Samuel's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 07 Apr 2025 10:30:22 -0700 60 Samuel's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Developmental Economics: Theory and Practice]]> 80336929 210 Edith Moran 1632408279 Samuel 0 to-read 0.0 Developmental Economics: Theory and Practice
author: Edith Moran
name: Samuel
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The God of Small Things 22589931 The God of Small Things is an award-winning landmark that started for its author an esteemed career of fiction and political commentary that continues unabated.]]> 333 Arundhati Roy 0812979656 Samuel 0 to-read 4.02 1997 The God of Small Things
author: Arundhati Roy
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Euclid's Window: The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace]]> 616208 Euclid's Window Leonard Mlodinow brilliantly and delightfully leads us on a journey through five revolutions in geometry, from the Greek concept of parallel lines to the latest notions of hyperspace. Here is an altogether new, refreshing, alternative history of math revealing how simple questions anyone might ask about space -- in the living room or in some other galaxy -- have been the hidden engine of the highest achievements in science and technology.
Based on Mlodinow's extensive historical research; his studies alongside colleagues such as Richard Feynman and Kip Thorne; and interviews with leading physicists and mathematicians such as Murray Gell-Mann, Edward Witten, and Brian Greene, Euclid's Window is an extraordinary blend of rigorous, authoritative investigation and accessible, good-humored storytelling that makes a stunningly original argument asserting the primacy of geometry. For those who have looked through Euclid's Window, no space, no thing, and no time will ever be quite the same.]]> 308 Leonard Mlodinow 0684865246 Samuel 0 currently-reading 3.88 2001 Euclid's Window: The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace
author: Leonard Mlodinow
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions]]> 45718806 For decades we have been told a story about the divide between rich countries and poor countries.

We have been told that development is working: that the global South is catching up to the North, that poverty has been cut in half over the past thirty years, and will be eradicated by 2030. It’s a comforting tale, and one that is endorsed by the world’s most powerful governments and corporations. But is it true?

Since 1960, the income gap between the North and South has roughly tripled in size. Today 4.3 billion people, 60 per cent of the world's population, live on less than $5 per day. Some 1 billion live on less than $1 a day. The richest eight people now control the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world combined.

What is causing this growing divide? We are told that poverty is a natural phenomenon that can be fixed with aid. But in reality it is a political problem: poverty doesn’t just exist, it has been created.

Poor countries are poor because they are integrated into the global economic system on unequal terms. Aid only works to hide the deep patterns of wealth extraction that cause poverty and inequality in the first place: rigged trade deals, tax evasion, land grabs and the costs associated with climate change. The Divide tracks the evolution of this system, from the expeditions of Christopher Columbus in the 1490s to the international debt regime, which has allowed a handful of rich countries to control economic policies in the rest of the world.

Because poverty is a political problem, it requires political solutions. The Divide offers a range of revelatory answers, but also explains that something much more radical is needed � a revolution in our way of thinking. Drawing on pioneering research, detailed analysis and years of first-hand experience, The Divide is a provocative, urgent and ultimately uplifting account of how the world works, and how it can change.]]> Jason Hickel Samuel 5 4.14 2017 The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions
author: Jason Hickel
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Threat of Liberation: Imperialism and Revolution in Zanzibar]]> 17794566
Using iconic photographs, declassified US and British documents, and in-depth interviews, Amrit Wilson examines the role of the Umma Party of Zanzibar and its leader, the visionary Marxist revolutionary, Abdulrahman Mohamed Babu. Drawing parallels between US paranoia about Chinese Communist influence in the 1960s with contemporary fears about Chinese influence, it looks at the new race for Africa's resources, the creation of AFRICOM and how East African politicians have bolstered US control. The book also draws on US cables released by Wikileaks showing Zanzibar's role in the 'War on Terror' in Eastern Africa today.

The Threat of Liberation reflects on the history of a party which confronted imperialism and built unity across ethnic divisions, and considers the relevance of such strategies today.]]> 168 Amrit Wilson 0745334083 Samuel 0 to-read 3.62 2013 The Threat of Liberation: Imperialism and Revolution in Zanzibar
author: Amrit Wilson
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> All the Lives We Never Lived 40593463
In my childhood, I was known as the boy whose mother had run off with an Englishman. The man was in fact German, but in small‑town India in those days, all white foreigners were largely thought of as British.

So begins the “gracefully wrought� ( Kirkus Reviews ) story of Myshkin and his mother, Gayatri, who rebels against tradition to follow her artist’s instinct for freedom.

Freedom of a different kind is in the air across India. The fight against British rule is reaching a critical turn. The Nazis have come to power in Germany. At this point of crisis, two strangers arrive in Gayatri’s town, opening up to her the vision of other possible lives.

What took Myshkin’s mother from India and Dutch-held Bali in the 1930s, ripping a knife through his comfortingly familiar universe? Excavating the roots of the world in which he was abandoned, Myshkin comes to understand the connections between the anguish at home and a war‑torn universe overtaken by patriotism.

Evocative and moving, “this mesmerizing exploration of the darker consequences of freedom, love, and loyalty is an astonishing display of Roy’s literary prowess� ( Publishers Weekly ).]]> 288 Anuradha Roy 1982100524 Samuel 0 to-read 3.81 2018 All the Lives We Never Lived
author: Anuradha Roy
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World]]> 53328332 The world has finally awoken to the reality of climate breakdown and ecological collapse. Now we must face up to its primary cause: capitalism. Our economic system is based on perpetual expansion, which is devastating the living world. There is only one solution that will lead to meaningful and immediate change: degrowth.

If we want to have a shot at surviving the Anthropocene, we need to restore the balance. We need to change how we see the world and our place within it, shifting from a philosophy of domination and extraction to one that’s rooted in reciprocity with our planet’s ecology. We need to evolve beyond the dusty dogmas of capitalism to a new system that’s fit for the twenty-first century.

But what about jobs? What about health? What about progress? This book tackles these questions and offers an inspiring vision for what a post-capitalist economy could look like. An economy that’s more just, more caring, and more fun. An economy that enables human flourishing while reversing ecological breakdown. By taking less, we can become more.]]> 336 Jason Hickel 1786091216 Samuel 0 to-read 4.52 2020 Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
author: Jason Hickel
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Understanding Socialism 62973050
"Richard Wolff's book is the best accessible and reliable treatment we have of what socialism is, was, and should be.� - Cornel West

“In the same accessible style that has made his programs and lectures such a hit, he explains his subject in a way that's not only smart, but makes the rest of us feel smart. It's actionable intelligence for the every person.� - Laura Flanders

“Lucid, brilliant and uncompromising in his dissection of the capitalist system he also provides a sane and just socialist alternative to capitalist exploitation, one we must all fight to achieve.� - Chris Hedges]]> Richard D. Wolff Samuel 0 4.11 2019 Understanding Socialism
author: Richard D. Wolff
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Prophet The Original 1923 Unabridged and Complete Edition (A Kahlil Gibran Classics)]]> 123276181 104 Kahlil Gibran Samuel 0 to-read 4.30 1923 The Prophet The Original 1923 Unabridged and Complete Edition (A Kahlil Gibran Classics)
author: Kahlil Gibran
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1923
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources]]> 52199304 Meet the traders who supply the world with oil, metal and food - no matter how corrupt, war-torn or famine-stricken the source.
The modern world is built on commodities - from the oil that fuels our cars to the metals that power our smartphones.

We rarely stop to consider where they come from. But we should.

In The World for Sale, two leading journalists lift the lid on one of the least scrutinised corners of the economy: the workings of the billionaire commodity traders who buy, hoard and sell the earth's resources.

It is the story of how a handful of swashbuckling businessmen became indispensable cogs in global markets: enabling an enormous expansion in international trade, and connecting resource-rich countries - no matter how corrupt or war-torn - with the world's financial centres.

And it is the story of how some traders acquired untold political power, right under the noses of Western regulators and politicians - helping Saddam Hussein to sell his oil, fuelling the Libyan rebel army during the Arab Spring, and funnelling cash to Vladimir Putin's Kremlin in spite of strict sanctions.

The result is an eye-opening tour through the wildest frontiers of the global economy, as well as a revelatory guide to how capitalism really works.
__________________________

'This jaw-dropping study shows how much money and global influence is concentrated in the hands of a tiny group . . . A remarkable book . . . As the authors roam from oilfield to wheatfield, they reveal information so staggering you almost gasp.' SUNDAY TIMES

'Rollicking yarns from the biggest ever commodity boom . . . The high level narrative is gripping enough. But it is the details of what these freewheeling companies actually got up to that give the book a thriller-like quality . . . Educational and entertaining.' FINANCIAL TIMES

'A fascinating and revealing story . . . There are tales in the book of breathtaking trades, such as shipments of rebel oil from war-torn Libya or deals bartered amid the brutal "aluminium wars" in the Russia of the 1990s.' ECONOMIST

'A globe-spanning corporate thriller, full of intrigue and double dealing . . . Changes how we see the world, often in horrifying ways . . . New insights and reporting mean that even seasoned observers will be amazed.' SPECTATOR

'Javier Blas and Jack Farchy should be awaiting the call from Hollywood. The World for Sale contains at least half a dozen narrative threads that would form the basis of a good thriller. But the authors' main achievement is to subject the biggest commodity players, and their impact on the real world, to proper critical scrutiny.' REUTERS

'Blas and Farchy shine light on what's long been the financial markets' darkest corner - the crucial, yet underappreciated, role commodity traders play in global finance and geopolitics . . . The World For Sale is a fascinating, eye-opening read.' GREGORY ZUCKERMAN, author of The Man Who Solved the Market

'The definitive, eye-opening story of the most powerful and secretive traders in the world.' BRADLEY HOPE, co-author of Billion Dollar Whale

'If you have the slightest interest in how the modern world was made, by whom, at what price, and at what profit, this is the book for you . . . Superbly researched.' FOREIGN POLICY

'Javier Blas and Jack Farchy deftly peel back the curtain on the amoral swashbucklers of capitalism who trade in commodities . . . The World for Sale is a gripping account of how they achieved their stranglehold over the world economy, and their troubling influence on global politics.' BRAD STONE, author of The Everything Store

'Some of the stories could be straight out of John Le Carré. The difference is they're true . . . Fascinating.' ANDREW NEIL]]> 410 Javier Blas 1847942660 Samuel 0 to-read 4.33 2021 The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources
author: Javier Blas
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference]]> 7956902 528 Jane Burbank 0691127085 Samuel 0 to-read 3.99 2010 Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference
author: Jane Burbank
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity]]> 56269264
For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike—either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a conservative reaction to powerful critiques of European society posed by Indigenous observers and intellectuals. Revisiting this encounter has startling implications for how we make sense of human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself.

Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 percent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume.

The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of direct action.]]> 692 David Graeber 0374157359 Samuel 0 to-read 4.20 2021 The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
author: David Graeber
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy]]> 199002 The Great Divergence brings new insight to one of the classic questions of history: Why did sustained industrial growth begin in Northwest Europe, despite surprising similarities between advanced areas of Europe and East Asia? As Ken Pomeranz shows, as recently as 1750, parallels between these two parts of the world were very high in life expectancy, consumption, product and factor markets, and the strategies of households. Perhaps most surprisingly, Pomeranz demonstrates that the Chinese and Japanese cores were no worse off ecologically than Western Europe. Core areas throughout the eighteenth-century Old World faced comparable local shortages of land-intensive products, shortages that were only partly resolved by trade.

Pomeranz argues that Europe's nineteenth-century divergence from the Old World owes much to the fortunate location of coal, which substituted for timber. This made Europe's failure to use its land intensively much less of a problem, while allowing growth in energy-intensive industries. Another crucial difference that he notes has to do with trade. Fortuitous global conjunctures made the Americas a greater source of needed primary products for Europe than any Asian periphery. This allowed Northwest Europe to grow dramatically in population, specialize further in manufactures, and remove labor from the land, using increased imports rather than maximizing yields. Together, coal and the New World allowed Europe to grow along resource-intensive, labor-saving paths.

Meanwhile, Asia hit a cul-de-sac. Although the East Asian hinterlands boomed after 1750, both in population and in manufacturing, this growth prevented these peripheral regions from exporting vital resources to the cloth-producing Yangzi Delta. As a result, growth in the core of East Asia's economy essentially stopped, and what growth did exist was forced along labor-intensive, resource-saving paths--paths Europe could have been forced down, too, had it not been for favorable resource stocks from underground and overseas.]]> 392 Kenneth Pomeranz 0691090106 Samuel 0 to-read 3.69 2000 The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy
author: Kenneth Pomeranz
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Radical History of the World]]> 39105662
This is the history of the struggle and revolution of human society: of hominids, hunters and herders; of emperors and slaves; of patriarchs and women; of rich and poor; of dictators and revolutionaries. From the ancient empires of Persia and Rome to the Russian Revolution, the Vietnam War, and the 2008 Crash, this is a history of greed and violence, but also of solidarity and resistance.

Many times in the past, a different society became an absolute necessity. Humans have always struggled to create a better life. This history proves that we, the many, have the power to change the world.]]> 512 Neil Faulkner 0745338054 Samuel 0 to-read 4.09 2018 A Radical History of the World
author: Neil Faulkner
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Daring Duo 1: 179 Jabulani Street]]> 62607209 112 Karen Hurt 9988234171 Samuel 3 3.00 The Daring Duo 1: 179 Jabulani Street
author: Karen Hurt
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves:
review:

]]> Antiracist Baby 52535437 Antiracist Baby introduces the youngest readers and the grown-ups in their lives to the concept and power of antiracism. Providing the language necessary to begin critical conversations at the earliest age, Antiracist Baby is the perfect gift for readers of all ages dedicated to forming a just society.]]> 24 Ibram X. Kendi 0593110412 Samuel 0 to-read 4.04 2020 Antiracist Baby
author: Ibram X. Kendi
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling]]> 225850 142 John Taylor Gatto 086571519X Samuel 2 4.13 2002 Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
author: John Taylor Gatto
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2002
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution � and How It Can Renew America]]> 2358737
Friedman explains how global warming, rapidly growing populations, and the expansion of the world’s middle class through globalization have produced a dangerously unstable planet--one that is "hot, flat, and crowded."Ěý In this Release 2.0 edition, he also shows how the very habits that led us to ravage the natural world led to the meltdown of the financial markets and the Great Recession.Ěý The challenge of a sustainable way of life presents the United States with an opportunity not only to rebuild its economy, but to lead the world in radically innovating toward cleaner energy.Ěý And it could inspire Americans to something we haven't seen in a long time--nation-building in America--by summoning the intelligence, creativity, and concern for the common good that are our greatest national resources.

Hot, Flat, and Crowded is classic Thomas L. Friedman: fearless, incisive, forward-looking, and rich in surprising common sense about the challenge--and the promise--of the future.]]> 438 Thomas L. Friedman 0374166854 Samuel 0 currently-reading 3.70 2008 Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution – and How It Can Renew America
author: Thomas L. Friedman
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion]]> 9817308 256 Akiko Fukai 1858945461 Samuel 0 to-read 4.24 2010 Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion
author: Akiko Fukai
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Vintage Menswear: A Collection from the Vintage Showroom]]> 14517583 304 Josh Sims 1856698831 Samuel 0 to-read 3.89 2012 Vintage Menswear: A Collection from the Vintage Showroom
author: Josh Sims
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism]]> 1032019 The World Is Flat head-on—a crisp, contrarian history of global capitalism.

One economist has called Ha-Joon Chang "the most exciting thinker our profession has turned out in the past fifteen years." With Bad Samaritans, this provocative scholar bursts into the debate on globalization and economic justice. Using irreverent wit, an engagingly personal style, and a battery of examples, Chang blasts holes in the "World Is Flat" orthodoxy of Thomas Friedman and other liberal economists who argue that only unfettered capitalism and wide-open international trade can lift struggling nations out of poverty. On the contrary, Chang shows, today's economic superpowers—from the U.S. to Britain to his native Korea—all attained prosperity by shameless protectionism and government intervention in industry. We have conveniently forgotten this fact, telling ourselves a fairy tale about the magic of free trade and—via our proxies such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization—ramming policies that suit ourselves down the throat of the developing world.

Unlike typical economists who construct models of how the marketplace should work, Chang examines the past: what has actually happened. His pungently contrarian history demolishes one pillar after another of free-market mythology. We treat patents and copyrights as sacrosanct—but developed our own industries by studiously copying others' technologies. We insist that centrally planned economies stifle growth—but many developing countries had higher GDP growth before they were pressured into deregulating their economies. Both justice and common sense, Chang argues, demand that we reevaluate the policies we force on nations that are struggling to follow in our footsteps.]]> 288 Ha-Joon Chang 1596913991 Samuel 0 to-read 4.19 2007 Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism
author: Ha-Joon Chang
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Understanding Socialism 49114605
"Richard Wolff's book is the best accessible and reliable treatment we have of what socialism is, was, and should be.� - Cornel West

“In the same accessible style that has made his programs and lectures such a hit, he explains his subject in a way that's not only smart, but makes the rest of us feel smart. It's actionable intelligence for the every person.� - Laura Flanders

“Lucid, brilliant and uncompromising in his dissection of the capitalist system he also provides a sane and just socialist alternative to capitalist exploitation, one we must all fight to achieve.� - Chris Hedges]]> 150 Richard D. Wolff 0578227347 Samuel 4 4.01 2019 Understanding Socialism
author: Richard D. Wolff
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
review:

]]> Gravel Heart 35765102 A powerful story of exile, migration, and betrayal, from the Booker Prize–shortlisted author of Paradise.Salim has always known that his father does not want him. Living with his parents and his adored Uncle Amir in a house full of secrets, he is a bookish child, a dreamer haunted by night terrors. It is the 1970s and Zanzibar is changing. Tourists arrive, the island's white sands obscuring the memory of recent conflict--the longed-for independence from British colonialism swiftly followed by bloody revolution. When his father moves out, retreating into disheveled introspection, Salim is confused and ashamed. His mother does not discuss the change, nor does she explain her absences with a strange man; silence is layered on silence. When glamorous Uncle Amir, now a senior diplomat, offers Salim an escape, the lonely teenager travels to London for college. But nothing has prepared him for the biting cold and seething crowds of this hostile city. Struggling to find a foothold, and to understand the darkness at the heart of his family, he must face devastating truths about those closest to him--and about love, sex and power. Evoking the immigrant experience with unsentimental precision and profound understanding, Gravel Heart is a powerfully affecting story of isolation, identity, belonging, and betrayal, and Abdulrazak Gurnah's most astonishing achievement.]]> 273 Abdulrazak Gurnah 163286892X Samuel 4 4.18 2017 Gravel Heart
author: Abdulrazak Gurnah
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers]]> 40617055 â€Maté’s book will make you examine your behaviour in a new lightâ€� Guardianâ€bold, wise and deeply moral. [MatĂ©] is a healer to be cherishedâ€� Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock DoctrineChildren take their lead from their being â€coolâ€� matters more than anything else. Shaping values, identity and codes of behaviour, peer groups are often far more influential than parents.But this situation is far from natural, and it can be dangerous â€� it undermines family cohesion, interferes with healthy development, and fosters a hostile and sexualized youth culture. Children end up becoming conformist, anxious and alienated.In Hold on to Your Kids, acclaimed physician and bestselling author Gabor MatĂ© joins forces with Gordon Neufeld, a psychologist with a reputation for penetrating to the heart of complex parenting. Together they pinpoint the causes of this breakdown and offer practical advice on how to â€reattachâ€� to sons and daughters, establish the hierarchy at home, make children feel safe and understood, and earn back your children's loyalty and love. This updated edition also addresses the unprecedented parenting challenges posed by the rise of digital devices and social media.By helping to reawaken our instincts, MatĂ© and Neufeld empower parents to be what nature a true source of contact, security and warmth for their children.]]> 492 Gordon Neufeld Samuel 0 to-read 4.30 2004 Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers
author: Gordon Neufeld
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Teenagers War: Vietnam 1969 50812503 145 Michael Zboray Samuel 0 to-read 4.34 Teenagers War: Vietnam 1969
author: Michael Zboray
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.34
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town]]> 24911006 From bestselling author Jon Krakauer, a stark, powerful, meticulously reported narrative about a series of sexual assaults at the University of Montana ­� stories that illuminate the human drama behind the national plague of campus rape.

Missoula, Montana, is a typical college town, with a highly regarded state university, bucolic surroundings, a lively social scene, and an excellent football team � the Grizzlies � with a rabid fan base.

The Department of Justice investigated 350 sexual assaults reported to the Missoula police between January 2008 and May 2012. Few of these assaults were properly handled by either the university or local authorities. In this, Missoula is also typical.

A DOJ report released in December of 2014 estimates 110,000 women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four are raped each year. Krakauer’s devastating narrative of what happened in Missoula makes clear why rape is so prevalent on American campuses, and why rape victims are so reluctant to report assault.

Acquaintance rape is a crime like no other. Unlike burglary or embezzlement or any other felony, the victim often comes under more suspicion than the alleged perpetrator. This is especially true if the victim is sexually active; if she had been drinking prior to the assault � and if the man she accuses plays on a popular sports team. The vanishingly small but highly publicized incidents of false accusations are often used to dismiss her claims in the press. If the case goes to trial, the woman’s entire personal life becomes fair game for defense attorneys.

This brutal reality goes a long way towards explaining why acquaintance rape is the most underreported crime in America. In addition to physical trauma, its victims often suffer devastating psychological damage that leads to feelings of shame, emotional paralysis and stigmatization. PTSD rates for rape victims are estimated to be 50%, higher than soldiers returning from war.

In Missoula, Krakauer chronicles the searing experiences of several women in Missoula � the nights when they were raped; their fear and self-doubt in the aftermath; the way they were treated by the police, prosecutors, defense attorneys; the public vilification and private anguish; their bravery in pushing forward and what it cost them.

Some of them went to the police. Some declined to go to the police, or to press charges, but sought redress from the university, which has its own, non-criminal judicial process when a student is accused of rape. In two cases the police agreed to press charges and the district attorney agreed to prosecute. One case led to a conviction; one to an acquittal. Those women courageous enough to press charges or to speak publicly about their experiences were attacked in the media, on Grizzly football fan sites, and/or to their faces. The university expelled three of the accused rapists, but one was reinstated by state officials in a secret proceeding. One district attorney testified for an alleged rapist at his university hearing. She later left the prosecutor’s office and successfully defended the Grizzlies� star quarterback in his rape trial. The horror of being raped, in each woman’s case, was magnified by the mechanics of the justice system and the reaction of the community.

Krakauer’s dispassionate, carefully documented account of what these women endured cuts through the abstract ideological debate about campus rape. College-age women are not raped because they are promiscuous, or drunk, or send mixed signals, or feel guilty about casual sex, or seek attention. They are the victims of a terrible crime and deserving of compassion from society and fairness from a justice system that is clearly broken.]]> 368 Jon Krakauer 0385538731 Samuel 0 to-read 4.11 2015 Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI]]> 198678736 **A New York Times Bestseller**

'Co-Intelligence is the very best book I know about the ins, outs, and ethics of generative AI. Drop everything and read it cover to cover NOW' Angela Duckworth

Consumer AI has arrived. And with it, inescapable upheaval as we grapple with what it means for our jobs, lives and the future of humanity.

Cutting through the noise of AI evangelists and AI doom-mongers, Wharton professor Ethan Mollick has become one of the most prominent and provocative explainers of AI, focusing on the practical aspects of how these new tools for thought can transform our world. In Co-Intelligence, he urges us to engage with AI as co-worker, co-teacher and coach. Wide ranging, hugely thought-provoking and optimistic, Co-Intelligence reveals the promise and power of this new era.]]> 243 Ethan Mollick 075356078X Samuel 0 to-read 3.98 2024 Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI
author: Ethan Mollick
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA["Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character]]> 35167685 A New York Times bestseller—the outrageous exploits of one of this century's greatest scientific minds and a legendary American original.


Richard Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, thrived on outrageous adventures. Here he recounts in his inimitable voice his experience trading ideas on atomic physics with Einstein and Bohr and ideas on gambling with Nick the Greek; cracking the uncrackable safes guarding the most deeply held nuclear secrets; accompanying a ballet on his bongo drums; painting a naked female toreador. In short, here is Feynman's life in all its eccentric—a combustible mixture of high intelligence, unlimited curiosity, and raging chutzpah.]]> 400 Richard P. Feynman 0393355624 Samuel 0 to-read 4.26 1985 "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character
author: Richard P. Feynman
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Moneyball 1301 Moneyball, had a problem: how to win in the Major Leagues with a budget that's smaller than that of nearly every other team. Conventional wisdom long held that big name, highly athletic hitters and young pitchers with rocket arms were the ticket to success. But Beane and his staff, buoyed by massive amounts of carefully interpreted statistical data, believed that wins could be had by more affordable methods such as hitters with high on-base percentage and pitchers who get lots of ground outs. Given this information and a tight budget, Beane defied tradition and his own scouting department to build winning teams of young affordable players and inexpensive castoff veterans.

Lewis was in the room with the A's top management as they spent the summer of 2002 adding and subtracting players and he provides outstanding play-by-play. In the June player draft, Beane acquired nearly every prospect he coveted (few of whom were coveted by other teams) and at the July trading deadline he engaged in a tense battle of nerves to acquire a lefty reliever. Besides being one of the most insider accounts ever written about baseball, Moneyball is populated with fascinating characters. We meet Jeremy Brown, an overweight college catcher who most teams project to be a 15th round draft pick (Beane takes him in the first). Sidearm pitcher Chad Bradford is plucked from the White Sox triple-A club to be a key set-up man and catcher Scott Hatteberg is rebuilt as a first baseman. But the most interesting character is Beane himself. A speedy athletic can't-miss prospect who somehow missed, Beane reinvents himself as a front-office guru, relying on players completely unlike, say, Billy Beane. Lewis, one of the top nonfiction writers of his era (Liar's Poker, The New New Thing), offers highly accessible explanations of baseball stats and his roadmap of Beane's economic approach makes Moneyball an appealing reading experience for business people and sports fans alike. --John Moe

]]> 317 Michael Lewis 0393324818 Samuel 0 to-read 4.26 2003 Moneyball
author: Michael Lewis
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail]]> 12262741 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State � and she would do it alone.

Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.]]> 336 Cheryl Strayed 0307592731 Samuel 0 to-read 4.06 2012 Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
author: Cheryl Strayed
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Short History of Nearly Everything]]> 21 544 Bill Bryson 076790818X Samuel 0 to-read 4.21 2003 A Short History of Nearly Everything
author: Bill Bryson
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea's Feminist Movement and What It Means for Women's Rights Worldwide]]> 60588930
Since the beginning of the #MeToo movement, tens of thousands of people in South Korea have taken to the street, and many more brave individuals took a stand, to end a decades-long abortion ban and bring down powerful men accused of sexual misconduct—including a popular presidential contender. South Korean feminists know that the revolution has been a long time coming, between battles against its own patriarchal society as well as challenging stereotypes of docile Asian women in the Western imagination.

Now, author Hawon Jung will show the rest of the world that these women are no delicate flowers—they are trailblazing flames. Flowers of Fire takes the reader into the trenches of this fight for equality, following along as South Korean activists march on the streets, navigate public and private spaces where spycam porn crimes are rampant, and share tips and tricks with each other as they learn how to protect themselves from harassment and how to push authorities to act.

Jung, the former Seoul correspondent for the AFP, draws on her on-the-ground reporting and interviews with many women who became activists and leaders, from the elite prosecutor who ignited the country’s #MeToo movement to the young women who led the war against non-consensual photography. Their stories, though long overlooked in the West, mirror realities that women across the world are all too familiar with: threats of defamation lawsuits to silence victims of assault, tech-based sexual abuse, and criminal justice systems where victims� voices are often met with suspicion and abusers� downfalls are met with sympathy. These are the issues at the heart of their #MeToo movement, and South Korean women have fought against them vigorously—and with extraordinary success. In Flowers of Fire, Jung illuminates the strength and tenacity of these women, too often sidelined in global conversations about feminism and gender equality.]]> 304 Hawon Jung 163774241X Samuel 0 to-read 4.38 2023 Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea's Feminist Movement and What It Means for Women's Rights Worldwide
author: Hawon Jung
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Fear Is Just a Word: A Missing Daughter, a Violent Cartel, and a Mother's Quest for Vengeance]]> 75495003
“Azam Ahmed has written a page-turning mystery but also a stunning, color-saturated portrait of the collapse of formal justice in one Mexican town.”—Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Directorate S

Fear Is Just a Word begins on an international bridge between Mexico and the United States, as fifty-six-year-old Miriam Rodríguez stalks one of the men she believes was involved in the murder of her daughter Karen. He is her target number eleven, a member of the drug cartel that has terrorized and controlled what was once Miriam’s quiet hometown of San Fernando, Mexico, almost one hundred miles from the U.S. border. Having dyed her hair red as a disguise, Miriam watches, waits, and then orchestrates the arrest of this man, exacting her own version of justice.

Woven into this deeply researched, moving account is the story of how cartels built their power in Mexico, escalated the use of violence, and kidnapped and murdered tens of thousands. Karen was just one of the many people who disappeared, and Miriam, a brilliant, strategic, and fearless woman, begged for help from the authorities and paid ransom money she could not afford in hopes of saving her daughter. When that failed, she decided that “fear is just a word,� and began a crusade to track down Karen’s killers and to help other victimized families in their search for justice.

What do people do when their country and the peaceful town where they have grown up become unrecognizable, suddenly places of violence and fear? Azam Ahmed takes us into the grieving of a country and a family to tell the mesmerizing story of a brave and brilliant woman determined to find out what happened to her daughter, and to see that the criminals who murdered her were punished. Fear Is Just a Word is an unforgettable and moving portrait of a woman, a town, and a country, and of what can happen when violent forces leave people to seek justice on their own.]]> 384 Azam Ahmed 0593448413 Samuel 0 to-read 3.90 2023 Fear Is Just a Word: A Missing Daughter, a Violent Cartel, and a Mother's Quest for Vengeance
author: Azam Ahmed
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Fraud 66086834 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780525558965.

From acclaimed and bestselling novelist Zadie Smith, a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, about who gets to tell their story—and who gets to be believed.

It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper—and cousin by marriage—of a once-famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years.

Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; and England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.

Andrew Bogle, meanwhile, grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica. He knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realize. When Bogle finds himself in London, star witness in a celebrated case of imposture, he knows his future depends on telling the right story.

The “Tichborne Trial”—wherein a lower-class butcher from Australia claimed he was in fact the rightful heir of a sizable estate and title—captivates Mrs. Touchet and all of England. Is Sir Roger Tichborne really who he says he is? Or is he a fraud? Mrs. Touchet is a woman of the world. Mr. Bogle is no fool. But in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what is real proves a complicated task. . . .

Based on real historical events, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about truth and fiction, Jamaica and Britain, fraudulence and authenticity and the mystery of “other people.”]]> 464 Zadie Smith Samuel 0 to-read 3.25 2023 The Fraud
author: Zadie Smith
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America]]> 157818531
The postwar United States enjoyed large, widely distributed economic rewards—and most Americans accepted that taxes were a reasonable price to pay for living in a society of shared prosperity. Then in 1978 California enacted Proposition 13, a property tax cap that Ronald Reagan hailed as a “second American Revolution,� setting off an antitax, antigovernment wave that has transformed American politics and economic policy. In The Power to Destroy , Michael Graetz tells the story of the antitax movement and how it holds America hostage—undermining the nation’s ability to meet basic needs and fix critical problems.

In 1819, Chief Justice John Marshall declared that the power to tax entails “the power to destroy.� But The Power to Destroy argues that tax opponents now wield this destructive power. Attacking the IRS, protecting tax loopholes, and pushing tax cuts from Reagan to Donald Trump, the antitax movement is threatening the nation’s social safety net, increasing inequality, ballooning the national debt, and sapping America’s financial strength. The book chronicles how the movement originated as a fringe enterprise promoted by zealous outsiders using false economic claims and thinly veiled racist rhetoric, and how—abetted by conservative media and Grover Norquist’s “taxpayer protection pledge"—it evolved into a mainstream political force.

The important story of how the antitax movement came to dominate and distort politics, and how it impedes rational budgeting, equality, and opportunities, The Power to Destroy is essential reading for understanding American life today.]]> 368 Michael J. Graetz 0691225540 Samuel 0 to-read 4.26 The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America
author: Michael J. Graetz
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.26
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century]]> 53987 298 Mark Blyth 0521010527 Samuel 0 to-read 4.05 2002 Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century
author: Mark Blyth
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Angrynomics 48908670
Eric Lonergan and Mark Blyth have written a book for anyone anxious, worried � or angry � about the mismatch between how they experience the world with the increasing day to day pressures they face and the model used by economic elites and politicians to explain and justify it. In a powerful and passionately argued analysis, they bring their critical insight and expertise to bear on the nature of angrynomics and offer a set of radical and innovative policies that cut across tired party political lines � and that if implemented might just help the world to be a less angry place.]]> 192 Eric Lonergan 1788212789 Samuel 0 to-read 3.85 2020 Angrynomics
author: Eric Lonergan
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers]]> 218569831 A myth-busting guide to the ins and outs of inflation from two leading political economists.


Since the 1970s, there has only been one playbook for fighting raise interest rates, thereby creating unemployment and a recession, which will lower prices. This simple story hides a multitude of assumptions about why prices go up and how policymakers can wrestle them back down—assumptions that are often wrong, damaging, and have little empirical basis. Prominent economists Mark Blyth and Nicolò Fraccaroli reveal why inflation happens, how we combat it, and how it affects our lives. With accessible and engaging commentary and a good dose of humor, Blyth and Fraccaroli bring the complexities of economic policy and inflation indices down to earth.


They argue that 2021 marked the end of an era of relative price stability around the world. Now, climate shocks, changing demographics, and geopolitical tensions are combining to create a more inflationary future—making a new paradigm for understanding inflation all the more necessary. Astute, timely, and thoroughly engaging, Inflation is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the forces shaping our economy.]]> 288 Mark Blyth 132410614X Samuel 0 to-read 0.0 Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers
author: Mark Blyth
name: Samuel
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Routledge Handbook of International Political Economy (IPE): IPE as a Global Conversation (Routledge International Handbooks)]]> 1728620
This Handbook is designed to address precisely this concern. It maps the shifting boundaries and diverse theoretical commitments of IPE around the world. It engages the geographical and theoretical diversity of the different versions of IPE found in North America, the UK, in Asia and Australia; and notes the absences of distinctive versions of IPE in Europe and Latin America. The volume groups together the essential attributes and positions of each school, inviting the reader to engage with and learn about IPE in all of its guises through this evolving ?global conversation.? Rather than adjudicate ?the one true version? of IPE, it argues that the intellectual diversity we see around the world is an essential, and positive, feature of the field.

With over twenty contributors from a wide range of countries Routledge Handbook of International Political Economy is an essential resource for all those with an interest in this complex and rapidly evolving field of study.]]> 382 Mark Blyth 0415771269 Samuel 0 to-read 4.10 2008 Routledge Handbook of International Political Economy (IPE): IPE as a Global Conversation (Routledge International Handbooks)
author: Mark Blyth
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea]]> 13484866 Governments today in both Europe and the United States have succeeded in casting government spending as reckless wastefulness that has made the economy worse. In contrast, they have advanced a policy of draconian budget cuts--austerity--to solve the financial crisis. We are told that we have all lived beyond our means and now need to tighten our belts. This view conveniently forgets where all that debt came from. Not from an orgy of government spending, but as the direct result of bailing out, recapitalizing, and adding liquidity to the broken banking system. Through these actions private debt was rechristened as government debt while those responsible for generating it walked away scot free, placing the blame on the state, and the burden on the taxpayer.
That burden now takes the form of a global turn to austerity, the policy of reducing domestic wages and prices to restore competitiveness and balance the budget. The problem, according to political economist Mark Blyth, is that austerity is a very dangerous idea. First of all, it doesn't work. As the past four years and countless historical examples from the last 100 years show, while it makes sense for any one state to try and cut its way to growth, it simply cannot work when all states try it simultaneously: all we do is shrink the economy. In the worst case, austerity policies worsened the Great Depression and created the conditions for seizures of power by the forces responsible for the Second World War: the Nazis and the Japanese military establishment. As Blyth amply demonstrates, the arguments for austerity are tenuous and the evidence thin. Rather than expanding growth and opportunity, the repeated revival of this dead economic idea has almost always led to low growth along with increases in wealth and income inequality. Austerity demolishes the conventional wisdom, marshaling an army of facts to demand that we austerity for what it is, and what it costs us.]]> 288 Mark Blyth 019982830X Samuel 0 to-read 4.09 2013 Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea
author: Mark Blyth
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Diminishing Returns: The New Politics of Growth and Stagnation]]> 60277469
As highlighted by the recent debate on 'secular stagnation,' economic growth has slowed down considerably, and this has given rise to a host of new problems, from financial instability to the collapse of mainstream parties. What happens when growth―the main mechanism of capitalist legitimation―is harder to come by and less broadly shared? And how should we think about capitalist diversity in the context of global stagnation?

In Diminishing Returns , Lucio Baccaro, Mark Blyth, and Jonas Pontusson address these questions by bringing together a number of comparative and international political economists with expertise across many different countries and regions. Going beyond the methodological nationalism common in most comparative research, each author departs from a common theoretical framework, the Growth Model Perspective, and contributes to develop it further. The outcome is a new theoretical framework to help social scientists, policymakers, and opinion makers, understand the politics of growth and stagnation, which offers state of the art empirical analyses at the country, regional, and global level.]]> 560 Lucio Baccaro 0197607861 Samuel 0 to-read 4.00 Diminishing Returns: The New Politics of Growth and Stagnation
author: Lucio Baccaro
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism]]> 8913542 Thing 4: The washing machine has changed the world more than the Internet.
Thing 5: Assume the worst about people, and you get the worst.
Thing 13: Making rich people richer doesn't make the rest of us richer.

If you've wondered how we did not see the economic collapse coming, Ha-Joon Chang knows the answer: We didn't ask what they didn't tell us about capitalism. This is a lighthearted book with a serious purpose: to question the assumptions behind the dogma and sheer hype that the dominant school of neoliberal economists - the apostles of the freemarket - have spun since the Age of Reagan.

Chang, the author of the international best seller Bad Samaritans, is one of the world's most respected economists, a voice of sanity - and wit - in the tradition of John Kenneth Galbraith and Joseph Stiglitz.

23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism equips listeners with an understanding of how global capitalism works - and doesn't. In his final chapter, "How to Rebuild the World", Chang offers a vision of how we can shape capitalism to humane ends, instead of becoming slaves of the market.

Ha-Joon Chang teaches in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Cambridge. His books include the best-selling Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. His Kicking Away the Ladder received the 2003 Myrdal Prize, and, in 2005, Chang was awarded the Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.

©2011 Ha-Joon Chang; (P)2011 Audible, Inc.]]> 286 Ha-Joon Chang 1608191664 Samuel 4 economics-to-read 3.96 2010 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism
author: Ha-Joon Chang
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/13
date added: 2024/12/13
shelves: economics-to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Monster at Midnight: Children's chapterbook from South Africa and Nigeria]]> 62295578 96 Bontle Senne 9988234198 Samuel 3 3.00 A Monster at Midnight: Children's chapterbook from South Africa and Nigeria
author: Bontle Senne
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/10
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves:
review:

]]> Theft 217006044 In his first new novel since winning the 2021 Nobel Prize, a master storyteller captures a time of dizzying global change.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, three young people come of age in Tanzania. Karim returns to his sleepy hometown after university with new swagger and ambition. Fauzia glimpses in him a chance at escape from a smothering upbringing. The two of them offer a haven to Badar, a poor boy still unsure if the future holds anything for him at all. As tourism, technology, and unexpected opportunities and perils reach their quiet corner of the world, bringing, each arrives at a different understanding of what it means to take your fate into your own hands.

]]> 296 Abdulrazak Gurnah 0593852605 Samuel 0 to-read 3.96 2025 Theft
author: Abdulrazak Gurnah
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty]]> 15799334 WHY ARE SOME NATIONS RICH AND OTHERS POOR, DIVIDED BY WEALTH AND POVERTY, HEALTH AND SICKNESS, FOOD AND FAMINE?

Is it culture, the weather, geography that determines prosperity or poverty? As Why Nations Fail shows, none of these factors is either definitive or destiny.

Drawing on fifteen years of original research, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take one example, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created those two different institutional trajectories. Acemoglu and Robinson marshal extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, the Soviet Union, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, among them:

ĚýĚý - Will China's economy continue to grow at such a high speed andĚýultimately overwhelm the West?

ĚýĚý - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we creating a vicious cycle that enriches and empowers a a small minority?]]> 529 Daron AcemoÄźlu 0307719227 Samuel 0 to-read 4.07 2012 Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
author: Daron AcemoÄźlu
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Remains of the Day 28921 Librarian's note: See alternate cover edition of ISBN 0571225381 here.

In the summer of 1956, Stevens, a long-serving butler at Darlington Hall, decides to take a motoring trip through the West Country. The six-day excursion becomes a journey into the past of Stevens and England, a past that takes in fascism, two world wars, and an unrealised love between the butler and his housekeeper.]]> 258 Kazuo Ishiguro Samuel 0 to-read 4.14 1989 The Remains of the Day
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> In Search of Lost Time 18796
For this authoritative English-language edition, D. J. Enright has revised the late Terence Kilmartin’s acclaimed reworking of C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s translation to take into account the new definitive French editions of À la recherche du temps perdu (the final volume of these new editions was published by the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade in 1989).]]> 4211 Marcel Proust 0812969642 Samuel 0 to-read 4.34 1913 In Search of Lost Time
author: Marcel Proust
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1913
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> God Help the Child 23602473
Spare and unsparing, God Help the Child is a searing tale about the way childhood trauma shapes and misshapes the life of the adult. At the center: a woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life; but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love until she told a lie that ruined the life of an innocent woman, a lie whose reverberations refuse to diminish ... Booker, the man Bride loves and loses, whose core of anger was born in the wake of the childhood murder of his beloved brother ... Rain, the mysterious white child, who finds in Bride the only person she can talk to about the abuse she's suffered at the hands of her prostitute mother ... and Sweetness, Bride's mother, who takes a lifetime to understand that "what you do to children matters. And they might never forget."]]> 178 Toni Morrison 0307594173 Samuel 0 to-read 3.79 2015 God Help the Child
author: Toni Morrison
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Dark Days 36436060 'So the club rose, the blood came down, and his bitterness and his anguish and his guilt were compounded'

Drawing on Baldwin's own experiences of prejudice in an America violently divided by race, these searing essays blend the intensely personal with the political to envisage a better world.

Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.]]> 50 James Baldwin 0241337542 Samuel 0 to-read 4.40 2018 Dark Days
author: James Baldwin
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mo' Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove]]> 16131189 Mo' Meta Blues is a punch-drunk memoir in which Everyone's Favorite Questlove tells his own story while tackling some of the lates, the greats, the fakes, the philosophers, the heavyweights, and the true originals of the music world. He digs deep into the album cuts of his life and unearths some pivotal moments in black art, hip hop, and pop culture.

Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson is many things: virtuoso drummer, producer, arranger, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon bandleader, DJ, composer, and tireless Tweeter. He is one of our most ubiquitous cultural tastemakers, and in this, his first book, he reveals his own formative experiences--from growing up in 1970s West Philly as the son of a 1950s doo-wop singer, to finding his own way through the music world and ultimately co-founding and rising up with the Roots, a.k.a., the last hip hop band on Earth.

Mo' Meta Blues also has some (many) random (or not) musings about the state of hip hop, the state of music criticism, the state of statements, as well as a plethora of run-ins with celebrities, idols, and fellow artists, from Stevie Wonder to KISS to D'Angelo to Jay-Z to Dave Chappelle to...you ever seen Prince roller-skate?!?

But Mo' Meta Blues isn't just a memoir. It's a dialogue about the nature of memory and the idea of a post-modern black man saddled with some post-modern blues. It's a book that questions what a book like Mo' Meta Blues really is. It's the side wind of a one-of-a-kind mind.

It's a rare gift that gives as well as takes.

It's a record that keeps going around and around.]]> 288 Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson 1455501352 Samuel 0 to-read 4.11 2013 Mo' Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove
author: Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty]]> 12158480 Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine?

Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are?

Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence?

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories.

Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including:

ĚýĚý - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed andĚýoverwhelm the West?
ĚýĚý - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority?
ĚýĚý - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More
philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions?

Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.]]> 529 Daron Acemoğlu 0307719219 Samuel 0 to-read 4.06 2012 Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
author: Daron AcemoÄźlu
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Development as Freedom 173961
Freedom, Sen argues, is both the end and most efficient means of sustaining economic life and the key to securing the general welfare of the world's entire population. Releasing the idea of individual freedom from association with any particular historical, intellectual, political, or religious tradition, Sen clearly demonstrates its current applicability and possibilities. In the new global economy, where, despite unprecedented increases in overall opulence, the contemporary world denies elementary freedoms to vast numbers—perhaps even the majority of people—he concludes, it is still possible to practically and optimistically regain a sense of social accountability. Development as Freedom is essential reading.]]> 366 Amartya Sen 0385720270 Samuel 0 to-read 4.11 1999 Development as Freedom
author: Amartya Sen
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension]]> 181346634
There’s Always This Year is a triumph, brimming with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. No matter the subject of his keen focus—whether it's basketball, or music, or performance—Hanif Abdurraqib’s exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves.]]> 334 Hanif Abdurraqib 0593448790 Samuel 0 to-read 4.33 2024 There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension
author: Hanif Abdurraqib
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty]]> 10245602 Poor Economics, Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, two practical visionaries working toward ending world poverty, answer these questions from the ground. In a book the Wall Street Journal called “marvelous, rewarding,� the authors tell how the stress of living on less than 99 cents per day encourages the poor to make questionable decisions that feed—not fight—poverty. The result is a radical rethinking of the economics of poverty that offers a ringside view of the lives of the world’s poorest, and shows that creating a world without poverty begins with understanding the daily decisions facing the poor.]]> 320 Abhijit V. Banerjee 1586487981 Samuel 0 to-read 4.29 2011 Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty
author: Abhijit V. Banerjee
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Poisonous Thorn in Our Hearts: Sudan and South Sudan's Bitter and Incomplete Divorce]]> 18796860
Benefiting from unsurpassed access to the politicians, rebels, thinkers and events that are shaping the Sudans, Copnall draws a compelling portrait of two misunderstood countries. A Poisonous Thorn in Our Hearts argues that Sudan and South Sudan remain deeply interdependent, despite their separation. It also diagnoses the political failings that threaten the future of both countries. The author puts the turmoil of the years after separation into a broader context, reflecting the voices, hopes and experiences of Sudanese and South Sudanese from all walks of life.]]> 288 James Copnall 1849043302 Samuel 0 to-read 3.74 2014 A Poisonous Thorn in Our Hearts: Sudan and South Sudan's Bitter and Incomplete Divorce
author: James Copnall
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1)]]> 36510196
The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.

John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger.]]> 318 John Scalzi Samuel 0 to-read 4.25 2005 Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1)
author: John Scalzi
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land]]> 199393033 A powerful work of reportage and American history that braids the story of the forced removal of Native Americans onto treaty lands in the nation’s earliest days, and a small-town murder in the 1990s that led to a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming Native rights to that land more than a century later

Before 2020, American Indian reservations made up roughly 55 million acres of land in the United States. Nearly 200 million acres are reserved for National Forests—in the emergence of this great nation, our government set aside more land for trees than for Indigenous peoples.

In the 1830s, Muscogee people were rounded up by the US military at gunpoint and forced into exile halfway across the continent. At the time, they were promised this new land would be theirs for as long as the grass grew and the waters ran. But that promise was not kept. When Oklahoma was created on top of Muscogee land, the new state claimed their reservation no longer existed. Over a century later, a Muscogee citizen was sentenced to death for murdering another Muscogee citizen on tribal land. His defense attorneys argued the murder occurred on the reservation of his tribe, and therefore Oklahoma didn’t have the jurisdiction to execute him. Oklahoma asserted that the reservation no longer existed. In the summer of 2020, the Supreme Court settled the dispute. Its ruling that would ultimately underpin multiple reservations covering almost half the land in Oklahoma, including Nagle’s own Cherokee Nation.

Here Rebecca Nagle recounts the generations-long fight for tribal land and sovereignty in eastern Oklahoma. By chronicling both the contemporary legal battle and historic acts of Indigenous resistance, By the Fire We Carry stands as a landmark work of American history. The story it tells exposes both the wrongs that our nation has committed and the Native-led battle for justice that has shaped our country.]]> 352 Rebecca Nagle 0063112043 Samuel 0 to-read 4.45 2024 By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land
author: Rebecca Nagle
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

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

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

Electrifying, funny, wholly original, and profound, Martyr! heralds the arrival of a blazing and essential new voice in contemporary fiction.]]> 331 Kaveh Akbar 0593537610 Samuel 0 to-read 4.22 2024 Martyr!
author: Kaveh Akbar
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Upcycled Self: A Memoir on the Art of Becoming Who We Are]]> 125076660 Ěý
From one of our generation’s most powerful artists and incisive storytellers comes a brilliantly crafted work about the art—and war—of becoming who we are.

upcycle verb
up·cy·cle ËÉ™p-ËŚsÄ«-kÉ™l
: to recycle (something) in such a way that the resulting product is of a higher value than the original item
: to create an object of greater value from (a discarded object of lesser value)

Today Tariq Trotter—better known as Black Thought—is the platinum-selling, Grammy-winning co-founder of The Roots and one of the most exhilaratingly skillful and profound rappers our culture has ever produced. But his story begins with a as a child, Trotter burned down his family’s home. The years that follow are the story of a life snatched from the flames, forged in fire.

In The Upcycled Self, Trotter doesn’t only narrate a riveting and moving portrait of the artist as a young man, he gives readers a courageous model of what it means to live an examined life. In vivid vignettes, he tells the dramatic stories of the four powerful relationships that shaped him—with community, friends, art, and family—each a complex weave of love, discovery, trauma, and loss.

And beyond offering the compellingly poetic account of one artist’s creative and emotional origins, Trotter explores the vital questions we all have to confront about our formative How can we see the story of our own young lives clearly? How do we use that story to understand who we’ve become? How do we forgive the people who loved and hurt us? How do we rediscover and honor our first dreams? And, finally, what do we take forward, what do we pass on, what do we leave behind? This is the beautifully bluesy story of a boy genius’s coming-of-age that illuminates the redemptive power of the upcycle.]]> 163 Tariq Trotter 0593446933 Samuel 0 to-read 4.20 2023 The Upcycled Self: A Memoir on the Art of Becoming Who We Are
author: Tariq Trotter
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Martini Shot: A Novella and Short Stories]]> 21423329 Short stories and a novella from one of crime fiction's most revered writers.

George Pelecanos gets inside the minds and hearts of a cast of indelible characters: from the adoptive parents of Spero Lucas trying to expand and redefine their family, to a young boy involved in a drug deal gone bad, to a 1930s immigrant dishwasher facing down a corrupt Pinkerton agent. In the novella, "The Martini Shot," Pelecanos takes readers behind the scenes of a cable TV cop show, where a writer gets caught up in drama more real than anything in a script. Crackling with energy, these stories bring readers to a new understanding of humanity, modern life, and circumstances that stack the deck against people who are just trying to make a decent life for themselves. Gritty, sexy, fast-paced, humane, THE MARTINI SHOT is Pelecanos at his very best.

Whether they're cops or conmen, savage killers or creative types, gangsters or God-fearing citizens, George Pelecanos' characters are always engaged in a fight for their lives. They fight to advance or simply to survive; they fight against odds, against enemies, even against themselves. In this, his first collection of stories, the acclaimed novelist introduces readers to a vivid and eclectic cast of combatants.

A seasoned claims investigator tracks a supposedly dead man from Miami to Brazil, only to be thrown off his game by a kid from the local slum. An aging loser takes a last stab at respectability by becoming a police informant. A Greek-American couple adopts an interracial trio of sons and then struggles to keep their family together, giving us a stirring bit of background on one of Pelecanos' most beloved protagonists, Spero Lucas. In the title novella - which takes its name from Hollywood slang for the last shot of the day, the one that comes before the liquor shots begin - we go behind the scenes of a television cop show, where a writer gets caught up in a drama more real than anything he could have conjured for a script.]]> 293 George P. Pelecanos 0316284378 Samuel 3 3.58 2015 The Martini Shot: A Novella and Short Stories
author: George P. Pelecanos
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/18
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]> Home And Exile 113404 Home and Exile, Achebe reveals the man behind his powerful work.]]> 115 Chinua Achebe 1841953857 Samuel 0 to-read 4.05 2001 Home And Exile
author: Chinua Achebe
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Ethics 205218 Ethics is undoubtedly Spinoza's greatest work—an elegant, fully cohesive cosmology derived from first principles, providing a coherent picture of reality, and a guide to the meaning of an ethical life. Following a logical step-by-step format, it defines in turn the nature of God, the mind, the emotions, human bondage to the emotions, and the power of understanding—moving from a consideration of the eternal, to speculate upon humanity's place in the natural order, the nature of freedom and the path to attainable happiness. A powerful work of elegant simplicity, the Ethics is a brilliantly insightful consideration of the possibility of redemption through intense thought and philosophical reflection. The Ethics is presented in the standard translation of the work by Edwin Curley. This edition also includes an introduction by Stuart Hampshire, outlining Spinoza's philosophy and placing it in context.]]> 186 Baruch Spinoza 0140435719 Samuel 0 to-read 4.10 1677 Ethics
author: Baruch Spinoza
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1677
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Simple Path to Wealth: Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life]]> 30646587
Since money is the single most powerful tool we have for navigating this complex world we've created, understanding it is critical.

"But Dad," she once said, "I know money is important. I just don't want to spend my life thinking about it." This was eye-opening. I love this stuff. But most people have better things to do with their precious time. Bridges to build, diseases to cure, treaties to negotiate, mountains to climb, technologies to create, children to teach, businesses to run.

Unfortunately, benign neglect of things financial leaves you open to the charlatans of the financial world. The people who make investing endlessly complex, because if it can be made complex it becomes more profitable for them, more expensive for us, and we are forced into their waiting arms.

Here's an important truth: Complex investments exist only to profit those who create and sell them. Not only are they more costly to the investor, they are less effective.

The simple approach I created for her and present now to you is not only easy to understand and implement, it is more powerful than any other.

Together we'll explore:

•Debt: why you must avoid it and what to do if you have it
•The importance of having f-you money
•How to think about money, and the unique way understanding this is key to building your wealth
•Where traditional investing advice goes wrong and what actually works
•What the stock market really is and how it really works
•Why the stock market always goes up and why most people still lose money investing in it
•How to invest in a raging bull or bear market
Specific investments to implement these strategies
•The Wealth Building and Wealth Preservation phases of your investing life and why they are not always tied to your age
•How your asset allocation is tied to those phases and how to choose it
•How to simplify the sometimes confusing world of 401(k), 403(b), TSP, IRA, and Roth accounts
TRFs (target retirement funds), HSAs (health savings accounts), and RMDs (required minimum distributions)
•What investment firm to use and why the one I recommend is so far superior to the competition
•Why you should be very cautious when engaging an investment advisor and whether you need to at all
•Why and how you can be conned, and how to avoid becoming prey
•Why I don't recommend dollar cost averaging
•What financial independence looks like and how to have your money support you
•What the Four Percent Rule is and how to use it to safely spend your wealth
•The truth behind Social Security
•A case study on how this all can be implemented in real life]]> 286 JL Collins Samuel 0 to-read 4.43 2016 The Simple Path to Wealth: Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life
author: JL Collins
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Ride a Dragon's Storm (How to Train Your Dragon, #7)]]> 5116480 272 Cressida Cowell 0340950358 Samuel 0 to-read 4.28 2008 How to Ride a Dragon's Storm (How to Train Your Dragon, #7)
author: Cressida Cowell
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Twist a Dragon's Tale (How to Train Your Dragon, #5)]]> 22466901 Don't miss an action-packed, hilarious, heart-warming moment of the New York Times bestselling series that inspired the hit movies! The heat is on for Hiccup! Someone has stolen the Fires-Stone from Volcano Island, which means the Volcano has become active and the tremors are hatching the Eggs of Exterminator Dragons! Can Hiccup return the Fire-Stone to the Volcano, stop it from erupting, and save the Tribes from being wiped out by the terrible sword-claws of the Exterminators? This fifth adventure in the How to Train Your Dragon series is packed with the action, humor, heart, and remarkable illustrations that have made Cressida Cowell a beloved bestseller around the globe.]]> 259 Cressida Cowell 0316377457 Samuel 0 4.53 2007 How to Twist a Dragon's Tale (How to Train Your Dragon, #5)
author: Cressida Cowell
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at: 2024/09/25
date added: 2024/10/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons (How to Train Your Dragon, #6)]]> 1950067 256 Cressida Cowell 034095034X Samuel 0 4.23 2008 A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons (How to Train Your Dragon, #6)
author: Cressida Cowell
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/04
date added: 2024/10/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse (How to Train Your Dragon, #4)]]> 454600 241 Cressida Cowell 0316114251 Samuel 0 4.23 2006 How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse (How to Train Your Dragon, #4)
author: Cressida Cowell
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Speak Dragonese (How to Train Your Dragon, #3)]]> 971239 256 Cressida Cowell 0340893044 Samuel 0 4.14 2005 How to Speak Dragonese (How to Train Your Dragon, #3)
author: Cressida Cowell
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Be a Pirate (How to Train Your Dragon, #2)]]> 143728 211 Cressida Cowell 0316155985 Samuel 0 4.09 2004 How to Be a Pirate (How to Train Your Dragon, #2)
author: Cressida Cowell
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/05
shelves:
review:

]]> The Left Hand of Darkness 18423 The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants spend most of their time without a gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters.

Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.]]> 304 Ursula K. Le Guin Samuel 0 to-read 4.11 1969 The Left Hand of Darkness
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1969
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Poems for the penniless 45874133 212 Issa G. Shivji 1988832187 Samuel 0 to-read 4.50 Poems for the penniless
author: Issa G. Shivji
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Nickel Boys 43269446 This follow-up to The Underground Railroad brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.

When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood's only salvation is his friendship with fellow "delinquent" Turner, which deepens despite Turner's conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. As life at the Academy becomes ever more perilous, the tension between Elwood's ideals and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades.

Based on the real story of a reform school that operated for 111 years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers.]]> 213 Colson Whitehead 0345804341 Samuel 0 to-read 4.35 2019 The Nickel Boys
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith]]> 1894
At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a multi-layered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith. Along the way he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.


From the Trade Paperback edition.]]> 399 Jon Krakauer 1400032806 Samuel 0 dried-up, to-read 3.97 2003 Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/31
date added: 2024/08/31
shelves: dried-up, to-read
review:

]]> The Street Lawyer 45012754
But a chance violent encounter with a homeless man stops him cold. The fallout propels him onto a trail of corruption and illegality which leads straight back to Drake & Sweeney. To get to the truth, Michael will have to dig deep into some of his own firm's dirtiest secrets...]]> 361 John Grisham 0099244926 Samuel 4 3.78 1998 The Street Lawyer
author: John Grisham
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/21
date added: 2024/08/21
shelves:
review:
I’ve read a fair number of Grisham novels and usually really enjoy them…but this one was also really inspirational!!! As a native Washingtonian, I loved the ins and outs of the DC street scene - it felt a bit like a George Pelecanos novel. Very enjoyable!
]]> <![CDATA[Balance: How to Invest and Spend for Happiness, Health, and Wealth]]> 59986564 Stop chasing money and start redefining success.Sure, money is important. And yes, it can make you happy—but only up to a point. The truth is, science has shown that we each have a set point that links our earnings with happiness; go beyond that point, and your happiness ceases to increase with income.In this illuminating guide to living a financially healthier, and happier, life, bestselling author and financial journalist Andrew Hallam demonstrates how you can optimize your income for maximum happiness by investing responsibly and living according to your values. You’ll find tips for using robo investors, insights for investing in socially responsible funds, and how to align your spending with what you hold most dear.Drawing on behavioural science, evidence-based investing, and environmental science, he shows you how to start framing success in a way that actually brings happiness, not stress, into your life—by balancing your money, connection, health, and purpose.Whether you’re a broke teenager, a middle-aged millionaire or someone who hopes to retire on a shoestring, we all have one thing in we want to enjoy our lives. That means living better and laughing more. It means caring for the environment and helping our children to succeed—while defining “success� the way we really should.]]> 323 Andrew Hallam 1774580764 Samuel 3 4.12 Balance: How to Invest and Spend for Happiness, Health, and Wealth
author: Andrew Hallam
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.12
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/11
date added: 2024/08/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Keep House While Drowning]]> 60139504 How to Keep House While Drowning will introduce you to six life-changing principles that will revolutionize the way you approach home care—without endless to-do lists. Presented in 31 daily thoughts, this compassionate guide will help you begin to get free of the shame and anxiety you feel over home care.

Inside you will learn:
· How to shift your perspective of care tasks from moral to functional;
· How to stop negative self-talk and shame around care tasks;
· How to give yourself permission to rest, even when things aren’t finished;
· How to motivate yourself to care for your space.]]> 151 K.C. Davis 166800285X Samuel 0 to-read 4.22 2022 How to Keep House While Drowning
author: K.C. Davis
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Where the Crawdads Sing 36809135
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.

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

The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.]]> 384 Delia Owens 0735219117 Samuel 0 to-read 4.35 2018 Where the Crawdads Sing
author: Delia Owens
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store]]> 65678550
Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, which served the neighborhood's quirky collection of blacks and European immigrants, helped by her husband, Moshe, a Romanian-born theater owner who integrated the town's first dance hall. When the state came looking for a deaf black child, claiming that the boy needed to be institutionalized, Chicken Hill's residents—roused by Chona's kindess and the courage of a local black worker named Nate Timblin—banded together to keep the boy safe.

As the novel unfolds, it becomes clear how much the people of Chicken Hill have to struggle to survive at the margins of white Christian America and how damaging bigotry, hypocrisy, and deceit can be to a community. When the truth is revealed about the skeleton, the boy, and the part the town’s establishment played in both, McBride shows that it is love and community—heaven and earth—that ultimately sustain us.]]> 385 James McBride 0593422945 Samuel 0 to-read 3.84 2023 The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
author: James McBride
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Burning Bright (Peter Ash, #2)]]> 33028036 Lincoln Journal-Star), Ash has a woman's life in his hands and her mystery is stranger than he could ever imagine.

War veteran Peter Ash sought peace and quiet among the towering redwoods of northern California, but the trip isn't quite the balm he'd hoped for. The dense forest and close fog cause his claustrophobia to buzz and spark, and then he stumbles upon a grizzly, long thought to have vanished from this part of the country. In a fight of man against bear, Peter doesn't favor his odds, so he makes a strategic retreat up a nearby sapling.

There, he finds something strange: a climbing rope, affixed to a distant branch above. It leads to another, and another, up through the giant tree canopy, and ending at a hanging platform. On the platform is a woman on the run. From below them come the sounds of men and gunshots.

Just days ago, investigative journalist June Cassidy escaped a kidnapping by the men who are still on her trail. She suspects they re after something belonging to her mother, a prominent software designer who recently died in an accident. June needs time to figure out what is going on and help from someone with Peter's particular set of skills.

Only one step ahead of their pursuers, Peter and June must race to unravel this peculiar mystery. What they find leads them to an eccentric recluse, a shadowy pseudo-military organization, and an extraordinary tool that may change the modern world forever.

"Lots of characters get compared to my own Jack Reacher but Petrie's Peter Ash is the real deal." ~ Lee Child]]> 496 Nicholas Petrie 0735217386 Samuel 3 4.15 2017 Burning Bright (Peter Ash, #2)
author: Nicholas Petrie
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/23
date added: 2024/07/23
shelves:
review:

]]> Bleachers 700860
Now, as Coach Rake’s “boys� sit in the bleachers waiting for the dimming field lights to signal his passing, they replay the old games, relive the old glories, and try to decide once and for all whether they love Eddie Rake � or hate him. For Neely Crenshaw, a man who must finally forgive his coach �-- and himself � before he can get on with his life, the stakes are especially high.]]> 229 John Grisham 0440242002 Samuel 3 3.40 2003 Bleachers
author: John Grisham
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/29
date added: 2024/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]> The Testament 473529 Religious 533 John Grisham 0440295734 Samuel 3 3.82 1999 The Testament
author: John Grisham
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/23
date added: 2024/06/23
shelves:
review:

]]> A Grain of Wheat 22312059 280 Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o Samuel 4 3.73 1967 A Grain of Wheat
author: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1967
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/02
date added: 2024/06/02
shelves:
review:

]]> Ardhi Ni Uhai - 129075618 0 Georgios Hadjivayanis - Samuel 0 to-read 0.0 Ardhi Ni Uhai -
author: Georgios Hadjivayanis -
name: Samuel
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The working class in Zanzibar 127294644 0 George Hadjivayanis Samuel 0 to-read 0.0 The working class in Zanzibar
author: George Hadjivayanis
name: Samuel
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> In Praise of Idleness 23587713 Disclaimer:
This e-book contains the single essay.]]> 12 Bertrand Russell Samuel 4 4.20 1935 In Praise of Idleness
author: Bertrand Russell
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1935
rating: 4
read at: 2019/10/03
date added: 2024/04/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World]]> 1022807 The Ghost Map is a riveting page-turner about a real-life historical hero, Dr. John Snow. It's the summer of 1854, and London is just emerging as one of the first modern cities in the world. But lacking the infrastructure—garbage removal, clean water, sewers—necessary to support its rapidly expanding population, the city has become the perfect breeding ground for a terrifying disease no one knows how to cure. As the cholera outbreak takes hold, a physician and a local curate are spurred to action—and ultimately solve the most pressing medical riddle of their time. In a triumph of multidisciplinary thinking, Johnson illuminates the intertwined histories and inter-connectedness of the spread of disease, contagion theory, the rise of cities, and the nature of scientific inquiry, offering both a riveting history and a powerful explanation of how it has shaped the world we live in.]]> 299 Steven Johnson 1594482691 Samuel 4 3.89 2006 The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
author: Steven Johnson
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/05
date added: 2024/04/06
shelves:
review:

]]> Kindred: Young Adult Edition 198139899 Dana, a 1970s black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana's life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.

This young adult edition includes a new foreword by Tomi Adeyemi, New York Times bestseller and Hugo and Nebula award winning author of fantasy titles Children of Blood and Bone and Children of Virtue and Vengeance. Adeyemi was also named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people and was named one of Forbes 30 Under 30 in Media.


From the New York Times bestselling author of Parable of the Sower and MacArthur “Genius� Grant, Nebula, and Hugo award winner

The visionary time-travel classic whose Black female hero is pulled through time to face the horrors of American slavery and explores the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now.

“I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.�

Dana’s torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner’s plantation. She soon realizes the purpose of her summons to the past: protect Rufus to ensure his assault of her Black ancestor so that she may one day be born. As she endures the traumas of slavery and the soul-crushing normalization of savagery, Dana fights to keep her autonomy and return to the present.

Blazing the trail for neo-slavery narratives like Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Water Dancer, Butler takes one of speculative fiction’s oldest tropes and infuses it with lasting depth and power. Dana not only experiences the cruelties of slavery on her skin but also grimly learns to accept it as a condition of her own existence in the present. “Where stories about American slavery are often gratuitous, reducing its horror to explicit violence and brutality, Kindred is controlled and precise� (New York Times).

“Reading Octavia Butler taught me to dream big, and I think it’s absolutely necessary that everybody have that freedom and that willingness to dream.�
—N. K. Jemisin]]> 320 Octavia E. Butler 0807008095 Samuel 0 to-read 4.34 1979 Kindred: Young Adult Edition
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

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

Like the protagonist of Gulliver's Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey--hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.]]> 320 Colson Whitehead 0385542364 Samuel 5 4.04 2016 The Underground Railroad
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/29
date added: 2024/03/25
shelves:
review:
An amazing novel. Genius of the author to make the underground railroad real, and look at the role that people played in its (real) functionality-the risks they took. Remarkable book. Looking forward to reading more by Colson Whitehead.
]]> Hard to Be a God 759517 -
Don Rumata has been sent from Earth to the medieval kingdom of Arkanar with instructions to observe and to save what he can. Masquerading as an arrogant nobleman, a dueler, and a brawler, he is never defeated, but yet he can never kill. With his doubt and compassion, and his deep love for a local girl named Kira, Rumata wants to save the kingdom from the machinations of Don Reba, the first minister to the king. But given his orders, what role can he play? This long overdue translation will reintroduce one of the most profound Soviet-era novels to an eager audience.

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are widely known as the greatest Russian writers of science fiction, and their 1964 novel Hard to Be a God is considered one of the greatest of their works. Yet until now the only English version (unavailable for over thirty years) was based on a German translation, and was full of errors, infelicities, and misunderstandings. Now, in a new translation by Olena Bormashenko, whose translation of the authors� Roadside Picnic has received widespread acclaim, here is the definitive edition of this brilliant work.]]> 219 Arkady Strugatsky 0816491216 Samuel 0 to-read 4.19 1964 Hard to Be a God
author: Arkady Strugatsky
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1964
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents]]> 51152447 The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.

“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.�

In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.

Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.]]> 544 Isabel Wilkerson 0593230256 Samuel 5 4.52 2020 Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
author: Isabel Wilkerson
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/25
date added: 2024/03/25
shelves:
review:
OOOf! Powerful and urgent, this should be required reading for every single person in the United States.
]]> <![CDATA[There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom]]> 236056 195 Louis Sachar 0590590898 Samuel 0 3.98 1987 There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom
author: Louis Sachar
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Freak the Mighty (Freak the Mighty, #1)]]> 8953 Two boys � a slow learner stuck in the body of a teenage giant and a tiny Einstein in leg braces � forge a unique friendship when they pair up to create one formidable human force. A wonderful story of triumph over imperfection, shame, and loss.]]> 192 Rodman Philbrick 0439286069 Samuel 0 4.01 1993 Freak the Mighty (Freak the Mighty, #1)
author: Rodman Philbrick
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Zanzibar Uhuru: revolution, two women and the challenge of survival]]> 24024087 In the countryside, Ahmed al-Ibrahim, a Zanzibari Arab father, faces annihilation and a terrible decision. Fatima is his twelve-year-old daughter, and her life is changed forever by the violence that now sweeps across the islands. Fatima’s survival through this chaos and the thirty years of rule by despotic Presidents takes all her courage and the kindness of other families.
Elizabeth, Mark Hamilton’s young daughter, also remembers the day of the Revolution and their escape across the seas. Her story too is touched by tragedy.
Fatima and Elizabeth are connected in a way that takes almost fifty years to be revealed. Elizabeth will return to Zanzibar to fulfil her father’s final request. The life journeys of the two women are different. The common link is the day of the Revolution and the act of a desperate man.]]> 327 Anne M. Chappel Samuel 0 to-read 4.39 2014 Zanzibar Uhuru: revolution, two women and the challenge of survival
author: Anne M. Chappel
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The History and Conservation of Zanzibar Stone Town (Eastern African Studies)]]> 4883831 165 Abdul Sheriff 0821411195 Samuel 0 to-read 3.00 1995 The History and Conservation of Zanzibar Stone Town (Eastern African Studies)
author: Abdul Sheriff
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar: Integration of an East African Commercial Empire into the World Economy, 1770-1873 (Eastern African Studies)]]> 2573877 320 Abdul Sheriff 0852550154 Samuel 0 to-read 4.45 1987 Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar: Integration of an East African Commercial Empire into the World Economy, 1770-1873 (Eastern African Studies)
author: Abdul Sheriff
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.45
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion]]> 7090193
How do you fight despair and learn to meet the world with a loving heart? How do you overcome shame? Stay faithful in spite of failure? No matter where people live or what their circumstances may be, everyone needs boundless, restorative love. Gorgeous and uplifting, Tattoos on the Heart amply demonstrates the impact unconditional love can have on your life.

As a pastor working in a neighborhood with the highest concentration of murderous gang activity in Los Angeles, Gregory Boyle created an organization to provide jobs, job training, and encouragement so that young people could work together and learn the mutual respect that comes from collaboration. Tattoos on the Heart is a breathtaking series of parables distilled from his twenty years in the barrio. Arranged by theme and filled with sparkling humor and glowing generosity, these essays offer a stirring look at how full our lives could be if we could find the joy in loving others and in being loved unconditionally. From giant, tattooed Cesar, shopping at JCPenney fresh out of prison, we learn how to feel worthy of God’s love. From ten-year-old Lula we learn the importance of being known and acknowledged. From Pedro we understand the kind of patience necessary to rescue someone from the darkness. In each chapter we benefit from Boyle’s wonderful, hard-earned wisdom. Inspired by faith but applicable to anyone trying to be good, these personal, unflinching stories are full of surprising revelations and observations of the community in which Boyle works and of the many lives he has helped save.

Erudite, down-to-earth, and utterly heartening, these essays about universal kinship and redemption are moving examples of the power of unconditional love in difficult times and the importance of fighting despair. With Gregory Boyle’s guidance, we can recognize our own wounds in the broken lives and daunting struggles of the men and women in these parables and learn to find joy in all of the people around us. Tattoos on the Heart reminds us that no life is less valuable than another.]]> 240 Gregory Boyle 1439153027 Samuel 5 4.48 2009 Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion
author: Gregory Boyle
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/08
date added: 2024/02/08
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Africa United: Soccer, Passion, Politics, and the First World Cup in Africa]]> 7746540 299 Steve Bloomfield 0061984957 Samuel 0 currently-reading 3.85 2010 Africa United: Soccer, Passion, Politics, and the First World Cup in Africa
author: Steve Bloomfield
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/04
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Season of Crimson Blossoms 27971043 313 Abubakar Adam Ibrahim 1911115006 Samuel 4 3.94 2016 Season of Crimson Blossoms
author: Abubakar Adam Ibrahim
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/04
date added: 2024/02/04
shelves:
review:

]]> When Breath Becomes Air 25614898 When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,� as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life� into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.]]> 229 Paul Kalanithi 081298840X Samuel 0 to-read 4.37 2016 When Breath Becomes Air
author: Paul Kalanithi
name: Samuel
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go (Nick Stefanos #3)]]> 82960
In his third appearance in George Pelecanos's acclaimed series, Nick Stefanos has been spending too much time with bad women and bad booze. Which is why he wakes up one blurry morning on the banks of the Anacostia River, hungover and miserable--and now a witness to a murder. With the help of a partner as straight-arrow as Nick is bent, Nick decides to track down the killer, an investigation that leads them through the roughest part of the nation's capital, and into the blackest parts of the human soul.]]> 240 George P. Pelecanos 1852427167 Samuel 4 3.95 1995 Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go (Nick Stefanos #3)
author: George P. Pelecanos
name: Samuel
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/15
date added: 2024/01/16
shelves:
review:

]]>