Pat's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 09 Apr 2025 17:56:16 -0700 60 Pat's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Darkest Fear (Myron Bolitar, #7)]]> 43929 /book/show/5...

Myron Bolitar's father's recent heart attack brings Myron smack into a midlife encounter with issues of adulthood and mortality. And if that's not enough to turn his life upside down, the reappearance of his first serious girlfriend is. The basketball star turned sports agent, who does a little detecting when business is slow, is saddened by the news that Emily Downing's 13-year-old son is dying and desperately needs a bone marrow transplant; even if she did leave him for the man who destroyed his basketball career, he wouldn't wish tsuris like that on anyone. And he's not at all interested in getting involved with Emily again, not even to track down the one mysterious donor who may be able to save the boy. But when Myron learns that Jeremy Downing is his own son, conceived the night before Emily and Greg Downing married, he embarks on a search for someone who disappeared a lifetime ago. And what he finds leads him to a powerful family determined to keep an old secret, a disgraced reporter who may have plagiarized a novel to create a serial killer, a very interested FBI agent, and a missing child.

This is the seventh outing in a series that's been gaining in popularity since Bolitar's first appearance, in Harlan Coben's Deal Breaker. Myron's a bit of a baby, but he's not afraid to get rough when the situation calls for it, he's eminently likable, and his heart's in the right place. The fireworks are supplied by his friend and partner, Win, who really deserves a series of his own, and Esperanza, the lesbian wrestler-lawyer who has finally talked Myron into making her a partner in the business. Like Coben's other Bolitar novels, she's worth every penny. --Jane Adams

]]> 354 Harlan Coben 0752849190 Pat 4 4.02 1999 Darkest Fear (Myron Bolitar, #7)
author: Harlan Coben
name: Pat
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/09
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Undoing of Alejandro Velasco]]> 214627245 After Alejandro Velasco is found dead, a handsome stranger visits the family. But when this newcomer’s secrets collide with those of Alejandro’s sister, sparks fly—and blood is shed.

A handsome young man named Julian Villareal arrives at the opulent Velasco estate to pay his respects after the unexpected death of Alejandro Velasco, his close friend and tennis rival. But he soon becomes entwined in the Velasco family’s glamourous lifestyle—and their daughter Sofia’s mysterious allure. Mercurial and quick-witted, Sofia seems determined to give Julian a run for his money. And he’s prepared to play along—both on and off the tennis courts.

As the tension between Julian and Sofia sizzles, Julian hides a much darker Alejandro’s death was no accident. And the more Julian learns about the inner workings of the Velasco family, the greater the danger he uncovers. With power and status come opponents bent on toppling the empire, by blackmail, revenge, or even murder. Julian’s quest for answers will only lure him deeper into this den of vipers, but teasing out Sofia’s own intentions may be the steamiest—and deadliest—game of all.]]> 275 Diego Boneta 1662517564 Pat 0 to-read 3.97 The Undoing of Alejandro Velasco
author: Diego Boneta
name: Pat
average rating: 3.97
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> Night Shift 10628
This is the horror of ordinary people and everyday objects that become strangely altered; a world where nothing is ever quite what it seems, where the familiar and the friendly lure and deceive. A world where madness and blind panic become the only reality.

Listening Length: 10 hours and 33 minutes]]> 409 Stephen King Pat 3 4.04 1978 Night Shift
author: Stephen King
name: Pat
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1978
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
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]]> <![CDATA[The Secret (Jack Reacher, #28)]]> 205064677
1992. All across the United States respectable, upstanding citizens are showing up dead. These deaths could be accidents, and they don’t appear to be connected—until a fatal fall from a high-floor window attracts some unexpected attention.

That attention comes from the secretary of defense. All of a sudden he wants an interagency task force to investigate. And he wants Jack Reacher as the army’s representative. If Reacher gets a result, great. If not, he’s a convenient fall guy.

But office politics isn’t Reacher’s thing. Three questions quickly emerge: Who’s with him, who’s against him, and will the justice he dispenses be the official kind . . . or his own kind?]]> 320 Lee Child 1984818600 Pat 4 3.94 2023 The Secret (Jack Reacher, #28)
author: Lee Child
name: Pat
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
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]]> There There 36692478 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780525520375.

Tommy Orange's wondrous and shattering novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize.

Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle's death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American--grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism.

Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable.]]> 294 Tommy Orange Pat 0 currently-reading 3.98 2018 There There
author: Tommy Orange
name: Pat
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Small Things Like These 58662236
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.]]> 128 Claire Keegan 0802158749 Pat 0 currently-reading 4.14 2021 Small Things Like These
author: Claire Keegan
name: Pat
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Final Detail (Myron Bolitar, #6)]]> 372384
Myron Bolitar’s colleague at MB SportsReps, Esperanza, has been arrested for the murder of a client, a fallen baseball star attempting a comeback. Myron is determined to prove Esperanza’s innocence—even if she won’t speak to him on the advice of her lawyer, who warns Myron to keep away from both the case and his client. But Myron is already too close, too involved, and has too much at stake. And the closer Myron gets to the truth, the more the evidence points to the only viable suspect besides Esperanza: Myron himself.]]> 384 Harlan Coben 0440225450 Pat 4 4.00 1999 The Final Detail (Myron Bolitar, #6)
author: Harlan Coben
name: Pat
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
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]]> Falls to Pieces 199236972 A mother and daughter in hiding are threatened by more than secrets and lies in a twisting novel of paranoia, revenge, and psychological suspense by bestselling author Douglas Corleone.

For two years, Kati Dawes and her teenage daughter, Zoe, have lived off the grid in Hawai‘i, hiding from a past Kati must forget as if her life depends on it. New names. Anonymous online presence. So far, safe. Until Kati’s fiancé, attorney Eddie Akana, disappears along a popular hiking trail in a Maui national park. Now all eyes are on Kati. Exposure can make a woman with so many secrets very paranoid.

Eddie’s law partner, Noah Walker, is doing everything he can to protect his new client from the press that’s hovering like a vulture and the authorities whose suspicions about Kati—and the disappearance—are rising. Then suddenly, Zoe goes missing as well. Kati will risk anything to find her. But the worst is still to come. Because Kati’s not the only one with secrets. And buried among them is a twist she never saw coming.]]> Douglas Corleone Pat 1 3.34 Falls to Pieces
author: Douglas Corleone
name: Pat
average rating: 3.34
book published:
rating: 1
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine]]> 215749903 A revelatory new history of the Irish Great Famine, showing how the British Empire caused Ireland’s most infamous disaster

In 1845, European potato fields from Spain to Scandinavia were attacked by a novel pathogen. But it was only in Ireland, then part of the United Kingdom, that the blight’s devastation reached apocalyptic levels, leaving more than a million people dead and forcing millions more to emigrate.

In Rot, historian Padraic X. Scanlan offers the definitive account of the Great Famine, showing how Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom and the British Empire made it uniquely vulnerable to starvation. Ireland’s overreliance on the potato was a desperate adaptation to an unstable and unequal marketplace created by British colonialism. The empire’s laissez-faire economic policies saw Ireland exporting livestock and grain even as its people starved. When famine struck, relief efforts were premised on the idea that only free markets and wage labor could save the Irish. Ireland’s wretchedness, before and during the Great Famine, was often blamed on Irish backwardness, but in fact, it resulted from the British Empire’s embrace of modern capitalism.

Uncovering the disaster’s roots in Britain’s deep imperial faith in markets, commerce, and capitalism, Rot reshapes our understanding of the Great Famine and its tragic legacy.]]> 352 Padraic X. Scanlan 1541601548 Pat 0 to-read 4.20 2025 Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine
author: Padraic X. Scanlan
name: Pat
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[One False Move (Myron Bolitar, #5)]]> 382680
Brenda Slaughter is no damsel in distress. Myron Bolitar is no bodyguard. But Myron has agreed to protect the bright, strong, beautiful basketball star. And he's about to find out if he's man enough to unravel the tragic riddle of her life.

Twenty years before, Brenda's mother deserted her. And just as Brenda is making it to the top of the women's pro basketball world, her father disappears too. A big-time New York sports agent with a foundering love life, Myron has a professional interest in Brenda. Then a personal one. But between them isn't just the difference in their backgrounds or the color of their skin. Between them is a chasm of corruption and lies, a vicious young mafioso on the make, and one secret that some people are dying to keep -- and others are killing to protect....]]> 383 Harlan Coben 0440225442 Pat 4 4.06 1998 One False Move (Myron Bolitar, #5)
author: Harlan Coben
name: Pat
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves:
review:

]]> Missing in Flight 212032163 From USA Today bestselling author Audrey J. Cole comes a harrowing thriller about a woman faced with the unthinkable, when her infant goes missing aboard a plane to New York.

Rushing back to her seat, Makayla Rossi is relieved that all’s still quiet. But when she checks on her sleeping baby, relief morphs into fear. The bassinet is empty.

Liam is gone.

It was a long flight from Anchorage to New York, and with every flight attendant busy, Makayla reluctantly ran to the restroom, asking a seat neighbor to watch her son. She stepped away for just a few minutes. Yet at thirty thousand feet, he still vanished.

Passengers and crew scour the plane to no avail, and since no one recalls seeing her with a baby, suspicions begin to mount about Makayla’s mental state. She’s certain this is nothing like her mother’s on-air memory meltdown. If only Jack, her husband, were there. He would believe her. A high-profile banker featured in Forbes, maybe he could even help.

But Makayla is squarely on her own. And she’ll have to think fast in order to find her son—before it’s too late.]]> 284 Audrey J. Cole 1662520719 Pat 4 3.95 2025 Missing in Flight
author: Audrey J. Cole
name: Pat
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/02/28
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]]> <![CDATA[The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War]]> 61089467 352 Jeff Sharlet 1324006498 Pat 0 to-read 3.98 2023 The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War
author: Jeff Sharlet
name: Pat
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Dark Hours (Renée Ballard, #4; Harry Bosch, #23; Harry Bosch Universe, #36)]]> 57070526
There's chaos in Hollywood on New Year's Eve. Working her graveyard shift, LAPD Detective Renée Ballard seeks shelter at the end of the countdown to wait out the traditional rain of lead as hundreds of revelers shoot their guns into the air. As reports start to roll in of shattered windshields and other damage, Ballard is called to a scene where a hardworking auto shop owner has been fatally hit by a bullet in the middle of a crowded street party.

It doesn't take long for Ballard to determine that the deadly bullet could not have fallen from the sky. Ballard’s investigation leads her to look into another unsolved murder—a case at one time worked by Detective Harry Bosch.

Ballard and Bosch team up once again to find out where the old and new cases intersect. All the while they must look over their shoulders. The killer who has stayed undetected for so long knows they are coming after him]]> 400 Michael Connelly 0316256560 Pat 5 4.39 2021 The Dark Hours (Renée Ballard, #4; Harry Bosch, #23; Harry Bosch Universe, #36)
author: Michael Connelly
name: Pat
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
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]]> The Bee Sting 62039166 From the author of Skippy Dies comes Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, an irresistibly funny, wise, and thought-provoking tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart.

The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under―but rather than face the music, he’s spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away from home.

Where did it all go wrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favor to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil―can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written―is there still time to find a happy ending?]]> 645 Paul Murray 0374600309 Pat 2 3.92 2023 The Bee Sting
author: Paul Murray
name: Pat
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/07
date added: 2025/02/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Dark Sacred Night (Renée Ballard, #2; Harry Bosch, #21; Harry Bosch Universe, #32)]]> 38204677
Renée Ballard is working the night beat again, and returns to Hollywood Station in the early hours only to find a stranger rifling through old file cabinets. The intruder is retired detective Harry Bosch, working a cold case that has gotten under his skin. Ballard kicks him out, but then checks into the case herself and it brings a deep tug of empathy and anger.

Bosch is investigating the death of fifteen-year-old Daisy Clayton, a runaway on the streets of Hollywood who was brutally murdered and her body left in a dumpster like so much trash. Now, Ballard joins forces with Bosch to find out what happened to Daisy and finally bring her killer to justice.]]> 400 Michael Connelly Pat 5 4.22 2018 Dark Sacred Night (Renée Ballard, #2; Harry Bosch, #21; Harry Bosch Universe, #32)
author: Michael Connelly
name: Pat
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/23
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[In Too Deep (Jack Reacher, #29)]]> 204432624 The gripping new Jack Reacher thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling authors Lee Child and Andrew ChildReacher wakes up, alone, in the dark, handcuffed to a bed in a makeshift hospital room. His few possessions are gone. He has no memory of getting there. The last thing he can recall is the car he had hitched a ride in getting run off the road. The driver was killed. The people who staged the attack assume Reacher was the driver's accomplice and patch up his wounds as they plan to make him talk. A plan that will backfire spectacularly . . .]]> 324 Lee Child 0593725808 Pat 4 3.66 2024 In Too Deep (Jack Reacher, #29)
author: Lee Child
name: Pat
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/15
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]]> The Lincoln Highway 57109107 The bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility and master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction returns with a stylish and propulsive novel set in 1950s America

In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the work farm where he has just served a year for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother and head west where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden’s car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett’s future.

Spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view, Towles’s third novel will satisfy fans of his multi-layered literary styling while providing them an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters, and themes.]]> 576 Amor Towles 0735222355 Pat 4 4.18 2021 The Lincoln Highway
author: Amor Towles
name: Pat
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/01/10
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]]> Time of the Child 201608156
Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father's shadow, and remains there, having missed one chance at love � and passed up another offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.

But in the Advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy's lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter's lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.

Set over the course of one December in the same village as Williams' beloved This Is Happiness, Time of the Child is a tender return to Faha for readers who know its charms, and a heartwarming welcome to new readers entering for the very first time.]]> 304 Niall Williams 1639734201 Pat 0 to-read 4.16 2024 Time of the Child
author: Niall Williams
name: Pat
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Ruin (Cormac Reilly, #1) 36588482
When Aisling Conroy's boyfriend Jack is found in the freezing black waters of the river Corrib, the police tell her it was suicide. A surgical resident, she throws herself into study and work, trying to forget - until Jack's sister Maude shows up. Maude suspects foul play, and she is determined to prove it.

DI Cormac Reilly is the detective assigned with the re-investigation of an 'accidental' overdose twenty years ago - of Jack and Maude's drug- and alcohol-addled mother. Cormac is under increasing pressure to charge Maude for murder when his colleague Danny uncovers a piece of evidence that will change everything...

This unsettling crime debut draws us deep into the dark heart of Ireland and asks who will protect you when the authorities can't - or won't. Perfect for fans of Tana French and Jane Casey.]]> 380 Dervla McTiernan 0143133128 Pat 4 3.90 2018 The Ruin (Cormac Reilly, #1)
author: Dervla McTiernan
name: Pat
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
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]]> Back Spin (Myron Bolitar, #4) 372385 In novels that crackle with wit and suspense, Edgar Award winner Harlan Coben has created one of the most fascinating and complex heroes in suspense fiction--Myron Bolitar--a hotheaded, tenderhearted sports agent who grows more and more engaging and unpredictable with each page-turning appearance. "From the Paperback edition."]]> 358 Harlan Coben 0440222702 Pat 3 3.95 1997 Back Spin (Myron Bolitar, #4)
author: Harlan Coben
name: Pat
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves:
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]]> An Echo in Time 201793870 A woman delves into a centuries-old murder to find the truth behind her self-destructive behavior in a powerful novel about love, loss, and healing by the bestselling author of An Unfinished Story and The Stars Don’t Lie.

Unable to catch a break in life or love as she approaches thirty, Charli Thurman sees red lights at every crossroads. And given the Thurman family’s tumultuous history, she knows things will only get worse, unless she can break the cycle and figure out where—and when—it all went wrong.

Charli is skeptical when her best friend introduces her to a “soul reader� who specializes in generational trauma. But during family constellation therapy with the guru, Charli experiences an inexplicable memory of terrible violence. Whatever happened in the past, it created an imbalance that’s still in the Thurman blood.

When Charli’s research leads her to Winchester, England, she meets a charming pub owner named Noah, whose own family history is similarly twisted. As the mystery deepens around a damaged inheritance and a tragic death, Charli is resolved to find the truth—and create the fresh start she has been hoping for her whole life.]]> 387 Boo Walker 1662508808 Pat 5 4.19 2024 An Echo in Time
author: Boo Walker
name: Pat
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Shadow Man (Detective Ben Wade #1)]]> 30453315 What Dennis Lehane does for Boston, Alan Drew does for Southern California in this gritty thriller about an idyllic community rocked by a serial killer—and a dark secret.

Detective Ben Wade has returned to his California hometown of Rancho Santa Elena for a quieter life. Suddenly the town, with its peaceful streets and excellent public schools, finds itself at the mercy of a serial killer who slips through windows and screen doors, shattering illusions of safety. As Ben and forensic specialist Natasha Betencourt struggle to stay one step ahead of the killer, Ben’s own world is rocked again by a teen’s suicide. Ben must decide how far he is willing to go, and how much he will risk, to rescue the town from a long-buried secret, as well as from a psychotic murderer.

With eerie, chilling, fine prose, Alan Drew brings us into the treacherous underbelly of a suburban California town in this brilliant novel of suspense about a man, and a community, confronted with the heart of human darkness.]]> 368 Alan Drew 1400067804 Pat 4 3.68 2017 Shadow Man (Detective Ben Wade #1)
author: Alan Drew
name: Pat
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/15
date added: 2024/12/15
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]]> Fade Away (Myron Bolitar, #3) 272607
The home is top-notch New Jersey suburban. The living room is Martha Stewart. The basement is Legos—and blood. The signs of a violent struggle. For Myron Bolitar, the disappearance of a man he once competed against is bringing back memories—of the sport he and Greg Downing had both played and the woman they both loved. Now, among the stars, the wannabes, the gamblers, and the groupies, Myron is embarking upon the strange ride of a sports hero gone wrong that just may lead to certain death. Namely, his own.]]> 368 Harlan Coben 0440222680 Pat 4 3.98 1996 Fade Away (Myron Bolitar, #3)
author: Harlan Coben
name: Pat
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/03
date added: 2024/12/03
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]]> Havoc 209594864 In the vein of The Bad Seed comes a twisty, atmospheric psychological suspense about a meddlesome elderly guest at a decadent luxury hotel who believes she has left her problematic past behind, until she decides to interfere in the lives of a young mother and her eight-year-old son, and finally meets her wicked match.

The war between age and youth has never been so vicious.

Eighty-one-year-old widow Maggie Burkhardt came to the Royal Karnak to escape. But not in quite the same way as most other guests who are relaxing at this threadbare luxury hotel on the banks of the Nile. Maggie, a compulsive fixer of other people’s lives, may have found herself in hot water at her last hotel in Switzerland and just might have needed to get out of there fast... But here at the Royal Karnak, under the hot Saharan sun, she has a comfortable suite, a loyal confidante in the hotel manager, Ahmed, and a handful of sympathetic friends, similar “long-termers� who understand her still-vivid grief for her late husband, Peter. Here, she is merely the sweet old lady in Room 309.

One morning, however, Maggie notices a new arrival at a mournful-looking young mother named Tess and her impish eight-year-old, Otto. Eager to help, Maggie invites them into her world. But it isn’t long before Maggie realizes that in her longing to be a part of their family, she has let in an enemy much stronger than she bargained for. In scrawny, homely Otto, Maggie Burkhardt has finally met her match.]]> 256 Christopher Bollen 0063378892 Pat 0 to-read 3.58 2024 Havoc
author: Christopher Bollen
name: Pat
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> Small Mercies 61812308 The acclaimed New York Times bestselling writer returns with a masterpiece to rival Mystic River —an all-consuming tale of revenge, family love, festering hate, and insidious power, set against one of the most tumultuous episodes in Boston’s history.

In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessy is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of “Southie,� the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart.

One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances. The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched—asking questions that bother Marty Butler, chieftain of the Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who don’t take kindly to any threat to their business.

Set against the hot, tumultuous months when the city’s desegregation of its public schools exploded in violence, Small Mercies is a superb thriller, a brutal depiction of criminality and power, and an unflinching portrait of the dark heart of American racism. It is a mesmerizing and wrenching work that only Dennis Lehane could write.]]> 303 Dennis Lehane 0062129481 Pat 5 4.22 2023 Small Mercies
author: Dennis Lehane
name: Pat
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/26
date added: 2024/11/26
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]]> <![CDATA[The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story]]> 204316857 The Nobelist's latest masterwork, set in a sanitarium on the eve of World War I, probes the horrors that lie beneath our most hallowed ideas.

In September 1913, Mieczysław, a student suffering from tuberculosis, arrives at Wilhelm Opitz's Guesthouse for Gentlemen, a health resort inGörbersdorf, what is now western Poland. Every day, its residents gather in the dining room to imbibe the hallucinogenic local liqueur, to obsess over money and status, and to discuss the great issues of the day: Will there be war? Monarchy or democracy? Do devils exist? Are women inherently inferior?

Meanwhile, disturbing things are beginning to happen in the guesthouse and its surroundings. As stories of shocking events in the surrounding highlands reach the men, a sense of dread builds. Someone—or something—seems to be watching them and attempting to infiltrate their world. Little does Mieczysław realize, as he attempts to unravel both the truths within himself and the mystery of the sinister forces beyond, that they have already chosen their next target.

A century after the publication of The Magic Mountain, Tokarczuk revisits Thomas Mann territory and lays claim to it, blending horror story, comedy, folklore, and feminist parable with brilliant storytelling.]]> 320 Olga Tokarczuk 0593712943 Pat 0 to-read 3.66 2022 The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story
author: Olga Tokarczuk
name: Pat
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Nickel Boys 42270835 Author of The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in 1960s Florida.

Elwood Curtis has taken the words of Dr Martin Luther King to heart: he is as good as anyone. Abandoned by his parents, brought up by his loving, strict and clear-sighted grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But given the time and the place, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy his future, and so Elwood arrives at The Nickel Academy, which claims to provide 'physical, intellectual and moral training' which will equip its inmates to become 'honorable and honest men'.

In reality, the Nickel Academy is a chamber of horrors, where physical, emotional and sexual abuse is rife, where corrupt officials and tradesmen do a brisk trade in supplies intended for the school, and where any boy who resists is likely to disappear 'out back'. Stunned to find himself in this vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold on to Dr King's ringing assertion, 'Throw us in jail, and we will still love you.' But Elwood's fellow inmate and new friend Turner thinks Elwood is naive and worse; the world is crooked, and the only way to survive is to emulate the cruelty and cynicism of their oppressors.

The tension between Elwood's idealism and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision which will have decades-long repercussions.

Based on the history of a real reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped and destroyed the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative by a great American novelist whose work is essential to understanding the current reality of the United States.]]> 213 Colson Whitehead Pat 0 to-read 4.25 2019 The Nickel Boys
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Pat
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> Black Bottom Saints 52091261 An enthralling literary tour-de-force that pays tribute to Detroit's legendary neighborhood, a mecca for jazz, sports, and politics, Black Bottom Saints is a powerful blend of fact and imagination reminiscent of E.L. Doctorow's classic novel Ragtime and Marlon James' Man Booker Award-winning masterpiece, A Brief History of Seven Killings.

From the Great Depression through the post-World War II years, Joseph “Ziggy� Johnson, has been the pulse of Detroit’s famous Black Bottom. A celebrated gossip columnist for the city’s African-American newspaper, the Michigan Chronicle, he is also the emcee of one of the hottest night clubs, where he’s rubbed elbows with the legendary black artists of the era, including Ethel Waters, Billy Eckstein, and Count Basie. Ziggy is also the founder and dean of the Ziggy Johnson School of Theater. But now the doyen of Black Bottom is ready to hang up his many dapper hats.

As he lays dying in the black-owned-and-operated Kirkwood Hospital, Ziggy reflects on his life, the community that was the center of his world, and the remarkable people who helped shape it.

Inspired by the Catholic Saints Day Books, Ziggy curates his own list of Black Bottom’s venerable "52 Saints." Among them are a vulnerable Dinah Washington, a defiant JoeLouis, and a raucous Bricktop. Randall balances the stories of these larger-than-life "Saints" with local heroes who became household names, enthralling men and women whose unstoppable ambition, love of style, and faith in community made this black Midwestern neighborhood the rival of New York City’s Harlem.

Accompanying these “tributes� are thoughtfully paired cocktails—special drinks that capture the essence of each of Ziggy’s saints—libations as strong and satisfying as Alice Randall’s wholly original view of a place and time unlike any other.]]> 384 Alice Randall 0062968629 Pat 0 to-read 3.88 2020 Black Bottom Saints
author: Alice Randall
name: Pat
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Life Impossible 198281740
“What looks like magic is simply a part of life we don’t understand yet…�

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

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

Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.]]> 324 Matt Haig 0593489276 Pat 0 to-read 3.45 2024 The Life Impossible
author: Matt Haig
name: Pat
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> Death at the Sanatorium 203578851 Fresh off his career-changing standalone co-written with Icelandic PM, Reykjavík, #1 Icelandic bestseller Jonasson presents a riveting new thriller spinoff from The Darkness, soon to be a TV series. 1983 At a former sanatorium in the north of Iceland, now a hospital ward, an old nurse, Yrsa, is found murdered. Detective Hulda Hermannsdottir and her boss, Sverrir, are sent to investigate her death. There, they discover five the chief physician, two junior nurses, a young doctor, and the caretaker, who is arrested following false testimony from one of the nurses, but subsequently released. Less than a week after the murder, the chief physician, is also found dead, having apparently fallen from a balcony. Sverrir, rules his death as suicide and assumes that he was guilty of the murder as well. The case is closed. 2012 Almost thirty years later, Helgi Reykdal, a young police officer, has been studying criminology in the UK, but decides to return to Iceland when he is offered a job at the Reykjavik police department—the job which detective Hulda Hermannsdottir is about to retire from. He is also a collector of golden age detective stories, and is writing his thesis on the 1983 murders in the north. As Helgi delves deeper into the past, and starts his new job, he decides to try to meet with the original suspects. But soon he finds silence and suspicion at every turn, as he tries to finally solve the mystery from years before.]]> 320 Ragnar Jónasson 1250770769 Pat 0 to-read 3.58 2019 Death at the Sanatorium
author: Ragnar Jónasson
name: Pat
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> All the Sinners Bleed 61884832 A Black sheriff. A serial killer. A small town ready to combust.

Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, Charon has had only two murders. After years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface.

Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. Those festering secrets are now out in the open and ready to tear the town apart.

As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon. With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history.

Powerful and unforgettable, All the Sinners Bleed confirms S. A. Cosby as “one of the most muscular, distinctive, grab-you-by-both-ears voices in American crime fiction� (The Washington Post).]]> 338 S.A. Cosby 1250831911 Pat 3 4.19 2023 All the Sinners Bleed
author: S.A. Cosby
name: Pat
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/15
date added: 2024/11/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Likeness (Dublin Murder Squad, #2)]]> 5941114 466 Tana French 0143115626 Pat 4 4.06 2008 The Likeness (Dublin Murder Squad, #2)
author: Tana French
name: Pat
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/11
date added: 2024/11/11
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Deal Breaker (Myron Bolitar, #1)]]> 43928
In novels that crackle with wit and suspense, Edgar Award winner Harlan Coben has created one of the most fascinating and complex heroes in suspense fiction Myron Bolitar a hotheaded, tenderhearted sports agent who grows more and more engaging and unpredictable with each page-turning appearance.]]> 339 Harlan Coben 0385340605 Pat 5 3.93 1995 Deal Breaker (Myron Bolitar, #1)
author: Harlan Coben
name: Pat
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/09
date added: 2024/11/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Things Don't Break on Their Own]]> 203019749 259 Sarah Easter Collins 0593798333 Pat 4 3.74 2024 Things Don't Break on Their Own
author: Sarah Easter Collins
name: Pat
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/29
date added: 2024/10/29
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30)]]> 34091380 405 Michael Connelly 0316225983 Pat 4 3.95 2017 The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30)
author: Michael Connelly
name: Pat
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/27
date added: 2024/10/27
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]]> Shutter Island 21686 369 Dennis Lehane 038073186X Pat 3 4.12 2003 Shutter Island
author: Dennis Lehane
name: Pat
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/17
date added: 2024/10/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Bluebird, Bluebird (Highway 59, #1)]]> 40605488 A powerful thriller about the explosive intersection of love, race, and justice from a writer and producer of the Emmy winning Fox TV show Empire.

When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules--a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger, knows all too well. Deeply ambivalent about growing up black in the lone star state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him home.

When his allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town of Lark, where two murders--a black lawyer from Chicago and a local white woman--have stirred up a hornet's nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes--and save himself in the process--before Lark's long-simmering racial fault lines erupt.

A rural noir suffused with the unique music, color, and nuance of East Texas, Bluebird, Bluebird is an exhilarating, timely novel about the collision of race and justice in America.]]> 320 Attica Locke Pat 0 to-read 3.84 2017 Bluebird, Bluebird (Highway 59, #1)
author: Attica Locke
name: Pat
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Selling Sexy: Victoria’s Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon]]> 61796681 The story of how Victoria’s Secret skyrocketed from a tiny chain of boutiques to a retail phenomenon with more than $8 billion in annual sales at its peak—all while defining an impossible beauty standard for generations of American women—before the brand’s tight grip on the industry finally slipped

Victoria’s Secret is one of the most influential and polarizing brands to ever infiltrate the psyche of the American consumer. Almost right at its start in the late 1970s, the company developed a cult following for its glamorous catalogs. Back then, shoppers had few alternatives to the stodgy department stores that sold most of the nation’s intimate apparel. By 1982, the founders of Victoria’s Secret avoided bankruptcy by selling to Les Wexner, the fast-fashion pioneer behind the Limited, whose empire of mall brands would go on to dominate American retail for forty years.

Wexner turned Victoria’s Secret into a multibillion-dollar business, and the brand’s cultural influence soared thanks to its airbrushed advertisements and annual televised fashion show, which drew millions of viewers each year. Its supermodel spokeswomen, the sweet but sultry Angels, personified a new American beauty standard.

But as our definition of beauty expanded, Victoria’s Secret failed to evolve and reached a crisis point. Meanwhile, Wexner became increasingly known for his complicated relationship with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, his former financial adviser and confidant.

Selling Sexy expertly draws from sources within Victoria’s Secret and across the industry to examine the unprecedented rise of one of the most innovative brands in retail history—a brand that today, under new ownership, is desperately trying to seduce shoppers again.]]> 320 Lauren Sherman 1250850967 Pat 0 to-read 3.73 2024 Selling Sexy: Victoria’s Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon
author: Lauren Sherman
name: Pat
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Sequel (The Book Series, #2)]]> 203578763 The Afterword. After all, how hard can it really be to write a universally lauded bestseller?

But when Anna publishes her book and indulges in her own literary acclaim, she begins to receive excerpts of a novel she never expected to see again, a novel that should no longer exist. Something has gone wrong, and someone out there knows far too much about her late brother, her late husband, and possibly about Anna herself. What does this person want, and what are they prepared to do? She has come too far and worked too hard to lose what she values most: the sole and uncontested right to her own story—and she is, by any standard, a master storyteller.]]> 304 Jean Hanff Korelitz 1250875471 Pat 0 to-read 3.60 2024 The Sequel (The Book Series, #2)
author: Jean Hanff Korelitz
name: Pat
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> Going Zero 60833953
In the name of national security, the CIA in partnership with Silicon Valley wunderkind Cy Baxter have created the ultimate surveillance program known as FUSION. Ahead of its roll out, ten Americans have been carefully selected to Beta test the groundbreaking system.

At the appointed hour, each of the ten will have two hours to “Go Zero”—to turn their cellphones off, cut ties with friends and family, and use any means possible to disappear. They will then have 30 days to evade detection and elude the highly sophisticated Capture Teams tasked to find them using the most cutting-edge technology. The goal is to see if it is possible to successfully go “off the grid� and escape detection.

The stakes are immense. If FUSION is a success, Cy Baxter will secure a coveted 10-year, $100 billion dollar government contract and access to intelligence resources he truly believes will save lives. For any participant who beats the massive surveillance, it means a $3 million cash prize.

Among the contestants is an unassuming Boston librarian named Kaitlyn Day. She’s been chosen as the gimme, the easy target expected to be found first. But Kaitlyn excels at confounding expectations. Her talents at this particular game are far more effective than all the security experts suspect, and her reasons for playing far more personal than anyone can imagine. . . .]]> 304 Anthony McCarten 006322707X Pat 4 3.83 2023 Going Zero
author: Anthony McCarten
name: Pat
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/01
date added: 2024/10/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the Wild West]]> 8730834 This true story of a concubine and the Gold Rush years “delves deep into the soul of the real old west� (Erik Larson). “Once the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill launched our ‘national madness,� the population of California exploded. Tens of thousands of Chinese, lured by tales of a ‘golden mountain,� took passage across the Pacific. Among this massive influx were many young concubines who were expected to serve in the brothels sprouting up near the goldfields. One of them adopted the name of Polly Bemis, after an Idaho saloonkeeper, Charlie Bemis, won her in a poker game and married her. For decades the couple lived on an isolated, self-sufficient farm near the Salmon River in central Idaho. After her husband’s death, Polly came down to a nearby town and gradually spoke of her experiences. Journalist Christopher Corbett movingly recounts Polly’s story, integrating Polly’s personal history into the broader picture of the history of the mass immigration of Chinese. As both a personal and social history, this is an admirable book.� —Booklist “A gorgeously written and brilliantly researched saga of America during the mad flush of its biggest Gold Rush. Christopher Corbett’s genius is to anchor his larger story of Chinese immigration around a poor concubine named Polly. A tremendous achievement.� —Douglas Brinkley “Uses Bemis’s story as a platform for a larger discussion about the hardships of the Chinese experience in the American West.� —The Washington Post]]> 241 Christopher Corbett 0802197922 Pat 3 3.63 2010 The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the Wild West
author: Christopher Corbett
name: Pat
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2011/09/08
date added: 2024/09/28
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I thought this was an interesting, concise bit of social history although somewhat repetitive in spots.
]]> Take No Names 59333181 304 Daniel Nieh 0062886673 Pat 3 3.38 2022 Take No Names
author: Daniel Nieh
name: Pat
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/23
date added: 2024/09/23
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]]> Bible Babel 13023001 An Unsettling The Heart of the Hebrew Bible

Bible Babel, from author and religious studies professor Kristin Swenson, is a lively, humorous, and very readable introduction to the Bible—what’s in it, where it comes from, and how it is used in our culture today. If you’ve ever wondered about the origin of the Christian fish symbol; the history of the Good Book; how the Bible weighs in on contemporary political issues; or even the biblical source of pop-culture references in WALL-E or Battlestar Galatica, then this is the book for you. Readers of A. J. Jacobs’s Year of Living Biblically and David Plotz’s Good Book will enjoy Bible Babel, a perfect primer for anyone interested in the Bible—secular and believing alike.]]> 372 Kristin Swenson 0061968188 Pat 4 3.97 2010 Bible Babel
author: Kristin Swenson
name: Pat
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2013/11/06
date added: 2024/09/21
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I expected a fairly simple overview of the bible's origins, authorship, contradictions and meanings and was pleasantly surprised at the level of detail presented, particularly in view of the fact that I found it relatively easy to read and absorb. I generally check out my books from the local public library, but I may just have to buy this one to help me through my personal exploration of the bible. I thought that the author did a remarkable job of presenting a balanced view that displays no favoritism to any particular point of view, be it any of the variety of Christian beliefs, the Jewish faith or even atheism. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to explore the origins and evolution of our religious beliefs.
]]> Drowning 59345230 New York Times bestselling author T. J. Newman—whose first book Falling was an instant #1 national bestseller and the biggest thriller debut of 2021—returns for her second book, an edge-of-your-seat thriller about a commercial jetliner that crashes into the ocean, and sinks to the bottom with passengers trapped inside, and the extraordinary rescue operation to save them.

Six minutes after takeoff, Flight 1421 crashes into the Pacific Ocean. During the evacuation, an engine explodes and the plane is flooded. Those still alive are forced to close the doors—but it’s too late. The plane sinks to the bottom with twelve passengers trapped inside.

More than two hundred feet below the surface, engineer Will Kent and his eleven-year-old daughter Shannon are waist-deep in water and fighting for their lives.

Their only chance at survival is an elite rescue team on the surface led by professional diver Chris Kent—Shannon’s mother and Will’s soon-to-be ex-wife—who must work together with Will to find a way to save their daughter and rescue the passengers from the sealed airplane, which is now teetering on the edge of an undersea cliff.

There’s not much time.

There’s even less air.

With devastating emotional power and heart-stopping suspense, Drowning is an unforgettable thriller about a family’s desperate fight to save themselves and the people trapped with them—against impossible odds.]]> 304 T.J. Newman 1982177918 Pat 0 to-read 4.10 2023 Drowning
author: T.J. Newman
name: Pat
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> IQ (IQ, #1) 28962895 A resident of one of LA's toughest neighborhoods uses his blistering intellect to solve the crimes the LAPD ignores.
East Long Beach. The LAPD is barely keeping up with the neighborhood's high crime rate. Murders go unsolved, lost children unrecovered. But someone from the neighborhood has taken it upon himself to help solve the cases the police can't or won't touch.
They call him IQ. He's a loner and a high school dropout, his unassuming nature disguising a relentless determination and a fierce intelligence. He charges his clients whatever they can afford, which might be a set of tires or a homemade casserole. To get by, he's forced to take on clients that can pay.
This time, it's a rap mogul whose life is in danger. As Isaiah investigates, he encounters a vengeful ex-wife, a crew of notorious cutthroats, a monstrous attack dog, and a hit man who even other hit men say is a lunatic. The deeper Isaiah digs, the more far reaching and dangerous the case becomes.

Winner of the Anthony, Macavity, and Shamus Awards]]> 325 Joe Ide 0316267724 Pat 3 3.72 2016 IQ (IQ, #1)
author: Joe Ide
name: Pat
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/16
date added: 2024/09/16
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]]> <![CDATA[The Blackbriar Genesis (Blackbriar #1)]]> 59851384
A car explodes along a quiet Prague side street—among the dead is an undercover Treadstone agent. It's not unusual for such men to meet their fates on an operation, but in this case there's one catch. None of his superiors know what he was doing there.

Two Blackbriar operatives, Helen Jouvert and Donovan Wade, are sent to investigate. Their search for answers will take them deeper into the world of conspiracy and fake news than they ever expected.

Treadstone and Blackbriar may be two sides of the same coin, intelligence and counterintelligence, but they have one thing in common, answers can be the deadliest commodity of all.]]> 384 Simon Gervais 0593419987 Pat 3 4.28 2022 The Blackbriar Genesis (Blackbriar #1)
author: Simon Gervais
name: Pat
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/12
date added: 2024/09/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World]]> 61966364 A stunning account of a colossal wildfire that collided with a city and a panoramic exploration of the rapidly changingrelationship between fire and humankind

In May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada’s oil industry and America’s biggest foreign supplier, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster melted vehicles, turned entire neighborhoods into firebombs, and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the lens of this apocalyptic conflagration—the wildfire equivalent of Hurricane Katrina—John Vaillant warns that this was not a unique event but a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world.

Fire has been a partner in our evolution for millennia,shaping culture, civilization, and, very likely, our brains. Fire has enabled us to cook our food, defend and heat our homes, and power the machines that drive our titanic economy. Yet this volatile energy source has always threatened to elude our control, and in our new age of intensifying climate change, we are seeing its destructive power unleashed in previously unimaginable ways.

With masterly prose and a cinematic eye, Vaillant takes us on ariveting journeythrough the intertwined histories of North America’s oil industry and the birth of climate science, to theunprecedented devastation that modern forest fires wreak, and into lives forever changed by these disasters.His urgent work is a book for—and from—our new century of fire, which has only just begun.]]> 432 John Vaillant 1524732850 Pat 5 4.32 2023 Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World
author: John Vaillant
name: Pat
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/02
date added: 2024/09/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind Food That Isn't Food]]> 62586003 A manifesto to change how you eat and how you think about the human body.

It’s not you, it’s the food.

We have entered a new age of eating. For the first time in human history, most of our calories come from an entirely novel set of substances called Ultra-Processed Food. There’s a long, formal scientific definition, but it can be boiled down to this: if it’s wrapped in plastic and has at least one ingredient that you wouldn’t find in your kitchen, it’s UPF.

These products are specifically engineered to behave as addictive substances, driving excess consumption. They are now linked to the leading cause of early death globally and the number one cause of environmental destruction. Yet almost all our staple foods are ultra-processed. UPF is our food culture and for many people it is the only available and affordable food.

In this book, Chris van Tulleken, father, scientist, doctor, and award-winning BBC broadcaster, marshals the latest evidence to show how governments, scientists, and doctors have allowed transnational food companies to create a pandemic of diet-related disease. The solutions don’t lie in willpower, personal responsibility, or exercise. You’ll find no diet plan in this book―but join Chris as he undertakes a powerful self-experiment that made headlines around the world: under the supervision of colleagues at University College London he spent a month eating a diet of 80 percent UPF, typical for many children and adults in the United States. While his body became the subject of scientific scrutiny, he spoke to the world’s leading experts from academia, agriculture, and―most important―the food industry itself. But more than teaching him about the experience of the food, the diet switched off Chris’s own addiction to UPF.

In a fast-paced and eye-opening narrative he explores the origins, science, and economics of UPF to reveal its catastrophic impact on our bodies and the planet. And he proposes real solutions for doctors, for policy makers, and for all of us who have to eat. A book that won’t only upend the way you shop and eat, Ultra-Processed People will open your eyes to the need for action on a global scale.]]> 384 Chris van Tulleken 1324036729 Pat 3 4.40 2023 Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind Food That Isn't Food
author: Chris van Tulleken
name: Pat
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/22
date added: 2024/08/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves]]> 199514774
How often do we open the fridge or peer into the freezer with the expectation that we’ll find something fresh and ready to eat? It’s an everyday act, easily taken for granted, but just a century ago, eating food that had been refrigerated was cause for both fear and excitement. Banquets were held just so guests could enjoy the novelty of eggs, butter, and apples that had been preserved for months in cold storage—and demonstrate that such zombie foods were not deadly. The introduction of artificial refrigeration overturned millennia of dietary history, launching an entirely new chapter in human nutrition. We could now overcome not just rot, but also seasonality and geography. Tomatoes in January? Avocados in Shanghai? All possible.

In FROSTBITE, New Yorker contributor and co-host of the award-winning podcast Gastropod Nicola Twilley takes readers with her on a tour of the cold chain from farm to fridge, visiting such off-the-beaten-track landmarks as Missouri’s subterranean cheese caves, the banana-ripening rooms of New York City, and the vast refrigerated tanks that store the nation’s OJ reserves. Today, more than three-quarters of everything on the average American plate is processed, shipped, stored, and sold under refrigeration. It’s impossible to make sense of our food system without understanding the all-but-invisible network of thermal control that underpins it. Twilley’s eye-opening book is the first to reveal the transformative impact refrigeration has had on our health and our guts; our farms, tables, kitchens, and cities; global economics and politics; and even our environment.

In the developed world, we’ve reaped the benefits of refrigeration for more than a century, but as Twilley soon discovers, the costs are catching up with us. We’ve eroded our connection to our food, extending the distance between producers and consumers and redefining what “fresh� really means. More importantly, refrigeration is one of the leading contributors to climate change. As the developing world races to build a U.S.-style cold chain, Twilley asks, can we reduce our dependence on refrigeration? Should we? A deeply-researched and reported, original, and entertaining dive into the most important invention in the history of food and drink, FROSTBITE makes the case for a recalibration of our relationship with the fridge—and how our future might depend on it.]]> 400 Nicola Twilley 0735223289 Pat 0 to-read 4.19 2024 Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves
author: Nicola Twilley
name: Pat
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Fatal Intrusion (Sanchez & Heron, #1)]]> 202645063 As a wave of murders grips Southern California, an unlikely pair must untangle the mysterious patterns of an elusive killer. A propulsive new series by New York Times bestselling author Jeffery Deaver and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Isabella Maldonado.

Carmen Sanchez is a tough Homeland Security agent who plays by the rules. But when her sister is attacked, revealing a connection to a series of murders across Southern California, she realizes a conventional investigation will not be enough to stop the ruthless perpetrator.

With nowhere else to turn, Sanchez enlists the aid of Professor Jake Heron, a brilliant and quirky private security expert who, unlike Sanchez, believes rules are merely suggestions. The two have a troubled past, but he owes her a favor and she’s cashing in. They team up to catch the assailant, who, mystifyingly, has no discernable motive and fits no classic criminal profile. All they have to go on is a distinctive tattoo and a singular obsession that gives this chillingly efficient tactician his nickname: Spider.

Over the next seventy-two hours, Sanchez and Heron find themselves in the midst of a lethal chess match with the killer as they race to stop the carnage. As the victims mount, so do the risks. Because this spider’s web of intrigue is more sinister—and goes far deeper—than anyone could possibly anticipate.]]> 434 Jeffery Deaver 1662518706 Pat 4 4.26 2024 Fatal Intrusion (Sanchez & Heron, #1)
author: Jeffery Deaver
name: Pat
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/14
date added: 2024/08/14
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]]> House of Glass 195790531
A young nanny who plunged to her death, or was she pushed? A nine-year-old girl who collects sharp objects and refuses to speak. A lawyer whose job it is to uncover who in the family is a victim and who is a murderer. But how can you find out the truth when everyone here is lying?

Rose Barclay is a nine-year-old girl who witnessed the possible murder of her nanny - in the midst of her parent's bitter divorce - and immediately stopped speaking. Stella Hudson is a best interest attorney, appointed to serve as counsel for children in custody cases. She never accepts clients under thirteen due to her own traumatic childhood, but Stella's mentor, a revered judge, believes Stella is the only one who can help.

From the moment Stella passes through the iron security gate and steps into the gilded, historic DC home of the Barclays, she realizes the case is even more twisted, and the Barclay family far more troubled, than she feared. And there's something eerie about the house itself: It's a plastic house, with not a single bit of glass to be found.

As Stella comes closer to uncovering the secrets the Barclays are desperate to hide, danger wraps around her like a shroud, and her past and present are set on a collision course in ways she never expected. Everyone is a suspect in the nanny's murder. The mother, the father, the grandmother, the nanny's boyfriend. Even Rose. Is the person Stella's supposed to protect the one she may need protection from?]]> 341 Sarah Pekkanen 125028399X Pat 0 to-read 3.84 2024 House of Glass
author: Sarah Pekkanen
name: Pat
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/06
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]]> The Last Flight 52652923 Two women. Two Flights. One last chance to disappear.

Claire Cook has a perfect life. Married to the scion of a political dynasty, with a Manhattan townhouse and a staff of ten, her surroundings are elegant, her days flawlessly choreographed, and her future auspicious. But behind closed doors, nothing is quite as it seems. That perfect husband has a temper that burns as bright as his promising political career, and he's not above using his staff to track Claire's every move, making sure she's living up to his impossible standards. But what he doesn't know is that Claire has worked for months on a plan to vanish.

A chance meeting in an airport bar brings her together with a woman whose circumstances seem equally dire. Together they make a last-minute decision to switch tickets � Claire taking Eva's flight to Oakland, and Eva traveling to Puerto Rico as Claire. They believe the swap will give each of them the head start they need to begin again somewhere far away. But when the flight to Puerto Rico goes down, Claire realizes it's no longer a head start but a new life. Cut off, out of options, with the news of her death about to explode in the media, Claire will assume Eva's identity, and along with it, the secrets Eva fought so hard to keep hidden.

The Last Flight is the story of two women � both alone, both scared � and one agonizing decision that will change thetrajectory of both of their lives.]]> 320 Julie Clark 1728215722 Pat 3 4.02 2020 The Last Flight
author: Julie Clark
name: Pat
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/06
date added: 2024/08/06
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]]> Cat’s Cradle 135479 Told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global destruction preys on our deepest fears of witnessing Armageddon and, worse still, surviving it ...

Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the founding 'fathers' of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to the world. For he's the inventor of 'ice-nine', a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. The search for its whereabouts leads to Hoenikker's three ecentric children, to a crazed dictator in the Caribbean, to madness. Felix Hoenikker's Death Wish comes true when his last, fatal gift to humankind brings about the end, that for all of us, is nigh...]]> 306 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Pat 4 4.17 1963 Cat’s Cradle
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Pat
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1963
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/31
date added: 2024/07/31
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]]> <![CDATA[How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America]]> 55643287 Poet and contributor to The Atlantic Clint Smith’s revealing, contemporary portrait of America as a slave owning nation

Beginning in his own hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader through an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks-those that are honest about the past and those that are not-that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history, and ourselves.

It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving over 400 people on the premises. It is the story of the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the experience of the enslaved people whose lives and work sustained it. It is the story of Angola Prison in Louisiana, a former plantation named for the country from which most of its enslaved people arrived and which has since become one of the most gruesome maximum-security prisons in the world. And it is the story of Blandford Cemetery, the final resting place of tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers.

In a deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our country's most essential stories are hidden in plain view-whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth, or entire neighborhoods—like downtown Manhattan—on which the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women and children has been deeply imprinted.

Informed by scholarship and brought alive by the story of people living today, Clint Smith’s debut work of nonfiction is a landmark work of reflection and insight that offers a new understanding of the hopeful role that memory and history can play in understanding our country.]]> 336 Clint Smith 0316492930 Pat 5 4.71 2021 How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
author: Clint Smith
name: Pat
average rating: 4.71
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/22
date added: 2024/07/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Travelers to Unimaginable Lands: Stories of Dementia, the Caregiver, and the Human Brain]]> 61065376
“This book will forever change the way we see people with dementia disorders—and the people who care for them.”—Lori Gottlieb, author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

Inspired by Dasha Kiper’s experience as a caregiver and counselor and informed by a breadth of cognitive and neurological research, Travelers to Unimaginable Lands dispels the myth of the perfect caregiver. In these compassionate, nonjudgmental stories of parents and children, husbands and wives, contending with dementia disorders, Kiper explores the existential dilemmas created by this a man believes his wife is an impostor; a woman’s imaginary friendships with famous authors drive a wedge between her and her devoted husband; another woman’s childhood trauma emerges to torment her son; a man’s sudden, intense Catholic piety provokes his wife.

Kiperexplains why the caregivers are maddened by these behaviors, mirroring their patients� irrationality, even though they’ve been told it’s the disease at work. By demystifying the neurological obstacles to caregiving, Kiper illuminates the terrible pressure dementia disorders exert on our closest relationships, offering caregivers the perspective they need to be gentler with themselves.]]> 272 Dasha Kiper 0399590536 Pat 0 to-read 4.17 Travelers to Unimaginable Lands: Stories of Dementia, the Caregiver, and the Human Brain
author: Dasha Kiper
name: Pat
average rating: 4.17
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rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Storm Is Here: An American Crucible]]> 59883591 The New Yorker's award-winning war correspondent returns to his own country to chronicle its accelerating civic breakdown, in an indelible eyewitness narrative of startling explanatory power

After years of living abroad and covering the Global War on Terrorism, Luke Mogelson went home in early 2020 to report on the social discord that the pandemic was bringing to the fore across the US. An assignment that began with right-wing militias in Michigan soon took him to an uprising for racial justice in Minneapolis, then to antifascist clashes in the streets of Portland, and ultimately to an attempted insurrection in Washington, D.C. His dispatches for The New Yorker revealed a larger story with ominous implications for America. They were only the beginning.

This is the definitive eyewitness account of how--during a season of sickness, economic uncertainty, and violence--a large segment of Americans became convinced of the need to battle against dark forces plotting to take their country away from them. It builds month by month, through vivid depictions of events on the ground, from the onset of COVID-19 to the attack on the US Capitol--during which Mogelson followed the mob into the Senate chamber--and its aftermath. Bravely reported and beautifully written, The Storm Is Here is both a unique record of a pivotal moment in American history and an urgent warning about those to come.]]> 368 Luke Mogelson 0593489217 Pat 4 4.27 2022 The Storm Is Here: An American Crucible
author: Luke Mogelson
name: Pat
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/14
date added: 2024/07/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Better Off Dead (Jack Reacher, #26)]]> 60278991 327 Lee Child 198481852X Pat 4 3.65 2021 Better Off Dead (Jack Reacher, #26)
author: Lee Child
name: Pat
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2021
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/07/04
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]]> This Tender Land 25813942
After committing a terrible crime, Odie and Albert are forced to flee for their lives along with their best friend, Mose, a mute young man of Sioux heritage. Out of pity, they also take with them a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy. Together, they steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi in search for a place to call home.

Over the course of one unforgettable summer, these four orphan vagabonds journey into the unknown, crossing paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. With the feel of a modern classic, This Tender Land is an en­thralling, bighearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole.]]> 450 William Kent Krueger 1476749299 Pat 5 4.35 2019 This Tender Land
author: William Kent Krueger
name: Pat
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/04
date added: 2024/07/04
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]]> Long Island Compromise 55777544 “Were we gangsters? No. But did we know how to start a fire?�

In 1980, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly the worse, and the family moves on with their lives, resuming their prized places in the saga of the American dream, comforted in the realization that though their money may have been what endangered them, it is also what assured them their safety.

But now, nearly forty years later, it’s clear that perhaps nobody ever got over anything, after all. Carl has spent the ensuing years secretly seeking closure to the matter of his kidnapping, while his wife, Ruth, has spent her potential protecting her husband’s emotional health. Their three grown children aren’t doing much better: Nathan’s chronic fear won’t allow him to advance at his law firm; Beamer, a Hollywood screenwriter, will consume anything—substance, foodstuff, women—in order to numb his own perpetual terror; and Jenny has spent her life so bent on proving that she’s not a product of her family’s pathology that she has come to define it. As they hover at the delicate precipice of a different kind of survival, they learn that the family fortune has dwindled to just about nothing, and they must face desperate questions about how much their wealth has played a part in both their lives� successes and failures.

Long Island Compromise spans the entirety of one family’s history, winding through decades and generations, all the way to the outrageous present, and confronting the mainstays of American Jewish life: tradition, the pursuit of success, the terror of history, fear of the future, old wives� tales, evil eyes, ambition, achievement, boredom, dybbuks, inheritance, pyramid schemes, right-wing capitalists, beta-blockers, psychics, and the mostly unspoken love and shared experience that unite a family forever.]]> 464 Taffy Brodesser-Akner 0593133498 Pat 0 to-read 3.72 2024 Long Island Compromise
author: Taffy Brodesser-Akner
name: Pat
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/04
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]]> The Heart in Winter 199795387 Award-winning writer Kevin Barry’s first novel set in America, a savagely funny and achingly romantic tale of young lovers on the lam in 1890s Montana.

October 1891. A hard winter approaches across the Rocky Mountains. The city of Butte, Montana is rich on copper mines and rampant with vice and debauchery among a hard-living crowd of immigrant Irish workers. Here we find Tom Rourke, a young poet and ballad-maker of the town, but also a doper, a drinker, and a fearsome degenerate. Just as he feels his life is heading nowhere fast, Polly Gillespie arrives in town as the new bride of the extremely devout mine captain Long Anthony Harrington. A thunderbolt love affair takes spark between Tom and Polly and they strike out west on a stolen horse, moving through the badlands of Montana and Idaho, and briefly an idyll of wild romance perfects itself. But a posse of deranged Cornish gunmen are soon in hot pursuit and closing in fast. With everything to lose and the safety and anonymity of San Francisco still a distant speck on their horizon, the choices they make will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

In this love story for the ages—lyrical, profane and propulsive—Kevin Barry has once again demonstrated himself to be a master stylist, an unrivalled humourist, and a true poet of the human heart.]]> 256 Kevin Barry 0385550596 Pat 0 to-read 3.80 2024 The Heart in Winter
author: Kevin Barry
name: Pat
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> The God of the Woods 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Pat 0 to-read 4.16 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Pat
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> Middle of the Night 199026522 In the latest jaw-dropping thriller from New York Times bestselling author Riley Sager, a man must contend with the long-ago disappearance of his childhood best friend—and the dark secrets lurking just beyond the safe confines of his picture-perfect neighborhood.

The worst thing to ever happen on Hemlock Circle occurred in Ethan Marsh’s backyard. One July night, ten-year-old Ethan and his best friend and neighbor, Billy, fell asleep in a tent set up on a manicured lawn in a quiet, quaint New Jersey cul de sac. In the morning, Ethan woke up alone. During the night, someone had sliced the tent open with a knife and taken Billy. He was never seen again.

Thirty years later, Ethan has reluctantly returned to his childhood home. Plagued by bad dreams and insomnia, he begins to notice strange things happening in the middle of the night. Someone seems to be roaming the cul de sac at odd hours, and signs of Billy’s presence keep appearing in Ethan’s backyard. Is someone playing a cruel prank? Or has Billy, long thought to be dead, somehow returned to Hemlock Circle?

The mysterious occurrences prompt Ethan to investigate what really happened that night, a quest that reunites him with former friends and neighbors and leads him into the woods that surround Hemlock Circle. Woods where Billy claimed monsters roamed and where a mysterious institute does clandestine research on a crumbling estate.

The closer Ethan gets to the truth, the more he realizes that no place—be it quiet forest or suburban street—is completely safe. And that the past has a way of haunting the present.]]> 367 Riley Sager 0593472373 Pat 0 to-read 3.66 2024 Middle of the Night
author: Riley Sager
name: Pat
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/28
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]]> <![CDATA[Skies of Thunder: The Deadly World War II Mission Over the Roof of the World]]> 196848579
In April 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army steamrolled through Burma, capturing the only ground route from India to China. Supplies to this critical zone would now have to come from India by air—meaning across the Himalayas, on the most hazardous air route in the world. SKIES OF THUNDER is a story of an epic human endeavor, in which Allied troops faced the monumental challenge of operating from airfields hacked from the jungle, and took on “the Hump,� the fearsome mountain barrier that defined the air route. They flew fickle, untested aircraft through monsoons and enemy fire, with inaccurate maps and only primitive navigation technology. The result was a litany of both deadly crashes and astonishing feats of survival. The most chaotic of all the war’s arenas, the China-Burma-India theater was further confused by the conflicting political interests of Roosevelt, Churchill and their demanding, nominal ally, Chiang Kai-shek.

Caroline Alexander, who wrote the defining books on Shackleton’s Endurance and Bligh's Bounty, is brilliant at probing what it takes to survive extreme circumstances. She has unearthed obscure memoirs and long-ignored records to give us the pilots� and soldiers� eye views of flying and combat, as well as honest portraits of commanders like the celebrated “Vinegar Joe� Stillwell and Claire Lee Chennault. She assesses the real contributions of units like the Flying Tigers, Merrill’s Marauders, and the British Chindits, who pioneered new and unconventional forms of warfare. Decisions in this theater exposed the fault-lines between the Allies—America and Britain, Britain and India, and ultimately and most fatefully between America and China, as FDR pressed to help the Chinese nationalists in order to forge a bond with China after the war.
A masterpiece of modern war history.]]> 496 Caroline Alexander 1984879235 Pat 0 to-read 3.80 Skies of Thunder: The Deadly World War II Mission Over the Roof of the World
author: Caroline Alexander
name: Pat
average rating: 3.80
book published:
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]]> Tell Me Who You Are 195790821 The Silent Patient meets Gone Girl in this sharp psychological thriller about a psychiatrist with a shocking past and her dangerous new patient.

Brooklyn psychiatrist Dr. Caroline Strange is certain she knows what's best for her patients, her family, and pretty much everyone else, but that all changes when a troubled young man arrives for his appointment and makes a pair of alarming confessions: I am going to kill someone, and I know who you really are.

Dr. Caroline is accustomed to hearing her patients� deepest, darkest secrets, but it seems Nelson Schack may be one step ahead when detectives show up later that day, inquiring about a missing woman. It looks like Nelson has made good on his threat—yet somehow it’s Dr. Caroline who becomes the prime suspect.

Convinced the police are incompetent, Dr. Caroline takes matters into her own hands, chasing down the elusive Nelson and running headlong into a past she has spent her entire life trying to forget. As she closes in on her target, all the polished pieces of her manicured life splinter when people begin to question who she really is.

Harrowing, unpredictable, and compulsively readable, award-winning author Louisa Luna’s Tell Me Who You Are is an utterly gripping psychological thriller that begs the question: Can a person ever really outrun their past?]]> 352 Louisa Luna 037461279X Pat 0 to-read 3.50 2024 Tell Me Who You Are
author: Louisa Luna
name: Pat
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/25
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]]> <![CDATA[The Three Death Sentences of Clarence Henderson: A Battle for Racial Justice at the Dawn of the Civil Rights Era]]> 56969546
Named a BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR . . . SO FAR by The New Yorker

The Three Death Sentences of Clarence Henderson is the true story of the wrongfully accused Black sharecropper and the Georgia prosecution desperate to pin the crime on him despite scant evidence. His first trial lasted only a day and featured a lackluster public defense. The book also tells the story of Homer Chase, a former World War II paratrooper and New England radical who was sent to the South by the Communist Party to recruit African Americans to the cause while offering them a chance at increased freedom. And it’s the story of Thurgood Marshall’s NAACP and their battle against not only entrenched racism but a Communist Party—despite facing nearly as much prejudice as those they were trying to help—intent on winning the hearts and minds of Black voters. The bitter battle between the two groups played out as the sides sparred over who would take the lead on Henderson’s defense, a period in which he spent years in prison away from a daughter he had never seen.

Through it all, The Three Death Sentences of Clarence Henderson is a portrait of a community and a country at a crossroads, trying to choose between the path it knows is right and the path of least resistance. The case pitted powerful forces—often those steering legal and journalistic institutions—attempting to use racism and Red-Scare tactics against a populace that by and large believed the case against Henderson was suspect at best. But ultimately, it’s a hopeful story about how even when things look dark, some small measure of justice can be achieved against all the odds, and actual progress is possible. It’s the rare book that is a timely read, yet still manages to shed an informative light on America’s past and future, as well as its present.]]> 352 Chris Joyner 1419756362 Pat 3 3.85 The Three Death Sentences of Clarence Henderson: A Battle for Racial Justice at the Dawn of the Civil Rights Era
author: Chris Joyner
name: Pat
average rating: 3.85
book published:
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/06/24
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]]> <![CDATA[The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective]]> 195430698 A riveting account of the anarchists who terrorized the streets of New York—and the detective duo who transformed policing to meet the threat—from the bestselling author of The Ghost Map

When Arthur Woods took command of the NYPD in April of 1914, the institution was still largely the corrupt, low-tech organization of the Tammany Hall era. To the extent the police were stopping crime—as opposed to committing it—their role had been almost entirely defined by physical the brawn of the cop on the beat keeping criminals at bay with nightsticks and fists. The solving of crimes was largely outside their purview.

Woods was determined to change that, but he couldn’t have anticipated the maelstrom of violence that would test his science-based approach to policing. Within weeks of his tenure, New York City was engulfed in the most concentrated terrorism campaign in the nation’s history, a five-year period of relentless bombings, many of them perpetrated by the anarchist movement led by the legendary radicals Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman.

Steven Johnson’s engrossing account of the struggle between the anarchist movement and the emerging surveillance state stretches around the world and back to the nineteenth century—to Alfred Nobel’s invention of dynamite, to the development of forensic science in France, and to the assassination of Czar Alexander II, an event that propelled Berkman and Goldman’s emigration from Russia to America and inspired their conviction that the nation state must be destroyed. As the forces of anarchy and policing clash in New York City, we meet Inspector Joseph Faurot, a science-first detective who works closely with Woods in reforming the police force; Hans Schmidt, the psychotic killer priest whose capture turns Faurot into a household name; and Amadeo Polignani, the young Italian undercover detective who infiltrates the notorious Bresci Circle.

Johnson reveals a mostly forgotten period of political conviction, scientific discovery, assassination plots, bombings, undercover operations, and innovative sleuthing. The Infernal Machine is the complex pre-history of our current moment, when decentralized anarchist networks have once again taken to the streets to protest law enforcement abuses, right-wing militia groups have attacked government buildings, and surveillance is almost ubiquitous.]]> 368 Steven Johnson 0593443950 Pat 0 to-read 3.97 2024 The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective
author: Steven Johnson
name: Pat
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/23
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]]> <![CDATA[A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon]]> 199798198
The Grand Canyon is an American treasure, visited by more than 6 million people a year, many of whom are rendered speechless by its vast beauty, mystery, and complexity. Now, in A Walk in the Park , author Kevin Fedarko chronicles his year-long effort to find a 750-mile path along the length of the Grand Canyon, through a vertical wilderness suspended between the caprock along the rims of the abyss and the Colorado River, which flows along its bottom.

Consisting of countless cliffs and steep drops, plus immense stretches with almost no access to water, and the fact that not a single trail links its eastern doorway to its western terminus, this jewel of national parks is so challenging that when Fedarko departed fewer people had completed the journey in one single hike than had walked on the moon. The intensity of the effort required him to break his trip into several legs, each of which held staggering dangers and unexpected discoveries.

Accompanying Fedarko through this sublime yet perilous terrain is the award-winning photographer Peter McBride, who captures the stunning landscape in breathtaking photos. Together, they encounter long-lost Native American ruins, the remains of Old West prospectors� camps, present day tribal activists, and signs that commercial tourism is impinging on the park’s remote wildness.

An epic adventure, action-packed survival tale, and a deep spiritual journey, A Walk in the Park gives us an unprecedented glimpse of the crown jewel of America’s National an iconic landscape framed by ancient rock whose contours are recognized by all, but whose secrets and treasures are known to almost no one, and whose topography encompasses some of the harshest, least explored, most awe-inspiring terrain in the world.]]> 512 Kevin Fedarko 1501183052 Pat 0 to-read 4.22 2024 A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
author: Kevin Fedarko
name: Pat
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Fat Leonard: How One Man Bribed, Bilked, and Seduced the U.S. Navy]]> 199798167
All the admirals in the US Navy knew Leonard Glenn Francis—either personally or by his legendary reputation. He was the larger-than-life defense contractor who greeted them on the pier whenever they visited ports in Asia, ready to show them a good time after weeks at sea while his company resupplied their ships and submarines. He was famed throughout the fleet for the gluttonous parties he hosted for Navy; $1,000-per-person dinners at Asia’s swankiest restaurants, featuring unlimited Dom Perignon, Cuban cigars, and sexy young women.

On the surface, with his flawless American accent, he seemed like a true friend of the Navy. What the admirals didn't realize, until far too late, was that Francis had seduced them by exploiting their entitlement and hubris. While he was bribing them with gifts, lavish meals, and booze-fueled orgies, he was making himself obscenely wealthy by bilking American taxpayers. Worse, he was stealing military secrets from under the admirals' noses and compromising national security.

Based on reams of confidential documents—including the blackmail files that Francis kept on scores of Navy officers� Fat Leonard is the full, unvarnished story of a world-class con man and a captivating, jaw-dropping testament to the corrosive influence of greed within the most hallowed corridors of the American military.]]> 480 Craig Whitlock 1982131632 Pat 0 to-read 4.28 2024 Fat Leonard: How One Man Bribed, Bilked, and Seduced the U.S. Navy
author: Craig Whitlock
name: Pat
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/17
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]]> Beartown (Beartown, #1) 33413128
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.]]> 432 Fredrik Backman Pat 4 4.27 2016 Beartown (Beartown, #1)
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Pat
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/16
date added: 2024/06/16
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]]> <![CDATA[The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook]]> 191746386
On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution . Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment?

Hampton Sides� bravura account of Cook’s last journey both wrestles with Cook’s legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration in the 1700s. Cook was renowned for his peerless seamanship, his humane leadership, and his dedication to science-–the famed naturalist Joseph Banks accompanied him on his first voyage, and Cook has been called one of the most important figures of the Age of Enlightenment. He was also deeply interested in the native people he encountered. In fact, his stated mission was to return a Tahitian man, Mai, who had become the toast of London, to his home islands. On previous expeditions, Cook mapped huge swaths of the Pacific, including the east coast of Australia, and initiated first European contact with numerous peoples. He treated his crew well, and endeavored to learn about the societies he encountered with curiosity and without judgment.

Yet something was different on this last voyage. Cook became mercurial, resorting to the lash to enforce discipline, and led his two vessels into danger time and again. Uncharacteristically, he ordered violent retaliation for perceived theft on the part of native peoples. This may have had something to do with his secret orders, which were to chart and claim lands before Britain’s imperial rivals could, and to discover the fabled Northwest Passage. Whatever Cook’s intentions, his scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword, and the ultimate effects of first contact were catastrophic for Indigenous people around the world. The tensions between Cook’s overt and covert missions came to a head on the shores of Hawaii. His first landing there was harmonious, but when Cook returned after mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, his exploitative treatment of the Hawaiians led to the fatal encounter.

At once a ferociously-paced story of adventure on the high seas and a searching examination of the complexities and consequences of the Age of Exploration, THE WIDE WIDE SEA is a major work from one of our finest narrative nonfiction writers.]]> 408 Hampton Sides 0385544766 Pat 5 4.47 2024 The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook
author: Hampton Sides
name: Pat
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/09
date added: 2024/06/09
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]]> You Like It Darker 201242757 From legendary storyteller and master of short fiction Stephen King comes an extraordinary new collection of twelve short stories, many never-before-published, and some of his best EVER.

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

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

King’s ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace remains unsurpassed. Each of these stories holds its own thrills, joys, and mysteries; each feels iconic. You like it darker? You got it.]]> 512 Stephen King 1668037718 Pat 0 to-read 4.16 2024 You Like It Darker
author: Stephen King
name: Pat
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story]]> 57717410 The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story offers a revealing vision of the American past and present.

In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country’s original sin, but it is more than that: It is the source of so much that still defines the United States.

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story builds on The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning �1619 Project,� which reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This book substantially expands on the original "1619 Project, "weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself. This legacy can be seen in the way we tell stories, the way we teach our children, and the way we remember. Together, the elements of the book reveal a new origin story for the United States, one that helps explain not only the persistence of anti-Black racism and inequality in American life today, but also the roots of what makes the country unique.

The book also features an elaboration of the original project’s Pulitzer Prize–winning lead essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones on how the struggles of Black Americans have expanded democracy for all Americans, as well as two original pieces from Hannah-Jones, one of which makes a case for reparative solutions to this legacy of injustice.]]> 590 Nikole Hannah-Jones 0593230574 Pat 0 to-read 4.61 2019 The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story
author: Nikole Hannah-Jones
name: Pat
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/31
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]]> <![CDATA[What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds]]> 63024269
From the author of The Genius of Birds and The Bird Way, a brilliant scientific investigation into owls—the most elusive of birds—and why they exert such a hold on human imagination

For millennia, owls have captivated and intrigued us. Our fascination with these mysterious birds was first documented more than thirty thousand years ago in the Chauvet Cave paintings in southern France. With their forward gaze and quiet flight, owls are often a symbol of wisdom, knowledge, and foresight. But what does an owl really know? And what do we really know about owls? Though our fascination goes back centuries, scientists have only recently begun to understand in deep detail the complex nature of these extraordinary birds. Some two hundred sixty species of owls exist today, and they reside on every continent except Antarctica, but they are far more difficult to find and study than other birds because they are cryptic, camouflaged, and mostly active in the dark of night.

Jennifer Ackerman illuminates the rich biology and natural history of these birds and reveals remarkable new scientific discoveries about their brains and behavior. She joins scientists in the field and explores how researchers are using modern technology and tools to learn how owls communicate, hunt, court, mate, raise their young, and move about from season to season. We now know that the hoots, squawks, and chitters of owls follow sophisticated and complex rules, allowing them to express not just their needs and desires but their individuality and identity. Owls duet. They migrate. They hoard their prey. Some live in underground burrows; some roost in large groups; some dine on black widows and scorpions.

Ackerman brings this research alive with her own personal field observations about owls and dives deep into why these birds beguile us. What an Owl Knows is an awe-inspiring exploration of owls across the globe and through human history, and a spellbinding account of their astonishing hunting skills, communication, and sensory prowess. By providing extraordinary new insights into the science of owls, What an Owl Knows pulls back the curtain on the nature of the world’s most enigmatic group of birds.]]> 333 Jennifer Ackerman 0593298888 Pat 0 to-read 4.15 2023 What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds
author: Jennifer Ackerman
name: Pat
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/31
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]]> Horror Movie 200101541 A chilling twist on the “cursed film� genre from the bestselling author ofThe Pallbearers Club andThe Cabin at the End of the World.

In June 1993, a group of young guerilla filmmakers spent four weeks making Horror Movie, a notorious, disturbing, art-house horror flick.

The weird part?Only three of the film’s scenes were ever released to the public, but Horror Movie has nevertheless grown a rabid fanbase. Three decades later, Hollywood is pushing for a big budget reboot.

The man who played “The Thin Kid� is the only surviving cast member. He remembers all too well the secrets buried within the original screenplay, the bizarre events of the filming, and the dangerous crossed lines on set that resulted in tragedy. As memories flood back in, the boundaries between reality and film, past and present start to blur. But he’s going to help remake the film, even if it means navigating a world of cynical producers, egomaniacal directors, and surreal fan conventions � demons of the past be damned.

But at what cost?

Horror Movie is an obsessive, psychologically chilling, and suspenseful twist on the “cursed film� that breathlessly builds to an unforgettable, mind-bending conclusion.]]> 277 Paul Tremblay 0063070014 Pat 0 to-read 3.31 2024 Horror Movie
author: Paul Tremblay
name: Pat
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> The Institute 43798285
In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. There are no scruples here. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. If you don’t, punishment is brutal. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute.

As psychically terrifying as Firestarter, and with the spectacular kid power of It, The Institute is Stephen King's gut-wrenchingly dramatic story of good versus evil in a world where the good guys don't always win.
--front flap]]> 561 Stephen King Pat 5 4.17 2019 The Institute
author: Stephen King
name: Pat
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/28
date added: 2024/05/28
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]]> <![CDATA[God Save The Child (Spenser, #2)]]> 69652 205 Robert B. Parker 0440128994 Pat 3 3.89 1974 God Save The Child (Spenser, #2)
author: Robert B. Parker
name: Pat
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1974
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/26
date added: 2024/05/26
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]]> Holly 65916344 Holly Gibney, one of Stephen King’s most compelling and ingeniously resourceful characters, returns in this thrilling novel to solve the gruesome truth behind multiple disappearances in a midwestern town.

“Sometimes the universe throws you a rope.� � BILL HODGES

Stephen King’s Holly marks the triumphant return of beloved King character Holly Gibney. Readers have witnessed Holly’s gradual transformation from a shy (but also brave and ethical) recluse in Mr. Mercedes to Bill Hodges’s partner in Finders Keepers to a full-fledged, smart, and occasionally tough private detective in The Outsider. In King’s new novel, Holly is on her own, and up against a pair of unimaginably depraved and brilliantly disguised adversaries.

When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.

Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.

Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King.]]> 449 Stephen King 1668016133 Pat 4 4.01 2023 Holly
author: Stephen King
name: Pat
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/22
date added: 2024/05/22
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]]> One Perfect Couple 199798953 Harkening to Agatha Christie’s classic And Then There Were None, this high-tension and ingenious thriller follows five couples trapped on a storm-swept island as a killer stalks among them.

Lyla is in a bit of a rut. Her post-doctoral research has fizzled out, she’s pretty sure they won’t extend her contract, and things with her boyfriend, Nico, an aspiring actor, aren’t going great. When the opportunity arises for Nico to join the cast of a new reality TV show, The Perfect Couple, she decides to try out with him. A whirlwind audition process later, Lyla find herself whisked off to a tropical paradise with Nico, boating through the Indian Ocean towards Ever After Island, where the two of them will compete against four other couples—Bayer and Angel, Dan and Santana, Joel and Romi, and Conor and Zana—in order to win a cash prize.

But not long after they arrive on the deserted island, things start to go wrong. After the first challenge leaves everyone rattled and angry, an overnight storm takes matters from bad to worse. Cut off from the mainland by miles of ocean, deprived of their phones, and unable to contact the crew that brought them there, the group must band together for survival. As tensions run high and fresh water runs low, Lyla finds that this game show is all too real—and the stakes are life or death.

A fast-paced, spellbinding thriller rife with intrigue and characters that feel so true to life, this novel proves yet again that Ruth Ware is the queen of psychological suspense.]]> 385 Ruth Ware 1668025590 Pat 0 to-read 3.60 2024 One Perfect Couple
author: Ruth Ware
name: Pat
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/21
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]]> <![CDATA[The Shortest History of Israel and Palestine: From Zionism to Intifadas and the Struggle for Peace (The Shortest History Series)]]> 60831870
The ongoing struggle between Israel and Palestine is one of the most bitter conflicts in history, with profound global consequences. In this book, Middle East expert Michael Scott-Baumann succinctly describes its origins and charts its evolution from civil war to the present day. Each chapter offers a lucid explanation of the politics and ends with personal testimony from Palestinians and Israelis whose lives have been impacted by the dispute. While presenting competing interpretations, Scott-Baumann examines the key flash points, including the early role of the British, the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the Six-Day War of 1967, and the Trump administration’s peace plan, pitched as “the deal of the century,� in 2020. He delineates both the nature of Israeli control over the Palestinian territories and Palestinian resistance—going to the heart of the clashes in recent decades. The result is an indispensable history, including a time line, glossary, and analysis of why efforts to restore peace have continually failed and what it will take to succeed.]]> 288 Michael Scott-Baumann 1615199500 Pat 0 to-read 4.10 2023 The Shortest History of Israel and Palestine: From Zionism to Intifadas and the Struggle for Peace (The Shortest History Series)
author: Michael Scott-Baumann
name: Pat
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/12
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It]]> 53330118
LONGLISTED FOR THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD � “A masterpiece.”—Angela Duckworth, bestselling author of Grit � Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Adam Grant, and Daniel H. Pink’s Next Big Idea Club Winter 2021 Winning Selection

One of the best new books of the year—The Washington Post, BBC, USA Today, CNN Underscored, Shape, Behavioral Scientist, PopSugar � Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and Shelf Awareness starred reviews

Is talking to yourself normal? The truth is that we all have a voice in our head. When we talk to ourselves, we often hope to tap into our inner coach but find our inner critic instead. When we’re facing a tough task, our inner coach can buoy us up: Focus—you can do this. But, just as often, our inner critic sinks us entirely: I’m going to fail. They’ll all laugh at me. What’s the use?

In Chatter, acclaimed psychologist Ethan Kross explores the silent conversations we have with ourselves. Interweaving groundbreaking behavioral and brain research from his own lab with real-world case studies—from a pitcher who forgets how to pitch, to a Harvard undergrad negotiating her double life as a spy—Kross explains how these conversations shape our lives, work, and relationships. He warns that giving in to negative and disorienting self-talk—what he calls “chatter”—can tank our health, sink our moods, strain our social connections, and cause us to fold under pressure.

But the good news is that we’re already equipped with the tools we need to make our inner voice work in our favor. These tools are often hidden in plain sight—in the words we use to think about ourselves, the technologies we embrace, the diaries we keep in our drawers, the conversations we have with our loved ones, and the cultures we create in our schools and workplaces.

Brilliantly argued, expertly researched, and filled with compelling stories, Chatter gives us the power to change the most important conversation we have each day: the one we have with ourselves.]]> 272 Ethan Kross 0525575235 Pat 3 3.94 2021 Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It
author: Ethan Kross
name: Pat
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/06
date added: 2024/05/06
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]]> The Age of Grievance 176443156
The twists and turns of American politics today have become nearly impossible to predict, but the tone is a troubling given. It’s one of grievance. A perilous share of Americans across the full breadth of the political spectrum respond to every big disappointment, every little frustration, every way in which the world doesn’t hew precisely to their liking by deciding that they’ve been wronged, identifying the people responsible for that and raging at the injustice of it all. The blame game is the country’s most popular sport and victimhood its most fashionable garb.

Grievance isn’t always and necessarily bad. It has often done enormous good. The United States is a nation born of grievance, in the revolt of royal subjects unwilling to accept a bad deal, and across the nearly 250 years of our existence as a country, grievance has been the engine of morally urgent change. But what happens when all sorts of grievances—the greater ones, the lesser ones, the authentic, the invented—are jumbled together? When grievances become all-encompassing lenses, all-purpose reflexes, default settings? When people take their grievances to extreme and even violent lengths that they didn’t before?

A violent mob storms the US Capitol, rejecting the results of a presidential election and embracing the fiction that it was rigged. Conspiracy theories flourish. Politicians appeal not to our better angels but to our worst impulses, encouraging selfishness instead of selflessness, trading inspiration for retribution. Fox News, the country’s most watched cable news network, and Tucker Carlson, its sneering star, knowingly peddle lies in the service of profit. The Supreme Court loses touch with the country, overturning Roe v. Wade and shrugging off Clarence Thomas’s transgressions. College students chase away speakers and college administrators dismiss instructors for dissenting from progressive orthodoxy. Will Smith slaps Chris Rock. And there’s a potentially devastating erosion of the civility, common ground and compromise necessary for our democracy to survive.

How did we get here? What does it say about us, and where does it leave us? Timely, important, and enlightening, The Age of Grievance examines these critical questions and charts a path forward for a nation that may be growing tired of outrage.]]> 288 Frank Bruni 1668016435 Pat 0 to-read 4.07 2024 The Age of Grievance
author: Frank Bruni
name: Pat
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/30
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]]> <![CDATA[The Collectors (The Camel Club, #2)]]> 15154
The assassination of the U.S. Speaker of the House has shaken the nation. And the outrageous iconoclasts of the club have found a chilling connection with another death: the demise of the director of the Library of Congress's rare books room.

The man who calls himself Oliver Stone is the group's unofficial leader. Staying one step ahead of his violent past and headquartered in a caretaker's cottage in Mt. Zion Cemetery, Stone draws on his vast experience and acute deductive powers to discover that someone is selling America to its enemies one classified secret at a time. When Annabelle Conroy, the greatest con artist of her generation, struts onto the scene in high-heeled boots, the Camel Club gets a sexy new edge.

It's all yours to enjoy as David Baldacci weaves a white-knuckle tale of suspense in which every collector is searching for one missing prize: the one to die for.

Librarian's note: there are five novels and a short story in the author's Camel Club series. They are: #1. The Camel Club (2005), #2. The Collectors (2006), #3. Stone Cold (2007), #4. Divine Justice (2008), and #5. Hell's Corner (2010). The short story is #6. Bullseye (2014), a Will Robie / The Camel Club Short Story.]]> 438 David Baldacci 044653109X Pat 2 4.03 2006 The Collectors (The Camel Club, #2)
author: David Baldacci
name: Pat
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2006
rating: 2
read at: 2024/04/27
date added: 2024/04/27
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]]> The Dead Zone 11573 The Dead Zone.

Johnny Smith, the small-town schoolteacher who spun the wheel of fortune and won a four-and-a-half-year trip into The Dead Zone.

John Smith, who awakened from an interminable coma with an accursed power—the power to see the future and the terrible fate awaiting mankind in The Dead Zone.

~]]> 402 Stephen King 0451155750 Pat 3 3.96 1979 The Dead Zone
author: Stephen King
name: Pat
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1979
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/14
date added: 2024/04/14
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]]> Empire Falls 187020
Miles Roby has been slinging burgers at the Empire Grill for 20 years, a job that cost him his college education and much of his self-respect. What keeps him there? It could be his bright, sensitive daughter Tick, who needs all his help surviving the local high school. Or maybe it’s Janine, Miles� soon-to-be ex-wife, who’s taken up with a noxiously vain health-club proprietor. Or perhaps it’s the imperious Francine Whiting, who owns everything in town–and seems to believe that “everything� includes Miles himself. In Empire Falls Richard Russo delves deep into the blue-collar heart of America in a work that overflows with hilarity, heartache, and grace]]> 483 Richard Russo 0375726403 Pat 4 3.93 2001 Empire Falls
author: Richard Russo
name: Pat
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/08
date added: 2024/04/08
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]]> Fairy Tale 60177373 Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes deep into the well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for their world or ours.

Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was ten, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. Then, when Charlie is seventeen, he meets Howard Bowditch, a recluse with a big dog in a big house at the top of a big hill. In the backyard is a locked shed from which strange sounds emerge, as if some creature is trying to escape. When Mr. Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie the house, a massive amount of gold, a cassette tape telling a story that is impossible to believe, and a responsibility far too massive for a boy to shoulder.

Because within the shed is a portal to another world—one whose denizens are in peril and whose monstrous leaders may destroy their own world, and ours. In this parallel universe, where two moons race across the sky, and the grand towers of a sprawling palace pierce the clouds, there are exiled princesses and princes who suffer horrific punishments; there are dungeons; there are games in which men and women must fight each other to the death for the amusement of the “Fair One.� And there is a magic sundial that can turn back time.

A story as old as myth, and as startling and iconic as the rest of King’s work, Fairy Tale is about an ordinary guy forced into the hero’s role by circumstance, and it is both spectacularly suspenseful and satisfying.]]> 607 Stephen King 1668002175 Pat 3 4.05 2022 Fairy Tale
author: Stephen King
name: Pat
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/30
date added: 2024/03/30
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]]> <![CDATA[The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels]]> 177185884
For centuries, people who died destitute or alone were buried in potter’s fields—a Dickensian end that even the most hard-pressed families tried to avoid. Today, more and more relatives are abandoning their dead, leaving it to local governments to dispose of the bodies. Up to 150,000 Americans now go unclaimed each year. Who are they? Why are they being forgotten? And what is the meaning of life if your death doesn’t matter to others?

In this extraordinary work of narrative nonfiction, eight years in the making, sociologists Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans uncover a hidden social world. They follow four individuals in Los Angeles, tracing the twisting, poignant paths that put each at risk of going unclaimed, and introducing us to the scene investigators, notification officers, and crematorium workers who care for them when no one else will.

The Unclaimed lays bare the difficult truth that anyone can be abandoned. It forces us to confront a variety of social ills, from the fracturing of families and the loneliness of cities to the toll of rising inequality. But it is also filled with unexpected moments of tenderness. In Boyle Heights, a Mexican American neighborhood not far from the glitter of Hollywood, hundreds of strangers come together each year to mourn the deaths of people they never knew. These ceremonies, springing up across the country, reaffirm our shared humanity and help mend our frayed social fabric.

Beautifully crafted and profoundly empathetic, The Unclaimed urges us to expand our circle of caring—in death and in life.]]> 336 Pamela Prickett 0593239059 Pat 0 to-read 4.02 2024 The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels
author: Pamela Prickett
name: Pat
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power]]> 181346414
In the summer of 1932, the Weimar Republic was on the verge of collapse. One in three Germans was unemployed. Violence was rampant. Hitler’s National Socialists surged at the polls. Paul von Hindenburg, an aging war hero and avowed monarchist, was a reluctant president bound by oath to uphold the constitution. The November elections offered Hitler the prospect of a Reichstag majority and the path to political power. But instead, the Nazis lost two million votes. As membership hemorrhaged and financial backers withdrew, the Nazi Party threatened to fracture. Hitler talked of suicide. The New York Times declared he was finished. Yet somehow, in a few brief weeks, he was chancellor of Germany.

In facinating detail and with previously un-accessed archival materials, Timothy W. Ryback tells the remarkable story of Hitler’s dismantling of democracy through democratic process. He provides fresh perspective and insights into Hitler’s personal and professional lives in these months, in all their complexity and uncertainty—backroom deals, unlikely alliances, stunning betrayals, an ill-timed tax audit, and a fateful weekend that changed our world forever. Above all, Ryback details why a wearied Hindenburg, who disdained the “Bohemian corporal,� ultimately decided to appoint Hitler chancellor in January 1933. Within weeks, Germany was no longer a democracy.]]> 400 Timothy W. Ryback 0593537424 Pat 0 to-read 4.06 Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power
author: Timothy W. Ryback
name: Pat
average rating: 4.06
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rating: 0
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]]> Wild Houses 128714412 A darkly funny and deeply moving debut novel about crimes of desperation, dreams abandoned, and small-town secrets that won’t stay buried

As Ballina in the west of Ireland prepares for its biggest weekend of the year, the simmering feud between small-time dealer Cillian English and County Mayo's fraternal enforcers, Gabe and Sketch Ferdia, spills over into violence and an ugly ultimatum. When the reclusive Dev answers his door on Friday night, he finds Doll—Cillian's bruised, sullen, teenage brother—in the clutches of Gabe and Sketch. Jostled by his nefarious cousins, goaded by his dead mother's dog, and struck by spinning lights, Dev is unwillingly drawn headlong into the Ferdias' revenge fantasy.

Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Nicky can't shake the feeling that something bad has happened to her boyfriend Doll. Hungover, reeling from a fractious Friday night, and plagued by ghosts of her own, Nicky sets out on a feverish mission to save Doll, even as she questions her future in Ballina.]]> 272 Colin Barrett 0802160948 Pat 0 to-read 3.68 2024 Wild Houses
author: Colin Barrett
name: Pat
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/22
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]]> <![CDATA[What Looks Like Bravery: An Epic Journey Through Loss to Love]]> 61272707 A true story about the ways loss can transform us into the people we want to become.
“What Looks Like Bravery is a gorgeous, tender, and beautiful book. I'm in tears with the happy-sad truth and beauty of it. Laurel is a magnificent writer.� —Cheryl Strayed, New York Times bestselling author of Wild
Laurel Braitman spent her childhood learning from her dad how to out-fish grown men, keep bees, and fix carburetors. Diagnosed young with terminal cancer, he raced against the clock to leave her the skills she’d need to survive without him. This was one legacy. Another was relentless perfectionism and the belief that bravery meant never acknowledging your own fear.
By her mid-thirties Laurel is a ship about to splinter on the rocks, having learned the hard way that no achievement can protect her from pain or remove the guilt and regret her dad’s death leaves her with. So, she determines to explore her troubled internal wilderness by way of some big exterior ones—Northern New Mexico, Western Alaska, her Tinder App. She finds help from a wise birder in the Bering Sea, a few dozen grieving kids, and a succession of smart teachers who convince her that you cannot be brave if you’re not scared. Along the way, she faces a wildfire that threatens everyone and everything she cares about and is forced by life to say another wrenching goodbye long before she wants to. This time she may not be ready, but she’s prepared. Joy in the wake of loss, she learns, isn’t possible despite the hardest things that happen to us, but because of the meaning we forge from them.]]> 288 Laurel Braitman 1501158503 Pat 0 to-read 4.41 What Looks Like Bravery: An Epic Journey Through Loss to Love
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]]> <![CDATA[Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier]]> 62313346
“One hundred years from now, when so much of the nonsense of our age is forgotten, people will still remember Kevin Kelly and his wisdom.”—Seth Godin

“All will benefit from [Kelly's] idiosyncratic wit and wry humor.”� People

Wise, practical, optimistic life advice from author and leading technology thinker Kevin Kelly

Onhis 68thbirthday, Kevin Kelly began to write down for his young adult children somethings he had learned about life that he wished hehad known earlier. To his surprise, Kelly had more to say than he thought, and kept adding to the advice over the years, compiling a life’s wisdom into these pages.

Kelly’s timeless advice covers an astonishing range, from right living to setting ambitious goals, optimizing generosity, and cultivating compassion. He has wisdom for career, relationships, parenting, andfinances, and gives guidance for practicalmatters ranging from travel to troubleshooting.

Excellent Advice for Living is aimed primarily at young people, but speaks to all ages. This is the ideal companion for anyone seeking to navigate life with grace and creativity.]]> 224 Kevin Kelly 0593654528 Pat 0 to-read 4.14 Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier
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]]> <![CDATA[Remembering Peasants: A Personal History of a Vanished World]]> 176443594
“What the skeleton is to anatomy, the peasant is to history, its essential hidden support.� For over the past century and a half, and still more rapidly in the last seventy years, the world has become increasingly urban, and the peasant way of life—the dominant way of life for humanity since agriculture began well over 6,000 years ago—is disappearing. In this new history of peasantry, social historian Patrick Joyce aims to tell the story of this lost world and its people, and how we can commemorate their way of life. In one sense, this is a global history, ambitious in scope, taking us from the urbanization of the early 19th century to the present day. But more specifically, Joyce’s focus is the demise of the European peasantry and of their rites, traditions, and beliefs.

Alongside this he brings in stories of individuals as well as places, including his own family, and looks at how peasants and their ways of life have been memorialized in photographs, literature, and in museums. Joyce explores a people whose voice is vastly underrepresented in human history and is usually mediated through others. And now peasants are vanishing in one of the greatest historical transformations of our time.

Written with the skill and authority of a great historian, Remembering Peasants is a landmark work, a richly complex and passionate history written with exquisite care. It is also deeply resonant, as Joyce shines a light on people whose knowledge of the land is being irretrievably lost during our critical time of climate crisis and the rise of industrial agriculture. Enlightening, timely, and vitally important, this book commemorates an extraordinary culture whose impact on history—and the future—remains profoundly relevant.]]> 400 Patrick Joyce 1668031086 Pat 0 to-read 3.60 Remembering Peasants: A Personal History of a Vanished World
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]]> <![CDATA[2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed]]> 154462772
For the acclaimed sociologist Eric Klinenberg, �2020� refers to both a pivotal year in world history and the opportunity it created for seeing ourselves more clearly. The Covid-19 pandemic did not distort reality; instead, it revealed and accentuated dividing lines that have long splintered societies around the world, and proved especially destructive in the United States. Against the backdrop of a high-stakes presidential election, a surge of misinformation, rising distrust, and raging protests, 2020 is a piercing account of how the U.S. and other nations handled the extraordinary challenges of that seminal year.

Klinenberg digs deep into the social life of the pandemic to show how factors beyond the virus and the body determined who lived, who died, who fell behind, and who flourished. At the heart of this book are seven vivid profiles of ordinary people - including an elementary school principal, a bar manager, a subway custodian, and a local political aide � whose stories show how Americans, and communities across the globe, reckoned with 2020, from the tragedies and losses to the mutual aid networks and social movements that hinted at a better world to come. We move from the epicenter in New York City to epidemiological fights in Wuhan and Beijing. We see how leaders in London and Washington D.C. made the crisis so much more lethal than was necessary, and how scientists, citizens, and policy makers in Australia, Japan, and Taiwan worked together to save lives.

According to Klinenberg, what we learn from the crisis of 2020 will help shape our responses to the emerging challenges of the 21st-century -- not only future pandemics but also the escalating climate emergency, the ongoing threats to racial justice, and global economic disparities.This book is both mirror and roadmap—a reflection of who we are at this crucial moment in world history, and a set of principles for how we might approach the next catastrophe differently.]]> 464 Eric Klinenberg 0593319486 Pat 0 to-read 3.88 2024 2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed
author: Eric Klinenberg
name: Pat
average rating: 3.88
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]]> <![CDATA[Real Happiness: A 28-Day Program to Realize the Power of Meditation]]> 49913579 A New York Timesbest seller—now revised and updated with new exercises and guided meditations.

“An inviting gateway to the interior territory of profound well-being and wisdom.”—Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Wherever You Go, There You Are

From Sharon Salzberg, a pioneer in the field of meditation and world-renowned teacher acclaimed for her down-to-earth style, Real Happiness is a complete guide to starting and maintaining a meditation practice. Beginning with the simplest breathing and sitting techniques, and based on three key skills—concentration, mindfulness, and lovingkindness—it’s a practice anyone can do and that can transform our lives by bringing us greater resiliency, creativity, peace, clarity, and balance.

This updated 10th anniversary edition includes exercises, journal prompts, and ten guided meditations available for download online and through scannable QR codes.]]> 240 Sharon Salzberg 1523510129 Pat 4 3.86 2011 Real Happiness: A 28-Day Program to Realize the Power of Meditation
author: Sharon Salzberg
name: Pat
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2011
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone (Ernest Cunningham, #1)]]> 60879779
I'm Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I'd killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it's a little more complicated than that.

Have I killed someone? Yes. I have.

Who was it?

Let's get started.

EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE

My brother

My stepsister

My wife

My father

My mother

My sister-in-law

My uncle

My stepfather

My aunt

Me]]> 371 Benjamin Stevenson 0063279029 Pat 3 3.75 2022 Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone (Ernest Cunningham, #1)
author: Benjamin Stevenson
name: Pat
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/18
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]]> North Woods 71872930
When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become home to an extraordinary succession of inhabitants . An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins survive war and famine, only to succumb to envy and desire.A crime reporter unearths a mass grave, but finds the ancient trees refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a conman, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle; as each one confronts the mysteries of the north woods, they come to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.

Traversing cycles of history, nature, and even literature, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we’re connected to our environment and to one another, across time, language and space. Written along with the seasons and divided into the twelve months of the year, it is an unforgettable novel about secrets and fates that asks the timeless how do we live on, even after we’re gone?]]> 372 Daniel Mason 0593597036 Pat 4 4.12 2023 North Woods
author: Daniel Mason
name: Pat
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/08
date added: 2024/02/08
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]]> <![CDATA[The Irish Assassins: Conspiracy, Revenge and the Phoenix Park Murders that Stunned Victorian England]]> 55836524 A brilliant work of historical true crime charting a pivotal event in the l9th century, the Phoenix Park murders in Dublin, that gripped the world and forever altered the course of Irish history, from renowned journalist, former New Yorker London editor, and Costa Biography Award finalist Julie Kavanagh.

One sunlit evening, May 6 l882, Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Burke, Chief Secretary and Undersecretary for Ireland, were ambushed and stabbed to death while strolling through Phoenix Park in Dublin. The murders were funded by American supporters of Irish independence and carried out by the Invincibles, a militant faction of republicans armed with specially-made surgeon's blades. They ended what should have been a turning point in Anglo Irish relations. A new spirit of goodwill had been burgeoning between British Prime Minister William Gladstone and Ireland's leader Charles Stewart Parnell, with both men forging in secret a pact to achieve peace and independence in Ireland--with the newly appointed Cavendish, Gladstone's protégé, to play an instrumental role in helping to do so. The impact of the Phoenix Park murders was so cataclysmic that it destroyed the pact, almost brought down the government, and set in motion repercussions that would last long into the 20th century.

In a story that spans Donegal, Dublin, London, Paris, New York, Cannes and Cape Town, Julie Kavanagh thrillingly traces the crucial events that came before and after the murders. From the adulterous affair that caused Parnell's downfall; to Queen Victoria's prurient obsession with the assassinations; and the investigation spearheaded by Superintendent John Mallon, also known as the "Irish Sherlock Holmes," culminating in the eventual betrayal and clandestine escape of leading Invincible James Carey and his murder on the high seas, The Irish Assassins brings us intimately into this fascinating story that shaped Irish politics and engulfed an Empire. This is an unputdownable book from one of our most "compulsively readable" (Guardian) writers.]]> 416 Julie Kavanagh 0802149367 Pat 3 3.65 2021 The Irish Assassins: Conspiracy, Revenge and the Phoenix Park Murders that Stunned Victorian England
author: Julie Kavanagh
name: Pat
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2021
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis]]> 145624514
Everyone who makes the journey faces an impossible choice. Hundreds of thousands of people who arrive every year at the US-Mexico border travel far from their homes. An overwhelming share of them come from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, although many migrants come from farther away. Some are fleeing persecution, others crime or hunger. Very often it will not be their first attempt to cross. They may have already been deported from the United States, but it remains their only hope for safety and prosperity. Their homes have become uninhabitable. They will take their chances.

This vast and unremitting crisis did not spring up overnight. Indeed, as Blitzer dramatizes with forensic, unprecedented reporting, it is the result of decades of misguided policy and sweeping corruption. Brilliantly weaving the stories of Central Americans whose lives have been devastated by chronic political conflict and violence with those of American activists, government officials, and the politicians responsible for the country’s tragically tangled immigration policy, Blitzer reveals the full, layered picture for the first time.

Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here is an odyssey of struggle and resilience. With astonishing nuance and detail, Blitzer tells an epic story about the people whose lives ebb and flow across the border, and in doing so, he delves into the heart of American life itself. This vital and remarkable story has shaped the nation’s turbulent politics and culture in countless ways—and will almost certainly determine its future.]]> 544 Jonathan Blitzer 1984880802 Pat 0 to-read 4.46 2024 Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis
author: Jonathan Blitzer
name: Pat
average rating: 4.46
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]]> <![CDATA[The Longest Minute: The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906]]> 60784534
At 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck San Francisco, catching most of the city asleep. For approximately one minute, shockwaves buckled streets, shattered water mains, collapsed buildings, crushed hundreds of residents to death and trapped many alive. Fires ignited and blazed through dry wooden ruins and grew into a firestorm. For the next three days, flames devoured collapsed ruins, killed trapped survivors, and nearly destroyed what was then the largest city in the American West.

Meticulously researched and gracefully written, The Longest Minute is both a harrowing chronicle of devastation and the portrait of a city’s resilience in the burning aftermath of greed and folly. Drawing on the letters and diaries and unpublished memoirs of survivors and previously unearthed archival records, Matthew Davenport combines history and science to tell the dramatic true story of one of the greatest disasters in American history.]]> 433 Matthew J. Davenport 1250279275 Pat 0 to-read 3.97 The Longest Minute: The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906
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]]> <![CDATA[The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America]]> 60831905
The astonishing story of immigrants lured to the United States from India and trapped in forced labor—told by the visionary labor leader who engineered their escape and set them on a path to citizenship.

In late 2006, Saket Soni, a twenty-eight-year-old Indian-born community organizer, received an anonymous phone call from an Indian migrant worker in Mississippi. He was one of five hundred men trapped in squalid Gulf Coast “man camps,� surrounded by barbed wire, watched by guards, crammed into cold trailers with putrid toilets, forced to eat moldy bread and frozen rice. Recruiters had promised them good jobs and green cards. The men had scraped up $20,000 each for this “opportunity� to rebuild hurricane-wrecked oil rigs, leaving their families in impossible debt. During a series of clandestine meetings, Soni and the workers devised a bold plan. In The Great Escape, Soni traces the workers� extraordinary escape, their march on foot to Washington, DC, and their twenty-three-day hunger strike to bring attention to their cause. Along the way, ICE agents try to deport the men, company officials work to discredit them, and politicians avert their eyes. But none of this shakes the workers� determination to win their dignity and keep their promises to their families.

Weaving a deeply personal journey with a riveting tale of twenty-first-century forced labor, Soni takes us into the lives of the immigrant workers the United States increasingly relies on to rebuild after climate disasters. The Great Escape is the gripping story of one of the largest human trafficking cases in modern American history—and the workers� heroic journey for justice.]]> 368 Saket Soni 1643750089 Pat 0 to-read 4.52 2023 The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America
author: Saket Soni
name: Pat
average rating: 4.52
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]]> <![CDATA[Win (Windsor Horne Lockwood III, #1)]]> 53916157 The new novel from Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times bestselling author and creator of The Stranger on Netflix.

From a #1 New York Times bestselling author comes this thrilling story that shows what happens when a dead man's secrets fall into the hands of vigilante antihero—drawing him down a dangerous road.

Over twenty years ago, the heiress Patricia Lockwood was abducted during a robbery of her family's estate, then locked inside an isolated cabin for months. Patricia escaped, but so did her captors � and the items stolen from her family were never recovered.

Until now. On the Upper West Side, a recluse is found murdered in his penthouse apartment, alongside two objects of note: a stolen Vermeer painting and a leather suitcase bearing the initials WHL3. For the first time in years, the authorities have a lead � not only on Patricia's kidnapping, but also on another FBI cold case � with the suitcase and painting both pointing them toward one man.

Windsor Horne Lockwood III � or Win, as his few friends call him � doesn't know how his suitcase and his family's stolen painting ended up with a dead man. But his interest is piqued, especially when the FBI tells him that the man who kidnapped his cousin was also behind an act of domestic terrorism � and that the conspirators may still be at large. The two cases have baffled the FBI for decades, but Win has three things the FBI doesn't: a personal connection to the case; an ungodly fortune; and his own unique brand of justice.]]> 375 Harlan Coben 1538748215 Pat 5 3.95 2021 Win (Windsor Horne Lockwood III, #1)
author: Harlan Coben
name: Pat
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/29
date added: 2024/01/29
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