en-US Wed, 20 Oct 2021 23:21:43 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 36809135
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.

In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.]]> 384 Delia Owens 0735219117 Patrick 5 4.35 2018
author: Delia Owens
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/10/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 52597312 The long-awaited new novel from the bestselling, prize-winning author of Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks.

Utopia Avenue is the strangest British band you’ve never heard of. Emerging from London’s psychedelic scene in 1967 and fronted by folk singer Elf Holloway, guitar demigod Jasper de Zoet, and blues bassist Dean Moss, Utopia Avenue released only two LPs during its brief, blazing journey from the clubs of Soho and drafty ballrooms to Top of the Pops and the cusp of chart success, and on to glory in Amsterdam, prison in Rome, and a fateful American fortnight in the autumn of 1968.

David Mitchell’s captivating new novel tells the unexpurgated story of Utopia Avenue; of riots in the streets and revolutions in the head; of drugs, thugs, madness, love, sex, death, art; of the families we choose and the ones we don’t; of fame’s Faustian pact and stardom’s wobbly ladder. Can we change the world in turbulent times, or does the world change us?]]> 574 David Mitchell 0812997433 Patrick 4 3.94 2020
author: David Mitchell
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2021/10/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 168668
Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller’s masterpiece with a new introduction by Christopher Buckley; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos from Joseph Heller’s personal archive; and much more. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.]]> 453 Joseph Heller 0684833395 Patrick 0 to-read 3.99 1961
author: Joseph Heller
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1961
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/06/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 485894 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 0553213695 / 9780553213690

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes."

With it's startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first opening, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetle-like insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing—though absurdly comic—meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the most widely read and influential works of twentieth-century fiction. As W.H. Auden wrote, "Kafka is important to us because his predicament is the predicament of modern man."]]> 201 Franz Kafka 0553213695 Patrick 0 to-read 3.90 1915
author: Franz Kafka
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1915
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/06/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40961427 Nineteen Eighty-Four is a rare work that grows more haunting as its futuristic purgatory becomes more real. Published in 1949, the book offers political satirist George Orwell's nightmarish vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one poor stiff's attempt to find individuality. The brilliance of the novel is Orwell's prescience of modern life—the ubiquity of television, the distortion of the language—and his ability to construct such a thorough version of hell. Required reading for students since it was published, it ranks among the most terrifying novels ever written.]]> 298 George Orwell Patrick 0 4.24 1949
author: George Orwell
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1949
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/06/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 27071490 An alternate cover edition can be found here.

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

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

Generation after generation, Yaa Gyasi's magisterial first novel sets the fate of the individual against the obliterating movements of time, delivering unforgettable characters whose lives were shaped by historical forces beyond their control. Homegoing is a tremendous reading experience, not to be missed, by an astonishingly gifted young writer.]]> 305 Yaa Gyasi Patrick 0 to-read 4.48 2016
author: Yaa Gyasi
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/06/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 30555488
In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor--engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.

Like the protagonist of Gulliver's Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey--hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.]]> 320 Colson Whitehead 0385542364 Patrick 0 to-read 4.04 2016
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/06/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 34066798 The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers—Now a Paramount+ with Showtime series starring Ewan McGregor as Count Alexander Rostov

From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Rules of Civility, a beautifully transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.

Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.]]> 462 Amor Towles Patrick 0 4.28 2016
author: Amor Towles
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/06/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 77203 371 Khaled Hosseini 159463193X Patrick 0 to-read 4.34 2003
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/06/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 33460 320 Bill Buford 0679745351 Patrick 3 4.13 1990
author: Bill Buford
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1990
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2021/06/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 259028 447 Erik Larson 0375725601 Patrick 4 3.97 2003
author: Erik Larson
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2015/03/09
shelves:
review:

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

First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.]]> 601 John Steinbeck 0142000655 Patrick 3 4.41 1952
author: John Steinbeck
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1952
rating: 3
read at: 2011/11/08
date added: 2014/09/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 797373 Behind the Lines is W. E. B. Griffin's powerful novel of World War II -- and the courage, patriotism, and sacrifice of those who fought it.

By 1942, the Japanese have routed the outnumbered American forces and conquered the Philippines. But deep in the island jungles, the combat continues. Refusing to surrender, a renegade Army officer organizes a resistance force and vows to fight to the last man. A Marine leads his team on a mission through the heart of enemy territory.

And the nation's proudest sons fight uncelebrated battles that will win -- or lose -- the war . . .]]> 559 W.E.B. Griffin 0515119385 Patrick 4 4.30 1996
author: W.E.B. Griffin
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2014/09/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 411999 726 W.E.B. Griffin 0515126985 Patrick 4 4.31 1998
author: W.E.B. Griffin
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2014/09/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 3872
A History of the World in 6 Glasses tells the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the 21st century through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. Beer was first made in the Fertile Crescent and by 3000 B.C.E. was so important to Mesopotamia and Egypt that it was used to pay wages. In ancient Greece wine became the main export of her vast seaborne trade, helping spread Greek culture abroad. Spirits such as brandy and rum fueled the Age of Exploration, fortifying seamen on long voyages and oiling the pernicious slave trade. Although coffee originated in the Arab world, it stoked revolutionary thought in Europe during the Age of Reason, when coffeehouses became centers of intellectual exchange. And hundreds of years after the Chinese began drinking tea, it became especially popular in Britain, with far-reaching effects on British foreign policy. Finally, though carbonated drinks were invented in 18th-century Europe they became a 20th-century phenomenon, and Coca-Cola in particular is the leading symbol of globalization.

For Tom Standage, each drink is a kind of technology, a catalyst for advancing culture by which he demonstrates the intricate interplay of different civilizations. You may never look at your favorite drink the same way again.
]]> 336 Tom Standage 0802715524 Patrick 4 3.79 2005
author: Tom Standage
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2014/09/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 960
A devastating new weapon of destruction.
When world-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a mysterious symbol -- seared into the chest of a murdered physicist -- he discovers evidence of the unimaginable: the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati...the most powerful underground organization ever to walk the earth. The Illuminati has now surfaced to carry out the final phase of its legendary vendetta against its most hated enemy -- the Catholic Church.

Langdon's worst fears are confirmed on the eve of the Vatican's holy conclave, when a messenger of the Illuminati announces they have hidden an unstoppable time bomb at the very heart of Vatican City. With the countdown under way, Langdon jets to Rome to join forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and mysterious Italian scientist, to assist the Vatican in a desperate bid for survival.
Embarking on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that snakes across Rome toward the long-forgotten Illuminati lair...a clandestine location that contains the only hope for Vatican salvation.

An explosive international thriller, Angels & Demons careens from enlightening epiphanies to dark truths as the battle between science and religion turns to war.]]> 736 Dan Brown 1416524797 Patrick 3 3.95 2000
author: Dan Brown
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2013/11/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 2429135
An international publishing sensation, Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel.]]> 480 Stieg Larsson 0670069019 Patrick 5 4.17 2005
author: Stieg Larsson
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2009/10/25
date added: 2013/11/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 97427 496 T.J. English 0060590033 Patrick 3 currently-reading 4.04 2005
author: T.J. English
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2013/11/18
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 1911 593 Thomas L. Friedman 0374292795 Patrick 3 currently-reading 3.69 2005
author: Thomas L. Friedman
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2013/11/18
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 3293841 416 Fred Vargas 0099507625 Patrick 4 4.18 2006
author: Fred Vargas
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2008/08/14
date added: 2013/09/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 1898
Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author of the bestseller Into the Wild. On assignment for Outside Magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the mountain, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas as a client of Rob Hall, the most respected high-altitude guide in the world. A rangy, thirty-five-year-old New Zealander, Hall had summited Everest four times between 1990 and 1995 and had led thirty-nine climbers to the top. Ascending the mountain in close proximity to Hall's team was a guided expedition led by Scott Fischer, a forty-year-old American with legendary strength and drive who had climbed the peak without supplemental oxygen in 1994. But neither Hall nor Fischer survived the rogue storm that struck in May 1996.

Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people -- including himself -- to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.]]> 368 Jon Krakauer Patrick 4 4.24 1997
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/04/19
shelves:
review:

]]> 956829
The relationship with the Irish and British governments is examined, as well as the effects of the major bombing campaigns and the 1981 hunger strikes. It also explains the radical shift in thinking which led to the IRA seeking a political way towards the goal of Irish unity rather than pursuing the entrenched 'Brits Out' policy at the point of a gun.

The background to the IRA ceasefire, and the many factors which contributed to its ending are looked at, as well as the prospects for a lasting peace in one of the world's most troubled arenas.

This is intended as an easy-to-read overview of the IRA and the Northern situation, accessible to both the tourist and the interested general reader. This new edition has been fully updated for 2007.]]> Brendan O'Brien 0862789346 Patrick 2 2.00 1997
author: Brendan O'Brien
name: Patrick
average rating: 2.00
book published: 1997
rating: 2
read at: 2008/09/15
date added: 2012/01/31
shelves:
review:
Well as far as getting what I wanted out this book is concerned, mission accomplished. I gained a general understanding of a very convoluted political history. This book lays it all out, but due to the complexity of it, it is hard at times to put it all in prospective. A lot has happened. I only recommend this book for people that are big Irish History/Political buffs or revolutionaries.
]]> 6599342
Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.]]> 658 Stieg Larsson Patrick 5 4.23 2005
author: Stieg Larsson
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2011/11/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 8300755 Lisbeth Salander - outsider and apparent enemy of society - is charged with attempted murder. The state has also ruled that she is mentally unstable, and should be locked away in an institution once again But she is closely guarded in a hospital having taken a bullet to the head so how will she prove her innocence?

The Enemy
Pulling the strings of the prosecution is the powerful inner circle of Säpo, the state security police. Determined to protect the secrets and corruption at Sweden's rotten core, Säpo is not an adversary to take on alone.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Only with the help of Mikael Blomkvist and the journalists at Millennium magazine can Salander avoid the fate that has been decided for her. Together they form a compelling and dynamic alliance. This final volume of the Millenium Trilogy is the culmination of one of the most mesmerizing fictional achievements of our time.]]> 675 Stieg Larsson Patrick 5 4.37 2007
author: Stieg Larsson
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2011/11/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 48081 Since his retirement from the Navajo Tribal Police, Joe Leaphorn has occasionally been enticed to return to work by former colleagues who seek his help when they need to solve a particularly puzzling crime. They ask because Leaphorn, aided by officers Jim Chee and Bernie Manuelito, always delivers.

But this time the problem is with an old case of Joe's--his "last case," unsolved, is one that continues to haunt him. And with Chee and Bernie just back from their honeymoon, Leaphorn is pretty much on his own.

The original case involved a priceless, one-of-a-kind Navajo rug supposedly destroyed in a fire. Suddenly, what looks like the same rug turns up in a magazine spread. And the man who brings the photo to Leaphorn's attention has gone missing. Leaphorn must pick up the threads of a crime he'd thought impossible to untangle. Not only has the passage of time obscured the details, but it also appears that there's a murderer still on the loose.

New York Times bestselling author Tony Hillerman is at the top of his form in this atmospheric and riveting novel set amid the rugged beauty of his beloved Southwest.]]> 276 Tony Hillerman 0060563451 Patrick 2 3.99 2006
author: Tony Hillerman
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2011/11/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 1052647 487 W.E.B. Griffin 0515106402 Patrick 3 4.28 1991
author: W.E.B. Griffin
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1991
rating: 3
read at: 2011/11/08
date added: 2011/11/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 25460
"As the U.S. population made an unprecedented mad dash for the Sun Belt, one carload of us paddled against the tide, heading for the Promised Land where water falls from the sky and green stuff grows all around. We were about to begin the adventure of realigning our lives with our food chain.

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

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

"This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew . . . and of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air."]]> 370 Barbara Kingsolver 0060852550 Patrick 0 4.03 2007
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at: 2011/11/08
date added: 2011/11/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 6314749 New York Times bestselling author Sally Jenkins and distinguished Harvard professor John Stauffer mine a nearly forgotten piece of Civil War history and strike gold in this surprising account of the only Southern county to secede from the Confederacy.

The State of Jones is a true story about the South during the Civil War—the real South. Not the South that has been mythologized in novels and movies, but an authentic, hardscrabble place where poor men were forced to fight a rich man’s war for slavery and cotton. In Jones County, Mississippi, a farmer named Newton Knight led his neighbors, white and black alike, in an insurrection against the Confederacy at the height of the Civil War. Knight’s life story mirrors the little-known story of class struggle in the South—and it shatters the image of the Confederacy as a unified front against the Union.
This riveting investigative account takes us inside the battle of Corinth, where thousands lost their lives over less than a quarter mile of land, and to the dreadful siege of Vicksburg, presenting a gritty picture of a war in which generals sacrificed thousands through their arrogance and ignorance. Off the battlefield, the Newton Knight story is rich in drama as well. He was a man with two loves: his wife, who was forced to flee her home simply to survive, and an ex-slave named Rachel, who, in effect, became his second wife. It was Rachel who cared for Knight during the war when he was hunted by the Confederates, and, later, when members of the Knight clan sought revenge for the disgrace he had brought upon the family name.
Working hand in hand with John Stauffer, distinguished chair and professor of the History of American Civilization at Harvard University, Sally Jenkins has made the leap from preeminent sportswriter to a historical writer endowed with the accuracy, drive, and passion of Doris Kearns Goodwin. The result is Civil War history at its finest.]]> 402 Sally Jenkins 0385525931 Patrick 5 3.78 2009
author: Sally Jenkins
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2011/05/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 874999 Line of FireĚýbrings to life a desperate mission of World War II that captures the drama and courage of the men who fought it. Two Marines, reporting on Japanese air activity, are trapped on a small Coastwatcher island. A special rescue team is assembled to save them -- under enemy fire. It is an exciting and powerful story of real heroism that only W.E.B. Griffin could tell...]]> 467 W.E.B. Griffin 0515110132 Patrick 4 4.28 1992
author: W.E.B. Griffin
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2011/05/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 1052643 503 W.E.B. Griffin 0515104175 Patrick 3 4.26 1990
author: W.E.B. Griffin
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1990
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/12/04
shelves:
review:

]]> 8115818 Millenium publisher Mikael Blomkvist has made his reputation exposing corrupt establishment figures. So when a young journalist approaches him with an investigation into sex trafficking, Blomkvist cannot resist waging war on the powerful figures who control this lucrative industry.

The Murder
When a young couple is found dead in their Stockholm apartment, it's a straightforward job for Inspector Bublanski and his team. The killer left the weapon at the scene - and the fingerprints on the gun point in only one direction.

The Girl Who Played with Fire
Ex-security analyst Lisbeth Salander is wanted for murder. Her history of unpredictable and vengeful behaviour makes her an official danger to society - but no-one can find her. The only way Salander can be reached is by computer. But she can break into almost any network she chooses...]]> 738 Stieg Larsson Patrick 5 4.37 2006
author: Stieg Larsson
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/12/04
shelves:
review:

]]> 529579 The Next 100 Years draws on a fascinating exploration of history and geopolitical patterns dating back hundreds of years. Friedman shows that we are now, for the first time in half a millennium, at the dawn of a new era—with changes in store,

� The U.S.-Jihadist war will conclude—replaced by a second full-blown cold war with Russia.
� China will undergo a major extended internal crisis, and Mexico will emerge as an important world power.
� A new global war will unfold toward the middle of the century between the United States and an unexpected coalition from Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and the Far East; but armies will be much smaller and wars will be less deadly.
� Technology will focus on space—both for major military uses and for a dramatic new energy resource that will have radical environmental implications.
� The United States will experience a Golden Age in the second half of the century.

Written with the keen insight and thoughtful analysis that has made George Friedman a renowned expert in geopolitics and forecasting, The Next 100 Years presents a fascinating picture of what lies ahead. For continual, updated analysis and supplemental material, go to ]]> 272 George Friedman 038551705X Patrick 4 3.64 2008
author: George Friedman
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2010/10/18
date added: 2010/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 7012464 432 Jon Krakauer 1400078997 Patrick 4 3.78 2003
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2010/08/29
date added: 2010/08/29
shelves:
review:

]]> 772890 Semper Fi. A story of lovers and fighters, leaders and heroes--the men of the United States Marine Corps...]]> 356 W.E.B. Griffin 0515093491 Patrick 3 4.29 1987
author: W.E.B. Griffin
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1987
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/06/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 1052648 352 W.E.B. Griffin 0515087491 Patrick 3 4.28 1986
author: W.E.B. Griffin
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1986
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/06/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 535441 Zombie Survival Guide is your key to survival against the hordes of undead who may be stalking you right now. Fully illustrated and exhaustively comprehensive, this book covers everything you need to know, including how to understand zombie physiology and behavior, the most effective defense tactics and weaponry, ways to outfit your home for a long siege, and how to survive and adapt in any territory or terrain.

Top 10 Lessons for Surviving a Zombie Attack

1. Organize before they rise!
2. They feel no fear, why should you?
3. Use your head: cut off theirs.
4. Blades don’t need reloading.
5. Ideal protection = tight clothes, short hair.
6. Get up the staircase, then destroy it.
7. Get out of the car, get onto the bike.
8. Keep moving, keep low, keep quiet, keep alert!
9. No place is safe, only safer.
10. The zombie may be gone, but the threat lives on.

Don’t be carefree and foolish with your most precious asset—life. This book is your key to survival against the hordes of undead who may be stalking you right now without your even knowing it. The Zombie Survival Guide offers complete protection through trusted, proven tips for safeguarding yourself and your loved ones against the living dead. It is a book that can save your life.]]> 272 Max Brooks 1400049628 Patrick 2 3.87 2003
author: Max Brooks
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2003
rating: 2
read at: 2010/06/30
date added: 2010/06/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 2574748 Those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

From the Stone Age to the information age, the undead have threatened to engulf the human race. They� re coming. They’re hungry.

Don’t wait for them to come to you!

This is the graphic novel the fans demanded: major zombie attacks from the dawn of humanity. On the African savannas, against the legions of ancient Rome, on the high seas with Francis Drake . . . every civilization has faced them. Here are the grisly and heroic stories–complete with eye-popping artwork that pulsates with the hideous faces of the undead.

Organize before they rise!

Scripted by the world’s leading zombie authority, Max Brooks, Recorded Attacks reveals how other eras and cultures have dealt with–and survived� the ancient viral plague. By immersing ourselves in past horror we may yet prevail over the coming outbreak in our time.]]> 144 Max Brooks 030740577X Patrick 2 3.80 2009
author: Max Brooks
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2009
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2010/05/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 6952423 I Am Ozzy 391 Ozzy Osbourne 0446569895 Patrick 4 4.08 2009
author: Ozzy Osbourne
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2010/05/01
date added: 2010/05/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 41693 Chairman of the Corporation Juan Cabrillo and his mercenary crew steer theOregon into battle against a militant leader and his cult-like followers in this #1 New York Times-bestselling series.

Juan Cabrillo and the crew of the covert combat ship Oregon have barely escaped a mission on the Congo River when they intercept a mayday from a defenseless boat under fire off the African coast. Still smarting from a weapons-trade gone bad and a double-cross, Cabrillo takes action. He manages to save the beautiful Sloane Macintyre, who's on a mission of her own, looking for a long-submerged ship that may hold a fortune in diamonds. But what surprises Cabrillo is her story about a crazy fisherman who claims to have been attacked on the open sea by giant metal snakes in the same area.

What begins as a snake hunt leads Cabrillo onto the trail of a far more lethal quarry--a deranged militant and his followers who plan to unleash the devastating power of nature itself against all who oppose them.]]> 373 Clive Cussler 0425211894 Patrick 3 4.12 2006
author: Clive Cussler
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2010/03/31
date added: 2010/03/31
shelves:
review:

]]> 6658129
At nineteen, Jake Adelstein went to Japan in search of peace and tranquility. What he got was a life of crime . . . crime reporting, that is, at the prestigious Yomiuri Shinbun. For twelve years of eighty-hour workweeks, he covered the seedy side of Japan, where extortion, murder, human trafficking, and corruption are as familiar as ramen noodles and sake. But when his final scoop brought him face to face with Japan’s most infamous yakuza boss—and the threat of death for him and his family—Adelstein decided to step down . . . momentarily. Then, he fought back.

In Tokyo Vice, Adelstein tells the riveting, often humorous tale of his journey from an inexperienced cub reporter—who made rookie mistakes like getting into a martial-arts battle with a senior editor—to a daring, investigative journalist with a price on his head. With its vivid, visceral descriptions of crime in Japan and an exploration of the world of modern-day yakuza that even few Japanese ever see, Tokyo Vice is a fascination, and an education, from first to last.]]> 335 Jake Adelstein 0307378799 Patrick 4 3.88 2009
author: Jake Adelstein
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2010/03/15
date added: 2010/03/15
shelves:
review:

]]> 871683 250 John Perkins 1576753018 Patrick 5 3.77 2004
author: John Perkins
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/03/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 1028138 James Frey 1565117786 Patrick 2 3.47 2003
author: James Frey
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2003
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2010/02/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 977595 Tales from Shakespeare and dreams up military installations from vacuum-cleaner designs. Then his stories start coming disturbingly true�
Ěý
First published in 1959 against the backdrop of the Cold War, Our Man in Havana remains one of Graham Greene’s most widely read novels. It is an espionage thriller, a penetrating character study, and a political satire of government intelligence that still resonates today. This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by Christopher Hitchens.]]> 228 Graham Greene 0142438006 Patrick 4 3.92 1958
author: Graham Greene
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1958
rating: 4
read at: 2010/01/28
date added: 2010/01/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 758338
As a consummate field researcher, Gentry designed this guide to be not just comprehensive, but also easy to use in rigorous field conditions. Unlike many field guides, which rely for their identifications on flowers and fruits that are only present during certain seasons, Gentry's book focuses on characters such as bark, leaves, and odor that are present year-round. His guide is filled with clear illustrations, step-by-step keys to identification, and a wealth of previously unpublished data.

All biologists, wildlife managers, conservationists, and government officials concerned with the tropical rain forests will need and use this field guide.

Alwyn Gentry was one of the world's foremost experts on the biology of tropical plants. He was senior curator at the Missouri Botanical Garden, and was a member of Conservation International's interdisciplinary Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) team, which inventories the biodiversity of the most threatened tropical areas. From 1967 to 1993 he collected more than 80,000 plant specimens, many of them new to science.]]> 920 Alwyn H. Gentry 0226289443 Patrick 0 to-read 4.73 1995
author: Alwyn H. Gentry
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.73
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62702 Traffic starring Chomsky instead of Michael Douglas.

Noam Chomsky teaches at MIT and lives in Boston.]]> 52 Noam Chomsky 1902593448 Patrick 0 to-read 3.85 2001
author: Noam Chomsky
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 507890 320 Ann Farnsworth-Alvear 0822324970 Patrick 0 to-read 3.78 2000
author: Ann Farnsworth-Alvear
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 202817 296 Steven Dudley 0415933048 Patrick 0 to-read 4.06 2003
author: Steven Dudley
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 299685
Law in a Lawless Land offers a rare and penetrating insight into the nature of Colombia's present peril. In a nuanced account of the human consequences of a disintegrating state, anthropologist Michael Taussig chronicles two weeks in a small town in Colombia's Cauca Valley taken over by paramilitaries that brazenly assassinate adolescent gang members. Armed with automatic weapons and computer-generated lists of names and photographs, the paramilitaries have the tacit support of the police and even many of the desperate townspeople, who areĚýseeking any solution to the crushing uncertainty of violence in their lives. Concentrating on everyday experience, Taussig forces readers to confront a kind of terror to which they have become numb and complacent.

"If you want to know what it is like to live in a country where the state has disintegrated, this moving book by an anthropologist well known for his writings on murderous Colombia will tell you."—Eric Hobsbawm]]> 222 Michael Taussig 0226790142 Patrick 0 to-read 3.95 2003
author: Michael Taussig
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 145070 336 Robin Kirk 1586482076 Patrick 0 to-read 3.90 2003
author: Robin Kirk
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 2104716 Death Ship by B. Traven. 384 B. Traven 0882080334 Patrick 0 to-read 4.06 1926
author: B. Traven
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1926
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 6547951 0 Clive Cussler 1415908044 Patrick 4 4.17 2004
author: Clive Cussler
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2010/01/01
date added: 2010/01/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 29059 Victor Mancini, a medical-school dropout, is an antihero for our deranged times.

Needing to pay elder care for his mother, Victor has devised an ingenious scam: he pretends to choke on pieces of food while dining in upscale restaurants. He then allows himself to be “saved� by fellow patrons who, feeling responsible for Victor’s life, go on to send checks to support him.

When he’s not pulling this stunt, Victor cruises sexual addiction recovery workshops for action, visits his addled mom, and spends his days working at a colonial theme park.

His creator, Chuck Palahniuk, renowned author of classics like Fight Club, is the visionary we need and the satirist we deserve.]]> 293 Chuck Palahniuk 0385720920 Patrick 3 3.71 2001
author: Chuck Palahniuk
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at: 2010/01/01
date added: 2010/01/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 140337
But no daydream of love could match the real life adventure that unfolded: a stranger was stabbed in her bed, someone issued a hushed warning, and her rival for Edward's affections neatly arranged her kidnapping. From the steamy Arab marketplace to the vast and arid desert, Victoria was pursued by an unknown power that threatened not only her, but the fate of the entire world ...]]> 368 Agatha Christie 0007154933 Patrick 3 3.83 1951
author: Agatha Christie
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1951
rating: 3
read at: 2009/12/06
date added: 2009/12/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 902971 Humpty Dumpty in Oakland is a tragicomedy of misunderstandings among used car dealers and real-estate salesmen: the small-time, struggling individuals for whom Philip K. Dick always reserved his greatest sympathy.
Ěý
Jim Fergesson is an elderly garage owner with a heart condition, whoĚýis about toĚýretire; Al Miller is a somewhat feckless mechanic who sublets part of Jim's lot and finds his livelihood threatened by the decision to sell; Chris Harman is a record-company owner who for years has relied on Fergesson to maintain his cars. When Harman hears of Fergesson's impending retirement he tips him off to what he says is a cast-iron business proposition: a development in nearby Marin County with an opening for a garage. Al Miller is convinced that Harman is a crook, out to fleece Fergesson of his life's savings. As much as he resents Fergesson he can't bear to see it happen and--denying to himself all the time what he is doing--he sets out to thwart Harman.]]> 252 Philip K. Dick 0765316900 Patrick 0 to-read 3.33 1986
author: Philip K. Dick
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.33
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2009/12/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 48082 In 1956, an airplane crash left the remains of 172 passengers scattered among the majestic cliffs of the Grand Canyon - including an arm attached to a briefcase containing a fortune in gems. Half a century later, one of the missing diamonds has reappeared... and the wolves are on the scent.

Former Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn is coming out of retirement to help exonerate a slow, simple kid accused of robbing a trade post. Billy Tuve claims he received the diamond he tried to pawn from a mysterious old man in the canyon, and his story has attracted the dangerous attention of strangers to the Navajo lands - one more interested in a severed limb than the fortune it was attached to; another willing to murder to keep lost secrets hidden. But nature herself may prove the deadliest adversary, as Leaphorn and Sergeant Jim Chee follow a puzzle - and a killer - down into the dark realm of Skeleton Man.]]> 336 Tony Hillerman 006056346X Patrick 3 3.94 2004
author: Tony Hillerman
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at: 2009/11/24
date added: 2009/11/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 6178655 Unabridged CDs ? 14 CDs, 16 hours

Dirk Pitt returns, in the extraordinary new novel from the grand master of adventure.

]]> 14 Clive Cussler 0143143670 Patrick 3 4.07 2008
author: Clive Cussler
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2009/11/15
shelves:
review:

]]> 921569
]]> 329 Steve Erickson 1933372397 Patrick 3 4.10 2007
author: Steve Erickson
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2009/11/06
date added: 2009/11/06
shelves:
review:
This tragedy was a page turner. I could not put it down for the life of me. The story follows the life of a movie fanatic apply named, "ViKar Jerome" who is a socially inept person who uses films from all genres as metaphors and analogies of his daily and past life experiences. He has a fascination specifically for the movie " A Place In The Sun" which he uses as model for all other movies to be compared.Hence the tattoo on his head. As a reader, It would be good to have some knowledge of movies, directors and actors from the 50s though the 70s with an emphasis on "A Place In The Sun", Red River or anything that has Montgomery Clift. In ViKar's world view, all life is cinema and all cinema is life which becomes more and more evident though his dreams and relationships. definitely worth the read.
]]> 773858
Emmy and Grammy Award winner, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Martin has always been a writer. His memoir of his years in stand-up is candid, spectacularly amusing, and beautifully written.

At age ten Martin started his career at Disneyland, selling guidebooks in the newly opened theme park. In the decade that followed, he worked in the Disney magic shop and the Bird Cage Theatre at Knott's Berry Farm, performing his first magic/comedy act a dozen times a week. The story of these years, during which he practiced and honed his craft, is moving and revelatory. The dedication to excellence and innovation is formed at an astonishingly early age and never wavers or wanes.

Martin illuminates the sacrifice, discipline, and originality that made him an icon and informs his work to this day. To be this good, to perform so frequently, was isolating and lonely. It took Martin decades to reconnect with his parents and sister, and he tells that story with great tenderness. Martin also paints a portrait of his times-the era of free love and protests against the war in Vietnam, the heady irreverence of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the late sixties, and the transformative new voice of Saturday Night Live in the seventies.

Throughout the text, Martin has placed photographs, many never seen before. Born Standing Up is a superb testament to the sheer tenacity, focus, and daring of one of the greatest and most iconoclastic comedians of all time.]]> 207 Steve Martin 1416553649 Patrick 3 3.87 2007
author: Steve Martin
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2009/11/19
date added: 2009/11/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 184929 298 Steve Erickson 0805048820 Patrick 0 to-read 3.98 1993
author: Steve Erickson
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2009/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 3023836
In vivid, muscular prose, Matt Bondurant brings these men -- their dark deeds, their long silences, their deep desires -- to life. His understanding of the passion, violence, and desperation at the center of this world is both heartbreaking and magnificent.]]> 307 Matt Bondurant 1416561390 Patrick 2 3.72 2008
author: Matt Bondurant
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2008
rating: 2
read at: 2009/11/15
date added: 2009/10/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 1376068
StoryCorps began with the idea that everyone has an important story to tell. And since 2003, this remarkable project has been collecting the stories of everyday Americans and preserving them for future generations. In New York City and in mobile recording booths traveling the country-from small towns to big cities, at Native American reservations and an Army post-StoryCorps is collecting the memories of Americans from all ages, backgrounds, and walks of life. The project represents a wondrous nationwide celebration of our shared humanity, capturing for posterity the stories that define us and bind us together.

In Listening Is an Act of Love , StoryCorps founder and legendary radio producer Dave Isay selects some of the most remarkable stories from the already vast collection and arranges them thematically into a moving portrait of American life. The voices here connect us to real people and their lives-to their experiences of profound joy, sadness, courage and despair, to good times and hard times, to good deeds and misdeeds.

To read this book is to be reminded of how rich and varied the American storybook truly is, how resistant to easy categorization or caricature. Above all, this book honors the gift each StoryCorps participant has made, from the raw material of his or her life, to the Americans who will come after. We are our history, individually and collectively, and Listening Is an Act of Love touchingly reminds us of this powerful truth.]]> 284 Dave Isay 1594201404 Patrick 4 4.29 2007
author: Dave Isay
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2009/10/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 386187
The story is peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"; the uproarious black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else.]]> 386 John Berendt 0679751521 Patrick 3 3.91 1994
author: John Berendt
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1994
rating: 3
read at: 2009/10/06
date added: 2009/10/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 7244 The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.]]> 546 Barbara Kingsolver 0060786507 Patrick 4 4.10 1998
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at: 2009/10/06
date added: 2009/10/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 1229923 Michael Connelly 158621635X Patrick 2 3.90 2004
author: Michael Connelly
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2004
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2009/07/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 2161735
Stalin's Soviet Union strives to be a paradise for its workers, providing for all of their needs. One of its fundamental pillars is that its citizens live free from the fear of ordinary crime and criminals. But in this society, millions do live in fear ... of the State. Death is a whisper away. The mere suspicion of ideological disloyalty - owning a book from the decadent West, the wrong word at the wrong time sends millions of innocents into the Gulags or to their executions. Defending the system from its citizens is the MGB, the State Security Force. And no MGB officer is more courageous, conscientious, or idealistic than Leo Demidov.

A war hero with a beautiful wife, Leo lives in relative luxury in Moscow, even providing a decent apartment for his parents. His only ambition has been to serve his country. For this greater good, he has arrested and interrogated. Then the impossible happens. A different kind of criminal - a murderer - is on the loose, killing at will. At the same time, Leo finds himself demoted and denounced by his enemies, his world turned upside down, and every belief he's ever held shattered. The only way to save his life and the lives of his family is to uncover the criminal. But in a society that is officially paradise, its a crime against the State to suggest that a murderer - much less a serial killer - is in their midst. Exiled from his home, with only his wife remaining at his side, Leo must find and stop a criminal that the State won't admit even exists.]]> 12 Tom Rob Smith 160024159X Patrick 4 3.90 2008
author: Tom Rob Smith
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2009/07/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 455652
Winner of the 1999 PEN/Oakland Censorship Award

Winner of the 1999 Firecracker Alternative Bookseller (FAB) Award, Politics category

Finalist for the 1999 Bay Area Book Reviewers Awards

Dark Alliance is a book that should be fiction, whose characters seem to come straight out of central the international drug lord, Norwin Meneses; the Contra cocaine broker with an MBA in marketing, Danilo Blandon; and the illiterate teenager from the inner city who rises to become the king of crack, "Freeway" Ricky Ross. But unfortunately, these characters are real and their stories are true.

In August 1996, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb stunned the world with a series of articles in the San Jose Mercury News reporting the results of his year-long investigation into the roots of the crack cocaine epidemic in America, specifically in Los Angeles. The series, titled "Dark Alliance," revealed that for the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to Los Angeles street gangs and funneled millions in drug profits to the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contras.

Gary Webb pushed his investigation even further in his book, Dark The CIA, The Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion . Drawing from then newly declassified documents, undercover DEA audio and videotapes that had never been publicly released, federal court testimony, and interviews, Webb demonstrates how our government knowingly allowed massive amounts of drugs and money to change hands at the expense of our communities.

Webb's original article spurred an immediate outcry. Within days of publication, both of California's senators made formal requests for investigations of the U.S. government's relationship with the cocaine ring. As a result, public demonstrations erupted in L.A., Washington D.C., and New York. Then-chief of the CIA, John Deutsch, made an unprecedented attempt at crisis control by going to South Central L.A. to hold a public forum. Representative Maxine Waters later said in George magazine, "I was shocked by the level of corruption and deceit and the way the intelligence agencies have knowledge of big-time drug dealing."
The allegations in Webb's story blazed over the Internet and the Mercury News' website on the series was deluged with hits—over a million in one day. A Columbia Journalism Review cover story called it "the most talked-about piece of journalism in 1996 and arguably the most famous—some would say infamous—set of articles of the decade."

Webb's own stranger-than-fiction experience is also woven into the book. His excoriation by the media—not because of any wrongdoing on his part, but by an insidious process of innuendo and suggestion that in effect blamed Webb for the implications of the story—had been all but predicted. Webb was warned off doing a CIA expose by a former Associated Press journalist who lost his job when, years before, he had stumbled onto the germ of the "Dark Alliance" story. And though Internal investigations by both the CIA and the Justice Department eventually vindicated Webb, he had by then been pushed out of the Mercury News and gone to work for the California State Legislature Task Force on Government Oversight. He died in 2004.

The updated paperback edition of Dark Alliance features revelations in just-released reports from the Department of Justice, internal CIA investigations, and a new cache of recently declassified secret FBI, DEA, and INS files—much of which was not known to Webb when writing the first edition of this book. Webb further explains the close working relationship that major drug traffickers had with U.S. Government agencies—particularly the DEA—and recounts the news of the past year regarding this breaking story.

After more than two years of career-damning allegations leveled at Webb, joined in the past year by glowing reviews of the hardcover edition of Dark Alliance from shore to shore, the core findings of this courageous investigative reporter's work—once fiercely denied—are becoming matters of public record. The updated paperback edition of Dark Alliance adds yet another layer of evidence exposing the illegality of a major CIA covert operation.]]> 592 Gary Webb 1888363932 Patrick 0 to-read 4.26 1998
author: Gary Webb
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2009/05/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 81196 240 Michel Onfray 1559708204 Patrick 2 3.82 2005
author: Michel Onfray
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2005
rating: 2
read at: 2009/05/11
date added: 2009/05/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 255998 288 Tim Dorsey 006113922X Patrick 0 to-read 3.70 1999
author: Tim Dorsey
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2009/04/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 9594
With his trademark wicked wit, Vonnegut addresses memory, suicide, the Great Depression, the loss of American eloquence, and the obsolescent thrill of reading books.]]> 219 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 0099267543 Patrick 2 3.72 1997
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1997
rating: 2
read at: 2009/03/13
date added: 2009/03/13
shelves:
review:

]]> 408147
In a calm May morning in 1815, Captain James Riley and the crew of the Commerce left port in Connecticut for an ordinary trading voyage. They could never have imagined what awaited them.

Their nightmare began with a dreadful shipwreck off the coast of Africa, a hair-raising confrontation with hostile native tribesmen within hours of being washed ashore, and a hellish confinement in a rickety longboat as they tried, without success, to escape the fearsome coast. Eventually captured by desert nomads and sold into slavery, Riley and his men were dragged along on an insane journey through the bone-dry heart of the Sahara—a region unknown to Westerners. Along the way the Americans would encounter everything that could possibly test them: barbarism, murder, starvation, plagues of locusts, death, sandstorms that lasted for days, dehydration, and hostile tribes that roamed the desert on armies of camels. They would discover ancient cities and secret oases. They would also discover a surprising bond between a Muslim trader and an American sea captain, men who began as strangers, were forced to become allies in order to survive, and, in the tempering heat of the desert, became friends—even as the captain hatched a daring betrayal in order to save his men.

From the cold waters of the Atlantic to the searing Saharan sands, Skeletons on the Zahara is a spectacular odyssey through the extremes. Destined to become a classic among adventure narratives, Dean King's masterpiece is an unforgettable tale of survival, courage, and brotherhood.]]> 351 Dean King 0316159352 Patrick 0 to-read 4.06 2004
author: Dean King
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2009/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 2191118 The bestselling novelist of ancient warfare returns with a riveting historical novel that re-creates Alexander the Great's invasion of the Afghan kingdoms in 330 b.c.
In a story that might have been ripped from today's combat dispatches, Steven Pressfield brings to life the confrontation between an invading Western army and fierce Eastern warriors determined at all costs to defend their homeland. Narrated by an infantryman in Alexander's army, " The Afghan Campaign" explores the challenges, both military and moral, that Alexander and his soldiers face as they embark on a new type of war and are forced to adapt to the methods of a ruthless foe that employs terror and insurgent tactics. An edge-of-your-seat adventure, " The Afghan Campaign" once again demonstrates Pressfield's profound understanding of the hopes and desperation of men in battle and of the historical realities that continue to influence our world.]]> 10 Steven Pressfield 1415931976 Patrick 4 3.62 2006
author: Steven Pressfield
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2009/01/12
date added: 2009/01/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 83763
It has been programmed as a predator. It is evolving swiftly, becoming more deadly with each passing hour.

Every attempt to destroy it has failed.

And we are the prey.]]> 507 Michael Crichton 0061015725 Patrick 4 3.78 2002
author: Michael Crichton
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2009/01/12
date added: 2009/01/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 43641
Beautifully written, Water for Elephants is illuminated by a wonderful sense of time and place. It tells a story of a love between two people that overcomes incredible odds in a world in which even love is a luxury that few can afford.]]> 368 Sara Gruen 1565125606 Patrick 3 4.11 2006
author: Sara Gruen
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2009/01/05
date added: 2009/01/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 890120
When a shattered kayak and camping gear are found on an uninhabited island, they reignite a mystery surrounding a shocking act of protest. Five months earlier, logger-turned-activist Grant Hadwin had plunged naked into a river in British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Islands, towing a chainsaw. When his night's work was done, a unique Sitka spruce, 165 feet tall and covered with luminous golden needles, teetered on its stump. Two days later it fell.

The tree, a fascinating puzzle to scientists, was sacred to the Haida, a fierce seafaring tribe based in the Queen Charlottes. Vaillant recounts the bloody history of the Haida and the early fur trade, and provides harrowing details of the logging industry, whose omnivorous violence would claim both Hadwin and the golden spruce.]]> 272 John Vaillant 0393058875 Patrick 5 3.93 2005
author: John Vaillant
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2008/12/14
date added: 2008/12/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 25148
This is the darkly hilarious odyssey of an anonymous slacker. He's a perennial couch-surfer, an aspiring writer searching for himself in spite of himself, and he's just trying to survive. But life has other things in store for the fuck-up. From being dumped by his girlfriend to getting fired for asking for a raise, from falling into a robbery to posing as a gay man to keep his job at a porno theater, the fuck-up's tragi-comedy is perfectly realized by Arthur Nersesian, who manages to create humor and suspense out of urban desperation. "Read it and howl," says Bruce Benderson (author of User), "and be glad it didn't happen to you."]]> 296 Arthur Nersesian 0671027638 Patrick 3 3.59 1997
author: Arthur Nersesian
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2008/11/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 18122
But how can he go looking for Lord Asriel when Lyra is gone? Only with her help can he fathom the myriad plots and intrigues that beset him.

The two great powers of the many worlds are lining up for war, and Will must find Lyra, for together they are on their way to battle, an inevitable journey that will even take them to the world of the dead...]]> 465 Philip Pullman 0440238153 Patrick 3 4.11 2000
author: Philip Pullman
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at: 2008/11/15
date added: 2008/11/15
shelves:
review:

]]> 419083 296 Mark Bowden 0142000957 Patrick 4 3.97 2001
author: Mark Bowden
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2008/11/11
date added: 2008/11/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 14595 A Time Out and Daily News Top Ten Book of the Year upon its initial release, Please Kill Me is the first oral history of the most nihilist of all pop movements. Iggy Pop, Danny Fields, Dee Dee and Joey Ramone, Malcom McLaren, Jim Carroll, and scores of other famous and infamous punk figures lend their voices to this definitive account of that outrageous, explosive era. From its origins in the twilight years of Andy Warhol's New York reign to its last gasps as eighties corporate rock, the phenomenon known as punk is scrutinized, eulogized, and idealized by the people who were there and who made it happen.
]]> 488 Legs McNeil 0802142648 Patrick 4 4.19 1996
author: Legs McNeil
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at: 2008/10/28
date added: 2008/10/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 62798 The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, celebrated Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima creates a haunting and vivid portrait of a young man’s obsession with idealized beauty and his destructive quest to possess it fully.

Mizoguchi, an ostracized stutterer, develops a childhood fascination with Kyoto’s famous Golden Temple. While an acolyte at the temple, he fixates on the structure’s aesthetic perfection and it becomes the one and only object of his desire. But as Mizoguchi begins to perceive flaws in the temple, he determines that the only true path to beauty lies in an act of horrendous violence. Based on a real incident that occurred in 1950, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion brilliantly portrays the passions and agonies of a young man in postwar Japan, bringing to the subject the erotic imagination and instinct for the dramatic moment that marked Mishima as one of the towering makers of modern fiction. With an introduction by Donald Keene; Translated from the Japanese by Ivan Morris.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

]]> 247 Yukio Mishima 0679433155 Patrick 1 4.04 1956
author: Yukio Mishima
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1956
rating: 1
read at: 2008/09/15
date added: 2008/09/15
shelves:
review:
This book is well written for the most part. It is just not my cup of tea. Too much description. I get it. I just don't like it.
]]> 69571 195 Robert T. Kiyosaki 0751532711 Patrick 4 4.10 1997
author: Robert T. Kiyosaki
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2003/01/01
date added: 2008/08/22
shelves:
review:
although I am still not rich, I really liked this book.
]]> 63033
The explosive first long work by “the most exciting writer to come from south of the Rio Grande in a long time� (Ilan Stavans, Los Angeles Times), The Savage Detectives follows Belano and Lima through the eyes of the people whose paths they cross in Central America, Europe, Israel, and West Africa. This chorus includes the muses of visceral realism, the beautiful Font sisters; their father, an architect interned in a Mexico City asylum; a sensitive young follower of Octavio Paz; a foul-mouthed American graduate student; a French girl with a taste for the Marquis de Sade; the great-granddaughter of Leon Trotsky; a Chilean stowaway with a mystical gift for numbers; the anorexic heiress to a Mexican underwear empire; an Argentinian photojournalist in Angola; and assorted hangers-on, detractors, critics, lovers, employers, vagabonds, real-life literary figures, and random acquaintances.

A polymathic descendant of Borges and Pynchon, Roberto Bolaño traces the hidden connection between literature and violence in a world where national boundaries are fluid and death lurks in the shadow of the avant-garde. The Savage Detectives is a dazzling original, the first great Latin American novel of the twenty-first century.]]> 577 Roberto Bolaño 0374191484 Patrick 0 to-read 4.12 1998
author: Roberto Bolaño
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/08/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 162898
Written in 1889, Mark 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court' is one of literature's first genre mash-ups and one of the first works to feature time travel. It is one of the best known Twain stories, and also one of his most unique. Twain uses the work to launch a social commentary on contemporary society, a thinly veiled critique of the contemporary times despite the Old World setting.

While the dark pessimism that would fully blossom in Twain's later works can be discerned in 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, ' the novel will nevertheless be remembered primarily for its wild leaps of imagination, brilliant wit, and entertaining storytelling.]]> 480 Mark Twain Patrick 4 3.80 1889
author: Mark Twain
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1889
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/08/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 272614 59 Jim Dodge 0933944047 Patrick 3 4.14 1983
author: Jim Dodge
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1983
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2008/08/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 161150
“[John] Densmore's is the first Doors biography that feels like it was written for the right reasons, and it is easily the most informed account of the Doors' brief but brilliant life as a group. . . . Densmore is a fluent, articulate writer who both comprehends the Doors' unearthly power and is on familiar terms with their antecdedents in literature, theater, and myth.� � Rolling Stone

“Well-written and touching . . . tells it all and tells it honestly.� � The New York Times Book Review

“John Densmore's Riders of the Storm Ěýis as good an account of the history of the Doors as has been printed to date.â€� â€� USA Today

â€� Riders on the Storm Ěýis very enjoyable, especially its homespun and self-experienced insights. John Densmore is a survivor and a seeker.â€� —Oliver Stone]]> 322 John Densmore 0385304471 Patrick 0 to-read 3.99 1990
author: John Densmore
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/08/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 12381
As the lead singer and song writer for The Doors, Jim Morrison brought the poetry of the damned to rock'n'roll. As a poet, he infused verse with the wild lyricism and mesmerizing beat of rock. By the time of his death in 1971, Morrison had become one of the most haunting voices in the collective unconscious of America, echoed by performers such as Patti Smith.

This book, compiled from the Morrison literary estate by his beloved friends, presents Morrison's unpublished work for the first time--poems that celebrate the juju of sex, the touring musician's labyrinth of highways, airports, and motel corridors, and the shamanistic power of rock'n'roll, as well as photographs, drawings, facsimiles from Morrison's diaries, and a self-interview that reveals him as he has never been revealed before. A genuine literary event, Wilderness is the last testament of a writer of liberating ferocity and tenderness whose tremendous impact on an entire generation is still being felt.

Cover photo by Frank Lisciandro
Cover design by Wendy Bass]]> 214 Jim Morrison 0679726225 Patrick 3 3.98 1988
author: Jim Morrison
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1988
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2008/08/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 124774

From the Trade Paperback edition.]]> 211 Jim Morrison 0394587227 Patrick 3 3.63 1990
author: Jim Morrison
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1990
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2008/08/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 240008 Where the Sidewalk Ends have been sold, making it the bestselling children's poetry book ever. With this and his other poetry collections (A Light in the Attic and Falling Up), Silverstein reveals his genius for reaching kids with silly words and simple pen-and-ink drawings. What child can resist a poem called "Dancing Pants" or "The Dirtiest Man in the World"? Each of the 130 poems is funny in a different way, or touching ... or both. Some approach naughtiness or are a bit disgusting to squeamish grown-ups, but that's exactly what kids like best about Silverstein's work. Jim Trelease, author of The New Read-Aloud Handbook, calls this book "without question, the best-loved collection of poetry for children." (Ages 4 to 10)]]> 175 Shel Silverstein 0060256672 Patrick 4 4.56 1974
author: Shel Silverstein
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.56
book published: 1974
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/08/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 30118 Last night while I lay thinking here
Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
And pranced and partied all night long
And sang their same old Whatif song:

Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?...This 20th anniversary of Shel Silverstein's A Light in the Attic includes a CD of highlights from his Grammy Award-winning album.

Here in the attic of Shel Silverstein you will find Backward Bill, Sour Face Ann, the Meehoo with an Exactlywatt, and the Polar Bear in the Frigidaire. You will talk with Broiled Face, and find out what happens when Somebody steals your knees, you get caught by the Quick-Digesting Gink, a Mountain snores, and They Put a Brassiere on the Camel.

From the creator of the beloved poetry collections Where the Sidewalk Ends and Falling Up, here is another wondrous book of poems and drawings.]]> 176 Shel Silverstein 0060513063 Patrick 2 4.36 1981
author: Shel Silverstein
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1981
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2008/08/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 43763
Louis and Claudia travel Europe, eventually coming to Paris and the ragingly successful Theatre des Vampires--a theatre of vampires pretending to be mortals pretending to be vampires. Here they meet the magnetic and ethereal Armand, who brings them into a whole society of vampires. But Louis and Claudia find that finding others like themselves provides no easy answers and in fact presents dangers they scarcely imagined.

Originally begun as a short story, the book took off as Anne wrote it, spinning the tragic and triumphant life experiences of a soul. As well as the struggles of its characters, Interview captures the political and social changes of two continents. The novel also introduces Lestat, Anne's most enduring character, a heady mixture of attraction and revulsion. The book, full of lush description, centers on the themes of immortality, change, loss, sexuality, and power.
source: annerice.com]]> 346 Anne Rice 0345476875 Patrick 3 4.04 1976
author: Anne Rice
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1976
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2008/08/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 9911 Already Dead is the tangled story of Nelson Fairchild Jr., disenfranchised scion to a northern California land fortune. A relentless failure, Nelson has botched nearly every scheme he's attempted to pull off. Now his future lies in a potentially profitable marijuana patch hidden in the lush old-growth redwoods on the family land.

Nelson has some serious problems. His marriage has fallen apart, and he may lose his land, cash and crop in the divorce. What's more, in need of some quick cash, he had foolishly agreed to smuggle $90,000 worth of cocaine through customs for Harry Lally, a major player in a drug syndicate. Chickening out just before bringing the drugs through, he flushed the powder. Now Lally wants him dead, and two goons are hot on his trail. Desperate, terrified and alone, for Nelson, there may be only one way out.

This is Denis Johnson's biggest and most complex book to date, and it perfectly showcases his signature themes of fate, redemption and the unraveling of the fabric of today's society. Already Dead, with its masterful narrative of overlapping and entwined stories, will further fuel the acclaim that surrounds one of today's most fascinating writers.]]> 448 Denis Johnson 006092909X Patrick 0 to-read 3.70 1997
author: Denis Johnson
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/08/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 2528
The loneliness of people's lives, the effects of chance, the discovery of love-all coalesce in this extraordinary novel that displays the power and art of José Saramago in brilliant form.]]> 245 José Saramago 0156010593 Patrick 0 to-read 3.92 1997
author: José Saramago
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/08/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 99208 The Monkey Wrench Gang, his 1975 novel, a "comic extravaganza." Some readers have remarked that the book is more a comic book than a real novel, and it's true that reading this incendiary call to protect the American wilderness requires more than a little of the old willing suspension of disbelief.

The story centers on Vietnam veteran George Washington Hayduke III, who returns to the desert to find his beloved canyons and rivers threatened by industrial development. On a rafting trip down the Colorado River, Hayduke joins forces with feminist saboteur Bonnie Abbzug, wilderness guide Seldom Seen Smith, and billboard torcher Doc Sarvis, M.D., and together they wander off to wage war on the big yellow machines, on dam builders and road builders and strip miners. As they do, his characters voice Abbey's concerns about wilderness preservation ("Hell of a place to lose a cow," Smith thinks to himself while roaming through the canyonlands of southern Utah. "Hell of a place to lose your heart. Hell of a place... to lose. Period").

Moving from one improbable situation to the next, packing more adventure into the space of a few weeks than most real people do in a lifetime, the motley gang puts fear into the hearts of their enemies, laughing all the while. It's comic, yes, and required reading for anyone who has come to love the desert.]]> 421 Edward Abbey 0061129763 Patrick 0 to-read 4.09 1975
author: Edward Abbey
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1975
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/08/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 2095
Now, in a major publishing event, Hawking returns with a lavishly illustrated sequel that unravels the mysteries of the major breakthroughs that have occurred in the years since the release of his acclaimed first book.]]> 216 Stephen Hawking 055380202X Patrick 4 4.20 2001
author: Stephen Hawking
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/08/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 252920 304 Joseph Minton Amann 1560258810 Patrick 0 to-read 3.74 2006
author: Joseph Minton Amann
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/08/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 511295 269 Dougal Butler 0688007570 Patrick 0 to-read 4.02 1981
author: Dougal Butler
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/08/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 691520 384 Jerry Hopkins 0446697338 Patrick 3 3.94 1980
author: Jerry Hopkins
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1980
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2008/08/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 1202
These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much heralded scholar who studies the stuff and riddles of everyday life -- from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing -- and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.

Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives -- how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they set out to explore the hidden side of ... well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan.

What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and -- if the right questions are asked -- is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Steven Levitt, through devilishly clever and clear-eyed thinking, shows how to see through all the clutter.

Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.
(front flap)]]> 268 Steven D. Levitt 0061234001 Patrick 5 4.01 2005
author: Steven D. Levitt
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/08/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 401514
This is their story—one of the most astonishing true adventures of the twentieth century.]]> 318 Piers Paul Read 038000321X Patrick 0 to-read 4.13 1974
author: Piers Paul Read
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/08/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 7745 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is the best chronicle of drug-soaked, addle-brained, rollicking good times ever committed to the printed page. It is also the tale of a long weekend road trip that has gone down in the annals of American pop culture as one of the strangest journeys ever undertaken.]]> 204 Hunter S. Thompson 0679785892 Patrick 4 4.08 1971
author: Hunter S. Thompson
name: Patrick
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1971
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/08/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 18864 The Rum Diary is a tangled love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s. The narrator, freelance journalist Paul Kemp, irresistibly drawn to a sexy, mysterious woman, is soon thrust into a world where corruption and get-rich-quick schemes rule and anything (including murder) is permissible.]]> 224 Hunter S. Thompson 0684856476 Patrick 3 3.86 1998
author: Hunter S. Thompson
name: Patrick
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1998
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2008/08/05
shelves:
review:

]]>