bella �'s bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 25 Mar 2025 23:01:04 -0700 60 bella �'s bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Speech Sounds 50252588 una sangrienta y absurda pelea mientras iba en el autobús. En su colección de relatos, Bloodchild and Other Stories, Butler afirmaba que al presenciar la pelea
se preguntó «si la especie humana evolucionaría lo suficiente para comunicarse
sin emplear un tipo u otro de puños». Y entonces, se le ocurrió la primera línea de
este relato.

Originalmente, Valdemar la publicó en las páginas 15 a 34 de la antología Paisajes del Apocalipsis: antología de relatos sobre el final de los tiempos (/book/show/1...). La editorial lo ofreció gratuitamente en la red como ayuda para el confinamiento por la pandemia del COVID-19 el 4 de abril de 2020.]]>
Octavia E. Butler bella � 4 4.15 Speech Sounds
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: bella �
average rating: 4.15
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2020/09/01
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves:
review:

]]>
All the Lovers in the Night 59336625
As the long overdue change occurs, however, painful episodes from Fuyuko’s past surface and her behavior slips further and further beyond the pale. All the Lovers in the Night is acute and insightful, entertaining and engaging; it will make readers laugh, and it will make them cry, but it will also remind them, as only the best books do, that sometimes the pain is worth it.]]>
224 Mieko Kawakami 1609456998 bella � 0 to-read 3.70 2011 All the Lovers in the Night
author: Mieko Kawakami
name: bella �
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver (Ruby Oliver, #1)]]> 301022
lost her boyfriend (#13 on the list),

lost her best friend (Kim),

lost all her other friends (Nora, Cricket),

did something suspicious with a boy (#10),

did something advanced with a boy (#15),

had an argument with a boy (#14),

drank her first beer (someone handed it to her),

got caught by her mom (ag!),

had a panic attack (scary),

lost a lacrosse game (she’s the goalie),

failed a math test (she’ll make it up),

hurt Meghan’s feelings (even though they aren’t really friends),

became a social outcast (no one to sit with at lunch)

and had graffiti written about her in the girls� bathroom (who knows what was in the boys�!?!).
But don’t worry—Ruby lives to tell the tale. And make more lists.]]>
229 E. Lockhart 0385732074 bella � 0 nostalgic-preteen-books 3.49 2005 The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver (Ruby Oliver, #1)
author: E. Lockhart
name: bella �
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: nostalgic-preteen-books
review:

]]>
Lock and Key 1295102 Ruby, where is your mother?

Ruby knows that the game is up. For the past few months, she's been on her own in the yellow house, managing somehow, knowing that her mother will probably never return.

That's how she comes to live with Cora, the sister she hasn't seen in ten years, and Cora's husband Jamie, whose down-to-earth demeanor makes it hard for Ruby to believe he founded the most popular networking Web site around. A luxurious house, fancy private school, a new wardrobe, the promise of college and a future; it's a dream come true. So why is Ruby such a reluctant Cinderella, wary and defensive? And why is Nate, the genial boy next door with some secrets of his own, unable to accept the help that Ruby is just learning to give?

Best-selling author Sarah Dessen explores the heart of a gutsy, complex girl dealing with unforeseen circumstances and learning to trust again.]]>
432 Sarah Dessen 067001088X bella � 0 to-read, 2025 4.00 2008 Lock and Key
author: Sarah Dessen
name: bella �
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]>
Emma 6969 The newest edition is here. Another alternate cover can be found here.

Emma Woodhouse is one of Austen's most captivating and vivid characters. Beautiful, spoilt, vain and irrepressibly witty, Emma organizes the lives of the inhabitants of her sleepy little village and plays matchmaker with devastating effect.]]>
474 Jane Austen 0141439580 bella � 0 to-read 4.05 1815 Emma
author: Jane Austen
name: bella �
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1815
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Romeo and Juliet 18135 Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a violent world, in which two young people fall in love. It is not simply that their families disapprove; the Montagues and the Capulets are engaged in a blood feud.

In this death-filled setting, the movement from love at first sight to the lovers� final union in death seems almost inevitable. And yet, this play set in an extraordinary world has become the quintessential story of young love. In part because of its exquisite language, it is easy to respond as if it were about all young lovers.]]>
281 William Shakespeare 0743477111 bella � 0 to-read, 2025 3.74 1597 Romeo and Juliet
author: William Shakespeare
name: bella �
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1597
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]>
Jane Eyre 10210 Alternate editions can be found here and here.

A gothic masterpiece of tempestuous passions and dark secrets, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is edited with an introduction and notes by Stevie Davis in Penguin Classics.

Charlotte Brontë tells the story of orphaned Jane Eyre, who grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic, brooding Mr Rochester. As her feelings for Rochester develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall's terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice. Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions - even if it means leaving the man she loves? A novel of intense power and intrigue, Jane Eyre dazzled readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and freedom.]]>
532 Charlotte Brontë 0142437204 bella � 0 to-read, 2025 4.14 1847 Jane Eyre
author: Charlotte Brontë
name: bella �
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1847
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]>
Daisy Jones & The Six 40597810 Everyone knows DAISY JONES & THE SIX, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.

Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ’n� roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.

Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.

Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.

The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.]]>
368 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1524798622 bella � 0 to-read, 2025 4.20 2019 Daisy Jones & The Six
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: bella �
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]>
Verity 59344312
Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity's notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of what really happened the day her daughter died.

Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents would devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen's feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife's words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue to love her.]]>
336 Colleen Hoover 153872474X bella � 0 to-read, 2025 4.29 2018 Verity
author: Colleen Hoover
name: bella �
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

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

Throughout, Tolstoy points no moral, merely inviting us not to judge but to watch. As Rosemary Edmonds comments, 'He leaves the shifting patterns of the kaleidoscope to bring home the meaning of the brooding words following the title, 'Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.]]>
964 Leo Tolstoy 0345803922 bella � 0 to-read, 2025 4.11 1878 Anna Karenina
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: bella �
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1878
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Les Miserables (Classics Illustrated #9)]]> 6648041 48 Rolland H. Livingstone 1906814171 bella � 0 to-read, 2025 4.28 1947 Les Miserables (Classics Illustrated #9)
author: Rolland H. Livingstone
name: bella �
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1947
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet]]> 55145261 A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green

The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ground-breaking, critically acclaimed podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet - from the QWERTY keyboard and Halley's Comet to Penguins of Madagascar - on a five-star scale.

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.]]>
304 John Green 0525555218 bella � 0 to-read 4.37 2021 The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
author: John Green
name: bella �
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Little Women (Little Women, #1)]]> 1934 This is an alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780451529305.

Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War.

It is no secret that Alcott based Little Women on her own early life. While her father, the freethinking reformer and abolitionist Bronson Alcott, hobnobbed with such eminent male authors as Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, Louisa supported herself and her sisters with "woman’s work,� including sewing, doing laundry, and acting as a domestic servant. But she soon discovered she could make more money writing. Little Women brought her lasting fame and fortune, and far from being the "girl’s book� her publisher requested, it explores such timeless themes as love and death, war and peace, the conflict between personal ambition and family responsibilities, and the clash of cultures between Europe and America.

]]>
449 Louisa May Alcott bella � 0 to-read, 2025 4.16 1868 Little Women (Little Women, #1)
author: Louisa May Alcott
name: bella �
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1868
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well]]> 30045683 Hygge has been described as everything from "cosines of the soul" to "the pursuit of everyday pleasures". The Little Book of Hygge is the book we all need right now, and is guaranteed to bring warmth and comfort to you and your loved ones this winter.

Hooga? Hhyooguh? Heurgh? It is not really important how you choose to pronounce 'hygge'. What is important is that you feel it. Whether you're cuddled up on a sofa with a loved one, or sharing comfort food with your closest friends, hygge is about creating an atmosphere where you can let your guard down.]]>
289 Meik Wiking 0241283914 bella � 0 to-read, 2025 3.76 2016 The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well
author: Meik Wiking
name: bella �
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]>
Too Much of Life 60472556
Between 1967 and 1977, Clarice Lispector wrote weekly dispatches from her desk in Rio for the Jornal de Brasil. Already famous for her revolutionary, interior, metaphysical novels, in her Chronicles she turns her attention to the everyday, turning the material of her life into profound, touching and funny, tiny revelations.

Observing the world around her, small encounters like hearing tales of the lost loves of a taxi driver, or the bitterness lurking beneath the prettiness of an old friend, become an exposition of the currents and foibles that define our lives. Everything from the meaning of cosmonauts to the new ideas, writers and artists that populate the sparkling international world of the sixties and seventies are considered and transformed into jewels of insight, delight and devastation.

Sincere and playful, exhilarating and contemplative, Too Much of Life: Complete Chronicles opens up a new way of seeing the world.]]>
742 Clarice Lispector 0241597579 bella � 0 to-read 4.51 2018 Too Much of Life
author: Clarice Lispector
name: bella �
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories]]> 92497 402 Charles Bukowski 1574230026 bella � 0 to-read 4.13 1996 Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories
author: Charles Bukowski
name: bella �
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Dark Night of the Soul 117531 On the mystical path, the experience of night is neither dark, nor dramatic, nor tragic. This magnificent poetic treatise shows, on the contrary, that she is the recipient of divine lessons. A major work of the negative path.


« Plus les choses divines sont en soi claires et manifestes, plus elles sont naturellement obscures et cachées à l’âme. Il en est ici comme de la lumière naturelle : […] plus on veut fixer le soleil en face, et plus on éblouit la puissance visuelle et on la prive de lumière […]. De même, quand cette divine lumière de la contemplation investit l’âme qui n’est pas encore complètement éclairée, elle produit en elle des ténèbres spirituelles, parce que non seulement elle la dépasse, mais parce qu’elle la prive de son intelligence naturelle et en obscurcit l’acte. »
Sur le chemin mystique, l’expérience de la nuit n’est ni noire, ni dramatique, ni tragique. Ce magnifique traité poétique montre au contraire qu’elle est réceptrice de leçons divines. Une œuvre majeure de la voie négative.]]>
111 John of the Cross 0486426939 bella � 0 to-read, 2025 4.17 1584 Dark Night of the Soul
author: John of the Cross
name: bella �
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1584
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]>
The Anthropologists 195391751
As the young couple dreams about the possibilities of each new listing, Asya, a documentarian, spends her days gathering footage from the neighborhood park like an anthropologist observing local customs. “Forget about daily life,� chides her grandmother on the phone. “We named you for a whole continent and you're filming a park.� Life back in Asya and Manu's respective home countries continues-parents age, grandparents get sick, nieces and nephews grow up-all just slightly beyond their reach. But the world they're making in their new city is growing, too, they hope, into something that will be distinctly theirs. As they open up the horizons of their lives, what and whom will they hold onto, and what will they need to release?

Hailed by Lauren Groff and Marina Abramovic, Savas's fine, precise craft turns The Anthropologist's simple apartment search into a soulful, often funny, examination of modern coupledom, home-building, and expat life in the universal modern city.]]>
192 Aysegül Savas 163973306X bella � 0 to-read 3.88 2024 The Anthropologists
author: Aysegül Savas
name: bella �
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Conversations with Friends 32187419 A sharply intelligent novel about two college students and the strange, unexpected connection they forge with a married couple.

Frances is twenty-one years old, cool-headed, and darkly observant. A college student and aspiring writer, she devotes herself to a life of the mind--and to the beautiful and endlessly self-possessed Bobbi, her best friend and comrade-in-arms. Lovers at school, the two young women now perform spoken-word poetry together in Dublin, where a journalist named Melissa spots their potential. Drawn into Melissa's orbit, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman's sophisticated home and tall, handsome husband. Private property, Frances believes, is a cultural evil--and Nick, a bored actor who never quite lived up to his potential, looks like patriarchy made flesh. But however amusing their flirtation seems at first, it gives way to a strange intimacy neither of them expect. As Frances tries to keep her life in check, her relationships increasingly resist her control: with Nick, with her difficult and unhappy father, and finally even with Bobbi. Desperate to reconcile herself to the desires and vulnerabilities of her body, Frances's intellectual certainties begin to yield to something new: a painful and disorienting way of living from moment to moment.

Written with gem-like precision and probing intelligence, Conversations With Friends is wonderfully alive to the pleasures and dangers of youth."]]>
304 Sally Rooney 0451499077 bella � 0 to-read 3.74 2017 Conversations with Friends
author: Sally Rooney
name: bella �
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: to-read
review:

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

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.]]>
289 Ottessa Moshfegh 0525522131 bella � 0 to-read 3.62 2018 My Year of Rest and Relaxation
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: bella �
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Beach Read 52867387 A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no-one will fall in love. Really.]]>
400 Emily Henry 1984806734 bella � 0 to-read, 2025 3.99 2020 Beach Read
author: Emily Henry
name: bella �
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]>
A Visit from the Goon Squad 7331435
We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist’s couch in New York City, confronting her long-standing compulsion to steal. Later, we learn the genesis of her turmoil when we see her as the child of a violent marriage, then as a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to avert the suicidal impulses of her best friend. We plunge into the hidden yearnings and disappointments of her uncle, an art historian stuck in a dead marriage, who travels to Naples to extract Sasha from the city’s demimonde and experiences an epiphany of his own while staring at a sculpture of Orpheus and Eurydice in the Museo Nazionale. We meet Bennie Salazar at the melancholy nadir of his adult life—divorced, struggling to connect with his nine-year-old son, listening to a washed-up band in the basement of a suburban house—and then revisit him in 1979, at the height of his youth, shy and tender, reveling in San Francisco’s punk scene as he discovers his ardor for rock and roll and his gift for spotting talent. We learn what became of his high school gang—who thrived and who faltered—and we encounter Lou Kline, Bennie’s catastrophically careless mentor, along with the lovers and children left behind in the wake of Lou’s far-flung sexual conquests and meteoric rise and fall.

A Visit from the Goon Squad is a book about the interplay of time and music, about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to PowerPoint, Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption; and the universal tendency to reach for both—and escape the merciless progress of time—in the transporting realms of art and music. Sly, startling, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers.]]>
274 Jennifer Egan 0307592839 bella � 0 to-read, 2025 3.70 2010 A Visit from the Goon Squad
author: Jennifer Egan
name: bella �
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You]]> 923950
Most of us feel overstimulated every once in a while, but for the HSP, it's a way of life. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Elaine Aron, a clinical psychologist, workshop leader, and an HSP herself, shows you how to identify this trait in yourself and make the most of it in everyday situations. Drawing on her many years of research and hundreds of interviews, she shows how you can better understand yourself and your trait to create a fuller, richer life.]]>
251 Elaine N. Aron 0553062182 bella � 0 to-read, 2025 3.86 1996 The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You
author: Elaine N. Aron
name: bella �
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Sedated: How Modern Capitalism Created our Mental Health Crisis]]> 57751566
Using a wealth of studies, interviews with experts, and detailed analysis, Dr James Davies argues that this is because we have fundamentally mischaracterised the problem. Rather than viewing most mental distress as an understandable reaction to wider societal problems, we have embraced a medical model which situates the problem solely within the sufferer and their brain.

Urgent and persuasive, Sedated systematically examines why this individualistic view of mental illness has been promoted by successive governments and big business � and why it is so misplaced and dangerous.]]>
400 James Davies 1786499843 bella � 0 to-read 4.24 2021 Sedated: How Modern Capitalism Created our Mental Health Crisis
author: James Davies
name: bella �
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead]]> 13588356 Researcher and thought leader Dr. Brené Brown offers a powerful new vision that encourages us to dare greatly: to embrace vulnerability and imperfection, to live wholeheartedly, and to courageously engage in our lives.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.� —Theodore Roosevelt

Every day we experience the uncertainty, risks, and emotional exposure that define what it means to be vulnerable, or to dare greatly. Whether the arena is a new relationship, an important meeting, our creative process, or a difficult family conversation, we must find the courage to walk into vulnerability and engage with our whole hearts.

In Daring Greatly, Dr. Brown challenges everything we think we know about vulnerability. Based on twelve years of research, she argues that vulnerability is not weakness, but rather our clearest path to courage, engagement, and meaningful connection. The book that Dr. Brown’s many fans have been waiting for, Daring Greatly will spark a new spirit of truth—and trust—in our organizations, families, schools, and communities.]]>
287 Brené Brown 1592407331 bella � 0 to-read 4.29 2012 Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
author: Brené Brown
name: bella �
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Don't Waste Your Life 347656
"God created us to live with a single passion to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. The wasted life is the life without this passion. God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of, but to make much of him in every part of our lives."

Most people slip by in life without a passion for God, spending their lives on trivial diversions, living for comfort and pleasure, and perhaps trying to avoid sin. This book will warn you not to get caught up in a life that counts for nothing. It will challenge you to live and die boasting in the cross of Christ and making the glory of God your singular passion. If you believe that to live is Christ and to die is gain, read this book, learn to live for Christ, and don't waste your life!]]>
192 John Piper 1581344988 bella � 0 to-read, 2025 4.13 2003 Don't Waste Your Life
author: John Piper
name: bella �
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]> 60671823 Chris Riddell's brilliant new full-colour illustrated Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in a sumptuous hardback and jacketed edition. A perfect gift for families, children and all fans of this much-loved favourite classic.

First published by Macmillan more than 150 years ago, Lewis Carroll’s iconic story has been loved and enjoyed by generations of children.

This edition presents Lewis Carroll's complete text, with new illustrations from Costa Award- and Kate Greenaway Medal-winner Chris Riddell. Published 200 years after the birth of Alice’s first illustrator, Sir John Tenniel, also the political cartoonist of his time, Chris Riddell's illustrations set a new bar in terms of excellence with his unique, rich and evocative interpretation of Carroll's world.

With the curious, quick-witted Alice at its heart, readers will not only rediscover characters such as the charming White Rabbit, the formidable Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter and the grinning Cheshire Cat but will find fresh and wonderful creations of these characters by a true master of his art,; images that will live in our hearts and minds for generations to come.]]>
320 Lewis Carroll 152900246X bella � 0 to-read, children-s-books 4.08 1865 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
author: Lewis Carroll
name: bella �
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1865
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read, children-s-books
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen]]> 112974860 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER � A practical, heartfelt guide to the art of truly knowing another person in order to foster deeper connections at home, at work, and throughout our lives—from the author of The Road to Character and The Second Mountain

As David Brooks observes, “There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or society: the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen—to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.�

And yet we humans don’t do this well. All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. In How to Know a Person, Brooks sets out to help us do better, posing questions that are essential for all of us: If you want to know a person, what kind of attention should you cast on them? What kind of conversations should you have? What parts of a person’s story should you pay attention to?

Driven by his trademark sense of curiosity and his determination to grow as a person, Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience and from the worlds of theater, philosophy, history, and education to present a welcoming, hopeful, integrated approach to human connection. How to Know a Person helps readers become more understanding and considerate toward others, and to find the joy that comes from being seen. Along the way it offers a possible remedy for a society that is riven by fragmentation, hostility, and misperception.

The act of seeing another person, Brooks argues, is profoundly creative: How can we look somebody in the eye and see something large in them, and in turn, see something larger in ourselves? How to Know a Person is for anyone searching for connection, and yearning to be understood.]]>
304 David Brooks 059323006X bella � 0 to-read, 2025 4.09 2023 How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
author: David Brooks
name: bella �
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness]]> 171681821
A must-read for all parents: the generation-defining investigation into the collapse of youth mental health in the era of smartphones, social media, and big tech—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood.

“With tenacity and candor, Haidt lays out the consequences that have come with allowing kids to drift further into the virtual world . . . While also offering suggestions and solutions that could help protect a new generation of kids.� —Shannon Carlin, ,i>TIME, 100 Must-Read Books of 2024

After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why?

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood� began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood� in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood� has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems� that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.

Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.]]>
400 Jonathan Haidt 0593655036 bella � 0 to-read 4.36 2024 The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
author: Jonathan Haidt
name: bella �
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read
review:

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

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

Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?]]>
288 Matt Haig 0525559477 bella � 0 to-read 3.96 2020 The Midnight Library
author: Matt Haig
name: bella �
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Looking for Alaska 99561 Before. Miles “Pudge� Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave “the Great Perhaps� even more (Francois Rabelais, poet). He heads off to the sometimes crazy and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. Then. . . .
After. Nothing is ever the same.]]>
221 John Green 1435249151 bella � 4 favorites 3.97 2005 Looking for Alaska
author: John Green
name: bella �
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2019/01/01
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: favorites
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Holy Bible: King James Version]]> 1923820 Kršćani Bibliju prouÄavaju kao svoju normativnu, za život smjerodavnu knjigu u kojoj oni nalaze poruku - rijeÄ Božju. No, Biblija je uz to i spomenik historije ÄovjeÄanstva, jedna od najstarijih knjiga, u kojoj je genij Hebreja na svoj naÄin asimilirao i dalje obogatio razmiÅ¡ljanje i mudrost drevne Mezopotamije i Egipta, da je onda, obogaćenu grÄkim genijem, po Novom zavjetu i daljnjem kršćanskom razmiÅ¡ljanju unese u tadaÅ¡nji grÄko-rimski svijet. Po postanku i jeziku, po sadržaju i stilu, po slikovitosti i metaforici, Biblija nije jedna knjiga, nego zbir knjiga koje su nastajale u razdoblju od 13. st. pr. Kr do 2. st. po Kr.
Biblija je za kršćane sveta, inspirirana i kanonska knjiga. Za svakog Äovjeka Biblija je istovremeno zbirka povijesnih isprava i književno djelo izvorne i neprolazne umjetniÄke snage. Ona pripada zajedniÄkoj kulturi ÄovjeÄanstva.
Stari zavjet u Bibliji Stvarnosti plod je mnogostruko udruženog rada hrvatskih bibliÄara i književnika. Kao polaziÅ¡ni tekst izabran je prijevod Antuna Sovića, s tim da je Petoknjižje preveo Silvije GrubiÅ¡ić, Psalme Filibert Gass, a Pjesmu nad pjesmama Nikola MiliÄević. Novi zavjet preveo je Ljudevit RupÄić.]]>
1590 Anonymous bella � 0 to-read, 2025 4.44 1611 The Holy Bible: King James Version
author: Anonymous
name: bella �
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1611
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]>
The Confessions 830434 The venerable authors of these Spiritual Classics are expert guides--
may we follow their directions home."ÌýÌý--Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Writing in the last years of the fourth century a.d., Saint Augustine of Hippo created what is at once the first true autobiography in Western literature and among the most sophisticated yet accessible theological arguments in the history of Christianity. With extraordinary candor and psychological acumen, Augustine recounts his passage from a life of sensuality, Manichaean superstition, and empty careerism to a genuine spiritual awakening, and he articulates views on marriage, morality, and faith that have shaped our discourse ever since. The Confessions allows us to appreciate both the startling modernity of Augustine's insights and the imperishable poetry of his voice. With a new Preface by MacArthur Fellow Patricia Hampl,
author of Virgin Time and A Romantic Education.


In the annals of spirituality, certain books stand out both for their historical importance and for their continued relevance. The Vintage Spiritual Classics series offers the greatest of these works in authoritative new editions, with specially commissioned essays by noted contemporary commentators. Filled with eloquence and fresh insight, encouragement and solace, Vintage Spiritual Classics are incomparable resources for all readers who seek a more substantive understanding of mankind's relation to the divine.]]>
358 Augustine of Hippo 0375700218 bella � 0 to-read, 2025 4.22 400 The Confessions
author: Augustine of Hippo
name: bella �
average rating: 4.22
book published: 400
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1)]]> 37442 When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?

Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

]]>
406 Gregory Maguire 0060987103 bella � 0 to-read, 2025 3.52 1995 Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1)
author: Gregory Maguire
name: bella �
average rating: 3.52
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]>
The Tale of Desperaux 159732927 A brave mouse, a covetous rat, a wishful serving girl, and a princess named Pea come together in Kate DiCamillo's Newbery Medal–winning tale.Welcome to the story of Despereaux Tilling, a mouse who is in love with music, stories, and a princess named Pea. It is also the story of a rat called Roscuro, who lives in the darkness and covets a world filled with light. And it is the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted serving girl who harbors a simple, impossible wish. These three characters are about to embark on a journey that will lead them down into a horrible dungeon, up into a glittering castle, and, ultimately, into each other's lives. What happens then? As Kate DiCamillo would Reader, it is your destiny to find out.]]> 0 Kate DiCamillo bella � 0 to-read, children-s-books 4.28 2003 The Tale of Desperaux
author: Kate DiCamillo
name: bella �
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/29
shelves: to-read, children-s-books
review:

]]>
The Essential Rumi 304079 The Essential Rumi includes a new introduction by Coleman Barks and more than 80 never-before-published poems.

Through his lyrical translations, Coleman Barks has been instrumental in bringing this exquisite literature to a remarkably wide range of readers, making the ecstatic, spiritual poetry of thirteenth-century Sufi Mystic Rumi more popular than ever.

The Essential Rumi continues to be the bestselling of all Rumi books, and the definitive selection of his beautiful, mystical poetry.]]>
416 Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi 0062509594 bella � 0 to-read 4.40 1273 The Essential Rumi
author: Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
name: bella �
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1273
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking]]> 8520610 The book that started the Quiet Revolution

At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over working in teams. It is to introverts—Rosa Parks, Chopin, Dr. Seuss, Steve Wozniak—that we owe many of the great contributions to society.Ìý

In Quiet, Susan Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. She charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal throughout the twentieth century and explores how deeply it has come to permeate our culture. She also introduces us to successful introverts—from a witty, high-octane public speaker who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how they see themselves.

Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content.]]>
333 Susan Cain 0307352145 bella � 0 to-read 4.07 2012 Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
author: Susan Cain
name: bella �
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind]]> 23692271 512 Yuval Noah Harari bella � 0 to-read 4.33 2011 Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
author: Yuval Noah Harari
name: bella �
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Summer of Broken Rules 49259788
Unfortunately, Meredith's longtime boyfriend unexpectedly dumped her two weeks before the wedding, leaving her dateless. Luckily, she has the perfect distraction. Her family has a tradition of playing the ultimate game of Assassin every summer, and this year it will take place during the week of wedding festivities.

But her target just happens to be a very cute groomsman. She's determined to not let herself get distracted, not let herself be lost in another doomed relationship. But as the week progresses, she can't help falling for him, which may cost her not only the game, but also her heart.

Meredith's family's annual game of assassin at Martha's Vineyard during a summer wedding is the perfect chance to honor her sister's legacy, and finally join the world again. But when she forms an alliance with a cute groomsman, she's at risk of losing both the game� and her heart.]]>
359 K.L. Walther 1728210291 bella � 0 to-read 3.89 2021 The Summer of Broken Rules
author: K.L. Walther
name: bella �
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Happy Place 203311062 A couple who broke up months ago make a pact to pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends in this glittering and wise new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college—they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now—for reasons they’re still not discussing—they don’t.

They broke up six months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.

Which is how they find themselves sharing the largest bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blue week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.

Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends� hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week…in front of those who know you best?]]>
416 Emily Henry 0593441192 bella � 0 to-read 4.00 2023 Happy Place
author: Emily Henry
name: bella �
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Seven Year Slip 62926938 An overworked book publicist with a perfectly planned future hits a snag when she falls in love with her temporary roommate…only to discover he lives seven years in the past, in this witty and wise new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics.

Sometimes, the worst day of your life happens, and you have to figure out how to live after it.

So Clementine forms a plan to keep her heart safe: work hard, find someone decent to love, and try to remember to chase the moon. The last one is silly and obviously metaphorical, but her aunt always told her that you needed at least one big dream to keep going. And for the last year, that plan has gone off without a hitch. Mostly. The love part is hard because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone—she isn’t sure her heart can take it.

And then she finds a strange man standing in the kitchen of her late aunt’s apartment. A man with kind eyes and a Southern drawl and a taste for lemon pies. The kind of man that, before it all, she would’ve fallen head-over-heels for. And she might again.

Except, he exists in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact. And she, quite literally, lives seven years in his future.

Her aunt always said the apartment was a pinch in time, a place where moments blended together like watercolors. And Clementine knows that if she lets her heart fall, she’ll be doomed.

After all, love is never a matter of time—but a matter of timing.]]>
336 Ashley Poston bella � 0 to-read 4.18 2023 The Seven Year Slip
author: Ashley Poston
name: bella �
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Love & Gelato (Love & Gelato, #1)]]> 25756328 “I made the wrong choice.�

Lina is spending the summer in Tuscany, but she isn’t in the mood for Italy’s famous sunshine and fairy-tale landscape. She’s only there because it was her mother’s dying wish that she get to know her father. But what kind of father isn’t around for sixteen years? All Lina wants to do is go back home.

But then she is given a journal that her mom had kept when she lived in Italy. Suddenly Lina’s uncovering a magical world of secret romances, art, and hidden bakeries. A world that inspires her, along with the ever-so-charming Ren, to follow in her mother’s footsteps and unearth a secret that has been kept for far too long. It’s a secret that will change everything she knew about her mother, her father—and even herself.

People come to Italy for love and gelato, someone tells her, but sometimes they discover much more.]]>
386 Jenna Evans Welch 1481432540 bella � 0 to-read 4.03 2016 Love & Gelato (Love & Gelato, #1)
author: Jenna Evans Welch
name: bella �
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
See All the Stars 32718970 “A gripping and atmospheric contemporary thriller.� —Kirkus Reviews
“Complex, captivating, and gorgeously written.� —Karen M. McManus, New York Times bestselling author of One of Us Is Lying

We Were Liars meets Goodbye Days in this thrilling debut novel that sweeps readers away as they try to solve the mystery of what happened then to make Ellory so broken now.

It’s hard to find the truth beneath the lies you tell yourself.

Then: They were four—Bex, Jenni, Ellory, Ret. (Venus. Earth. Moon. Sun.) Electric, headstrong young women; Ellory’s whole solar system.

Now: Ellory is alone, her once inseparable group of friends torn apart by secrets, deception, and a shocking incident that changed their lives forever.

Then: Lazy summer days. A party. A beautiful boy. Ellory met Matthias and fell into the beginning of a spectacular, bright love.

Now: Ellory returns to Pine Brook to navigate senior year after a two-month suspension and summer away—no boyfriend, no friends. No going back. Tormented by some and sought out by others, troubled by a mysterious note-writer who won’t let Ellory forget, and consumed by guilt over her not entirely innocent role in everything and everyone she’s lost, Ellory finds that even in the present, the past is everywhere.

The path forward isn’t a straight line. And moving on will mean sorting the truth from the lies—the lies Ellory has been telling herself.]]>
320 Kit Frick 1534404376 bella � 3 2023 3.57 2018 See All the Stars
author: Kit Frick
name: bella �
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2023/06/18
date added: 2023/06/18
shelves: 2023
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life]]> 1999475 Full of beautiful, heart-wrenching, and hilarious stories, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years details one man's opportunity to edit his life as if he were a character in a movie.

Years after writing his best-selling memoir, Donald Miller went into a funk and spent months sleeping in and avoiding his publisher. One story had ended, and Don was unsure how to start another.

But he gets rescued by two movie producers who want to make a movie based on his memoir. When they start fictionalizing Don's life for film--changing a meandering memoir into a structured narrative--the real-life Don starts a journey to edit his actual life into a better story. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years details that journey and challenges readers to reconsider what they strive forÌýin life. It shows how to get a second chance atÌýlife theÌýfirst time around.

]]>
255 Donald Miller 0785213066 bella � 4 2023 4.12 2009 A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
author: Donald Miller
name: bella �
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/17
date added: 2023/06/18
shelves: 2023
review:

]]>
Foreign Affairs 202897
Virginia Miner, a fifty-something, unmarried tenured professor, is in London to work on her new book about children’s folk rhymes. Despite carrying a U.S. passport, Vinnie feels essentially English and rather looks down on her fellow Americans. But in spite of that, she is drawn into a mortifying and oddly satisfying affair with an Oklahoman tourist who dresses more Bronco Billy than Beau Brummel.

Also in London is Vinnie’s colleague Fred Turner, a handsome, flat broke, newly separated, and thoroughly miserable young man trying to focus on his own research. Instead, he is distracted by a beautiful and unpredictable English actress and the world she belongs to.

Both American, both abroad, and both achingly lonely, Vinnie and Fred play out their confused alienation and dizzying romantic liaisons in Alison Lurie’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Smartly written, poignant, and witty, Foreign Affairs remains an enduring comic masterpiece.]]>
292 Alison Lurie 0812976312 bella � 0 to-read 3.71 1984 Foreign Affairs
author: Alison Lurie
name: bella �
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Whole-Brain Child: Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind]]> 10353369
In this pioneering, practical book, Daniel J. Siegel, neuropsychiatrist and author of the bestselling Mindsight, and parenting expert Tina Payne Bryson demystify the meltdowns and aggravation, explaining the new science of how a child’s brain is wired and how it matures. The “upstairs brain,� which makes decisions and balances emotions, is under construction until the mid-twenties. And especially in young children, the right brain and its emotions tend to rule over the logic of the left brain. No wonder kids can seem—and feel—so out of control. By applying these discoveries to everyday parenting, you can turn any outburst, argument, or fear into a chance to integrate your child’s brain and foster vital growth. Raise calmer, happier children using twelve key strategies, including
Ìý
� Name It to Tame It: Corral raging right-brain behavior through left-brain storytelling, appealing to the left brain’s affinity for words and reasoning to calm emotional storms and bodily tension.
� Engage, Don’t Enrage: Keep your child thinking and listening, instead of purely reacting.
� Move It or Lose It: Use physical activities to shift your child’s emotional state.
� Let the Clouds of Emotion Roll By: Guide your children when they are stuck on a negative emotion, and help them understand that feelings come and go.
� SIFT: Help children pay attention to the Sensations, Images, Feelings, and Thoughts within them so that they can make better decisions and be more flexible.
� Connect Through Conflict: Use discord to encourage empathy and greater social success.
Ìý
Complete with clear explanations, age-appropriate strategies for dealing with day-to-day struggles, and illustrations that will help you explain these concepts to your child, The Whole-Brain Child shows you how to cultivate healthy emotional and intellectual development so that your children can lead balanced, meaningful, and connected lives.]]>
192 Daniel J. Siegel 0553807919 bella � 0 to-read, children-s-books 4.25 2011 The Whole-Brain Child: Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind
author: Daniel J. Siegel
name: bella �
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/01
shelves: to-read, children-s-books
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Three Philosophies of Life - Ecclesiastes: Life As Vanity, Job: Life As Suffering, Song of Songs: Life As Love]]> 31899
In these three books Kreeft shows how we have Dante's great epic The Divine Comedy played out, from Hell to Purgatory to Heaven. But it is an epic played out in our hearts and lives, here and now. Just as there is movement in Dante's epic, so there is movement in these books, from Ecclesiates to Job, from Job to Song of Songs. Love is the final answer to Ecclesiastes' quest, the alternative to vanity, and the true meaning of life. Finally, Kreeft sees in these books the epitome of theological virtues of faith, hope and love and "an essential summary of the spiritual history of the world".]]>
141 Peter Kreeft 0898702623 bella � 0 to-read 4.33 1989 Three Philosophies of Life - Ecclesiastes: Life As Vanity, Job: Life As Suffering, Song of Songs: Life As Love
author: Peter Kreeft
name: bella �
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Little Prince 157993
Few stories are as widely read and as universally cherished by children and adults alike as The Little Prince, presented here in a stunning new translation with carefully restored artwork. The definitive edition of a worldwide classic, it will capture the hearts of readers of all ages.]]>
96 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 0152023984 bella � 0 to-read, children-s-books 4.32 1943 The Little Prince
author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
name: bella �
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1943
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/01
shelves: to-read, children-s-books
review:

]]>
Upstream: Selected Essays 29358559 Upstream finds beloved poet Mary Oliver reflecting on her astonishment and admiration for the natural world and the craft of writing. Ìý

As she contemplates the pleasure of artistic labor, finding solace and safety within the woods, and the joyful and rhythmic beating of wings, Oliver intimately shares with her readers her quiet discoveries, boundless curiosity, and exuberance for the grandeur of our world.Ìý

This radiant collection of her work, with some pieces published here for the first time, reaffirms Oliver as a passionate and prolific observer whose thoughtful meditations on spiders, writing a poem, blue fin tuna, and Ralph Waldo Emerson inspire us all to discover wonder and awe in life's smallest corners.]]>
178 Mary Oliver 1594206708 bella � 0 to-read 4.17 2016 Upstream: Selected Essays
author: Mary Oliver
name: bella �
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane: (A Heartwarming Tale of a China Rabbit's Quest for Love & Belonging - A Middle-Grade Chapter Book for Kids Ages 7-10 in Grades 2-5)]]> 37186
Once, in a house on Egypt Street, there lived a china rabbit named Edward Tulane. The rabbit was very pleased with himself, and for good he was owned by a girl named Abilene, who treated him with the utmost care and adored him completely.

And then, one day, he was lost.

Kate DiCamillo takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the depths of the ocean to the net of a fisherman, from the top of a garbage heap to the fireside of a hoboes' camp, from the bedside of an ailing child to the bustling streets of Memphis. And along the way, we are shown a true miracle � that even a heart of the most breakable kind can learn to love, to lose, and to love again.]]>
228 Kate DiCamillo 0763625892 bella � 0 to-read, children-s-books 4.38 2006 The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane: (A Heartwarming Tale of a China Rabbit's Quest for Love & Belonging - A Middle-Grade Chapter Book for Kids Ages 7-10 in Grades 2-5)
author: Kate DiCamillo
name: bella �
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/03
shelves: to-read, children-s-books
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Summer I Turned Pretty (Summer, #1)]]> 5821978 276 Jenny Han 1416968237 bella � 4 love!! 3.77 2009 The Summer I Turned Pretty (Summer, #1)
author: Jenny Han
name: bella �
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/22
date added: 2022/11/07
shelves:
review:
love!!
]]>
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh 16697
Chabon masterfully renders the funny, tender, and captivating first-person narrative of Art Bechstein, whose confusion and heartache echo the tones of literary forebears like The Catcher in the Rye’s Holden Caulfield and The Great Gatsby’s Nick Carraway.

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh incontrovertibly established Chabon as a powerful force in contemporary fiction, even before his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay set the literary world spinning. An unforgettable story of coming of age in America, it is also an essential milestone in the movement of American fiction, from a novelist who has become one of the most important and enduring voices of this generation.]]>
320 Michael Chabon 0060790598 bella � 0 to-read 3.65 1988 The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
author: Michael Chabon
name: bella �
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present]]> 2767 Zinn portrays a side of American history that can largely be seen as the exploitation and manipulation of the majority by rigged systems that hugely favor a small aggregate of elite rulers from across the orthodox political parties.
A People's History has been assigned as reading in many high schools and colleges across the United States. It has also resulted in a change in the focus of historical work, which now includes stories that previously were ignored

Library Journal calls Howard Zinn’s book “a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those…whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories.â€]]>
729 Howard Zinn 0060838655 bella � 0 to-read 4.07 1980 A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present
author: Howard Zinn
name: bella �
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves]]> 24043208 Hearts Minds Bookstore's Best Books
Outreach Magazine's Resources of the Year We're all infected with a spiritual disease. Its name is shame. Whether we realize it or not, shame affects every aspect of our personal lives and vocational endeavors. It seeks to destroy our identity in Christ, replacing it with a damaged version of ourselves that results in unhealed pain and brokenness. But God is telling a different story for your life. Psychiatrist Curt Thompson unpacks the soul of shame, revealing its ubiquitous nature and neurobiological roots. He also provides the theological and practical tools necessary to dismantle shame, based on years of researching its damaging effects and counseling people to overcome those wounds. Thompson's expertise and compassion will help you identify your own pains and struggles and find freedom from the lifelong negative messages that bind you. Rewrite the story of your life and embrace healing and wholeness as you discover and defeat shame's insidious agenda.]]>
206 Curt Thompson 0830844333 bella � 0 to-read 4.31 2015 The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves
author: Curt Thompson
name: bella �
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Bridge to Terabithia 40940121 The 40th anniversary edition of the classic Newbery Medal-winning title by beloved author Katherine Paterson, with brand-new bonus materials including an author's note by Katherine herself and a foreword by New York Times bestselling author Kate DiCamillo.

Jess Aarons has been practicing all summer so he can be the fastest runner in the fifth grade. And he almost is, until the new girl in school, Leslie Burke, outpaces him. The two become fast friends and spend most days in the woods behind Leslie's house, where they invent an enchanted land called Terabithia. One morning, Leslie goes to Terabithia without Jess and a tragedy occurs. It will take the love of his family and the strength that Leslie has given him for Jess to be able to deal with his grief.

Bridge to Terabithia was also named an ALA Notable Children’s Book and has become a touchstone of children’s literature, as have many of Katherine Paterson’s other novels, including The Great Gilly Hopkins and Jacob Have I Loved.]]>
190 Katherine Paterson bella � 0 children-s-books, to-read 4.18 1977 Bridge to Terabithia
author: Katherine Paterson
name: bella �
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1977
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/02
shelves: children-s-books, to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Chronicles of Narnia (The Chronicles of Narnia, #1-7)]]> 11127 Librarian note: An alternate cover for this edition can be found here: 2005.

Journeys to the end of the world, fantastic creatures, and epic battles between good and evil—what more could any reader ask for in one book? The book that has it all is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, written in 1949 by Clive Staples Lewis. But Lewis did not stop there. Six more books followed, and together they became known as The Chronicles of Narnia.

For the past fifty years, The Chronicles of Narnia have transcended the fantasy genre to become part of the canon of classic literature. Each of the seven books is a masterpiece, drawing the reader into a land where magic meets reality, and the result is a fictional world whose scope has fascinated generations.

This edition presents all seven books—unabridged—in one impressive volume. The books are presented here in chronlogical order, each chapter graced with an illustration by the original artist, Pauline Baynes. Deceptively simple and direct, The Chronicles of Narnia continue to captivate fans with adventures, characters, and truths that speak to readers of all ages, even fifty years after they were first published.]]>
767 C.S. Lewis 0066238501 bella � 0 children-s-books, to-read 4.27 1956 The Chronicles of Narnia (The Chronicles of Narnia, #1-7)
author: C.S. Lewis
name: bella �
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1956
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/02
shelves: children-s-books, to-read
review:

]]>
The Lost Children 7048492
A world away, the children of Gulm have been taken. No one knows where they might be, except the mysterious and terrifying leader of the land: The Master. He rules with an iron fist, using two grotesque creatures to enforce his terrible reign.

When a peculiar boy named Fargus shows up on Josephine's property and then disappears soon afterward, she follows him without a second thought and finds herself magically transported to Gulm.

After Fargus introduces her to his tough-as-nails friend Ida, the three of them set off on an adventure that will test everything Josephine has ever thought about the rules of the universe, leading to a revelation about the truth of the land of Gulm, and of Josephine's own life back home.]]>
320 Carolyn Cohagan 1416986162 bella � 0 children-s-books 4.14 2010 The Lost Children
author: Carolyn Cohagan
name: bella �
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/30
shelves: children-s-books
review:

]]>
Peter Pan 34268 Peter Pan, a diferencia de todos los demás, es un niño que se niega a crecer. Él vive con los niños perdidos y con el hada Campanita en el país de Nunca Jamás. Siempre está en busca de nuevas aventuras y también de una madre que cuide de todos y les cuente relatos para dormir.
Una noche, después de que Peter se encuentra con los hermanos Darling, los invita a que lo acompañen en el viaje más fantástico de toda su vida: volar hacia Nunca Jamás para conocer a las engreídas sirenas, jugar con los indios pieles rojas y luchar a muerte contra los terribles piratas.

]]>
155 J.M. Barrie 0805072454 bella � 0 to-read, children-s-books 4.06 1911 Peter Pan
author: J.M. Barrie
name: bella �
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1911
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/30
shelves: to-read, children-s-books
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Winnie-the-Pooh (Winnie-the-Pooh, #1)]]> 99107 161 A.A. Milne 0525467564 bella � 0 to-read, children-s-books 4.37 1926 Winnie-the-Pooh (Winnie-the-Pooh, #1)
author: A.A. Milne
name: bella �
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1926
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/30
shelves: to-read, children-s-books
review:

]]>
Where the Wild Things Are 19543 38 Maurice Sendak 0099408392 bella � 0 to-read, children-s-books 4.25 1963 Where the Wild Things Are
author: Maurice Sendak
name: bella �
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/30
shelves: to-read, children-s-books
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Boxcar Children (The Boxcar Children, #1)]]> 297249 Book #1 from the series: The Boxcar Children Mysteries

After becoming orphans, four siblings run away to live in an abandoned boxcar but find their adventure halted by the possibility of being caught in this classic tale! “A compelling story� (Publishers Weekly) with over 63,000 five-star ratings, read by an Earphones Award–winning narrator.

Four orphaned siblings, determined to stay together as a family, decide to inhabit an abandoned boxcar and turn it into their new home in the woods. When one of the siblings falls ill, the others go out to seek a doctor to save their sister. Meanwhile, their wealthy grandfather has offered a sizable reward to anyone who has information about his grandchildren, hoping that they can all be reunited once more. As the children continue to evade being found out, will they ever know peace?]]>
176 Gertrude Chandler Warner 0807508527 bella � 0 children-s-books 4.13 1924 The Boxcar Children (The Boxcar Children, #1)
author: Gertrude Chandler Warner
name: bella �
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1924
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/30
shelves: children-s-books
review:

]]>
Megan's Island 1148185 192 Willo Davis Roberts 0689713878 bella � 0 children-s-books 3.85 1988 Megan's Island
author: Willo Davis Roberts
name: bella �
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/30
shelves: children-s-books
review:

]]>
Unbreak My Heart 13060734
Enter her parents� plan to spend the summer on their sailboat. Normally the idea of being stuck on a tiny boat with her parents and little sister would make Clem break out in hives, but floating away sounds pretty good right now.

Then she meets James at one of their first stops along the river. He and his dad are sailing for the summer and he’s just the distraction Clem needs. Can he break down Clem’s walls and heal her broken heart?

Told in alternating chapters that chronicle the year that broke Clem’s heart and the summer that healed it, Unbreak My Heart is a wonderful dual love story that fans of Sarah Dessen, Deb Caletti, and Susane Colasanti will flock to.]]>
232 Melissa C. Walker 1599905280 bella � 3 3.81 2012 Unbreak My Heart
author: Melissa C. Walker
name: bella �
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2022/07/07
date added: 2022/07/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy]]> 46674
- Recognise what causes your mood swings
- Nip negative feelings in the bud
- Deal with guilt
- Handle hostility and criticism
- Overcome addiction to love and approval
- Build self-esteem
- Feel good everyday]]>
736 David D. Burns 0380810336 bella � 0 to-read 4.03 1980 Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
author: David D. Burns
name: bella �
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
1984 61439040
Alternate cover edition can be found here.]]>
368 George Orwell 0452284236 bella � 0 to-read 4.21 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: bella �
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1949
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Turtles All the Way Down 35504431
Aza Holmes never intended to pursue the disappearance of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Pickett’s son Davis.

Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.]]>
290 John Green 0525555366 bella � 3 3.88 2017 Turtles All the Way Down
author: John Green
name: bella �
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2022/07/21
date added: 2022/07/21
shelves:
review:

]]>
Life of Pi 4214 460 Yann Martel 0770430074 bella � 0 to-read 3.94 2001 Life of Pi
author: Yann Martel
name: bella �
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Better Than the Movies (Better Than the Movies, #1)]]> 55710822 In this rom-com about rom-coms, in the spirit of Kasie West and Jenn Bennett, a hopeless romantic teen attempts to secure a happily-ever-after moment with her forever crush, but finds herself reluctantly drawn to the boy next door.

Perpetual daydreamer Liz Buxbaum gave her heart to Michael a long time ago. But her cool, aloof forever crush never really saw her before he moved away. Now that he’s back in town, Liz will do whatever it takes to get on his radar - and maybe snag him as a prom date - even befriend Wes Bennet.

The annoyingly attractive next-door neighbor might seem like a prime candidate for romantic-comedy fantasies, but Wes has only been a pain in Liz’s butt since they were kids. Pranks involving frogs and decapitated lawn gnomes do not a potential boyfriend make. Yet, somehow, Wes and Michael are hitting it off, which means Wes is Liz’s in.

But as Liz and Wes scheme to get Liz noticed by Michael so she can have her magical prom moment, she’s shocked to discover that she likes being around Wes. And as they continue to grow closer, she must reexamine everything she thought she knew about love - and rethink her own ideas of what happily ever after should look like.]]>
356 Lynn Painter 1534467629 bella � 0 to-read 4.28 2021 Better Than the Movies (Better Than the Movies, #1)
author: Lynn Painter
name: bella �
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Normal People 41057294
A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.]]>
273 Sally Rooney 1984822179 bella � 0 to-read 3.81 2018 Normal People
author: Sally Rooney
name: bella �
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Persephone in a Motel Room 54927516 I. Feed yourself first,
II. Wear red,
III. You still have plenty left to celebrate.

Persephone in a Motel Room is the modern retelling of the myth of Persephone through poems about transformation, family, love, and reclaiming your freedom.

Described as "snuggling up under a blanket with your favorite vices," Persephone in a Motel Room is the right book for you if you want to learn not only how to save yourself, but enjoy every step of the journey of becoming who you truly are, with all the dark and the bright parts.

Are you ready to go feral?]]>
169 Lana Rafaela Cindric bella � 0 to-read 4.20 Persephone in a Motel Room
author: Lana Rafaela Cindric
name: bella �
average rating: 4.20
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Brave New World 5129 Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine� (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New Worldd likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.

"Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." —Chicago Tribune]]>
268 Aldous Huxley 0060929871 bella � 5 favorites 3.99 1932 Brave New World
author: Aldous Huxley
name: bella �
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1932
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/01/03
shelves: favorites
review:

]]>
The Catcher in the Rye 5107 It's Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school...

Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters—shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends. The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning.

The Catcher in the Rye is an all-time classic in coming-of-age literature- an elegy to teenage alienation, capturing the deeply human need for connection and the bewildering sense of loss as we leave childhood behind.

J.D. Salinger's (1919�2010) classic novel of teenage angst and rebellion was first published in 1951. The novel was included on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. It was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It has been frequently challenged in the court for its liberal use of profanity and portrayal of sexuality and in the 1950's and 60's it was the novel that every teenage boy wants to read.]]>
277 J.D. Salinger 0316769177 bella � 5 favorites 3.81 1951 The Catcher in the Rye
author: J.D. Salinger
name: bella �
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1951
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/01/03
shelves: favorites
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Perks of Being a Wallflower]]> 22628 offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see
what it looks like from the dance floor.

This haunting novel about the dilemma of passivity vs. passion marks the stunning debut of a provocative new voice in contemporary fiction: The Perks of Being A WALLFLOWER

This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. We may not know where he lives. We may not know to whom he is writing. All we know is the world he shares. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that the perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite.

Through Charlie, Stephen Chbosky has created a deeply affecting coming-of-age story, a powerful novel that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller coaster days known as growing up.

(back cover)]]>
213 Stephen Chbosky bella � 5 favorites 4.24 1999 The Perks of Being a Wallflower
author: Stephen Chbosky
name: bella �
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/01/03
shelves: favorites
review:

]]>
Death of a Salesman 12898 'For a salesman, there is no rock bottom to life. He don't put a bolt to a nut, he don't tell you the law or give you medicine. He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine.'

Willy Loman has been a salesman for 34 years. At 60, he is cast aside, his usefulness now exhausted. With no future to dream about he must face the crushing disappointments of his past. He takes one final brave action, but is he heroic at last?, or a self-deluding fool?]]>
144 Arthur Miller 0435233076 bella � 5 3.57 1949 Death of a Salesman
author: Arthur Miller
name: bella �
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1949
rating: 5
read at: 2020/10/01
date added: 2022/01/03
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Secret History 29044 559 Donna Tartt 1400031702 bella � 4 4.17 1992 The Secret History
author: Donna Tartt
name: bella �
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2020/07/01
date added: 2022/01/03
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban]]> 17851885 I come from a country that was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday.

When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education.

On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive.

Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she has become a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

I Am Malala is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons.]]>
327 Malala Yousafzai 0316322407 bella � 4 4.15 2012 I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban
author: Malala Yousafzai
name: bella �
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2020/06/01
date added: 2022/01/03
shelves:
review:

]]>
Since You've Been Gone 18189606
On it, thirteen Sloane-inspired tasks that Emily would normally never try. But what if they could bring her best friend back?

Apple picking at night? Okay, easy enough.

Dance until dawn? Sure. Why not?

Kiss a stranger? Um...

Emily now has this unexpected summer, and the help of Frank Porter (totally unexpected), to check things off Sloane's list. Who knows what she’ll find?

Go skinny-dipping? Wait...what?]]>
449 Morgan Matson 1442435003 bella � 5 4.07 2014 Since You've Been Gone
author: Morgan Matson
name: bella �
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2021/01/01
date added: 2022/01/03
shelves:
review:

]]>
Crime and Punishment 7144 671 Fyodor Dostoevsky bella � 0 to-read 4.26 1866 Crime and Punishment
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: bella �
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1866
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Uncle Tom’s Cabin 46787 438 Harriet Beecher Stowe bella � 0 to-read 3.88 1852 Uncle Tom’s Cabin
author: Harriet Beecher Stowe
name: bella �
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1852
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/10/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
To Kill a Mockingbird 2657 "Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel - a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man's struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much.

"To Kill A Mockingbird" became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film.]]>
323 Harper Lee 0060935464 bella � 0 to-read 4.25 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird
author: Harper Lee
name: bella �
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1960
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/10/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Franny and Zooey 5113 ‘Everything everybody does is so—I don’t know—not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and—sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you’re conforming just as much only in a different way.�

First published in The New Yorker as two sequential stories, ‘Franny� and ‘Zooey� offer a dual portrait of the two youngest members of J. D. Salinger’s fictional Glass family.

Franny Glass is a pretty, effervescent college student on a date with her intellectually confident boyfriend, Lane. They appear to be the perfect couple, but as they struggle to communicate with each other about the things they really care about, slowly their true feelings come to the surface. The second story in this book, ‘Zooey�, plunges us into the world of her ethereal, sophisticated family. When Franny’s emotional and spiritual doubts reach new heights, her older brother Zooey, a misanthropic former child genius, offers her consolation and brotherly advice.

Written in Salinger’s typically irreverent style, these two stories offer a touching snapshot of the distraught mindset of early adulthood and are full of the insightful emotional observations and witty turns of phrase that have helped make Salinger’s reputation what it is today.]]>
201 J.D. Salinger 0316769029 bella � 0 to-read 3.97 1957 Franny and Zooey
author: J.D. Salinger
name: bella �
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1957
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/10/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Outsiders 231804 The Outsiders is about two weeks in the life of a 14-year-old boy. The novel tells the story of Ponyboy Curtis and his struggles with right and wrong in a society in which he believes that he is an outsider. According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers--until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc. The murder gets under Ponyboy's skin, causing his bifurcated world to crumble and teaching him that pain feels the same whether a soc or a greaser.

Librarian note: This record is for one of the three editions published with different covers and with ISBN 0-140-38572-X / 978-0-14-038572-4. The records are for the 1988 cover (this record), the 1995 cover, and the 2008 cover which is also the current in-print cover.]]>
208 S.E. Hinton 0670532576 bella � 4 4.13 1967 The Outsiders
author: S.E. Hinton
name: bella �
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1967
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2020/06/08
shelves:
review:

]]>
Milk and honey 23513349 Milk and Honey is a collection of poetry and prose about survival. About the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity.

It is split into four chapters, with each chapter dealing with a different pain. Healing a different heartache. Milk and Honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them -- because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.]]>
204 Rupi Kaur 1502784270 bella � 3 3.97 2014 Milk and honey
author: Rupi Kaur
name: bella �
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2020/06/08
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Fault in Our Stars 11870085
Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green's most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.]]>
313 John Green bella � 4 4.13 2012 The Fault in Our Stars
author: John Green
name: bella �
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2020/06/08
shelves:
review:

]]>
Paper Towns 6442769 Who is the real Margo?

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs into his life—dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows. After their all-nighter ends, and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues—and they're for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew...]]>
305 John Green 014241493X bella � 4 3.68 2008 Paper Towns
author: John Green
name: bella �
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2020/06/08
shelves:
review:

]]>
Fahrenheit 451 13079982 Sixty years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before.

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.� But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.]]>
194 Ray Bradbury bella � 5 3.97 1953 Fahrenheit 451
author: Ray Bradbury
name: bella �
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1953
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/06/08
shelves:
review:

]]>
Of Mice and Men 890 “I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.�

They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own.

While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in Steinbeck's work of the late 1930s, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men, creating an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual's existence meaningful.

A unique perspective on life's hardships, this story has achieved the status of timeless classic due to its remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.]]>
107 John Steinbeck 0142000671 bella � 5 3.88 1937 Of Mice and Men
author: John Steinbeck
name: bella �
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1937
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/06/08
shelves:
review:

]]>
Night 1617 Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel's memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man. This new translation by his wife and most frequent translator, Marion Wiesel, corrects important details and presents the most accurate rendering in English of Elie Wiesel's testimony to what happened in the camps and of his unforgettable message that this horror must simply never be allowed to happen again.]]> 120 Elie Wiesel 0374500010 bella � 5 4.38 1956 Night
author: Elie Wiesel
name: bella �
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1956
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/06/08
shelves:
review:

]]>