Aidan's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 04 Oct 2024 07:06:41 -0700 60 Aidan's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?]]> 36402034 258 Philip K. Dick Aidan 0 currently-reading 4.16 1968 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
author: Philip K. Dick
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1968
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/04
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<![CDATA[Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1)]]> 77566 500 Dan Simmons 0553283685 Aidan 3 4.26 1989 Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1)
author: Dan Simmons
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1989
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/04
date added: 2024/10/04
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The Death of King Arthur 8796792 316 Peter Ackroyd 1846141931 Aidan 0 to-read 3.25 The Death of King Arthur
author: Peter Ackroyd
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.25
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/15
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<![CDATA[South of the Border, West of the Sun]]> 15840207 This is an alternate cover edition of ISBN 13: 9780099448570

Growing up in the suburbs in post-war japan, it seemed to Hajime that everyone but him had brothers and sisters. His sole companion was Shimamoto, also an only child. Together they spent long afternoons listening to her father's record collections. but when his family moved away, the two lost touch.

Now Hajime is in his thirties. After a decade of drifting he has found happiness with his loving wife and two daughters, and success running a jazz bar. Then Shimamoto reappears. She is beautiful, intense, enveloped in mystery.

Hajime is catapulted into the past, putting at risk all he has in the present.]]>
187 Haruki Murakami Aidan 3 3.71 1992 South of the Border, West of the Sun
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1992
rating: 3
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date added: 2023/07/07
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<![CDATA[The Call of Cthulu and Other Stories]]> 33117992
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H.P. Lovecraft Aidan 2 3.73 1928 The Call of Cthulu and Other Stories
author: H.P. Lovecraft
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1928
rating: 2
read at: 2023/07/07
date added: 2023/07/07
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The Prince 28862
1. So it is that to know the nature of a people, one need be a Prince; to know the nature of a Prince, one need to be of the people.
2. If a Prince is not given to vices that make him hated, it is unsusal for his subjects to show their affection for him.
3. Opportunity made Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus, and others; their virtue domi-nated the opportunity, making their homelands noble and happy. Armed prophets win; the disarmed lose.
4. Without faith and religion, man achieves power but not glory.
5. Prominent citizens want to command and oppress; the populace only wants to be free of oppression.
6. A Prince needs a friendly populace; otherwise in diversity there is no hope.
7. A Prince, who rules as a man of valor, avoids disasters,
8. Nations based on mercenary forces will never be solid or secure.
9. Mercenaries are dangerous because of their cowardice
10. There are two ways to fight: one with laws, the other with force. The first is rightly man’s way; the second, the way of beasts.]]>
144 Niccolò Machiavelli 0937832383 Aidan 0 to-read 3.85 1513 The Prince
author: Niccolò Machiavelli
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1513
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/11/14
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The Republic 30289 416 Plato 0140449140 Aidan 0 to-read 3.97 -400 The Republic
author: Plato
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.97
book published: -400
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/11/14
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<![CDATA[The Trusted Advisor Sales Engineer]]> 30852027
This is not one of those tiny 40 page eBooks. It's over 150 pages of thoughts, ideas, best practices and real life examples based on dozens of clients and thousands of students who have already taken the workshop.]]>
210 John Care Aidan 0 to-read 4.28 The Trusted Advisor Sales Engineer
author: John Care
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.28
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rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/10
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Meditations 30659 Meditations of Marcus Aurelius offer a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. While the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement, Marcus Aurelius also created one of the greatest of all works of philosophy: a timeless collection that has been consulted and admired by statesmen, thinkers and readers throughout the centuries.]]> 254 Marcus Aurelius 0140449337 Aidan 0 currently-reading 4.29 180 Meditations
author: Marcus Aurelius
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.29
book published: 180
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/10
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<![CDATA[Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World]]> 40718726
Fighting his way to power on the remote steppes of Mongolia, Genghis Khan developed revolutionary military strategies and weaponry that emphasized rapid attack and siege warfare, which he then brilliantly used to overwhelm opposing armies in Asia, break the back of the Islamic world, and render the armored knights of Europe obsolete. Under Genghis Khan, the Mongol army never numbered more than 100,000 warriors, yet it subjugated more lands and people in twenty-five years than the Romans conquered in four hundred. With an empire that stretched from Siberia to India, from Vietnam to Hungary, and from Korea to the Balkans, the Mongols dramatically redrew the map of the globe, connecting disparate kingdoms into a new world order.

But contrary to popular wisdom, Weatherford reveals that the Mongols were not just masters of conquest, but possessed a genius for progressive and benevolent rule. On every level and from any perspective, the scale and scope
of Genghis Khan’s accomplishments challenge the limits of imagination. Genghis Khan was an innovative leader, the first ruler in many conquered countries to put the power of law above his own power, encourage religious freedom, create public schools, grant diplomatic immunity, abolish torture, and institute free trade. The trade routes he created became lucrative pathways for commerce, but also for ideas, technologies, and expertise that transformed the way people lived. The Mongols introduced the first international paper currency and postal system and developed and spread revolutionary technologies like printing, the cannon, compass, and abacus. They took local foods and products like lemons, carrots, noodles, tea, rugs, playing cards, and pants and turned them into staples of life around the world. The Mongols were the architects of a new way of life at a pivotal time in history.

In Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford resurrects the true history of Genghis Khan, from the story of his relentless rise through Mongol tribal culture to the waging of his devastatingly successful wars and the explosion of civilization that the Mongol Empire unleashed. This dazzling work of revisionist history doesn’t just paint an unprecedented portrait of a great leader and his legacy, but challenges us to reconsider how the modern world was made.


From the Hardcover edition.]]>
352 Jack Weatherford Aidan 0 to-read 4.08 2004 Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
author: Jack Weatherford
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/07
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<![CDATA[The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)]]> 20518872 472 Liu Cixin Aidan 0 to-read 4.08 2006 The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)
author: Liu Cixin
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/04
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<![CDATA[World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War]]> 8908
Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.

Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, "By excluding the human factor, aren't we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn't the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as 'the living dead'?"

Note: Some of the numerical and factual material contained in this edition was previously published under the auspices of the United Nations Postwar Commission.]]>
342 Max Brooks 0307346609 Aidan 0 to-read 4.02 2006 World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
author: Max Brooks
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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Slaughterhouse-Five 4981 Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.�

An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut’s writing—the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit—that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it.

Fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut's portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties.]]>
275 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Aidan 0 to-read 4.10 1969 Slaughterhouse-Five
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1969
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse, #1)]]> 8855321
Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for—and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations—and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.]]>
592 James S.A. Corey 1841499889 Aidan 0 to-read 4.30 2011 Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse, #1)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/04
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<![CDATA[All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)]]> 32758901 "As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

In a corporate-dominated space-faring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. For their own safety, exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid--a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.� Scornful of humans, Murderbot wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is, but when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth.]]>
144 Martha Wells Aidan 0 to-read 4.11 2017 All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)
author: Martha Wells
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/03
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Skyward (Skyward, #1) 36642458 513 Brandon Sanderson 1473217857 Aidan 0 to-read 4.45 2018 Skyward (Skyward, #1)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/03
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Jack Four 57668041


Created to die–determined to live . . .



Jack Four–one of twenty human clones–has been created to be sold. His purchasers are the alien prador and they only want him for their experimentation program. But there is something different about Jack. No clone should possess the knowledge that’s been loaded into his mind. And no normal citizen of humanity’s Polity worlds would have this information.



The prador’s king has been mutated by the Spatterjay virus into a creature even more monstrous than the prador themselves. And his children, the King’s Guard, have undergone similar changes. They were infected by the virus during the last humans-versus-prador war, now lapsed into an uneasy truce. But the prador are always looking for new weapons � and their experimentation program might give them the edge they seek.



Suzeal trades human slaves out of the Stratogaster Space Station, re-engineering them to serve the prador. She thinks the rewards are worth the risks, but all that is about to change. The Station was once a zoo, containing monsters from across known space. All the monsters now dwell on the planet below, but they aren’t as contained as they seem. And a vengeful clone may be the worst danger of all.



‘Neal Asher’s books are like an adrenaline shot targeted directly for the brain�

John Scalzi, author of the Old Man’s War series



'Magnificently awesome. Then Asher turns it up to eleven'

Peter F. Hamilton, author of Salvation and others, on Asher's The Soldier]]>
444 Neal Asher 1597806609 Aidan 0 to-read 4.08 2023 Jack Four
author: Neal Asher
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/03
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<![CDATA[The Redemption of Time (Remembrance of Earth’s Past)]]> 36262251 Set in the universe of the New York Times bestselling Three-Body Problem trilogy, The Redemption of Time continues Cixin Liu’s multi-award-winning science fiction saga. This original story by Baoshu―published with Liu’s support―envisions the aftermath of the conflict between humanity and the extraterrestrial Trisolarans.

In the midst of an interstellar war, Yun Tianming found himself on the front lines. Riddled with cancer, he chose to end his life, only to find himself flash frozen and launched into space where the Trisolaran First Fleet awaited. Captured and tortured beyond endurance for decades, Yun eventually succumbed to helping the aliens subjugate humanity in order to save Earth from complete destruction.

Granted a healthy clone body by the Trisolarans, Yun has spent his very long life in exile as a traitor to the human race. Nearing the end of his existence at last, he suddenly receives another reprieve―and another regeneration. A consciousness calling itself The Spirit has recruited him to wage battle against an entity that threatens the existence of the entire universe. But Yun refuses to be a pawn again and makes his own plans to save humanity’s future…]]>
400 Baoshu 1788542207 Aidan 0 to-read 3.54 2011 The Redemption of Time (Remembrance of Earth’s Past)
author: Baoshu
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/03
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Dune (Dune, #1) 44767458
When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.]]>
658 Frank Herbert 059309932X Aidan 5
Herbert manages to pack a lot of worldbuilding and commentary in the story, so while it's not necessarily difficult to read it can take a bit more time to digest some things. The writing style may not suit everyone but I really enjoyed it, so many well-crafted quotes can be plucked from most pages.

I've only finished the first three books, though if you don't intend on reading the whole series I still highly recommend the second (Dune Messiah) which offers a much better closure to Paul's story and better explores the main message of the first book.]]>
4.33 1965 Dune (Dune, #1)
author: Frank Herbert
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1965
rating: 5
read at: 2021/03/01
date added: 2022/06/02
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A story that keeps on giving. When I was a kid and first heard about Dune I was initially dismissive without actually looking into what the story was actually about beyond feudal families in space with drugs. Years later I took a shot at reading it and damn did I wish I'd read it earlier. It was nothing like I expected and everything I needed in a story. I got so immersed in the complex world Frank Herbert created, covering a wide range of issues that remain relevant over 50 years on and will still be relevant well into the future. It remains my favourite story and I still find myself reflecting on it regularly.

Herbert manages to pack a lot of worldbuilding and commentary in the story, so while it's not necessarily difficult to read it can take a bit more time to digest some things. The writing style may not suit everyone but I really enjoyed it, so many well-crafted quotes can be plucked from most pages.

I've only finished the first three books, though if you don't intend on reading the whole series I still highly recommend the second (Dune Messiah) which offers a much better closure to Paul's story and better explores the main message of the first book.
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Foundation (Foundation, #1) 29579 The first novel in Isaac Asimov's classic science-fiction masterpiece, the Foundation series

For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future--to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save humankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire--both scientists and scholars--and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.]]>
244 Isaac Asimov 0553803719 Aidan 3 4.18 1951 Foundation (Foundation, #1)
author: Isaac Asimov
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1951
rating: 3
read at: 2022/01/01
date added: 2022/06/02
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Children of Dune (Dune #3) 44492286
The Children of Dune are twin siblings Leto and Ghanima Atreides, whose father, the Emperor Paul Muad'Dib, disappeared in the desert wastelands of Arrakis nine years ago. Like their father, the twins possess supernormal abilities--making them valuable to their manipulative aunt Alia, who rules the Empire in the name of House Atreides.

Facing treason and rebellion on two fronts, Alia's rule is not absolute. The displaced House Corrino is plotting to regain the throne while the fanatical Fremen are being provoked into open revolt by the enigmatic figure known only as The Preacher. Alia believes that by obtaining the secrets of the twins' prophetic visions, she can maintain control over her dynasty.

But Leto and Ghanima have their own plans for their visions--and their destinies....

Includes an introduction by Brian Herbert]]>
609 Frank Herbert 0593098242 Aidan 3 3.96 1976 Children of Dune (Dune #3)
author: Frank Herbert
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1976
rating: 3
read at: 2022/02/23
date added: 2022/03/02
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New Life for Old 2171837
Commander Simon Rack and Bogart, his assistant, were detailed to bring the formula back to the Galactic Security Service. They shipped out to Paradise, centre of the cryogenics operation, only to find themselves facing a deadly plot to seize the formula.

A plot masterminded by Rack's most lethal enemy: Harley Corman.]]>
142 Laurence James 0722149840 Aidan 2 3.00 1975 New Life for Old
author: Laurence James
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1975
rating: 2
read at: 2022/03/01
date added: 2022/03/02
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Task Force Helmand 9648294 337 Doug Beattie 1847397905 Aidan 0 to-read 4.17 2009 Task Force Helmand
author: Doug Beattie
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at: 2019/01/09
date added: 2022/02/24
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Dune Messiah (Dune #2) 44492285
Dune Messiah continues the story of Paul Atreides, better known--and feared--as the man christened Muad'Dib. As Emperor of the Known Universe, he possesses more power than a single man was ever meant to wield. Worshipped as a religious icon by the fanatical Fremens, Paul faces the enmity of the political houses he displaced when he assumed the throne--and a conspiracy conducted within his own sphere of influence.

And even as House Atreides begins to crumble around him from the machinations of his enemies, the true threat to Paul comes to his lover, Chani, and the unborn heir to his family's dynasty...

Includes an introduction by Brian Herbert]]>
336 Frank Herbert 0593098234 Aidan 4 3.89 1969 Dune Messiah (Dune #2)
author: Frank Herbert
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1969
rating: 4
read at: 2021/10/11
date added: 2021/10/11
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Romeo and Juliet 18135 Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a violent world, in which two young people fall in love. It is not simply that their families disapprove; the Montagues and the Capulets are engaged in a blood feud.

In this death-filled setting, the movement from love at first sight to the lovers� final union in death seems almost inevitable. And yet, this play set in an extraordinary world has become the quintessential story of young love. In part because of its exquisite language, it is easy to respond as if it were about all young lovers.]]>
281 William Shakespeare 0743477111 Aidan 2 3.74 1597 Romeo and Juliet
author: William Shakespeare
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1597
rating: 2
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date added: 2021/05/22
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The Merchant of Venice 24128 249 William Shakespeare 0743477561 Aidan 3 3.77 1596 The Merchant of Venice
author: William Shakespeare
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1596
rating: 3
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date added: 2021/05/22
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Medea 752900
Euripides' masterly portrayal of the motives fiercely driving Medea's pursuit of vengeance for her husband's insult and betrayal has held theater audiences spellbound for more than twenty centuries. Rex Warner's authoritative translation brings this great classic of world literature vividly to life.

Reprint of the John Lane, The Bodley Head Limited, London, 1944 edition.]]>
59 Euripides 0486275485 Aidan 3 3.93 -431 Medea
author: Euripides
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.93
book published: -431
rating: 3
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date added: 2021/05/22
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On the Beach 38180 On the Beach is a remarkably convincing portrait of how ordinary people might face the most unimaginable nightmare.]]> 296 Nevil Shute Aidan 0 to-read 3.95 1957 On the Beach
author: Nevil Shute
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1957
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/29
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<![CDATA[Eaten Alive (Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear, #1)]]> 479864 160 John Whitman 0553484508 Aidan 2 3.72 1997 Eaten Alive (Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear, #1)
author: John Whitman
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1997
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2021/04/15
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The Crucible 17250
Written in 1953, The Crucible is a mirror Miller uses to reflect the anti-communist hysteria inspired by Senator Joseph McCarthy's "witch-hunts" in the United States. Within the text itself, Miller contemplates the parallels, writing, "Political opposition... is given an inhumane overlay, which then justifies the abrogation of all normally applied customs of civilized behavior. A political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence."

WIth an introduction by Christopher Bigsby.
(back cover)]]>
143 Arthur Miller 0142437336 Aidan 2 3.60 1953 The Crucible
author: Arthur Miller
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1953
rating: 2
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date added: 2021/04/15
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Burial Rites 17333319
Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.

Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tóti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard.

Riveting and rich with lyricism, Burial Rites evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?]]>
336 Hannah Kent 0316243914 Aidan 4 4.00 2013 Burial Rites
author: Hannah Kent
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2013
rating: 4
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date added: 2021/04/15
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First Light 518136
It is the story of an idealistic schoolboy who couldn't believe his luck when the RAF agreed to take him on as a "pupil pilot" at the minimum age of seventeen and a half in 1939. In his fervor to fly, he gave little thought to the coming war."

"Writing with wit, compassion, and a great deal of technical expertise, Wellum relives his grueling months of flight training, during which two of his classmates crashed and died. He describes a hilarious scene during his first day in the prestigious 92nd Squadron when his commader discovered that Wellum had not only never flown a Spitfire, he'd never even seen one."

A battle-hardened ace by the winter of 1941, though still not out of his teens, 'Boy' Wellum flew scores of missions as fighter escort on bombing missions over France. Yet the constant life-or-death stress of murderous combat and anguish over the loss of his closest friends sapped endurance. Tortured by fierce headaches, even in the midst of battle, he could not bear the thought of "not pulling your weight," of letting the other pilots risk their lives in his place. Wellum's frank account of his long, losing bout with battle fatigue is both moving and enlightening.]]>
352 Geoffrey Wellum 0141008148 Aidan 0 to-read 4.43 2002 First Light
author: Geoffrey Wellum
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/15
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Fighting Season 21097519 272 Graham Lee 0715645293 Aidan 2 3.40 2012 Fighting Season
author: Graham Lee
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2012
rating: 2
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date added: 2021/04/15
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<![CDATA[The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)]]> 838729 385 J.R.R. Tolkien 0345240340 Aidan 0 to-read 4.64 1955 The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.64
book published: 1955
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/15
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<![CDATA[The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2)]]> 222910 Alternate Cover Edition ISBN 0345296060 (ISBN13: 9780345296061)

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

Frodo and his Companions of the Ring have been beset by danger during their quest to prevent the Ruling Ring from falling into the hands of the Dark Lord by destroying it in the Cracks of Doom. They have lost the wizard, Gandalf, in a battle in the Mines of Moria. And Boromir, seduced by the power of the Ring, tried to seize it by force. While Frodo and Sam made their escape, the rest of the company was attacked by Orcs. Now they continue the journey alone down the great River Anduin—alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go.]]>
447 J.R.R. Tolkien Aidan 0 to-read 4.57 1954 The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2)
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1954
rating: 0
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The Silmarillion 7332 386 J.R.R. Tolkien 0618391118 Aidan 0 to-read 3.99 1977 The Silmarillion
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1977
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Rogue Forces (Patrick McLanahan, #15)]]> 6251144 321 Dale Brown 0061560871 Aidan 0 to-read 3.88 2009 Rogue Forces (Patrick McLanahan, #15)
author: Dale Brown
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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The Golden Horseshoe 2272209 192 Terence Robertson 0330105175 Aidan 0 to-read 4.22 1955 The Golden Horseshoe
author: Terence Robertson
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1955
rating: 0
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Halo: Cryptum 7975411 352 Greg Bear 0765323966 Aidan 0 to-read 3.86 2011 Halo: Cryptum
author: Greg Bear
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Eragon (The Inheritance Cycle #1)]]> 113436 An alternate cover edition for ISBN 9780375826696 can be found here.

One boy...
One dragon...
A world of adventure.

When Eragon finds a polished blue stone in the forest, he thinks it is the lucky discovery of a poor farm boy; perhaps it will buy his family meat for the winter. But when the stone brings a dragon hatchling, Eragon soon realizes he has stumbled upon a legacy nearly as old as the Empire itself.

Overnight his simple life is shattered, and he is thrust into a perilous new world of destiny, magic, and power. With only an ancient sword and the advice of an old storyteller for guidance, Eragon and the fledgling dragon must navigate the dangerous terrain and dark enemies of an Empire ruled by a king whose evil knows no bounds.

Can Eragon take up the mantle of the legendary Dragon Riders? The fate of the Empire may rest in his hands.]]>
503 Christopher Paolini 0375826696 Aidan 3 3.96 2002 Eragon (The Inheritance Cycle #1)
author: Christopher Paolini
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2002
rating: 3
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<![CDATA[The Hobbit, or There and Back Again]]> 5907 Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent. The text in this 372-page paperback edition is based on that first published in Great Britain by Collins Modern Classics (1998), and includes a note on the text by Douglas A. Anderson (2001).]]> 366 J.R.R. Tolkien Aidan 4 4.29 1937 The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1937
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[Inheritance (The Inheritance Cycle, #4)]]> 7664041 Eragon... It ends with Inheritance.

Not so very long ago, Eragon � Shadeslayer, Dragon Rider � was nothing more than a poor farm boy, and his dragon, Saphira, only a blue stone in the forest. Now the fate of an entire civilization rests on their shoulders.

Long months of training and battle have brought victories and hope, but they have also brought heartbreaking loss. And still, the real battle lies ahead: they must confront Galbatorix. When they do, they will have to be strong enough to defeat him. And if they cannot, no one can. There will be no second chance.

The Rider and his dragon have come further than anyone dared to hope. But can they topple the evil king and restore justice to Alagaësia? And if so, at what cost?

This is the spellbinding conclusion to Christopher Paolini's worldwide bestselling Inheritance cycle.

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849 Christopher Paolini 0375856110 Aidan 3 4.14 2011 Inheritance (The Inheritance Cycle, #4)
author: Christopher Paolini
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2011
rating: 3
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<![CDATA[The Forever War (The Forever War, #1)]]> 21611 278 Joe Haldeman Aidan 5 4.14 1974 The Forever War (The Forever War, #1)
author: Joe Haldeman
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1974
rating: 5
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Halo: The Thursday War 13575318 448 Karen Traviss 0765333635 Aidan 3 4.13 2012 Halo: The Thursday War
author: Karen Traviss
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2012
rating: 3
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Holes (Holes, #1) 38709
It doesn’t take long for Stanley to realize there’s more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. But what could be buried under a dried-up lake? Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment—and redemption.]]>
272 Louis Sachar 0439244196 Aidan 2 4.01 1998 Holes (Holes, #1)
author: Louis Sachar
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1998
rating: 2
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<![CDATA[Brisingr (The Inheritance Cycle #3)]]> 2248573
It's been only months since Eragon first uttered "brisingr", an ancient language term for fire. Since then, he's not only learned to create magic with words � he's been challenged to his very core. Following the colossal battle against the Empires warriors on the Burning Plains, Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have narrowly escaped with their lives. Still, there is more adventure at hand for the Rider and his dragon, as Eragon finds himself bound by a tangle of promises he may not be able to keep.

First is Eragon's oath to his cousin, Roran: to help rescue Roran's beloved from King Galbatorix's clutches. But Eragon owes his loyalty to others, too. The Varden are in desperate need of his talents and strength � as are the elves and dwarves. When unrest claims the rebels and danger strikes from every corner, Eragon must make choices � choices that will take him across the Empire and beyond, choices that may lead to unimagined sacrifice.

Eragon is the greatest hope to rid the land of tyranny. Can this once simple farm boy unite the rebel forces and defeat the king?

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748 Christopher Paolini 0375826726 Aidan 3 4.10 2008 Brisingr (The Inheritance Cycle #3)
author: Christopher Paolini
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2008
rating: 3
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<![CDATA[Eldest (The Inheritance Cycle, #2)]]> 45978
Darkness falls…despair abounds…evil reigns�

Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have just saved the rebel state from destruction by the mighty forces of King Galbatorix, cruel ruler of the Empire. Now Eragon must travel to Ellesmera, land of the elves, for further training in the skills of the Dragon Rider: magic and swordsmanship. Soon he is on the journey of a lifetime, his eyes open to awe-inspring new places and people, his days filled with fresh adventure. But chaos and betrayal plague him at every turn, and nothing is what it seems. Before long, Eragon doesn't know whom he can trust.

Meanwhile, his cousin Roran must fight a new battle–one that might put Eragon in even graver danger.

Will the king's dark hand strangle all resistance? Eragon may not escape with even his life. . . .]]>
704 Christopher Paolini 0375840400 Aidan 3 4.04 2005 Eldest (The Inheritance Cycle, #2)
author: Christopher Paolini
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2005
rating: 3
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<![CDATA[Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow]]> 31138556 Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods.

Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. This may seem hard to accept, but, as Harari explains in his trademark style—thorough, yet riveting—famine, plague and war have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges. For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals put together. The average American is a thousand times more likely to die from binging at McDonalds than from being blown up by Al Qaeda.

What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda? As the self-made gods of planet earth, what destinies will we set ourselves, and which quests will we undertake? Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century—from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus.

With the same insight and clarity that made Sapiens an international hit and a New York Times bestseller, Harari maps out our future.

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450 Yuval Noah Harari Aidan 0 to-read 4.19 2015 Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow
author: Yuval Noah Harari
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2015
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<![CDATA[Fatal Alliance (Star Wars: The Old Republic, #3)]]> 7493770 bestselling author Sean Williams brings the world of the game to life in his latest novel, Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance.

Tassaa Bareesh, a matriarch in the Hutt crime cartel, is holding an auction that’s drawing attention from across the galaxy. Representatives of both the Republic and the Sith Empire are present, along with a Jedi Padawan sent to investigate, a disenfranchised trooper drummed out of the Republic’s elite  Blackstar Squad, and a mysterious Mandalorian with a private agenda. But the Republic’s envoy is not what he seems, the Empire’s delegate is a ruthless Sith apprentice, the Jedi Padawan is determined to do the right thing and terrified that he can’t, the trooper hopes to redeem her reputation, and the Mandalorian is somehow managing to keep one step ahead of everyone.

None of these guests—invited or uninvited—have any intention of participating in the auction. Instead they plan to steal the prize, which is locked inside an impregnable vault: two burned chunks of an exploded star cruiser, one of which may hold the key to the wealth of an entire world.

But the truth about the treasure is dangerous and deadly. And in the end, Sith and Jedi, Republic and Empire, must do something they’ve never done before, something that all the agents of good and evil could never make them do: join together to stop a powerful threat that could destroy the galaxy.]]>
417 Sean Williams 0345511328 Aidan 4 3.74 2010 Fatal Alliance (Star Wars: The Old Republic, #3)
author: Sean Williams
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2010
rating: 4
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Boy Overboard 1020674 224 Morris Gleitzman 0754079090 Aidan 2 3.73 2002 Boy Overboard
author: Morris Gleitzman
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2002
rating: 2
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<![CDATA[Tomorrow, When the War Began (Tomorrow, #1)]]> 71865 276 John Marsden 0439829100 Aidan 1 4.05 1993 Tomorrow, When the War Began (Tomorrow, #1)
author: John Marsden
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1993
rating: 1
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God Emperor of Dune (Dune #4) 44439415
Millennia have passed on Arrakis, and the once-desert planet is green with life. Leto Atreides, the son of the world's savior, the Emperor Paul Muad'Dib, is still alive but far from human. To preserve humanity's future, he sacrificed his own by merging with a sandworm, granting him near immortality as God Emperor of Dune for the past thirty-five hundred years.

Leto's rule is not a benevolent one. His transformation has made not only his appearance but his morality inhuman. A rebellion, led by Siona, a member of the Atreides family, has risen to oppose the despot's rule. But Siona is unaware that Leto's vision of a Golden Path for humanity requires her to fulfill a destiny she never wanted--or could possibly conceive....

Includes an introduction by Brian Herbert]]>
587 Frank Herbert 0593098250 Aidan 0 to-read 3.91 1981 God Emperor of Dune (Dune #4)
author: Frank Herbert
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1981
rating: 0
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The War of the Worlds 8909
Inspiring films, radio dramas, comic-book adaptations, television series and sequels,The War of the Worlds is a prototypical work of science fiction which has influenced every alien story that has come since, and is unsurpassed in its ability to thrill, well over a century since it was first published.]]>
192 H.G. Wells 0375759239 Aidan 4 3.84 1898 The War of the Worlds
author: H.G. Wells
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1898
rating: 4
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On the Genealogy of Morals 80449 On the Genealogy of Morals (1887) is a book about the history of ethics and about interpretation. Nietzsche rewrites the former as a history of cruelty, exposing the central values of the Judaeo-Christian and liberal traditions - compassion, equality, justice - as the product of a brutal process of conditioning designed to domesticate the animal vitality of earlier cultures. The result is a book which raises profoundly disquieting issues about the violence of both ethics and interpretation. Nietzsche questions moral certainties by showing that religion and science have no claim to absolute truth, before turning on his own arguments in order to call their very presuppositions into question. The Genealogy is the most sustained of Nietzsche's later works and offers one of the fullest expressions of his characteristic concerns. This edition places his ideas within the cultural context of his own time and stresses the relevance of his work for a contemporary audience.]]> 208 Friedrich Nietzsche 019283617X Aidan 0 to-read 4.16 1887 On the Genealogy of Morals
author: Friedrich Nietzsche
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1887
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The Communist Manifesto 30474
Originally published on the eve of the 1848 European revolutions, The Communist Manifesto is a condensed and incisive account of the worldview Marx and Engels developed during their hectic intellectual and political collaboration. Formulating the principles of dialectical materialism, they believed that labor creates wealth, hence capitalism is exploitive and antithetical to freedom.

This new edition includes an extensive introduction by Gareth Stedman Jones, Britain's leading expert on Marx and Marxism, providing a complete course for students of The Communist Manifesto, and demonstrating not only the historical importance of the text, but also its place in the world today.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.]]>
288 Karl Marx 0140447571 Aidan 0 to-read 3.67 1848 The Communist Manifesto
author: Karl Marx
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1848
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Beyond Good and Evil 12321 Beyond Good and Evil is translated from the German by R.J. Hollingdale with an introduction by Michael Tanner in Penguin Classics.

Beyond Good and Evil confirmed Nietzsche's position as the towering European philosopher of his age. The work dramatically rejects the tradition of Western thought with its notions of truth and God, good and evil. Nietzsche demonstrates that the Christian world is steeped in a false piety and infected with a 'slave morality'. With wit and energy, he turns from this critique to a philosophy that celebrates the present and demands that the individual imposes their own 'will to power' upon the world.

This edition includes a commentary on the text by the translator and Michael Tanner's introduction, which explains some of the more abstract passages in Beyond Good and Evil.

Frederich Nietzsche (1844-1900) became the chair of classical philology at Basel University at the age of 24 until his bad health forced him to retire in 1879. He divorced himself from society until his final collapse in 1899 when he became insane. A powerfully original thinker, Nietzsche's influence on subsequent writers, such as George Bernard Shaw, D.H. Lawrence, Thomas Mann and Jean-Paul Sartre, was considerable.

If you enjoyed Beyond Good and Evil you might like Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, also available in Penguin Classics.

"One of the greatest books of a very great thinker." —Michael Tanner]]>
240 Friedrich Nietzsche 014044923X Aidan 0 to-read 4.05 1886 Beyond Good and Evil
author: Friedrich Nietzsche
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1886
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Thus Spoke Zarathustra 51893 Thus Spoke Zarathustra is translated from the German by R.J. Hollingdale in Penguin Classics.

Nietzsche was one of the most revolutionary and subversive thinkers in Western philosophy, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra remains his most famous and influential work. It describes how the ancient Persian prophet Zarathustra descends from his solitude in the mountains to tell the world that God is dead and that the Superman, the human embodiment of divinity, is his successor. Nietzsche's utterance 'God is dead', his insistence that the meaning of life is to be found in purely human terms, and his doctrine of the Superman and the will to power were all later seized upon and unrecognisably twisted by, among others, Nazi intellectuals. With blazing intensity and poetic brilliance, Nietzsche argues that the meaning of existence is not to be found in religious pieties or meek submission to authority, but in an all-powerful life passionate, chaotic and free.]]>
327 Friedrich Nietzsche Aidan 0 to-read 4.10 1883 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
author: Friedrich Nietzsche
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1883
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A Clockwork Orange 41817486 A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil and the meaning of human freedom. This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition, and Burgess’s introduction, “A Clockwork Orange Resucked.”]]> 240 Anthony Burgess 0393341763 Aidan 0 to-read 4.04 1962 A Clockwork Orange
author: Anthony Burgess
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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Catch-22 168668
Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller’s masterpiece with a new introduction by Christopher Buckley; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos from Joseph Heller’s personal archive; and much more. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.]]>
453 Joseph Heller 0684833395 Aidan 0 to-read 3.99 1961 Catch-22
author: Joseph Heller
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1961
rating: 0
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Life of Pi 4214 460 Yann Martel 0770430074 Aidan 0 to-read 3.94 2001 Life of Pi
author: Yann Martel
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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Lord of the Flies 7624 182 William Golding 0140283331 Aidan 0 to-read 3.70 1954 Lord of the Flies
author: William Golding
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1954
rating: 0
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The Road 6288
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,� are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.]]>
241 Cormac McCarthy 0307265439 Aidan 5 3.99 2006 The Road
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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The Invisible Man 17184 192 H.G. Wells 0451528522 Aidan 0 to-read 3.63 1897 The Invisible Man
author: H.G. Wells
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1897
rating: 0
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Ringworld (Ringworld, #1) 61179 288 Larry Niven 0575077026 Aidan 0 to-read 3.96 1970 Ringworld (Ringworld, #1)
author: Larry Niven
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1970
rating: 0
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The Man in the High Castle 216363
This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to wake.]]>
259 Philip K. Dick 0679740678 Aidan 0 to-read 3.64 1962 The Man in the High Castle
author: Philip K. Dick
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1)]]> 36510196
The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.

John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger.]]>
318 John Scalzi Aidan 0 to-read 4.25 2005 Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1)
author: John Scalzi
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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The Giver (The Giver, #1) 3636 208 Lois Lowry 0385732554 Aidan 3 4.12 1993 The Giver (The Giver, #1)
author: Lois Lowry
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1993
rating: 3
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The Martian Chronicles 76778
The Martian Chronicles tells the story of humanity’s repeated attempts to colonize the red planet. The first men were few. Most succumbed to a disease they called the Great Loneliness when they saw their home planet dwindle to the size of a fist. They felt they had never been born. Those few that survived found no welcome on Mars. The shape-changing Martians thought they were native lunatics and duly locked them up.

But more rockets arrived from Earth, and more, piercing the hallucinations projected by the Martians. People brought their old prejudices with them � and their desires and fantasies, tainted dreams. These were soon inhabited by the strange native beings, with their caged flowers and birds of flame.

Contents:
Rocket Summer
Ylla
The Summer Night
The Earth Men
The Taxpayer
The Third Expedition
-And the Moon Be Still As Bright
The Settlers
The Green Morning
The Locusts
Night Meeting
The Shore
Interim
The Musicians
Way in the Middle of the Air
The Naming of Names
Usher II
The Old Ones
The Martian
The Luggage Store
The Off Season
The Watchers
The Silent Towns
The Long Years
There Will Come Soft Rains
The Million Year Picnic]]>
182 Ray Bradbury 0553278223 Aidan 0 to-read 4.16 1950 The Martian Chronicles
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1950
rating: 0
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Starship Troopers 17214
In one of Robert A. Heinlein’s most controversial bestsellers, a recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the Universe—and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry against mankind’s most alarming enemy.
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264 Robert A. Heinlein Aidan 0 to-read 4.01 1959 Starship Troopers
author: Robert A. Heinlein
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1959
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Andromeda Strain (Andromeda, #1)]]> 7670
Two years later, seventeen satellites are sent into the outer fringes of space to collect organisms and dust for study. One of them falls to earth, landing in a desolate area of Arizona.

Twelve miles from the landing site, in the town of Piedmont, a shocking discovery is made: the streets are littered with the dead bodies of the town's inhabitants, as if they dropped dead in their tracks.
--back cover]]>
327 Michael Crichton 0060541814 Aidan 0 to-read 3.92 1969 The Andromeda Strain (Andromeda, #1)
author: Michael Crichton
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1969
rating: 0
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Stranger in a Strange Land 350 NAME: Valentine Michael Smith
ANCESTRY: Human
ORIGIN: Mars

Valentine Michael Smith is a human being raised on Mars, newly returned to Earth. Among his people for the first time, he struggles to understand the social mores and prejudices of human nature that are so alien to him, while teaching them his own fundamental beliefs in grokking, watersharing, and love.]]>
525 Robert A. Heinlein Aidan 0 to-read 3.93 1961 Stranger in a Strange Land
author: Robert A. Heinlein
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1961
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[2001: A Space Odyssey (Space Odyssey, #1)]]> 70535
So great are the implications of this discovery that for the first time men are sent out deep into our solar system.

But long before their destination is reached, things begin to go horribly, inexplicably wrong...

One of the greatest-selling science fiction novels of our time, this classic book will grip you to the very end.]]>
297 Arthur C. Clarke Aidan 0 to-read 4.17 1968 2001: A Space Odyssey (Space Odyssey, #1)
author: Arthur C. Clarke
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1968
rating: 0
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Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1) 6088007 Neuromancer is a cyberpunk, science fiction masterpiece—a classic that ranks with 1984 and Brave New World as one of the twentieth century’s most potent visions of the future.

The Matrix is a world within the world, a global consensus-hallucination, the representation of every byte of data in cyberspace...

Henry Dorsett Case was the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful former employees crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

The winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards, Neuromancer was the first fully-realized glimpse of humankind’s digital future—a shocking vision that has challenged our assumptions about our technology and ourselves, reinvented the way we speak and think, and forever altered the landscape of our imaginations.]]>
288 William Gibson 110114646X Aidan 0 to-read 3.94 1984 Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1)
author: William Gibson
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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I, Robot (Robot, #0.1) 41804
I, ROBOT

They mustn't harm a human being, they must obey human orders, and they must protect their own existence...but only so long as that doesn't violate rules one and two. With these Three Laws of Robotics, humanity embarked on perhaps its greatest adventure: the invention of the first positronic man. It was a bold new era of evolution that would open up enormous possibilities—and unforeseen risks. For the scientists who invented the earliest robots weren't content that their creations should ' remain programmed helpers, companions, and semisentient worker-machines. And soon the robots themselves; aware of their own intelligence, power, and humanity, aren't either.

As humans and robots struggle to survive together—and sometimes against each other—on earth and in space, the future of both hangs in the balance. Human men and women confront robots gone mad, telepathic robots, robot politicians, and vast robotic intelligences that may already secretly control the world. And both are asking the same questions: What is human? And is humanity obsolete?

In l, Robot Isaac Asimov changes forever our perception of robots, and human beings and updates the timeless myth of man's dream to play god. with all its rewards—and terrors.
--front flap]]>
224 Isaac Asimov 0553803700 Aidan 0 to-read 4.22 1950 I, Robot (Robot, #0.1)
author: Isaac Asimov
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1950
rating: 0
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The Time Machine 2493
So begins the Time Traveller’s astonishing firsthand account of his journey 800,000 years beyond his own era—and the story that launched H.G. Wells’s successful career and earned him his reputation as the father of science fiction. With a speculative leap that still fires the imagination, Wells sends his brave explorer to face a future burdened with our greatest hopes...and our darkest fears. A pull of the Time Machine’s lever propels him to the age of a slowly dying Earth.  There he discovers two bizarre races—the ethereal Eloi and the subterranean Morlocks—who not only symbolize the duality of human nature, but offer a terrifying portrait of the men of tomorrow as well.  Published in 1895, this masterpiece of invention captivated readers on the threshold of a new century. Thanks to Wells’s expert storytelling and provocative insight, The Time Machine will continue to enthrall readers for generations to come.

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118 H.G. Wells Aidan 0 to-read 3.91 1895 The Time Machine
author: H.G. Wells
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1895
rating: 0
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Brave New World 5129 Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine� (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New Worldd likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.

"Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." —Chicago Tribune]]>
268 Aldous Huxley 0060929871 Aidan 0 to-read 3.99 1932 Brave New World
author: Aldous Huxley
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1932
rating: 0
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Animal Farm 170448 Librarian's note: There is an Alternate Cover Edition for this edition of this book here.

A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned –a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.
When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.]]>
141 George Orwell 0451526341 Aidan 0 to-read 4.07 1945 Animal Farm
author: George Orwell
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1945
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)]]> 386162
Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years.

Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!]]>
193 Douglas Adams Aidan 0 to-read 4.28 1979 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)
author: Douglas Adams
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1979
rating: 0
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The Martian 18007564
Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error� are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills � and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit � he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

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384 Andy Weir 0804139024 Aidan 0 to-read 4.41 2011 The Martian
author: Andy Weir
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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Fahrenheit 451 13079982 Sixty years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before.

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.� But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.]]>
194 Ray Bradbury Aidan 4 3.97 1953 Fahrenheit 451
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Aidan
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1953
rating: 4
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The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress 16690 288 Robert A. Heinlein 0340837942 Aidan 0 to-read 4.16 1966 The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
author: Robert A. Heinlein
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1966
rating: 0
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1984 40961427 Nineteen Eighty-Four is a rare work that grows more haunting as its futuristic purgatory becomes more real. Published in 1949, the book offers political satirist George Orwell's nightmarish vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one poor stiff's attempt to find individuality. The brilliance of the novel is Orwell's prescience of modern life—the ubiquity of television, the distortion of the language—and his ability to construct such a thorough version of hell. Required reading for students since it was published, it ranks among the most terrifying novels ever written.]]> 298 George Orwell Aidan 0 to-read 4.24 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1949
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Ender’s Game (Ender's Saga, #1)]]> 375802
But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway almost as long. Ender's two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. While Peter was too uncontrollably violent, Valentine very nearly lacks the capability for violence altogether. Neither was found suitable for the military's purpose. But they are driven by their jealousy of Ender, and by their inbred drive for power. Peter seeks to control the political process, to become a ruler. Valentine's abilities turn more toward the subtle control of the beliefs of commoner and elite alike, through powerfully convincing essays. Hiding their youth and identities behind the anonymity of the computer networks, these two begin working together to shape the destiny of Earth-an Earth that has no future at all if their brother Ender fails.]]>
324 Orson Scott Card 0812550706 Aidan 0 to-read 4.31 1985 Ender’s Game (Ender's Saga, #1)
author: Orson Scott Card
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1)]]> 13496
Sweeping from a harsh land of cold to a summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, A Game of Thrones tells a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens. Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; a child is lost in the twilight between life and death; and a determined woman undertakes a treacherous journey to protect all she holds dear. Amid plots and counter-plots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, allies and enemies, the fate of the Starks hangs perilously in the balance, as each side endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.]]>
835 George R.R. Martin 0553588486 Aidan 0 to-read 4.44 1996 A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1)
author: George R.R. Martin
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1)]]> 3263607 One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, as told in The Hobbit.

In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.]]>
527 J.R.R. Tolkien Aidan 0 to-read 4.51 1954 The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1)
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Aidan
average rating: 4.51
book published: 1954
rating: 0
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