Marjorie's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 10 Jan 2025 04:59:33 -0800 60 Marjorie's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Seven Year Slip 62926938 An overworked book publicist with a perfectly planned future hits a snag when she falls in love with her temporary roommate…only to discover he lives seven years in the past, in this witty and wise new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics.

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

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

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

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

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

After all, love is never a matter of time—but a matter of timing.]]> 336 Ashley Poston Marjorie 0 to-read 4.17 2023 The Seven Year Slip
author: Ashley Poston
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/10
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]]> A Little Life 22822858
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride.Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.]]> 720 Hanya Yanagihara 0385539258 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.28 2015 A Little Life
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/10
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]]> Small Great Things 41021501
Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy. Conflicted by Kennedy's counsel, Ruth tries to keep life as normal as possible for her family—especially her teenage son—as the case becomes a media sensation. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each other's trust, and come to see that what they've been taught their whole lives about others—and themselves—might be wrong.

With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion—and doesn't offer easy answers. Small Great Things is a remarkable achievement from a writer at the top of her game.]]> 510 Jodi Picoult 034554496X Marjorie 4 4.38 2016 Small Great Things
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/30
date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> <![CDATA[This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life]]> 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 Marjorie 4 3.92 2024 This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life
author: Lyz Lenz
name: Marjorie
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> The Lion Women of Tehran 199798217 A heartfelt novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming “lion women.�

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls� high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.]]> 327 Marjan Kamali 1668036584 Marjorie 3 4.47 2024 The Lion Women of Tehran
author: Marjan Kamali
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> <![CDATA[The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise]]> 61385615
One slip on the rug. That’s all it took for Louise Wilt’s daughter to demand that Louise have a full-time nanny living with her. Never mind that she can still walk fine, finish her daily crossword puzzle, and pour the two fingers of vodka she drinks every afternoon. Bottom line -- Louise wants a caretaker even less than Tanner wants to be one.

The two start off their living arrangement happily ignoring each other until Tanner starts to notice things—weird things. Like, why does Louise keep her garden shed locked up tighter than a prison? And why is the local news fixated on the suspect of one of the biggest jewelry heists in American history who looks eerily like Louise? And why does Louise suddenly appear in her room, with a packed bag at 1 a.m. insisting that they leave town immediately?

Thus begins the story of a not-to-be-underestimated elderly woman and an aimless young woman who—if they can outrun the mistakes of their past—might just have the greatest adventure of their lives.]]> 337 Colleen Oakley 0593200802 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.00 2023 The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise
author: Colleen Oakley
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> Counting the Cost 167770288
Jill and Derick knew a normal life wasn’t possible for them. As a star on the popular TLC reality show 19 Kids and Counting, Jill grew up in front of viewers who were fascinated by her family’s way of life. She was the responsible, second daughter of Jim Bob and Michelle’s nineteen kids; always with a baby on her hip and happy to wear the modest ankle-length dresses with throat-high necklines. She didn’t protest the strict model of patriarchy that her family followed, which declares that men are superior, that women are expected to be wives and mothers and are discouraged from attaining a higher education, and that parental authority over their children continues well into adulthood, even once they are married.

But as Jill got older, married Derick, and they embarked on their own lives, the red flags became too obvious to ignore. For as long as they could, Jill and Derick tried to be obedient family members � they weren’t willing to rock the boat. But now they’re raising a family of their own, and they’re done with the secrets. Thanks to time, tears, therapy, and blessings from God, they have the strength to share their journey. Theirs is a remarkable story of the power of the truth and is a moving example of how to find healing through honesty.]]> 287 Jill Duggar Marjorie 0 4.01 2023 Counting the Cost
author: Jill Duggar
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/03/01
date added: 2024/12/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945]]> 29658 Postwar is the first modern history that covers all of Europe, both east and west, drawing on research in six languages to sweep readers through thirty-four nations and sixty years of political and cultural change-all in one integrated, enthralling narrative. Both intellectually ambitious and compelling to read, thrilling in its scope and delightful in its small details, Postwar is a rare joy.

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
Winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award
One of theNew York Times'Ten Best Books of the Year.

Table of contents

About the author
Copyright page
Dedication
Preface & acknowledgement
Introduction

PART ONE - Post-War: 1945-1953
1. The legacy of war
2. Retribution
3. The rehabilitation of Europe
4. The impossible settlement
5. The coming of the Cold War
6. Into the whirlwind
7. Culture wars
CODA The end of old Europe

PART TWO - Prosperity and its discontents: 1953-1971
8. The politics of stability
9. Lost illusions
10. The age of affluence
POSTSCRIPT: A Tale of two economies
11. The Social Democrat moment
12. The spectre of revolution
13. The end of the affair

PART THREE - Recessional: 1971-1989
14. Diminished expectations
15. Politics in a new key
16. A time of transition
17. The new realism
18. The power of the powerless
19. The end of the old order

PART FOUR - After the Fall: 1989-2005
20. A fissile continent
21. The reckoning
22. The old Europe -and the new
23. The varieties of Europe
24. Europe as a way of life

Photo crdits
Suggestions for further readings]]> 933 Tony Judt 0143037757 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.36 2005 Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
author: Tony Judt
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Walking the Bowl: A True Story of Murder and Survival Among the Street Children of Lusaka]]> 57910644 An NPR Best Book of the Year

For readers of Behind the Beautiful Forevers and Nothing to Envy, this isa breathtaking real-life story of four street children in contemporary Zambia whose lives are drawn together and forever altered by the mysterious murder of a fellow street child.

Based on years of investigative reporting and unprecedented fieldwork, Walking the Bowlimmerses readers in the daily lives of four unforgettable children: Lusabilo, a determined waste picker; Kapula, a burned-out brothel worker; Moonga, a former rock crusher turned beggar; and Timo, an ambitious gang leader. These children navigate the violent and poverty-stricken underworld of Lusaka, one of Africa’s fastest growing cities.

When the dead body of a ten-year-old boy is discovered under a heap of garbage in Lusaka’s largest landfill, a murder investigation quickly heats up due to the influence of the victim’s mother and her far-reaching political connections. The children’s lives become more closely intertwined as each child engages in a desperate bid for survival against forces they could never have imagined.

Gripping and fast-paced, the book exposes the perilous aspects of street life through the eyes of the children who survive, endure and dream there, and what emerges is an ultimately hopeful story about human kindness and how one small good deed, passed on to others, can make a difference in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.]]> 304 Chris Lockhart 036971881X Marjorie 0 to-read 4.42 2022 Walking the Bowl: A True Story of Murder and Survival Among the Street Children of Lusaka
author: Chris Lockhart
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Bodies on the Line: At the Front Lines of the Fight to Protect Abortion in America]]> 59292443 A powerfully empathetic and impeccably researched look at abortion clinic escorting

Abortion has been legal for nearly fifty years in the United States, but with a new conservative majority on the Supreme Court and an emboldened opposition in the street, the threat to its existence has never been more pressing. Clinic escorts� everyday volunteers—are prepared to stand up and protect abortion access, as they have for decades, even in the face of terrorism and violence. They have lived, and sometimes died, to ensure that abortion remains not only accessible but also a basic human right. Clinic escorts have fought the “abortion wars� on the front lines, and it is clinic escorts who will win it, by replacing hostility with humanity.

Collecting the stories of these brave volunteers from around the country—including the author’s own—interviews with clinic staff and patients, and research and input from abortion rights experts, Bodies on the Line makes a clear case for the right to an abortion as a fundamental part of human dignity, and the stakes facing us all if it ends. Bodies on the Line is a celebration of the crucial, often unsung heroes of abortion access and an inspiring call to defend this basic health care before it’s too late.]]> 304 Lauren Rankin 1640094741 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.19 2022 Bodies on the Line: At the Front Lines of the Fight to Protect Abortion in America
author: Lauren Rankin
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/27
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]]> The Raffle Baby 60318298
With precise, breathtaking prose and hints of magical realism, Ruth Talbot tells the tale of three orphans as they crisscross the country in the 1930s, riding the rails, chasing the harvests, and stealing when they must. Their destination is always the same: survival.

Teeny, Sonny Boy and Vic have been swallowed up by the desperation and devastation of the Great Depression, but the trio is buoyed by the fantastical tales Teeny weaves around campfires in hobo jungles and migrant camps, including the story of the raffle baby.

As the three navigate the ravages of poverty and prejudices, they form a family bond as strong as the forces against them. But when a solemn pact fails to protect them, their lives are forever changed. And Sonny Boy is left to tell their story, and his own.

Both heartbreaking and uplifting, The Raffle Baby examines the intersection of love, loss and resilience, and the enduring triumph of memory. This is a magical tale not soon forgotten.

“Ruth Talbot’s lyrical novel captures the ineffable sadness of human existence, as well as the magnificent resilience of the human spirit.� —William Walker, author of Betrayal at Little Gibraltar]]> 166 Ruth Talbot 0996126996 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.22 The Raffle Baby
author: Ruth Talbot
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.22
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rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/27
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]]> There Are Rivers in the Sky 202468422 From the Booker Prize finalist author of The Island of Missing Trees, an enchanting new tale about three characters living along two rivers, all under the shadow of one of the greatest epic poems of all time.

In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, erudite but ruthless, built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign. From its ruins, however, emerged a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would infuse the existence of two rivers and bind together three lives.

In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Arthur’s only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a leading publisher, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, and one book in particular catches his interest: Nineveh and Its Remains.

In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a ten-year-old Yazidi girl, is diagnosed with a rare disorder that will soon cause her to go deaf. Before that happens, her grandmother is determined to baptize her in a sacred Iraqi temple. But with the rising presence of ISIS and the destruction of the family’s ancestral lands along the Tigris, Narin is running out of time.

In 2018 London, the newly divorced Zaleekah, a hydrologist, moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband. Orphaned and raised by her wealthy uncle, Zaleekah had made the decision to take her own life in one month, until a curious book about her homeland changes everything.

A dazzling feat of storytelling, There Are Rivers in the Sky entwines these outsiders with a single drop of water, a drop which remanifests across the centuries. Both a source of life and harbinger of death, rivers—the Tigris and the Thames—transcend history, transcend fate: “Water remembers. It is humans who forget.�]]> 464 Elif Shafak 0593801717 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.38 2024 There Are Rivers in the Sky
author: Elif Shafak
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Good People: Stories From the Best of Humanity]]> 205309541
This heartening book from Upworthy, the kindest place on the internet, offers respite to everyone navigating an increasingly turbulent world, both online and off. Filled with personal stories handpicked from millions of the brand’s impassioned followers, it reinforces the notion that humanity is fundamentally good.

Rippling with emotion, humor, and honesty, the tales collected here are mined from the community’s comment section in response to such questions as: What’s the kindest thing a stranger has ever done for you? Who’s the teacher who changed your life? When did the “little things� make a difference? Who was there for you when you needed it most? Each chapter is anchored by intimate long-form stories punctuated with lighthearted anecdotes and whimsical line drawings. Together, they provide a stirring testament to the complexity and resilience of the human spirit.

An inspiring counterbalance to today’s daunting news cycle, this timely book is a go-to resource for comfort and joy.]]> 320 Gabriel Reilich 1426223463 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.20 Good People: Stories From the Best of Humanity
author: Gabriel Reilich
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.20
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland]]> 40697553
In the era of Donald Trump, many lower- and middle-class white Americans are drawn to politicians who pledge to make their lives great again. But as Dying of Whiteness shows, the policies that result actually place white Americans at ever-greater risk of sickness and death.

Physician Jonathan M. Metzl's quest to understand the health implications of "backlash governance" leads him across America's heartland. Interviewing a range of everyday Americans, he examines how racial resentment has fueled pro-gun laws in Missouri, resistance to the Affordable Care Act in Tennessee, and cuts to schools and social services in Kansas. And he shows these policies' costs: increasing deaths by gun suicide, rising dropout rates, and falling life expectancies. White Americans, Metzl argues, must reject the racial hierarchies that promise to aid them but in fact lead our nation to demise.]]> 341 Jonathan M. Metzl 1541644980 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.10 2019 Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland
author: Jonathan M. Metzl
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/29
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Only Skill that Matters: The Proven Methodology to Read Faster, Remember More, and Become a SuperLearner]]> 49687098
In this new reality, how can we possibly hope to keep up? How can we learn, unlearn, and relearn fast enough to stay relevant in the world to come?

In The Only Skill That Matters , Jonathan Levi unveils a powerful, neuroscience-based approach to reading faster, remembering more, and learning more effectively. You’ll master the ancient techniques being used by world record holders and competitive memory athletes to unlock the incredible capacity of the human brain. You’ll learn to double or triple your reading speed, enhance your focus, and optimize your cognitive performance. Most importantly, you’ll be empowered to confidently approach any subject—from technical skills, to names and faces, to foreign languages, and even speeches—and learn it with ease.]]> 198 Jonathan A. Levi 1544504357 Marjorie 0 to-read 3.95 2019 The Only Skill that Matters: The Proven Methodology to Read Faster, Remember More, and Become a SuperLearner
author: Jonathan A. Levi
name: Marjorie
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Beekeeper of Aleppo 43124137 The unforgettable love story of a mother blinded by loss and her husband who insists on their survival as they undertake the Syrian refugee trail to Europe.

Nuri is a beekeeper; his wife, Afra, an artist. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo--until the unthinkable happens. When all they care for is destroyed by war, they are forced to escape. But what Afra has seen is so terrible she has gone blind, and so they must embark on a perilous journey through Turkey and Greece towards an uncertain future in Britain. On the way, Nuri is sustained by the knowledge that waiting for them is Mustafa, his cousin and business partner, who has started an apiary and is teaching fellow refugees in Yorkshire to keep bees.

As Nuri and Afra travel through a broken world, they must confront not only the pain of their own unspeakable loss, but dangers that would overwhelm the bravest of souls. Above all, they must journey to find each other again.

Moving, powerful, compassionate, and beautifully written, The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a testament to the triumph of the human spirit. It is the kind of book that reminds us of the power of storytelling.]]> 317 Christy Lefteri 1984821210 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.14 2019 The Beekeeper of Aleppo
author: Christy Lefteri
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[I Can Take it from Here: A Memoir of Trauma, Prison, and Self-Empowerment (Truth to Power)]]> 61076986 I Can Take It From Here recounts Lisa Forbes's harrowing journey into darkness � including a fourteen-year-long stint in a maximum-security prison � and her fierce resolve to understand the effects of the trauma she endured, to take personal responsibility for her actions, and to ensure that her history does not dictate her destiny.

The youngest of six children, Lisa grew up in a Chicago housing project where she endured sexual, religious, and emotional abuse as a little girl. A voracious reader, she graduated high school at 15 and went to work as a secretary in a downtown insurance office, became pregnant at 16 and, at 19, unexpectedly and uncharacteristically committed a violent act, stabbing and killing the father of her daughter.

Providing powerful insights into what we as a society need to learn and confront in the ongoing epidemic of mass re-incarceration, Lisa is a stunning example of an individual who through determination, knowledge, and hard work has been able to reclaim her own life.

The book ends with Lisa's rousing call to action to support the people—as well as the shorthanded employers—who need the help, and need each other, more than ever.]]> 256 Lisa Forbes 1586423053 Marjorie 5 3.77 2022 I Can Take it from Here: A Memoir of Trauma, Prison, and Self-Empowerment (Truth to Power)
author: Lisa Forbes
name: Marjorie
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/23
date added: 2024/08/23
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]]> <![CDATA[The Case of the Frozen Addicts]]> 1510265

From the Trade Paperback edition.]]> 309 J. William Langston 0679424652 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.17 1995 The Case of the Frozen Addicts
author: J. William Langston
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid]]> 24113 777 Douglas R. Hofstadter 0465026567 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.29 1979 Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
author: Douglas R. Hofstadter
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Tennis Partner 187117 New York Times bestselling author of Cutting for Stone.

When Abraham Verghese, a physician whose marriage is unraveling, relocates to El Paso, Texas, he hopes to make a fresh start as a staff member at the county hospital. There he meets David Smith, a medical student recovering from drug addiction, and the two men begin a tennis ritual that allows them to shed their inhibitions and find security in the sport they love and with each other. This friendship between doctor and intern grows increasingly rich and complex, more intimate than two men usually allow. Just when it seems nothing can go wrong, the dark beast from David’s past emerges once again—and almost everything Verghese has come to trust and believe in is threatened as David spirals out of control.]]> 345 Abraham Verghese 0060931132 Marjorie 0 to-read 3.95 1998 The Tennis Partner
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Marjorie
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> Merci Suárez Changes Gears 40795583
Thoughtful, strong-willed sixth-grader Merci Suarez navigates difficult changes with friends, family, and everyone in between in a resonant new novel from Meg Medina.

Merci Suarez knew that sixth grade would be different, but she had no idea just how different. For starters, Merci has never been like the other kids at her private school in Florida, because she and her older brother, Roli, are scholarship students. They don’t have a big house or a fancy boat, and they have to do extra community service to make up for their free tuition. So when bossy Edna Santos sets her sights on the new boy who happens to be Merci’s school-assigned Sunshine Buddy, Merci becomes the target of Edna’s jealousy. Things aren't going well at home, either: Merci’s grandfather and most trusted ally, Lolo, has been acting strangely lately � forgetting important things, falling from his bike, and getting angry over nothing. No one in her family will tell Merci what's going on, so she’s left to her own worries, while also feeling all on her own at school. In a coming-of-age tale full of humor and wisdom, award-winning author Meg Medina gets to the heart of the confusion and constant change that defines middle school � and the steadfast connection that defines family.]]> 366 Meg Medina Marjorie 0 currently-reading 4.35 2018 Merci Suárez Changes Gears
author: Meg Medina
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/15
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Gulag: A History 224379 The Gulag—the vast array of Soviet concentration camps—was a system of repression and punishment whose rationalized evil and institutionalized inhumanity were rivaled only by the Holocaust.

The Gulag entered the world's historical consciousness in 1972, with the publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's epic oral history of the Soviet camps, The Gulag Archipelago. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, dozens of memoirs and new studies covering aspects of that system have been published in Russia and the West. Using these new resources as well as her own original historical research, Anne Applebaum has now undertaken, for the first time, a fully documented history of the Soviet camp system, from its origins in the Russian Revolution to its collapse in the era of glasnost. It is an epic feat of investigation and moral reckoning that places the Gulag where it belongs: at the center of our understanding of the troubled history of the twentieth century.

Anne Applebaum first lays out the chronological history of the camps and the logic behind their creation, enlargement, and maintenance. The Gulag was first put in place in 1918 after the Russian Revolution. In 1929, Stalin personally decided to expand the camp system, both to use forced labor to accelerate Soviet industrialization and to exploit the natural resources of the country's barely habitable far northern regions. By the end of the 1930s, labor camps could be found in all twelve of the Soviet Union's time zones. The system continued to expand throughout the war years, reaching its height only in the early 1950s. From 1929 until the death of Stalin in 1953, some 18 million people passed through this massive system. Of these 18 million, it is estimated that 4.5 million never returned.

But the Gulag was not just an economic institution. It also became, over time, a country within a country, almost a separate civilization, with its own laws, customs, literature, folklore, slang, and morality. Topic by topic, Anne Applebaum also examines how life was lived within this shadow country: how prisoners worked, how they ate, where they lived, how they died, how they survived. She examines their guards and their jailers, the horrors of transportation in empty cattle cars, the strange nature of Soviet arrests and trials, the impact of World War II, the relations between different national and religious groups, and the escapes, as well as the extraordinary rebellions that took place in the 1950s. She concludes by examining the disturbing question why the Gulag has remained relatively obscure, in the historical memory of both the former Soviet Union and the West.

Gulag: A History will immediately be recognized as a landmark work of historical scholarship and an indelible contribution to the complex, ongoing, necessary quest for truth.]]> 677 Anne Applebaum 0767900561 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.27 2003 Gulag: A History
author: Anne Applebaum
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe]]> 3039027 768 Mark Mazower 1594201889 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.19 2008 Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe
author: Mark Mazower
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine]]> 33864676 The momentous new book from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag and Iron Curtain.

In 1932-33, nearly four million Ukrainians died of starvation, having been deliberately deprived of food. It is one of the most devastating episodes in the history of the twentieth century. With unprecedented authority and detail, Red Famine investigates how this happened, who was responsible, and what the consequences were. It is the fullest account yet published of these terrible events.

The book draws on a mass of archival material and first-hand testimony only available since the end of the Soviet Union, as well as the work of Ukrainian scholars all over the world. It includes accounts of the famine by those who survived it, describing what human beings can do when driven mad by hunger. It shows how the Soviet state ruthlessly used propaganda to turn neighbours against each other in order to expunge supposedly 'anti-revolutionary' elements. It also records the actions of extraordinary individuals who did all they could to relieve the suffering.

The famine was rapidly followed by an attack on Ukraine's cultural and political leadership - and then by a denial that it had ever happened at all. Census reports were falsified and memory suppressed. Some western journalists shamelessly swallowed the Soviet line; others bravely rejected it, and were undermined and harassed. The Soviet authorities were determined not only that Ukraine should abandon its national aspirations, but that the country's true history should be buried along with its millions of victims. Red Famine, a triumph of scholarship and human sympathy, is a milestone in the recovery of those memories and that history. At a moment of crisis between Russia and Ukraine, it also shows how far the present is shaped by the past.]]> 496 Anne Applebaum 0771009305 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.37 2017 Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine
author: Anne Applebaum
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/05
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]]> Tom Lake 63256933 In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.]]> 310 Ann Patchett 0063327546 Marjorie 0 currently-reading 4.13 2023 Tom Lake
author: Ann Patchett
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames]]> 95734 227 Thich Nhat Hanh 1573229377 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.07 2001 Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames
author: Thich Nhat Hanh
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger]]> 39939208 New York Times bestselling author of All the Single Ladies comes a vital, incisive exploration into the transformative power of female anger and its ability to transcend into a political movement.

In the year 2018, it seems as if women’s anger has suddenly erupted into the public conversation. But long before Pantsuit Nation, before the Women’s March, and before the #MeToo movement, women’s anger was not only politically catalytic—but politically problematic. The story of female fury and its cultural significance demonstrates the long history of bitter resentment that has enshrouded women’s slow rise to political power in America, as well as the ways that anger is received when it comes from women as opposed to when it comes from men.

With eloquence and fervor, Rebecca tracks the history of female anger as political fuel—from suffragettes marching on the White House to office workers vacating their buildings after Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court. Here Traister explores women’s anger at both men and other women; anger between ideological allies and foes; the varied ways anger is perceived based on its owner; as well as the history of caricaturing and delegitimizing female anger; and the way women’s collective fury has become transformative political fuel—as is most certainly occurring today. She deconstructs society’s (and the media’s) condemnation of female emotion (notably, rage) and the impact of their resulting repercussions.

Highlighting a double standard perpetuated against women by all sexes, and its disastrous, stultifying effect, Traister’s latest is timely and crucial. It offers a glimpse into the galvanizing force of women’s collective anger, which, when harnessed, can change history.]]> 320 Rebecca Traister 1501181807 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.37 2018 Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger
author: Rebecca Traister
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger]]> 38532207 A transformative book urging twenty-first century-women to embrace their anger and harness it as a tool for lasting personal and societal change.

Women are angry, and it isn’t hard to figure out why.

We are underpaid and overworked. Too sensitive, or not sensitive enough. Too dowdy or too made-up. Too big or too thin. Sluts or prudes. We are harassed, told we are asking for it, and asked if it would kill us to smile. Yes, yes it would.

Contrary to the rhetoric of popular “self-help� and an entire lifetime of being told otherwise, our rage is one of the most important resources we have, our sharpest tool against both personal and political oppression. We’ve been told for so long to bottle up our anger, letting it corrode our bodies and minds in ways we don’t even realize. Yet our anger is a vital instrument, our radar for injustice and a catalyst for change. On the flip side, the societal and cultural belittlement of our anger is a cunning way of limiting and controlling our power.

We are so often told to resist our rage or punished for justifiably expressing it, yet how many remarkable achievements in this world would never have gotten off the ground without the kernel of anger that fueled them? Rage Becomes Her makes the case that anger is not what gets in our way, it is our way, sparking a new understanding of one of our core emotions that will give women a liberating sense of why their anger matters and connect them to an entire universe of women no longer interested in making nice at all costs.

Following in the footsteps of classic feminist manifestos like The Feminine Mystique and Our Bodies, Ourselves, Rage Becomes Her is an eye-opening book for the twenty-first century woman: an engaging, accessible credo offering us the tools to re-understand our anger and harness its power to create lasting positive change.]]> 364 Soraya Chemaly 1501189557 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.35 2018 Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger
author: Soraya Chemaly
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Not Nice: Stop People Pleasing, Staying Silent, & Feeling Guilty... And Start Speaking Up, Saying No, Asking Boldly, And Unapologetically Being Yourself]]> 36505071 507 Aziz Gazipura Marjorie 0 to-read 3.97 2017 Not Nice: Stop People Pleasing, Staying Silent, & Feeling Guilty... And Start Speaking Up, Saying No, Asking Boldly, And Unapologetically Being Yourself
author: Aziz Gazipura
name: Marjorie
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin]]> 6572270
Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power. Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive, Bloodlands will be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history.

From Booklist
If there is an explanation for the political killing perpetrated in eastern Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, historian Snyder roots it in agriculture. Stalin wanted to collectivize farmers; Hitler wanted to eliminate them so Germans could colonize the land. The dictators wielded frightening power to advance such fantasies toward reality, and the despots toted up about 14 million corpses between them, so stupefying a figure that Snyder sets himself three goals here: to break down the number into the various actions of murder that comprise it, from liquidation of the kulaks to the final solution; to restore humanity to the victims via surviving testimony to their fates; and to deny Hitler and Stalin any historical justification for their policies, which at the time had legions of supporters and have some even today. Such scope may render Snyder’s project too imposing to casual readers, but it would engage those exposed to the period’s chronology and major interpretive issues, such as the extent to which the Nazi and Soviet systems may be compared. Solid and judicious scholarship for large WWII collections.]]> 524 Timothy Snyder 0465002390 Marjorie 5 non-fiction, favorites 4.37 2010 Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
author: Timothy Snyder
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/05
date added: 2024/03/05
shelves: non-fiction, favorites
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]]> The Alchemist 25076674 A special 25th anniversary edition of the extraordinary international bestseller, including a new Foreword by Paulo Coelho.

Combining magic, mysticism, wisdom and wonder into an inspiring tale of self-discovery,The Alchemisthas become a modern classic, selling millions of copies around the world and transforming the lives of countless readers across generations.

Paulo Coelho's masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different—and far more satisfying—than he ever imagined. Santiago's journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, of recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, most importantly, to follow our dreams.

]]> 84 Paulo Coelho Marjorie 4 4.17 1988 The Alchemist
author: Paulo Coelho
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/05
date added: 2024/03/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Extinctions: How Life Survives, Adapts and Evolves]]> 123001257 304 Michael J. Benton 0500025460 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.03 Extinctions: How Life Survives, Adapts and Evolves
author: Michael J. Benton
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.03
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rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/03
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]]> <![CDATA[It Ends with Us (It Ends with Us, #1)]]> 27362503
Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up � she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life suddenly seems almost too good to be true.

Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn’t hurt. Lily can’t get him out of her head. But Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his “no dating� rule, she can’t help but wonder what made him that way in the first place.

As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan � her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.]]> 386 Colleen Hoover 1668021048 Marjorie 0 4.11 2016 It Ends with Us (It Ends with Us, #1)
author: Colleen Hoover
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2024/03/01
date added: 2024/03/01
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]]> Shoe Dog 4030991
In 1962, fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed $50 from his father and created a company with a simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost athletic shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his lime green Plymouth Valiant, Knight grossed $8,000 his first year. Today, Nike’s annual sales top $30 billion. In an age of startups, Nike is the ne plus ultra of all startups, and the swoosh has become a revolutionary, globe-spanning icon, one of the most ubiquitous and recognizable symbols in the world today.

But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always remained a mystery. Now, for the first time, in a memoir that is candid, humble, gutsy, and wry, he tells his story, beginning with his crossroads moment. At 24, after backpacking around the world, he decided to take the unconventional path, to start his own business—a business that would be dynamic, different.

Knight details the many risks and daunting setbacks that stood between him and his dream—along with his early triumphs. Above all, he recalls the formative relationships with his first partners and employees, a ragtag group of misfits and seekers who became a tight-knit band of brothers. Together, harnessing the transcendent power of a shared mission, and a deep belief in the spirit of sport, they built a brand that changed everything.]]> 402 Phil Knight 1501135937 Marjorie 0 currently-reading 4.63 2016 Shoe Dog
author: Phil Knight
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.63
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/19
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]]> <![CDATA[How to Hug a Porcupine: Easy Ways to Love the Difficult People in Your Life (Little Book. Big Idea.)]]> 20883526
Most of us know someone who, for whatever reason, always seems to cause problems, irritate others, or incite conflict. Often, these people are a part of our daily lives. The truth is that these trouble makers haven’t necessarily asked to be this way.

Sometimes we need to learn new approaches to deal with people who are harder to get along with or love.

How to Hug a Porcupine: Easy Ways to Love Difficult People in Your Life , explains that making peace with others isn’t as tough or terrible as we think it is–especially when you can use an adorable animal analogy and apply it to real-life problems.

How to Hug a Porcupine provides tips for calming the quills of parents, children, siblings, strangers, and other prickly people you may encounter. Among other tips, How to Hug a Porcupine includes:
*Three easy ways to end an argument
*How to spot the porcupine in others
*How to spot the porcupine in ourselves

With a foreword by noted psychotherapist Dr. Debbie Ellis, widow of Dr. Albert Ellis, How to Hug a Porcupine is a truly special book.]]> 144 Debbie Joffe Ellis 1578265371 Marjorie 0 currently-reading 3.28 2009 How to Hug a Porcupine: Easy Ways to Love the Difficult People in Your Life (Little Book. Big Idea.)
author: Debbie Joffe Ellis
name: Marjorie
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Raising a Secure Child: How Circle of Security Parenting Can Help You Nurture Your Child's Attachment, Emotional Resilience, and Freedom to Explore]]> 33837605 297 Kent Hoffman 1462528279 Marjorie 0 currently-reading 4.25 2017 Raising a Secure Child: How Circle of Security Parenting Can Help You Nurture Your Child's Attachment, Emotional Resilience, and Freedom to Explore
author: Kent Hoffman
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/06
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[The Happiest Man on Earth: The Beautiful Life of an Auschwitz Survivor]]> 57449383 In this uplifting memoir in the vein of The Last Lecture and Man’s Search for Meaning, a Holocaust survivor pays tribute to those who were lost by telling his story, sharing his wisdom, and living his best possible life.

Born in Leipzig, Germany, into a Jewish family, Eddie Jaku was a teenager when his world was turned upside-down. On November 9, 1938, during the terrifying violence of Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, Eddie was beaten by SS thugs, arrested, and sent to a concentration camp with thousands of other Jews across Germany. Every day of the next seven years of his life, Eddie faced unimaginable horrors in Buchenwald, Auschwitz, and finally on a forced death march during the Third Reich’s final days. The Nazis took everything from Eddie—his family, his friends, and his country. But they did not break his spirit.

Against unbelievable odds, Eddie found the will to survive. Overwhelming grateful, he made a he would smile every day in thanks for the precious gift he was given and to honor the six million Jews murdered by Hitler. Today, at 100 years of age, despite all he suffered, Eddie calls himself the “happiest man on earth.� In his remarkable memoir, this born storyteller shares his wisdom and reflects on how he has led his best possible life, talking warmly and openly about the power of gratitude, tolerance, and kindness. Life can be beautiful if you make it beautiful. With The Happiest Man on Earth, Eddie shows us how.

Filled with his insights on friendship, family, health, ethics, love, and hatred, and the simple beliefs that have shaped him, The Happiest Man on Earth offers timeless lessons for readers of all ages, especially for young people today.]]> 212 Eddie Jaku 0063097702 Marjorie 5 4.77 2020 The Happiest Man on Earth: The Beautiful Life of an Auschwitz Survivor
author: Eddie Jaku
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.77
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/29
date added: 2024/01/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents]]> 25647824 If you grew up with an emotionally immature, unavailable, or selfish parent, you may have lingering feelings of anger, loneliness, betrayal, or abandonment. You may recall your childhood as a time when your emotional needs were not met, when your feelings were dismissed, or when you took on adult levels of responsibility in an effort to compensate for your parent’s behavior. These wounds can be healed, and you can move forward in your life.

In this breakthrough book, clinical psychologist Lindsay Gibson exposes the destructive nature of parents who are emotionally immature or unavailable. You will see how these parents create a sense of neglect, and discover ways to heal from the pain and confusion caused by your childhood. By freeing yourself from your parents� emotional immaturity, you can recover your true nature, control how you react to them, and avoid disappointment. Finally, you’ll learn how to create positive, new relationships so you can build a better life.

Discover the four types of difficult parents:

The emotional parent instills feelings of instability and anxiety The driven parent stays busy trying to perfect everything and everyone The passive parent avoids dealing with anything upsetting The rejecting parent is withdrawn, dismissive, and derogatory

]]> 222 Lindsay C. Gibson Marjorie 0 currently-reading 4.53 2015 Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents
author: Lindsay C. Gibson
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/27
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Black Boy Joy 55586953 Celebrate the joys of Black boyhood with stories from seventeen bestselling, critically acclaimed Black authors--including Jason Reynolds (the Track series), Jerry Craft (New Kid), and edited by Kwame Mbalia (the Tristan Strong series)!

Black boy joy is�

Picking out a fresh first-day-of-school outfit.
Saving the universe in an epic intergalactic race.
Finding your voice—and your rhymes—during tough times.
Flying on your skateboard like nobody’s watching.

And more! From seventeen acclaimed Black male and non-binary authors comes a vibrant collection of stories, comics, and poems about the power of joy and the wonders of Black boyhood.

Contributors include: B. B. Alston, Dean Atta, P. Djèlí Clark, Jay Coles, Jerry Craft, Lamar Giles, Don P. Hooper, George M. Johnson, Varian Johnson, Kwame Mbalia, Suyi Davies Okungbowa, Tochi Onyebuchi, Julian Randall, Jason Reynolds, Justin Reynolds, DaVaun Sanders, and Julian Winters]]> 304 Kwame Mbalia 0593379934 Marjorie 4 4.24 2021 Black Boy Joy
author: Kwame Mbalia
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/24
date added: 2024/01/26
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]]> <![CDATA[The Pearl That Broke Its Shell]]> 18505784 The Pearl that Broke Its Shell is a searing tale of powerlessness, fate, and the freedom to control one's own fate that combines the cultural flavor and emotional resonance of the works of Khaled Hosseini, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Lisa See.

In Kabul, 2007, with a drug-addicted father and no brothers, Rahima and her sisters can only sporadically attend school, and can rarely leave the house. Their only hope lies in the ancient custom of bacha posh, which allows young Rahima to dress and be treated as a boy until she is of marriageable age. As a son, she can attend school, go to the market, and chaperone her older sisters.

But Rahima is not the first in her family to adopt this unusual custom. A century earlier, her great-aunt, Shekiba, left orphaned by an epidemic, saved herself and built a new life the same way.

Crisscrossing in time, The Pearl the Broke Its Shell interweaves the tales of these two women separated by a century who share similar destinies. But what will happen once Rahima is of marriageable age? Will Shekiba always live as a man? And if Rahima cannot adapt to life as a bride, how will she survive?]]> 452 Nadia Hashimi 0062244752 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.15 2014 The Pearl That Broke Its Shell
author: Nadia Hashimi
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/26
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]]> Sparks Like Stars 53746807
Smuggled out of the palace by a guard named Shair, Sitara finds her way to the home of a female American diplomat, who adopts her and raises her in America. In her new country, Sitara takes on a new name—Aryana Shepherd—and throws herself into her studies, eventually becoming a renowned surgeon.

New York, 2008: Thirty years after that fatal night in Kabul, Aryana’s world is rocked again when an elderly patient appears in her examination room—a man she never expected to see again. It is Shair, the soldier who saved her, yet may have murdered her entire family. Seeing him awakens Aryana’s fury and desire for answers—and, perhaps, revenge.]]> 464 Nadia Hashimi 0063008289 Marjorie 3 4.27 2021 Sparks Like Stars
author: Nadia Hashimi
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/25
date added: 2024/01/26
shelves:
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]]> Buddhism for Breakups 32509794
Whether it’s the end of a marriage, a romance or a friendship, break-ups are an unfortunate part of life. They can stir up horrible emotions and make you want to do crazy things. But when comedian Meshel Laurie faced the end of her nineteen-year marriage, Buddhist philosophy helped her turn her biggest challenge into an opportunity for personal growth and greater happiness.

Now Meshel shows readers how Buddhism can be a roadmap for navigating the fear, loneliness and grief of a broken heart. Sharing her own story with humour and honesty, she explains:

* how the Buddhist concepts of Emptiness and Impermanence can free us to see things clearly (and calm the heck down!)
* how to love without attachment
* the difference between loneliness and aloneness
* how to work through all those disturbing emotions
* how to embrace change
* how to harness wisdom and compassion in order to heal.

Way cheaper than hours of therapy, Buddhism for Break-ups is your go-to guide for zen!]]> 272 Meshel Laurie 1863959009 Marjorie 0 to-read 3.92 Buddhism for Breakups
author: Meshel Laurie
name: Marjorie
average rating: 3.92
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Good Inside: A Practical Guide to Resilient Parenting Prioritizing Connection Over Correction]]> 59627738 "This book is for any parent who has ever struggled under the substantial weight of caregiving--which is to say, all of us. Good Inside is not only a wise and practical guide to raising resilient, emotionally healthy kids, it's also a supportive resource for overwhelmed parents who need more compassion and less stress. Dr. Becky is the smart, thoughtful, in-the-trenches parenting expert we've been waiting for!"--Eve Rodsky, New York Times bestselling author of Fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space

Dr. Becky Kennedy, wildly popular parenting expert and creator of @drbeckyatgoodinside, shares her groundbreaking approach to raising kids and offers practical strategies for parenting in a way that feels good.

Over the past several years, Dr. Becky Kennedy--known to her followers as "Dr. Becky"--has been sparking a parenting revolution. Millions of parents, tired of following advice that either doesn't work or simply doesn't feel good, have embraced Dr. Becky's empowering and effective approach, a model that prioritizes connecting with our kids over correcting them.

Parents have long been sold a model of childrearing that simply doesn't work. From reward charts to time outs, many popular parenting approaches are based on shaping behavior, not raising humans. These techniques don't build the skills kids need for life, or account for their complex emotional needs. Add to that parents' complicated relationships with their own upbringings, and it's easy to see why so many caretakers feel lost, burned out, and worried they're failing their kids. In Good Inside, Dr. Becky shares her parenting philosophy, complete with actionable strategies, that will help parents move from uncertainty and self-blame to confidence and sturdy leadership.

Offering perspective-shifting parenting principles and troubleshooting for specific scenarios--including sibling rivalry, separation anxiety, tantrums, and more--Good Inside is a comprehensive resource for a generation of parents looking for a new way to raise their kids while still setting them up for a lifetime of self-regulation, confidence, and resilience.]]> 336 Becky Kennedy 0063159481 Marjorie 4 4.53 Good Inside: A Practical Guide to Resilient Parenting Prioritizing Connection Over Correction
author: Becky Kennedy
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.53
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/24
date added: 2024/01/24
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]]> The Queen's Gambit 62022 258 Walter Tevis 1400030609 Marjorie 4 4.14 1983 The Queen's Gambit
author: Walter Tevis
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1983
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/21
date added: 2024/01/21
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]]> Talking at Night 62583508
They’re opposites in every way. She overthinks everything; he is her twin brother’s wild and unpredictable friend. But over secret walks home and late-night phone calls, they become closer—destined to be one another’s great love story.

Until, one day, tragedy strikes, and their future together is shattered.

But as the years roll on, Will and Rosie can’t help but find their way back to each other. Time and again, they come close to rekindling what might have been.

What do you do when the one person you should forget is the one you just can’t let go?]]> 400 Claire Daverley 0593653483 Marjorie 4 3.91 2023 Talking at Night
author: Claire Daverley
name: Marjorie
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/03
date added: 2024/01/01
shelves:
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]]> Poverty, by America 61358638 Reimagining the debate on poverty, making a new and bracing argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it.

The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?

In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Those of us who are financially secure exploit the poor, driving down their wages while forcing them to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. We prioritize the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, designing a welfare state that gives the most to those who need the least. And we stockpile opportunity in exclusive communities, creating zones of concentrated riches alongside those of concentrated despair. Some lives are made small so that others may grow.

Elegantly written and fiercely argued, this compassionate book gives us new ways of thinking about a morally urgent problem. It also helps us imagine solutions. Desmond builds a startlingly original and ambitious case for ending poverty. He calls on us all to become poverty abolitionists, engaged in a politics of collective belonging to usher in a new age of shared prosperity and, at last, true freedom.]]> 304 Matthew Desmond 0593239911 Marjorie 0 currently-reading 4.27 2023 Poverty, by America
author: Matthew Desmond
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City]]> 57359691 The riveting, unforgettable story of a girl whose indomitable spirit is tested by homelessness, poverty, and racism in an unequal America—from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Andrea Elliott of The New York Times

Invisible Child follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani Coates, a child with an imagination as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn homeless shelter. Born at the turn of a new century, Dasani is named for the bottled water that comes to symbolize Brooklyn’s gentrification and the shared aspirations of a divided city. As Dasani grows up, moving with her tight-knit family from shelter to shelter, this story goes back to trace the passage of Dasani’s ancestors from slavery to the Great Migration north. By the time Dasani comes of age, New York City’s homeless crisis is exploding as the chasm deepens between rich and poor.

In the shadows of this new Gilded Age, Dasani must lead her seven siblings through a thicket of problems: hunger, parental drug addiction, violence, housing instability, segregated schools, and the constant monitoring of the child-protection system. When, at age thirteen, Dasani enrolls at a boarding school in Pennsylvania, her loyalties are tested like never before. As she learns to “code switch� between the culture she left behind and the norms of her new town, Dasani starts to feel like a stranger in both places. Ultimately, she faces an impossible question: What if leaving poverty means abandoning the family you love?

By turns heartbreaking and revelatory, provocative and inspiring, Invisible Child tells an astonishing story about the power of resilience, the importance of family, and the cost of inequality. Based on nearly a decade of reporting, this book vividly illuminates some of the most critical issues in contemporary America through the life of one remarkable girl.]]> 602 Andrea Elliott 0812986946 Marjorie 5 4.71 2021 Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City
author: Andrea Elliott
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.71
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/20
date added: 2023/11/21
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Good Boundaries and Goodbyes: Loving Others Without Losing the Best of Who You Are]]> 60693459 Relationships are wonderful . . . until they're not.

Join #1New York Timesbestselling author Lysa TerKeurst as she helps you stop the dysfunction of unhealthy relationships by showing you biblical ways to set boundaries--and, when necessary, say goodbye--without losing the best of who you are.

Is it unloving or selfish to set a boundary? Are Christians ever called to walk away from a relationship that’s no longer safe or sustainable? Lysa TerKeurst deeply understands these hard questions in the midst of relational struggles.

But after thousands of hours of counseling intensives and extensive theological research that transformed the way she defined healthy relationships, Lysa is now more committed than ever to loving people well without losing the best of who she is. She wants to help you do the same. In these pages Lysa will help you:


Understand the five factors to remember when implementing healthy boundaries.
Determine the appropriate amount of personal and emotional access someone has to you based on how responsible they'll be with that access.
Stop being misled and emotionally paralyzed by wrongly interpreted or weaponized scriptures that perpetuate unhealthy dynamics in difficult relationships.
Overcome the frustrating cycle of ineffective boundary-setting with realistic scripts and practical strategies to help you communicate, keep, and implement healthier patterns.
Be equipped to say goodbye without guilt when a relationship has shifted from difficult to destructive and is no longer sustainable.
Receive therapeutic wisdom you can trust directly from Lysa’s Christian counselor Jim Cress, who weighs in throughout the book.


You'll be relieved to learn that boundaries aren't just agoodidea, they're aGodidea.]]> 272 Lysa TerKeurst 140021176X Marjorie 0 to-read 4.38 2022 Good Boundaries and Goodbyes: Loving Others Without Losing the Best of Who You Are
author: Lysa TerKeurst
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Brain-Body Parenting: How to Stop Managing Behavior and Start Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids]]> 58385697 352 Mona Delahooke 0063061317 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.27 2022 Brain-Body Parenting: How to Stop Managing Behavior and Start Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids
author: Mona Delahooke
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Covenant of Water 180357146 From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala's Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humor, deep emotion, and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.]]> 715 Abraham Verghese 0802162177 Marjorie 4 4.34 2023 The Covenant of Water
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/06
date added: 2023/10/06
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]]> Take My Hand 55650158 Inspired by true events that rocked the nation, a profoundly moving novel about a Black nurse in post-segregation Alabama who blows the whistle on a terrible wrong done to her patients, from the New York Times bestselling author of Wench.

Montgomery, Alabama 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend has big plans to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she intends to help women make their own choices for their lives and bodies.

But when her first week on the job takes her down a dusty country road to a worn down one-room cabin, she’s shocked to learn that her new patients are children—just 11 and 13 years old. Neither of the Williams sisters has even kissed a boy, but they are poor and Black and for those handling the family’s welfare benefits that’s reason enough to have the girls on birth control. As Civil grapples with her role, she takes India, Erica and their family into her heart. Until one day, she arrives at the door to learn the unthinkable has happened and nothing will ever be the same for any of them.

Decades later, with her daughter grown and a long career in her wake, Dr. Civil Townsend is ready to retire, to find her peace and to leave the past behind. But there are people and stories that refuse to be forgotten.That must not be forgotten.

Because history repeats what we don’t remember.]]> 359 Dolen Perkins-Valdez 0593337697 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.36 2022 Take My Hand
author: Dolen Perkins-Valdez
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Easy Beauty 58438546
“I am in a bar in Brooklyn, listening to two men, my friends, discuss whether my life is worth living.�

So begins Chloé Cooper Jones’s bold, revealing account of moving through the world in a body that looks different than most. Jones learned early on to factor “pain calculations� into every plan, every situation. Born with a rare congenital condition called sacral agenesis which affects both her stature and gait, her pain is physical. But there is also the pain of being judged and pitied for her appearance, of being dismissed as “less than.� The way she has been seen—or not seen—has informed her lens on the world her entire life. She resisted this reality by excelling academically and retreating to “the neutral room in her mind� until it passed. But after unexpectedly becoming a mother (in violation of unspoken social taboos about the disabled body), something in her shifts, and Jones sets off on a journey across the globe, reclaiming the spaces she’d been denied, and denied herself.

From the bars and domestic spaces of her life in Brooklyn to sculpture gardens in Rome; from film festivals in Utah to a Beyoncé concert in Milan; from a tennis tournament in California to the Killing Fields of Phnom Penh, Jones weaves memory, observation, experience, and aesthetic philosophy to probe the myths underlying our standards of beauty and desirability, and interrogates her own complicity in upholding those myths.

With its emotional depth, its prodigious, spiky intelligence, its passion and humor, Easy Beauty is the rare memoir that has the power to make you see the world, and your place in it, with new eyes.]]> 272 Chloé Cooper Jones 1982151994 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.10 2022 Easy Beauty
author: Chloé Cooper Jones
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Cinnamon Peeler: Selected Poems]]> 5944 The Cinnamon Peeler, brings together poems written between 1963 and 1990, including work from his most recent collection, Secular Love. These poems bear witness to the extraordinary gifts that have won high praise for this truly original poet and novelist.]]> 210 Michael Ondaatje 0679779132 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.17 1989 The Cinnamon Peeler: Selected Poems
author: Michael Ondaatje
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> One Hundred Years of Solitude 320 417 Gabriel García Márquez Marjorie 0 to-read 4.10 1967 One Hundred Years of Solitude
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Teachers: A Year Inside America's Most Vulnerable, Important Profession]]> 61356231 The hit national bestseller - a New York Times Spring Nonfiction Pick, USA Today "Hottest New Book Release," Next Big Idea Club 2023 Must Read, and Kirkus “Most Buzzworthy Book Right Now"

A riveting, must-read, year-in-the-life account of three teachers, combined with reporting that reveals what's really going on behind school doors, by New York Times bestselling author and education expert Alexandra Robbins

Alexandra Robbins goes behind the scenes to tell the true, sometimes shocking, always inspirational stories of three teachers as they navigate a year in the classroom. She follows Penny, a southern middle school math teacher who grappled with a toxic staff clique at the big school in a small town; Miguel, a special ed teacher in the western United States who fought for his students both as an educator and as an activist; and Rebecca, an East Coast elementary school teacher who struggled to schedule and define a life outside of school.

Interspersed among the teachers' stories--a seeming scandal, a fourth-grade whodunit, and teacher confessions--are hard-hitting essays featuring cutting-edge reporting on the biggest issues facing teachers today, such as school violence; outrageous parent behavior; inadequate support, staffing, and resources coupled with unrealistic mounting demands; the "myth" of teacher burnout; the COVID-19 pandemic; and ways all of us can help the professionals who are central both to the lives of our children and the heart of our communities.]]> 372 Alexandra Robbins 1101986751 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.17 2023 The Teachers: A Year Inside America's Most Vulnerable, Important Profession
author: Alexandra Robbins
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> Ghost Empire 28933769 In 2014, Richard Fidler and his son Joe made a journey to Istanbul. Fired by Richard's passion for the rich history of the dazzling Byzantine Empire - centred around the legendary Constantinople - we are swept into some of the most extraordinary tales in history. The clash of civilizations, the fall of empires, the rise of Christianity, revenge, lust, murder. Turbulent stories from the past are brought vividly to life at the same time as a father navigates the unfolding changes in his relationship with his son.

GHOST EMPIRE is a revelation: a beautifully written ode to a lost civilization, and a warmly observed father-son adventure far from home.]]> 492 Richard Fidler 073333525X Marjorie 0 to-read 4.21 2016 Ghost Empire
author: Richard Fidler
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities]]> 22711736 Istanbul explores a city which stands as a gateway between the east and west, one of the indisputably greatest cities in the world. Previously known by the names Byzantium and Constantinople, this is the most celebrated metropolis in the world to sit on two continents, straddling the dividing line of the Bosphorus Strait between Europe and Asia.

During its long history, Istanbul has served as the capital of the Roman, Byzantine, Latin and Ottoman Empires. Its architecture reflects these many cultures, including the Hagia Sophia (Byzantine), the Blue Mosque (Ottoman), the Valens Aqueduct (Roman), the Topkapi Palace (Ottoman), and more modern Art Nouveau avenues built in the 19th and 20th centuries - many of which are UNESCO World Heritage sites. With the founding of the Republic of Turkey by Ataturk in 1923, Istanbul was overlooked and Ankara became the capital. Over the next 90 years, Istanbul has undergone great structural change, and in the 1970s the population of the city rocketed as people moved to the city to find work, turning Istanbul into the cultural, economic and financial centre of Turkey. Events there recently have again brought Istanbul to the forefront of global attention. Indeed, while writing this book, Bettany was caught with her daughters in the crossfire of Taksim Square.

Bettany Hughes has been researching and writing this rich portrait of one of the world's most multi-faceted cities for over a decade. Her compelling biography of a momentous city is visceral, immediate and sensuous narrative history at its finest.]]> 800 Bettany Hughes 0297868489 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.11 2016 Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities
author: Bettany Hughes
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood]]> 25614847
Look for Under Pressure, the companion guide to coping with stress and anxiety among girls, available now.

In this sane, highly engaging, and informed guide for parents of daughters, Dr. Damour draws on decades of experience and the latest research to reveal the seven distinct—and absolutely normal—developmental transitions that turn girls into grown-ups, including Parting with Childhood, Contending with Adult Authority, Entering the Romantic World, and Caring for Herself. Providing realistic scenarios and welcome advice on how to engage daughters in smart, constructive ways, Untangled gives parents a broad framework for understanding their daughters while addressing their most common questions, including

� My thirteen-year-old rolls her eyes when I try to talk to her, and only does it more when I get angry with her about it. How should I respond?
� Do I tell my teen daughter that I’m checking her phone?
� My daughter suffers from test anxiety. What can I do to help her?
� Where’s the line between healthy eating and having an eating disorder?
� My teenage daughter wants to know why I’m against pot when it’s legal in some states. What should I say?
� My daughter’s friend is cutting herself. Do I call the girl’s mother to let her know?

Perhaps most important, Untangled helps mothers and fathers understand, connect, and grow with their daughters. When parents know what makes their daughter tick, they can embrace and enjoy the challenge of raising a healthy, happy young woman.

BOOKS FOR A BETTER LIFE AWARD WINNER

“Finally, there’s some good news for puzzled parents of adolescent girls, and psychologist Lisa Damour is the bearer of that happy news. [ Untangled ] is the most down-to-earth, readable parenting book I’ve come across in a long time.� � The Washington Post

“Anna Freud wrote in 1958, ‘There are few situations in life which are more difficult to cope with than an adolescent son or daughter during the attempt to liberate themselves.� In the intervening decades, the transition doesn’t appear to have gotten any easier which makes Untangled such a welcome new resource.� � The Boston Globe]]> 352 Lisa Damour 0553393057 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.52 2016 Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood
author: Lisa Damour
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/31
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership]]> 41154318 Why do men do so little at home? Why do women do so much? Why don't our egalitarian values match our lived experiences?

Journalist-turned-psychologist Darcy Lockman offers a clear-eyed look at the most pernicious problem facing modern parents—how progressive relationships become traditional ones when children are introduced into the household.

In an era of seemingly unprecedented feminist activism, enlightenment, and change, data shows that one area of gender inequality stubbornly persists: the disproportionate amount of parental work that falls to women, no matter their background, class, or professional status. All the Rage investigates the cause of this pervasive inequity to answer why, in households where both parents work full-time and agree that tasks should be equally shared, mothers� household management, mental labor, and childcare contributions still outweigh fathers�.

How, in a culture that pays lip service to women’s equality and lauds the benefits of father involvement—benefits that extend far beyond the well-being of the kids themselves—can a commitment to fairness in marriage melt away upon the arrival of children?

Counting on male partners who will share the burden, women today have been left with what political scientists call unfulfilled, rising expectations. Historically these unmet expectations lie at the heart of revolutions, insurgencies, and civil unrest. If so many couples are living this way, and so many women are angered or just exhausted by it, why do we remain so stuck? Where is our revolution, our insurgency, our civil unrest?

Darcy Lockman drills deep to find answers, exploring how the feminist promise of true domestic partnership almost never, in fact, comes to pass. Starting with her own marriage as a ground zero case study, she moves outward, chronicling the experiences of a diverse cross-section of women raising children with men; visiting new mothers� groups and pioneering co-parenting specialists; and interviewing experts across academic fields, from gender studies professors and anthropologists to neuroscientists and primatologists. Lockman identifies three tenets that have upheld the cultural gender division of labor and peels back the ways in which both men and women unintentionally perpetuate old norms.

If we can all agree that equal pay for equal work should be a given, can the same apply to unpaid work? Can justice finally come home?]]> 352 Darcy Lockman 0062861441 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.20 2019 All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership
author: Darcy Lockman
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Children of Noisy Village 19311 128 Astrid Lindgren 014032609X Marjorie 5 4.27 1946 The Children of Noisy Village
author: Astrid Lindgren
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1946
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/07/29
shelves: kids, read-in-2012, read-to-julia
review:

]]> Number the Stars 47281 137 Lois Lowry 0440227534 Marjorie 5 4.19 1989 Number the Stars
author: Lois Lowry
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1989
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/07/29
shelves: great-ya-books, kids, favorites, read-to-julia
review:

]]> Christmas in Noisy Village 19313 Pippi Longstocking take you on an adventure to Noisy Village!

The noisy children of three neighboring families are celebrating the season by baking cookies, cutting and decorating trees, eating fruitcake and tarts, and opening Christmas gifts. With illustrations by Ilon Wikland, the master storyteller Astrid Lindgren takes us through Christmas in the Noisy Village!]]> 32 Astrid Lindgren 0140503447 Marjorie 4 4.20 1962 Christmas in Noisy Village
author: Astrid Lindgren
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1962
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/07/29
shelves: read-in-2012, kids, read-to-julia
review:

]]> <![CDATA[When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (Out of the Hitler Time, #1)]]> 54283 Partly autobiographical, this is first of the internationally acclaimed trilogy by Judith Kerr telling the unforgettable story of a Jewish family fleeing from Germany at the start of the Second World War

Suppose your country began to change. Suppose that without your noticing, it became dangerous for some people to live in Germany any longer. Suppose you found, to your complete surprise, that your own father was one of those people.

That is what happened to Anna in 1933. She was nine years old when it began, too busy with her schoolwork and toboganning to take much notice of political posters, but out of them glared the face of Adolf Hitler, the man who would soon change the whole of Europe � starting with her own small life.

Anna suddenly found things moving too fast for her to understand. One day, her father was unaccountably missing. Then she herself and her brother Max were being rushed by their mother, in alarming secrecy, away from everything they knew � home and schoolmates and well-loved toys � right out of Germany�

]]> 191 Judith Kerr 000713763X Marjorie 4 4.02 1971 When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (Out of the Hitler Time, #1)
author: Judith Kerr
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1971
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/07/29
shelves: great-ya-books, kids, read-in-2012, read-to-julia
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The War That Saved My Life (The War That Saved My Life, #1)]]> 20912424 An exceptionally moving story of triumph against all odds set during World War 2, from the acclaimed author of Jefferson’s Sons and for fans of Number the Stars.

Ten-year-old Ada has never left her one-room apartment. Her mother is too humiliated by Ada’s twisted foot to let her outside. So when her little brother Jamie is shipped out of London to escape the war, Ada doesn’t waste a minute—she sneaks out to join him.

So begins a new adventure of Ada, and for Susan Smith, the woman who is forced to take the two kids in. As Ada teaches herself to ride a pony, learns to read, and watches for German spies, she begins to trust Susan—and Susan begins to love Ada and Jamie. But in the end, will their bond be enough to hold them together through wartime? Or will Ada and her brother fall back into the cruel hands of their mother?

This masterful work of historical fiction is equal parts adventure and a moving tale of family and identity—a classic in the making.]]> 316 Kimberly Brubaker Bradley 0803740816 Marjorie 5 kids, read-to-julia 4.47 2015 The War That Saved My Life (The War That Saved My Life, #1)
author: Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/07
date added: 2023/07/29
shelves: kids, read-to-julia
review:
Some of my teacher friends have raved about this book and even claim it as an all time favorite. I now see why- I'd give it ten stars if I could!
]]> The Maid (Molly the Maid, #1) 55196813
Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life's complexities all by herself. No matter—she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection.

But Molly's orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Before she knows what's happening, Molly's unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black—but will they be able to find the real killer before it's too late?

A Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different—and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.]]> 304 Nita Prose 0593356152 Marjorie 3 3.71 2022 The Maid (Molly the Maid, #1)
author: Nita Prose
name: Marjorie
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/07/29
shelves:
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]]> Verity 59344312
Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity's notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of what really happened the day her daughter died.

Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents would devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen's feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife's words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue to love her.]]> 336 Colleen Hoover 153872474X Marjorie 3 4.29 2018 Verity
author: Colleen Hoover
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2023/05/09
date added: 2023/07/29
shelves:
review:

]]> The Song of Achilles 13623848 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062060624.

Achilles, "the best of all the Greeks," son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods' wrath.

They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.]]> 408 Madeline Miller Marjorie 4 4.30 2011 The Song of Achilles
author: Madeline Miller
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/07/29
shelves:
review:

]]> Mary Jane 55985254 Almost Famous meets Daisy Jones and the Six in this funny, wise, and tender novel about a fourteen-year-old girl’s coming of age in 1970s Baltimore, caught between her straight-laced family and the progressive family she nannies for—who happen to be secretly hiding a famous rock star and his movie star wife for the summer.

In 1970s Baltimore, fourteen-year-old Mary Jane loves cooking with her mother, singing in her church choir, and enjoying her family’s subscription to the Broadway Showtunes of the Month record club. Shy, quiet, and bookish, she’s glad when she lands a summer job as a nanny for the daughter of a local doctor. A respectable job, Mary Jane’s mother says. In a respectable house.

The house may look respectable on the outside, but inside it’s a literal and figurative mess: clutter on every surface, Impeachment: Now More Than Ever bumper stickers on the doors, cereal and takeout for dinner. And even more troublesome (were Mary Jane’s mother to know, which she does not): the doctor is a psychiatrist who has cleared his summer for one important job—helping a famous rock star dry out. A week after Mary Jane starts, the rock star and his movie star wife move in.

Over the course of the summer, Mary Jane introduces her new household to crisply ironed clothes and a family dinner schedule, and has a front-row seat to a liberal world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll (not to mention group therapy). Caught between the lifestyle she’s always known and the future she’s only just realized is possible, Mary Jane will arrive at September with a new idea about what she wants out of life, and what kind of person she’s going to be.]]> 318 Jessica Anya Blau 0063052318 Marjorie 4 great-ya-books 4.28 2021 Mary Jane
author: Jessica Anya Blau
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/29
date added: 2023/07/29
shelves: great-ya-books
review:

]]> A Place to Hang the Moon 53399305 Set against the backdrop of World War II, Anna, Edmund, and William are evacuated from London to live in the countryside, bouncing from home to home in search of a permanent family.

It is 1940 and Anna, 9, Edmund, 11, and William, 12, have just lost their grandmother. Unfortunately, she left no provision for their guardianship in her will. Her solicitor comes up with a preposterous plan: he will arrange for the children to join a group of schoolchildren who are being evacuated to a village in the country, where they will live with families for the duration of the war. He also hopes that whoever takes the children on might end up willing to adopt them and become their new family--providing, of course, that the children can agree on the choice.

Moving from one family to another, the children suffer the cruel trickery of foster brothers, the cold realities of outdoor toilets, and the hollowness of empty tummies. They seek comfort in the village lending library, whose kind librarian, Nora Muller, seems an excellent candidate--except that she has a German husband whose whereabouts are currently unknown. Nevertheless, Nora's cottage is a place of bedtime stories and fireplaces, of vegetable gardens and hot, milky tea. Most important, it's a place where someone thinks they all three hung the moon. Which is really all you need in a mom, if you think about it.

Fans of The War That Saved My Life and other World War II fiction will find an instant classic in A Place to Hang the Moon.]]> 320 Kate Albus 0823447057 Marjorie 5 kids, read-to-julia 4.56 2021 A Place to Hang the Moon
author: Kate Albus
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/28
date added: 2023/07/29
shelves: kids, read-to-julia
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men]]> 41104077
Celebrated feminist advocate Caroline Criado Perez investigates the shocking root cause of gender inequality and research in Invisible Women�, diving into women’s lives at home, the workplace, the public square, the doctor’s office, and more. Built on hundreds of studies in the US, the UK, and around the world, and written with energy, wit, and sparkling intelligence, this is a groundbreaking, unforgettable exposé that will change the way you look at the world.]]> 448 Caroline Criado Pérez 1419729071 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.35 2019 Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
author: Caroline Criado Pérez
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism]]> 54817546 Late Night with Seth Meyers Amber Ruffin writes with her sister Lacey Lamar with humor and heart to share absurd anecdotes about everyday experiences of racism.

Now a writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers and host of The Amber Ruffin Show, Amber Ruffin lives in New York, where she is no one's First Black Friend and everyone is, as she puts it, "stark raving normal." But Amber's sister Lacey? She's still living in their home state of Nebraska, and trust us, you'll never believe what happened to Lacey.

From racist donut shops to strangers putting their whole hand in her hair, from being mistaken for a prostitute to being mistaken for Harriet Tubman, Lacey is a lightning rod for hilariously ridiculous yet all-too-real anecdotes. She's the perfect mix of polite, beautiful, petite, and Black that apparently makes people think "I can say whatever I want to this woman." And now, Amber and Lacey share these entertainingly horrifying stories through their laugh-out-loud sisterly banter. Painfully relatable or shockingly eye-opening (depending on how often you have personally been followed by security at department stores), this book tackles modern-day racism with the perfect balance of levity and gravity.]]> 215 Amber Ruffin 1538719363 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.40 2021 You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism
author: Amber Ruffin
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic]]> 37849149 An updated and expanded edition of a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter's prescient investigation of the origins of the opioid addiction epidemic, the greatest health crisis of the 21st century.

Hailed as a prescient, landmark work of investigative journalism, Pain Killer, first published in 2003 and newly updated, tells the tale of medical mistakes, government indifference and corporate greed that involved one of America's wealthiest and most secretive families. The greatest health crisis of the 21st century is the plague of overdose deaths from prescription painkillers and illegal narcotics, or "opioids." Barry Meier reveals the origins of this man-made epidemic through the story of the drug that became the gateway to it, OxyContin. Now, in this revised and expanded edition, Meier, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter, brings this extraordinary saga full circle by revealing new and shocking information about what OxyContin's maker really knew about it dangers and how public officials allowed the truth to be concealed.]]> 240 Barry Meier 0525511091 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.15 2003 Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic
author: Barry Meier
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Memphis 52268640
Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected.

As she grows up, Joan finds relief in her artwork, painting portraits of the community in Memphis. One of her subjects is their enigmatic neighbor Miss Dawn, who claims to know something about curses, and whose stories about the past help Joan see how her passion, imagination, and relentless hope are, in fact, the continuation of a long matrilineal tradition. Joan begins to understand that her mother, her mother’s mother, and the mothers before them persevered, made impossible choices, and put their dreams on hold so that her life would not have to be defined by loss and anger—that the sole instrument she needs for healing is her paintbrush.

Unfolding over seventy years through a chorus of unforgettable voices that move back and forth in time, Memphis paints an indelible portrait of inheritance, celebrating the full complexity of what we pass down, in a family and as a country: brutality and justice, faith and forgiveness, sacrifice and love.]]> 272 Tara M. Stringfellow 0593230485 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.05 2022 Memphis
author: Tara M. Stringfellow
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> On Loving 44310723 Woven throughout with Persian poetry ancient and modern, On Loving is the story of one woman's lifetime of love and loss, of societal change in a nomadic people, and of overcoming personal challenges, including mental and physical health, to find true contentment. Above all, it is a story of love: its physiology, psychology and philosophy; the many forms it takes; its myths and truths; its challenges, its joys and its gifts.]]> 483 Lili Naghdi Marjorie 0 to-read 4.71 2019 On Loving
author: Lili Naghdi
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.71
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/19
shelves: to-read
review:

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

To make this quintessential Greek drama more accessible to the modern reader, this Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition includes a glossary of difficult terms, a list of vocabulary words, and convenient sidebar notes. By providing these, it is our intention that readers will more fully enjoy the beauty, wisdom, and intent of the play.]]> 80 Sophocles 1580493882 Marjorie 0 to-read 3.69 -441 Antigone (The Theban Plays, #3)
author: Sophocles
name: Marjorie
average rating: 3.69
book published: -441
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Other Birds 59807954 An enchanting tale filled with magical realism and moments of pure love that won’t let you go.

Between the real and the imaginary, there are stories that take flight in the most extraordinary ways.

Right off the coast of South Carolina, on Mallow Island, The Dellawisp sits—a stunning old cobblestone building shaped like a horseshoe, and named after the tiny turquoise birds who, alongside its human tenants, inhabit an air of magical secrecy.

When Zoey comes to claim her deceased mother’s apartment at the Dellawisp she meets her quirky and secretive neighbors, including a young woman with a past, two estranged middle-aged sisters, and a lonely chef, and three ghosts. The sudden death of one of Zoey's new neighbors sets off a search that leads to the island's famous author and to a long-estranged relative of the sisters.
Each of them has a story, and each story has an ending which hasn't yet been written.]]> 290 Sarah Addison Allen 1250019869 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.00 2022 Other Birds
author: Sarah Addison Allen
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/01/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Defending Jacob 32711101
Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney in his suburban Massachusetts county for more than twenty years. He is respected in his community, tenacious in the courtroom, and happy at home with his wife, Laurie, and son, Jacob. But when a shocking crime shatters their New England town, Andy is blindsided by what happens next: His fourteen-year-old son is charged with the murder of a fellow student.]]> 431 William Landay Marjorie 0 4.11 2012 Defending Jacob
author: William Landay
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/09
date added: 2023/01/09
shelves:
review:

]]> My Mother's Secret 18167456 A novel based on a true story, a mother and daughter risk their lives to provide shelter to two families and aGerman soldier--all unbeknownst to each other--in a tiny two-room house in Sokal, Poland, during the Nazi invasion.

Based on a true story, MY MOTHER'S SECRET is a profound, captivating, and ultimately uplifting tale intertwining the lives of two Jewish families in hiding from the Nazis, a fleeing German soldier, and the clever and "righteous" mother and daughter who teamed up to save them.

Franciszka and her daughter, Helena, are unlikely heroines. They are simple people who mind their own business and don't stand out from the crowd. Until 1939, when crisis strikes. The Nazis have invaded Poland and they are starting to persecute the Jews. Providing shelter to a Jew has become a death sentence. And yet, Franciszka and Helena decide to do just that. In their tiny, two-bedroom home in Sokal, Poland, they cleverly hide a Jewish family of two brothers and their wives in their pigsty out back, a Jewish doctor with his wife and son in a makeshift cellar under the kitchen floorboards, and a defecting German soldier in the attic--each group completely unbeknownst to the others. For everyone to survive, Franciszka will have to outsmart her neighbors and the German commanders standing guard right outside her yard.

Told simply and succinctly from four different perspectives, MY MOTHER'S SECRET is a reminder that there are,in fact,no profiles of courage and each individual's character is a personal choice.

This book was inspired by the true story of Franciszka Halamajowa, who, with her daughter, saved the lives of fifteen Jews in Poland during the Second World War. She also hid a young German soldier in her attic at the same time. Before the war, there were six thousand Jews in Sokal, Poland. Only thirty survived the war and half of those did so because of Franciszka.]]> 208 J.L. Witterick 0399168540 Marjorie 0 4.14 2013 My Mother's Secret
author: J.L. Witterick
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/06
date added: 2023/01/09
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing]]> 53238858 Our earliest experiences shape our lives far down the road, and What Happened to You? provides powerful scientific and emotional insights into the behavioral patterns so many of us struggle to understand.

“Through this lens we can build a renewed sense of personal self-worth and ultimately recalibrate our responses to circumstances, situations, and relationships. It is, in other words, the key to reshaping our very lives.�—Oprah Winfrey

This book is going to change the way you see your life.

Have you ever wondered "Why did I do that?" or "Why can't I just control my behavior?" Others may judge our reactions and think, "What's wrong with that person?" When questioning our emotions, it's easy to place the blame on ourselves; holding ourselves and those around us to an impossible standard. It's time we started asking a different question.

Through deeply personal conversations, Oprah Winfrey and renowned brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry offer a groundbreaking and profound shift from asking “What’s wrong with you?� to “What happened to you?�

Here, Winfrey shares stories from her own past, understanding through experience the vulnerability that comes from facing trauma and adversity at a young age. In conversation throughout the book, she and Dr. Perry focus on understanding people, behavior, and ourselves. It’s a subtle but profound shift in our approach to trauma, and it’s one that allows us to understand our pasts in order to clear a path to our future—opening the door to resilience and healing in a proven, powerful way.]]> 304 Bruce D. Perry 1250223180 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.43 2021 What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing
author: Bruce D. Perry
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Fault in Our Stars 11870085
Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green's most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.]]> 313 John Green Marjorie 0 4.13 2012 The Fault in Our Stars
author: John Green
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/11/25
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]]> The Book of Essie 36723245 A debut novel of family, fame, and religion that tells the emotionally stirring, wildly captivating story of the seventeen-year-old daughter of an evangelical preacher, star of the family's hit reality show, and the secret pregnancy that threatens to blow their entire world apart.

Esther Ann Hicks--Essie--is the youngest child on Six for Hicks, a reality television phenomenon. She's grown up in the spotlight, both idolized and despised for her family's fire-and-brimstone brand of faith. When Essie's mother, Celia, discovers that Essie is pregnant, she arranges an emergency meeting with the show's producers: Do they sneak Essie out of the country for an abortion? Do they pass the child off as Celia's? Or do they try to arrange a marriage--and a ratings-blockbuster wedding? Meanwhile, Essie is quietly pairing herself up with Roarke Richards, a senior at her school with a secret of his own to protect. As the newly formed couple attempt to sell their fabricated love story to the media--through exclusive interviews with an infamously conservative reporter named Liberty Bell--Essie finds she has questions of her own: What was the real reason for her older sister leaving home? Who can she trust with the truth about her family? And how much is she willing to sacrifice to win her own freedom?]]> 319 Meghan MacLean Weir Marjorie 0 to-read 3.91 2018 The Book of Essie
author: Meghan MacLean Weir
name: Marjorie
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/10/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Lions of Fifth Avenue 48895793 In nationally bestselling author Fiona Davis's latest historical novel, a series of book thefts roils the iconic New York Public Library, leaving two generations of strong-willed women to pick up the pieces.

It's 1913, and on the surface, Laura Lyons couldn't ask for more out of life—her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library, allowing their family to live in an apartment within the grand building, and they are blessed with two children. But headstrong, passionate Laura wants more, and when she takes a leap of faith and applies to the Columbia Journalism School, her world is cracked wide open. As her studies take her all over the city, she finds herself drawn to Greenwich Village's new bohemia, where she discovers the Heterodoxy Club—a radical, all-female group in which women are encouraged to loudly share their opinions on suffrage, birth control, and women's rights. Soon, Laura finds herself questioning her traditional role as wife and mother. But when valuable books are stolen back at the library, threatening the home and institution she loves, she's forced to confront her shifting priorities head on . . . and may just lose everything in the process.

Eighty years later, in 1993, Sadie Donovan struggles with the legacy of her grandmother, the famous essayist Laura Lyons, especially after she's wrangled her dream job as a curator at the New York Public Library. But the job quickly becomes a nightmare when rare manuscripts, notes, and books for the exhibit Sadie's running begin disappearing from the library's famous Berg Collection. Determined to save both the exhibit and her career, the typically risk-adverse Sadie teams up with a private security expert to uncover the culprit. However, things unexpectedly become personal when the investigation leads Sadie to some unwelcome truths about her own family heritage—truths that shed new light on the biggest tragedy in the library's history.]]> 368 Fiona Davis Marjorie 4 4.07 2020 The Lions of Fifth Avenue
author: Fiona Davis
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/08/23
date added: 2022/09/03
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review:

]]> Cutting for Stone 3591262
Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother’s death in childbirth and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Yet it will be love, not politics—their passion for the same woman—that will tear them apart and force Marion, fresh out of medical school, to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as an intern at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him—nearly destroying him—Marion must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.

An unforgettable journey into one man’s remarkable life, and an epic story about the power, intimacy, and curious beauty of the work of healing others.
(front flap)]]> 560 Abraham Verghese 0375414495 Marjorie 5 favorites 4.32 2009 Cutting for Stone
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2022/09/03
date added: 2022/09/03
shelves: favorites
review:
While there is no such thing as a perfect book this one is about as close as it gets...
]]> <![CDATA[The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self]]> 55663863
In The Way of Integrity, Beck presents a four-stage process that anyone can use to find integrity, and with it, a sense of purpose, emotional healing, and a life free of mental suffering. Much of what plagues us—people pleasing, staying in stale relationships, negative habits—all point to what happens when we are out of touch with what truly makes us feel whole.

Inspired by The Divine Comedy, Beck uses Dante’s classic hero’s journey as a framework to break down the process of attaining personal integrity into small, manageable steps. She shows how to read our internal signals that lead us towards our true path, and to recognize what we actually yearn for versus what our culture sells us.

With techniques tested on hundreds of her clients, Beck brings her expertise as a social scientist, life coach and human being to help readers to uncover what integrity looks like in their own lives. She takes us on a spiritual adventure that not only will change the direction of our lives, but also bring us to a place of genuine happiness.]]> 351 Martha Beck 1984881493 Marjorie 0 currently-reading 4.40 2021 The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self
author: Martha Beck
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/04
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Beyond the Bright Sea 32808329 From the author of the critically acclaimed Wolf Hollow comes a moving story of identity and belonging.

Twelve-year-old Crow has lived her entire life on a tiny, isolated piece of the starkly beautiful Elizabeth Islands in Massachusetts. Abandoned and set adrift on a small boat when she was just hours old, Crow's only companions are Osh, the man who rescued and raised her, and Miss Maggie, their fierce and affectionate neighbor across the sandbar.

Crow has always been curious about the world around her, but it isn't until the night a mysterious fire appears across the water that the unspoken question of her own history forms in her heart. Soon, an unstoppable chain of events is triggered, leading Crow down a path of discovery and danger.

Vivid and heart wrenching, Lauren Wolk's Beyond the Bright Sea is a gorgeously crafted and tensely paced tale that explores questions of identity, belonging, and the true meaning of family.]]> 304 Lauren Wolk 110199486X Marjorie 0 currently-reading 4.25 2017 Beyond the Bright Sea
author: Lauren Wolk
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/05/31
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The War I Finally Won (The War That Saved My Life, #2)]]> 34391155
World War II continues, and forces the small community to come together and rely on one another. Ada has never been interested in getting to know her friend’s family—especially Maggie’s mother, the formidable Lady Thorton. However, circumstances bring them in close proximity along with other unexpected characters.

Ada comes face to face with another German! This time she isn’t sure what she should do. How can she help the ones she loves and keep them safe?

Ada’s first story, The War that Saved My Life, won a Newbery Honor, the Schneider Family Book Award, and the Josette Frank Award, in addition to appearing on multiple best-of-the-year lists. This second, marvelous volume continues Ada’s powerful, uplifting story.]]> 400 Kimberly Brubaker Bradley 0698197135 Marjorie 5 4.65 2017 The War I Finally Won (The War That Saved My Life, #2)
author: Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.65
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2022/05/31
date added: 2022/05/31
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]]> Stone Fox 817982 96 John Reynolds Gardiner 0064401324 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.04 1980 Stone Fox
author: John Reynolds Gardiner
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Forever Fight: On Drugs, Alcohol and the Cycle of Addiction]]> 32671782 66 K.J. Gordon Marjorie 4 4.00 The Forever Fight: On Drugs, Alcohol and the Cycle of Addiction
author: K.J. Gordon
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/30
date added: 2022/05/30
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]]> The Addiction Manifesto 58748659 2021 Literary Titan Silver Award

"Some people won't believe in you, and that's ok, this journey isn't about them. It's about you."

The Addiction Manifesto has been uniquely designed to provide you with a new perspective on recovery and will show you that anything is possible.

In this deeply personal book, JR Weaver has crafted a raw insight into his life and how he's been affected by substance abuse over the past 20 years. He details his recovery process and how he's dealt with loss.

With this book he wishes to help people on their journey to recovery. His realistic approach details his journey to try to have a normal life again.

If you're going through addiction recovery or want to help someone who is... This book allows you to fain a greater understanding of substance abuse and its many challenges.]]> 202 Jerry Weaver Marjorie 0 currently-reading 3.71 2018 The Addiction Manifesto
author: Jerry Weaver
name: Marjorie
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/28
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> We Are the Brennans 56285090 In the vein of Mary Beth Keane’s Ask Again, Yes and Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's The Nest, Tracey Lange’s We Are the Brennans explores the staying power of shame―and the redemptive power of love―in an Irish Catholic family torn apart by secrets.

When twenty-nine-year-old Sunday Brennan wakes up in a Los Angeles hospital, bruised and battered after a drunk driving accident she caused, she swallows her pride and goes home to her family in New York. But it’s not easy. She deserted them all―and her high school sweetheart―five years before with little explanation, and they've got questions.

Sunday is determined to rebuild her life back on the east coast, even if it does mean tiptoeing around resentful brothers and an ex-fiancé. The longer she stays, however, the more she realizes they need her just as much as she needs them. When a dangerous man from her past brings her family’s pub business to the brink of financial ruin, the only way to protect them is to upend all their secrets―secrets that have damaged the family for generations and will threaten everything they know about their lives. In the aftermath, the Brennan family is forced to confront painful mistakes―and ultimately find a way forward, together.]]> 288 Tracey Lange 1250796202 Marjorie 0 3.88 2021 We Are the Brennans
author: Tracey Lange
name: Marjorie
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/10/04
date added: 2022/05/21
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]]> Crank (Crank, #1) 270730 Crank, Ellen Hopkins chronicles the turbulent and often disturbing relationship between Kristina, a character based on her own daughter, and the "monster," the highly addictive drug crystal meth, or "crank." Kristina is introduced to the drug while visiting her largely absent and ne'er-do-well father. While under the influence of the monster, Kristina discovers her sexy alter-ego, Bree: "there is no perfect daughter, / no gifted high school junior, / no Kristina Georgia Snow. / There is only Bree." Bree will do all the things good girl Kristina won't, including attracting the attention of dangerous boys who can provide her with a steady flow of crank.]]> 537 Ellen Hopkins 0689865198 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.17 2004 Crank (Crank, #1)
author: Ellen Hopkins
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[High Achiever: The Incredible True Story of One Addict's Double Life]]> 45015534 NATIONAL BESTSELLER � An up-close portrait of the mind of an addict and a life unraveled by narcotics—a memoir of captivating urgency and surprising humor that puts a human face on the opioid crisis.“Raw, brutal, and shocking. Move over,Orange Is the New Black.”—Amy Dresner, author ofMy Fair JunkieWhen word got outthat Tiffany Jenkins was withdrawing from opiates on the floor of a jail cell, people in her town were shocked. Not because of the twenty felonies she’d committed, or the nature of her crimes, or even that she’d been captain of the high school cheerleading squad just a few years earlier, but because her boyfriend was a Deputy Sherriff, and his friends—their friends—were the ones who’d arrested her.A raw and twisty page-turning memoir that reads like fiction,High Achieverspans Tiffany’s life as an active opioid addict, her 120 days in a Florida jail where every officer despised what she’d done to their brother in blue, and her eventual recovery. With heart-racing urgency and unflinching honesty, Jenkins takes you inside the grips of addiction and the desperate decisions it breeds. She is a born storyteller who lived an incredible story, from blackmail by an ex-boyfriend to a soul-shattering deal with a drug dealer, and her telling brims with suspense and unexpected wit. But the true surprise is her path to recovery. Tiffany breaks through the stigma and silence to offer hope and inspiration to anyone battling the disease—whether it’s a loved one or themselves.]]> 371 Tiffany Jenkins 0593135962 Marjorie 0 currently-reading 4.29 2017 High Achiever: The Incredible True Story of One Addict's Double Life
author: Tiffany Jenkins
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/04/17
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz Age Stories (Penguin Classics)]]> 8181720 The inspiration for the major motion picture starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett?plus eighteen other stories by the beloved author of The Great Gatsby

IN THE TITLE STORY, a baby born in 1860 begins life as an old man and proceeds to age backward. F. Scott Fizgerald hinted at this kind of inversion when he called his era ?a generation grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken.? Perhaps nowhere in American fiction has this ?Lost Generation? been more vividly preserved than in Fitzgerald?s short fiction. Spanning the early twentieth-century American landscape, this original collection captures, with Fitzgerald?s signature blend of enchantment and disillusionment, America during the Jazz Age.




Stories includes:

lappers and Philosophers
The Offshore Pirate
The Ice Palace
Head and Shoulders
The Cut-Glass Bowl
Bernice Bobs Her Hair
Benediction
Dalyrimple Goes Wrong
The Four Fists

Tales of the Jazz Age
The Jelly-Bean
The Camel's Back
May Day
Porcelain and Pink
The Diamond as Big as the Ritz
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Tarquin of Cheapside
"O Russet Witch!"
The Lees of Happiness

Mr. Icky
Jemina, The Mountain Girl]]> 466 F. Scott Fitzgerald 1440636737 Marjorie 0 currently-reading 3.43 1922 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz Age Stories (Penguin Classics)
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Marjorie
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1922
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/04/17
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Beautiful Things: A Memoir 56974867 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “I come from a family forged by tragedies and bound by a remarkable, unbreakable love,� Hunter Biden writes in this deeply moving and “unflinchingly honest� (Entertainment Weekly) memoir of addiction, loss, and survival.When he was two years old, Hunter Biden was badly injured in a car accident that killed his mother and baby sister. In 2015, he suffered the devastating loss of his beloved big brother, Beau, who died of brain cancer at the age of forty-six. These hardships were compounded by the collapse of his marriage and a years-long battle with drug and alcohol addiction. In Beautiful Things—“an astonishingly candid and brave book about loss, human frailty, wayward souls, and hard-fought redemption� (Dave Eggers, New York Times bestselling author)—Hunter recounts his descent into substance abuse and his tortuous path to sobriety. The story ends with where Hunter is today—a sober married man with a new baby, finally able to appreciate the beautiful things in life.]]> 271 Hunter Biden 1982151137 Marjorie 0 currently-reading 4.18 2021 Beautiful Things: A Memoir
author: Hunter Biden
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/04/17
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Crying in H Mart 54814676
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humour and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band � and meeting the man who would become her husband � her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live.

It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Vivacious, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.]]> 243 Michelle Zauner 0525657746 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.25 2021 Crying in H Mart
author: Michelle Zauner
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
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date added: 2022/03/30
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]]> <![CDATA[A Short History of Russia: How the World's Largest Country Invented Itself, from the Pagans to Putin]]> 50535247 Russia's epic and dramatic history told in an accessible, lively and short form, from Ivan the Terrible to Vladimir Putin via Catherine the Great, the Russian Revolution and the fall of the USSR.

Russia is a country with no natural borders, no single ethnic group, no true central identity. At the crossroads of Europe and Asia, it has been subject to invasion by outsiders, from Vikings to Mongols, from Napoleon's French to Hitler's Germans. In order to forge an identity, it has mythologized its past to unite its people and to signal strength to outsiders.

In A Short History of Russia, Mark Galeotti explores the history of this fascinating, glorious, desperate and exasperating country through two intertwined issues: the way successive influences from beyond its borders have shaped Russia, and the way Russians came to terms with this influence, writing and rewriting their past to understand their present and try to influence their future. In turn, this self-invented history has come to affect not just their constant nation-building project but also their relations with the world.]]> 194 Mark Galeotti 1488076103 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.18 2020 A Short History of Russia: How the World's Largest Country Invented Itself, from the Pagans to Putin
author: Mark Galeotti
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/03/30
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]]> <![CDATA[The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?]]> 50364458
Michael J. Sandel argues that to overcome the polarized politics of our time, we must rethink the attitudes toward success and failure that have accompanied globalisation and rising inequality. Sandel highlights the hubris a meritocracy generates among the winners and the harsh judgement it imposes on those left behind. He offers an alternative way of thinking about success - more attentive to the role of luck in human affairs, more conducive to an ethic of humility, and more hospitable to a politics of the common good.]]> 272 Michael J. Sandel 0241407605 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.18 2020 The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?
author: Michael J. Sandel
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/03/28
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]]> How to Be an Antiracist 40265832 How to be an Antiracist, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it.

In this book, Kendi weaves together an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science, bringing it all together with an engaging personal narrative of his own awakening to antiracism. How to Be an Antiracist is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond an awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a truly just and equitable society.]]> 305 Ibram X. Kendi 0525509283 Marjorie 0 to-read 4.36 2019 How to Be an Antiracist
author: Ibram X. Kendi
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/03/28
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]]> <![CDATA[Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America]]> 35585862 320 Jennifer Harvey 150185643X Marjorie 0 to-read 4.16 2018 Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America
author: Jennifer Harvey
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/03/28
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]]> <![CDATA[Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction]]> 10839139 337 David Sheff Marjorie 4 4.29 2007 Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction
author: David Sheff
name: Marjorie
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2022/03/27
date added: 2022/03/27
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