victoria's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 07 Aug 2024 16:03:56 -0700 60 victoria's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Quartet in Autumn 227002 186 Barbara Pym 0330326481 victoria 4 3.90 1978 Quartet in Autumn
author: Barbara Pym
name: victoria
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1978
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> Lady Chatterley's Lover 49583709
With her soft brown hair, lithe figure and big, wondering eyes, Constance Chatterley is possessed of a certain vitality. Yet she is deeply unhappy; married to an invalid, she is almost as inwardly paralyzed as her husband Clifford is paralyzed below the waist. It is not until she finds refuge in the arms of Mellors the game-keeper, a solitary man of a class apart, that she feels regenerated. Together they move from an outer world of chaos towards an inner world of fulfillment.

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.]]> 400 D.H. Lawrence 014303961X victoria 3 3.48 1928 Lady Chatterley's Lover
author: D.H. Lawrence
name: victoria
average rating: 3.48
book published: 1928
rating: 3
read at: 2013/03/13
date added: 2023/10/18
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]]> After the Quake 11299 147 Haruki Murakami victoria 4 3.81 2000 After the Quake
author: Haruki Murakami
name: victoria
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2000
rating: 4
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date added: 2020/05/18
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]]> Catch-22 4610 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

With a new preface by the author

Explosive, subversive, wild and funny, 50 years on the novel's strength is undiminished. Reading Joseph Heller's classic satire is nothing less than a rite of passage.

Set in the closing months of World War II in an American bomber squadron off the coast of Italy, Catch-22 is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he has never even met keep trying to kill him. Joseph Heller's bestselling novel is a hilarious and tragic satire on military madness, and the tale of one man's efforts to survive it.]]> 570 Joseph Heller 0099477319 victoria 3 3.97 1961 Catch-22
author: Joseph Heller
name: victoria
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1961
rating: 3
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date added: 2020/05/09
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]]> Killing Commendatore 38820047
In Killing Commendatore, a thirty-something portrait painter in Tokyo is abandoned by his wife and finds himself holed up in the mountain home of a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When he discovers a previously unseen painting in the attic, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it, he must complete a journey that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a two-foot-high physical manifestation of an Idea, a dapper businessman who lives across the valley, a precocious thirteen-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt during World War II in Vienna, a pit in the woods behind the artist¡¯s home, and an underworld haunted by Double Metaphors. A tour de force of love and loneliness, war and art¡ªas well as a loving homage to The Great Gatsby¡ªKilling Commendatore is a stunning work of imagination from one of our greatest writers.]]> 681 Haruki Murakami 052552004X victoria 3 3.88 2017 Killing Commendatore
author: Haruki Murakami
name: victoria
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2019/04/16
date added: 2019/04/16
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]]> 1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3) 18626839 The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.

A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver¡¯s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 ¡ª¡°Q is for ¡®question mark.¡¯ A world that bears a question.¡± Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled.

As Aomame's and Tengo's narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector.

A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell is Haruki Murakami's most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers.

This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.]]> 1318 Haruki Murakami victoria 5 4.03 2009 1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3)
author: Haruki Murakami
name: victoria
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2014/01/09
date added: 2019/01/16
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]]> The Book of Deadly Animals 11821556 The Book of Deadly Animals. Award-winning writer Gordon Grice takes readers on a tour of the animal kingdom--from grizzly bears to great white sharks, big cats to crocodiles. Every page overflows with astonishing facts about Earth's great predators and unforgettable stories of their encounters with humans, all delivered in Grice's signature dark comic style. Illustrated with awe-inspiring photographs of beasts and bugs, this wondrous work will horrify, delight, and amaze.]]> 416 Gordon Grice 0143120743 victoria 4 3.82 2010 The Book of Deadly Animals
author: Gordon Grice
name: victoria
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2012/07/22
date added: 2018/12/08
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]]> The Girl on the Train 22557272
An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.]]> 336 Paula Hawkins 1594633665 victoria 4 women-authors 3.97 2015 The Girl on the Train
author: Paula Hawkins
name: victoria
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2017/10/08
date added: 2017/10/08
shelves: women-authors
review:

]]> Underground Airlines 32940838 As he works to infiltrate the local cell of a abolitionist movement called the Underground Airlines, tracking Jackdaw through the back rooms of churches, empty parking garages, hotels, and medical offices, Victor believes he's hot on the trail. But his strange, increasingly uncanny pursuit is complicated by a boss who won't reveal the extraordinary stakes of Jackdaw's case, as well as by a heartbreaking young woman and her child--who may be Victor's salvation.
Victor believes himself to be a good man doing bad work, unwilling to give up the freedom he has worked so hard to earn. But in pursuing Jackdaw, Victor discovers secrets at the core of the country's arrangement with the Hard Four, secrets the government will preserve at any cost.
Underground Airlines is a ground-breaking novel, a wickedly imaginative thriller, and a story of an America that is more like our own than we'd like to believe.]]> 336 Ben H. Winters 0316261254 victoria 3 3.75 2016 Underground Airlines
author: Ben H. Winters
name: victoria
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2016
rating: 3
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date added: 2017/10/08
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]]> Woman at Point Zero 159604 108 Nawal El Saadawi victoria 0 4.21 1975 Woman at Point Zero
author: Nawal El Saadawi
name: victoria
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1975
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/07/24
shelves: currently-reading, women-authors
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]]> <![CDATA[You Can't Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain]]> 29496435
Phoebe Robinson is a stand-up comic, which means that, often, her everyday experiences become points of comedic fodder. And as a black woman in America, she maintains, sometimes you need to have a sense of humor to deal with the absurdity you are handed on the daily. Robinson has experienced her fair share over the years: she's been unceremoniously relegated to the role of "the black friend," as if she is somehow the authority on all things racial; she's been questioned about her love of U2 and Billy Joel ("isn t that . . . white people music?"); she's been called "uppity" for having an opinion in the workplace; she's been followed around stores by security guards; and yes, people do ask her whether they can touch her hair all. the. time. Now, she's ready to take these topics to the page and she s going to make you laugh as she s doing it.

Using her trademark wit alongside pop-culture references galore, Robinson explores everything from why Lisa Bonet is "Queen. Bae. Jesus," to breaking down the terrible nature of casting calls, to giving her less-than-traditional advice to the future female president, and demanding that the NFL clean up its act, all told in the same conversational voice that launched her podcast, "2 Dope Queens," to the top spot on iTunes. As personal as it is political, "You Can't Touch My Hair" examines our cultural climate and skewers our biases with humor and heart, announcing Robinson as a writer on the rise."]]> 285 Phoebe Robinson 0143129201 victoria 4 women-authors 3.84 2016 You Can't Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain
author: Phoebe Robinson
name: victoria
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2016
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/06/18
shelves: women-authors
review:

]]> Tai-Pan (Asian Saga, #2) 42933 732 James Clavell victoria 0 currently-reading 4.28 1966 Tai-Pan (Asian Saga, #2)
author: James Clavell
name: victoria
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1966
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/06/18
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Wind/Pinball: Two Novels 24013720 Discover Haruki Murakami's first two novels.

'If you're the sort of guy who raids the refrigerators of silent kitchens at three o'clock in the morning, you can only write accordingly.

That's who I am.'

Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 are Haruki Murakami's earliest novels. They follow the fortunes of the narrator and his friend, known only by his nickname, the Rat. In Hear the Wind Sing the narrator is home from college on his summer break. He spends his time drinking beer and smoking in J's Bar with the Rat, listening to the radio, thinking about writing and the women he has slept with, and pursuing a relationship with a girl with nine fingers.

Three years later, in Pinball, 1973, he has moved to Tokyo to work as a translator and live with indistinguishable twin girls, but the Rat has remained behind, despite his efforts to leave both the town and his girlfriend. The narrator finds himself haunted by memories of his own doomed relationship but also, more bizarrely, by his short-lived obsession with playing pinball in J's Bar. This sends him on a quest to find the exact model of pinball machine he had enjoyed playing years earlier: the three-flipper Spaceship.]]> 234 Haruki Murakami 0385352123 victoria 4 3.54 1980 Wind/Pinball: Two Novels
author: Haruki Murakami
name: victoria
average rating: 3.54
book published: 1980
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/06/18
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]]> Under the Udala Trees 23719408 Under the Udala Trees is a deeply searching, powerful debut about the dangers of living and loving openly.

Ijeoma comes of age as her nation does; born before independence, she is eleven when civil war breaks out in the young republic of Nigeria. Sent away to safety, she meets another displaced child and they, star-crossed, fall in love. They are from different ethnic communities. They are also both girls.

When their love is discovered, Ijeoma learns that she will have to hide this part of herself. But there is a cost to living inside a lie.

As Edwidge Danticat has made personal the legacy of Haiti's political coming of age, Okparanta's Under the Udala Trees uses one woman's lifetime to examine the ways in which Nigerians continue to struggle toward selfhood. Even as their nation contends with and recovers from the effects of war and division, Nigerian lives are also wrecked and lost from taboo and prejudice. This story offers a glimmer of hope ¡ª a future where a woman might just be able to shape her life around truth and love.]]> 328 Chinelo Okparanta 0544003446 victoria 0 women-authors, to-read 4.02 2015 Under the Udala Trees
author: Chinelo Okparanta
name: victoria
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/06/18
shelves: women-authors, to-read
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]]> Cutting for Stone 3591262
Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother¡¯s death in childbirth and their father¡¯s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Yet it will be love, not politics¡ªtheir passion for the same woman¡ªthat will tear them apart and force Marion, fresh out of medical school, to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as an intern at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him¡ªnearly destroying him¡ªMarion must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.

An unforgettable journey into one man¡¯s remarkable life, and an epic story about the power, intimacy, and curious beauty of the work of healing others.
(front flap)]]> 560 Abraham Verghese 0375414495 victoria 4 4.32 2009 Cutting for Stone
author: Abraham Verghese
name: victoria
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2017/02/04
date added: 2017/02/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Existentialism and Human Emotions]]> 22623 96 Jean-Paul Sartre 0806509023 victoria 3 3.83 1957 Existentialism and Human Emotions
author: Jean-Paul Sartre
name: victoria
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1957
rating: 3
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date added: 2016/12/21
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]]> The Circle (The Circle, #1) 18302455 alternate cover for ISBN 9780385351393

When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world¡¯s most powerful internet company, she feels she¡¯s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users¡¯ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency.

As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company¡¯s modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO.

Mae can¡¯t believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world¡ªeven as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public.

What begins as the captivating story of one woman¡¯s ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.]]> 493 Dave Eggers victoria 4 3.41 2013 The Circle (The Circle, #1)
author: Dave Eggers
name: victoria
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2016/11/21
date added: 2016/11/21
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]]> Half of a Yellow Sun 18749 A masterly, haunting new novel from a writer heralded by The Washington Post Book World as ¡°the 21st-century daughter of Chinua Achebe,¡± Half of a Yellow Sun re-creates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra¡¯s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria in the 1960s, and the chilling violence that followed.

With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor¡¯s beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna¡¯s twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and the three must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another.

Epic, ambitious, and triumphantly realized, Half of a Yellow Sun is a remarkable novel about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race¡ªand the ways in which love can complicate them all. Adichie brilliantly evokes the promise and the devastating disappointments that marked this time and place, bringing us one of the most powerful, dramatic, and intensely emotional pictures of modern Africa that we have ever had.]]> 435 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 1400044162 victoria 5 women-authors 4.34 2006 Half of a Yellow Sun
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: victoria
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2016/11/13
date added: 2016/11/13
shelves: women-authors
review:

]]> Romeo and Juliet 42049 Romeo and Juliet on the left-hand page, side-by-side with an easy-to-understand translation on the right.]]> 304 William Shakespeare 1411400445 victoria 4 3.64 1597 Romeo and Juliet
author: William Shakespeare
name: victoria
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1597
rating: 4
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date added: 2016/09/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Seeds of Change: Six Plants That Transformed Mankind]]> 835314 400 Henry Hobhouse 1593760493 victoria 0 currently-reading 3.83 1986 Seeds of Change: Six Plants That Transformed Mankind
author: Henry Hobhouse
name: victoria
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1986
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/09/04
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Girl Walks into a Bar . . .: Comedy Calamities, Dating Disasters, and a Midlife Miracle]]> 12867423 248 Rachel Dratch 1592407110 victoria 4 women-authors 3.61 2012 Girl Walks into a Bar . . .: Comedy Calamities, Dating Disasters, and a Midlife Miracle
author: Rachel Dratch
name: victoria
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2012
rating: 4
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date added: 2016/09/04
shelves: women-authors
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]]> Sea Creatures 16248194
When Georgia takes a job as an errand runner for an artist who lives alone in the middle of Biscayne Bay, she's surprised to find her life changes dramatically. Time spent with the intense hermit at his isolated home might help Frankie gain the courage to speak, it seems. And it might help Georgia reconcile the woman she was with the woman she has become.

But when Graham leaves to work on a ship in Hurricane Alley and the truth behind Frankie's mutism is uncovered, the family's challenges return, more complicated than before. Late that summer, as a hurricane bears down on South Florida, Georgia must face the fact that her choices have put her only child in grave danger.

Sea Creatures is a mesmerizing exploration of the high stakes of marriage and parenthood, the story of a woman coming into her own as a mother, forced to choose between her marriage, her child, and the possibility of new love.]]> 320 Susanna Daniel 006221960X victoria 2 women-authors 3.64 2013 Sea Creatures
author: Susanna Daniel
name: victoria
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at: 2016/09/04
date added: 2016/09/04
shelves: women-authors
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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 victoria 4 4.44 1996 A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1)
author: George R.R. Martin
name: victoria
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at: 2016/09/04
date added: 2016/09/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman]]> 29340182 260 Lindy West 0316348406 victoria 4 women-authors 4.16 2016 Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman
author: Lindy West
name: victoria
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2016/07/05
date added: 2016/07/05
shelves: women-authors
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]]> Between the World and Me 25489625 ¡°This is your country, this is your world, this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.¡±
?
In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation¡¯s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of ¡°race,¡± a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men¡ªbodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?
?
Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates¡¯s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son¡ªand readers¡ªthe story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children¡¯s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.]]> 152 Ta-Nehisi Coates victoria 4 4.40 2015 Between the World and Me
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: victoria
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/07/03
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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¡ªand 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 ¡ª and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit ¡ª he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

]]> 384 Andy Weir 0804139024 victoria 4 4.41 2011 The Martian
author: Andy Weir
name: victoria
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2016/07/03
date added: 2016/07/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)]]> 10335308
Perhaps you want to know what Mindy thinks makes a great best friend (someone who will fill your prescription in the middle of the night), or what makes a great guy (one who is aware of all elderly people in any room at any time and acts accordingly), or what is the perfect amount of fame (so famous you can never get convicted of murder in a court of law), or how to maintain a trim figure (you will not find that information in these pages). If so, you've come to the right book, mostly!

In Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, Mindy invites readers on a tour of her life and her unscientific observations on romance, friendship, and Hollywood, with several conveniently placed stopping points for you to run errands and make phone calls. Mindy Kaling really is just a Girl Next Door - not so much literally anywhere in the continental United States, but definitely if you live in India or Sri Lanka.]]> 222 Mindy Kaling 0307886263 victoria 4 women-authors 3.86 2011 Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)
author: Mindy Kaling
name: victoria
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2011
rating: 4
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date added: 2016/06/12
shelves: women-authors
review:

]]> Why Not Me? 22716447 Why Not Me?, Kaling shares her ongoing journey to find contentment and excitement in her adult life, whether it¡¯s falling in love at work, seeking new friendships in lonely places, attempting to be the first person in history to lose weight without any behavior modification whatsoever, or most important, believing that you have a place in Hollywood when you¡¯re constantly reminded that no one looks like you.

In ¡°How to Look Spectacular: A Starlet¡¯s Confessions,¡± Kaling gives her tongue-in-cheek secrets for surefire on-camera beauty, (¡°Your natural hair color may be appropriate for your skin tone, but this isn¡¯t the land of appropriate¨Cthis is Hollywood, baby. Out here, a dark-skinned woman¡¯s traditional hair color is honey blonde.¡±) ¡°Player¡± tells the story of Kaling being seduced and dumped by a female friend in L.A. (¡°I had been replaced by a younger model. And now they had matching bangs.¡±) In ¡°Unlikely Leading Lady,¡± she muses on America¡¯s fixation with the weight of actresses, (¡°Most women we see onscreen are either so thin that they¡¯re walking clavicles or so huge that their only scenes involve them breaking furniture.¡±) And in ¡°Soup Snakes,¡± Kaling spills some secrets on her relationship with her ex-boyfriend and close friend, B.J. Novak (¡°I will freely admit: my relationship with B.J. Novak is weird as hell.¡±)

Mindy turns the anxieties, the glamour, and the celebrations of her second coming-of-age into a laugh-out-loud funny collection of essays that anyone who¡¯s ever been at a turning point in their life or career can relate to. And those who¡¯ve never been at a turning point can skip to the parts where she talks about meeting Bradley Cooper.]]> 228 Mindy Kaling 0804138141 victoria 3 women-authors 3.85 2015 Why Not Me?
author: Mindy Kaling
name: victoria
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2016/06/12
date added: 2016/06/12
shelves: women-authors
review:

]]> Gilead (Gilead, #1) 68210 Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson returns with an intimate tale of three generations, from the Civil War to the 20th century: a story about fathers and sons and the spiritual battles that still rage at America's heart. In the words of Kirkus, it is a novel "as big as a nation, as quiet as thought, and moving as prayer. Matchless and towering." GILEAD tells the story of America and will break your heart.]]> 247 Marilynne Robinson 031242440X victoria 2 women-authors 3.84 2004 Gilead (Gilead, #1)
author: Marilynne Robinson
name: victoria
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2004
rating: 2
read at: 2016/06/09
date added: 2016/06/09
shelves: women-authors
review:

]]> Falling Leaves 54529
A compelling, painful, and ultimately triumphant story of a girl's journey into adulthood, Adeline's story is a testament to the most basic of human needs: acceptance, love, and understanding. With a powerful voice that speaks of the harsh realities of growing up female in a family and society that kept girls in emotional chains, Falling Leaves is a work of heartfelt intimacy and a rare authentic portrait of twentieth-century China.]]> 278 Adeline Yen Mah 0767903579 victoria 3 3.91 1997 Falling Leaves
author: Adeline Yen Mah
name: victoria
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2016/06/05
shelves: china-southeast-asia, women-authors
review:

]]> The Bookseller of Kabul 9838
For more than twenty years Sultan Khan defied the authorities¡ªbe they communist or Taliban¡ªto supply books to the people of Kabul. He was arrested, interrogated and imprisoned by the communists, and watched illiterate Taliban soldiers burn piles of his books in the street. He even resorted to hiding most of his stock¡ªalmost ten thousand books¡ªin attics all over Kabul.

But while Khan is passionate in his love of books and his hatred of censorship, he also has strict views on family life and the role of women. As an outsider, ?sne Seierstad found herself in a unique position, able to move freely between the private, restricted sphere of the women¡ªincluding Khan¡¯s two wives¡ªand the freer, more public lives of the men.

It is an experience that Seierstad finds both fascinating and frustrating. As she steps back from the page and allows the Khans to speak for themselves, we learn of proposals and marriages, hope and fear, crime and punishment. The result is a genuinely gripping and moving portrait of a family, and a clear-eyed assessment of a country struggling to free itself from history.' to 'This mesmerizing portrait of a proud man who, through three decades and successive repressive regimes, heroically braved persecution to bring books to the people of Kabul has elicited extraordinary praise throughout the world and become a phenomenal international bestseller. The Bookseller of Kabul is startling in its intimacy and its details¡ªa revelation of the plight of Afghan women and a window into the surprising realities of daily life in today¡¯s Afghanistan.']]> 288 ?sne Seierstad 0316159417 victoria 3 3.78 2002 The Bookseller of Kabul
author: ?sne Seierstad
name: victoria
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at: 2008/04/01
date added: 2016/06/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women]]> 337615
"Frank, enraging, and captivating." - The New York Times

Nine Parts of Desire is the story of Brooks' intrepid journey toward an understanding of the women behind the veils, and of the often contradictory political, religious, and cultural forces that shape their lives. Defying our stereotypes about the Muslim world, Brooks' acute analysis of the world's fastest growing religion deftly illustrates how Islam's holiest texts have been misused to justify repression of women, and how male pride and power have warped the original message of a once liberating faith. As a prizewinning foreign correspondent for? The Wall Street Journal , Geraldine Brooks spent six years covering the Middle East through wars, insurrections, and the volcanic upheaval of resurgent fundamentalism. Yet for her, headline events were only the backdrop to a less obvious but more enduring drama: the daily life of Muslim women.]]> 255 Geraldine Brooks 0385475772 victoria 5 4.05 1994 Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: victoria
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1994
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Persepolis. The story of a childhood (Persepolis, #1)]]> 9516
Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life. Marjane¡¯s child¡¯s-eye view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, with laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love.]]> 153 Marjane Satrapi 037571457X victoria 5 4.27 2003 Persepolis. The story of a childhood (Persepolis, #1)
author: Marjane Satrapi
name: victoria
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2003
rating: 5
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]]> Infidel 81227
Infidel shows the coming of age of this distinguished political superstar and champion of free speech as well as the development of her beliefs, iron will, and extraordinary determination to fight injustice. Raised in a strict Muslim family, Hirsi Ali survived civil war, female mutilation, brutal beatings, adolescence as a devout believer during the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and life in four troubled, unstable countries ruled largely by despots. She escaped from a forced marriage and sought asylum in the Netherlands, where she earned a college degree in political science, tried to help her tragically depressed sister adjust to the West, and fought for the rights of Muslim women and the reform of Islam as a member of Parliament. Under constant threat, demonized by reactionary Islamists and politicians, disowned by her father, and expelled from family and clan, she refuses to be silenced.

Ultimately a celebration of triumph over adversity, Hirsi Ali¡¯s story tells how a bright little girl evolves out of dutiful obedience to become an outspoken, pioneering freedom fighter. As Western governments struggle to balance democratic ideals with religious pressures, no other book could be more timely or more significant.]]> 353 Ayaan Hirsi Ali 0743289684 victoria 4 4.17 2006 Infidel
author: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
name: victoria
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2010/03/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human]]> 2120344 384 Elizabeth Hess 0553803832 victoria 4 women-authors 3.77 2008 Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human
author: Elizabeth Hess
name: victoria
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2008/05/28
date added: 2016/06/05
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]]> The Diary of a Young Girl 48855
In 1942, with the Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, the Franks and another family lived cloistered in the ¡°Secret Annexe¡± of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and surprisingly humorous, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.
--back cover]]> 283 Anne Frank victoria 5 women-authors 4.19 1947 The Diary of a Young Girl
author: Anne Frank
name: victoria
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1947
rating: 5
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]]> Interpreter of Maladies 5439 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in Jhumpa Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations. In "A Temporary Matter," published in The New Yorker, a young Indian-American couple faces the heartbreak of a stillborn birth while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession. Lahiri writes with deft cultural insight reminiscent of Anita Desai and a nuanced depth that recalls Mavis Gallant.]]> 198 Jhumpa Lahiri 0618101365 victoria 5 women-authors 4.18 1999 Interpreter of Maladies
author: Jhumpa Lahiri
name: victoria
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at: 2008/02/05
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]]> The God of Small Things 37819 The God of Small Things is an award-winning landmark that started for its author an esteemed career of fiction and political commentary that continues unabated.]]> 321 Arundhati Roy victoria 3 women-authors 3.85 1997 The God of Small Things
author: Arundhati Roy
name: victoria
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at: 2010/08/18
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]]> The Namesake 33917 Interpreter of Maladies established this young writer as one the most brilliant of her generation. Her stories are one of the very few debut works -- and only a handful of collections -- to have won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Among the many other awards and honors it received were the New Yorker Debut of the Year award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the highest critical praise for its grace, acuity, and compassion in detailing lives transported from India to America.

In The Namesake, Lahiri enriches the themes that made her collection an international bestseller: the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, and, most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations. Here again Lahiri displays her deft touch for the perfect detail ¡ª the fleeting moment, the turn of phrase ¡ª that opens whole worlds of emotion.

The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of their arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle together in Cambridge, Massachusetts. An engineer by training, Ashoke adapts far less warily than his wife, who resists all things American and pines for her family. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. Named for a Russian writer by his Indian parents in memory of a catastrophe years before, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name.

Lahiri brings great empathy to Gogol as he stumbles along the first-generation path, strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs. With penetrating insight, she reveals not only the defining power of the names and expectations bestowed upon us by our parents, but also the means by which we slowly, sometimes painfully, come to define ourselves.]]> 304 Jhumpa Lahiri 0618485228 victoria 4 women-authors 4.01 2003 The Namesake
author: Jhumpa Lahiri
name: victoria
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2003
rating: 4
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]]> Water for Elephants 43641
Beautifully written, Water for Elephants is illuminated by a wonderful sense of time and place. It tells a story of a love between two people that overcomes incredible odds in a world in which even love is a luxury that few can afford.]]> 368 Sara Gruen 1565125606 victoria 4 women-authors 4.11 2006 Water for Elephants
author: Sara Gruen
name: victoria
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2006
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[The Handmaid¡¯s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)]]> 38447
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.]]> 311 Margaret Atwood 038549081X victoria 4 women-authors 4.15 1985 The Handmaid¡¯s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: victoria
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1985
rating: 4
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]]> Prodigal Summer 14249 Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia.

From her outpost in an isolated mountain cabin, Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. She is caught off-guard by a young hunter who invades her most private spaces and confounds her self-assured, solitary life. On a farm several miles down the mountain, Lusa Maluf Landowski, a bookish city girl turned farmer's wife, finds herself unexpectedly marooned in a strange place where she must declare or lose her attachment to the land that has become her own. And a few more miles down the road, a pair of elderly feuding neighbors tend their respective farms and wrangle about God, pesticides, and the possibilities of a future neither of them expected.

Over the course of one humid summer, these characters find their connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with whom they share a place. Prodigal Summer demonstrates a balance of narrative, drama and ideas that is characteristic of Barbara Kingsolver's finest work.]]> 444 Barbara Kingsolver 0060959037 victoria 4 women-authors 4.03 2000 Prodigal Summer
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: victoria
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2007/09/01
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]]> The Giver (The Giver, #1) 3636 208 Lois Lowry 0385732554 victoria 4 women-authors 4.12 1993 The Giver (The Giver, #1)
author: Lois Lowry
name: victoria
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1993
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears at the World's Most Famous Cooking School]]> 880773
The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry is the touching and remarkably funny account of Flinn¡¯s transformation as she moves through the school¡¯s intense program and falls deeply in love along the way. Flinn interweaves more than two dozen recipes with a unique look inside Le Cordon Bleu amid battles with demanding chefs, competitive classmates, and her ¡°wretchedly inadequate¡± French. Flinn offers a vibrant portrait of Paris, one in which the sights and sounds of the city¡¯s street markets and purveyors come alive in rich detail.

The ultimate wish fulfillment book, her story is a true testament to pursuing a dream. Fans of Julie & Julia, My LIfe in France, and Eat, Pray, Love will be amused, inspired, and richly rewarded by this seductive tale of romance, Paris, and French food.]]> 278 Kathleen Flinn 0670018228 victoria 4 women-authors 3.70 2007 The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears at the World's Most Famous Cooking School
author: Kathleen Flinn
name: victoria
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2008/01/01
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]]> The Bell Jar 6514 294 Sylvia Plath 0571268862 victoria 4 women-authors 4.05 1963 The Bell Jar
author: Sylvia Plath
name: victoria
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1963
rating: 4
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]]> Herland 86501 136 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 1406941654 victoria 2 women-authors 3.23 1915 Herland
author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
name: victoria
average rating: 3.23
book published: 1915
rating: 2
read at: 2002/01/01
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]]> Anthem 667 Anthem is Ayn Rand's classic tale of a dystopian future of the great "We"¡ªa world that deprives individuals of a name or independence¡ªthat anticipates her later masterpieces, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

They existed only to serve the state. They were conceived in controlled Palaces of Mating. They died in the Home of the Useless. From cradle to grave, the crowd was one¡ªthe great WE.

In all that was left of humanity, there was only one man who dared to think, seek, and love. He lived in the dark ages of the future. In a loveless world, he dared to love the woman of his choice. In an age that had lost all trace of science and civilization, he had the courage to seek and find knowledge. But these were not the crimes for which he would be hunted. He was marked for death because he had committed the unpardonable sin: He had stood forth from the mindless human herd. He was a man alone. He had rediscovered the lost and holy word¡ªI.

"I worship individuals for their highest possibilities as individuals, and I loathe humanity, for its failure to live up to these possibilities."
?¡ªAyn Rand]]> 105 Ayn Rand 0452281253 victoria 3 women-authors 3.59 1938 Anthem
author: Ayn Rand
name: victoria
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1938
rating: 3
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]]> A Quiet Storm 199157 Rikki Moore was always the star of the family, easily outshining her younger sister, Stacy, at every turn. Smart, kind, and beautiful, it was no surprise when Rikki met and married the perfect man -- pediatrician Matt Dresden. Her students at 59th Street Elementary School adored her, the church matrons solicited her help on every committee, and everyone wanted the golden couple to put in an appearance at their parties. Stacy? She was just the overweight little sister who couldn't get her love life together.

But the world didn't know about the storms that rippled just beneath the surface of Rikki's image of perfection. Ever since she was a teenager there were emotional breakdowns and obsessive behaviors -- secrets that Stacy was left to bear alone. Folks whispered, but they didn't know. When Rikki's husband, Matt, mysteriously disappears, however, the Moore family's carefully constructed image comes crashing down.

]]> 249 Rachel Howzell Hall 074322616X victoria 3 women-authors 3.71 2002 A Quiet Storm
author: Rachel Howzell Hall
name: victoria
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at: 2006/07/01
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]]> How to Breathe Underwater 47975 How to Breathe Underwater illuminates this powerful territory with striking grace and intelligence.]]> 226 Julie Orringer 1400034361 victoria 5 women-authors 3.95 2003 How to Breathe Underwater
author: Julie Orringer
name: victoria
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2006/08/01
date added: 2016/06/05
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]]> <![CDATA[The Devil Wears Prada (The Devil Wears Prada, #1)]]> 5139
Andrea Sachs, a small-town girl fresh out of college, lands the job ¡°a million girls would die for.¡± Hired as the assistant to Miranda Priestly, the high-profile, fabulously successful editor of Runway magazine, Andrea finds herself in an office that shouts Prada! Armani! Versace! at every turn, a world populated by impossibly thin, heart-wrenchingly stylish women and beautiful men clad in fine-ribbed turtlenecks and tight leather pants that show off their lifelong dedication to the gym. With breathtaking ease, Miranda can turn each and every one of these hip sophisticates into a scared, whimpering child.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA gives a rich and hilarious new meaning to complaints about ¡°The Boss from Hell.¡± Narrated in Andrea¡¯s smart, refreshingly disarming voice, it traces a deep, dark, devilish view of life at the top only hinted at in gossip columns and over Cosmopolitans at the trendiest cocktail parties. From sending the latest, not-yet-in-stores Harry Potter to Miranda¡¯s children in Paris by private jet, to locating an unnamed antique store where Miranda had at some point admired a vintage dresser, to serving lattes to Miranda at precisely the piping hot temperature she prefers, Andrea is sorely tested each and every day¡ªand often late into the night with orders barked over the phone. She puts up with it all by keeping her eyes on the prize: a recommendation from Miranda that will get Andrea a top job at any magazine of her choosing. As things escalate from the merely unacceptable to the downright outrageous, however, Andrea begins to realize that the job a million girls would die for may just kill her. And even if she survives, she has to decide whether or not the job is worth the price of her soul.]]> 384 Lauren Weisberger 0307275558 victoria 3 women-authors 3.82 2003 The Devil Wears Prada (The Devil Wears Prada, #1)
author: Lauren Weisberger
name: victoria
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 2005/01/01
date added: 2016/06/05
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]]> The Lovely Bones 537
This is Susie Salmon, speaking from heaven - which looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets, counsellors to help newcomers adjust, and friends to room with. Everything Susie wants appears as soon as she thinks of it - except the one thing she wants most: to be back with the people she loved on earth.

Watching from her place in heaven, Susie sees her happy, suburban family devastated by her death, isolated even from one another as they each try to cope with their terrible loss alone. Over the years, her friends and siblings grow up, fall in love, do all the things she never had the chance to do herself. But life is not quite finished with Susie yet ...]]> 328 Alice Sebold 0330485385 victoria 3 women-authors 3.65 2002 The Lovely Bones
author: Alice Sebold
name: victoria
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at: 2006/05/01
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]]> The Nanny Diaries 14765
Who wouldn't want this job? Struggling to graduate from NYU and afford her microscopic studio apartment, Nanny takes a position caring for the only son of the wealthy X family. She rapidly learns the insane amount of juggling involved to ensure that a Park Avenue wife who doesn't work, cook, clean, or raise her own child has a smooth day. When the Xs marriage begins to disintegrate, Nanny ends up involved way beyond the bounds of human decency or good taste. Her tenure with the X family becomes a nearly impossible mission to maintain the mental health of their four-year-old, her own integrity and, most importantly, her sense of humor. Over nine tense months, Mrs. X and Nanny perform the age-old dance of decorum and power as they test the limits of modern-day servitude.]]> 306 Emma McLaughlin 0641584660 victoria 3 women-authors 2.95 2002 The Nanny Diaries
author: Emma McLaughlin
name: victoria
average rating: 2.95
book published: 2002
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[Seabiscuit: An American Legend]]> 110737 There's an alternate cover edition here

Seabiscuit was one of the most electrifying and popular attractions in sports history and the single biggest newsmaker in the world in 1938, receiving more coverage than FDR, Hitler, or Mussolini. But his success was a surprise to the racing establishment, which had written off the crooked-legged racehorse with the sad tail. Three men changed Seabiscuit¡¯s fortunes:

Charles Howard was a onetime bicycle repairman who introduced the automobile to the western United States and became an overnight millionaire. When he needed a trainer for his new racehorses, he hired Tom Smith, a mysterious mustang breaker from the Colorado plains. Smith urged Howard to buy Seabiscuit for a bargain-basement price, then hired as his jockey Red Pollard, a failed boxer who was blind in one eye, half-crippled, and prone to quoting passages from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Over four years, these unlikely partners survived a phenomenal run of bad fortune, conspiracy, and severe injury to transform Seabiscuit from a neurotic, pathologically indolent also-ran into an American sports icon.

Author Laura Hillenbrand brilliantly re-creates a universal underdog story, one that proves life is a horse race.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 457 Laura Hillenbrand 0345465083 victoria 5 women-authors 4.22 1999 Seabiscuit: An American Legend
author: Laura Hillenbrand
name: victoria
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at: 2003/01/01
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]]> A Tree Grows in Brooklyn 14891 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident. The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness -- in a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as incredibly rich moments of universal experience.]]> 496 Betty Smith 0061120073 victoria 3 women-authors 4.29 1943 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
author: Betty Smith
name: victoria
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1943
rating: 3
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]]> Superfudge (Fudge, #3) 80674 From Judy Blume, bestselling author of?Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing!

Fans young and old will laugh out loud at the irrepressible wit of Peter Hatcher, the hilarious antics of mischievous Fudge, and the unbreakable confidence of know-it-all Sheila Tubman in Judy Blume¡¯s five Fudge books. Brand-new covers adorn these perennial favorites, and will entice a whole new generation of Fudge¡ªand Judy Blume¡ªfans.]]> 192 Judy Blume victoria 5 childhoodfaves, women-authors 4.00 1980 Superfudge (Fudge, #3)
author: Judy Blume
name: victoria
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1980
rating: 5
read at: 1994/01/01
date added: 2016/06/05
shelves: childhoodfaves, women-authors
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]]> <![CDATA[Ramona Quimby, Age 8 (Ramona, #6)]]> 91253 190 Beverly Cleary victoria 5 childhoodfaves, women-authors 4.10 1981 Ramona Quimby, Age 8 (Ramona, #6)
author: Beverly Cleary
name: victoria
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1981
rating: 5
read at: 1994/01/01
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]]> Ramona the Brave (Ramona, #3) 91248 160 Beverly Cleary 0192751077 victoria 5 childhoodfaves, women-authors 4.12 1975 Ramona the Brave (Ramona, #3)
author: Beverly Cleary
name: victoria
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1975
rating: 5
read at: 1993/01/01
date added: 2016/06/05
shelves: childhoodfaves, women-authors
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]]> Ramona the Pest (Ramona, #2) 78039 192 Beverly Cleary 0192750976 victoria 5 childhoodfaves, women-authors 4.07 1968 Ramona the Pest (Ramona, #2)
author: Beverly Cleary
name: victoria
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1968
rating: 5
read at: 1993/01/01
date added: 2016/06/05
shelves: childhoodfaves, women-authors
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]]> <![CDATA[Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, #1)]]> 8068 32 Judi Barrett 0689855230 victoria 5 childhoodfaves, women-authors 4.52 1978 Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, #1)
author: Judi Barrett
name: victoria
average rating: 4.52
book published: 1978
rating: 5
read at: 1991/01/01
date added: 2016/06/05
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]]> The Secret Life of Bees 37435 The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina--a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.]]> 302 Sue Monk Kidd 0142001740 victoria 3 women-authors 4.10 2001 The Secret Life of Bees
author: Sue Monk Kidd
name: victoria
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at: 2003/07/01
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]]> The Time Traveler's Wife 14050 537 Audrey Niffenegger 0965818675 victoria 5 women-authors 3.90 2003 The Time Traveler's Wife
author: Audrey Niffenegger
name: victoria
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2007/12/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)]]> 71643
Beyond the excitement of the Book 7 text itself, the Deluxe Edition includes an exclusive insert featuring near-scale reproductions of Mary GrandPr¨¦'s interior art, as well as never-before-seen full-color frontispiece art on special paper. The custom-designed slipcase is foil-stamped and contains a full-cloth case book that has been blind-stamped on front and back cover with foil stamping on the spine. The book includes full-color endpapers featuring the jacket art from the trade edition, and a wraparound jacket featuring art created especially for this edition by Mary GrandPr¨¦.]]> 784 J.K. Rowling 0545029376 victoria 5 women-authors 4.72 2007 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: victoria
average rating: 4.72
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2007/07/01
date added: 2016/06/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books]]> 7603 Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a bold and inspired teacher named Azar Nafisi secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. As Islamic morality squads staged arbitrary raids in Tehran, fundamentalists seized hold of the universities, and a blind censor stifled artistic expression, the girls in Azar Nafisi's living room risked removing their veils and immersed themselves in the worlds of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov. In this extraordinary memoir, their stories become intertwined with the ones they are reading. Reading Lolita in Tehran is a remarkable exploration of resilience in the face of tyranny and a celebration of the liberating power of literature.

]]> 356 Azar Nafisi 081297106X victoria 2 3.64 2003 Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
author: Azar Nafisi
name: victoria
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2003
rating: 2
read at: 2006/12/01
date added: 2016/06/05
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]]> Bee Season 5040
Myla Goldberg's keen eye for detail brings Eliza's journey to three-dimensional life. As she rises from classroom obscurity to the blinding lights and outsized expectations of the National Bee, Eliza's small pains and large joys are finely wrought and deeply felt.

Not merely a coming-of-age story, Goldberg's first novel delicately examines the unraveling fabric of one family. The outcome of this tale is as startling and unconventional as her prose, which wields its metaphors sharply and rings with maturity. The work of a lyrical and gifted storyteller, Bee Season marks the arrival of an extraordinarily talented new writer.]]> 288 Myla Goldberg 0307276856 victoria 4 women-authors 3.33 2000 Bee Season
author: Myla Goldberg
name: victoria
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2006/08/01
date added: 2016/06/05
shelves: women-authors
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]]> Horse Heaven 32226 Horse Heaven, we find them woven into a marvelous tapestry of joy and love, chicanery, folly, greed, and derring-do.

Haunting, exquisite Rosalind Maybrick, wife of a billionaire owner, one day can't quite decide what it is she wants, and discovers too late that her whole life is transformed . . . Twenty-year-old Tiffany Morse, stuck in her job at Wal-Mart, prays, "Please make something happen here . . . This time, I mean it," and something does . . . Farley, a good trainer in a bad slump; Buddy, a ruthless trainer who can't seem to lose even though he knows that his personal salvation depends upon it; Roberto, an apprentice jockey who has "the hands" but is growing too big for his dream career with every passing day; Leo the gambler and his earnest son, Jesse, who understands everything about his father's "system" except why it doesn't work; Elizabeth, the 62-year-old theorist of sex and animal communication, and her best friend, Joy, the mare manager at the ranch at the center of the universe¡ªall are woven together by the horses that pass among them: Two colts and two fillies who begin with the promise of talent and breeding, and now might or might not achieve stardom.

There are the geldings¡ªJusta Bob, the plain brown horse who always wins by a nose, a lovable claimer who passes from owner to owner on a heart-wrenching journey down from the winner's circle; and the beautiful Mr. T., raced in France and rescued in Texas, who is discovered to have some unusual and amazing talents.

And then there is the Jack Russell terrier, Eileen, a dog with real convictions¡ªand the will to implement them.

The strange, compelling, sparkling, and mysterious universe of horse racing that has fascinated generations of punters and robber barons, horse-lovers and wits, has never before been depicted with such verve and originality, such tenderness, such clarity, and, above all, such sheer exuberance.]]> 640 Jane Smiley 0804119430 victoria 4 women-authors 3.88 1999 Horse Heaven
author: Jane Smiley
name: victoria
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2004/01/01
date added: 2016/06/05
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]]> <![CDATA[When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman's Journey from War to Peace]]> 5732
Le Ly Hayslip, the inspiration for the musical "Miss Saigon", tells the story of a young peasant girl's struggle to survive. Pressed into service at the age of 12 by the Vietcong, Le Ly Hayslip was captured and tortured by government forces. She found sanctuary at last with an American soldier and after affairs with several GIs, she fled to America to escape the horrors of the war.

But as the traumas of the war years lingered on in painful nightmares, Le Ly Hayslip returned to her homeland in 1986. Horrified and shocked to discover the country and the people still profoundly scarred by the war, she took the biggest decision of her life - selling her property to start a foundation dedicated to building health clinics jointly staffed by Americans and Vietnamese.]]> 368 Le Ly Hayslip 0452264170 victoria 4 3.98 1989 When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman's Journey from War to Peace
author: Le Ly Hayslip
name: victoria
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1989
rating: 4
read at: 2008/10/26
date added: 2016/06/05
shelves: china-southeast-asia, women-authors
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]]> Atlas Shrugged 9361 This is the story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world and did. Was he a destroyer or the greatest of liberators?

Why did he have to fight his battle, not against his enemies, but against those who needed him most, and his hardest battle against the woman he loved? What is the world¡¯s motor ¡ª and the motive power of every man? You will know the answer to these questions when you discover the reason behind the baffling events that play havoc with the lives of the characters in this story.

Tremendous in its scope, this novel presents an astounding panorama of human life ¡ª from the productive genius who becomes a worthless playboy ¡ª to the great steel industrialist who does not know that he is working for his own destruction ¡ª to the philosopher who becomes a pirate ¡ª to the composer who gives up his career on the night of his triumph ¡ª to the woman who runs a transcontinental railroad ¡ª to the lowest track worker in her Terminal tunnels.

You must be prepared, when you read this novel, to check every premise at the root of your convictions.

This is a mystery story, not about the murder ¡ª and rebirth ¡ª of man¡¯s spirit. It is a philosophical revolution, told in the form of an action thriller of violent events, a ruthlessly brilliant plot structure and an irresistible suspense. Do you say this is impossible? Well, that is the first of your premises to check.]]> 1176 Ayn Rand 0525948929 victoria 4 women-authors 4.02 1957 Atlas Shrugged
author: Ayn Rand
name: victoria
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1957
rating: 4
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]]> The Fountainhead 2122
This modern classic is the story of intransigent young architect Howard Roark, whose integrity was as unyielding as granite...of Dominique Francon, the exquisitely beautiful woman who loved Roark passionately, but married his worst enemy...and of the fanatic denunciation unleashed by an enraged society against a great creator. As fresh today as it was then, Rand¡¯s provocative novel presents one of the most challenging ideas in all of fiction¡ªthat man¡¯s ego is the fountainhead of human progress...

¡°A writer of great power. She has a subtle and ingenious mind and the capacity of writing brilliantly, beautifully, bitterly...This is the only novel of ideas written by an American woman that I can recall.¡±¡ªThe New York Times]]> 704 Ayn Rand victoria 3 women-authors 3.87 1943 The Fountainhead
author: Ayn Rand
name: victoria
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1943
rating: 3
read at: 2012/07/13
date added: 2016/06/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter #3)]]> 4256 320 J.K. Rowling 074757362X victoria 5 women-authors 4.39 1999 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter #3)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: victoria
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1999
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)]]> 4
And strike it does. For in Harry's second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor, Gilderoy Lockhart, a spirit named Moaning Myrtle who haunts the girls' bathroom, and the unwanted attentions of Ron Weasley's younger sister, Ginny. But each of these seem minor annoyances when the real trouble begins, and someone, or something, starts turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects: Harry Potter himself?]]> 352 J.K. Rowling 0439554896 victoria 4 women-authors 4.05 1998 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: victoria
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1998
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)]]> 5 435 J.K. Rowling 043965548X victoria 5 women-authors 4.57 1999 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: victoria
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at: 1999/01/01
date added: 2016/06/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)]]> 1 652 J.K. Rowling victoria 5 women-authors 4.57 2005 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: victoria
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2006/01/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)]]> 2
Harry has had enough. He is beginning to think he must do something, anything, to change his situation, when the summer holidays come to an end in a very dramatic fashion. What Harry is about to discover in his new year at Hogwarts will turn his world upside down...]]> 912 J.K. Rowling victoria 4 women-authors 4.50 2003 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: victoria
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2006/07/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)]]> 6 734 J.K. Rowling 0439139597 victoria 5 women-authors 4.56 2000 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: victoria
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2004/07/01
date added: 2016/06/05
shelves: women-authors
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]]> To Kill a Mockingbird 2657
Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, "To Kill A Mockingbird" takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.]]> 323 Harper Lee 0060935464 victoria 4 women-authors 4.25 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird
author: Harper Lee
name: victoria
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1960
rating: 4
read at: 2000/09/01
date added: 2016/06/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)]]> 3 309 J.K. Rowling 0439554934 victoria 5 women-authors 4.47 1997 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: victoria
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at: 1997/01/01
date added: 2016/06/05
shelves: women-authors
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]]> <![CDATA[The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals]]> 3109 What should we have for dinner? For omnivore like ourselves, this simple question has always posed a dilemma. When you can eat just about anything nature (or the supermarket) has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety, especially when some of the foods on offer might shorten your life. Today, buffered by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can only be described as a national eating disorder. The omnivore¡¯s dilemma has returned with a vengeance, as the cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet confronts us with a bewildering and treacherous food landscape. What¡¯s at stake in our eating choices is not only our own and our children¡¯s health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on earth.
The Omnivore's Dilemma is groundbreaking book, in which one of America¡¯s most fascinating, original, and elegant writers turns his own omnivorous mind to the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but according to Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Botany of Desire, how we answer it today, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may well determine our very survival as a species. Should we eat a fast-food hamburger? Something organic? Or perhaps something we hunt, gather, or grow ourselves?
To find out, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us¡ªindustrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves¡ªfrom the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating. His absorbing narrative takes us from Iowa cornfields to food-science laboratories, from feedlots and fast-food restaurants to organic farms and hunting grounds, always emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the handful of plant and animal species we depend on. Each time Pollan sits down to a meal, he deploys his unique blend of personal and investigative journalism to trace the origins of everything consumed, revealing what we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods and flavors reflects our evolutionary inheritance.
The surprising answers Pollan offers to the simple question posed by this book have profound political, economic, psychological, and even moral implications for all of us. Ultimately, this is a book as much about visionary solutions as it is about problems, and Pollan contends that, when it comes to food, doing the right thing often turns out to be the tastiest thing an eater can do. Beautifully written and thrillingly argued, The Omnivore¡¯s Dilemma promises to change the way we think about the politics and pleasure of eating. For anyone who reads it, dinner will never again look, or taste, quite the same.]]> 450 Michael Pollan 1594200823 victoria 4 4.18 2006 The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
author: Michael Pollan
name: victoria
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2006
rating: 4
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]]> The Lord of the Rings 33 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 by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins.

From Sauron's fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, his power spread far and wide. Sauron gathered all the Great Rings to him, but always he searched for the One Ring that would complete his dominion.

When Bilbo reached his eleventy-first birthday he disappeared, bequeathing to his young cousin Frodo the Ruling Ring and a perilous quest: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord, and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom.

The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the Wizard; the hobbits Merry, Pippin, and Sam; Gimli the Dwarf; Legolas the Elf; Boromir of Gondor; and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider.]]> 1216 J.R.R. Tolkien 0618640150 victoria 3 4.52 1955 The Lord of the Rings
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: victoria
average rating: 4.52
book published: 1955
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite]]> 20685373
Every day, three times a day, the students march in two straight lines, singing praises to Kim Jong-il and North Korea: Without you, there is no motherland. Without you, there is no us. It is a chilling scene, but gradually Suki Kim, too, learns the tune and, without noticing, begins to hum it. It is 2011, and all universities in North Korea have been shut down for an entire year, the students sent to construction fields - except for the 270 students at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), a walled compound where portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il look on impassively from the walls of every room, and where Suki has accepted a job teaching English. Over the next six months, she will eat three meals a day with her young charges and struggle to teach them to write, all under the watchful eye of the regime.

Life at PUST is lonely and claustrophobic, especially for Suki, whose letters are read by censors and who must hide her notes and photographs not only from her minders but from her colleagues - evangelical Christian missionaries who don't know or choose to ignore that Suki doesn't share their faith. She is mystified by how easily her students lie, unnerved by their obedience to the regime. To them, everything in North Korea is the best, the tallest, the most delicious, the envy of all nations. Still, she cannot help but love them - their boyish enthusiasm, their eagerness to please, the flashes of curiosity that have not yet been extinguished.

As the weeks pass, she begins to hint at the existence of a world beyond their own - at such exotic activities as surfing the Internet or traveling freely and, more dangerously, at electoral democracy and other ideas forbidden in a country where defectors risk torture and execution. The students in turn offer Suki tantalizing glimpses into their lives, from their thoughts on how to impress girls to their disappointment that soccer games are only televised when the North Korean team wins. Then Kim Jong-il dies, leaving the students devastated, and leading Suki to question whether the gulf between her world and theirs can ever be bridged.

Without You, There Is No Us offers a moving and incalculably rare glimpse of life in the world's most unknowable country, and at the privileged young men she calls "soldiers and slaves."]]> 291 Suki Kim 0307720659 victoria 4 women-authors 3.92 2014 Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite
author: Suki Kim
name: victoria
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2014
rating: 4
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]]> Lila 18513565 Gilead and Housekeeping. Marilynne Robinson, one of the greatest novelists of our time, returns to the town of Gilead in an unforgettable story of a girlhood lived on the fringes of society in fear, awe, and wonder.

Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town Iowa church - the only available shelter from the rain - and ignites a romance and a debate that will reshape her life. She becomes the wife of a minister, John Ames, and begins a new existence while trying to make sense of the life that preceded her newfound security.

Neglected as a toddler, Lila was rescued by Doll, a canny young drifter, and brought up by her in a hardscrabble childhood. Together they crafted a life on the run, living hand to mouth with nothing but their sisterly bond and a ragged blade to protect them. Despite bouts of petty violence and moments of desperation, their shared life was laced with moments of joy and love. When Lila arrives in Gilead, she struggles to reconcile the life of her makeshift family and their days of hardship with the gentle Christian worldview of her husband which paradoxically judges those she loves.

Revisiting the beloved characters and setting of Robinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead and Home, a National Book Award finalist, Lila is a moving expression of the mysteries of existence that is destined to become an American classic.]]> 272 Marilynne Robinson victoria 4 women-authors 3.93 2014 Lila
author: Marilynne Robinson
name: victoria
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2014
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers]]> 32145 Stiff an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two thousand years, cadavers¡ªsome willingly, some unwittingly¡ªhave been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. In this fascinating account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries and tells the engrossing story of our bodies when we are no longer with them.]]> 304 Mary Roach 0393324826 victoria 4 women-authors 4.06 2003 Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
author: Mary Roach
name: victoria
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2003
rating: 4
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]]> The Monster of Florence 2198274 Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) and Erik Larson (The Devil in the White City), New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston presents a gripping account of crime and punishment in the lush hills surrounding Florence, Italy.

In 2000, Douglas Preston fulfilled a dream to move his family to Italy. Then he discovered that the olive grove in front of their 14th century farmhouse had been the scene of the most infamous double-murders in Italian history, committed by a serial killer known as the Monster of Florence. Preston, intrigued, meets Italian investigative journalist Mario Spezi to learn more.

This is the true story of their search for¡ªand identification of¡ªthe man they believe committed the crimes, and their chilling interview with him. And then, in a strange twist of fate, Preston and Spezi themselves become targets of the police investigation. Preston has his phone tapped, is interrogated, and told to leave the country. Spezi fares worse: he is thrown into Italy's grim Capanne prison, accused of being the Monster of Florence himself. Like one of Preston's thrillers, The Monster of Florence, tells a remarkable and harrowing story involving murder, mutilation, and suicide¡ªand at the center of it, Preston and Spezi, caught in a bizarre prosecutorial vendetta.]]> 322 Douglas Preston 0446581194 victoria 4 3.73 2008 The Monster of Florence
author: Douglas Preston
name: victoria
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2008
rating: 4
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]]> The Buried Giant 22522805
The Buried Giant begins as a couple set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son they have not seen in years.

Sometimes savage, often intensely moving, Kazuo Ishiguro's first novel in nearly a decade is about lost memories, love, revenge, and war.

Included on TIME Magazine's "THE 100 BEST FANTASY BOOKS OF ALL TIME"]]> 317 Kazuo Ishiguro 030727103X victoria 3 3.56 2015 The Buried Giant
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: victoria
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2016/06/05
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]]> Ring (Ring, #1) 38379
Asakawa, a hardworking journalist, is intrigued by his niece's inexplicable death. His investigation leads him from a metropolitan tokyo teeming with modern society's fears to a rural Japan--a mountain resort, a volcanic island, and a countryside clinic--haunted by the past. His attempt to solve the tape's mystery before it's too late--for everyone--assumes an increasingly deadly urgency. Ring is a chillingly told horror story, a masterfully suspenseful mystery, and post-modern trip.]]> 282 K¨­ji Suzuki 1932234411 victoria 3 3.79 1991 Ring (Ring, #1)
author: K¨­ji Suzuki
name: victoria
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1991
rating: 3
read at: 2016/05/22
date added: 2016/05/22
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]]> Heroes of the Frontier 29889972 Heroes of the Frontier is a powerful examination of our contemporary life and a rousing story of adventure.

Josie and her children's father have split up, she's been sued by a former patient and lost her dental practice, and she's grieving the death of a young man senselessly killed. When her ex asks to take the children to meet his new fiancee's family, Josie makes a run for it, figuring Alaska is about as far as she can get without a passport. Josie and her kids, Paul and Ana, rent a rattling old RV named the Chateau, and at first their trip feels like a vacation: They see bears and bison, they eat hot dogs cooked on a bonfire, and they spend nights parked along icy cold rivers in dark forests. But as they drive, pushed north by the ubiquitous wildfires, Josie is chased by enemies both real and imagined, past mistakes pursuing her tiny family, even to the very edge of civilization.

A tremendous new novel from the best-selling author of The Circle, Heroes of the Frontier is the darkly comic story of a mother and her two young children on a journey through an Alaskan wilderness plagued by wildfires and a uniquely American madness.]]> 400 Dave Eggers 045149380X victoria 0 to-read 3.44 2016 Heroes of the Frontier
author: Dave Eggers
name: victoria
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/05/20
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]]> Behold the Dreamers 26025588 A compulsively readable debut novel about marriage, immigration, class, race, and the trapdoors in the American Dream¡ªthe unforgettable story of a young Cameroonian couple making a new life in New York just as the Great Recession upends the economy

Named one of BuzzFeed¡¯s ¡°Incredible New Books You Need to Read This Summer¡±

Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for himself, his wife, Neni, and their six-year-old son. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark demands punctuality, discretion, and loyalty¡ªand Jende is eager to please. Clark¡¯s wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at the Edwardses¡¯ summer home in the Hamptons. With these opportunities, Jende and Neni can at last gain a foothold in America and imagine a brighter future.

However, the world of great power and privilege conceals troubling secrets, and soon Jende and Neni notice cracks in their employers¡¯ fa?ades.

When the financial world is rocked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Jongas are desperate to keep Jende¡¯s job¡ªeven as their marriage threatens to fall apart. As all four lives are dramatically upended, Jende and Neni are forced to make an impossible choice.]]> 385 Imbolo Mbue 0812998480 victoria 0 women-authors, to-read 3.90 2016 Behold the Dreamers
author: Imbolo Mbue
name: victoria
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching: A Young Black Man's Education]]> 26195970 Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching is an account of how, politically and culturally, the existing script for black manhood has been rewritten for the millennial generation. Young men of this age have watched as Barack Obama was elected president but have also witnessed the deaths of Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Akai Gurley, and so many other young black men killed by police or vigilante violence. Chronicling his personal and political education during these tumultuous years, Smith narrates his own coming-of-age story and his struggles to come into his own at a time when too many black men do not survive into adulthood.

From Barack Obama¡¯s landmark speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 to the recent and widely reported cases of violence against women, from powerful moments of black self-determination like LeBron James¡¯ ¡°decision¡± to the mobilization of thousands of young black men in the wake of Trayvon Martin¡¯s death, Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching documents of how these public milestones have challenged cultural notions of black manhood. Part memoir, part political tract, this book is an unprecedented and intimate glimpse into what it means to be young, black, and male in America today¡ªand what it means to be treated as a human in a society dependent on your subjugation.]]> 224 Mychal Denzel Smith 1568585284 victoria 0 to-read 4.35 2016 Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching: A Young Black Man's Education
author: Mychal Denzel Smith
name: victoria
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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]]> Grace 27037157
The product of this union is Josey, whose white skin and blonde hair mark her as different from the other slave children on the plantation. Having been taken in as an infant by a free slave named Charles, Josey has never known her mother, who was murdered at her birth.

Deftly weaving together the stories of Josey and Naomi¡ªwho narrates the entire novel unable to leave her daughter alone in the land of the living¡ªGrace is a sweeping, intergenerational saga featuring a group of outcast women during one of the most compelling eras in American history.]]> 400 Natashia De¨®n 1619027208 victoria 0 women-authors, to-read 4.01 2016 Grace
author: Natashia De¨®n
name: victoria
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/05/20
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]]> Boy Erased 26109438 A beautiful, raw and compassionate memoir about identity, love and understanding. Now a major motion picture starring Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, and Lucas Hedges, directed by Joel Edgerton..

The son of a Baptist pastor and deeply embedded in church life in small town Arkansas, as a young man Garrard Conley was terrified and conflicted about his sexuality.

When Garrard was a nineteen-year-old college student, he was outed to his parents, and was forced to make a life-changing decision: either agree to attend a church-supported conversion therapy program that promised to ¡°cure¡± him of homosexuality; or risk losing family, friends, and the God he had prayed to every day of his life. Through an institutionalized Twelve-Step Program heavy on Bible study, he was supposed to emerge heterosexual, ex-gay, cleansed of impure urges and stronger in his faith in God for his brush with sin. Instead, even when faced with a harrowing and brutal journey, Garrard found the strength and understanding to break out in search of his true self and forgiveness.

By confronting his buried past and the burden of a life lived in shadow, Garrard traces the complex relationships among family, faith, and community. At times heart-breaking, at times triumphant, this memoir is a testament to love that survives despite all odds.]]> 340 Garrard Conley 1594633010 victoria 0 to-read 3.62 2016 Boy Erased
author: Garrard Conley
name: victoria
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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]]> Imagine Me Gone 26245029 Imagine Me Gone is the unforgettable story of what unfolds from this act of love and faith. At the heart of it is their eldest son, Michael, a brilliant, anxious music fanatic who makes sense of the world through parody. Over the span of decades, his younger siblings--the savvy and responsible Celia and the ambitious and tightly controlled Alec--struggle along with their mother to care for Michael's increasingly troubled and precarious existence.]]> 356 Adam Haslett 0316261351 victoria 0 to-read 3.66 2016 Imagine Me Gone
author: Adam Haslett
name: victoria
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/05/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> Another Brooklyn 27213163
But beneath the hopeful veneer, there was another Brooklyn, a dangerous place where grown men reached for innocent girls in dark hallways, where ghosts haunted the night, where mothers disappeared. A world where madness was just a sunset away and fathers found hope in religion.]]> 192 Jacqueline Woodson 0062359983 victoria 0 to-read, women-authors 3.86 2016 Another Brooklyn
author: Jacqueline Woodson
name: victoria
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/05/20
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]]> Homegoing 27071490 An alternate cover edition can be found here.

A novel of breathtaking sweep and emotional power that traces three hundred years in Ghana and along the way also becomes a truly great American novel. Extraordinary for its exquisite language, its implacable sorrow, its soaring beauty, and for its monumental portrait of the forces that shape families and nations, Homegoing heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.

Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle's dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast's booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia's descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.

Generation after generation, Yaa Gyasi's magisterial first novel sets the fate of the individual against the obliterating movements of time, delivering unforgettable characters whose lives were shaped by historical forces beyond their control. Homegoing is a tremendous reading experience, not to be missed, by an astonishingly gifted young writer.]]> 305 Yaa Gyasi victoria 0 to-read, women-authors 4.48 2016 Homegoing
author: Yaa Gyasi
name: victoria
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/05/20
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]]> <![CDATA[The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)]]> 18512 here.

The Companions of the Ring have become involved in separate adventures as the quest continues. Aragorn, revealed as the hidden heir of the ancient Kings of the West, joined with the Riders of Rohan against the forces of Isengard, and took part in the desperate victory of the Hornburg. Merry and Pippin, captured by Orcs, escaped into Fangorn Forest and there encountered the Ents. Gandalf returned, miraculously, and defeated the evil wizard, Saruman. Meanwhile, Sam and Frodo progressed towards Mordor to destroy the Ring, accompanied by SmEagol--Gollum, still obsessed by his 'precious'. After a battle with the giant spider, Shelob, Sam left his master for dead; but Frodo is still alive--in the hands of the Orcs. And all the time the armies of the Dark Lord are massing. J.R.R. Tolkien's great work of imaginative fiction has been labeled both a heroic romance and a classic fantasy fiction. By turns comic and homely, epic and diabolic, the narrative moves through countless changes of scene and character in an imaginary world which is totally convincing in its detail.]]> 404 J.R.R. Tolkien victoria 3 4.53 1955 The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: victoria
average rating: 4.53
book published: 1955
rating: 3
read at: 2016/05/15
date added: 2016/05/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Pashtun Tales: From the Pakistan-Afghan Frontier]]> 2253258
With a blend of wit, fantasy, comedy and romance, these tales reflect the Pashtun code of honour and way of life, now seriously threatened by social changes and political upheaval.

Aisha Ahmad obtained her PhD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She has done research on Pashtun women in the tribal areas and has worked as a consultant for the World Health Organization.

Roger Boase is an honourary Research Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London. He is the author of The Origin and Meaning of Courtly Love, The Troubadour Revival, and the editor of Islam and Global Dialogue: Religious Pluralism and the Pursuit of Peace.]]> 368 Aisha Ahmad 0863566375 victoria 4 middle-east-islam 4.09 2003 Pashtun Tales: From the Pakistan-Afghan Frontier
author: Aisha Ahmad
name: victoria
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2009/02/15
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: middle-east-islam
review:

]]> The Argonauts 22929741
Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts is a genre-bending memoir, a work of "autotheory" offering fresh, fierce, and timely thinking about desire, identity, and the limitations and possibilities of love and language. At its center is a romance: the story of the author's relationship with the artist Harry Dodge. This story, which includes Nelson's account of falling in love with Dodge, who is fluidly gendered, as well as her journey to and through a pregnancy, offers a firsthand account of the complexities and joys of (queer) family-making.

Writing in the spirit of public intellectuals such as Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes, Nelson binds her personal experience to a rigorous exploration of what iconic theorists have said about sexuality, gender, and the vexed institutions of marriage and child-rearing. Nelson's insistence on radical individual freedom and the value of caretaking becomes the rallying cry of this thoughtful, unabashed, uncompromising book.]]> 160 Maggie Nelson 1555977073 victoria 0 to-read, women-authors 4.04 2015 The Argonauts
author: Maggie Nelson
name: victoria
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/04/19
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]]> Relativity 25814254
Thousands of miles away on the western coast of Australia, Mark is trying to forget about the events that tore his family apart, but an unexpected call forces him to confront his past and return home. When Ethan secretly intercepts a letter from Mark to Claire, he unleashes long-suppressed forces that¡ªlike gravity¡ªpull the three together again, testing the limits of love and forgiveness.

Told from the alternating points of view of Ethan and each of his parents, Relativity is a poetic and soul-searing exploration of unbreakable bonds, irreversible acts, the limits of science, and the magnitude of love.]]> 368 Antonia Hayes 1501105078 victoria 0 to-read, women-authors 3.63 2015 Relativity
author: Antonia Hayes
name: victoria
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/04/19
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]]> Work Like Any Other 25814223
Then a young man working for the state power company stumbles on Roscoe¡¯s illegal lines and is electrocuted, and everything changes: Roscoe is arrested; the farm once more starts to deteriorate; and Marie abandons her husband, leaving him to face his twenty-year sentence alone. Now an unmoored Roscoe must carve out a place at Kilby Prison. Climbing the ranks of the incarcerated from dairy hand to librarian to ¡°dog boy,¡± an inmate who helps the guards track down escapees, he is ultimately forced to ask himself once more if his work is just that, or if the price of his crimes¡ªfor him and his family¡ªis greater than he ever let himself believe.
]]> 262 Virginia Reeves 150111249X victoria 0 to-read, women-authors 3.68 2016 Work Like Any Other
author: Virginia Reeves
name: victoria
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/04/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Bricks that Built the Houses]]> 26073155
Kate Tempest's novel reaches back through time--through tensely quiet dining rooms and crassly loud clubs--to the first time Becky and Harry meet. It sprawls through their lives and those they touch--of their families and friends and faces on the street--revealing intimacies and the moments that make them. And it captures the contemporary struggle of urban life, of young people seeking jobs or juggling jobs, harboring ambitions and making compromises.

The Bricks that Built the Houses is an unexpected love story. It's about being young, but being part of something old. It's about how we become ourselves, and how we effect our futures. Rich in character and restless in perspective, driven by ethics and empathy, it asks--and seeks to answer--how best to live with and love one another.

Kate Tempest, a major talent in the poetry and music worlds, sits poised to become a major novelist as well.]]> 416 Kae Tempest 1620409011 victoria 0 to-read, women-authors 3.81 2016 The Bricks that Built the Houses
author: Kae Tempest
name: victoria
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/04/19
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]]> What Belongs to You 22929602
What Belongs to You is a stunning debut novel of desire and its consequences. With lyric intensity and startling eroticism, Garth Greenwell has created an indelible story about the ways in which our pasts and cultures, our scars and shames can shape who we are and determine how we love.

Listening length: 6 hours, 11 minutes]]> 195 Garth Greenwell 0374288224 victoria 0 to-read 3.79 2016 What Belongs to You
author: Garth Greenwell
name: victoria
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/04/19
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]]> Not Working 26795647 ?
Twenty-something Londoner Claire has just resigned from her job without a plan¡ªand although she is pleased, her family and friends can't seem to understand. Before too long, she manages to push away both her safe, steady, brain-surgeon boyfriend and her difficult but loving mother.?
???? Quirky, questioning Claire hilariously navigates and comments on the emotions and minutiae of day-to-day life as only someone without the distractions of a regular routine can. Brilliantly observed, touching and wildly funny, Not Working is the story of a life unraveling and a novel that skewers the questions that have been keeping us all awake at night.]]> 256 Lisa Owens 0385686005 victoria 0 to-read, women-authors 3.16 2016 Not Working
author: Lisa Owens
name: victoria
average rating: 3.16
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/04/19
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]]>