en-US Thu, 03 Apr 2025 08:49:18 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 827701
Without a moral compass to guide them, the children sink into lives of desperation and despair, played out against the grim background of Coketown, a wretched community shadowed by an industrial behemoth. Louisa falls into a loveless marriage with Josiah Bouderby, a vulgar banker, while the unscrupulous Tom, totally lacking in principle, becomes a thief who frames an innocent man for his crime. Witnessing the degradation and downfall of his children, Gradgrind realizes that his own misguided principles have ruined their lives.

Considered Dickens' harshest indictment of mid-19th-century industrial practices and their dehumanizing effects, this novel offers a fascinating tapestry of Victorian life, filled with the richness of detail, brilliant characterization, and passionate social concern that typify the novelist's finest creations.

Of Dickens' work, the eminent Victorian critic John Ruskin had this to "He is entirely right in his main drift and purpose in every book he has written; and all of them, but especially Hard Times, should be studied with close and earnest care by persons interested in social questions."]]> 430 Charles Dickens 0192833677 Greg 5
I got the feeling they chose this because it was the shortest non-holiday Dickens. Shame on them. I liked it quite a lot, though. Could've done with more Sleary.
]]> 3.40
author: Charles Dickens
name: Greg
average rating: 3.40
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2009/09/13
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves:
review:
I was supposed to read this in I think my sophomore year of college. I didn't. Did fine on the test though, as I remember. Like most of the books I was supposed to read in college lit. Got a degree that way.

I got the feeling they chose this because it was the shortest non-holiday Dickens. Shame on them. I liked it quite a lot, though. Could've done with more Sleary.

]]> 220160561 When Jada Williams is relentlessly pursued by the Debt Police, she is left with no choice but to take down her student loan company with the help of two mall coworkers—from the author of the “lethally witty� (The New York Times Book Review) The Survivalists.

Jada Williams is good at judging people by their looks. From across the mall, she can tell not only someone’s inseam and pants size, but exactly what style they need to transform their life. Too bad she’s no longer using this superpower as a wardrobe designer to Hollywood stars, but for minimum wage plus commission at the Glendale mall.

When Jada is fired yet again, she is forced to outrun the newly instated Debt Police who are out for blood. But Jada, like any great antihero, is not going to wait for the cops to come kick her around. With the help of two other debt-burdened mall coworkers, she hatches a plan for revenge. Together the three women plan a heist to erase their student loans forever and get back at the system that promised them everything and then tried to take it back.

The Payback is a razor-sharp and hilarious dissection of race and capitalism from one of the most original and exciting writers at work today.]]> 256 Kashana Cauley 1668075539 Greg 0 to-read 3.79 2025
author: Kashana Cauley
name: Greg
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 174147246
Al Jolson, born Asa Yoelson, immigrated from a shtetl in Lithuania to the United States in 1894 after his father secured a job as a rabbi in Washington, D.C. A poor, Yiddish-speaking newcomer navigating a racially segregated and antisemitic America, young Jolson dreamed of becoming a star, and he did. Thanks to his immense talent and his knack for assimilating into new environments, by the time he reached his twenties he was the most famous and highly paid entertainer in America, making almost $5,000 a week at a time when the average American made $800 a year. Jolson’s public adoration and widespread acceptance as a star marked the beginning of an enriching cultural transformation, a moment when the American mind opened up to ethnic and racial differences, widening the gap of acceptability. And yet Jolson himself, despite being ferociously ambitious and gigantically talented, was crippled by insecurity, often nervous to the point of collapse, prisoner to his many vices.
Through Jolson, Bernstein simultaneously breaks open the history and legacy of the cultural sensation The Jazz Singer. Not only was The Jazz Singer the first feature length film with synchronized music and dialogue, but it was also taboo smashing in its content : The Jazz Singer is all about Jews, Orthodox and otherwise. Bernstein expounds on the making of The Jazz Singer, what the film meant then and now, introducing the many individuals involved in its production, including Samson Raphaelson, a young Jewish writer whose short story was the basis for the movie; the four Warner brothers, who made a fortune off it; and George Jessel, Jolson’s rival and the star of Raphaelson's stage adaptation of his short story. In the background emerges a picture of old Hollywood in the Roaring cutthroat and greedy yet visionary and progressive. And while The Jazz Singer represented the future in many ways, it also dredged up the worst of the past, including Jolson’s use of blackface, common at the time.
At once a tale of the Judaizing of American culture and an acknowledgment of the challenges to come, Only in America is a glistening examination of a man at the center of a watershed moment in the arts.]]> 272 Richard Bernstein 0805243674 Greg 4 3.96
author: Richard Bernstein
name: Greg
average rating: 3.96
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 63270262
Now with 50% more socialism!

Socialism…Seriously is a warm and witty introduction to the radical traditions of protest and politics that stretch from Karl Marx through today’s movements for democracy, equality, and a livable planet. In this thoroughly revised and expanded edition, Danny Katch uses humor and imagination to take an unflinching look at the rising threats posed by climate change, billionaire oligarchs, and the far right—and makes a compelling case that a socialist world is both necessary and possible.

Katch separates the lies spun by capitalism’s defenders from the system’s brutal realities, and is candid about debates and challenges facing the socialist movement today. This book is for people who want to take a deeper look at what socialism is� but maybe not that deep.

Sincere, irreverent, informative, and playful, Socialism� Seriously is a unique and timely contribution to our movements for justice.]]> 250 Danny Katch 1642598836 Greg 0 to-read 4.04 2015
author: Danny Katch
name: Greg
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55360221
Dublin is in the middle of a heat wave and tempers are running high. The Celtic Tiger is well and truly dead, activists have taken over the headquarters of a failed bank, the trial of three unscrupulous property developers teeters on the brink of collapse, and in the midst of all this, along comes a mysterious organisation hell-bent on exacting bloody vengeance in the name of the little guy.

Paul Mulchrone doesn’t care about any of this; he has problems of his own. His newly established detective agency is about to be DOA. One of his partners won’t talk to him for very good reasons and the other has seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth for no reason at all. Can he hold it together long enough to figure out what Bunny McGarry’s colourful past has to do with his present absence?

When the law and justice no longer mean the same thing, on which side will you stand?

The Day That Never Comes is the second book in Caimh McDonnell’s Dublin trilogy, which melds fast-paced action with a distinctly Irish acerbic wit.]]> Caimh McDonnell Greg 4 4.05 2017
author: Caimh McDonnell
name: Greg
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/04
date added: 2024/11/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 53520753 Our Riches celebrates quixotic devotion and the love of books in the person of Edmond Charlot, who at the age of twenty founded Les Vraies Richesses (Our True Wealth), the famous Algerian bookstore/publishing house/lending library. He more than fulfilled its motto “by the young, for the young,� discovering the twenty-four-year-old Albert Camus in 1937. His entire archive was twice destroyed by the French colonial forces, but despite financial difficulties (he was hopelessly generous) and the vicissitudes of wars and revolutions, Charlot (often compared to the legendary bookseller Sylvia Beach) carried forward Les Vraies Richesses as a cultural hub of Algiers.



Our Riches interweaves Charlot’s story with that of another twenty-year-old, Ryad (dispatched in 2017 to empty the old shop and repaint it). Ryad’s no booklover, but old Abdallah, the bookshop’s self-appointed, nearly illiterate guardian, opens the young man’s mind. Cutting brilliantly from Charlot to Ryad, from the 1930s to current times, from WWII to the bloody 1961 Free Algeria demonstrations in Paris, Adimi delicately packs a monumental history of intense political drama into her swift and poignant novel. But most of all, it’s a hymn to the book and to the love of books.]]> 124 Kaouther Adimi 0811228169 Greg 3 not-my-choice-read-for-work 3.94 2017
author: Kaouther Adimi
name: Greg
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2020/11/02
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: not-my-choice-read-for-work
review:

]]> 19213184
Dorothy B. Hughes ranks with Raymond Chandler and Patricia Highsmith as a master of mid-century noir. In books like In a Lonely Place and Ride the Pink Horse she exposed a seething discontent underneath the veneer of twentieth-century prosperity. With The Expendable Man, first published in 1963, Hughes upends the conventions of the wrong-man narrative to deliver a story that engages readers even as it implicates them in the greatest of all American crimes.]]> 265 Dorothy B. Hughes 1590175093 Greg 4 4.24 1963
author: Dorothy B. Hughes
name: Greg
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1963
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/09
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves:
review:
Dorothy B Hughes writes one hell of a good book.
]]> 216635416 A thrilling anthology of thirteen short stories that span the worlds of the New York Times bestselling author of the Scholomance Trilogy, including a sneak peek at the land where her next novel will be set.

From the dragon-filled Temeraire series and the gothic, magical halls of the Scholomance trilogy to the fairy tale worlds of Spinning Silver and Uprooted, this stunning collection takes us from fairy tale to fantasy, myth to history, and mystery to science fiction as we travel through Naomi Novik’s most beloved stories.

In Buried Deep, we move from ancient Greece and Rome, through the Middle Ages and the Black Death, and into the modern era. We meet Mark Antony, Sherlock Holmes, and Elizabeth Bennet, in ways we have never seen them before. We visit exotic fantasy cities and alien civilizations among the stars.

Though the stories are vastly different, there is a unifying theme: the act of finding and seizing one’s destiny, and the lengths one will go to achieve that—be it turning pirate, captaining a fighting dragon, or shifting from marriage to seek your destiny with a sword.

And in the two tales original to this collection, we first reenter the remade Scholomance in the wake of El’s revolution and see what life is like for the new crop of students. Then, we get a glimpse at the world of Novik’s upcoming series, a deserted land, populated only by silent and enigmatic architectural behemoths whose secrets are yet to be unlocked.]]> Naomi Novik 0593871472 Greg 0 to-read 4.50 2024
author: Naomi Novik
name: Greg
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199054589 Every other edition of Shakespeare’s plays is written by academic scholars. We are not academics. We are theatre practitioners. And Shakespeare created his plays not as books to be read, but as scripts to be performed in front of a live audience.
Our idea is to provide exhaustive notes side-by-side with the script. This way, if you want help with a line, it's right there. But if you don't need help, it's out of your way.]]> 0 William Shakespeare Greg 0 to-read 3.42 1597
author: William Shakespeare
name: Greg
average rating: 3.42
book published: 1597
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 210246743 An incredible true story of murder in a utopian community established on a remote Galápagos island by European refugees and the American industrialist who became embroiled in the investigation—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Ghosts of Eden Park

At the height of the Great Depression, Los Angeles oil mogul George Allan Hancock and his crew of Smithsonian scientists came upon a gruesome scene: two bodies, mummified by the searing heat, on the shore of a remote Galápagos island. For the past four years Hancock and other American elites had traveled the South Seas to collect specimens for scientific research. On one trip to the Galápagos, Hancock was surprised to discover an equally exotic group of humans: European exiles who had fled political and economic unrest, hoping to create a utopian paradise. One was so devoted to a life of isolation that he’d had his teeth extracted and replaced with a set of steel dentures.
As Hancock and his fellow American explorers would witness, paradise had turned into chaos. The three sets of exiles—a Berlin doctor and his lover, a traumatized World War I veteran and his young family, and an Austrian baroness with two adoring paramours—were riven by conflict. Petty slights led to angry confrontations. The baroness, wielding a riding crop and pearl-handled revolver, staged physical fights between her two lovers and unabashedly seduced American tourists. The conclusion was deadly: with two exiles missing and three others dead, the survivors hurled accusations of murder.
Using never-before-published archives, Abbott Kahler weaves a chilling, stranger-than-fiction tale worthy of Agatha Christie. Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the march to World War II, with a mystery as alluring and curious as the Galápagos itself, Eden Undone explores the universal and timeless desire to seek utopia—and lays bare the human fallibility that, inevitably, renders such a quest doomed.]]> 352 Abbott Kahler 0451498658 Greg 0 to-read 3.76 2024
author: Abbott Kahler
name: Greg
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60544167
When I Sing, Mountains Dance, winner of the European Union Prize, is a giddy paean to the land in all its interconnectedness, and in it Sola finds a distinct voice for each extraordinary consciousness: the lightning bolts, roe deer, mountains, the ghosts of the civil war, the widow Sió and later her grown children, Hilari and Mia, as well as Mia’s lovers with their long-buried secrets and their hidden pain.

Irene SolĂ  animates the polyphonic world around us, the fierce music of the seasons, as well as the stories we tell to comprehend loss and love on a personal, historical, and even geological scale. Lyrical, elemental, and mythic, hers is a fearlessly imaginative new voice that brilliantly renders both our tragedies and our triumphs.]]> 198 Irene SolĂ  1783787147 Greg 4 3.99 2019
author: Irene SolĂ 
name: Greg
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/31
date added: 2024/08/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 7000226 431 Alan Brennert 0312606346 Greg 4 4.13 2009
author: Alan Brennert
name: Greg
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2021/04/14
date added: 2024/08/13
shelves:
review:

]]> 41716950
Growing up in the Jim Crow South, Taylor was made an outcast because of her color. As she rose to infamy, the press and politicians manipulated her image to demonize poor black women. Part social history, part true-crime investigation, Josh Levin's mesmerizing book, the product of six years of reporting and research, is a fascinating account of American racism and an expose of the "welfare queen" myth, one that fueled political debates that reverberate to this day. The Queen tells, for the first time, the fascinating story of what was done to Linda Taylor, what she did to others, and what was done in her name.]]> 400 Josh Levin 031651330X Greg 0 to-read 3.71 2019
author: Josh Levin
name: Greg
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 203956677 A thrilling collection of thirteen short stories that span the worlds of the New York Times bestselling author of the Scholomance Trilogy, including a sneak peek at the land where her next novel will be set.

From the dragon-filled Temeraire series and the gothic, magical halls of the Scholomance trilogy to the fairy tale worlds of Spinning Silver and Uprooted, this stunning collection takes us from fairy tale to fantasy, myth to history, and mystery to science fiction as we travel through Naomi Novik’s most beloved stories.

In Buried Deep, we move from ancient Greece and Rome, through the Middle Ages and the Black Death, and into the modern era. We meet Mark Antony, Sherlock Holmes, and Elizabeth Bennet, in ways we have never seen them before. We visit exotic fantasy cities and alien civilizations among the stars.

Though the stories are vastly different, there is a unifying theme: the act of finding and seizing one’s destiny, and the lengths one will go to achieve that—be it turning pirate, captaining a fighting dragon, or shifting from marriage to seek your destiny with a sword.

And in the two tales original to this collection, we first reenter the remade Scholomance in the wake of El’s revolution and see what life is like for the new crop of students. Then, we get a glimpse at the world of Novik’s upcoming series, a deserted land, populated only by silent and enigmatic architectural behemoths whose secrets are yet to be unlocked.]]> 430 Naomi Novik 0593600355 Greg 0 to-read 3.99 2024
author: Naomi Novik
name: Greg
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 203767605 A thrilling tick-tock recounting one of the most harrowing hostage situations and daring rescue attempts of our time—from true-life espionage master and New York Times bestselling author of Operation Mincemeat and The Spy and the Traitor Ben Macintyre.

As the American hostage crisis in Iran boiled into its seventh month in the spring of 1980, six heavily armed gunman barged into the Iranian embassy in London, taking twenty-six hostages. What followed over the next six days was an increasingly tense standoff, one that threatened at any moment to spill into a bloodbath.

Policeman Trevor Lock was supposed to have gone to the theater that night. Instead, he found himself overpowered and whisked into the embassy. The terrorists never noticed the gun hidden in his jacket. The drama that ensued would force him to find reserves of courage he didn’t know he had. The gunmen themselves were hardly one-dimensional—all Arabs, some highly educated, who hoped to force Britain to take their side in their independence battle against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. Behind the scenes lurked the brutal Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who had bankrolled the whole affair as a salvo against Iran.

As police negotiators pressed the gunmen, rival protestors clashed violently outside the embassy, and as MI6 and the CIA scrambled for intelligence, Britain’s special forces strike team, the SAS, laid plans for a dangerous rescue mission. Inside, Lock and his fellow hostages used all the cunning they possessed to outwit and outflank their captors. Finally, on the sixth day, after the terrorists executed the embassy press attaché and dumped his body on the front doorstep, the SAS raid began, sparking a deadly high-stakes climax.

A story of ordinary men and women under immense pressure, The Siege takes readers minute-by-thrilling-minute through an event that would echo across the next two decades and provide a direct historical link to the tragedy on 9/11. Drawing on exclusive interviews and a wealth of never-before-seen files, Macintyre brilliantly reconstructs a week in which every day minted a new hero and every second spelled the potential for doom.]]> 400 Ben Macintyre 0593728092 Greg 0 to-read 4.36 2024
author: Ben Macintyre
name: Greg
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 197364591
Simply use the stickers like jigsaw Peel them, then place them in the right spots for each puzzle. Not sure if you placed a sticker correctly? No problem! Our removable stickers are easy to peel again and replace until you complete your masterpiece.

Great for traveling, and fun with friends or solo, STICKER JIGSAW finally makes puzzles transportable and effortless to save. Cherish your completed puzzles as an illustrated edition of your favorite Edgar Allan Poe tales, or frame the pages and display your gorgeous artwork.]]> 80 Edgar Allan Poe 1250908345 Greg 0 to-read 4.77
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Greg
average rating: 4.77
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 22087190 316 Earl Derr Biggers Greg 4 3.29 1925
author: Earl Derr Biggers
name: Greg
average rating: 3.29
book published: 1925
rating: 4
read at: 2020/07/18
date added: 2024/02/14
shelves:
review:
Obviously a book Of Its Time in the author’s occasional choices of adjectives, but a solid old-style murder mystery nonetheless.
]]> 35297458 Pride and Prejudice meets Frankenstein as Mary Bennet falls for the enigmatic Victor Frankenstein and befriends his monstrous Creature in this clever fusion of two popular classics.

Threatened with destruction unless he fashions a wife for his Creature, Victor Frankenstein travels to England where he meets Mary and Kitty Bennet, the remaining unmarried sisters of the Bennet family from Pride and Prejudice. As Mary and Victor become increasingly attracted to each other, the Creature looks on impatiently, waiting for his bride. But where will Victor find a female body from which to create the monster’s mate?

Meanwhile, the awkward Mary hopes that Victor will save her from approaching spinsterhood while wondering what dark secret he is keeping from her.

Pride and Prometheus fuses the gothic horror of Mary Shelley with the Regency romance of Jane Austen in an exciting novel that combines two age-old stories in a fresh and startling way.]]> 371 John Kessel 1481481479 Greg 4 3.63 2008
author: John Kessel
name: Greg
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2022/08/16
date added: 2024/02/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 61822665 �The Sacred Balance has a beautiful spirit.”—E.O. Wilson

With a new foreword from Robin Wall Kimmerer, New York Times-bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass—and an afterword from Bill McKibben—this special 25th anniversary edition of a beloved bestseller invites readers to see ourselves as part of nature, not separate.

The world is changing at a relentless pace. How can we slow down and act from a place of respect for all living things? The Sacred Balance shows us how.

In this extensively updated new edition, David Suzuki reflects on the increasingly radical changes in science and nature—from the climate crisis to peak oil and the rise in clean energy—and examines what they mean for humankind. He also reflects on what we have learned by listening to Indigenous leaders, whose knowledge of the natural world is profound, and whose peoples are on the frontlines of protecting land and water around the world.

Drawing on his own experiences and those of others who have put their beliefs into action, The Sacred Balance combines science, philosophy, spirituality, and Indigenous knowledge to offer concrete suggestions for creating an ecologically sustainable future by rediscovering and addressing humanity’s basic needs.


Published in Partnership with the David Suzuki Institute


]]> 388 David Suzuki 1771649879 Greg 4 not-my-choice-read-for-work 4.44 1997
author: David Suzuki
name: Greg
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/23
date added: 2024/01/17
shelves: not-my-choice-read-for-work
review:

]]> 17836581 The Thin Man was Hammett's last--and most successful--novel. Following the enormous success of "The Thin Man" movie in 1934, Hammett was commissioned to write stories for additional films. He wrote two full-length novellas, for the films that became "After the Thin Man" and "Another Thin Man". Bringing back his classic characters, retired private investigator Nick Charles and his former debutante wife Nora, who return home to find Nora’s family gardener murdered, pulling the couple back into another deadly game of cat and mouse. Hammett has written two fully satisfying "Thin Man" stories, with classic, barbed Hammett dialogue and fully developed characters.

Neither of these stories has been previously published (except for a partial in a small magazine 25 years ago). The Return of the Thin Man is a hugely entertaining read that brings back two classic characters from one of the greatest of mystery writers who ever lived. This book is destined to become essential reading for Hammett's millions of fans and a new generation of mystery readers the world over.
]]> 256 Dashiell Hammett 080212156X Greg 3 aloud-at-home 3.66 2012
author: Dashiell Hammett
name: Greg
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/26
date added: 2023/12/31
shelves: aloud-at-home
review:

]]> 747746
In 1860 Benjamin Button is born an old man and mysteriously begins aging backward. At the beginning of his life he is withered and worn, but as he continues to grow younger he embraces life -- he goes to war, runs a business, falls in love, has children, goes to college and prep school, and, as his mind begins to devolve, he attends kindergarten and eventually returns to the care of his nurse.

This strange and haunting story embodies the sharp social insight that has made Fitzgerald one of the great voices in the history of American literature.]]> 56 F. Scott Fitzgerald 1416556052 Greg 4 aloud-at-home 3.56 1922
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Greg
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1922
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/26
date added: 2023/12/31
shelves: aloud-at-home
review:

]]> 1704200
"Mr Wodehouse's idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own. He has made a world for us to live in and delight in" -Evelyn Waugh in a B.B.C. broadcast]]> 248 P.G. Wodehouse 0140009345 Greg 5 aloud-at-home 4.24 1934
author: P.G. Wodehouse
name: Greg
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1934
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/14
date added: 2023/12/31
shelves: aloud-at-home
review:

]]> 21470616




ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚý Boldly original and wildly entertaining, A Night in the Lonesome October is a darkly sparkling gem, an amalgam of horror, humor, mystery, and fantasy. First published in 1993, it was Zelazny’s last book prior to his untimely death. Many consider it the best of the fantasy master’s novels. It has inspired many fans to read it every year in October, a chapter a day, and served as inspiration for Neil Gaiman’s brilliant story “Only the End of the World Again.”]]> 280 Roger Zelazny 1556525605 Greg 5 aloud-at-home 4.22 1993
author: Roger Zelazny
name: Greg
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/31
date added: 2023/12/31
shelves: aloud-at-home
review:

]]> 18053 A Mulliner collection

In the Angler's Rest, drinking hot scotch and lemon, sits one of Wodehouse's greatest raconteurs. Mr Mulliner, his vivid imagination lubricated by Miss Postlethwaite the barmaid, has fabulous stories to tell of the extraordinary behaviour of his far-flung family: in particular there's Wilfred, inventor of Raven Gypsy face-cream and Snow of the Mountain Lotion, who lights on the formula for Buck-U-Uppo, a tonic given to elephants to enable them to face tigers with the necessary nonchalance. Its explosive effects on a shy young curate and then the higher clergy is gravely revealed. Then there's his cousin James, the detective-story writer, who has inherited a cottage more haunted than anything in his own imagination. And Isadore Zinzinheimer, head of the Bigger, Better & Brighter Motion Picture Company. Tall tales all - but among Wodehouse's best.]]> 203 P.G. Wodehouse 1585672750 Greg 5 aloud-at-home A delight. 4.05 1927
author: P.G. Wodehouse
name: Greg
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1927
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/30
date added: 2023/12/31
shelves: aloud-at-home
review:
A delight.
]]> 62039161
Grammy Award–winning music scholar and celebrated biographer John Szwed presents the first biography of Harry Smith, the brilliant eccentric who transformed twentieth century art and culture.

He was an anthropologist, filmmaker, painter, folklorist, mystic, and walking encyclopedia. He taught Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe about the occult, swapped drugs with Timothy Leary, had a front-row seat to a young Thelonious Monk, lived with (and tortured) Allen Ginsberg, was admired by Susan Sontag, and was one of the first artists funded by Guggenheim Foundation. He was always broke, generally intoxicated, compulsively irascible, and unimpeachably authentic. Harry Smith was, in the words of Robert Frank, “the only person I met in my life that transcended everything.�

In Cosmic Scholar , the Grammy Award-winning music scholar and celebrated biographer John Szwed patches together, for the first time, the life of one of the twentieth century’s most overlooked cultural figures. From his time recording the customs of Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest and Florida to his life in Greenwich Village in its heyday, Smith was consumed by an unceasing desire to create a unified theory of culture. He was an insatiable creator and collector, responsible for the influential Anthology of American Folk Music and several pioneering experimental films, but was also an insufferable and destructive eccentric who was unable to survive in regular society, or keep himself healthy or sober.

Exhaustively researched, energetically told, and complete with a trove of images, Cosmic Scholar is a feat of biographical restoration and the long overdue canonization of an American icon.

Includes black-and-white and color images]]> 416 John F. Szwed 0374282242 Greg 0 to-read 4.27
author: John F. Szwed
name: Greg
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 490449
“Compelling, eloquent and vivid . . . In a superb blend of scholarship and creativity, Wroe brings this elusive yet pivotal figure to life.”� The Boston Globe
Ěý
One of Esquire ’s Best Biographies of All Time •ĚýFinalist for the Samuel Johnson Prize
Ěý
The foil to Jesus, the defiant antihero of the Easter story, mocking, skeptical Pilate is a historical figure who haunts our imagination. For some he is a saint, for others the embodiment of human weakness, an archetypal politician willing to sacrifice one man for the sake of stability.
Ěý
In this dazzlingly conceived biography, Ann Wroe brings man and myth to life. Working from classical sources, she reconstructs his origins and upbringing, his career in the military and life in Rome, his confrontation with Christ, and his long journey home. We catch glimpses of him pacing the marble floors in Caesarea, sharpening his stylus, getting dressed shortly before sunrise on the day that would seal his place in history. What were the pressures on Pilate that day? What did he really think of Jesus?Ěý
Ěý
Pontius Pilate lets us see Christ's trial for the first time, in all its confusion, from the point of view of his executioner.]]> 432 Ann Wroe 0375753974 Greg 0 currently-reading 3.69 1999
author: Ann Wroe
name: Greg
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/14
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 77265004 848 Homer 1324001801 Greg 5 4.09 -800
author: Homer
name: Greg
average rating: 4.09
book published: -800
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/13
date added: 2023/12/13
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]]> 127280282 Discover the work of the greatest writer in the English language as you've never encountered it before by ordering internationally renowned actor Dame Judi Dench's SHAKESPEARE: The Man Who Pays The Rent—a witty, insightful journey through the plays and tales of our beloved Shakespeare.

Taking a curtain call with a live snake in her wig...

Cavorting naked through the Warwickshire countryside painted green...

Acting opposite a child with a pumpkin on his head...

These are just a few of the things Dame Judi Dench has done in the name of Shakespeare.

For the very first time, Judi opens up about every Shakespearean role she has played throughout her seven-decade career, from Lady Macbeth and Titania to Ophelia and Cleopatra. In a series of intimate conversations with actor & director Brendan O'Hea, she guides us through Shakespeare's plays with incisive clarity, revealing the secrets of her rehearsal process and inviting us to share in her triumphs, disasters, and backstage shenanigans.

Interspersed with vignettes on audiences, critics, company spirit and rehearsal room etiquette, she serves up priceless revelations on everything from the craft of speaking in verse to her personal interpretations of some of Shakespeare's most famous scenes, all brightened by her mischievous sense of humour, striking level of honesty and a peppering of hilarious anecdotes, many of which have remained under lock and key until now.

Instructive and witty, provocative and inspiring, this is ultimately Judi's love letter to Shakespeare, or rather, The Man Who Pays The Rent.]]> 400 Judi Dench 1250325773 Greg 0 to-read 4.51 2023
author: Judi Dench
name: Greg
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 17739502 252 Steve Young 0922233446 Greg 4 3.92 2013
author: Steve Young
name: Greg
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/09
date added: 2023/12/09
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]]> 29960734 85 Kate Hamill 082223324X Greg 0 4.15
author: Kate Hamill
name: Greg
average rating: 4.15
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2023/12/08
date added: 2023/12/08
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]]> 36222611
One day, three schoolmates show up at Aru's doorstep to catch her in a lie. They don't believe her claim that the museum's Lamp of Bharata is cursed, and they dare Aru to prove it. Just a quick light, Aru thinks. Then she can get herself out of this mess and never ever fib again.

But lighting the lamp has dire consequences. She unwittingly frees the Sleeper, an ancient demon whose duty it is to awaken the God of Destruction. Her classmates and beloved mother are frozen in time, and it's up to Aru to save them.

The only way to stop the demon is to find the reincarnations of the five legendary Pandava brothers, protagonists of the Hindu epic poem, the Mahabharata, and journey through the Kingdom of Death. But how is one girl in Spider-Man pajamas supposed to do all that?]]> 355 Roshani Chokshi 1368012353 Greg 4 4.07 2018
author: Roshani Chokshi
name: Greg
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/03
date added: 2023/12/03
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]]> 59503 The Lost Steps describes his search, his adventures, and the remarkable decision he makes in a village that appears to be truly outside history.]]> 296 Alejo Carpentier 0816638071 Greg 0 to-read 3.97 1953
author: Alejo Carpentier
name: Greg
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1953
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 11551
He is Michael Gallatin, master spy, lover -- and werewolf. Able to change shape with lightning speed, to kill silently or with savage, snarling fury, he proved his talents against Rommel in Africa. Now he faces his most delicate, dangerous mission: to unravel the secret Nazi plan known as Iron Fist. From a parachute jump into occupied France to the lush corruption of Berlin, from the arms of a beautiful spy to the cold embrace of a madman's death machine, Gallatin draws ever closer to the ghastly truth about Iron Fist. But with only hours to D-Day, he is trapped in the Nazis' web of destruction....]]> 603 Robert McCammon 0671731424 Greg 0 to-read 4.06 1989
author: Robert McCammon
name: Greg
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 29248354
Until now. This lovingly pieced together story of their lives, onstage and off, reveals for the first time the flirtatious Irish dandy with the dicky ticker, the scruffy Liverpudlian party animal, and the teenage tearaway turned tap-shoed temptress who abruptly changed career and became a frequently outspoken war reporter. Their dancing outraged Hermann Goering; years later, in Nuremberg, Goering performed while Betty wrote the reviews.

Alan Stafford has ransacked dusty attics, thumbed crumbling newspapers and buttonholed countless experts and colleagues to discover the trio’s hidden past. He’s unearthed rare photos, and movies that were presumed lost. And he’s tracked down and interviewed three women from the long dynasty of Wilson and Keppel’s subsequent Bettys.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

When not obsessing over skinny sand dancers and sexy showgirls, Alan Stafford writes for comedy performers such as Mitchell & Webb, Punt & Dennis, Jones without Smith, Sue without Mel, two-thirds of the Goodies and both the Two Ronnies (25 years apart).

He has scripted radio documentaries for Lee Mack (about Sid James), Jimmy Carr (about Kenneth Horne), Toby Jones (about the movie Peeping Tom), Barbara Windsor (about two skinny sand dancers and a sexy showgirl), and an epic seven-parter for Tony Hawks, concerning comedy characters who are talked about but never turn up.

His attempts at serious drama have featured Bill Nighy being sworn at in sign language and Matt Lucas auditioning vacuum cleaners. He is currently transforming thousands of puns and smutty gags into a non-Booker-prizewinning novel. Alan used to find it impossible to write about himself in the third person, but now I’ve totally got the hang of it.]]> 294 Alan Stafford Greg 0 to-read 4.27 2015
author: Alan Stafford
name: Greg
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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]]> 59441651 A dazzling gothic tale of Faustian bargains, jealousy, and murder set in a spectacular circus, where star-crossed lovers' destinies are forged at an unexpected price, for readers ofĚýV. E. Schwabâ€�'s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.Ěý

In Victorian London, where traveling sideshows are the very pinnacle of entertainment, there is no more coveted ticket than Ashe and Pretorius'ĚýCarnivale of Curiosities. Each performance is a limited engagement, and London's elite boldly dare the dangerous streets of Southwark to witness the Carnivale's astounding assemblage of marvels. For a select few, however, the real show begins behind the curtain. Rumors abound that the show’s proprietor, Aurelius Ashe, is more than an average magician. It's said that for the right price, he can make any wish come true. No one knows the truth of this claim better than Lucien the Lucifer, the Carnivale's star attraction. Born with the ability to create fire, he's dazzled spectators since he was a boy.

When Odilon Rose, one of the most notorious men in London, comes calling with a proposition regarding his young and beautiful charge, Charlotte, Ashe is tempted to refuse. After revealing, however, that Rose holds a secret that threatens the security of the troupe's most vulnerable members, Ashe has no choice but to sign an insidious contract.
Ěý
The stakes grow higher as Lucien finds himself drawn to Charlotte and her to him, an attraction that spurs a perilous course of events. Grave secrets, recovered horrors, and what it means to be family come to a head in this vividly imagined spectacle—with the lives of all those involved suspended in the balance.]]> 448 Amiee Gibbs 153872393X Greg 0 to-read 3.55 2023
author: Amiee Gibbs
name: Greg
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 54420202
Sami is a typical 13 year-old: he loves his friends, football, PlayStation and iPad. But a bombing in a mall changes his life. Sami and his family flee their comfortable home in Damascus to make the perilous and painful journey towards a new life in the U.K. Leaving everything behind, Sami discovers a world he’d never encountered � harsh, dangerous, but also at times unexpectedly kind and hopeful.]]> 288 A.M. Dassu 1910646644 Greg 4 not-my-choice-read-for-work 4.21 2020
author: A.M. Dassu
name: Greg
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/30
date added: 2023/11/30
shelves: not-my-choice-read-for-work
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]]> 386293 Red Harvest is more than a superb crime novel: it is a classic exploration of corruption and violence in the American grain.]]> 216 Dashiell Hammett 0679722610 Greg 4 3.85 1929
author: Dashiell Hammett
name: Greg
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1929
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/25
date added: 2023/11/27
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]]> 123241721
Now, I’m gonna be honest: Some of the details might be vague because a b*tch is fifty-five and she’s smoked a ton of weed. But while bits might be a touch hazy, I can promise you the underlying truth is REAL. Whether I’m talking about my childhood growing up in the South, my early stand-up days driving from gig to gig through the darkest parts of our country and praying I wouldn’t get murdered, what Chris Rock told Lorne Michaels, that time I wanted to shoot Whoopi Goldberg on SNL, and yeah, I’ll tell you all about Ghostbusters and the nudes and Supermarket Sweep and The Daily Show . . . I’m sharing it all in these pages. It’s not easy being a woman in comedy, especially when you’re a tall-*ss Black woman with a trumpet voice. I have to fight so that no one takes me for granted, and no one takes advantage. These are the stories that explain why. (Cue the Law & Order theme.)


Read by the author, with a Foreword by Chris Rock.]]> 17 Leslie Jones 1668623455 Greg 5 4.16 2023
author: Leslie Jones
name: Greg
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/21
date added: 2023/11/21
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I have no idea what words are actually written in the book but the Leslie-read audiobook is utter madness.
]]> 20169236
This selection of poems from across the ages brings to life a staggering array of zombies, ghosts, vampires, and devils. Our culture's current obsession with zombies and vampires is only the latest form of a fascination with crossing the boundary between the living and the dead that has haunted humans since we first began writing. The poetic evidence gathered here ranges from ancient Egyptian inscriptions and the Mesopotamian epic Gilgamesh to the Greek bard Homer, and from Shakespeare and Milton and Keats to Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe. Here too are terrifying apparitions from a host of more recent poets, from T. S. Eliot and Sylvia Plath to Rita Dove and Billy Collins, from Allen Ginsberg and H. P. Lovecraft to Mick Jagger and Shel Silverstein. The result is a delightfully entertaining volume of spine-tingling poems for fans of horror and poetry both.]]> 256 Tony Barnstone 0375712518 Greg 5 3.82 2014
author: Tony Barnstone
name: Greg
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/20
date added: 2023/11/21
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]]> 123203347 224 Carl Barks 1683969006 Greg 4 4.24 2023
author: Carl Barks
name: Greg
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/19
date added: 2023/11/20
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]]> 52407 The Hollywood Reporter), comes an imaginative new novel about the mysterious murder of an actress that remains unsolved today.]]> 256 Megan Abbott 0743291719 Greg 0 to-read 3.72 2007
author: Megan Abbott
name: Greg
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> 8129464 ISBN 9780141326931 moved to the most recent edition here

Liam O’Connor should have died at sea in 1912.
Maddy Carter should have died on a plane in 2010.
Sal Vikram should have died in a fire in 2026.

But all three have been given a second chance—to work for an agency that no-one knows exists. Its purpose—to prevent time travel destroying history . . .

When Maddy mistakenly opens a time window where and when she shouldn’t have, Liam is marooned sixty-five million years ago in the hunting ground of a deadly—and until now—undiscovered species of predator.

Can Liam make contact with Maddy and Sal before he’s torn to pieces by dinosaurs—and without endangering history so much that the world is overtaken by a terrifying new reality?]]> 448 Alex Scarrow Greg 0 not-my-choice-read-for-work 4.07 2010
author: Alex Scarrow
name: Greg
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2023/11/16
date added: 2023/11/16
shelves: not-my-choice-read-for-work
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]]> 508098
The scheme, simply put, is to get married for the gifts. But Gilbert, who's gay, needs a fiancée... Enter Moira Finch, a demonically conniving young woman whose own mother, having recently married the Duke of Dorsetshire, will contribute richly to the couple's receipts. Enter, too, Philip Cavanagh, Gilbert's longtime friend, former lover, and highly strung Best Man. And enter, finally, the Cellinis, Gilbert's huge internecine stepfamily, whose fortune has not been amassed as innocently as Gilbert first thought, and who conform rather more closely to Italian-American stereotypes than Gilbert would like to believe. As Gilbert, Moira, and Philip struggle to keep their plot under wraps, the scams get bigger and more perilous, deceit multiplies, and a wonderfully calamitous trail leads us towards what could be the wedding of the season.]]> Joe Keenan 0099435047 Greg 0 to-read 4.23 1988
author: Joe Keenan
name: Greg
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> 123286534
In some portraits of Henry VIII there appears another, striking figure―a gaunt and morose-looking man with a shaved head and, in one case, a monkey on his shoulder. This is William or "Will" Somer, the king’s fool, a celebrated wit who reportedly could raise Henry’s spirits and spent many hours with him, often alone. Was Somer an “artificial fool,� a cunning comic who could speak freely in front of the king, or a “natural fool,� someone with intellectual disabilities, like many other members of the profession? And what role did he play in the tumultuous and violent Tudor era? Fool is the first biography of Somer―and perhaps the first of a Renaissance fool.

After his death, Somer disappeared behind his legend, and historians struggled to separate myth from reality. Unearthing as many facts as possible, Peter K. Andersson pieces together the fullest picture yet of an enigmatic and unusual man with a very strange job. Somer’s story provides new insights into how fools lived and what exactly they did for a living, how monarchs and courtiers related to commoners and people with disabilities, and whether aspects of the Renaissance fool live on in the modern comedian. But most of all, we learn how a commoner without property or education managed to become the court’s chief mascot and a continuous presence at the center of Tudor power from the 1530s to the reign of Elizabeth I.

Looking beyond stereotypes of the man in motley, Fool reveals a little-known world, surprising and disturbing, when comedy was something crueler and more unpleasant than we like to think.]]> 224 Peter K. Andersson 0691250162 Greg 4 3.55
author: Peter K. Andersson
name: Greg
average rating: 3.55
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/04
date added: 2023/11/04
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]]> 13089521 THE TWENTY-YEAR DEATH
Ěý
A breathtaking first novel written in the form of three separate crime novels, each set in a different decade and penned in the style of a different giant of the mystery genre.
Ěý
1931�
The body found in the gutter in France led the police inspector to the dead man’s beautiful daughter—and to her hot-tempered American husband.
Ěý
1941�
A hardboiled private eye hired to keep a movie studio’s leading lady happy uncovers the truth behind the brutal slaying of a Hollywood starlet.
Ěý
1951�
A desperate man pursuing his last chance at redemption finds himself with blood on his hands and the police on his trail...
Ěý
Three complete novels that, taken together, tell a single epic story, about an author whose life is shattered when violence and tragedy consume the people closest to him. It is an ingenious and emotionally powerful debut performance from literary detective and former bookseller Ariel S. Winter, one that establishes this talented newcomer as a storyteller of the highest caliber.]]> 670 Ariel S. Winter 0857685813 Greg 0 to-read 3.66 2012
author: Ariel S. Winter
name: Greg
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 124019742
But Len Bronstein is no rabbi—he’s a Brooklyn art teacher who steals a large quantity of clay from his school, gets extremely stoned, and manages to bring his creation to life despite knowing little about Judaism and even less about golems. Unable to communicate with his nine-foot-six, four hundred–pound, Yiddish-speaking guest, Len enlists a bodega clerk and ex-Hasid named Miri Apfelbaum to translate.

Eventually, the golem learns English by binge-watching Curb Your Enthusiasm after ingesting a massive amount of LSD and reveals that he is a creature with an ancestral memory; he recalls every previous iteration of himself, proving to be a repository of Jewish history and trauma. He demands to know what crisis has prompted his re-creation and whom he must destroy. When Miri shows him a video of white nationalists marching and chanting “Jews will not replace us,� the answer becomes clear.

The Golem of Brooklyn is an epic romp through Jewish history and the American present that wrestles with the deepest questions of our humanity—the conflicts between faith and skepticism, tribalism and interdependence, and vengeance and healing.]]> 272 Adam Mansbach 059372982X Greg 4 3.97 2023
author: Adam Mansbach
name: Greg
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/31
date added: 2023/10/31
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]]> 51724545
He describes his gut-wrenching experiences of growing up in a Dalit basti, the multiple humiliations suffered by Dalits on a daily basis, and their incredible resilience enabled by love and humour. As he brings to light the immovable glass ceiling that exists for Dalits even in politics, bureaucracy and judiciary, Yengde provides an unflinchingly honest account of divisions within the Dalit community itself—from their internal caste divisions to the conduct of elite Dalits and their tokenized forms of modern-day untouchability—all operating under the inescapable influences of Brahminical doctrines.

This path-breaking book reveals how caste crushes human creativity and is disturbingly similar to other forms of oppression, such as race, class and gender. At once a reflection on inequality and a call to arms, Caste Matters argues that until Dalits lay claim to power and Brahmins join hands against Brahminism to effect real transformation, caste will continue to matter.]]> 304 Suraj Yengde 0670091227 Greg 0 not-my-choice-read-for-work 4.10
author: Suraj Yengde
name: Greg
average rating: 4.10
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2023/10/30
date added: 2023/10/30
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]]> 56212587 From the acclaimed author of Spoonbenders comes the gripping tale of a family's mysterious religion, and the daughter who turns her back on their god.

In 1933, nine-year-old Stella is left in the care of her grandmother, Motty, in the backwoods of Tennessee. These remote hills of the Smoky Mountains are home to dangerous secrets, and soon after she arrives, Stella wanders into a dark cavern where she encounters the family's personal god, an entity known as the Ghostdaddy.

Years later, after a tragic incident that caused her to flee, Stella--now a professional bootlegger--returns for Motty's funeral, and to check on the mysterious ten-year-old girl named Sunny that Motty adopted. Sunny appears innocent enough, but she is more powerful than Stella could imagine--and she's a direct link to Stella's buried past and her family's destructive faith.

Haunting and wholly engrossing, summoning mesmerizing voices and giving shape to the dark, Revelator is a southern gothic tale for the ages.
]]> 337 Daryl Gregory 052565738X Greg 4 3.97 2021
author: Daryl Gregory
name: Greg
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/27
date added: 2023/10/27
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]]> 41940267 Beowulf by the author of The Mere Wife.

Nearly twenty years after Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf � and fifty years after the translation that continues to torment high-school students around the world � there is a radical new verse translation of the epic poem by Maria Dahvana Headley, which brings to light elements never before translated into English.

A man seeks to prove himself as a hero. A monster seeks silence in his territory. A warrior seeks to avenge her murdered son. A dragon ends it all. These familiar components of the epic poem are seen with a novelist’s eye toward gender, genre, and history. Beowulf has always been a tale of entitlement and encroachment � of powerful men seeking to become more powerful and one woman seeking justice for her child � but this version brings new context to an old story. While crafting her contemporary adaptation, Headley unearthed significant shifts lost over centuries of translation; her Beowulf is one for the twenty-first century.]]> 140 Unknown 0374110034 Greg 5 Stellar. 4.10 1000
author: Unknown
name: Greg
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1000
rating: 5
read at: 2021/01/11
date added: 2023/10/27
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Stellar.
]]> 193544124
The Oxford English Dictionary is one of mankind’s greatest achievements, and yet, curiously, its creators are almost never considered. Who were the people behind this unprecedented book? As Sarah Ogilvie reveals, they include three murderers, a collector of pornography, the daughter of Karl Marx, a president of Yale, a radical suffragette, a vicar who was later found dead in the cupboard of his chapel, an inventor of the first American subway, a female anti-slavery activist in Philadelphia . . . and thousands of others.Ěý

Of deep transgenerational and broad appeal, a thrilling literary detective story that, for the first time, unravels the mystery of the endlessly fascinating contributors the world over who, for over seventy years, helped to codify the way we read and write and speak. It was the greatest crowdsourcing endeavor in human history, the Wikipedia of its time. Ěý

The Dictionary People is a celebration of words, language, and people, whose eccentricities and obsessions, triumphs, and failures enriched the English language.]]> 368 Sarah Ogilvie 0593536401 Greg 0 to-read 3.81 2023
author: Sarah Ogilvie
name: Greg
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> 792041 220 Gabriel García Márquez 0380009943 Greg 4 3.58 1961
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Greg
average rating: 3.58
book published: 1961
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/22
date added: 2023/10/22
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]]> 332488 Troilus and Cressida available today. Bevington's learned and engaging introduction discusses the ambivalent status and genre of the play, variously presented in its early printing as a comedy, a history, and a tragedy. He examines and assimilates the wide variety of critical responses the play has elicited, and argues its importance in today's culture as an experimental and open-ended work. Themes of women as objects of desire and bonds of friendship between men, for instance, are not limited by historical context. He also, however, suggests that this experimentalism may have contributed to its lack of immediate stage success, and goes on to place the work in its late Elizabethan context of political instability and theatrical rivalry. A thorough performance history focuses chiefly on recent productions. The complex text situation is re-examined and the differing textual readings carefully explicated. Influential sources for this work and the surviving texts of Troilus and Cressida are discussed in appendices.

The Arden Shakespeare has developed a reputation as the pre-eminent critical edition of Shakespeare for its exceptional scholarship, reflected in the thoroughness of each volume. An introduction comprehensively contextualizes the play, chronicling the history and culture that surrounded and influenced Shakespeare at the time of its writing and performance, and closely surveying critical approaches to the work. Detailed appendices address problems like dating and casting, and analyze the differing Quarto and Folio sources. A full commentary by one or more of the play's foremost contemporary scholars illuminates the text, glossing unfamiliar terms and drawing from an abundance of research and expertise to explain allusions and significant background information. Highly informative and accessible, Arden offers the fullest experience of Shakespeare available to a reader.

Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
General Editor's Preface
Preface
Introduction
'A new play, never staled with the stage': genre and the question of original performance
'An envious fever of pale and bloodless emulation': historical context in the last years of Elizabeth's reign
'Wars and lechery': demystification of the heroes of ancient Greece
''Tis but the chance of war': sceptical deflation of Trojan honour and chivalry
'The gods have heard me swear': tragic irony and the death of Hector
'As true as Troilus': male obsessions about honour and sexuality
'As false as Cressid': women as objects of desire
'Call them all panders': voyeurism and male bonding
'What's aught but as 'tis valued?': commercial and subjective valuation of identity and worth
'Divides more wider than the sky and earth': the fragmentation of the divided self
'Stuff to make paradoxes': performance history of Troilus and Cressid'
Troilus and Cressida
Longer Notes
'Instructed by the antiquary times': Shakespeare's sources
'Words, words, mere words': The text of Troilus and Cressida
Abbreviations and references
Abbreviations used in notes
Shakespeare's works and works partly by Shakespeare
Editions of Shakespeare collated
Ancient texts
Other works
Index]]> 469 William Shakespeare 1903436699 Greg 5 3.80 1601
author: William Shakespeare
name: Greg
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1601
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/21
date added: 2023/10/22
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]]> 212855
The most intriguing and ambitious pretender in history, this elegant young man was celebrated throughout Europe as the prince he claimed to Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the “Princes in the Tower� who were presumed to have been murdered almost a decade earlier. Handsome, well-mannered, and charismatic, he behaved like the perfect prince, and many believed he was one. The greatest European rulers of the age—among them the emperor Maximilian, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and Charles VIII of France—used him as a diplomatic pawn to their own advantage. As such, he tormented Henry VII for eight years, attempting to invade England three times. Eventually, defeated and captured, he admitted to being Perkin Warbeck, the son of a common boatman from Flanders. But was this really the truth?

Ann Wroe, a historian and storyteller of the first rank, delves into the secret corners of the late medieval world to explore both the elusive nature of identity and the human propensity for deception. In uncovering the mystery of Perkin Warbeck, Wroe illuminates not only a life but an entire world trembling on the verge of discovery.]]> 640 Ann Wroe 0812968115 Greg 0 to-read 3.73 2003
author: Ann Wroe
name: Greg
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> 750407 The Book of Ebenezer Le Page is a beautifully detailed chronicle of a life, but it is equally an oblique reckoning with the traumas of the twentieth century, as Ebenezer recalls both the men lost to the Great War and the German Occupation of Guernsey during World War II, and looks with despair at the encroachments of commerce and tourism on his beloved island.

G. B. Edwards labored in obscurity all his life and completed The Book of Ebenezer Le Page shortly before his death. Published posthumously, the book is a triumph of the storyteller’s art that conjures up the extraordinary voice of a living man.]]> 394 G.B. Edwards 1590172337 Greg 0 to-read 4.26 1981
author: G.B. Edwards
name: Greg
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> 57405598 Thinking of a foray to a quaint English village? You'll think twice after reading this tongue-in-cheek illustrated guide to the countless murderous possibilities lurking behind these villages' bucolic façades—from bestselling author Maureen Johnson and illustrator Jay Cooper.

A weekend roaming narrow old lanes, touring the faded glories of a country manor, and quaffing pints in the pub. How charming. That is, unless you have the misfortune of finding yourself in an English Murder Village, where danger lurks around each picturesque cobblestone corner and every sip of tea may be your last. If you insist on your travels, do yourself a favor and bring a copy of this little book. It may just keep you alive.

Brought to life with dozens of Gorey-esque drawings by illustrator Jay Cooper and peppered with allusions to classic crime series and unmistakably British murder lore, Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village gives you the tools you need to avoid the same fate, should you find yourself in a suspiciously cozy English village (or simply dream of going). Good luck, and whatever you do, avoid the vicar.]]> 128 Maureen Johnson 1984859625 Greg 4 4.02 2021
author: Maureen Johnson
name: Greg
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/21
date added: 2023/10/21
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]]> 41144776 Listening time: 11 hours and 25 minutes.

In this Audible Exclusive production, Academy Award® nominee Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) narrates one of Jane Austen’s most beloved works, Sense and Sensibility. In this timeless tale of misguided romance and heartbreak, two teenage heroines must overcome the pitfalls of Georgian England’s high society in order to achieve the love and happiness they seek. The admiration that Pike has for Austen’s work is shown clearly through this passionate delivery of Austen’s first published novel.

“The more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.�

Jane Austen’s first published novel, Sense and Sensibility, tells the classic tale of love and heartbreak in late 18th-century England. The story follows the romantic trials and tribulations of the daughters of the recently widowed Mrs. Dashwood as they encounter, and learn to handle, the emotionally reckless male characters of Georgian society. In order to find happiness, the two teenage heroines (Marianne and Elinor) must each learn to navigate through a life where status and money govern the rules of love.

A true classic of English literature, Sense and Sensibility is written with all the hallmarks of Austen’s style, providing strong female protagonists, great irony and wit, and showcasing her superb talent for character creation and dialogue.]]> 12 Jane Austen Greg 5 4.11 1811
author: Jane Austen
name: Greg
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1811
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/20
date added: 2023/10/20
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Rosamund Pike is just a stellar narrator. And Elinor Dashwood remains one of my most related-to characters in fiction.
]]> 60094198 A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it's more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.

In his introduction, Saunders writes, "We're going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn't fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art--namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?" He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.]]> 432 George Saunders 1984856030 Greg 4 4.53 2021
author: George Saunders
name: Greg
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/17
date added: 2023/10/17
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]]> 43682552 From award-winning poet Saeed Jones, How We Fight for Our Lives is a stunning coming-of-age memoir written at the crossroads of sex, race, and power.

“People don’t just happen,� writes Saeed Jones. “We sacrifice former versions of ourselves. We sacrifice the people who dared to raise us. The �I� it seems doesn’t exist until we are able to say, �I am no longer yours.� �

Haunted and haunting, Jones’s memoir tells the story of a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears. Through a series of vignettes that chart a course across the American landscape, Jones draws readers into his boyhood and adolescence—into tumultuous relationships with his mother and grandmother, into passing flings with lovers, friends and strangers. Each piece builds into a larger examination of race and queerness, power and vulnerability, love and grief: a portrait of what we all do for one another—and to one another—as we fight to become ourselves.

Blending poetry and prose, Jones has developed a style that is equal parts sensual, beautiful, and powerful—a voice that’s by turns a river, a blues, and a nightscape set ablaze. How We Fight for Our Lives is a one of a kind memoir and a book that cements Saeed Jones as an essential writer for our time.]]> 192 Saeed Jones 1501132733 Greg 0 to-read 4.27 2019
author: Saeed Jones
name: Greg
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> 63283383 Available in English for the first time, this extraordinary prize-winning novel confirms Domenico Starnone’s reputation as one of Italy’s greatest living writers. Starnone, a finalist for the National Book Award with Trick, and author of the critically acclaimed and bestselling Ties and Trust, goes beyond the slim, succinct novella-length works by which he is known by American readers to create a vast fresco of family, fatherhood, and modern Naples.

Narrated against the background of Naples, which itself becomes a living character in this lush, atmospheric novel, and steeped in the city’s language and imagery, The House on Via Gemito is a masterpiece of contemporary Italian literature.

The modest apartment in Via Gemito smells of paint and white spirit. The living room furniture is pushed up against the wall to create a makeshift studio, and drying canvases must be moved off the beds each night. Federí, the father, a railway clerk, is convinced of possessing great artistic talent. If it weren’t for the family he has to feed, he’d be a world-famous painter. Ambitious and frustrated, genuinely talented but full of arrogance and resentment, his life is marked by bitter disappointment.

It's his first-born who, years later, will sift the lies from the truth to tell the story of a man he spent his whole life trying not to resemble.]]> 480 Domenico Starnone 1609459253 Greg 2 not-my-choice-read-for-work Not for me. 3.64 2000
author: Domenico Starnone
name: Greg
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2000
rating: 2
read at: 2023/10/12
date added: 2023/10/12
shelves: not-my-choice-read-for-work
review:
Not for me.
]]> 124094286 50 Charles Dickens Greg 3 3.00
author: Charles Dickens
name: Greg
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2023/10/06
date added: 2023/10/06
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The 3 stars for the historical importance of the correspondence; The -2 stars for the supercilious-yet-fawning introduction by Cumberland Clark, Twit.
]]> 2069244 "They don't seem to understand, don't seem to grasp that we are not just ordinary children. We Are Gonks, a proud and noble tribe. We have our own rules, our own honour, our own song that no-one can remember the words to. They can't boss us around like that"

Fifteen-year-old Morag Narmo really doesn't want to go to school any more. She and her siblings would rather feed their heads into the waste-disposal than "do the academical" . So they are all stunned when their parents whisk them out of school and embark on a home-schooling experiment. But with five children, two unruly pets and some extremely eccentric attitudes, the educational experiment soon descends into chaos...

Witty, razor-sharp and laugh-out-loud funny, The Chronicles of Narmo shows us how before Caitlin Moran knew How to be a Woman, she had to find out How to be A Girl.]]> 142 Moran Caitlin 0552527246 Greg 0 to-read 3.43 1992
author: Moran Caitlin
name: Greg
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 123028135
So, what about men? Why do they only go to the doctor if their wife or girlfriend makes them? Why do they never discuss their penises with each other - but make endless jokes about their balls? What is porn doing for young men? Is their fondness for super-skinny jeans leading to an epidemic of bad mental health? Are men allowed to be sad? Are men allowed to lose? Have Men's Rights Activists confused 'power' with 'empowerment'? And is Jordan B Peterson just your mum - but with some mad theory about a lobster?

In this book, Caitlin intends to answer all this and more - because if men haven't yet answered the question 'What About Men?', it's going to be down to a busy woman to do it.]]> 319 Caitlin Moran 1529191890 Greg 0 to-read 3.69
author: Caitlin Moran
name: Greg
average rating: 3.69
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 150359038
"If Spike Milligan and Terry Pratchett had ever got round to a collaboration it might read like OverLondon.� Heide Goody, author of the Oddjobs and Sam Applewhite series.

“The most fun you can have in the safety of a book. A rollicking good read!� Kaaron Warren, best selling and award winning author of Bitters .

•â¶Ä˘â¶Ä�
Priests from OverLondon's Church of Vengeful Acquisition are exploding. Is the cause divine retribution, ballistic undergarments or something more sinister? If only the city had a professional private investigator�

Luckily, notorious pirate—turned privateer—Captain Alex Reign, has just narrowly escaped the hang man’s noose to establish the Reign Agency in Drury Lane. She needs cash fast and will take any job, even if failure means facing an inconveniently messy end. But what's a little danger to a professional swashbuckler?

Armed with nothing but her roguish wit, her reliably unreliable crew and a rogue artificer experiencing a mortal crisis, Alex is convinced they'll have this crime solved and the reward pocketed by teatime.

To solve their first case, all they must do is survive while navigating rampaging nuns, clockwork horrors, confectionary gangsters, piratical florists, malevolent urchins, military-grade statuary, weaponized blasphemy and sexual whales.

How hard can it possibly be?]]> 417 George Penney Greg 0 to-read 4.08
author: George Penney
name: Greg
average rating: 4.08
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 60784306 Moses Ose Utomi's debut novella, The Lies of the Ajungo, follows one boy’s epic quest to bring water back to his city and save his mother’s life. Prepare to enter the Forever Desert.

A Library Journal Best Book of the Month!

They say there is no water in the City of Lies. They say there are no heroes in the City of Lies. They say there are no friends beyond the City of Lies. But would you believe what they say in the City of Lies?

In the City of Lies, they cut out your tongue when you turn thirteen, to appease the terrifying Ajungo Empire and make sure it continues sending water. Tutu will be thirteen in three days, but his parched mother won’t last that long. So Tutu goes to his oba and makes a deal: she provides water for his mother, and in exchange he will travel out into the desert and bring back water for the city. Thus begins Tutu’s quest for the salvation of his mother, his city, and himself.

The Lies of the Ajungo opens the curtains on a tremendous world, and begins the epic fable of the Forever Desert. With every word, Moses Ose Utomi weaves magic.]]> 87 Moses Ose Utomi 1250849063 Greg 4 not-my-choice-read-for-work 4.20 2023
author: Moses Ose Utomi
name: Greg
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/26
date added: 2023/09/26
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]]> 58772710 The memoirs of Mary Rodgers Guettel--writer, composer, Broadway royalty, and "a woman who tried everything."



"What am I, bologna?" Mary Rodgers Guettel (1931-2014) often said. She was referring to being stuck in the middle: the daughter of one composer and the mother of another. And not just any composers. Her father was Richard Rodgers, perhaps the greatest American melodist; her son Adam Guettel, a worthy successor. What that leaves out is Mary herself, also a composer, whose musical Once Upon a Mattress remains one of the rare revivable Broadway hits written by a woman.

Shy is the story of how it all happened: how Mary grew from an angry child, constrained by privilege and a parent's overwhelming talent, to become not just a theater star but also a renowned author of books for young people (including the classic Freaky Friday) and, in a final grand turn, a doyenne of philanthropy and the Chairman of the Juilliard School.

But in telling these stories--with copious annotations, contradictions, and interruptions from her coauthor, Jesse Green, the chief theater critic of The New York Times--Shy also tells another, about a woman liberating herself from disapproving parents and pervasive sexism to find art and romance on her own terms.

Both an eyewitness report from the Golden Age of American musical theater and a tale of a woman striving for a meaningful life, Shy is, above all, a chance to sit at the feet of the kind of woman they don't make anymore--and never did. They make themselves.]]> 480 Mary Rodgers 0374298629 Greg 5 4.21 2022
author: Mary Rodgers
name: Greg
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/24
date added: 2023/09/24
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]]> 18342486
The first book in The Mindfulness Essentials series, a back-to-basics collection from world-renowned Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh that introduces everyone to the essentials of mindfulness practice.Ěý

In short, single-paragraph chapters, Nhat Hanh shares detailed instructions, guided breathing exercises and visualizations, as well as his own personal stories and insights. This pocket-sized book is perfect for those brand new to sitting meditation as well as for those looking to deepen their spiritual practice.

With sumi-ink drawings by Jason DeAntonis.]]> 117 Thich Nhat Hanh 1937006581 Greg 5 4.31 2014
author: Thich Nhat Hanh
name: Greg
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/16
date added: 2023/09/16
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]]> 61824828 A wildly inventive, savagely funny and topical novel about love, mortality and the afterlife, by the Booker-shortlisted author of A Fraction of the Whole.

Angus is a reformed ne'er-do-well looking forward to the birth of his first child when he's murdered by a man who is in love with his pregnant wife Gracie. Having never believed in God, heaven or hell, Angus finds himself in the afterlife - a place that provides more questions than answers. As a worldwide pandemic finally reaches the shores of Australia, the afterlife starts to get very crowded and Angus finds a way to reconnect with his wife Gracie and maybe even seek revenge on his murderer...

Here Goes Nothing is a novel of exhilarating originality and scope about birth, death and everything in between and after by 'a writer of prodigious talent' (Peter Carey) that contains a vision of the afterlife that rivals Dante's Divine Comedy and George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo, and the emmy-nominated The Good Place.]]> 373 Steve Toltz 1529371619 Greg 4 3.40 2022
author: Steve Toltz
name: Greg
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/15
date added: 2023/09/15
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]]> 58320972
Curated by a critic who knew him across five decades,Ěý Prine on Prine distills the essence of an iconic American unguarded, unfiltered and real. In his own words, in his own time—on the road, in the kitchen, the Library of Congress, radio shows, movie scripts, and beyond.
Ěý
John Prine hated giving interviews, but he said much when he talked. Embarrassed by fame, delighted by the smallest things, the first songwriter to read at the Library of Congress, and winner of the Pen Award for Literary Excellence, Prine saw the world unlike anyone else.
Ěý
The songs from 1971’s John Prine remain spot-on takes of the human condition today, and his writing only got richer, funnier, and more incisive. The interviews in Prine on Prine trace his career evolution, his singular mind, his enduring awareness of social issues, and his acute love of life, from Studs Terkel’s radio interviews from the early â€�70s to Mike Leonard’s Today Show packages from the â€�80s, Cameron Crowe's early encounter to Ronni Lundy'sĚý Shuck Beans, Stack Cake Ěýcookbook, andĚý Hot Rod ĚýmagazineĚýto No Depression ’s cover story, through today.
Ěý
Editor Holly Gleason enjoyed a longstanding relationship with Prine and his longtime co-manager, and she often traveled with him on tours in the late 1980s and represented him in the 2000s.
Ěý]]> 370 Holly Gleason 1641606304 Greg 0 to-read 4.03
author: Holly Gleason
name: Greg
average rating: 4.03
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> 123443579
The Hobbit was first published on September 21,1937. Like its sequel, The Lord of the Rings , it is a story that "grew in the telling," and many characters and plot threads in the published text are quite different from the story J.R.R. Tolkien first wrote to read aloud to his young sons as one of their "fireside reads." Together in one volume, The History of the Hobbit presents the complete text of the unpublished manuscript of The Hobbit , accompanied by John Rateliff’s lively and informative account of how the book came to be written and published. Recording the numerous changes made to the story both before and after publication, he examines—chapter by chapter—why those changes were made and how they reflect Tolkien’s ever-growing concept of Middle-earth.

As well as reproducing the original version of one of the world’s most popular novels—both on its own merits and as the foundation for The Lord of the Rings —this book includes many little-known illustrations and draft maps for The Hobbit by Tolkien himself. Also featured are extensive commentaries on the dates of composition, how Tolkien’s professional and early mythological writings influenced the story, the imaginary geography he created, and how Tolkien came to revise the book years after publication to accommodate events in The Lord of the Rings .

Endorsed by Christopher Tolkien as a companion to his essential 12-volume The History of Middle-earth , this thoughtful and exhaustive examination of one of the most treasured stories in English literature offers fascinating new insights for those who have grown up with this enchanting tale, and will delight any who are about to enter Bilbo’s round door for the first time.]]> 938 John D. Rateliff 0063330784 Greg 0 to-read 4.38 2007
author: John D. Rateliff
name: Greg
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> 112053077 From “weird, scary, ingenious� (The New York Times) stand-up comedian Maria Bamford, a brutally honest and hilariously frenetic memoir about show business, mental health, and the comfort of rigid belief systems—from Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, to Suzuki violin training, to Richard Simmons, to 12-step programs.

Maria Bamford is a comedian’s comedian (an outsider among outsiders) and has forever fought to find a place to belong. From struggling with an eating disorder as a child of the 1980s, to navigating a career in the arts (and medical debt and psychiatric institutionalization), she has tried just about every method possible to not only be a part of the world, but to want to be a part of it.

In Bamford’s signature voice, Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult, brings us on a quest to participate in something. With sincerity and transparency, she recounts every anonymous fellowship she has joined (including but not limited to: Debtors Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, and Overeaters Anonymous), every hypomanic episode (from worrying about selling out under capitalism to enforcing union rules on her Netflix TV show set to protect her health), and every easy 1-to-3-step recipe for fudge in between.

Singular and inimitable, Bamford’s memoir explores what it means to keep going, and to be a member of society (or any group she’s invited to) despite not being very good at it. In turn, she hopes to transform isolating experiences into comedy that will make you feel less alone (without turning into a cult following).]]> 8 Maria Bamford 1797162063 Greg 5 3.79 2023
author: Maria Bamford
name: Greg
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/13
date added: 2023/09/13
shelves:
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I cannot recommend this enough, and the audiobook in particular. Wait, no: buy the physical book, too. Then listen to the audiobook, then give someone the other one. Either way. I yawp a yes to this.
]]> 7123097 155 David Jeremiah 1414333811 Greg 1 not-my-choice-read-for-work 4.27
author: David Jeremiah
name: Greg
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 1
read at: 2023/09/13
date added: 2023/09/13
shelves: not-my-choice-read-for-work
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]]> 60589391 Ěý
From Marion Davies's humble days in Brooklyn to her rise to fame alongside press baron William Randolph Hearst, the public life story of the film star plays like a modern fairy tale shaped by gossip columnists, fan magazines, biopics, and documentaries. Yet the real Marion Davies remained largely hidden from view, as she was wary of interviews and trusted few with her true life story. In Captain of Her Soul , Lara Gabrielle pulls back layers of myth to show a complex and fiercely independent woman, ahead of her time, who carved her own path.

Through meticulous research, unprecedented access to archives around the world, and interviews with those who knew Davies, Captain of Her Soul counters the public story. This book reveals a woman who navigated disability and social stigma to rise to the top of a young Hollywood dominated by powerful men. Davies took charge of her own career, negotiating with studio heads and establishing herself as a top-tier comedienne, but her proudest achievement was her philanthropy and advocacy for children. This biography brings Davies out of the shadows cast by the Hearst legacy, shedding light on a dynamic woman who lived life on her own terms and declared that she was "the captain of her soul."]]> 344 Lara Gabrielle 0520384202 Greg 4 4.18
author: Lara Gabrielle
name: Greg
average rating: 4.18
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/12
date added: 2023/09/12
shelves:
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It’s long been my nonfiction experience that the quality of the writing is more important than my interest in the subject, so it’s always a pleasure when the two dovetail as they do here.
]]> 360437 The Mask of Apollo is narrated by Nikeratos, a tragic actor who takes with him on all his travels a gold mask of Apollo, a relic of the theater's golden age, which is now past. At first his mascot, the mask gradually becomes his conscience, and he refers to it his gravest decisions, when he finds himself at the center of a political crisis in which the philosopher Plato is also involved. Much of the action is set in Syracuse, where Plato's friend Dion is trying to persuade the young tyrant Dionysios the Younger to accept the rule of law. Through Nikeratos' eyes, the reader watches as the clash between the two looses all the pent-up violence in the city.]]> 372 Mary Renault 0394751051 Greg 5 4.06 1966
author: Mary Renault
name: Greg
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1966
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/07
date added: 2023/09/07
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]]> 58607355
When the body of N’Gana Frimbo, the African conjure-man, is discovered in his consultation room, Perry Dart, one of Harlem’s 10 Black police detectives, is called in to investigate. Together with Dr Archer, a physician from across the street, Dart is determined to solve the baffling mystery, helped and hindered by Bubber Brown and Jinx Jenkins, local boys keen to clear themselves of suspicion of murder and undertake their own investigations.

The Conjure-Man Dies was the very first detective novel written by an African American. A distinguished doctor and accomplished musician and dramatist, Rudolph Fisher was one of the principal writers of the Harlem Renaissance but died in 1934 aged only 37. With a gripping plot and vividly drawn characters, Fisher’s witty novel is a remarkable time capsule of one of the most exciting eras in the history of Black fiction.]]> Rudolph Fisher Greg 4 4.00 1932
author: Rudolph Fisher
name: Greg
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1932
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/07
date added: 2023/09/07
shelves:
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]]> 55077658 368 Mary Robinette Kowal 1250829151 Greg 0 to-read 3.63 2022
author: Mary Robinette Kowal
name: Greg
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60531406 #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson expands his Cosmere universe shared by The Stormlight Archive and Mistborn with a new standalone novel for everyone who loved The Princess Bride.

The only life Tress has known on her island home in an emerald-green ocean has been a simple one, with the simple pleasures of collecting cups brought by sailors from faraway lands and listening to stories told by her friend Charlie. But when his father takes him on a voyage to find a bride and disaster strikes, Tress must stow away on a ship and seek the Sorceress of the deadly Midnight Sea. Amid the spore oceans where pirates abound, can Tress leave her simple life behind and make her own place sailing a sea where a single drop of water can mean instant death?]]> 443 Brandon Sanderson Greg 3 not-my-choice-read-for-work 4.35 2023
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Greg
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/06
date added: 2023/09/06
shelves: not-my-choice-read-for-work
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]]> 82899
Here, in an extraordinary book with more than 650 black-and-white photographs -- including film posters, stills, grabs, and never-before-seen pictures from Wilder's own collection -- the ninety-three-year-old icon talks to Cameron Crowe, one of today's best-known writer-directors, about thirty years at the very heart of Hollywood, and about screenwriting and camera work, set design and stars, his peers and their movies, the studio system and films today. In his distinct voice we hear Wilder's inside view on his collaborations with such stars as Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, William Holden, Audrey Hepburn, and Greta Garbo (he was a writer at MGM during the making of Ninotchka . Here are Wilder's sharp and funny behind-the-scenes stories about the making of A Foreign Affair, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Love in the Afternoon, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment , and Ace in the Hole , among many others. Wilder is ever mysterious, but Crowe gets him to speak candidly on "She knew the script, everybody's lines, never a fault, never a mistake"; on Cary "I had Cary Grant in mind for four of my pictures . . . slipped through my net every time"; on the "Lubitsch Touch": "It was the elegant use of the super-joke." Wilder also remembers his early years in Vienna, working as a journalist in Berlin, rooming with Peter Lorre at the Chateau Marmont -- always with the same dry wit, tough-minded romanticism, and elegance that are the hallmarks of Wilder's films. This book is a classic of Hollywood history and lore.]]> 400 Cameron Crowe 0375709673 Greg 4 4.28 1999
author: Cameron Crowe
name: Greg
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/05
date added: 2023/09/06
shelves:
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]]> 62585956 Best Books of August 2023: InsideHook, WNET AllArts

A trenchant reclamation of the Chinese American movie star, whose battles against cinematic exploitation and endemic racism are set against the currents of twentieth-century history. Born into the steam and starch of a Chinese laundry, Anna May Wong (1905�1961) emerged from turn-of-the-century Los Angeles to become Old Hollywood’s most famous Chinese American actress, a screen siren who captivated global audiences and signed her publicity photos―with a touch of defiance―“Orientally yours.� Now, more than a century after her birth, Yunte Huang narrates Wong’s tragic life story, retracing her journey from Chinatown to silent-era Hollywood, and from Weimar Berlin to decadent, prewar Shanghai, and capturing American television in its infancy. As Huang shows, Wong’s rendezvous with history features a remarkable parade of characters, including a smitten Walter Benjamin and (an equally smitten) Marlene Dietrich. Challenging the parodically racist perceptions of Wong as a “Dragon Lady,� “Madame Butterfly,� or “China Doll,� Huang’s biography becomes a truly resonant work of history that reflects the raging anti-Chinese xenophobia, unabashed sexism, and ageism toward women that defined both Hollywood and America in Wong’s all-too-brief fifty-six years on earth. 40 black-and-white images]]> 400 Yunte Huang 1631495801 Greg 0 to-read 3.78 2023
author: Yunte Huang
name: Greg
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/04
shelves: to-read
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]]> 62560783
Now on a new side of the entertainment business, Edie’s second act career grants her more control on the page than she ever commanded in front of the camera. But Edie quickly learns that publishing the secrets of those former colleagues she considers friends has repercussions. And when she finds herself in the middle of the trial of the decade, Edie is forced to make an impossible choice with the potential to ruin more than one life.

Debut novelist Lindsay Lynch brings the golden age of Hollywood to glittering life, from star-studded opening nights to backlot brawls, on-location Westerns to the Hollywood Canteen. Through Edie's wry observations, Lynch maps the intricate networks of power that manufacture the magic of the movies, and interrogates who actually gets to tell women's stories.]]> 352 Lindsay Lynch 0385549377 Greg 0 to-read 3.16 2023
author: Lindsay Lynch
name: Greg
average rating: 3.16
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/04
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]]> 62622017 Ěý
Pirates have long captured our imaginations with images of cutlass-wielding swashbucklers, eye patches, and buried treasure. But what was life really like on a pirate ship? Piracy was a risky, sometimes deadly occupation, and strict orders were essential for everyone’s survival. These “Laws� were sets of rules that determined everything from how much each pirate earned from their plunder to compensation for injuries, punishments, and even the entertainment allowed on ships. These rules became known as the “Pirates� Code,� which all pirates had to publicly swear by. Using primary sources like eyewitness accounts, trial proceedings, and maritime logs, this book explains how each one of the pirate codes was the key to pirates� success in battle, on sea, and on land.]]> 336 Rebecca Simon 1789147115 Greg 0 to-read 3.91
author: Rebecca Simon
name: Greg
average rating: 3.91
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/04
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]]> 62926992
Lucy Hart knows better than anyone what it’s like to grow up without parents who loved her. In a childhood marked by neglect and loneliness, Lucy found her solace in books, namely the Clock Island series by Jack Masterson. Now a twenty-six-year-old teacher’s aide, she is able to share her love of reading with bright, young students, especially seven-year-old Christopher Lamb, who was left orphaned after the tragic death of his parents. Lucy would give anything to adopt Christopher, but even the idea of becoming a family seems like an impossible dream without proper funds and stability.

But be careful what you wish for. . . .

Just when Lucy is about to give up, Jack Masterson announces he’s finally written a new book. Even better, he’s holding a contest at his home on the real Clock Island, and Lucy is one of the four lucky contestants chosen to compete to win the one and only copy.

For Lucy, the chance of winning the most sought-after book in the world means everything to her and Christopher. But first she must contend with ruthless book collectors, wily opponents, and the distractingly handsome (and grumpy) Hugo Reese, the illustrator of the Clock Island books. Meanwhile, Jack “the Mastermind� Masterson is plotting the ultimate twist ending that could change all their lives forever.

. . . You might just get it.]]> 304 Meg Shaffer 0593598830 Greg 0 to-read 4.02 2023
author: Meg Shaffer
name: Greg
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/04
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]]> 567906 266 Robert Roberts 014013624X Greg 0 to-read 3.92 1973
author: Robert Roberts
name: Greg
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1973
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/04
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]]> 77773 From Connie Willis, winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, comes a comedic romp through an unpredictable world of mystery, love, and time travel.

Ned Henry is badly in need of a rest. He’s been shuttling between the twenty-first century and the 1940s in search of a hideous Victorian vase called “the bishop’s bird stump� as part of a project to restore the famed Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in a Nazi air raid.

But then Verity Kindle, a fellow time traveler, inadvertently brings back something from the past. Now Ned must jump to the Victorian era to help Verity put things right—not only to save the project but also to prevent altering history itself.]]> 493 Connie Willis 0553575384 Greg 0 to-read 4.11 1997
author: Connie Willis
name: Greg
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/04
shelves: to-read
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]]> 2091907 untested medium of talking pictures. Leading the way was a brand new American art the movie musical. Taking off like a shot from day one, this new genre instantly became the a quintessential form of American entertainment. Here for the first time is the story of this fabulous, forgotten age
when the movies learned to sing and dance.
Chronicling the early musical film years from 1926 to 1934, A Song in the Dark offers a fascinating look at these innovative films, the product of much of the major experimentation that went on during the development of sound technology. Illuminating the entire evolution of this new sound
medium, Richard Barrios shows how Hollywood, seeking to outdo Broadway and vaudeville, recruited both the famous and the unknown, the newest stars and the has-beens, the geniuses and the hustlers. The results were unlike anything the world had seen or backstage yarns, all-star revues,
grandiose operettas, outlandish hybrids--some wonderful, many innovative, a few ghastly. He recalls, for example, such monumental films as the 1927 hit The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson, the first feature film to include both talk and song. Corney, hokey, and repellently manipulative, it was by
most accounts, even by 1927 standards, a poor film. Yet, showcasing the spectacular and extremely popular Jolson, it created a new dimension of intensity that silent films could not duplicate, playing to over one million people per week across the country only three weeks after its release. He
discusses such memorable releases as The Broadway Melody (winner of the Academy Award for best film in 1929), the first true musical film that established movie musicals as potent and viable entertainment. Barrios goes on the offer in-depth discussions of innovative films such as The Desert Song ,
and On With the Show! , the first all-color talkie, as well as the more mature musicals of the 1930s including the Warner Brothers' "backstage" musicals of 1933-34 that started with 42nd Street and the Gold Diggers films. And, of course, he talks about the famed Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire
collaborations, such as Flying Down to Rio , which, with their sophisticated style and technique, established them as the premier film musical team.
Throughout, Barrios highlights the careers of the original great musical stars like Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Busby Berkeley, and Maurice Chevalier, and presents the films of newcomers such as Jeanette MacDonald, Bing Crosby, and Ruby Keeler. The fickle public rushed to see these stars--talking
and singing and dancing across the screen--then suddenly turned away. It took the Depression to bring back musicals, bigger and brassier than ever. The triumphs, disasters, and offscreen intrigue are all here in a fascinating story told with a blend of scholarly research, engaging writing, and
cogent criticism. With more than fifty photos, extensive annotations, and a discography, A Song in the Dark memorably recovers this vital and unique film heritage.]]> 512 Richard Barrios 0195088115 Greg 0 to-read 4.44 1995
author: Richard Barrios
name: Greg
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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]]> 21979832
As long as her father has a map for it, he can sail to any time, any place, real or imagined: nineteenth-century China, the land from One Thousand and One Nights, a mythic version of Africa. Along the way they have found crewmates and friends, and even a disarming thief who could come to mean much more to Nix.

But the end to it all looms closer every day.

Her father is obsessed with obtaining the one map, 1868 Honolulu, that could take him back to his lost love, Nix’s mother. Even though getting it—and going there—could erase Nix’s very existence.

For the first time, Nix is entering unknown waters.

She could find herself, find her family, find her own fantastical ability, her own epic love.

Or she could disappear.]]> 454 Heidi Heilig 0062380753 Greg 0 to-read 3.67 2016
author: Heidi Heilig
name: Greg
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/04
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]]> 31189156
Wanting the boy to have a chance to live a free life, Desmond assumes responsibility for him and they flee. But a dogged enemy agent remains ever on their heels, desperate to obtain the secrets held within Lij for her employer alone.

Assassins, intrigue, and steammen stand between Desmond and Lij as they search for a place to call home in a North America that could have been.]]> 145 Maurice Broaddus Greg 0 to-read 3.48 2017
author: Maurice Broaddus
name: Greg
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/04
shelves: to-read
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]]> 17707628 Fourteen chilling tales from the pioneering women who created the domestic suspense genre

Murderous wives, deranged husbands, deceitful children, and vengeful friends. Few know these characters—and their creators—better than Sarah Weinman. One of today’s preeminent authorities on crime fiction, Weinman asks: Where would bestselling authors like Gillian Flynn, Sue Grafton, or Tana French be without the women writers who came before them?

In Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives, Weinman brings together fourteen hair-raising tales by women who—from the 1940s through the mid-1970s—took a scalpel to contemporary society and sliced away to reveal its dark essence. Lovers of crime fiction from any era will welcome this deliciously dark tribute to a largely forgotten generation of women writers.]]> 356 Sarah Weinman 0143122541 Greg 0 to-read 4.04 2013
author: Sarah Weinman
name: Greg
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/04
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]]> 61193224
� North by Northwest isn’t about what happens to Cary Grant, it’s about what happens to his suit . The suit has the adventures, a gorgeous New York suit threading its way through America. The suit, Cary inside it, strides with confidence into the Plaza Hotel. Nothing bad happens to it until one of the greasy henchmen grasps Cary by the shoulder. We’re already in love with this suit and it feels like a real violation.�

Todd McEwen grew up in Southern California, so his head was hopelessly messed with by the movies. As the son of relatively normal people, Todd had no in with Hollywood, a mere thirteen miles away, yearn and try as he might.

This is a kid who loved the movies so much, he got up at 4:30 in the morning to watch Laurel and Hardy. A kid who insisted on his birthday that his father project 8mm cartoons onto the family’s dining room curtains so they could be slowly parted, just like at a real cinema.

This is a kid who liked to leave the movie and trudge up hundreds of dangerous iron steps to visit the lugubrious and always surprised projectionist. This is a kid who, years later, watched Chinatown over 60 times.

A love letter to old Hollywood, this is a book for anyone interested in film. Movies discussed include Blotto , The Wizard of Oz , The Three Stooges , To Catch a Thief , North by Northwest , The 39 Steps , The Trouble with Harry , and many, many more.]]> 168 Todd McEwen 1912559404 Greg 0 to-read 3.74 2023
author: Todd McEwen
name: Greg
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/04
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]]> 57693653 Equal parts biography, musicology, and cultural history, Dilla Time chronicles the life and legacy of J Dilla, a musical genius who transformed the sound of popular music for the twenty-first century.

He wasn’t known to mainstream audiences, even though he worked with renowned acts like D’Angelo and Erykah Badu and influenced the music of superstars like Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson. He died at the age of thirty-two, and in his lifetime he never had a pop hit. Yet since his death, J Dilla has become a demigod: revered by jazz musicians and rap icons from Robert Glasper to Kendrick Lamar; memorialized in symphonies and taught at universities. And at the core of this adulation is innovation: a new kind of musical time-feel that he created on a drum machine, but one that changed the way “traditional� musicians play.

In Dilla Time, Dan Charnas chronicles the life of James DeWitt Yancey, from his gifted childhood in Detroit, to his rise as a Grammy-nominated hip-hop producer, to the rare blood disease that caused his premature death; and follows the people who kept him and his ideas alive. He also rewinds the histories of American rhythms: from the birth of soul in Dilla’s own “Motown,� to funk, techno, and disco. Here, music is a story of Black culture in America and of what happens when human and machine times are synthesized into something new. Dilla Time is a different kind of book about music, a visual experience with graphics that build those concepts step by step for fans and novices alike, teaching us to “see� and feel rhythm in a unique and enjoyable way.

Dilla’s beats, startling some people with their seeming “sloppiness,� were actually the work of a perfectionist almost spiritually devoted to his music. This is the story of the man and his machines, his family, friends, partners, and celebrity collaborators. Culled from more than 150 interviews about one of the most important and influential musical figures of the past hundred years, Dilla Time is a book as delightfully detail-oriented and unique as J Dilla’s music itself.]]> 480 Dan Charnas 0374139946 Greg 0 to-read 4.56 2022
author: Dan Charnas
name: Greg
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/04
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]]> 7484549 216 Robert M. Coates Greg 0 to-read 3.93 1957
author: Robert M. Coates
name: Greg
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1957
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/04
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]]> 62967013
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.

But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.]]> 9 R.F. Kuang 0063250861 Greg 3 3.80 2023
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Greg
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/01
date added: 2023/09/01
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Probably 2.5 for me but I think the audiobook narrator might have turned what was already a hammer into a sledgehammer.
]]> 57259544 Billboard Magazine in 2017. They are one of the most iconic, bestselling brands in the entertainment world today, and their journey is one of the most extraordinary stories of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Temptations' heritage, influence, and contributions to American culture and the global music landscape is undeniable. The group produced some of the greatest music of our era and it transcends generations. Through the years, the group's trademark razor-sharp choreography, finely tuned harmonies, and compelling vocals made them the exemplars of the Motown sound. Their story is one of courage, struggle, triumphs, setbacks, and ultimately, international superstardom. As told by its founder, this is the frank, revealing story of the legendary supergroup, that is the source of the Emmy-winning television miniseries Temptations and the smash hit Broadway musical Ain't Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations, which won the 2019 Tony Award for Best Choreography.]]> 0 Otis Williams 166520186X Greg 4 4.38
author: Otis Williams
name: Greg
average rating: 4.38
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/29
date added: 2023/08/29
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]]> 11282501 Killer Verse: Poems of Murder and Mayhem is a spine-tingling collection of terrifically creepy poems about the deadly art of murder.

The villains and victims who populate these pages range from Cain and Abel and Bluebeard and his wives to Lizzie Borden, Jack the Ripper, and Mafia hit men. The literary forms they inhabit are just as varied, from the colorful melodramas of old Scottish ballads to the hard-boiled poetry of twentieth-century noir, from lighthearted comic riffs to profound poetic musings on murder. Robert Browning, Thomas Hardy, W. H. Auden, Stevie Smith, Mark Doty, Frank Bidart, Toi Derricotte, Lynn Emanuel, and Cornelius Eady are only a few of the many poets, old and new, whose work is captured in this heart-stopping—and criminally entertaining—collection.

]]> 255 Harold Schechter 0307700933 Greg 4 3.80 2011
author: Harold Schechter
name: Greg
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/26
date added: 2023/08/27
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]]> 151615530 From the author of the New York Times best seller Poser and the acclaimed memoir Love and Trouble, a passionate, provocative, blisteringly smart interrogation of how we make and experience art in the age of #MeToo, and of the link between genius and monstrosity.

In this unflinching, deeply personal book that expands on her instantly viral Paris Review essay, What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men? Claire Dederer asks: Can we love the work of Hemingway, Polanski, Naipaul, Miles Davis, or Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? Is male monstrosity the same as female monstrosity? Does art have a mandate to depict the darker elements of the psyche? And what happens if the artist stares too long into the abyss? She explores the audience's relationship with artists from Woody Allen to Michael Jackson, asking: How do we balance our undeniable sense of moral outrage with our equally undeniable love of the work? In a more troubling vein, she wonders if an artist needs to be a monster in order to create something great. And if an artist is also a mother, does one identity inexorably, and fatally, interrupt the other? Highly topical, morally wise, honest to the core, Monsters is certain to incite a conversation about whether and how we can separate artists from their art.]]> 9 Claire Dederer Greg 4 3.82 2023
author: Claire Dederer
name: Greg
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/26
date added: 2023/08/26
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]]> 195474144 From the bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Rules of Civility, a richly detailed and sharply drawn collection of stories set in New York and Los Angeles. The millions of readers of Amor Towles are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter six stories set in New York City and a novella in Los Angeles. The New York stories, most of which are set around the turn of the millennium, take up everything from the death-defying acrobatics of the male ego, to the fateful consequences of brief encounters, and the delicate mechanics of compromise which operate at the heart of modern marriages. In Towles’s novel, Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September, 1938, with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, “Eve in Hollywood� describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself—and others—in the midst of Hollywood’s golden age. Throughout the stories, two characters often find themselves sitting across a table for two where the direction of their futures may hinge upon what they say to each other next. Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting historical fiction.]]> 451 Amor Towles 0593296370 Greg 0 to-read 4.15 2024
author: Amor Towles
name: Greg
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/25
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]]> 134744414 230 F. Scott Fitzgerald 9356569800 Greg 4 4.00 1926
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Greg
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1926
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/25
date added: 2023/08/25
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]]> 56496312
Nella Larsen’s fascinating exploration of race and identity—the inspiration for the Netflix film directed by Rebecca Hall, starring Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga.

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.]]> 4 Nella Larsen Greg 5 3.93 1929
author: Nella Larsen
name: Greg
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1929
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/24
date added: 2023/08/24
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]]> 30760693
The volume is divided into three sections to provide a contextual analysis of Disney's most famous
· DISNEY ON FILM
· DISNEY ON STAGE AND BEYOND
· DISNEY GENDER AND RACE

The first section employs film theory, semiotics and film music analysis to explore the animated works and their links to the musical theatre genre. The second section addresses various stage versions and considers Disney's outreach activities, cultural value and productions outside the Broadway theatrical arena. The final section focuses on issues of gender and race portraying representations of race, hetero-normativity, masculinity and femininity in Newsies , Frozen , High School Musical , Aladdin and The Jungle Book .

The various chapters address these three aspects of the Disney Musical and offer new critical readings of a vast range of important works from the Disney musical cannon including Enchanted, Mary Poppins, Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Lion King and versions of musicals for television in the early 1990s and 2000s. The critical readings are detailed, open-minded and come to surprising conclusions about the nature of the Disney Musical and its impact.]]> 272 George Rodosthenous 147423416X Greg 0 to-read 4.00 2017
author: George Rodosthenous
name: Greg
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> 63115754 Carl Barks delivers another wildly imaginative collection of outrageous adventures, laugh-out-loud comedy, and all-around comic book brilliance. Each page is meticulously restored and newly colored, with insightful story notes by an international panel of Barks experts.]]> 208 Carl Barks 1683967631 Greg 0 3.95 2023
author: Carl Barks
name: Greg
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2023/08/22
date added: 2023/08/23
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]]> 61089442 288 Nathan Vardi 0393540952 Greg 2 not-my-choice-read-for-work 4.24
author: Nathan Vardi
name: Greg
average rating: 4.24
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2023/08/22
date added: 2023/08/22
shelves: not-my-choice-read-for-work
review:

]]>