Amy's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 27 Dec 2024 21:05:51 -0800 60 Amy's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet]]> 55145261 A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green

The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ground-breaking, critically acclaimed podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet - from the QWERTY keyboard and Halley's Comet to Penguins of Madagascar - on a five-star scale.

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.]]>
304 John Green 0525555218 Amy 0 to-read 4.37 2021 The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
author: John Green
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average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
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<![CDATA[The Complete Calvin and Hobbes]]> 24812 Box Set | Book One | Book Two | Book Three ]

Calvin and Hobbes is unquestionably one of the most popular comic strips of all time. The imaginative world of a boy and his real-only-to-him tiger was first syndicated in 1985 and appeared in more than 2,400 newspapers when Bill Watterson retired on January 1, 1996. The entire body of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons published in a truly noteworthy tribute to this singular cartoon in The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. Composed of three hardcover, four-color volumes in a sturdy slipcase, this New York Times best-selling edition includes all Calvin and Hobbes cartoons that ever appeared in syndication. This is the treasure that all Calvin and Hobbes fans seek.]]>
1456 Bill Watterson 0740748475 Amy 0 to-read 4.80 2005 The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
author: Bill Watterson
name: Amy
average rating: 4.80
book published: 2005
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Norwegian Wood 11297
A magnificent blending of the music, the mood, and the ethos that was the sixties with the story of one college student's romantic coming of age, Norwegian Wood brilliantly recaptures a young man's first, hopeless, and heroic love.]]>
296 Haruki Murakami 0375704027 Amy 0 to-read 4.01 1987 Norwegian Wood
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Amy
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1987
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Letter to His Father 187569 127 Franz Kafka 0805204261 Amy 0 to-read 4.12 1919 Letter to His Father
author: Franz Kafka
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average rating: 4.12
book published: 1919
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The Trial 17690 The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, The Trial has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers.]]> 255 Franz Kafka Amy 0 to-read 4.00 1925 The Trial
author: Franz Kafka
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average rating: 4.00
book published: 1925
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Letters to Milena 88340 Letters to Milena, which begin essentially as a business correspondence but soon develop into a passionate "letter love." Milena Jesenská was a gifted and charismatic woman of twenty-three. Kafka's Czech translator, she was uniquely able to recognize his complex genius and his even more complex character. For the thirty-six-year-old Kafka, she was "a living fire, such as I have never seen." It was to her that he revealed his most intimate self. It was to her that, after the end of the affair, he entrusted the safekeeping of his diaries.

Newly translated, revised, and expanded, this edition contains material previously omitted because of its extreme sensitivity. Also included for the first time are letters and essays by Milena Jesenská, herself a talented writer as well as the recipient of these documents of Kafka's love, anxiety, and despair.]]>
298 Franz Kafka 0805208852 Amy 0 to-read 4.10 1952 Letters to Milena
author: Franz Kafka
name: Amy
average rating: 4.10
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<![CDATA[Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference]]> 8031168
Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience and psychology, Cordelia Fine debunks the myth of hardwired differences between men’s and women’s brains, unraveling the evidence behind such claims as men’s brains aren’t wired for empathy, and women’s brains aren’t made to fix cars. She then goes one step further, offering a very different explanation of the dissimilarities between men’s and women’s behavior. Instead of a “male brain� and a “female brain,� Fine gives us a glimpse of plastic, mutable minds that are continuously influenced by cultural assumptions about gender.

Delusions of Gender provides us with a much-needed corrective to the belief that men’s and women’s brains are intrinsically different--a belief that, as Fine shows with insight and humor--all too often works to the detriment of ourselves and our society.]]>
338 Cordelia Fine 0393068382 Amy 0 to-read 4.07 2010 Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference
author: Cordelia Fine
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average rating: 4.07
book published: 2010
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The Second Sex 457264 746 Simone de Beauvoir 0679724516 Amy 0 to-read 4.16 1949 The Second Sex
author: Simone de Beauvoir
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average rating: 4.16
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Intercourse 163265 Intercourse enraged as many readers as it inspired when it was first published in 1987. In it, Dworkin argues that in a male supremacist society, sex between men and women constitutes a central part of women’s subordination to men. (This argument was quickly-and falsely-simplified to “all sex is rape� in the public arena, adding fire to Dworkin’s already radical persona.) In her introduction to this twentieth-anniversary edition of Intercourse, Ariel Levy, the author of Female Chauvinist Pigs, discusses the circumstances of Dworkin’s untimely death in the spring of 2005, and the enormous impact of her life and work. Dworkin’s argument, she points out, is the stickiest question of feminism: Can a woman fight the power when he shares her bed?]]> 349 Andrea Dworkin 0465017525 Amy 0 to-read 3.99 1987 Intercourse
author: Andrea Dworkin
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Right-Wing Women 377163 � From the reverse cover.]]> 255 Andrea Dworkin 0399506713 Amy 0 to-read 4.39 1983 Right-Wing Women
author: Andrea Dworkin
name: Amy
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1983
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Woman Hating 209333 224 Andrea Dworkin 0452268273 Amy 0 to-read 3.89 1974 Woman Hating
author: Andrea Dworkin
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average rating: 3.89
book published: 1974
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<![CDATA[Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism]]> 643679 540 Mary Daly 0807014133 Amy 0 to-read 3.88 1978 Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism
author: Mary Daly
name: Amy
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1978
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<![CDATA[City of Glass (The New York Trilogy, #1)]]> 432 City of Glass inaugurates an intriguing New York Trilogy of novels that The Washington Post Book World has classified as "post-existentialist private eye... It's as if Kafka has gotten hooked on the gumshoe game and penned his own ever-spiraling version." As a result of a strange phone call in the middle of the night, Quinn, a writer of detective stories, becomes enmeshed in a case more puzzling than any he might have written. Written with hallucinatory clarity, City of Glass combines dark humor with Hitchcock-like suspense.

Ghosts and The Locked Room are the next two brilliant installments in Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy.

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203 Paul Auster 0140097317 Amy 0 to-read 3.79 1985 City of Glass (The New York Trilogy, #1)
author: Paul Auster
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average rating: 3.79
book published: 1985
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<![CDATA[Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow]]> 31138556 Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods.

Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. This may seem hard to accept, but, as Harari explains in his trademark style—thorough, yet riveting—famine, plague and war have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges. For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals put together. The average American is a thousand times more likely to die from binging at McDonalds than from being blown up by Al Qaeda.

What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda? As the self-made gods of planet earth, what destinies will we set ourselves, and which quests will we undertake? Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century—from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus.

With the same insight and clarity that made Sapiens an international hit and a New York Times bestseller, Harari maps out our future.

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450 Yuval Noah Harari Amy 0 to-read 4.19 2015 Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow
author: Yuval Noah Harari
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Notes from Underground 49455 Notes from Underground marks the dividing line between nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction, and between the visions of self each century embodied. One of the most remarkable characters in literature, the unnamed narrator is a former official who has defiantly withdrawn into an underground existence. In complete retreat from society, he scrawls a passionate, obsessive, self-contradictory narrative that serves as a devastating attack on social utopianism and an assertion of man’s essentially irrational nature.

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, whose Dostoevsky translations have become the standard, give us a brilliantly faithful edition of this classic novel, conveying all the tragedy and tormented comedy of the original.]]>
136 Fyodor Dostoevsky 067973452X Amy 0 to-read 4.21 1864 Notes from Underground
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Fathers and Sons 19117
Fathers and Sons enraged the old and the young, reactionaries, romantics, and radicals alike when it was first published. At the same time, Turgenev won the acclaim of Flaubert, Maupassant, and Henry James for his craftsmanship as a writer and his psychological insight. Fathers and Sons is now considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century.

A timeless depiction of generational conflict during social upheaval, it vividly portrays the clash between the older Russian aristocracy and the youthful radicalism that foreshadowed the revolution to come—and offers modern-day readers much to reflect upon as they look around at their own tumultuous, ever changing world.

Introduction by Jane Costlow]]>
244 Ivan Turgenev 0451529693 Amy 0 to-read 3.99 1862 Fathers and Sons
author: Ivan Turgenev
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average rating: 3.99
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A Gentleman in Moscow 34066798 The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers—Now a Paramount+ with Showtime series starring Ewan McGregor as Count Alexander Rostov

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

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

Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.]]>
462 Amor Towles Amy 0 to-read 4.28 2016 A Gentleman in Moscow
author: Amor Towles
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average rating: 4.28
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The Death of Ivan Ilych 18386
How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth?

This short novel was an artistic culmination of a profound spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life, a nine-year period following the publication of Anna Karenina during which he wrote not a word of fiction.
A thoroughly absorbing, and, at times, terrifying glimpse into the abyss of death, it is also a strong testament to the possibility of finding spiritual salvation.]]>
86 Leo Tolstoy Amy 0 to-read 4.12 1886 The Death of Ivan Ilych
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Amy
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1886
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Dead Souls 28381 Dead Souls, Russia's first major novel, is one of the most unusual works of nineteenth-century fiction and a devastating satire on social hypocrisy.

In his introduction to this new translation, Robert A. Maguire discusses Gogol's life and literary career, his depiction of Russian society, and the language and narrative techniques employed in Dead Souls. This edition also includes a chronology, further reading, appendices, a glossary, map and notes.]]>
464 Nikolai Gogol 0140448071 Amy 0 to-read 4.00 1842 Dead Souls
author: Nikolai Gogol
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average rating: 4.00
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War and Peace 656
War and Peace broadly focuses on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both men.

As Napoleon’s army invades, Tolstoy brilliantly follows characters from diverse backgrounds—peasants and nobility, civilians and soldiers—as they struggle with the problems unique to their era, their history, and their culture. And as the novel progresses, these characters transcend their specificity, becoming some of the most moving—and human—figures in world literature.


Tolstoy gave his personal approval to this translation, published here in a new single volume edition, which includes an introduction by Henry Gifford, and Tolstoy's important essay `Some Words about War and Peace'.]]>
1392 Leo Tolstoy 0192833987 Amy 0 to-read 4.14 1869 War and Peace
author: Leo Tolstoy
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average rating: 4.14
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Anna Karenina 15823480 Anna Karenina provides a vast panorama of contemporary life in Russia and of humanity in general. In it Tolstoy uses his intense imaginative insight to create some of the most memorable characters in all of literature. Anna is a sophisticated woman who abandons her empty existence as the wife of Karenin and turns to Count Vronsky to fulfil her passionate nature - with tragic consequences. Levin is a reflection of Tolstoy himself, often expressing the author's own views and convictions.

Throughout, Tolstoy points no moral, merely inviting us not to judge but to watch. As Rosemary Edmonds comments, 'He leaves the shifting patterns of the kaleidoscope to bring home the meaning of the brooding words following the title, 'Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.]]>
964 Leo Tolstoy 0345803922 Amy 0 to-read 4.11 1878 Anna Karenina
author: Leo Tolstoy
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average rating: 4.11
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<![CDATA[The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz]]> 51227088 The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dead Wake and The Devil in the White City delivers a startlingly fresh portrait of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz

On Winston Churchill's first day as prime minister, Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons (30,000 of them Londoners) and destroying two million homes. It was up to Churchill to hold the country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally--that she was willing to fight to the end.

In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people "the art of being fearless." It is a story of political brinksmanship but also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill's prime-ministerial country house, Chequers, and his wartime residence, Ditchley, where Churchill and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest. Drawing on a wealth of untapped sources, including recently declassified files, intelligence reports, and personal diaries only now available, Larson provides a new lens on London's darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their daughters, Sarah, Diana, and the youngest, Mary, who chafes against her parents' wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; her illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the cadre of close advisors who comprised Churchill's "Secret Circle," including his dangerously observant private secretary, John Colville; newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook; and the Rasputin-like Federick Lindemann.

The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today's political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when--in the face of unrelenting horror--Churchill's eloquence, strategic brilliance, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.]]>
585 Erik Larson Amy 0 to-read 4.28 2020 The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
author: Erik Larson
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Butcher's Crossing 457228 Butcher’s Crossing, his fiercely intelligent, beautifully written western, Williams dismantles the myths of modern America.

It is the 1870s, and Will Andrews, ď¬red up by Emerson to seek “an original relation to nature,â€� drops out of Harvard and heads west. He washes up in Butcher’s Crossing, a small Kansas town on the outskirts of nowhere. Butcher’s Crossing is full of restless men looking for ways to make money and ways to waste it. Before long Andrews strikes up a friendship with one of them, a man who regales Andrews with tales of immense herds of buffalo, ready for the taking, hidden away in a beautiful valley deep in the Colorado Rockies. He convinces Andrews to join in an expedition to track the animals down. The journey out is grueling, but at the end is a place of paradisal richness. Once there, however, the three men abandon themselves to an orgy of slaughter, so caught up in killing buffalo that they lose all sense of time. Winter soon overtakes them: they are snowed in. Next spring, half-insane with cabin fever, cold, and hunger, they stagger back to Butcher’s Crossing to ď¬nd a world as irremediably changed as they have been.]]>
274 John Williams 1590171985 Amy 0 to-read 4.18 1960 Butcher's Crossing
author: John Williams
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average rating: 4.18
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The Son 16240761
Part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story, part unflinching portrait of the bloody price of power, The Son is an utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American West through the lives of the McCulloughs, an ambitious family as resilient and dangerous as the land they claim.

Spring, 1849. The first male child born in the newly established Republic of Texas, Eli McCullough is thirteen years old when a marauding band of Comanche storm his homestead and brutally murder his mother and sister, taking him captive. Brave and clever, Eli quickly adapts to Comanche life, learning their ways and language, answering to a new name, carving a place as the chief's adopted son, and waging war against their enemies, including white men-complicating his sense of loyalty and understanding of who he is. But when disease, starvation, and overwhelming numbers of armed Americans decimate the tribe, Eli finds himself alone. Neither white nor Indian, civilized or fully wild, he must carve a place for himself in a world in which he does not fully belong-a journey of adventure, tragedy, hardship, grit, and luck that reverberates in the lives of his progeny.

Intertwined with Eli's story are those of his son, Peter, a man who bears the emotional cost of his father's drive for power, and JA, Eli's great-granddaughter, a woman who must fight hardened rivals to succeed in a man's world.

Phillipp Meyer deftly explores how Eli's ruthlessness and steely pragmatism transform subsequent generations of McCulloughs. Love, honor, children are sacrificed in the name of ambition, as the family becomes one of the richest powers in Texas, a ranching-and-oil dynasty of unsurpassed wealth and privilege. Yet, like all empires, the McCoulloughs must eventually face the consequences of their choices.

Harrowing, panoramic, and vividly drawn, The Son is a masterful achievement from a sublime young talent.]]>
561 Philipp Meyer 0062120395 Amy 0 to-read 4.01 2013 The Son
author: Philipp Meyer
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average rating: 4.01
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The North Water 25666046 1859. A man joins a whaling ship bound for the Arctic Circle. Having left the British Army with his reputation in tatters, Patrick Sumner has little option but to accept the position of ship's surgeon on this ill-fated voyage. But when, deep into the journey, a cabin boy is discovered brutally killed, Sumner finds himself forced to act. Soon he will face an evil even greater than he had encountered at the siege of Delhi, in the shape of Henry Drax: harpooner, murderer, monster . . .]]> 255 Ian McGuire 1627795944 Amy 0 to-read 3.93 2016 The North Water
author: Ian McGuire
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average rating: 3.93
book published: 2016
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The Ego and the Id 132436 The Ego and the Id ranks high among the works of Freud's later years. The heart of his concern is the ego, which he sees battling with three forces: the id, the super-ego, and the outside world.


Of the various English translations of Freud's major works to appear in his lifetime, only one was authorized by Freud himself: The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud under the general editorship of James Strachey.


Freud approved the overall editorial plan, specific renderings of key words and phrases, and the addition of valuable notes, from bibliographical and explanatory. Many of the translations were done by Strachey himself; the rest were prepared under his supervision. The result was to place the Standard Edition in a position of unquestioned supremacy over all other existing versions.
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87 Sigmund Freud 0393001423 Amy 0 to-read 3.85 1923 The Ego and the Id
author: Sigmund Freud
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average rating: 3.85
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The Interpretation of Dreams 93981 630 Sigmund Freud 1566195764 Amy 0 to-read 3.86 1899 The Interpretation of Dreams
author: Sigmund Freud
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average rating: 3.86
book published: 1899
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Thus Spoke Zarathustra 51893 Thus Spoke Zarathustra is translated from the German by R.J. Hollingdale in Penguin Classics.

Nietzsche was one of the most revolutionary and subversive thinkers in Western philosophy, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra remains his most famous and influential work. It describes how the ancient Persian prophet Zarathustra descends from his solitude in the mountains to tell the world that God is dead and that the Superman, the human embodiment of divinity, is his successor. Nietzsche's utterance 'God is dead', his insistence that the meaning of life is to be found in purely human terms, and his doctrine of the Superman and the will to power were all later seized upon and unrecognisably twisted by, among others, Nazi intellectuals. With blazing intensity and poetic brilliance, Nietzsche argues that the meaning of existence is not to be found in religious pieties or meek submission to authority, but in an all-powerful life passionate, chaotic and free.]]>
327 Friedrich Nietzsche Amy 0 to-read 4.10 1883 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
author: Friedrich Nietzsche
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average rating: 4.10
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The Idiot 12505 667 Fyodor Dostoevsky 0679642420 Amy 0 to-read 4.22 1869 The Idiot
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
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average rating: 4.22
book published: 1869
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East of Eden 4406
Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aaron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness enveloped by a mysterious darkness.

First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.]]>
601 John Steinbeck 0142000655 Amy 0 to-read 4.41 1952 East of Eden
author: John Steinbeck
name: Amy
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1952
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<![CDATA[The Talented Mr. Ripley (Ripley, #1)]]> 2247142
It’s here, in the first volume of Patricia Highsmith’s five-book Ripley series, that we are introduced to the suave Tom Ripley, a young striver seeking to leave behind his past as an orphan bullied for being a “sissy.� Newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan, Ripley meets a wealthy industrialist who hires him to bring his playboy son, Dickie Greenleaf, back from gallivanting in Italy. Soon Ripley’s fascination with Dickie’s debonair lifestyle turns obsessive as he finds himself enraged by Dickie’s ambivalent affections for Marge, a charming American dilettante, and Ripley begins a deadly game.

“Sinister and strangely alluring,� (Mark Harris, Entertainment Weekly) The Talented Mr. Ripley serves as an unforgettable introduction to this smooth confidence man, whose talent for self-invention is as unnerving—and unnervingly revealing of the American psyche—as ever.]]>
271 Patricia Highsmith Amy 0 to-read 3.96 1955 The Talented Mr. Ripley (Ripley, #1)
author: Patricia Highsmith
name: Amy
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1955
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SCUM Manifesto 52263
The focus of this edition is not on the nostalgic appeal of the work, but on Avital Ronell’s incisive introduction, “Deviant The Aims of Valerie Solanas.� Here is a reconsideration of Solanas’s infamous text in light of her social milieu, Derrida’s “The Ends of Man� (written in the same year), Judith Butler’s Excitable Speech , Nietzsche’s Ubermensch and notorious feminist icons from Medusa, Medea and Antigone, to Lizzie Borden, Lorenna Bobbit and Aileen Wournos, illuminating the evocative exuberance of Solanas’s dark tract.]]>
96 Valerie Solanas 1859845533 Amy 0 to-read 3.78 1967 SCUM Manifesto
author: Valerie Solanas
name: Amy
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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Less Than Zero 9915
Clay comes home for Christmas vacation from his Eastern college and re-enters a landscape of limitless privilege and absolute moral entropy, where everyone drives Porches, dines at Spago, and snorts mountains of cocaine. He tries to renew feelings for his girlfriend, Blair, and for his best friend from high school, Julian, who is careering into hustling and heroin. Clay's holiday turns into a dizzying spiral of desperation that takes him through the relentless parties in glitzy mansions, seedy bars, and underground rock clubs, and into the seamy world of L.A. after dark.]]>
208 Bret Easton Ellis Amy 0 to-read 3.62 1985 Less Than Zero
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Amy
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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Vanity Fair 5797 867 William Makepeace Thackeray 0141439831 Amy 0 to-read 3.80 1847 Vanity Fair
author: William Makepeace Thackeray
name: Amy
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1847
rating: 0
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A Clockwork Orange 227463 A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. And when the state undertakes to reform Alex to "redeem" him, the novel asks, "At what cost?"

This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition and Burgess's introduction "A Clockwork Orange Resucked."]]>
192 Anthony Burgess Amy 0 to-read 3.98 1962 A Clockwork Orange
author: Anthony Burgess
name: Amy
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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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 Amy 0 to-read 4.31 1967 The Master and Margarita
author: Mikhail Bulgakov
name: Amy
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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Crime and Punishment 7144 671 Fyodor Dostoevsky Amy 0 to-read 4.26 1866 Crime and Punishment
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Amy
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1866
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Unbearable Lightness of Being]]> 9717 The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover. This magnificent novel juxtaposes geographically distant places, brilliant and playful reflections, and a variety of styles, to take its place as perhaps the major achievement of one of the world’s truly great writers.]]> 314 Milan Kundera 0571224385 Amy 0 to-read 4.12 1984 The Unbearable Lightness of Being
author: Milan Kundera
name: Amy
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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One Hundred Years of Solitude 320 417 Gabriel García Márquez Amy 0 to-read 4.10 1967 One Hundred Years of Solitude
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Amy
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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Kafka on the Shore 4929 Kafka on the Shore, a tour de force of metaphysical reality, is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom. Their odyssey, as mysterious to them as it is to us, is enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish (and worse) fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddle—yet this, along with everything else, is eventually answered, just as the entwined destinies of Kafka and Nakata are gradually revealed, with one escaping his fate entirely and the other given a fresh start on his own.]]> 467 Haruki Murakami 1400079276 Amy 0 to-read 4.14 2002 Kafka on the Shore
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Amy
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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Fight Club 36236124 Fight Club’s estranged narrator leaves his lackluster job when he comes under the thrall of Tyler Durden, an enigmatic young man who holds secret after-hours boxing matches in the basement of bars. There, two men fight "as long as they have to." This is a gloriously original work that exposes the darkness at the core of our modern world.]]> 224 Chuck Palahniuk 0393355942 Amy 0 to-read 4.18 1996 Fight Club
author: Chuck Palahniuk
name: Amy
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)]]> 38447
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.]]>
311 Margaret Atwood 038549081X Amy 0 to-read 4.15 1985 The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Amy
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Complete Stories and Poems]]> 23919 821 Edgar Allan Poe 0385074077 Amy 0 to-read 4.39 1849 The Complete Stories and Poems
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Amy
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1849
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Ego and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche]]> 180671
Edward F. Edinger, M.D., a founding member of the C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology in New York, is the author of many books on Jungian psychology, including The Eternal Drama and Anatomy of the Psyche: Alchemical Symbolism in Psychotherapy.]]>
304 Edward F. Edinger Amy 0 to-read 4.33 1972 Ego and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche
author: Edward F. Edinger
name: Amy
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1972
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Man and His Symbols by Carl Gustav Jung, Franz M. L. von (Editor), Aniela Jaffe (Editor), Jolande Jacobi (Editor), Joseph L. Henderson (Editor)]]> 129005947 0 C.G. Jung Amy 0 to-read 4.46 1964 Man and His Symbols by Carl Gustav Jung, Franz M. L. von (Editor), Aniela Jaffe (Editor), Jolande Jacobi (Editor), Joseph L. Henderson (Editor)
author: C.G. Jung
name: Amy
average rating: 4.46
book published: 1964
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Memories, Dreams, Reflections Publisher: Vintage; Revised Edition edition]]> 130608513 430 C.G. Jung Amy 0 to-read 4.62 1962 Memories, Dreams, Reflections Publisher: Vintage; Revised Edition edition
author: C.G. Jung
name: Amy
average rating: 4.62
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Modern Man in Search of a Soul]]> 127989340
Modern Man in Search of a Soul is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of Carl Gustav Jung. In this book, Jung examines some of the most contested and crucial areas in the field of analytical psychology, including dream analysis, the primitive unconscious, and the relationship between psychology and religion. Additionally, Jung looks at the differences between his theories and those of Sigmund Freud, providing a valuable basis for anyone interested in the fundamentals of psychoanalysis. This book is widely considered one of the most important books in the field of psychology]]>
302 C.G. Jung 1639235698 Amy 0 to-read 4.27 1931 Modern Man in Search of a Soul
author: C.G. Jung
name: Amy
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1931
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit]]> 30687200 Many people dream of escaping modern life, but most will never act on it. This is the remarkable true story of a man who lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, making this dream a reality--not out of anger at the world, but simply because he preferred to live on his own.

In 1986, a shy and intelligent twenty-year-old named Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the forest. He would not have a conversation with another human being until nearly three decades later, when he was arrested for stealing food. Living in a tent even through brutal winters, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store edibles and water, and to avoid freezing to death. He broke into nearby cottages for food, clothing, reading material, and other provisions, taking only what he needed but terrifying a community never able to solve the mysterious burglaries. Based on extensive interviews with Knight himself, this is a vividly detailed account of his secluded life--why did he leave? what did he learn?--as well as the challenges he has faced since returning to the world. It is a gripping story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude, community, and what makes a good life, and a deeply moving portrait of a man who was determined to live his own way, and succeeded.]]>
5 Michael Finkel 1101924926 Amy 0 to-read 3.87 2017 The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
author: Michael Finkel
name: Amy
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2017
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The Wisdom of Life 21182 In The Wisdom of Life, an essay from Schopenhauer's final work, Parerga und Paralipomena (1851), the philosopher favors individual strength of will and independent, reasoned deliberation over the tendency to act on irrational impulses.

He examines the ways in which life can be arranged to derive the highest degree of pleasure and success, presents guidelines to achieving this full and rich manner of living, and advises that even a life well lived must always aspire to grander heights. Abounding in subjects of enduring relevance, Schopenhauer's highly readable work appears here in an excellent translation.]]>
77 Arthur Schopenhauer 0486435504 Amy 0 to-read 4.18 1851 The Wisdom of Life
author: Arthur Schopenhauer
name: Amy
average rating: 4.18
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The Prince 28862
1. So it is that to know the nature of a people, one need be a Prince; to know the nature of a Prince, one need to be of the people.
2. If a Prince is not given to vices that make him hated, it is unsusal for his subjects to show their affection for him.
3. Opportunity made Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus, and others; their virtue domi-nated the opportunity, making their homelands noble and happy. Armed prophets win; the disarmed lose.
4. Without faith and religion, man achieves power but not glory.
5. Prominent citizens want to command and oppress; the populace only wants to be free of oppression.
6. A Prince needs a friendly populace; otherwise in diversity there is no hope.
7. A Prince, who rules as a man of valor, avoids disasters,
8. Nations based on mercenary forces will never be solid or secure.
9. Mercenaries are dangerous because of their cowardice
10. There are two ways to fight: one with laws, the other with force. The first is rightly man’s way; the second, the way of beasts.]]>
144 Niccolò Machiavelli 0937832383 Amy 0 to-read 3.85 1513 The Prince
author: Niccolò Machiavelli
name: Amy
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1513
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On the Suffering of the World 136066 132 Arthur Schopenhauer 0141018941 Amy 0 to-read 3.90 1850 On the Suffering of the World
author: Arthur Schopenhauer
name: Amy
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1850
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<![CDATA[Studies in Pessimism: The Essays]]> 117586 76 Arthur Schopenhauer 1419161296 Amy 0 to-read 3.91 1890 Studies in Pessimism: The Essays
author: Arthur Schopenhauer
name: Amy
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1890
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<![CDATA[Every Cradle is a Grave: Rethinking the Ethics of Birth and Suicide]]> 17315307
This book examines several questions about the ethics of human existence. Is it a good thing, for humans, that humans "happened"? Is it ethical to keep making new humans, now that reproduction is under our control? And given that a person exists (through no fault or choice of his own), is it immoral or irrational for him to refuse to live out his natural lifespan? All these questions are answered in the negative - not out of misanthropy, but rather out of empathy for human suffering and respect for human autonomy.]]>
250 Sarah Perry 1616583509 Amy 0 to-read 4.06 2013 Every Cradle is a Grave: Rethinking the Ethics of Birth and Suicide
author: Sarah Perry
name: Amy
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Being Alone in Antiquity: Greco-Roman Ideas and Experiences of Misanthropy, Isolation and Solitude]]> 58779342 479 Rafał Matuszewski 3110757931 Amy 0 to-read 4.50 Being Alone in Antiquity: Greco-Roman Ideas and Experiences of Misanthropy, Isolation and Solitude
author: Rafał Matuszewski
name: Amy
average rating: 4.50
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Gulliver’s Travels 7733 A wickedly clever satire uses comic inversions to offer telling insights into the nature of man and society. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.

Gulliver's Travels describes the four voyages of Lemuel Gulliver, a ship's surgeon. In Lilliput he discovers a world in miniature; towering over the people and their city, he is able to view their society from the viewpoint of a god. However, in Brobdingnag, a land of giants, tiny Gulliver himself comes under observation, exhibited as a curiosity at markets and fairs. In Laputa, a flying island, he encounters a society of speculators and projectors who have lost all grip on everyday reality; while they plan and calculate, their country lies in ruins. Gulliver's final voyage takes him to the land of the Houyhnhnms, gentle horses whom he quickly comes to admire - in contrast to the Yahoos, filthy bestial creatures who bear a disturbing resemblance to humans. This text, based on the first edition of 1726, reproduces all the original illustrations and includes an introduction by Robert Demaria, Jr, which discusses the ways Gulliver's Travels has been interpreted since its first publication. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) was born in Dublin.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.]]>
306 Jonathan Swift 0141439491 Amy 0 to-read 3.59 1726 Gulliver’s Travels
author: Jonathan Swift
name: Amy
average rating: 3.59
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The Elementary Particles 58314 The Elementary Particles is a frighteningly original novel–part Marguerite Duras and part Bret Easton Ellis-that leaps headlong into the malaise of contemporary existence.

Bruno and Michel are half-brothers abandoned by their mother, an unabashed devotee of the drugged-out free-love world of the sixties. Bruno, the older, has become a raucously promiscuous hedonist himself, while Michel is an emotionally dead molecular biologist wholly immersed in the solitude of his work. Each is ultimately offered a final chance at genuine love, and what unfolds is a brilliantly caustic and unpredictable tale.]]>
272 Michel Houellebecq 0375727019 Amy 0 to-read 3.91 1998 The Elementary Particles
author: Michel Houellebecq
name: Amy
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1998
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<![CDATA[A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and A Vindication of the Rights of Men]]> 6352879
Janet Todd's introduction illuminates the progress of Wollstonecraft's thought, showing that a reading of all three works allows her to emerge as a more substantial political writer than a study of The Rights of Woman alone can reveal.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
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464 Mary Wollstonecraft 019955546X Amy 0 to-read 3.97 1790 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and A Vindication of the Rights of Men
author: Mary Wollstonecraft
name: Amy
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1790
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<![CDATA[Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men]]> 41104077
Celebrated feminist advocate Caroline Criado Perez investigates the shocking root cause of gender inequality and research in Invisible Women�, diving into women’s lives at home, the workplace, the public square, the doctor’s office, and more. Built on hundreds of studies in the US, the UK, and around the world, and written with energy, wit, and sparkling intelligence, this is a groundbreaking, unforgettable exposé that will change the way you look at the world.]]>
448 Caroline Criado PĂ©rez 1419729071 Amy 0 to-read 4.35 2019 Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
author: Caroline Criado PĂ©rez
name: Amy
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[All in Her Head: The Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us About Women's Bodies and Why It Matters Today]]> 158649729 The fascinating history of women’s health as it’s never been told before.

For as long as medicine has been a practice, women's bodies have been treated like objects to be practiced on: examined and ignored, idealized and sexualized, shamed, subjugated, mutilated, and dismissed. The history of women’s healthcare is a story in which women themselves have too often been voiceless—a narrative instead written from the perspective of men who styled themselves as authorities on the female of the species, yet uninformed by women’s own voices, thoughts, fears, pain and experiences. The result is a cultural and societal legacy that continues to shape the (mis)treatment and care of women.

While the modern age has seen significant advancements in the medical field, the notion that female bodies are flawed inversions of the male ideal lingers on—as do the pervasive societal stigmas and lingering ignorance that shape women’s health and relationships with their own bodies.

Memorial Sloan Kettering oncologist and medical historian Dr. Elizabeth Comen peels back the curtain on the collective medical history of women to reintroduce us to our whole bodies—how they work, the actual doctors and patients whose perspectives and experiences laid the foundation for today’s medical thought, and the many oversights that still remain unaddressed. With a physician’s knowledge and empathy, Dr. Comen follows the road map of the eleven organ systems to share unique and untold stories, drawing upon medical texts and journals, interviews with expert physicians, as well as her own experience treating thousands of women.

Empowering women to better understand ourselves and advocate for care that prioritizes healthy and joyful lives—for us and generations to come�All in Her Head is written with humor, wisdom, and deep scientific and cultural insight. Eye-opening, sometimes enraging, yet always captivating, this shared memoir of women’s medical history is an essential contribution to a holistic understanding and much-needed reclaiming of women’s history and bodies.]]>
368 Elizabeth Comen 0063293013 Amy 0 to-read 4.37 2024 All in Her Head: The Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us About Women's Bodies and Why It Matters Today
author: Elizabeth Comen
name: Amy
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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Principia Ethica 129924 256 George Edward Moore 0486437523 Amy 0 to-read 3.81 1903 Principia Ethica
author: George Edward Moore
name: Amy
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1903
rating: 0
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Anarchy, State, and Utopia 479572 It won the 1975 U.S. National Book Award in category Philosophy and Religion, has been translated into 11 languages, and was named one of the "100 most influential books since the war" (1945�1995) by the U.K. Times Literary Supplement.]]> 367 Robert Nozick 0465097200 Amy 0 to-read 3.75 1974 Anarchy, State, and Utopia
author: Robert Nozick
name: Amy
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1974
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Utilitarianism: For and Against]]> 365649 160 J.J.C. Smart 052109822X Amy 0 to-read 3.64 1973 Utilitarianism: For and Against
author: J.J.C. Smart
name: Amy
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1973
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Theories of Rights (Oxford Readings in Philosophy)]]> 742159 216 Jeremy Waldron 0198750633 Amy 0 to-read 4.19 1984 Theories of Rights (Oxford Readings in Philosophy)
author: Jeremy Waldron
name: Amy
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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On What Matters, Vol. 2 10727699 825 Derek Parfit 019957281X Amy 0 to-read 4.35 2011 On What Matters, Vol. 2
author: Derek Parfit
name: Amy
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Consequentialism and its Critics]]> 1407775 300 Samuel Scheffler 0198750730 Amy 0 to-read 3.43 1988 Consequentialism and its Critics
author: Samuel Scheffler
name: Amy
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1988
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Ideal Code, Real World: A Rule-Consequentialist Theory of Morality]]> 1993400 228 Brad Hooker 019825069X Amy 0 to-read 3.87 2000 Ideal Code, Real World: A Rule-Consequentialist Theory of Morality
author: Brad Hooker
name: Amy
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Methods and Point]]> 324724 252 R.M. Hare 0198246609 Amy 0 to-read 3.67 1981 Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Methods and Point
author: R.M. Hare
name: Amy
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1981
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[John Stuart Mill (The Arguments of the philosophers)]]> 4011833 431 John Skorupski 0415018692 Amy 0 to-read 2.00 1989 John Stuart Mill (The Arguments of the philosophers)
author: John Skorupski
name: Amy
average rating: 2.00
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Mill on Utilitarianism (Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks)]]> 273965 Mill on Utilitarianism introduces and
* Mill's life and the background of Utilitarianism
* the ideas and text of Utilitarianism
* the continuing importance of Mill's work to philosophy
This is the first book dedicated to Utilitarianism itself. Concisely written and engaging, it is perfect reading for those studying Mill or moral philosophy.]]>
232 Roger Crisp 0415109787 Amy 0 to-read 3.38 1997 Mill on Utilitarianism (Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks)
author: Roger Crisp
name: Amy
average rating: 3.38
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Cambridge Companion to Mill (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy)]]> 624011 608 John Skorupski 0521422116 Amy 0 to-read 4.08 1994 The Cambridge Companion to Mill (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy)
author: John Skorupski
name: Amy
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measurement, and Moral Importance (Clarendon Paperbacks)]]> 1486108 424 James Griffin 0198248431 Amy 0 to-read 3.31 1986 Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measurement, and Moral Importance (Clarendon Paperbacks)
author: James Griffin
name: Amy
average rating: 3.31
book published: 1986
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong]]> 692765 256 J.L. Mackie 0140135588 Amy 0 to-read 3.93 1977 Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong
author: J.L. Mackie
name: Amy
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1977
rating: 0
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Utilitarianism 584637 Utilitarianism includes the text of his 1868 speech to the British House of Commons defending the use of capital punishment in cases of aggravated murder. The speech is significant both because its topic remains timely and because its arguments illustrate the applicability of the principle of utility to questions of large-scale social policy.]]> 71 John Stuart Mill 087220605X Amy 0 to-read 3.69 1861 Utilitarianism
author: John Stuart Mill
name: Amy
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1861
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Reasons and Persons 327051 543 Derek Parfit 019824908X Amy 0 to-read 4.29 1984 Reasons and Persons
author: Derek Parfit
name: Amy
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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The Problem of Pain 13650513
The greatest Christian thinker of our time sets out to disentangle this knotty issue. With his signature wealth of compassion and insight, C. S. Lewis offers answers to these crucial questions and shares his hope and wisdom to help heal a world hungry for a true understanding of human nature.]]>
162 C.S. Lewis 0007461267 Amy 0 to-read 4.24 1940 The Problem of Pain
author: C.S. Lewis
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The Picture of Dorian Gray 5297
In this celebrated work Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in late-19th-century England. Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book centers on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world. For over a century, this mesmerizing tale of horror and suspense has enjoyed wide popularity. It ranks as one of Wilde's most important creations and among the classic achievements of its kind.]]>
272 Oscar Wilde Amy 0 to-read 4.13 1890 The Picture of Dorian Gray
author: Oscar Wilde
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average rating: 4.13
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<![CDATA[Journey to the End of the Night]]> 12395 Journey to the End of the Night is a literary symphony of violence, cruelty and obscene nihilism. This book shocked most critics when it was first published in France in 1932, but quickly became a success with the reading public in Europe, and later in America where it was first published by New Directions in 1952. The story of the improbable yet convincingly described travels of the petit-bourgeois (and largely autobiographical) antihero, Bardamu, from the trenches of World War I, to the African jungle, to New York and Detroit, and finally to life as a failed doctor in Paris, takes the readers by the scruff and hurtles them toward the novel's inevitable, sad conclusion.]]> 453 Louis-Ferdinand CĂ©line 0811216543 Amy 0 to-read 4.23 1932 Journey to the End of the Night
author: Louis-Ferdinand CĂ©line
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average rating: 4.23
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<![CDATA[Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues]]> 61327450 An account of how the major transformations in history—from the rise of Homo sapiens to the birth of capitalism—have been shaped not by humans but by germs

According to the accepted narrative of progress, humans have thrived thanks to their brains and brawn, collectively bending the arc of history. But in this revelatory book, Professor Jonathan Kennedy argues that the myth of human exceptionalism overstates the role that we play in social and political change. Instead, it is the humble microbe that wins wars and topples empires.

Drawing on the latest research in fields ranging from genetics and anthropology to archaeology and economics, Pathogenesis takes us through sixty thousand years of history, exploring eight major outbreaks of infectious disease that have made the modern world. Bacteria and viruses were protagonists in the demise of the Neanderthals, the growth of Islam, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the devastation wrought by European colonialism, and the evolution of the United States from an imperial backwater to a global superpower. Even Christianity rose to prominence in the wake of a series of deadly pandemics that swept through the Roman Empire in the second and third centuries: Caring for the sick turned what was a tiny sect into one of the world’s major religions.

By placing disease at the center of his wide-ranging history of humankind, Kennedy challenges some of the most fundamental assumptions about our collective past—and urges us to view this moment as another disease-driven inflection point that will change the course of history. Provocative and brimming with insight, Pathogenesis transforms our understanding of the human story.]]>
304 Jonathan Kennedy 0593240472 Amy 0 to-read 3.92 2023 Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues
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<![CDATA[Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II]]> 61858962
Valiant Women is the story of the 350,000 American women who served in uniform during World War II. These women served in every service branch, in every combat theater, and in nearly two-thirds of the available military occupations at the time. They were pilots, codebreakers, ordnance experts, gunnery instructors, metalsmiths, chemists, translators, parachute riggers, truck drivers, radarmen, pigeon trainers, and much more. They were directly involved in some of the most important moments of the war, from the D-Day landings to the peace negotiations in Paris. These women--who hailed from every race, creed, and walk of life--died for their country and received the nation's highest honors. Their work, both individually and in total, was at the heart of the Allied strategy that won World War II. Yet, until now, their stories have been relegated to the dusty shelves of military archives or a passing mention in the local paper. Often the women themselves kept their stories private, even from their own families. Now, military analyst Lena Andrews corrects the record with the definitive and comprehensive historical account of American servicewomen during World War II, based on new archival research, firsthand interviews with surviving veterans, and a deep professional understanding of military history and strategy.]]>
351 Lena Andrews 0063088339 Amy 0 to-read 3.98 2023 Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II
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<![CDATA[Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts]]> 65214203 With over 19 million copies in print and a remarkable record of #1 New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestsellers, Bill O'Reilly's Killing series is the most popular series of narrative histories in the world.

Killing the Witches revisits one of the most frightening and inexplicable episodes in American history: the events of 1692 and 1693 in Salem Village, Massachusetts. What began as a mysterious affliction of two young girls who suffered violent fits and exhibited strange behavior soon spread to other young women. Rumors of demonic possession and witchcraft consumed Salem. Soon three women were arrested under suspicion of being witches--but as the hysteria spread, more than 200 people were accused. Thirty were found guilty, twenty were executed, and others died in jail or their lives were ruined.

What really happened in Salem? Killing the Witches tells the horrifying story of a colonial town's madness, offering the historical context of similar episodes of community mania during that time, and exploring the evidence that emerged in the Salem trials, in contemporary accounts, and in subsequent investigations. The result is a compulsively readable book about good, evil, and how fear can overwhelm fact and reason.]]>
291 Bill O'Reilly 1250283329 Amy 0 to-read 3.49 2023 Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts
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<![CDATA[The Six: The Untold Story of America's First Women Astronauts]]> 101160753
When NASA sent astronauts to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s the agency excluded women from the corps, arguing that only military test pilots—a group then made up exclusively of men—had the right stuff. It was an era in which women were steered away from jobs in science and deemed unqualified for space flight. Eventually, though, NASA recognized its blunder and opened the application process to a wider array of hopefuls, regardless of race or gender. From a candidate pool of 8,000 six elite women were selected in 1978—Sally Ride, Judy Resnik, Anna Fisher, Kathy Sullivan, Shannon Lucid, and Rhea Seddon.

In The Six , acclaimed journalist Loren Grush shows these brilliant and courageous women enduring claustrophobic—and sometimes deeply sexist—media attention, undergoing rigorous survival training, and preparing for years to take multi-million-dollar payloads into orbit. Together, the Six helped build the tools that made the space program run. One of the group, Judy Resnik, sacrificed her life when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded at 46,000 feet. Everyone knows of Sally Ride’s history-making first space ride, but each of the Six would make their mark.]]>
432 Loren Grush 1982172800 Amy 0 to-read 4.32 2023 The Six: The Untold Story of America's First Women Astronauts
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<![CDATA[The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder]]> 61714633 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on the Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.

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

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

The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann's recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O'Brian, his portrayal of the castaways' desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann's work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.]]>
331 David Grann 0385534264 Amy 0 to-read 4.14 2023 The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
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<![CDATA[With Charity Toward None: A Fond Look At Misanthropy]]> 851572 208 Florence King 0312094140 Amy 0 to-read 4.06 1992 With Charity Toward None: A Fond Look At Misanthropy
author: Florence King
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average rating: 4.06
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<![CDATA[The Illicit Happiness of Other People]]> 13707645 The Illicit Happiness of Other People—a smart, wry, and poignant novel—teases you with its mystery, philosophy, and unlikely love story.]]> 352 Manu Joseph 0393338622 Amy 0 to-read 4.10 2012 The Illicit Happiness of Other People
author: Manu Joseph
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average rating: 4.10
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Dandelion Wine 50033
Woven into the novel are the following short stories: Illumination, Dandelion Wine, Summer in the Air, Season of Sitting, The Happiness Machine, The Night, The Lawns of Summer, Season of Disbelief, The Last--the Very Last, The Green Machine, The Trolley, Statues, The Window, The Swan, The Whole Town's Sleeping, Goodbye Grandma, The Tarot Witch, Hotter Than Summer, Dinner at Dawn, The Magical Kitchen, Green Wine for Dreaming.]]>
239 Ray Bradbury 0671037706 Amy 0 to-read 4.07 1957 Dandelion Wine
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Amy
average rating: 4.07
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No Longer Human 194746 No Longer Human, this leading postwar Japanese writer's second novel, tells the poignant and fascinating story of a young man who is caught between the breakup of the traditions of a northern Japanese aristocratic family and the impact of Western ideas. In consequence, he feels himself "disqualified from being human" (a literal translation of the Japanese title).

Donald Keene, who translated this and Dazai's first novel, The Setting Sun, has said of the author's work: "His world � suggests Chekhov or possibly postwar France, � but there is a Japanese sensibility in the choice and presentation of the material. A Dazai novel is at once immediately intelligible in Western terms and quite unlike any Western book." His writing is in some ways reminiscent of Rimbaud, while he himself has often been called a forerunner of Yukio Mishima.

Cover painting by Noe Nojechowiz, from the collection of John and Barbara Duncan; design by Gertrude Huston]]>
176 Osamu Dazai Amy 0 to-read 3.99 1948 No Longer Human
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<![CDATA[The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism (An Essay in Atheistic Religion)]]> 345784 The Thirst for Annihilation is the first book in English to respond to Bataille's writings. In no way, though, is Nick Land's book an attempt to appropriate Bataille's writings to a secular intelligibility or to compromise with the aridity of academic discourse - rather, it is written as a communion. Theoretical issues in philosophy, sociology, psychodynamics, politics and poetry are discussed, but only as stepping stones into the deep water of textual sacrifice where words pass over into the broken voice of death. Cultural modernity is diagnosed down to its Kantian bedrock with its transcendental philosophy of the object, but Bataille's writings cut violently across this tightly disciplined reading to reveal the strong underlying currents that bear us towards chaos and dissolution - the violent impulse to escape, the thirst for annihilation.]]> 248 Nick Land 0415056071 Amy 0 to-read 3.96 1992 The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism (An Essay in Atheistic Religion)
author: Nick Land
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average rating: 3.96
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<![CDATA[Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder]]> 199344846
On the morning of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was standing onstage at the Chautauqua Institution, preparing to give a lecture on the importance of keeping writers safe from harm, when a man in black—black clothes, black mask—rushed down the aisle toward him, wielding a knife. His first thought: So it’s you. Here you are.

What followed was a horrific act of violence that shook the literary world and beyond. Now, for the first time, and in unforgettable detail, Rushdie relives the traumatic events of that day and its aftermath, as well as his journey toward physical recovery and the healing that was made possible by the love and support of his wife, Eliza, his family, his army of doctors and physical therapists, and his community of readers worldwide.

Knife is Rushdie at the peak of his powers, writing with urgency, with gravity, with unflinching honesty. It is also a deeply moving reminder of literature’s capacity to make sense of the unthinkable, an intimate and life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art—and finding the strength to stand up again.]]>
209 Salman Rushdie 0593730240 Amy 0 to-read 4.00 2024 Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder
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You Like It Darker 201244026 From legendary storyteller and master of short fiction Stephen King comes an extraordinary new collection of twelve short stories, many never-before-published, and some of his best EVER.

“You like it darker? Fine, so do I,� writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life—both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel “the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind,� and in You Like It Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again.

“Two Talented Bastids� explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,� a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny’s most catastrophically. In “Rattlesnakes,� a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance—with major strings attached. In “The Dreamers,� a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. “The Answer Man� asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful.

King’s ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace remains unsurpassed. Each of these stories holds its own thrills, joys, and mysteries; each feels iconic. You like it darker? You got it.]]>
512 Stephen King 1668060582 Amy 0 to-read 4.24 2024 You Like It Darker
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In Ascension 197063361
Leigh grew up in Rotterdam, drawn to the waterfront as an escape from her unhappy home life and volatile father. Enchanted by the undersea world of her childhood, she excels in marine biology, travelling the globe to study ancient organisms. When a trench is discovered in the Atlantic ocean, Leigh joins the exploration team, hoping to find evidence of the earth's first life forms � what she instead finds calls into question everything we know about our own beginnings. Her discovery leads Leigh to the Mojave desert and an ambitious new space agency.

Drawn deeper into the agency's work, she learns that the Atlantic trench is only one of several related phenomena from across the world, each piece linking up to suggest a pattern beyond human understanding. Leigh knows that to continue working with the agency will mean leaving behind her declining mother and her younger sister, and faces an impossible choice: to remain with her family, or to embark on a journey across the breadth of the cosmos.

Exploring the natural world with the wonder and reverence we usually reserve for the stars, In Ascension is a compassionate, deeply inquisitive epic that reaches outward to confront the greatest questions of existence, looks inward to illuminate the smallest details of the human heart, and shows how � no matter how far away we might be and how much we have lost hope � we will always attempt to return to the people and places we call home.]]>
496 Martin MacInnes 0802163467 Amy 0 to-read 3.70 2023 In Ascension
author: Martin MacInnes
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average rating: 3.70
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Womb City 61725531 WOMB CITY imagines a dark and deadly future Botswana, rich with culture and true folklore, which begs the question: how far must one go to destroy the structures of inequality upon which a society was founded? How far must a mother go to save the life of her child?

Nelah seems to have it all: wealth, fame, a husband, and a child on the way. But in a body her husband controls via microchip and the tailspin of a loveless marriage, her hopes and dreams come to a devastating halt. A drug-fueled night of celebration ends in a hit-and-run. To dodge a sentencing in a society that favors men, Nelah and her side-piece, Janith Koshal, finish the victim off and bury the body.

But the secret claws its way into Nelah's life from the grave. As her victim's vengeful ghost begins exacting a bloody revenge on everyone Nelah holds dear, she'll have to unravel her society's terrible secrets to stop those in power, and become a monster unlike any other to quench the ghost's violent thirst.]]>
416 Tlotlo Tsamaase 1645660567 Amy 0 to-read 3.19 2018 Womb City
author: Tlotlo Tsamaase
name: Amy
average rating: 3.19
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<![CDATA[The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels]]> 176442891
Now, true crime author Amanda Bailey is looking to revive her career by writing a book on the case. The Alperton baby has turned eighteen; finding them will be the scoop of the year. But rival author Oliver Menzies is just as smart, better connected, and also on the baby’s trail.

As Amanda and Oliver are forced to collaborate, they realize that the truth about the Angels is much darker and stranger than they’d ever imagined, and in pursuit of the story they risk becoming part of it.]]>
432 Janice Hallett 1668023393 Amy 0 to-read 3.82 2023 The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels
author: Janice Hallett
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average rating: 3.82
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The Women 127305853 From the celebrated author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds comes Kristin Hannah's The Women—at once an intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided.

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie� McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.]]>
471 Kristin Hannah 1250178630 Amy 0 to-read 4.59 2024 The Women
author: Kristin Hannah
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<![CDATA[A Confederacy of Dunces: A Novel]]> 22351338
A Confederacy of Dunces features one of the most memorable protagonists in American literature, Ignatius J. Reilly, whom Walker Percy dubbed “slob extraordinaire, a mad Oliver Hardy, a fat Don Quixote, a perverse Thomas Aquinas rolled into one.� Set in New Orleans with a wild cast of characters including Ignatius and his mother; Miss Trixie, the octogenarian assistant accountant at Levi Pants; inept, wan Patrolman Mancuso; Darlene, the Bourbon Street stripper with a penchant for poultry; and Jones, the jivecat in space-age dark glasses, the novel serves as an outlandish but believable tribute to a city defined by its parade of eccentric denizens.

The genius of A Confederacy of Dunces is reaffirmed as successive generations embrace this extravagant satire. Adulation for Toole’s comic epic remains as intense today as it was at the time of its initial publication.]]>
348 John Kennedy Toole 0807159603 Amy 0 to-read 3.86 1980 A Confederacy of Dunces: A Novel
author: John Kennedy Toole
name: Amy
average rating: 3.86
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Brave New World 5129 Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine� (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New Worldd likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.

"Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." —Chicago Tribune]]>
268 Aldous Huxley 0060929871 Amy 0 to-read 3.99 1932 Brave New World
author: Aldous Huxley
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The Sting of the Wild 27293395
In The Sting of the Wild, the colorful Dr. Schmidt takes us on a journey inside the lives of stinging insects, seeing the world through their eyes as well as his own. He explains how and why they attack and reveals the powerful punch they can deliver with a small venom gland and a "sting," the name for the apparatus that delivers the venom. We learn which insects are the worst to encounter and why some are barely worth considering.

The Sting of the Wild includes the complete Schmidt Sting Pain Index, published here for the first time. In addition to a numerical ranking of the agony of each of the eighty-three stings he's sampled so far (from below 1 to an excruciatingly painful 4), Schmidt describes them in prose worthy of a professional wine critic: "Looks deceive. Rich and full-bodied in appearance, but flavorless" and "Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a three-inch nail embedded in your heel."

Schmidt explains that, for some insects, stinging is used for hunting: small wasps, for example, can paralyze huge caterpillars and then lay their eggs inside so that their larvae can feast within. Others are used to kill competing insects, even members of their own species. Humans usually experience stings as defensive maneuvers used by insects to protect their nest mates.

With colorful descriptions of each venom's sensation and a story that leaves you tingling with awe, The Sting of the Wild's one-of-a-kind style will fire your imagination.]]>
257 Justin O. Schmidt 1421419289 Amy 0 to-read 4.05 2016 The Sting of the Wild
author: Justin O. Schmidt
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average rating: 4.05
book published: 2016
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<![CDATA[The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays]]> 11987 212 Albert Camus Amy 0 to-read 4.23 1942 The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
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average rating: 4.23
book published: 1942
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Nausea 298275 Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form he ruthlessly catalogues his every feeling and sensation about the world and people around him.

His thoughts culminate in a pervasive, overpowering feeling of nausea which "spread at the bottom of the viscous puddle, at the bottom of our time, the time of purple suspenders and broken chair seats; it is made of wide, soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain."

Roquentin's efforts to try and come to terms with his life, his philosophical and psychological struggles, give Sartre the opportunity to dramatize the tenets of his Existentialist creed.

The introduction for this edition of Nausea by Hayden Carruth gives background on Sartre's life and major works, a summary of the principal themes of Existentialist philosophy, and a critical analysis of the novel itself.]]>
178 Jean-Paul Sartre 0811201880 Amy 0 to-read 3.96 1938 Nausea
author: Jean-Paul Sartre
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average rating: 3.96
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<![CDATA[Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1)]]> 77566 500 Dan Simmons 0553283685 Amy 0 to-read 4.26 1989 Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1)
author: Dan Simmons
name: Amy
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1989
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<![CDATA[Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst]]> 31170723 Why do we do the things we do?

More than a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's genre-shattering attempt to answer that question as fully as perhaps only he could, looking at it from every angle. Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy.

And so the first category of explanation is the neurobiological one. A behavior occurs—whether an example of humans at our best, worst, or somewhere in between. What went on in a person's brain a second before the behavior happened? Then Sapolsky pulls out to a slightly larger field of vision, a little earlier in time: What sight, sound, or smell caused the nervous system to produce that behavior? And then, what hormones acted hours to days earlier to change how responsive that individual is to the stimuli that triggered the nervous system? By now he has increased our field of vision so that we are thinking about neurobiology and the sensory world of our environment and endocrinology in trying to explain what happened.

Sapolsky keeps going: How was that behavior influenced by structural changes in the nervous system over the preceding months, by that person's adolescence, childhood, fetal life, and then back to his or her genetic makeup? Finally, he expands the view to encompass factors larger than one individual. How did culture shape that individual's group, what ecological factors millennia old formed that culture? And on and on, back to evolutionary factors millions of years old.

The result is one of the most dazzling tours d'horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesis that harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do ... for good and for ill. Sapolsky builds on this understanding to wrestle with some of our deepest and thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, and war and peace. Wise, humane, often very funny, Behave is a towering achievement, powerfully humanizing, and downright heroic in its own right.]]>
790 Robert M. Sapolsky 1594205078 Amy 0 to-read 4.40 2017 Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
author: Robert M. Sapolsky
name: Amy
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2017
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date added: 2024/01/28
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