en-US Sun, 11 May 2025 09:08:59 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 203924623
Eliot Stein has traveled the globe in search of remarkable people who are preserving some of our rarest cultural rites. In Custodians of Wonder: Ancient Customs, Profound Traditions, and the Last People Keeping Them Alive, Stein introduces readers to a man saving the secret ingredient in Japan's 700-year-old original soy sauce recipe. In Italy, he learns how to make the world's rarest pasta from one of the only women alive who knows how to make it. And in India, he discovers a family rumored to make a mysterious metal mirror believed to reveal your truest self. From shadowing Scandinavia's last night watchman to meeting a 27th-generation West African griot to seeking out Cuba's last official cigar factory “readers� more than a century after they spearheaded the fight for Cuban independence, Stein uncovers an almost lost world.

Climbing through Peru’s southern highlands, he encounters the last Inca bridge master who rebuilds a grass-woven bridge from the fabled Inca Road System. He befriends a British beekeeper who maintains a touching custom of "telling the bees" important news of the day and crunches through a German forest to find the official mailman of the only tree in the world with its own address � to which countless people all over the world have written in hopes of finding love. These are just some of the last people on Earth still in touch with quickly vanishing rites. Let Eliot Stein introduce you to all of them.]]> 325 Eliot Stein 1250281105 Jennifer 0 return-to-someday, to-read 4.30 2024
author: Eliot Stein
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/11
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]]> 202138222 Daisy Thistledown's epic adventure continues in the spellbinding sequel to New York Times bestseller The World Behind the Door by Pari Thomson.In a land ruled by water, treachery runs deep . . . Daisy Thistledown and the Five O'Clock Club might have defeated a terrifying foe, but their journey to find the missing Botanists is only just beginning.Desperate to join the long-awaited expedition to the heart of the Amazon, Daisy and her friends abandon the safety of magical Mallowmarsh –only to fall face-first into danger on the high seas when they find themselves pursued across the waves by Grim Reapers. Their only to find the legendary Iffenwild, a mysterious pocket of the Greenwild hidden and lost to time.But beneath the waves, a strange botanical magic stirs. And it will take all of Daisy's courage and determination � and the trust of an unexpected new friend � if she is to discover the truth that haunts Iffenwild, and save the Greenwild from a terrible fate.]]> 400 Pari Thomson 0374391394 Jennifer 4 4.33 2024
author: Pari Thomson
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/11
date added: 2025/05/11
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]]> 29635542 43 P. Djèlí Clark 0765389444 Jennifer 5 3.96 2016
author: P. Djèlí Clark
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/11
date added: 2025/05/11
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]]> 157981711 A manifesto on the gender politics of marriage (bad) and divorce (actually pretty good!) in America today, and an argument that the former needs a reboot

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

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

This book weaves reportage with sociological research, literature with popular culture, and personal stories of coming together and breaking up to create a kaleidoscopic and poignant portrait of American marriage today. Lenz argues that the mechanisms of American power, justice, love, and gender equality remain deeply flawed, and that marriage, like any other cultural institution, is due for a reckoning. Unlike any other book about divorce, this raucous manifesto for acceptance, solidarity, and collective female refusal takes readers on a riveting ride—all while pointing us toward something a little freer.]]> 288 Lyz Lenz 0593241126 Jennifer 5 3.92 2024
author: Lyz Lenz
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/09
date added: 2025/05/09
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]]> 216351768
If you've ever felt stuck, overwhelmed, or frustrated with where you are, the problem isn't you. The problem is the power you give to other people. Two simple words�Let Them—will set you free. Free from the opinions, drama, and judgments of others. Free from the exhausting cycle of trying to manage everything and everyone around you. The Let Them Theory puts the power to create a life you love back in your hands—and this book will show you exactly how to do it.

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

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

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

Learn how

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

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

Order your copy of The Let Them Theory now and discover how much power you truly have. It all begins with two simple words.]]> 311 Mel Robbins 1401971377 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.16 2024
author: Mel Robbins
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/09
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]]> 220908981 Nathan wants to help his people, but first he has to figure out who they are.

Nathan never understood what was "fun" about secrets, probably because he’s always had to keep a very big one.

Although he appears to be a typical sixth-grader (with parents, homework and a best friend, Victor), Nathan learned at an early age that his family is from another planet. Now, their time on Earth may be coming to an end.

Nathan, his parents and nine other families are part of an experiment that suddenly seems to be going wrong. Some of the experimenters, including Nathan's first crush, Izzy, are disappearing without a word. After his family is called back to the mothership, Nathan begins to question everything he’s been taught to believe about who he is and why he's on Earth.

The Experiment is a fast-paced coming-of-age novel - with aliens - that asks universal questions about how we figure out who we want to be, and whether it’s ever too late to change.]]> 288 Rebecca Stead 1250374766 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.21 2025
author: Rebecca Stead
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/29
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]]> 221179212 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Disappearing Spoon, a romp through the entire history of humankind—from 75,000 B.C. to the dawn of the modern age.

From the mighty pyramids of Egypt to the majestic temples of the Aztec, we have a good idea of what the past looked like. But what about our other The tang of Roman fish sauce, and the springy crust of Egyptian sourdough? The boom of medieval cannons and clash of Viking swords? The breathless plays of an Aztec ballgame, and the chilling reality that the losers might also lose their lives?

History all too often neglects the tastes, textures, sounds, and smells that were an intimate part of our ancestors� daily experience, but a new generation of researchers is resurrecting those hidden details, pioneering an exciting new discipline called experimental archaeology. These are scientists gone They make human mummies. They carve ancient spears and go hunting, then knap their own obsidian blades to skin the game. They build perilous boats and plunge out onto the open sea—all in the name of experiencing history as it was, with all its dangers, disappointments, and unexpected delights.

Beloved author Sam Kean joins these experimental archeologists on their adventures as they resurrect the lives of our ancestors, following in their footsteps at exotic locations across the globe, from remote Polynesian islands to forbidding arctic ice floes. He fires medieval catapults, tries his hand at ancient surgery and tattooing, builds Roman-style roads—and, in novelistic interludes, spins tales of the lives of people long gone with vivid imagination and his signature meticulous research. Lively, offbeat, and filled with stunning discoveries, Dinner with King Tut sheds light on days long past and the intrepid experts resurrecting them today, with startling, lifelike detail and more than a few laughs along the way.]]> 464 Sam Kean 0316496553 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.90
author: Sam Kean
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.90
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date added: 2025/04/14
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]]> 199600525 48 Carl Safina 1324053194 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.47
author: Carl Safina
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.47
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rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/14
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]]> 53175338 "Propulsive and intricate, Greta Kelly has constructed a world of twisting politics and thrilling magic following a heroine who is both clever and uncompromising, but ultimately, has heart. A stellar read that I thoroughly enjoyed." -- Emily Duncan, New York Times bestselling author of Wicked SaintsĚý

A princess with a powerful and dangerous secret must find a way to save her country from ruthless invaders in this exciting debut fantasy, the first novel in a thrilling duology packed with heroism, treachery, magic, and war.



Askia became heir to the Frozen Crown of Seravesh because of her devotion to her people. But her realm is facing a threat she cannot defeat by sheer will alone. The mad emperor of the Roven Empire has unleashed a horde of invading soldiers to enslave her lands. For months, her warriors have waged a valiant, stealth battle, yet they cannot stop the enemy’s advancement. Running out of time, she sets sail for sun-drenched Vishir, the neighboring land to the south, to seek help from its ruler, Emperor Armaan.

A young woman raised in army camps, Askia is ill-equipped to navigate Vishir’s labyrinthine political games. Her every move sinks her deeper into court intrigues which bewilder and repel her, leaving her vulnerable not only to enemies gathering at Vishir's gates, but to those behind the palace walls.Ěý

And in this glittering court, where secrets are worth more than gold, Askia fears that one false step will expose her true nature. For Askia is a witch gifted with magical abilities—knowledge that could destroy not only her life but her people. As her adversaries draw closer, Askia is forced to make an impossible choice—and no matter what she decides, it may not be enough to prevent Seravesh’s fall.Ěý]]> 384 Greta Kelly 0062956957 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.88 2021
author: Greta Kelly
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/12
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]]> 52504334 Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark returns to his popular alternate Cairo universe for his fantasy novel debut, A Master of Djinn

Cairo, 1912: Though Fatma el-Sha’arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, she’s certainly not a rookie, especially after preventing the destruction of the universe last summer.

So when someone murders a secret brotherhood dedicated to one of the most famous men in history, al-Jahiz, Agent Fatma is called onto the case. Al-Jahiz transformed the world 50 years ago when he opened up the veil between the magical and mundane realms, before vanishing into the unknown. This murderer claims to be al-Jahiz, returned to condemn the modern age for its social oppressions. His dangerous magical abilities instigate unrest in the streets of Cairo that threaten to spill over onto the global stage.

Alongside her Ministry colleagues and her clever girlfriend Siti, Agent Fatma must unravel the mystery behind this imposter to restore peace to the city -or face the possibility he could be exactly who he seems…]]> 438 P. Djèlí Clark 1250267676 Jennifer 0 return-to-someday 4.01 2021
author: P. Djèlí Clark
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/07
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]]> 185724601 What if you lived in a world without books?

After a devastating Blight killed off all the trees, paper is worth more than just about anything. Juni's parents died when she was young, so now it's just her and Grandpa Edgar. When she's not in school, Juni and her friends Doler and Quaze turn to plifting—scavenging for any paper they can find. If Juni can find enough paper, she can pay for the health care Grandpa needs.

So when Juni discovers a book—the first one she's ever seen—hidden in a box in her grandpa's closet, she's both surprised and elated thinking of the money she could get for it. That all changes when she decides to read the book. Beyond opening her imagination, the book contains clues that point to what could be the last library on Earth.

The library's location has been hidden for more than a hundred years, but Juni and her friends are not the only ones looking for it. Ullred O'Donnell, head of R&D for Novexus, a megacorporation that replaced the government and now controls all information, is desperate to find the library as well. With an army of vicious robot dogs at his command, Ullred warns Juni to abandon her quest—or else.

Juni and her friends must find the library and share it with the world before Novexus claims it as their own. If reading one book could change Juni's life, what would access to thousands—or millions—of books do?]]> 288 Frank L. Cole 1639932380 Jennifer 5 4.00
author: Frank L. Cole
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/06
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]]> 6574028
By opening that door, Charmain has become responsible for not only the house, but for an extremely magical stray dog, a muddled young apprentice wizard, and a box of the king's most treasured documents. She has encountered a terrifying beast called a lubbock, irritated a clan of small blue creatures, and wound up smack in the middle of an urgent search. The king and his daughter are desperate to find the lost, fabled Elfgift—so desperate that they've even called in an intimidating sorceress named Sophie to help. And where Sophie is, can the Wizard Howl and fire demon Calcifer be far behind?

Of course, with that magical family involved, there's bound to be chaos—and unexpected revelations.

No one will be more surprised than Charmain by what Howl and Sophie discover.]]> 338 Diana Wynne Jones Jennifer 5 4.31 2008
author: Diana Wynne Jones
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/03
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]]> 220239095 Cold cases are a lot easier to solve when you can travel back in time to find new evidence—unless, that is, you get stuck in the nineteenth century.

Ali Dawson and her cold case team investigate crimes so old they’re frozen—or so their inside joke goes. Ali’s work seems like a safe desk job, but what her friends—and even her beloved son—don’t know is that her team has a secret: They can travel back in time to look for evidence.

So far Ali has made trips only to the recent past, so she’s surprised when she’s asked to investigate a murder that took place in 1850. The killing has been pinned on an aristocratic patron of the arts and antiquities, a member of a sinister group called "The Collectors." She arrives in the Victorian era during a mini ice age to find another dead woman at her feet and far too many unanswered questions. But when her son is arrested, Ali attempts to return home only to find herself trapped in 1850.]]> 304 Elly Griffiths 0593834372 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.90 2025
author: Elly Griffiths
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> 54333470
Delicious staples of a great meal, bread, cheese, and wine develop their complex flavors through a process known as fermentation. Katie Quinn spent months as an apprentice with some of Europe’s most acclaimed experts to study the art and science of fermentation. Visiting grain fields, vineyards, and dairies, Katie brings the stories and science of these foods to the table, explains the process of each craft, and introduces the people behind them.Ěý What will keep readers glued to the book like a suspense novel is Katie's personal journey as an expat discovering herself abroad; Katie's vulnerability will turn readers into fans, and they'll finish the book feeling like they're her best friends, trusted with her innermost revelations. In England, Katie becomes a cheesemonger at Neal's Yard Dairy, London’s preeminent cheese shop—the beginning of a journey that takes her from a goat farm in rural Somerset to a nationwide search for innovating dairy gurus. In Italy, Katie offers an inside look at Italian winemaking with the Comellis at their family-owned vineyard in Northeast Italy and witnesses the diversity of vintners as she makes her way around Italy. In France, Katie meets the reigning queen of bread, Apollonia Poilâne of Paris' famed Poilâne Bakery, apprentices at boulangeries in Paris learning the ins and outs of sourdough, and travels the country to uncover the present and future of French bread. Part artisanal survey, part travelogue, and part cookbook, featuring watercolor illustrations and gorgeous photographs,Ěý Cheese, Wine, and Bread Ěýis an outstanding gastronomic tour for foodies, cooks, artisans, and armchair travelers alike.]]> 384 Katie Quinn 0062984535 Jennifer 0 currently-reading 4.08
author: Katie Quinn
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.08
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rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 51868510 "An absolute original . . . a story that kids will love." --R. J. Palacio, bestselling author of Wonder

Bea's family may change, but their love for each other does not in this soon-to-be classic by the Newbery Award-winning author of When You Reach Me

"Things are changing, Bea. But there's still a lot you can count on. Okay? Things that won't EVER change."

After her parents' divorce, Bea's life became different in many ways. But she can always look back at the list she keeps in her green notebook to remember the things that will stay the same. The first and most important: Mom and Dad will always love Bea, and each other.

When Dad tells Bea that he and his boyfriend, Jesse, are getting married, Bea is thrilled. Bea loves Jesse, and when he and Dad get married, she'll finally (finally!) have what she's always wanted--a sister. Even though she's never met Jesse's daughter, Sonia, Bea is sure that they'll be "just like sisters anywhere."

As the wedding day approaches, Bea will learn that making a new family brings questions, surprises, and joy, and readers will discover why the New York Times called Rebecca Stead a "writer of great feeling."

"No author writing today observes young lives with more clarity, tenderness, and grace than the one and only Rebecca Stead." --Newbery Medalist Katherine Applegate, author of The One and Only Ivan

"Stead truly understands the inner life of kids." --Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly, author of Hello, Universe and You Go First ]]> 226 Rebecca Stead 1101938110 Jennifer 5 4.33 2020
author: Rebecca Stead
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/05
date added: 2025/02/05
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]]> 203956677 A thrilling collection of thirteen short stories that span the worlds of the New York Times bestselling author of the Scholomance Trilogy, including a sneak peek at the land where her next novel will be set.

From the dragon-filled Temeraire series and the gothic, magical halls of the Scholomance trilogy to the fairy tale worlds of Spinning Silver and Uprooted, this stunning collection takes us from fairy tale to fantasy, myth to history, and mystery to science fiction as we travel through Naomi Novik’s most beloved stories.

In Buried Deep, we move from ancient Greece and Rome, through the Middle Ages and the Black Death, and into the modern era. We meet Mark Antony, Sherlock Holmes, and Elizabeth Bennet, in ways we have never seen them before. We visit exotic fantasy cities and alien civilizations among the stars.

Though the stories are vastly different, there is a unifying theme: the act of finding and seizing one’s destiny, and the lengths one will go to achieve that—be it turning pirate, captaining a fighting dragon, or shifting from marriage to seek your destiny with a sword.

And in the two tales original to this collection, we first reenter the remade Scholomance in the wake of El’s revolution and see what life is like for the new crop of students. Then, we get a glimpse at the world of Novik’s upcoming series, a deserted land, populated only by silent and enigmatic architectural behemoths whose secrets are yet to be unlocked.]]> 430 Naomi Novik 0593600355 Jennifer 5 3.98 2024
author: Naomi Novik
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/02/04
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]]> 203229869
In his sleepy Yorkshire town, ex-detective Jackson Brodie is staving off boredom and malaise. His only case is the seemingly tedious matter of a stolen painting. But Jackson soon uncovers a string of unsolved art thefts that lead him down a dizzying spiral of disguise and deceit to Burton Makepeace, a formerly magnificent estate now partially converted into a hotel hosting Murder Mystery weekends.

As paying guests, impecunious aristocrats and old friends collide, we are treated to Atkinson’s most charming and fiendishly clever mystery yet, one that pays homage to the masters of the genre—from Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers to the modern era of Knives Out and Only Murders in the Building.]]> 307 Kate Atkinson 0385548001 Jennifer 5 3.94 2024
author: Kate Atkinson
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/24
date added: 2025/01/24
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]]> 181345004 From the Haitian-style “shotgun� houses of the 19th century to the lavish high-rises of the 21st century, a walk through the streets of America’s neighborhoods that reveals the rich history—and future—of urban housing

The Philadelphia row house. The New York tenement. The Boston triple-decker. Every American city has its own iconic housing style, structures that have been home to generations of families and are symbols of identity and pride. Max Podemski, an urban planner for the city of Los Angeles and lifelong architecture buff, has spent his career in and around these buildings. Deftly combining his years of experience with extensive research, Podemski walks the reader through the history of our dwelling spaces—and offers a blueprint for how time-tested urban planning models can help us build the homes the United States so desperately needs.

In A Paradise of Small Houses, Podemski charts how these dwellings have evolved over the centuries according to the geography, climate, population, and culture of each city. He introduces the reader to styles like Chicago’s prefabricated workers cottages and LA’s car-friendly dingbats, illuminating the human stories behind each city’s iconic housing type. Through it all, Podemski interrogates the American values that have equated home ownership with success and led to the US housing crisis, asking, “How can we look to the past to build the homes, neighborhoods, and cities of the future that our communities deserve?”]]> 286 Max Podemski 080700779X Jennifer 0 return-to-someday, to-read 4.44
author: Max Podemski
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.44
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rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/19
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]]> 18892622
In this stunning sequel to Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones has again created a large-scale, fast-paced fantasy in which people and things are never quite what they seem. There are good and bad djinns, a genie in a bottle, wizards, witches, cats and dogs (but are they cats and dogs?), and a mysterious floating castle filled with kidnapped princesses, as well as two puzzling prophecies. The story speeds along with tantalizing twists and turns until the prophecies are fulfilled, true identities are revealed, and all is resolved in a totally satisfying, breathtaking, surprise-filled ending.]]> 400 Diana Wynne Jones 0062244558 Jennifer 4 4.12 1990
author: Diana Wynne Jones
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/06
date added: 2025/01/06
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]]> 55002978 An historically unprecedented disconnect between humanity and the heavens has opened. Jo Marchant's book can begin to heal it.

For at least 20,000 years, we have led not just an earthly existence but a cosmic one. Celestial cycles drove every aspect of our daily lives. Our innate relationship with the stars shaped who we are--our art, religious beliefs, social status, scientific advances, and even our biology. But over the last few centuries we have separated ourselves from the universe that surrounds us. It's a disconnect with a dire cost.

Our relationship to the stars and planets has moved from one of awe, wonder and superstition to one where technology is king--the cosmos is now explored through data on our screens, not by the naked eye observing the natural world. Indeed, in most countries modern light pollution obscures much of the night sky from view. Jo Marchant's spellbinding parade of the ways different cultures celebrated the majesty and mysteries of the night sky is a journey to the most awe inspiring view you can ever see--looking up on a clear dark night. That experience and the thoughts it has engendered have radically shaped human civilization across millennia. The cosmos is the source of our greatest creativity in art, in science, in life.

To show us how, Jo Marchant takes us to the Hall of the Bulls in the caves at Lascaux in France, and to the summer solstice at a 5,000-year-old tomb at New Grange in Ireland. We discover Chumash cosmology and visit medieval monks grappling with the nature of time and Tahitian sailors navigating by the stars. We discover how light reveals the chemical composition of the sun, and we are with Einstein as he works out that space and time are one and the same. A four-billion-year-old meteor inspires a search for extraterrestrial life. The cosmically liberating, summary revelation is that star-gazing made us human.]]> 398 Jo Marchant 0593183029 Jennifer 0 return-to-someday, to-read 4.27
author: Jo Marchant
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/30
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]]> 55145261 A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green

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

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.]]> 304 John Green 0525555218 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.37 2021
author: John Green
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 29972865 Men Explain Things to Me, her Hope in the Dark was written to counter the despair of radicals at a moment when they were focused on their losses and had turned their back to the victories behind them—and the unimaginable changes soon to come. In it, she makes a radical case for hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain and unknowable. Drawing on her decades of activism and a wide reading of environmental, cultural, and political history, Solnit argued that radicals have a long, neglected history of transformative victories, that the positive consequences of our acts are not always immediately seen, directly knowable, or even measurable, and that pessimism and despair rest on an unwarranted confidence about what is going to happen next. Now, with a moving new introduction explaining how the book came about and a new afterword that helps teach us how to hope and act in our unnerving world, she brings a new illumination to the darkness of 2016 in an unforgettable new edition of this classic book.]]> 188 Rebecca Solnit 1608465799 Jennifer 4 4.05 2004
author: Rebecca Solnit
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/18
date added: 2024/12/18
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]]> 68320207 C’est le début d’un périple au bout du monde, où l’on retrouve tous les ingrédients qui font le sel des grandes aventures : des contrebandiers de la pire espèce, une sorcière malintentionnée, un redoutable dragon, des pirates sales et méchants (ou pas), et même un rat qui parle...
Tress de la mer Émeraude est le premier des quatre « romans secrets » écrits par Brandon Sanderson, l’auteur best-seller aux plus de trente-six millions d’exemplaires vendus à travers le monde, durant les confinements de la pandémie de Covid-19. Ces romans ont fait l’objet d’une campagne de financement participatif record sur la plateforme Kickstarter aux États-Unis.

Un roman à dévorer. Numerama.

Un roman du Cosmère.]]> 486 Brandon Sanderson Jennifer 0 return-to-someday, to-read 4.44 2023
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/16
shelves: return-to-someday, to-read
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]]> 150249463
In Daretana’s greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree erupted from his body. Even here at the Empire’s borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death both terrifying and impossible.

Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all times, and that she can solve impossible cases without even stepping outside the walls of her home.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, magically altered in ways that make him the perfect aide to Ana’s brilliance. Din is at turns scandalized, perplexed, and utterly infuriated by his new superior—but as the case unfolds and he watches Ana’s mind leap from one startling deduction to the next, he must admit that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

By an “endlessly inventive� (Vulture) author with a “wicked sense of humor� (NPR), The Tainted Cup mixes the charms of detective fiction with brilliant world-building to deliver a fiendishly clever mystery that’s at once instantly recognizable and thrillingly new.]]> 410 Robert Jackson Bennett 1984820729 Jennifer 4 4.41 2024
author: Robert Jackson Bennett
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/08
date added: 2024/12/08
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]]> 34219873
Morrigan Crow is cursed. Having been born on Eventide, the unluckiest day for any child to be born, she's blamed for all local misfortunes, from hailstorms to heart attacks--and, worst of all, the curse means that Morrigan is doomed to die at midnight on her eleventh birthday.

But as Morrigan awaits her fate, a strange and remarkable man named Jupiter North appears. Chased by black-smoke hounds and shadowy hunters on horseback, he whisks her away into the safety of a secret, magical city called Nevermoor.

It's then that Morrigan discovers Jupiter has chosen her to contend for a place in the city's most prestigious organization: the Wundrous Society. In order to join, she must compete in four difficult and dangerous trials against hundreds of other children, each boasting an extraordinary talent that sets them apart - an extraordinary talent that Morrigan insists she does not have. To stay in the safety of Nevermoor for good, Morrigan will need to find a way to pass the tests - or she'll have to leave the city to confront her deadly fate.]]> 465 Jessica Townsend 0316439959 Jennifer 4 4.32 2017
author: Jessica Townsend
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/26
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves:
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]]> 201205983 Sometimes you need to get lost to find your way . . .

Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his wife's departure, he has begun taking himself on long, solitary walks across the English countryside. Becoming ever more reclusive, he’ll do anything to avoid his empty house.

Marnie, on the other hand, is stuck. Hiding alone in her London flat, she avoids old friends and any reminders of her rotten, selfish ex-husband. Curled up with a good book, she’s battling the long afternoons of a life that feels like it’s passing her by.

When a persistent mutual friend and some very unpredictable weather conspire to toss Michael and Marnie together on the most epic of ten-day hikes, neither of them can think of anything worse. Until, of course, they discover exactly what they’ve been looking for.

Michael and Marnie are on the precipice of a bright future . . . if they can survive the journey.]]> 355 David Nicholls 0063394073 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.13 2024
author: David Nicholls
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/23
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]]> 208840291 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.

As indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love.

Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution insures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”]]> 112 Robin Wall Kimmerer 1668072246 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.38 2024
author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> 214151727 From Alton Brown, the New York Times bestselling cookbook author and beloved culinary food personality, a debut collection of personal essays defined by his flair, wit, and insight.

From cameraman to chef, musician to food scientist, Alton Brown has had a diverse and remarkable career. His work on the Food Network, including creating Good Eats and hosting Iron Chef America and Cutthroat Kitchen, has resonated with countless viewers and home cooks. Now, he shares exactly what’s on his mind, mixing compelling anecdotes from his personal and professional life with in-depth observations on the culinary world, film, personal style, defining meals of his lifetime, and much more.

With his whip-smart and engaging voice, Brown explores everything from wrestling a dumpster full of dough to culinary cultural appropriation to his ultimate quest for the perfect roast chicken. Deliciously candid and full of behind-the-scenes stories fans will love, Food for Thought is the ultimate reading experience for anyone who appreciates food and the people that prepare it.]]> 304 Alton Brown 1668064219 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.25 2025
author: Alton Brown
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 204190339 'Diverting, delightful and deliciously weird enough to satisfy the most demanding appetite' Christopher Hadley, author of The Road

Folklorist Ben Gazur guides you through the dark alleys of British history to uncover how our food habits have been passed down through generations of folklore.

Who was the first person to throw salt over their shoulder? Why do we think carrots can help us see in the dark? When did we start holding village fairs to honour gigantic apple pies? Or start hurling ourselves down hills in pursuit of a wheel of cheese? Gazur investigates the origins of famous food superstitions as well as much more bizarre and lesser-known tales too, from what day the devil urinates on blackberries to how to stop witches using eggshells as escape boats.

Hilarious and fascinating, A Feast of Folklore will introduce you to the gloriously eccentric folk who aren’t often noticed by historians. Here lies a smorgasbord of their dark remedies and deadly delicacies, waiting to be discovered.]]> 256 Ben Gazur 180018316X Jennifer 0 currently-reading 3.74
author: Ben Gazur
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.74
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/03
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 196600323 A dark retelling of the Brothers Grimm's Goose Girl, rife with secrets, murder, and forbidden magic

Cordelia knows her mother is unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms, and her mother doesn't allow Cordelia to have a single friend—unless you count Falada, her mother's beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t sorcerers.

After a suspicious death in their small town, Cordelia’s mother insists they leave in the middle of the night, riding away on Falada’s sturdy back, leaving behind all Cordelia has ever known. They arrive at the remote country manor of a wealthy older man, the Squire, and his unwed sister, Hester. Cordelia’s mother intends to lure the Squire into marriage, and Cordelia knows this can only be bad news for the bumbling gentleman and his kind, intelligent sister.

Hester sees the way Cordelia shrinks away from her mother, how the young girl sits eerily still at dinner every night. Hester knows that to save her brother from bewitchment and to rescue the terrified Cordelia, she will have to face down a wicked witch of the worst kind.]]> 336 T. Kingfisher 1250244056 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.23 2024
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> 210655737 The much-anticipated new fantasy series from Ransom Riggs, his first since introducing the #1 global phenomenon Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children series.

Seventeen-year-old Leopold Berry is seeing weird things around Los Angeles. A man who pops a tooth into a parking meter. A glowing trapdoor in a parking lot. A half-mechanical raccoon with its tail on fireĚýthat just won’t leave him alone. Every hallucinatory moment seemsĚýplucked from a cheesy 1990s fantasy TV show called Max's Adventures in Sunderworld—and that’s becauseĚýthey are.Ěý

Not a good sign.

In the blurry weeks after his mother’s death, a young Leopold discovered VHS tapes of its one and only season in a box headed for the trash—and soon became obsessed. Losing himself in Sunder was the best way to avoid two grieving his mother and being a chronic disappointment to his overbearingĚýfather. But when the strange visions return—at the worst possible time on the worst possible day—Leopold turns to his best friend Emmet for help. Together they discover that Sunder is much more than just an old TV show, and that Los Angeles is far stranger than they ever imagined. And soon, he’llĚýrealizeĚýthat not only is Sunderworld real, but it’s inĚýgrave danger.

Certain he’s finally been chosen for greatness, Leopold risks everything to claim his destiny, save the world of his childhood dreams, and prove once and for all that he’s not the disappointment his fatherĚýbelieves him to be. But when everythingĚýgoes terribly, horribly, excruciatingly wrong, Leopold’sĚýdisappointments prove to be more extraordinary than he ever could have imagined.

How do you battle darkness when no one believes in you—not even yourself?

Visionary storyteller Ransom Riggs weaves the familiar with the peculiar in a stunning loss, triumph, friendship and magic, reminding readers everywhere that true heroes are made, not born—and that when you’re never the chosen one, sometimes you have to chooseĚýyourself.Ěý

Welcome to Sunderworld.]]> 333 Ransom Riggs 0593530950 Jennifer 4 4.12 2024
author: Ransom Riggs
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/02
date added: 2024/11/02
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]]> 203955668 A brand new series. An iconic new detective duo. And a puzzling new murder to solve...

Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar habits and routines: the pub quiz, his favorite bench, his cat waiting for him when he comes home. His days of adventure are over: adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s business now.

Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. As a private security officer, she doesn’t stay still long enough for habits or routines. She’s currently on a remote island keeping world-famous author Rosie D’Antonio alive. Which was meant to be an easy job...

Then a dead body, a bag of money, and a killer with their sights on Amy have her sending an SOS to the only person she trusts. A breakneck race around the world begins, but can Amy and Steve stay one step ahead of a lethal enemy?]]> 397 Richard Osman 0593653238 Jennifer 4 4.25 2024
author: Richard Osman
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/28
date added: 2024/10/28
shelves:
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]]> 13275787 254 Diana Wynne Jones 1101566981 Jennifer 3 4.22 1975
author: Diana Wynne Jones
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1975
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/19
date added: 2024/10/19
shelves:
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]]> 201751543
They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Tables, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.

But Arthur’s death has revealed Britain’s fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords are laying siege to Camelot, and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they’ll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain’s dark past.]]> 688 Lev Grossman 0735224056 Jennifer 4 4.18 2024
author: Lev Grossman
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/18
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves:
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]]> 58450274
Or good-ish, anyway. Her uncle Herbert has gone missing, and the worsening climate means that there are more and more animals that need help all the time. How many times does Kate have to save the world before it stays saved?Ěý

And her real life isn’t exactly perfect either. She flunked her audition for the junior high musical and got stuck in the chorus, while her archenemy Jag got a lead.

So, out of desperation, Kate breaks the rules and takes theĚýSilver ArrowĚýout on an unsanctioned mission, to find Uncle Herbert and bring back balance to the world. But she quickly discovers she’s not the only one on the Great Secret Intercontinental Railway. There’s a mysterious train called the Golden Swift out there too, with an agenda of its own. Is it an ally? A rival? An enemy? A bit of all three?Ěý

The question will turn Kate’s world upside down, take her from the Scottish Highlands to the Australian outback to the bottom of the Bering Sea, and lead her straight on a collision course with the mysterious masters of the Great Secret Intercontinental Railway itself.ĚýBecause when you're a human being fighting to save nature, are you the hero or are you the villain? There are no simple answers.]]> 272 Lev Grossman 0316283541 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.96 2022
author: Lev Grossman
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 196774869
“Mesmerizing, world-expanding, and achingly beautiful.� –Ed Yong, author of An Immense World

“Rich, vital, and full of surprises. Read it!”Ěý–Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky and The Sixth ExtinctionĚý

“A brilliant must-read. This book shook and changed me.� –David George Haskell, author of Sounds Wild and Broken, The Songs of Trees, and The Forest Unseen

Award-winning Atlantic staff writer Zoë Schlanger delivers a groundbreaking work of popular science that probes the hidden world of the plant kingdom and reveals the astonishing capabilities of the green life all around us.

It takes tremendous biological creativity to be a plant. To survive and thrive while rooted in a single spot, plants have adapted ingenious methods of survival. In recent years, scientists have learned about their ability to communicate, recognize their kin and behave socially, hear sounds, morph their bodies to blend into their surroundings, store useful memories that inform their life cycle, and trick animals into behaving to their benefit, to name just a few remarkable talents.

The Light Eaters is a deep immersion into the drama of green life and the complexity of this wild and awe-inspiring world that challenges our very understanding of agency, consciousness, and intelligence. In looking closely, we see that plants, rather than imitate human intelligence, have perhaps formed a parallel system. What is intelligent life if not a vine that grows leaves to blend into the shrub on which it climbs, a flower that shapes its bloom to fit exactly the beak of its pollinator, a pea seedling that can hear water flowing and make its way toward it? Zoë Schlanger takes us across the globe, digging into her own memories and into the soil with the scientists who have spent their waking days studying these amazing entities up close.

What can we learn about life on Earth from the living things that thrive, adapt, consume, and accommodate simultaneously? More important, what do we owe these life forms once we come to understand their rich and varied abilities? Examining the latest epiphanies in botanical research, Schlanger spotlights the intellectual struggles among the researchers conceiving a wholly new view of their subject, offering a glimpse of a field in turmoil as plant scientists debate the tenets of ongoing discoveries and how they influence our understanding of what a plant is.

We need plants to survive. But what do they need us for—if at all? An eye-opening and informative look at the ecosystem we live in, this book challenges us to rethink the role of plants—and our own place—in the natural world.]]> 298 Zoë Schlanger 0063073870 Jennifer 0 return-to-someday, to-read 4.44 2024
author: Zoë Schlanger
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: return-to-someday, to-read
review:

]]> 63291995
Chance, a real dog, has been in Dogtown since her owners unwittingly left her with irresponsible dog-sitters who skipped town.

Metal Head is a robot dog who dreams of being back in a real home.

And Mouse is a mouse who has the run of Dogtown, pilfering kibble, and performing clever feats to protect the dogs he loves.

When Chance and Metal Head embark on an adventure to find their forever homes, there is danger, cheese sandwiches, a charging station, and some unexpected kindnesses along the way.]]> 352 Katherine Applegate 1250811600 Jennifer 5 4.18 2023
author: Katherine Applegate
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/09
date added: 2024/10/09
shelves:
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]]> 28807752
As time wears on, Miren's condition worsens, and the only time she is truly at peace is when she is playing with the skeleton. But Stanley is wary of him, especially when he finally manages to get a picture, and spots a scythe at the skeleton's feet. . .

A whimsical, heartfelt story about a boy who finds a friend in Death with the help of an unusual tree growing in his back garden. With black line illustrations throughout by Victoria Assanelli."]]> 240 Kim Ventrella 133804270X Jennifer 5
*Some days were like that. One little thing happened, and nothing else was ever the same.*]]> 3.87 2017
author: Kim Ventrella
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/09
date added: 2024/10/09
shelves:
review:
I didn't expect this to hit me as hard as it did but yes, I am crying! A beautiful, sad book with just the right amount of magic and whimsy. Very recommended.

*Some days were like that. One little thing happened, and nothing else was ever the same.*
]]> 42778724 Start Simple the authot offers a radically new, uncomplicated, and creative approach to cooking that allows you to use what you already have on hand to make great meals you didn’t think were possible.

While Start Simple is a vegetarian cookbook—none of the recipes include meat—Volger’s approach transcends categories. His methods aren’t about subscribing to a specific dietary regimen; they are about simply recognizing and embracing the way people cook and eat today. Creating weekly meal plans based on intricate recipes sounds good, but it can be difficult to execute. Having a well-stocked pantry paired with a choose-you-own adventure guide to creating simple yet inventive meals is more practical for your average home cook.]]> 266 Lukas Volger 0062883607 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.02
author: Lukas Volger
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.02
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 25293310
Our gut is almost as important to us as our brain and yet we know very little about how it works. The Inside Story is an entertaining, informative tour of the digestive system from the moment we raise a tasty morsel to our lips until the moment our body surrenders the remnants to the toilet bowl. No topic is too lowly for the author's wonder and admiration, from the careful choreography of breaking wind to the precise internal communication required for a cleansing vomit. Along the way, the author provides practical advice such as the best ways to sit on the toilet to have a comfortable bowel movement, how clean your kitchen should be for optimum gut health, and how different laxatives work. She tells stories of gut bacteria that can lead to obesity, autoimmune diseases, or even suicide, and she discusses the benefits of dietary supplements such as probiotics. This book is a fascinating primer for anyone interested in how our ideas about the gut are changing in the light of cutting-edge scientific research. In the words of the author, "We live in an era in which we are just beginning to understand just how complex the connections are between us, our food, our pets and the microscopic world in, on, and around us. We are gradually decoding processes that we used to believe were part of our inescapable destiny."]]> 282 Giulia Enders 1771641509 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.11 2014
author: Giulia Enders
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 18919797 America's sweetheart, impassioned lifelong animal welfare advocate, and New York Times bestselling author Betty White shares intimate, funny, and enlightening stories about her very best friends in the world�

All her life, Betty White has had a menagerie of pets, many of them rescued, and has donated countless hours and resources to animal welfare. Animals are her passion, and that passion extends to zoos and their importance for the conservation of species and for offering humans the ability to witness the grandeur and variety of these magnificent animals from around the world.

Betty & Friends is a love letter to those zoos, to their dedicated workers, and especially to the animals in them—from Gita the elephant, whom Betty used to take for walks; to Bruno the orangutan, who flaunts his affections for Betty; to Jacob the boa, who loves a good hug. Gaining access to this majestic world through Betty’s eyes and her inimitable words is a beautiful thing indeed for animal lovers and Betty White lovers of all ages.

INCLUDES GORGEOUS FULL-COLOR PHOTOGRAPHS



]]> 191 Betty White 110155892X Jennifer 0 to-read 4.23 2011
author: Betty White
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 23824375
Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden is a book about bugs and plants, and how to create a garden that benefits from both. In addition to information on companion planting and commercial options for purchasing bugs, there are 19 detailed bug profiles and 39 plant profiles. The bug profiles include a description, a photograph for identification, an explanation of what they do for the garden, and the methods gardeners can use to attract them. The plant profiles highlight the best plants for attracting beneficial bugs and offer detailed information on size, care requirements, zone information, and bloom time. Design plans show gardeners how to design a border specifically for the bugs.

This complete, hands-on guide is for anyone looking for a new, natural, and sustainable way to control pests.]]> 240 Jessica Walliser 1604695749 Jennifer 5 garden 4.21 2013
author: Jessica Walliser
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2015/03/27
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: garden
review:
Fantastic book if you are looking for natural ways to control pest bugs in your yard/garden. Lots of plant advice, some really good garden plans and the always popular gross pictures of bugs eating other bugs. Very recommended.
]]> 57444099 100 of the most moving and inspiring poems of the last 200 years from around the world, a collection that will comfort and enthrall anyone trapped by grief or loneliness, selected by the award-winning, best-selling, and beloved author ofĚýHow to Read a Poem

Implicit in poetry is the idea that we are enriched by heartbreaks, by the recognition and understanding of suffering—not just our own suffering but also the pain of others.ĚýWe are not so much diminished as enlarged by grief, by our refusal to vanish, or to let others vanish, without leaving a record. And poets are people who are determined to leave a trace in words, to transform oceanic depths of feeling into art that speaks to others.

In 100 Poems to Break Your Heart, poet and advocate Edward Hirsch selects 100 poems, from the nineteenthĚýcentury to the present, and illuminates them, unpacking context and references to help the reader fully experience the range of emotion and wisdom within these poems.

ĚýFor anyone trying to process grief, loneliness, or fear, this collection of poetry will be your guide in trying times.]]> 517 Edward Hirsch 0544931807 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.48 2021
author: Edward Hirsch
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> 45031831
When Brian Doyle passed away at the age of sixty after a bout with brain cancer, he left behind a cult-like following of devoted readers who regard his writing as one of the best-kept secrets of the twenty-first century. Doyle writes with a delightful sense of wonder about the sanctity of everyday things, and about love and connection in all their spiritual love, brotherly love, romantic love, and even the love of a nine-foot sturgeon.

At a moment when the world can sometimes feel darker than ever, Doyle's writing, which constantly evokes the humor and even bliss that life affords, is a balm. His essays manage to find, again and again, exquisite beauty in the quotidian, whether it's the awe of a child the first time she hears a river, or a husband's whiskers that a grieving widow misses seeing in her sink every morning. Through Doyle's eyes, nothing is dull.

David James Duncan sums up Doyle's sensibilities best in his introduction to the "Brian Doyle lived the pleasure of bearing daily witness to quiet glories hidden in people, places and creatures of little or no size, renown, or commercial value, and he brought inimitably playful or soaring or aching or heartfelt language to his tellings." A life's work, One Long River of Song invites readers to experience joy and wonder in ordinary moments that become, under Doyle's rapturous and exuberant gaze, extraordinary.]]> 250 Brian Doyle 0316492892 Jennifer 0 currently-reading 4.63 2019
author: Brian Doyle
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.63
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/25
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 196126055 The masterful Kate DiCamillo has outdone herself with a hilarious and achingly real love story about a girl, a ghost, a grandmother, and growing up.

It’s the summer before fifth grade, and for Ferris Wilkey, it is a summer of sheer Her little sister, Pinky, has vowed to become an outlaw. Uncle Ted has left Aunt Shirley and, to Ferris’s mother’s chagrin, is holed up in the Wilkey basement to paint a history of the world. And Charisse, Ferris’s grandmother, has started seeing a ghost at the threshold of her room, which seems like an alarming omen given that she is also feeling unwell. But the ghost is not there to usher Charisse to the Great Beyond. Rather, she has other plans—wild, impractical, illuminating plans. How can Ferris satisfy a specter with Pinky terrorizing the town, Uncle Ted sending Ferris to spy on her aunt, and her father battling an invasion of raccoons?

As Charisse likes to say, “Every good story is a love story,� and Kate DiCamillo has written one for the emotionally resonant and healing, showing the two-time Newbery Medalist at her most playful, universal, and profound.]]> 240 Kate DiCamillo 153623737X Jennifer 5 finn-wren 4.49 2024
author: Kate DiCamillo
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/19
date added: 2024/09/25
shelves: finn-wren
review:

]]> 121891108
Evan and his best friend Rafe quickly discover a link between one of the old books and a long-ago event that none of the grown-ups want to talk about. The two boys start asking questions whose answers will transform not only their own futures, but the town itself.

Told in turn by a ghost librarian named Al, an aging (but beautiful) cat named Mortimer, and Evan himself, The Lost Library is a timeless story from award-winning authors Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass. It’s about owning your truth, choosing the life you want, and the power of a good book (and, of course, the librarian who gave it to you).]]> 222 Rebecca Stead 1250838827 Jennifer 5 finn-wren 4.39 2023
author: Rebecca Stead
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/25
date added: 2024/09/25
shelves: finn-wren
review:

]]> 23604948 Winner of the 2012 Costa Poetry Award, the latest collection by Kathleen Jamie, “the leading Scottish poet of her generation� (The Sunday Times)

See when it all unravels—the entire project
reduced to threads of moss fleeing a nor’wester;
d’you ever imagine chasing just one strand, letting it lead you
to an unsung cleft in a rock, a place you could take to,
dig yourself in—but what are the chances of that?
ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚý Of the birds,
few remain all winter; half a dozen waders
mediate between sea and shore, that space confirmed
—don’tĚýlaugh—by your own work.Ěý
ĚýĚýĚýĚý —from “Materialsâ€�

The Overhaul continues Kathleen Jamie’s lyric inquiry into the aspects of the world our rushing lives elide, and even threaten. Whether she is addressing birds or rivers, or the need to accept loss, or, sometimes, the desire to escape our own lives, her poetry is earthy and rigorous, her language at once elemental and tender. The Overhaul is a midlife book of repair, restitution, and ultimately hope—of the wisest and most worldly kind.


]]> 60 Kathleen Jamie 1555979025 Jennifer 4 3.86 2012
author: Kathleen Jamie
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/20
date added: 2024/09/24
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]]> 53327621
A practical guide to taking control of your mental health for today, tomorrow, and the days after, from the #1ĚýNew York Times bestselling author and beloved entertainer.Ěý

�There’s a moment at the end of every day, where the world falls away and you are left alone with your thoughts. A reckoning, when the things you have been pushing to the background, come forward and demand your attention.�

Written by Daniel Howell, in consultation with a qualified psychologist, in an entertaining and personal way from the perspective of someone who has been through it all—this no-nonsense book gives you the tools to understand your mind so you can be in control and really live. Split into three chapters for each stage of the

This Night - how to get through your toughest moments and be prepared to face anything.

Tomorrow - small steps to change your thoughts and actions with a big impact on your life.

The Days After - help to look after yourself in the long term and not just survive, but thrive.

You will laugh and learn—but most of all, this book will assure you that even in your darkest times, there is always hope.Ěý

You will get through this night.]]> 320 Daniel Howell 006305387X Jennifer 4 4.24 2021
author: Daniel Howell
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2021/08/09
date added: 2024/09/24
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]]> 199897803 Renowned naturalist Kenn Kaufman examines the scientific discoveries of John James Audubon and his artistic and ornithologist peers to show how what they saw (and what they missed) reflects how we perceive and understand the natural world. Raging ambition. Towering egos. Competition under a veneer of courtesy. Heroic effort combined with plagiarism, theft, exaggeration, and fraud. This was the state of bird study in eastern North America during the early 1800s, as a handful of intrepid men raced to find the last few birds that were still unknown to science. The most famous name in the bird world was John James Audubon, who painted spectacular portraits of birds. But although his images were beautiful, creating great art was not his main goal. Instead, he aimed to illustrate (and write about) as many different species as possible, obsessed with trying to outdo his rival, Alexander Wilson. George Ord, a fan and protégé of Wilson, held a bitter grudge against Audubon for years, claiming he had faked much of his information and his scientific claims. A few of Audubon’s birds were pure fiction, and some of his writing was invented or plagiarized. Other naturalists of the era, including Charles Bonaparte (nephew of Napoleon), John Townsend, and Thomas Nuttall, also became entangled in the scientific derby, as they stumbled toward an understanding of the natural world—an endeavor that continues to this day. Despite this intense competition, a few species—including some surprisingly common songbirds, hawks, sandpipers, and more—managed to evade discovery for years. Here, renowned bird expert and artist Kenn Kaufman explores this period in history from a new angle, by considering the birds these people discovered and, especially, the ones they missed. Kaufman has created portraits of the birds that Audubon never saw, attempting to paint them in that artist’s own stunning style, as a way of examining the history of natural sciences and nature art. He shows how our understanding of birds continues to gain clarity, even as some mysteries persist from Audubon’s time until ours.]]> 392 Kenn Kaufman Jennifer 0 return-to-someday, to-read 4.22 2024
author: Kenn Kaufman
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: return-to-someday, to-read
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]]> 43925974 Ěý
From literary master McCall Smith, this is a bewitching short foray, witty and warm, into Scandinavian mystery.
Ěý
A Vintage Short original. An ebook short.]]> 90 Alexander McCall Smith 1984898523 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.70 2019
author: Alexander McCall Smith
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> 24020362 "A chance to save her. Improbably, impossibly, inconceivably."

Lord Alfred Fitzwilliam spends each day in much the same way: caring for his terminally ill wife and trying to lose himself in the dusty tomes that fill his library. Everything changes when he receives a visit from a man representing a clandestine organization operating with the backing of Queen Victoria herself. The group seeks his aid in finding an Arthurian artifact that, legend holds, can cure its bearer of any wound or disease.

Skeptical but desperate to help his wife, Alfred is convinced that the fabled item might actually exist after witnessing a seemingly impossible display of power by the organization's leader, James Nigel. He decides to pursue the treasure, accompanied by an eccentric scholar, a deadly druid, and his best friend, a sardonic bookseller who is far more than he seems. As he follows an arcane trail of clues from the gas-lit streets of London to the wilds of Scotland and deep into ancient catacombs in Italy, Alfred becomes enmeshed in a web of hidden agendas, secret societies, and ancient enchantments. Along the way, he learns a dark secret about Nigel's past—and the true power of the artifact he seeks.

Steeped in a compelling mythology and filled with unexpected twists, The Camelot Shadow will leave readers stunned, breathless, and wrestling with an impossible question: what do you do with an object that has the power to both save the world and destroy it?

(Don't miss The Strange Task Before Me for further adventures in the Camelot Shadow world.)]]> 374 Sean Gibson 1483541932 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.90 2014
author: Sean Gibson
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> 209566762
In Neil deGrasse Tyson's delightful journey through the cosmos, his fictional character Merlin responds to popular questions asked by adults and children alike. Merlin, a timeless visitor from Planet Omniscia in the Andromeda Galaxy, has observed first-hand many of the major scientific events of Earth's history. Merlin's friends include the most important scientific figures and explorers of all time--da Vinci, Magellan, Newton, Einstein, and Hubble. While Merlin occasionally recounts playful conversations with these luminaries, all questions are answered with authentic science, infused with wit, wisdom, and an occasional rhyme. With the help of intermittent humorous cartoons, Merlin clarifies the details of familiar phenomena like gravity, light, space, and time, and travels to distant stars and galaxies to describe what makes them tick, rotate, explode, and collapse.

Merlin's Tour of the Universe is perfect for anyone who harbors burning questions on how the cosmos works.]]> 304 Neil deGrasse Tyson 1665019859 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.89 1989
author: Neil deGrasse Tyson
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> 42597125
Long Litt Woon moved to Norway from Malaysia as a nineteen-year-old exchange student. Soon after her arrival, she met Eiolf. He became the love of her life. After thirty-two years together, Eiolf's sudden death left Woon struggling to imagine a life without the man who had been soulmate and best friend. Adrift in her grief, Woon signs up for a beginner's course on mushrooming. She finds, to her surprise, that the hunt for mushrooms and mushroom knowledge rekindles her appetite for life, awakens her dulled senses, and provides a source of joy and meaning.

The Way Through the Woods tells the story of two parallel journeys: an inner one, through the landscape of mourning, and an outer one, into the fascinating realm of mushrooms--resilient, adaptable, dizzyingly diverse, and essential to nature's cycles of death and rebirth. An anthropologist and certified mushroom expert, Woon brings a fresh eye and boundless curiosity to the natural world and takes readers from primordial Norwegian forests to hidden-in-plain-sight Central Park pathways. She also introduces a lovable and eccentric cast of mushroom obsessives. Her explorations of the connections between humans, nature, grief, and healing are universal.]]> 291 Long Litt Woon 1984801031 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.83 2017
author: Long Litt Woon
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> 190118193 From the award-winning author of Goodbye, Vitamin: How far would you go to shape your own destiny? An exhilarating novel of American identity that spans three generations in one family and asks: What makes us who we are? And how inevitable are our futures?

Real Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster, and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn't be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love.

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

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

Exuberant and explosive, Real Americans is a social novel par excellence that asks: Are we destined, or made? And if we are made, who gets to do the making? Can our genetic past be overcome?]]> 610 Rachel Khong 0593537262 Jennifer 0 return-to-someday, to-read 4.15 2024
author: Rachel Khong
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves: return-to-someday, to-read
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]]> 13542990 Cartoonist Ellen Forney explores the relationship between "crazy" and "creative" in this graphic memoir of her bipolar disorder, woven with stories of famous bipolar artists and writers.

Shortly before her thirtieth birthday, Forney was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Flagrantly manic and terrified that medications would cause her to lose creativity, she began a years-long struggle to find mental stability while retaining her passions and creativity.

Searching to make sense of the popular concept of the crazy artist, she finds inspiration from the lives and work of other artists and writers who suffered from mood disorders, including Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O'Keeffe, William Styron, and Sylvia Plath. She also researches the clinical aspects of bipolar disorder, including the strengths and limitations of various treatments and medications, and what studies tell us about the conundrum of attempting to "cure" an otherwise brilliant mind.

Darkly funny and intensely personal, Forney's memoir provides a visceral glimpse into the effects of a mood disorder on an artist's work, as she shares her own story through bold black-and-white images and evocative prose.]]> 256 Ellen Forney 1592407323 Jennifer 3 4.01 2012
author: Ellen Forney
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/13
date added: 2024/09/13
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]]> 53099866
Flames Over Frosthelm is the first novel about the Inquisitor's Guild, the investigative arm of the government of Frosthelm, a medieval city-state where criminals thrive, nobles scheme, and dark secrets lurk. Expect intrigue, mystery, swordplay, adventure, politics, romance, and the strong bonds of friendship. And a little magic along the way. Described as Princess Bride meets CSI, this new novel is a tale of classic adventure with a healthy dose of humor.]]> 317 Dave Dobson Jennifer 4 4.34
author: Dave Dobson
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.34
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/13
date added: 2024/09/13
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]]> 10261472
“Bird Cloud� is the name Annie Proulx gave to 640 acres of Wyoming wetlands and prairie and four-hundred-foot cliffs plunging down to the North Platte River. On the day she first visited, a cloud in the shape of a bird hung in the evening sky. Proulx also saw pelicans, bald eagles, golden eagles, great blue herons, ravens, scores of bluebirds, harriers, kestrels, elk, deer and a dozen antelope. She fell in love with the land, then owned by the Nature Conservancy, and she knew what she wanted to build on it—a house in harmony with her work, her appetites and her character, a library surrounded by bedrooms and a kitchen.

Bird Cloud is the story of designing and constructing that house—with its solar panels, Japanese soak tub, concrete floor, and elk horn handles on kitchen cabinets. It is also an enthralling natural history and archaeology of the region—inhabited for millennia by Ute, Arapaho, and Shoshone Indians—and a family history, going back to nineteenth-century Mississippi riverboat captains and Canadian settlers.

Proulx, a writer with extraordinary powers of observation and compassion, here turns her lens on herself. We understand how she came to be living in a house surrounded by wilderness, with shelves for thousands of books and long worktables on which to heap manuscripts, research materials and maps, and how she came to be one of the great American writers of her time.]]> 258 Annie Proulx 1439171718 Jennifer 4 *A note - Bird Cloud is for sale ... if only I had $3.7 million I could spare! *]]> 3.74 2011
author: Annie Proulx
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2011/10/10
date added: 2024/09/10
shelves:
review:
Beautifully written - maybe it is just my love for the west, the wide open spaces, but I love everything about this one. The stories of the animals and birds are so interesting, as are the descriptions of the work on her house and her trips into the backcountry. The descriptions of the eagles loving the wind and being unable to resist the joy of soaring in it really touched me ... I love the wind too. Very recommended.
*A note - Bird Cloud is for sale ... if only I had $3.7 million I could spare! *
]]> 214709016 The bestsellingĚýauthor of Your Inner Fish takes readers on an epic adventure to the North and South Poles to uncover the secrets locked in the ice and profoundly shift our understanding of life, the cosmos, and our future on the planet.

For three decades, renowned scientist Neil Shubin has made extraordinary discoveries by leading scientific expeditions to the sweeping ice landscapes of the Arctic and Antarctic. He’s survived polar storms and faced the limits of human endurance to explore questions of how life survived and adapted, and what our future on a changing planet may hold.

Scientific discoveries at Earth’s polar regions have changed the way we see the world and these insights are becoming ever more urgent. These landscapes are the epicenter for rapid change to our planet, with ice retreating, animal species moving toward the equator or going extinct, Indigenous communities confronting dramatic environmental changes, and political battles heating up for newly accessible mineral and gas resources. In the end, what happens at the poles does not stay in the poles—events there in the coming years will affect all life and every nation on the planet.ĚýThe book blends travel, science, and environmental writing to deepen our understanding of animal and plant life, the history of our ice ages, the age of dinosaurs, the history of Western exploration, and the clues meteorites preserved at the poles contain about the cosmos.Ěý

Written with infectious enthusiasm and irresistible curiosity, Shubin shares lively adventure stories from the field to reveal just how far scientists will go to understand polar regions and to reveal the poles� impact on the rest of life on the planet.]]> 288 Neil Shubin 0593186524 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.22 2025
author: Neil Shubin
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 53463448 140 Dave Dobson Jennifer 4 4.29
author: Dave Dobson
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.29
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/27
date added: 2024/08/27
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]]> 128201325 New York TimesĚýbestselling author Natalie Haynes returns to the world of ancient Greek myth in this scintillating follow-up toĚýPandora’s Jar.

Few writers today have reshaped our view of the ancient Greek myths more than revered bestselling author Natalie Haynes.ĚýDivine MightĚýis a female-centered look at Olympus and the Furies, focusing on the goddesses whose prowess, passions, jealousies, and desires rival those of their male kin,

Athene, who sprang fully formed from her father’s brow (giving Zeus a killer headache in the process), the goddess of war and provider of wise counsel.Aphrodite, born of the foam (and sperm released from a Titan’s castrated testicles), the most beautiful of all the Olympian goddesses, the epitome of love who dispenses desire and inspires longing—yet harbors a fearsome vengeful side, doling out brutal punishments to those who displease her.Hera, Zeus’s long-suffering wife, whose jealousy born of his repeated dalliances with mortals, nymphs, and other goddesses, leads her to wreak elaborate and often painful revenge on those she believes have wronged her. (Well, wouldn’t you?)Demeter, goddess of the harvest and mother of Persephone; Artemis, the hunter and goddess of wild spaces; the Muses, the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory; and Hestia, goddess of domesticity and sacrificial fire.Infused with Haynes’s engaging charm and irrepressible wit,ĚýDivine MightĚýis a refreshing take on the legends and stories we thought we knew.]]> 300 Natalie Haynes 0063314681 Jennifer 0 return-to-someday, to-read 3.76 2023
author: Natalie Haynes
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/25
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]]> 36342965
Days after Holmes and his arch-enemy Moriarty fall to their doom at the Reichenbach Falls, Pinkerton agent Frederick Chase arrives in Europe from New York. The death of Moriarty has created a poisonous vacuum which has been swiftly filled by a fiendish new criminal mastermind who has risen to take his place.

Ably assisted by Inspector Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard, a devoted student of Holmes's methods of investigation and deduction, Frederick Chase must forge a path through the darkest corners of the capital to shine light on this shadowy figure, a man much feared but seldom seen, a man determined to engulf London in a tide of murder and menace.

Author of the global bestseller THE HOUSE OF SILK, Anthony Horowitz once more breathes life into the world created by Arthur Conan Doyle. With pitch-perfect characterisation and breath-taking pace, Horowitz weaves a relentlessly thrilling tale which teases and delights by the turn of each page.

The game is afoot...]]> 317 Anthony Horowitz Jennifer 4 4.01 2014
author: Anthony Horowitz
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/21
date added: 2024/08/21
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]]> 58085211 The Food Lab, revolutionized home cooking, selling more than half a million copies with its science-based approach to everyday foods. And for fast, fresh cooking for his family, there’s one pan López-Alt reaches for more than any other: the wok.

Whether stir-frying, deep frying, steaming, simmering, or braising, the wok is the most versatile pan in the kitchen. Once you master the basics—the mechanics of a stir-fry, and how to get smoky wok hei at home—you’re ready to cook home-style and restaurant-style dishes from across Asia and the United States, including Kung Pao Chicken, Pad Thai, and San Francisco–Style Garlic Noodles. López-Alt also breaks down the science behind beloved Beef Chow Fun, fried rice, dumplings, tempura vegetables or seafood, and dashi-simmered dishes.

Featuring more than 200 recipes—including simple no-cook sides—explanations of knife skills and how to stock a pantry, and more than 1,000 color photographs, The Wok provides endless ideas for brightening up dinner.]]> 672 J. Kenji López-Alt 0393541215 Jennifer 5 4.68 2022
author: J. Kenji LĂłpez-Alt
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.68
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/20
date added: 2024/08/20
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review:

]]> 1128670 338 Kevin Crossley-Holland 0752844296 Jennifer 0 return-to-someday, to-read 3.67 2000
author: Kevin Crossley-Holland
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/18
shelves: return-to-someday, to-read
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]]> 43204703 here.

Fall in love, break the curse.

Cursed by a powerful enchantress to repeat the autumn of his eighteenth year, Prince Rhen, the heir of Emberfall, thought he could be saved easily if a girl fell for him. But that was before he turned into a vicious beast hell-bent on destruction. Before he destroyed his castle, his family, and every last shred of hope.

Nothing has ever been easy for Harper. With her father long gone, her mother dying, and her brother constantly underestimating her because of her cerebral palsy, Harper learned to be tough enough to survive. When she tries to save a stranger on the streets of Washington, DC, she's pulled into a magical world.

Break the curse, save the kingdom.

Harper doesn't know where she is or what to believe. A prince? A curse? A monster? As she spends time with Rhen in this enchanted land, she begins to understand what's at stake. And as Rhen realizes Harper is not just another girl to charm, his hope comes flooding back. But powerful forces are standing against Emberfall . . . and it will take more than a broken curse to save Harper, Rhen, and his people from utter ruin.]]> 484 Brigid Kemmerer 1681195089 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.94 2019
author: Brigid Kemmerer
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> 203613928 After secretly living in the public library for the last eleven years, Essie must learn to adapt to a world that's not as perfect as the stories she's grown up with in this heartfelt middle-grade novel from Newbery Honor author Polly Horvath.

Essie has grown up in the public library, raised in secret by the four librarians who found her abandoned as a baby in the children's department. With four mothers and miles of books to read, Essie has always been very happy living there. Ěý

But now that she is eleven, Essie longs for a little more freedom . . . and maybe a friend her own age. She seems to get her wish when her moms let her go by herself to the mall and then on her second trip there, she meets G.E., a mysterious boy who looks so much like her she can't help but think they may be twins. Maybe he was raised by four dads in the department store. Maybe his story is intertwined with hers, and their happy ending is as one big family. But as she gets to know him better, she learns that nothing is as simple as it seems in her stories � not even her own past.]]> 256 Polly Horvath 082345567X Jennifer 0 to-read 3.58
author: Polly Horvath
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.58
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> 181378599 In New York Times–bestselling author Anthony Horowitz’s ingenious fifth literary whodunit in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series, Detective Hawthorne is once again called upon to solve an unsolvable case—a gruesome murder in an idyllic gated community in which suspects abound

Riverside Close is a picture-perfect community. The six exclusive and attractive houses are tucked far away from the noise and grime of city life, allowing the residents to enjoy beautiful gardens, pleasant birdsong and tranquility from behind the security of a locked gate.

It is the perfect idyll until the Kentworthy family arrives, with their four giant, gas-guzzling cars, a gaggle of shrieking children and plans for a garish swimming pool in the backyard. Obvious outsiders, the Kentworthys do not belong in Riverside Close, and they quickly offend every last one of their neighbours.

When Giles Kentworthy is found dead on his own doorstep, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest, Detective Hawthorne is the only investigator that can be called on to solve the case.

Because how do you solve a murder when everyone is a suspect?]]> 432 Anthony Horowitz 0063305666 Jennifer 5 4.31 2024
author: Anthony Horowitz
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/12
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves:
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]]> 38322536 179 Ellen Forney Jennifer 5 4.61 2018
author: Ellen Forney
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/12
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves:
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]]> 52578297
When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.

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

Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?]]> 288 Matt Haig 0525559477 Jennifer 3 3.96 2020
author: Matt Haig
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2020/10/10
date added: 2024/08/09
shelves:
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*Librarians have knowledge. They guide you to the right books. The right worlds. They find the best places. Like soul-enhanced search engines.*
]]> 202442104 Published in associationĚýwith the Library of Congress and edited by the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States, a singular collection of poems reflecting on our relationship to the natural world by fifty of our most celebrated contemporary writers.ĚýĚý

In recent years, our poetic landscape has evolved in profound and exciting ways. So has our planet. Edited and introduced by the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States, Ada Limón, this book challenges what we think we know about “nature poetry,� illuminating the myriad ways our landscapes—both literal and literary—are changing.

You Are Here features fifty previously unpublished poems from some of the nation’s most accomplished poets, including Joy Harjo, Diane Seuss, Rigoberto González, Jericho Brown, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Paul Tran, and more. Each poem engages with its author’s local landscape—be it the breathtaking variety of flora in a national park, or a lone tree flowering persistently by a bus stop—offering an intimate model of how we relate to the world around us and a beautifully diverse range of voices from across the United States.

Joyful and provocative, wondrous and urgent, this singular collection of poems offers a lyrical reimagining of what “nature� and “poetry� are today, inviting readers to experience both anew.


]]> 152 Ada Limon 1571317929 Jennifer 5 3.82 2024
author: Ada Limon
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/08
date added: 2024/08/08
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]]> 48615751
As a child, Nezhukumatathil called many places home: the grounds of a Kansas mental institution, where her Filipina mother was a doctor; the open skies and tall mountains of Arizona, where she hiked with her Indian father; and the chillier climes of western New York and Ohio. But no matter where she was transplanted--no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape--she was able to turn to our world's fierce and funny creatures for guidance.

"What the peacock can do," she tells us, "is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life." The axolotl teaches us to smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile environments. Even in the strange and the unlovely, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship. For it is this way with wonder: it requires that we are curious enough to look past the distractions in order to fully appreciate the world's gifts.

Warm, lyrical, and gorgeously illustrated by Fumi Nakamura, World of Wonders is a book of sustenance and joy.]]> 165 Aimee Nezhukumatathil 1571313656 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.05 2020
author: Aimee Nezhukumatathil
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> 16389068
Cacti and Succulents for Cold Climates is filled with inspirational portraits of 274 plants that can be used to create drought-tolerant gardens, as well as tips from regional experts who have mastered the art of growing cacti in parts of the country not usually associated with high temperatures or a scarcity of water. Expert Leo Chance describes how to prepare planting beds, how to get plants well established, how to handle cacti during planting, how to protect plants from cold winters, and when and how much to water.]]> 368 Leo J Chance 1604694246 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.50 2012
author: Leo J Chance
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> 43252570
But HOW NOT TO DIET goes beyond food to identify twenty-one weight-loss accelerators available to our bodies, incorporating the latest discoveries in cutting-edge areas like chronobiology to reveal the factors that maximize our natural fat-burning capabilities. Dr. Greger builds the ultimate weight loss guide from the ground up, taking a timeless, proactive approach that can stand up to any new trend.]]> 608 Michael Greger 1250199247 Jennifer 3 4.42
author: Michael Greger
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.42
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2020/03/27
date added: 2024/08/06
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]]> 19288557 Ěý
From party decorations to children’s toys, from wearable art to cute gifts, you need look no further than your supermarket shelves for the materials to make these unique (and kid-friendly) food crafts. For special celebrations, rainy-day activities, and much more, treat yourself to the sweetest projects.
Ěý
Colorful candy canes are fashioned into heart-shaped necklaces, melted peppermints are molded into a festive bowl, cookies and ice cream cones are transformed into a fanciful castle, marshmallows are snipped into a polar bear, and gumdrops become everything from adorable frogs to bumblebees and ducks. Candy Aisle Crafts is packed with simple ideas for charming crafts that both Ěýkids and parents will love.]]> 112 Jodi Levine 0804137919 Jennifer 0 to-read 2.86 2014
author: Jodi Levine
name: Jennifer
average rating: 2.86
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> 7090447
On Christmas Eve, Sadie and Carter are reunited when their father brings them to the British Museum, with a promise that he's going to "make things right." But all does not go according to plan: Carter and Sadie watch as Julius summons a mysterious figure, who quickly banishes their father and causes a fiery explosion.

Soon Carter and Sadie discover that the gods of Ancient Egypt are waking, and the worst of them—Set—has a frightening scheme. To save their father, they must embark on a dangerous journey—a quest that brings them ever closer to the truth about their family and its links to the House of Life, a secret order that has existed since the time of the pharaohs.]]> 528 Rick Riordan 1423113381 Jennifer 3 4.10 2010
author: Rick Riordan
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/03
date added: 2024/08/03
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]]> 174156145
Cal Hooper took early retirement from Chicago PD and moved to rural Ireland looking for peace. He’s found it, more or he’s built a relationship with a local woman, Lena, and he’s gradually turning Trey Reddy from a half-feral teenager into a good kid going good places. But then Trey’s long-absent father reappears, bringing along an English millionaire and a scheme to find gold in the townland, and suddenly everything the three of them have been building is under threat. Cal and Lena are both ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey, but Trey doesn’t want protecting. What she wants is revenge.

A nuanced, atmospheric tale that explores what we’ll do for our loved ones, what we’ll do for revenge, and what we sacrifice when the two collide.]]> 467 Tana French 0593493435 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.95 2024
author: Tana French
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> 58597190 Our ability to pay attention is collapsing. From the New York Times bestselling author of Chasing the Scream and Lost Connections comes a groundbreaking examination of why this is happening—and how to get our attention back.

Like so many of us, Johann Hari was finding it much harder to focus than he used to. He found that a life of constantly switching from device to device, from tab to tab, is diminishing and depressing. He tried all sorts of self-help solutions—even abandoning his phone for three months—but in the long-term, nothing seemed to work. So Hari went on an epic journey across the world to interview the leading experts on human attention and to study their scientific findings—and learned that everything we think we know about this crisis is wrong.

In the U.S., teenagers now focus on a task for only sixty-five seconds on average, and office workers manage only three minutes. We think this inability to focus is a personal flaw, an individual failure to exert enough willpower over our devices. The truth is even more Our focus has been stolen by powerful external forces, and the science shows that these forces have been ramping up for decades—leaving us uniquely vulnerable, when social media arrived, to corporations determined to raid our attention for profit. These forces have been so successful that our collapse in attention is behind many of the wider problems society faces.

In Stolen Focus, Hari embarks on a thrilling journey, taking readers from veterinarians who diagnose dogs with ADHD, to Silicon Valley dissidents who exposed social media companies' furtive attempts to hack our focus; from a favela in Rio where everyone lost their attention in a particularly catastrophic way, to an office in New Zealand that discovered a remarkable technique to restore their workers' attention.

In this urgent, deeply researched book, Hari shows that if we understand the twelve true causes of this crisis—from the collapse of sustained reading to the disruption of boredom to rising pollution—we, as individuals and as a society, can finally begin to solve it by staging an attention rebellion. Finally, we have a way to get our focus back.
]]> 348 Johann Hari 059313852X Jennifer 4 4.24 2022
author: Johann Hari
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/01
date added: 2024/08/01
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]]> 444304
The Grace children want to share their story, but the faeries will do everything possible to stop them...]]> 114 Tony DiTerlizzi 0689859368 Jennifer 4 3.93 2003
author: Tony DiTerlizzi
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/30
date added: 2024/07/30
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]]> 34199599 When a bookshop patron commits suicide, his favorite store clerk must unravel the puzzle he left behind in this “intriguingly dark, twisty� (Kirkus Reviews) debut novel from an award-winning short story writer.

Lydia Smith lives her life hiding in plain sight. A clerk at the Bright Ideas bookstore, she keeps a meticulously crafted existence among her beloved books, eccentric colleagues, and the BookFrogs—the lost and lonely regulars who spend every day marauding the store’s overwhelmed shelves.

But when Joey Molina, a young, beguiling BookFrog, kills himself in the bookstore’s upper room, Lydia’s life comes unglued. Always Joey’s favorite bookseller, Lydia has been bequeathed his meager worldly possessions. Trinkets and books; the detritus of a lonely, uncared for man. But when Lydia flips through his books she finds them defaced in ways both disturbing and inexplicable. They reveal the psyche of a young man on the verge of an emotional reckoning. And they seem to contain a hidden message. What did Joey know? And what does it have to do with Lydia?

As Lydia untangles the mystery of Joey’s suicide, she unearths a long buried memory from her own violent childhood. Details from that one bloody night begin to circle back. Her distant father returns to the fold, along with an obsessive local cop, and the Hammerman, a murderer who came into Lydia’s life long ago and, as she soon discovers, never completely left. “Both charming and challenging� (Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review), Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore is a “multi-generational tale of abandonment, desperation, and betrayal…inventive and intricately plotted� (Publishers Weekly, starred review).]]> 338 Matthew J. Sullivan 150111686X Jennifer 0 to-read 3.97 2017
author: Matthew J. Sullivan
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/30
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]]> 44246299 Named a Best Cookbook of the Year byĚýMartha Stewart Living "Magnificent illustrations add spirit to recipes and heartfelt narratives. Plan to buy two copies—one for you and one for your best foodie friend." —Taste of Home This collection of intimate, illustrated essays by some of America’s most well–regarded literary writers explores how comfort food can help us cope with dark times—be it the loss of a parent, the loneliness of a move, or the pain of heartache.Lev Grossman explains how he survived on “sweet, sour, spicy, salty, unabashedly glueyâ€� General Tso’s tofu after his divorce. Carmen Maria Machado describes her growing pains as she learned to feed and care for herself during her twenties. Claire Messud tries to understand how her mother gave up dreams of being a lawyer to make “a dressed salad of tiny shrimp and avocado, followed by prune–stuffed pork tenderloin.â€� What makes each tale so moving is not only the deeply personal revelations from celebrated writers, but also the compassion and healing behind the the taste of hope."If you've ever felt a deep, emotional connection to a recipe or been comforted by food during a dark time, you'll fall in love with these stories."—Martha Stewart Living“Eat JoyĚýis the most lovely food essay book . . . This is the perfect gift." —Joy Wilson (Joy the Baker)]]> 209 Natalie Eve Garrett 1936787741 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.73 2019
author: Natalie Eve Garrett
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/29
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]]> 125114607 THE PERFECT GIFT FOR NATURE LOVERS, BIRDERS, AND GARDENERS, WITH ORIGINAL COLOR ART THROUGHOUT * USA TODAY BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * AMAZON EDITOR’S PICK * INDIE NEXT PICK

From the beloved New York Times opinion writer and bestselling author of Late Migrations comes a “howling love letter to the world� (Ann Patchett): a luminous book that traces the passing of seasons, personal and natural.

In The Comfort of Crows, Margaret Renkl presents a literary fifty-two chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons—from a crow spied on New Year’s Day, its resourcefulness and sense of community setting a theme for the year, to the lingering bluebirds of December, revisiting the nest box they used in spring—what develops is a portrait of joy and joy in the ongoing pleasures of the natural world, and grief over winters that end too soon and songbirds that grow fewer and fewer.

Along the way, we also glimpse the changing rhythms of a human life. Grown children, unexpectedly home during the pandemic, prepare to depart once more. Birdsong and night-blooming flowers evoke generations past. The city and the country where Renkl raised her family transform a little more with each passing day. And the natural world, now in visible flux, requires every ounce of hope and commitment from the author—and from us. For, as Renkl writes, “radiant things are bursting forth in the darkest places, in the smallest nooks and deepest cracks of the hidden world.�

With fifty-two original color artworks by the author’s brother, Billy Renkl, The Comfort of Crows is a lovely and deeply moving book from a cherished observer of the natural world.
]]> 286 Margaret Renkl 1954118503 Jennifer 5 4.14 2023
author: Margaret Renkl
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/27
date added: 2024/07/27
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]]> 16119834
Wizard Corkoran's money-making scheme backfires, and when Elda and her new friends start working magic on their own, the schemes go wronger still. And when, at length, Elda ropes in her brothers Kit and Blade to send Corkoran to the moon . . . well . . . life at the Wizards' University spins magically and magnificently out of control.

This breathtakingly brilliant sequel to Dark Lord of Derkholm is all one would expect from this master of genre.]]> 404 Diana Wynne Jones Jennifer 5 4.34 2000
author: Diana Wynne Jones
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/21
date added: 2024/07/21
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]]> 28231
Nicholson Baker’s extraordinary ability to describe and celebrate life in all its rich ordinariness has never been so beautifully achieved.]]> 192 Nicholson Baker 0375706038 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.72 2003
author: Nicholson Baker
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> 207293926 Warts, evil spells, and toads for pets? The modern-day witches in this book aren’t scary or frightening, but rather hip! Meet these diverse witches from around the world and their animal companions in this quirky picture book from debut author-illustrator April Suddendorf!

Every witch needs a pet by her side. But if you’re picturing black cats or toads, think again. Because in Wacky Witches and Their Peculiar Familiars the animal companions are just as original and likable as their witches: a little monkey helps his pink-haired witch cut her locks, while a parrot helps his tarot card-reading witch answer the phone.

In her picture book debut, German author–illustrator April Suddendorf plays with a cliché: witches are not evil, old, or scary, but modern, versatile women from all over the world. Joyful magic unfolds through clever rhymes as each witch, and her animal friend, is introduced. Readers, discover what kind of witch you want to be!

Which witch will be your favorite? For readers who love Room on the Broom and Witch & Wombat!]]> 48 April Suddendorf 0735845484 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.18
author: April Suddendorf
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.18
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rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/20
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]]> 58182146
The economy says we must always consume even the slightest drop in spending leads to widespread unemployment, bankruptcy, and home foreclosure.

The planet says we consume too in America, we burn the earth’s resources at a rate five times faster than it can regenerate. And despite efforts to “green� our consumption—by recycling, increasing energy efficiency, or using solar power—we have yet to see a decline in global carbon emissions.

Addressing this paradox head-on, acclaimed journalist J. B. MacKinnon asks,ĚýWhat would really happen if we simply stopped shopping?ĚýIs there a way to reduce our consumption to earth-saving levels without triggering economic collapse? At first this question took him around the world, seeking answers from America’s big-box stores to the hunter-gatherer cultures of Namibia to communities in Ecuador that consume at an exactly sustainable rate. Then the thought experiment came shockingly the coronavirus brought shopping to a halt, and MacKinnon’s ideas were tested in real time.

Drawing from experts in fields ranging from climate change to economics, MacKinnon investigates how living with less would change our planet, our society, and ourselves. Along the way, he reveals just how much we stand to An investment in our physical and emotional wellness. The pleasure of caring for our possessions. Closer relationships with our natural world and one another. Imaginative and inspiring,ĚýThe Day the World Stops ShoppingĚýwill embolden you to envision another way.]]> 335 J.B. MacKinnon 0062856049 Jennifer 4 4.16 2021
author: J.B. MacKinnon
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/18
date added: 2024/07/18
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]]> 61915503 209 Baek Se-hee 1635579392 Jennifer 4 3.22 2018
author: Baek Se-hee
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.22
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/13
date added: 2024/07/13
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]]> 199515825 The Cartographers and The Book of M comes an inventive new novel about a woman who wins the chance to rewrite every mistake she’s ever made� and how far she’ll go to find her elusive “happily ever after.�

But there’s a twist: the reader gets to decide what she does next to change her fate.

One woman. Endless options. Every choice has consequences.

Meek, play-it-safe Marsh has just turned forty-five, and her life is in shambles. Her career is stagnant, her marriage has imploded, and her teenage daughter grows more distant by the day. Marsh is convinced she’s missed her chance at everything—romance, professional fulfillment, and adventure—and is desperate for a do-over.

She can’t believe her luck when she’s selected to be the star of the global sensation All This and More, a show that uses quantum technology to allow contestants the chance to revise their pasts and change their present lives. It’s Marsh’s only shot to seize her dreams, and she’s determined to get it right this time.

But even as she rises to become a famous lawyer, gets back together with her high school sweetheart, and travels the world, she begins to worry that All This and More’s promises might be too good to be true. Because while the technology is amazing, something seems a bit off.�

Can Marsh really make her life everything she wants it to be? And is it worth it?

Perfect for fans of Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library and Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, bestselling author Peng Shepherd’s All This and More is an utterly original, startlingly poignant novel that puts the reader in the driver’s seat.]]> 469 Peng Shepherd 0063278979 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.33 2024
author: Peng Shepherd
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/13
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]]> 194896889
Natalka and Edwin are perfect if improbable partners in a detective agency. At eighty-four, Edwin regularly claims that he’s the oldest detective in England. He is a master at surveillance, deploying his age as a cloak of invisibility. Natalka, Ukrainian-born and more than fifty years his junior, is a math whizz, who takes any cases concerning fraud or deception. Despite a steady stream of minor cases, Natalka is frustrated. She loves a murder, as she’s fond of saying, and none have come the agency’s way. That is until local writer Melody Chambers dies.

Melody’s daughters are convinced that their mother was murdered. Edwin thinks that Melody’s death is linked to that of an obituary writer who predeceased many of his subjects. Edwin and Benedict go undercover to investigate and are on a creative writing weekend at isolated Battle House when another murder occurs. Are the cases linked and what is the role of a distinctly sinister book group attended by many of writers involved? By the time Edwin has infiltrated the group, he is in serious danger…]]> 350 Elly Griffiths 0063374749 Jennifer 5 4.15 2024
author: Elly Griffiths
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/12
date added: 2024/07/12
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]]> 201191818
For the first few months all Yeongju does is cry, but the long hours in the shop also give her time to mull over what makes a good bookseller and store. As she starts to read hungrily, host author events, and develop her own bookselling philosophy, she eases into her new setting. Surrounded by friends, writers, and the books that connect them all, she finds her new story as the Hyunam-dong Bookshop transforms into an inviting space for lost souls to rest, heal, and remember it's never too late to scrap the plot and start again.]]> 312 Hwang Bo-Reum 1639732438 Jennifer 4 3.94 2022
author: Hwang Bo-Reum
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/06
date added: 2024/07/06
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]]> 16119823 532 Diana Wynne Jones 0062244566 Jennifer 5 4.19 1998
author: Diana Wynne Jones
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/05
date added: 2024/07/05
shelves:
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]]> 198137716
The Japanese practice of forest bathing, shinrin-yoku, changes the levels of stress and pleasure hormones in the body, decreasing cortisol and increasing serotonin. And if being around one tree feels good, imagine how a hundred trees would feel. In her first botanical nonfiction in more than a decade, Amy Stewart brings us captivating stories of people who spend their lives collecting trees and asks what drives one to collect something as enormous, majestic, and deeply-rooted as a tree?

In her gentle, intimate, slyly humorous way, Stewart brings fifty of these people to life, organizing their stories into categories. There are the community builders--like Shyam Sunder Paliwal who, after the death of his daughter, began a movement in his Rajasthan village to plant 111 trees whenever a girl was born--who do the remarkable work of knitting people together under an arboreal canopy. There are seekers who have taken their passion for trees around the world, or even into space. There are visionaries--the former poet laureate, W.S. Merwin, who planted a tree a day for over three decades, until he had turned a barren estate into a palm sanctuary. And there are healers--like Joe Hamilton, who plants trees on land passed down to him by his formerly enslaved great-grandfather--who have found a way to heal their own lives, the lives of others, or even wounds of the past, by planting trees.

Vivid watercolor portraits of these extraordinary people, populate this lively compendium along with with sidetrips to investigate more about trees, famous tree collections, necessary terms, and even "tips for unauthorized forestry." This book will be a gift for the hundreds of thousands of readers who have come to Amy's previous nature books and a delightful, informative, and often poignant treat for a whole new audience.]]> 336 Amy Stewart 0593446852 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.21
author: Amy Stewart
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.21
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/01
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]]> 62711576 Open the door to a spellbinding world where the wilderness is alive and a deep magic rises from the earth itself . . .

Eleven-year-old Daisy Thistledown is on the run. Her mother has been keeping big, glittering secrets, and now she has vanished. Daisy knows it’s up to her to find Ma―but someone is hunting her across London. Someone determined to stop her from discovering the truth.

So when Daisy flees to safety through a mysterious hidden doorway, she can barely believe her eyes―she has stepped out of the city and into another world.

This is the Greenwild. Bursting with magic and full of amazing natural wonders, it seems too astonishing to be true. But not only is this land of green magic real, it holds the key to finding Daisy’s mother.

And someone wants to destroy it.

Daisy must band together with a botanical genius, a boy who can talk with animals, and a cat with an attitude to uncover the truth about who she really is. Only then can she channel the power that will change her whole world . . . and save the Greenwild itself.]]> 364 Pari Thomson 0374391378 Jennifer 4 4.13 2023
author: Pari Thomson
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/29
date added: 2024/06/29
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]]> 57569961 Offering a fun-filled step-by-step dessert cookbook, Ann Reardon teaches you how to create delicious and impressive pastries, cakes and sweet creations.

Join food scientist Ann Reardon, host of the award-winning YouTube series How to Cook That, as she explores Crazy Sweet Creations. An accomplished pastry chef, Reardon draws millions of baking fans together each week, eager to learn the secrets of her extravagant cakes, chocolates, and eye-popping desserts. Her warmth and sense of fun in the kitchen shines through on every page as she reveals the science behind recreating your own culinary masterpieces.

For home cooks and fans who love their desserts, cakes, and ice creams to look amazing and taste even better. Take your culinary creations to influencer status, you’ll also:

1. Learn to make treats that get the whole family cooking
2. Create baked goods that tap into beloved pop culture trends
3. Impress guests with beautiful desserts

Readers of dessert cookbooks like Mary Berry’s Baking Bible by Mary Berry, Cake Confidence by Mandy Merriman, or Pastry Love by Joanne Chang will love How to Cook That: Crazy Sweet Creations.]]> 202 Ann Reardon 1642505781 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.48
author: Ann Reardon
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.48
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> 424646
Ruth Picardie was only thirty-three when she died, a month after her twins' second birthday and just under a year after she was first diagnosed with breast cancer. For Ruth, a journalist, it seemed natural to write about her illness. She published only five columns for Observer Life magazine before she became too sick to continue, but her moving, funny, and very human account drew a huge response from readers all over England.

Before I Say Goodbye juxtaposes these columns with correspondence from readers, e-mails to her friends, letters to her children, and reflections by her husband and her sister. The result is a courageous and moving book, entirely devoid of self-pity, that celebrates the triumph of a brave and wonderful woman's spirit. An international bestseller in England, Picardie's sobering yet ultimately life-affirming book is destined to become a classic.]]> 128 Ruth Picardie 0805066128 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.16 1998
author: Ruth Picardie
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> 59695223
In Ask a Historian the author, BBC podcaster, and public historian Greg Jenner provides answers to things you always wondered about, but didn't know who to ask. Responding to 50 genuine questions from the public, Greg whisks you off on an entertaining tour through the ages, revealing the best and most surprising stories, facts, and historical characters from the past. Bouncing through a wide range of subjects - from ancient jokebooks, African empires, and bizarre tales of medicinal cannibalism, to the invention of meringues, mirrors, and menstrual pads - Ask A Historian spans the Stone Age to the Swinging Sixties, and offers up a deliciously amusing and informative smorgasbord of historical curiosities, devoured one morsel at a time.]]> 332 Greg Jenner Jennifer 0 currently-reading 4.14 2021
author: Greg Jenner
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/21
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 53542597 'Fizzes with clever vignettes and juicy tidbits... [a] joyous romp of a book.' Guardian'A fascinating, rollicking book in search of why, where and how fame strikes. Sit back and enjoy the ride.' Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads'[An] engaging and well-researched book... Jenner brings his material to vivid life' ObserverCelebrity, with its neon glow and selfie pout, strikes us as hypermodern. But the famous and infamous have been thrilling, titillating, and outraging us for much longer than we might realise. Whether it was the scandalous Lord Byron, whose poetry sent female fans into an erotic frenzy; or the cheetah-owning, coffin-sleeping, one-legged French actress Sarah Bernhardt, who launched a violent feud with her former best friend; or Edmund Kean, the dazzling Shakespearean actor whose monstrous ego and terrible alcoholism saw him nearly murdered by his own audience - the list of stars whose careers burned bright before the Age of Television is extensive and thrillingly varied. In this ambitious history, that spans the Bronze Age to the coming of Hollywood's Golden Age, Greg Jenner assembles a vibrant cast of over 125 actors, singers, dancers, sportspeople, freaks, demigods, ruffians, and more, in search of celebrity's historical roots. He reveals why celebrity burst into life in the early eighteenth century, how it differs to ancient ideas of fame, the techniques through which it was acquired, how it was maintained, the effect it had on public tastes, and the psychological burden stardom could place on those in the glaring limelight. DEAD FAMOUS is a surprising, funny, and fascinating exploration of both a bygone age and how we came to inhabit our modern, fame obsessed society.]]> 367 Greg Jenner 0297869817 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.74 2020
author: Greg Jenner
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> 209201848
Along with Mike McCloskey, readers will meet a secretive German family that took over the global coffee industry in less than a decade, relying on wealth traced back to the Nazis to gobble up countless independent roasters. They will discover how a small grain business transformed itself into an empire bigger than Koch Industries, with ample help from taxpayer dollars. And they will learn that in the food business, crime really does pay—especially when you can bribe and then double-cross the president of Brazil.

These, and the other stories in this book, are simply examples of the monopolies and ubiquitous corruption that today define American food. The tycoons profiled in these pages are hardly unique: many other companies have manipulated our lax laws and failed policies for their own benefit, to the detriment of our neighborhoods, livelihoods, and our democracy itself. Barons paints a stark portrait of the consequences of corporate consolidation, but it also shows we can choose a different path. A fair, healthy, and prosperous food industry is possible—if we take back power from the barons who have robbed us of it.]]> 273 Austin Frerick 1642832707 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.31 2024
author: Austin Frerick
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> 199743712 From the internationally bestselling author of the Ruth Galloway Mysteries, an eclectic, thrilling collection of short stories, featuring many characters that readers have come to know and love.

Elly Griffiths has always written short stories to experiment with different voices and genres as well as to explore what some of her fictional creations such as Ruth Galloway, Harbinder Kaur, and Max Mephisto might have done outside of the novels. The Man in Black gathers these bite-sized tales all together in one splendid volume.

There are ghost stories, cozy mysteries, tales of psychological suspense, and poignant vignettes of love and loss.

In the title story, Ruth Galloway crosses paths with a mysterious man in a bookstore, setting in motion a rescue mission that hinges on the legends and lore of Norfolk.

Looking into the past, a young magician in 1920s Leeds wonders just what happened to his missing landlady in Max Mephisto and the Disappearing Act.

In Justice Jones and the Etherphone, a witty girl detective investigates the dire prediction of a fortune teller in dreary postwar London.

A flashback in time reveals Harbinder Kaur as a Detective Sergeant surviving her first day on the job at Shoreham DCI.

To celebrate the holidays, Ruth gets her very first Christmas tree, and her beloved cat narrates his own seasonal story in Flint’s Fireside Tale.

And readers can armchair travel with stories set on the Amalfi Coast, in Capri, and in Egypt as Ruth and DCI Nelson experience their very own version of Death on the Nile.

The Man in Black illustrates the breadth and variety of Elly Griffiths’s talent for blood-chilling, page-turning stories all with her trademark humor and heart.]]> 320 Elly Griffiths 0063289334 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.85 2024
author: Elly Griffiths
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 134119076 When mysterious faeries from other realms appear at her university, curmudgeonly professor Emily Wilde must uncover their secrets before it’s too late, in this heartwarming, enchanting second installment of the Emily Wilde series.

Emily Wilde is a genius scholar of faerie folklore who just wrote the world’s first comprehensive encyclopaedia of faeries. She’s learned many of the secrets of the Hidden Ones on her adventures . . . and also from her fellow scholar and former rival Wendell Bambleby.

Because Bambleby is more than infuriatingly charming. He’s an exiled faerie king on the run from his murderous mother and in search of a door back to his realm. And despite Emily’s feelings for Bambleby, she’s not ready to accept his proposal of marriage: Loving one of the Fair Folk comes with secrets and dangers.

She also has a new project to focus on: a map of the realms of faerie. While she is preparing her research, Bambleby lands her in trouble yet again, when assassins sent by his mother invade Cambridge. Now Bambleby and Emily are on another adventure, this time to the picturesque Austrian Alps, where Emily believes they may find the door to Bambleby’s realm and the key to freeing him from his family’s dark plans.

But with new relationships for the prickly Emily to navigate and dangerous Folk lurking in every forest and hollow, Emily must unravel the mysterious workings of faerie doors and of her own heart.]]> 370 Heather Fawcett 0593500202 Jennifer 4 4.28 2024
author: Heather Fawcett
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/18
date added: 2024/06/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 57014946 384 Cal Flyn 1984878204 Jennifer 0 return-to-someday, to-read 4.22 2021
author: Cal Flyn
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/15
shelves: return-to-someday, to-read
review:

]]> 56772606
In Chernobyl, following the nuclear disaster, only a handful of people returned to their dangerously irradiated homes. On an uninhabited Scottish island, feral cattle live entirely wild. In Detroit, once America’s fourth-largest city, entire streets of houses are falling in on themselves, looters slipping through otherwise silent neighbourhoods.

This book explores the extraordinary places where humans no longer live � or survive in tiny, precarious numbers � to give us a possible glimpse of what happens when mankind’s impact on nature is forced to stop. From Tanzanian mountains to the volcanic Caribbean, the forbidden areas of France to the mining regions of Scotland, Flyn brings together some of the most desolate, eerie, ravaged and polluted areas in the world � and shows how, against all odds, they offer our best opportunities for environmental recovery.

By turns haunted and hopeful, this luminously written world study is pinned together with profound insight and new ecological discoveries that together map an answer to the big questions: what happens after we’re gone, and how far can our damage to nature be undone?]]> 379 Cal Flyn 0008329788 Jennifer 5 4.35 2021
author: Cal Flyn
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2021/10/12
date added: 2024/06/15
shelves:
review:
A blurb on the cover of this book, by Will McCallum, is the perfect review - "At times desperately sad and in others desperately hopeful - but nowhere losing faith in this beautiful world. Perfect reading for the crisis we're in."
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