mengwe's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 13 Apr 2025 12:31:25 -0700 60 mengwe's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Piano Lesson 565978 Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning, Fences. In his second Pulitzer Prize-winner, The Piano Lesson, Wilson has fashioned his most haunting and dramatic work yet. At the heart of his play stands the ornately carved upright piano which, as the Charles family's prized, hard-won possession, has been gathering dust in the parlor of Berniece Charles's Pittsburgh home. When Boy Willie, Berniece's exuberant brother, bursts into her life with his dream of buying the same Mississippi land that his family had worked as slaves, he plans to sell their antique piano for the hard cash he needs to stake his future. But Berniece refuses to sell, clinging to the piano as a reminder of the history that is their family legacy. This dilemma is the real "piano lesson," reminding us that blacks are often deprived both of the symbols of their past and of opportunity in the present.
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108 August Wilson 0452265347 mengwe 0 currently-reading 3.80 1990 The Piano Lesson
author: August Wilson
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Months on End - Acting Edition (Acting Edition for Theater Productions)]]> 2158911 Book by Craig Pospisil 72 Craig Pospisil 0822218925 mengwe 0 currently-reading 3.77 2003 Months on End - Acting Edition (Acting Edition for Theater Productions)
author: Craig Pospisil
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/11
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A Life in the Theatre 98104 86 David Mamet 0802150675 mengwe 2 3.54 1977 A Life in the Theatre
author: David Mamet
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.54
book published: 1977
rating: 2
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Match - Acting Edition 337255 72 Stephen Belber 0822220202 mengwe 3 3.75 2004 Match - Acting Edition
author: Stephen Belber
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2004
rating: 3
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All About Love: New Visions 17607 All About Love offers radical new ways to think about love by showing its interconnectedness in our private and public lives. In eleven concise chapters, hooks explains how our everyday notions of what it means to give and receive love often fail us, and how these ideals are established in early childhood. She offers a rethinking of self-love (without narcissism) that will bring peace and compassion to our personal and professional lives, and asserts the place of love to end struggles between individuals, in communities, and among societies. Moving from the cultural to the intimate, hooks notes the ties between love and loss and challenges the prevailing notion that romantic love is the most important love of all.

Visionary and original, hooks shows how love heals the wounds we bear as individuals and as a nation, for it is the cornerstone of compassion and forgiveness and holds the power to overcome shame.

For readers who have found ongoing delight and wisdom in bell hooks's life and work, and for those who are just now discovering her, All About Love is essential reading and a brilliant book that will change how we think about love, our culture-and one another.]]>
240 bell hooks 0688168442 mengwe 5 4.06 1999 All About Love: New Visions
author: bell hooks
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/10
date added: 2025/04/10
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if i could give this six stars i would. BEST book that i have EVER read.
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Assata: An Autobiography 100322
This intensely personal and political autobiography belies the fearsome image of JoAnne Chesimard long projected by the media and the state. With wit and candor, Assata Shakur recounts the experiences that led her to a life of activism and portrays the strengths, weaknesses, and eventual demise of Black and White revolutionary groups at the hand ofĚýgovernment officials. The result is a signal contribution to the literature about growing up Black in America that has already taken its place alongside The Autobiography of Malcolm X and the works of Maya Angelou.

Two years after her conviction, Assata Shakur escaped from prison. She was given political asylum by Cuba, where she now resides.]]>
274 Assata Shakur 1556520743 mengwe 0 to-read 4.59 1987 Assata: An Autobiography
author: Assata Shakur
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.59
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters]]> 45892276 Who listens to you?

New York Times contributor Kate Murphy asked people on five continents this question, and the response was typically a long, awkward pause. People struggled to come up with someone, anyone, who truly listened to them without glazing over, glancing down at a phone, or jumping in to offer an opinion. Many admitted that they, themselves, weren’t very good listeners, and most couldn’t even describe what it meant to be a good listener.

Despite living in a world where technology allows constant digital communication and opportunities to connect, it seems no one is really listening or even knows how. And it’s making us lonelier, more isolated, and less tolerant than ever before. A listener by trade, Murphy wanted to know how we got here.

In this illuminating and often humorous deep dive, Murphy explains why we’re not listening, what it’s doing to us, and how we can reverse the trend. She makes accessible the psychology, neuroscience, and sociology of listening while also introducing us to some of the best listeners out there (including a CIA agent, focus-group moderator, bartender, radio producer, and top furniture salesman).

While listening is often regarded as talking’s meek counterpart, Murphy discovered it’s actually the more powerful position in communication. We learn when we listen. It’s how we connect, cooperate, empathize, and fall in love. Listening is something we do or don’t do every day. While we might take listening for granted, how well we listen, to whom, and under what circumstances determines who we are and the paths we take in life.

Equal parts cultural observation, scientific exploration, and rousing call to action that’s full of practical advice, You’re Not Listening is to listening what Susan Cain’s Quiet was to introversion. It’s time to stop talking and start listening.]]>
278 Kate Murphy 1250297192 mengwe 0 to-read 4.08 2020 You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters
author: Kate Murphy
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2020
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<![CDATA[Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt]]> 39893128 NOW A NATIONAL BESTSELLER!

To get ahead today, you have to be a jerk, right?

Divisive politicians. Screaming heads on television. Angry campus activists. Twitter trolls. Today in America, there is an “outrage industrial complexâ€� that prospers by setting American against American, creatingĚýa “culture of contempt”—the habit of seeing people who disagree with us not as merely incorrect, but as worthless and defective. Maybe, like more than nine out of ten Americans, you dislike it. But hey, either you play along, or you’ll be left behind, right?

Wrong.

In Love Your Enemies, theĚýNew York Times bestselling author and social scientist Arthur C. Brooks shows that abuse and outrage are notĚýthe rightĚýformula for lasting success. Brooks blends cutting-edge behavioral research, ancient wisdom, and a decade of experience of experience leading one of America’s top policy think tanks in a work thatĚýoffers a better way to lead basedĚýon bridging divides and mending relationships.

Brooks� prescriptions are unconventional. To bring America together, we shouldn’t try to agree more. There is no need for mushy moderation, because disagreement is the secret to excellence. Civility and tolerance shouldn’t be our goals, because they are hopelessly low standards. And our feelings toward our foes are irrelevant; what matters is how we choose to act.

Love Your Enemies offers a clear strategy for victory for a new generation of leaders. It is a rallying cry for people hoping for a new era of American progress. Most of all, it is a roadmap to arrive at the happiness that comes when we choose to love one another, despite our differences.

Ěý±Ő±Ő>
256 Arthur C. Brooks 0062883771 mengwe 0 to-read 4.29 2019 Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt
author: Arthur C. Brooks
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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Strength to Love 52101 160 Martin Luther King Jr. 0800614410 mengwe 0 to-read 4.61 1963 Strength to Love
author: Martin Luther King Jr.
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.61
book published: 1963
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Raised in Captivity: Why Does America Fail Its Children?]]> 3870979 296 Lucia Hodgson 1555972616 mengwe 0 to-read 3.70 1997 Raised in Captivity: Why Does America Fail Its Children?
author: Lucia Hodgson
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth]]> 347852 The Road Less Traveled. In the era of I'm OK, You're OK, Peck was courageous enough to suggest that "life is difficult" and personal growth is a "complex, arduous and lifelong task." His willingness to expose his own life stories as well as to share the intimate stories of his anonymous therapy clients creates a compelling and heartfelt narrative.]]> 320 M. Scott Peck mengwe 0 to-read 4.07 1978 The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth
author: M. Scott Peck
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1978
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God]]> 467164 166 Rainer Maria Rilke 1573225851 mengwe 0 to-read 4.35 1905 Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
author: Rainer Maria Rilke
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1905
rating: 0
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The Love Poems of Rumi 67377




'These poems reflect the deepest longings of the human heart as it searches for the divine. They celebrate love. Each poetic whisper is urgent, expressing the desire that penetrates human relationships and inspires intimacy with the self, silently nurturing an affinity for the Beloved. Both Fereydoun Kia, the translator, and I hope that you will share the experience of ravishing ecstasy that the poems of Rumi evoked in us. In this volume we have sought to capture in English the dreams, wishes, hopes, desires, and feelings of a Persian poet who continues to amaze, bewilder, confound, and teach, one thousand years after he walked on this earth' - Deepak Chopra]]>
64 Deepak Chopra 0712670408 mengwe 0 to-read 4.29 1273 The Love Poems of Rumi
author: Deepak Chopra
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1273
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<![CDATA[Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus]]> 1274
Based on years of successful counseling of couples and individuals, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus has helped millions of couples transform their relationships. Now viewed as a modern classic, this phenomenal book has helped men and women realize how different they really are and how to communicate their needs in such a way that conflict doesn't arise and intimacy is given every chance to grow!!!!]]>
368 John Gray 0060574216 mengwe 0 to-read 3.59 1992 Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
author: John Gray
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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Ohio State Murders 17562334 38 Adrienne Kennedy 0573662355 mengwe 5 wow this was heartbreaking 3.99 Ohio State Murders
author: Adrienne Kennedy
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.99
book published:
rating: 5
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wow this was heartbreaking
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The Seeing Glass 1753039 Jacquelin Gorman 1573226793 mengwe 0 to-read 3.84 1997 The Seeing Glass
author: Jacquelin Gorman
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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Family Meal 123414019 From the bestselling, award-winning author of Memorial and Lot, an irresistible, intimate novel about two young men, once best friends, whose lives collide again after a loss.

Cam is living in Los Angeles and falling apart after the love of his life has died. Kai's ghost won't leave Cam alone; his spectral visits wild, tender, and unexpected. When Cam returns to his hometown of Houston, he crashes back into the orbit of his former best friend, TJ, and TJ's family bakery. TJ's not sure how to navigate this changed Cam, impenetrably cool and self-destructing, or their charged estrangement. Can they find a way past all that has been said - and left unsaid - to save each other? Could they find a way back to being okay again, or maybe for the first time?

When secrets and wounds become so insurmountable that they devour us from within, hope and sustenance and friendship can come from the most unlikely source. Spanning Los Angeles, Houston, and Osaka, Family Meal is a story about how the people who know us the longest can hurt us the most, but how they also set the standard for love. With his signature generosity and eye for food, sex, love, and the moments that make us the most human, Bryan Washington returns with a brilliant new novel.]]>
320 Bryan Washington 0593421094 mengwe 0 to-read 3.51 2023 Family Meal
author: Bryan Washington
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide (BrightSummaries.com)]]> 50958469 Unlock the more straightforward side of Homegoing with this concise and insightful summary and analysis!

This engaging summary presents an analysis of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, which tells the story of two branches of the same family across several generations. Although Effia and Esi are sisters, they never meet, and their paths are irrevocably forced apart when Esi is sold into slavery and transported to America while Effia remains in their native Ghana. The effects of the slave trade reverberate through the generations as we are introduced to each of their descendants in turn and witness the ways that colonialism and racism shape their lives. Homegoing is Yaa Gyasi's debut novel. It quickly became an international bestseller and won the National Book Critics� Circle John Leonard Prize for best first book.

Find out everything you need to know about Homegoing in a fraction of the time!

This in-depth and informative reading guide brings you:
� A complete plot summary
� Character studies
� Key themes and symbols
� Questions for further reflection

Why choose BrightSummaries.com?
Available in print and digital format, our publications are designed to accompany you on your reading journey. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time.

See the very best of literature in a whole new light with BrightSummaries.com!
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27 Bright Summaries 2808018797 mengwe 0 to-read 4.02 Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide (BrightSummaries.com)
author: Bright Summaries
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.02
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A Million Little Pieces 1241 Before considering reading this book, please see the BookBrowse note on the book jacket/review page.

BookBrowse Note: January 9th 2006: An article in the Smoking Gun claimed that James Frey (author of A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard) fabricated key parts of his books. They cited police records, court documents and interviews with law enforcement agents which belie a number of Frey's claims regarding criminal charges against him, jail terms and his fugitive status.

In an interview with the Smoking Gun, Frey admitted that he had 'embellished central details' in A Million Little Pieces and backtracked on claims he made in the book.

January 26th 2006. Frey's publisher stated that while it initially stood by him, after further questioning of the author, the house has "sadly come to the realization that a number of facts have been altered and incidents embellished." It will be adding a a publisher's note and author's note to all future editions of A Million Little Pieces.]]>
515 James Frey 0307276902 mengwe 0 to-read 3.68 2003 A Million Little Pieces
author: James Frey
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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Outlander (Outlander, #1) 10964
Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.]]>
850 Diana Gabaldon 0440242940 mengwe 0 to-read 4.25 1991 Outlander (Outlander, #1)
author: Diana Gabaldon
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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Transformations 47734 112 Anne Sexton 061808343X mengwe 0 to-read 4.14 1971 Transformations
author: Anne Sexton
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1971
rating: 0
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Legacy of Light 148084907 Legacy of Light made its world premiere at the Arena Stage in Washington, DC, on May 8, 2009. Directed by Molly Smith, the production featured Lise Bruneau, Carla Harting, Stephen Schnetzer, Michael Russotto, David Covington and Lindsey Kyler.]]> 108 Karen Zacarías 0573710279 mengwe 4
i loved this. this was great, i wanna see it!]]>
4.47 Legacy of Light
author: Karen ZacarĂ­as
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.47
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
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4.5!!!!!

i loved this. this was great, i wanna see it!
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Sweat 29633728
Based on Nottage's extensive research and interviews with real residents of Reading, Sweat is a topical reflection of the present and poignant outcome of America's economic decline.]]>
112 Lynn Nottage 1559365323 mengwe 5 “fractured togethernes.� 4.03 2017 Sweat
author: Lynn Nottage
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
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“fractured togethernes.�
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<![CDATA[In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play]]> 8579004 In the Next Room or the vibrator play is a comedy about marriage, intimacy, and electricity. Set in the 1880s at the dawn of the age of electricity and based on the bizarre historical fact that doctors used vibrators to treat 'hysterical' women (and some men), the play centers on a doctor and his wife and how his new therapy affects their entire household. In a seemingly perfect, well-to-do Victorian home, proper gentleman and scientist Dr. Givings has innocently invented an extraordinary new device for treating "hysteria" in women (and occasionally men): the vibrator. Adjacent to the doctor's laboratory, his young and energetic wife tries to tend to their newborn daughter-and wonders exactly what is going on in the next room. When a new "hysterical" patient and her husband bring a wet nurse and their own complicated relationship into the doctor's home, Dr. and Mrs. Givings must examine the nature of their own marriage, and what it truly means to love someone.

This laugh out loud, provocative and touching play premiered at Berkely Rep and subsequently marked Sarah Ruhl's Broadway debut opening at the Lyceum Theatre on November 19th, 2009.]]>
88 Sarah Ruhl 0573698139 mengwe 5 phenomenal. 4.07 2010 In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play
author: Sarah Ruhl
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
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phenomenal.
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<![CDATA[I Wanna Fuck like Romeo and Juliet]]> 148030674 I Wanna Fuck like Romeo and Juliet is a love story of epic proportions that captures the many flavors of Queer love.]]> 109 Andrew RincĂłn 0573710325 mengwe 4 4.13 2023 I Wanna Fuck like Romeo and Juliet
author: Andrew RincĂłn
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
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MOMENT 13236925 144 Deirdre Kinahan 1848421524 mengwe 0 to-read 4.09 2012 MOMENT
author: Deirdre Kinahan
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/27
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<![CDATA[The Second Circle: How to Use Positive Energy for Success in Every Situation]]> 1075134 288 Patsy Rodenburg 0393062732 mengwe 0 currently-reading 3.71 2008 The Second Circle: How to Use Positive Energy for Success in Every Situation
author: Patsy Rodenburg
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/18
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A Streetcar Named Desire 12220 Death of a Salesman and The Crucible), and Williams� essay “The World I Live In.�

It is a very short list of 20th-century American plays that continue to have the same power and impact as when they first appeared�57 years after its Broadway premiere, Tennessee Williams� A Streetcar Named Desire is one of those plays. The story famously recounts how the faded and promiscuous Blanche DuBois is pushed over the edge by her sexy and brutal brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski. Streetcar launched the careers of Marlon Brando, Jessica Tandy, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden, and solidified the position of Tennessee Williams as one of the most important young playwrights of his generation, as well as that of Elia Kazan as the greatest American stage director of the �40s and �50s.]]>
107 Tennessee Williams 0822210894 mengwe 4 3.98 1947 A Streetcar Named Desire
author: Tennessee Williams
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1947
rating: 4
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Monster in the Middle 57165445
"Transporting and deeply emotional.� � Glamour

� One of the most inventive and talented stylists of her generation.� � Vulture

From the award-winning author of Land of Love and Drowning , an electric new novel that maps the emotional inheritance of one couple newly in love.

When Fly and Stela meet in 21st Century New York City, it seems like fate. He's a Black American musician from a mixed-religious background who knows all about heartbreak. She’s a Catholic science teacher from the Caribbean, looking for lasting love. But are they meant to be? The answer goes back decades—all the way to their parents' earliest loves.

Vibrant and emotionally riveting, Monster in the Middle moves across decades, from the U.S. to the Virgin Islands to Ghana and back again, to show how one couple's romance is intrinsically influenced by the family lore and love stories that preceded their own pairing. What challenges and traumas must this new couple inherit, what hopes and ambitions will keep them moving forward? Exploring desire and identity, religion and class, passion and obligation, the novel posits that in order to answer the question “who are we meant to be with?� we must first understand who we are and how we came to be.]]>
288 Tiphanie Yanique 1594633606 mengwe 0 to-read 3.15 2021 Monster in the Middle
author: Tiphanie Yanique
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.15
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore]]> 1446313 72 Tennessee Williams 0822207583 mengwe 0 to-read 3.44 1963 The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore
author: Tennessee Williams
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.44
book published: 1963
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/23
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Passing 57640287 Nella Larsen's fascinating exploration of race and identity--the inspiration for the upcoming Netflix film directed by Rebecca Hall, starring Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga.

This Signet Classics edition of Passing includes an Introduction by Brit Bennett, the bestselling author of The Vanishing Half.

Irene Redfield is a Black woman living an affluent, comfortable life with her husband and children in the thriving neighborhood of Harlem in the 1920s. When she reconnects with her childhood friend Clare Kendry, who is similarly light-skinned, Irene discovers that Clare has been passing for a white woman after severing ties to her past--even hiding the truth from her racist husband.

Clare finds herself drawn to Irene's sense of ease and security with her Black identity and longs for the community (and, increasingly, the woman) she lost. Irene is both riveted and repulsed by Clare and her dangerous secret, as Clare begins to insert herself--and her deception--into every part of Irene's stable existence. First published in 1929, Larsen's brilliant examination of the various ways in which we all seek to "pass," is as timely as ever.]]>
141 Nella Larsen 0593437845 mengwe 0 to-read 3.91 1929 Passing
author: Nella Larsen
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1929
rating: 0
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The Beach 607639
The Khao San Road, Bangkok -- first stop for the hordes of rootless young Westerners traveling in Southeast Asia. On Richard's first night there, in a low-budget guest house, a fellow traveller slashes his wrists, bequeathing to Richard a meticulously drawn map to "the Beach."

The Beach, as Richard has come to learn, is the subject of a legend among young travellers in Asia: a lagoon hidden from the sea, with white sand and coral gardens, freshwater falls surrounded by jungle, plants untouched for a thousand years. There, it is rumoured, a carefully selected international few have settled in a communal Eden.

Haunted by the figure of Mr. Duck -- the name by which the Thai police have identified the dead man -- and his own obsession with Vietnam movies, Richard sets off with a young French couple to an island hidden away in an archipelago forbidden to tourists. They discover the Beach, and it is as beautiful and idyllic as it is reputed to be. Yet over time it becomes clear that Beach culture, as Richard calls it, has troubling, even deadly, undercurrents.

Spellbinding and hallucinogenic, The Beach by Alex Garland -- both a national bestseller and his debut -- is a highly accomplished and suspenseful novel that fixates on a generation in their twenties, who, burdened with the legacy of the preceding generation and saturated by popular culture, long for an unruined landscape, but find it difficult to experience the world first hand.]]>
436 Alex Garland 1573226521 mengwe 0 to-read 3.97 1996 The Beach
author: Alex Garland
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)]]> 9969571 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

IN THE YEAR 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines, puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them.

But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to win—and confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.]]>
480 Ernest Cline 030788743X mengwe 0 to-read 4.21 2011 Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)
author: Ernest Cline
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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Hell Bent (Ninth House, #2) 211003762 Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. Alex Stern is back and the Ivy League is going straight to hell.

Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex� Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory―even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.

Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies� most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.

Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.]]>
557 Leigh Bardugo 1250378060 mengwe 0 to-read 4.13 2023 Hell Bent (Ninth House, #2)
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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Ninth House (Alex Stern, #1) 43263680
Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs� are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.]]>
461 Leigh Bardugo 1250313074 mengwe 0 to-read 4.00 2019 Ninth House (Alex Stern, #1)
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[When the Moon Hatched (Moonfall, #1)]]> 202507554 moons.

They certainly did not expect them to fall.

As a valued Elding Blade of the rebellion group Fíur du Ath, Raeve’s job is to kill. To complete orders and never get caught. When a renowned bounty hunter is employed by The Crown to capture a member of the Ath, Raeve’s world is turned upside down. Blood spills, hearts break, and Raeve finds herself at the mercy of the Guild of Nobles—a group of dual-beaded elementals who intend to turn her into a political statement. Only death will set her free.

Crushed beneath a mourning weight, Kaan Vaegor took the head of a king and donned his melted crown. Now on a tireless quest to assuage the never-ebbing ache in his chest, his hunt for a moonshard lures him into the belly of Gore’s notorious prison where he stumbles upon something that rips apart his perception of reality. A shackled miracle with eyes full of rage and blood on her hands.

The echo of the past sings louder than the Creators themselves, and even Raeve can’t ignore the truths blaring at her from a warmer, happier time.
However.
There’s more to this song than meets the eye, and some truths �
They’re too poisonous to swallow.

When the Moon Hatched is a fast-paced fantasy romance for fans of witty banter and strong, sassy protagonists. Beneath the cover is an immersive, vibrant world with mysterious creatures, a unique magic system, and a love that blazes through the ages. ]]>
718 Sarah A. Parker mengwe 0 to-read 3.99 2024 When the Moon Hatched (Moonfall, #1)
author: Sarah A. Parker
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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All My Sons 179142
Winner of the Drama Critics' Award for Best New Play in 1947, All My Sons established Arthur Miller as a leading voice in the American theater. All My Sons introduced themes that thread through Miller's work as a whole: the relationship between fathers and sons, and the conflict between business and personal ethics.]]>
112 Arthur Miller 0141185465 mengwe 5 3.90 1947 All My Sons
author: Arthur Miller
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1947
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/21
date added: 2025/02/21
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what a genius. wow. and reading this in conversation with Death of A Salesman just added so much to the experience. that ending bro…im wrecked. wow.
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The Life Impossible 198281740
“What looks like magic is simply a part of life we don’t understand yet…�

When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.

Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.

Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.]]>
324 Matt Haig 0593489276 mengwe 0 to-read 3.45 2024 The Life Impossible
author: Matt Haig
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[No Place to Be Somebody: A Black-black Comedy]]> 499777 0 Charles Gordone 0672509555 mengwe 0 to-read 3.33 1966 No Place to Be Somebody: A Black-black Comedy
author: Charles Gordone
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.33
book published: 1966
rating: 0
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A Raisin in the Sun 5517 A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway in 1959.

Indeed Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of black America--and changed American theater forever.ĚýĚýThe play's title comes from a line in Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem," which warns that a dream deferred might "dry up/like a raisin in the sun."

"The events of every passing year add resonance to A Raisin in the Sun," said The New York Times.ĚýĚý"It is as if history is conspiring to make the play a classic."ĚýĚýThis Modern Library edition presents the fully restored, uncut version of Hansberry's landmark work with an introduction by Robert Nemiroff.]]>
162 Lorraine Hansberry 0375508333 mengwe 5 beautiful. 3.84 1959 A Raisin in the Sun
author: Lorraine Hansberry
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1959
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/16
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beautiful.
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<![CDATA[Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 1]]> 15015
I have heard the crying of your heart. I have seen the searching of your soul. I know how deeply you have desired the Truth. In pain have you called out for it, and in joy. Unendingly have you beseeched Me. Show Myself. Explain Myself. Reveal Myself.

I am doing so here, in terms so plain, you cannot misunderstand. In language so simple, you cannot be confused. In vocabulary so common, you cannot get lost in the verbiage.

So go ahead now. Ask Me anything. Anything. I will contrive to bring you the answer. The whole universe will I use to do this. So be on the lookout; this book is far from My only tool. You may ask a question, then put this book down. But watch.

Listen.

The words to the next song you hear. The information in the next article you read. The story line of the next movie you watch. The chance utterance of the next person you meet. Or the whisper of the next river, the next ocean, the next breeze that caresses your ear - all these devices are Mine; all these avenues are open to Me. I will speak to you if you will listen. I will come to you if you will invite Me. I will show you then that I have always been there.

All ways.]]>
223 Neale Donald Walsch 0399142789 mengwe 0 to-read 4.20 1995 Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 1
author: Neale Donald Walsch
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)]]> 20518872 472 Liu Cixin mengwe 0 to-read 4.08 2006 The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)
author: Liu Cixin
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/16
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<![CDATA[The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos, #1)]]> 40275288
The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction � but assassins are getting closer to her door.

Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.

Across the dark sea, Tané has trained to be a dragonrider since she was a child, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.

Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.]]>
845 Samantha Shannon 1408883457 mengwe 0 currently-reading 4.18 2019 The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos, #1)
author: Samantha Shannon
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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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 mengwe 5 i need book four now. 4.18 2025 Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/07
date added: 2025/02/07
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i need book four now.
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Alabaster 50610349 119 Audrey Cefaly mengwe 0 to-read 4.09 Alabaster
author: Audrey Cefaly
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.09
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date added: 2025/02/07
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The Clean House 6105608 92 Sarah Ruhl 0573633983 mengwe 0 to-read 4.06 2007 The Clean House
author: Sarah Ruhl
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Failure Is Not NOT an Option: How the Chubby Gay Son of a Jesus-Obsessed Lesbian Found Love, Family, and Podcast Success . . . and a Bunch of Other Stuff]]> 112973607 Patrick Hinds has failed. A lot. In fact, he’s kind of an expert at it—which is why he’s uniquely qualified to say that failure is a good thing.

On paper, the chubby, poor, gay son of a lesbian who wrote pornographic letters to Jesus isn’t the person that you think of when you hear the word “success.� Yet Patrick Hinds has somehow managed to bungle his way through to become the successful co-host of True Crime Obsessed—a podcast with more than 200 million downloads.

Before that, though, he failed at many, many things. Patrick’s life is a series of fiascos, missteps, and just plain bad ideas. An eternal optimist, he’s always thrown himself into everything he’s done, even when he probably shouldn’t have. He devoted himself to becoming an actor even though he was terrible, started a daycare even though he hated kids, and somehow had a disastrous time with Bea Arthur . . . even though he couldn’t be gayer.

Both heartfelt and hilarious, Failure Is Not Not an Option lets Patrick’s signature storytelling style shine—and it’s also the only book to bravely and definitively declare:

1: Failing simply means that you tried (and if you try enough, eventually success will be an option, too).
2: Ted Bundy is. Not. Hot.

By trying, and yes, failing at so many things, Patrick finally found his way—to a great career, a great husband, and a great family. Along the way, there were hurdles to jump, unexpected surprises, and no shortage of laughter. Failure is Not NOT an Option is a fun and outrageous read that will raise you up—and provide a soft landing pad for the next time you fall.]]>
240 Patrick Hinds 1637744250 mengwe 0 to-read 4.01 Failure Is Not NOT an Option: How the Chubby Gay Son of a Jesus-Obsessed Lesbian Found Love, Family, and Podcast Success . . . and a Bunch of Other Stuff
author: Patrick Hinds
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.01
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All The Light You Cannot See 125752688 0 Robert Pomeroy 1006354204 mengwe 0 to-read 4.44 All The Light You Cannot See
author: Robert Pomeroy
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.44
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Time Bends a Life 165544778 The Crucible, All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, A View from the Bridge, and other plays�Timebends reveals Miller’s incredible trajectory as a man and a writer.

Born in 1915, Miller grew up in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s, developed leftist political convictions during the Great Depression, achieved moral victory against McCarthyism in the 1950s, and became president of PEN International near the end of his life, fighting for writers� freedom of expression. Along the way, his prolific output established him as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century—he wrote twenty-two plays, various screenplays, short stories, and essays, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1949 for Death of a Salesmanand the New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1947 for All My Sons. Miller also wrote the screenplay for The Misfits, Marilyn Monroe’s final film.

This memoir also reveals the incredible host of notables that populated his life, including Marilyn Monroe, Elia Kazan, Clark Gable, Sir Laurence Olivier, John F. Kennedy, and Mikhail Gorbachev. Leaving behind a formidable reputation in the worlds of theater, cinema, and politics, Arthur Miller died in 2005 but his memoir continues his legacy.]]>
0 Arthur Miller mengwe 0 to-read 0.0 1987 Time Bends a Life
author: Arthur Miller
name: mengwe
average rating: 0.0
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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An Octoroon 25223427
Judge Peyton is dead and his plantation Terrebonne is in financial ruins. Peyton’s handsome nephew George arrives as heir apparent and quickly falls in love with Zoe, a beautiful octoroon. But the evil overseer M’Closky has other plans—for both Terrebonne and Zoe. In 1859, a famous Irishman wrote this play about slavery in America. Now an American tries to write his own.]]>
64 Branden Jacobs-Jenkins mengwe 4 4.08 2015 An Octoroon
author: Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/31
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<![CDATA[Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing]]> 432113 Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing lays the groundwork for understanding how the past has influenced the present, and opens up the discussion of how we can use the strengths we have gained to heal.]]> 235 Joy DeGruy Leary 0963401122 mengwe 0 currently-reading 4.46 2005 Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing
author: Joy DeGruy Leary
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/30
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Paper Angels 11254707
The name on the ornament is Thomas Brandt, a fifteen-year-old still reeling from the implosion of his family—from years of verbal abuse from an alcoholic father to a mother who finally left him behind, only to find herself and her children penniless and struggling. The only thing has allowed Lynn to survive is her faith. Thomas shares that faith, but he also wonders why God has seemingly abandoned them.

This is the story about a man and a boy one December. A man whose life is changed by a simple expression of kindness, and a boy who takes that expression of kindness and shows the true meaning of Christmas.]]>
304 Jimmy Wayne 1451606192 mengwe 0 to-read 4.05 2011 Paper Angels
author: Jimmy Wayne
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/28
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<![CDATA[The Last Revolutionaries: The Conspiracy Trial of Gracchus Babeuf and the Equals]]> 58616831 Ěý
“Very much a book for our times. Mason’s retelling of the trial of Gracchus Babeuf and the French Revolution shows how democracies end. Historians of revolutions and all those concerned with the arc of social justice movements have much to learn from this remarkable story.”—Sophia Rosenfeld, University of Pennsylvania
Ěý
Laura Mason tells a new story about the French Revolution by exploring the trial of Gracchus Babeuf. Named by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as the “first modern communist,� Babeuf was a poor man, an autodidact, and an activist accused of conspiring to reignite the Revolution and renew political terror. In one of the lengthiest and most controversial trials of the revolutionary decade, Babeuf and his allies defended political liberty and social equality against a regime they accused of tyranny. Mason refracts national political life through Babeuf’s trial to reveal how this explosive event destabilized a fragile republic. Although the French Revolution is celebrated as a founding moment of modern representative government, this book reminds us that the experiment failed in just ten years. Mason explains how an elected government’s assault on popular democracy and social justice destroyed the republic, and why that matters now.]]>
304 Laura Mason 0300259557 mengwe 0 to-read 4.07 The Last Revolutionaries: The Conspiracy Trial of Gracchus Babeuf and the Equals
author: Laura Mason
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.07
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The Master and Margarita 117833 The first complete, annotated English Translation of Mikhail Bulgakov's comic masterpiece.

An audacious revision of the stories of Faust and Pontius Pilate, The Master and Margarita is recognized as one of the essential classics of modern Russian literature. The novel's vision of Soviet life in the 1930s is so ferociously accurate that it could not be published during its author's lifetime and appeared only in a censored edition in the 1960s. Its truths are so enduring that its language has become part of the common Russian speech.

One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. The visitors quickly wreak havoc in a city that refuses to believe in either God or Satan. But they also bring peace to two unhappy Muscovites: one is the Master, a writer pilloried for daring to write a novel about Christ and Pontius Pilate; the other is Margarita, who loves the Master so deeply that she is willing literally to go to hell for him. What ensues is a novel of inexhaustible energy, humor, and philosophical depth, a work whose nuances emerge for the first time in Diana Burgin's and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor's splendid English version.]]>
372 Mikhail Bulgakov 0679760806 mengwe 0 to-read 4.31 1967 The Master and Margarita
author: Mikhail Bulgakov
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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The Underground Railroad 30555488
In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor--engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.

Like the protagonist of Gulliver's Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey--hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.]]>
320 Colson Whitehead 0385542364 mengwe 0 to-read 4.04 2016 The Underground Railroad
author: Colson Whitehead
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake]]> 56108283
In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose gave this sack filled with a few precious items to her daughter, Ashley, as a token of love and to try to ensure Ashley’s survival as well. Soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the bag in spare yet haunting language—including Rose’s wish that “It be filled with my Love always.� Now, in this illuminating, deeply moving new book inspired by Rose’s gift to Ashley, historian Tiya Miles carefully unearths these women’s faint presence in archival records and draws on objects and art, to follow the paths of their lives—and the lives of so many women like them—in a singular and revelatory history of the experience of slavery, and the uncertain freedom afterward, in the United States.

All That She Carried is a poignant story of resilience and of love passed down through generations of women against steep odds. It honors the creativity and fierce resourcefulness of people who preserved family ties even when official systems refused to do so.]]>
385 Tiya Miles 1984854992 mengwe 0 to-read 3.94 2021 All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
author: Tiya Miles
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3)]]> 23719576 192 Suzan-Lori Parks 1559365005 mengwe 0 to-read 4.08 2015 Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3)
author: Suzan-Lori Parks
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/25
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<![CDATA[Dutchman & The Slave: Two Plays by LeRoi Jones]]> 79528 88 Amiri Baraka 0688210848 mengwe 0 to-read 3.79 1964 Dutchman & The Slave: Two Plays by LeRoi Jones
author: Amiri Baraka
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1964
rating: 0
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Execution of Justice 18248914 Book by Williams, Henry B. 120 Emily Mann 0573690022 mengwe 4 3.63 1986 Execution of Justice
author: Emily Mann
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1986
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/24
date added: 2025/01/24
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wow! bit of a tough read tbh but learned a lot
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<![CDATA[What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures]]> 6516450
In the past decade, Malcolm Gladwell has written three books that have radically changed how we understand our world and ourselves: The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers. Now, in What the Dog Saw, he brings together, for the first time, the best of his writing from The New Yorker over the same period.

Here you'll find the bittersweet tale of the inventor of the birth control pill, and the dazzling creations of pasta sauce pioneer Howard Moscowitz. Gladwell sits with Ron Popeil, the king of the American kitchen, as he sells rotisserie ovens, and divines the secrets of Cesar Millan, the "dog whisperer" who can calm savage animals with the touch of his hand. He explores intelligence tests and ethnic profiling and why it was that employers in Silicon Valley once tripped over themselves to hire the same college graduate.]]>
444 Malcolm Gladwell 0316078573 mengwe 0 to-read 3.85 2009 What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/22
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The Power of Myth 35519 293 Joseph Campbell 0385418868 mengwe 0 to-read 4.26 1988 The Power of Myth
author: Joseph Campbell
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1988
rating: 0
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Rachel 6050132 104 Angelina Weld Grimké 0548619964 mengwe 0 to-read 3.89 1920 Rachel
author: Angelina Weld Grimké
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1920
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/19
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I Can't Imagine Tomorrow 29261507 0 Tennessee Williams mengwe 0 to-read 3.69 I Can't Imagine Tomorrow
author: Tennessee Williams
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.69
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date added: 2025/01/17
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The King in Yellow 32277642 The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers is a masterful collection of short stories that will transport you to a realm of eerie mystery, madness, and supernatural horror, where the boundaries between reality and the unknown are blurred.

The book is named after a play with the same title which recurs as a motif through some of the stories. The first half of the book features highly esteemed weird stories, and the book has been described by critics such as E. F. Bleiler, S. T. Joshi and T. E. D. Klein as a classic in the field of the supernatural. There are ten stories, the first four of which ("The Repairer of Reputations", "The Mask", "In the Court of the Dragon", and "The Yellow Sign") mention The King in Yellow, a forbidden play which induces despair or madness in those who read it. "The Yellow Sign" inspired a film of the same name released in 2001.

Stories:
- The Repairer of Reputations
- The Mask
- In the Court of the Dragon
- The Yellow Sign
- The Demoiselle D'ys
- The Prophets' Paradise
- The Street of the Four Winds
- The Street of the First Shell
- The Street of Our Lady of the Fields
- Rue Barree]]>
224 Robert W. Chambers 153905344X mengwe 0 to-read 3.58 1895 The King in Yellow
author: Robert W. Chambers
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.58
book published: 1895
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom]]> 1543871
The Escape centers on the attempted sexual violation of a slave and involves many characters of mixed race, through which Brown commented on such themes as moral decay, white racism, and black self-determination. Rich in action and faithful in dialect, it raises issues relating not only to race but also to gender by including concepts of black and white masculinity and the culture of southern white and enslaved women. It portrays a world in which slavery provided a convenient means of distinguishing between the white North and the white South, allowing northerners to express moral sentiments without recognizing or addressing the racial prejudice pervasive among whites in both regions.

John Ernest’s introductory essay balances the play's historical and literary contexts, including information on Brown and his career, as well as on slavery, abolitionism, and sectional politics. It also discusses the legends and realities of the Underground Railroad, examines the role of antebellum performance art—including blackface minstrelsy and stage versions of Uncle Tom's Cabin—in the construction of race and national identity, and provides an introduction to theories of identity as performance.

A century and a half after its initial appearance, The Escape remains essential reading for students of African American literature. Ernest's keen analysis of this classic play will enrich readers� appreciation of both the drama itself and the era in which it appeared.

The John Ernest is an associate professor of English at the University of New Hampshire and author of Resistance and Reformation in Nineteenth-Century African-American Brown, Wilson, Jacobs, Delany, Douglass, and Harper.]]>
112 William Wells Brown 1572331054 mengwe 5 3.65 2000 The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom
author: William Wells Brown
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/11
date added: 2025/01/11
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Underground Railroad Game 42622742 73 Jennifer Kidwell mengwe 0 to-read 3.50 Underground Railroad Game
author: Jennifer Kidwell
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.50
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/09
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Demon Copperhead 60194162 "Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]>
560 Barbara Kingsolver 0063251922 mengwe 0 to-read 4.46 2022 Demon Copperhead
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/07
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Fairview 42372462 120 Jackie Sibblies Drury 1559369523 mengwe 0 to-read 4.25 2019 Fairview
author: Jackie Sibblies Drury
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves: to-read
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Macbitches 218193716 104 Sophie McIntosh 1638522170 mengwe 0 to-read 4.03 Macbitches
author: Sophie McIntosh
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.03
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/06
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The Beauty Queen of Leenane 1061479
Set in the mountains of Connemara, County Galway, The Beauty Queen of Leenane tells the darkly comic tale of Maureen Folan, a plain and lonely woman in her early forties, and Mag her manipulative aging mother whose interference in Maureen's first and potentially last loving relationship sets in motion a train of events that is as gothically funny as it is horrific.
Ěý
The Beauty Queen of Leenane was first presented as a Druid Theatre/Royal Court Theatre co-production in January 1996.

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80 Martin McDonagh 041370730X mengwe 0 to-read 4.07 1996 The Beauty Queen of Leenane
author: Martin McDonagh
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/06
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Fleabag: The Original Play 21185082 â€I sit on the loo and think about all the people I can have sex with now. I'm not obsessed with sex. I just can't stop thinking about it.â€�


The Fleabag bites back. A rip-roaring account of some sort of female living her sort of life.


Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s debut play is an outrageously funny monologue for a female performer. It premiered at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, performed by Phoebe herself, before transferring to Soho Theatre, London, for several successful runs, followed by a UK tour.



It won a Fringe First Award in Edinburgh, the Most Promising New Playwright and Best Female Performance at the Off West End Theatre Awards, The Stage Award for Best Solo Performer and the Criticsâ€� Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright. It received a Special Commendation in the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and was nominated for the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre. In 2016 it was turned into a wildly successful and â€utterly rivetingâ€� (Guardian) BBC television series.



This edition also features an introduction by the author.



â€Believe the hype, Waller-Bridge’s raw writingâ€� really is as good as everyone saysâ€� - The Stage



'Sucker-punch funny... I've never seen a play quite like it' - Scotsman



'frank and sometimes brutally funny... devastatingly good' - The Times



'blessed with a rare and compelling life force... deliciously dirty and scabrously funny' - Evening Standard

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57 Phoebe Waller-Bridge mengwe 0 to-read 4.47 2013 Fleabag: The Original Play
author: Phoebe Waller-Bridge
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/06
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Six Degrees of Separation: A Play]]> 1067650 120 John Guare 0679734813 mengwe 4 wow that was great! 4.01 1990 Six Degrees of Separation: A Play
author: John Guare
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/03
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves:
review:
wow that was great!
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The Loman Family Picnic 805977 72 Donald Margulies 0822206846 mengwe 0 to-read 3.41 The Loman Family Picnic
author: Donald Margulies
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.41
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
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If I Forget 35537016 110 Steven Levenson 082223730X mengwe 0 to-read 3.96 If I Forget
author: Steven Levenson
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.96
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
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Incident at Vichy 38761 Incident at Vichy, Arthur Miller re-creates Dante's hell inside the gaping pit that is our history and populates it with sinners whose crimes are all the more fearful because they are so recognizable.

"One of the most important plays of our time . . . Incident at Vichy returns the theater to greatness." �The New York Times]]>
80 Arthur Miller 0140481931 mengwe 0 to-read 3.97 1964 Incident at Vichy
author: Arthur Miller
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1964
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
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Native Stranger 953723 315 Eddy L. Harris 0679742328 mengwe 0 to-read 4.13 1992 Native Stranger
author: Eddy L. Harris
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
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Bite Me 216526495 100 Eliana Pipes 0573710929 mengwe 5 SO. GOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!!!! 4.75 Bite Me
author: Eliana Pipes
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.75
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves:
review:
SO. GOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!!!!
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The Grown-Ups 63946869 Following a group of camp counselors trying to mold the leaders of tomorrow when tomorrow is looking bleaker and bleaker, The Grown-Ups explores the traditions that change us, what it takes for us to change them, and how to change yourself when you're hopelessly, tragically not prepared for this.]]> 94 Skylar Fox 0573710007 mengwe 0 to-read 4.20 The Grown-Ups
author: Skylar Fox
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.20
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/26
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boom 7650978 55 Peter Sinn Nachtrieb 0822223708 mengwe 0 to-read 3.86 2009 boom
author: Peter Sinn Nachtrieb
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/26
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Dream Hou$e 52097062 Eliana Pipes mengwe 0 to-read 4.38 Dream Hou$e
author: Eliana Pipes
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.38
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/26
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The Niceties 52053448 72 Eleanor Burgess 0573707995 mengwe 0 to-read 4.24 The Niceties
author: Eleanor Burgess
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.24
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/26
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Empanada Loca 31191490 54 Aaron Mark 0822234777 mengwe 0 to-read 4.10 Empanada Loca
author: Aaron Mark
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.10
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/26
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Angry Fags 35535540 106 Topher Payne 0573705100 mengwe 0 to-read 4.31 2018 Angry Fags
author: Topher Payne
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/26
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Sorrows and Rejoicings 390721 96 Athol Fugard 1559362081 mengwe 5 3.74 2001 Sorrows and Rejoicings
author: Athol Fugard
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves:
review:
excellent. that was excellent.
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Job 216526632 68 Max Wolf Friedlich 0573711054 mengwe 5 4.49 Job
author: Max Wolf Friedlich
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.49
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves:
review:
oh. my. GOOOOOOOOOOOD?!?!?!?!?!?! that ENDING holy fricken cow that was GOOD
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Jonah 221728336 108 Rachel Bonds 0573711372 mengwe 4 4.64 Jonah
author: Rachel Bonds
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.64
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves:
review:
3.75!! i liked it, i think Ana and Danny’s relationship is interesting, it’s a very intimate play, and i would love to see it!!!
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Romantic Comedy 62628727 A comedy writer thinks she’s sworn off love, until a dreamily handsome pop star flips the script on all her assumptions. Romantic Comedy is a hilarious, observant and deeply tender novel from New York Times–bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld.

Sally Milz is a sketch writer for "The Night Owls," the late-night live comedy show that airs each Saturday. With a couple of heartbreaks under her belt, she’s long abandoned the search for love, settling instead for the occasional hook-up, career success, and a close relationship with her stepfather to round out a satisfying life.

But when Sally’s friend and fellow writer Danny Horst begins dating Annabel, a glamorous actor who guest-hosted the show, he joins the not-so-exclusive group of talented but average-looking and even dorky men at the show—and in society at large—who’ve gotten romantically involved with incredibly beautiful and accomplished women. Sally channels her annoyance into a sketch called the "Danny Horst Rule," poking fun at this phenomenon while underscoring how unlikely it is that the reverse would ever happen for a woman.

Enter Noah Brewster, a pop music sensation with a reputation for dating models, who signed on as both host and musical guest for this week’s show. Dazzled by his charms, Sally hits it off with Noah instantly, and as they collaborate on one sketch after another, she begins to wonder whether there might actually be sparks flying. But this isn’t a romantic comedy; it’s real life. And in real life, someone like him would never date someone like her...right?

With her keen observations and trademark ability to bring complex women to life on the page, Sittenfeld explores the neurosis-inducing and heart-fluttering wonder of love, while slyly dissecting the social rituals of romance and gender relations in the modern age.]]>
309 Curtis Sittenfeld 0399590943 mengwe 0 currently-reading 3.60 2023 Romantic Comedy
author: Curtis Sittenfeld
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/23
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Other Desert Cities 11819930
Brooke has come home to draw a line in the sand and is daring her family to cross it. Her brother won't play her game; her aunt knows way too much, and her parents fall into all their old routines as they plead with her to keep their story quiet. In this family, secrets are currency and everyone is rich.

In simplest terms, the play is about a girl who comes home to the desert with a story about where she is from, who her people really are, what she thinks they really are. Her parents represent an Establishment that she feels has betrayed this country. She goes to war with them, and blood is spilled.
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65 Jon Robin Baitz 0802145655 mengwe 4 3.89 2011 Other Desert Cities
author: Jon Robin Baitz
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/22
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
review:
wow what a ride…liked it though! some good scenes in there!
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Five Mile Lake 36454738 77 Rachel Bonds mengwe 4 i actually really liked this! 3.85 Five Mile Lake
author: Rachel Bonds
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.85
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/22
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
review:
i actually really liked this!
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Dew Point 7793248 88 Neena Beber 0573696624 mengwe 2 bechdel test honeyyy :(((( 3.00 2010 Dew Point
author: Neena Beber
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2010
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2024/12/21
shelves:
review:
bechdel test honeyyy :((((
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Death Of A Salseman 210864741 Arthur Miller mengwe 5 4.12 Death Of A Salseman
author: Arthur Miller
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.12
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2024/12/21
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<![CDATA[Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1)]]> 37442 When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?

Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

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406 Gregory Maguire 0060987103 mengwe 0 currently-reading 3.52 1995 Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1)
author: Gregory Maguire
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.52
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/07
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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<![CDATA[Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn, #1)]]> 68428 What if the whole world were a dead, blasted wasteland?

Mistborn
For a thousand years the ash fell and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years the Lord Ruler, the "Sliver of Infinity," reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Then, when hope was so long lost that not even its memory remained, a terribly scarred, heart-broken half-Skaa rediscovered it in the depths of the Lord Ruler's most hellish prison. Kelsier "snapped" and found in himself the powers of a Mistborn. A brilliant thief and natural leader, he turned his talents to the ultimate caper, with the Lord Ruler himself as the mark.

Kelsier recruited the underworld's elite, the smartest and most trustworthy allomancers, each of whom shares one of his many powers, and all of whom relish a high-stakes challenge. Then Kelsier reveals his ultimate dream, not just the greatest heist in history, but the downfall of the divine despot.

But even with the best criminal crew ever assembled, Kel's plan looks more like the ultimate long shot, until luck brings a ragged girl named Vin into his life. Like him, she's a half-Skaa orphan, but she's lived a much harsher life. Vin has learned to expect betrayal from everyone she meets. She will have to learn trust if Kel is to help her master powers of which she never dreamed.

Brandon Sanderson, fantasy's newest master tale-spinner and author of the acclaimed debut Elantris, dares to turn a genre on its head by asking a simple question: What if the prophesied hero failed to defeat the Dark Lord? The answer will be found in the Mistborn Trilogy, a saga of surprises that begins with the book in your hands. Fantasy will never be the same again.]]>
541 Brandon Sanderson mengwe 0 to-read 4.48 2006 Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn, #1)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz, #1)]]> 236093 Come along, Toto, she said. We will go to the Emerald City and ask the Great Oz how to get back to Kansas again.

Swept away from her home in Kansas by a tornado, Dorothy and her dog Toto find themselves stranded in the fantastical Land of Oz. As instructed by the Good Witch of the North and the Munchkins, Dorothy sets off on the yellow brick road to try and find her way to the Emerald City and the Wizard of Oz, who can help her get home. With her companions the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion, Dorothy experiences an adventure full of friendship, magic and danger. A much-loved children's classic, The Wizard of Oz continues to delight readers young and old with its enchanting tale of witches, flying monkeys and silver shoes.

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154 L. Frank Baum 0140621679 mengwe 0 to-read 4.00 1900 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz, #1)
author: L. Frank Baum
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1900
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/07
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Intimate Apparel 1220105
This is the acting edition of the play.]]>
58 Lynn Nottage 0822220091 mengwe 5 4.04 2005 Intimate Apparel
author: Lynn Nottage
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/07
date added: 2024/12/07
shelves:
review:
wowww mayme girl that was NOT cool…also men are so fricken trash i cant…anyways lynn u ate this up period
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<![CDATA[The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)]]> 58416952 At the elite Catenan Academy, a young fugitive uncovers layered mysteries and world-changing secrets in this new fantasy series by internationally bestselling author of The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington.

AUDI. VIDE. TACE.

The Catenan Republic � the Hierarchy � may rule the world now, but they do not know everything.

I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilised society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus � what they call Will � to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do.

I tell them that I belong, and they believe me.

But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart.

And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family.

To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy’s ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me.

And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.]]>
639 James Islington 1982141190 mengwe 0 to-read 4.61 2023 The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)
author: James Islington
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/03
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Two Trains Running 1296122
It is Pittsburgh, 1969. The regulars of Memphis Lee's restaurant are struggling to cope with the turbulence of a world that is changing rapidly around them and fighting back when they can. As the play unfolds, Memphis's diner - and the rest of his block - is scheduled to be torn down, a casualty of the city's renovation project that is sweeping away the buildings of a community, but not its spirit. The rich undertaker across the street encourages Memphis to accept his offer to buy the place from him at a reduced price, but Memphis stands his ground, determined to make the city pay him what the property is worth, refusing to be swindled out of his land as he was years before in Mississippi.

Into this fray come Sterling, the ex-con who embraces the tenets of Malcolm X; Wolf, the bookie who has learned to play by the white man's rules; Risa, a waitress of quiet dignity who has mutilated her legs to distance herself from men; and Holloway, the resident philosopher and fervent believer in the prophecies of a legendary 322-year-old woman down the street, a reminder of their struggle and heritage. And just as sure as an inexorable future looms right around the corner, these people of "loud voices and big hearts" continue to search, to falter, to hope that they can catch the train that will make the difference.

With compassion, humor, and a superb sense of place and time, Wilson paints a vivid portrait of everyday lives in the shadow of great events, and of unsung men and women who are anything but ordinary.]]>
110 August Wilson 0452269296 mengwe 4 4.04 1993 Two Trains Running
author: August Wilson
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/14
date added: 2024/11/14
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Disgraced 17801667 79 Ayad Akhtar 1472532090 mengwe 5 wow 3.84 2013 Disgraced
author: Ayad Akhtar
name: mengwe
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/14
date added: 2024/11/14
shelves:
review:
wow
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<![CDATA[By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (TCG Edition)]]> 16057418 112 Lynn Nottage 1559364424 mengwe 5 excellent!!! 4.26 2011 By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (TCG Edition)
author: Lynn Nottage
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/14
date added: 2024/11/14
shelves:
review:
excellent!!!
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<![CDATA[Detroit '67 (Oberon Modern Plays)]]> 17572948 Detroit '67 is presented in association with Classical Theatre of Harlem and the National Black Theatre.

Detroit '67 was awarded the 2014 Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History]]>
96 Dominique Morisseau 1783190000 mengwe 5 phenomenal 4.07 2013 Detroit '67 (Oberon Modern Plays)
author: Dominique Morisseau
name: mengwe
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/13
date added: 2024/11/13
shelves:
review:
phenomenal
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