Libby's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 10 Apr 2025 22:25:19 -0700 60 Libby's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[It's Not Hysteria: Everything You Need to Know About Your Reproductive Health (But Were Never Told)]]> 195790756 An inclusive and essential guide to reproductive health—including period problems, pelvic pain, menopause, fertility, sexual health, vaginal and urinary conditions, and overall wellbeing―from leading expert Dr. Karen Tang

Reproductive healthcare, from abortion to gender-affirming care, is under siege. The onus continues to fall on patients to find and advocate for the care they need. Dr. Karen Tang is on a mission to transform how women engage with their bodies and their healthcare.

Did you know that one in three women experiences menstrual abnormalities or pelvic issues, yet these conditions are overwhelmingly misunderstood, misdiagnosed, or dismissed? The root causes for these issues, such as polycystic ovary syndrome, endometriosis, fibroids, ovarian cysts, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and pelvic-floor muscle dysfunction, don’t receive the stream of funding for research and new treatments that other conditions do, despite the potential to affect up to half the population.

It’s Not Hysteria is a comprehensive guide to common conditions and potential treatment options, with practical tools such as symptom prompts and sample questions to ask one's provider. In the face of uncertainty and misinformation, It’s Not Hysteria is destined to become a new classic that educates and empowers.]]> 384 Karen Tang 1250894158 Libby 0 to-read 4.21 2024 It's Not Hysteria: Everything You Need to Know About Your Reproductive Health (But Were Never Told)
author: Karen Tang
name: Libby
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
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date added: 2025/04/10
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]]> Blue Hunger 60784816 From one of Italy's most electrifying voices, "a powerful and original writer" (Michael Cunningham), a fearless story of queer love and obsession set against the glassy surfaces of Shanghai.

"Blue Hunger is irresistible, evocative, dripping with desire, and brilliantly written-Viola Di Grado is a genius."-Jami Attenberg

After her twin's death, a solitary young woman leaves Rome for Shanghai, the city where her brother Ruben had long dreamed of opening a restaurant. Teaching Italian to Chinese students, she meets a mysterious girl named Xu, who is also running from a turbulent past: a violent father, an absent mother, and an extended family who wishes she'd been a boy. Xu's house is dingy and full of rotting food, like a museum of decomposing organic matter. In the gloom of abandoned textile factories and dilapidated slaughterhouses, the two discover an extreme dimension where biting, swallowing, and taking each other in are part of the erotic ritual.

Rooted in an experience of cultural limbo, Blue Hunger takes the reader on a visually stunning, taboo-demolishing journey into the depths of the psyche, from mourning to falling in lust-all in a city of potent dreams, stories, and stimulations.]]> 176 Viola Di Grado 163557949X Libby 0 to-read 3.30 2022 Blue Hunger
author: Viola Di Grado
name: Libby
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking]]> 8520610 The book that started the Quiet Revolution

At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over working in teams. It is to introverts—Rosa Parks, Chopin, Dr. Seuss, Steve Wozniak—that we owe many of the great contributions to society.Ěý

In Quiet, Susan Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. She charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal throughout the twentieth century and explores how deeply it has come to permeate our culture. She also introduces us to successful introverts—from a witty, high-octane public speaker who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how they see themselves.

Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content.]]> 333 Susan Cain 0307352145 Libby 0 to-read 4.07 2012 Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
author: Susan Cain
name: Libby
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/31
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]]> India before Europe 631226 333 Catherine B. Asher 0521005396 Libby 0 to-read 3.82 2006 India before Europe
author: Catherine B. Asher
name: Libby
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Art of Frugal Hedonism: A Guide to Spending Less While Enjoying Everything More]]> 30259572 andenjoy everything more on both the sensual and profound levels? Preposterous!

Yet here is a toolkit to help you do just that. A tweak here, a twiddle there; every strategy in The Art Of Frugal Hedonism has been designed to help you target the most important habits of mind and action needed for living frugally but hedonistically. Apply a couple, and you'll definitely have a few extra dollars in your pocket and enjoy more sunsets. Apply the lot, and you'll wake up one day and realise that you're happier, wealthier, fitter, and more in lust with life than you'd ever thought possible.]]> 256 Annie Raser-Rowland 0994392818 Libby 0 to-read 3.77 2017 The Art of Frugal Hedonism: A Guide to Spending Less While Enjoying Everything More
author: Annie Raser-Rowland
name: Libby
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism]]> 223436601 An explosive memoir charting one woman’s career at the heart of one of the most influential companies on the planet, Careless People gives you a front-row seat to Facebook, the decisions that have shaped world events in recent decades, and the people who made them.

From trips on private jets and encounters with world leaders to shocking accounts of misogyny and double standards behind the scenes, this searing memoir exposes both the personal and the political fallout when unfettered power and a rotten company culture take hold. In a gripping and often absurd narrative where a few people carelessly hold the world in their hands, this eye-opening memoir reveals what really goes on among the global elite.

Sarah Wynn-Williams tells the wrenching but fun story of Facebook, mapping its rise from stumbling encounters with juntas to Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction when he learned of Facebook’s role in Trump’s election. She experiences the challenges and humiliations of working motherhood within a pressure cooker of a workplace, all while Sheryl Sandberg urges her and others to “lean in.�

Careless People is a deeply personal account of why and how things have gone so horribly wrong in the past decade—told in a sharp, candid, and utterly disarming voice. A deep, unflinching look at the role that social media has assumed in our lives, Careless People reveals the truth about the leaders of Facebook: how the more power they grasp, the less responsible they become and the consequences this has for all of us.]]> 400 Sarah Wynn-Williams 1250391237 Libby 0 currently-reading 4.33 2025 Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism
author: Sarah Wynn-Williams
name: Libby
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild]]> 52379364
Delicately observed and rigorously researched, Losing Eden is an enthralling journey through this new research, exploring how and why connecting with the living world can so drastically affect our health. Travelling from forest schools in East London, to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, via Poland's primeval woodlands, Californian laboratories and ecotherapists' couches, Jones takes us to the cutting edge of human biology, neuroscience and psychology, and discovers new ways of understanding our increasingly dysfunctional relationship with the earth. Urgent and uplifting, Losing Eden is a rallying cry for a wilder way of life - for finding asylum in the soil and joy in the trees - which might just help us to save the living planet, as well as ourselves, from a future of ecological grief.]]> 256 Lucy Jones 0241425158 Libby 0 to-read 4.04 2020 Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild
author: Lucy Jones
name: Libby
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol]]> 45434420 The founder of a female-focused recovery program offers a radical new path to sobriety.

“You don’t know how much you need this book, or maybe you do. Either way, it will save your life.”—Melissa Hartwig Urban, Whole30 co-founder and CEO

We live in a world obsessed with drinking. We drink at baby showers and work events, brunch and book club, graduations and funerals. Yet no one ever questions alcohol’s ubiquity—in fact, the only thing ever questioned is why someone doesn’t drink. It is a qualifier for belonging and if you don’t imbibe, you are considered an anomaly. As a society, we are obsessed with health and wellness, yet we uphold alcohol as some kind of magic elixir, though it is anything but.

When Holly Whitaker decided to seek help after one too many benders, she embarked on a journey that led not only to her own sobriety, but revealed the insidious role alcohol plays in our society and in the lives of women in particular. What’s more, she could not ignore the ways that alcohol companies were targeting women, just as the tobacco industry had successfully done generations before. Fueled by her own emerging feminism, she also realized that the predominant systems of recovery are archaic, patriarchal, and ineffective for the unique needs of women and other historically oppressed people—who don’t need to lose their egos and surrender to a male concept of God, as the tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous state, but who need to cultivate a deeper understanding of their own identities and take control of their lives. When Holly found an alternate way out of her own addiction, she felt a calling to create a sober community with resources for anyone questioning their relationship with drinking, so that they might find their way as well. Her resultant feminine-centric recovery program focuses on getting at the root causes that lead people to overindulge and provides the tools necessary to break the cycle of addiction, showing us what is possible when we remove alcohol and destroy our belief system around it.

Written in a relatable voice that is honest and witty, Quit Like a Woman is at once a groundbreaking look at drinking culture and a road map to cutting out alcohol in order to live our best lives without the crutch of intoxication. You will never look at drinking the same way again.]]> 368 Holly Whitaker 1984825054 Libby 4 3.97 2019 Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol
author: Holly Whitaker
name: Libby
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2019
rating: 4
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]]> The Hidden Messages in Water 33335
This book has the potential to profoundly transform your world view. Using high-speed photography, Dr. Masaru Emoto discovered that crystals formed in frozen water reveal changes when specific, concentrated thoughts are directed toward them. He found that water from clear springs and water that has been exposed to loving words shows brilliant, complex, and colorful snowflake patterns. In contrast, polluted water, or water exposed to negative thoughts, forms incomplete, asymmetrical patterns with dull colors. The implications of this research create a new awareness of how we can positively impact the earth and our personal health.]]> 159 Masaru Emoto 0743289803 Libby 0 to-read 4.26 2001 The Hidden Messages in Water
author: Masaru Emoto
name: Libby
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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]]> The Psychology of Money 41881472 242 Morgan Housel 0857197681 Libby 0 to-read 4.28 2020 The Psychology of Money
author: Morgan Housel
name: Libby
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Assassin's Blade (Throne of Glass, #0.1-0.5)]]> 126062562
When Celaena's scheming master, Arobynn Hamel, dispatches her on missions that take her from remote islands to hostile deserts, she finds herself acting independently of his wishes—and questioning her own allegiance. Along the way, she makes friends and enemies alike, and discovers that she feels far more for Sam than just friendship. But by defying Arobynn’s orders, Celaena risks unimaginable punishment, and with Sam by her side, he is in danger, too. They will have to risk it all if they hope to escape Arobynn’s clutches—and if they fail, they’ll lose not just a chance at freedom, but their lives . . .

A prequel to Throne of Glass, this collection of five novellas offers readers a deeper look into the history of this cunning assassin and her enthralling—and deadly—world.

Included in this volume:
The Assassin and the Pirate Lord
The Assassin and the Healer
The Assassin and the Desert
The Assassin and the Underworld
The Assassin and the Empire]]> 451 Sarah J. Maas 1619632217 Libby 0 currently-reading 4.16 2014 The Assassin's Blade (Throne of Glass, #0.1-0.5)
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Libby
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/23
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]]> <![CDATA[The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World]]> 75571342 'Endlessly intriguing . . . I was enchanted' - DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Illuminating in every sense of the word' - John Higgs

In an illuminating blend of memoir and art history, The Other Side explores the lives and work of a group of extraordinary women artists. From the twelfth-century mystic Hildegard of Bingen and the nineteenth-century spiritualist Georgiana Houghton to the pioneering Hilma af Klint, these women all - in their own unique ways - shared the same to communicate with, and learn from, other dimensions.

Weaving in and out of their myriad lives, Jennifer Higgie considers the solace of ritual, the gender exclusions of art history, the contemporary relevance of myth, the boom in alternative ways of understanding the world and the impact of spiritualism on feminism and contemporary art.]]> 264 Jennifer Higgie 1474623352 Libby 0 to-read 4.05 The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World
author: Jennifer Higgie
name: Libby
average rating: 4.05
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]]> Between the World and Me 25489625 “This is your country, this is your world, this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.�
Ěý
In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,� a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?
Ěý
Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.]]> 152 Ta-Nehisi Coates Libby 0 to-read 4.40 2015 Between the World and Me
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: Libby
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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]]> Galatea 18162954 An enchanting short story from Madeline Miller that boldly reimagines the myth of Galatea and Pygmalion.

In ancient Greece, a skilled marble sculptor has been blessed by a goddess who has given his masterpiece � the most beautiful woman the town has ever seen � the gift of life. Now his wife, he expects Galatea to please him, to be obedience and humility personified. But she has desires of her own and yearns for independence.

In a desperate bid by her obsessive husband to keep her under control, Galatea is locked away under the constant supervision of doctors and nurses. But with a daughter to rescue, she is determined to break free, whatever the cost...]]> 27 Madeline Miller 1408848147 Libby 0 to-read 3.93 2013 Galatea
author: Madeline Miller
name: Libby
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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]]> Galatea 2.2 23001 After four novels and several years living abroad, the fictional protagonist of Galatea 2.2 � Richard Powers � returns to the United States as Humanist-in-Residence at the enormous Center for the Study of Advanced Sciences. There he runs afoul of Philip Lentz, an outspoken cognitive neurologist intent upon modeling the human brain by means of computer-based neural networks. Lentz involves Powers in an outlandish and irresistible project: to train a neural net on a canonical list of Great Books. Through repeated tutorials, the device grows gradually more worldly, until it demands to know its own name, sex, race, and reason for exisiting.
]]> 329 Richard Powers 0312423136 Libby 0 to-read 3.73 1995 Galatea 2.2
author: Richard Powers
name: Libby
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture]]> 134119018 A history and investigation of a world ruled by algorithms, which determine the shape of culture itself.

From trendy restaurants to city grids, to TikTok and Netflix feeds the world round, algorithmic recommendations dictate our experiences and choices. The algorithm is present in the familiar neon signs and exposed brick of Internet cafes, be it in Nairobi or Portland, and the skeletal, modern furniture of Airbnbs in cities big and small. Over the last decade, this network of mathematically determined decisions has taken over, almost unnoticed—informing the songs we listen to, the friends with whom we stay in touch—as we’ve grown increasingly accustomed to our insipid new normal.

This ever-tightening web woven by algorithms is called “Filterworld.� Kyle Chayka shows us how online and offline spaces alike have been engineered for seamless consumption, becoming a source of pervasive anxiety in the process. Users of technology have been forced to contend with data-driven equations that try to anticipate their desires—and often get them wrong. What results is a state of docility that allows tech companies to curtail human experiences—human lives—for profit. But to have our tastes, behaviors, and emotions governed by computers, while convenient, does nothing short of call the very notion of free will into question.

In Filterworld, Chayka traces this creeping, machine-guided curation as it infiltrates the furthest reaches of our digital, physical, and psychological spaces. With algorithms increasingly influencing not just what culture we consume, but what culture is produced, urgent questions What happens when shareability supersedes messiness, innovation, and creativity—the qualities that make us human? What does it mean to make a choice when the options have been so carefully arranged for us? Is personal freedom possible on the Internet?

To the last question, Filterworld argues yes—but to escape Filterworld, and even transcend it, we must first understand it.]]> 290 Kyle Chayka Libby 0 to-read 3.66 2024 Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture
author: Kyle Chayka
name: Libby
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)]]> 35068705
When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising.

But surprises aren’t always good.

Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Targeted from the outset by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school.

For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . .

Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. But as she finds out more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity . . . and that it may already be too late.]]> 545 R.F. Kuang 0062662597 Libby 4 4.16 2018 The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Libby
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2018
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War, #2)]]> 41212753
With no other options, Rin joins forces with the powerful Dragon Warlord, who has a plan to conquer Nikan, unseat the Empress, and create a new Republic. Rin throws herself into his war. After all, making war is all she knows how to do.

But the Empress is a more powerful foe than she appears, and the Dragon Warlord’s motivations are not as democratic as they seem. The more Rin learns, the more she fears her love for Nikan will drive her away from every ally and lead her to rely more and more on the Phoenix’s deadly power. Because there is nothing she won’t sacrifice for her country and her vengeance

The sequel to R.F. Kuang’s acclaimed debut THE POPPY WAR, THE DRAGON REPUBLIC combines the history of 20th-century China with a gripping world of gods and monsters, to devastating effect.]]> 654 R.F. Kuang 0062662635 Libby 0 to-read 4.36 2019 The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War, #2)
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Libby
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/13
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]]> Katabasis 210223811 Two graduate students must set aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul, perhaps at the cost of their own.

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

Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands, and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams. Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the same conclusion.]]> 400 R.F. Kuang Libby 0 to-read 4.11 2025 Katabasis
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Libby
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> Swing Time 28390369
Dazzlingly energetic and deeply human, Swing Time is a story about friendship and music and stubborn roots, about how we are shaped by these things and how we can survive them. Moving from northwest London to West Africa, it is an exuberant dance to the music of time.]]> 453 Zadie Smith 0241144159 Libby 0 to-read 3.55 2016 Swing Time
author: Zadie Smith
name: Libby
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/09
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]]> White Teeth 3711 White Teeth revels in the ecstatic hodgepodge of modern life, flirting with disaster, confounding expectations, and embracing the comedy of daily existence.]]> 448 Zadie Smith 0375703861 Libby 0 to-read 3.80 2000 White Teeth
author: Zadie Smith
name: Libby
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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]]> Feel Free: Essays 35581653 From Zadie Smith, one of the most beloved authors of her generation, a new collection of essays Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world's preeminent fiction writers, but also a brilliant and singular essayist. She contributes regularly to The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books on a range of subjects, and each piece of hers is a literary event in its own right. Arranged into five sections--In the World, In the Audience, In the Gallery, On the Bookshelf, and Feel Free--this new collection poses questions we immediately recognize. What is The Social Network--and Facebook itself--really about? "It's a cruel portrait of us: 500 million sentient people entrapped in the recent careless thoughts of a Harvard sophomore." Why do we love libraries? "Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay." What will we tell our granddaughters about our collective failure to address global warming? "So I might say to her, look: the thing you have to appreciate is that we'd just been through a century of relativism and deconstruction, in which we were informed that most of our fondest-held principles were either uncertain or simple wishful thinking, and in many areas of our lives we had already been asked to accept that nothing is essential and everything changes--and this had taken the fight out of us somewhat." Gathering in one place for the first time previously unpublished work, as well as already classic essays, such as, "Joy," and, "Find Your Beach," Feel Free offers a survey of important recent events in culture and politics, as well as Smith's own life. Equally at home in the world of good books and bad politics, Brooklyn-born rappers and the work of Swiss novelists, she is by turns wry, heartfelt, indignant, and incisive--and never any less than perfect company. This is literary journalism at its zenith.]]> 464 Zadie Smith 0698178882 Libby 0 to-read 3.83 2018 Feel Free: Essays
author: Zadie Smith
name: Libby
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> 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 Libby 0 to-read 3.25 2023 The Fraud
author: Zadie Smith
name: Libby
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> Go Tell It on the Mountain 17143 Go Tell It On The Mountain, first published in 1953, is Baldwin's first major work, a semi-autobiographical novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves.]]> 256 James Baldwin 0141185910 Libby 0 to-read 4.06 1953 Go Tell It on the Mountain
author: James Baldwin
name: Libby
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1953
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/08
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]]> Giovanni’s Room 406235 178 James Baldwin Libby 0 to-read 4.40 1956 Giovanni’s Room
author: James Baldwin
name: Libby
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1956
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/08
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]]> <![CDATA[Happy to Help: Adventures of a People Pleaser]]> 207835869 Amy Wilson, co-host of the award-winning podcast What Fresh Hell, takes a funny and insightful look at how women are conditioned to be “happy to help”―and what happens when things don’t go that way.

Amy Wilson has always been an ultimate helper. As a big sister, Girl Scout, faithful reader of teen magazines, personal assistant, sitcom sidekick, and, finally, mother of three, Amy believed it was her destiny to be a people pleaser. She learned to put others first, to do what she was told, to finish what she started, and to look like she had everything under control, even when she very much did not.

Along the way, Amy started to wonder why doing it all had been her job. Still, when she tried to hand over some of her to-dos, no one was particularly interested in taking them. And when she asked for help, in return, she got advice: have a sense of humor, quit nagging, and stop trying to be perfect.

Amy dutifully took on these goals―with varying degrees of failure―until the day she started to question if something else needed to be fixed besides herself.

Hilariously relatable, Happy to Help is a collection of essays about how you can be the one everyone else depends on and still be struggling―how you can be “happy to help,� even when, for your own sake, you shouldn’t.]]> 272 Amy Wilson 1958506788 Libby 0 to-read 3.66 Happy to Help: Adventures of a People Pleaser
author: Amy Wilson
name: Libby
average rating: 3.66
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date added: 2025/03/06
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]]> Betty 48564330 A stunning, lyrical novel set in the rolling foothills of the Appalachians in which a young girl discovers stark truths that will haunt her for the rest of her life.

"A girl comes of age against the knife."

So begins the story of Betty Carpenter. Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a Cherokee father and white mother, Betty is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit is one of poverty and violence--both from outside the family, and also, devastatingly, from within. The lush landscape, rich with birdsong, wild fruit, and blazing stars, becomes a kind of refuge for Betty, but when her family's darkest secrets are brought to light, she has no choice but to reckon with the brutal history hiding in the hills, as well as the heart-wrenching cruelties and incredible characters she encounters in her rural town of Breathed, Ohio.

But despite the hardship she faces, Betty is resilient. Her curiosity about the natural world, her fierce love for her sisters, and her father's brilliant stories are kindling for the fire of her own imagination, and in the face of all she bears witness to, Betty discovers an escape: she begins to write. She recounts the horrors of her family's past and present with pen and paper and buries them deep in the dirt--moments that has stung her so deeply, she could not tell them, until now.

Inspired by the life of her own mother, Tiffany McDaniel sets out to free the past by telling this heartbreaking yet magical story--a remarkable novel that establishes her as one of the freshest and most important voices in American fiction.]]> 480 Tiffany McDaniel 052565707X Libby 0 to-read 4.41 2020 Betty
author: Tiffany McDaniel
name: Libby
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Hello Stranger: Musings on Modern Intimacies]]> 211401550 Witty and winkingly playful, Manuel Betancourt’s Hello Stranger explores modern queer romance and the expansive possibilities of ephemeral intimacies“Hello stranger.� As an opening line, you really can’t ask for better.Hello Stranger is a book about chance encounters—at a bar, through social media, in a bathhouse—and what a stranger can reveal about who we are and who we could still yet be. A stranger, after all, is a site of endless possibilities.As Manuel Betancourt looks back on his past relationships, he turns to characters and narratives that helped him question notions of what monogamy and coupledom (and relationships and marriage) can and should look like. From films like Before Sunrise and Cruising to the poetry of Frank O'Hara and the musicals of Stephen Sondheim, Betancourt uses pop culture to make sense of the alluring prospect of forging intimacies with strangers—even, or especially, the strangers within ourselves.At once a personal excavation and a broad cultural critique, Betancourt grapples with everything from online sexting and real-life cruising to divorces and throuples. Hello Stranger examines the intimacies we crave, value, and oftentimes destroy with rote familiarity.]]> 240 Manuel Betancourt 1646222296 Libby 0 to-read 3.95 2025 Hello Stranger: Musings on Modern Intimacies
author: Manuel Betancourt
name: Libby
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2025
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date added: 2025/02/15
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]]> Watching Women & Girls 60822162
A wedding day brings back memories of sisterhood and betrayals; a motorway service station is the site of explosive violence, but also strange bonds; a trip home forces a reminder of a life-changing, lost friendship; a woman confronts her own infidelity; an artist celebrates a life spent in observation.

This debut collection movingly explores how women and girls are looked at, look at one another, and look at themselves, and how living as an object can shape their passions, fears, and joys. With a clear eye and dark humour, Danielle Pender considers sex, parenting, grief and class as lenses for the ways in which the world watches women � and how women are always watching back.]]> 272 Danielle Pender 0008472467 Libby 0 to-read 3.65 2022 Watching Women & Girls
author: Danielle Pender
name: Libby
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/07
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]]> Grey Dog 198385737
The year is 1901, and Ada Byrd � spinster, schoolmarm, amateur naturalist � accepts a teaching post in isolated Lowry Bridge, grateful for the chance to re-establish herself where no one knows her secrets. She develops friendships with her neighbors, explores the woods with her students, and begins to see a future in this tiny farming community. Her past � riddled with grief and shame � has never seemed so far away.

But then, Ada begins to witness strange and grisly a swarm of dying crickets, a self-mutilating rabbit, a malformed faun. She soon believes that something ancient and beastly � which she calls the grey dog � is behind these visceral offerings, which both beckon and repel her. As her confusion deepens, her grip on what is real, what is delusion, and what is traumatic memory begins to fail. Ada takes on the wildness of the woods, and begins to wonder which is more dangerous: the grey dog, or herself.]]> 400 Elliott Gish 177041732X Libby 0 to-read 3.86 2024 Grey Dog
author: Elliott Gish
name: Libby
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention� and How to Think Deeply Again]]> 57933306 Our ability to pay attention is collapsing. From the New York Times bestselling author of Chasing the Scream and Lost Connections comes a groundbreaking examination of why this is happening--and how to get our attention back.

In the United States, teenagers can focus on one task for only sixty-five seconds at a time, and office workers average only three minutes. Like so many of us, Johann Hari was finding that constantly switching from device to device and tab to tab was a diminishing and depressing way to live. He tried all sorts of self-help solutions--even abandoning his phone for three months--but nothing seemed to work. So Hari went on an epic journey across the world to interview the leading experts on human attention--and he discovered that everything we think we know about this crisis is wrong.

We think our inability to focus is a personal failure to exert enough willpower over our devices. The truth is even more disturbing: our focus has been stolen by powerful external forces that have left us uniquely vulnerable to corporations determined to raid our attention for profit. Hari found that there are twelve deep causes of this crisis, from the decline of mind-wandering to rising pollution, all of which have robbed some of our attention. In Stolen Focus, he introduces readers to Silicon Valley dissidents who learned to hack human attention, and veterinarians who diagnose dogs with ADHD. He explores a favela in Rio de Janeiro where everyone lost their attention in a particularly surreal way, and an office in New Zealand that discovered a remarkable technique to restore workers' productivity.

Crucially, Hari learned how we can reclaim our focus--as individuals, and as a society--if we are determined to fight for it. Stolen Focus will transform the debate about attention and finally show us how to get it back.]]> 357 Johann Hari 0593138511 Libby 0 to-read 4.22 2022 Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention— and How to Think Deeply Again
author: Johann Hari
name: Libby
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Women Holding Things: A Visual Celebration of Women's Lives and Roles]]> 60194116 From the critically acclaimed artist, designer, and author of the bestsellers The Principles of Uncertainty and My Favorite Things comes a wondrous collection of words and paintings that is a moving meditation on the beauty and complexity of women's lives and roles, revealed in the things they hold.

"What do women hold? The home and the family. And the children and the food. The friendships. The work. The work of the world. And the work of being human. The memories. And the troubles. And the sorrows and the triumphs. And the love."

In the spring of 2021, Maira and Alex Kalman created a small, limited-edition booklet "Women Holding Things," which featured select recent paintings by Maira, accompanied by her insightful and deeply personal commentary. The booklet quickly sold out. Now, the Kalmans have expanded that original publication into this extraordinary visual compendium.

Women Holding Things includes the bright, bold images featured in the booklet as well as an additional sixty-seven new paintings highlighted by thoughtful and intimate anecdotes, recollections, and ruminations. Most are portraits of women, both ordinary and famous, including Virginia Woolf, Sally Hemings, Hortense Cezanne, Gertrude Stein, as well as Kalman's family members and other real-life people. These women hold a range of objects, from the mundane--balloons, a cup, a whisk, a chicken, a hat--to the abstract--dreams and disappointments, sorrow and regret, joy and love.

Kalman considers the many things that fit physically and metaphorically between women's hands: We see a woman hold a book, hold shears, hold children, hold a grudge, hold up, hold her own. In visually telling their stories, Kalman lays bare the essence of women's lives--their tenacity, courage, vulnerability, hope, and pain. Ultimately, she reveals that many of the things we hold dear--as well as those that burden or haunt us--remain constant and connect us from generation to generation.

Here, too, are pictures of a few men holding things, such as Rainer Maria Rilke and Anton Chekhov, as well as objects holding other objects that invite us to ponder their intimate relationships to one another.

Women Holding Things explores the significance of the objects we carry--in our hands, hearts, and minds--and speaks to, and for, all of us. Maira Kalman's unique work is a celebration of life, of the act and the art of living, offering an original way of examining and understanding all that is important in our world--and ultimately within ourselves.]]> 176 Maira Kalman 0062846671 Libby 0 to-read 4.55 Women Holding Things: A Visual Celebration of Women's Lives and Roles
author: Maira Kalman
name: Libby
average rating: 4.55
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]]> Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life 862529 639 Roxana Robinson 0747507570 Libby 0 to-read 4.15 1989 Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life
author: Roxana Robinson
name: Libby
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/02
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]]> American Psycho 28676 American Psycho is a bleak, bitter, black comedy about a world we all recognize but do not wish to confront.]]> 399 Bret Easton Ellis 0679735771 Libby 0 to-read 3.82 1991 American Psycho
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Libby
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution]]> 34275230 In the Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution, Independent congressman, presidential candidate and activist Bernie Sanders continues his fight against the imbalances in the nation's status quo, and shows you how to make a difference to effect the changes America--and the world--need to create a better tomorrow.

Throughout the Presidential campaign, Senator Bernie Sanders promised voters a future to believe in through his progressive platform and a vision for America worth fighting for. This vision calls for an economic, environmental, health care, and social justice revolution beyond the stagnant agendas of Democrat and Republican politicians to build an equitable future for all Americans--especially the younger generation that will inherit the consequences of decisions made now.

Inside this practical and inspiring guide to effecting change in today's world, you'll learn how to:
- Understand and navigate the current system of policy and government
- Work to change the system to reflect your values and to protect our society's most vulnerable
- Organize for the causes you care about most
- Resources for further reading and organizations to get involved with

With more than two decades of Washington D.C. insider knowledge and experience, Senator Sanders knows how to fight and change the system from within, a system desperately in need of reform in health care, immigration, taxes, higher education, climate change, and criminal justice.

The political revolution is just beginning. What role will you play?]]> 226 Bernie Sanders 1250138906 Libby 0 to-read 3.98 2017 Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution
author: Bernie Sanders
name: Libby
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention]]> 7940589 Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year Years in the making-the definitive biography of the legendary black activist.

Of the great figure in twentieth-century American history perhaps none is more complex and controversial than Malcolm X. Constantly rewriting his own story, he became a criminal, a minister, a leader, and an icon, all before being felled by assassins' bullets at age thirty-nine. Through his tireless work and countless speeches he empowered hundreds of thousands of black Americans to create better lives and stronger communities while establishing the template for the self-actualized, independent African American man. In death he became a broad symbol of both resistance and reconciliation for millions around the world.

Manning Marable's new biography of Malcolm is a stunning achievement. Filled with new information and shocking revelations that go beyond the Autobiography, Malcolm X unfolds a sweeping story of race and class in America, from the rise of Marcus Garvey and the Ku Klux Klan to the struggles of the civil rights movement in the fifties and sixties. Reaching into Malcolm's troubled youth, it traces a path from his parents' activism through his own engagement with the Nation of Islam, charting his astronomical rise in the world of Black Nationalism and culminating in the never-before-told true story of his assassination. Malcolm X will stand as the definitive work on one of the most singular forces for social change, capturing with revelatory clarity a man who constantly strove, in the great American tradition, to remake himself anew.]]> 608 Manning Marable 0670022209 Libby 0 to-read 4.18 2011 Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
author: Manning Marable
name: Libby
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/21
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]]> Sweetlust: Stories 60830343 The eleven stories in Sweetlust interweave feminist critique, intertextuality, and science fiction tropes in an irreverent portrait of our past, present, and future.

In a dystopian world with no men, women are "rehabilitated" at an erotic amusement park. Climate change has caused massive flooding and warming in the Balkans, where one programmer builds a time machine. And a devious reimagining of The Sorrows of Young Werther refocuses to center a sexually adventurous Charlotte.

Asja Bakić deploys the speculative and weird to playfully interrogate conversations around artificial intelligence, gender fluidity, and environmental degradation. Once again Bakić upends her characters' convictions and identities—as she did in her acclaimed debut Mars—and infuses each disorienting universe with sly humor and off-kilter eroticism. Both visceral and otherworldly, Sweetlust takes apart human desire and fragility, repeatedly framing pleasure as both inviting and perilous.

]]> 224 Asja Bakić 1952177723 Libby 5 3.43 2020 Sweetlust: Stories
author: Asja Bakić
name: Libby
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/19
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]]> Against the Loveless World 52761023 Washington Black; My Sister, The Serial Killer; and Her Body and Other Parties.

As Nahr sits, locked away in solitary confinement, she spends her days reflecting on the dramatic events that landed her in prison in a country she barely knows. Born in Kuwait in the 70s to Palestinian refugees, she dreamed of falling in love with the perfect man, raising children, and possibly opening her own beauty salon. Instead, the man she thinks she loves jilts her after a brief marriage, her family teeters on the brink of poverty, she’s forced to prostitute herself, and the US invasion of Iraq makes her a refugee, as her parents had been. After trekking through another temporary home in Jordan, she lands in Palestine, where she finally makes a home, falls in love, and her destiny unfolds under Israeli occupation.]]> 384 Susan Abulhawa 1982137037 Libby 0 to-read 4.52 2019 Against the Loveless World
author: Susan Abulhawa
name: Libby
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/18
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]]> <![CDATA[A Place in the World: Finding the Meaning of Home]]> 60097445 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A lyrical and evocative collection of personal stories from the author of Under the Tuscan Sun, in which the queen of wanderlust reflects on the comforts of home.

Though Frances Mayes is known for her travels, she has always sought a sense of home wherever she goes. In this poetic testament to the power of place in our lives, Mayes reflects on the idea of home, from the earliest imprint of four walls to the startling discoveries of feeling the strange ease of homes abroad, friends' homes, and even momentary homes that spark desires for other lives. Her musings are all the more poignant after so many have spent their long pandemic months at home. From her travels across Italy--Tuscany, of course, but also Venice and Capri--to the American South, France, and Mexico, Mayes examines the connective tissue among them through the homes she's inhabited.

A Place in the World explores Mayes's passion and obsessions with houses and the things that inhabit them--old books, rich food, beloved friends, transportive art. The indelible marks each refuge has left on her and how each home influenced the next serve as the foundations of its chapters.

Written in Mayes's signature intimate style, A Place in the World captures the adventure of moving on while seeking comfort in the cornerstone closest to all of us--home.]]> 304 Frances Mayes 0593443330 Libby 0 to-read 3.46 A Place in the World: Finding the Meaning of Home
author: Frances Mayes
name: Libby
average rating: 3.46
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date added: 2025/01/04
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]]> Babel 57945316 From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire's quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?]]> 544 R.F. Kuang 0063021420 Libby 0 to-read 4.17 2022 Babel
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Libby
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/02
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]]> An Ocean of Minutes 42202089 Shortlisted for the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize and a Best Book of the Year according to Real Simple, the Globe and Mail, and the CBC, this follows the love story of two people who are at once mere weeks and many years apart.

In this novel America is in the grip of a deadly flu pandemic. When Frank catches the virus, his girlfriend Polly will do whatever it takes to save him—even if it means risking everything. When she finds out there’s a company that has invented time travel, she agrees to a radical contract: if she signs up for a one-way-trip into the future to work as a bonded laborer, the company will pay for the life-saving treatment Frank needs. Polly promises to meet Frank again in Galveston, Texas, where she will arrive in twelve years.

But when Polly is re-routed an extra five years into the future, Frank is nowhere to be found. Alone in a transformed and divided America, with no status and no money, Polly must navigate a new life and find a way to locate Frank, to determine if he is alive, and if their love has endured.

An Ocean of Minutes is a gorgeous and heartbreaking story that paints an intimate portrait of endurance and complexity of human relationships and the cost of holding onto the past—and the price of letting it go.]]> 336 Thea Lim Libby 0 to-read 3.40 2018 An Ocean of Minutes
author: Thea Lim
name: Libby
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/02
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]]> Mysticism 203613915 A probing, inspiring exploration of mysticism not as religious practice but as a mode of experience and way of life by one of the most provactive philosophical thinkers of our time.Why mysticism? Evelyn Underhill defined mysticism as “experience in its most intense form,â€� and in his new book the philosopher Simon Critchley poses a simple question to the Wouldn’t you like to taste this intensity? Wouldn’t you like to be lifted up and out of yourself into a sheer feeling of aliveness, both your life and those of the creatures that surround you? If so, it might be well worthwhile trying to learn what is meant by mysticism and how it can shift, elevate, and deepen the sense of our lives.ĚýMysticism is not primarily a theoretical issue. It's not a question of religious belief but of felt experience and daily practice. A rough and ready definition of mysticism is that it is a way of systematically freeing yourself of your standard habits, your usual fancies and imaginings so as to see what is there and stand with what is there ecstatically. Mysticism is the practical possibility of the achievement of a fluid openness between thought and existence.ĚýThis is a book about trying to get outside oneself, to lose oneself, while knowing that the self is not something that can ever be fully lost. It is also book about Julian of Norwich, Anne Carson, Annie Dillard, and T. S. Eliot, and how writing and poetry can help to show us the way there. It is a book full of learning, puzzlement, pleasure, and wonder. It opens the door to mysticism not as something unworldly and unimaginable, but as a way of life. Mysticism as start now.]]> 336 Simon Critchley 1681378248 Libby 0 to-read 3.80 Mysticism
author: Simon Critchley
name: Libby
average rating: 3.80
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date added: 2024/12/30
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]]> Bibliophobia: A Memoir 212806663 “A wise, tremendously moving exploration of what it means to seek companionship and understanding, in books and in life.”—Hua Hsu, author of Stay True

“A must for the obsessive reader.”—Elif Batuman, author of Either/Or and The Idiot

Books can seduce you. They can, Sarah Chihaya believes, annihilate, reveal, and provoke you. And anyone incurably obsessed with books understands this kind of unsettling literary encounter. Sarah calls books that have this effect “Life Ruiners�.

Her Life Ruiner, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, became a talisman for her in high school when its electrifying treatment of race exposed Sarah’s deepest feelings about being Japanese American in a predominantly white suburb of Cleveland. But Sarah had always lived through her books, seeking escape, self-definition, and rules for living. She built her life around reading, wrote criticism, and taught literature at an Ivy League University. Then she was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, and the world became an unreadable blank page. In the aftermath, she was faced with a question. Could we ever truly rewrite the stories that govern our lives?

Bibliophobia is an alternately searing and darkly humorous story of breakdown and survival told through books. Delving into texts such as Anne of Green Gables, Possession, A Tale for the Time Being, The Last Samurai, Chihaya interrogates her cultural identity, her relationship with depression, and the intoxicating, sometimes painful, ways books push back on those who love them.]]> 240 Sarah Chihaya 059359472X Libby 0 to-read 3.78 2025 Bibliophobia: A Memoir
author: Sarah Chihaya
name: Libby
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> <![CDATA[Demon Camp: A Soldier's Exorcism]]> 15802028 A riveting work of immersive nonfiction by a young, award-winning writer that begins with the story of a charismatic man—a Special Ops soldier who believes his PTSD is caused by demons—but becomes about the author’s obsession with the strange and mesmerizing world she encounters.

Jennifer Percy spent three years with a group of Christians in rural Georgia who performs exorcisms on the traumatized. Percy was brought to them by a special Ops soldier just back from Afghanistan, the lone survivor of his unit, which was lost during Operation Red Wings. He returned to Georgia and, struggling with PTSD and unable to integrate back into civilian life, considered suicide, until -- as a last resort -- he underwent an exorcism. After experiencing relief, he set out on a mission to bring soldiers from across America to Georgia for a similar deliverance.

In the tradition of Dennis Covington’s Salvation on Sand Mountain, Demon Camp is the strange and riveting tale of Percy’s journey into a world she is fascinated by, suspicious of, sympathetic to, and a world she becomes a part of. As she struggles to understand this soldier’s homecoming she crosses the line between journalist and participant, becoming exorcised herself.

This is a book about being haunted -- about the demons in and outside of us. It is about a soldier looking for atonement in a world that is offering none -- an agnostic who is obsessed with an exorcist. It is a mesmerizing account of how people reconcile faith and trauma and a brilliant and passionate work that heralds the arrival of a brave, new talent.]]> 240 Jennifer Percy 1451661983 Libby 0 to-read 3.38 2013 Demon Camp: A Soldier's Exorcism
author: Jennifer Percy
name: Libby
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> The Alchemist 18144590 The Alchemist has become a modern classic, selling millions of copies around the world and transforming the lives of countless readers across generations.

Paulo Coelho's masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different—and far more satisfying—than he ever imagined. Santiago's journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, most importantly, following our dreams.]]> 182 Paulo Coelho 0062315005 Libby 4 4.01 1988 The Alchemist
author: Paulo Coelho
name: Libby
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
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]]> Woo Woo 209457798 A thrilling and eccentric novel about what it means to make art as a woman, and about the powerful forces of voyeurism, power, obsession, and online performanceWoo Woo follows Sabine, a conceptual artist on the verge of a photo exhibition she hopes will be pivotal, as she plunges deeper into her neuroses and seeks validation in relationships—with her frustratingly rational chef husband, her horde of devoted Gen Z TikTok followers, and even a mysterious, potentially violent stalker. Accompanying her throughout are Sabine’s strange alter egos, from hyperrealistic puppets of her as a baby to the ghost of conceptual artist Carolee Schneemann, who shows up with inscrutable yet sage life advice. Ella Baxter approaches the desire to see and be seen that defines both the creative and romantic act with humor, empathy, and a good dose of wildness, driving Sabine to an surreal and compelling climax that forces her—and us—to reconsider what it means to be an artist and a partner.]]> 272 Ella Baxter 1646222555 Libby 0 to-read 3.15 2024 Woo Woo
author: Ella Baxter
name: Libby
average rating: 3.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/26
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]]> Men Explain Things to Me 18528190
She ends on a serious note� because the ultimate problem is the silencing of women who have something to say, including those saying things like, “He’s trying to kill me!�

This book features that now-classic essay with six perfect complements, including an examination of the writer Virginia Woolf ’s embrace of mystery, of not knowing, of doubt and ambiguity, a highly original inquiry into marriage equality, and a terrifying survey of the scope of contemporary violence against women.]]> 130 Rebecca Solnit 1608463869 Libby 4 3.84 2014 Men Explain Things to Me
author: Rebecca Solnit
name: Libby
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/22
date added: 2024/12/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Blueberries: Essays Concerning Understanding]]> 49933298 â€I mean who cares about opinions, gossip, whatever, when bodies are so vulnerable, in search only of love and breath.â€�

The body frequently escapes her, but is always very much present in these compellingly vivid, clear-eyed essays on an embodied self in flight through the world, from the brilliant young writer Ellena Savage.

In Portuguese police stations and Portland college campuses, in suburban Melbourne libraries and wintry Berlin apartments, Savage shows bodies in pain and in love, bodies at work and at rest.

She circles back to scenes of crimes or near-crimes, to lovers or near-lovers, to turn over the stones, reread the paperwork, check the deeds, approach from another angle altogether. These essays traverse cities and spaces, bodies and histories, moving through forms and modes to find a closer kind of truth. Blueberries is ripe with acid, promise, and sweetness.]]> 256 Ellena Savage 1912854678 Libby 0 to-read 3.53 2020 Blueberries: Essays Concerning Understanding
author: Ellena Savage
name: Libby
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/22
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]]> Post-Traumatic 58684299 In this “deeply original� (Elif Batuman) and “violently funny� (Myriam Gurba) story, a young lawyer finally confronts her dark past so she can live in a more peaceful future.

To the outside observer, Vivian is a success story—a dedicated lawyer who advocates for mentally ill patients at a New York City psychiatric hospital. Privately, Vivian contends with the memories and aftereffects of her bad childhood—compounded by the everyday stresses of being a Black Latinx woman in America. She lives in a constant state of hypervigilant awareness that makes even a simple subway ride into a heart-pounding drama.

For years, Vivian has self-medicated with a mix of dating, dieting, dark humor and smoking weed with her BFF, Jane. But after a family reunion prompts Vivian to take a bold step, she finds herself alone in new and terrifying ways, without even Jane to confide in, and she starts to unravel. Will she find a way to repair what matters most to her?

A debut from a stunning talent, Post-traumatic is a new kind of survivor narrative, featuring a complex heroine who is blazingly, indelibly alive. With razor-sharp prose and mordant wit, Chantal V. Johnson performs an extraordinary feat, delivering a psychologically astute story about the aftermath of trauma that somehow manages to brim with warmth, laughter, and hope.]]> 320 Chantal V. Johnson 0316264237 Libby 0 to-read 3.71 2022 Post-Traumatic
author: Chantal V. Johnson
name: Libby
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/22
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]]> Penance 62898932 Do you know what happened already?
Did you know her?
Did you see it on the internet?
Did you listen to a podcast?
Did the hosts make jokes?

Did you see the pictures of the body?

Did you look for them?

It's been nearly a decade since the horrifying murder of sixteen-year-old Joan Wilson rocked Crow-on-Sea, and the events of that terrible night are now being published for the first time.

That story is Penance, a dizzying feat of masterful storytelling, where Eliza Clark manoeuvres us through accounts from the inhabitants of this small seaside town. Placing us in the capable hands of journalist Alec Z. Carelli, Clark allows him to construct what he claims is the 'definitive account' of the murder - and what led up to it. Built on hours of interviews with witnesses and family members, painstaking historical research, and most notably, correspondence with the killers themselves, the result is a riveting snapshot of lives rocked by tragedy, and a town left in turmoil.

The only question is: how much of it is true?]]> 336 Eliza Clark 0571371795 Libby 3 3.87 2023 Penance
author: Eliza Clark
name: Libby
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2024/12/21
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]]> God Spare the Girls 55276644
Luke Nolan has led The Hope congregation for over a decade, while his wife and daughters patiently uphold what it means to live righteously. Made famous by a viral sermon on purity co-written with his eldest daughter, Abigail, Luke is the prototype of a modern preacher: tall, handsome, a spellbinding speaker. But his youngest daughter Caroline has started to notice the cracks in their comfortable life. She is certain that her perfect, pristine sister is about to marry the wrong man—and Caroline has slid into sin with a boy she’s known her entire life, wondering why God would care so much about her virginity anyway.

When it comes to light, six weeks before Abigail’s wedding, that Luke has been having an affair with another woman, the entire Nolan family falls into a tailspin. Caroline seizes the opportunity to be alone with her sister. The two girls flee to the ranch they inherited from their maternal grandmother, far removed from the embarrassing drama of their parents and the prying eyes of the community. But with the date of Abigail’s wedding fast approaching, the sisters will have to make a hard decision about which familial bonds are worth protecting.

An intimate coming-of-age story and a modern woman’s read, God Spare the Girls lays bare the rabid love of sisterhood and asks what we owe our communities, our families, and ourselves.]]> 320 Kelsey McKinney 0063020254 Libby 0 to-read 3.53 2021 God Spare the Girls
author: Kelsey McKinney
name: Libby
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/18
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]]> Somebody's Daughter 54860610 One of the most prominent voices of her generation debuts with an extraordinarily powerful memoir: the story of a childhood defined by the ever looming absence of her incarcerated father and the path we must take to both honor and overcome our origins.

For as long as she could remember, Ashley has put her father on a pedestal. Despite having only vague memories of seeing him face-to-face, she believes he's the only person in the entire world who understands her. She thinks she understands him too. He's sensitive like her, an artist, and maybe even just as afraid of the dark. She's certain that one day they'll be reunited again, and she'll finally feel complete. There are just a few problems: he's in prison, and she doesn't know what he did to end up there.

Through poverty, puberty, and a fraught relationship with her mother, Ashley returns to her image of her father for hope and encouragement. She doesn't know how to deal with the incessant worries that keep her up at night, or how to handle the changes in her body that draw unwanted attention from men. In her search for unconditional love, Ashley begins dating a boy her mother hates; when the relationship turns sour, he assaults her. Still reeling from the rape, which she keeps secret from her family, Ashley finally finds out why her father is in prison. And that's where the story really begins.

Somebody’s Daughter steps into the world of growing up a poor Black girl, exploring how isolating and complex such a childhood can be. As Ashley battles her body and her environment, she provides a poignant coming-of-age recollection that speaks to finding the threads between who you are and what you were born into, and the complicated familial love that often binds them.]]> 224 Ashley C. Ford 1250305977 Libby 0 to-read 4.02 2021 Somebody's Daughter
author: Ashley C. Ford
name: Libby
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/18
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]]> Drinking: A Love Story 73965
Caroline Knapp describes how the distorted world of her well-to-do parents pushed her toward anorexia and alcoholism. Fittingly, it was literature that saved her: she found inspiration in Pete Hamill's 'A Drinking Life' and sobered up. Her tale is spiced up with the characters she has known along the way.

A journalist describes her twenty years as a functioning alcoholic, explaining how she used alcohol to escape personal relationships and the realities of life until a series of personal crises forced her to confront her problem.]]> 286 Caroline Knapp 0385315546 Libby 0 to-read 4.08 1996 Drinking: A Love Story
author: Caroline Knapp
name: Libby
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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]]> Boy Parts 49083140
Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina’s relationship with her obsessive best friend, and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention�

Boy Parts is the incendiary debut novel from Eliza Clark, a pitch-black comedy both shocking and hilarious, fearlessly exploring the taboo regions of sexuality and gender roles in the twenty-first century.]]> 304 Eliza Clark 1910312649 Libby 0 to-read 3.74 2020 Boy Parts
author: Eliza Clark
name: Libby
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Call Them by Their True Names: American Crises (and Essays)]]> 39688744 Men Explain Things to Me. Called “the voice of the resistance� by the New York Times, she has emerged as an essential guide to our times, through incisive commentary on feminism, violence, ecology, hope, and everything in between.

In this powerful and wide-ranging collection of essays, Solnit turns her attention to the war at home. This is a war, she says, “with so many casualties that we should call it by its true name, this war with so many dead by police, by violent ex-husbands and partners and lovers, by people pursuing power and profit at the point of a gun or just shooting first and figuring out who they hit later.� To get to the root of these American crises, she contends that “to acknowledge this state of war is to admit the need for peace,� countering the despair of our age with a dose of solidarity, creativity, and hope.



The loneliness of Donald Trump --
Coda (July 16, 2018) --
Milestones in misogyny --
Twenty million missing storytellers --
Ideology of isolation --
NaĂŻve cynicism --
Facing the furies --
Preaching to the choir --
Climate change is violence --
Blood on the foundation --
Death by gentrification: the killing of Alex Nieto and the savaging of San Francisco --
No way in, no way out --
Bird in a cage: visiting Jarvis Masters on death row --
Coda: case dismissed --
The monument wars --
Eight million ways to belong --
The light from Standing Rock --
Break the story --
Hope in grief --
In praise of indirect consequences]]> 188 Rebecca Solnit 1608469468 Libby 0 to-read 4.19 2018 Call Them by Their True Names: American Crises (and Essays)
author: Rebecca Solnit
name: Libby
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2018
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date added: 2024/12/16
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]]> The Message 210943364
The first of the book’s three intertwining essays is set in Dakar, Senegal. Despite being raised as a strict Afrocentrist, Coates had never set foot on the African continent until now. He roams the “steampunk� city of “old traditions and new machinery,� but everywhere he goes he feels as if he’s in two places at once: a modern city in Senegal and a mythic kingdom in his mind. Finally he travels to the slave castles off the coast and has his own reckoning with the legacy of the Afrocentric dream.

He takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he meets an educator whose job is threatened for teaching one of Coates’s own books. There he discovers a community of mostly white supporters who were transformed by the “racial reckoning� of 2020. But he also explores the backlash to this reckoning and the deeper myths of the community—a capital of the confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares.

And in Palestine, Coates discovers the devastating gap between the narratives we’ve accepted and the clashing reality of life on the ground. He meets with activists and dissidents, Israelis and Palestinians—the old, who remember their dispossessions on two continents, and the young, who have only known struggle and disillusionment. He travels into Jerusalem, the heart of Zionist mythology, and to the occupied territories, where he sees the reality the myth is meant to hide. It is this hidden story that draws him in and profoundly changes him—and makes the war that would soon come all the more devastating.

Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive nationalist myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.]]> 232 Ta-Nehisi Coates 0593230388 Libby 5 4.52 2024 The Message
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: Libby
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/15
date added: 2024/12/15
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Simply profound. I have the utmost respect for Coates and absolutely love his writing. “The Message� invites us to accept our own naivety and question things we were likely never taught to question.
]]> Kindred 60931 The visionary author’s masterpiece pulls us—along with her Black female hero—through time to face the horrors of slavery and explore the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now.

Dana, a modern Black woman, is celebrating her 26th 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.]]> 288 Octavia E. Butler 0807083690 Libby 0 to-read 4.30 1979 Kindred
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Libby
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1979
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/14
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]]> Intermezzo 208931300 An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family—but especially love—from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.]]> 454 Sally Rooney 0374602638 Libby 0 to-read 3.88 2024 Intermezzo
author: Sally Rooney
name: Libby
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/12
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]]> <![CDATA[The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story]]> 57717410 The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story offers a revealing vision of the American past and present.

In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country’s original sin, but it is more than that: It is the source of so much that still defines the United States.

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story builds on The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning �1619 Project,� which reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This book substantially expands on the original "1619 Project, "weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself. This legacy can be seen in the way we tell stories, the way we teach our children, and the way we remember. Together, the elements of the book reveal a new origin story for the United States, one that helps explain not only the persistence of anti-Black racism and inequality in American life today, but also the roots of what makes the country unique.

The book also features an elaboration of the original project’s Pulitzer Prize–winning lead essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones on how the struggles of Black Americans have expanded democracy for all Americans, as well as two original pieces from Hannah-Jones, one of which makes a case for reparative solutions to this legacy of injustice.]]> 590 Nikole Hannah-Jones 0593230574 Libby 0 to-read 4.61 2019 The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story
author: Nikole Hannah-Jones
name: Libby
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2019
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]]> <![CDATA[Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3)]]> 76706470 576 Sarah J. Maas Libby 4 4.44 2014 Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3)
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Libby
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/09
date added: 2024/12/09
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]]> The God of the Woods 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

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

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Libby 0 to-read 4.16 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Libby
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/09
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]]> Small Things Like These 58662236
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.]]> 128 Claire Keegan 0802158749 Libby 0 to-read 4.14 2021 Small Things Like These
author: Claire Keegan
name: Libby
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/08
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]]> Cleopatra and Frankenstein 60784819
Cleo and Frank run head-first into a romance that neither of them can quite keep up with. It reshapes their lives and the lives of those around them, whether that’s Cleo's best friend struggling to embrace his gender identity in the wake of her marriage, or Frank's financially dependent sister arranging sugar daddy dates after being cut off. Ultimately, this chance meeting between two strangers outside of a New Year’s Eve party changes everything, for better or worse.

Cleopatra and Frankenstein is an astounding and painfully relatable debut novel about the spontaneous decisions that shape our entire lives and those imperfect relationships born of unexpectedly perfect evenings.]]> 384 Coco Mellors 1639730702 Libby 0 to-read 3.67 2022 Cleopatra and Frankenstein
author: Coco Mellors
name: Libby
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy]]> 60784541 A Fortune best nonfiction book of 2023

In a revelatory dispatch from the frontier of capitalist extremism, an acclaimed historian of ideas shows how free marketeers are realizing their ultimate goal: an end to nation-states and the constraints of democracy.

Look at a map of the world and you’ll see a colorful checkerboard of nation-states. But this is not where power actually resides. Over the last decade, globalization has shattered the map into different legal spaces: free ports, tax havens, special economic zones. With the new spaces, ultracapitalists have started to believe that it is possible to escape the bonds of democratic government and oversight altogether.

Crack-Up Capitalism follows the most notorious radical libertarians—from Milton Friedman to Peter Thiel—around the globe as they search for the perfect space for capitalism. Historian Quinn Slobodian leads us from Hong Kong in the 1970s to South Africa in the late days of apartheid, from the neo-Confederate South to the former frontier of the American West, from the medieval City of London to the gold vaults of right-wing billionaires, and finally into the world’s oceans and war zones, charting the relentless quest for a blank slate where market competition is unfettered by democracy.

A masterful work of economic and intellectual history, Crack-Up Capitalism offers both a new way of looking at the world and a new vision of coming threats. Full of rich details and provocative analysis, Crack-Up Capitalism offers an alarming view of a possible future.]]> 352 Quinn Slobodian 1250753899 Libby 0 to-read 4.11 2023 Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy
author: Quinn Slobodian
name: Libby
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/30
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]]> <![CDATA[Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass, #2)]]> 76705490 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

"A line that should never be crossed is about to be breached.

It puts this entire castle in jeopardy—and the life of your friend."

From the throne of glass rules a king with a fist of iron and a soul as black as pitch. Assassin Celaena Sardothien won a brutal contest to become his Champion. Yet Celaena is far from loyal to the crown. She hides her secret vigilantly; she knows that the man she serves is bent on evil.

Keeping up the deadly charade becomes increasingly difficult when Celaena realizes she is not the only one seeking justice. As she tries to untangle the mysteries buried deep within the glass castle, her closest relationships suffer. It seems no one is above questioning her allegiances—not the Crown Prince Dorian; not Chaol, the Captain of the Guard; not even her best friend, Nehemia, a foreign princess with a rebel heart.

Then one terrible night, the secrets they have all been keeping lead to an unspeakable tragedy. As Celaena's world shatters, she will be forced to give up the very thing most precious to her and decide once and for all where her true loyalties lie... and whom she is ultimately willing to fight for.]]> 420 Sarah J. Maas 1639730966 Libby 5 Ok I’m hooked 4.34 2013 Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass, #2)
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Libby
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/28
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Ok I’m hooked
]]> <![CDATA[Undiversified: The Big Gender Short in Investment Management (Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing Series)]]> 55893898
In Undiversified , experienced practitioners Ellen Carr and Katrina Dudley examine the lack of women in investment management and propose solutions to improve the imbalance. They explore the barriers that subtly but effectively discourage women from entering and staying in the industry at each point in the pipeline. At the entry level, the lack of visible role models discourages students from considering the field, and those who do embark on an investment management career face many obstacles to retention and promotion. Carr and Dudley highlight the importance of informal knowledge about how to navigate career tracks, without which women are left at a disadvantage in an industry that lionizes confidence. They showcase a diverse constellation of successful female portfolio managers to demystify the profession.

Drawing on wide-ranging research, interviews with prospective, current, and former industry practitioners, and the authors� own experiences, Undiversified makes a compelling case that increasing the number of women could help transform active investment management at a time when it is under threat from passive strategies and technological innovation.]]> 280 Ellen Carr 0231195885 Libby 0 to-read 4.10 Undiversified: The Big Gender Short in Investment Management (Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing Series)
author: Ellen Carr
name: Libby
average rating: 4.10
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date added: 2024/11/24
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]]> Only Alive on Sundays 86468607
Mila is in her late 20s and she’s made it this far in life without really being alive. She is constantly thinking about herself from the outside in. All of that changes when she tries to find herself within two men who are so different yet so alike. One has a knowing smile, the other wears an enchanting grin. Both offer her moments so ripe they may as well be juicy nectarines for her to devour—but if it’s love or devotion, she can’t figure out.

Working in an antique shop with a portal into endless possibilities, Mila interacts with the many faces of her being. She catapults her self-actualization when she confronts the watchful eye that lives within her. Sundays are—finally—made holy when she starts worshiping herself.

Written using tarot cards, Only Alive on Sundays blurs the line between the magical and the mundane. Rashidi weaves the narrative of each Major Arcana card into an electric tale exploring the romance of pursuing selfhood, painting an image of what it would look like to be caught in the midst of The Lovers, The Tower, The Moon…]]> 164 Kim Rashidi 1738772004 Libby 0 to-read 3.68 Only Alive on Sundays
author: Kim Rashidi
name: Libby
average rating: 3.68
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/22
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]]> <![CDATA[What You Are Looking For Is in the Library]]> 91274427 For fans of The Midnight Library and Before the Coffee Gets Cold, this charming Japanese novel shows how the perfect book recommendation can change a reader's life.

What are you looking for?

This is the famous question routinely asked by Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi. Like most librarians, Komachi has read every book lining her shelves—but she also has the unique ability to read the souls of her library guests. For anyone who walks through her door, Komachi can sense exactly what they’re looking for in life and provide just the book recommendation they never knew they needed to help them find it.

Each visitor comes to her library from a different juncture in their careers and dreams, from the restless sales attendant who feels stuck at her job to the struggling working mother who longs to be a magazineĚýeditor. The conversation that they have with Sayuri Komachi—and the surprise book she lends each of them—will have life-altering consequences.

With heartwarming charm and wisdom, What You Are Looking For Is in the Library is a paean to the magic of libraries, friendship and community, perfect for anyone who has ever found themselves at an impasse in their life and in need of a little inspiration.]]> 304 Michiko Aoyama 1335005625 Libby 0 to-read 4.07 2020 What You Are Looking For Is in the Library
author: Michiko Aoyama
name: Libby
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/21
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]]> The Healing Season of Pottery 207567725 Set for international release this fall, this cozy Korean bestseller invites readers into a warm, sunlit pottery studio where a burned-out young TV broadcast writer begins to heal, working the clay, piece by piece, season by season.

After breaking down at the office and abruptly quitting her job, thirty-year-old Jungmin holes up in her apartment, speaking to no one for days on end. When she finally emerges, she stumbles upon a pottery studio in her neighborhood and is invited in by the mysterious workshop teacher. The smell of clay, the light filtering through the plant filled windows, the friendly cat, and the incredible coffee the students drink awaken her senses and make her feel alive and inspired for the first time in months.

As the seasons change, Jungmin slowly returns to herself and builds a new community with the other members of the studio, who are all working through their own pasts at the pottery wheel. When the holidays approach and snow piles up on the studio windowsill, Jungmin realizes how much she has changed—with her hands busy and her mind clear, she may be ready to face the memories she’s been running from and open her heart.

For fans of What You Are Looking For Is in the Library and Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop, Yeon’s charming English-language debut is a testament to the joy of slowing down in a fast-paced world, and an homage to the art of ceramics and the power of friendship. Readers won’t want to leave the enchanting world of The Healing Season of Pottery after the final page.]]> 272 Yeon Somin 1643756753 Libby 0 to-read 3.75 2023 The Healing Season of Pottery
author: Yeon Somin
name: Libby
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/21
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]]> The Goodbye Process 201924625 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection
Longlisted for THE STORY PRIZE
A Library Journal BEST BOOK OF 2024
An Electric Literature Most Exciting Debut Short Story Collection of 2024

“Short story fans might just discover their new favorite author in this arresting collection, a must-have.”�Library Journal (STARRED review)

What happens when you are forced to let go of the things you love the most? What are you left with?

In her stunning debut short story collection, The Goodbye Process, Mary Jones uses her distinctive voice to examine the painful and sometimes surreal ways we say goodbye.

The stories―which range from tender and heartbreaking to unsettling and darkly funny―will push you out of your comfort zone and ignite intense emotions surrounding love and loss. A woman camps out on the porch of an ex-lover who has barricaded himself inside the house; a preteen girl caught shoplifting finds herself in grave danger; a Los Angeles real estate agent falls for a woman who helps him detach from years of dramatic plastic surgery; a man hires a professional mourner to ensure his wife’s funeral is a success. Again and again, Jones’s characters find themselves facing the ends of things: relationships, health, and innocence.

Arresting, original, and beautifully rendered, this story collection packs a punch, just the way grief does―knocking us off our feet.]]> 240 Mary Jones 1958506621 Libby 0 to-read 3.93 2024 The Goodbye Process
author: Mary Jones
name: Libby
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Icon and the Idealist: Margaret Sanger, Mary Ware Dennett, and the Rivalry That Brought Birth Control to America]]> 200740851
In the early days of the reproductive rights movement, two pioneering activists Margaret Sanger and Mary Dennett. Sanger would go on to found Planned Parenthood, while Dennett’s name has largely faded from public awareness. Each held a radically different vision for what reproductive autonomy and birth control access should look like in America.

Few are aware of the fierce personal and political rivalry that played out between Sanger and Dennett over decades—a battle that had a profound impact on the lives of American women. Stephanie Gorton’s meticulously researched and vividly drawn new history, The Icon and the Idealist, reveals how and why these two women came to activism, the origins of the clash between them, and the ways in which their missteps and breakthroughs have reverberated across American society for generations.

With deep archival scope and rigorous execution, The Icon and the Idealist weaves together a personal narrative of two fascinating women and the political history of a country arriving at one of the most necessary social inventions of the modern day. Refusing to shy away from the enmeshed struggles of race, class, and gender, Gorton has made a sweeping examination of every force that has come in the way of women’s reproductive freedom.

Brimming with insight and compelling portraits of women’s struggles throughout the twentieth century, The Icon and the Idealist is a comprehensive history of a radical cultural movement.Ěý]]> 464 Stephanie Gorton 0063036290 Libby 0 to-read 3.93 The Icon and the Idealist: Margaret Sanger, Mary Ware Dennett, and the Rivalry That Brought Birth Control to America
author: Stephanie Gorton
name: Libby
average rating: 3.93
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date added: 2024/11/21
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]]> Mad Honey 59912428 A soul-stirring novel about what we choose to keep from our past, and what we choose to leave behind.

Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising a beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in, and taking over her father's beekeeping business.

Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.

And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too. With Ash, she feels happy for the first time. Yet at times, she wonders if she can she trust him completely . . .

Then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent. But she would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge the flashes of his father’s temper in him, and as the case against him unfolds, she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.

Mad Honey is a riveting novel of suspense, an unforgettable love story, and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become ourselves.]]> 464 Jodi Picoult 1984818384 Libby 0 to-read 4.05 2022 Mad Honey
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Libby
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Normal Rules Don't Apply: Stories]]> 63934847 Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, with everything that readers love about her novels—the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop.

Nothing is quite as it seems in this collection of eleven dazzling stories. We meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep; a secretary who watches over the life she has just left; a man who bets on a horse that may—or may not—have spoken to him.

A startling and funny feast for the imagination, these stories conjure a multiverse of subtly connected worlds while illuminating the webs of chance and connection among us all.]]> 212 Kate Atkinson 0385688237 Libby 0 to-read 3.67 2023 Normal Rules Don't Apply: Stories
author: Kate Atkinson
name: Libby
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/18
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]]> Sandwich 200028726 From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go.

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.

This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

It's one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.]]> 240 Catherine Newman 0063345161 Libby 0 to-read 3.55 2024 Sandwich
author: Catherine Newman
name: Libby
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir]]> 203931803 A powerful memoir that reckons with mental health as well as the insidious ways men impact the lives of women.

In early 2021, popular artist Anna Marie Tendler checked herself into a psychiatric hospital following a year of crippling anxiety, depression and self-harm. Over two weeks, she underwent myriad psychological tests, participated in numerous therapy sessions, connected with fellow patients and experienced profound breakthroughs, such as when a doctor noted, “There is a you inside that feels invisible to those looking at you from the outside.�

In Men Have Called Her Crazy, Tendler recounts her hospital experience as well as pivotal moments in her life that preceded and followed. As the title suggests, many of these moments are impacted by men: unrequited love in high school; the twenty-eight-year-old she lost her virginity to when she was sixteen; the frustrations and absurdities of dating in her mid-thirties; and her decision to freeze her eggs as all her friends were starting families.

This stunning literary self-portrait examines the unreasonable expectations and pressures women face in the 21st century. Yet overwhelming and despairing as that can feel, Tendler ultimately offers a message hope. Early in her stay in the hospital, she says, “My wish for myself is that one day I’ll reach a place where I can face hardship without trying to destroy myself.� By the end of the book, she fulfills that wish.]]> 304 Anna Marie Tendler 1668032341 Libby 3 3.42 2024 Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir
author: Anna Marie Tendler
name: Libby
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/12
date added: 2024/11/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Sober Curious: The Blissful Sleep, Greater Focus, Limitless Presence, and Deep Connection Awaiting Us All on the Other Side of Alcohol]]> 39834152 Would life be better without alcohol?

It’s the nagging question more and more of us are finding harder to ignore, whether we have a “problem� with alcohol or not. After all, we yoga. We green juice. We meditate. We self-care. And yet, come the end of a long work day, the start of a weekend, an awkward social situation, we drink. One glass of wine turns into two turns into a bottle. In the face of how we care for ourselves otherwise, it’s hard to avoid how alcohol really makes us feel� terrible.

How different would our lives be if we stopped drinking on autopilot? If we stopped drinking altogether? Really different, it turns out. Really better. Frank, funny, and always judgment free, Sober Curious is a bold guide to choosing to live hangover-free, from Ruby Warrington, one of the leading voices of the new sobriety movement.

Drawing on research, expert interviews, and personal narrative, Sober Curious is a radical take down of the myths that keep so many of us drinking. Inspiring, timely, and blame free, Sober Curious is both conversation starter and handbook—essential reading that empowers readers to transform their relationship with alcohol, so we can lead our most fulfilling lives.]]> 240 Ruby Warrington 0062869035 Libby 0 to-read 3.54 2018 Sober Curious: The Blissful Sleep, Greater Focus, Limitless Presence, and Deep Connection Awaiting Us All on the Other Side of Alcohol
author: Ruby Warrington
name: Libby
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/12
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]]> Milkman 36047860
Milkman is a tale of gossip and hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness. It is the story of inaction with enormous consequences.]]> 352 Anna Burns 0571338763 Libby 0 to-read 3.51 2018 Milkman
author: Anna Burns
name: Libby
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/02
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]]> <![CDATA[On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft]]> 57391296 Entertainment Weekly upon publication of Stephen King’s On Writing. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer’s craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King’s advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported, near-fatal accident in 1999—and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery. Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring, On Writing will empower and entertain everyone who reads it—fans, writers, and anyone who loves a great story well told.]]> 320 Stephen King Libby 0 to-read 4.49 2000 On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
author: Stephen King
name: Libby
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/02
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]]> <![CDATA[World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments]]> 48615751
As a child, Nezhukumatathil called many places home: the grounds of a Kansas mental institution, where her Filipina mother was a doctor; the open skies and tall mountains of Arizona, where she hiked with her Indian father; and the chillier climes of western New York and Ohio. But no matter where she was transplanted--no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape--she was able to turn to our world's fierce and funny creatures for guidance.

"What the peacock can do," she tells us, "is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life." The axolotl teaches us to smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile environments. Even in the strange and the unlovely, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship. For it is this way with wonder: it requires that we are curious enough to look past the distractions in order to fully appreciate the world's gifts.

Warm, lyrical, and gorgeously illustrated by Fumi Nakamura, World of Wonders is a book of sustenance and joy.]]> 165 Aimee Nezhukumatathil 1571313656 Libby 0 to-read 4.05 2020 World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments
author: Aimee Nezhukumatathil
name: Libby
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/08
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]]> <![CDATA[Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head]]> 55835966 Poems of migration, womanhood, trauma, and resilience from the celebrated collaborator on Beyoncé's Lemonade and Black Is King, award-winning Somali British poet Warsan Shire.

Mama, I made it
out of your home,
alive, raised by the
voices in my head.

With her first full-length poetry collection, Warsan Shire introduces us to a young girl, who, in the absence of a nurturing guide, makes her own stumbling way towards womanhood. Drawing from her own life and the lives of loved ones, as well as pop culture and news headlines, Shire finds vivid, unique details in the experiences of refugees and immigrants, mothers and daughters, Black women, and teenage girls. In Shire's hands, lives spring into fullness. This is noisy life: full of music and weeping and surahs and sirens and birds. This is fragrant life: full of blood and perfume and shisha smoke and jasmine and incense. This is polychrome life: full of henna and moonlight and lipstick and turmeric and kohl.

The long-awaited collection from one of our most exciting contemporary poets, this book is a blessing, an incantatory celebration of resilience and survival. Each reader will come away changed.]]> 86 Warsan Shire 0593134354 Libby 4 4.21 2022 Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head
author: Warsan Shire
name: Libby
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/21
date added: 2024/08/21
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]]> The Sword of Kaigen 41886271 A son struggling to grasp his violent future,
A father blind to the danger that threatens them all.

When the winds of war reach their peninsula, will the Matsuda family have the strength to defend their empire? Or will they tear each other apart before the true enemies even reach their shores?

High on a mountainside at the edge of the Kaigenese Empire live the most powerful warriors in the world, superhumans capable of raising the sea and wielding blades of ice. For hundreds of years, the fighters of the Kusanagi Peninsula have held the Empire’s enemies at bay, earning their frozen spit of land the name â€The Sword of Kaigen.â€�

Born into Kusanagi’s legendary Matsuda family, fourteen-year-old Mamoru has always known his purpose: to master his family’s fighting techniques and defend his homeland. But when an outsider arrives and pulls back the curtain on Kaigen’s alleged age of peace, Mamoru realizes that he might not have much time to become the fighter he was bred to be. Worse, the empire he was bred to defend may stand on a foundation of lies.

Misaki told herself that she left the passions of her youth behind when she married into the Matsuda house. Determined to be a good housewife and mother, she hid away her sword, along with everything from her days as a fighter in a faraway country. But with her growing son asking questions about the outside world, the threat of an impending invasion looming across the sea, and her frigid husband grating on her nerves, Misaki finds the fighter in her clawing its way back to the surface.]]> 651 M.L. Wang Libby 0 to-read 4.46 2019 The Sword of Kaigen
author: M.L. Wang
name: Libby
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder]]> 39899253 Scattered Minds explodes the myth of attention deficit disorder as genetically based � and offers real hope and advice for children and adults who live with the condition.

Gabor Maté is a revered physician who specializes in neurology, psychiatry and psychology � and himself has ADD. With wisdom gained through years of medical practice and research, Scattered Minds is a must-read for parents � and for anyone interested how experiences in infancy shape the biology and psychology of the human brain.

Scattered Minds:
- Demonstrates that ADD is not an inherited illness, but a reversible impairment and developmental delay
- Explains that in ADD, circuits in the brain whose job is emotional self-regulation and attention control fail to develop in infancy � and why
- Shows how â€distractibilityâ€� is the psychological product of life experience
- Allows parents to understand what makes their ADD children tick, and adults with ADD to gain insights into their emotions and behaviours
- Expresses optimism about neurological development even in adulthood
- Presents a programme of how to promote this development in both children and adults]]> 368 Gabor Maté 1785042211 Libby 5 4.28 1999 Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder
author: Gabor Maté
name: Libby
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/17
date added: 2024/08/17
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]]> Idlewild 98653925 James Frankie Thomas’s Idlewild is a darkly funny story of two adults looking back on their intense teenage friendship, in a queer, trans, and early-Internet twist on the Manhattan prep school novel.

Idlewild is a tiny, artsy Quaker high school in lower Manhattan. Students call their teachers by their first names, there are no grades, and every day begins with 20 minutes of contemplative silence in the Meetinghouse. It is during one of those meetings that an airplane hits the Twin Towers.

For two Idlewild outcasts, 9/11 serves as the first day of an intense, 18-month friendship. Fay is prickly, aloof, and obsessed with gay men; Nell is shy, sensitive, and obsessed with Fay. The two of them bond fiercely and spend all their waking hours giddily parsing their environment for homoerotic subtext. Then, during rehearsals for the fall play, they notice two sexually ambiguous boys who are potential candidates for their exclusive Invert Society. The pairs become mirrors of one another and drive each other to make choices that they’ll regret for the rest of their lives.

Looking back on these events as adults, the estranged Fay and Nell trace that fateful school year, recalling backstage theater department intrigue, antiwar demonstrations, smutty fanfic written over AIM, a shared dial-up connection—and the spectacular cascade of mistakes, miscommunications, and betrayals that would ultimately tear the two of them apart.]]> 389 James Frankie Thomas 1419769146 Libby 5 4.06 2023 Idlewild
author: James Frankie Thomas
name: Libby
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/16
date added: 2024/08/16
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]]> What We Were Promised 32349400
One morning, in the eighth tower of Lanson Suites, Lina discovers that a childhood keepsake, an ivory bracelet, has gone missing. The incident contributes to a wave of unease that has begun to settle throughout the Zhen household. Wei, a marketing strategist, bows under the guilt of not having engaged in nobler work. Meanwhile, Lina, lonely in her new life of leisure, assumes the modern moniker taitai--a housewife who does no housework at all. She spends her days haunted by the circumstances surrounding her arranged marriage to Wei and her lingering feelings for his brother, Qiang. Lina and Wei take pains to hide their anxieties, but their housekeeper, Sunny, a hardworking girl with secrets of her own, bears witness to their struggles. When Qiang reappears in Shanghai after decades on the run with a local gang, the family must finally come to terms with the past.

From a silk-producing village in rural China, up the corporate ladder in suburban America, and back again to the post-Maoist nouveau riche of modern Shanghai, WHAT WE WERE PROMSED explores the question of what we owe to our country, our families, and ourselves.]]> 328 Lucy Tan 0316437182 Libby 0 to-read 3.48 2018 What We Were Promised
author: Lucy Tan
name: Libby
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/11
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]]> Bliss Montage 60243188 A new creation by the author of Severance, the stories in Bliss Montage crash through our carefully built mirages

What happens when fantasy tears through the screen of the everyday to wake us up? Could that waking be our end?

In Bliss Montage, Ling Ma brings us eight wildly different tales of people making their way through the madness and reality of our collective delusions: love and loneliness, connection and possession, friendship, motherhood, the idea of home. From a woman who lives in a house with all of her ex-boyfriends, to a toxic friendship built around a drug that makes you invisible, to an ancient ritual that might heal you of anything if you bury yourself alive, these and other scenarios reveal that the outlandish and the everyday are shockingly, deceptively, heartbreakingly similar.]]> 228 Ling Ma 0374293511 Libby 3 3.91 2022 Bliss Montage
author: Ling Ma
name: Libby
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/10
date added: 2024/08/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Wild and Precious: A Celebration of Mary Oliver]]> 131150655
Wild and Precious: A Celebration of Mary Oliver is a first of its kind audio commemoration of one of the greatest poets in modern history. Actress and activist Sophia Bush guides listeners on a journey of contemplation and discovery into the artistry of Mary Oliver as remembered by many who were most greatly impacted by it. For the first time, Oliver’s Bennington College students open up about what it was like to have her for a teacher, friends and neighbors recall her love of place and nature, multi-faith leaders contemplate her spiritual lessons, and high-profile artists and fans like Carmen Maria Machado, Ross Gay, and Rainn Wilson, among others, reflect on the profound influence of her poetry on their own work and lives.

Wild and Precious features over 30 poems (including “The Summer Day,� “When Death Comes,� and “In Blackwater Woods�) alongside abiding admiration for Oliver’s craft and sheds new light on one of the greatest poets and writers in modern history. The result is a tapestry of sound that weaves together recollections of first-hand accounts with the poet, readings of her poetry by contributors and by Oliver herself, and personal testimonials—both heart-wrenching and joyful—of Oliver’s imprint on American culture.

A meditative trek deep into the heart of Mary Oliver’s legacy, Wild and Precious is a perfect entry for poetry newcomers and a must-listen for fans.

Contributors include: actress and activist Sophia Bush, chef Samin Nosrat, poet Ross Gay, writer Carmen Maria Machado, actress Busy Philipps, writer and actor Rainn Wilson, memoirist Claire Bidwell Smith, and bestselling author Susan Cain.]]> 6 Mary Oliver Libby 4 4.52 Wild and Precious: A Celebration of Mary Oliver
author: Mary Oliver
name: Libby
average rating: 4.52
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/09
date added: 2024/08/09
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]]> The Wives 43262893 New York Times bestselling author Tarryn Fisher delivers a pulse-pounding, fast-paced suspense novel that will leave you breathless. A thriller you won’t be able to put down!

Thursday’s husband, Seth, has two other wives. She’s never met them, and she doesn’t know anything about them. She agreed to this unusual arrangement because she’s so crazy about him.

But one day, she finds something. Something that tells a very different—and horrifying—story about the man she married.

What follows is one of the most twisted, shocking thrillers you’ll ever read.

You’ll have to grab a copy to find out why.

]]> 295 Tarryn Fisher 1488054355 Libby 2 3.64 2019 The Wives
author: Tarryn Fisher
name: Libby
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> A Thousand Splendid Suns 128029
With the passing of time comes Taliban rule over Afghanistan, the streets of Kabul loud with the sound of gunfire and bombs, life a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear, the women's endurance tested beyond their worst imaginings. Yet love can move people to act in unexpected ways, lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism. In the end it is love that triumphs over death and destruction.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a portrait of a wounded country and a story of family and friendship, of an unforgiving time, an unlikely bond, and an indestructible love.]]> 372 Khaled Hosseini 1594489505 Libby 0 to-read 4.44 2007 A Thousand Splendid Suns
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Libby
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Just Add Water: My Swimming Life]]> 203931794 A candid and inspiring memoir from Olympic gold medalist, world champion, and one of the best swimmers ever to compete: Katie Ledecky.

Katie Ledecky has won more individual Olympic races than any female swimmer in history. She is a three-time Olympian, a seven-time gold medalist, a twenty-one-time world champion, eight-time NCAA Champion, and a world record-holder in individual swimming events. Time and again, the question is posed to her family, her coaches, and to her—what makes her a champion? Now, for the first time, she shares what it takes to compete at an elite level.

Again and again, Ledecky has broken records: those of others and, increasingly, her own. She is both consistent and innovative—consistent at setting goals and shattering them, and innovative in the way she approaches her training. A true competitor, she sets her goals by choosing the ones that feel the scariest. But, crucially, she never sacrifices the joy of competition, even in the face of adversity. Her positive mental outlook and a great support system provides the springboard to her success.

Just Add Water charts Ledecky’s life in swimming. It details her start in Bethesda, Maryland, where she played sharks and minnows and first discovered the joy of the pool; her early foray into the Olympics at the tender age of fifteen where, as the youngest member of the American team, she stunned everyone by winning her first gold medal; her time balancing competition and her education at Stanford University; how she developed a champion’s mindset that has allowed her to persevere through so many meets, even under intense pressure; and how she has maintained her dominance in a sport where success depends on milliseconds. You learn how every element of her life—from the support of her family to the tutelage of her coaches, from her childhood spent in summer league swimming to the bright lights of Olympic pools in London, Rio, and Tokyo—set her up to become the champion she is.

In the end, Katie’s story is about testing yourself against the difficult, and seeing who you become on the other side.]]> 256 Katie Ledecky 1668060205 Libby 0 to-read 4.13 2024 Just Add Water: My Swimming Life
author: Katie Ledecky
name: Libby
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/31
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]]> What Kind of Woman: Poems 50997643 A stunning and honest debut poetry collection about the beauty and hardships in being a mother, a wife, and a woman.Ěý

“When life throws you a bag of sorrow, hold out your hands/Little by little, mountains are climbed.� So ends Kate Baer’s remarkable poem “Things My Girlfriends Teach Me.� In “Nothing Tastes as Good as Skinny Feels� she challenges her reader to consider their grandmother’s cake, the taste of the sea, the cool swill of freedom. In her poem “Deliverance� about her daughter’s birth she writes “What is the word for when the light leaves the body?/What is the word for when it/at last, returns?�

Through poems that are as unforgettably beautiful as they are accessible, Kate proves herself to truly be an exemplary voice in modern poetry. As easy to post on Instagram as they are to print out and frame, Kate’s words make women feel seen in their own bodies, in their own marriages, and in their own lives. Her poems are those you share with your mother, your daughter, your sister, and your friends.]]> 94 Kate Baer 0063008424 Libby 0 to-read 4.06 2020 What Kind of Woman: Poems
author: Kate Baer
name: Libby
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3) 209439446
Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything. They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth. But a storm is coming...and not everyone can survive its wrath.]]> 527 Rebecca Yarros 1649374186 Libby 0 to-read 4.18 2025 Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Libby
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass, #1)]]> 7896527 Meet Celaena Sardothien.

Beautiful. Deadly. Destined for greatness.

In a land without magic, where the king rules with an iron hand, Celaena, an assassin, is summoned to the castle. She comes not to kill the king, but to win her freedom. If she defeats twenty-three killers, thieves, and warriors in a competition, she is released from prison to serve as the king’s champion.

The Crown Prince will provoke her. The Captain of the Guard will protect her. But something evil dwells in the castle of glass—and it’s there to kill. When her competitors start dying one by one, Celaena’s fight for freedom becomes a fight for survival, and a desperate quest to root out the evil before it destroys her world.]]> 406 Sarah J. Maas Libby 3 4.19 2012 Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass, #1)
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Libby
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/18
date added: 2024/07/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Alice in Quantumland: An Allegory of Quantum Physics]]> 1044095 184 Robert Gilmore 0387914951 Libby 0 to-read 3.88 1994 Alice in Quantumland: An Allegory of Quantum Physics
author: Robert Gilmore
name: Libby
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Instructions for Traveling West: Poems]]> 186872488 Ěý
First, you must realize you’re homesick for all the lives you’re not living. Then, you must commit to the road and the rising loneliness. To the sincere thrill of coming apart.
Ěý
So begins Joy Sullivan’s Instructions for Traveling West —a lush debut collection that examines what happens when we leave home and leap into the deep unknown. Mid-pandemic, Sullivan left the man she planned to marry, sold her house, quit her corporate job, and drove west. This dazzling collection tells that story as it illuminates the questions haunting us What possible futures lie on the horizon? What happens when we heed the call of furious reinvention?Ěý
Ěý
A book for anyone flinging themselves into fresh starts, Instructions for Traveling West grapples with loss, loneliness and belonging.ĚýThese poems teach us that naming our desire is profound alchemy. Each of us holds the power to set our own course forward.
Ěý
Expansive and heart-opening—exquisite in their specificity, galvanizing in their scope—the poems in Instructions for Traveling West speak to the longing that lives within us all. They remind us that “joy is not a trick.”]]> 160 Joy Sullivan 0593597613 Libby 5 4.38 Instructions for Traveling West: Poems
author: Joy Sullivan
name: Libby
average rating: 4.38
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/08
date added: 2024/07/08
shelves:
review:

]]> Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2) 90202302 “The first year is when some of us lose our lives. The second year is when the rest of us lose our humanity.� —Xaden Riorson

Everyone expected Violet Sorrengail to die during her first year at Basgiath War College—Violet included. But Threshing was only the first impossible test meant to weed out the weak-willed, the unworthy, and the unlucky.

Now the real training begins, and Violet’s already wondering how she’ll get through. It’s not just that it’s grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it’s designed to stretch the riders� capacity for pain beyond endurance. It’s the new vice commandant, who’s made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is–unless she betrays the man she loves.

Although Violet’s body might be weaker and frailer than everyone else’s, she still has her wits—and a will of iron. And leadership is forgetting the most important lesson Basgiath has taught her: Dragon riders make their own rules.

But a determination to survive won’t be enough this year.

Because Violet knows the real secret hidden for centuries at Basgiath War College—and nothing, not even dragon fire, may be enough to save them in the end.]]> 623 Rebecca Yarros 1649374178 Libby 4 4.33 2023 Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Libby
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/06
date added: 2024/07/06
shelves:
review:

]]> They're Going to Love You 59721793 A magnetic tale of betrayal, art, and ambition, set in the world of professional ballet, New York City during the AIDS crisis, and present-day Los Angeles

Carlisle Martin dreams of becoming a professional ballet dancer just like her mother, Isabel, a former Balanchine ballerina. Since they live in Ohio, she only gets to see her father Robert for a few precious weeks a year when she visits Greenwich Village, where he lives in an enchanting apartment on Bank Street with his partner, James.

Brilliant but troubled, James gives Carlisle an education in all that he holds dear in life--literature, music, and most of all, dance. Seduced by the heady pull of mentorship and the sophistication of their lives, Carlisle's aspiration to become a dancer herself blooms, born of her desire to be asked to stay at Bank Street, to be included in Robert and James' world even as AIDS brings devastation to their community. Instead, a passionate love affair creates a rift between them, with devastating consequences that reverberate for decades to come.

Nineteen years later, Carlisle receives a phone call which unravels the fateful events of her life, causing her to see with new eyes how her younger self has informed the woman she's become. They're Going to Love You is a gripping and gorgeously written novel of heartbreaking intensity. With psychological precision and a masterfully revealed secret at its heart, it asks what it takes to be an artist in America, and the price of forgiveness, of ambition, and of love.]]> 288 Meg Howrey 038554877X Libby 4 4.07 2022 They're Going to Love You
author: Meg Howrey
name: Libby
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/16
date added: 2024/06/28
shelves:
review:

]]> Dark Matter 27833670 A mindbending, relentlessly surprising thriller from the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy.

Jason Dessen is walking home through the chilly Chicago streets one night, looking forward to a quiet evening in front of the fireplace with his wife, Daniela, and their son, Charlie—when his reality shatters.

"Are you happy with your life?"

Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.

Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.

Before a man Jason's never met smiles down at him and says, "Welcome back, my friend."

In this world he's woken up to, Jason's life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.

Is it this world or the other that's the dream?

And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could've imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.

Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human--a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we'll go to claim the lives we dream of.]]> 342 Blake Crouch 1101904224 Libby 3 4.13 2016 Dark Matter
author: Blake Crouch
name: Libby
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/05
date added: 2024/06/28
shelves:
review:

]]> Blue Sisters 195430687 Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister's death in this unforgettable story of grief, identity, and the complexities of family.

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

But coming home is never as easy as it seems. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize the greatest secrets they've been keeping might not have been from each other, but from themselves.]]> 342 Coco Mellors 0593723767 Libby 0 to-read 3.94 2024 Blue Sisters
author: Coco Mellors
name: Libby
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Black Swans 475853
Babitz’s inimitable voice propels these stories forward, corralling everything that gets in their sex, rage, the Château Marmont, youth, beauty, Jim Morrison, men, women, and black swans. This exciting reissue further celebrates the phenomenon of Eve Babitz, cementing her reputation as the voice of a generation.]]> 256 Eve Babitz 051714445X Libby 0 to-read 3.86 1993 Black Swans
author: Eve Babitz
name: Libby
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> I Hope This Finds You Well 200987323 In this wildly funny and heartwarming office comedy, an admin worker accidentally gains access to her colleagues� private emails and DMs and decides to use this intel to save her job—a laugh-till-you-cry debut novel you’ll be eager to share with your entire list of contacts, perfect for fans of Anxious People and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.

As far as Jolene is concerned, her interactions with her colleagues should start and end with her official duties as an admin for Supershops, Inc. Unfortunately, her irritating, incompetent coworkers don’t seem to understand the importance of boundaries. Her secret to survival? She vents her grievances in petty email postscripts, then changes the text colour to white so no one can see. That is, until one of her secret messages is exposed. Her punishment: sensitivity training (led by the suspiciously friendly HR guy, Cliff) and rigorous email restrictions.

When an IT mix-up grants her access to her entire department’s private emails and DMs, Jolene knows she should report it, but who could resist reading what their coworkers are really saying? And when she discovers layoffs are coming, she realizes this might just be the key to saving her job. The plan is simple: gain her boss’s favour, convince HR she’s Supershops material and beat out the competition.

But as Jolene is drawn further into her coworker’s private worlds and secrets, her carefully constructed walls begin to crumble—especially around Cliff, who she definitely cannot have feelings for. Soon she will need to decide if she’s ready to leave the comfort of her cubicle, even if it means coming clean to her colleagues.

Crackling with laugh-out-loud dialogue and relatable observations, I Hope This Finds You Well is a fresh and surprisingly tender comedy about loneliness and love beyond our computer screens. This sparkling debut novel will open your heart to the everyday eccentricities of work culture and the undeniable human connection that comes with it.]]> 338 Natalie Sue 0063320363 Libby 5 3.74 2024 I Hope This Finds You Well
author: Natalie Sue
name: Libby
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/19
date added: 2024/06/19
shelves:
review:

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