Kristina's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 31 May 2024 05:47:10 -0700 60 Kristina's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1)]]> 85302 here.

World-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a cryptic symbol seared into the chest of a murdered physicist. What he discovers is unimaginable: a deadly vendetta against the Catholic Church by a centuries-old underground organization--- the Illuminati. Desperate to save the Vatican from a powerful time bomb, Langdon joins forces in Rome with the beautiful and mysterious scientist Vittoria Vetra. Together they embark on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and the most secretive vault on the earth... the long-forgotten Illuminati lair.]]>
569 Dan Brown 0671027360 Kristina 0 3.75 2000 Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1)
author: Dan Brown
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Swann’s Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1)]]> 133539
He claims that people are defined by the objects that surround them and must piece together their identities bit by bit each time they wake up. The young Marcel is so nervous about sleeping alone that he looks forward to his mother's goodnight kisses, but also dreads them as a sign of an impending sleepless night. One night, when Charles Swann, a friend of his grandparents, is visiting, his mother cannot come kiss him goodnight. He stays up until Swann leaves and looks so sad and pitiful that even his disciplinarian father encourages "Mamma" to spend the night in Marcel's room.]]>
615 Marcel Proust 0375751548 Kristina 0 to-read 4.28 1913 Swann’s Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1)
author: Marcel Proust
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1913
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Within a Budding Grove (In Search of Lost Time, #2)]]> 9484 Within a Budding Grove was awarded the Prix Goncourt, bringing the author immediate fame. In this second volume of In Search of Lost Time, the narrator turns from the childhood reminiscences of Swann’s Way to memories of his adolescence. Having gradually become indifferent to Swann’s daughter Gilberte, the narrator visits the seaside resort of Balbec with his grandmother and meets a new object of attention—Albertine, “a girl with brilliant, laughing eyes and plump, matt cheeks.â€�

For this authoritative English-language edition, D. J. Enright has revised the late Terence Kilmartin’s acclaimed reworking of C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s translation to take into account the new definitive French editions of Á la recherchĂ© du temps perdu (the final volume of these new editions was published by the BibliothĂšque de la PlĂ©iade in 1989).]]>
749 Marcel Proust 0375752196 Kristina 0 to-read 4.39 1919 Within a Budding Grove (In Search of Lost Time, #2)
author: Marcel Proust
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1919
rating: 0
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The Complete Novels 2153 This ISBN was used on multiple editions, published 1981-1994.

Collected together in one volume, The Complete Novels show the development of Austen as a writer and social commentator. From the early optimism and youthful energy of Northanger Abbey to the quiet and subtle art of Persuasion, this collection reveals the breadth of one of the best loved novelists of all time.]]>
1103 Jane Austen 0517118297 Kristina 0 to-read 4.60 1981 The Complete Novels
author: Jane Austen
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.60
book published: 1981
rating: 0
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The Children of HĂșrin 108600 The Silmarillion in 1977--The Children of HĂșrin reunites fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves and Men, dragons and Dwarves, Eagles and Orcs. Presented for the first time as a complete, standalone story, this stirring narrative will appeal to casual fans and expert readers alike, returning them to the rich landscape and characters unique to Tolkien.

A Look Inside the Book
This first edition of The Children of HĂșrin is illustrated by Alan Lee, who was already well-known for his Tolkien illustrations in previous editions (see our Tolkien Store for more) as well as his classic collaboration with Brian Froud, Faeries, and his Kate Greenaway Medal-winning Black Ships Before Troy, before his Oscar-winning work as conceptual designer for Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy brought him even greater acclaim.]]>
320 J.R.R. Tolkien 0618904417 Kristina 0 to-read 4.03 2007 The Children of HĂșrin
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)]]> 49116
Now he has escaped, leaving only two clues as to where he might be headed: Harry Potter's defeat of You-Know-Who was Black's downfall as well. And the Azkaban guards heard Black muttering in his sleep, "He's at Hogwarts...he's at Hogwarts."

Harry Potter isn't safe, not even within the walls of his magical school, surrounded by his friends. because on top of it all, there may well be a traitor in their midst.

(front flap)]]>
435 J.K. Rowling Kristina 0 4.57 1999 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/04/25
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Inherit the Wind 74104 One of the most moving and meaningful plays in American theater

The accused was a slight, frightened man who hadÌęÌędeliberately broken the law. His trial was a RomanÌęcircus. The chief gladiators were two great legalÌęÌęgiants of the century. Like two bull elephantsÌęÌęlocked in mortal combat, they bellowed and roaredÌęÌęimprecations and abuse. The spectators sat uneasilyÌęÌęin the sweltering heat with murder in their hearts,Ìębarely able to restrain themselves.

At stake wasÌęÌęthe freedom of every American.]]>
129 Jerome Lawrence 0345466276 Kristina 0 3.82 1955 Inherit the Wind
author: Jerome Lawrence
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1955
rating: 0
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Lolita 18133 Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov's most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Most of all, it is a meditation on love—love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.]]> 317 Vladimir Nabokov Kristina 0 to-read 3.97 1955 Lolita
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1955
rating: 0
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Pride and Prejudice 1886 This is an alternative cover edition for ISBN 9780141439518

Since its immediate success in 1813, Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen called this brilliant work "her own darling child" and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print." The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen's radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.]]>
367 Jane Austen Kristina 0 4.29 1813 Pride and Prejudice
author: Jane Austen
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1813
rating: 0
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Night 231614 --back cover]]> 109 Elie Wiesel 0553272535 Kristina 0 4.29 1956 Night
author: Elie Wiesel
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1956
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/05/03
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<![CDATA[The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Combined Set]]> 310882 3024 M.H. Abrams 0393928292 Kristina 0 4.05 1962 The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Combined Set
author: M.H. Abrams
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/01/14
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The Book Thief 1118668
It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.

By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

READING GROUP GUIDE ENCLOSED]]>
550 Markus Zusak Kristina 0 to-read 4.43 2005 The Book Thief
author: Markus Zusak
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2005
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<![CDATA[The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America]]> 259028 447 Erik Larson 0375725601 Kristina 0 3.97 2003 The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
author: Erik Larson
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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Heart of Darkness 117837 Alternative cover edition found here

Dark allegory describes the narrator's journey up the Congo River and his meeting with, and fascination by, Mr. Kurtz, a mysterious personage who dominates the unruly inhabitants of the region. Masterly blend of adventure, character development, psychological penetration. Considered by many Conrad's finest, most enigmatic story.]]>
72 Joseph Conrad 0486264645 Kristina 0 3.35 1899 Heart of Darkness
author: Joseph Conrad
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.35
book published: 1899
rating: 0
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Heart of Darkness 1019937 Adopted at more than 1,000 colleges and universities, Bedford/St. Martin's innovative Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism series has introduced more than a quarter of a million students to literary theory and earned enthusiastic praise nationwide. Along with an authoritative text of a major literary work, each volume presents critical essays, selected or prepared especially for students, that approach the work from several contemporary critical perspectives, such as gender criticism and cultural studies. Each essay is accompanied by an introduction (with bibliography) to the history, principles, and practice of its critical perspective. Every volume also surveys the biographical, historical, and critical contexts of the literary work and concludes with a glossary of critical terms. New editions reprint cultural documents that contextualize the literary works and feature essays that show how critical perspectives can be combined.
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315 Joseph Conrad 0312114915 Kristina 0 3.44 1899 Heart of Darkness
author: Joseph Conrad
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.44
book published: 1899
rating: 0
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An Abundance of Katherines 1320817 236 John Green Kristina 0 3.53 2006 An Abundance of Katherines
author: John Green
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2006
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<![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)]]> 49852
And yet �

As in all wars, life goes on. Sixth-year students learn to Apparate, and lose a few eyebrows in the process. The Weasley twins expand their business. Teenagers flirt and fight and fall in love. Classes are never straightforward, though Harry receives some extraordinary help from the mysterious Half-Blood Prince.

So it's the home front that takes center stage in the multilayered sixth installment of the story of Harry Potter. Here at Hogwarts, Harry will search for the full and complex story of the boy who became Lord Voldemort - and thereby find what may be his only vulnerability.]]>
652 J.K. Rowling 0439784549 Kristina 0 4.64 2005 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.64
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2014/06/22
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<![CDATA[The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)]]> 85266 This item does not meet our catalog guidelines and can no longer be rated or reviewed.
Please add this edition to your shelf instead:
The da Vinci Code]]>
454 Dan Brown Kristina 0 3.81 2003 The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)
author: Dan Brown
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2014/06/05
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Dracula 70981 400 Bram Stoker 055321148X Kristina 0 to-read 3.96 1897 Dracula
author: Bram Stoker
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1897
rating: 0
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Villette 2659330 Villette, Charlotte Brontë reached the height of her artistic power. First published in 1853, Villette is Brontë's most accomplished and deeply felt work, eclipsing even Jane Eyre in critical acclaim. Her narrator, the autobiographical Lucy Snowe, flees England and a tragic past to become an instructor in a French boarding school in the town of Villette. There she unexpectedly confronts her feelings of love and longing as she witnesses the fitful romance between Dr. John, a handsome young Englishman, and Ginerva Fanshawe, a beautiful coquette. The first pain brings others, and with them comes the heartache Lucy has tried so long to escape. Yet in spite of adversity and disappointment, Lucy Snowe survives to recount the unstinting vision of a turbulent life's journey - a journey that is one of the most insightful fictional studies of a woman's consciousness in English literature.]]> 542 Charlotte Brontë 0460872478 Kristina 0 to-read 3.54 1853 Villette
author: Charlotte Brontë
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.54
book published: 1853
rating: 0
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date added: 2014/03/21
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<![CDATA[The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Edition]]> 1416 3420 Stephen Greenblatt 0393041077 Kristina 0 4.59 1972 The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Edition
author: Stephen Greenblatt
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.59
book published: 1972
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/09/27
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The Silmarillion 77673 365 J.R.R. Tolkien 0395257301 Kristina 0 to-read 4.06 1977 The Silmarillion
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1977
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/12/22
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Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell 259035 The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me...

The year is 1806. England is beleaguered by the long war with Napoleon, and centuries have passed since practical magicians faded into the nation's past. But scholars of this glorious history discover that one remains: the reclusive Mr Norrell whose displays of magic send a thrill through the country. Proceeding to London, he raises a beautiful woman from the dead and summons an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French. Yet the cautious, fussy Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange. Young, handsome and daring, Strange is the very opposite of Norrell. So begins a dangerous battle between these two great men which overwhelms the one between England and France. And their own obsessions and secret dabblings with the dark arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine.]]>
849 Susanna Clarke 1582346038 Kristina 0 to-read 3.95 2004 Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/12/03
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<![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)]]> 820343
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607 J.K. Rowling 0747591059 Kristina 0 4.64 2007 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.64
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at: 2011/07/16
date added: 2012/11/01
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<![CDATA[The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1A: The Middle Ages]]> 49936 532 m-h-abrams-greenblatt 0393975657 Kristina 0 3.57 1999 The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1A: The Middle Ages
author: m-h-abrams-greenblatt
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/10/28
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Thunderstruck 826342
In Thunderstruck , Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men—Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication—whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.

Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when great shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest ocean liners; scientific advances dazzled the public with visions of a world transformed; and the rich outdid one another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this background, Marconi races against incredible odds and relentless skepticism to perfect his the wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, “the kindest of men,â€� nearly commits the perfect murder.

With hisÌęunparalleled narrative skills, Erik Larson guides us through a relentlessly suspenseful chaseÌęover the waters of the North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic love affair that was described on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover, and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way we communicate.]]>
392 Erik Larson 1400080673 Kristina 0 3.81 2006 Thunderstruck
author: Erik Larson
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2011/04/17
date added: 2012/10/13
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<![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)]]> 77522
Problems are cropping up at Hogwarts, too, where government officials are meddling in just about everything. And just because Voldemort and the Death Eaters are threatening open warfare does not mean that fifth-year students get out of their exams. Meanwhile, Harry's powerful connection to Voldemort seems to be growing even stronger, as he realizes that he has direct access to the Dark Lord's mind. It's time for Harry and his friends to take drastic action, but the course they choose will have terrible unforeseen consequences.

Truly dangerous times have arrived in the fifth Harry Potter novel, but it never loses the trademark fun, excitement, and wonder at the possibilities of magic.]]>
870 J.K. Rowling Kristina 0 4.54 2003 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/07/18
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The Old Curiosity Shop 429024 The Old Curiosity Shop is edited with notes and an introduction by Norman Page in Penguin Classics.

Little Nell Trent lives in the quiet gloom of the old curiosity shop with her ailing grandfather, for whom she cares with selfless devotion. But when they are unable to pay their debts to the stunted, lecherous and demonic money-lender Daniel Quilp, the shop is seized and they are forced to flee, thrown into a shadowy world in which there seems to be no safe haven. Dickens's portrayal of the innocent, tragic Nell made The Old Curiosity Shop an instant bestseller that captured the hearts of the nation, even as it was criticised for its sentimentality by figures such as Oscar Wilde. Yet alongside the story's pathos are some of Dickens's greatest comic and grotesque creations: the ne'er-do-well Dick Swiveller, the mannish lawyer Sally Brass, the half-starved 'Marchioness' and the lustful, loathsome Quilp himself.

This edition, based on the original text of 1841, contains an introduction by Norman Page discussing the various contrasting themes of the novel and its roots in Dickens's own personal tragedy, with prefaces to the 1841 and 1848 editions, a chronology, notes and original illustrations produced for the serial version.

Charles Dickens is one of the best-loved novelists in the English language, whose 200th anniversary was celebrated in 2012. His most famous books, including Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield and The Pickwick Papers, have been adapted for stage and screen and read by millions.

If you enjoyed The Old Curiosity Shop, you might like Dickens's Hard Times, also available in Penguin Classics.]]>
576 Charles Dickens 0140437428 Kristina 0 to-read 3.77 1840 The Old Curiosity Shop
author: Charles Dickens
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1840
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The Tales of Beedle the Bard 4020390
Additional notes for each story penned by Professor Albus Dumbledore will be enjoyed by Muggles and wizards alike, as the Professor muses on the morals illuminated by the tales, and reveals snippets of information about life at Hogwarts.

A uniquely magical volume, with illustrations by the author, J. K. Rowling, that will be treasured for years to come.]]>
111 J.K. Rowling 0545128285 Kristina 0 3.94 2008 The Tales of Beedle the Bard
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction]]> 518428
Cheeky, irreverent and playfully ingenuous, this abbreviated history of democracy is everything one would expect from the writers of Comedy Central's fake news program, which recently (and somewhat scandalously) won the Television Critics Association's award for outstanding news and public affairs series. The book is laid out like a textbook, with "Discussion Questions" ("Why do you think the Framers made the Constitution so soul-crushingly boring?"), "Classroom Activities" ("Using felt and yarn, make a hand puppet of Clarence Thomas. Ta-da! You're Antonin Scalia!") and plenty of amusing graphics, including a board game that resembles the game Life but which follows a presidential term: "Optimistic press release on economy ineffective. Spin again." No one evades the authors' scrutiny, not even the Pilgrims, who came to America "to escape religious persecution... create a society where they could worship as they pleased and one day, God willing, even do some persecuting of their own." The media fares the worst, however. An entire chapter is devoted to telling the "inspirational" story of how the media "transformed itself from a mere public necessity into an entertaining profit center for ever-expanding corporate empires." But if this and other criticisms kindle a few unpatriotic feelings, a section describing how worse off the rest of the world is should buoy spirits. From its dedication ("To the huddled masses—Keep yearnin'!") to its final chapter, which lampoons the 2004 presidential candidates, this humorous sendup of American politics never fails to entertain, poke fun and provoke thought.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.]]>
227 Jon Stewart 0446532681 Kristina 0 4.08 2004 America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
author: Jon Stewart
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/08/01
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<![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)]]> 136251
In this final, seventh installment of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling unveils in spectacular fashion the answers to the many questions that have been so eagerly awaited.]]>
759 J.K. Rowling Kristina 0 4.61 2007 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/07/11
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<![CDATA[Sum: Tales from the Afterlives]]> 8109006 110 David Eagleman 1847674283 Kristina 0 currently-reading 4.08 2009 Sum: Tales from the Afterlives
author: David Eagleman
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/06/27
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Deadline (Newsflesh, #2) 8429687
But when a CDC researcher fakes her own death and appears on his doorstep with a ravenous pack of zombies in tow, Shaun has a newfound interest in life. Because she brings news-he may have put down the monster who attacked them, but the conspiracy is far from dead.

Now, Shaun hits the road to find what truth can be found at the end of a shotgun.

Newsflesh
Feed
Deadline
Blackout]]>
584 Mira Grant 031608106X Kristina 0 to-read 4.09 2011 Deadline (Newsflesh, #2)
author: Mira Grant
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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Little Black Book of Stories 435300 Book by A.S. BYATT 279 A.S. Byatt 0099429950 Kristina 0 to-read 3.62 2003 Little Black Book of Stories
author: A.S. Byatt
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/06/27
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<![CDATA[Tickling The English: A funny man's notes on a country and its people]]> 7329255

Originally published: 2009 by Michael Joseph.]]>
320 Dara O'brian 014104666X Kristina 0 3.59 2009 Tickling The English: A funny man's notes on a country and its people
author: Dara O'brian
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at: 2011/06/18
date added: 2011/06/18
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<![CDATA[The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam, #2)]]> 6891151
But two young women have survived: Ren, a young dancer trapped where she worked, in an upmarket sex club (the cleanest dirty girls in town); and Toby, who watches and waits from her rooftop garden.

Is anyone else out there?]]>
518 Margaret Atwood 1844085643 Kristina 0 to-read 3.97 2009 The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam, #2)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/05/29
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<![CDATA[Consider the Lobster and Other Essays]]> 6751
Contains: "Big Red Son," "Certainly the End of Something or Other, One Would Sort of Have to Think," "Some Remarks on Kafka's Funniness from Which Probably Not Enough Has Been Removed," "Authority and American Usage," "The View from Mrs. Thompson's," "How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart," "Up, Simba," "Consider the Lobster," "Joseph Frank's Dostoevsky" and "Host."]]>
343 David Foster Wallace 0316156116 Kristina 0 currently-reading 4.19 2005 Consider the Lobster and Other Essays
author: David Foster Wallace
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/05/28
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<![CDATA[The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time]]> 1618 226 Mark Haddon 1400032717 Kristina 0 3.89 2003 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
author: Mark Haddon
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2011/05/26
date added: 2011/05/26
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Oryx and Crake 856096 436 Margaret Atwood 1844080560 Kristina 0 4.07 2003 Oryx and Crake
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2011/05/25
date added: 2011/05/25
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<![CDATA[One of Our Thursdays Is Missing (Thursday Next, #6)]]> 8131227 The newest tour de force from The New York Times bestselling author of Thursday Next and Shades of Grey.

Jasper Fforde's exuberant return to the fantastical BookWorld opens during a time of great unrest. All-out Genre war is rumbling, and the BookWorld desperately needs a heroine like Thursday Next. But with the real Thursday apparently retired to the Realworld, the Council of Genres turns to the written Thursday.

The Council wants her to pretend to be the real Thursday and travel as a peacekeeping emissary to the warring factions. A trip up the mighty Metaphoric River beckons-a trip that will reveal a fiendish plot that threatens the very fabric of the BookWorld itself.

Once again New York Times bestselling author Jasper Fforde has a field day gleefully blending satire, romance, and thriller with literary allusions galore in a fantastic adventure through the landscape of a frisky and fertile imagination. Fans will rejoice that their favorite character in the Fforde universe is back.

Watch a Video]]>
362 Jasper Fforde 1456123688 Kristina 0 3.96 2011 One of Our Thursdays Is Missing (Thursday Next, #6)
author: Jasper Fforde
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2011/04/26
date added: 2011/04/28
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Lost Ones: Ghosts of Paris 10025899 168 Christie Franke 0979587190 Kristina 0 to-read 5.00 2010 Lost Ones: Ghosts of Paris
author: Christie Franke
name: Kristina
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/04/17
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<![CDATA[The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)]]> 38447
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.]]>
311 Margaret Atwood 038549081X Kristina 0 to-read 4.15 1985 The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, Tinctures, Tonics, and Essences; With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory]]> 3573608 How many words does you know?

Noam Chomsky: Normally, humans, by maturity, have tens of thousands of them.

Ali G: What is some of 'em?

-Da Ali G Show

Did you know that both mammal and matter derive from baby talk? Have you noticed how wince makes you wince? Ever wonder why so many h-words have to do with breath?

Roy Blount Jr. certainly has, and after forty years of making a living using words in every medium, print or electronic, except greeting cards, he still can't get over his ABCs. In Alphabet Juice, he celebrates the electricity, the juju, the sonic and kinetic energies, of letters and their combinations. Blount does not prescribe proper English. The franchise he claims is "over the counter."

Three and a half centuries ago, Thomas Blount produced Blount's Glossographia, the first dictionary to explore derivations of English words. This Blount's Glossographia takes that pursuit to other levels, from Proto-Indo-European roots to your epiglottis. It rejects the standard linguistic notion that the connection between words and their meanings is "arbitrary." Even the word arbitrary is shown to be no more arbitrary, at its root, than go-to guy or crackerjack. From sources as venerable as the OED (in which Blount finds an inconsistency, at whisk) and as fresh as Urbandictionary.com (to which Blount has contributed the number-one definition of alligator arm), and especially from the author's own wide-ranging experience, Alphabet Juice derives an organic take on language that is unlike, and more fun than, any other.]]>
364 Roy Blount Jr. 0374103690 Kristina 0 to-read 3.61 2008 Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, Tinctures, Tonics, and Essences; With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory
author: Roy Blount Jr.
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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Feed (Newsflesh, #1) 7094569
The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED. Now, twenty years after the Rising, bloggers Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives—the dark conspiracy behind the infected.

The truth will get out, even if it kills them.]]>
599 Mira Grant 0316081051 Kristina 0 to-read 3.85 2010 Feed (Newsflesh, #1)
author: Mira Grant
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race]]> 8163722
Where do we come from? Who created us? Why are we here? These questions have puzzled us since the dawn of time, but when it became apparent to Jon Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show that the world was about to end, they embarked on a massive mission to write a book that summed up the human race: What we looked like; what we accomplished; our achievements in society, government, religion, science and culture -- all in a tome of approximately 256 pages with lots of color photos, graphs and charts.

After two weeks of hard work, they had their book. Earth (The Book) is the definitive guide to our species. With their trademark wit, irreverence, and intelligence, Stewart and his team will posthumously answer all of life's most hard-hitting questions, completely unburdened by objectivity, journalistic integrity, or even accuracy.]]>
246 Jon Stewart 044657922X Kristina 0 to-read 3.91 2010 Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race
author: Jon Stewart
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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The Cry of the Sloth 6510090 224 Sam Savage 1566892317 Kristina 0 to-read 3.12 2009 The Cry of the Sloth
author: Sam Savage
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.12
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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Letters to a Young Poet 5998324 76 Rainer Maria Rilke 1607960265 Kristina 0 to-read 4.23 1929 Letters to a Young Poet
author: Rainer Maria Rilke
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1929
rating: 0
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We 76173
As relevant today as when it was first published, We is the first modern dystopian novel which inspired both Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World.

The citizens of the One State live in a condition of 'mathematically infallible happiness'. D-503 decides to keep a diary of his days working for the collective good in this clean, blue city state where nature, privacy and individual liberty have been eradicated. But over the course of his journal D-503 suddenly finds himself caught up in unthinkable and illegal activities - love and rebellion.

Banned on its publication in Russia in 1921, We is the first modern dystopian novel and a satire on state control that has once again become chillingly relevant.]]>
203 Yevgeny Zamyatin 081297462X Kristina 0 to-read 3.95 1924 We
author: Yevgeny Zamyatin
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1924
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[America Unchained: A Freewheeling Roadtrip in Search of Non-Corporate USA]]> 407476
Dismayed by the relentless onslaught of faceless American chains muscling in where local businesses had once thrived, Dave Gorman set off on the ultimate American road trip - in search of the true, independent heart of the U S of A. He would eat cherry pie from local diners, re-fuel at dusty gas stations on remote highways and stock up on supplies from Mom and Pop's grocery store. At least that was the idea. But in a world of 30,000 McDonalds, 13,000 Starbucks, and 4,200 Best Westerns, could it really be done?

When did you last see an independent gas station?





Gamely, Dave beds down in a Colorado trailer park, sleeps in an Oregon forest treehouse, and even spends Thanksgiving with a Mexican family in Kansas. But when his classic coast-to-coast trip mutates into an odyssey of near-epic proportions and he finds himself being threatened at gun point in Mississippi, Dave starts to worry about what's going to break down next. The car... or him?]]>
378 Dave Gorman 0091899338 Kristina 0 to-read 3.85 2007 America Unchained: A Freewheeling Roadtrip in Search of Non-Corporate USA
author: Dave Gorman
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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The Way of the World 191275 124 William Congreve 1406946303 Kristina 0 to-read 3.33 1700 The Way of the World
author: William Congreve
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.33
book published: 1700
rating: 0
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The Moon is a Harsh Mistress 349 The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was the last of these Hugo-winning novels, and it is widely considered his finest work.

It is a tale of revolution, of the rebellion of the former Lunar penal colony against the Lunar Authority that controls it from Earth. It is the tale of the disparate people - a computer technician, a vigorous young female agitator, and an elderly academic - who become the rebel movement's leaders. And it is the story of Mike, the supercomputer whose sentience is known only to this inner circle, and who for reasons of his own is committed to the revolution's ultimate success.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is one of the high points of modern science fiction, a novel bursting with politics, humanity, passion, innovative technical speculation, and a firm belief in the pursuit of human freedom.

Cover illustration by Bob Eggleton

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382 Robert A. Heinlein 0312863551 Kristina 0 to-read 4.07 1966 The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
author: Robert A. Heinlein
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1966
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature]]> 2813972
"Curious, inventive, fearless, naughty."
--The New York Times Book Review

Bestselling author Steven Pinker possesses that rare combination of scientific aptitude and verbal eloquence that enables him to provide lucid explanations of deep and powerful ideas. His previous books - including the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Blank Slate - have catapulted him into the limelight as one of today's most important popular science writers. In The Stuff of Thought , Pinker presents a fascinating look at how our words explain our nature. Considering scientific questions with examples from everyday life, The Stuff of Thought is a brilliantly crafted and highly readable work that will appeal to fans of everything from The Selfish Gene and Blink to Eats, Shoots & Leaves .]]>
499 Steven Pinker 0143114247 Kristina 0 to-read 3.88 2007 The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature
author: Steven Pinker
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2007
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Marry Me: A Romance 2264611 321 John Updike 0141189401 Kristina 0 to-read 3.50 1976 Marry Me: A Romance
author: John Updike
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1976
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education]]> 6954133 The Death and Life of the Great American School System is a radical change of heart from one of America’s best-known education experts.

Diane Ravitch—former assistant secretary of education and a leader in the drive to create a national curriculum—examines her career in education reform and repudiates positions that she once staunchly advocated. Drawing on over forty years of research and experience, Ravitch critiques today’s most popular ideas for restructuring schools, including privatization, standardized testing, punitive accountability, and the feckless multiplication of charter schools. She shows conclusively why the business model is not an appropriate way to improve schools. Using examples from major cities like New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, and San Diego, Ravitch makes the case that public education today is in peril.

Ravitch includes clear prescriptions for improving America’s schools:
*Leave decisions about schools to educators, not politicians or businessmen
*Devise a truly national curriculum that sets out what children in every grade should be learning
*Expect charter schools to educate the kids who need help the most, not to compete with public schools
*Pay teachers a fair wage for their work, not “merit payâ€� based on deeply flawed and unreliable test scores
*Encourage family involvement in education from an early age
The Death and Life of the Great American School System is more than just an analysis of the state of play of the American education system. It is a must-read for any stakeholder in the future of American schooling.]]>
283 Diane Ravitch 0465014917 Kristina 0 to-read 4.05 2010 The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
author: Diane Ravitch
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1)]]> 77566 500 Dan Simmons 0553283685 Kristina 0 to-read 4.26 1989 Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1)
author: Dan Simmons
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Things I've Been Silent About: Memories of a Prodigal Daughter]]> 6403648
In this stunning personal story of growing up in Iran, Azar Nafisi shares her memories of living in thrall to a powerful and complex mother against the backdrop of a country’s political revolution. A girl’s pain over family secrets, a young woman’s discovery of the power of sensuality in literature, the price a family pays for freedom in a country beset by upheaval—these and other threads are woven together in this beautiful memoir as a gifted storyteller once again transforms the way we see the world and “reminds us of why we read in the first placeâ€� (Newsday).

Praise for Things I've Been Silent About

“Deeply felt . . . an affecting account of a family’s struggle.â€� â€� New York Times
ÌęÌę
“A gifted storyteller with a mastery of Western literature, Nafisi knows how to use language both to settle scores and to seduce.â€� â€� New York Times Book Review
Ìę
Ìę“An immensely rewarding and beautifully written act of courage, by turns amusing, tender and obsessively dogged.â€� —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Ìę
“A lyrical, often wrenching memoir.â€� â€� PeopleÌę]]>
368 Azar Nafisi 0812973909 Kristina 0 to-read 3.66 2008 Things I've Been Silent About: Memories of a Prodigal Daughter
author: Azar Nafisi
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Road to Mars: A Post-Modem Novel]]> 803162 Is the funny bone funny?
What is the algebra of comedy?
Did the sitcom originate with the ape?

Carlton is an android (a 4.5 Bowie Artificial IntelligenceÌęÌęRobot) who works for Alex and Lewis, two comedians from the twenty-second century who travel the outer vaudeville circuit of the solar system known ironically as the Road to Mars. His problem is that although as a computer he cannot understand irony, he is attempting to write a thesis about comedy, its place in evolution, and whether it can ever be cured. And he is also studying the comedians of the late twentieth century (including obscure and esoteric comedy acts such as Monty Python's Flying Circus) in his search for the comedy gene.
ÌęÌęÌęÌęÌęÌęÌęÌę
In the meantime, while auditioning for a gig on the Princess Di (a solar cruise ship), his two employers inadvertently offend the fabulous diva Brenda Woolley and become involved in a terrorist plot against Mars, the home of Showbiz.

Can Carlton prevent Alex and Lewis from losing their gigs, help them overcome the love thing, and finally understand the meaning of comedy in the universe?ÌęÌęWill a robot ever really be able to do stand-up? As Einstein might have said, nothing in the universe can travel faster than the speed of laughter.

The Road to Mars was named one of the best books of 1999 by the Los Angeles Times .]]>
320 Eric Idle 037540340X Kristina 0 to-read 3.38 1990 The Road to Mars: A Post-Modem Novel
author: Eric Idle
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.38
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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Infinite Jest 75786 A gargantuan, mind-altering tragi-comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in America.

Infinite Jest is the name of a movie said to be so entertaining that anyone who watches it loses all desire to do anything but watch. People die happily, viewing it in endless repetition. The novel Infinite Jest is the story of this addictive entertainment, and in particular how it affects a Boston halfway house for recovering addicts and a nearby tennis academy, whose students have many budding addictions of their own. As the novel unfolds, various individuals, organizations, and governments vie to obtain the master copy of Infinite Jest for their own ends, and the denizens of the tennis school and halfway house are caught up in increasingly desperate efforts to control the movie—as is a cast including burglars, transvestite muggers, scam artists, medical professionals, pro football stars, bookies, drug addicts both active and recovering, film students, political assassins, and one of the most endearingly messed-up families ever captured in a novel.

On this outrageous frame hangs an exploration of essential questions about what entertainment is, and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment interacts with our need to connect with other humans; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are. Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction without sacrificing for a moment its own entertainment value. The huge cast and multilevel narrative serve a story that accelerates to a breathtaking, heartbreaking, unforgettable conclusion. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human and one of those rare books that renew the very idea of what a novel can do.]]>
1079 David Foster Wallace 0316066524 Kristina 0 to-read 4.30 1996 Infinite Jest
author: David Foster Wallace
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson]]> 112204 THE ONLY ONE-VOLUME EDITION CONTAINING ALL 1,775 OF EMILY DICKINSON’S POEMS

Only eleven of Emily Dickinson’s poems were published prior to her death in 1886; the startling originality of her work doomed it to obscurity in her lifetime. Early posthumously published collections-some of them featuring liberally “editedâ€� versions of the poems-did not fully and accurately represent Dickinson’s bold experiments in prosody, her tragic vision, and the range of her intellectual and emotional explorations. Not until the 1955 publication of The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, a three-volume critical edition compiled by Thomas H. Johnson, were readers able for the first time to assess, understand, and appreciate the whole of Dickinson’s extraordinary poetic genius.

This book, a distillation of the three-volume Complete Poems, brings together the original texts of all 1,775 poems that Emily Dickinson wrote.]]>
716 Emily Dickinson Kristina 0 to-read 4.28 1890 The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
author: Emily Dickinson
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1890
rating: 0
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Paper Towns 2914097 Who is the real Margo?

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs into his life—dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows. After their all-nighter ends, and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues—and they're for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew...]]>
305 John Green 0525478183 Kristina 0 to-read 4.00 2008 Paper Towns
author: John Green
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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Loser's Town 6056717
A Hollywood insider himself, Depp is no stranger to the temptations and illusions of the City of Angels and its ambitious, cutthroat denizens. "Loser's Town" is charged with the elements of all great L.A. noir -- crackling dialogue, fast-paced plot, and seedy, jaded characters -- and Depp brings a few new tricks to the genre with sadistic talent agents, washed-up actors looking for their second coming, and small-time hustlers just trying to make a modest living outside the limelight. "Loser's Town" is a deftly written thriller -- a gruesomely hilarious, occasionally wistful depiction of what goes on beneath those white letters on the mountainside.]]>
304 Daniel Depp 1439101434 Kristina 0 to-read 3.19 2009 Loser's Town
author: Daniel Depp
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.19
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography]]> 3237684 392 Stanley Plumly 0393065731 Kristina 0 to-read 4.19 2008 Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography
author: Stanley Plumly
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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The Manual of Detection 4135863 In this tightly plotted yet mind-expanding debut novel, an unlikely detective, armed only with an umbrella and a singular handbook, must untangle a string of crimes committed in and through people's dreams

In an unnamed city always slick with rain, Charles Unwin toils as a clerk at a huge, imperious detective agency. All he knows about solving mysteries comes from the reports he's filed for the illustrious detective Travis Sivart. When Sivart goes missing and his supervisor turns up murdered, Unwin is suddenly promoted to detective, a rank for which he lacks both the skills and the stomach. His only guidance comes from his new assistant, who would be perfect if she weren't so sleepy, and from the pithy yet profound Manual of Detection (think The Art of War as told to Damon Runyon).

Unwin mounts his search for Sivart, but is soon framed for murder, pursued by goons and gunmen, and confounded by the infamous femme fatale Cleo Greenwood. Meanwhile, strange and troubling questions proliferate: why does the mummy at the Municipal Museum have modern-day dental work? Where have all the city's alarm clocks gone? Why is Unwin's copy of the manual missing Chapter 18?

When he discovers that Sivart's greatest cases - including the Three Deaths of Colonel Baker and the Man Who Stole November 12th - were solved incorrectly, Unwin must enter the dreams of a murdered man and face a criminal mastermind bent on total control of a slumbering city.

The Manual of Detection will draw comparison to every work of imaginative fiction that ever blew a reader's mind - from Carlos Ruiz ZafĂłn to Jorge Luis Borges, from The Big Sleep to The Yiddish Policeman's Union. But, ultimately, it defies comparison; it is a brilliantly conceived, meticulously realized novel that will change what you think about how you think.]]>
288 Jedediah Berry 1594202117 Kristina 0 to-read 3.58 2009 The Manual of Detection
author: Jedediah Berry
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Haunted House and Other Short Stories]]> 1240658 168 Virginia Woolf 0156394014 Kristina 0 to-read 3.83 1921 Haunted House and Other Short Stories
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1921
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Wasteland, Prufrock and Other Poems]]> 2325390 88 T.S. Eliot 143410169X Kristina 0 to-read 4.17 1922 The Wasteland, Prufrock and Other Poems
author: T.S. Eliot
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1922
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom]]> 2763494 The Professor & the Madman ("Elegant & scrupulous"�NY Times Book Review) & Krakatoa ("A mesmerizing page-turner"�Time) tells the story of Joseph Needham, the Cambridge scientist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China, long the world's most technologically advanced country.

No cloistered don, this tall, married Englishman was a freethinking intellectual. A nudist, he was devoted to quirky folk dancing. In 1937, while working as a biochemist at Cambridge, he fell in love with a visiting Chinese student, with whom he began a lifelong affair. His mistress persuaded him to travel to her home country, where he embarked on a series of expeditions to the frontiers of the ancient empire. He searched for evidence to bolster a conviction that the Chinese were responsible for hundreds of humankind's most familiar innovations—including printing, the compass, explosives, suspension bridges, even toilet paper—often centuries before others. His journeys took him across war-torn China, consolidating his admiration for the Chinese. After the war, he determined to announce what he'd discovered & began writing Science & Civilization in China, describing the country's long history of invention & technology. By the time he died, he'd produced, almost single-handedly, 17 volumes, making him the greatest one-man encyclopedist ever.

Epic & intimate, The Man Who Loved China tells the sweeping story of China thru Needham's life. Here's a tale of what makes men, nations & humankind great—related by one of the world's best storytellers.]]>
316 Simon Winchester 0060884592 Kristina 0 to-read 3.82 2008 The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom
author: Simon Winchester
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose]]> 310014
With its crisp, witty tone, Sin and Syntax covers grammar’s ground rules while revealing countless unconventional syntax secrets (such as how to use—Gasp!—interjections or when to pepper your prose with slang) that make for sinfully good writing. Discover how

*Distinguish between words that are “pearlsâ€� and words that are “potatoesâ€�

* Avoid “couch potato thinkingâ€� and “commitment phobiaâ€� when choosing verbs

* Use literary devices such as onomatopoeia, alliteration, and metaphor (and understand what you're doing)

Everyone needs to know how to write stylish prose—students, professionals, and seasoned writers alike. Whether you’re writing to sell, shock, or just sing, Sin and Syntax is the guide you need to improve your command of the English language.]]>
289 Constance Hale 0767903099 Kristina 0 to-read 3.94 1999 Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose
author: Constance Hale
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Court of the Air (Jackelian, #1)]]> 3465309 582 Stephen Hunt 0765360225 Kristina 0 to-read 3.15 2007 The Court of the Air (Jackelian, #1)
author: Stephen Hunt
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.15
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands]]> 3535623 210 Michael Chabon 0061650927 Kristina 0 to-read 3.63 2008 Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands
author: Michael Chabon
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus]]> 3672481
Polymath, eccentric, and synonym aficionado, Peter Mark Roget had a host of female admirers, was one of the first to test the effects of laughing gas, invented the slide rule, and narrowly escaped jail in Napoleon's France. But Roget is best known for making lists.

After the tragic turmoil of his early life (both his mother and sister were institutionalized), Roget longed for order in his chaotic world. At the age of eight, he began his quest to put everything in its rightful place, one word at a time. This is the fascinating story of a driven man and a brilliant scholar-and the legacy he has left for generations.]]>
320 Joshua Kendall 0425225895 Kristina 0 to-read 3.35 2008 The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus
author: Joshua Kendall
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Special Topics in Calamity Physics]]> 3483
Special Topics in Calamity Physics is a darkly hilarious coming-of-age novel and a richly plotted suspense tale told through the distinctive voice of its heroine, Blue van Meer.]]>
514 Marisha Pessl 067003777X Kristina 0 to-read 3.72 2006 Special Topics in Calamity Physics
author: Marisha Pessl
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World]]> 166433 615 Nicholas Ostler 0060935723 Kristina 0 to-read 4.08 2005 Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World
author: Nicholas Ostler
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[History of the Peloponnesian War]]> 261243 648 Thucydides 0140440399 Kristina 0 to-read 3.90 -411 History of the Peloponnesian War
author: Thucydides
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.90
book published: -411
rating: 0
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The Tale of Genji 115775
Written centuries before the time of Shakespeare and even Chaucer, The Tale of Genji marks the birth of the novel—and after more than a millennium, this seminal work continues to enchant readers throughout the world. Lady Murasaki Shikibu and her tale's hero, Prince Genji, have had an unmatched influence on Japanese culture. Prince Genji manifests what was to become an image of the ideal Heian era courtier; gentle and passionate. Genji is also a master poet, dancer, musician and painter. The Tale of Genji follows Prince Genji through his many loves, and varied passions. This book has influenced not only generations of courtiers and samurai of the distant past, but artists and painters even in modern times—episodes in the tale have been incorporated into the design of kimonos and handicrafts, and the four-line poems called waka which dance throughout this work have earned it a place as a classic text in the study of poetry.

This version by Kencho Suematsu was the first-ever translation in English. Condensed, it's a quarter length of the unabridged text, making it perfect for readers with limited time.

"Not speaking is the wiser part,
And words are sometimes vain,
But to completely close the heart
In silence, gives me pain.

—Prince Genji, in The Tale of Genji]]>
224 Murasaki Shikibu 0804838232 Kristina 0 to-read 3.35 1000 The Tale of Genji
author: Murasaki Shikibu
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.35
book published: 1000
rating: 0
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Proust Was A Neuroscientist 4346642 Taking a group of artists â€� a painter, a poet, a chef, a composer, and a handful of novelists â€� Lehrer shows how each one discovered an essential truth about the mind that science is only now rediscovering. We learn, for example, how Proust first revealed the fallibility of memory; how George Eliot discovered the brain’s malleability; how the French chef Escoffier discovered umami (the fifth taste); how CĂ©zanne worked out the subtleties of vision; and how Gertrude Stein exposed the deep structure of language â€� a full half-century before the work of Noam Chomsky and other linguists. It’s the ultimate tale of art trumping science.

More broadly, Lehrer shows that there’s a cost to reducing everything to atoms and acronyms and genes. Measurement is not the same as understanding, and art knows this better than science does. An ingenious blend of biography, criticism, and first-rate science writing, Proust Was a Neuroscientist urges science and art to listen more closely to each other, for willing minds can combine the best of both, to brilliant effect.

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242 Jonah Lehrer 0547085907 Kristina 0 to-read 3.91 2007 Proust Was A Neuroscientist
author: Jonah Lehrer
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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I See You Everywhere 3078805 Three Junes comes an intimate new work of fiction: a tale of two sisters, together and apart, told in their alternating voices over twenty-five years.

Louisa Jardine is the older one, the conscientious student, precise and careful: the one who yearns for a good marriage, an artistic career, a family. Clem, the archetypal youngest, is the rebel: uncontainable, iconoclastic, committed to her work but not to the men who fall for her daring nature. Louisa resents that the charismatic Clem has always been the favorite; yet as Clem puts it, “On the other side of the fence–mine–every expectation you fulfill . . . puts you one stop closer to that Grand Canyon rim from which you could one day rule the world–or plummet in very grand style.â€�

In this vivid, heartrending story of what we can and cannot do for those we love, the sisters grow closer as they move farther apart. Louis settles in New York while Clem, a wildlife biologist, moves restlessly about until she lands in the Rocky Mountains. Their complex bond, Louisa observes, is “like a double helix, two souls coiling around a common axis, joined yet never touching.â€�

Alive with all the sensual detail and riveting characterization that mark Glass’s previous work, I See You Everywhere is a piercingly candid story of life and death, companionship and sorrow, and the nature of sisterhood itself.]]>
287 Julia Glass 0375422757 Kristina 0 to-read 3.23 2008 I See You Everywhere
author: Julia Glass
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.23
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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Naked 4138 Naked, Sedaris turns the mania for memoir on its proverbial ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview—a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable. A tart-tongued mother does dead-on imitations of her young son's nervous tics, to the great amusement of his teachers; a stint of Kerouackian wandering is undertaken (of course!) with a quadriplegic companion; a family gathers for a wedding in the face of imminent death. Through it all is Sedaris's unmistakable voice, without doubt one of the freshest in American writing.]]> 304 David Sedaris Kristina 0 to-read 4.10 1997 Naked
author: David Sedaris
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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Number the Stars 47281 137 Lois Lowry 0440227534 Kristina 0 to-read 4.19 1989 Number the Stars
author: Lois Lowry
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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Dragonwings 607021 Will Windrider take to the skies?

Moon shadow is eight years old when he sails from China to join his father, Windrider, in America. Windrider lives in San Francisco and makes his living doing laundry. Father and son have never met.

But Moon Shadow grows to love and respect his father and to believe in his wonderful dream. And Windrider, with Moon Shadow's help is willing to endure the mockery of the other Chinese, the poverty, the separation from his wife and country'even the great earthquake'to make his dream come true.

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248 Laurence Yep 0590434500 Kristina 0 to-read 3.56 1975 Dragonwings
author: Laurence Yep
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1975
rating: 0
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The Great Gilly Hopkins 242858 This timeless Newbery Honor Book from bestselling author Katherine PatersonÌęabout a wisecracking, ornary, completely unforgettable young heroine. Now a feature film starring Kathy Bates, Glenn Close, and Octavia Spencer!

Eleven-year-old Gilly has been stuck in more foster families than she can remember, and she's hated them all. She has a reputation for being brash, brilliant, and completely unmanageable, and that's the way she likes it. So when she's sent to live with the Trotters—by far the strangest family yet—she knows it's only a temporary problem.

Gilly decides to put her sharp mind to work and get out of there fast. She's determined to no longer be a foster kid. Before long she's devised an elaborate scheme to get her real mother to come rescue her. Unfortunately, the plan doesn't work out quite as she hoped it would...]]>
160 Katherine Paterson 0064402010 Kristina 0 to-read 3.82 1978 The Great Gilly Hopkins
author: Katherine Paterson
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1978
rating: 0
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Maniac Magee 961166 Jeffrey Lionel "Maniac" Magee might have lived a normal life if a freak accident hadn't made him an orphan. After living with his unhappy and uptight aunt and uncle for eight years, he decides to run--and not just run away, but run. This is where the myth of Maniac Magee begins, as he changes the lives of a racially divided small town with his amazing and legendary feats.]]> 184 Jerry Spinelli 0316807222 Kristina 0 to-read 4.00 1990 Maniac Magee
author: Jerry Spinelli
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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The Woman in White 5896 Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White was a phenomenal bestseller in the 1860s, achieving even greater success than works by Dickens, Collin's friend and mentor. Full of surprise, intrigue, and suspense, this vastly entertaining novel continues to enthrall readers today.

The story begins with an eerie midnight encounter between artist Walter Hartright and a ghostly woman dressed all in white who seems desperate to share a dark secret. The next day Hartright, engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie and her half sister, tells his pupils about the strange events of the previous evening. Determined to learn all they can about the mysterious woman in white, the three soon find themselves drawn into a chilling vortex of crime, poison, kidnapping, and international intrigue.

Masterfully constructed, The Woman in White is dominated by two of the finest creations in all Victorian fiction: Marion Halcombe, dark, mannish, yet irresistibly fascinating, and Count Fosco, the sinister and flamboyant 'Napoleon of Crime'.]]>
635 Wilkie Collins 1593082800 Kristina 0 to-read 4.21 1859 The Woman in White
author: Wilkie Collins
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1859
rating: 0
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She (Ayesha, #1) 887344 She is a Victorian thrill ride of a novel, featuring a lost African kingdom ruled by a mysterious, implacable queen; ferocious wildlife and yawning abysses; and an eerie love story that spans two thousand years. She has bewitched readers from Freud and Jung to C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien; in her Introduction to this Modern Library Paperback Classic—which includes period illustrations by Maurice Greiffenhagen and Charles H. M. Kerr—Margaret Atwood asserts that the awe-inspiring Ayesha, “She-who-must-be-obeyed,â€� is “a permanent feature of the human imagination.â€�

She was first serialised in Graphic magazine from October 1886 to January 1887.]]>
338 H. Rider Haggard 0375759050 Kristina 0 to-read 3.65 1887 She (Ayesha, #1)
author: H. Rider Haggard
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1887
rating: 0
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Aurora Leigh 1360295
Excerpt from Aurora Leigh: A Poem in Nine Books
Aurora Leigh.
First Book.
Of writing many books there is no end;
And I, who have written much in prose and verse
For others' uses, will write now for mine, -
Will write my story for my better self,
As when you paint your portrait for a friend,
Who keeps it in a drawer, and looks at it
Long after he has ceased to love you, just
To hold together what he was and is.
I, writing thus, am still what men call young
I have not so far left the coasts of life
To travel inland, that I cannot hear
That murmur of the outer Infinite
Which unweaned babies smile at in their sleep
When wondered at for smiling; not so far,
But still I catch my mother at her post
Beside the nursery-door, with finger up,
"Hush, hush, here's too much noise!" while her sweet eyes
Leap forward, taking part against her word
In the child's riot. Still I sit, and feel
My father's slow hand, when she has left us both,
Stroke out my childish curls across his knee,
And hear Assunta's daily jest (she knew
He liked it better than a better jest)
Inquire how many golden scudi went
To make such ringlets. O my father's hand,
Stroke heavily, heavily, the poor hair down,
Draw, press the child's head closer to thy knee!
I'm still too young, too young, to sit alone.]]>
361 Elizabeth Barrett Browning 0192828754 Kristina 0 to-read 3.62 1856 Aurora Leigh
author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1856
rating: 0
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Orlando 46133 An alternative cover edition exists here.

In her most exuberant, most fanciful novel, Woolf has created a character liberated from the restraints of time and sex. Born in the Elizabethan Age to wealth and position, Orlando is a young nobleman at the beginning of the story-and a modern woman three centuries later.
The source of a critically acclaimed 1993 feature film directed by Sally Potter]]>
333 Virginia Woolf Kristina 0 to-read 3.88 1928 Orlando
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1928
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Smith of Wootton Major & Farmer Giles of Ham]]> 66797
Farmer Giles of Ham first published in 1949. Smith of Wootton Major was first published in November 1965.]]>
156 J.R.R. Tolkien Kristina 0 to-read 3.94 1949 Smith of Wootton Major & Farmer Giles of Ham
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1949
rating: 0
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The Club Dumas 7194 362 Arturo PĂ©rez-Reverte 015603283X Kristina 0 to-read 3.83 1993 The Club Dumas
author: Arturo PĂ©rez-Reverte
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1993
rating: 0
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The War of the Worlds 536353 'For countless centuries Mars has been the star of war'

The night after a shooting star is seen streaking through the sky from Mars, a cylinder is discovered on Horsell Common near London. At first, naive locals approach the cylinder armed just with a white flag - only to be quickly killed by an all-destroying heat-ray as terrifying tentacled invaders emerge. Soon the whole of human civilization is under threat, as powerful Martians build gigantic killing machines, destroy all in their path with black gas and burning rays, and feast on the warm blood of trapped, still-living human prey. The forces of the Earth, however, may prove harder to beat than they at first appear.

The first modern tale of alien invasion, The War of the Worlds remains one of the most influential of all science-fiction works. Part of a brand-new Penguin series of H.G. Wells's works, this edition includes a newly established text, a full biographical essay on Wells, a further reading list and detailed notes. The introduction, by Brian Aldiss, considers the novel's view of religion and society.]]>
199 H.G. Wells 0141441038 Kristina 0 to-read 3.73 1898 The War of the Worlds
author: H.G. Wells
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1898
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales]]> 63697 243 Oliver Sacks Kristina 0 to-read 4.08 1985 The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales
author: Oliver Sacks
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books]]> 344454 638 Nicholas A. Basbanes 080504826X Kristina 0 to-read 4.12 1995 A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books
author: Nicholas A. Basbanes
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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The Stranger 49552 The Stranger has long been considered a classic of twentieth-century literature. Le Monde ranks it as number one on its "100 Books of the Century" list. Through this story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd."]]> 123 Albert Camus Kristina 0 to-read 4.04 1942 The Stranger
author: Albert Camus
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1942
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters]]> 16200
*pangram: a sentence or phrase that includes all the letters of the alphabet]]>
208 Mark Dunn 0385722435 Kristina 0 to-read 3.93 2001 Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters
author: Mark Dunn
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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Abundance 415552 545 Sena Jeter Naslund 0060825405 Kristina 0 to-read 3.69 2006 Abundance
author: Sena Jeter Naslund
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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The Pickwick Papers 229432 The Pickwick Papersâ€�-a comic masterpiece that catapulted its 24-year-old author to immediate fame. Readers were captivated by the adventures of the poet Snodgrass, the lover Tupman, the sportsman Winkle &, above all, by that quintessentially English Quixote, Mr Pickwick, & his cockney Sancho Panza, Sam Weller. From the hallowed turf of Dingley Dell Cricket Club to the unholy fracas of the Eatanswill election, via the Fleet debtor’s prison, characters & incidents sprang to life from Dickens’s pen, to form an enduringly popular work of ebullient humour & literary invention.]]> 801 Charles Dickens Kristina 0 to-read 3.83 1837 The Pickwick Papers
author: Charles Dickens
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1837
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII]]> 134961
Six Wives is a masterful work of history that intimately examines the rituals of diplomacy, marriage, pregnancy, and religion that were part of daily life for women at the Tudor Court. Weaving new facts and fresh interpretations into a spellbinding account of the emotional drama surrounding Henry's six marriages, David Starkey reveals the central role that the queens played in determining policy. With an equally keen eye for romantic and political intrigue, he brilliantly recaptures the story of Henry's wives and the England they ruled.]]>
896 David Starkey 0060005505 Kristina 0 to-read 4.15 1999 Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII
author: David Starkey
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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Library: An Unquiet History 108712
He explores how libraries are built and how they are destroyed, from the decay of the great Alexandrian library to scroll burnings in ancient China to the destruction of Aztec books by the Spanish—and in our own time, the burning of libraries in Europe and Bosnia.

Encyclopedic in its breadth and novelistic in its telling, this volume will occupy a treasured place on the bookshelf next to Baker's Double Fold, Basbanes's A Gentle Madness, Manguel's A History of Reading, and Winchester's The Professor and the Madman.]]>
256 Matthew Battles 0393325644 Kristina 0 to-read 3.43 2003 Library: An Unquiet History
author: Matthew Battles
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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The Dante Club 259042 Inferno. Only an elite group of America’s first Dante scholars—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and J. T. Fields—can solve the mystery. With the police baffled, more lives endangered, and Dante’s literary future at stake, the Dante Club must shed its sheltered literary existence and find the killer.]]> 380 Matthew Pearl 0812971043 Kristina 0 to-read 3.37 2003 The Dante Club
author: Matthew Pearl
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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I Am Charlotte Simmons 168667
Our story unfolds at fictional Dupont University: those Olympian halls of scholarship housing the cream of America's youth, the roseate Gothic spires and manicured lawns suffused with tradition . . . Or so it appears to beautiful, brilliant Charlotte Simmons, a sheltered freshman from North Carolina. But Charlotte soon learns, to her mounting dismay, that for the upper-crust coeds of Dupont, sex, cool, and kegs trump academic achievement every time.

As Charlotte encounters the paragons of Dupont's privileged elite—her roommate, Beverly, a Groton-educated Brahmin in lusty pursuit of lacrosse players; Jojo Johanssen, the only white starting player on Dupont's godlike basketball team, whose position is threatened by a hotshot black freshman from the projects; the Young Turk of Saint Ray fraternity, Hoyt Thorpe, whose heady sense of entitlement and social domination is clinched by his accidental brawl with a bodyguard for the governor of California; and Adam Geller, one of the Millennial Mutants who run the university's "independent" newspaper and who consider themselves the last bastion of intellectual endeavor on the sex-crazed, jock-obsessed campus—she is seduced by the heady glamour of acceptance, betraying both her values and upbringing before she grasps the power of being different--and the exotic allure of her own innocence.

With his trademark satirical wit and famously sharp eye for telling detail, Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons draws on extensive observations at campuses across the country to immortalize the early-21st-century college-going experience.]]>
676 Tom Wolfe 0374281580 Kristina 0 to-read 3.27 2004 I Am Charlotte Simmons
author: Tom Wolfe
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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The Rice Mother 164814
Duped into thinking her new husband is wealthy, she instead finds herself struggling to raise a family with a man too impractical to face reality and a world that is, by turns, unyielding and amazing, brutal and beautiful.

Giving birth to a child every year until she is nineteen, Lakshmi becomes a formidable matriarch, determined to wrest from the world a better life for her daughters and sons and to face every new challenge with almost mythic strength.

By sheer willpower Lakshmi survives the nightmare of World War II and the Japanese occupation -- but not unscathed. The family bears deep scars on its back and in turn inflicts those wounds on the next generation. But it is not until Lakshmi's great-granddaughter, Nisha, pieces together the mosaic of her family history that the legacy of the Rice Mother bears fruit.]]>
432 Rani Manicka 0142004545 Kristina 0 to-read 4.12 2002 The Rice Mother
author: Rani Manicka
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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Shantaram 816555
“It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.â€�

An escaped convict with a false passport, Lin flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of Bombay, where he can disappear. Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter the city’s hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere.

As a hunted man without a home, family, or identity, Lin searches for love and meaning while running a clinic in one of the city’s poorest slums, and serving his apprenticeship in the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. The search leads him to war, prison torture, murder, and a series of enigmatic and bloody betrayals. The keys to unlock the mysteries and intrigues that bind Lin are held by two people. The first is Khader Khan: mafia godfather, criminal-philosopher-saint, and mentor to Lin in the underworld of the Golden City. The second is Karla: elusive, dangerous, and beautiful, whose passions are driven by secrets that torment her and yet give her a terrible power.

Burning slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood films, spiritual gurus and mujaheddin guerrillas―this huge novel has the world of human experience in its reach, and a passionate love for India at its heart.]]>
936 Gregory David Roberts 0312330529 Kristina 0 to-read 4.30 2003 Shantaram
author: Gregory David Roberts
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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