Avi's bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 04 Mar 2025 14:12:28 -0800 60 Avi's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Private Notebooks: 1914-1916 58506504
During the pandemic, Marjorie Perloff, one of our foremost scholars of global literature, found her mind ineluctably drawn to the profound commentary on life and death in the wartime diaries of eminent philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889�1951). Upon learning that these notebooks, which richly contextualize the early stages of his magnum opus, the Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus, had never before been published in English, the Viennese-born Perloff determinedly set about translating them. Beginning with the anxious summer of 1914, this historic, en-face edition presents the first-person recollections of a foot soldier in the Austrian Army, fresh from his days as a philosophy student at Cambridge, who must grapple with the hazing of his fellow soldiers, the stirrings of a forbidden sexuality, and the formation of an explosive analytical philosophy that seemed to draw meaning from his endless brushes with death. Much like Tolstoy’s The Gospel in Brief, Private Notebooks takes us on a personal journey to discovery as it augments our knowledge of Wittgenstein himself.]]> 240 Ludwig Wittgenstein 1324090812 Avi 0 to-read 4.19 Private Notebooks: 1914-1916
author: Ludwig Wittgenstein
name: Avi
average rating: 4.19
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]]> <![CDATA[Another Life: On Memory, Language, Love, and the Passage of Time]]> 40038202 A rewarding philosophical essay on memory, language, love, and the passage of time, from a Greek immigrant who became one of Sweden's most highly respected writers

"Nobody should write after the age of seventy-five," a friend had said. At seventy-seven, struggling with the weight of writer's block, Theodor Kallifatides makes the difficult decision to sell the Stockholm studio where he diligently worked for decades and retire. Unable to write, and yet unable to not write, he travels to his native Greece in the hope of rediscovering that lost fluidity of language.

In this slim memoir, Kallifatides explores the interplay of meaningful living and meaningful work, and the timeless question of how to reconcile oneself to aging. But he also comments on worrying trends in contemporary Europe--from religious intolerance and prejudice against immigrants to housing crises and gentrification--and his sadness at the battered state of his beloved Greece.

Kallifatides offers an eloquent, thought-provoking meditation on the writing life, and an author's place in a changing world.
]]> 144 Theodor Kallifatides 1590519469 Avi 0 to-read 4.00 2016 Another Life: On Memory, Language, Love, and the Passage of Time
author: Theodor Kallifatides
name: Avi
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/24
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]]> <![CDATA[The Poetic Edda: Stories of the Norse Gods and Heroes]]> 381112 The Poetic Edda comprises a treasure trove of mythic and spiritual verse holding an important place in Nordic culture, literature, and heritage. Its tales of strife and death form a repository, in poetic form, of Norse mythology and heroic lore, embodying both the ethical views and the cultural life of the North during the late heathen and early Christian times.

Collected by an unidentified Icelander, probably during the twelfth or thirteenth century, The Poetic Edda was rediscovered in Iceland in the seventeenth century by Danish scholars. Even then its value as poetry, as a source of historical information, and as a collection of entertaining stories was recognized. This meticulous translation succeeds in reproducing the verse patterns, the rhythm, the mood, and the dignity of the original in a revision that Scandinavian Studies says "may well grace anyone's bookshelf."]]> 343 Anonymous Avi 0 to-read 4.28 1270 The Poetic Edda: Stories of the Norse Gods and Heroes
author: Anonymous
name: Avi
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1270
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/10
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]]> <![CDATA[But What I Really Want to Do Is Direct: Lessons from a Life Behind the Camera]]> 49127495
He is among the most respected directors in show business, but getting there wasn’t easy. He struggled just like everyone else. With each triumph came the occasional faceplant. Using his background and inside knowledge, But What I Really Want To Do is Direct tackles Hollywood myths through Ken’s highly entertaining experiences. It’s a rollercoaster ride fueled by brawls with the top brass, clashes over budgets, and the passion that makes it all worthwhile.

This humorous and refreshingly personal memoir is filled with inspiring instruction, behind-the-scenes hilarity, and unabashed joy. It’s a celebration of the director’s craft, and what it takes to succeed in show business on your own terms.

"Ken Kwapis always brought out the best in the actors on The Office . Whenever Ken was directing, I always felt safe to go out on a limb and take chances, knowing he had my back. Every aspiring director should read this book. (I can think of several 'professional' directors that should read it too!)" -Jenna Fischer

"A vital, magnificent manifesto on the art and craft of directing, written with emotional, instinctual and intellectual depth by one of America's most beloved film and television directors" -Amber Tamblyn

"In the years that I was fortunate to work with Ken on Malcolm in the Middle , he had an uncanny ability to guide actors right to the heart of a scene and reveal its truths. He admits that he doesn’t have all the answers, he’ll make mistakes, and at times he’ll struggle, but as he says in the book, 'It’s the struggle to get it right that makes us human.'" -Bryan Cranston

"Good luck finding a more kind, passionate, and talented director alive than Ken. Seriously, good luck." -Tig Notaro

�'Action!' is what most directors bark out to begin a scene. But Ken Kwapis starts by gently intoning the words 'Go ahead�' That simple suggestion assures everyone they’re in smart, capable, humble hands. That’s how you’ll feel reading this book. And so, if you’re anxious to discover how a top director always brings humor, honesty, and humanity to his work, all I can tell you is…Go ahead." -Larry Wilmore]]> 368 Ken Kwapis 1250260124 Avi 0 to-read 4.17 2020 But What I Really Want to Do Is Direct: Lessons from a Life Behind the Camera
author: Ken Kwapis
name: Avi
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/10
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]]> Open Water 53414230
At once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity, Open Water asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body, to be vulnerable when you are only respected for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it. With gorgeous, soulful intensity, Caleb Azumah Nelson has written the most essential British debut of recent years.]]> 145 Caleb Azumah Nelson 0241448778 Avi 0 currently-reading 4.03 2021 Open Water
author: Caleb Azumah Nelson
name: Avi
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/10
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]]> A Little Life 29408433 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER � A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship� (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST � MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST � WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE �

A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.]]> 723 Hanya Yanagihara 1447294831 Avi 0 to-read 4.36 2015 A Little Life
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: Avi
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/01
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]]> Tom Lake 63241104 In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.]]> 309 Ann Patchett 006332752X Avi 0 to-read 3.92 2023 Tom Lake
author: Ann Patchett
name: Avi
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/12
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]]> Oblomov 254308 586 Ivan Goncharov 1933480092 Avi 0 to-read 4.09 1859 Oblomov
author: Ivan Goncharov
name: Avi
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1859
rating: 0
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]]> Notes from Underground 49455 Notes from Underground marks the dividing line between nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction, and between the visions of self each century embodied. One of the most remarkable characters in literature, the unnamed narrator is a former official who has defiantly withdrawn into an underground existence. In complete retreat from society, he scrawls a passionate, obsessive, self-contradictory narrative that serves as a devastating attack on social utopianism and an assertion of man’s essentially irrational nature.

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, whose Dostoevsky translations have become the standard, give us a brilliantly faithful edition of this classic novel, conveying all the tragedy and tormented comedy of the original.]]> 136 Fyodor Dostoevsky 067973452X Avi 0 to-read 4.21 1864 Notes from Underground
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Avi
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1864
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]]> Demon Copperhead 60194162 "Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]> 560 Barbara Kingsolver 0063251922 Avi 0 to-read 4.46 2022 Demon Copperhead
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Avi
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> The Odyssey 1381 Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.

So begins Robert Fagles' magnificent translation of the Odyssey.

If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, then the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey though life. Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces, during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance.

In the myths and legends that are retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom, and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery.

Renowned classicist Bernard Knox's superb Introduction and textual commentary provide new insights and background information for the general reader and scholar alike, intensifying the strength of Fagles' translation.

This is an Odyssey to delight both the classicist and the public at large, and to captivate a new generation of Homer's students.

--

Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, presents us with Homer's best-loved and most accessible poem in a stunning new modern-verse translation.]]> 541 Homer 0143039954 Avi 5 3.79 -700 The Odyssey
author: Homer
name: Avi
average rating: 3.79
book published: -700
rating: 5
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]]> We Followed Odysseus 515250 225 Hal Roth 1892399032 Avi 0 to-read 3.56 1999 We Followed Odysseus
author: Hal Roth
name: Avi
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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]]> Stoner 166997
John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.]]> 292 John Williams 1590171993 Avi 0 to-read 4.35 1965 Stoner
author: John Williams
name: Avi
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1965
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich]]> 17125 The only English translation authorized by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

First published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature. The story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, it graphically describes his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary documents to have emerged from the Soviet Union and confirms Solzhenitsyn's stature as "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dosotevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy"--Harrison Salisbury

This unexpurgated 1991 translation by H. T. Willetts is the only authorized edition available, and fully captures the power and beauty of the original Russian.]]> 182 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Avi 0 to-read 3.98 1962 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Avi
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/31
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]]> The Once and Future King 43545 639 T.H. White 0441627404 Avi 0 to-read 4.07 1958 The Once and Future King
author: T.H. White
name: Avi
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1958
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/31
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]]> Masculinities 228510 352 Raewyn W. Connell 0745634273 Avi 0 to-read 4.06 1995 Masculinities
author: Raewyn W. Connell
name: Avi
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/31
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]]> One Man's Meat 22464337 350 pages of excellent text. E.B. White Avi 0 to-read 5.00 1942 One Man's Meat
author: E.B. White
name: Avi
average rating: 5.00
book published: 1942
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/31
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]]> Olive Kitteridge 57765917
Bastida d’una fina ironia, honesta i punyent, Olive Kitteridge, guardonada amb el Premi Pulitzer, mostra el camí d’una dona que transita per la soledat i la pèrdua, i la fortalesa que això exigeix. I, com totes les històries d’Elizabeth Strout, ens regala moments sorprenents d’emoció intensa que il·luminen tant el que percebem dels altres com el que descobrim de nosaltres mateixos.]]> 384 Elizabeth Strout 8416987912 Avi 0 to-read 4.06 2008 Olive Kitteridge
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Avi
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/31
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]]> <![CDATA[Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI]]> 36465763 AI is radically transforming business. Are you ready?

Look around you. Artificial intelligence is no longer just a futuristic notion. It's here right now--in software that senses what we need, supply chains that "think" in real time, and robots that respond to changes in their environment. Twenty-first-century pioneer companies are already using AI to innovate and grow fast. The bottom line is Businesses that understand how to harness AI can surge ahead. Those that neglect it will fall behind. Which side are you on?

In Human + Machine, Accenture leaders Paul R. Daugherty and H. James (Jim) Wilson show that the essence of the AI paradigm shift is the transformation of all business processes within an organization--whether related to breakthrough innovation, everyday customer service, or personal productivity habits. As humans and smart machines collaborate ever more closely, work processes become more fluid and adaptive, enabling companies to change them on the fly--or to completely reimagine them. AI is changing all the rules of how companies operate.

Based on the authors' experience and research with 1,500 organizations, the book reveals how companies are using the new rules of AI to leap ahead on innovation and profitability, as well as what you can do to achieve similar results. It describes six entirely new types of hybrid human + machine roles that every company must develop, and it includes a "leader’s guide" with the five crucial principles required to become an AI-fueled business.

Human + Machine provides the missing and much-needed management playbook for success in our new age of AI.

BOOK PROCEEDS FOR THE AI GENERATIONThe authors' goal in publishing Human + Machine is to help executives, workers, students and others navigate the changes that AI is making to business and the economy. They believe AI will bring innovations that truly improve the way the world works and lives. However, AI will cause disruption, and many people will need education, training and support to prepare for the newly created jobs. To support this need, the authors are donating the royalties received from the sale of this book to fund education and retraining programs focused on developing fusion skills for the age of artificial intelligence.]]> 246 Paul R. Daugherty 1633693872 Avi 0 to-read 3.60 Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI
author: Paul R. Daugherty
name: Avi
average rating: 3.60
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/21
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]]> La casa in collina 852842 "Ora che ho visto cos'è la guerra civile, so che tutti, se un giorno finisse, dovrebbero chiedersi: "E dei caduti che facciamo? perché sono morti?" Io non saprei cosa rispondere. Non adesso almeno. Né mi pare che gli altri lo sappiano. Forse lo sanno unicamente i morti, e soltanto per loro la guerra è finita davvero".
La grande intuizione delle ultime pagine de La casa in collina sarà ripresa e portata alle estreme conseguenze artistiche e morali nel capolavoro di Cesare Pavese, La luna e i falò.]]> 172 Cesare Pavese 8806118293 Avi 0 to-read 3.73 1948 La casa in collina
author: Cesare Pavese
name: Avi
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1948
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/18
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]]> Andorra 965956 127 Max Frisch 3518367773 Avi 0 3.35 1961 Andorra
author: Max Frisch
name: Avi
average rating: 3.35
book published: 1961
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/06/24
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]]> <![CDATA[On Chesil Beach: A Novel by Ian McEwan (2007-06-05)]]> 136522273 0 Ian McEwan Avi 0 to-read 3.50 2007 On Chesil Beach: A Novel by Ian McEwan (2007-06-05)
author: Ian McEwan
name: Avi
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/06/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine]]> 23461003 That's My Partner! A eats mostly popsicles and oranges, watches endless amounts of television, often just for the commercials� particularly the recurring cartoon escapades of Kandy Kat, the mascot for an entirely chemical dessert—and models herself on a standard of beauty that exists only in such advertising. She fixates on the fifteen minutes of fame a local celebrity named Michael has earned after buying up a Wally's Supermarket's entire, and increasingly ample, supply of veal.

Meanwhile, B is attempting to make herself a twin of A, who in turn hungers for something to give meaning to her life, something aside from C's pornography addiction. Maybe something like what's gotten into her neighbors across the street, the family who's begun "ghosting" themselves beneath white sheets and whose garage door features a strange scrawl of graffiti: he who sits next to me, may we eat as one.

An intelligent and madly entertaining novel reminiscent of The Crying of Lot 49, White Noise, and City of Glass, Alexandra Kleeman's unforgettable debut is a missing-person mystery told from the point of view of the missing person; an American horror story that concerns sex and friendship, consumption and appetite, faith and transformation, real food and reality television; and, above all, a wholly singular vision of modern womanhood by a frightening, "stunning" (Conjunctions), and often very funny voice of a new generation.]]> 304 Alexandra Kleeman 0062388673 Avi 0 to-read 3.25 2015 You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine
author: Alexandra Kleeman
name: Avi
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/06/22
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]]> <![CDATA[A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius]]> 4953 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that holds a family together.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is an instant classic that will be read for decades to come.]]> 530 Dave Eggers 0375725784 Avi 0 to-read 3.70 2000 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
author: Dave Eggers
name: Avi
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/06/22
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]]> <![CDATA[The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao]]> 297673
Diaz immerses us in the tumultuous life of Oscar and the history of the family at large, rendering with genuine warmth and dazzling energy, humor, and insight the Dominican-American experience, and, ultimately, the endless human capacity to persevere in the face of heartbreak and loss. A true literary triumph, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao confirms Junot Diaz as one of the best and most exciting voices of our time.]]> 335 Junot DĂ­az 1594489580 Avi 0 to-read 3.89 2007 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
author: Junot DĂ­az
name: Avi
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/06/22
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]]> <![CDATA[A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man]]> 7588 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a novel of sexual awakening, religious rebellion and the essential search for voice and meaning that every nascent artist must face in order to blossom fully into themselves.]]> 329 James Joyce 0142437344 Avi 0 to-read 3.64 1916 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
author: James Joyce
name: Avi
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1916
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay]]> 3985 639 Michael Chabon 0312282990 Avi 0 to-read 4.18 2000 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
author: Michael Chabon
name: Avi
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/06/22
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]]> Men Without Women 108218 “Hills Like White Elephants� and “Fifty Grand,� which a Cosmopolitan editor praised as “one of the best short stories that ever came to my hands.� Read by an Earphones Award–winning narrator.

Originally published in October 1927, the second short-story collection published by Pulitzer Prize winner and Nobel Laureate Ernest Hemingway contains the following fourteen stories:
The Undefeated, In Another Country, Hills Like White Elephants, The Killers, Che Ti Dice La Patria?, Fifty Grand, A Simple Enquiry, Ten Indians, A Canary for One, An Alpine Idyll, A Pursuit Race, Today is Friday, Banal Story, Now I Lay Me. Themes and subject matter range from bullfighting, boxing, and prizefighting to divorce, infidelity, and death. Critics at the time praised Hemingway’s concise language and powerful prose.

Content Warning: As a part of the public domain, Men Without Women is a literary work that reflects the time in which it was published—both its good and its ill. The original text of Men Without Women contains slurs and depictions that represent prejudiced and harmful beliefs regarding race, ethnicity, and religion. To erase or bury this representation of inequity and prejudice would be akin to pretending it never existed, a denial that only perpetuates and extends the original harm done. Thus, in the interest of preserving and documenting both the faults and highlights of literary history—an instrumental, crucial function of works entering the public domain—this text is unedited and uncensored in this audiobook recording. Please proceed with discretion.]]> 153 Ernest Hemingway Avi 3 3.62 1927 Men Without Women
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Avi
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1927
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse / A Poem for Every Night of the Year / A Poem for Every Day of the Year / Soul Fuel: A Daily Devotional]]> 50213921 The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse:
The conversations of the boy, the mole, the fox and the horse have been shared thousands of times online, recreated in school art classes, hung on hospital walls and turned into tattoos. In Charlie's first book, you will find his most-loved illustrations and some new ones too.

A Poem for Every Night of the Year:
A Poem for Every Night of the Year is a magnificent collection of 366 poems compiled by Allie Esiri, one to share for every night of the year. The poems together with introductory paragraphs—have a link to the date on which they appear.

A Poem for Every Day of the Year:
A Poem for Every Day of the Year is a magnificent collection of 366 poems compiled by Allie Esiri, one to share on every day of the year. Reflecting the changing seasons and linking to events on key dates—funny for April Fool's Day, festive for Christmas.

Soul Fuel: A Daily Devotional:
Bestselling author Bear Grylls has survived a free-fall parachute accident that left him with a broken back, possibly unable to walk again; falling down a mountain in the Rockies, severing a finger in the Vietnam jungle, a broken shoulder in Antarctica.]]> 0 Charlie Mackesy 9123950153 Avi 5 4.54 The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse / A Poem for Every Night of the Year / A Poem for Every Day of the Year / Soul Fuel: A Daily Devotional
author: Charlie Mackesy
name: Avi
average rating: 4.54
book published:
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/06/21
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]]> The Book of Five Rings 25789 The Book of Five Rings is one of the most insightful texts on the subtle arts of confrontation and victory to emerge from Asian culture. Written not only for martial artists but for anyone who wants to apply the timeless principles of this text to their life, the book analyzes the process of struggle and mastery over conflict that underlies every level of human interaction.

The Book of Five Rings was composed in 1643 by the famed duelist and undefeated samurai Miyamoto Musashi. Thomas Cleary's translation is immediately accessible, with an introduction that presents the spiritual background of the warrior tradition. Along with Musashi's text, Cleary translates here another important Japanese classic on leadership and strategy, The Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War by Yagyu Munenori, which highlights the ethical and spiritual insights of Taoism and Zen as they apply to the way of the warrior.]]> 166 Miyamoto Musashi 1590302486 Avi 0 3.81 1645 The Book of Five Rings
author: Miyamoto Musashi
name: Avi
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1645
rating: 0
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]]> Dear Edward 45294613
Edward's story captures the attention of the nation, but he struggles to find a place for himself in a world without his family. He continues to feel that a piece of him has been left in the sky, forever tied to the plane and all of his fellow passengers. But then he makes an unexpected discovery--one that will lead him to the answers of some of life's most profound questions: When you've lost everything, how do find yourself? How do you discover your purpose? What does it mean not just to survive, but to truly live?

An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.]]> 340 Ann Napolitano 198485478X Avi 0 to-read 4.03 2020 Dear Edward
author: Ann Napolitano
name: Avi
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Hello Beautiful 61771675
But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters� unshakeable devotion to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations. Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most?]]> 416 Ann Napolitano Avi 0 to-read 4.14 2023 Hello Beautiful
author: Ann Napolitano
name: Avi
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/20
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]]> A Farewell to Arms 10799 A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield - the weary, demoralized men marching in the rain during the German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty and desertion—this gripping, semiautobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep. Ernest Hemingway famously said that he rewrote his ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times to get the words right.]]> 293 Ernest Hemingway 0099910101 Avi 4
Reading the book, it impacted my own writing style.

Everything that the book begins with to show protagonist as, it only blossoms as the book progresses. What I saw was how he didn't believe God and a lot of things. And all those things are in his sub conscious in the beginning of the book. But then, as he goes on, they come out and act on his conscious.

It's about the wartime desperation and the pain. The way the dialogues were written in the book, especially between Catherine and him, they show that desperation.

I think I would characterize his writing style as not holding back. There is an indifference, a manner of simply stating what it is. It feels as if there is not much pre-thought, but someone in the midst of it all writing it as it is and it's naturally either plain or insightful.

]]> 3.83 1929 A Farewell to Arms
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Avi
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1929
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/06/14
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review:
It was my second Hemingway novel and it was written a little differently from Old Man and the Sea, but recalling it, I think there were discernable similarities.

Reading the book, it impacted my own writing style.

Everything that the book begins with to show protagonist as, it only blossoms as the book progresses. What I saw was how he didn't believe God and a lot of things. And all those things are in his sub conscious in the beginning of the book. But then, as he goes on, they come out and act on his conscious.

It's about the wartime desperation and the pain. The way the dialogues were written in the book, especially between Catherine and him, they show that desperation.

I think I would characterize his writing style as not holding back. There is an indifference, a manner of simply stating what it is. It feels as if there is not much pre-thought, but someone in the midst of it all writing it as it is and it's naturally either plain or insightful.


]]> How to Do Things with Words 333832 How to Do Things with Words.

For this second edition, the editors have returned to Austin's original lecture notes, amending the printed text where it seemed necessary. Students will find the new text clearer, and, at the same time, more faithful to the actual lectures. An appendix contains literal transcriptions of a number of marginal notes made by Austin but not included in the text. Comparison of the text with these annotations provides new dimensions to the study of Austin's work.]]> 168 J.L. Austin 0674411528 Avi 0 to-read 3.95 1955 How to Do Things with Words
author: J.L. Austin
name: Avi
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1955
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Log from the Sea of Cortez]]> 4803 here.

In 1940 Steinbeck sailed in a sardine boat with his great friend the marine biologist, Ed Ricketts, to collect marine invertebrates from the beaches of the Gulf of California. The expedition was described by the two men in Sea of Cortez, published in 1941. The day-to-day story of the trip is told here in the Log, which combines science, philosophy and high-spirited adventure.

Log from the Sea of Cortez includes the narrative of the journey and the essay “About Ed Ricketts.� It does not include pictures and detailed descriptions of the species collected by Steinbeck and Ricketts. (See also Sea of Cortez.)]]> 288 John Steinbeck 0141186070 Avi 0 to-read 3.84 1951 The Log from the Sea of Cortez
author: John Steinbeck
name: Avi
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1951
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> East of Eden 4406
Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aaron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness enveloped by a mysterious darkness.

First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.]]> 601 John Steinbeck 0142000655 Avi 0 to-read 4.41 1952 East of Eden
author: John Steinbeck
name: Avi
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1952
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Ghachar Ghochar 30267604
Elegantly written and punctuated by moments of unexpected warmth and humor, Ghachar Ghochar is a quietly enthralling, deeply unsettling novel about the shifting meanings—and consequences—of financial gain in contemporary India.]]> 118 Vivek Shanbhag 014311168X Avi 5
I loved the writing, it was simple, subtle and precise. He used the right amount of words for just everything-- the story got a proportionate expression, which feels harmonious the more you think about it.

There was a simplicity and subtlety that allowed me to read the content of the book without turning away. It was grounded in reality, yet the lens of subtlety made it easier for me to stick around.

I personally find an expression and a lens to see some patterns and connect the dots in my own life, and discern the implications of my childhood and family into my own adulthood.

I honestly wonder how any other person would have perceived this book-- whether they were truly able to grasp the uneasy situations protagonist has been in. Because I was able to through relation.



]]> 3.89 2013 Ghachar Ghochar
author: Vivek Shanbhag
name: Avi
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/04/19
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review:
This was probably my first book by an Indian author, unless you count Ambedkar's Annihilation of Caste.

I loved the writing, it was simple, subtle and precise. He used the right amount of words for just everything-- the story got a proportionate expression, which feels harmonious the more you think about it.

There was a simplicity and subtlety that allowed me to read the content of the book without turning away. It was grounded in reality, yet the lens of subtlety made it easier for me to stick around.

I personally find an expression and a lens to see some patterns and connect the dots in my own life, and discern the implications of my childhood and family into my own adulthood.

I honestly wonder how any other person would have perceived this book-- whether they were truly able to grasp the uneasy situations protagonist has been in. Because I was able to through relation.




]]> <![CDATA[Once Upon a Life: Burnt Curry and Bloody Rags: A Memoir]]> 20948726
Once Upon a Life is a powerful memoir of those early years and the career they led to, which saw Ao become not only an acclaimed writer, but also a professor and a successful cultural administrator. A beautifully written account of success in the face of hardship, and the power of education and determination, Once Upon a Life is searing, moving, and unforgettable.]]> 248 Temsula Ao 9381017980 Avi 0 to-read 3.68 2014 Once Upon a Life: Burnt Curry and Bloody Rags: A Memoir
author: Temsula Ao
name: Avi
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Man in the Iron Mask 54499 470 Alexandre Dumas 0140439242 Avi 0 to-read 4.00 1847 The Man in the Iron Mask
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Avi
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1847
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/18
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]]> Pincher Martin 14429
At the core of this raging tale of physical and psychological violence lies Christopher Martin’s will to live as the sum total of his life.]]> 216 William Golding 015602781X Avi 0 to-read 3.61 1956 Pincher Martin
author: William Golding
name: Avi
average rating: 3.61
book published: 1956
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/18
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review:

]]> The Short Stories 4662
In 'The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald', Matthew J. Bruccoli, the country's premier Fitzgerald scholar and biographer, assembles a sparkling collection that encompasses the full scope of Fitzgerald's short fiction.

The forty-three masterpieces range from early stories that capture the fashion of the times to later ones written after the author's fabled crack-up, which are sober reflections on his own youthful excesses.

Included are classic novellas, such as "The Rich Boy," "May Day," and "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz," as well as a remarkable body of work he wrote for the Saturday Evening Post and its sister "slicks."

These stories can be read as an autobiographical journal of a great writer's career, an experience deepened by the illuminating introductory headnotes that Matthew Bruccoli has written for each story, placing it in its literary and biographical context.

Together, these forty-three stories compose a vivid picture of a lost era, but their brilliance is timeless.

This essential collection is a monument to the genius of one of the great voices in the history of American literature.]]> 800 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0684842505 Avi 0 to-read 4.23 1920 The Short Stories
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Avi
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1920
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/11
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]]> This Side of Paradise 46165 This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald's romantic and witty first novel, was written when the author was only twenty-three years old. This semi-autobiographical story of the handsome, indulged, and idealistic Princeton student Amory Blaine received critical raves and catapulted Fitzgerald to instant fame. Now, readers can enjoy the newly edited, authorized version of this early classic of the Jazz Age, based on Fitzgerald's original manuscript. In this definitive text, This Side of Paradise captures the rhythms and romance of Fitzgerald's youth and offers a poignant portrait of the "Lost Generation."]]> 275 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0684843781 Avi 0 to-read 3.66 1920 This Side of Paradise
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Avi
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1920
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/11
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]]> The Beautiful and Damned 4708 The Beautiful and the Damned followed Fitzgerald's impeccable debut, This Side of Paradise, thus securing his place in the tradition of great American novelists. Embellished with the author's lyrical prose, here is the story of Harvard-educated, aspiring aesthete Anthony Patch and his beautiful wife, Gloria. As they await the inheritance of his grandfather's fortune, their reckless marriage sways under the influence of alcohol and avarice. A devastating look at the nouveau riche, and the New York nightlife, as well as the ruinous effects of wild ambition, The Beautiful and the Damned achieved stature as one of Fitzgerald's most accomplished novels. Its distinction as a classic endures to this day. Pocket Book's Enriched Classics present the great works of world literature enhanced for the contemporary reader. Special features include critical perspectives, suggestions for further read, and a unique visual essay composed of period photographs that help bring every word to life.]]> 422 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0743451503 Avi 0 to-read 3.74 1922 The Beautiful and Damned
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Avi
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1922
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life]]> 36582041 How to Die gathers in one volume, for the first time, Seneca’s remarkable meditations on death and dying. Edited and translated by James Romm, How to Die reveals a provocative thinker and dazzling writer who speaks with a startling frankness about the need to accept death or even, under certain conditions, to seek it out.

Seneca believed that life is only a journey toward death and that one must rehearse for death throughout life. Here, he tells us how to practice for death, how to die well, and how to understand the role of a good death in a good life. He stresses the universality of death, its importance as life’s final rite of passage, and its ability to liberate us from pain, slavery, or political oppression.


Featuring beautifully rendered new translations, How to Die also includes an enlightening introduction, notes, the original Latin texts, and an epilogue presenting Tacitus's description of Seneca's grim suicide.

]]> 230 Seneca 0691175578 Avi 0 to-read 4.06 2017 How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life
author: Seneca
name: Avi
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Call of the Wild 1852 The Call of the Wild is regarded as Jack London's masterpiece. Based on London's experiences as a gold prospector in the Canadian wilderness and his ideas about nature and the struggle for existence, The Call of the Wild is a tale about unbreakable spirit and the fight for survival in the frozen Alaskan Klondike.]]> 172 Jack London Avi 5
I see that the average rating is 3.89 as I write this "review"- and I can maybe understand why. But I absolutely loved this book. On one hand, we have Bukowski's rawness- cynical, angry and bitter. On the other, I feel there is London's rawness- verbose, blunt and poetic.

Being descriptive and weaving an image- are two very different things. Some writers, the one who write without spirit will have the dull former. And the latter can only be wielded by the ones who write with spirit. This book is definitely the latter.

The rawness I felt not just in the prose, but how roughly the story moved- which can be characteristic of a 20th Century novel compared to what we have now.

If you have been a runner, or ever been deeply fond of nature and gotten the chance to explore, you'd find resonance of those occasional instinctual primal feelings in this book, and that's what I loved about it. I loved how the story developed- how the writing first drew you in with story of Buck and how it transformed into something 'spiritual'- and essentially remaining about the 'Call of the Wild'.


One consequence: I now look differently at dogs around me.]]> 3.89 1903 The Call of the Wild
author: Jack London
name: Avi
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1903
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/09
date added: 2023/02/09
shelves:
review:
I had come across this book while reading 'Into the Wild' and one other book, so when I saw it in my college library and noticed that it was about 160 pages only- I picked it up- and it is nothing like I have ever read before.

I see that the average rating is 3.89 as I write this "review"- and I can maybe understand why. But I absolutely loved this book. On one hand, we have Bukowski's rawness- cynical, angry and bitter. On the other, I feel there is London's rawness- verbose, blunt and poetic.

Being descriptive and weaving an image- are two very different things. Some writers, the one who write without spirit will have the dull former. And the latter can only be wielded by the ones who write with spirit. This book is definitely the latter.

The rawness I felt not just in the prose, but how roughly the story moved- which can be characteristic of a 20th Century novel compared to what we have now.

If you have been a runner, or ever been deeply fond of nature and gotten the chance to explore, you'd find resonance of those occasional instinctual primal feelings in this book, and that's what I loved about it. I loved how the story developed- how the writing first drew you in with story of Buck and how it transformed into something 'spiritual'- and essentially remaining about the 'Call of the Wild'.


One consequence: I now look differently at dogs around me.
]]> <![CDATA[A Case of Identity - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes #3)]]> 2806829
This is #3 in Doyle's first collection of Holmes' short stories, "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes."

Librarian's note: this entry is for the story, "A Case of Identity." Collections of short stories by the author can be found elsewhere.]]> 18 Arthur Conan Doyle 0886467357 Avi 0 3.68 1891 A Case of Identity - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes #3)
author: Arthur Conan Doyle
name: Avi
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1891
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/30
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]]> <![CDATA[The Red-Headed League (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes #2)]]> 1254877
Holmes is engaged initially by a pawnbroker. He's upset by the loss of a well-paying, part-time job. One that doesn't require many hours and, when it does require work, doesn't interfere with his busiest times at the pawn shop. To Sherlock Holmes, it may be much more than it appears. Could it be the beginning of a larger mystery? Using minute details of the small one, he works to solve the serious one. "Depend upon it," said Holmes to Watson in "A Case of Identity." "There is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace."

Librarian's note: this entry is for "The Red Headed League," the second of 12 short stories from the 1892 collection, "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." It was first published in "The Strand Magazine." Collections and other stories by the author are located elsewhere on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ. The series includes four novels and 58 short stories. Entries for the short stories can be found by searching Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ for: "a Sherlock Holmes Short Story."]]> 24 Arthur Conan Doyle 0890613141 Avi 0 3.99 1891 The Red-Headed League (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes #2)
author: Arthur Conan Doyle
name: Avi
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1891
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/30
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption]]> 39664
Suspenseful, mysterious, and heart-wrenching, Stephen King’s extraordinary novella, populated by a cast of unforgettable characters, tells a powerful tale of crushing despair and liberating hope through the eyes of Ellis “Red� Redding. Red’s a guy who can get you whatever you want here in Maine’s corrupt and hard-edged Shawshank State Penitentiary (for a price, of course), but the one thing he doesn’t count on is an unexpected friendship forged with fellow inmate Andy Dufresne—an inscrutable one-time banker perhaps falsely convicted of brutal, calculated murder who will go on to transform everyone’s lives within these prison walls.

Originally published in the 1982 collection Different Seasons, it was adapted into the 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. Nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, this modern classic has become one of the most beloved films of all time. A mesmerizing work of unjust imprisonment and strangely satisfying revenge, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption remains one of Stephen King’s most beloved and iconic stories.]]> 181 Stephen King 0896214400 Avi 5
Doubtless, this is one of the amazing books I have read. The analogies and similarities I drew to my own life, and the analogies in the book itself, were piercing.

I think I wanted more of Red's interaction with Andy- or say I wanted Red to write about it in his narrative.
But I think all things served their purpose.

Note: I read the book first, yet to watch the movie.

]]> 4.51 1982 Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption
author: Stephen King
name: Avi
average rating: 4.51
book published: 1982
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/01/30
shelves:
review:
If you cry at the end, it's probably because you have been in grave despair atleast once- and the words, they just hit you.

Doubtless, this is one of the amazing books I have read. The analogies and similarities I drew to my own life, and the analogies in the book itself, were piercing.

I think I wanted more of Red's interaction with Andy- or say I wanted Red to write about it in his narrative.
But I think all things served their purpose.

Note: I read the book first, yet to watch the movie.


]]> <![CDATA[A Scandal in Bohemia - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes #1)]]> 12990177
One Voice Recordings produces faithful, unabridged and scintillating productions of the largest selection of Sherlock Holmes stories currently available anywhere, all characters rendered by renowned stage and voice actor David Ian Davies, One Voice Recordings producer and publisher.

Librarian's note: this entry is for "A Scandal in Bohemia," the first of 12 short stories from the 1892 collection, "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." Collections and other stories by the author are located elsewhere on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ. The series includes four novels and 58 short stories. Entries for the short stories can be found by searching Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ for: "a Sherlock Holmes Short Story."]]> 20 Arthur Conan Doyle Avi 5 However short it was- I enjoyed it. ]]> 3.88 1891 A Scandal in Bohemia - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes #1)
author: Arthur Conan Doyle
name: Avi
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1891
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/01/19
shelves:
review:
When I began reading it, I was expecting it to be of greater length. After having watched the series Sherlock, the name Irene Adler spiced things up!
However short it was- I enjoyed it.
]]> Eugene Onegin 27822 Eugene Onegin is the master work of the poet whom Russians regard as the fountainhead of their literature. Set in 1820s Russia, Pushkin's verse novel follows the fates of three men and three women. Engaging, full of suspense, and varied in tone, it also portrays a large cast of other
characters and offers the reader many literary, philosophical, and autobiographical digressions, often in a highly satirical vein. Eugene Onegin was Pushkin's own favourite work, and this new translation conveys the literal sense and the poetic music of the original.]]> 240 Alexander Pushkin Avi 0 to-read 4.11 1833 Eugene Onegin
author: Alexander Pushkin
name: Avi
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1833
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/01/18
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]]> <![CDATA[The Sign of Four (Sherlock Holmes, #2)]]> 608474
For Mary Marston has received several large pearls - one a year for the last six years - and now a mystery letter telling her she is a wronged woman. If she would seek justice she is to meet her unknown benefactor, bringing with her two companions.

But unbeknownst to them all, others stalk London's fog-enshrouded streets: a one-legged ruffian with revenge on his mind - and his companion, who places no value on human life...]]> 129 Arthur Conan Doyle Avi 5 3.91 1890 The Sign of Four (Sherlock Holmes, #2)
author: Arthur Conan Doyle
name: Avi
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1890
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/01/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind]]> 189311 416 Donald C. Johanson 0671724991 Avi 0 to-read 4.14 1981 Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind
author: Donald C. Johanson
name: Avi
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1981
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/01/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Local School 60631087
Fusing genres of travel writing, narrative journalism, memoir, and poetry, The Local School explores a counterintuitive perception of education and the need for an education renaissance in America. Detailing his experiences living and studying alongside two Indian men, one a Bengali teacher, and one a northern Indian truck driver, Phelan reorients education as a lifestyle, as opposed to something we chase. For years, Phelan wrestles with questions about these two Indian men's uniquely uncommon friendship, about the Indian subcontinent's history and complex social fabric, and ultimately, about what makes an education. All the while travelling far from home, Phelan learns that the best schools are our local schools.

Utilizing archival research from the National Archives of India, Delhi, the British Library, London, and behind the scenes access in Kolkata, Delhi, Kashmir, and parts of the Garhwal Himalayan foothills, Phelan's story treads genres of travel writing, narrative journalism, and memoir. All the while reimagining these ideas about education, Phelan's narrative offers readers privileged access into worlds of India about which they would otherwise know little.

Editorial Reviews:

"It's been a while since I've read anything as unique and moving. It had me from the start. Fortunately, Phelan strays far from the local to contend with what are, at root, universal themes: the connection between past and present, between one's own inner life and the lives of others. It's a vivid literary success." - John O'Connor, Acclaimed American Travel Writer

"A mosaic of fresh, honest reflections on the 'serendipitous' relationship that evolved among a trio of seekers in modern Kolkata: a shared quest for what the author calls the soul's 'engagement and personal betterment.' By 'The Local School, ' Phelan means the process through which, with the aid of his Bengali and Garhwali 'brothers by choice' in an impromptu neighborhood academy, he learned to 'slow down and identify' his Western 'predispositions as a means of both correcting and valuing' his own identity. Much as sifting passages lifted from a journal, you'll find here a rich, heartfelt mix of poetry, pedagogical musings, astute political history of the subcontinent and British Empire--and a restless desire to review one's first impressions, so as to plan yet another journey of learning." - Dr. Christopher Wilson, Reading Narrative Journalism

"The Local School recounts the formative journey of a young teacher who comes to understand and commit to the teaching profession and its universal values. Phelan paints a vivid portrait of modern day India and its people, delving into history, politics and the philosophy of education. This moving tale of an unlikely friendship enlightens and inspires." - Jennifer Berkshire, A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door: the Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School]]> 166 Colin Phelan Avi 0 to-read 4.28 The Local School
author: Colin Phelan
name: Avi
average rating: 4.28
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/01/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers]]> 56769575
For two thousand years, cadavers—some willingly, some unwittingly—have been involved in science’s boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They’ve tested France’s first guillotines, ridden the NASA Space Shuttle, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, and helped solve the mystery of TWA Flight 800. For every new surgical procedure, from heart transplants to gender confirmation surgery, cadavers have helped make history in their quiet way. Stiff investigates the strange lives of our bodies postmortem and answers the question: What should we do after we die?]]> 320 Mary Roach 0393881725 Avi 0 to-read 4.13 2003 Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
author: Mary Roach
name: Avi
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/13
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death]]> 38212121
“Doughty chronicles [death] practices with tenderheartedness, a technician’s fascination, and an unsentimental respect for grief.� ―Jill Lepore, The New Yorker Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty embarks on a global expedition to discover how other cultures care for the dead. From Zoroastrian sky burials to wish-granting Bolivian skulls, she investigates the world’s funerary customs and expands our sense of what it means to treat the dead with dignity. Her account questions the rituals of the American funeral industry―especially chemical embalming―and suggests that the most effective traditions are those that allow mourners to personally attend to the body of the deceased. Exquisitely illustrated by artist Landis Blair, From Here to Eternity  is an adventure into the morbid unknown, a fascinating tour through the unique ways people everywhere confront mortality. 45 illustrations]]> 256 Caitlin Doughty 0393356280 Avi 0 to-read 4.30 2017 From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death
author: Caitlin Doughty
name: Avi
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Oxford Guide to Effective Argument and Critical Thinking]]> 20783609
This accessible book takes you step by step through the art of argument, from thinking about what to write and how you might write it, to how you may strengthen your claims, and how to come to a strong conclusion. Engagingly written and featuring useful summaries at the end of each chapter, this new book offers easily transferable practical advice on assessing the arguments of others and putting forward effective arguments of your own. The book's strength lies in its clear guidance and the use of real-life arguments - both contemporary and historical - and real-life essay questions from a variety of disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. These interesting, relevant, and often entertaining, examples are used not to illustrate, but to make essential points about what can be learnt, what techniques can be borrowed, and what pitfalls to avoid in the area of analytical thinking and writing.

The Oxford Guide to Effective Argument and Critical Thinking is sure to improve the written work of any student required to demonstrate the key skills of critical writing and thinking. It is equally as valuable for professionals needing these skills (e.g. journalists, lawyers, researchers, politicians) as well as for anyone who has a case to put forward and would like to do so convincingly.]]> 256 Colin Swatridge 0199671729 Avi 0 to-read 3.58 2014 Oxford Guide to Effective Argument and Critical Thinking
author: Colin Swatridge
name: Avi
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World]]> 25744928 One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results.

Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way.

In Deep Work, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules," for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill.

A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, Deep Work takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories-from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air-and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. Deep Work is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.]]> 296 Cal Newport 1455586692 Avi 0 to-read 4.16 2016 Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
author: Cal Newport
name: Avi
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die]]> 69242 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The instant classic about why some ideas thrive, why others die, and how to improve your idea's chances--essential reading in the "fake news" era.

Mark Twain once observed, "A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on." His observation rings true: Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and bogus news stories circulate effortlessly. Meanwhile, people with important ideas--entrepreneurs, teachers, politicians, and journalists--struggle to make them "stick."

In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the human scale principle, using the Velcro Theory of Memory, and creating curiosity gaps. Along the way, we discover that sticky messages of all kinds--from the infamous "kidney theft ring" hoax to a coach's lessons on sportsmanship to a vision for a new product at Sony--draw their power from the same six traits.

Made to Stick will transform the way you communicate. It's a fast-paced tour of success stories (and failures): the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who drank a glass of bacteria to prove a point about stomach ulcers; the charities who make use of the Mother Teresa Effect; the elementary-school teacher whose simulation actually prevented racial prejudice.

Provocative, eye-opening, and often surprisingly funny, Made to Stick shows us the vital principles of winning ideas--and tells us how we can apply these rules to making our own messages stick.]]> 291 Chip Heath 1400064287 Avi 0 to-read 3.98 2006 Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
author: Chip Heath
name: Avi
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2006
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]]> <![CDATA[Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion]]> 28815
You'll learn the six universal principles, how to use them to become a skilled persuader—and how to defend yourself against them. Perfect for people in all walks of life, the principles of Influence will move you toward profound personal change and act as a driving force for your success.]]> 320 Robert B. Cialdini 006124189X Avi 4 to-read 4.21 1984 Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
author: Robert B. Cialdini
name: Avi
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1984
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time]]> 84699
Climb the ladder to personal success?

The secret, master networker Keith Ferrazzi claims, is in reaching out to other people. As Ferrazzi discovered early in life, what distinguishes highly successful people from everyone else is the way they use the power of relationships—so that everyone wins.

In Never Eat Alone , Ferrazzi lays out the specific steps—and inner mindset—he uses to reach out to connect with the thousands of colleagues, friends, and associates on his Rolodex, people he has helped and who have helped him.

The son of a small-town steelworker and a cleaning lady, Ferrazzi first used his remarkable ability to connect with others to pave the way to a scholarship at Yale, a Harvard MBA, and several top executive posts. Not yet out of his thirties, he developed a network of relationships that stretched from Washington’s corridors of power to Hollywood’s A-list, leading to him being named one of Crain’s 40 Under 40 and selected as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the Davos World Economic Forum.

Ferrazzi's form of connecting to the world around him is based on generosity, helping friends connect with other friends. Ferrazzi distinguishes genuine relationship-building from the crude, desperate glad-handling usually associated with “networking.� He then distills his system of reaching out to people into practical, proven principles. Among them:

Don’t keep score: It’s never simply about getting what you want. It’s about getting what you want and making sure that the people who are important to you get what they want, too.

“Ping� constantly: The Ins and Outs of reaching out to those in your circle of contacts all the time—not just when you need something.

Never eat alone: The dynamics of status are the same whether you’re working at a corporation or attending a society event� “invisibility� is a fate worse than failure.

In the course of the book, Ferrazzi outlines the timeless strategies shared by the world’s most connected individuals, from Katherine Graham to Bill Clinton, Vernon Jordan to the Dalai Lama.

Chock full of specific advice on handling rejection, getting past gatekeepers, becoming a “conference commando,� and more, Never Eat Alone is destined to take its place alongside How to Win Friends and Influence People as an inspirational classic.]]> 309 Keith Ferrazzi 0385512058 Avi 0 to-read 3.84 Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time
author: Keith Ferrazzi
name: Avi
average rating: 3.84
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]]> <![CDATA[The Letters of Vincent van Gogh]]> 395233 The Letters of Vincent van Gogh put a human face on one of the most haunting figures in modern Western culture. In this Penguin Classics edition, the letters are selected and edited by Ronald de Leeuw, and translated by Arnold Pomerans in Penguin Classics.

Few artists' letters are as self-revelatory as Vincent van Gogh's, and this selection, spanning his artistic career, sheds light on every facet of the life and work of this complex and tortured man. Engaging candidly and movingly with his religious struggles, his ill-fated search for love, his attacks of mental illness and his relation with his brother Theo, the letters contradict the popular myth of van Gogh as an anti-social madman and a martyr to art, showing instead a man of great emotional and spiritual depths. Above all, they stand as an intense personal narrative of artistic development and a unique account of the process of creation.

The letters are linked by explanatory biographical passages, revealing van Gogh's inner journey as well as the outer facts of his life. This edition also includes the drawings that originally illustrated the letters.

Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853-1890) was born in Holland. In 1885 he painted his first masterpiece, The Potato Eaters, a haunting scene of domestic poverty. A year later he began studying in Paris, where he met Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec and Seurat, who became very important influences on his work. In 1888 he left Paris for the Provencal landscape at Arles, the subject of many of his best works, including Sunflowers.

If you enjoyed The Letters of Vincent van Gogh, you might also like 100 Artists Manifestos, available in Penguin Modern Classics.

'If there was ever any doubt that Van Gogh's letters belong beside those great classics of artistic self-revelation, Cellini's autobiography and Delacroix's journal, this excellent new edition dispels it'
The Times]]> 528 Vincent van Gogh 0140446745 Avi 0 to-read 4.09 1914 The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
author: Vincent van Gogh
name: Avi
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1914
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]]> <![CDATA[Letters to a Law Student: A Guide to Studying Law at University]]> 2139878 277 Nicholas J. McBride 0582894255 Avi 0 to-read 4.12 2006 Letters to a Law Student: A Guide to Studying Law at University
author: Nicholas J. McBride
name: Avi
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Courts and their Judgements: Premises, Prerequisites, Consequences]]> 1632531
Do judges merely enforce and interpret the law? Or do they at times interpolate words into statutes, even into the Constitution? Where does interpretation end and rewriting commence? How is it that in one judgment a court declares that it is the right of ministers to determine how far and in what direction a criminal investigation shall be carried, and in another the same court, indeed the same judge, decides to as good as monitor an investigation? How is it that in some cases a court delves into detailed facts that do not just bear on the case, but on why a law was passed, and in another the same court lays it down as a principle that facts need not be considered once the legislature has passed a law?

The failure of other institutions to discharge their duties has compelled the courts to step far outside their traditional role. In doing so, have they stretched the law and Constitution too far? Has the intervention been effective? Courts and Their Judgments looks at judicial activism through some brilliantly argued cases and at the need for and pitfalls of such overreach. With its searing answers, evidence, dissection of judgments on these and other issues, the book remains a must-read for strengthening the country.

'An outstanding effort' - Chief Justice Venkatachaliah
'An extraordinary book' - Fali S. Nariman
'Unputdownable' - Ashok Desai]]> 454 Arun Shourie 8171675573 Avi 0 to-read 3.89 2001 Courts and their Judgements: Premises, Prerequisites, Consequences
author: Arun Shourie
name: Avi
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[A Time to Love and a Time to Die]]> 132749
After two years at the Russian front, Ernst Graeber finally receives three weeks� leave. But since leaves have been canceled before, he decides not to write his parents, fearing he would just raise their hopes.

Then, when Graeber arrives home, he finds his house bombed to ruin and his parents nowhere in sight. Nobody knows if they are dead or alive. As his leave draws to a close, Graeber reaches out to Elisabeth, a childhood friend. Like him, she is imprisoned in a world she did not create. But in a time of war, love seems a world away. And sometimes, temporary comfort can lead to something unexpected and redeeming.]]> 379 Erich Maria Remarque 0151904707 Avi 0 to-read 4.42 1954 A Time to Love and a Time to Die
author: Erich Maria Remarque
name: Avi
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1954
rating: 0
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]]> The Road Back 6058 352 Erich Maria Remarque 1931541744 Avi 0 to-read 4.28 1931 The Road Back
author: Erich Maria Remarque
name: Avi
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1931
rating: 0
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]]> Where the Red Fern Grows 10365 Billy, Old Dan, and Little Ann—a boy and his two dogs...

A loving threesome, they ranged the dark hills and river bottoms of Cherokee County. Old Dan had the brawn, Little Ann had the brains—and Billy had the will to train them to be the finest hunting team in the valley. Glory and victory were coming to them, but sadness waited too. And close by was the strange and wonderful power that's only found...

Where the Red Fern Grows—An exciting tale of love and adventure you'll never forget.

(from the back cover)]]> 272 Wilson Rawls 0375806814 Avi 5
I finished this book in 2 days.
Faith, sincerity and hardwork- through the eyes of a young boy, and a tale of deep connection and friendship.

It is a heart-touching book, and I would definitely recommend it. In the last pages, the tears will come automatically and you will feel both sad and beautiful.

]]> 4.11 1961 Where the Red Fern Grows
author: Wilson Rawls
name: Avi
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1961
rating: 5
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date added: 2022/12/25
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The writing was simple and rhythmic. It drew me in.

I finished this book in 2 days.
Faith, sincerity and hardwork- through the eyes of a young boy, and a tale of deep connection and friendship.

It is a heart-touching book, and I would definitely recommend it. In the last pages, the tears will come automatically and you will feel both sad and beautiful.


]]> <![CDATA[The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love]]> 17601
In The Will to Change, bell hooks gets to the heart of the matter and shows men how to express the emotions that are a fundamental part of who they are—whatever their age, marital status, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. But toxic masculinity punishes those fundamental emotions, and it’s so deeply ingrained in our society that it’s hard for men to not comply—but hooks wants to help change that.

With trademark candor and fierce intelligence, hooks addresses the most common concerns of men, such as fear of intimacy and loss of their patriarchal place in society, in new and challenging ways. She believes men can find the way to spiritual unity by getting back in touch with the emotionally open part of themselves—and lay claim to the rich and rewarding inner lives that have historically been the exclusive province of women. A brave and astonishing work, The Will to Change is designed to help men reclaim the best part of themselves.]]> 208 bell hooks 0743456084 Avi 0 to-read 4.38 2003 The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
author: bell hooks
name: Avi
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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]]> White Oleander 32234 White Oleander tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes--each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned--becomes a redeeming and surprising journey of self-discovery.]]> 446 Janet Fitch 0316182540 Avi 3 to-read 4.00 1999 White Oleander
author: Janet Fitch
name: Avi
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1999
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida]]> 57224204
Ten years after his prize-winning novel Chinaman established him as one of Sri Lanka’s foremost authors, Shehan Karunatilaka is back with a “thrilling satire� (Economist) and rip-roaring state-of-the-nation epic that offers equal parts mordant wit and disturbing, profound truths.]]> 386 Shehan Karunatilaka 1908745908 Avi 0 to-read 3.89 2022 The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
author: Shehan Karunatilaka
name: Avi
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/11/17
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]]> The Bell Jar 6514 294 Sylvia Plath 0571268862 Avi 4
Its definitely a very unique novel. While many have compared it with Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, I felt it was more similar to Bukowski. Though I can see the similarities with Salinger's too.

I have to say that I am confused, which makes me wonder if I understood it properly.

The voice of Esther changes through the book. Does she actually become a little "crazy" or is her trueness just slowly revealed?
How does one Characterize Esther? Is it necessary that one should be able to Characterize a person in the book?
I say it is similar to Bukowski because both Esther and Bukowski's Character in Ham in Rye, show intellect but a little... pettiness as if they are "crazy". (My apologies for using "crazy").

As I say that I had completely no idea what the Novel was about, the theme of suicide was very disturbing, especially because before it explicitly dealt with suicide, I was able to find an expression for my troubles in that part.

How does she get better? Did she really get better?
Whatever happened, she doesn't know how it happened, and as she said, the Bell Jar might just descend again sometime.


I feel I did not equip myself with proper lenses before reading this book. As I read a little bit of commentaries, I can discern the meaning now. Why she wrote what she wrote-

]]> 4.05 1963 The Bell Jar
author: Sylvia Plath
name: Avi
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1963
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2022/11/03
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There is a series on Netflix titled "The Master of None". In one of the episodes, the lead in that series recites an excerpt from the Bell Jar, about the the fig tree and the multiple choices. The reason I picked up that book was that it perfectly captured how I feel in my life at the moment. I picked up this book in search for some guidance or solution, so imagine my surprise when I read it completely.

Its definitely a very unique novel. While many have compared it with Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, I felt it was more similar to Bukowski. Though I can see the similarities with Salinger's too.

I have to say that I am confused, which makes me wonder if I understood it properly.

The voice of Esther changes through the book. Does she actually become a little "crazy" or is her trueness just slowly revealed?
How does one Characterize Esther? Is it necessary that one should be able to Characterize a person in the book?
I say it is similar to Bukowski because both Esther and Bukowski's Character in Ham in Rye, show intellect but a little... pettiness as if they are "crazy". (My apologies for using "crazy").

As I say that I had completely no idea what the Novel was about, the theme of suicide was very disturbing, especially because before it explicitly dealt with suicide, I was able to find an expression for my troubles in that part.

How does she get better? Did she really get better?
Whatever happened, she doesn't know how it happened, and as she said, the Bell Jar might just descend again sometime.


I feel I did not equip myself with proper lenses before reading this book. As I read a little bit of commentaries, I can discern the meaning now. Why she wrote what she wrote-


]]> The Twins of Auschwitz 53902254
In the summer of 1944, Eva Mozes Kor and her family arrived at Auschwitz.

Within thirty minutes, they were separated. Her parents and two older sisters were taken to the gas chambers, while Eva and her twin, Miriam, were herded into the care of the man who became known as the Angel of Death: Dr. Josef Mengele. They were 10 years old.

While twins at Auschwitz were granted the 'privileges' of keeping their own clothes and hair, they were also subjected to Mengele's sadistic medical experiments. They were forced to fight daily for their own survival and many died as a result of the experiments, or from the disease and hunger rife in the concentration camp.

In a narrative told simply, with emotion and astonishing restraint, The Twins of Auschwitz shares the inspirational story of a child's endurance and survival in the face of truly extraordinary evil.

Also included is an epilogue on Eva's incredible recovery and her remarkable decision to publicly forgive the Nazis. Through her museum and her lectures, she dedicated her life to giving testimony on the Holocaust, providing a message of hope for people who have suffered, and worked toward goals of forgiveness, peace, and the elimination of hatred and prejudice in the world.]]> 240 Eva Mozes Kor 1913183572 Avi 0 to-read 4.22 2020 The Twins of Auschwitz
author: Eva Mozes Kor
name: Avi
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
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]]> To the Lighthouse 59716
As time winds its way through their lives, the Ramsays face, alone and simultaneously, the greatest of human challenges and its greatest triumph—the human capacity for change.]]> 209 Virginia Woolf Avi 0 to-read 3.81 1927 To the Lighthouse
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Avi
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1927
rating: 0
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]]> Parasite (Parasitology, #1) 13641105
We owe our good health to a humble parasite - a genetically engineered tapeworm developed by the pioneering SymboGen Corporation. When implanted, the tapeworm protects us from illness, boosts our immune system - even secretes designer drugs. It's been successful beyond the scientists' wildest dreams. Now, years on, almost every human being has a SymboGen tapeworm living within them.

But these parasites are getting restless. They want their own lives...and will do anything to get them.]]> 504 Mira Grant 0316218952 Avi 0 to-read 3.65 2013 Parasite (Parasitology, #1)
author: Mira Grant
name: Avi
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/10/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking]]> 52326253
Rebel Ideas will strengthen any team or organisation, but has dozens of personal applications, too: from the art of personal reinvention to the remarkable benefits of personalised nutrition. It shows us how to become more creative, how to collaborate in a world becoming more interconnected, and how to break free of the echo chambers that surround us all.]]> 320 Matthew Syed 1473613930 Avi 0 to-read 4.27 2019 Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking
author: Matthew Syed
name: Avi
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/10/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals]]> 54785515 The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks.

Nobody needs to be told there isn’t enough time. We’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and ceaseless battle against distraction; we’re deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient and life hacks to optimize our days. But such techniques often end up making things worse. The sense of anxious hurry grows more intense, and still the most meaningful parts of life seem to lie just beyond the horizon. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks.

Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management. Rejecting the futile modern obsession with “getting everything done,� Four Thousand Weeks introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing that many of the unhelpful ways we’ve come to think about time aren’t inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we’ve made as individuals and as a society—and that we could do things differently.]]> 271 Oliver Burkeman 0374159122 Avi 0 to-read 4.20 2021 Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
author: Oliver Burkeman
name: Avi
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/10/23
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]]> The People on Platform 5 58968414
Then one morning, the man she calls Smart-But-Sexist-Manspreader chokes on a grape right in front of her. He’d have died were it not for the timely intervention of Sanjay, a nurse, who gives him the Heimlich maneuver. This single event starts a chain reaction, and an eclectic group of people with almost nothing in common except their commute discover that a chance encounter can blossom into much more. It turns out that talking to strangers can teach you about the world around you--and even more about yourself.]]> 379 Clare Pooley 1473568501 Avi 0 to-read 4.19 2022 The People on Platform 5
author: Clare Pooley
name: Avi
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/10/23
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]]> <![CDATA[I Guess I Haven't Learned That Yet: Discovering New Ways of Living When the Old Ways Stop Working]]> 58429175 240 Shauna Niequist 0310355567 Avi 0 to-read 3.99 2022 I Guess I Haven't Learned That Yet: Discovering New Ways of Living When the Old Ways Stop Working
author: Shauna Niequist
name: Avi
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Keep in a Cool Place: The first winter at Vanda Station, Antarctica]]> 61783977 296 Simon Cutfield 1988503302 Avi 0 to-read 0.0 Keep in a Cool Place: The first winter at Vanda Station, Antarctica
author: Simon Cutfield
name: Avi
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]]> Anarchism or Socialism? 6506145 * The Materialist Theory
* Proletarian Socialism
* Notes]]> 112 Joseph Stalin 1589639170 Avi 0 to-read 3.78 1946 Anarchism or Socialism?
author: Joseph Stalin
name: Avi
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1946
rating: 0
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]]> A Tale for the Time Being 18329584
Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox—possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao's drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future. 

Full of Ozeki's signature humour and deeply engaged with the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth, A Tale for the Time Being is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home.]]> 15 Ruth Ozeki 1470879093 Avi 0 to-read 3.96 2013 A Tale for the Time Being
author: Ruth Ozeki
name: Avi
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/10/23
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]]> Just Get Home 53288449 When a devastating earthquake - the Big One - hits Los Angeles, two strangers are brought together by an act of violence and must help each other survive the wrecked city.

Beegie is riding the bus when the quake hits. The teenager was heading back to her unhappy foster home, but then she’s thrown into a broken world. Roads crumble, storefronts shatter and people run wild.

Dessa, a single mom, is enjoying a rare night out when it strikes. Cell towers are down, so without even knowing if her 3-three-year-old daughter is dead or alive, she races to get back across town.

As danger escalates in the chaotic streets, Beegie and Dessa meet by a twist of fate. The two form a fragile partnership, relying on each other in ways they never thought possible, and learn who they really are when there’s only one goal: Just get home.]]> 352 Bridget Foley 0778331598 Avi 0 to-read 3.60 2021 Just Get Home
author: Bridget Foley
name: Avi
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/10/01
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]]> <![CDATA[A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat]]> 128461 A Season in Hell is here added Rimbaud's longest & possibly greatest single poem The Drunken Boat, with the original French en face Illuminations, Rimbaud's major works are available as bilingual New Directions Paperbooks. The reputation of A Season in Hell, which is a poetic record of a man's examination of his own depths, has steadily increased over the years. Upon the 1st publication of Varese's translation by New Directions, the Saturday Review wrote: "One may at last suggest that the translation of A Season in Hell has reached a conclusive point..." Concerning the 25-stanza The Drunken Boat, Dr Enid Starkie of Oxford University has written: "(It's) an anthology of separate lines of astonishing evocative magic which linger in the mind like isolated jewels." Rimbaud's life was so extraordinary that it has taken on the quality of a myth. A biographical chronology is included.]]> 103 Arthur Rimbaud 0811201856 Avi 0 to-read 4.35 1872 A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat
author: Arthur Rimbaud
name: Avi
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1872
rating: 0
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]]> Madame Bovary 2175 329 Gustave Flaubert 0192840398 Avi 0 to-read 3.70 1856 Madame Bovary
author: Gustave Flaubert
name: Avi
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1856
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/09/12
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]]> <![CDATA[What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing]]> 53238858 Our earliest experiences shape our lives far down the road, and What Happened to You? provides powerful scientific and emotional insights into the behavioral patterns so many of us struggle to understand.

“Through this lens we can build a renewed sense of personal self-worth and ultimately recalibrate our responses to circumstances, situations, and relationships. It is, in other words, the key to reshaping our very lives.�—Oprah Winfrey

This book is going to change the way you see your life.

Have you ever wondered "Why did I do that?" or "Why can't I just control my behavior?" Others may judge our reactions and think, "What's wrong with that person?" When questioning our emotions, it's easy to place the blame on ourselves; holding ourselves and those around us to an impossible standard. It's time we started asking a different question.

Through deeply personal conversations, Oprah Winfrey and renowned brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry offer a groundbreaking and profound shift from asking “What’s wrong with you?� to “What happened to you?�

Here, Winfrey shares stories from her own past, understanding through experience the vulnerability that comes from facing trauma and adversity at a young age. In conversation throughout the book, she and Dr. Perry focus on understanding people, behavior, and ourselves. It’s a subtle but profound shift in our approach to trauma, and it’s one that allows us to understand our pasts in order to clear a path to our future—opening the door to resilience and healing in a proven, powerful way.]]> 304 Bruce D. Perry 1250223180 Avi 0 to-read 4.43 2021 What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing
author: Bruce D. Perry
name: Avi
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/09/12
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]]> <![CDATA[The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary]]> 49256
A virtual onslaught of acerbic, confrontational wordplay, The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary offers some 1,600 wickedly clever definitions to the vocabulary of everyday life. Little is sacred and few are safe, for Bierce targets just about any pursuit, from matrimony to immortality, that allows our willful failings and excesses to shine forth.

This new edition is based on David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi’s exhaustive investigation into the book’s writing and publishing history. All of Bierce’s known satiric definitions are here, including previously uncollected, unpublished, and alternative entries. Definitions dropped from previous editions have been restored while nearly two hundred wrongly attributed to Bierce have been excised. For dedicated Bierce readers, an introduction and notes are also included.

Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary is a classic that stands alongside the best work of satirists such as Twain, Mencken, and Thurber. This unabridged edition will be celebrated by humor fans and word lovers everywhere.]]> 404 Ambrose Bierce 0820324019 Avi 0 to-read 4.08 1911 The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
author: Ambrose Bierce
name: Avi
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1911
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/09/03
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]]> <![CDATA[The Berenstain Bears and the Bad Dream]]> 900066
Come for a visit in Bear Country with this classic First Time Book® from Stan and Jan Berenstain. Brother and Sister have started having bad dreams. Now it’s up to Mama and Papa to help them understand that even though bad dreams can be scary, they aren’t real. Includes over 50 bonus stickers!]]> 32 Stan Berenstain 0394873416 Avi 0 to-read 4.03 1988 The Berenstain Bears and the Bad Dream
author: Stan Berenstain
name: Avi
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1988
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/09/03
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]]> L'Innommable 13451962 212 Samuel Beckett 2707318914 Avi 0 to-read 3.92 1953 L'Innommable
author: Samuel Beckett
name: Avi
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1953
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/08/22
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]]> Rosy Is My Relative 111789 224 Gerald Durrell 0006345530 Avi 0 to-read 4.08 1968 Rosy Is My Relative
author: Gerald Durrell
name: Avi
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1968
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/08/19
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]]> The Man Before The Mahatma 16085028
What transforms him?

The law.

The Man before the Mahatma is the first biography of Gandhi’s life in the law. It follows Gandhi on his journey of self-discovery during his law studies in Britain, his law practice in India and his enormous success representing wealthy Indian merchants in South Africa, where relentless attacks on Indian rights by the white colonial authorities cause him to give up his lucrative representation of private clients for public work—the representation of the besieged Indian community in South Africa.

As he takes on the most powerful governmental, economic and political forces of his day, he learns two things: that unifying his professional work with his political and moral principles not only provides him with satisfaction, it also creates in him a strong, powerful voice. Using the courtrooms of South Africa as his laboratory for resistance, Gandhi learns something else so important that it will eventually have a lasting and worldwide impact: a determined people can bring repressive governments to heel by the principled use of civil disobedience.

Using materials hidden away in archival vaults and brought to light for the first time, The Man before the Mahatma puts the reader inside dramatic experiences that changed Gandhi’s life forever and have never been written about—until now.

About Author:

Charles DiSalvo is the Woodrow A. Potesta Professor of Law at West Virginia University, where he teaches one of the few law school courses in the United States on civil disobedience. He has represented civil disobedients in trial and appellate courts, written widely on civil disobedience and lectured on the subject in the United States and abroad.


Professor DiSalvo was educated at St. John Fisher College, Claremont Graduate University, and the University of Southern California School of Law, where he was a member of the Southern California Law Review. Upon his graduation from law school, he was awarded a Reginald Heber Smith Community Lawyer Fellowship to practise poverty law for the Appalachian Research and Defense Fund.


He served as a Bigelow Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School before joining the West Virginia faculty. In addition to teaching a course on civil disobedience and the law, he teaches courses on civil procedure and trial advocacy. He is the co-founder of the West Virginia Fund for Law in the Public Interest.


He is married to Kathleen Kennedy, with whom he has three children, Clare, Maura and Philip.]]> 456 Charles DiSalvo 8184001304 Avi 0 to-read 3.81 2012 The Man Before The Mahatma
author: Charles DiSalvo
name: Avi
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (Yale Agrarian Studies Series)]]> 6477876
In accessible language, James Scott, recognized worldwide as an eminent authority in Southeast Asian, peasant, and agrarian studies, tells the story of the peoples of Zomia and their unlikely odyssey in search of self-determination. He redefines our views on Asian politics, history, demographics, and even our fundamental ideas about what constitutes civilization, and challenges us with a radically different approach to history that presents events from the perspective of stateless peoples and redefines state-making as a form of “internal colonialism.� This new perspective requires a radical reevaluation of the civilizational narratives of the lowland states. Scott’s work on Zomia represents a new way to think of area studies that will be applicable to other runaway, fugitive, and marooned communities, be they Gypsies, Cossacks, tribes fleeing slave raiders, Marsh Arabs, or San-Bushmen.]]> 464 James C. Scott 0300152280 Avi 0 to-read 4.15 2009 The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (Yale Agrarian Studies Series)
author: James C. Scott
name: Avi
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/08/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving]]> 25248510 "Like a modern day beat poet, she might have been seated in between Patti Smith and Jack Kerouac. Charlotte is a rare soul in today's society, carefully balancing between wanting to defy the world, and wanting nothing more than to be a part of it."

A young writer’s search for a place called home, what it means to be an artist, and finding peace with a restless heart.
Signed paperbacks available at:
_______________

6 months, 2 weeks, 4 days,
and I still don’t know which month it was then
or what day it is now.
I replace cafés with crowded bars and empty roads with broken bottles
and this town is healing me slowly but still not slow or fast enough because there’s no right way to do this.
There is no right way to do this.


_______________

"It’s the beating of my heart.
The way I lie awake, playing with shadows slowly climbing up my wall. The gentle moonlight slipping through my window and the sound of a lonely car somewhere far away, where I long to be, too, I think. It’s the way I thought my restless wandering was over, that I’d found whatever I thought I had found, or wanted, or needed, and I started to collect my belongings. Build a home. Safe behind the comfort of these four walls and a closed door.
Because as much as I tried or pretended or imagined myself as a part of all the people out there,
I was still the one locking the door every night.
Turning off the phone and blowing out the candles so no one knew I was home.
’cause I was never really well around the expectations of my personality
and I wanted to keep to myself.
and because I haven’t been very impressed lately.
By people,
or places.
Or the way someone said he loved me and then slowly changed his mind."


_______________
The journals and poetry explore the dreamer’s fate of leaving and arriving, love and loss, and learning to go on on your own. It captures the city of Berlin, where I somehow ended up. The broken concrete, conversations with strangers, small moments of ache or clarity.]]> 115 Charlotte Eriksson 1511497831 Avi 0 to-read 4.24 2015 Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving
author: Charlotte Eriksson
name: Avi
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/08/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Empty Roads & Broken Bottles: in search for The Great Perhaps]]> 17829704
The story of The Glass Child, Charlotte Eriksson, is one of those you usually see on movies. Only 18 years old she left everything she had and knew to dedicate her life to her music and art. A vague dream about reaching out turned out to be a fight for freedom, real art and belonging. A journey about self-discovery, learning solitude, the difference between having a home and feeling at home and finally, slowly, finding a home in oneself. In music, in words, in moments. Charlotte spent a year homeless on the road, sleeping at friends� and fans� floors, learning and searching. Aiming to inspire others to create their own lives and showing that you can become exactly who you want to become, if you just want it bad enough. ”I wanted to turn my life into art. My very existence into a poem. This is my story. It’s been a beautiful adventure. It always will be.�



"Instant coffee and a tip from the sound-guy. I'm learning sounds, laying wide awake on different sofas every night. I know the difference between a well built wall and broken strength. I'm learning mindfulness, reading about gurus and poets every day on different trains to nowhere. I don't know what I'm learning but I hope I will understand one day. I'm selling my heart with each album and a silent prayer that they’ll be gentle with it, gentle with me. And then the concerned looks they throw when I point at my worn out bag and broken guitar case as the answer to where I live. Sure I could spend a year or two selling my days and time for money, and I could buy all these things people want to have without never really needing it. It's just that when I'm on that stage every night, it all just seems so stupid. My guitar, my voice, my words, my story. That's all I want, that's what makes my heart beat. What am I supposed to do with belongings and material stuff when all I want is this. The open road and a new beginning every day.
I don't have a lot and I gave away the things you're supposed to have to be able to live. I don't own any keys and I threw my phone in the river. My family will always remember me as the confused one who left and never came back. I'm searching. I will be forever wandering. I don't know what I'm looking for, but I will spend the rest of my life trying to find it."

"I want my life to be the greatest story.
My very existence will be the greatest poem.
Watch me burn."


Reviews of Empty Roads & Broken Bottles; in search for The Great Perhaps:

"This book is a beautiful journey. Charlotte's words are like magic and you just can't stop reading. This book gave me answers to life that I didn't know I was looking for!" - Hanna Olofsson

This book was such an emotional and beautiful experience that really consumed my soul while reading it I felt like I was there in person with her on her amazing journey every step of the way, This book made me cry it made me smile and it made me realise facts about myself it is a truly emotional and inspiring reading experience. I would recommend this book to anyone who can appreciate the genius and brilliance of an artist or someone who wants to discover themsselves." - Mattias Bergstöm]]> 113 Charlotte Eriksson Avi 0 to-read 4.07 2013 Empty Roads & Broken Bottles: in search for The Great Perhaps
author: Charlotte Eriksson
name: Avi
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/08/18
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]]> Francis Ittykora 24750615
The descendants of Ittykkora is believed to be active even now, living a secret life, controlling large number of business and power, following the gospel of Ittykkora with their own set of customs and rituals.

Using medieval history as the base for his theme, Ramakrishnan does a good job in keeping the central theme intact, while exploring the other aspects of modern life across continents and culture.]]> T.D. Ramakrishnan Avi 0 to-read 3.74 2009 Francis Ittykora
author: T.D. Ramakrishnan
name: Avi
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/08/11
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]]> <![CDATA[The Short End of the Sonnenallee]]> 61271406
Young Micha Kuppisch lives on the nubbin of a street, the Sonnenallee, whose long end extends beyond the Berlin Wall outside his apartment building. Like his friends and family, who have their own quixotic dreams―to secure an original English pressing of Exile on Main St. , to travel to Mongolia, to escape from East Germany by buying up cheap farmland and seceding from the country―Micha is desperate for one thing. It’s not what his mother wants for him, which is to be an exemplary young Socialist and study in Moscow. What Micha wants is a love letter that may or may not have been meant for him, and may or may not have been written by the most beautiful girl on the Sonnenallee. Stolen by a gust of wind before he could open it, the letter now lies on the fortified “death strip� at the base of the Wall, as tantalizingly close as the freedoms of the West and seemingly no more attainable.

The Short End of the Sonnenallee , finally available to an American audience in a pitch-perfect translation by Jonathan Franzen and Jenny Watson, confounds the stereotypes of life in totalitarian East Germany. Brussig’s novel is a funny, charming tale of adolescents being adolescents, a portrait of a surprisingly warm community enduring in the shadow of the Iron Curtain. As Franzen writes in his foreword, the book is “a reminder that, even when the public realm becomes a nightmare, people can still privately manage to preserve their humanity, and be silly, and forgive.”]]> 160 Thomas Brussig 1250878993 Avi 0 to-read 3.87 1999 The Short End of the Sonnenallee
author: Thomas Brussig
name: Avi
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/08/10
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]]> Of Mice and Men 890 “I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.�

They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own.

While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in Steinbeck's work of the late 1930s, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men, creating an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual's existence meaningful.

A unique perspective on life's hardships, this story has achieved the status of timeless classic due to its remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.]]> 107 John Steinbeck 0142000671 Avi 0 to-read 3.88 1937 Of Mice and Men
author: John Steinbeck
name: Avi
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1937
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/07/31
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]]> Hostage 35133048 How does one survive when all hope is lost?

In the middle of the night in 1997, Doctors Without Borders administrator Christophe André was kidnapped by armed men and taken away to an unknown destination in the Caucasus region. For three months, André was kept handcuffed in solitary confinement, with little to survive on and almost no contact with the outside world. Close to twenty years later, award-winning cartoonist Guy Delisle (Pyongyang, Jerusalem, Shenzhen, Burma Chronicles) recounts André's harrowing experience in Hostage, a book that attests to the power of one man's determination in the face of a hopeless situation.

Marking a departure from the author's celebrated first-person travelogues, Delisle tells the story through the perspective of the titular captive, who strives to keep his mind alert as desperation starts to set in. Working in a pared down style with muted colour washes, Delisle conveys the psychological effects of solitary confinement, compelling us to ask ourselves some difficult questions regarding the repercussions of negotiating with kidnappers and what it really means to be free. Thoughtful, intense, and moving, Hostage takes a profound look at what drives our will to survive in the darkest of moments.]]> 432 Guy Delisle 147355778X Avi 0 to-read 4.08 2016 Hostage
author: Guy Delisle
name: Avi
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/07/25
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]]> Wonder (Wonder, #1) 11387515 I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse.

August Pullman was born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid—but his new classmates can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face. Wonder, begins from Auggie’s point of view, but soon switches to include his classmates, his sister, her boyfriend, and others.]]> 315 R.J. Palacio 0375869026 Avi 0 to-read 4.34 2012 Wonder (Wonder, #1)
author: R.J. Palacio
name: Avi
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/07/23
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]]> <![CDATA[The Death Cure (The Maze Runner, #3)]]> 7864437 It’s the end of the line.

WICKED has taken everything from Thomas: his life, his memories, and now his only friends—the Gladers. But it’s finally over. The trials are complete, after one final test.

Will anyone survive?

What WICKED doesn’t know is that Thomas remembers far more than they think. And it’s enough to prove that he can’t believe a word of what they say.

The truth will be terrifying.

Thomas beat the Maze. He survived the Scorch. He’ll risk anything to save his friends. But the truth might be what ends it all.

The time for lies is over.]]> 325 James Dashner 0385738773 Avi 0 3.78 2011 The Death Cure (The Maze Runner, #3)
author: James Dashner
name: Avi
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian]]> 693208
Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by Ellen Forney that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live.

With a foreward by Markus Zusak & interviews with Sherman Alexie and Ellen Forney
]]> 230 Sherman Alexie 0316013684 Avi 0 to-read 4.05 2007 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
author: Sherman Alexie
name: Avi
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/07/23
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]]> Fangirl 16068905 A coming-of-age tale of fanfiction, family, and first love.

Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan.... But for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she's really good at it. She and her twin, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it's what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fanfiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere. Cath's sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can't let go. She doesn't want to.

Now that they're going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn't want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She's got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend; a fiction-writing professor who thinks fanfiction is the end of the civilized world; a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words... and she can't stop worrying about her dad, who's loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?]]> 483 Rainbow Rowell Avi 0 3.93 2013 Fangirl
author: Rainbow Rowell
name: Avi
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/07/23
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]]>