Tim's bookshelf: all en-US Sat, 28 Sep 2024 09:27:49 -0700 60 Tim's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Dead to the World (Sookie Stackhouse, #4)]]> 5099866 The Barnes & Noble Review

Dead to the World, the fourth novel in Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire saga (Dead Until Dark, Living Dead in Dallas, and Club Dead), begins with everyone's favorite telepathic waitress, Sookie Stackhouse, making a New Year's to not get beaten up by supernatural beings. Yeah, right!


Sookie's life is at a crossroads. Her former boyfriend Bill, a strikingly handsome 137-year old vampire who has arguably been the source of most of her problems, has left for the country on a fact-finding mission for the vampire Queen of Louisiana. For the first time in a long time, Sookie has control of her own life. She duly resolves to stay out of trouble with supernatural beings, but on the way home from work, she sees a naked blond man running down the road. Being the kind-hearted soul that she is, Sookie stops to help. The man turns out to be Eric, a powerful vampire who not only owns Fangtasia, a popular tourist bar in Shreveport, but is also one of the most influential vampires in the region.


After taking him home, Sookie quickly realizes that the blond vampire has amnesia. She calls Eric's trusted subordinates and is stunned by what she hears -- the area has been invaded by a coven of shape-shifting witches bent on controlling all supernatural groups! To complicate matters, Sookie's only brother, Jason, is missing. Can Sookie keep Eric safe and find her brother without breaking her New Year's resolution? Of course not!


Overflowing with vampires, werewolves, shape-shifters, and witches, Dead to the World epitomizes escapist literature -- a little bit of fantasy, a little bit of mystery, and a whole lot of fun.
Paul Goat Allen

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316 Charlaine Harris Tim 0 4.17 2004 Dead to the World (Sookie Stackhouse, #4)
author: Charlaine Harris
name: Tim
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves:
review:

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The Wire: Truth Be Told 13425968 The Wire stands not only as riveting drama but also as a sociopolitical treatise with ambitions beyond any television serial. The failure of the drug war, the betrayal of the working class, the bureaucratization of the culture and the cost to individual dignity -- such are the themes of the drama's first two seasons. And with every new episode of season three and beyond, another layer of modern urban life will be revealed. Gritty, densely layered, and realistic, The Wire is series television at its very best, told from the point of view of the Baltimore police, their targets, and many of those caught in the middle.

Rafael Alvarez -- a reporter, essayist, and staff writer for the show -- brings the reader inside, detailing many of the real-life incidents and personalities that have inspired the show's storylines and characters, providing the reader with insights into the city of Baltimore -- itself an undeniable character in the series. Packed with photographs and featuring an introduction by series creator and executive producer David Simon, as well as essays by acclaimed authors George Pelecanos, Laura Lippman, and Anthony Walton, here is an invaluable resource for both fans of the show and viewers who have yet to discover The Wire.

Hollywood has long used the cop drama to excite and entertain, and Hollywood has always dictated the terms. But The Wire is filmed entirely in Baltimore, conceived by Baltimoreans, and written by rust-belt journalists and novelists intimately familiar with the urban landscape. It's as close as television has yet come to allowing an American city to tell its own tale.]]>
288 Rafael Alvarez 1439184526 Tim 3 3.62 2004 The Wire: Truth Be Told
author: Rafael Alvarez
name: Tim
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/07/31
shelves:
review:
Everything, and I mean everything, you want to know about Baltimore's The Wire. Reminds you of how great that show was. Started re-watching the entire series.
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Digital Fortress 4219
Caught in an accelerating tempest of secrecy and lies, Susan Fletcher battles to save the agency she believes in. Betrayed on all sides, she finds herself fighting not only for her country but for her life, and in the end, for the life of the man she loves.

From the underground hallways of power to the skyscrapers of Tokyo to the towering cathedrals of Spain, a desperate race unfolds. It is a battle for survival--a crucial bid to destroy a creation of inconceivable genius...an impregnable code-writing formula that threatens to obliterate the post-cold war balance of power. Forever.]]>
370 Dan Brown 0593055063 Tim 3 3.17 1998 Digital Fortress
author: Dan Brown
name: Tim
average rating: 3.17
book published: 1998
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/06/29
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[Brewing Up a Business: Adventures in Beer from the Founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery]]> 8823502 312 Sam Calagione 0470942312 Tim 0 currently-reading 3.80 2005 Brewing Up a Business: Adventures in Beer from the Founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery
author: Sam Calagione
name: Tim
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/12/29
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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Infected (Infected, #1) 2331954
Working under the government’s shroud of secrecy, CIA operative Dew Phillips crisscrosses the country trying in vain to capture a live victim. With only decomposing corpses for clues, CDC epidemiologist Margaret Montoya races to analyze the science behind this deadly contagion. She discovers that these killers all have one thing in common � they’ve been contaminated by a bioengineered parasite, shaped by a complexity far beyond the limits of known science.

Meanwhile Perry Dawsey � a hulking former football star now resigned to life as a cubicle-bound desk jockey � awakens one morning to find several mysterious welts growing on his body. Soon Perry finds himself acting and thinking strangely, hearing voices . . . he is infected.

The fate of the human race may well depend on the bloody war Perry must wage with his own body, because the parasites want something from him, something that goes beyond mere murder.]]>
342 Scott Sigler 0307406105 Tim 0 3.83 2008 Infected (Infected, #1)
author: Scott Sigler
name: Tim
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/07/26
shelves:
review:

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Riptide 136639 465 Douglas Preston 0446607177 Tim 0 3.83 1998 Riptide
author: Douglas Preston
name: Tim
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/07/26
shelves:
review:

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Pirate Latitudes 6428887
Word in port is that the Spanish treasure galleon El Trinidad, fresh from New Spain, is stalled in nearby Matanceros harbor awaiting repairs. Heavily fortified, the impregnable Spanish outpost is guarded by the blood-swiller Cazalla, a favorite commander of King Philip IV himself. With the governor′s backing, Hunter assembles a roughneck crew to infiltrate the enemy island and commandeer the galleon, along with its fortune in Spanish gold. The raid is as perilous as the bloody legends of Matanceros suggest, and Hunter will lose more than one man before he finds himself on the island′s shores, where dense jungle and the firepower of Spanish infantry are all that stand between him and the treasure.

With the help of his cunning crew, Hunter hijacks El Trinidad and escapes the deadly clutches of Cazalla, leaving plenty of carnage in his wake. But his troubles have just begun. . . .]]>
312 Michael Crichton 0061929379 Tim 0 3.46 2009 Pirate Latitudes
author: Michael Crichton
name: Tim
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/07/18
shelves:
review:

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Hatchet: Winter 1062784 144 Gary Paulsen 0330348361 Tim 5 3.96 1996 Hatchet: Winter
author: Gary Paulsen
name: Tim
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2011/06/18
shelves:
review:

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Poison Study (Study, #1) 60510 Choose: A quick death� or slow poison...

About to be executed for murder, Yelena is offered an extraordinary reprieve. She'll eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace—and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia.

And so Yelena chooses to become a food taster. But the chief of security, leaving nothing to chance, deliberately feeds her Butterfly's Dust—and only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonizing death from the poison.

As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting. Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can't control. Her life is threatened again and choices must be made. But this time the outcomes aren't so clear...]]>
427 Maria V. Snyder 0778324338 Tim 0 to-read 4.09 2005 Poison Study (Study, #1)
author: Maria V. Snyder
name: Tim
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/06/06
shelves: to-read
review:

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Woods Runner 6795756
But the war comes to them. British soldiers and Iroquois attack. Samuel’s parents are taken away, prisoners. Samuel follows, hiding, moving silently, determined to find a way to rescue them. Each day he confronts the enemy, and the tragedy and horror of this war. But he also discovers allies, men and women working secretly for the patriot cause. And he learns that he must go deep into enemy territory to find his all the way to the British headquarters, New York City.]]>
176 Gary Paulsen 0385738846 Tim 0 Herald Review
Woods Runner by Gary Paulsen

As a boy I hated to read. I may be showing my age but if it wasn’t raining, I was outside. Getting a child to read and enjoy it these days is next to impossible, and getting a boy to read is even worse. There are so many technological distractions now, but given the right material you may be able to turn around even the most reluctant readers.
Gary Paulsen is a name that middle school teachers and some parents of boys may already know due to his over two hundred books and articles that are mostly geared toward young males readers. His books are usually fast-paced, adventure-based books and most have fewer than 200 pages. In his new book Woods Runner, Paulsen tells the story of Samuel Smith; a thirteen year old boy living in a small colonial settlement in Pennsylvania in 1776, far from any town, and more importantly, any news that fighting has broken out in Boston. Like many of Paulsen’s protagonists, Samuel is comfortable in the dense forest surrounding his farm and has developed wilderness skills that keep his family and other settlers in meat. He is roaming the surrounding wilds with his flintlock rifle when the tragedy and violence of war finds him. A band of Iroquois, under the direction of the British, attacks Samuel’s family farm and the surrounding settlements killing many and taking Samuel’s parents prisoner. A determined Samuel silently tracks and follows the abductors, being careful to stay hidden, with hopes of rescuing his family. Along the way, he finds a few allies and adopts an orphaned girl who had her own brush with tragedy after a brutal attack by the Hessians on her own family’s farm. Samuel learns his family is on their way to the prison camps at the British headquarters in New York City, and so the adventure begins.
While Paulsen’s depiction of war is not gratuitous or over-the-top, he does paint vivid descriptions of the brutality that goes along with revolutionary tactics so I would recommend this book for ages twelve and up. This 161 page book has chapters that rarely exceed five pages, and after each chapter is a short half-page section of real history. This is not a boring historical recap as it recounts issues that bring real historical context to the previous chapter; such as, how a flintlock rifle works or why the Hessians were so feared, and so on. “Tweens� should be able to identify with Samuel need for independence and his ability to make good decisions when they really count.
Gary Paulsen may be best known for his Newberry Award winner book “Hatchet� which is on many summer reading lists throughout the county and the country. It is the story of Brian who, after a Cessna crash, is left alone in the forests of Canada and has to survive which little more than a hatchet and his wits. Brian’s story continues with four follow up books � Brian’s Winter (2: an alternate ending to Hatchet), The River (3), Brian’s Return (4), and Brian’s Hunt (5), all of which I highly recommend. If you are the parent of a reluctant reader and want to help him or her improve their reading skills and vocabulary, call or visit your local library and let us help find something that your child will enjoy.
]]>
3.84 2009 Woods Runner
author: Gary Paulsen
name: Tim
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/05/02
shelves:
review:
Tim Andrews
Herald Review
Woods Runner by Gary Paulsen

As a boy I hated to read. I may be showing my age but if it wasn’t raining, I was outside. Getting a child to read and enjoy it these days is next to impossible, and getting a boy to read is even worse. There are so many technological distractions now, but given the right material you may be able to turn around even the most reluctant readers.
Gary Paulsen is a name that middle school teachers and some parents of boys may already know due to his over two hundred books and articles that are mostly geared toward young males readers. His books are usually fast-paced, adventure-based books and most have fewer than 200 pages. In his new book Woods Runner, Paulsen tells the story of Samuel Smith; a thirteen year old boy living in a small colonial settlement in Pennsylvania in 1776, far from any town, and more importantly, any news that fighting has broken out in Boston. Like many of Paulsen’s protagonists, Samuel is comfortable in the dense forest surrounding his farm and has developed wilderness skills that keep his family and other settlers in meat. He is roaming the surrounding wilds with his flintlock rifle when the tragedy and violence of war finds him. A band of Iroquois, under the direction of the British, attacks Samuel’s family farm and the surrounding settlements killing many and taking Samuel’s parents prisoner. A determined Samuel silently tracks and follows the abductors, being careful to stay hidden, with hopes of rescuing his family. Along the way, he finds a few allies and adopts an orphaned girl who had her own brush with tragedy after a brutal attack by the Hessians on her own family’s farm. Samuel learns his family is on their way to the prison camps at the British headquarters in New York City, and so the adventure begins.
While Paulsen’s depiction of war is not gratuitous or over-the-top, he does paint vivid descriptions of the brutality that goes along with revolutionary tactics so I would recommend this book for ages twelve and up. This 161 page book has chapters that rarely exceed five pages, and after each chapter is a short half-page section of real history. This is not a boring historical recap as it recounts issues that bring real historical context to the previous chapter; such as, how a flintlock rifle works or why the Hessians were so feared, and so on. “Tweens� should be able to identify with Samuel need for independence and his ability to make good decisions when they really count.
Gary Paulsen may be best known for his Newberry Award winner book “Hatchet� which is on many summer reading lists throughout the county and the country. It is the story of Brian who, after a Cessna crash, is left alone in the forests of Canada and has to survive which little more than a hatchet and his wits. Brian’s story continues with four follow up books � Brian’s Winter (2: an alternate ending to Hatchet), The River (3), Brian’s Return (4), and Brian’s Hunt (5), all of which I highly recommend. If you are the parent of a reluctant reader and want to help him or her improve their reading skills and vocabulary, call or visit your local library and let us help find something that your child will enjoy.

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Bossypants 9418327
She has seen both these dreams come true.

At last, Tina Fey's story can be told. From her youthful days as a vicious nerd to her tour of duty on Saturday Night Live; from her passionately halfhearted pursuit of physical beauty to her life as a mother eating things off the floor; from her one-sided college romance to her nearly fatal honeymoon—from the beginning of this paragraph to this final sentence.

Tina Fey reveals all, and proves what we've all suspected: you're no one until someone calls you bossy.]]>
283 Tina Fey Tim 0 to-read 3.97 2011 Bossypants
author: Tina Fey
name: Tim
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

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Dark Origins (Level 26, #1) 6507760
What almost no one knows, except for the elite unnamed investigations group assigned to hunt down the world's most dangerous killers, a group of men and women accounted for in no official ledger, headed by the brilliant but reluctant operative Steve Dark, is that a new category of killer is in the process of being defined.

Only one man belongs to this group.

His targets:
Anyone.

His methods:
Unlimited.

His alias:
Sqweegel.

His classification:
Level 26.]]>
406 Anthony E. Zuiker 0525951253 Tim 0 3.76 2010 Dark Origins (Level 26, #1)
author: Anthony E. Zuiker
name: Tim
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2011/03/01
date added: 2011/03/01
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race]]> 8163722
Where do we come from? Who created us? Why are we here? These questions have puzzled us since the dawn of time, but when it became apparent to Jon Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show that the world was about to end, they embarked on a massive mission to write a book that summed up the human race: What we looked like; what we accomplished; our achievements in society, government, religion, science and culture -- all in a tome of approximately 256 pages with lots of color photos, graphs and charts.

After two weeks of hard work, they had their book. Earth (The Book) is the definitive guide to our species. With their trademark wit, irreverence, and intelligence, Stewart and his team will posthumously answer all of life's most hard-hitting questions, completely unburdened by objectivity, journalistic integrity, or even accuracy.]]>
246 Jon Stewart 044657922X Tim 0 3.91 2010 Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race
author: Jon Stewart
name: Tim
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/03/01
shelves:
review:

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The Brave 9516359 374 Nicholas Evans Tim 0
We first meet a young Tom Bedford when he is being escorted in to see his mother just before her execution. I really felt like I was in the room with him... I was hooked for that point on. The story jumps backward and forward in time throughout the book, and takes you through Tom's life from his entrance and unhappy existence into boarding school in 1959 at age eight to dealing with his own son's military turmoil later in mid-life. The timeline shifts initially bothered me and made the story seem disjointed, but the story's structure really made me want more, and Evans ties up all the loose ends nicely by the end.

I don't want to give too much away but I can tell you that I highly recommend this book. It contains some powerful themes, including: how regret and negativity can sour a life, how family secrets color your existence, how childhood idols aren't always so great, and how forgiveness trumps all.

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3.86 2009 The Brave
author: Nicholas Evans
name: Tim
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/03/01
shelves:
review:
Many readers will know this author from his bestselling book and subsequent movie "The Horse Whisperer." I never read that book, but on a whim I recently re-read "The Loop" and remembered why I was so fond of it the first time. When I returned that book, Evan's new book "The Brave" had just been released and I realize now that I should have started "The Brave" immediately, instead of putting it on my "to-read" list. This captivating story stayed with me long after putting it down each night.

We first meet a young Tom Bedford when he is being escorted in to see his mother just before her execution. I really felt like I was in the room with him... I was hooked for that point on. The story jumps backward and forward in time throughout the book, and takes you through Tom's life from his entrance and unhappy existence into boarding school in 1959 at age eight to dealing with his own son's military turmoil later in mid-life. The timeline shifts initially bothered me and made the story seem disjointed, but the story's structure really made me want more, and Evans ties up all the loose ends nicely by the end.

I don't want to give too much away but I can tell you that I highly recommend this book. It contains some powerful themes, including: how regret and negativity can sour a life, how family secrets color your existence, how childhood idols aren't always so great, and how forgiveness trumps all.


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<![CDATA[A Hedonist in the Cellar: Adventures in Wine]]> 25068
In A Hedonist in the Cellar, he gathers more than five yearsâ€� worth of essays and continues his exploration of what’s new, what’s enduring, and what’s surprising, giving his palate a complete workout and the reader an indispensable, idiosyncratic guide to a world of almost infinite variety.ĚýRieslings from the Finger Lakes, Armagnac from Gascony, powerhouse amarones from Valpolicella, the most fearsome critics in England, chocolate-friendly bottles from all over the globe, new developments in Chile and Argentina—these are only some of the delights now ready to be savored in a collection driven not only by wine itself but also the people who make it and those whose enjoyment is matched by their curiosity.Ěý

Full of terroir and flavor, svelte personalities, and keen insight into the trade, these are irresistible essays for anyone enthralled by the manifold pleasures of wine.]]>
272 Jay McInerney 1400044820 Tim 0 to-read 3.56 2005 A Hedonist in the Cellar: Adventures in Wine
author: Jay McInerney
name: Tim
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Dead as a Doornail (Sookie Stackhouse, #5)]]> 170210 295 Charlaine Harris 0441013333 Tim 0 4.01 2005 Dead as a Doornail (Sookie Stackhouse, #5)
author: Charlaine Harris
name: Tim
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/01/21
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[Now or Never: Why We Must Act Now to End Climate Change and Create a Sustainable Future]]> 6514460 Now or Never, the internationally acclaimed author of The Weather Makers returns to the subject of climate change with a book that is at once a forceful call to action and a deeply (and often surprisingly) pragmatic roadmap toward sustainability. Utilizing the most up-to-the-minute data available, Tim Flannery offers a guided tour of the environmental challenges we face and their potential solutions in both the big picture and in specific detail. He explores everything from techniques for storing the carbon that dead plants release into the earth to the fragile balancing act between energy demands and food supply in India and China, from carbon-trading schemes in South America to a recent collaboration between a Danish wind-energy company and an automobile manufacturer that may produce a viable electric car and end the reign of big oil. Now or Never is a powerful, thought-provoking, and essential book about the most urgent issue of our time. It burns with Flannery’s characteristic mix of passion, scientific precision, and “offhand interdisciplinary brilliance� (Entertainment Weekly).]]> 176 Tim Flannery 0802118984 Tim 0 to-read 3.49 2008 Now or Never: Why We Must Act Now to End Climate Change and Create a Sustainable Future
author: Tim Flannery
name: Tim
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/01/11
shelves: to-read
review:

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Ford County 6398972 A Time to Kill.

Wheelchair-bound Inez Graney and her two older sons, Leon and Butch, take a bizarre road trip through the Mississippi Delta to visit the youngest Graney brother, Raymond, who's been locked away on death row for eleven years. It could well be their last visit.

Mack Stafford, a hard-drinking and low-grossing run-of-the-mill divorce lawyer, gets a miracle phone call with a completely unexpected offer to settle some old, forgotten cases for more money than he has ever seen. Mack is suddenly bored with the law, fed up with his wife and his life, and makes drastic plans to finally escape.

Quiet, dull Sidney, a data collector for an insurance company, perfects his blackjack skills in hopes of bringing down the casino empire of Clanton's most ambitious hustler, Bobby Carl Leach, who, among other crimes, has stolen Sidney's wife.

Three good ol' boys from rural Ford County begin a journey to the big city of Memphis to give blood to a grievously injured friend. However, they are unable to drive past a beer store as the trip takes longer and longer. The journey comes to an abrupt end when they make a fateful stop at a Memphis strip club.

The Quiet Haven Retirement Home is the final stop for the elderly of Clanton. It's a sad, languid place with little controversy, until Gilbert arrives. Posing as a low-paid bedpan boy, he is in reality a brilliant stalker with an uncanny ability to sniff out the assets of those "seniors" he professes to love.

One of the hazards of litigating against people in a small town is that one day, long after the trial, you will probably come face-to-face with someone you've beaten in a lawsuit. Lawyer Stanley Wade bumps into an old adversary, a man with a long memory, and the encounter becomes a violent ordeal.

Clanton is rocked with the rumor that the gay son of a prominent family has finally come home, to die. Of AIDS. Fear permeates the town as gossip runs unabated. But in Lowtown, the colored section of Clanton, the young man finds a soul mate in his final days.

Featuring a cast of characters you'll never forget, these stories bring Ford County to vivid and colorful life. Often hilarious, frequently moving, and always entertaining, this collection makes it abundantly clear why John Grisham is our most popular storyteller.]]>
308 John Grisham 0385532458 Tim 0 3.63 2008 Ford County
author: John Grisham
name: Tim
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/01/05
shelves:
review:
A collection of short stories (which I usually hate)all set in a small Mississippi town. Ended up really liking this one. I quit reading Grisham years ago after getting fed up with lawyer stories. He then came out with Bleachers, Playing for Pizza, and this book... none of which are about lawyers and all recommended.
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Sh*t My Dad Says 7821447 "That woman was sexy. . . . Out of your league? Son, let women figure out why they won't screw you. Don't do it for them."

"Do people your age know how to comb their hair? It looks like two squirrels crawled on their heads and started fucking."

"The worst thing you can be is a liar. . . . Okay, fine, yes, the worst thing you can be is a Nazi, but then number two is liar. Nazi one, liar two."More than a million people now follow Mr. Halpern's philosophical musings on Twitter, and in this book, his son weaves a brilliantly funny, touching coming-of-age memoir around the best of his quotes. An all-American story that unfolds on the Little League field, in Denny's, during excruciating family road trips, and, most frequently, in the Halperns' kitchen over bowls of Grape-Nuts, Sh*t My Dad Says is a chaotic, hilarious, true portrait of a father-son relationship from a major new comic voice.]]>
159 Justin Halpern 0061992704 Tim 0 3.97 2010 Sh*t My Dad Says
author: Justin Halpern
name: Tim
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/01/05
shelves:
review:
Freaking funny... Halpern worked with his family to gather these 4-8 page stories which were followed by 2 or so pages of quotes. I laughed out loud at least once on every story. Highly recommended.
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Leviathan (Leviathan, #1) 6050678
Deryn Sharp is a commoner, disguised as a boy in the British Air Service. She's a brilliant airman. But her secret is in constant danger of being discovered.

With World War I brewing, Alek and Deryn's paths cross in the most unexpected way…taking them on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure that will change both their lives forever.]]>
440 Scott Westerfeld 1416971734 Tim 4 3.92 2009 Leviathan (Leviathan, #1)
author: Scott Westerfeld
name: Tim
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/12/23
shelves:
review:
Okay... I LOVED this premise after not liking the book initially. Here is my problem with this book, without tying any storylines up, the book ended on a cliffhanger...barking spiders! Can't wait for August.
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Behemoth (Leviathan, #2) 7826116
Deryn is a girl posing as a boy in the British Air Service, and Alek is the heir to an empire posing as a commoner. Finally together aboard the airship Leviathan, they hope to bring the war to a halt. But when disaster strikes the Leviathan's peacekeeping mission, they find themselves alone and hunted in enemy territory.

Alek and Deryn will need great skill, new allies, and brave hearts to face what's ahead.]]>
481 Scott Westerfeld 1416971750 Tim 0 4.17 2010 Behemoth (Leviathan, #2)
author: Scott Westerfeld
name: Tim
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/12/23
shelves:
review:
As good as the first in the series and a great set up for the final book. Can't wait for number three.
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<![CDATA[Kill the Dead (Sandman Slim, #2)]]> 7778609
Stark has enough trouble juggling a diva devil and a scorching French bombshell without a zombie plague to complicate matters. And just what happens when a human-angel half-breed is bitten by the living dead? His human side begins to die, transforming him into an unstoppable angel of death—a killing machine devoid of emotion or thought, with no regrets or future to worry about. Not a bad way to be when your choices are limited. Now, Stark has to decide . . . if he does finds a cure for the zombie infection, will he take it?]]>
434 Richard Kadrey 0061714313 Tim 0 4.08 2010 Kill the Dead (Sandman Slim, #2)
author: Richard Kadrey
name: Tim
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/12/16
shelves:
review:
Sandman Slim does it again. A whiskey fuelled romp thru Los Angeles battling the forces that are against him. This time the angels of homeland security's golden vigil are against him in his fight again the zeds (zombies). Everything you remember from the first book is required for this one.
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<![CDATA[I Am Number Four (Lorien Legacies, #1)]]> 7747374
Our plan was to grow, and train, and become strong, and become one, and fight them. But they found us and started hunting us first. Now all of us are running. Spending our lives in shadows, in places where no one would look, blending in. We have lived among you without you knowing.

But they know.

They caught Number One in Malaysia.
Number Two in England.
And Number Three in Kenya.
They killed them all.

I am Number Four.

I am next.]]>
440 Pittacus Lore 0061969559 Tim 0 to-read 3.94 2010 I Am Number Four (Lorien Legacies, #1)
author: Pittacus Lore
name: Tim
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/12/16
shelves: to-read
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Steppenwolf 394914
Steppenwolf is Hesse’s best-known and most autobiographical work. With its blend of Eastern mysticism and Western culture, it is one of literature’s most poetic evocations of the soul’s journey to liberation. Originally published in English in 1929, the novel’s wisdom continues to speak to our souls and marks it as a classic of modern literature.]]>
218 Hermann Hesse 0805012478 Tim 0 to-read 4.01 1927 Steppenwolf
author: Hermann Hesse
name: Tim
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1927
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/11/23
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (Tucker Max, #1)]]> 8125465

The Book That Inspired The Movie My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole. I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging dickhead. But, I do contribute to humanity in one very important I share my adventures with the world. --from the Introduction

Actual reader

"I find it truly appalling that there are people in the world like you. You are a disgusting, vile, repulsive, repugnant, foul creature. Because of you, I don’t believe in God anymore. No just God would allow someone like you to exist."

"I’ll stay with God as my lord, but you are my savior. I just finished reading your brilliant stories, and I laughed so hard I almost vomited. I want to bring that kind of joy to people. You’re an artist of the highest order and a true humanitarian to boot. I'm in both shock and awe at how much I want to be you."



Now with 16 Pages of Photos and a New Introduction]]>
368 Tucker Max 0806535938 Tim 0
Awesome and disgusting]]>
3.54 2006 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (Tucker Max, #1)
author: Tucker Max
name: Tim
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/11/15
shelves:
review:
Laugh out loud, inapproprately funny. NO woman should ever read this...EVER. Should be mandatory reading for pre-dating girls... as in a "this is the kind of guy you avoid" conversation.

Awesome and disgusting
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The Last Christian 8299080 In the future, it’s possible to live forever—but at what cost?ĚýA.D. 2088. ĚýChristian missionary Abigail Caldwell emerges from the jungle for the first time in her thirty-four years, the sole survivor of a mysterious disease that killed her village. A curious message from her grandfather leads Abby to America, only to discover a nation where Christianity has completely died out. ĚýBut a larger threat looms. The world's leading artificial intelligence industrialist has perfected a technique for downloading the human brain into a silicon form. Brain transplants have begun, and with them comes the potential of eliminating physical death altogether. ĚýAs Abby navigates a society grown more addicted to stimulating the body than nurturing the soul, she and Creighton Daniels, a historian troubled by his father's unexpected death, become unwitting targets of powerful men who will stop at nothing to further their nefarious goals. Hanging in the balance—the spiritual future of all humanity.ĚýIn thisĚýfast-paced thriller, startling near-future science collides with thought-provoking religious themes to create a spell-binding "what-if?" novel.]]> 418 David Gregory Tim 0 :)]]> 4.05 2010 The Last Christian
author: David Gregory
name: Tim
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/11/15
shelves:
review:
Had a real hard time finishing this CD Book. Set in 2080's, the USA has virtually no religion and a lot of uber-cool technological advances. The futuristic technology was well thought out and seemed plausible but the story d-r-u-g on and on (at least for me.) Maybe 'cuz I'm a God-less heathen
:)
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<![CDATA[The Left Hand of God (The Left Hand of God, #1)]]> 7116709 “Listen. The Sanctuary of the Redeemers on Shotover Scarp is named after a damned lie for there is no redemption that goes on there and less sanctuary.�

The Sanctuary of the Redeemers is a vast and desolate place—a place without joy or hope. Most of its occupants were taken there as boys and for years have endured the brutal regime of the Lord Redeemers whose cruelty and violence have one singular purpose—to serve in the name of the One True Faith.

In one of the Sanctuary’s vast and twisting maze of corridors stands a boy. He is perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old—he is not sure and neither is anyone else. He has long-forgotten his real name, but now they call him Thomas Cale. He is strange and secretive, witty and charming, violent and profoundly bloody-minded. He is so used to the cruelty that he seems immune, but soon he will open the wrong door at the wrong time and witness an act so terrible that he will have to leave this place, or die.

His only hope of survival is to escape across the arid Scablands to Memphis, a city the opposite of the Sanctuary in every way: breathtakingly beautiful, infinitely Godless, and deeply corrupt.

But the Redeemers want Cale back at any price... not because of the secret he now knows but because of a much more terrifying secret he does not.]]>
436 Paul Hoffman 0718155181 Tim 3
Cale,a warrior of untold skill, escapes the sanctuary after killing the "Lord of Discipline" and begins to see the world in a new light.]]>
3.69 2010 The Left Hand of God (The Left Hand of God, #1)
author: Paul Hoffman
name: Tim
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/11/02
shelves:
review:
I was unaware this was part of a trilogy when I first picked this up. Actually I am still unsure if this is suppose to be a fictional account way way in the past or a thousand years in the future. Listed as fantasy, it was very fantastical. Very dark and disturbing, Cale taken and brought up by the redeemers along with thousands of others around the age of five and taught nothing but warfare and punishment.

Cale,a warrior of untold skill, escapes the sanctuary after killing the "Lord of Discipline" and begins to see the world in a new light.
]]>
The Help 4667024
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women, mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends, view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.


Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here]]>
464 Kathryn Stockett 0399155341 Tim 4 4.46 2009 The Help
author: Kathryn Stockett
name: Tim
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2010/11/02
date added: 2010/11/02
shelves:
review:
Really liked this cd book and wanted more when it ended. Read by four different people as the book was written from different prospectives. The book follows black domestic workers in Mississippi during the civil rights movement. Can't wait for the movie!
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<![CDATA[Brian's Return (Brian's Saga, #4)]]> 141371 115 Gary Paulsen Tim 4 3.96 1999 Brian's Return (Brian's Saga, #4)
author: Gary Paulsen
name: Tim
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/10/25
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[Blue-Eyed Devil (Virgil Cole & Everett Hitch, #4)]]> 7164428
Law enforcement in Appaloosa had once been Virgil Cole and me. Now there was a chief of police and twelve policemen. Our third day back in town, the chief invited us to the office for a talk.

The new chief is Amos a tall, fat man in a derby hat, wearing a star on his vest and a big pearl-handled Colt inside his coat. An ambitious man with his eye on the governorship-and perhaps the presidency-he wants Cole and Hitch on his side. But they can't be bought, which upsets him mightily.

When Callico begins shaking down local merchants for protection money, those who don't want to play along seek the help of Cole and Hitch. But the guns for hire are thorns in the side of the power-hungry chief. When they are forced to fire on the trigger-happy son of a politically connected landowner, Callico sees his dream begin to crumble. There will be a showdown-but who'll be left standing?]]>
276 Robert B. Parker 0399156488 Tim 3 RIP Mr. Parker. ]]> 3.95 2010 Blue-Eyed Devil (Virgil Cole & Everett Hitch, #4)
author: Robert B. Parker
name: Tim
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/10/25
shelves:
review:
The Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch team up with Pony Flores and gunfights ensue. This is the fourth book in this western series from the now deceased Robert B. Parker and I will miss it since I guess no more will be written. This is not the kind of book I normally read but this series was fun. Book One, Appaloosa was made into a movie.
RIP Mr. Parker.
]]>
<![CDATA[Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters]]> 487666 They were called Easy Company—but their mission was never easy. Immortalized as the Band of Brothers, they suffered 150% casualties while liberating Europe—an unparalleled record of bravery under fire. Dick Winters was their commander�"the best combat leader in World War II" to his men. This is his story—told in his own words for the first time.

On D-Day, Dick Winters parachuted into France and assumed leadership of the Band of Brothers when their commander was killed. He led them through the Battle of the Bulge and into Germany, by which time each member had been wounded. They liberated an S.S. death camp from the horrors of the Holocaust and captured Berchtesgaden, Hitler's alpine retreat. After briefly serving during the Korean War, Winters was a highly successful businessman. Made famous by Stephen Ambrose's book Band of Brothers—and the subsequent award-winning HBO miniseries—he is the object of worldwide adulation, Beyond Band of Brothers is Winters's memoir—based on his wartime diary—but it also includes his comrades' untold stories. Virtually all this material is being released for the first time. Only Winters was present from the activation of Easy Company until the war's end. Winner of the Distinguished Service Cross, only he could pen this moving tribute to the human spirit.

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304 Dick Winters 0425208133 Tim 4 4.30 2006 Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters
author: Dick Winters
name: Tim
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/10/25
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The Assault on Reason 104287 273 Al Gore 1594201226 Tim 4 3.78 The Assault on Reason
author: Al Gore
name: Tim
average rating: 3.78
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/10/25
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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 Tim 4 4.05 2007 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
author: Sherman Alexie
name: Tim
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/10/25
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, #1)]]> 7108001 Indiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with something the old-timers call "Milk Sickness."

"My baby boy..." she whispers before dying.

Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire.

When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, "henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose..." Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House.

While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.

Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time-all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.]]>
336 Seth Grahame-Smith 0446563080 Tim 4 3.72 2010 Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, #1)
author: Seth Grahame-Smith
name: Tim
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2010/04/27
date added: 2010/10/25
shelves:
review:
Finished this audiobook yesterday. According to an author interview that was included in the cdbook, he is working on a screenplay for this book now. The non-vampire facts for this book were obviously very well researched fitting in many of the speeches and debates with Douglas and others and the vampire stuff all seemed "plausable" - (read fit into the story nicely) The book was pretty entertaining and if a movie is I will definately see it. (can't wait to see Honest Abe plunging his axe into the undead)
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<![CDATA[The Maze Runner (The Maze Runner, #1)]]> 6186357 There are alternate cover editions for this ASIN here and here.

If you ain’t scared, you ain’t human.

When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He’s surrounded by strangers—boys whose memories are also gone.

Nice to meet ya, shank. Welcome to the Glade.

Outside the towering stone walls that surround the Glade is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It’s the only way out—and no one’s ever made it through alive.

Everything is going to change.

Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying.

Remember. Survive. Run.]]>
384 James Dashner 0385737947 Tim 0 to-read 4.05 2009 The Maze Runner (The Maze Runner, #1)
author: James Dashner
name: Tim
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/10/20
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad, #1)]]> 237209
Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox—his partner and closest friend—find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.]]>
429 Tana French 0670038601 Tim 0 to-read 3.75 2007 In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad, #1)
author: Tana French
name: Tim
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/09/23
shelves: to-read
review:

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The Light in the Forest 769000 The Light in the Forest is a beloved American classic.]]> 192 Conrad Richter 1400077885 Tim 4 3.39 1953 The Light in the Forest
author: Conrad Richter
name: Tim
average rating: 3.39
book published: 1953
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/09/20
shelves:
review:
This is the story of a young "Indian" (or Native American but this was written in 1950's so before it was politically incorrect)who was born white and at four years old is "stolen" to replace an indian son who had died. He come to enjoy his new live and actually identifies himself as Indian until due to an agreement with a military unit he is given back to his white parents after 12 years away. This is the story of his re-adaptation.
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<![CDATA[Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs Of Legendary Ace Robin Olds]]> 7709454 The widely anticipated memoir of legendary ace American fighter pilot, Robin Olds

Robin Olds was a larger-than-life hero with a towering personality. A graduate of West Point and an inductee in the National College Football Hall of Fame for his All-American performance for Army, Olds was one of the toughest college football players at the time. In WWII, Olds quickly became a top fighter pilot and squadron commander by the age of 22—and an ace with 12 aerial victories.
But it was in Vietnam where the man became a legend. He arrived in 1966 to find a dejected group of pilots and motivated them by placing himself on the flight schedule under officers junior to himself, then challenging them to train him properly because he would soon be leading them. Proving he wasn’t a WWII retread, he led the wing with aggressiveness, scoring another four confirmed kills, becoming a rare triple ace.
Olds (who retired a brigadier general and died in 2007) was a unique individual whose personal story is one of the most eagerly anticipated military books of the year.]]>
416 Robin Olds 0312560230 Tim 0 to-read 4.43 2010 Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs Of Legendary Ace Robin Olds
author: Robin Olds
name: Tim
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/09/20
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge]]> 78250 A Separate Reality and Journey to Ixtlan. Includes the teachings and a structural analysis.]]> 288 Carlos Castaneda 0671227424 Tim 0 to-read 3.96 1968 The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge
author: Carlos Castaneda
name: Tim
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1968
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/09/09
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip-Confessions of a Cynical Waiter]]> 2187270 Waiter Rant offers the server's unique point of view, replete with tales of customer stupidity, arrogant misbehavior, and unseen bits of human grace transpiring in the most unlikely places. Through outrageous stories, The Waiter reveals the secrets to getting good service, proper tipping etiquette, and how to keep him from spitting in your food. The Waiter also shares his ongoing struggle, at age thirty-eight, to figure out if he can finally leave the first job at which he's truly thrived.]]> 302 The Waiter 0061256684 Tim 0 3.49 2008 Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip-Confessions of a Cynical Waiter
author: The Waiter
name: Tim
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/09/09
shelves:
review:
Paraphrasing the cover, "this book did for the front of the house what Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential did for the kitchen" and he was right. Gained a lot of insight into their world and their ups and downs.
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Strangers on a Train 15677 Strangers on a Train, galvanized the reading public. Here we encounter Guy Haines and Charles Anthony Bruno, passengers on the same train. But while Guy is a successful architect in the midst of a divorce, Bruno turns out to be a sadistic psychopath who manipulates Guy into swapping murders with him. “Some people are better off dead,� Bruno remarks, “like your wife and my father, for instance.� As Bruno carries out his twisted plan, Guy is trapped in Highsmith’s perilous world, where, under the right circumstances, anybody is capable of murder.

The inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1951 film, Strangers on a Train launched Highsmith on a prolific career of noir fiction, proving her a master at depicting the unsettling forces that tremble beneath the surface of everyday contemporary life.]]>
281 Patricia Highsmith 0393321983 Tim 0 to-read 3.79 1950 Strangers on a Train
author: Patricia Highsmith
name: Tim
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1950
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/08/31
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)]]> 7260188 My name is Katniss Everdeen.
Why am I not dead?
I should be dead.

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans—except Katniss.

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay—no matter what the personal cost.]]>
390 Suzanne Collins 0439023513 Tim 4
Long live the girl on fire!]]>
4.10 2010 Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Tim
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/08/31
shelves:
review:
Just finished Mockingjay and I am still unsure if I liked the ending or not but I liked the book overall. Collins created a well thought out, interesting world I have read the first two books twice and will probably read this one again in awhile.

Long live the girl on fire!
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I Am Legend and Other Stories 547094 Robert Neville is the last living man on Earth...but he is not alone. Every other man, woman, and child on Earth has become a vampire, and they are all hungry for Neville's blood.

By day, he is the hunter, stalking the sleeping undead through the abandoned ruins of civilization. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for dawn.

How long can one man survive in a world of vampires?

I am legend --
Buried talents --
The near departed --
Prey --
Witch war --
Dance of the dead --
Dress of white silk --
Mad house --
The funeral --
From shadowed places --
Person to person.]]>
317 Richard Matheson 031286504X Tim 3 4.02 1954 I Am Legend and Other Stories
author: Richard Matheson
name: Tim
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1954
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/08/26
shelves:
review:
There were multiple movies made from this novella. I really liked the Will Smith movie better than the book. The book was written in the 60's so there was a lot that was dated and the virus that affects the population turns everyone in vampires not zombies. A decent story though.
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<![CDATA[Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea]]> 40173
In this hilarious, deliciously skewed collection, Chelsea mines her past for stories about her family, relationships, and career that are at once singular and ridiculous. Whether she's convincing her third-grade class that she has been tapped to play Goldie Hawn's daughter in the sequel to Private Benjamin, deciding to be more egalitarian by dating a redhead, or looking out for a foulmouthed, rum-swilling little person who looks just like her... only smaller, Chelsea has a knack for getting herself into the most outrageous situations.

Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea showcases the candor and irresistible turns of phrase that have made her one of the freshest voices in comedy today.]]>
264 Chelsea Handler 0061173398 Tim 3 3.85 2008 Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea
author: Chelsea Handler
name: Tim
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/08/26
shelves:
review:
Funny book, period. She is a hot mess.
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<![CDATA[Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment (Enlightenment Series, 1)]]> 2859107 279 Deepak Chopra 0060878819 Tim 0 to-read 3.88 Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment (Enlightenment Series, 1)
author: Deepak Chopra
name: Tim
average rating: 3.88
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/08/23
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee]]> 7897478 240 Sarah Silverman Tim 4 3.53 2010 The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee
author: Sarah Silverman
name: Tim
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2010/07/01
date added: 2010/07/29
shelves:
review:
First and foremost, Sarah Silverman is a knucklehead... but a knucklehead that makes me laugh. She loves all sorts of toilet humor, weed, sex, using her jewishness to make people laugh,and making people feel uncomfortable. This "autobiography" is apparently the first book ever in the history of books to not only have a forward written by the author!?(apparently starting a fight with HarperCollins), have a mid-word (also written by the author), and a afterword (written by God)and is worth the time.
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Blasphemy (Wyman Ford, #2) 1234704 The Torus is the most expensive machine ever created by humankind, run by the world's most powerful supercomputer. It is the brainchild of Nobel Laureate William North Hazelius. Will the Torus divulge the mysteries of the creation of the universe? Or will it, as some predict, suck the earth into a mini black hole? Or is the Torus a Satanic attempt, as a powerful televangelist decries, to challenge God Almighty on the very throne of Heaven?
Twelve scientists under the leadership of Hazelius are sent to the remote mountain to turn it on, and what they discover must be hidden from the world at all costs. Wyman Ford, ex-monk and CIA operative, is tapped to wrest their secret, a secret that will either destroy the world…or save it.
The countdown begins…]]>
381 Douglas Preston 0765311054 Tim 4 3.70 2008 Blasphemy (Wyman Ford, #2)
author: Douglas Preston
name: Tim
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2010/07/01
date added: 2010/07/29
shelves:
review:
I just finished this audiobook today. I really liked the idea behind this book and didn’t want it to end. It's a science thriller based in and around a particle accelerator that has been offline due to a “problem.� The government spent $20 billion to build this facility, (built to investigate the big bang) and is getting the run around why it is not running yet so they send in an undercover ex-CIA agent to get the scoop. This book gets pretty deep into the idea of religions and science as a religion and hits on many of today social problems. The disc set included an interview with the author who said his inspiration was L Ron Hubbard which makes sense when you get close to the end. I don’t want to give the ending away so I will leave it at that.
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<![CDATA[How the World Makes Love: . . . And What It Taught a Jilted Groom]]> 7040365 320 Franz Wisner 0312605587 Tim 0 to-read 3.44 2009 How the World Makes Love: . . . And What It Taught a Jilted Groom
author: Franz Wisner
name: Tim
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/07/21
shelves: to-read
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Honeymoon with My Brother 116967
During the "honeymoon," Franz reconnected with his brother and began to look at his life with newfound perspective. The brothers decided to leave their old lives behind them. They quit their jobs, sold all their possessions, and traveled around the world, visiting fifty-three countries for the next two years. In Honeymoon With My Brother, Franz recounts this remarkable journey, during which he turned his heartbreak into an opportunity to learn about himself, the world, and the brother he hardly knew.]]>
288 Franz Wisner 0312340842 Tim 4 3.52 2005 Honeymoon with My Brother
author: Franz Wisner
name: Tim
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2010/07/01
date added: 2010/07/21
shelves:
review:
I really enjoyed reading this "travelogue".� Franz gets left at the altar and gets downgraded at his job in the same week. He decides it is an opportunity to change his life. He reconnects with his brother who he admits that he really didn’t know and they take his scheduled honeymoon to Costa Rica. That honeymoon turns into a two year odyssey encompassing Africa, the Americas, Eastern Europe, and Russia. Their “whole world becomes the world� and they learn lots about themselves and each other.
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Lucy 7248772
A civil war has exploded and Jenny is trapped in its crosshairs . . . She runs to the camp of a fellow primatologist.

The rebels have already been there.

Everyone is dead except a young girl, the daughter of Jenny’s brutally murdered fellow scientist—and competitor.

Jenny and the child flee, Jenny grabbing the notebooks of the primatologist who’s been killed. She brings the girl to Chicago to await the discovery of her relatives. The girl is fifteen and lovely—her name is Lucy.

Realizing that the child has no living relatives, Jenny begins to care for her as her own. When she reads the notebooks written by Lucy’s father, she discovers that the adorable, lovely, magical Lucy is the result of an experiment.

She is part human, part ape—a hybrid human being . . .

Laurence Gonzales’s novel grabs you from its opening pages and you stay with it, mesmerized by the shy but fierce, wonderfully winning Lucy.]]>
320 Laurence Gonzales 0307272605 Tim 0 to-read 3.44 2010 Lucy
author: Laurence Gonzales
name: Tim
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/07/21
shelves: to-read
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Paper Towns 2914097 Who is the real Margo?

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs into his life—dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows. After their all-nighter ends, and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues—and they're for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew...]]>
305 John Green 0525478183 Tim 0 to-read 4.00 2008 Paper Towns
author: John Green
name: Tim
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/07/20
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest]]> 332613 9780451163967

Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy � the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. Ken Kesey's extraordinary first novel is an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.]]>
325 Ken Kesey Tim 0 to-read 4.20 1962 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
author: Ken Kesey
name: Tim
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/07/19
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War]]> 8908
Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.

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

Note: Some of the numerical and factual material contained in this edition was previously published under the auspices of the United Nations Postwar Commission.]]>
342 Max Brooks 0307346609 Tim 3 4.02 2006 World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
author: Max Brooks
name: Tim
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/07/16
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[How to Win Friends & Influence People]]> 4865
Since its release in 1936, How to Win Friends and Influence People has sold more than 30 million copies. Dale Carnegie's first book is a timeless bestseller, packed with rock-solid advice that has carried thousands of now famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives.

As relevant as ever before, Dale Carnegie's principles endure, and will help you achieve your maximum potential in the complex and competitive modern age.

Learn the six ways to make people like you, the twelve ways to win people to your way of thinking, and the nine ways to change people without arousing resentment.]]>
288 Dale Carnegie Tim 3 4.22 1936 How to Win Friends & Influence People
author: Dale Carnegie
name: Tim
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1936
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/07/16
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium #1)]]> 2429135
An international publishing sensation, Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel.]]>
480 Stieg Larsson 0670069019 Tim 0 to-read 4.17 2005 The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium #1)
author: Stieg Larsson
name: Tim
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/07/16
shelves: to-read
review:

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Nature Girl 13060
ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚý Will Honey be able to make a mensch of a “greedheadâ€�? Will Fry be able to protect her from Piejack—and herself? Will Sammy achieve his true Seminole self? Will Eugenie ever get to the beach? Will the Everglades survive the wild humans? All the answers are revealed in the delectably outrageous mayhem that propels this novel to its Hiaasen-of-the-highest-order climax.]]>
306 Carl Hiaasen 0307262995 Tim 3 3.65 2006 Nature Girl
author: Carl Hiaasen
name: Tim
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/07/16
shelves:
review:
Quick and fun read like all of his books focusing on the people living on the Florida fringes.
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<![CDATA[Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan]]> 4645750 The inspiration for the major motion picture 12 Strong from Jerry Bruckheimer, starring Chris Hemsworth and Michael Shannon.

From the New York Times bestselling author of In Harm’s Way comes a true-life story of American soldiers overcoming great odds to achieve a stunning military victory.

Horse Soldiers is the dramatic account of a small band of Special Forces soldiers who secretly entered Afghanistan following 9/11 and rode to war on horses against the Taliban. Outnumbered forty to one, they pursued the enemy army across the mountainous Afghanistan terrain and, after a series of intense battles, captured the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, which was strategically essential to defeat their opponent throughout the country.

The bone-weary American soldiers were welcomed as liberators as they rode into the city, and the streets thronged with Afghans overjoyed that the Taliban regime had been overthrown.

Then the action took a wholly unexpected turn. During a surrender of six hundred Taliban troops, the Horse Soldiers were ambushed by the would-be POWs. Dangerously overpowered, they fought for their lives in the city’s immense fortress, Qala-i-Janghi, or the House of War. At risk were the military gains of the entire campaign: if the soldiers perished or were captured, the entire effort to outmaneuver the Taliban was likely doomed.

Deeply researched and beautifully written, Stanton’s account of the Americans� quest to liberate an oppressed people touches the mythic. The soldiers on horses combined ancient strategies of cavalry warfare with twenty-first-century aerial bombardment technology to perform a seemingly impossible feat. Moreover, their careful effort to win the hearts of local townspeople proved a valuable lesson for America’s ongoing efforts in Afghanistan.]]>
393 Doug Stanton 1416580514 Tim 2 4.09 2009 Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan
author: Doug Stanton
name: Tim
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2009
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2010/07/07
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[The Forest of Hands and Teeth (The Forest of Hands and Teeth, #1)]]> 3432478 The Sisterhood always knows best.
The Guardians will protect and serve.
The Unconsecrated will never relent.
And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth.

But, slowly, Mary’s truths are failing her. She’s learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, and the Guardians and their power, and about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness. When the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, she must choose between her village and her future—between the one she loves and the one who loves her. And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death?]]>
336 Carrie Ryan 0575090855 Tim 4 3.62 2009 The Forest of Hands and Teeth (The Forest of Hands and Teeth, #1)
author: Carrie Ryan
name: Tim
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/07/07
shelves:
review:
This was similar in feel to the movie "The Village" with the exception that the village that the main characters live in, is behind a huge chain link fence that (wait for it...) keeps out the zombies which constantly pull at the fence.... (Eye roll) yeah, I know..., but I really liked this book. The "unconsecrated" seemingly have taken over all humans but since the village has been cut off for many generations most of the old knowledge has been lost and true knowledge of current events outside consists of only what they can see. But our heroine was told stories as a child about the "ocean" which everyone thinks is a fiction but she wants to find out the truth... and she is given the opportunity.
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Fever 1793 781110 252 Laurie Halse Anderson 0689848919 Tim 3 3.93 2000 Fever 1793
author: Laurie Halse Anderson
name: Tim
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/07/07
shelves:
review:
Historical fiction (YA) about the yellow fever epidemic in 1793. Listened to the whole book while putting in my garden over the last couple weeks. Funny how I know exactly what I was listening to when planting beans or fencing tomatoes... funny how that happen. Anyway, an entertaining read with a lot of historical truths about a young girl who's family ran a "coffee house" (all the rage in 1793)in Philadelphia (the then capital). Apparently, Philly was the most populated city in the US at 50,000 at the time and the fever killed at least 5,000. For those of you playing at home, that's 10%. Neighboring towns wouldn't let in many from Philly and farmers wouldn't enter (so it is assumed (but no records found) that many died of hunger). The "cures" from the American doctors... bloodletting and mercury (the french had better ideas).
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Feed 169756 Identity crises, consumerism, and star-crossed teenage love in a futuristic society where people connect to the Internet via feeds implanted in their brains.

For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon—a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires. Following in the footsteps of George Orwell, Anthony Burgess, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr., M. T. Anderson has created a not-so-brave new world—and a smart, savage satire that has captivated readers with its view of an imagined future that veers unnervingly close to the here and now.]]>
308 M.T. Anderson 0763622591 Tim 3
What could go wrong, right?

Let me let the narrator Titus, tell you about his world.
“Unit! I can’t understand how you even, uh, go through life without the feed. It’s meg-brag, for like, shopping and chatting and stuff. I mean, does everyone hear you when you talk to friends? Unit� meg-null. And storing memory, like, I mean, I guess you just forget? Anyway, when I heard about this book, and I thought, WORDS? Who can even read that stuff? Why not just put it on the feed?�

See what I mean? This book follows a group of teenagers in a “plausible� world where interconnectivity, what passes for the Internet, and environmental issues have already reached the Nth degree and problems are beginning to occur. This book was thoroughly entertaining because I see the disconnect more and more everyday as technology begins to play a greater role in our lives. Give this book a try!
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3.55 2002 Feed
author: M.T. Anderson
name: Tim
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/07/07
shelves:
review:
In Feed, M.T. Anderson takes a dim view of society’s technological dependence, the corporate takeover of government, and consumerism. This Sci-Fi book geared for young adults is set in America’s future where nearly everyone gets a “chip� in their head early in life so they can receive “the feed.� The chip is wired directly into all areas of the brain so the “internet�, communication with others (cell phone, chatting, and texting), entertainment programming (television and radio), spending money (credit cards), advertisements, and even drug-use can be accessed simply by thinking about it, but errors and hacks can cause serious physical problems. Everyone is constantly multi-tasking and the ability to read, write, communicate, and even think is almost non-existent.

What could go wrong, right?

Let me let the narrator Titus, tell you about his world.
“Unit! I can’t understand how you even, uh, go through life without the feed. It’s meg-brag, for like, shopping and chatting and stuff. I mean, does everyone hear you when you talk to friends? Unit� meg-null. And storing memory, like, I mean, I guess you just forget? Anyway, when I heard about this book, and I thought, WORDS? Who can even read that stuff? Why not just put it on the feed?�

See what I mean? This book follows a group of teenagers in a “plausible� world where interconnectivity, what passes for the Internet, and environmental issues have already reached the Nth degree and problems are beginning to occur. This book was thoroughly entertaining because I see the disconnect more and more everyday as technology begins to play a greater role in our lives. Give this book a try!

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<![CDATA[Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal]]> 28881 Philadelphia Inquirer).

Verily, the story Biff has to tell is a miraculous one, filled with remarkable journeys, magic, healings, kung fu, corpse reanimations, demons, and hot babes. Even the considerable wiles and devotion of the Savior's pal may not be enough to divert Joshua from his tragic destiny. But there's no one who loves Josh more—except maybe "Maggie," Mary of Magdala—and Biff isn't about to let his extraordinary pal suffer and ascend without a fight.]]>
444 Christopher Moore 0380813815 Tim 5 4.23 2002 Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal
author: Christopher Moore
name: Tim
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/07/07
shelves:
review:
The was one of the funniest books I have read in a long time. Recommended by a patron, Moore made laugh out loud a lot. Levi (aka Biff) is brought back to life after 2000 years to write the missing years between the manger and the water into wine miracle. For those christians, I promise that the gospels are not "mocked" and I think God has a sense of humor so give this book a try...but I can tell you Biff is a piece of work.
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The Wave 481743 The Wave is based on a true incident that occurred in a high school history class in Palo Alto, California, in 1969.

The powerful forces of group pressure that pervaded many historic movements such as Nazism are recreated in the classroom when history teacher Burt Ross introduces a "new" system to his students. And before long The Wave, with its rules of "strength through discipline, community, and action", sweeps from the classroom through the entire school. And as most of the students join the movement, Laurie Saunders and David Collins recognize the frightening momentum of The Wave and realize they must stop it before it's too late.

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138 Todd Strasser 0440993717 Tim 3 3.53 1981 The Wave
author: Todd Strasser
name: Tim
average rating: 3.53
book published: 1981
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/07/07
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[Skinny Dip (Skink, #5; Mick Stranahan #2)]]> 13079 496 Carl Hiaasen 0446615129 Tim 3 3.83 2004 Skinny Dip (Skink, #5; Mick Stranahan #2)
author: Carl Hiaasen
name: Tim
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/07/07
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook]]> 7324659 Kitchen Confidential first alerted us to the idiosyncrasies and lurking perils of eating out, from Monday fish to the breadbasket conspiracy, much has changed for the subculture of chefs and cooks, for the restaurant business—and for Anthony Bourdain.

Medium Raw explores these changes, moving back and forth from the author's bad old days to the present. Tracking his own strange and unexpected voyage from journeyman cook to globe-traveling professional eater and drinker, and even to fatherhood, Bourdain takes no prisoners as he dissects what he's seen, pausing along the way for a series of confessions, rants, investigations, and interrogations of some of the most controversial figures in food.

Beginning with a secret and highly illegal after-hours gathering of powerful chefs that he compares to a mafia summit, Bourdain pulls back the curtain—but never pulls his punches—on the modern gastronomical revolution, as only he can. Cutting right to the bone, Bourdain sets his sights on some of the biggest names in the foodie world, including David Chang, the young superstar chef who has radicalized the fine-dining landscape; the revered Alice Waters, whom he treats with unapologetic frankness; the Top Chef winners and losers; and many more.

And always he returns to the question "Why cook?" Or the more difficult "Why cook well?" Medium Raw is the deliciously funny and shockingly delectable journey to those answers, sure to delight philistines and gourmands alike.

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281 Anthony Bourdain 0061718947 Tim 4 3.75 2010 Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
author: Anthony Bourdain
name: Tim
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/07/07
shelves:
review:
I always enjoy reading Bourdain. If you have every watched his show on the travel channel, you can hear him narrarate this book as it is written exactly like he speaks. In this book, Tony discusses a different subject in each chapter. Essays include everything from watching a master cut fish for seven hours to what fatherhood means to him. As the title states, he is medium raw in this book... toned down from his full out raw in "Kitchen Confidential." I guess he's growing up.
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<![CDATA[Case Files of the Tracker: True Stories from America's Greatest Outdoorsman]]> 253281 208 Tom Brown Jr. 0425187551 Tim 2 In any case, short stories of his coolest tracks was what I was looking for... this was not it. Instead, I got page after page about how he see the world differently than everyone else, which as you can imagine, started to drag on... and the stories, well they left a lot to be desired. Most of 'em were tracks that went bad... disappointing.

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3.92 2003 Case Files of the Tracker: True Stories from America's Greatest Outdoorsman
author: Tom Brown Jr.
name: Tim
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2003
rating: 2
read at: 2010/06/11
date added: 2010/06/11
shelves:
review:
First, I think Tom Brown Jr. is awe inspiring and if anyone in my family is ever lost, I am calling him second, right after the police. I have read all his "grandfather" books and really liked them. This one had a lot of potential. Tom, for those of you who don't know, is one of the best trackers in the world and has worked for the FBI, CIA(?), US Military, and many law enforcement agencies. He also runs a very sucessful tracking school in the New Jersey pine barrens, of all places.
In any case, short stories of his coolest tracks was what I was looking for... this was not it. Instead, I got page after page about how he see the world differently than everyone else, which as you can imagine, started to drag on... and the stories, well they left a lot to be desired. Most of 'em were tracks that went bad... disappointing.


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<![CDATA[Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close]]> 4588
The key belonged to his father, he's sure of that. But which of New York's 162 million locks does it open?

So begins a quest that takes Oskar - inventor, letter-writer and amateur detective - across New York's five boroughs and into the jumbled lives of friends, relatives, and complete strangers. He gets heavy boots, he gives himself little bruises and he inches ever nearer to the heart of a family mystery that stretches back fifty years. But will it take him any closer to, or further from, his lost father?]]>
326 Jonathan Safran Foer 0618711651 Tim 0 to-read 3.98 2005 Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
author: Jonathan Safran Foer
name: Tim
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/06/09
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Captured: A True Story of Abduction by Indians on the Texas Frontier]]> 782405

That is, until Scott Zesch stumbled over his own great-great-great uncle's grave. Determined to understand how such a "good boy" could have become "Indianized" so completely, Zesch travels across the west, digging through archives, speaking with Comanche elders, and tracking eight other child captives from the region with hauntingly similar experiences. With a historian's rigor and a novelist's eye, Zesch paints a vivid portrait of life on the Texas frontier, offeringĚýa rareĚýaccount of captivity.]]>
384 Scott Zesch 0312317875 Tim 3 4.04 2004 The Captured: A True Story of Abduction by Indians on the Texas Frontier
author: Scott Zesch
name: Tim
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/06/03
shelves:
review:
okay but seemed to drag on and on
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Greywalker (Greywalker, #1) 140099
But Harper's not crazy. Her "death" has made her a Greywalker- able to move between the human world and the mysterious cross-over zone where things that go bump in the night exist. And her new gift is about to drag her into that strange new realm-whether she likes it or not.]]>
341 Kat Richardson 045146107X Tim 0 3.47 2006 Greywalker (Greywalker, #1)
author: Kat Richardson
name: Tim
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2010/05/18
date added: 2010/05/18
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[Drinking with George: A Barstool Professional's Guide to Beer]]> 6897226 240 George Wendt 1439149585 Tim 4 Norm, I mean George, never met a beer he wouldn't drink.
This was a very funny and very quick read. If you have every woke up in the morning and said, "I'm never drinking again" then this is the book for you.... (and we away drink again!)]]>
3.73 2009 Drinking with George: A Barstool Professional's Guide to Beer
author: George Wendt
name: Tim
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/05/14
shelves:
review:
George Wendt IS Norm Peterson to a great extent. Much of his professional career and notoriety is from that nectar of the gods, beer. Wanna know how to say "cheers" in 200 languages, pick up this book. Wanna know many ways to win $20 in a bar, pick up this book. Wanna know what beer goes best with salmon, read this book.
Norm, I mean George, never met a beer he wouldn't drink.
This was a very funny and very quick read. If you have every woke up in the morning and said, "I'm never drinking again" then this is the book for you.... (and we away drink again!)
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The Beach 607639
The Khao San Road, Bangkok -- first stop for the hordes of rootless young Westerners traveling in Southeast Asia. On Richard's first night there, in a low-budget guest house, a fellow traveller slashes his wrists, bequeathing to Richard a meticulously drawn map to "the Beach."

The Beach, as Richard has come to learn, is the subject of a legend among young travellers in Asia: a lagoon hidden from the sea, with white sand and coral gardens, freshwater falls surrounded by jungle, plants untouched for a thousand years. There, it is rumoured, a carefully selected international few have settled in a communal Eden.

Haunted by the figure of Mr. Duck -- the name by which the Thai police have identified the dead man -- and his own obsession with Vietnam movies, Richard sets off with a young French couple to an island hidden away in an archipelago forbidden to tourists. They discover the Beach, and it is as beautiful and idyllic as it is reputed to be. Yet over time it becomes clear that Beach culture, as Richard calls it, has troubling, even deadly, undercurrents.

Spellbinding and hallucinogenic, The Beach by Alex Garland -- both a national bestseller and his debut -- is a highly accomplished and suspenseful novel that fixates on a generation in their twenties, who, burdened with the legacy of the preceding generation and saturated by popular culture, long for an unruined landscape, but find it difficult to experience the world first hand.]]>
436 Alex Garland 1573226521 Tim 5 I think I am in the minority, when I say that I liked the Leonard DiCaprio movie by the same name. The Beach highlighted the author’s insight into the traveler’s (not vacationers) mentality and world view and how a place coveted for its uniqueness and remoteness suffers when people find out. In a Thailand hostile, Richard encounters a seemingly crazy man who rants about an idyllic beach far, an Eden, from the blight of tourism and civilization. When Richard awakes the following morning, he finds a hand-drawn map and that the man had committed suicide. As a traveler, Richard decides to follow the map to a beach and a world he never expected.
Now, I don’t want to give too much away to those who haven’t seen the movie or read the book so suffice it to say that it is through travel that one grows to learn about themselves. That enlightened personal growth gained so rapidly when out of one’s comfort zone is often accompanied by scars.
With are obvious parallels to The Lord of the Flies, I think The Beach holds its own and I encourage those with a love of adventure to go on this journey.
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3.97 1996 The Beach
author: Alex Garland
name: Tim
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/04/27
shelves:
review:
Alex Garland’s The Beach was not a something I would have read if I didn’t know the premise before picking up the book. This is the second review in a row where I am mentioning the cover art, so maybe I do judge books by their covers� and titles. I didn’t like either in this instance. I did however love this book, so it stands mentioning that the old adage holds true.
I think I am in the minority, when I say that I liked the Leonard DiCaprio movie by the same name. The Beach highlighted the author’s insight into the traveler’s (not vacationers) mentality and world view and how a place coveted for its uniqueness and remoteness suffers when people find out. In a Thailand hostile, Richard encounters a seemingly crazy man who rants about an idyllic beach far, an Eden, from the blight of tourism and civilization. When Richard awakes the following morning, he finds a hand-drawn map and that the man had committed suicide. As a traveler, Richard decides to follow the map to a beach and a world he never expected.
Now, I don’t want to give too much away to those who haven’t seen the movie or read the book so suffice it to say that it is through travel that one grows to learn about themselves. That enlightened personal growth gained so rapidly when out of one’s comfort zone is often accompanied by scars.
With are obvious parallels to The Lord of the Flies, I think The Beach holds its own and I encourage those with a love of adventure to go on this journey.

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God Hates Us All 5460398 Californication, is one of Showtime’s highest rated programs. Averaging about two million viewers an episode, it is the most successfully rated freshman series in Showtime history. A Golden Globe nominee for Best Television Series (Comedy or Musical), Californication features an electric, likeable cast, led by actor David Duchovny, who won a Golden Globe for his performance playing Hank Moody.

God Hates Us All is the novel written by Duchovny’s character, Hank Moody, which in the show is turned into a Hollywood film entitled A Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Timed to coincide with the premiere of the Season 3 of the hit series, this will allow fans an extra, backstage look at the concept of the show not available through episodes.

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200 Hank Moody 1416598235 Tim 0 3.47 2009 God Hates Us All
author: Hank Moody
name: Tim
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/04/14
shelves:
review:
The main character read like a 20 year old Hank or like a throwback episode of Californication. Not a great story but a definately worth reading for fans of the show
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Impact (Wyman Ford, #3) 6735215 A brilliant meteor lights up the Maine coast... and two young women borrow a boat and set out for a distant island to find the impact crater.

A scientist at the National Propulsion Facility discovers an inexplicable source of gamma rays in the outer Solar System. He is found decapitated, the data missing.

High resolution NASA images reveal an unnatural feature hidden in the depths of a crater on Mars... and it appears to have been activated.

Sixty hours and counting.

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364 Douglas Preston 0765317680 Tim 4 3.78 2010 Impact (Wyman Ford, #3)
author: Douglas Preston
name: Tim
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2010/04/01
date added: 2010/04/08
shelves:
review:
This was not the run of the mill story about a rock hurdling toward the earth and earth must stop it. This was a story that kept me on the edge of my seat until the end. I wasn't crazy about the ending but it was good none the less and got four stars from me. Most of the threads were tied at the end but a few interesting ones were missed.
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Our Lady of the Forest 63307 336 David Guterson 0747568219 Tim 3 3.01 2003 Our Lady of the Forest
author: David Guterson
name: Tim
average rating: 3.01
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 2010/03/15
date added: 2010/03/15
shelves:
review:
Well written but ultimately a bit disappointing after his last book. No one in this story is truly completely likable.
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Empire (Empire, #1) 7955
The battle rages between the high-technology weapons on one side, and militia foot-soldiers on the other, devastating the cities, and overrunning the countryside. But the vast majority, who only want the killing to stop and the nation to return to more peaceful days, have technology, weapons and strategic geniuses of their own.

When the American dream shatters into violence, who can hold the people and the government together? And which side will you be on?

Orson Scott Card is a master storyteller, who has earned millions of fans and reams of praise for his previous science fiction and fantasy novels. Now he steps a little closer to the present day with this chilling look at a near future scenario of a new American Civil War.]]>
352 Orson Scott Card 0765316110 Tim 3
Heard this book just got optioned for a feature film and is the basis for a current video game]]>
3.44 2006 Empire (Empire, #1)
author: Orson Scott Card
name: Tim
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/15
shelves:
review:
The is a thin line between a terrorist and a hero. Could our gov't be overthrown by US loving patriots?? A civil war between the left and right??

Heard this book just got optioned for a feature film and is the basis for a current video game
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The Other 2086659
John William Barry has inherited the pedigree—and wealth—of two of Seattle’s elite families; Neil Countryman is blue-collar Irish. Nevertheless, when the two boys meet in 1972 at age sixteen, they’re brought together by what they have in a fierce intensity and a love of the outdoors that takes them, together and often, into Washington’s remote backcountry, where they must rely on their wits—and each other—to survive.

Soon after graduating from college, Neil sets out on a path that will lead him toward a life as a devoted schoolteacher and family man. But John William makes a radically different choice, dropping out of college and moving deep into the woods, convinced that it is the only way to live without hypocrisy. When John William enlists Neil to help him disappear completely, Neil finds himself drawn into a web of secrets and often agonizing responsibility, deceit, and tragedy—one that will finally break open with a wholly unexpected, life-altering revelation.
Riveting, deeply humane, The Other is David Guterson’s most brilliant and provocative novel to date.]]>
256 David Guterson 0307263150 Tim 5 Guterson’s The Other crossed the circulation desk the other day and I guess the cover art grabbed me. It prompted me to read the book’s abstract, and I brought it home and started it that evening. I devoured this book. Guterson's eloquent prose and lush descriptions of things often overlooked reminded me of what a well written book should feel like� brighter greens, the intricate veins of leaves, and the smell of the earth. This rare book details a friendship between two men, one is raised in a blue collar family who grows up and subscribes to middle class values and the other, raised in an elite family but despises materialism, “normal� social values, and subscribes to Gnosticism. These two men on divergent paths in life remain friends despite their differences and shape each other’s world view. It is a tale about a hermit and a school teacher� or is the hermit the teacher and the teacher the hermit?
I found myself thinking often about this book and reevaluating considerations which I haven’t thought about for a long time. I enjoyed this book so much that I am now reading another Guterson novel, Our Lady of the Forest� and I have dusted off my copy of Snow Falling on Cedars, it’s next.
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3.45 2008 The Other
author: David Guterson
name: Tim
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2010/03/01
date added: 2010/03/01
shelves:
review:
I picked up David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars around 1996, simply due to the cover art and the fact it had a gold sticker on it proclaiming it as a national book award winner. I brought it home and put it in a pile of books to be read. Shortly thereafter, a thoroughly forgettable movie was made of the book, and my purchased copy got moved from the stack of bedside books to the bookcase which is reserved for read books and those that may get read far it the future.
Guterson’s The Other crossed the circulation desk the other day and I guess the cover art grabbed me. It prompted me to read the book’s abstract, and I brought it home and started it that evening. I devoured this book. Guterson's eloquent prose and lush descriptions of things often overlooked reminded me of what a well written book should feel like� brighter greens, the intricate veins of leaves, and the smell of the earth. This rare book details a friendship between two men, one is raised in a blue collar family who grows up and subscribes to middle class values and the other, raised in an elite family but despises materialism, “normal� social values, and subscribes to Gnosticism. These two men on divergent paths in life remain friends despite their differences and shape each other’s world view. It is a tale about a hermit and a school teacher� or is the hermit the teacher and the teacher the hermit?
I found myself thinking often about this book and reevaluating considerations which I haven’t thought about for a long time. I enjoyed this book so much that I am now reading another Guterson novel, Our Lady of the Forest� and I have dusted off my copy of Snow Falling on Cedars, it’s next.

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<![CDATA[Appaloosa (Virgil Cole & Everett Hitch, #1)]]> 297478 320 Robert B. Parker 0425204324 Tim 3 3.97 2005 Appaloosa (Virgil Cole & Everett Hitch, #1)
author: Robert B. Parker
name: Tim
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/01
shelves:
review:

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Hidden Empire (Empire, #2) 6397351 336 Orson Scott Card 0765320045 Tim 3 3.64 2009 Hidden Empire (Empire, #2)
author: Orson Scott Card
name: Tim
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2010/02/18
date added: 2010/02/18
shelves:
review:
Liked this one better than the first one... I think. What is more important in the long term... perfect democracy or peace??
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Saint (Paradise, #2) 125959 "We call you Saint."

The name ignited a light in Carl's mind. Saint. He'd been covertly recruited for Black Ops and given his life to the most brutal kind of training any man or woman could endure. He was here because he belonged here. To the X Group.

An assassin. The most effective killer in the world. And yet...Carl Strople struggles to retain fleeting memories that betray an even more ominous reality. He's been told part of the truth - but not all of it.

Invasive techniques have stripped him of his identity and made him someone new - for this he is grateful. But there are some things they can't take from him. The love of a woman, unbroken loyalties to his past, the need for survival.

From the deep woods of Hungary to the streets of New York, Saint takes you on a journey of betrayal in a world of government cover-ups, political intrigue, and one man's search for the truth. In the end, that truth will be his undoing.]]>
347 Ted Dekker 1595540067 Tim 3 4.03 2006 Saint (Paradise, #2)
author: Ted Dekker
name: Tim
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/01/25
shelves:
review:

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Enemies & Allies 6125565 â€� USA Today The Dark Knight meets the Man of Steel in Enemies & Allies —the thrilling story of the first-everĚý meeting between Batman and Superman, brilliantly imagined by New York Times bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson. One of today’s most popular writers pits the iconic superheroes against Lex Luthor and the Soviets—and each other—in a spellbinding story of destiny and duty set against the backdrop of America’s Cold War era.]]> 336 Kevin J. Anderson 0061662550 Tim 3 3.75 2009 Enemies & Allies
author: Kevin J. Anderson
name: Tim
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/01/22
shelves:
review:
Book reads just like you think it will. Christian Bale's dark knight and Christopher Reeves' superman meet and save the world...again.
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The Shack 1812457
In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant The Shack wrestles with the timeless question, "Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?" The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You'll want everyone you know to read this book!]]>
248 William Paul Young 0964729237 Tim 2 3.73 2007 The Shack
author: William Paul Young
name: Tim
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2007
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2010/01/19
shelves:
review:
Some folks loved this book but I had a hard time finishing this. Yeah,Yeah,Yeah...Preach on Brother
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<![CDATA[The Magicians (The Magicians, #1)]]> 6101718
Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.

He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart.

At once psychologically piercing and magnificently absorbing, The Magicians boldly moves into uncharted literary territory, imagining magic as practiced by real people, with their capricious desires and volatile emotions. Lev Grossman creates an utterly original world in which good and evil aren’t black and white, love and sex aren’t simple or innocent, and power comes at a terrible price.]]>
402 Lev Grossman 0670020559 Tim 0 to-read 3.53 2009 The Magicians (The Magicians, #1)
author: Lev Grossman
name: Tim
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Sandman Slim (Sandman Slim, #1)]]> 5776788
Life sucks and then you die. Or, if you’re James Stark, you spend eleven years in Hell as a hitman before finally escaping, only to land back in the hell-on-earth that is Los Angeles.

Now Stark’s back, and ready for revenge. And absolution, and maybe even love. But when his first stop saddles him with an abusive talking head, Stark discovers that the road to absolution and revenge is much longer than you’d expect, and both Heaven and Hell have their own ideas for his future.

Resurrection sucks. Saving the world is worse.

Darkly twisted, irreverent, and completely hilarious, Sandman Slim is the breakthrough novel by an acclaimed author.]]>
388 Richard Kadrey 0061714305 Tim 5 3.95 2009 Sandman Slim (Sandman Slim, #1)
author: Richard Kadrey
name: Tim
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/01/16
shelves:
review:
After being sent to Hell for eleven years by his circle of magician “friends�, Stark manages to return to Los Angeles, in a terminally bad mood, stronger than ever, and with only one thing on his mind, revenge. In Hell, Stark was an oddity as he was still mortal and had a soul, so he was used to amuse Lucifer and his Generals in the fighting arena and later used as an assassin� a killer of monsters. Now, I know what you’re thinking, but this book is way more entertaining and interesting than I or the book jacket makes it sound. Think Josey Wales with superpowers and a penchant for mayhem in today’s Los Angeles which is filled with magicians (real magicians, “not a sawing-a-woman-in-half kind�), angels and demons, and everything in between... (Much like Joss Whedon Buffy-verse on steroids with none of the cutesy-ness� now it’s sounding better, right?) This twisted, whiskey-fueled, tuxedo t-shirt of a tale kept me on the edge of my seat and the CDBook reader’s gravelly Tom Waits type voice matched the noir novel perfectly. I dark-heartedly recommend this book to readers interested in the supernatural, Dresden novels, Sookie Stackhouse, and fights between good and evil.
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Cell 10567 Where were you on October 1st at 3:03 pm?

Graphic artist Clay Riddell was in the heart of Boston on that brilliant autumn afternoon when hell was unleashed before his eyes. Without warning, carnage and chaos reigned. Ordinary people fell victim to the basest, most animalistic destruction.

And the apocalypse began with the ring of a cell phone...]]>
449 Stephen King 1416524517 Tim 1 3.67 2006 Cell
author: Stephen King
name: Tim
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2006
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2010/01/11
shelves:
review:
Cellphone that zombiefy you.... come on!
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<![CDATA[Life As We Knew It (Last Survivors, #1)]]> 213753
Told in journal entries, this is the heart-pounding story of Miranda’s struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all--hope--in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world.]]>
337 Susan Beth Pfeffer Tim 5 3.89 2006 Life As We Knew It (Last Survivors, #1)
author: Susan Beth Pfeffer
name: Tim
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:
There was a festive atmosphere, and excitement to watch the celestial light show the night the meteor was scheduled to hit the moon, until the impact knocks the moon to a closer orbit with the Earth. The effects from the closer orbit are not immediately apparent until the climate and tides begin to change, volcanoes begin to erupt, and supplies chains for everything just stop. In Life As We Knew It, we follow the trials and tribulations of high school aged Miranda and her family through personal diary entries she keeps. Life becomes extremely difficult when medicine, fuel, and food run out and winter comes very early. Will the quick thinking of her mother save them? You’ll have to read it to find out� and don’t be discouraged by it’s “Young Adult� rating. This apocalyptic tale is for all adults.
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<![CDATA[Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life]]> 25460
"As the U.S. population made an unprecedented mad dash for the Sun Belt, one carload of us paddled against the tide, heading for the Promised Land where water falls from the sky and green stuff grows all around. We were about to begin the adventure of realigning our lives with our food chain.

"Naturally, our first stop was to buy junk food and fossil fuel..."

Hang on for the ride: With characteristic poetry and pluck, Barbara Kingsolver and her family sweep readers along on their journey away from the industrial-food pipeline to a rural life in which they vow to buy only food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Their good-humored search yields surprising discoveries about turkey sex life and overly zealous zucchini plants, en route to a food culture that's better for the neighborhood and also better on the table. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle makes a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life and diversified farms at the center of the American diet.

"This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew . . . and of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air."]]>
370 Barbara Kingsolver 0060852550 Tim 5 4.03 2007 Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Tim
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:
Known for her bestselling fiction novels, Barbara Kingsolver is joined in this book by her husband and daughters to write a non-fiction account of their attempts of becoming locavores in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. The authors move into their new home in Appalachia and attempt to eat only what they grow and raise, or those items that are grown, raised, or made within 100 miles of their home. Their rationale for this is twofold. First, they wanted to reduce their energy consumption. It seems that we are consuming 400 gallons of oil a year, per person, on agriculture and the lion's share of that oil is spent on transportation from the farm to your plate with the average typical meal traveling 1,500 miles! (Think about the carbon footprint of a banana). Secondly, they wanted to live and eat organically. With fact-filled sidebars by husband and environmental studies professor Steven Hopp, and family recipes by Kingsolver's daughter, Camille, this informative and funny narrative was a surprising page-turner. I have found myself using information gained in this book when doing my grocery shopping and it helped me to have informed conversations on the topics of healthful eating and the environment. Gardeners will love it.
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Playing for Pizza 1205297
But all Rick knows is football, and he insists that his agent, Arnie, find a team that needs him. Against enormous odds Arnie finally locates just such a team and informs Rick that, miraculously, he can in fact now be a starting quarterback–for the mighty Panthers of Parma, Italy.

Yes, Italians do play American football, to one degree or another, and the Parma Panthers desperately want a former NFL player–any former NFL player–at their helm. So Rick reluctantly agrees to play for the Panthers–at least until a better offer comes along–and heads off to Italy. He knows nothing about Parma, has never been to Europe, and doesn’t speak or understand a word of Italian. To say that Italy holds a few surprises for Rick Dockery would be something of an understatement.]]>
262 John Grisham 0385525001 Tim 5 3.48 2007 Playing for Pizza
author: John Grisham
name: Tim
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:
Those of us mourning the end of football season, and those of us considered to be "foodies," will enjoy this stylistic departure from John Grisham's lawyer-centric stories, Playing For Pizza. If quarterback Rick Dockery, who delivered what was considered to be the worst single performance in the history of the NFL, wants to continue playing football he must first find a team that will take him. His only option is the Panthers--not in Carolina but the Parma Panthers... in Parma, Italy! Speaking no Italian and ignorant of Italian culture, he takes the job and the adventure begins. Part football story, part travelogue, and part Italian food primer, this novel is about finding yourself when all you know has been taken away. This book does come with a warning, however. Do not read this book on an empty stomach, as the food descriptions will have you running to your favorite Italian restaurant
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Hatchet (Brian's Saga, #1) 50
Brian had been distraught over his parents' impending divorce and the secret he carries about his mother, but now he is truly desolate and alone. Exhausted, terrified, and hungry, Brian struggles to find food and make a shelter for himself. He has no special knowledge of the woods, and he must find a new kind of awareness and patience as he meets each day's challenges. Is the water safe to drink? Are the berries he finds poisonous?

Slowly, Brian learns to turn adversity to his advantage--an invading porcupine unexpectedly shows him how to make fire, a devastating tornado shows him how to retrieve supplies from the submerged airplane. Most of all, Brian leaves behind the self-pity he has felt about his predicament as he summons the courage to stay alive.

A story of survival and of transformation, this riveting book has sparked many a reader's interest in venturing into the wild.]]>
208 Gary Paulsen 0689840926 Tim 5 3.77 1987 Hatchet (Brian's Saga, #1)
author: Gary Paulsen
name: Tim
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1987
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:
Like a young Bear Grylls of Man vs Wild fame, thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson is a survivor. After a Cessna crash left him alone in the Canadian wilderness with little chance of rescue, Brian must learn to adapt. Enduring bears, moose, wolves, porcupines, mosquito swarms, and physical and mental injury, Brian is only equipped with his wits and ingenuity to survive. It's because of its timeless "mind over matter" theme that Hatchet remains a favorite with adults and children, critics and readers. It doesn't hurt that Paulsen really knows what he's talking about. As a naturalist, survivalist, and Iditarod racer, Paulsen understands perseverance and what it really means to make something of nothing. Paulsen said he never intended to write other "Brian" books, but after receiving between 40,000 to 50,000 letters a year pleading for more, he relented. Brian's saga continues with The River, Winter (an alternate ending for Hatchet), Brian's Return, and Brian's Hunt, all of which were based on true events in Gary Paulsen's life. If you like TV shows like The Alaska Experience, Man vs Wild, Survivorman, and Survivor, you'll love Paulsen's work. Not interested in fiction? Pick up a copy of Paulsen's Guts: The True Stories Behind Hatchet. I have now read the whole action-packed series, none of which are over 200 pages. This is a great series for those who love the outdoors and would be a good selection for reluctant readers, and is great to listen to on CD book or read in book form.
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<![CDATA[Brimstone (Virgil Cole & Everett Hitch, #3)]]> 6006715 293 Robert B. Parker 0399155716 Tim 4 3.96 2009 Brimstone (Virgil Cole & Everett Hitch, #3)
author: Robert B. Parker
name: Tim
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/01/04
shelves:
review:
Liked it... will have to read Appaloosa next.
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<![CDATA[Father Water, Mother Woods: Essays on Fishing and Hunting in the North Woods]]> 122143

This book takes readers through the seasons, from the incredible taste of a spring fish fresh from the smokehouse, to the first sight of the first deer, to the peace of the winter days spent dreaming by the stove in a fishhouse on the ice. In Paulsen's north country, every expedition is a major one, and often hilarious.


Once again Gary Paulsen demonstrates why he is one of America's most beloved writers, for he shows us fishing and hunting as pleasure, as art, as companionship, and as sources of life's deepest lessons.]]>
192 Gary Paulsen 0440219841 Tim 0 4.02 1994 Father Water, Mother Woods: Essays on Fishing and Hunting in the North Woods
author: Gary Paulsen
name: Tim
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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date added: 2010/01/04
shelves:
review:

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Eat, Pray, Love 19501
Around the time Elizabeth Gilbert turned thirty, she went through an early-onslaught midlife crisis. She had everything an educated, ambitious American woman was supposed to want—a husband, a house, a successful career. But instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she was consumed with panic, grief, and confusion. She went through a divorce, a crushing depression, another failed love, and the eradication of everything she ever thought she was supposed to be.

To recover from all this, Gilbert took a radical step. In order to give herself the time and space to find out who she really was and what she really wanted, she got rid of her belongings, quit her job, and undertook a yearlong journey around the world—all alone. Eat, Pray, Love is the absorbing chronicle of that year. Her aim was to visit three places where she could examine one aspect of her own nature set against the backdrop of a culture that has traditionally done that one thing very well. In Rome, she studied the art of pleasure, learning to speak Italian and gaining the twenty-three happiest pounds of her life. India was for the art of devotion, and with the help of a native guru and a surprisingly wise cowboy from Texas, she embarked on four uninterrupted months of spiritual exploration. In Bali, she studied the art of balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence. She became the pupil of an elderly medicine man and also fell in love the best way—unexpectedly.

An intensely articulate and moving memoir of self-discovery, Eat, Pray, Love is about what can happen when you claim responsibility for your own contentment and stop trying to live in imitation of society’s ideals. It is certain to touch anyone who has ever woken up to the unrelenting need for change.]]>
368 Elizabeth Gilbert 0143038419 Tim 4 3.64 2006 Eat, Pray, Love
author: Elizabeth Gilbert
name: Tim
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2009/12/30
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Siddhartha 52036 152 Hermann Hesse Tim 5 4.07 1922 Siddhartha
author: Hermann Hesse
name: Tim
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1922
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/12/30
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Jonathan Livingston Seagull 71728
Jonathan Livingston Seagull is no ordinary bird. He believes it is every gull's right to fly, to reach the ultimate freedom of challenge and discovery, finding his greatest reward in teaching younger gulls the joy of flight and the power of dreams. The special 20th anniversary release of this spiritual classic!]]>
112 Richard Bach 0743278909 Tim 5 3.87 1970 Jonathan Livingston Seagull
author: Richard Bach
name: Tim
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1970
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2009/12/30
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The World Without Us 248787 A penetrating, page-turning tour of a post-human Earth

In The World Without Us, Alan Weisman offers an utterly original approach to questions of humanity's impact on the planet: he asks us to envision our Earth, without us. In this far-reaching narrative, Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence; which everyday items may become immortalized as fossils; how copper pipes and wiring would be crushed into mere seams of reddish rock; why some of our earliest buildings might be the last architecture left; and how plastic, bronze sculpture, radio waves, and some man-made molecules may be our most lasting gifts to the universe.

The World Without Us reveals how, just days after humans disappear, floods in New York's subways would start eroding the city's foundations, and how, as the world's cities crumble, asphalt jungles would give way to real ones. It describes the distinct ways that organic and chemically treated farms would revert to wild, how billions more birds would flourish, and how cockroaches in unheated cities would perish without us. Drawing on the expertise of engineers, atmospheric scientists, art conservators, zoologists, oil refiners, marine biologists, astrophysicists, religious leaders from rabbis to the Dalai Lama, and paleontologists—who describe a prehuman world inhabited by megafauna like giant sloths that stood taller than mammoths—Weisman illustrates what the planet might be like today, if not for us.

From places already devoid of humans (a last fragment of primeval European forest; the Korean DMZ; Chernobyl), Weisman reveals Earth's tremendous capacity for self-healing. As he shows which human devastations are indelible, and which examples of our highest art and culture would endure longest, Weisman's narrative ultimately drives toward a radical but persuasive solution that needn't depend on our demise. It is narrative nonfiction at its finest, and in posing an irresistible concept with both gravity and a highly readable touch, it looks deeply at our effects on the planet in a way that no other book has.]]>
324 Alan Weisman Tim 3 3.81 2007 The World Without Us
author: Alan Weisman
name: Tim
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2009/12/30
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review:

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<![CDATA[Harry Potter Series Box Set (Harry Potter, #1-7)]]> 862041
All seven eBooks in the multi-award winning, internationally bestselling Harry Potter series, available as one download with stunning cover art by Olly Moss. Enjoy the stories that have captured the imagination of millions worldwide.]]>
4100 J.K. Rowling 0545044251 Tim 5 4.72 2007 Harry Potter Series Box Set (Harry Potter, #1-7)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Tim
average rating: 4.72
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2009/12/30
shelves:
review:

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The Gnostic Gospels 110763 The Gnostic Gospels is a landmark study of the long-buried roots of Christianity, a work of luminous scholarship and wide popular appeal. First published in 1979 to critical acclaim, winning the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Gnostic Gospels has continued to grow in reputation and influence over the past two decades. It is now widely recognized as one of the most brilliant and accessible histories of early Christian spirituality published in our time.

In 1945 an Egyptian peasant unearthed what proved to be the Gnostic Gospels, thirteen papyrus volumes that expounded a radically different view of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ from that of the New Testament. In this spellbinding book, renowned religious scholar Elaine Pagels elucidates the mysteries and meanings of these sacred texts both in the world of the first Christians and in the context of Christianity today.

With insight and passion, Pagels explores a remarkable range of recently discovered gospels, including the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, to show how a variety of “Christianities� emerged at a time of extraordinary spiritual upheaval. Some Christians questioned the need for clergy and church doctrine, and taught that the divine could be discovered through spiritual search. Many others, like Buddhists and Hindus, sought enlightenment � and access to God � within. Such explorations raised questions: Was the resurrection to be understood symbolically and not literally? Was God to be envisioned only in masculine form, or feminine as well? Was martyrdom a necessary � or worthy � expression of faith? These early Christians dared to ask questions that orthodox Christians later suppressed � and their explorations led to profoundly different visions of Jesus and his message.

Brilliant, provocative, and stunning in its implications, The Gnostic Gospels is a radical, eloquent reconsideration of the origins of the Christian faith.]]>
218 Elaine Pagels 0679724532 Tim 5 3.94 1979 The Gnostic Gospels
author: Elaine Pagels
name: Tim
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1979
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/12/30
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<![CDATA[Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas]]> 386559 The Gnostic Gospels, reflects on what matters most about spiritual and religious exploration in the 21st century. This book explores how Christianity began by tracing its earliest texts, including the Gospel of Thomas, rediscovered in Egypt in 1945.

When her infant son was diagnosed with fatal pulmonary hypertension, Pagels' spiritual and intellectual quest took on a new urgency, leading her to explore historical and archaeological sources and to investigate what Jesus and his teachings meant to his followers before the invention of Christianity. The discovery of the Gospel of Thomas, along with more than 50 other early Christian texts, some unknown since antiquity, offers clues. She compares such sources as Thomas' gospel (which claims to give Jesus' secret teaching and finds its closest affinities with kabbalah) with the canon to show how Christian leaders chose to include some gospels and exclude others from the collection many call the New Testament. To stabilize the emerging church in times of persecution, church fathers constructed the canon, creed and hierarchy - and, in the process, suppressed many of its spiritual resources.

Drawing on new scholarship - her own and that of an international group of scholars - that has come to light since the 1979 publication of The Gnostic Gospels, she shows that what matters about Christianity involves much more than any one set of beliefs. Traditions embodied in Judaism and Christianity can powerfully affect us in heart, mind and spirit, inspire visions of a new society based on practising justice and love, even heal and transform us.

Provocative and moving, Beyond Belief, the most personal of her books to date, shows how the impulse to seek god overflows the narrow banks of a single tradition. She writes, "What I have come to love in the wealth and diversity of our religious traditions - and the communities that sustain them - is that they offer the testimony of innumerable people to spiritual discovery, encouraging us, in Jesus' words, to 'seek, and you shall find.'"

CONTENTS
From the feast of Agape to the Nicene Creed
Gospels in conflict: John and Thomas
God's word or human words?
The canon of truth and the triumph of John
Constantine and the Catholic Church
Acknowledgements
Notes
Index]]>
272 Elaine Pagels 0375501568 Tim 4 3.91 2003 Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas
author: Elaine Pagels
name: Tim
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2003
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper]]> 225638 Gunnery Sgt. Jack Coughlin is a divorced father of two who grew up in a wealthy Boston suburb. At the age of nineteen, although he had never even held a gun, he joined the Marines and would spend the next twenty years behind the scope of a long-range precision rifle as a sniper.

In that time he accumulated one of the most successful sniper records in the Corps, ranging through many of the world's hotspots. During Operation Iraqi Freedom alone, he recorded at least thirty-six kills, thirteen of them in a single twenty-four-hour period.

Now Coughlin has written a highly personal story about his deadly craft, taking readers deep inside an invisible society that is off-limits to outsiders. This is not a heroic battlefield memoir, but the careful study of an exceptional man who must keep his sanity while carrying forward one of the deadliest legacies in the U.S. military today.

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320 Jack Coughlin 0312336853 Tim 5 4.01 2005 Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper
author: Jack Coughlin
name: Tim
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2005
rating: 5
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<![CDATA[The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century]]> 1911 593 Thomas L. Friedman 0374292795 Tim 4 3.69 2005 The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
author: Thomas L. Friedman
name: Tim
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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Prodigal Summer 14249 Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia.

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

Over the course of one humid summer, these characters find their connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with whom they share a place. Prodigal Summer demonstrates a balance of narrative, drama and ideas that is characteristic of Barbara Kingsolver's finest work.]]>
444 Barbara Kingsolver 0060959037 Tim 5 4.03 2000 Prodigal Summer
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Tim
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2000
rating: 5
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<![CDATA[American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon]]> 2595763
A hunt for the American buffalo—an adventurous, fascinating examination of an animal that has haunted the American imagination.
Ěý
In 2005, Steven Rinella won a lottery permit to hunt for a wild buffalo, or American bison, in the Alaskan wilderness.ĚýDespite the odds—there’s only a 2 percent chance of drawing the permit, and fewer than 20 percent of those hunters are successful—Rinella managed to kill a buffalo on a snow-covered mountainside and then raft the meat back to civilization while being trailed by grizzly bears and suffering from hypothermia. Throughout these adventures, Rinella found himself contemplating his own place among the 14,000 yearsâ€� worth of buffalo hunters in North America, as well as the buffalo’s place in the American experience. At the time of the Revolutionary War, North America was home to approximately 40 million buffalo, the largest herd of big mammals on the planet, but by the mid-1890s only a few hundred remained. Now that the buffalo is on the verge of a dramatic ecological recovery across the West, Americans are faced with the challenge of how, and if, we can dare to share our land with a beast that is the embodiment of the American wilderness.

American Buffalo is a narrative tale of Rinella’s hunt. But beyond that, it is the story of the many ways in which the buffalo has shaped our national identity. Rinella takes us across the continent in search of the buffalo’s past, present, and to the Bering Land Bridge, where scientists search for buffalo bones amid artifacts of the New World’s earliest human inhabitants; to buffalo jumps where Native Americans once ran buffalo over cliffs by the thousands; to the Detroit Carbon works, a “bone charcoal� plant that made fortunes in the late 1800s by turning millions of tons of buffalo bones into bone meal, black dye, and fine china; and even to an abattoir turned fashion mecca in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, where a depressed buffalo named Black Diamond met his fate after serving as the model for the American nickel.

ĚýRinella’s erudition and exuberance, combined with his gift for storytelling, make him the perfect guide for a book that combines outdoor adventure with a quirky blend of facts and observations about history, biology, and the natural world. Both a captivating narrative and a book of environmental and historical significance, American Buffalo tells us as much about ourselves as Americans as it does about the creature who perhaps best of all embodies the American ethos.]]>
288 Steven Rinella 0385521685 Tim 3 4.28 2008 American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon
author: Steven Rinella
name: Tim
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2008
rating: 3
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