H James's bookshelf: currently-reading en-US Sun, 27 Apr 2025 12:34:26 -0700 60 H James's bookshelf: currently-reading 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Narrator 25553618 456 Michael Cisco H James 0 currently-reading 3.98 2010 The Narrator
author: Michael Cisco
name: H James
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/27
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A Springtime Case 159745603 0 Jun'ichirĹŤ Tanizaki H James 0 currently-reading 2.67 A Springtime Case
author: Jun'ichirĹŤ Tanizaki
name: H James
average rating: 2.67
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/04
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Bliss 62025943
In this startling new novel, Bliss, world-renowned, New York Times bestselling fantasist Jeff VanderMeer masterfully conceals and reveals, crafting a tale both intimate and far-reaching. Readers might feel unfooted, but they will never feel unsure, guided as they are by prose so assured it might turn the wind, or the tide, or a river’s current.

Bliss incorporates details of physical culture so vivid that they stir sense memories, and details of counter-factual history so specific that they threaten to undermine reality. At the same time, VanderMeer’s deep fascination with how humanity interacts with the environment is a constant during the Glass Drifters� journey.

Jeff VanderMeer is the World Fantasy Award and Nebula Award winning author of the best-selling Southern Reach trilogy, basis of the critically acclaimed film Annihilation. VanderMeer has produced a body of work so unique and imaginative that the New Yorker crowned him “the King of Weird Fiction.� Bliss is yet another example why.]]>
155 Jeff VanderMeer 164524119X H James 0 currently-reading 3.92 2022 Bliss
author: Jeff VanderMeer
name: H James
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/13
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Birnam Wood 60784757 Birnam Wood is on the move . . .

Five years ago, Mira Bunting founded a guerrilla gardening group: Birnam Wood. An undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic gathering of friends, this activist collective plants crops wherever no one will notice: on the sides of roads, in forgotten parks, and neglected backyards. For years, the group has struggled to break even. Then Mira stumbles on an answer, a way to finally set the group up for the long term: a landslide has closed the Korowai Pass, cutting off the town of Thorndike. Natural disaster has created an opportunity, a sizable farm seemingly abandoned.

But Mira is not the only one interested in Thorndike. Robert Lemoine, the enigmatic American billionaire, has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker--or so he tells Mira when he catches her on the property. Intrigued by Mira, Birnam Wood, and their entrepreneurial spirit, he suggests they work this land. But can they trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust each other?

A gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries, Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its wit, drama, and immersion in character. A brilliantly constructed consideration of intentions, actions, and consequences, it is an unflinching examination of the human impulse to ensure our own survival.]]>
432 Eleanor Catton 0374110336 H James 0 currently-reading 3.79 2023 Birnam Wood
author: Eleanor Catton
name: H James
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/07
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<![CDATA[Consider Phlebas (Culture, #1)]]> 123247626
Iain M. Banks� first science-fiction novel introduces one of the most iconic creations in speculative literature: the Culture, a far future interstellar civilization populated by humans and sophisticated artificial intelligences. From Horza’s last-minute escape, that starts the book with a literal bang, to the space pirates, orbital stations, deadly games and vast icebergs that populate this epic space opera, Banks barely gives the reader a moment to catch their breath. With an imagination as vast as the Culture itself, Banks was one of the true innovators of the genre, and Consider Phlebas is an electrifying first step into a remarkable universe. For this special illustrated edition, artist Dániel Taylor has created a breath-taking collection of images capturing the exotic thrills of a modern science-fiction classic, including a special hidden illustration printed on the inside of the slipcase. The binding is blocked in blue and orange foils, with a field of burning stars continuing onto the exterior of the slipcase; a spectacular finishing touch on an unmissable collectors� edition.

A RACE TO THE PLANET OF THE DEAD
Bora Horza Gobuchul is a Changer, one of a rare group of humanoids able to transform their appearance through a series of precise changes to their body chemistry. It makes him the perfect secret agent, one used skillfully by the Idirans in their war against the Culture. When one of the enemy’s most sophisticated artificial Minds goes to ground inside a Planet of the Dead, Horza is the obvious choice to capture it. First, he must navigate a violent and restless galaxy where the super intelligent machines of the Culture are always a few steps ahead. Catapulted across war-torn space, he throws in his lot with a rag-tag group of mercenaries onboard the Clear Air Turbulence, but Horza’s trials are only just beginning.

THE FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION
The Times named Banks one of the 50 best writers since 1945, and he remains celebrated today for his dry wit and keen-eyed observations of what it is to be human in an often-inhuman galaxy. Dániel Taylor’s illustrations are both intriguing and effortlessly cool, playing with a dizzying sense of scale and the strangeness that is ever present in Consider Phlebas. Using a crisp monochrome palette with deep orange highlights, he transports the reader to the distant corners of the Culture universe, making this exquisitely bound Folio edition an essential volume for devoted fans and newcomers alike.

Bound in blocked cloth
Set in Garamond with Scene as display
560 pages
Frontispiece and 6 color illustrations
Blocked slipcase with printed illustration inside
9½" x 6¼"]]>
560 Iain M. Banks H James 0 currently-reading 3.50 1987 Consider Phlebas (Culture, #1)
author: Iain M. Banks
name: H James
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/10
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<![CDATA[Little, Big; or, The Fairies� Parliament]]> 59552094 Little, Big is without doubt among the greatest works of the imagination created during the last century. In publishing a deluxe, 25th Anniversary Edition of this masterpiece, our goal is twofold: First, we want to fulfill the author’s dream of how the book should be presented, by creating an edition that in every respect, from beauty of design to accuracy of text to excellence of manufacture, will reflect all the artistry, insight, imagination, and care that John Crowley poured into every sentence of Little, Big. And second, we want to create an edition that fans of the book will cherish, an edition that is a joy to behold and to read, an edition made to last several lifetimes. (Publisher site)]]> 779 John Crowley 0963363751 H James 0 currently-reading 4.50 1981 Little, Big; or, The Fairies’ Parliament
author: John Crowley
name: H James
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1981
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/30
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<![CDATA[The Wet and the Dry: A Drinker’s Journey]]> 16113734
An immersing, controversial, and often irreverent travel narrative, The Wet and the Dry offers provocative, sometimes unsettling insights into the deeply embedded conflicts between East and West, and the surprising influence of drinking on the contemporary world today.]]>
240 Lawrence Osborne 0770436889 H James 0 currently-reading 3.33 2013 The Wet and the Dry: A Drinker’s Journey
author: Lawrence Osborne
name: H James
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/01/15
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<![CDATA[Drink What You Want: The Subjective Guide to Making Objectively Delicious Cocktails]]> 51792084 A nonjudgmental, back-to-basics approach to making custom cocktails that's as fun as it is definitive--from a renowned New York City bartender who's worked everywhere from PDT to Momofuku.

John deBary is a veritable cocktail expert with a 100-proof personality, a dash of fun, and garnished with flair--there's nothing muddled about him. In Drink What You Want, John breaks down the science of mixology (yes, it's a science) and explains the rules of drink-making. Most important, you'll learn how to tweak any drink, both classic and creative, to your preferences and moods. Are you adventurous or traditional? Sweet or bitter? Brown liquor or clear?
While giving newbies a rundown of cocktail culture, lingo, and etiquette, John turns the "cocktail book" concept on its ear by infusing a traditionally formal topic with his fresh, conversational voice. Mixology geeks and bottomless brunchers alike will revel in the craft of the cocktail, from classic to modern to funky. Cocktails are about creativity and setting the mood, and Drink What You Want overflows with both.]]>
224 John deBary 0525575774 H James 0 currently-reading 4.32 2020 Drink What You Want: The Subjective Guide to Making Objectively Delicious Cocktails
author: John deBary
name: H James
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/05/20
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<![CDATA[Home Bar Basics (and Not-So-Basics)]]> 15755649 Dave Stolte H James 0 mixology, currently-reading 4.89 2011 Home Bar Basics (and Not-So-Basics)
author: Dave Stolte
name: H James
average rating: 4.89
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/27
shelves: mixology, currently-reading
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No Land's Man 25670671 —from "International House of Patel"

If you're an Indo-Muslim-British-American actor who has spent more time in bars than mosques over the past few decades, turns out it's a little tough to explain who you are or where you are from. In No Land's Man Aasif Mandvi explores this and other conundrums through stories about his family, ambition, desire, and culture, stories that range from dealing with his brunch-obsessed father, to being a high-school-age Michael Jackson impersonator, to joining a Bible study group in order to seduce a nice Christian girl, to improbably becoming America's favorite Muslim/Indian/Arab/Brown/Doctor correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

This is a book filled with passion, discovery, and humor. Mandvi hilariously and poignantly describes a journey that will resonate with anyone who has had to navigate his or her way in the murky space between lands. Or anyone who really loves brunch.

©2014 Aasif Mandvi (P)2014 Audible Inc.]]>
Aasif Mandvi H James 0 currently-reading 3.57 2014 No Land's Man
author: Aasif Mandvi
name: H James
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/10/17
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<![CDATA[Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History]]> 2243724
Christopher Columbus brought sugarcane to the New World on his second voyage. By 1520 commercial sugar production was underway in the Caribbean, along with the perfection of methods to ferment and distill alcohol from sugarcane to produce a new beverage that would have dramatic impact on the region. Caribbean Rum presents the fascinating cultural, economic, and ethnographic history of rum in the Caribbean from the colonial period to the present.
Drawing on data from historical archaeology and the economic history of the Caribbean, Frederick Smith explains why this industry arose in the islands, how attitudes toward alcohol consumption have impacted the people of the region, and how rum production evolved over 400 years from a small colonial activity to a multi-billion-dollar industry controlled by multinational corporations. He investigates the economic impact of Caribbean rum on many scales, including rum's contribution to sugarcane plantation revenues, its role in bolstering colonial and postcolonial economies, and its impact on Atlantic trade. Smith discusses the political and economic trends that determined the value of rum, especially war, competition from other alcohol industries, slavery and emancipation, temperance movements, and globalization.ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚý
The book also examines the social and sacred uses of rum and identifies the forces that shaped alcohol use in the Caribbean. It shows how levels of drinking and drunken deportment reflected underlying social tensions, which were driven by the coercive exploitation of labor and set within a highly contentious hierarchy based on class, race, gender, religion, and ethnic identity, and how these tensions were magnified by epidemic disease, poor living conditions, natural disasters, international conflicts, and unstable food supplies.ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚý]]>
360 Frederick H. Smith 0813028671 H James 0 currently-reading, mixology 3.50 2006 Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History
author: Frederick H. Smith
name: H James
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/02/09
shelves: currently-reading, mixology
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The Black Tower 2942664
Hector Carpentier, a medical student, lives with his widowed mother in her once-genteel home, now a boardinghouse, in Paris’s Latin Quarter, helping the family make ends meet in the politically perilous days of the restoration. Three blocks away, a man has been murdered, and Hector’s name has been found on a scrap of paper in the dead man’s pocket: a case for the unparalleled deductive skills of Eugène François Vidocq, the most feared man in the Paris police. At first suspicious of Hector’s role in the murder, Vidocq gradually draws him into an exhilarating—and dangerous—search that leads them to the true story of what happened to the son of the murdered royal family.

Officially, the Dauphin died a brutal death in Paris’s dreaded Temple—a menacing black tower from which there could have been no escape—but speculation has long persisted that the ten-year-old heir may have been smuggled out of his prison cell. When Hector and Vidocq stumble across a man with no memory of who he is, they begin to wonder if he is the Dauphin himself, come back from the dead. Their suspicions deepen with the discovery of a diary that reveals Hector’s own shocking link to the boy in the tower—and leaves him bound and determined to see justice done, no matter the cost.

In The Black Tower, Bayard deftly interweaves political intrigue, epic treachery, cover-ups, and conspiracies into a gripping portrait of family redemption—and brings to life an indelible portrait of the mighty and profane Eugène François Vidocq, history’s first great detective.]]>
368 Louis Bayard 0061173509 H James 0 currently-reading 3.73 2008 The Black Tower
author: Louis Bayard
name: H James
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/09/26
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<![CDATA[Work Clean: The life-changing power of mise-en-place to organize your life, work, and mind]]> 26114603
Every day, chefs across the globe churn out enormous amounts of high-quality work with efficiency using a system called mise-en-place —a French culinary term that means “putting in place� and signifies an entire lifestyle of readiness and engagement. In Work Clean, Dan Charnas reveals how to apply mise-en-place outside the kitchen, in any kind of work.

Culled from dozens of interviews with culinary professionals and executives, including world-renowned chefs like Thomas Keller and Alfred Portale, this essential guide offers a simple system to focus your actions and accomplish your work. Charnas spells out the 10 major principles of mise-en-place for chefs and non chefs (1) planning is prime; (2) arranging spaces and perfecting movements; (3) cleaning as you go; (4) making first moves; (5) finishing actions; (6) slowing down to speed up; (7) call and callback; (8) open ears and eyes; (9) inspect and correct; (10) total utilization.

This journey into the world of chefs and cooks shows you how each principle works in the kitchen, office, home, and virtually any other setting.]]>
304 Dan Charnas 1623365929 H James 0 currently-reading 4.05 2016 Work Clean: The life-changing power of mise-en-place to organize your life, work, and mind
author: Dan Charnas
name: H James
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/08/18
shelves: currently-reading
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Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1) 888628
Case was the sharpest data thief in the Matrix, until an ex-employer crippled his nervous system. Now a new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run against an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence. With a mirror-eyed girl street-samurai riding shotgun, he's ready for the silicon-quick, bleakly prophetic adventure that upped the ante on an entire genre of fiction.]]>
278 William Gibson H James 0 currently-reading 4.01 1984 Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1)
author: William Gibson
name: H James
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/04/30
shelves: currently-reading
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Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff 32706608
Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff marks the debut of a dazzling literary talent. With comic bravado and an urgent agenda, Pappy Pariah has created a haunting, hilarious vision of an American middle-aged man with a mission - a loner struggling to find truth amid the chaos of a political campaign that threatens to destroy the values of the country he loves.

Bringing Pariah's revelatory prose to life is actor, director, and filmmaker Sean Penn (Mystic River, Milk, Dead Man Walking), whose knack for choosing nuanced roles and delivering emotionally rich character studies finds an apt bedfellow in Bob Honey. Penn's distinct voice - here, an expertly crafted tightrope walk between oddball jocularity and grave prophecy - perfectly captures the caustic truth telling of Pariah's message. With brazen and unabashed affection for Pariah's hero, Penn takes the story of Bob Honey to dizzying new heights.

About the Pappy Pariah was disputably born in Summerton Feathers, Iowa, in the year of our Lord 1960. He has written voluminous travelogues and articles under a pseudonym for many mainstream American press outlets. At the age of 13, his appendix exploded while he was playing flag football, and it was during treatment for extreme peritonitis that he was first driven to put pen to paper. This is his first work of fiction.]]>
3 Pappy Pariah H James 0 currently-reading 2.48 2016 Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff
author: Pappy Pariah
name: H James
average rating: 2.48
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/02/15
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<![CDATA[October: The Story of the Russian Revolution]]> 32186214
In a panoramic sweep, stretching from St. Petersburg and Moscow to the remotest villages of a sprawling empire, Miéville uncovers the catastrophes, intrigues and inspirations of 1917, in all their passion, drama and strangeness. Intervening in long-standing historical debates, but told with the reader new to the topic especially in mind, here is a breathtaking story of humanity at its greatest and most desperate; of a turning point for civilization that still resonates loudly today.]]>
384 China Miéville 1784782793 H James 0 currently-reading 4.03 2017 October: The Story of the Russian Revolution
author: China Miéville
name: H James
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/05/16
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<![CDATA[Misogyny: The World's Oldest Prejudice]]> 597662 320 Jack Holland 0786718234 H James 0 currently-reading 4.12 2006 Misogyny: The World's Oldest Prejudice
author: Jack Holland
name: H James
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/09/10
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The Woman in White 2567059 The Woman in White (1859-60) is the first and greatest "Sensation Novel." Walter Hartright's mysterious midnight encounter with the woman in white draws him into a vortex of crime, poison, kidnapping, and international intrigue. This new critical edition is the first to use the original manuscript of the novel. John Sutherland examines Collins's contribution to Victorian fiction, traces his practices as a creator of plot, and provides a chronology of the novel's complicated events.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.]]>
702 Wilkie Collins 0199535639 H James 0 currently-reading 4.06 1859 The Woman in White
author: Wilkie Collins
name: H James
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1859
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/01/22
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<![CDATA[On the Road: The Original Scroll]]> 417065 416 Jack Kerouac 067006355X H James 0 currently-reading 4.19 1957 On the Road: The Original Scroll
author: Jack Kerouac
name: H James
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1957
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/01/12
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<![CDATA[Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West]]> 394535 Blood Meridian is an epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, brilliantly subverting the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the Wild West. Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into a nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.]]> 351 Cormac McCarthy H James 0 currently-reading 4.18 1985 Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: H James
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/07/20
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<![CDATA[Death & Co: Modern Classic Cocktails]]> 20600316 Ěý
Death & Co is the most important, influential, and oft-imitated barĚýto emerge from the contemporary craft cocktail movement. Since its opening in 2006, Death &ĚýCo has been a must-visit destination for serious drinkers and cocktail enthusiasts, andĚýthe winner of every major industry award—including America’s Best Cocktail Bar and Best Cocktail Menu at the Tales of the Cocktail convention. Boasting a supremelyĚýtalented and creative bar staff—the best in the industry—Death & Co is also the birthplace of some of the modern era’s most iconic drinks, such as the OaxacaĚýOld-Fashioned, Naked and Famous, and the Conference.Ěý

Destined to become a definitive reference on craft cocktails,Ěý Death & Co ĚýfeaturesĚýmore than 500 of the bar’s most innovative and sought-after cocktails. But moreĚýthan just a collection of recipes,Ěý Death & Co Ěýis also a complete cocktail education, with information on the theory and philosophy of drink making, a complete guideĚýto buying and using spirits, and step-by-step instructions for mastering key bartendingĚýtechniques. Filled with beautiful, evocative photography; illustrative charts and infographics; and colorful essays about the characters who fill the bar each night;Ěý Death & Co —like its namesake bar—is bold, elegant, and setting the pace for mixologists around the world.]]>
320 David Kaplan 1607745259 H James 0 currently-reading, mixology 4.61 2014 Death & Co: Modern Classic Cocktails
author: David Kaplan
name: H James
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/04/24
shelves: currently-reading, mixology
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Gone Girl 19288043 What have we done to each other?

These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren't made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone.

So what did happen to Nick's beautiful wife?]]>
415 Gillian Flynn 0307588378 H James 0 currently-reading 4.22 2012 Gone Girl
author: Gillian Flynn
name: H James
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2014/09/23
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Kiss of the Spider Woman 588242 281 Manuel Puig H James 0 currently-reading 3.99 1976 Kiss of the Spider Woman
author: Manuel Puig
name: H James
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1976
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/12/31
shelves: currently-reading
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<![CDATA[If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities]]> 17802919 432 Benjamin R. Barber 030016467X H James 0 currently-reading 3.06 2013 If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities
author: Benjamin R. Barber
name: H James
average rating: 3.06
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/10/11
shelves: currently-reading
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Venice: Pure City 2301649
Everything is here: the merchants on the Rialto and the Jews in the ghetto; the mosaics of St Mark's and the glass blowers of Murano; the carnival masks and the sad colonies of lepers; the doges and the destitute and the artists with their passion for colour and form - Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto, Tiepolo. There are wars and sieges, scandals and seductions, fountains playing in deserted squares and crowds thronging the markets.And there is a dark undertone too, of shadowy corners and dead ends, prisons and punishment.

The language and way of thinking of the Venetians sets them aside from the rest of Italy. They are an island people, linked to the sea and to the tides rather than the land.'The moon rules Venice,' Ackroyd writes: 'It is built on ocean shells and ocean ground; it has the aspect of infinity.It is the floating world... changing and variable and accidental.'This book, like a magic gondola, transports its readers to thatsensual, surprising realm. We could have no better guide - reading Ackroyd's Venice is, in itself, a glorious journey and the perfect holiday.]]>
403 Peter Ackroyd 0701172851 H James 0 currently-reading 3.61 2009 Venice: Pure City
author: Peter Ackroyd
name: H James
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/10/18
shelves: currently-reading
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Underworld 7049696 833 Don DeLillo 1416595856 H James 0 currently-reading 3.82 1997 Underworld
author: Don DeLillo
name: H James
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/08/29
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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Don Quixote 823664 Edith Grossman's definitive English translation of the Spanish masterpiece, in an expanded P.S. edition

Widely regarded as one of the funniest and most tragic books ever written, Don Quixote chronicles the adventures of the self-created knight-errant Don Quixote of La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they travel through sixteenth-century Spain. You haven't experienced Don Quixote in English until you've read this masterful translation.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.]]>
940 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 0060188707 H James 0 currently-reading 4.08 1615 Don Quixote
author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
name: H James
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1615
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/07
shelves: currently-reading
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Against the Day 409
With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.

The sizable cast of characters includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, innocents and decadents, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics, and stage magicians, spies, detectives, adventuresses, and hired guns. There are cameo appearances by Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi, and Groucho Marx.

As an era of certainty comes crashing down around their ears and an unpredictable future commences, these folks are mostly just trying to pursue their lives. Sometimes they manage to catch up; sometimes it's their lives that pursue them.

Meanwhile, the author is up to his usual business. Characters stop what they're doing to sing what are for the most part stupid songs. Strange sexual practices take place. Obscure languages are spoken, not always idiomatically. Contrary-to-the-fact occurrences occur. If it is not the world, it is what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two. According to some, this is one of the main purposes of fiction.

Let the reader decide, let the reader beware. Good luck.

--Thomas Pynchon

About the Author:
Thomas Pynchon is the author of V., The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow, Slow Learner, a collection of short stories, Vineland and, most recently, Mason and Dixon. He received the National Book Award for Gravity's Rainbow in 1974.]]>
1085 Thomas Pynchon 159420120X H James 0 currently-reading 4.01 2006 Against the Day
author: Thomas Pynchon
name: H James
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2008/07/15
shelves: currently-reading
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