
author: Jonathan Lethem
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1999
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: novels
review:

]]> White Oleander 32234 White Oleander tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes--each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned--becomes a redeeming and surprising journey of self-discovery.]]> 446 Janet Fitch 0316182540 Samantha 4 novels 4.00 1999 White Oleander
author: Janet Fitch
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1999
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Antigone (The Theban Plays, #3)]]> 7728
Antigone raises issues of law and morality that are just as relevant today as they were more than two thousand years ago. Whether this is your first reading or your twentieth, Antigone will move you as few pieces of literature can.

To make this quintessential Greek drama more accessible to the modern reader, this Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition includes a glossary of difficult terms, a list of vocabulary words, and convenient sidebar notes. By providing these, it is our intention that readers will more fully enjoy the beauty, wisdom, and intent of the play.]]> 80 Sophocles 1580493882 Samantha 4 drama 3.69 -441 Antigone (The Theban Plays, #3)
author: Sophocles
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.69
book published: -441
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: drama
review:

]]> She’s Come Undone 5203
Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Stranded in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally orbits into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before she really goes under.]]> 465 Wally Lamb 0671021001 Samantha 3 novels 3.91 1992 She’s Come Undone
author: Wally Lamb
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1992
rating: 3
read at:
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shelves: novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven]]> 52873
These 22 interlinked tales are narrated by characters raised on humiliation and government-issue cheese, and yet are filled with passion and affection, myth and dream. There is Victor, who as a nine-year-old crawled between his unconscious parents hoping that the alcohol seeping through their skins might help him sleep. Thomas Builds-the-Fire, who tells his stories long after people stop listening, and Jimmy Many Horses, dying of cancer, who writes letters on stationary that reads "From the Death Bed of James Many Horses III," even though he actually writes them on his kitchen table.

Against a backdrop of alcohol, car accidents, laughter, and basketball, Alexie depicts the distances between Indians and whites, reservation Indians and urban Indians, men and women, and most poetically, between modern Indians and the traditions of the past.]]> 242 Sherman Alexie 0802141676 Samantha 4 stories 4.09 1993 The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
author: Sherman Alexie
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: stories
review:

]]> The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle 284066
In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.

Gripping, prophetic, suffused with comedy and menace, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a tour de force equal in scope to the masterpieces of Mishima and Pynchon.]]> 607 Haruki Murakami Samantha 4 novels 4.14 1994 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1994
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: novels
review:

]]> The Elephant Vanishes 9555
With the same deadpan mania and genius for dislocation that he brought to his internationally acclaimed novels A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami makes this collection of stories a determined assault on the normal. A man sees his favorite elephant vanish into thin air; a newlywed couple suffers attacks of hunger that drive them to hold up a McDonald's in the middle of the night; and a young woman discovers that she has become irresistible to a little green monster who burrows up through her backyard.

By turns haunting and hilarious, The Elephant Vanishes is further proof of Murakami's ability to cross the border between separate realities -- and to come back bearing treasure.]]> 327 Haruki Murakami Samantha 4 stories 3.88 1993 The Elephant Vanishes
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: stories
review:

]]> Sputnik Sweetheart 397165 Norwegian Wood and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, plunges us into an urbane Japan of jazz bars, coffee shops, Jack Kerouac, and the Beatles to tell this story of a tangled triangle of uniquely unrequited loves.

A college student, identified only as “K,� falls in love with his classmate, Sumire. But devotion to an untidy writerly life precludes her from any personal commitments–until she meets Miu, an older and much more sophisticated businesswoman. When Sumire disappears from an island off the coast of Greece, “K� is solicited to join the search party and finds himself drawn back into her world and beset by ominous, haunting visions. A love story combined with a detective story, Sputnik Sweetheart ultimately lingers in the mind as a profound meditation on human longing.]]> 210 Haruki Murakami 0375726055 Samantha 2 novels 3.79 1999 Sputnik Sweetheart
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1999
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: novels
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]]> Jesus Saves 378501 Jesus Saves is a chilling horror story, a suburban gothic that explores the darkest limits of human degradation. Set in a landscape of strip malls and feral kudzu-covered dump sites, this book focuses on the other suburbia, not the green manicured lawns and well-tended ranch houses, but the trampled, trash-filled strips of woods lying between subdivisions and superhighways, launchpads for adolescent ritual, whose sacramental remnants are discarded beer cans and charred wood. At the center of this community are two girls: Sandy Patrick, who has been abducted from summer camp and now smiles from missing-child posters all over town; and Ginger, a troubled minister's daughter, whose fixation on Sandy borders on obsession. Ultimately, these two young women are brought together by a violent and dispossessed man who leads them into a night of diabolical terror and the final confrontation between the sacred and profane.]]> 224 Darcey Steinke 0802135986 Samantha 3 novels 3.41 1997 Jesus Saves
author: Darcey Steinke
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.41
book published: 1997
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/12/22
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review:

]]> The House of Sleep 89055 The Big Chill, Jonathan Coe's new novel follows four students who knew each other in college in the eighties. Sarah is a narcoleptic who has dreams so vivid she mistakes them for real events. Robert has his life changed forever by the misunderstandings that arise from her condition. Terry spends his wakeful nights fueling his obsession with movies. And an increasingly unstable doctor, Gregory, sees sleep as a life-shortening disease which he must eradicate.

But after ten years of fretful slumber and dreams gone bad, the four reunite in their college town to confront their disorders. In a Gothic cliffside manor being used as a clinic for sleep disorders, they discover that neither love, nor lunacy, nor obsession ever rests.

]]> 337 Jonathan Coe 0375700889 Samantha 2 novels 3.95 1997 The House of Sleep
author: Jonathan Coe
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1997
rating: 2
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]]> The Rotters' Club 41038 415 Jonathan Coe 0375713123 Samantha 5 favorites, novels 3.99 2001 The Rotters' Club
author: Jonathan Coe
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2001
rating: 5
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: favorites, novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Don Quixote (Modern Library Classics)]]> 3840
Widely regarded as the world's first modern novel, Don Quixote chronicles the famous picaresque adventures of the noble knight-errant Don Quixote de la Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they wend their way across sixteenth-century Spain. Milan Kundera calls Cervantes “the founder of the Modern Era and Lionel Trilling “observes that it can be said that all prose fiction is a variation on the theme of Don Quixote.�

This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition reproduces the acclaimed Tobias Smollett translation; as Salman Rushdie declares, “To my mind, this is the only English rendering of the Quixote that reads like a great novel, a novel of immense daring, much wildness and many colours. It releases Don Quixote from the grey academic prison of many more recent translations, unleashing him upon the English language in all his brilliant, foolish glory.� This edition also contains new endnotes.]]> 1168 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 037575699X Samantha 4 novels 3.89 1615 Don Quixote (Modern Library Classics)
author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1615
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman]]> 40604

Rich in playful double entendres, digressions, formal oddities, and typographical experiments, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman provoked a literary sensation when it first appeared in England in a series of volumes from 1759 to 1767. An ingeniously structured novel (about writing a novel) that fascinates like a verbal game of chess, Tristram Shandy is the most protean and playful English novel of the eighteenth century and a celebration of the art of fiction; its inventiveness anticipates the work of Joyce, Rushdie, and Fuentes in our own century. This Modern Library Paperback is set from the nine-volume first edition from 1759.]]> 704 Laurence Sterne 0375761195 Samantha 5 novels, favorites 4.01 1767 The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
author: Laurence Sterne
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1767
rating: 5
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: novels, favorites
review:

]]> I Am the Cheese 48974 233 Robert Cormier 0141300515 Samantha 4 young-adult 3.77 1977 I Am the Cheese
author: Robert Cormier
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1977
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: young-adult
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Chocolate War (Chocolate War, #1)]]> 17162 Do I dare disturb the universe? Refusing to sell chocolates in the annual Trinity school fund-raiser may not seem like a radical thing to do. But when Jerry challenges a secret school society called The Vigils, his defiant act turns into an all-out war. Now the only question is: Who will survive? First published in 1974, Robert Cormier's groundbreaking novel, an unflinching portrait of corruption and cruelty, has become a modern classic.

A New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year]]> 267 Robert Cormier 0375829873 Samantha 3 young-adult 3.50 1974 The Chocolate War (Chocolate War, #1)
author: Robert Cormier
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1974
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: young-adult
review:

]]> We All Fall Down 869906 But The Avenger has seen it all.]]> 208 Robert Cormier 0440215560 Samantha 4 young-adult 3.80 1991 We All Fall Down
author: Robert Cormier
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1991
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: young-adult
review:

]]> Nine Stories 4009
The stories are:

"A Perfect Day for Bananafish"
"Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut"
"Just Before the War with the Eskimos"
"The Laughing Man"
"Down at the Dinghy"
"For Esmé � with Love and Squalor"
"Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes"
"De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period"
"Teddy"]]> 302 J.D. Salinger 0316767727 Samantha 5 stories, favorites 4.20 1953 Nine Stories
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1953
rating: 5
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shelves: stories, favorites
review:

]]> After the First Death 869907
They've taken the children. And the son of a general. But that isn't enough.

More horrors must come...]]> 240 Robert Cormier 0440208351 Samantha 4 young-adult 3.67 1979 After the First Death
author: Robert Cormier
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1979
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: young-adult
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Great Short Works of Leo Tolstoy]]> 654 War and Peace, his epic in prose, and Anna Karenina, one of the most splendid novels in any language. But during his long lifetime Tolstoy also wrote enough shorter works to fill many volumes. Here reprinted in one volume are his eight finest short novels, together with "Alyosha the Pot", the little tale that Prince Mirsky described as "a masterpiece of rare perfection."

The Death of Ivan Ilych
The Cossacks
Family Happiness
The Devil
The Kreutzer Sonata
Master and Man
Father Sergius
Haji Murad
Alyosha the Pot]]> 720 Leo Tolstoy 0060586974 Samantha 4 russian 4.32 1967 Great Short Works of Leo Tolstoy
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1967
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: russian
review:

]]> Reasons to Live 33300
A widow, surrounded by a small menagerie, comes to terms with her veterinarian husband's death; a young woman entertains her dying friend with trivia and reaffirms her own life; in the aftermath of an abortion, a woman compulsively knits a complete wardrobe for a friend's baby. Buffeted by rude shocks, thwarted by misconnections, the characters recognize that anything can finally become a reason to live.

In a tub
Tonight is a favor to Holly
Celia is back
Nashville gone to ashes
San Francisco
In the cemetery where Al Jolson is buried
Beg, Sl Tog, Inc, Cont, Rep
Going
Pool night
Three popes walk into a bar
The man in Bogotá
When it's human instead of when it's dog
Why I'm here
Breathing Jesus
Today will be a quiet day]]> 129 Amy Hempel 0060976721 Samantha 4 stories 4.14 1985 Reasons to Live
author: Amy Hempel
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1985
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: stories
review:

]]> Garden State 15384 224 Rick Moody 0571200613 Samantha 3 novels 3.08 1992 Garden State
author: Rick Moody
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.08
book published: 1992
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: novels
review:

]]> Haunted 22288
The stories are told by people who have all answered an ad headlined 'Artists Retreat: Abandon your life for three months'. They are led to believe that here they will leave behind all the distractions of 'real life' that are keeping them from creating the masterpiece that is in them.

But 'here' turns out to be a cavernous and ornate old theater where they are utterly isolated from the outside world - and where heat and power and, most importantly, food are in increasingly short supply. And the more desperate the circumstances become, the more desperate the stories they tell - and the more devious their machinations to make themselves the hero of the inevitable play/movie/non-fiction blockbuster that will certainly be made from their plight.]]> 419 Chuck Palahniuk 1400032822 Samantha 1 stories 3.60 2005 Haunted
author: Chuck Palahniuk
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2005
rating: 1
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: stories
review:

]]> Eugene Onegin 27823
Charles Johnston’s acclaimed translation has been revised for this new edition, which contains a new introduction and textual notes by Michael Basker, as well as John Bayley’s introduction to the original Penguin Classics edition.]]> 262 Alexander Pushkin 0140448039 Samantha 5 russian 4.02 1833 Eugene Onegin
author: Alexander Pushkin
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1833
rating: 5
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shelves: russian
review:

]]> Twelve 175887 256 Nick McDonell 184354072X Samantha 3 novels 3.20 2002 Twelve
author: Nick McDonell
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2002
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: novels
review:

]]> Infinite Jest 6759
Set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are.

Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction without sacrificing for a moment its own entertainment value. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human—and one of those rare books that renew the idea of what a novel can do.]]> 1088 David Foster Wallace Samantha 4 novels 4.26 1996 Infinite Jest
author: David Foster Wallace
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1996
rating: 4
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shelves: novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Brief Interviews with Hideous Men]]> 6753
Among the stories are 'The Depressed Person', a dazzling and blackly humorous portrayal of a woman's mental state; 'Adult World', which reveals a woman's agonised consideration of her confusing sexual relationship with her husband; and 'Brief Interviews with Hideous Men', a dark, hilarious series of portraits of men whose fear of women renders them grotesque. Wallace's stories present a world where the bizarre and the banal are interwoven and where hideous men appear in many different guises. Thought-provoking and playful, this collection confirms David Foster Wallace as one of the most imaginative young writers around. Wallace delights in leftfield observation, mining the ironic, the surprising and the illuminating from every situation. This collection will delight his growing number of fans, and provide a perfect introduction for new readers.]]> 273 David Foster Wallace 034911188X Samantha 4 stories 3.88 1999 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
author: David Foster Wallace
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1999
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: stories
review:

]]> Play It As It Lays 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 Samantha 4 novels 3.94 1970 Play It As It Lays
author: Joan Didion
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1970
rating: 4
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shelves: novels
review:

]]> Still Life with Woodpecker 9566 277 Tom Robbins 184243022X Samantha 4 novels 4.05 1980 Still Life with Woodpecker
author: Tom Robbins
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1980
rating: 4
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shelves: novels
review:

]]> You Don't Love Me Yet 16717 224 Jonathan Lethem 038551218X Samantha 1 novels 2.85 2007 You Don't Love Me Yet
author: Jonathan Lethem
name: Samantha
average rating: 2.85
book published: 2007
rating: 1
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: novels
review:

]]> Werewolves in Their Youth 16698 Wonder Boys returns with a powerful and wonderfully written collection of stories. Caught at moments of change, Chabon's men and women, children and husbands and wives, all face small but momentous decisions. They are caught in events that will crystallize and define their lives forever, and with each, Michael Chabon brings his unique vision and uncanny understanding of our deepest mysteries and our greatest fears.
]]> 224 Michael Chabon 0312254385 Samantha 4 stories 3.64 1999 Werewolves in Their Youth
author: Michael Chabon
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1999
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: stories
review:

]]> The Ice Storm 15374 305 Rick Moody 0316706000 Samantha 3 novels 3.67 1994 The Ice Storm
author: Rick Moody
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1994
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Purple America (PETITE BIBLIOTHEQUE RIVAGES)]]> 15376
Billie Raitliffe est atteinte d'une maladie invalidante, ne lui laissant que les regrets de sa vie passée. Hex vient s'occuper d'elle après une longue absence. Mais en une nuit, tout va vaciller. Le second mari de Billie s'en va, épuisé par des années d'abnégation. Hex perd les pédales face à sa mère qui réclame la mort, les sentiments trop longtemps refoulés explosent, jusqu'au dénouement final laissant les corps meurtris, épuisés.

Crispant, étouffant même à force de détails et de longs monologues intérieurs, le livre de Rick Moody tente cependant un audacieux parallèle entre le délabrement des êtres rongés par la maladie et les déchirements du corps social de l'Amérique.]]> 384 Rick Moody 2743609397 Samantha 3 novels 3.51 1997 Purple America (PETITE BIBLIOTHEQUE RIVAGES)
author: Rick Moody
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.51
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2007/12/22
shelves: novels
review:

]]>