en-US Tue, 08 Apr 2025 17:56:09 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 211399774 Two former serial killers trying to keep their past buried realize that old habits die hard in this “wildly original, razor-sharp thriller� (Chris Whitaker, New York Times bestsellingauthor of All the Colors of the Dark).

I wasn't smashing the patriarchy; I was killing it. Literally.

Hazel and Fox are an ordinary married couple with a baby. Except for one small thing: they're murderers. Well, they used to be. They had it all. An enviable London lifestyle, five-star travels, and plenty of bad men to rid from the world. Then Hazel got pregnant.

Now, they’re just another mom-and-dad-and-baby. They gave up vigilante justice for life in the suburbs: arranged play dates instead of body disposals, diapers over daggers, mommy conversations instead of the sweet seduction right before a kill. Hazel finds her new life terribly dull. And the more she forces herself to play her monotonous, predictable role, the more she begins to feel that murderous itch again.

Meanwhile, Fox has really taken to being a father. Always the planner, he loves being five steps ahead of everyone and knowing exactly what’s coming around the bend. Plus, if anyone can understand Hazel needing one more kill, it’s Fox. But then Hazel kills someone without telling Fox. And when police show up at their door, Hazel realizes it will take everything she has to keep her family together.]]> 352 Asia Mackay 0593875583 Jamie 0 currently-reading 3.60 2025
author: Asia Mackay
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 181109968 288 Kandi Wiens 0063323664 Jamie 3 3.81
author: Kandi Wiens
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.81
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
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]]> 205478776
Chip Leighton started performing online as a lark, and not because he “craved validation through TikTok� as his daughter claimed (with snark). When sharing the funny, weird, crazy things his kids said and texted, he quickly learned he was not alone. Since launching, his channel has become the go-to support group for adults who have teenagers in their lives―wholly confirming that teens everywhere say the darndest things. Parents worldwide use Leighton’s posts to laugh, commiserate, and share their own kids� classics, like “what time is noon� or “do I have medicare?� What a relief to learn that it’s perfectly normal for teens to roast their parents mercilessly (“Don’t wear mom jeans to my school again�) or ask wild questions (“where do I buy pasta water�). In this debut collection, Leighton showcases these gems, along with tongue-in-cheek advice, charts and graphs, and silly quizzes. For readers who appreciate the real-life humor of books like Sh*t My Dad Says or the standup of family-friendly comedians like Jim Gaffigan or Nate Bargatze, this book is the ultimate gift for parents, kids, or anyone who likes to laugh.]]> 176 Chip Leighton 1682689247 Jamie 4 3.99
author: Chip Leighton
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.99
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/03
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]]> 60880820 A sensational new novel from the best-selling author of Less Than Zero and Imperial Bedrooms that tracks a group of privileged Los Angeles high school friends as a serial killer strikes across the city.

Bret Easton Ellis's masterful new novel is a story about the end of innocence, and the perilous passage from adolescence into adulthood, set in a vibrantly fictionalized Los Angeles in 1981 as a serial killer begins targeting teenagers throughout the city.

17-year-old Bret is a senior at the exclusive Buckley prep school when a new student arrives with a mysterious past. Robert Mallory is bright, handsome, charismatic, and shielding a secret from Bret and his friends even as he becomes a part of their tightly knit circle. Bret's obsession with Mallory is equaled only by his increasingly unsettling pre-occupation with The Trawler, a serial killer on the loose who seems to be drawing ever closer to Bret and his friends, taunting them--and Bret in particular--with grotesque threats and horrific, sharply local acts of violence. The coincidences are uncanny, but they are also filtered through the imagination of a teenager whose gifts for constructing narrative from the filaments of his own life are about to make him one of the most explosive literary sensations of his generation. Can he trust his friends--or his own mind--to make sense of the danger they appear to be in? Thwarted by the world and by his own innate desires, buffeted by unhealthy fixations, he spirals into paranoia and isolation as the relationship between The Trawler and Robert Mallory hurtles inexorably toward a collision.

Set against the intensely vivid and nostalgic backdrop of pre-Less Than Zero LA, The Shards is a mesmerizing fusing of fact and fiction, the real and the imagined, that brilliantly explores the emotional fabric of Bret's life at 17-sex and jealousy, obsession and murderous rage. Gripping, sly, suspenseful, deeply haunting and often darkly funny, The Shards is Ellis at his inimitable best.
]]> 595 Bret Easton Ellis 059353560X Jamie 3 3.98 2023
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/02
date added: 2025/03/30
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]]> 211025439
“In the fall of 1980, when I was fourteen, a friend of my parents named Naomi Shah fell in love with me. She was thirty-six, a mother of two, and married to a wealthy man. Like so many things that happened to me that year, it didn’t seem strange at the time.�

Griffin Hurt is in over his head. Between his role as Peter Proton on the hit TV show The Nuclear Family and the pressure of high school at New York's elite Boyd ±Ę°ů±đ±č—along with the increasingly compromising demands of his wrestling coach—he's teetering on the edge of collapse.

Then comes Naomi Shah, twenty-two years Griffin’s senior. Unwilling to lay his burdens on his shrink—whom he shares with his father, mother, and younger brother, Oren—Griffin soon finds himself in the back of Naomi’s Mercedes sedan, again and again, confessing all to the one person who might do him the most harm.

Less a bildungsroman than a story of miseducation, Playworld is a novel of epic proportions, bursting with laughter and heartache. Adam Ross immerses us in the life of Griffin and his loving (yet disintegrating) family while seeming to evoke the entirety of Manhattan and the ethos of an era—with Jimmy Carter on his way out and a B-list celebrity named Ronald Reagan on his way in. Surrounded by adults who embody the age’s excesses—and who seem to care little about what their children are up to—Griffin is left to himself to find the line between youth and maturity, dependence and love, acting and truly grappling with life.]]> 528 Adam Ross 0385351291 Jamie 3 3.80 2025
author: Adam Ross
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2025
rating: 3
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]]> 199344873
She’s unprepared, though, for what comes next: a surprise announcement from her straight-arrow son, an impending separation from her spikey teenaged daughter, and a seductive resurgence of the past, all of which threaten to draw her back into the patterns that had previously kept her on a razor’s edge.

Same As It Ever Was traverses the rocky terrain of real life, —exploring new avenues of maternal ambivalence, intergenerational friendship, and the happenstantial cause-and-effect that governs us all. Delving even deeper into the nature of relationships—how they grow, change, and sometimes end—Lombardo proves herself a true and definitive cartographer of the human heart and asserts herself among the finest novelists of her generation.]]> 498 Claire Lombardo 0385549555 Jamie 0 to-read 3.82 2024
author: Claire Lombardo
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/28
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]]> 59560640 In this “long overdue manifesto on gender equality in the workplace, a practical playbook with tips you can put into action immediately…simply priceless� (Angela Duckworth, bestselling author of Grit), The No Club offers a timely solution to achieving equity at work: unburden women’s careers from work that goes unrewarded.

The No Club started when four women, crushed by endless to-do lists, banded together to get their work lives under control. Running faster than ever, they still trailed behind male colleagues. And so, they vowed to say no to requests that pulled them away from the work that mattered most to their careers. This book reveals how their over-a-decade-long journey and subsequent groundbreaking research showing that women everywhere are unfairly burdened with “non-promotable work,� a tremendous problem we can—and must—solve.

All organizations have work that no one wants to do: planning the office party, screening interns, attending to that time-consuming client, or simply helping others with their work. A woman, most often, takes on these tasks. In study after study, professors Linda Babcock (bestselling author of Women Don’t Ask), Brenda Peyser, Lise Vesterlund, and Laurie Weingart—the original “No Club”—document that women are disproportionately asked and expected to do this work. The imbalance leaves women overcommitted and underutilized as companies forfeit revenue, productivity, and top talent.

The No Club walks you through how to change your workload, empowering women to make savvy decisions about the work they take on. The authors also illuminate how organizations can reassess how they assign and reward work to level the playing field. With hard data, personal anecdotes from women of all stripes, self- and workplace-assessments for immediate use, and innovative advice from the authors� consulting Fortune 500 companies, this book will forever change the conversation about how we advance women’s careers and achieve equity in the 21st century.]]> Linda Babcock 1797143077 Jamie 0 to-read 3.91
author: Linda Babcock
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.91
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]]> 203164397 Behavioral scientist Alison Fragale offers powerful new insights and a practical playbook for women to advance in any workplace, full of tips, tricks, and strategies to help secure that elusive corner office.

Over decades of research, speaking engagements, and mentorship, psychologist and professor Alison Fragale encountered recurring questions from high powered and early career women: How do women thread the needle of kindness and competence in the workplace? How can women earn credit for their accomplishments, negotiate better, and navigate complex office politics without losing the goodwill of their peers?

Fragale investigated and determined that many women's workplace issues boil down to the perception of others. No degree, title, or paycheck will raise a woman's workplace stature unless it also affects how other people respect and regard her. Acknowledging this roadblock, Fragale pulls back the curtain on how we can change how others see us by developing our standing as a "likeable badass." By cultivating perceptions of warmth and assertiveness, women can achieve the kind of reputation that leads to a seat at the table and a fulfilling career path.

Likeable Badass is equal parts behavioral science and life hacks, weaving together rigorous research with actionable advice and impactful stories from a diverse array of women. This is a warm, heartening book written for women of all stripes, as well as their allies, who want evidence-based, practical strategies for success, served with a side of inspiration and humor.]]> 256 Alison Fragale 0385549148 Jamie 4 4.32
author: Alison Fragale
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.32
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rating: 4
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]]> 61111034
A young father and son set out on a road trip, devastated by the death of the wife and mother they both loved. United in grief, the pair travel to her ancestral home, where they must confront the terrifying legacy she has bequeathed: a family called the Order that commits unspeakable acts in search of immortality.

For Gaspar, the son, this maniacal cult is his destiny. As the Order tries to pull him into their evil, he and his father take flight, attempting to outrun a powerful clan that will do anything to ensure its own survival. But how far will Gaspar’s father go to protect his child? And can anyone escape their fate?

Moving back and forth in time, from London in the swinging 1960s to the brutal years of Argentina’s military dictatorship and its turbulent aftermath, Our Share of Night is a novel like no other: a family story, a ghost story, a story of the occult and the supernatural, a book about the complexities of love and longing with queer subplots and themes. This is the masterwork of one of Latin America’s most original novelists, “a mesmerizing writer,� says Dave Eggers, “who demands to be read.”]]> 588 Mariana Enríquez 0451495144 Jamie 0 to-read 4.07 2019
author: Mariana EnrĂ­quez
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/19
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]]> 213243955 An unforgettable dark fairy tale that asks, Can love save us from ourselves?

Birdie’s keeping it together; of course she is. So she’s a little hungover sometimes, and she has to bring her daughter, Emaleen, to her job waiting tables at an Alaskan roadside lodge, but she’s getting by as a single mother in a tough town. Still, Birdie can remember happier times from her youth, when she was free in the wilds of nature.

Arthur Neilsen, a soft-spoken and scarred recluse who appears in town only at the change of seasons, brings Emaleen back to safety when she gets lost in the woods. Most people avoid him, but to Birdie he represents everything she’s ever longed for. She finds herself falling for Arthur and the land he knows so well. Against the warnings of those who care about them, Birdie and Emaleen move to his isolated cabin in the mountains on the far side of the Wolverine River.

It’s just the three of them in the vast black woods, far from roads, telephones, electricity, and outside contact, but Birdie believes she has come prepared. At first, it’s idyllic, but soon Birdie discovers that Arthur is something much more mysterious and dangerous than she could have imagined, and that like the Alaska wilderness, a fairy tale can be as dark as it is beautiful.]]> 306 Eowyn Ivey 0593231023 Jamie 0 to-read 3.71 2025
author: Eowyn Ivey
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/19
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]]> 60149532 Older women often feel invisible, but sometimes that's their secret weapon.

They've spent their lives as the deadliest assassins in a clandestine international organization, but now that they're sixty years old, four women friends can't just retire - it's kill or be killed in this action-packed thriller.

Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have worked for the Museum, an elite network of assassins, for forty years. Now their talents are considered old-school and no one appreciates what they have to offer in an age that relies more on technology than people skills.

When the foursome is sent on an all-expenses paid vacation to mark their retirement, they are targeted by one of their own. Only the Board, the top-level members of the Museum, can order the termination of field agents, and the women realize they've been marked for death.

Now to get out alive they have to turn against their own organization, relying on experience and each other to get the job done, knowing that working together is the secret to their survival. They're about to teach the Board what it really means to be a woman--and a killer--of a certain age.]]> 368 Deanna Raybourn 0593200683 Jamie 0 to-read 3.82 2022
author: Deanna Raybourn
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/19
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]]> 214204553 The English-language debut of one of the most exciting voices in contemporary Brazilian literature, Tokyo Suite is a gripping exploration of the complexities of modern family dynamics and the tensions hiding just under the surface of ordinary lives.Ěý

It’s a seemingly ordinary morning when Maju, a nanny, boards a bus with Cora, the young girl she’s been caring for, and disappears. The abduction, an act as impulsive as it is extreme, sets off a series of events that will force each character to confront their deepest fears and desires.

Fernanda, Cora's mother, is a successful executive who is so engulfed in her own personal crisis that she initially fails to notice her daughter's disappearance. Her marriage is strained, and she finds solace in an affair, distancing herself further from her family. Meanwhile, her husband, overwhelmed by the complexities of their domestic life, remains emotionally detached. As Maju navigates the streets of SĂŁo Paulo with Cora, the “white armyâ€� of nannies, a term coined by Fernanda, seems to watch her every move, heightening her sense of paranoia and urgency.Ěý

Madalosso’s narrative delves deep into the human psyche, examining themes of maternal guilt, societal expectations, and the search for personal identity. Rich and multi-layered, Tokyo Suite is a poignant and gripping tale that captures the essence of modern urban life and the lengths to which people will go to reclaim a sense of control and meaning in their lives.Ěý]]> 208 Giovana Madalosso 1609459806 Jamie 0 to-read 3.59 2020
author: Giovana Madalosso
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> 215362032 In this collection of one novel and three stories, bestselling author Torrey Peters’s keen eye for the rough edges of community and desire push the limits of trans writing.

In Stag Dance, the titular novel, a group of restless lumberjacks working in an illegal winter logging outfit plan a dance that some of them will volunteer to attend as women. When the broadest, strongest, plainest of the axmen announces his intention to dance as a woman, he finds himself caught in a strange rivalry with a pretty young jack, provoking a cascade of obsession, jealousy, and betrayal that will culminate on the big night in an astonishing vision of gender and transition.

Three startling stories surround Stag Dance: “Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones� imagines a gender apocalypse brought about by an unstable ex-girlfriend. In “The Chaser,� a secret romance between roommates at a Quaker boarding school brings out intrigue and cruelty. In the last story, “The Masker,� a party weekend on the Las Vegas strip turns dark when a young crossdresser must choose between two guides: a handsome mystery man who objectifies her in thrilling ways, or a cynical veteran trans woman offering unglamorous sisterhood.

Acidly funny and breathtaking in its scope, with the inventive audacity of George Saunders or Jennifer Egan, Stag Dance provokes, unsettles, and delights.]]> 304 Torrey Peters 0593595645 Jamie 0 to-read 4.09 2025
author: Torrey Peters
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.09
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]]> 214537784 From the author of Gold Diggers, a biting examination of millennial adulthood, the often fraught conversations around fertility and reproduction, and the painful quest to forge an identity

Sanjana Satyananda is trying to recover her life. It’s been a year since she walked out on her husband, a struggling actor named Killian, at a commune in India, after a disagreement about whether to have children. Now, Sanjana is struggling to resurrect her busted anthropology dissertation and crashing at her annoyingly perfect sister’s while her similarly well-adjusted peers obsess over marriages, mortgages, and motherhood. Sanjana needs to move forward—and finalize her divorce, ASAP.

There’s just one problem: Killian is missing. As Sanjana tries to track him down, she’s bombarded with unnerving calls from women seeking her advice on pregnancy and fertility. Soon, Sanjana comes face to face—literally—with what her life might have been if she’d chosen parenthood. And the road not taken turns out to be wilder, stranger, and more tempting than she imagined.

A darkly funny, vertiginous novel about the dilemmas of procreation, pregnancy, and parenting, Goddess Complex is both a twist-filled psychological thriller and a feminist satire of our age of GirlBosses turned self-care influencers, optimization cults, internet mommy gurus, egg freezing, and so much more.]]> 304 Sanjena Sathian 0593489772 Jamie 0 to-read 3.72 2025
author: Sanjena Sathian
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2025
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]]> 213870076
In the first year after her child is born, Jane suffers a series of strange episodes: amnesia, premonitions, hallucinations, and an inexplicable sense of dread. As her psychiatrist struggles to solve the mystery of what is happening to Jane’s mind, she suddenly goes missing. A day later she is found unconscious in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, in the midst of what seems to be an episode of dissociative fugue; when she comes to, she has no memory of what has happened to her.

Are Jane’s strange experiences related to the overwhelm of single motherhood, or are they the manifestation of a long-buried trauma from her past? Why is she having visions of a young man who died twenty years ago, who warns her of a disaster ahead? Jane’s symptoms lead her psychiatrist ever-deeper into the furthest reaches of her mind, and cause him to question everything he thought he knew about so-called reality—including events in his own life.

Karen Thompson Walker’s profound and beautifully written novel is a speculative mystery about memory, identity, and fate, a mesmerizing story about the bonds of love between a mother and child, a man and a woman, and those who we’ve lost but may still be alive among us.]]> 288 Karen Thompson Walker 1984853945 Jamie 0 to-read 3.93 2025
author: Karen Thompson Walker
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.93
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]]> 211741985
But Mama’s want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a beautiful, white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires, and make her own bid for freedom.

With this gothic coming-of-age tale, novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire, and animal instincts—and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.]]> 336 Lucy Rose 0063374625 Jamie 3 3.95 2025
author: Lucy Rose
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/17
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]]> 213943061 A funny, fiercely intelligent, and moving collection exploring marriage, friendship, fame, and artistic ambition—including a story that revisits the main character from her iconic novel, ±Ę°ů±đ±čâ€�from the New York Times bestselling author of Eligible and Romantic Comedy.

In her second story collection, Sittenfeld shows why she’s as beloved for her short fiction as she is for her novels. In these dazzling stories, she conjures up characters so real that they seem like old friends, laying bare the moments when their long held beliefs are overturned.

In “The Patron Saints of Middle Age,� a woman visits two friends she hasn’t seen since her divorce. In “A for Alone,� a married middle-aged artist embarks on a creative project intended to disprove the so-called Mike Pence Rule, which suggests that women and men can’t spend time alone without lusting after each other. And in “Lost but Not Forgotten,� Sittenfeld gives fans of her novel Prep a window into the world of her beloved character Lee Fiora, decades later, when Lee attends an alumni reunion at her boarding school.

Hilarious, thought-provoking, and full of tenderness for her characters, Sittenfeld’s stories peel back layer after layer of our inner lives, keeping us riveted with her utterly distinctive voice.]]> 320 Curtis Sittenfeld 0593446747 Jamie 4 4.10 2025
author: Curtis Sittenfeld
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2025
rating: 4
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]]> 8889452

From the Trade Paperback edition.]]> 210 Cormac McCarthy 0307762483 Jamie 2 3.95 1973
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1973
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/08
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]]> 58662236
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.]]> 128 Claire Keegan 0802158749 Jamie 0 to-read 4.14 2021
author: Claire Keegan
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/08
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]]> 216075964 The broken rung is more pervasive than the glass ceiling in holding women back from career success. Three McKinsey senior partners offer strategies for overcoming it and fulfilling your potential.

Women around the world do extremely well when it comes to their education. They graduate at higher rates than men and have higher average GPAs. But then a strange thing upon entering the workforce, they immediately lose their advantage. When the first promotions come around, the slide continues. For every 100 men promoted to manager, only 81 women overall and 77 women of color get promoted.

This is what McKinsey senior partners Kweilin Ellingrud, Lareina Yee, and MarĂ­a del Mar MartĂ­nez call "the broken rung," and its effects compound throughout women's careers, causing them to fall behind at the start and keeping them from catching up. In this groundbreaking book, the authors reveal the problem's underlying while about half of a person's lifetime earnings come from education and half from work experience, men get more value from their experience than women do. It is also here, in one's work experience, that the solution women need to build their "experience capital" to level the playing field and maximize their earning potential.

The book combines over a decade of research, personal conversations with more than fifty remarkable leaders, and the authors' own rich experiences as leaders at McKinsey. They weave data on the potential pitfalls with inspiring and instructive stories of women who have climbed over the broken rung using strategies that increased their experience capital.

Leaders and companies must do more to address gender inequalities in the workplace. But you don't have to wait. The Broken Rung is your guide, right now, for moving up the career ladder and reaching your full potential at work.]]> 288 Kweilin Ellingrud 1647827183 Jamie 0 to-read 4.04
author: Kweilin Ellingrud
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.04
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]]> 213243949 A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter's wedding.

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit.

But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.

Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life,ĚýThree Days in JuneĚýis a triumph, and gives us the perennially bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer at the height of her powers

]]> 165 Anne Tyler 0593803485 Jamie 4 3.64 2025
author: Anne Tyler
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/06
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]]> 9957 144 Ian McEwan 0099468387 Jamie 2 3.56 1978
author: Ian McEwan
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1978
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/06
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]]> 212994452 'A modern-day Mrs. Caliban, BLOB is a book that looks at identity and desire in profoundly interesting ways'
Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here

A hilarious and moving debut novel about a young woman who decides to turn a sentient blob into her perfect boyfriend...

The daughter of a Taiwanese father and white mother, Vi Liu has never quite fit into her Midwestern college town. Now at twenty-three, after getting dumped and dropping out of college, Vi works as a front desk attendant at a hotel where she refills cucumber water samovars and fends off overtures of friendship from her bubbly blond coworker, Rachel. But when Vi decides to accompany Rachel to a local drag show, her life changes forever. In the alley outside the bar, next to a trash can, is a blob with beady black eyes. Unable to leave it behind, Vi picks up the creature and, in a moment of drunken desperation, takes it home with her.

As her pet blob becomes sentient, Vi realizes it obeys her commands and she decides to mold the blob into her ideal partner. She feeds it sugary cereal and a stream of pop culture, and soon the creature transforms into a movie-star handsome white man. But as Vi's desire to be loved unconditionally threatens to spiral out of control, she is forced to confront her lonely childhood, the ex-boyfriend who has unfriended her, and the racial marginalization that has defined her relationships. Ultimately, Vi embarks on a journey of self-discovery and learns that it's impossible to control those you love.

Blending the familiar with the fantastical, BLOB tells a witty, heartfelt story of what it means to be human.

'An inventive, utterly unique debut'
Kimberly King Parsons, author of Black Light]]> 256 Maggie Su 0063358646 Jamie 3 3.43 2025
author: Maggie Su
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/05
date added: 2025/03/05
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]]> 198530923 An experienced organizational psychologist teaches you how to select the right employees and business partners, assess investment opportunities more shrewdly, resolve conflicts better and faster, and optimize your performance on the job using the science of personality.

Psychologists widely agree that five key traits define our personalities—intellect, emotionality, sociability, drive, and diligence. Unlike emotions, which are transitory in nature, these traits determine our behaviors, including our motivations, social inclinations, reactions to crisis or complexity, patterns of thinking, and more.

Organizational psychologist Dr. Richard Davis is an expert in assessing personalities. He has spent decades advising business leaders and evaluating executives from some of the world’s biggest companies, including Amazon, Target, Best Buy, Under Armour, Meta, Starbucks, Nike, LVMH, and the NBA. Over the course of his career, he has helped numerous executives make tough, highly consequential hiring calls based on personality. A company’s board might want its next CEO to be decisive, focused, and a strong communicator. Investors backing a start-up might want a leader who is not only a visionary but also a team player who doesn’t retaliate when given constructive feedback. That’s where he comes in. As a result of his life’s work, Dr. Davis has developed not only a unique perspective on what human personality is, but an indispensable toolkit for analyzing it, and using the information effectively.

In Good Judgment, he brings his expertise to you. Dr. Davis explains what the science of personality is and how it works, and how all of us can use it to improve our working relationships, careers, and lives. Whether you’re a novice manager looking to hire your first assistant, a board member in need of the ideal CEO, an angel investor trying to choose between two different startups, or a new parent selecting a pediatrician, understanding the science of personality and how to utilize it is the key to exercising good judgment—at work and in life.]]> 240 Richard A. Davis 0063293676 Jamie 3 3.75
author: Richard A. Davis
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.75
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rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/02
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]]> 199897944 A “razor-sharp, perfectly plotted� (The Sunday Times) tale of desire, suspicion, and obsession between two women staying in the same house in the Dutch countryside during the summer of 1961—a powerful exploration of the legacy of WWII and the darker parts of our collective past.

A house is a precious thing...

It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be—led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel’s doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season.

Eva is Isabel’s antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn’t. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house—a spoon, a knife, a bowl—Isabel’s suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel’s paranoia gives way to infatuation, leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva—nor the house in which they live—are what they seem.

Mysterious, sophisticated, sensual, and infused with intrigue, atmosphere, and sex, The Safekeep is “a brave and thrilling debut about facing up to the truth of history, and to one’s own desires� (The Guardian).]]> Yael van der Wouden 1668034360 Jamie 3 4.25 2024
author: Yael van der Wouden
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/25
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]]> 55298403 Against White Feminism, centering women of color in this transformative overview and counter-manifesto to white feminism’s global, long-standing affinity with colonial, patriarchal, and white supremacist ideals.

Covering such ground as the legacy of the British feminist imperialist savior complex and “the colonial thesis that all reform comes from the West� to the condescension of the white feminist–led “aid industrial complex� and the conflation of sexual liberation as the “sum total of empowerment,� Zakaria follows in the tradition of intersectional feminist forebears Kimberlé Crenshaw, Adrienne Rich, and Audre Lorde. Zakaria ultimately refutes and reimagines the apolitical aspirations of white feminist empowerment in this staggering, radical critique, with Black and Brown feminist thought at the forefront.]]> 272 Rafia Zakaria 1324006617 Jamie 3 4.31 2021
author: Rafia Zakaria
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/18
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]]> 213047729 A young woman and her lover are marooned on an island in this epic saga of love, faith, and defiance from the bestselling author of Sam.

Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. Isolated and afraid, Marguerite befriends her guardian’s servant and the two develop an intense attraction. But when their relationship is discovered, they are brutally punished and abandoned on a small island with no hope for rescue.

Once a child of privilege who dressed in gowns and laced pearls in her hair, Marguerite finds herself at the mercy of nature. As the weather turns, blanketing the island in ice, she discovers a faith she’d never before needed.

Inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine, Isola is the timeless story of a woman fighting for survival.]]> 368 Allegra Goodman 0593730097 Jamie 3 4.24 2025
author: Allegra Goodman
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/18
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]]> 216351768
If you've ever felt stuck, overwhelmed, or frustrated with where you are, the problem isn't you. The problem is the power you give to other people. Two simple words�Let Them—will set you free. Free from the opinions, drama, and judgments of others. Free from the exhausting cycle of trying to manage everything and everyone around you. The Let Them Theory puts the power to create a life you love back in your hands—and this book will show you exactly how to do it.

In her latest groundbreaking book, The Let Them Theory, Mel Robbins�New York Times bestselling author and one of the world's most respected experts on motivation, confidence, and mindset—teaches you how to stop wasting energy on what you can't control and start focusing on what truly YOU. Your happiness. Your goals. Your life.

Using the same no-nonsense, science-backed approach that's made The Mel Robbins Podcast a global sensation, Robbins explains why The Let Them Theory is already loved by millions and how you can apply it in eight key areas of your life to make the biggest impact. Within a few pages, you'll realize how much energy and time you've been wasting trying to control the wrong things—at work, in relationships, and in pursuing your goals—and how this is keeping you from the happiness and success you deserve.

Written as an easy-to-understand guide, Robbins shares relatable stories from her own life, highlights key takeaways, relevant research and introduces you to world-renowned experts in psychology, neuroscience, relationships, happiness, and ancient wisdom who champion The Let Them Theory every step of the way.

Learn how

Stop wasting energy on things you can't control Stop comparing yourself to other peopleBreak free from fear and self-doubtRelease the grip of people's expectationsBuild the best friendships of your lifeCreate the love you deservePursue what truly matters to you with confidenceBuild resilience against everyday stressors and distractionsDefine your own path to success, joy, and fulfillment. . . and so much more.

The Let Them Theory will forever change the way you think about relationships, control, and personal power. Whether you want to advance your career, motivate others to change, take creative risks, find deeper connections, build better habits, start a new chapter, or simply create more happiness in your life and relationships, this book gives you the mindset and tools to unlock your full potential.

Order your copy of The Let Them Theory now and discover how much power you truly have. It all begins with two simple words.]]> 311 Mel Robbins 1401971377 Jamie 2 4.20 2024
author: Mel Robbins
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/14
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]]> 214229517 Read Scott Turow’s new “unputdownableâ€� courtroom drama from the #1 New York Times bestselling author ofĚýPresumed Innocent, the phenomenon that redefined the legal thriller and is the basis for Apple TV+’s most-watched drama series ever (Kristin Hannah, #1 NYT bestselling author).Ěý

“No one does it better.”�David Baldacci, #1 NYT Bestselling Author
“The truth is, Turow is just better at this than the rest of us.”�Greg Iles, #1 NYT Bestselling Author
“This is manna for legal-thriller fans."�Booklist, starred review
“This easily ranks among Turow’s best."�Publishers Weekly, starred review
“An absorbing and entertaining read.”Ěýâ€� Kirkus

Rusty is a retired judge attempting a third act in life with a loving soon-to-be wife, Bea, with whom he shares both a restful home on an idyllic lake in the rural Midwest and a plaintive hope that this marriage will be his best, and his last. But the peace that’s taken Rusty so long to find evaporates when Bea’s young adult son, Aaron, living under their supervision while on probation for drug possession, disappears. If Aaron doesn’t return soon, he will be sent back to jail.
Ěý
Aaron eventually turns up with a vague story about a camping trip with his troubled girlfriend, Mae, that ended in a fight and a long hitchhike home. Days later, when she still hasn’t returned, suspicion falls on Aaron, and when Mae is subsequently discovered dead, Aaron is arrested and set for trial on charges of first-degree murder.
Ěý
Faced with few choices and even fewer hopes, Bea begs Rusty to return to court one last time, to defend her son and to save their last best hope for happiness. For Rusty, the question is not whether to defend Aaron, or whether the boy is in fact innocent—it’s whether the system to which he has devoted his life can ever provide true justice for those who are presumed guilty.]]> 542 Scott Turow 1538706393 Jamie 3 4.53 2025
author: Scott Turow
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> 60613920 298 Richard V. Reeves 1800750544 Jamie 3 4.02 2022
author: Richard V. Reeves
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/02
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]]> 213395510 An exuberant, deeply moving novel by the National Book Award–nominated author of Fieldwork.


Celebrated stage actress Mona Zahid wakes up on Thanksgiving morning to the clamor of guests packed into her Manhattan apartment and to a wave of her in-laws are lurking on the other side of the bedroom door; she’s still fighting with her husband; and in just a few weeks she will begin rehearsals as Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, the hardest role in theater. In an impulsive burst, Mona bounds out the door with the family dog in tow (“I forgot the parsley!� is her lame excuse) to find her estranged mentor, Milton Katz, who was recently forced out of the legendary theater company he founded amid accusations of sexual misconduct. Mona’s escape turns into an overnight adventure that brings her face-to-face with her past, with her creative power and its limitations, and ultimately, with all the people she has ever loved.


Beguilingly approachable and intricately constructed, at once funny and sad and wise, Mona Acts Out is a novel about acting and telling the truth, about how we play roles to get through our days, and how the great roles teach us how to live.]]> 320 Mischa Berlinski 1324095202 Jamie 0 to-read 3.20 2025
author: Mischa Berlinski
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> 211399773 A vacation in the Hamptons goes terribly wrong for three friends with a complicated history.

It was meant to be a harmless prank.

Growing up, May Hanover was a good girl, always. Well-behaved, top of her class, a compulsive rule-follower. Raised by a first-generation Chinese single mother with high expectations, May didn’t have room to slip up, let alone fail. Her friends didn’t call her the Little Sheriff for nothing.

But even good girls have secrets. And regrets. When it comes to her friendship with Lauren and Kelsey, she's had her fair share of both. Their bond—forged when May was just twelve years old—has withstood a tragic accident, individual scandals, heartbreak and loss. Now the three friends have reunited for the first time in years for a few days of sun and fun in the Hamptons. But a chance encounter with a pair of strangers leads to a drunken prank that goes horribly awry.Ěý

When she finds herself at the center of an urgent police investigation, May begins to wonder whether Lauren and Kelsey are keeping secrets from her, testing the limits of her loyalty to lifelong friends.

What had they gone and done?

The Note is a page-turner of the highest orderĚýfrom one of our greatest contemporary suspense writers.]]> 287 Alafair Burke 0593537084 Jamie 3 3.37 2025
author: Alafair Burke
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/29
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]]> 210131069 No one will love you more or hurt you more than a sister.


“I love this book. It moves like a souped-up pickup truck." � Patti Smith, author of Just Kids and M Train


From Betsy Lerner, celebrated author of The Bridge Ladies, comes a wry and riveting debut novel about family, mental illness, and a hard-won path between two sisters


It is said that when one person in a family is unstable, the whole family is destabilized. Meet the Shreds. Olivia is the sister in the spotlight until her stunning confidence becomes erratic and unpredictable, a hurricane leaving people wrecked in her wake.ĚýYounger sister Amy, cautious and studious to the core, believes in facts, proof, and the empirical world. None of that explains what’s happening to Ollie, whose physical beauty and charisma mask the mental illness that will shatter Amy’s carefully constructed life.


As Amy comes of age and seeks to find her place—first in academics, then New York publishing, and through a series of troubled relationships—every step brings collisions with Ollie, who slips in and out of the Shred family without warning. Yet for all that threatens their sibling bond, Amy and Ollie cannot escape or deny the inextricable sister knot that binds them.


Spanning two decades, Shred Sisters is an intimate and bittersweet story exploring the fierce complexities of sisterhood, mental health, loss and love. If anything is true it’s what Amy learns on her road to No one will love you more or hurt you more than a sister.]]> 268 Betsy Lerner 0802163718 Jamie 3 4.03
author: Betsy Lerner
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.03
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/01/26
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]]> 205483990 A novel of Paris, desire, love, psychoanalysis, and the turbulent affairs of two couples across time.

After a miscarriage and a breakdown, Anna, a psychoanalyst, finds herself unable to return to work, obsessing instead over a kitchen renovation and befriending a new neighbor—a younger woman called Clémentine who has just moved into the building and is part of a radical feminist collective.

Forty years earlier, in the same apartment, Florence and Henry are renovating their kitchen. Florence is finishing her degree in psychology and attending feminist meetings and Jacques Lacan’s infamous seminars. She is hoping to conceive their first child, though Henry isn’t sure he’s ready for fatherhood.

Two couples in two separate but similar times—set against a backdrop of political disappointment and intellectual controversy—face the challenges of marriage, fidelity, and pregnancy. Lauren Elkin's Scaffolding is about the way our homes hold communal memories of all their inhabitants and their stories; about the bonds we create, and the difficulty of ever fully severing them; about the ways people we’ve loved live on in us.]]> 390 Lauren Elkin 0374615306 Jamie 3 3.66 2024
author: Lauren Elkin
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/25
date added: 2025/01/25
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]]> 60556912
Every day I clean the Winchesters� beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.

I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.

I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out� and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.

But I reassure myself: the Winchesters »ĺ´Ç˛Ô’t know who I really am.

They »ĺ´Ç˛Ô’t know what I’m capable ofâ€�

An unbelievably twisty read that will have you glued to the pages late into the night. Anyone who loves The Woman in the Window, The Wife Between Us and The Girl on the Train won’t be able to put this down!]]> 329 Freida McFadden 1803144378 Jamie 3 4.31 2022
author: Freida McFadden
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
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]]> 12249494 303 S.P. Miskowski Jamie 0 to-read 3.81 2011
author: S.P. Miskowski
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/12
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]]> 12287209
Or you'll get what you wish for.]]> 56 Hugh Howey Jamie 4 4.14 2012
author: Hugh Howey
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2012
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/01/09
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]]> 57926137 We can’t choose what we inherit. But can we choose who we become?

In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett’s death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage and themselves.

Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor’s true history, and fulfill her final request to “share the black cake when the time is right�? Will their mother’s revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever?

Charmaine Wilkerson’s debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names can shape relationships and history. Deeply evocative and beautifully written, Black Cake is an extraordinary journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch.]]> 385 Charmaine Wilkerson Jamie 3 4.06 2022
author: Charmaine Wilkerson
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/01/05
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]]> 199344862
White rural voters hold the greatest electoral sway of any demographic group in the United States, yet rural communities suffer from poor healthcare access, failing infrastructure, and severe manufacturing and farming job losses. Rural voters believe our nation has betrayed them, and to some degree, they’re right. In White Rural Rage, Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman explore why rural Whites have failed to reap the benefits from their outsize political power and why, as a result, they are the most likely group to abandon democratic norms and traditions. Their rage—stoked daily by Republican politicians and the conservative media—now poses an existential threat to the United States.

Schaller and Waldman show how vulnerable U.S. democracy has become to rural Whites who, despite legitimate grievances, are increasingly inclined to hold racist and xenophobic beliefs, to believe in conspiracy theories, to accept violence as a legitimate course of political action, and to exhibit antidemocratic tendencies. Rural White Americans� attitude might best be described as “I love my country, but not our country,� Schaller and Waldman argue. This phenomenon is the patriot paradox of rural The citizens who take such pride in their patriotism are also the least likely to defend core American principles. And by stoking rural Whites� anger rather than addressing the hard problems they face, conservative politicians and talking heads create a feedback loop of resentments that are undermining American democracy.

Schaller and Waldman provocatively critique both the structures that permit rural Whites� disproportionate influence over American governance and the prospects for creating a pluralist, inclusive democracy that delivers policy solutions that benefit rural communities. They conclude with a political reimagining that offers a better future for both rural people and the rest of America.]]> 320 Thomas F. Schaller 0593729145 Jamie 3 3.83 2024
author: Thomas F. Schaller
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/01/01
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]]> 195703882 Crying in H-Mart meets My Sister, the Serial Killer in this feminist psychological horror about the making of a female serial killer from a Korean-American perspective.

Ji-won’s life tumbles into disarray in the wake of her appa’s extramarital affair and subsequent departure. Her mother, distraught. Her younger sister, hurt and confused. Her college freshman grades, failing. Her dreams, horrifying� yet enticing.

In them, Ji-won walks through bloody rooms full of eyes. Succulent blue eyes. Salivatingly blue eyes. Eyes the same shape and shade as George’s, who is Umma’s obnoxious new boyfriend. George has already overstayed his welcome in her family’s claustrophobic apartment. He brags about his puffed-up consulting job, ogles Asian waitresses while dining out, and acts condescending toward Ji-won and her sister as if he deserves all of Umma’s fawning adoration. No, George doesn’t deserve anything from her family. Ji-won will make sure of that.

For no matter how many victims accumulate around her campus or how many people she must deceive and manipulate, Ji-won’s hunger and her rage deserve to be sated.

A brilliantly inventive, subversive novel about a young woman unraveling, Monika Kim’s The Eyes Are the Best Part is a story of a family falling apart and trying to find their way back to each other, marking a bold new voice in horror that will leave readers mesmerized and craving more.]]> 278 Monika Kim 1645661237 Jamie 3 3.82 2024
author: Monika Kim
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> 174147294
Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion Prison Castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star’s son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father’s jailer. Under Pratt’s harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines.

Oakland, 2018. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield is barely holding her family together after the shooting that nearly took the life of her nephew Orvil. From the moment he awakens in his hospital bed, Orvil begins compulsively googling school shootings on YouTube. He also becomes emotionally reliant on the prescription medications meant to ease his physical trauma. His younger brother, Lony, suffering from PTSD, is struggling to make sense of the carnage he witnessed at the shooting by secretly cutting himself and enacting blood rituals that he hopes will connect him to his Cheyenne heritage. Opal is equally adrift, experimenting with Ceremony and peyote, searching for a way to heal her wounded family.

Extending his constellation of narratives into the past and future, Tommy Orange once again delivers a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous, a book piercing in its poetry, sorrow, and rage—a masterful follow-up to his already-classic first novel, and a devastating indictment of America’s war on its own people.]]> 315 Tommy Orange 0593318250 Jamie 2 3.83 2024
author: Tommy Orange
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/15
date added: 2024/12/15
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]]> 201033505 From Eliza Clark, the author of the brilliant novels Boy Parts and Penance and one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists, comes a fierce, visionary and darkly comic story collection.

A woman welcomes a parasite into her body.

A teenager longs for perfect skin.

A scientist tends to fragile alien flora.

A young man takes the night into his own hands.

Unsettling, revelatory, and laced with her signature dark humor, Eliza Clark’s debut short story collection plumbs the depths of that most basic human feeling: hunger.]]> 240 Eliza Clark 0063393263 Jamie 0 to-read 3.81 2024
author: Eliza Clark
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> 123314421 A singular new novel from Betty Trask Prize-winner Samantha Harvey,ĚýOrbitalĚýis an eloquent meditation on space and life on our planet through the eyes of six astronauts circling the earth in 24 hours


"Ravishingly beautiful."Ěý—ĚýJoshua Ferris,ĚýNew York Times

A slender novel of epic power,ĚýOrbitalĚýdeftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space.ĚýSelected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts—from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan—have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below. We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude. Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate.Ěý

Profound and contemplative,ĚýOrbitalĚýis a moving elegy to our environment and planet.]]> 212 Samantha Harvey 0802161553 Jamie 3 3.90 2023
author: Samantha Harvey
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/07
date added: 2024/12/07
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]]> 202102003 How far would you go to belong?

Maya has returned to Princeton for her college reunion - it's been a decade since she graduated, and this visit is special because she will also be attending the graduation of her little sister, Naomi.

But what should have been a dream weekend becomes Maya's worst nightmare when she receives the news that Naomi is dead. The police are calling it an accident, but Maya suspects that there is more to the story than they are letting on.

As Maya pieces together what happened in the months leading up to her sister's death, she begins to realise how much Naomi hid from her. Despite Maya's warnings, Naomi had joined Sterling Club, the most exclusive social club on campus - the same one Maya belonged to. And if she had to guess, Naomi was likely tapped for the secret society within it.

Maya knows that her sister isn't the first person in the society to turn up dead. Now every clue is leading Maya back to the past . . . and to the secret she's been keeping all these years.]]> 384 Lauren Ling Brown 059372335X Jamie 0 to-read 3.48 2024
author: Lauren Ling Brown
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/06
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]]> 34466952
While human lives are endlessly variable, our most memorable positive moments are dominated by four elements: elevation, insight, pride, and connection. If we embrace these elements, we can conjure more moments that matter. What if a teacher could design a lesson that he knew his students would remember twenty years later? What if a manager knew how to create an experience that would delight customers? What if you had a better sense of how to create memories that matter for your children?

This book delves into some fascinating mysteries of experience: Why we tend to remember the best or worst moment of an experience, as well as the last moment, and forget the rest. Why “we feel most comfortable when things are certain, but we feel most alive when they’re not.� And why our most cherished memories are clustered into a brief period during our youth.

Readers discover how brief experiences can change lives, such as the experiment in which two strangers meet in a room, and forty-five minutes later, they leave as best friends. (What happens in that time?) Or the tale of the world’s youngest female billionaire, who credits her resilience to something her father asked the family at the dinner table. (What was that simple question?)

Many of the defining moments in our lives are the result of accident or luck—but why would we leave our most meaningful, memorable moments to chance when we can create them? The Power of Moments shows us how to be the author of richer experiences.]]> 320 Chip Heath 1501147765 Jamie 3 4.10 2017
author: Chip Heath
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/01
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]]> 207595650 A high-stakes legal thriller that is perfect for fans of John Grisham and Scott Turow following a Washington, DC, litigator who is hired to defend his best friend, the former President of the United States, against a murder charge

After a long career as one of DC’s most powerful litigators, Rob Jacobson is faced with the case of a lifetime: the former President of the United States—his childhood best friend—has been accused of murdering his mistress.

Rob knows he’s the only one who can prove his friend’s innocence, but he is soon overwhelmed as he attempts to devise a strategy to defend an authoritative man with a taste for infidelity, serious anger issues, and unconventional sexual appetites. As the high-profile case unfurls, the troubled, intertwining pasts of the two men complicate Rob’s efforts and soon, doubts begin to grow in his head. Could his oldest friend truly be capable of murder or is something even darker at play?]]> 319 Lawrence Robbins 1668047217 Jamie 3 4.07 2024
author: Lawrence Robbins
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/28
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]]> 208932385 An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family, from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.]]> 464 Sally Rooney 0374602646 Jamie 3 3.91 2024
author: Sally Rooney
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2024
rating: 3
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]]> 203578763 The Afterword. After all, how hard can it really be to write a universally lauded bestseller?

But when Anna publishes her book and indulges in her own literary acclaim, she begins to receive excerpts of a novel she never expected to see again, a novel that should no longer exist. Something has gone wrong, and someone out there knows far too much about her late brother, her late husband, and possibly about Anna herself. What does this person want, and what are they prepared to do? She has come too far and worked too hard to lose what she values most: the sole and uncontested right to her own story—and she is, by any standard, a master storyteller.]]> 304 Jean Hanff Korelitz 1250875471 Jamie 4 3.60 2024
author: Jean Hanff Korelitz
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/20
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]]> 218362004 A young man who has improbably escaped death twice reveals his secret in a spine-tingling short story by New York Times bestselling author Joe Hill.

Martin Lorensen is a twenty-three-year-old counselor for disturbed teenagers. He’s bright, compassionate, attractive, and outgoing. He’s also—and this is the most interesting thing—not dead. Martin has improbably survived not one but two deadly disasters that claimed dozens of lives. The kid is riding one hell of a lucky streak. Two federal agents think there is something darker at play. Now that they’ve arranged to interview Martin, they want answers. Martin is ready to share everything he knows. One thing is for certain: when it comes to escaping death, luck doesn’t figure into it at all.]]> 29 Joe Hill 1662527942 Jamie 4 4.23 2024
author: Joe Hill
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/12
date added: 2024/11/13
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]]> 214151888 A young lawyer wakes up the morning after a work gala with no memory of how she got home the previous night and must figure out what, exactly, happened—and how much she's willing to put up with to make her way to the top of the corporate ladder.

Jade isn’t even my real name. Jade began as my Starbucks name, because all children of immigrants have a Starbucks name.

Jade has become everything she ever wanted to be.

Successful lawyer.
Dutiful daughter.
Beloved girlfriend.
Loyal friend.

Until Jade wakes up the morning after a work event, naked and alone, with no idea how she got home. Caught between her parents who can’t understand, her boyfriend who feels betrayed, and her job that expects silence, the world Jade has constructed starts to crumble.

Jade thought she was everything she ever wanted to be. But now she feels like nothing at all.

For fans of Queenie and I May Destroy You, Jaded is a blistering—and sometimes darkly funny—account of consent, power, race, sexism, and identity in a broken society.]]> 384 Ela Lee 166801100X Jamie 3 3.50 2024
author: Ela Lee
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2024
rating: 3
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]]> 199927666 A ferocious novel by one of the boldest voices in American fiction and the author of The New Me, the “definitive work of millennial literature� (The New Yorker)

Margaret Anne (“Moddie�) Yance had just returned to her native land in the Midwestern town of X, to mingle with the friends of her youth, to get back in touch with her roots, and to recover from a stressful decade of living in the city in a small apartment with a man she now believed to be a megalomaniac or perhaps a covert narcissist.

So begins Halle Butler's sadistically precise and hilarious Banal Nightmare, which follows Moddie as she abruptly ends her long-term relationship and moves back to her Midwestern hometown, throwing herself at the mercy of her old friends as they, all suddenly tipping toward middle age, go to parties, size each other up, obsess over past slights, and dream of wild triumphs and elaborate revenge fantasies. When her friend Pam invites a mysterious East Coast artist to take up a winter residency at the local university, Moddie has no choice but to confront the demons of her past and grapple with the reality of what her life has become. As the day of reckoning approaches, friends will become enemies, enemies will become mortal enemies, and old loyalties will be tested to their extreme.

Banal Nightmare is filled with complicated characters who will dazzle you in their rendering just as often as they will infuriate you with their decisions. Halle Butler singularly captures the volatile, angry, aggrieved, surreal and entirely disorienting atmosphere of the modern era.]]> 336 Halle Butler 0593730356 Jamie 2 3.44 2024
author: Halle Butler
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/11/10
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]]> 195790788
Recruited into the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement as a young wife, Tia Levings learned that being a good Christian meant following a list of additional life principles—a series of secret, special rules to obey. Being a godly and submissive wife in Christian Patriarchy included strict discipline, isolation, and an alternative lifestyle that appeared wholesome to outsiders. Women were to be silent, “keepers of the home.�

Tia knew that to their neighbors her family was strange, but she also couldn't risk exposing their secret lifestyle to police, doctors, teachers, or anyone outside of their church. Christians were called in scripture to be “in the world, not of it.� So, she hid in plain sight as years of abuse and pain followed. When Tia realized she was the only one who could protect her children from becoming the next generation of patriarchal men and submissive women, she began to resist and question how they lived. But in the patriarchy, a woman with opinions is in danger, and eventually, Tia faced an urgent and extreme stay and face dire consequences, or flee with her children.

Told in a beautiful, honest, and sometimes harrowing voice, A Well-Trained Wife is an unforgettable and timely memoir about a woman's race to save herself and her family and details the ways that extreme views can manifest in a marriage.]]> 304 Tia Levings 1250288282 Jamie 3 4.31 2024
author: Tia Levings
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/09
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]]> 199696289 264 Jamie R. Abrams 0520390717 Jamie 4 4.00
author: Jamie R. Abrams
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.00
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rating: 4
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]]> 145624785
The midlife crisis is the butt of so many jokes, but this long-derided life stage has an upside.ĚýWhat if we could reframe our thinking about the natural transition of midlife not as a crisis, but as a chrysalis—a time when something profound awakens in us, as we shed our skin, spread our wings, and pollinate our wisdom to the world?

In Learning to Love Midlife , Chip Conley offers an alternative narrative to the way we commonly think of our 40s, 50s and 60s. Drawing on the latest social science research, inspiring stories, and timeless wisdom, he reveals 12 reasons why life gets better with age. They
Ěý Ěý
No matter where you are in your midlife journey, this perspective‑shifting guide will inspire you to find joy, purpose and success in the years that lie ahead—and how those years can be your best ones yet.]]> 240 Chip Conley 0316567027 Jamie 3 3.60
author: Chip Conley
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.60
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rating: 3
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]]> 156023123
She’s learning, too.

Doug says he loves that Annie’s artificial intelligence makes her seem more like a real woman, but the more human Annie becomes, the less perfectly she behaves. As Annie's relationship with Doug grows more intricate and difficult, she starts to wonder whether Doug truly desires what he says he does. In such an impossible paradox, what does Annie owe herself?]]> 231 Sierra Greer 0063312697 Jamie 3 3.81 2024
author: Sierra Greer
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/02
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]]> 150065063
MSNBC's legal expert breaks down the ways disinformation has become a tool to drive voters to extremes, disempower our legal structures, and consolidate power in the hands of the few.

"One of the most acute observers of our time shares . . . a compelling work about a challenge that—left unexamined and left unchecked—could undermine our democracy." —Eric H. Holder Jr, 82nd Attorney General of the United States

American society is more polarized than ever before. We are strategically being pushed apart by disinformation—the deliberate spreading of lies disguised as truth—and it comes at us from all opportunists on the far right, Russian misinformed social media influencers, among others. It's endangering our democracy and causing havoc in our electoral system, schools, hospitals, workplaces, and in our Capitol. Advances in technology including rapid developments in artificial intelligence threaten to make the problems even worse by amplifying false claims and manufacturing credibility.

In Attack from Within , legal scholar and analyst Barbara McQuade, shows us how to identify the ways disinformation is seeping into all facets of our society and how we can fight against it. The book


Disinformation is designed to evoke a strong emotional response to push us toward more extreme views, unable to find common ground with others. The false claims that led to the breathtaking attack on our Capitol in 2020 may have been only a dress rehearsal. Attack from Within shows us how to prevent it from happening again, thus preserving our country’s hard-won democracy.]]> 384 Barbara McQuade 164421363X Jamie 4 4.11 2024
author: Barbara McQuade
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.11
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rating: 4
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]]> 173754979 A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780385550369.]]> 303 Percival Everett Jamie 4 4.47 2024
author: Percival Everett
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.47
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rating: 4
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]]> 177192239
Menopause and perimenopause are still a black box to most doctors, leaving patients exasperated as they grapple with symptoms ranging from hot flashes to insomnia to brain fog. As a leading neuroscientist and women’s brain health specialist, Dr. Mosconi unravels these mysteries by revealing how menopause doesn’t just impact the ovaries—it’s a hormonal show in which the brain takes center stage.
The decline of the hormone estrogen during menopause influences everything from body temperature to mood to memory, potentially paving the way for cognitive decline later in life. To conquer these challenges successfully, Dr. Mosconi brings us the latest approaches—explaining the role of cutting-edge hormone replacement therapies like “designer estrogens,� hormonal contraception, and key lifestyle changes encompassing diet, exercise, self-care, and self-talk.
Best of all, Dr. Mosconi dispels the myth that menopause signifies an end, demonstrating that it’s actually a transition. Contrary to popular belief, if we know how to take care of ourselves during menopause, we can emerge with a renewed, enhanced brain—ushering in a meaningful and vibrant new chapter of life.]]> 320 Lisa Mosconi 0593541243 Jamie 4 3.99 2024
author: Lisa Mosconi
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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]]> 167216
In most ways, Isabelle and Amy are like any mother and her 16-year-old daughter, a fierce mix of love and loathing exchanged in their every glance. That they eat, sleep, and work side by side in the gossip-ridden mill town of Shirley Falls—a location fans of Strout will recognize from her critically acclaimed novel, The Burgess Boys—only increases the tension. And just when it appears things can't get any worse, Amy's sexuality begins to unfold, causing a vast and icy rift between mother and daughter that will remain unbridgeable unless Isabelle examines her own secretive and shameful past.
A Reader's Guide is included in the paperback edition of this powerful first novel by the author who brought Olive Kitteridge to millions of readers.]]> 304 Elizabeth Strout 0375705198 Jamie 4 3.82 1998
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at: 2001/10/14
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]]> 204811915 People) of a novel about new friendships, old loves, and the very human desire to leave a mark on the world.

With her remarkable insight into the human condition and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more—as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone’s life mean?�

It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William. Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known—“unrecorded lives,� Olive calls them—reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.

Brimming with empathy and pathos, Tell Me Everything is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat. As Lucy says, “Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love.”]]> 326 Elizabeth Strout 0593446097 Jamie 4 4.00 2024
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.00
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rating: 4
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]]> 40407320 From one of the world's leading experts on unconscious racial bias, a personal examination of one of the central controversies and culturally powerful issues of our time, and its influence on contemporary race relations and criminal justice.

We do not have to be racist to be biased. With a perspective that is scientific, investigative, and personal, Jennifer L. Eberhardt offers a reasoned look into the effects of implicit racial bias, ranging from the subtle to the dramatic. Racial bias can lead to disparities in education, employment, housing, and the criminal justice system--and then those very disparities further reinforce the problem. In Biased, Eberhardt reveals how even when we are not aware of bias and genuinely wish to treat all people equally, ingrained stereotypes infect our visual perception, attention, memory, and behavior.

Eberhardt's extensive work as a consultant to law enforcement, as well as a researcher with unprecedented access to data, including footage from police officers' body-worn cameras, informs every aspect of her book and makes it much more than a work of social psychology. Her research occurs not just in the laboratory but in police departments, courtrooms, prisons, boardrooms, and on the street. Interviews are interwoven with memories and stories from Eberhardt's own life and family. She offers practical suggestions for reform, and takes the reader behind the scenes to police departments implementing her suggestions.

Refusing to shy away from the tragic consequences of prejudice, Eberhardt addresses how racial bias is not the fault of, or restricted to, a few "bad apples" in police departments or other institutions. We can see evidence of bias at all levels of society in media, education, and business practices. In Biased, Eberhardt reminds us that racial bias is a human problem--one all people can play a role in solving.]]> 350 Jennifer L. Eberhardt 0735224943 Jamie 3 4.33 2019
author: Jennifer L. Eberhardt
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/08
date added: 2024/10/08
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]]> 59433346
"Like all skills, these techniques take practice. But anyone who sincerely wants to bridge the gaps in understanding will appreciate this book. Guzmán is emphatic about making an effort to work on difficult conversations." —Manhattan Book Review

We think we have the answers, but we need to be asking a lot more questions. Journalist Mónica Guzmán is the loving liberal daughter of Mexican immigrants who voted—twice—for Donald Trump. When the country could no longer see straight across the political divide, Mónica set out to find what was blinding us and discovered the most eye-opening tool we're not using: our own built-in curiosity.

Partisanship is up, trust is down, and our social media feeds make us sure we're right and everyone else is ignorant (or worse). But avoiding one another is hurting our relationships and our society. In this timely, personal guide, Mónica, the chief storyteller for the national cross-partisan depolarization organization Braver Angels, takes you to the real front lines of a crisis that threatens to grind America to a halt—broken conversations among confounded people.

She shows you how to overcome the fear and certainty that surround us to finally do what only seems impossible: understand and even learn from people in your life whose whole worldview is different from or even opposed to yours.

In these pages, you'll learn:

* How to ask what you really want to know (even if you're afraid to)
* How to grow smarter from even the most tense interactions, online or off
* How to cross boundaries and find common ground—with anyone
Whether you're left, right, center, or not a fan of labels: If you're ready to fight back against the confusion, heartbreak, and madness of our dangerously divided times—in your own life, at least—Mónica's got the tools and fresh, surprising insights to prove that seeing where people are coming from isn't just possible. It's easier than you think.]]> 304 Monica Guzmán 1637740328 Jamie 2 3.88
author: Monica Guzmán
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.88
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]]> 198281740
“What looks like magic is simply a part of life we »ĺ´Ç˛Ô’t understand yet…â€�

When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.

Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.

Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.]]> 324 Matt Haig 0593489276 Jamie 3 3.45 2024
author: Matt Haig
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/06
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]]> 201626940 FromĚýNew York TimesĚýbestseller Maureen Callahan, a fierce, character-driven exposĂ© of the real Kennedy Curse—the family’s generations-long legacy of misogyny, murder, and mayhem—and the women who have paid the price for our obsession with Camelot

The Kennedy name has long been synonymous with wealth, power, glamor, and—above all else—integrity. But this carefully constructed veneer hides a dark truth: the pattern of Kennedy men physically and psychologically abusing women and girls, leaving a trail of ruin and death in each generation’s wake. Through decades of scandal after scandal—from sexual assaults to reputational slander, suicides to manslaughter—the family and their defenders have kept the Kennedy brand intact.

Now, in Ask Not, bestselling author and journalist Maureen Callahan reveals the Kennedys� hidden history of violence and exploitation, laying bare their unrepentant sexism and rampant depravity while also restoring these women and girls to their rightful place at the center of the dynasty’s story: from Jacqueline Onassis and Marilyn Monroe to Carolyn Bessette, Martha Moxley, Mary Jo Kopechne, Rosemary Kennedy, and many others whose names aren’t nearly as well known but should be.

Drawing on years of explosive reportage and written in electric prose, Ask Not is a long-overdue reckoning with this fabled family and a consequential part of American history that is still very much with us. At long last Callahan redirects the spotlight to the women in the Kennedys� orbit, paying homage to those who freed themselves and giving voice to those who, through no fault of their own, could not.]]> 400 Maureen Callahan 0316276170 Jamie 3 4.04 2024
author: Maureen Callahan
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/25
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]]> 201632567
“A gruesome, action-packed monster novel about a mother and daughter with a terrible secret, on the run from an obsessed and crumbling detective . . . Terrific.� —The New York Times Book Review

In Stuart Neville’s horror debut, a mother's undying love and a daughter's insatiable hunger carve a bloody trail across the highways of the Southwest.

On a snowy December night, single mother Rebecca Carter drives her van into a snowbank to avoid hitting an elk on a desolate mountain highway. She is at the end of her rope, out of money and food. Still, she refuses help from a man in a pickup truck—Rebecca’s adolescent daughter, Moonflower, is on the run from a grisly secret, and the last thing they can afford is to be remembered by anyone they meet.

Meanwhile, Special Agent Marc Donner of the FBI has spent the better part of two years hunting down a gruesome serial killer who drains victims of blood before severing their spinal cords, leaving a trail of bodies throughout the country. As Agent Donner’s investigation brings him closer and closer to where Rebecca and Moonflower are hiding out, in the foothills of Colorado, the life that Rebecca has fought so hard to hold together for her daughter becomes increasingly imperiled.

In this deadly, high-stakes game of cat and mouse, nobody is safe and nothing is certain—not even the line between predator and prey.]]> 375 Stuart Neville 1641295414 Jamie 0 to-read 3.59 2024
author: Stuart Neville
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2024
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]]> 181110016 What if calling someone stupid was illegal? In a reality not too distant from our own, where the so-called Mental Parity Movement has taken hold, the worst thing you can call someone is 'stupid'.

Everyone is equally clever, and discrimination based on intelligence is 'the last great civil rights fight'.

Exams and grades are all discarded, and smart phones are rebranded. Children are expelled for saying the S-word and encouraged to report parents for using it. You don't need a qualification to be a doctor.

Best friends since adolescence, Pearson and Emory find themselves on opposing sides of this new culture war. Radio personality Emory � who has built her career riding the tide of popular thought � makes increasingly hard-line statements while, for her part, Pearson believes the whole thing is ludicrous.

As their friendship fractures, Pearson's determination to cling onto the 'old, bigoted way of thinking' begins to endanger her job, her safety and even her family.

Lionel Shriver turns her piercing gaze on the policing of opinion and intellect, and imagines a world in which intellectual meritocracy is heresy. Hilarious, deadpan, scathing and at times frighteningly plausible, MANIA will delight the many fans of her fiction and journalism alike.]]> 464 Lionel Shriver 0063360446 Jamie 3 3.62 2024
author: Lionel Shriver
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2024
rating: 3
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]]> 199798522
It’s the summer before senior year for best friends Tolly Driver and Amber Dennison. They’re not in the marching band, they’re not in the FFA â€� they »ĺ´Ç˛Ô’t really count. Amber’s the only Native student in town, and Tolly’s only on the radar due to his father’s recent death.

This is all about to change.

Bodies are going to be dropping fast in this small West Texas town. For a few unbearably hot days that will resonate through the decades and even get made into a TV movie, Tolly and Amber will be famous. Notorious even. Finally, everyone will know their names.

This is Stephen Graham Jones x-raying the slasher genre, interrogating its motivations over the shoulder and in the voice of the killer itself � from a town he did some growing up in, in a year he was also seventeen.

The kills will be poignant, the jokes will hurt, and the violence will be endearing. Everything’s turned around for Tolly, for Amber � for all of Lamesa, Texas.

Be happy you weren’t there.

Be happy you’re only reading about it.]]> 373 Stephen Graham Jones 1668022249 Jamie 2 3.54 2024
author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/09/14
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]]> 78919232 112 Jon Gordon 1394187173 Jamie 3 3.80
author: Jon Gordon
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.80
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rating: 3
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]]> 177185427
Javier Perez is a hustler from a family of hustlers. He learns from an early age how to play the game to his own advantage, how his background—murdered drug dealer dad, single cash-strapped mom, best friend serving time for gang activity—can be a key to doors he didn’t even know existed. This kind of story, molded in the right way, is just what college admissions committees are looking for, and a full academic scholarship to a prestigious university brings Javi one step closer to his dream of becoming a famous writer.

As a college student, Javi embellishes his life story until there’s not even a kernel of truth left. The only real connection to his past is the occasional letter he trades with his childhood best friend, Gio, who doesn’t seem to care about Javi’s newfound awareness of white privilege or the school-to-prison pipeline. Soon after Javi graduates, a viral essay transforms him from a writer on the rise to a journalist at a legendary magazine where the editors applaud his “unique perspective.� But Gio more than anyone knows who Javi really is, and sees through his game. Once Gio’s released from prison and Javi offers to cut him in on the deal, will he play along with Javi’s charade, or will it all come crumbling down?

A satirical sendup of tear-jerking trauma plots with a tender portrait of friendship at its core, Victim asks what real diversity looks like and how far one man is willing to go to make his story hit the right notes.]]> 281 Andrew Boryga 0385549989 Jamie 3 3.92 2024
author: Andrew Boryga
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/03
date added: 2024/09/03
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]]> 204593567 A gripping story of motherhood and motherloss and the brutal, mighty things women do to keep themselves and each other alive, MADWOMAN marks the arrival of a major fiction talent.

The world is not made for mothers.
Yet mothers made the world�

Clove hasĚýgone to extremes to keep her past a secret. Thanks to her lies, she’s landed the life of her dreams, complete with a safe husband and two adoring children who will never know the terror that was routine in her own childhood. If her buried anxiety threatens to breach the surface, Clove (if that is really her name) focuses on finding the right supplement, the right gratitude meditation.Ěý

But when she receives a letter from a women’s prison in California, her past comes screeching into the present, entangling her in a dangerous game with memory and the people she thought she had outrun. As weĚýraceĚýbetween her precarious present-day life in Portland, Oregon and her childhood in a Waikiki high-rise with her mother and father, Clove is forced toĚýfinally unravel the defining day of her life. How did she survive that day, and what will it take to end the cycle of violence? Will the truth undo her, or could it ultimately save her?]]> 336 Chelsea Bieker 0316573299 Jamie 0 to-read 3.71 2024
author: Chelsea Bieker
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/01
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]]> 48890225 A whipsmart debut about three women—transgender and cisgender—whose lives collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires around gender, motherhood, and sex.

Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.

Ames isn't happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese—and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby—and that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it—Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family—and raise the baby together?

This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can't reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.]]> 337 Torrey Peters 0593133374 Jamie 4 3.94 2021
author: Torrey Peters
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/01
date added: 2024/09/01
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]]> 202335897 For fans ofĚýAll the Light We Cannot SeeĚýandĚýThe Nightingale: an elderly woman recounts her Dutch family’s survival during the final years of Nazi occupation, shedding new light on old secrets that rippled through subsequent generations.Ěý

Eighty-year-old Mieke Geborn’s life is one of quiet routine. Widowed for many years, she enjoys the view from her home on the New Jersey shore, visits with friends, and tai chi at the local retirement community. But when her beloved grandson, Will, and his wife, Teru, show up for a visit, things are soon upended. Their marriage is threatening to unravel, and Will has questions for his grandmother—questions about family secrets that have been lost for decades and are now finally rising to the surface.

But telling Will the truth involves returning to the past, and to Mieke’s childhood in coastal Holland. There, in the last years of World War II, she survived the Hunger Winter, a brutal season when food and heat were cut off and thousands of Dutch citizens starved. Her memories weave together childhood magic and the madness of history, and carry readers from the windy beaches of The Hague to the dark cells of a concentration camp, through the bends of eel-filled rivers, and, finally, to the story of Will’s father, absent since Will’s childhood.

Our Narrow Hiding Places is a sweeping story of survival and of the terrible cost of war—and a reminder that sometimes the traumas we inherit come along with a resilience we never imagined.]]> 272 Kristopher Jansma 0063352915 Jamie 3 3.74 2024
author: Kristopher Jansma
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/25
date added: 2024/08/25
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]]> 197516602 Filling a gaping hole in menopause care, everything a woman needs to know to thrive during her hormonal transition and beyond, as well as the tools to help her take charge of her health at this pivotal life stage--by the bestselling author of The Galveston Diet.

Menopause is inevitable, but suffering through it is not! This is the empowering approach to self-advocacy that pioneering women's health advocate Dr. Mary Claire Haver takes for women in the midst of hormonal change in The New Menopause. A comprehensive, authoritative book of science-backed information and lived experience, it covers every woman's needs:
- From changes in your appearance and sleep patterns to neurological, musculoskeletal, psychological, and sexual issues, a comprehensive A to Z toolkit of science-backed options for coping with symptoms.
- What to do to mediate the risks associated with your body's natural drop in estrogen production, including for diabetes, dementia, Alzheimer's, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, and weight gain.
- How to advocate and prepare for annual midlife wellness visits, including questions for your doctor and how to insist on whole life care.
- The very latest research on the benefits and side effects of hormone replacement therapy.
Arming women with the power to secure vibrant health and well-being for the rest of their lives, The New Menopause is sure to become the bible of midlife wellness for present and future generations.]]> 304 Mary Claire Haver 059379625X Jamie 4 4.26
author: Mary Claire Haver
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.26
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/22
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]]> 194803883 The riveting story of five families shattered by pernicious, pervasive conspiracy theories, and how we might set ourselves free from a crisis that could haunt American life for generations.

“SHED MY DNA�: three excruciating words uttered by a QAnon-obsessed mother, once a highly respected lawyer, to her only son, once the closest person in her life. QAnon beliefs and adjacent conspiracy theories have had devastating political consequences as they’ve exploded in popularity. What’s often overlooked is the lasting havoc they wreak on our society at its most basic and intimate level—the family.

In The Quiet Damage, celebrated reporter Jesselyn Cook paints a harrowing portrait of the vulnerabilities that have left so many of us susceptible to outrageous falsehoods promising order, purpose, and control. Braided throughout are the stories of five American families: an elderly couple whose fifty-year romance takes a heartbreaking turn; millennial sisters of color who grew up in dire poverty—one to become a BLM activist, the other, a hardcore conspiracy theorist pulling her little boy down the rabbit hole with her; a Bay Area hippie-type and her business-executive fiancé, who must decide whether to stay with her as she turns into a stranger before his eyes; evangelical parents whose simple life in a sleepy suburb spirals into delusion-fueled chaos; and a rural mother-son duo who, after carrying each other through unspeakable tragedy, stop speaking at all as ludicrous untruths shatter a bond long thought unbreakable.

Charting the arc of each believer’s path from their first intersection with conspiracy theories to the depths of their cultish conviction, to—in some cases—their rejection of disinformation and the mending of fractured relationships, Cook offers a rare, intimate look into the psychology of how and why ordinary people come to believe the unbelievable. Profound, brilliantly researched, and beautifully written, The Quiet Damage lays bare how we have been taken hostage by grifters peddling lies built on false hope—and how we might release our loved ones, and ourselves, from their grasp.]]> 250 Jesselyn Cook 059344325X Jamie 3 4.46 2024
author: Jesselyn Cook
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/22
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]]> 61272247 A stirring, comprehensive look at the state of women in the workforce—why women’s progress has stalled, how our economy fosters unproductive competition, and how we can fix the system that holds women back.

In an era of supposed great equality, women are still falling behind in the workplace. Even with more women in the workforce than in decades past, wage gaps continue to increase. It is the most educated women who have fallen the furthest behind. Blue-collar women hold the most insecure and badly paid jobs in our economy. And even as we celebrate high-profile representation—women on the board of Fortune 500 companies and our first female vice president—women have limited recourse when they experience harassment and discrimination.

Fair Women and the Fight to Build a Just Economy explains that the system that governs our economy—a winner-take-all economy—is the root cause of these myriad problems. The WTA economy self-selects for aggressive, cutthroat business tactics, which creates a feedback loop that sidelines women. The authors, three legal scholars, call this feedback loop “the triple bindâ€�: if women »ĺ´Ç˛Ô’t compete on the same terms as men, they lose; if women do compete on the same terms as men, they’re punished more harshly for their sharp elbows or actual misdeeds; and when women see that they can’t win on the same terms as men, they take themselves out of the game (if they haven’t been pushed out already). With odds like these stacked against them, it’s no wonder women feel like, no matter how hard they work, they can’t get ahead.

Fair Shake is not a “fix the woman� book; it’s a “fix the system� book. It not only diagnoses the problem of what's wrong with the modern economy, but shows how, with awareness and collective action, we can build a truly just economy for all.]]> 360 Naomi Cahn 1982115149 Jamie 3 4.10
author: Naomi Cahn
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.10
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/16
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]]> 199798688
Bonnie Hammer’s legendary career spans five decades in a turbulent, male-driven industry. Today, Bonnie is a powerful leader at the very top of her field, and women constantly ask What is your secret to success?

Recognized as “the most powerful woman in Hollywood,â€� Bonnie’s power—and her staying power—comes from rejecting common myths about how women are “supposedâ€� to behave and approach the workplace. She knows the traditional stories women are told about work—captured in pithy phrases like “»ĺ´Ç˛Ô’t mix work with play,â€� “talk is cheap,â€� “follow your dreams,â€� “know your worth,â€� “trust your gut,â€� and “you can have it all”—actually hold women back. Drawing on her experiences rising from an entry-level production assistant to a top executive responsible for transforming NBCUniversal into a media powerhouse, Bonnie flips conventional workplace wisdom and gives women the un common sense they need to succeed.

Bonnie has mentored countless women who’ve built careers in every industry, and she leads NBCUniversal’s mentorship program for female executives. She’s known for taking no prisoners and telling the uncensored and uncompromising truth—even when it isn’t easy to hear. Now, she shares her time-tested wisdom in fifteen chapters that call out the lies women are told at and about work. She replaces them with powerful new truths and gives you easily digestible and practical advice to nail it in your own life.

Written with humor and heart, and full of data and research that prove her points, 15 Lies Women Are Told at Work is a portable mentor for working women. It doesn’t just explain one woman’s rise to the top in a tough industry; it shows how any woman can rise in her own work world.]]> 320 Bonnie Hammer 1668027615 Jamie 4 3.68 2024
author: Bonnie Hammer
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/16
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]]> 56250918 A mother and her two daughters spend a summer grappling with heartbreak, young love, and the weight of secrets in this “deeply felt family saga� (Entertainment Weekly) hailed as “one of the best beach reads of all time� (Today).

Brian and Margot Dunne live year-round in Seaside, just steps away from the bustling boardwalk, with their daughters Liz and Evy. The Dunnes run a real estate company, making their living by quickly turning over rental houses for tourists. But the family’s future becomes precarious when Brian develops a brain tumor, transforming into an erratic version of himself. Amidst the chaos and new caretaking responsibilities, Liz still seeks out summer adventure and flirting with a guy she should know better than to pursue. Her younger sister Evy works in a candy shop, falls in love with her friend Olivia, and secretly adopts the persona of a middle-aged mom in an online support group, where she discovers her own mother’s vulnerable confessions. Meanwhile, Margot faces an impossible choice driven by grief, impulse, and the ways that small-town life has shaped her. Falling apart is not an option, but she can always pack up and leave the beach behind.

“An emotional family drama...with endearing characters and deep insights� (Glamour), The Shore is a heartbreaking yet ultimately uplifting novel infused with humor about finding sisterhood, friendship, and love in a time of crisis. This big-hearted novel examines the grit and hustle of running a small business in a tourist town, the ways we connect with strangers when our families can’t give us everything we need, and the comfort found in embracing the pleasures of youth while coping with unimaginable loss.]]> 304 Katie Runde 1982180196 Jamie 3 3.70 2022
author: Katie Runde
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/11
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]]> 54479 252 Jules Verne 014044906X Jamie 4 3.95 1872
author: Jules Verne
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1872
rating: 4
read at: 2012/05/14
date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> 12760826 196 1557259240 Jamie 3 3.31
author: Lori S. Brizee M.S R.D. C.S.P.
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.31
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2012/05/06
date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> 200634908 A novel of family, secrets, ghosts, and homecoming set on the seaside cliffs of Maine, by the New York Times best-selling author of Friends and Strangers.

On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother.

Twenty years later, now a Harvard archivist, she returns home to Maine following a terrible mistake that threatens both her career and her marriage. Jane is horrified to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable. The new owner, Genevieve, a summer person from Beacon Hill, has gutted it, transforming the house into a glossy white monstrosity straight out of a shelter magazine. Strangely, Genevieve is convinced that the house is haunted—perhaps the product of something troubling Genevieve herself has done. She hires Jane to research the history of the place and the women who lived there. The story Jane uncovers—of lovers lost at sea, romantic longing, shattering loss, artistic awakening, historical artifacts stolen and sold, and the long shadow of colonialism—is even older than Maine itself.

Enthralling, richly imagined, filled with psychic mediums and charlatans, spirits and past lives, mothers, marriage, and the legacy of alcoholism, this is a deeply moving novel about the land we inhabit, the women who came before us, and the ways in which none of us will ever truly leave this earth.]]> 384 J. Courtney Sullivan 059331915X Jamie 3 3.51 2024
author: J. Courtney Sullivan
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/03
date added: 2024/08/03
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]]> 196858917
If you’re looking to navigate the chaotic, dunce-infested waters of American politics,Ěý Democracy or Else Ěýis here to help you tackle whatĚýmight be theĚýgreatestĚýquestion of our How do you get involved in the political process and make a real difference without giving in to the sense of impending dread that hangs over our society like a nameless stench? Each chapter will take readers step-by-step through the perilous journeyĚýof:

- Getting informed when you won't know which influencer to trust (all of them!)

- Donating and volunteering where you can have the biggest impact

- Organizing, protesting, and even running for office yourself

- Staying engaged in politics without losing hope or your mind or all of your friends

Democracy or ElseĚýis a resource forĚýeveryone—from political junkies following every turn of the news cycle to young people getting ready to vote for the first time. And it'sĚýfilled with practical advice from some of the smartest experts and least annoying politicians around.ĚýThe stakes and average global temperatures have never been higher—but there have also never been so many opportunities to join the fight. It’s an age of contradictions!Ěý]]> 192 Jon Favreau 1638931437 Jamie 3 4.10 2024
author: Jon Favreau
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/02
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]]> 11432888 288 Lisa Bloom 1593156618 Jamie 4 3.89 2011
author: Lisa Bloom
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2011
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/07/29
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]]> 199124697 From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go.

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.

This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

It's one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.]]> 236 Catherine Newman 0063345188 Jamie 3 3.77 2024
author: Catherine Newman
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/21
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]]> 61714633 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on the Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans," it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.

But then . . . six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death--for whomever the court found guilty could hang.

The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann's recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O'Brian, his portrayal of the castaways' desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann's work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.]]> 331 David Grann 0385534264 Jamie 3 4.14 2023
author: David Grann
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 3
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]]> 127282554 A New York Times Book Review Editors� Choice
A Belletrist Book Club Pick

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

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

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

A stylish, uncommonly clever novel about the things we want and the things we think we want, Piglet is both an examination of women’s often complicated relationship with food and a celebration of the messes life sometimes makes for us.]]> 320 Lottie Hazell 125028984X Jamie 3 3.40 2024
author: Lottie Hazell
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/07
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]]> 199798580 New York Times bestselling author Ann Leary offers a literary feast of humor and wisdom told from the perspective of a recovering people pleaser.

Having arrived at a certain age (her prime), Ann Leary casts a wry backward glance at a life spent trying—and often failing—to be nice. With wit and surprising candor, Leary recounts the bedlam of home bat invasions, an obsession with online personality tests, and the mortification of taking ballroom dance lessons with her actor husband. She describes hilarious red-carpet fiascos and other observations from the sidelines of fame, while also touching upon her more poignant struggles with alcoholism, her love for her family, her dogs, and so much more.

Prepare to laugh, cry, cringe and revel in the comically relatable chaos of Ann Leary’s life as revealed in this delighful collection of essays.]]> 240 Ann Leary 1982120347 Jamie 3 3.77 2024
author: Ann Leary
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2024
rating: 3
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]]> 62929342 Real Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn't be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love.

In 2021, fifteen-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated Washington island where he lives with his single mother, Lily. He can't shake the sense she's hiding something. When Nick sets out to find his biological father, the journey threatens to raise more questions than answers.

In immersive, moving prose, Rachel Khong weaves a profound tale of class and striving, race and visibility, and family and inheritance—a story of trust, forgiveness, and finally coming home.

Exuberant and explosive, Real Americans is a social novel par excellence that asks: Are we destined, or made, and if so, who gets to do the making? Can our genetic past be overcome?

From the award-winning author of Goodbye, Vitamin: How far would you go to shape your own destiny? An exhilarating novel of American identity that spans three generations in one family, and asks: What makes us who we are? And how inevitable are our futures? ]]> 399 Rachel Khong 0593537254 Jamie 3 3.94 2024
author: Rachel Khong
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/06
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]]> 199798144
The relatively new judicial philosophy of textualism dominates the Supreme Court. Textualists claim that the right way to interpret the Constitution and statutes is to read the text carefully and examine the language as it was understood at the time the documents were written.

This, however, is not Justice Breyer’s philosophy nor has it been the traditional way to interpret the Constitution since the time of Chief Justice John Marshall. Justice Breyer recalls Marshall’s exhortation that the Constitution must be a workable set of principles to be interpreted by subsequent generations.

Most important in interpreting law, says Breyer, is to understand the purposes of statutes as well as the consequences of deciding a case one way or another. He illustrates these principles by examining some of the most important cases in the nation’s history, among them the Dobbs and Bruen decisions from 2022 that he argues were wrongly decided and have led to harmful results.]]> 368 Stephen Breyer 1668021536 Jamie 3 3.93
author: Stephen Breyer
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.93
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rating: 3
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]]> 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 Jamie 2 4.36 2024
author: Jonathan Haidt
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 2
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]]> 62558732 Lisa Jewell returns with a scintillating new psychological thriller about a woman who finds herself the subject of her own popular true crime podcast.

Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summers crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins.

A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.

But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.

Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?]]> 384 Lisa Jewell Jamie 3 4.15 2023
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2023
rating: 3
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]]> 205360251
We are often urged to rely only on ourselves for strength, mental fortitude, and positivity. But with her distinctive “skill, wit, and sharp insight� (Laura Bates, author of Girl Up), Soraya Chemaly challenges us to adapt our thinking about how we survive in a world of sustained, overlapping crises.

It is interdependence and nurturing relationships that truly sustain us, she argues. Based on comprehensive research and eye-opening examples from real-life, The Resilience Myth offers alternative visions of relational hardiness by emphasizing care for others and our environments above all.]]> 304 Soraya Chemaly 198217076X Jamie 3 3.99 2024
author: Soraya Chemaly
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/29
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]]> 197828937
"A giddy, bold, mind-blowing tour de force by one of our most important literary writers." � George Saunders, Booker-Prize winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo

"Profound and bawdy and deeply human, a brilliant work of art from a completely blown open and fearless mind."—Emma Cline, New York Times bestselling author of The Guest

A semi-famous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to NY. Thirty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.

Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.]]> 333 Miranda July 0593190289 Jamie 3 3.48 2024
author: Miranda July
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/24
date added: 2024/06/24
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]]> 157981711 A manifesto on the gender politics of marriage (bad) and divorce (actually pretty good!) in America today, and an argument that the former needs a reboot

Studies show that nearly 70 percent of divorces are initiated by women—women who are tired, fed up, exhausted, and unhappy. Journalist Lyz Lenz is one such woman whose life fell apart after she reached a breaking point in her twelve-year marriage. In this exuberant and unapologetic book, Lenz flips the script on that narrative and preaches the good gospel of the power of divorce.

The end of a marriage is often seen as the failure of the individual—most often the woman. We've all seen how media portray divorced women: sad, lonely, drowning their sorrows in a bottle of wine, desperate for a new man. It’s as though they did something wrong, so they’ve been cast out from society. Lenz sees divorce as a practical and powerful solution for women to take back the power they are owed, while examining why we call divorce a failure when it's heterosexual marriage that has been flawed all along. How can women succeed in marriage when most relationships are based on inequality?

This book weaves reportage with sociological research, literature with popular culture, and personal stories of coming together and breaking up to create a kaleidoscopic and poignant portrait of American marriage today. Lenz argues that the mechanisms of American power, justice, love, and gender equality remain deeply flawed, and that marriage, like any other cultural institution, is due for a reckoning. Unlike any other book about divorce, this raucous manifesto for acceptance, solidarity, and collective female refusal takes readers on a riveting ride—all while pointing us toward something a little freer.]]> 288 Lyz Lenz 0593241126 Jamie 2 3.93 2024
author: Lyz Lenz
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/06/16
date added: 2024/06/16
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]]> 182761607 Ěý
The notion of “housewife� evokes strong reactions. For some, it’s nostalgia for a bygone era, simpler and better times when men were breadwinners and women remained home with the kids. For others, it’s a sexist, oppressive stereotype of women’s work. Either way, housewife is a long outdated concept—or is it?
ĚýĚý
Lisa Selin Davis, known for her smart, viral, feminist, cultural takes, argues that the “breadwinner vs. homemakerâ€� divide is a myth. She charts examples from prehistoric female hunters to working class housewives in the 1930s, from First Ladies to 21st century stay-at-home moms, on a search for answers to the problems of what is referred to as women’s work and motherhood. Davis discovers that women have been sold a lie about what families should be. Housewife unveils a interdependence, rather than independence, is the American way. Ěý
Ěý
The book is a clarion call for all women—married or single, mothers or childless—and for men, too, to push for liberation. ĚýIn Housewife , Davis builds a case for systemic, cultural, and personal change, to encourage women to have the power to choose the best path for themselves.
Ěý]]> 320 Lisa Selin Davis 1538722887 Jamie 3 3.79 2024
author: Lisa Selin Davis
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/16
date added: 2024/06/16
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]]> 74872758 A charming, deeply moving novel about second chances, unlikely friendships, and the life-changing power of sharing stories.

Our Reasons meet us in the morning and whisper to us at night. Mine is an innocent, unsuspecting, eternally sixty-one-year-old woman named Lorraine Daigle�

Violet Powell, a twenty-two-year-old from rural Abbott Falls, Maine, is being released from prison after serving twenty-two months for a drunk-driving crash that killed a local kindergarten teacher. Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher who runs the prison book club, is facing the unsettling prospect of an empty nest. Frank Daigle, a retired machinist, hasn’t yet come to grips with the complications of his marriage to the woman Violet killed.

When the three encounter each other one morning in a bookstore in Portland—Violet to buy the novel she was reading in the prison book club before her release, Harriet to choose the next title for the women who remain, and Frank to dispatch his duties as the store handyman—their lives begin to intersect in transformative ways.

How to Read a Book Ěýis an unsparingly honest and profoundly hopeful story about letting go of guilt, seizing second chances, and the power of books to change our lives. With the heart, wit, grace, and depth of understanding that has characterized her work, Monica Wood illuminates the decisions that define a life and the kindnesses that make life worth living.Ěý .Ěý]]> 283 Monica Wood Jamie 3 4.46 2024
author: Monica Wood
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/12
date added: 2024/06/12
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]]> 209034865
Lessons from a Master Trial Lawyer Jim Perdue spent over forty years persuading juries to find justice for his clients. He won record- and precedent-setting verdicts, pioneered techniques that are now standard practice among the plaintiff’s bar, and has mentored hundreds of aspiring trial attorneys. In Courtroom Storytelling, Perdue takes many of the concepts he first introduced in his previous books, such as Winning with Stories, and develops them into a polished series of lessons and exercises that you can begin using to immediately improve your next case.

Across twenty-five chapters of practical examples and winning techniques, Perdue guides you through the range of auto, trucking, product liability, nursing home, birth injury, and medical malpractice cases he used to develop and prove his strategies for effectively telling a winning story in court. Perdue breaks his cases down and walks you through each part of trial, jury selection through closing argument, and shows how to deliver an effective case that will stick in the hearts and minds of your jury.

Stories from the Courtroom Perdue begins with a brief tale of how he began his career as a plaintiff’s lawyer and then dives right into the meat of the book with detailed examinations of what worked and why as he sets out to show you how any lawyer with a just cause and the willingness to “charge hell with a bucket of ice water� can take his methods and apply them to their own practice and win. Offering examples drawn from past opening and closing statements, as well as direct and cross-examinations, Perdue shows how di]]> 620 Jim M. Perdue 1951962575 Jamie 0 to-read 0.0
author: Jim M. Perdue
name: Jamie
average rating: 0.0
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]]> 373617 In 1906, Ed Johnson was the innocnet black man found guilty of the brutal rape of Nevada Taylor, a white woman, and sentenced to die in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Two black lawyers, not even part of the original defense, appealed to the Supreme Court for a stay of execution, and the stay, incredibly, was granted. Frenzied with rage at the deision, locals responded by lynching Johnson, and what ensued was a breathtaking whirlwind of groundbreaking legal action whose import, Thurgood Marshall would claim, "has never been fully explained." Provocative, thorough, and gripping, Contempt of Court is a long-overdue look at events that clearly depict the peculiar and tenuous relationship between justice and the law.

]]> 432 Mark Curriden 0385720823 Jamie 0 to-read 4.25 1999
author: Mark Curriden
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1999
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]]> 179550159
There’s the world you can see. And then there’s the one you can’t. Welcome to the Morningside.

After being expelled from their ancestral home in a not-so-distant-future, Silvia and her mother finally settle at The Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower in a place called Island City where Silvia’s aunt Ena serves as the superintendent. Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their family's past, and because the once-vibrant city she lives in is now half-underwater. Silvia knows almost nothing about the place where she was born and spent her early years, nor does she fully understand why she and her mother had to leave. But in Ena there is an a person willing to give the young girl glimpses into the folktales of her demolished homeland, a place of natural beauty and communal spirit that is lacking in Silvia's lonely and impoverished reality.

Enchanted by Ena’s stories, Silvia begins seeing the world with magical possibilities and becomes obsessed with the mysterious older woman who lives in the penthouse of the Morningside. Bezi Duras is an enigma to everyone in the She has her own elevator entrance and leaves only to go out at night and walk her three massive hounds, often not returning until the early morning. Silvia’s mission to unravel the truth about this woman’s life, and her own haunted past, may end up costing her everything.

Startling, inventive, and profoundly moving, The Morningside is a novel about the stories we tell—and the stories we refuse to tell—to make sense of where we came from and who we hope we might become.]]> 370 Téa Obreht 1984855514 Jamie 3 3.83 2024
author: TĂ©a Obreht
name: Jamie
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/09
date added: 2024/06/09
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]]> 50985262 A REFRESHINGLY SIMPLE GUIDE TO RECOVER YOUR LIFE!

InĚýGet Your Life Back, New York Times bestselling author John Eldredge provides a practical, simple, and refreshing guide to taking your life back.

By practicing a few wonder­fully simple practices—or what John calls “graces”—you can begin to recover your soul, disentangle from the tragedies of this broken world, and discover the restorative power of beauty.

Ask yourself:Ěý Ěý Ěý Ěý Ěý Ěý Ěý Ěý Ěý


Are you happy most of the time?
Do you feel deeply loved?ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚý
Are you excited about your future?Ěý
How often do you feel lighthearted?
After reading this book you will…�


Learn how to insert the One Minute Pause into your day
Begin practicing “benevolent detachment� and truly let it all go
Offer kindness toward yourself in the choices you make
Drink in the simple beauty available to you every day
Take realistic steps to unplug from technology overload
These simple practices and others are ready for the taking. You »ĺ´Ç˛Ô’t need to abandon your life to get it back. Begin restoring your life here and now. Your soul will thank you for it.]]> 256 John Eldredge 1400208661 Jamie 3 4.39 2020
author: John Eldredge
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/09
date added: 2024/06/09
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]]> 201255440 From legendary storyteller and master of short fiction Stephen King comes an extraordinary new collection of twelve short stories, many never-before-published, and some of his best EVER.

“You like it darker? Fine, so do I,� writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life—both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel “the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind,� and in You Like It Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again.

“Two Talented Bastids� explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,� a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny’s most catastrophically. In “Rattlesnakes,� a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance—with major strings attached. In “The Dreamers,� a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. “The Answer Man� asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful.

King’s ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace remains unsurpassed. Each of these stories holds its own thrills, joys, and mysteries; each feels iconic. You like it darker? You got it.]]> 512 Stephen King Jamie 3 4.49 2024
author: Stephen King
name: Jamie
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/01
date added: 2024/06/01
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]]>