Andrew's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 13 Apr 2025 03:09:34 -0700 60 Andrew's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Rogue Male (Rogue Male, #1) 102066 182 Geoffrey Household 075285139X Andrew 0 currently-reading 3.93 1939 Rogue Male (Rogue Male, #1)
author: Geoffrey Household
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1939
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/13
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]]> <![CDATA[One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich]]> 852538 gulag, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is translated by Ralph Parker in Penguin Modern Classics.

This brutal, shattering glimpse of the fate of millions of Russians under Stalin shook Russia and shocked the world when it first appeared.

Discover the importance of a piece of bread or an extra bowl of soup, the incredible luxury of a book, the ingenious possibilities of a nail, a piece of string or a single match in a world where survival is all. Here safety, warmth and food are the first objectives. Reading it, you enter a world of incarceration, brutality, hard manual labour and freezing cold - and participate in the struggle of men to survive both the terrible rigours of nature and the inhumanity of the system that defines their conditions of life.

Though twice-decorated for his service at the front during the Second World War, Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) was arrested in 1945 for making derogatory remarks about Stalin, and sent to a series of brutal Soviet labour camps in the Arctic Circle, where he remained for eight years. Released after Stalin's death, he worked as a teacher, publishing his novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich with the approval of Nikita Khrushchev in 1962, to huge success. His 1967 novel Cancer Ward, as well as his magnum opus The Gulag Archipelago, were not as well-received by Soviet authorities, and not long after being awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970, Solzhenitsyn was deported from the USSR. In 1994, after twenty years in exile, Solzhenitsyn made his long-awaited return to Russia.

If you enjoyed One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, you might also like Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, available in Penguin Classics.

'It is a blow struck for human freedom all over the world ... and it is gloriously readable'
Sunday Times]]> 143 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 0141184744 Andrew 0 3.98 1962 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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]]> Papillon 6882
Charrière's astonishing autobiography, Papillon, was published in France to instant acclaim in 1968, more than twenty years after his final escape. Since then, it has become a treasured classic -- the gripping, shocking, ultimately uplifting odyssey of an innocent man who simply would not be defeated.]]> 544 Henri Charrière 0061120669 Andrew 0 4.22 1969 Papillon
author: Henri Charrière
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1969
rating: 0
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]]> The Ten Teacups 226764128
Sir Henry Merrivale and Chief Inspector Masters accepted the invitation and had the house surrounded. Upstairs in an otherwise empty house was a furnished room. A man entered the house. Promptly at the time set by the murderer a shot rang out. The police rushed in and discovered that same man on the floor with a bullet through the back of the head and another in his spine... but no one else had entered the house! It was an impossible situation, but it DID happen.]]> Carter Dickson 0712355278 Andrew 5 3.65 1937 The Ten Teacups
author: Carter Dickson
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1937
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/04/10
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]]> Heart Lamp: Selected Stories 205544315 Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025

In the twelve stories of Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. Published originally in the Kannada language between 1990 and 2023, praised for their dry and gentle humour, these portraits of family and community tensions testify to Mushtaq’s years as a journalist and lawyer, in which she tirelessly championed women’s rights and protested all forms of caste and religious oppression. Written in a style at once witty, vivid, colloquial, moving and excoriating, it’s in her characters � the sparky children, the audacious grandmothers, the buffoonish maulvis and thug brothers, the oft-hapless husbands, and the mothers above all, surviving their feelings at great cost � that Mushtaq emerges as an astonishing writer and observer of human nature, building disconcerting emotional heights out of a rich spoken style. Her opus has garnered both censure from conservative quarters as well India’s most prestigious literary awards; this is a collection sure to be read for years to come.]]> 192 Banu Mushtaq 1916751164 Andrew 0 3.59 Heart Lamp: Selected Stories
author: Banu Mushtaq
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.59
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]]> The Book of Disappearance 42921509 What if all Palestinians vanished from their homeland overnight?

Alaa, a young Palestinian, is haunted by his grandmother’s memories of being displaced from Jaffa and becoming a refugee in her homeland. Ariel, Alaa’s neighbour and friend, is a liberal Zionist, critical of the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza yet faithful to the project of Israel. When he wakes up one morning to find that all Palestinians have suddenly vanished, Ariel begins searching for clues to the secret of the collective disappearance; that search, and his reaction to it, intimately reveal the fissures at the heart of the Palestinian question. Between the stories of Alaa and Ariel are the people of Jaffa and Tel Aviv against whose ordinary lives these fissures and questions play out.

Critically acclaimed in Arabic, spare yet evocative, intensely intelligent in its interplay of perspectives, The Book of Disappearance is an unforgettable glimpse into contemporary Palestine.]]> 256 Ibtisam Azem 0815611110 Andrew 0 4.16 2014 The Book of Disappearance
author: Ibtisam Azem
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> All the Colours of the Dark 168724761 A missing persons mystery, a serial killer thriller, and an epic love story - with a unique twist on each...

Late one summer, the town of Monta Clare is shattered by the abduction of teenager Joseph 'Patch' Macauley. Nobody more so than Saint Brown, who will risk everything to find her best friend.

But when she does: it will break her heart.

Patch lies alone in a pitch-black room - until he feels a hand in his. Her name is Grace and, though they cannot see each other, she lights their world with her words.

But when he escapes: there is no sign she ever even existed.

Left with only her voice and her name, he paints her from broken memories - and charts an epic search to find her.

As years turn to decades, and hope becomes obsession, Saint will shadow his journey - on a darker path to hunt down the man who took them - and set free the only boy she ever loved.

Even if finding the truth means losing each other forever...]]> 580 Chris Whitaker 1398707686 Andrew 0 4.42 2024 All the Colours of the Dark
author: Chris Whitaker
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[38 Londres Street: On Impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia]]> 83774249 Philippe Sands 1474620779 Andrew 0 currently-reading 4.62 38 Londres Street: On Impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia
author: Philippe Sands
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.62
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]]> Not to Be Taken 230287984 Anthony Berkeley 0712355421 Andrew 0 4.29 1938 Not to Be Taken
author: Anthony Berkeley
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1938
rating: 0
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]]> There Are Rivers in the Sky 202468422 From the Booker Prize finalist author of The Island of Missing Trees, an enchanting new tale about three characters living along two rivers, all under the shadow of one of the greatest epic poems of all time.

In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, erudite but ruthless, built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign. From its ruins, however, emerged a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would infuse the existence of two rivers and bind together three lives.

In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Arthur’s only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a leading publisher, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, and one book in particular catches his interest: Nineveh and Its Remains.

In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a ten-year-old Yazidi girl, is diagnosed with a rare disorder that will soon cause her to go deaf. Before that happens, her grandmother is determined to baptize her in a sacred Iraqi temple. But with the rising presence of ISIS and the destruction of the family’s ancestral lands along the Tigris, Narin is running out of time.

In 2018 London, the newly divorced Zaleekah, a hydrologist, moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband. Orphaned and raised by her wealthy uncle, Zaleekah had made the decision to take her own life in one month, until a curious book about her homeland changes everything.

A dazzling feat of storytelling, There Are Rivers in the Sky entwines these outsiders with a single drop of water, a drop which remanifests across the centuries. Both a source of life and harbinger of death, rivers—the Tigris and the Thames—transcend history, transcend fate: “Water remembers. It is humans who forget.�]]> 464 Elif Shafak 0593801717 Andrew 0 4.39 2024 There Are Rivers in the Sky
author: Elif Shafak
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2024
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]]> The House on Rye Lane 175965899
2008. The house Maxine and Seb have just bought was a bargain � a huge Georgian townhouse on the edge of Peckham Rye, it needs a lot of work but Max couldn’t resist it. Now they are in, though, nothing seems to be going right � and as the problems mount up, Max starts to doubt her relationship as well as her decision. Is Seb all he seems to be? And why are the neighbours so evasive about the house’s previous owner?

1994. Cookie and his parents have been forced by his dad’s gambling debts to move into the attic room of a big old house, as lodgers. Tensions run high between them and their elderly landlady, and there’s something odd about the place that Cookie can’t quite put his finger on�

1843. Horatio built this house for his beloved wife, who then died in mysterious circumstances. After a second death on the premises, both his servants and the locals are starting to talk. Horatio’s grief is tinged with shame and guilt. What is he hiding? And will the house ever be free of his legacy?]]> 336 Susan Allott 0008567158 Andrew 0 3.62 2024 The House on Rye Lane
author: Susan Allott
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.62
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]]> Small Boat 228394781 Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025

In November 2021, an inflatable dinghy carrying migrants from France to the United Kingdom capsized in the Channel causing the death of 27 people on board. Despite receiving numerous calls for help, the French authorities wrongly told the migrants they were in British waters and had to call the British authorities for help. By the time rescue vessels arrived on the scene, all but two of the migrants had died. The narrator of Delecroix’s fictional account of the events is the woman who took the calls. Accused of failing in her duty, she refuses to be held more responsible than others for this disaster. Why should she be more responsible than the sea, than the war, than the crises behind these tragedies? A shocking, moral tale of our times, Small Boat reminds us of the power of fiction to illuminate our darkest crimes.]]> 160 Vincent Delecroix 1913109372 Andrew 0 4.08 Small Boat
author: Vincent Delecroix
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.08
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]]> <![CDATA[The Café at the Edge of the Woods]]> 195030839 Lemony Snicket meets Jon Klassen meets Grimms' fairy tales in an outrageously original picture book debut by BAFTA Award–winning and Oscar-nominated animation director Mikey Please. In The Café at the Edge of the Woods, an aspiring chef opens a café beside an enchanted forest and discovers locals with a most peculiar palette.

Rene and Glumfoot are ready to serve Very Fine Cuisine at the Café at the Edge of the Woods. But when their first customer, an ogre, demands pickled bats that smell like farts, Rene is ready to give up! She can't possibly serve such rubbish. Or can she?

With a little bit of compromise, perhaps she can satisfy her customer and still serve the most delicious grub.

Full of humor, unlikely friendship, themes of teamwork, and unexpected surprises, this charming and hilarious picture book is a winning recipe for readers who loved A Spoonful of Frogs by Casey Lyall, The Dark by Lemony Snicket, The Skull by Jon Klassen, and any fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm!]]> 0 Mikey Please 0008639027 Andrew 0 4.24 2024 The Café at the Edge of the Woods
author: Mikey Please
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.24
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]]> <![CDATA[The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder]]> 61714633 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on the Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans," it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.

But then . . . six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death--for whomever the court found guilty could hang.

The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann's recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O'Brian, his portrayal of the castaways' desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann's work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.]]> 331 David Grann 0385534264 Andrew 0 4.14 2023 The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
author: David Grann
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> The Ministry of Fear 213653
This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by Alan Furst.]]> 224 Graham Greene 0143039113 Andrew 0 currently-reading 3.79 1943 The Ministry of Fear
author: Graham Greene
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1943
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Richard III by Paul Murray Kendall (2002-04-01)]]> 161493506 Author Biography: Paul Murray Kendall (1911-1973) is the author of Warwick the Kingmaker, The Yorkist Age, Louis XI, and The Art of Biography.

]]> 0 Paul Murray Kendall Andrew 0 4.33 1955 Richard III by Paul Murray Kendall (2002-04-01)
author: Paul Murray Kendall
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1955
rating: 0
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]]> Edward IV: The Summer King 27880309 134 A.J. Pollard 0141978694 Andrew 0 3.60 2016 Edward IV: The Summer King
author: A.J. Pollard
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/31
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]]> Spores of Doom 230425057 Aaron Worth 0712355626 Andrew 0 currently-reading 4.00 Spores of Doom
author: Aaron Worth
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.00
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date added: 2025/03/30
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]]> The Ministry of Time 199798179 A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all:

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats� from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge�: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as �1847� or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,� “Spotify,� and “the collapse of the British Empire.� But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.]]> 339 Kaliane Bradley 1668045141 Andrew 0 3.54 2024 The Ministry of Time
author: Kaliane Bradley
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.54
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]]> The Man Who Fell to Earth 396329 209 Walter Tevis 0345431618 Andrew 0 4.01 1963 The Man Who Fell to Earth
author: Walter Tevis
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1963
rating: 0
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]]> Solenoid 27826456
Based on CÄrtÄrescu's own role as a high school teacher, Solenoid begins with the mundane details of a diarist's life and quickly spirals into a philosophical account of life, history, philosophy, and mathematics. One character asks another: when you rush into the burning building, will you save the newborn or the artwork? On a broad scale, the novel’s investigations of other universes, dimensions, and timelines reconcile the realms of life and art.

The novel is grounded in the reality of late 1970s/early 1980s Communist Romania, including long lines for groceries, the absurdities of the education system, and the misery of family life. The text includes sequences in a tuberculosis sanatorium, an encounter with an anti-death protest movement, a society of dream investigators, and an extended visit to the minuscule world of dust mites living on a microscope slide.

Combining fiction with autobiography and historyâ€� the scientists Nicolae Tesla and George Boole, for example, appear alongside the Voynich manuscript―Solenoid ruminates on the exchanges possible between the alternate dimensions of life and art, as various, monstrous dimensions erupt within the Communist present.]]> 840 Mircea CÄrtÄrescu 9735050595 Andrew 0 currently-reading 4.20 2015 Solenoid
author: Mircea CÄrtÄrescu
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/25
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]]> On a Woman's Madness 61244744 A classic of queer literature that’s as electrifying today as it was when it originally appeared in 1982, On a Woman’s Madness tells the story of Noenka, a courageous Black woman trying to live a life of her choosing. When her abusive husband of just nine days refuses her request for divorce, Noenka flees her hometown in Suriname, on South America's tropical northeastern coast, for the capital city of Paramaribo. Unsettled and unsupported, her life in this new place is illuminated by the passionate romances of the present but haunted by society’s expectations and her ancestral past.

Translated into sensuous English for the first time by Lucy Scott, Astrid Roemer’s intimate novel—with its tales of plantation-dwelling snakes, rare orchids, and star-crossed lovers—is a blistering meditation on the cruelties we inflict on those who disobey. Roemer, the first Surinamese winner of the prestigious Dutch Literature Prize, carves out postcolonial Suriname in barbed, resonant fragments. Who is Noenka? Roemer asks us. “I’m Noenka,� she responds resolutely, “which means Never Again.”]]> 265 Astrid H. Roemer 1949641430 Andrew 0 3.38 1982 On a Woman's Madness
author: Astrid H. Roemer
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.38
book published: 1982
rating: 0
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]]> Mockingbird 323172 288 Walter Tevis 0345431626 Andrew 0 4.11 1980 Mockingbird
author: Walter Tevis
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/24
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]]> The Mars House 210998493 The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, a queer sci-fi novel about an Earth refugee and a xenophobic Mars politician who fake marry to save their reputations—and their planet.

In the wake of environmental catastrophe, January, once a principal in London’s Royal Ballet, has become a refugee on Tharsis, the terraformed colony on Mars. In Tharsis, January’s life is dictated by his status as an Earthstronger—a person whose body is not adjusted to Mars’s lower gravity and so poses a danger to those born on, or naturalized to, Mars. January’s job choices, housing, and even transportation options are dictated by this second-class status, and now a xenophobic politician named Aubrey Gale is running on a platform that would make it all worse: Gale wants all Earthstrongers to be surgically naturalized, a process that can be anything from disabling to deadly.

When Gale chooses January for an on-the-spot press junket interview that goes horribly awry, January’s life is thrown into chaos, but Gale’s political fortunes are damaged, too. Gale proposes a solution to both their problems: a five-year made-for-the-press marriage that would secure January’s financial future without naturalization and ensure Gale’s political future. But when January accepts the offer, he discovers that Gale is not at all like they appear in the press. And worse, soon, January finds himself entangled in political and personal events well beyond his imagining. Gale has an enemy, someone willing to destroy all of Tharsis to make them pay—and January may be the only person standing in the way.]]> 471 Natasha Pulley 1399618547 Andrew 0 3.91 2024 The Mars House
author: Natasha Pulley
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2024
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]]> Under the Eye of the Big Bird 205673377 From one of Japan's most brilliant and sensitive contemporary novelists, this speculative fiction masterpiece envisions an Earth where humans are nearing extinction, and rewrites our understanding of reproduction, ecology, evolution, artificial intelligence, communal life, creation, love, and the future of humanity.

In the distant future, humans are on the verge of extinction and have settled in small tribes across the planet under the observation and care of "Mothers." Some children are made in factories, from cells of rabbits and dolphins; some live by getting nutrients from water and light, like plants. The survival of the race depends on the interbreeding of these and other alien beings--but it is far from certain that connection, love, reproduction, and evolution will persist among the inhabitants of this faltering new world.

Unfolding over fourteen interconnected episodes spanning geological eons, at once technical and pastoral, mournful and utopic, Under the Eye of the Big Bird presents an astonishing vision of the end of our species as we know it.]]> 288 Hiromi Kawakami 1593766114 Andrew 0 3.76 2016 Under the Eye of the Big Bird
author: Hiromi Kawakami
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[A Brief History of Neoliberalism]]> 183033 247 David Harvey 0199283273 Andrew 0 4.14 2005 A Brief History of Neoliberalism
author: David Harvey
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/21
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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 Andrew 0 4.01 2024 The Family Experiment
author: John Marrs
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> Edward II 209186
Set in early fourteenth-century Britain, Christopher Marlowe's play follows Edward II as he indulges his passion and renounces his duties, and ultimately pays the price for forsaking his country.]]> 160 Christopher Marlowe 1854594109 Andrew 4 3.65 1593 Edward II
author: Christopher Marlowe
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1593
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World]]> 138505710
Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience―she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who. Destabilized, she lost her bearings, until she began to understand the experience as one manifestation of a strangeness many of us have come to know but struggle to define: AI-generated text is blurring the line between genuine and spurious communication; New Age wellness entrepreneurs turned anti-vaxxers are scrambling familiar political allegiances of left and right; and liberal democracies are teetering on the edge of absurdist authoritarianism, even as the oceans rise. Under such conditions, reality itself seems to have become unmoored. Is there a cure for our moment of collective vertigo?

Naomi Klein is one of our most trenchant and influential social critics, an essential analyst of what branding, austerity, and climate profiteering have done to our societies and souls. Here she turns her gaze inward to our psychic landscapes, and outward to the possibilities for building hope amid intersecting economic, medical, and political crises. With the assistance of Sigmund Freud, Jordan Peele, Alfred Hitchcock, and bell hooks, among other accomplices, Klein uses wry humor and a keen sense of the ridiculous to face the strange doubles that haunt us―and that have come to feel as intimate and proximate as a warped reflection in the mirror.

Combining comic memoir with chilling reportage and cobweb-clearing analysis, Klein seeks to smash that mirror and chart a path beyond despair. Doppelganger What do we neglect as we polish and perfect our digital reflections? Is it possible to dispose of our doubles and overcome the pathologies of a culture of multiplication? Can we create a politics of collective care and undertake a true reckoning with historical crimes? The result is a revelatory treatment of the way many of us think and feel now―and an intellectual adventure story for our times.]]> 416 Naomi Klein 0374610320 Andrew 4 4.21 2023 Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World
author: Naomi Klein
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Talking to Strangers (Elise King, #2)]]> 202774975 Detective Elise King’s investigation into a woman’s murder is getting derailed by a reporter who insists on doing her own investigation in this nail-biting mystery from the author of Local Gone Missing.

When Karen Simmons is murdered on Valentine’s Day, Detective Elise King wonders if she was killed by a man she met online. Karen was all over the dating apps, leading some townspeople to blame her for her own death, while others band together to protest society’s violence against women. Into the divide comes Kiki Nunn, whose aggressive newsgathering once again antagonizes Elise.

A single mother of a young daughter, Kiki is struggling to make a living in the diminished news landscape. Getting a scoop in the Simmons murder would do a lot for her career, and she’s willing to go up against not just Elise but the killer himself to do it.]]> 400 Fiona Barton 1984803077 Andrew 3 3.74 2024 Talking to Strangers (Elise King, #2)
author: Fiona Barton
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/07
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]]> Boy with a Black Rooster 208703012
He can, if he is accompanied by a black rooster, his protector and friend. And if he is Martin, orphaned after a massacre, full of wisdom, courage and a pure heart. Too good for the selfish and idiotic villagers around him, his integrity entrances an itinerant painter with whom he departs on a quest. His heroic adventures through a morally abhorrent landscape, physically ravaged by war and famine, keep the reader cheering for him and his companion as this fairy tale for adults unfolds.

Set against a pseudo-medieval post-apocalyptic backdrop reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy, Angela Carter and Missouri Williams, this bestselling novel shines with the inner radiance of good deed in a naughty world that will leave you haunted, horrified, and completely riveted.]]> 192 Stefanie vor Schulte 1911648772 Andrew 0 currently-reading 4.04 Boy with a Black Rooster
author: Stefanie vor Schulte
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.04
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Floating Hotel 195177497 This cozy debut science fiction novel tells a story of misfits, rebels, found family—and a mystery that spans the stars.

Welcome to the Grand Abeona Hotel: home of the finest food, the sweetest service, and the very best views the galaxy has to offer. All year round it moves from planet to planet, system to system, pampering guests across the furthest reaches of the milky way. The last word in sub-orbital luxury—and an absolute magnet for intrigue. Intrigues such as: Why are there love poems in the lobby inbox? How many Imperial spies are currently on board? What is the true purpose of the Problem Solver's conference? And perhaps most pertinently�who is driving the ship?

Each guest has a secret, every member of staff a universe unto themselves. At the center of these interweaving lives and interlocking mysteries stands Carl, one time stowaway, longtime manager, devoted caretaker to the hotel. It's the love of his life and the only place he's ever called home. But as forces beyond Carl's comprehension converge on the Abeona, he has to face one final question: when is it time to let go?]]> 324 Grace Curtis 075641931X Andrew 3 3.66 2024 Floating Hotel
author: Grace Curtis
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/06
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]]> Hunchback 214986269 A bombshell bestseller in Japan, a provocative, defiant debut novel about a young woman in a care home seeking autonomy and the full possibilities of her life.

Born with a congenital muscle disorder, Shaka spends her days in her room in a care home outside Tokyo, relying on an electric wheelchair to get around and a ventilator to breathe. But if Shaka's physical life is limited, her quick, mischievous mind has no boundaries: She takes e-learning courses on her iPad, publishes explicit fantasies on websites, and anonymously troll-tweets to see if anyone is paying attention (“If I were to live again, I’d want to be a high-class prostitute�). One day, she tweets into the void an offer of an enormous sum of money for a sperm donor. To her surprise, her new nurse accepts the dare, unleashing a series of events that will forever change Shaka's sense of herself as a woman in the world.

Hunchback has shaken Japanese literary culture with its skillful depiction of the physical body and unrepentant humor. Winner of the prestigious Akutagawa Prize, it's a feminist story about the dignity of an individual who insists on her right to make choices for herself, no matter the consequences. Formally creative and refreshingly unsentimental, Hunchback depicts the joy, anger, and desires of a woman demanding autonomy in a world that doesn't aways grant it to people like her. Full of wit, bite, and heart, this unforgettable novel reminds us all of the full potential of our lives, no matter the limitations we experience.]]> 112 Saou Ichikawa 0593734718 Andrew 4 3.54 2023 Hunchback
author: Saou Ichikawa
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/06
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]]> Dream Count 219521090 A publishing event ten years in the making�a searing, exquisite new novel by the best-selling and award-winning author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists�the story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires.

Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until � betrayed and brokenhearted � she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America � but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.

In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations on the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.]]> 416 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 059380273X Andrew 0 currently-reading 3.97 2025 Dream Count
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Perfection 203200544 112 Vincenzo Latronico 1804271055 Andrew 3 3.84 2022 Perfection
author: Vincenzo Latronico
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/03
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]]> The Signalman 9968921 56 Charles Dickens 0929605926 Andrew 0 3.71 1866 The Signalman
author: Charles Dickens
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1866
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise]]> 200869482
But the story of the garden doesn’t always enact larger patterns of privilege and exclusion. It’s also a place of rebel outposts and communal dreams. From the improbable queer utopia conjured by Derek Jarman on the beach at Dungeness to the fertile vision of a common Eden propagated by William Morris, new modes of living can and have been attempted amidst the flower beds, experiments that could prove vital in the coming era of climate change.

The result is a humming, glowing tapestry, a beautiful and exacting account of the abundant pleasures and possibilities of not as a place to hide from the world but as a site of encounter and discovery, bee-loud and pollen-laden.]]> 336 Olivia Laing 0393882004 Andrew 5 3.88 2024 The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise
author: Olivia Laing
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
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]]> Eurotrash 55834180
»Also, ich musste wieder auf ein paar Tage nach Zürich. Es war ganz schrecklich. Aus Nervosität darüber hatte ich mich das gesamte verlängerte Wochenende über so unwohl gefühlt, dass ich unter starker Verstopfung litt. Dazu muss ich sagen, dass ich vor einem Vierteljahrhundert eine Geschichte geschrieben hatte, die ich aus irgendeinem Grund, der mir nun nicht mehr einfällt, ›Faserland� genannt hatte. Es endet in Zürich, sozusagen auf dem Zürichsee, relativ traumatisch.« Christian Krachts lange erwarteter neuer Roman beginnt mit einer Erinnerung: vor 25 Jahren irrte in »Faserland« ein namenloser Ich-Erzähler (war es Christian Kracht?) durch ein von allen Geistern verlassenes Deutschland, von Sylt bis über die Schweizer Grenze nach Zürich. In »Eurotrash« geht derselbe Erzähler erneut auf eine Reise � diesmal nicht nur ins Innere des eigenen Ichs, sondern in die Abgründe der eigenen Familie, deren Geschichte sich auf tragische, komische und bisweilen spektakuläre Weise immer wieder mit der Geschichte dieses Landes kreuzt. »Eurotrash« ist ein berührendes Meisterwerk von existentieller Wucht und sarkastischem Humor.]]> 209 Christian Kracht 3462050834 Andrew 4 3.66 2021 Eurotrash
author: Christian Kracht
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/03/01
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]]> <![CDATA[There's a Monster Behind the Door]]> 218718725 ready to pounce at the slightest disturbance.

â€In the heat of the Tropic of Capricorn, on the flanks of an active volcano, the sharks would tear apart your favourite magazine if only they could crawl as far as your beach towel.â€�

Here, the naĂŻve Dessaintes couple make a failing bid for happiness, soon growing jaded and bitter as the orange tree in their front yard â€� â€the branches laden with flowers, the juicy oranges and, eventually, the nests of insatiable weaverbirds and the stench of rotten fruit.â€�

Even so, sprouting defiantly through the cracks of this postcolonial legacy of violence, poverty and intergenerational trauma, the Dessaintesâ€� daughter shows an irrepressible zest for life. Amidst the chaos raging behind and beyond the door of her childhood home, our young narrator stubbornly resists her parentsâ€� refrain, â€that’s the way it is and that’s that!â€�

Finding refuge in reading and determined to write her own story, she falls in love with words â€� â€a group of jumbled black arabesques was dancing on a little white wall ... I worshipped them as sacred beings.â€�

With clear-eyed, offbeat, buoyant humour, BĂ©lem plunges us into a vivid world of extremes where, â€quiet times and places are rare.’]]> 176 GaĂ«lle BĂ©lem 1739842367 Andrew 4 3.64 There's a Monster Behind the Door
author: Gaëlle Bélem
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.64
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/02/28
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]]> A Leopard-Skin Hat 88564033 122 Anne Serre 0811234517 Andrew 4 3.58 A Leopard-Skin Hat
author: Anne Serre
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.58
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/27
date added: 2025/02/27
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]]> Sociopath: A Memoir 176443093
Patric Gagne realized she made others uncomfortable before she started kindergarten. Something about her caused people to react in a way she didn’t understand. She suspected it was because she didn’t feel things the way other kids did. Emotions like fear, guilt, and empathy eluded her. For the most part, she felt nothing. And she didn’t like the way that “nothing� felt.

She did her best to pretend she was like everyone else, but the constant pressure to conform to a society she knew rejected anyone like her was unbearable. So Patric stole. She lied. She was occasionally violent. She became an expert lock-picker and home-invader. All with the goal of replacing the nothingness with...something.

In college, Patric finally confirmed what she’d long suspected. She was a sociopath. But even though it was the very first personality disorder identified—well over 200 years ago—sociopathy had been neglected by mental health professionals for decades. She was told there was no treatment, no hope for a normal life. She found herself haunted by sociopaths in pop culture, madmen and evil villains who are considered monsters. Her future looked grim.

But when Patric reconnects with an old flame, she gets a glimpse of a future beyond her diagnosis. If she’s capable of love, it must mean that she isn’t a monster. With the help of her sweetheart (and some curious characters she meets along the way) she embarks on a mission to prove that the millions of Americans who share her diagnosis aren’t all monsters either.

This is the inspiring story of her journey to change her fate and how she managed to build a life full of love and hope.]]> 368 Patric Gagne 166800318X Andrew 4 3.74 2024 Sociopath: A Memoir
author: Patric Gagne
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Weird Sisters: Tales from the Queens of the Pulp Era]]> 222663401 Weird Tales magazine and its contemporaries comes a new anthology of fifteen uncanny tales—classics and rarities penned by the women writers whose weird imaginings defined the pulp era.

Featuring an introduction and biographical notes by veteran editor Mike Ashley, this collection offers ghostly thrills, shapeshifting horrors and monstrous coming-of-age narratives from Weird Tales stalwarts such as Mary Elizabeth Counselman alongside more surprising authors such as Lucy M. Montgomery. This new selection also includes a 1990s classic by Tanith Lee, the queen of Weird Tales magazine’s revival era, and a recently rediscovered gem of mythical horror by Evangeline Walton.]]> 289 Mike Ashley 0712368582 Andrew 4 3.95 Weird Sisters: Tales from the Queens of the Pulp Era
author: Mike Ashley
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.95
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/22
date added: 2025/02/22
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]]> Murder as a Fine Art 223295365 256 Carol Carnac 0712355170 Andrew 3 3.77 1953 Murder as a Fine Art
author: Carol Carnac
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1953
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/02/20
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]]> Strung (Strung Trilogy) 59640786
At a traffic light near the city limits, someone has turned a lamppost into a makeshift gallows, and in it a man - dead and decomposing - hangs.

The sight of the hanged man is terrifying in itself, but it soon dawns on Randall that there are other - and far greater - problems in the small town. Because while he is waiting in his car for the police to show up, several people pass by the crime scene - and not a single one of them reacts to the fact that a dead man is hanging in the middle of the street.

Something has gone completely wrong in East Alin while Randall has been away. Start the Strung Trilogy today.]]> 339 Per Jacobsen 8797329436 Andrew 0 3.58 2021 Strung (Strung Trilogy)
author: Per Jacobsen
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/02/19
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]]> Hungerstone 200315473 For what do you hunger . . .?

Lenore is the wife of steel magnate Henry, but ten years into their marriage the relationship has soured, and no child has arrived to fill the distance growing between them. Henry's ambitions take them from London to Sheffield, and with his success hinged on a hunt, an old tradition looms over the home; the hunt is a time to settle old scores. If a bullet finds a human home, then it is only that they were foolish to become prey. In the weeks leading up to the hunt, a carriage accident near their remote home brings the mysterious Carmilla into Lenore's life. Carmilla, who is weak and pale during the day but vibrant at night, Carmilla who will not eat meals with the family, Carmilla who stirs up a hunger deep within Lenore. Soon girls from local villages begin to fall sick before being consumed by a terrible hunger . . .

Set against the violent wilderness of the Peaks and the uncontrolled appetite of the industrial revolution Hungerstone is a compulsive feminist reworking of Carmilla, the book that inspired a captivating story of appetite and desire.]]> 400 Kat Dunn 1786583925 Andrew 4 3.96 2025 Hungerstone
author: Kat Dunn
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/02/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Killer's Payoff (87th Precinct, #6)]]> 647586 272 Ed McBain 0743463064 Andrew 5 3.86 1958 Killer's Payoff (87th Precinct, #6)
author: Ed McBain
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1958
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/17
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]]> Julia Roseingrave 34569099 97 Marjorie Bowen Andrew 3 3.00 Julia Roseingrave
author: Marjorie Bowen
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/02/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy]]> 59808402 Exposing the origins of this epic power grab as well as its present-day consequences, Silent Coup is the result of two investigative journalist's reports from 30 countries around the world. It provides an explosive guide to the rise of a corporate empire that now dictates how resources are allocated, how territories are governed, and how justice is defined.]]> 296 Claire Provost 1350269980 Andrew 5 4.28 Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy
author: Claire Provost
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.28
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/02/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Buttercream Bump Off (Cupcake Bakery Mystery, #2)]]> 8302909 240 Jenn McKinlay 0425239241 Andrew 4 3.94 2011 Buttercream Bump Off (Cupcake Bakery Mystery, #2)
author: Jenn McKinlay
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves:
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]]> Destination: Tomorrow 62201624 THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME meets THE MAZE RUNNER�

Sara has her own rules during the keep moving, stay quiet, and keep to yourself. When she meets Cat, the woman who threatens her life no sooner after saving it, those rules go out the window.

Cat has a secret, and unbeknownst to her, she isn't the only one who knows. Chased by a group who relishes the hunt, Cat unintentionally drags an innocent yet fierce Sara into someone's awful game.

If they want any chance at seeing tomorrow, these unlikely allies must work together to fend off the flesh-hungry infected and the merciless scavengers that have them trapped around every corner.]]> 185 Aly Hawthorne Andrew 0 4.07 Destination: Tomorrow
author: Aly Hawthorne
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.07
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/14
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]]> Nick and Charlie 217700446
NICK: “Things me and Charlie Spring do together include: Watch films. Sit in the same room on different laptops. Text each other from different rooms. Make out. Make food. Make drinks. Get drunk. Talk. Argue. Laugh. Maybe we're kind of boring. But that’s fine with us.�

Everyone knows that Nick and Charlie are the perfect couple â€� that they’re inseparable. But now Nick is leaving for university, and Charlie will be left behind at Sixth Form. Everyone’s asking if they’re staying together, which is a stupid question â€� they’re â€Nick and Charlieâ€�, for God’s sake!

But as the time to say goodbye gets inevitably closer, both Nick and Charlie question whether their love is strong enough to survive being apart. Or are they delaying the inevitable? Because everyone knows that first loves rarely last forever…]]> 192 Alice Oseman 0008659281 Andrew 0 4.17 2015 Nick and Charlie
author: Alice Oseman
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/14
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]]> Meet Me at the Surface 197984948
EVERYTHING THAT COMES FROM THE GROUND HAS TO GO BACK DOWN, EVENTUALLY�

Merryn grew up on the wilds of Bodmin moor, raised by her mother and her aunt in an old farmhouse. Here, the locals never leave the decaying village, fear for the future of their farms and cling desperately to the folkloric tales that are woven into their history. Except Merryn, who has escaped to Manchester for university, briefly untethering herself from her past.

When Merryn returns home for the memorial service of her ex-girlfriend Claud, she finds her childhood home stranger and more secretive than ever. She’s sure that her mother is hiding something. The villagers are hunting on the moors at night, but for what? And then there’s a notebook, found in an old chest of drawers, full of long-forgotten folklore than seems to be linked somehow to Claud…]]> 272 Jodie Matthews 0008585008 Andrew 5 3.62 Meet Me at the Surface
author: Jodie Matthews
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.62
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/11
date added: 2025/02/11
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]]> Hunted 198493702
In London, the police storm Heathrow Airport to bring in a father for questioning about his missing daughter.

In Florida, a mother makes a connection between her son and the bomber, fearing he has been radicalized.

And in Oregon, an unknown organization’s conspiracy to bring America to its knees unfolds�

On the run from the authorities, the two parents are thrown together in a race against time to stop a catastrophe that will derail the country’s future forever.

But can they find their kids before it’s too late?

For fans of The Chain and I Am Pilgrim, this ground-breaking, blockbuster thriller is unlike any other thriller you will read this year.]]> 400 Abir Mukherjee 0316260215 Andrew 3 3.77 2024 Hunted
author: Abir Mukherjee
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/10
date added: 2025/02/10
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]]> Piranesi 50202953
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.]]> 272 Susanna Clarke 163557563X Andrew 4 4.22 2020 Piranesi
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> <![CDATA[The Wind in the Willows � 90th anniversary gift edition: With original artwork, by Winnie-the-Pooh illustrator, E. H. Shepard]]> 58563360
The Wild Wood seems a terrifying place to Mole, until one day he pokes his nose out of his burrow and finds it’s full of friends. He meets brave Ratty, kind old Badger and the rascally Mr Toad, and together they go adventuring � but the Wild Wood doesn't just contain friends, there are also the sinister weasels and stoats, and they capture Toad Hall when Mr Toad is in jail. How will he escape? And can the friends fight together to save Toad Hall?

Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows is a classic animal adventure that charms and enthrals. This new paperback edition contains the original black and white illustrations by E H Shepard, the man who drew Winnie-the-Pooh. The perfect adventure for children aged 9 and above.]]> 272 Kenneth Grahame 0755500792 Andrew 5 4.04 1908 The Wind in the Willows – 90th anniversary gift edition: With original artwork, by Winnie-the-Pooh illustrator, E. H. Shepard
author: Kenneth Grahame
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1908
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
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]]> <![CDATA[Plague, Pestilence and Pandemic: Voices from History]]> 55678395 304 Peter Furtado 0500296138 Andrew 4 3.67 Plague, Pestilence and Pandemic: Voices from History
author: Peter Furtado
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.67
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/07
date added: 2025/02/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Wild Men: The Remarkable Story of Britain's First Labour Government]]> 203035577
In 1923, four short years since the end of the First World War, and after the passing of the Act which gave all men the vote, an inconclusive election result and the prospect of a constitutional crisis opened the door for a radically different sort of government: men from working-class backgrounds who had never before occupied the corridors of power at Westminster.

The Wild Men tells the story of that first Labour administration - its unexpected birth, fraught existence, and controversial downfall - through the eyes of those who found themselves in the House of Commons, running the country for the people. Blending biography and history into a compelling narrative, David Torrance reassesses the UK's first Labour government a century after it shook up a British establishment still reeling from the War - and how the establishment eventually fought back.

This is an extraordinary period in British political history which echoes down the years to our current politics and laid the foundations for the Britain of today.]]> 336 David Torrance 1399411438 Andrew 3 3.81 2024 The Wild Men: The Remarkable Story of Britain's First Labour Government
author: David Torrance
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/07
date added: 2025/02/07
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]]> Death at the Sanatorium 203578851 Fresh off his career-changing standalone co-written with Icelandic PM, Reykjavík, #1 Icelandic bestseller Jonasson presents a riveting new thriller spinoff from The Darkness, soon to be a TV series. 1983 At a former sanatorium in the north of Iceland, now a hospital ward, an old nurse, Yrsa, is found murdered. Detective Hulda Hermannsdottir and her boss, Sverrir, are sent to investigate her death. There, they discover five the chief physician, two junior nurses, a young doctor, and the caretaker, who is arrested following false testimony from one of the nurses, but subsequently released. Less than a week after the murder, the chief physician, is also found dead, having apparently fallen from a balcony. Sverrir, rules his death as suicide and assumes that he was guilty of the murder as well. The case is closed. 2012 Almost thirty years later, Helgi Reykdal, a young police officer, has been studying criminology in the UK, but decides to return to Iceland when he is offered a job at the Reykjavik police department—the job which detective Hulda Hermannsdottir is about to retire from. He is also a collector of golden age detective stories, and is writing his thesis on the 1983 murders in the north. As Helgi delves deeper into the past, and starts his new job, he decides to try to meet with the original suspects. But soon he finds silence and suspicion at every turn, as he tries to finally solve the mystery from years before.]]> 320 Ragnar Jónasson 1250770769 Andrew 4 3.58 2019 Death at the Sanatorium
author: Ragnar JĂłnasson
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/07
date added: 2025/02/07
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]]> <![CDATA[A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary]]> 30851 A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

For eight weeks in 1945, as Berlin fell to the Russian army, a young woman kept a daily record of life in her apartment building and among its residents. The anonymous author depicts her fellow Berliners in all their humanity, as well as their cravenness, corrupted first by hunger and then by the Russians. A Woman in Berlin tells of the complex relationship between civilians and an occupying army and the shameful indignities to which women in a conquered city are always subject--the mass rape suffered by all, regardless of age or infirmity.]]> 261 Anonymous 0312426119 Andrew 5 4.23 1953 A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary
author: Anonymous
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1953
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/05
date added: 2025/02/05
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]]> Blue Sisters 195430687 Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister's death in this unforgettable story of grief, identity, and the complexities of family.

The three Blue sisters are exceptional—and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky reeling. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction, and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in.

But coming home is never as easy as it seems. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize the greatest secrets they've been keeping might not have been from each other, but from themselves.]]> 342 Coco Mellors 0593723767 Andrew 4 3.94 2024 Blue Sisters
author: Coco Mellors
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/02/02
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]]> At Dark, I Become Loathsome 210906882 From Eric LaRocca—Bram Stoker Award–nominated and Splatterpunk Award–winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke—c´Çłľ±đ˛ő At Dark, I Become Loathsome, a grim yet gentle, horrifying yet hopeful, intense tale of death, trauma, and love.

“If you’re reading this, you’ve likely thought that the world would be a better place without you.�

A single line of text, glowing in the darkness of the internet. Written by Ashley Lutin, who has often thought the same—and worse—in the years since his wife died and his young son disappeared. But the peace of the grave is not for him—it’s for those he can help. Ashley has constructed a peculiar ritual for those whose desire to die is at war with their yearning to live a better life.

Struggling to overcome his own endless grief, one night Ashley finds connection with Jinx—a potential candidate for Ashley’s next ritual—who spins a tale both revolting and fascinating. Thus begins a relationship that traps the two men in an ever-tightening spiral of painful revelations, where long-hidden secrets are dragged, kicking and screaming, into the light.

Only through pain can we find healing. Only through death can we find new life.]]> 178 Eric LaRocca Andrew 3 3.35 2025 At Dark, I Become Loathsome
author: Eric LaRocca
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/01
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]]> The Lamb 216867498
But Mama’s want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a beautiful, white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires, and make her own bid for freedom.

With this gothic coming-of-age tale, novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire, and animal instincts—and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.]]> 336 Lucy Rose 1399619713 Andrew 5 3.95 2025 The Lamb
author: Lucy Rose
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/31
date added: 2025/01/31
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I absolutely loved this grotesque gothic fairytale, a sense of decay and melancholy ooze from this sumptuous tale of hunger
]]> <![CDATA[This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen]]> 228244 180 Tadeusz Borowski 0140186247 Andrew 4 4.17 1946 This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen
author: Tadeusz Borowski
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1946
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/28
date added: 2025/01/28
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]]> The Remaking 54820062 Inspired by a true story, this supernatural thriller for fans of horror and true crime follows a tale as it evolves every twenty years—with terrifying results.

Ella Louise has lived in the woods surrounding Pilot’s Creek, Virginia, for nearly a decade. Publicly, she and her daughter Jessica are shunned by their upper-crust family and the Pilot’s Creek residents. Privately, desperate townspeople visit her apothecary for a cure to what ails them—until Ella Louise is blamed for the death of a prominent customer. Accused of witchcraft, both mother and daughter are burned at the stake in the middle of the night. Ella Louise’s burial site is never found, but the little girl has the most famous grave in the South: a steel-reinforced coffin surrounded by a fence of interconnected white crosses.

Their story will take the shape of an urban legend as it’s told around a campfire by a man forever marked by his boyhood encounters with Jessica. Decades later, a boy at that campfire will cast Amber Pendleton as Jessica in a �70s horror movie inspired by the Witch Girl of Pilot’s Creek. Amber’s experiences on that set and its meta-remake in the �90s will ripple through pop culture, ruining her life and career after she becomes the target of a witch hunt. Amber’s best chance to break the cycle of horror comes when a true-crime investigator tracks her down to interview her for his popular podcast. But will this final act of storytelling redeem her—or will it bring the story full circle, ready to be told once again? And again. And again…]]> 305 Clay McLeod Chapman 168369211X Andrew 4 3.25 2019 The Remaking
author: Clay McLeod Chapman
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/28
date added: 2025/01/28
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]]> <![CDATA['Rommel?' 'Gunner Who?': A Confrontation in the Desert]]> 250949 209 Spike Milligan 0140041079 Andrew 4 4.13 1974 'Rommel?' 'Gunner Who?': A Confrontation in the Desert
author: Spike Milligan
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1974
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/01/26
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]]> <![CDATA[The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings From History]]> 218041377
Ultimately, he delves into the darkness to explain how and why these people were capable of committing the worst crime in the history of the world. Rees traces the rise and eventual fall of the Nazis through the lens of â€twelve warningsâ€� â€� from talk about â€themâ€� and â€usâ€� to the escalation of racism â€� whilst also highlighting signs to look out for in present day leaders.

Rees uses previously unpublished testimony from former Nazis and those who grew up in the Nazi system, and in-depth psychological insights including cutting edge work on obedience, authority and the brain. THE NAZI MIND is a revelatory new way of understanding how so many people committed the most appalling crime of the 20th century.]]> 403 Laurence Rees 1405974745 Andrew 5 4.39 The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings From History
author: Laurence Rees
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.39
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/01/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Killer's Choice (87th Precinct, #5)]]> 1158273 219 Ed McBain 0749004525 Andrew 4 3.80 1957 Killer's Choice (87th Precinct, #5)
author: Ed McBain
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1957
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/24
date added: 2025/01/24
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]]> Whisper Down the Lane 55671294
Richard doesn’t have a past. For him, there is only the present: a new marriage to Tamara, a first chance at fatherhood to her son Elijah, and a quiet but pleasant life as an art teacher at Elijah’s elementary school in Danvers, Virginia. Then the body of a rabbit, ritualistically murdered, appears on the school grounds with a birthday card for Richard tucked beneath it. Richard doesn’t have a birthday—but Sean does . . .

Sean is a five-year-old boy who has just moved to Greenfield, Virginia, with his mother. Like most mothers of the 1980s, she’s worried about bills, childcare, putting food on the table . . . and an encroaching threat to American life that can take the face of anyone: a politician, a friendly neighbor, or even a teacher. When Sean’s school sends a letter to the parents revealing that Sean’s favorite teacher is under investigation, a white lie from Sean lights a fire that engulfs the entire nation—and Sean and his mother are left holding the match.

Now, thirty years later, someone is here to remind Richard that they remember what Sean did. And though Sean doesn’t exist anymore, someone needs to pay the price for his lies.]]> 304 Clay McLeod Chapman 1683692152 Andrew 4 3.57 2021 Whisper Down the Lane
author: Clay McLeod Chapman
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/23
date added: 2025/01/23
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]]> Jawbone 44074748
When Fernanda, Annelise, and their friends from the Delta Bilingual Academy convene after school, Annelise leads them in thrilling but increasingly dangerous rituals to a rhinestoned, Dior-scented, drag-queen god of her own invention. Even more perilous is the secret Annelise and Fernanda share, rooted in a dare in which violence meets love. Meanwhile, their literature teacher Miss Clara, who is obsessed with imitating her dead mother, struggles to preserve her deteriorating sanity. Each day she edges nearer to a total break with reality.

Interweaving pop culture references and horror concepts drawn from from Herman Melville, H.P. Lovecraft, and anonymous 'creepypastas', Jawbone is an ominous, multivocal novel that explores the terror inherent in the pure potentiality of adolescence and the fine line between desire and fear.]]> 264 MĂłnica Ojeda 1566896215 Andrew 3 3.56 2023 Jawbone
author: MĂłnica Ojeda
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/22
date added: 2025/01/22
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]]> News of the World 25817493 Enemy Women that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust.

In the wake of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings from newspapers to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence.

In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna’s parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S. army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows.

Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act “civilized.� Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forming a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land.

Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not remember—strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to her fate or become—in the eyes of the law—a kidnapper himself.

]]> 209 Paulette Jiles 0062409204 Andrew 4 4.02 2016 News of the World
author: Paulette Jiles
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
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]]> Fifty-Two Stories 52024701 From the celebrated, award-winning translators of Anna Karenina and War and Peace a lavish, masterfully rendered volume of stories by one of the most influential short fiction writers of all time.

Chekhov's genius left an indelible impact on every literary form in which he wrote, but none more so than short fiction. Now, renowned translators and longtime house authors Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky give us their peerless renderings of fifty-two Chekhov stories--a full deck! These stories, which span the full arc of his career, reveal the extraordinary variety and unexpectedness of his work, from the farcically comic to the darkly complex, showing that there is no one type of "Chekhov story." They are populated by a remarkable range of characters who come from all parts of Russia, all walks of life, and who, taken together, have democratized the short story. Included here are a number of never-before-translated stories, including "Reading" and "An Educated Blockhead." Here is a collection that promises profound delight.

Contains:
Joy--
Fat and Skinny--
At the Post Office--
Reading--
The Cook Gets Married--
In a Foreign Land--
Corporal Whompov--
Grief--
The Exclamation Point--
An Educated Blockhead--
A Slip-Up--
Anguish--
A Commotion--
The Witch--
A Little Joke--
Agafya--
Spring--
A Nightmare--
Grisha--
Ladies--
Romance with a Double Bass--
The Chorus Girl--
The First-Class Passenger--
Difficult People--
On the Road--
The Beggar--
Enemies--
The Letter--
Volodya--
Luck--
The Siren--
The Shepherd's Pipe--
Costly Lessons--
The Kiss--
Boys--
Kashtanka--
The Name-Day Party--
A Breakdown--
The Bet--
The Princess--
After the Theater--
History of a Business Enterprise--
Neighbors--
Fear--
Big Volodya and Little Volodya--
The Teacher of Literature--
In a Country House--
The Pecheneg--
In the Cart--
About Love--
Ionych--
The New Dacha--]]> 528 Anton Chekhov 0525520813 Andrew 0 currently-reading 4.28 1883 Fifty-Two Stories
author: Anton Chekhov
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1883
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Strange Pictures 216670080
A pregnant woman’s sketches on a seemingly innocuous blog conceal a chilling warning.

A child’s picture of his home contains a dark secret message.

A sketch made by a murder victim in his final moments leads an amateur sleuth down a rabbit hole that will reveal a horrifying reality.

Structured around these nine childlike drawings, every one holding a disturbing clue, this novel invites readers to piece together the harrowing truth behind each and the overarching backstory that connects them all. Strange Pictures is the bestselling international debut from mystery-horror YouTube sensation Uketsu—an enigmatic masked figure who has become one of Japan's most talked about contemporary authors.]]> 236 Uketsu 0063433087 Andrew 5 4.05 2022 Strange Pictures
author: Uketsu
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Con Man (87th Precinct, #4)]]> 442784
The question is: How far is he willing to go?

When a young woman's body washes up in the Harb River, the answer to that question becomes tragically clear. Now Detective Steve Carella races against time to find him before another con turns deadly. The only clue he has to go on is the mysterious tattoo on the young woman’s hand—but it’s enough. Carella takes to the streets, searching its darkest corners for a man who cons his victims out of their money…and their lives.]]> 201 Ed McBain 0752857940 Andrew 4 3.83 1957 The Con Man (87th Precinct, #4)
author: Ed McBain
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1957
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/01/18
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]]> Wake Up and Open Your Eyes 204640265 From Vulture's "master of horror" Clay McLeod Chapman, a relentless and emotionally charged social horror novel about a family on the run from a demonic possession epidemic that spreads through media, for fans of The Last of Us and When Evil Lurks

Noah Fairchild has been losing his formerly polite Southern parents to far-right cable news for years, so when his mother leaves him a voicemail warning him that the “Great Reawakening� is here, he assumes it’s related to one of the many conspiracy theories she believes in. But when his own phone calls go unanswered, Noah makes the long drive from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia. There, he discovers his childhood home in shambles, a fridge full of spoiled food, and his parents locked in a terrifying trance-like state in front of the TV. Panicked, Noah attempts to snap them out of it and get medical help.

Then Noah’s mother brutally attacks him.

But Noah isn’t the only person to be attacked by a loved one. Families across the country are tearing each other apart-–literally-–as people succumb to a form of possession that gets worse the more time they spend watching particular channels, using certain apps, or visiting certain websites. In Noah’s Richmond-based family, only he and his young nephew Marcus are unaffected. Together, they must race back to the safe haven of Brooklyn�-but can they make it before they fall prey to the violent hordes?

This ambitious, searing novel from "one of horror's modern masters" holds a mirror to our divided nation, and will shake readers to the core.]]> 384 Clay McLeod Chapman Andrew 4 3.39 2025 Wake Up and Open Your Eyes
author: Clay McLeod Chapman
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/17
date added: 2025/01/17
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]]> Exile and the Kingdom 1051306 "The Adulterous Woman" ("La Femme adultère")
"The Renegade or a Confused Spirit" ("Le Renégat ou un esprit confus")
"The Silent Men" ("Les Muets")
"The Guest" ("L'HĂ´te")
"Jonas or the Artist at Work" ("Jonas ou l’artiste au travail")
"The Growing Stone" ("La Pierre qui pousse")]]> 128 Albert Camus 0141188251 Andrew 4 3.60 1950 Exile and the Kingdom
author: Albert Camus
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1950
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/17
date added: 2025/01/17
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]]> The Myth of Sisyphus 91950 The Myth of Sisyphus transformed twentieth-century philosophy with its impassioned argument for the value of life in a world without religious meaning.]]> 192 Albert Camus 0141182008 Andrew 4 4.25 1942 The Myth of Sisyphus
author: Albert Camus
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1942
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/16
date added: 2025/01/16
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]]> A Happy Death 15682 A Happy Death is a fascinating first sketch for The Outsider, but it can also be seen as a candid self-portrait, drawing on Camus's memories of his youth, travels, and early relationships. It is infused with lyrical descriptions of the sun-drenched Algiers of his childhood - the place where, eventually, Mersault is able to find peace and die 'without anger, without hatred, without regret'.]]> 144 Albert Camus Andrew 4 3.89 1971 A Happy Death
author: Albert Camus
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1971
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Leila Khaled: Icon of Palestinian Liberation]]> 13169738
In this intimate profile, based on interviews with Khaled and those who know her, Sarah Irving gives us the life-story behind the image. Key moments of Khaled's turbulent life are explored, including the dramatic events of the hijackings, her involvement in the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, her opposition to the Oslo peace process, and her activism today.

Leila Khaled's example gives unique insights into the Palestinian struggle through one remarkable life � from the tension between armed and political struggle, to the decline of the secular Left and the rise of Hamas, and the role of women in a largely male movement.]]> 168 Sarah Irving 0745329519 Andrew 4 4.20 2012 Leila Khaled: Icon of Palestinian Liberation
author: Sarah Irving
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/14
date added: 2025/01/14
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]]> The Rebel 11990
Translated from the French by Anthony Bower.]]> 320 Albert Camus 0679733841 Andrew 4 4.16 1951 The Rebel
author: Albert Camus
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1951
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/01/13
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]]> The Plague 11989
It tells the story from the point of view of a narrator of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. The narrator remains unknown until the start of the last chapter, chapter 5 of part 5. The novel presents a snapshot of life in Oran as seen through the author's distinctive absurdist point of view.

The book tells a gripping tale of human unrelieved horror, of survival and resilience, and of the ways in which humankind confronts death, The Plague is at once a masterfully crafted novel, eloquently understated and epic in scope, and a parable of ageless moral resonance, profoundly relevant to our times. In Oran, a coastal town in North Africa, the plague begins as a series of portents, unheeded by the people. It gradually becomes an omnipresent reality, obliterating all traces of the past and driving its victims to almost unearthly extremes of suffering, madness, and compassion.

The Plague is considered an existentialist classic despite Camus' objection to the label. The novel stresses the powerlessness of the individual characters to affect their destinies. The narrative tone is similar to Kafka's, especially in The Trial, whose individual sentences potentially have multiple meanings; the material often pointedly resonating as stark allegory of phenomenal consciousness and the human condition.]]> 308 Albert Camus Andrew 4 4.05 1947 The Plague
author: Albert Camus
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1947
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/11
date added: 2025/01/11
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]]> The Fall 11991
The Fall (French: La Chute) is a philosophical novel by Albert Camus. First published in 1956, it is his last complete work of fiction. The Fall explores themes of innocence, imprisonment, non-existence, and truth. In a eulogy to Albert Camus, existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre described the novel as "perhaps the most beautiful and the least understood" of Camus' books.]]> 147 Albert Camus 0679720227 Andrew 5 4.07 1956 The Fall
author: Albert Camus
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1956
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/01/10
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]]> Paper Cage 154462563
How far would you go to keep your family safe?

Lorraine Henry is generally content to keep her head down and get on with her work as a records clerk at the Masterton police station. But when children start going missing in her small town, Lo can't help but pay attention. After all, she has Bradley, her young nephew, to worry about, and the cops don't seem to be putting much effort into finding the kids. And then the unthinkable Bradley disappears. Distraught but determined, Lorraine vows to bring him home no matter what. And, together with a detective from Wellington, she embarks on a dangerous mission, one that will illuminate all the good and all the bad in Masterton.]]> 320 Tom Baragwanath 0593685105 Andrew 4 3.50 2022 Paper Cage
author: Tom Baragwanath
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/08
date added: 2025/01/08
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]]> All the Fiends of Hell 201048401 Ordinary, unexceptional, directionless Karl, is one of the few who made it through the first night. In the company of two orphans, he flees south. But only into horrifying revelations and greater peril, where a transformed world and expanding race of ravening creatures await. Driven to the end of the country and himself, he must overcome alien and human malevolence and act in ways that were unthinkable mere days before.All The Fiends of Hell is a novel of alien horror from the four times winner of the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel.]]> 393 Adam L.G. Nevill 1739378423 Andrew 3 3.93 2024 All the Fiends of Hell
author: Adam L.G. Nevill
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/08
date added: 2025/01/08
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]]> Travellers in the Third Reich 34594504
The events that took place in Germany between 1919 and 1945 were dramatic and terrible but there were also moments of confusion, of doubt � of hope. How easy was it to know what was actually going on, to grasp the essence of National Socialism, to remain untouched by the propaganda or predict the Holocaust?

Travellers in the Third Reich is an extraordinary history of the rise of the Nazis based on fascinating first-hand accounts, drawing together a multitude of voices and stories, including students, politicians, musicians, diplomats, schoolchildren, communists, scholars, athletes, poets, journalists, fascists, artists, tourists, even celebrities like Charles Lindbergh and Samuel Beckett. Their experiences create a remarkable three-dimensional picture of Germany under Hitler � one so palpable that the reader will feel, hear, even breathe the atmosphere.

These are the accidental eyewitnesses to history. Disturbing, absurd, moving, and ranging from the deeply trivial to the deeply tragic, their tales give a fresh insight into the complexities of the Third Reich, its paradoxes and its ultimate destruction.]]> 464 Julia Boyd 1783963468 Andrew 4 4.07 2017 Travellers in the Third Reich
author: Julia Boyd
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/01/05
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]]> Tea on Sunday 4479474
When the police force entry they find Alberta sitting on her desk, strangled. The intricate investigation, told with a masterful hand, helps the author to probe, with acute sensitivity, the mysterious channels of human behavior.]]> 251 Lettice Cooper 0575016620 Andrew 3 3.73 1973 Tea on Sunday
author: Lettice Cooper
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1973
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/01/05
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]]> The Wizard of the Kremlin 141343707
Known as the “Wizard of the Kremlin,� the enigmatic Vadim Baranov was a TV producer before becoming a political advisor to Putin, aka “The Czar.� After his resignation from this position, legends about him multiply, with no one able to distinguish truth from fiction. Until one night, when he tells his story to the narrator of this book�

He immerses us in the heart of the Russian state, where sycophants and oligarchs have been engaging in open warfare, and where Vadim, now the regime’s main spin doctor, turns an entire country into an avant-garde political stage. Yet Vadim is not as ambitious as the others. Entangled in the increasingly dark secrets of the regime he has helped create, he will do anything to get out, guided by the memory of his grandfather, an eccentric aristocrat who survived the Revolution, and the mesmerizing, merciless Ksenia, whom he has fallen in love with.

Giuliano da Empoli, once a senior advisor to Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi, draws on his experience behind the scenes to create an authentic, compelling portrait of power and how it corrupts.]]> 304 Giuliano da Empoli 1635423953 Andrew 5 4.06 2022 The Wizard of the Kremlin
author: Giuliano da Empoli
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/04
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]]> Land of Milk and Honey 101673225 The award-winning author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold returns with a rapturous and revelatory novel about a young chef whose discovery of pleasure alters her life and, indirectly, the world

A smog has spread. Food crops are rapidly disappearing. A chef escapes her dying career in a dreary city to take a job at a decadent mountaintop colony seemingly free of the world’s troubles.

There, the sky is clear again. Rare ingredients abound. Her enigmatic employer and his visionary daughter have built a lush new life for the global elite, one that reawakens the chef to the pleasures of taste, touch, and her own body.

In this atmosphere of hidden wonders and cool, seductive violence, the chef’s boundaries undergo a thrilling erosion. Soon she is pushed to the center of a startling attempt to reshape the world far beyond the plate.

Sensuous and surprising, joyous and bitingly sharp, told in language as alluring as it is original, Land of Milk and Honey lays provocatively bare the ethics of seeking pleasure in a dying world. It is a daringly imaginative exploration of desire and deception, privilege and faith, and the roles we play to survive. Most of all, it is a love letter to food, to wild delight, and to the transformative power of a woman embracing her own appetite.]]> 240 C Pam Zhang 0593538242 Andrew 3 3.50 2023 Land of Milk and Honey
author: C Pam Zhang
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to 2025]]> 220368206

THE ORIGINAL & BESTSELLING ALMANACReconnect with the seasons in Britain and Ireland with this month-by-month guide to the world around us - including tide tables, sunrises and moon phases; wildlife and folklore; seasonal recipes, snacks and more.The A Seasonal Guide to 2025 gives you the tools and inspiration you need to celebrate, mark and appreciate each month of the year in your own particular way.Divided into the 12 months, a set of tables each month gives it the feel and weight of a traditional almanac, providing practical information that gives access to the outdoors and the seasons, perfect for expeditions, meteor-spotting nights and beach holidays.You will find yourself referring to The Almanac all year long, revisiting it again and again, and looking forward to the next edition as the year draws to a close.PRAISE FOR THE 'Lia Leendertz's classic almanac never fails to delight' - The Herald'It's a perfect Christmas present' - Allan Jenkins, The Observer'The perfect companion to the seasons' - India Knight'Indispensable' - Sir Bob Geldof'This book is your bible' - The Independent'I love this gem of a book' - Cerys Matthews]]> 288 Lia Leendertz 1856754685 Andrew 0 currently-reading 4.64 The Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to 2025
author: Lia Leendertz
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.64
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma 61685822 From the author of the New York Times best seller Poser and the acclaimed memoir Love and Trouble, a passionate, provocative, blisteringly smart interrogation of how we make and experience art in the age of #MeToo, and of the link between genius and monstrosity.

In this unflinching, deeply personal book that expands on her instantly viral Paris Review essay, What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men? Claire Dederer asks: Can we love the work of Hemingway, Polanski, Naipaul, Miles Davis, or Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? Is male monstrosity the same as female monstrosity? Does art have a mandate to depict the darker elements of the psyche? And what happens if the artist stares too long into the abyss? She explores the audience's relationship with artists from Woody Allen to Michael Jackson, asking: How do we balance our undeniable sense of moral outrage with our equally undeniable love of the work? In a more troubling vein, she wonders if an artist needs to be a monster in order to create something great. And if an artist is also a mother, does one identity inexorably, and fatally, interrupt the other? Highly topical, morally wise, honest to the core, Monsters is certain to incite a conversation about whether and how we can separate artists from their art.]]> 257 Claire Dederer 0525655115 Andrew 3 3.75 2023 Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma
author: Claire Dederer
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
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]]> The Idiot 12505 667 Fyodor Dostoevsky 0679642420 Andrew 0 currently-reading 4.22 1869 The Idiot
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1869
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Maynard's House 242692 272 Herman Raucher 0425050793 Andrew 5 3.54 1980 Maynard's House
author: Herman Raucher
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.54
book published: 1980
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> Tell Me I’m Worthless 57307172
Memories of that night torment Alice, but when Ila asks her to return to the House, to go past the KEEP OUT sign and over the sick earth where teenagers dare each other to venture, Alice knows she must go.

Together, Alice and Ila must face the horrors that happened there, must pull themselves apart from the inside out, put their differences aside, and try to rescue Hannah, whom the House has chosen to make its own.]]> 264 Alison Rumfitt Andrew 4 3.54 2021 Tell Me I’m Worthless
author: Alison Rumfitt
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
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]]> Run 10595576 A rash of bizarre murders swept the country�
Senseless. Brutal. Seemingly unconnected.
A cop walked into a nursing home and unloaded his weapons on elderly and staff alike.
A mass of school shootings.
Prison riots of unprecedented brutality.
Mind-boggling acts of violence in every state.

4 D A Y S A G O
The murders increased ten-fold�

3 D A Y S A G O
The President addressed the nation and begged for calm and peace�

2 D A Y S A G O
The killers began to mobilize�

Y E S T E R D A Y
All the power went out�

T O N I G H T
They’re reading the names of those to be killed on the Emergency Broadcast System. You are listening over the battery-powered radio on your kitchen table, and they’ve just read yours.

Your name is Jack Colclough. You have a wife, a daughter, and a young son. You live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. People are coming to your house to kill you and your family. You don’t know why, but you don’t have time to think about that any more.

You only have time to�.

R U N

This 80,000-word novel also contains a bonus interview with Blake, and excerpts from his other work.]]> 331 Blake Crouch Andrew 3 3.80 2011 Run
author: Blake Crouch
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves:
review:

]]> Munich 33539583 From the internationally best-selling author of Fatherland and the Cicero Trilogy--a new spy thriller about treason and conscience, loyalty and betrayal, set against the backdrop of the fateful Munich Conference of September, 1938.

Guy Legat is a rising star of the British diplomatic service, serving in 10 Downing Street as a private secretary to the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. Rikard von Holz is on the staff of the German Foreign Office--and secretly a member of the anti-Hitler resistance. The two men were friends at Oxford in the 1920s, but have not been in contact since. Now, when Guy flies with Chamberlain from London to Munich, and Rikard travels on Hitler's train overnight from Berlin, their paths are set on a disastrous collision course. And once again, Robert Harris gives us actual events of historical importance--here are Hitler, Chamberlain, Mussolini, Daladier--at the heart of an electrifying, un-put-downable novel.]]> 352 Robert Harris 1473519691 Andrew 4 3.77 2017 Munich
author: Robert Harris
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves:
review:

]]> Coma 20454107 The blockbuster bestseller that kickstarted a new genre--the medical thriller--is now available in trade paperback for the first time.

They called it "minor surgery," but Nancy Greenly, Sean Berman and a dozen others--all admitted to Boston Memorial Hospital for routine procedures--were victims of the same inexplicable, hideous tragedy on the operating table. They never woke up.


Susan Wheeler is a third-year medical student working as a trainee at Boston Memorial Hospital. Two patients during her residency mysteriously go into comas immediately after their operations due to complications from anesthesia. Susan begins to investigate the causes behind both of these alarming comas and discovers the oxygen line in Operating Room 8 has been tampered with to induce carbon monoxide poisoning.


Then Susan discovers the evil nature of the Jefferson Institute, an intensive care facility where patients are suspended from the ceiling and kept alive until they can be harvested for healthy organs. Is she a participant in--or a victim of--a large-scale black market dealing in human organs?]]> 384 Robin Cook 0316334464 Andrew 2 3.98 1977 Coma
author: Robin Cook
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1977
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves:
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]]> Wakenhyrst 40725252
During a walk through the local church yard, Edmund spots an eye in the undergrowth. His terror is only briefly abated when he discovers it's actually a painting, a 'doom', taken from the church. It's horrifying in its depiction of hell, and Edmund wants nothing more to do with it despite his historical significance. But the doom keeps returning to his mind. The stench of the Fen permeates the house, even with the windows closed. And when he lies awake at night, he hears a scratching sound � like claws on the wooden floor...

Wakenhyrst is a terrifying ghost story, an atmospheric slice of gothic, a brilliant exploration of the boundaries between the real and the supernatural, and a descent into the mind of a psychopath.]]> 359 Michelle Paver 1788549562 Andrew 3 3.82 2019 Wakenhyrst
author: Michelle Paver
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Solve Your Own Murder (Castle Knoll Files, #1)]]> 181350367 For fans of Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club, an enormously fun mystery about a woman who spends her entire life trying to prevent her foretold murder only to be proven right sixty years later, when she is found dead in her sprawling country estate.... Now it's up to her great-niece to catch the killer.

It’s 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends. But Frances’s night takes a hairpin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously, until nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered, like she always said she would be.

In the present day, Annie Adams has been summoned to a meeting at the sprawling country estate of her wealthy and reclusive great-aunt Frances. But by the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, Frances is already dead. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances’s lifelong habit of digging up secrets and lies, it seems every endearing and eccentric villager might just have a motive for her murder. Can Annie safely unravel the dark mystery at the heart of Castle Knoll, or will dredging up the past throw her into the path of a killer?

As Annie gets closer to the truth, and closer to the danger, she starts to fear she might inherit her aunt’s fate instead of her fortune.]]> 358 Kristen Perrin 0593474015 Andrew 3 3.76 2024 How to Solve Your Own Murder (Castle Knoll Files, #1)
author: Kristen Perrin
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Great Plague: A People's History]]> 18668335 192 Evelyn Lord 0300173814 Andrew 3 3.36 The Great Plague: A People's History
author: Evelyn Lord
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.36
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves:
review:
There is a wealth of information and no doubt a ridiculous amount of research has gone into this short book, I was disappointed to find it dry and unengaging
]]> Mexican Gothic 53152636
Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.

And NoemĂ­, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.]]> 320 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 0525620788 Andrew 4 3.66 2020 Mexican Gothic
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves:
review:

]]> I am Rebel 203382695 304 Ross Montgomery 152950290X Andrew 5 4.36 2024 I am Rebel
author: Ross Montgomery
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves:
review:
Wanted something a bit different and this was recommend to me by a bookseller, a really charming tale, it may be aimed at children but it made this adult very happy
]]>