Joe's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 10 Apr 2025 00:19:37 -0700 60 Joe's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The God of the Woods 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Joe 0 currently-reading 4.16 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Joe
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/10
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]]> <![CDATA[M: Son of the Century (Il romanzo di Mussolini, #1)]]> 57630684 The massive international bestseller--an epic historical novel that chronicles the birth and rise of fascism in Italy, witnessed through the eyes of its founder, the terrifyingly charismatic figure who would become one of the most notorious dictators of the twentieth century, Benito Mussolini.

It is 1919, and the Great War that has ravaged Europe is over. In Italy, the people are exhausted. Tired of the political class. Tired of vague promises, inept moderates, and the agonizing machinations of a democracy that has failed ordinary citizens.

While elite leaders have sat idly by, achieving nothing, one outsider--the director of a small opposition newspaper and a tireless political agitator--is electrifying the masses, promising hope for a demoralized nation hungry for change.

A former socialist leader ousted by his own party, he is a drifter who knows what it is to feel lost. His voice speaks for the misfits and the outcasts; he is a protector of those who are forgotten.

He is Benito Mussolini. And soon Italy--and the world--will be forever remade.

In M: Son of the Century, Antonio Scurati tells the story of fascism from within the mind of its founder, the man known to his followers as Il Duce. Steeped in historical detail and interspersed with period documents and sources, this masterful saga explores the seductive power of nationalism and idolatry, revealing how authoritarianism took hold and a nation bent to the will of one ruthless strongman. Provocative and resonant, M is a chilling reminder that the past is never gone, and that it holds urgent lessons for us today.]]> 784 Antonio Scurati 0062956116 Joe 4 4.07 2018 M: Son of the Century (Il romanzo di Mussolini, #1)
author: Antonio Scurati
name: Joe
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/09
date added: 2025/04/10
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]]> <![CDATA[How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them]]> 38255329
“No single book is as relevant to the present moment.”—Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen

NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS� CHOICE � With a new preface � A Yale philosopher identifies the ten pillars of fascist politics, and charts their horrifying rise and deep history.

As the child of refugees of World War II Europe and a renowned philosopher and scholar of propaganda, Jason Stanley has a deep understanding of how democratic societies can be vulnerable to fascism: Nations don’t have to be fascist to suffer from fascist politics. In fact, fascism’s roots have been present in the United States long before Donald Trump.

Alarmed by the pervasive rise of fascist tactics both at home and around the globe, Stanley focuses here on the structures that unite them, laying out and analyzing the ten pillars of fascist politics—the language and beliefs that separate people into an “us� and a “them.� He knits together reflections on history, philosophy, sociology, and critical race theory with stories from contemporary Hungary, Poland, India, Myanmar, and the United States, among other nations. He makes clear the immense danger of underestimating the cumulative power of these tactics, which include

� exploiting a mythic version of a nation’s past
� propaganda that twists the language of democratic ideals against themselves
� anti-intellectualism directed against universities and experts
� law and order politics predicated on the assumption that members of minority groups are criminals
� fierce attacks on labor groups and welfare

These mechanisms all build on one another, creating and reinforcing divisions and shaping a society vulnerable to the appeals of authoritarian leadership.

By uncovering disturbing patterns that are as prevalent today as ever, Stanley reveals that the stuff of politics—charged by rhetoric and myth—can quickly become policy and reality. Only by recognizing fascists politics, he argues, may we resist its most harmful effects and return to democratic ideals.]]> 240 Jason F. Stanley 0525511830 Joe 0 to-read 4.20 2018 How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them
author: Jason F. Stanley
name: Joe
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/08
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]]> Witchcraft for Wayward Girls 207611566 There’s power in a book�

They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to the Wellwood Home in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened.

Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There’s Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to find a way to keep her baby and escape to a commune. And Zinnia, a budding musician who knows she’s going to go home and marry her baby’s father. And Holly, a wisp of a girl, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who.

Everything the girls eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they’re allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid…and it’s usually paid in blood.

In Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, the author of How to Sell a Haunted House and The Final Girl Support Group delivers another searing, completely original novel and further cements his status as a “horror master� (NPR).]]> 482 Grady Hendrix 0593548981 Joe 0 to-read 4.02 2025 Witchcraft for Wayward Girls
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Joe
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/08
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]]> <![CDATA[The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics]]> 60873111 For eighteen years, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith have been part of a team revolutionizing the study of politics by turning conventional wisdom on its head. They start from a single assertion: Leaders do whatever keeps them in power. They don’t care about the “national interest”—or even their subjects—unless they have to.

This clever and accessible book shows that the difference between tyrants and democrats is just a convenient fiction. Governments do not differ in kind but only in the number of essential supporters, or backs that need scratching. The size of this group determines almost everything about politics: what leaders can get away with, and the quality of life or misery under them. The picture the authors paint is not pretty. But it just may be the truth, which is a good starting point for anyone seeking to improve human governance.

]]> 462 Bruce Bueno de Mesquita Joe 0 to-read, next-up 4.15 2011 The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics
author: Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
name: Joe
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 382 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Joe 4 4.65 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Joe
average rating: 4.65
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> Imperium (Cicero, #1) 6625052 From the bestselling author of Fatherland and Pompeii, comes the first novel of a trilogy about the struggle for power in ancient Rome.

In his “most accomplished work to date� (Los Angeles Times), master of historical fiction Robert Harris lures readers back in time to the compelling life of Roman Senator Marcus Cicero. The re-creation of a vanished biography written by his household slave and righthand man, Tiro, Imperium follows Cicero’s extraordinary struggle to attain supreme power in Rome.

On a cold November morning, Tiro opens the door to find a terrified, bedraggled stranger begging for help. Once a Sicilian aristocrat, the man was robbed by the corrupt Roman governor, Verres, who is now trying to convict him under false pretenses and sentence him to a violent death. The man claims that only the great senator Marcus Cicero, one of Rome’s most ambitious lawyers and spellbinding orators, can bring him justice in a crooked society manipulated by the villainous governor. But for Cicero, it is a chance to prove himself worthy of absolute power. What follows is one of the most gripping courtroom dramas in history, and the beginning of a quest for political glory by a man who fought his way to the top using only his voice—defeating the most daunting figures in Roman history.]]> 320 Robert Harris 0743293878 Joe 5 4.30 2006 Imperium (Cicero, #1)
author: Robert Harris
name: Joe
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/03/30
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]]> Pompeii 880
But the carefree lifestyle and gorgeous weather belie an impending cataclysm, and only one man is worried. The young engineer Marcus Attilius Primus has just taken charge of the Aqua Augusta, the enormous aqueduct that brings fresh water to a quarter of a million people in nine towns around the Bay of Naples. His predecessor has disappeared. Springs are failing for the first time in generations. And now there is a crisis on the Augusta's sixty-mile main line—somewhere to the north of Pompeii, on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius.

Attilius—decent, practical, and incorruptible—promises Pliny, the famous scholar who commands the navy, that he can repair the aqueduct before the reservoir runs dry. His plan is to travel to Pompeii and put together an expedition, then head out to the place where he believes the fault lies. But Pompeii proves to be a corrupt and violent town, and Attilius soon discovers that there are powerful forces at work—both natural and man-made—threatening to destroy him.

With his trademark elegance and intelligence, Robert Harris, bestselling author of Archangel and Fatherland, re-creates a world on the brink of disaster.]]> 274 Robert Harris 0812974611 Joe 0 to-read 3.85 2003 Pompeii
author: Robert Harris
name: Joe
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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]]> Dissolution 215362027 A woman dives into her husband's memories to uncover a decades-old feud threatening reality itself in this staggering technothriller from the bestselling author of Ascension.

Maggie Webb has lived the last decade caring for elderly husband, Stanley, as memory loss gradually erases all the beautiful moments they created together. It's the loneliest she's ever felt in her life.

When a mysterious stranger named Hassan appears at her door, he reveals a shocking truth: Stanley isn't losing his memories. Someone is actively removing them to hide a long-buried secret from coming to light. If Maggie does what she's told, she can reverse it. She can get her husband back.

Led by Hassan and his technological marvels, Maggie breaks into her husband's mind, probing the depths of his past in an effort to save him. The deeper she dives, the more she unravels a mystery spanning continents and centuries, each layer more complex than the last.

But Hassan cannot be trusted. Not just memories are disappearing, but pieces of reality itself. If Maggie cannot find out what Stanley did all those years ago, and what Hassan is after now, she risks far more than her husband's life. The very course of human history hangs in the balance.]]> 384 Nicholas Binge 0593852168 Joe 0 to-read 4.18 2025 Dissolution
author: Nicholas Binge
name: Joe
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Murder by Memory (Dorothy Gentleman, #1)]]> 211004175
A mind is a terrible thing to erase...

Welcome to the HMS Fairweather, Her Majesty’s most luxurious interstellar passenger liner! Room and board are included, new bodies are graciously provided upon request, and should you desire a rest between lifetimes, your mind shall be most carefully preserved in glass in the Library, shielded from every danger.

Near the topmost deck of an interstellar generation ship, Dorothy Gentleman wakes up in a body that isn’t hers—just as someone else is found murdered. As one of the ship’s detectives, Dorothy usually delights in unraveling the schemes on board the Fairweather, but when she finds that someone is not only killing bodies but purposefully deleting minds from the Library, she realizes something even more sinister is afoot.

Dorothy suspects her misfortune is partly the fault of her feckless nephew Ruthie who, despite his brilliance as a programmer, leaves chaos in his cheerful wake. Or perhaps the sultry yarn store proprietor—and ex-girlfriend of the body Dorothy is currently inhabiting—knows more than she’s letting on. Whatever it is, Dorothy intends to solve this case. Because someone has done the impossible and found a way to make murder on the Fairweather a very permanent state indeed. A mastermind may be at work—and if so, they’ve had three hundred years to perfect their schemes…]]> 112 Olivia Waite 1250342244 Joe 0 to-read 3.80 2025 Murder by Memory (Dorothy Gentleman, #1)
author: Olivia Waite
name: Joe
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/23
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]]> Abundance 176444106 Abundance is a once-in-a-generation, paradigm-shifting call to rethink big, entrenched problems that seem mired in systemic from climate change to housing, education to healthcare.

To trace the global history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of growing unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, the entire country has a national housing crisis. After years of slashing immigration, we don’t have enough workers. After decades of off-shoring manufacturing, we have a shortage of chips for cars and computers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean energy infrastructure we need. The crisis that’s clicking into focus now has been building for decades—because we haven’t been building enough.

Abundance explains that our problems today are not the results of yesteryear’s villains. Rather, one generation’s solutions have become the next generation’s problems. Rules and regulations designed to solve the environmental problems of the 1970s often prevent urban density and green energy projects that would help solve the environmental problems of the 2020s. Laws meant to ensure that government considers the consequences of its actions in matters of education and healthcare have made it too difficult for government to act consequentially. In the last few decades, our capacity to see problems has sharpened while our ability to solve them has diminished.

Progress requires the ability to see promise rather than just peril in the creation of new ideas and projects, and an instinct to design systems and institutions that make building possible. In a book exploring how can move from a liberalism that not only protects and preserves but also builds, Klein and Thompson trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and how we can adopt a mindset directed toward abundance, and not scarcity, to overcome them.]]> 304 Ezra Klein 1668023482 Joe 0 to-read 4.14 2025 Abundance
author: Ezra Klein
name: Joe
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/22
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]]> <![CDATA[The Good Jobs Strategy: How the Smartest Companies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs and Boost Profits]]> 17346828 Ěý
But in The Good Jobs Strategy , Zeynep Ton, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, makes the compelling case that even in low-cost settings, leaving employees behind—with bad jobs—is a choice, not a necessity. Drawing on more than a decade of research, Ton shows how operational excellence enables companies to of­fer the lowest prices to customers while ensuring good jobs for their employees and superior results for their investors.
Ěý
Ton describes the elements of the good jobs strategy in a variety of successful companies around the world, including Southwest Airlines, UPS, Toyota, Zappos, and In-N-Out Burger. She focuses on four model retailers—Costco, Merca­dona, Trader Joe’s, and QuikTrip—to demonstrate the good jobs strategy at work and reveals four choices that have transformed these compa­nies� high investment in workers into lower costs, higher profits, and greater customer sat­isfaction.
Ěý
Full of surprising, counterintuitive insights, the book answers questions such How can offering fewer products increase customer sat­isfaction? Why would having more employees than you need reduce costs and boost profits? How can companies simultaneously standardize work and empower employees?
Ěý
The Good Jobs Strategy outlines an invaluable blueprint for any organization that wants to pur­sue a sustainable competitive strategy in which everyone—employees, customers, and investors—wins.
Ěý]]> 240 Zeynep Ton 0544114442 Joe 5 4.10 2015 The Good Jobs Strategy: How the Smartest Companies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs and Boost Profits
author: Zeynep Ton
name: Joe
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/03/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Dungeon Crawler Carl (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #1)]]> 56791389 Alternate cover edition of ASIN B08BKGYQXW


The apocalypse will be televised!

A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible.

In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth—from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds—collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground.

The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe.

Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over. In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your followers, your views. Your clout. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style.

You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big.

You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game—with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy.

They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it's anything but a game.]]> 446 Matt Dinniman Joe 0 to-read, next-up 4.49 2020 Dungeon Crawler Carl (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #1)
author: Matt Dinniman
name: Joe
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Lights Out (Into Darkness, #1)]]> 201017011 “I don’t need another kink.�

That thought pops into my head whenever I pull up my favorite social media app, but alas, every time I scroll, I learn something new about myself, and another one is born. And yes, I know I’m responsible for what the algorithm shows me, but I’m trying to ignore that fact.

Lately, my feed has been dominated by masked men. I’ve favorited videos with them dressed in full cosplay, decked out in futuristic military apparel, and wrapped up like ghouls.

But more than anything else, my FYP is filled with shirtless men wearing ghost masks. Bonus points if they’re heavily tattooed, wielding a knife, or covered in fake blood. At night, I dream about being chased by them, of them catching me and doing deliciously dark things to my more than willing body.

I never could have guessed that by sending one drunken text, those dreams would become my new reality.

Lights Out is a fast-paced dark romance with a morally grey male lead. Some themes and scenes may be disturbing to readers. Please check the TWs at the beginning of the book. ]]> 338 Navessa Allen Joe 0 to-read, romance-february 4.17 2024 Lights Out (Into Darkness, #1)
author: Navessa Allen
name: Joe
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: to-read, romance-february
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]]> The Winners (Beartown, #3) 60318890
As the locals of Beartown struggle to overcome the past, great change is on the horizon. Someone is coming home after a long time away. Someone will be laid to rest. Someone will fall in love, someone will try to fix their marriage, and someone will do anything to save their children. Someone will submit to hate, someone will fight, and someone will grab a gun and walk towards the ice rink.

So what are the residents of Beartown willing to sacrifice for their home?]]> 671 Fredrik Backman Joe 5 4.45 2022 The Winners (Beartown, #3)
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Joe
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
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]]> Alchemised 222490389 In this riveting dark fantasy debut, a woman with missing memories fights to survive a war-torn world of necromancy and alchemy—and the man tasked with unearthing the deepest secrets of her past.

“What is it you think you’re protecting in that brain of yours? The war is over. Holdfast is dead. The Eternal Flame extinguished. There’s no one left for you to save.�

Once a promising alchemist, Helena Marino is now a prisoner—of war and of her own mind. Her Resistance friends and allies have been brutally murdered, her abilities suppressed, and the world she knew destroyed.

In the aftermath of a long war, Paladia’s new ruling class of corrupt guild families and depraved necromancers, whose vile, undead creatures helped bring about their victory, holds Helena captive.

According to Resistance records, she was a healer of little importance within their ranks. But Helena has inexplicable memory loss of the months leading up to her capture, making her enemies wonder: Is she truly as insignificant as she appears, or are her lost memories hiding some vital piece of the Resistance’s final gambit?

To uncover the memories buried deep within her mind, Helena is sent to the High Reeve, one of the most powerful and ruthless necromancers in this new world. Trapped on his crumbling estate, Helena’s fight—to protect her lost history and to preserve the last remaining shreds of her former self—is just beginning. For her prison and captor have secrets of their own . . . secrets Helena must unearth, whatever the cost.]]> 1040 SenLinYu 0593972708 Joe 0 to-read 4.55 2025 Alchemised
author: SenLinYu
name: Joe
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/09
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]]> When McKinsey Comes to Town 60644838 **A NEW YORK TIMES AND THE TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022**

An explosive exposé of the world's most prestigious and successful management consultancy.

'Panoramic, meticulously reported and ultimately devastating' Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain

McKinsey earns billions advising almost every major corporation as well as countless governments, including Britain's, the USA's and China's. It boasts of its ability to maximise efficiency while making the world a better place. Its millionaire partners and network of alumni go on to top jobs in the world's most powerful organisations. And yet, shielded by non-disclosure agreements, its work remains largely secret - until now.

In this propulsive investigation, two prize-winning journalists reveal the reality. McKinsey's work includes ruthless cost-cutting in the NHS, incentivising the prescription of opioids and executing Trump's immigration policies (the ones that put children in cages). Meanwhile its vast profits derive from a client roster that has included the coal and tobacco industries, as well as some of the world's most unsavoury despots.

McKinsey proudly insists it is a values-led organisation. When McKinsey Comes to Town is a parable of values betrayed: a devastating portrait of a firm whose work has often made the world more unequal, more corrupt and more dangerous.

*A The Times Best Book of 2022*
'A story of secrecy, delusion and untold harm' Observer
'Astonishing ... makes you so angry you want to chuck rocks at its offices' Sunday Times
'Every page made my blood boil' Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel laureate]]> 368 Walt Bogdanich 1847926258 Joe 3 3.78 2022 When McKinsey Comes to Town
author: Walt Bogdanich
name: Joe
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/09
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]]> Foreigner (Foreigner, #1) 57043 Foreigner begins an epic tale of the survivors of a lost spacecraft who crash-land on a planet inhabited by a hostile, sentient alien race.

From its beginnings as a human-alien story of first contact, the Foreigner series has become a true science fiction odyssey, following a civilization from the age of steam through early space flight to confrontations with other alien species in distant sectors of space. It is the masterwork of a truly remarkable author.]]> 428 C.J. Cherryh 0756402514 Joe 0 to-read 3.92 1994 Foreigner (Foreigner, #1)
author: C.J. Cherryh
name: Joe
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/07
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]]> The Whisper Man 51540935
But the town has a dark past. Twenty years ago, a serial killer abducted and murdered five residents. Until Frank Carter was finally caught, he was nicknamed "The Whisper Man," for he would lure his victims out by whispering at their windows at night.

Just as Tom and Jake settle into their new home, a young boy vanishes. His disappearance bears an unnerving resemblance to Frank Carter's crimes, reigniting old rumors that he preyed with an accomplice. Now, detectives Amanda Beck and Pete Willis must find the boy before it is too late, even if that means Pete has to revisit his great foe in prison: The Whisper Man.

And then Jake begins acting strangely. He hears a whispering at his window...]]> 384 Alex North 1250318009 Joe 0 to-read, horror-october 3.98 2019 The Whisper Man
author: Alex North
name: Joe
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: to-read, horror-october
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]]> <![CDATA[A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2)]]> 50659468
Feyre has undergone more trials than one human woman can carry in her heart. Though she's now been granted the powers and lifespan of the High Fae, she is haunted by her time Under the Mountain and the terrible deeds she performed to save the lives of Tamlin and his people.

As her marriage to Tamlin approaches, Feyre's hollowness and nightmares consume her. She finds herself split into two different one who upholds her bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the feared Night Court, and one who lives out her life in the Spring Court with Tamlin. While Feyre navigates a dark web of politics, passion, and dazzling power, a greater evil looms. She might just be the key to stopping it, but only if she can harness her harrowing gifts, heal her fractured soul, and decide how she wishes to shape her future-and the future of a world in turmoil.

Bestselling author Sarah J. Maas's masterful storytelling brings this second book in her dazzling, sexy, action-packed series to new heights.]]> 626 Sarah J. Maas 1635575583 Joe 4 4.65 2016 A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2)
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Joe
average rating: 4.65
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)]]> 2
Harry has had enough. He is beginning to think he must do something, anything, to change his situation, when the summer holidays come to an end in a very dramatic fashion. What Harry is about to discover in his new year at Hogwarts will turn his world upside down...]]> 912 J.K. Rowling Joe 0 currently-reading 4.50 2003 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Joe
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Pietr the Latvian (Maigret, #1)]]> 18114335
What Maigret sought, and what he waited and watched out for, was the crack in the wall. In other words, the instant when the human being comes out from behind the opponent.

Who is Pietr the Latvian? Is he a gentleman thief? A Russian drinking absinthe in a grimy bar? A married Norwegian sea captain? A twisted corpse in a train bathroom? Or is he all of these men? Inspector Maigret, tracking a mysterious adversary and a trail of bodies, must bide his time before the answer can come into focus.

This one's a gripping translation. This Penguin Simenon series features brilliant renderings by some of today's best translators from French to English. "Pietr the Latvian," and the ones which follow, introduce the intrepid Inspector to a brand new audience.]]> 162 Georges Simenon 0141392738 Joe 0 to-read 3.45 1930 Pietr the Latvian (Maigret, #1)
author: Georges Simenon
name: Joe
average rating: 3.45
book published: 1930
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Family 274942
In The Family, this singular novelist transports his readers back to 15th century Rome, and reveals to us the extravagance and intrigue of the Vatican as surely as he once revealed the secrets of the Mafia. At the story's center is Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, a man whose lustful appetites were matched only by his consuming love of family. Surrounding him are his extraordinary children: simple, unloved Jofre; irascible, heartless Juan; beautiful, strong-willed Lucrezia; and passionate warrior Cesare, Machiavelli's friend and inspiration. Their stories constitute a symphony of human emotion and behavior, from pride to romance to jealousy to betrayal and murderous rage.

A labor of love two decades in the making, The Family marks the final triumph of one of the greatest storytellers of our time.]]> 418 Mario Puzo 0061032425 Joe 0 to-read 3.80 2001 The Family
author: Mario Puzo
name: Joe
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Bone Season (The Bone Season, #1)]]> 195391688 The lavishly reimagined 10th Anniversary Edition of the New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller.

The year is 2059. For two centuries, the Republic of Scion has led an oppressive campaign against unnaturalness in Europe.

In London, Paige Mahoney holds a high rank in the criminal underworld. The right hand of the ruthless White Binder, Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare and formidable kind of clairvoyant. Under Scion law, she commits treason simply by breathing.

When Paige is arrested for murder, she meets the mysterious founders of Scion, who have designs on her uncommon abilities. If she is to survive and escape, Paige must use every skill at her disposal � and put her trust in someone who ought to be her enemy.]]> 624 Samantha Shannon 163973418X Joe 0 to-read 3.99 2013 The Bone Season (The Bone Season, #1)
author: Samantha Shannon
name: Joe
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1408 42387893 62 Stephen King Joe 4 3.62 1408
author: Stephen King
name: Joe
average rating: 3.62
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/12
date added: 2025/03/01
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]]> Other Birds 59807954 An enchanting tale filled with magical realism and moments of pure love that won’t let you go.

Between the real and the imaginary, there are stories that take flight in the most extraordinary ways.

Right off the coast of South Carolina, on Mallow Island, The Dellawisp sits—a stunning old cobblestone building shaped like a horseshoe, and named after the tiny turquoise birds who, alongside its human tenants, inhabit an air of magical secrecy.

When Zoey comes to claim her deceased mother’s apartment at the Dellawisp she meets her quirky and secretive neighbors, including a young woman with a past, two estranged middle-aged sisters, and a lonely chef, and three ghosts. The sudden death of one of Zoey's new neighbors sets off a search that leads to the island's famous author and to a long-estranged relative of the sisters.
Each of them has a story, and each story has an ending which hasn't yet been written.]]> 290 Sarah Addison Allen 1250019869 Joe 0 to-read 4.00 2022 Other Birds
author: Sarah Addison Allen
name: Joe
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Four Seasons in Japan 124798505
It is a story about Ayako, a fierce and strict old woman who runs a coffee shop in the small town of Onomichi, where she has just taken guardianship of her grandson, Kyo. Haunted by long-buried family tragedy, both have suffered extreme loss and feel unable to open up to each other. As Flo follows the characters across a year in rural Japan, through the ups and downs of the pair's burgeoning relationship, she quickly realises that she needs to venture outside the pages of the book to track down its elusive author. And, as her two protagonists reveal themselves to have more in common with her life than first meets the eye, the lines between text and translator converge. The journey is just beginning.

From the author of The Cat and The City, Four Seasons in Japan is a gorgeously crafted book-within-a-book about literature, purpose and what it is to belong.]]> 336 Nick Bradley 085752934X Joe 0 to-read 4.20 2023 Four Seasons in Japan
author: Nick Bradley
name: Joe
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Time Shelter 58999261
In Time Shelter, an enigmatic flâneur named Gaustine opens a “clinic for the past� that offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time. As Gaustine’s assistant, the unnamed narrator is tasked with collecting the flotsam and jetsam of the past, from 1960s furniture and 1940s shirt buttons to scents and even afternoon light. But as the rooms become more convincing, an increasing number of healthy people seek out the clinic as a “time shelter”—a development that results in an unexpected conundrum when the past begins to invade the present. Intricately crafted, and eloquently translated by Angela Rodel, Time Shelter announces Gospodinov to American readers as an essential voice in international literature.]]> 304 Georgi Gospodinov 1324090952 Joe 0 to-read 3.59 2020 Time Shelter
author: Georgi Gospodinov
name: Joe
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The One 40670312 How far would you go to find The One?

A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab and soon you’ll be matched with your perfect partner the one you are genetically made for.

That’s the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance and love.

Now five very different people have received the notification that they’ve been “Matched.� They’re each about to meet their one true love. But “happily ever after� isn’t guaranteed for everyone. Because even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking than others�

A word-of-mouth hit in the United Kingdom, The One is a fascinating novel that shows how even the simplest discoveries can have complicated consequences.]]> 418 John Marrs Joe 0 to-read, romance-february 4.09 2016 The One
author: John Marrs
name: Joe
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: to-read, romance-february
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World]]> 123795133
“Our movements must seek and win governing power to achieve our visions for a more just society. This book is a vital resource for progressives who want to win.� —Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), chair, Congressional Progressive Caucus

How do underdogs, facing far stronger opponents, sometimes win? In the tradition of Saul Alinsky’sĚý Rules for Radicals Ěýand Sun Tzu’sĚý The Art of War , Deepak Bhargava and Stephanie Luce’sĚý Practical Radicals Ěýoffers winning strategies, history, and theory for a new generation of activists.

Based on interviews with leading organizers, this groundbreaking book describes seven strategies to bring about transformative change. It incorporates stories of organizations and movements that have won, including Make the Road NY, the St. Paul Federation of Educators, the welfare rights movement, the Working Families Party, New Georgia Project, Occupy Wall Street, 350 .org, the Fight for 15, and Gay Men’s Health Crisis. Two overarching case studies anchor the the brilliant techniques used by enslaved people and their allies to end slavery, and the sinister but effective ways elites imposed our current system.

Practical Radicals Ěýoffers insights on strategy used by business, military, and political elites, addresses the challenges of overcoming conflict within organizations and movements, and concludes with a discussion of how our movements must adapt to meet new challenges in the twenty-first century.

A book for activists, organizers, and anyone hoping to win the fight for a better society,Ěý Practical Radicals Ěýis a deeply informed resource designed to help us win on the big issues of our time.]]> 480 Deepak Bhargava 1620978210 Joe 0 to-read 4.26 2023 Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World
author: Deepak Bhargava
name: Joe
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Big Fan 211350358
Maya was a rising star in the political world until her ex-husband’s high-profile sex scandal nearly derailed her career. Landing a gubernatorial candidate like Teresa Powell is the fresh start she desperately needs � a chance to focus on meaningful work and leave the drama behind.

But then an email from her past sends her world spinning: Charlie, former lead singer of Mischief, the boy band that fueled her teenage obsession, is staging a solo comeback and wants Maya’s help to make it happen. Turns out, she likes the grown-up Charlie and his genuine engagement with the world.

Maya’s not about to ditch her political ambitions for a teenage crush, but if she can leverage Charlie to draw attention to the policies she cares about, shouldn’t she give it a try?]]> 176 Alexandra Romanoff Joe 4 3.79 Big Fan
author: Alexandra Romanoff
name: Joe
average rating: 3.79
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves:
review:

]]> The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Joe 5 4.11 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Joe
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/21
date added: 2025/02/21
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer]]> 35068432
"You’ll be silent forever, and I’ll be gone in the dark."

For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area.

Three decades later, Michelle McNamara, a true crime journalist who created the popular website TrueCrimeDiary.com, was determined to find the violent psychopath she called "the Golden State Killer." Michelle pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was.

At the time of the crimes, the Golden State Killer was between the ages of eighteen and thirty, Caucasian, and athletic—capable of vaulting tall fences. He always wore a mask. After choosing a victim—he favored suburban couples—he often entered their home when no one was there, studying family pictures, mastering the layout. He attacked while they slept, using a flashlight to awaken and blind them. Though they could not recognize him, his victims recalled his voice: a guttural whisper through clenched teeth, abrupt and threatening.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark—the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death—offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind. It is also a portrait of a woman’s obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth. Framed by an introduction by Gillian Flynn and an afterword by her husband, Patton Oswalt, the book was completed by Michelle’s lead researcher and a close colleague. Utterly original and compelling, it is destined to become a true crime classic—and may at last unmask the Golden State Killer.]]> 352 Michelle McNamara 0062319809 Joe 0 to-read 4.12 2018 I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer
author: Michelle McNamara
name: Joe
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Wood at Midwinter 206101583 'A church is a sort of wood. A wood is a sort of church. They're the same thing really.'

Nineteen-year-old Merowdis Scott is an unusual girl. She can talk to animals and trees—and she is only ever happy when she is walking in the woods.

One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst—and the path of her life is changed forever.

From the internationally bestselling and prize-winning author of Piranesi and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an enchanting, beautifully illustrated short story set in the Strange universe. Featuring an introduction by Susanna Clarke and gorgeous illustrations from Victoria Sawdon truly worthy of the magic of this story, this is a mesmerising, must-have addition to any fantasy reader's bookshelf.]]> 64 Susanna Clarke 1639734481 Joe 0 to-read 3.47 2024 The Wood at Midwinter
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Joe
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Rosie and the Dreamboat (The Improbable Meet-Cute, #3)]]> 200034154 USA Today bestselling author of The Hating Game.

Rosie Whittaker and her sister are up for some Galentine’s pampering at a day spa. Getting locked inside a flotation tank is so Rosie. Enter a firefighter hero determined to pry this luckless pearl out of her high-tech shell. All Rosie has to go on is a dreamy voice and a flirty sense of humor. Remain calm, Rosie. This could be what you’ve been waiting for. Is this the man she’s waited for her whole life?

Sally Thorne’s Rosie and the Dreamboat is part of The Improbable Meet-Cute, irresistibly romantic stories about finding love when and where you least expect it. They can be read or listened to in one sitting. Let’s make a date of it.]]> 44 Sally Thorne 1662520085 Joe 0 3.42 2024 Rosie and the Dreamboat (The Improbable Meet-Cute, #3)
author: Sally Thorne
name: Joe
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)]]> 6 734 J.K. Rowling 0439139597 Joe 5 4.56 2000 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Joe
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Paint It All Red (Mindf*ck, #5)]]> 33361549
Will Logan choose them? Or will we watch them burn together?

It's time to fuck with their minds.
It's time to finish it all.
It's time to paint it all red...

Monsters don't usually wish for happily-ever-afters.]]> 177 S.T. Abby Joe 4 4.56 2016 Paint It All Red (Mindf*ck, #5)
author: S.T. Abby
name: Joe
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves:
review:

]]> All Fours 197798168
A semifamous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to New York. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.

Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.]]> 336 Miranda July 0593190262 Joe 0 to-read 3.54 2024 All Fours
author: Miranda July
name: Joe
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> We Were the Lucky Ones 30267929
As one sibling is forced into exile, another attempts to flee the continent, while others struggle to escape certain death, either by working grueling hours on empty stomachs in the factories of the ghetto or by hiding as gentiles in plain sight. Driven by an unwavering will to survive and by the fear that they may never see one another again, the Kurcs must rely on hope, ingenuity, and inner strength to persevere.

An extraordinary, propulsive novel, We Were the Lucky Ones demonstrates how in the face of the twentieth century’s darkest moment, the human spirit can endure and even thrive.]]> 403 Georgia Hunter 0399563083 Joe 0 to-read 4.39 2017 We Were the Lucky Ones
author: Georgia Hunter
name: Joe
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> All the Lies (Mindf*ck, #4) 33361546
But that's never happened to me...

I've never felt conflicted on any case. Right is right and wrong is wrong. It's simple. Black and white. There's no such thing as a gray area.

But fuck this case. I don't even know what side I'm on anymore. I don't understand how this town can continue to function without breaking under the weight of all the lies they've spun and lived.

Every time I find a shard of truth, my gut twists, my heart beats faster, and I hate this place a little more. Every time I think I've heard the worst, another truth is dug up from the ashes of more burning lies.

Worst of all, I don't even know who to trust anymore. My head is all messed up.

I pride myself on being impossible to fool.
I'm an expert at knowing when someone is lying to me.
I never believed in being blinded by love...until Lana.

**BE WARNED: Some flashbacks can get intense to readers with a sensitive trigger. Skip the blocks in italics if that's the case.]]> 141 S.T. Abby Joe 4 4.52 2016 All the Lies (Mindf*ck, #4)
author: S.T. Abby
name: Joe
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves:
review:

]]> Water Moon 211480848 A woman inherits a pawnshop where you can sell your regrets, and then embarks on a magical journey when a charming young physicist wanders into the shop, in this dreamlike and enchanting fantasy novel.

On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only the chosen ones—those who are lost—will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets.

Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop’s new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen, and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike its other customers, for he offers help instead of seeking it.

Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice—by way of rain puddles, rides on paper cranes, the bridge between midnight and morning, and a night market in the clouds.

But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own—and risk making a choice that she will never be able to take back.]]> 372 Samantha Sotto Yambao 059372500X Joe 4 3.96 2025 Water Moon
author: Samantha Sotto Yambao
name: Joe
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids: Stories]]> 213959203 What do we owe our family and friends in times of wild uncertainty?

That’s the question the women of Leyna Krow’s beguiling, darkly fabulist, new story collection grapple with as they strive to be good mothers, daughters, sisters, grandmothers, wives, and companions in a world that is constantly shifting around them. Set in the Pacific Northwest, these stories blend high concept magic with the sometimes subtle, other times glaring, realities of climate change.

As protagonists contend with doppelgänger babies, hordes of time travelers, finicky ghosts, and neighborhood demons, there lurks in the background the effects of the region’s rapidly shifting environment. There are wildfires, wind storms, unrelenting heat, disrupted butterfly migration patterns, a new plague, and a catastrophe on the slopes of Mount Rainier that reverberates through three generations of a single family over the course of a half dozen linked stories.Ěý Ěý

With Krow’s signature blend of sardonic whimsy and unsettling insight, Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids imagines the rules to be broken, choices to be made, and even crimes to be had, for the sake of the people, and places, we love.]]> 304 Leyna Krow 0593299655 Joe 0 4.00 2025 Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids: Stories
author: Leyna Krow
name: Joe
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: to-read, books-by-people-i-know
review:

]]> Scarlet Angel (Mindf*ck, #3) 33304878
Logan Bennett makes me want to have a future not tainted by the constant hunger for revenge. Doesn't mean I can stop. Doesn't mean I want to stop. It just means I want more...one day.

But how do you make a good man love the monster inside you without stripping his soul away as well? He is all the best parts of me right now, resurrecting bits of my heart I forgot could even exist.

He makes me feel something other than cold.

He also thinks I'm weak and fragile. Something I laugh about to myself, while secretly soaking in all his protectiveness and concern.

If anyone touches him, harms him, or even threatens him, then they should probably run. Because his girlfriend is a little bit crazy. They just don't know it yet.]]> 139 S.T. Abby Joe 3 4.40 2016 Scarlet Angel (Mindf*ck, #3)
author: S.T. Abby
name: Joe
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/10
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves:
review:

]]> Sidetracked (Mindf*ck, #2) 33271162 Or at least I was...until her.

****
LOGAN

I've had tunnel vision for one main goal for so long, that I forgot there was a whole other world just outside. Until Lana.

She's everything I never expected, and I love the fact I can never guess her every move or reaction. It's part of the reason I keep falling. But I also know she shuts me out, hides things from me she feels she can't share.

One day, I hope she trusts me enough to share.

It isn't until my job puts her at risk that I realize just how fierce she is, but it doesn't stop me from doing all I can to protect her. I should walk away to protect her better, but I can't. Instead, I'm forced to find other ways to keep her safe.

I just hope it's enough.

Though she is fierce, she's still fragile...

Right?]]> 115 S.T. Abby Joe 3 4.37 2016 Sidetracked (Mindf*ck, #2)
author: S.T. Abby
name: Joe
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/10
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves:
review:

]]> The Risk (Mindf*ck, #1) 33155479 Left too little.
I had nothing to lose...until him.
**
~Lana~
I didn't expect him.
I didn't want to fall in love.
But I can't let him go.
Logan Bennett makes the world a safer place.
He's brilliant.
He's a hero.
He locks away the sick and depraved.
But while he's saving lives, I'm taking them. Collecting the debts that are owed to me.
Ten years ago, they took from me. They left me for dead.
They should have made sure I stayed dead.
Now I'm taking from them.
One name at a time.
I've trained for too long.
I've been patient.
I can't stop now.
Revenge is best served cold...
They never see me coming, until I paint their walls red.
Logan doesn't know how they hurt me. He doesn't know about the screams they ignored. He doesn't know how twisted that town really is.
He just knows people are dying.
He doesn't know he's in love with their killer.
No one suspects a dead girl.
And Logan doesn't suspect the girl in his bed.
They're looking for a monster.
Not a girl who loves red.
Not a girl in love.
I'm a faceless nightmare.
At least until I tell them the story they've pretended never happened.
But in the end, will Logan choose them? Or will we watch them burn together?
**Graphic
**Adult language
**Some triggers could be too much for the easily disturbed reader
**Sexual content
**Fucked up moral compass; read at your own risk.]]> 132 S.T. Abby Joe 3 4.36 2016 The Risk (Mindf*ck, #1)
author: S.T. Abby
name: Joe
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Rosie Project (Don Tillman, #1)]]> 16181775
Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a “wonderful� husband, his first reaction is shock. Yet he must concede to the statistical probability that there is someone for everyone, and he embarks upon The Wife Project. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which he approaches all things, Don sets out to find the perfect partner. She will be punctual and logical—most definitely not a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.

Yet Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also beguiling, fiery, intelligent—and on a quest of her own. She is looking for her biological father, a search that a certain DNA expert might be able to help her with. Don's Wife Project takes a back burner to the Father Project and an unlikely relationship blooms, forcing the scientifically minded geneticist to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie—and the realization that love is not always what looks good on paper.

The Rosie Project is a moving and hilarious novel for anyone who has ever tenaciously gone after life or love in the face of overwhelming challenges.]]> 292 Graeme Simsion 1476729085 Joe 4 4.00 2013 The Rosie Project (Don Tillman, #1)
author: Graeme Simsion
name: Joe
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Unexplainable Happenings: Chilling True Stories]]> 100183306 Unexplainable Happenings is a thoughtfully-curated anthology series of occurrences most would deem impossible. Bone-chilling beholdings, unwilled encounters, and the unthinkable all come together to create an unusual and genuine series.]]> 131 Autumn Barnes Joe 0 to-read, horror-october 4.19 Unexplainable Happenings: Chilling True Stories
author: Autumn Barnes
name: Joe
average rating: 4.19
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read, horror-october
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #2)]]> 199347538 Somewhere Beyond the Sea is the hugely anticipated sequel to TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea, one of the best-loved and best-selling fantasy novels of the past decade. Featuring gorgeous orange sprayed edges!

A magical house. A secret past. A summons that could change everything.

Arthur Parnassus lives a good life built on the ashes of a bad one.

He’s the master of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six dangerous and magical children who live there.

Arthur works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. He is not alone: joining him is the love of his life, Linus Baker, a former caseworker in the Department In Charge of Magical Youth. And there’s the island’s sprite, Zoe Chapelwhite, and her girlfriend, Mayor Helen Webb. Together, they will do anything to protect the children.

But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve.

And when a new magical child hopes to join them on their island home—one who finds power in calling himself monster, a name that Arthur worked so hard to protect his children from—Arthur knows they’re at a breaking point: their family will either grow stronger than ever or fall apart.

Welcome back to Marsyas Island. This is Arthur’s story.

Somewhere Beyond the Sea is a story of resistance, lovingly told, about the daunting experience of fighting for the life you want to live and doing the work to keep it.]]> 416 T.J. Klune 125088120X Joe 4 4.17 2024 Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #2)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Joe
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End]]> 28116754 A Times Literary Supplement Best Book of 2016

An epic, groundbreaking account of the ethnic and state violence that followed the end of World War I―conflicts that would shape the course of the twentieth century.

For the Western Allies, November 11, 1918, has always been a solemn date―the end of fighting that had destroyed a generation, but also a vindication of a terrible sacrifice with the total collapse of the principal enemies: the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. But for much of the rest of Europe this was a day with no meaning, as a continuing, nightmarish series of conflicts engulfed country after country.

In The Vanquished, a highly original and gripping work of history, Robert Gerwarth asks us to think again about the true legacy of the First World War. In large part it was not the fighting on the Western Front that proved so ruinous to Europe’s future, but the devastating aftermath, as countries on both sides of the original conflict were savaged by revolutions, pogroms, mass expulsions, and further major military clashes. In the years immediately after the armistice, millions would die across central, eastern, and southeastern Europe before the Soviet Union and a series of rickety and exhausted small new states would come into being. It was here, in the ruins of Europe, that extreme ideologies such as fascism would take shape and ultimately emerge triumphant.

As absorbing in its drama as it is unsettling in its analysis, The Vanquished is destined to transform our understanding of not just the First World War but the twentieth century as a whole.]]> 446 Robert Gerwarth 0374282455 Joe 0 to-read 4.13 2016 The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End
author: Robert Gerwarth
name: Joe
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[A Short History of Nearly Everything]]> 21 544 Bill Bryson 076790818X Joe 0 to-read 4.21 2003 A Short History of Nearly Everything
author: Bill Bryson
name: Joe
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> Set Piece 220715452 A chance encounter leaves a breakout TV star and no-nonsense bartender wanting more, but life gets in the way. They find each other again five years later, while working on a movie set—but is there room in their lives for this second chance at romance?

Even one year ago, no one would have recognized Jack Felgate at a bar. But after his steamy breakout TV role, he's surprised to be swarmed by fans during a night out with friends. When the practical bartender CJ intervenes to fend off his admirers, he's grateful—and more than a little eager to stick around for an after-hours drink–turned–tryst.

Five years later, Jack shows up to set for his starring role in (yet another?!) adaptation of The Great Gatsby only to find CJ is the film’s production designer. But neither of them is the same person they were back CJ is a single mom with a four-year-old, and Jack is a bona fide celebrity managing ceaseless demands on his time and attention.

Their chemistry hasn’t dimmed since they saw each other last, but is there room in their lives for anything more than one very memorable night together?

831 Stories is a modern romantic fiction company that prioritizes pleasure reading and celebrates the genre’s joyful, enthusiastic fans.]]> 224 Lana Schwartz Joe 0 to-read, romance-february 3.84 Set Piece
author: Lana Schwartz
name: Joe
average rating: 3.84
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read, romance-february
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Filthy Rich Fae (Filthy Rich Fae, #1)]]> 133938981 “You made a bargain...
Your soul for his―and now, you are mine.�

Cate Holloway knows the unspoken rule of New Orleans: avoid the powerful Gage crime family at all costs. Of course, that was before her brother got caught in their chaos. Now Cate has no choice but to confront the dark and forbidding prince of New Orleans himself and beg for her brother’s life.

But Lachlan Gage is as lethal as he is beautiful…and the only currency he’s interested in is her soul.

Because Lachlan isn’t just some ruthless criminal. He’s fae. And he has his own secret reasons for binding her to him.

Tricked and desperate, Cate is torn between humanity and the breathtaking Otherworld. A place filled with shadows and secrets, with members of each fae court plotting against her just as her captor’s motives for trapping her become more mysterious.

And if she can’t break this sinister bargain in the next thirty days, she’ll be bound to the inscrutable yet infuriatingly tempting fae prince and his deadly world…forever.]]> 364 Geneva Lee 1649375778 Joe 0 to-read, romance-february 3.98 2024 Filthy Rich Fae (Filthy Rich Fae, #1)
author: Geneva Lee
name: Joe
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read, romance-february
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ender’s Game (Ender's Saga, #1)]]> 375802
But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway almost as long. Ender's two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. While Peter was too uncontrollably violent, Valentine very nearly lacks the capability for violence altogether. Neither was found suitable for the military's purpose. But they are driven by their jealousy of Ender, and by their inbred drive for power. Peter seeks to control the political process, to become a ruler. Valentine's abilities turn more toward the subtle control of the beliefs of commoner and elite alike, through powerfully convincing essays. Hiding their youth and identities behind the anonymity of the computer networks, these two begin working together to shape the destiny of Earth-an Earth that has no future at all if their brother Ender fails.]]> 324 Orson Scott Card 0812550706 Joe 5 4.31 1985 Ender’s Game (Ender's Saga, #1)
author: Orson Scott Card
name: Joe
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1985
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/02/01
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]]> Ten Incarnations of Rebellion 218460368 From the New York Times bestselling author of Kaikeyi comes an epic and daring novel that imagines an alternate version of India that was never liberated from the British, and a young woman who will change the tides of history.

Kalki Divekar grows up a daughter of Kingston—a city the British built on the ashes of Bombay. The older generation, including her father, have been lost to the brutal hunt for rebels. Young men are drafted to fight wars they will never return from. And the people of her city are more interested in fighting each other than facing their true oppressors.

When tragedy strikes close to home, Kalki and her group of friends begin to play a dangerous game, obtaining jobs working for the British while secretly planning to destroy the empire from the inside out. They found Kingston's new independence movement, knowing one wrong move means certain death. Facing threats from all quarters, Kalki must decide whether it’s more important to be a hero or to survive.

Told as ten moments from Kalki’s life that mirror the Dashavatara, the ten avatars of Vishnu, Ten Incarnations of Rebellion is a sweeping, deeply felt speculative novel of empowerment, friendship, self-determination, and the true meaning of freedom.]]> 320 Vaishnavi Patel 0593874765 Joe 0 to-read 4.22 2025 Ten Incarnations of Rebellion
author: Vaishnavi Patel
name: Joe
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Princess Bride 21787
As a boy, William Goldman claims, he loved to hear his father read the S. Morgenstern classic, The Princess Bride. But as a grown-up he discovered that the boring parts were left out of good old Dad's recitation, and only the "good parts" reached his ears.

Now Goldman does Dad one better. He's reconstructed the "Good Parts Version" to delight wise kids and wide-eyed grownups everywhere.

What's it about? Fencing. Fighting. True Love. Strong Hate. Harsh Revenge. A Few Giants. Lots of Bad Men. Lots of Good Men. Five or Six Beautiful Women. Beasties Monstrous and Gentle. Some Swell Escapes and Captures. Death, Lies, Truth, Miracles, and a Little Sex.

In short, it's about everything.]]> 429 William Goldman 0345418263 Joe 0 to-read, romance-february 4.27 1973 The Princess Bride
author: William Goldman
name: Joe
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1973
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves: to-read, romance-february
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping]]> 123029113 A whimsical and heartwarming novel about a witch who has a second chance to get her magical powers—and her life—back on track, from the national bestselling author of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches.

Sera Swan used to be one of the most powerful witches in Britain. Then she resurrected her great-aunt Jasmine from the (very recently) dead, lost most of her magic, befriended a semi-villainous talking fox, and was exiled from her Guild. Now she (slightly reluctantly and just a bit grumpily) helps her aunt run an enchanted inn in Lancashire, where she deals with her quirky guests' shenanigans, tries to keep said talking fox in check, and longs for the future that seems lost to her. But then she finds out about an old spell that could hold the key to restoring her power�

Enter Luke Larsen, handsome and icy magical historian, who arrives on a dark winter evening and might just know how to unlock the spell’s secrets. Luke has absolutely no interest in getting involved in the madcap goings-on of the inn and is definitely not about to let a certain bewitching innkeeper past his walls, so no one is more surprised than he is when he agrees to help Sera with her spell. Worse, he might actually be thawing.

Running an inn, reclaiming lost magic, and staying one step ahead of the watchful Guild is a lot for anyone, but Sera Swan is about to discover that she doesn’t have to do it alone...and that the weird, wonderful family she’s made might be the best magic of all.]]> 336 Sangu Mandanna Joe 0 to-read, romance-february 4.34 2025 A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping
author: Sangu Mandanna
name: Joe
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves: to-read, romance-february
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]]> <![CDATA[Butcher & Blackbird (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #1)]]> 196864520

The viral TikTok friends-to-lovers dark romantic comedy full of murder, chaos, and spice—unlike anything you’ve read before—now available in all bookstores.


When a chance encounter sparks an unlikely bond between rival murderers Sloane and Rowan, the two find something elusive—the friendship of like-minded, pitch-black souls. From small town West Virginia to upscale California, from downtown Boston to rural Texas, the two hunters collide in an annual game of blood and suffering, one that pits them against the most dangerous monsters in the country.


But as their friendship develops into something more, the restless ghosts left in their wake are only a few steps behind, ready to claim more than just their newfound love. Can Rowan and Sloane dig themselves out of a game of graves? Or have they finally met their match?

]]> 360 Brynne Weaver Joe 0 to-read, romance-february 4.00 2023 Butcher & Blackbird (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #1)
author: Brynne Weaver
name: Joe
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves: to-read, romance-february
review:

]]> The Night Circus 9361589
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.]]> 506 Erin Morgenstern Joe 0 to-read, romance-february 4.00 2011 The Night Circus
author: Erin Morgenstern
name: Joe
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves: to-read, romance-february
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind]]> 23692271 512 Yuval Noah Harari Joe 5 4.34 2011 Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
author: Yuval Noah Harari
name: Joe
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/01/29
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]]> Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3) 209668781
Because the battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who to trust.

Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything.

They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth.

But a storm is coming...and not everyone can survive its wrath.]]> 758 Rebecca Yarros 1649376944 Joe 4 4.43 2025 Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Joe
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/27
date added: 2025/01/28
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]]> <![CDATA[The Shadow of What Was Lost (The Licanius Trilogy, #1)]]> 22878967 It has been twenty years since the end of the war. The dictatorial Augurs—once thought of almost as gods—were overthrown and wiped out during the conflict, their much-feared powers mysteriously failing them. Those who had ruled under them, men and women with a lesser ability known as the Gift, avoided the Augurs' fate only by submitting themselves to the rebellion's Four Tenets. A representation of these laws is now written into the flesh of any who use the Gift, forcing those so marked into absolute obedience.

As a student of the Gifted, Davian suffers the consequences of a war fought—and lost—before he was born. Despised by most beyond the school walls, he and those around him are all but prisoners as they attempt to learn control of the Gift. Worse, as Davian struggles with his lessons, he knows that there is further to fall if he cannot pass his final tests.

But when Davian discovers he has the ability to wield the forbidden power of the Augurs, he sets into motion a chain of events that will change everything. To the north, an ancient enemy long thought defeated begins to stir. And to the west, a young man whose fate is intertwined with Davian’s wakes up in the forest, covered in blood and with no memory of who he is…]]> 602 James Islington 099258020X Joe 0 to-read 4.13 2014 The Shadow of What Was Lost (The Licanius Trilogy, #1)
author: James Islington
name: Joe
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Blood Over Bright Haven 208430658 Magic has made the city of Tiran an industrial utopia, but magic has a cost—and the collectors have come calling.

An orphan since the age of four, Sciona has always had more to prove than her fellow students. For twenty years, she has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry. When she finally claws her way up the ranks to become a highmage, however, she finds that her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues will stop at nothing to let her know she is unwelcome, beginning with giving her a janitor instead of a qualified lab assistant.

What neither Sciona nor her peers realize is that her taciturn assistant was once more than a janitor; before he mopped floors for the mages, Thomil was a nomadic hunter from beyond Tiran’s magical barrier. Ten years have passed since he survived the perilous crossing that killed his family. But working for a highmage, he sees the opportunity to finally understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the Tiranish in power.

Through their fractious relationship, mage and outsider uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever—if it doesn’t get them killed first. Sciona has defined her life by the pursuit of truth, but how much is one truth worth with the fate of civilization in the balance?

A standalone dark academia brimming with mystery, tragedy, and the damning echoes of the past. For fans of Leigh Bardugo, V. E. Schwab, and Fullmetal Alchemist.

(Content warnings for gore, sexual assault, and suicidal ideation)]]> 430 M.L. Wang 0593873351 Joe 0 to-read 4.41 2023 Blood Over Bright Haven
author: M.L. Wang
name: Joe
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days 893590 231 Alastair Reynolds 0575075163 Joe 0 to-read 3.98 2001 Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days
author: Alastair Reynolds
name: Joe
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Martyr! 139400713 Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others—in which a newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a search that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum.

Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of Tehran in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the Angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.

Electrifying, funny, wholly original, and profound, Martyr! heralds the arrival of a blazing and essential new voice in contemporary fiction.]]> 331 Kaveh Akbar 0593537610 Joe 0 to-read 4.22 2024 Martyr!
author: Kaveh Akbar
name: Joe
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[ADHD is Awesome: A Guide to (Mostly) Thriving with ADHD]]> 180352087 Hi, friend! Welcome to the ADHD club.

You're here because, like me, you've been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder—which, by the way, just might be the worst name for a condition ever—and you're trying to figure out how to make your life a little more manageable. Or because, like my wife, Kim, you love, teach, or work with someone who has ADHD, and you're trying to figure out how to best support them.

The world isn't built for ADHDers, and navigating it can wear us down. But we'll let you in on a little secret: having ADHD doesn't have to be a burden. It can actually be a superpower that propels you to creative heights and allows you to achieve more than you ever thought possible.

We want to give you a new perspective on ADHD, whether it's your own brain or a friend or family member's that you're trying to understand. We hope you come away with strategies you can employ to make things a little easier. (We also hope you laugh out loud, at least once or twice.)

Most of all, we want you to silence that voice that whispers that you're broken or a mess or a failure. None of that is true. You have ADHD—and that makes you awesome.

—Penn Holderness]]> 292 Penn Holderness 1400338611 Joe 5 4.22 2024 ADHD is Awesome: A Guide to (Mostly) Thriving with ADHD
author: Penn Holderness
name: Joe
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/19
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]]> Seveneves 22816087
A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space.

But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain . . .

Five thousand years later, their progeny—seven distinct races now three billion strong—embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown . . . to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.

A writer of dazzling genius and imaginative vision, Neal Stephenson combines science, philosophy, technology, psychology, and literature in a magnificent work of speculative fiction that offers a portrait of a future that is both extraordinary and eerily recognizable. As he did in Anathem, Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle, and Reamde, Stephenson explores some of our biggest ideas and perplexing challenges in a breathtaking saga that is daring, engrossing, and altogether brilliant.]]> 872 Neal Stephenson Joe 0 to-read 4.01 2015 Seveneves
author: Neal Stephenson
name: Joe
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: to-read
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]]> Delta-v (Delta-v, #1) 40859000
Isolated and pushed beyond their breaking points, Tighe and his fellow twenty-first century adventurers--ex-soldiers, former astronauts, BASE jumpers, and mountain climbers--must rely on each other to survive not only the dangers of a multi-year expedition but the harsh realities of business in space. They're determined to transform humanity from an Earth-bound species to a space-faring one--or die trying.]]> 437 Daniel Suarez 1524742414 Joe 0 to-read 4.11 2019 Delta-v (Delta-v, #1)
author: Daniel Suarez
name: Joe
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Splinter Effect (Splinter Effect, #1)]]> 211004050 In this action-packed debut, time traveling archaeologist Rabbit Ward maneuvers through the past to recover a long-lost, precious menorah hiding out in ancient Rome.

Smithsonian archaeologist Rabbit Ward travels through time on sponsored expeditions to the past to secure precious artifacts moments before they are lost to history. Although exceptional at his job, Rabbit is not without faults. In a spectacular failure twenty years ago, he lost both the menorah of the second temple and his hot-headed mentee, Aaron. So, when new evidence reveals the menorah’s reappearance in 6th century Constantinople, Rabbit seizes the chance for redemption.

But from the moment he arrives in the past, things start to go wrong. Rabbit quickly finds out that his prime competition, an unlicensed and annoyingly appealing “stringer� named Helen, is also in Constantinople hunting the menorah. And that’s only the beginning. The oppressed Jewish population of the city is primed for revolution, Constantinople’s leading gang seems to have it out for Rabbit personally, and someone local is interested enough in the menorah to kill for it.

As the past closes in on him and his previous failures compound, will Rabbit be able to recover the menorah before it's once again lost in time?

With new and old dangers alike hiding behind every corner, time might just be up for Rabbit’s redemption—and possibly his life.]]> 320 Andrew Ludington 1250349303 Joe 4 3.95 2025 Splinter Effect (Splinter Effect, #1)
author: Andrew Ludington
name: Joe
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/19
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]]> Vicious (Villains, #1) 40874032 A masterful tale of ambition, jealousy, desire, and superpowers.

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.

Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?

In Vicious, V. E. Schwab brings to life a gritty comic-book-style world in vivid prose: a world where gaining superpowers doesn't automatically lead to heroism, and a time when allegiances are called into question.]]> 402 Victoria E. Schwab Joe 0 to-read 4.17 2013 Vicious (Villains, #1)
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Joe
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History (Maus, #1)]]> 15196
A brutally moving work of art—widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written—Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author’s father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats.

Maus is a haunting tale within a tale, weaving the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father into an astonishing retelling of one of history's most unspeakable tragedies. It is an unforgettable story of survival and a disarming look at the legacy of trauma.]]> 159 Art Spiegelman 0394541553 Joe 0 to-read 4.39 1986 Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History (Maus, #1)
author: Art Spiegelman
name: Joe
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Several People Are Typing 152000548
Told entirely through clever and captivating Slack messages, this irresistible, relatable satire of both virtual work and contemporary life is The Office for a new world.

Gerald, a mid-level employee of a New York–based public relations firm has been uploaded into the company’s internal Slack channels—at least his consciousness has. His colleagues assume it’s an elaborate gag to exploit the new work-from home policy, but now that Gerald’s productivity is through the roof, his bosses are only too happy to let him work from . . . wherever he says he is.

Faced with the looming abyss of a disembodied life online, Gerald enlists his co-worker Pradeep to help him escape, and to find out what happened to his body. But the longer Gerald stays in the void, the more alluring and absurd his reality becomes.

Meanwhile, Gerald’s colleagues have PR catastrophes of their own to handle in the real world. Their biggest client, a high-end dog food company, is in the midst of recalling a bad batch of food that’s allegedly poisoning Pomeranians nationwide. And their CEO suspects someone is sabotaging his office furniture. And if Gerald gets to work from home all the time, why can’t everyone? Is true love possible between two people, when one is just a line of text in an app? And what in the hell does the :dusty-stick: emoji mean?

In a time when office paranoia and politics have followed us home, Calvin Kasulke is here to capture the surprising, absurd, and fully-relatable factors attacking our collective sanity…and give us hope that we can still find a human connection.]]> 250 Calvin Kasulke Joe 4 3.66 2021 Several People Are Typing
author: Calvin Kasulke
name: Joe
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/12
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]]> Love You a Latke 205804581 Love comes home for the challah-days in this sparkling romance.

Snow is falling, holiday lights are twinkling, and Abby Cohen is pissed. For one thing, her most annoying customer, Seth, has been coming into her cafĂ© every morning with his sunshiny attitude, determined to break down her carefully constructed emotional walls. And, as the only Jew on the tourism board of her Vermont town, Abby's been charged with planningĚýtheir fledgling Hanukkah festival. Unfortunately, the local vendors don’t understand that the story of Hanukkah cannot be told with light-up plastic figures from the Nativity scene, even if the Three Wise Men wear yarmulkes.

Desperate for support, Abby puts out a call for help online and discovers she was wrong about being the only Jew within a hundred miles. There's one Seth.

As it turns out, Seth’s parents have been badgering him to bring a Nice Jewish Girlfriend home to New York City for Hanukkah, and if Abby can survive his incessant, irritatinglyĚýhandsome smiles, he’ll introduce her to all the vendors she needs to make the festival a success. But over latkes, doughnuts, and winter adventures in Manhattan, Abby begins to realize that her fake boyfriend and his family might just be igniting a flame in her own guarded heart.]]> 368 Amanda Elliot 0593815831 Joe 4 3.80 2024 Love You a Latke
author: Amanda Elliot
name: Joe
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/11
date added: 2025/01/11
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]]> The Maidens 45300567
Mariana Andros is a brilliant but troubled group therapist who becomes fixated on The Maidens when one member, a friend of Mariana’s niece Zoe, is found murdered in Cambridge.

Mariana, who was once herself a student at the university, quickly suspects that behind the idyllic beauty of the spires and turrets, and beneath the ancient traditions, lies something sinister. And she becomes convinced that, despite his alibi, Edward Fosca is guilty of the murder. But why would the professor target one of his students? And why does he keep returning to the rites of Persephone, the maiden, and her journey to the underworld?

When another body is found, Mariana’s obsession with proving Fosca’s guilt spirals out of control, threatening to destroy her credibility as well as her closest relationships. But Mariana is determined to stop this killer, even if it costs her everything—including her own life.]]> 337 Alex Michaelides 1250304458 Joe 0 to-read, next-up 3.61 2021 The Maidens
author: Alex Michaelides
name: Joe
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Assassin's Quest (Farseer Trilogy, #3)]]> 33396914
But Fitz will not wait. Driven by loss and bitter memories, he undertakes a quest: to kill Regal. The journey casts him into deep waters, as he discovers wild currents of magic within him--currents that will either drown him or make him something more than he was.]]> 757 Robin Hobb Joe 0 to-read, next-up 4.21 1997 Assassin's Quest (Farseer Trilogy, #3)
author: Robin Hobb
name: Joe
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/06
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]]> <![CDATA[A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan, #2)]]> 45154547 WINNER OF THE 2022 HUGO AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL
Now a USA Today bestseller!
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2021
Amazon's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2021
Bookpage's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2021
Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ Choice Awards Nominee for Best Science Fiction Book of 2021

A Desolation Called Peace is the spectacular space opera sequel to Arkady Martine's genre-reinventing, Hugo Award-winning debut, A Memory Called Empire.

An alien armada lurks on the edges of Teixcalaanli space. No one can communicate with it, no one can destroy it, and Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus is running out of options.

In a desperate attempt at diplomacy with the mysterious invaders, the fleet captain has sent for a diplomatic envoy. Now Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass—still reeling from the recent upheaval in the Empire—face the impossible task of trying to communicate with a hostile entity.

Their failure will guarantee millions of deaths in an endless war. Their success might prevent Teixcalaan’s destruction—and allow the empire to continue its rapacious expansion.

Or it might create something far stranger . . .
]]> 496 Arkady Martine 125018648X Joe 0 to-read, next-up 4.31 2021 A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan, #2)
author: Arkady Martine
name: Joe
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/06
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]]> The Last Jew 4696
Yonah Toledano, the 15-year-old son of a celebrated Spanish silversmith, has seen his father and brother die during these terrible days - victims whose murders go almost unnoticed in a time of mass upheaval. Trapped in Spain by circumstances, he is determined to honor the memory of his family by remaining a Jew.

On a donkey named Moise, Yonah begins a meandering journey, a young fugitive zigzagging across the vastness of Spain. Toiling at manual labor, he desperately tries to cling to his memories of a vanished culture. As a lonely shepherd on a mountaintop he hurls snatches of almost forgotten Hebrew at the stars, as an apprentice armorer he learns to fight like a Christian knight. Finally, as a man living in a time and land where danger from the Inquisition is everywhere, he deals with the questions that mark his past. How he discovers the answers, how he finds his way to a singular and strong Marrano woman, how he achieves a life with the outer persona of a respected Old Christian physician and the inner life of a secret Jew, is the fabric of this novel. The Last Jew is a glimpse of the past, an authentic tale of high adventure, and a tender and unforgettable love story. In it, Noah Gordon utilizes his greatest strengths, and the result is remarkable and moving.]]> 348 Noah Gordon 0312300530 Joe 0 to-read, next-up 4.14 1999 The Last Jew
author: Noah Gordon
name: Joe
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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]]> The Order of the Day 41966091 The Order of the Day tells the story of the pivotal meetings which took place between the European powers in the run-up to World War Two. What emerges is a fascinating and incredibly moving account of failed diplomacy, broken relationships, and the catastrophic momentum which led to conflict.

The titans of German industry - set to prosper under the Nazi government - gather to lend their support to Adolf Hitler. The Austrian Chancellor realizes too late that he has wandered into a trap, as Hitler delivers the ultimatum that will lay the groundwork for Germany's annexation of Austria. Winston Churchill joins Neville Chamberlain for a farewell luncheon held in honour of Joachim von Ribbentrop: German Ambassador to England, soon to be Foreign Minister in the Nazi government, and future defendant at the Nuremberg trials.

Suffused with dramatic tension, this unforgettable novel tells the tragic story of how the actions of a few powerful men brought the world to the brink of war.]]> 160 Éric Vuillard 1529001471 Joe 5 3.88 2017 The Order of the Day
author: Éric Vuillard
name: Joe
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/01/05
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]]> An Honorable Exit 61756761 From the award-winning author of The Order of the Day, a piercing account of the lesser-known conflict preceding the Vietnam War that dealt a fatal blow to French colonialism.

How can a modern army lose to an army of peasants?

Delving into the last gasps of the First Indochina War (1946�1954), which saw the communist Việt Minh take control of North Vietnam, Éric Vuillard vividly illustrates the attitudes that both enabled French colonialist abuses and ultimately led to their defeat and withdrawal. From the Michelin rubber plantation, where horrific working conditions sparked an epidemic of suicides, to the battlefield, a sense of superiority over the “yellow men� pervaded European and American forces. And, as with so many conflicts throughout history, there were key actors with a motivation deeper than nationalism or political ideology—greed.

An Honorable Exit not only brings to life scenes from the war, but also looks beyond the visceral reality on the ground to the colder calculations of those who seek to benefit from conflict, whether shrewd bankers, who can turn a military win or loss into financial gain, or intelligence operatives like the CIA, who aim to influence governments across the globe.]]> 192 Éric Vuillard 163542352X Joe 0 to-read 3.78 2022 An Honorable Exit
author: Éric Vuillard
name: Joe
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/05
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]]> <![CDATA[The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1)]]> 19161852
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze -- the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years -- collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.

Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She'll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.]]> 468 N.K. Jemisin Joe 3 4.29 2015 The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1)
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Joe
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2025/01/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1)]]> 46756 Oryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey–with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake–through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.]]> 389 Margaret Atwood Joe 4 4.01 2003 Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Joe
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2003
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/01/04
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]]> 11/22/63 10644930
In 2011, Jake Epping, an English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, sets out on an insane � and insanely possible � mission to prevent the Kennedy assassination.

Leaving behind a world of computers and mobile phones, he goes back to a time of big American cars and diners, of Lindy Hopping, the sound of Elvis, and the taste of root beer.

In this haunting world, Jake falls in love with Sadie, a beautiful high school librarian. And, as the ominous date of 11/22/63 approaches, he encounters a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald...]]> 849 Stephen King 1451627289 Joe 5 4.33 2011 11/22/63
author: Stephen King
name: Joe
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/01/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5)]]> 203608754 The long-awaited explosive climax to the first arc of the #1 New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive.

Dalinar Kholin has challenged the evil god Odium to a contest of champions, and the Knights Radiant and the nations of Roshar have a mere 10 days to prepare for the worst. The fate of the entire world—and the Cosmere at large—hangs in the balance.]]> 1330 Brandon Sanderson 125031917X Joe 4 4.62 2024 Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Joe
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Every Man for Himself and God Against All: A Memoir]]> 78292253 Legendary filmmaker and celebrated author Werner Herzog tells in his inimitable voice the story of his epic artistic career in a long-awaited memoir that is as inventive and daring as anything he has done before

WernerĚýHerzogĚýwas born in September 1942 in Munich, Germany, at a turning point in theĚýSecondĚýWorldĚýWar. Soon Germany would be defeated and a new world would have to be made out the rubble and horrors of the war. Fleeing the Allied bombing raids,ĚýHerzog’s mother took him and his older brotherĚýtoĚýa remote, rustic part of Bavaria where he would spend much of his childhoodĚýhungry, without running water, in deep poverty. It was there,Ěýas the new postwar order was emerging, that one of the most visionary filmmakers of the next seven decades was formed. Ěý

Until age 11,ĚýHerzogĚýdid not even know of the existence of cinema. His interest in films began at age 15, but since no one was willing to finance them, he worked the night shift as a welder in a steel factory. He started to travel on foot. He made his first phone call at age 17, and his first film in 1961 at age 19. The wildlyĚýproductive working life that followed—spanning the seven continents and encompassing both documentary and fiction—was an adventure as grand andĚýotherworldly as any depicted in his many classic films.

Every Man for Himself and God Against All is at once a personal record of one of the great and self-invented lives of our time, and a singular literary masterpiece that will enthrall fans old and new alike. In a hypnotic swirl of memory,ĚýHerzogĚýuntangles and relives his most important experiences and inspirations, telling his story for the first and only time.]]> 367 Werner Herzog 0593490290 Joe 0 to-read 4.24 2022 Every Man for Himself and God Against All: A Memoir
author: Werner Herzog
name: Joe
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Dawnshard (The Stormlight Archive, #3.5)]]> 54511226
When a ghost ship is discovered, its crew presumed dead after trying to reach the storm-shrouded island Akina, Navani Kholin must send an expedition to make sure the island hasn't fallen into enemy hands. Knights Radiant who fly too near find their Stormlight suddenly drained, so the voyage must be by sea.

Shipowner Rysn Ftori lost the use of her legs but gained the companionship of Chiri-Chiri, a Stormlight-ingesting winged larkin, a species once thought extinct. Now Rysn's pet is ill, and any hope for Chiri-Chiri’s recovery can be found only at the ancestral home of the larkin: Akinah. With the help of Lopen, the formerly one-armed Windrunner, Rysn must accept Navani's quest and sail into the perilous storm from which no one has returned alive. If the crew cannot uncover the secrets of the hidden island city before the wrath of its ancient guardians falls upon them, the fate of Roshar and the entire Cosmere hangs in the balance.]]> 171 Brandon Sanderson 193857026X Joe 0 to-read 4.39 2020 Dawnshard (The Stormlight Archive, #3.5)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Joe
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/01
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]]> The Family Experiment 197108968 From the acclaimed author of The One and The Marriage Act, The Family Experiment is a dark and brilliant speculative thriller about families: real and virtual.

Some families are virtually perfect�

The world's population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. And in the UK, the breaking point has arrived. A growing number of people can no longer afford to start families, let alone raise them.

But for those desperate to experience parenthood, there is an alternative. For a monthly subscription fee, clients can create a virtual child from scratch who they can access via the metaverse and a VR headset. To launch this new initiative, the company behind Virtual Children has created a reality TV show called The Substitute. It will follow ten couples as they raise a Virtual Child from birth to the age of eighteen but in a condensed nine-month time period. The prize: the right to keep their virtual child, or risk it all for the chance of a real baby�

Set in the same universe as John Marrs's bestselling novel The One and The Marriage Act, The Family Experiment is a dark and twisted thriller about the ultimate Tamagotchi—a virtual baby.]]> 384 John Marrs 1335000364 Joe 0 to-read 4.01 2024 The Family Experiment
author: John Marrs
name: Joe
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/30
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]]> Katabasis 210223811 Two graduate students must set aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul, perhaps at the cost of their own.

Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality—her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world—that is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.

Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands, and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams. Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the same conclusion.]]> 400 R.F. Kuang Joe 0 to-read 4.12 2025 Katabasis
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Joe
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/29
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]]> The Unworthy 214151601 The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.

From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find—discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe—cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.

But when a stranger makes her way past the convent walls, joining the ranks of the unworthy, she forces the narrator to consider her long-buried past—and what she may be overlooking about the Enlightened. As the two women grow closer, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future, and her present life inside the convent. How did she get to the Sacred Sisterhood? Why can’t she remember her life before? And what really happens when a woman is chosen as one of the Enlightened?

A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.]]> 192 Agustina Bazterrica 1668051885 Joe 0 to-read 3.66 2023 The Unworthy
author: Agustina Bazterrica
name: Joe
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/29
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]]> The Third Gilmore Girl 207298106 “Come for the Gilmore Girls anecdotes, stay for the revealing truths about what it takes to build a lifelong career in and out of Hollywood� (The A.V. Club) in this candid and captivating memoir from award-winning and beloved actress Kelly Bishop, spanning her six decades in show business from A Chorus Line, Dirty Dancing, Gilmore Girls, and much more.

Kelly Bishop’s long, storied career has been defined by landmark achievements, from winning a Tony Award for her turn in the original Broadway cast of A Chorus Line to her memorable performance as Jennifer Grey’s mother in Dirty Dancing. But it is probably her iconic role as matriarch Emily in the modern classic Gilmore Girls that cemented her legacy.

Now, Bishop reflects on her remarkable life and looks towards the future with The Third Gilmore Girl. She shares some of her greatest stories and the life lessons she’s learned on her journey. From her early transition from dance to drama, to marrying young to a compulsive gambler, to the losses and achievements she experienced—among them marching for women’s rights and losing her second husband to cancer—Bishop offers a rich, genuine celebration of her life.

Full of witty insights, The Third Gilmore Girl is a warm, unapologetic, and spirited memoir from a woman who has left indelible impressions on her audiences for decades and has no plans on slowing down.]]> 256 Kelly Bishop 1668023776 Joe 0 to-read 4.35 2024 The Third Gilmore Girl
author: Kelly Bishop
name: Joe
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> <![CDATA[Great on Their Behalf: Why School Boards Fail, How Yours Can Become Effective (Effective School Boards)]]> 123452886
airick journey crabill has a track record of helping school systems improve student literacy, numeracy, and career- and college-readiness rates while simultaneously strengthening the school’s financial and operational standing. Great on Their Behalf is your practical guide to igniting the transformation of your school board and enabling it to create the conditions for improving what students know and are able to do.

Step by step, the exercises in this book inspire board members to adopt a student-outcomes-focused mindset as they reevaluate their impact on those they serve. It challenges them to explore effective ways to focus on what students need. Then, it provides the necessary knowledge and skills for school boards to empower their students for success.]]> 253 A.J. Crabill 1544537697 Joe 4 4.43 Great on Their Behalf: Why School Boards Fail, How Yours Can Become Effective (Effective School Boards)
author: A.J. Crabill
name: Joe
average rating: 4.43
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/18
date added: 2024/12/27
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]]> <![CDATA[The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil]]> 28749 Animal Farm for the 21st century, this is an incendiary political satire of unprecedented imagination, spiky humor, and cautionary appreciation for the hysteric in everyone.]]> 130 George Saunders 1594481520 Joe 3 3.72 2005 The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
author: George Saunders
name: Joe
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/15
date added: 2024/12/27
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]]> The War of the Poor 54765614 The Order of the Day, a powerful account of the German Peasants� War (1524�25) that shows striking parallels to class conflicts of our time.

In the sixteenth century, the Protestant Reformation launched an attack on privilege and the Catholic Church, but it rapidly became an established, bourgeois authority itself. Rural laborers and the urban poor, who were still being promised equality in heaven, began to question why they shouldn’t have equality here and now on earth.

There ensued a furious struggle between the powerful—the comfortable Protestants—and the others, the wretched. They were led by a number of theologians, one of whom has left his mark on history through his determination and sheer energy. His name was Thomas Müntzer, and he set Germany on fire. The War of the Poor recounts his story—that of an insurrection through the Word.

In his characteristically bold, cinematic style, Éric Vuillard draws insights from this revolt from nearly five hundred years ago, which remains shockingly relevant to the dire inequalities we face today.]]> 112 Éric Vuillard Joe 4 3.31 2019 The War of the Poor
author: Éric Vuillard
name: Joe
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2024/12/27
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]]> <![CDATA[It's Lonely At The Centre Of The Earth]]> 63266128 196 Zoe Thorogood 1534326200 Joe 4 4.26 2022 It's Lonely At The Centre Of The Earth
author: Zoe Thorogood
name: Joe
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
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]]> Orbital 123136728 207 Samantha Harvey 0802161545 Joe 3 3.56 2023 Orbital
author: Samantha Harvey
name: Joe
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/25
date added: 2024/12/25
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]]> My Friends 217163697 #1ĚýNew York TimesĚýbestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a stranger’s life twenty-five years later.

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier. There’s Joar, who never backs down from a fight; quiet and bookish Ted who is mourning his father; Ali, the daughter of a man who never stays in one place for long; and finally, there’s the artist, a boy who hoards sleeping pills and shuns attention, but who possesses an extraordinary gift that might be his ticket to a better life. These four lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be put into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. As she struggles to decide what to do with this bequest, she embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn the story of how the painting came to be. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more she feels compelled to unleash her own artistic spirit, but happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this fresh testament to the transformative power of friendship and art.]]> 448 Fredrik Backman 1982112824 Joe 0 to-read 4.59 2025 My Friends
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Joe
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/23
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]]> Tress of the Emerald Sea 68320207 C’est le début d’un périple au bout du monde, où l’on retrouve tous les ingrédients qui font le sel des grandes aventures : des contrebandiers de la pire espèce, une sorcière malintentionnée, un redoutable dragon, des pirates sales et méchants (ou pas), et même un rat qui parle...
Tress de la mer Émeraude est le premier des quatre « romans secrets » écrits par Brandon Sanderson, l’auteur best-seller aux plus de trente-six millions d’exemplaires vendus à travers le monde, durant les confinements de la pandémie de Covid-19. Ces romans ont fait l’objet d’une campagne de financement participatif record sur la plateforme Kickstarter aux États-Unis.

Un roman à dévorer. Numerama.

Un roman du Cosmère.]]> 486 Brandon Sanderson Joe 4 4.45 2023 Tress of the Emerald Sea
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Joe
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/05
date added: 2024/12/23
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The books Sanderson writes in his spare time are better than most books I’ve read in the past year. I love the lighter tone of this one.
]]> <![CDATA[Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI]]> 204927599 From the author of Sapiens comes the groundbreaking story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world.

For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. But despite allour discoveries, inventions, and conquests, we now find ourselves in an existential crisis. The world is on the verge of ecological collapse. Misinformation abounds. And we are rushing headlong into the age of AI—a new information network that threatens to annihilate us. For all that we have accomplished, why are we so self-destructive?

Nexus looks through the long lens of human history to consider how the flow of information has shaped us, and our world. Taking us from the Stone Age, through the canonization of the Bible, early modern witch-hunts, Stalinism, Nazism, and the resurgence of populism today, Yuval Noah Harari asks us to consider the complex relationship between information and truth, bureaucracy and mythology, wisdom and power. He explores how different societies and political systems throughout history have wielded information to achieve their goals, for good and ill. And he addresses the urgent choices we face as non-human intelligence threatens our very existence.

Information is not the raw material of truth; neither is it a mere weapon. Nexus explores the hopeful middle ground between these extremes, and in doing so, rediscovers our shared humanity.]]> 528 Yuval Noah Harari 059373422X Joe 0 to-read 4.14 2024 Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
author: Yuval Noah Harari
name: Joe
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/21
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]]> Solutions and Other Problems 53948995 For the first time in seven years, Allie Brosh--beloved author and artist of the extraordinary #1 New York Times bestseller Hyperbole and a Half--returns with a new collection of comedic, autobiographical, and illustrated essays.

Solutions and Other Problems includes humorous stories from Allie Brosh’s childhood; the adventures of her very bad animals; merciless dissection of her own character flaws; incisive essays on grief, loneliness, and powerlessness; as well as reflections on the absurdity of modern life.

This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features all-new material with more than 1,600 pieces of art. Solutions and Other Problems marks the return of a beloved American humorist who has “the observational skills of a scientist, the creativity of an artist, and the wit of a comedian� (Bill Gates).]]> 525 Allie Brosh 1982156961 Joe 4 4.23 2020 Solutions and Other Problems
author: Allie Brosh
name: Joe
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/19
date added: 2024/12/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Importance of Being Earnest]]> 92303
Cecily Cardew and Gwendolen Fairfax are both in love with the same mythical suitor. Jack Worthing has wooed Gwendolen as Ernest while Algernon has also posed as Ernest to win the heart of Jack's ward, Cecily. When all four arrive at Jack's country home on the same weekend the "rivals" to fight for Ernest's undivided attention and the "Ernests" to claim their beloveds pandemonium breaks loose. Only a senile nursemaid and an old, discarded hand-bag can save the day!

This Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition includes a glossary and reader's notes to help the modern reader appreciate Wilde's wry wit and elaborate plot twists.]]> 89 Oscar Wilde 158049580X Joe 0 to-read 4.17 1895 The Importance of Being Earnest
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Joe
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1895
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/12
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]]> The Grandest Game 197408276 Get caught up in the puzzles, games, danger, romance, and riches of this lush new chapter in the #1 bestselling Inheritance Games saga—set a year after we last saw Avery and the Hawthornes.

Seven tickets. An island of dreams. The chance of a lifetime.

Welcome to the Grandest Game, an annual competition run by billionaire Avery Grambs and the four infamous Hawthorne brothers, whose family fortune she inherited. Designed to give anyone a shot at fame and fortune, this year’s game requires one of seven golden tickets to enter. With millions on the line, those seven players will do whatever it takes to win.

Some of the players are in it for the money. Some for power. Some for reasons all their own. Every single one of them has secrets. Amidst it all is Grayson Hawthorne, tasked with a vital role in this year’s game. But as tensions rise and the mind-bending challenges push the players to their limits—physically, mentally, and emotionally—it soon becomes clear that not everyone is playing by the rules.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Lynn Barnes delivers a new series in the world of The Inheritance Games, where fan-favorite and new characters collide in a game you’ll never forget.

Do you have what it takes to play?]]> 352 Jennifer Lynn Barnes 0316481211 Joe 2 3.96 2024 The Grandest Game
author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes
name: Joe
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/08/01
date added: 2024/12/12
shelves:
review:

]]> Laurus 24694092
Laurus is a remarkably rich novel about the eternal themes of love, loss, self-sacrifice and faith, from one of Russia’s most exciting and critically acclaimed novelists.]]> 365 Eugene Vodolazkin 1780747551 Joe 0 to-read 4.21 2012 Laurus
author: Eugene Vodolazkin
name: Joe
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves: to-read
review:

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