Stella's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 07 Aug 2024 12:44:59 -0700 60 Stella's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Misery 383137 Simplified adaptation with language-learning materials.
[Penguin Readers Level 6]

Paul Sheldon is Annie Wilkes' favourite writer. She loves all his books about Misery Chastain. When she finds Paul injured after a car crash and takes him home she learns that he has decided to end the series by killing off Misery. Soon Paul's biggest fan turns into his biggest enemy and his nightmare begins! By the master of horror, Stephen King, this will keep you on the edge of your seat!]]> 96 Robin Waterfield 3526418292 Stella 0 to-read 4.50 1987 Misery
author: Robin Waterfield
name: Stella
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> The Shortest History of China 56081808 263 Linda Jaivin 1743821735 Stella 4 3.96 2021 The Shortest History of China
author: Linda Jaivin
name: Stella
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/20
date added: 2023/07/27
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]]> <![CDATA[The Witch Doesn't Burn in This One (Women Are Some Kind of Magic, #2)]]> 35924698 192 Amanda Lovelace 1449489427 Stella 0 to-read 3.75 2018 The Witch Doesn't Burn in This One (Women Are Some Kind of Magic, #2)
author: Amanda Lovelace
name: Stella
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/06/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance]]> 54546067

Is there an alternative to capitalism? In this landmark text Chomsky and Waterstone chart a critical map for a more just and sustainable society.

'Covid-19 has revealed glaring failures and monstrous brutalities in the current capitalist system. It represents both a crisis and an opportunity. Everything depends on the actions that people take into their own hands.'

How does politics shape our world, our lives and our perceptions? How much of 'common sense' is actually driven by the ruling classes' needs and interests? And how are we to challenge the capitalist structures that now threaten all life on the planet?

Consequences of Capitalism exposes the deep, often unseen connections between neoliberal 'common sense' and structural power. In making these linkages, we see how the current hegemony keeps social justice movements divided and marginalized. And, most importantly, we see how we can fight to overcome these divisions.]]> 388 Noam Chomsky 0241482615 Stella 3 4.36 2020 Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance
author: Noam Chomsky
name: Stella
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2023/06/02
date added: 2023/06/02
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]]> My Dark Vanessa 44890081
2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher.

2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager—and who professed to worship only her—may be far different from what she has always believed?

Alternating between Vanessa’s present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory and trauma with the breathless excitement of a teenage girl discovering the power her own body can wield. Thought-provoking and impossible to put down, this is a masterful portrayal of troubled adolescence and its repercussions that raises vital questions about agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. Written with the haunting intimacy of The Girls and the creeping intensity of Room, My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself.]]> 373 Kate Elizabeth Russell 006294150X Stella 0 to-read 4.09 2020 My Dark Vanessa
author: Kate Elizabeth Russell
name: Stella
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Chernobyl Prayer: Voices from Chernobyl (Penguin Modern Classics)]]> 29675406 A startling history of the Chernobyl disaster by Svetlana Alexievich, the winner of the Nobel prize in literature 2015

On 26 April 1986, at 1.23am, a series of explosions shook the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Flames lit up the sky and radiation escaped to contaminate the land and poison the people for years to come. While officials tried to hush up the accident, Svetlana Alexievich spent years collecting testimonies from survivors - clean-up workers, residents, firefighters, resettlers, widows, orphans - crafting their voices into a haunting oral history of fear, anger and uncertainty, but also dark humour and love. A chronicle of the past and a warning for our nuclear future, Chernobyl Prayer shows what it is like to bear witness, and remember in a world that wants you to forget.

]]> 292 Svetlana Alexievich 0241270545 Stella 5 4.52 1997 Chernobyl Prayer: Voices from Chernobyl (Penguin Modern Classics)
author: Svetlana Alexievich
name: Stella
average rating: 4.52
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/06
date added: 2023/04/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Why Do Buses Come in Threes? The Hidden Mathematics of Everyday Life]]> 1225641
These and many other fascinating questions are answered in this entertaining and highly informative book, which is ideal for anyone wanting to remind themselves � or discover for the first time � that maths is relevant to almost everything we do.

Dating, cooking, travelling by car, gambling and even life-saving techniques have links with intriguing mathematical problems, as you will find explained here. Whether you have a PhD in astrophysics or haven't touched a maths problem since your school days, this book will give you a fresh understanding of the world around you.]]> 156 Rob Eastaway 0471379077 Stella 3 3.64 1999 Why Do Buses Come in Threes? The Hidden Mathematics of Everyday Life
author: Rob Eastaway
name: Stella
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at: 2023/03/29
date added: 2023/04/29
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hate U Give (The Hate U Give, #1)]]> 32075671 An alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062498533 can be found here.

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a powerful and gripping YA novel about one girl's struggle for justice.]]> 454 Angie Thomas 0062498533 Stella 5 favourites 4.46 2017 The Hate U Give (The Hate U Give, #1)
author: Angie Thomas
name: Stella
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2017
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/03/04
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]]> The Odyssey 1381 Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.

So begins Robert Fagles' magnificent translation of the Odyssey.

If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, then the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey though life. Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces, during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance.

In the myths and legends that are retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom, and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery.

Renowned classicist Bernard Knox's superb Introduction and textual commentary provide new insights and background information for the general reader and scholar alike, intensifying the strength of Fagles' translation.

This is an Odyssey to delight both the classicist and the public at large, and to captivate a new generation of Homer's students.

--

Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, presents us with Homer's best-loved and most accessible poem in a stunning new modern-verse translation.]]> 541 Homer 0143039954 Stella 4 3.79 -700 The Odyssey
author: Homer
name: Stella
average rating: 3.79
book published: -700
rating: 4
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]]> Persuasion 2156 249 Jane Austen 0192802631 Stella 3 4.15 1817 Persuasion
author: Jane Austen
name: Stella
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1817
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[The Boy in the Striped Pajamas]]> 39999
Fences like this exist all over the world. We hope you never have to encounter one.]]> 224 John Boyne 0385751079 Stella 4 favourites 4.17 2006 The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
author: John Boyne
name: Stella
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2006
rating: 4
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date added: 2023/03/04
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]]> The Thing Around Your Neck 5587960
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie burst onto the literary scene with her remarkable debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, which critics hailed as "one of the best novels to come out of Africa in years" (Baltimore Sun), with "prose as lush as the Nigerian landscape that it powerfully evokes" (The Boston Globe); The Washington Post called her "the twenty-first-century daughter of Chinua Achebe." Her award-winning Half of a Yellow Sun became an instant classic upon its publication three years later, once again putting her tremendous gifts - graceful storytelling, knowing compassion, and fierce insight into her characters' hearts - on display. Now, in her most intimate and seamlessly crafted work to date, Adichie turns her penetrating eye on not only Nigeria but America, in twelve dazzling stories that explore the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States.

In "A Private Experience," a medical student hides from a violent riot with a poor Muslim woman whose dignity and faith force her to confront the realities and fears she's been pushing away. In "Tomorrow is Too Far," a woman unlocks the devastating secret that surrounds her brother's death. The young mother at the center of "Imitation" finds her comfortable life in Philadelphia threatened when she learns that her husband has moved his mistress into their Lagos home. And the title story depicts the choking loneliness of a Nigerian girl who moves to an America that turns out to be nothing like the country she expected; though falling in love brings her desires nearly within reach, a death in her homeland forces her to reexamine them.

Searing and profound, suffused with beauty, sorrow, and longing, these stories map, with Adichie's signature emotional wisdom, the collision of two cultures and the deeply human struggle to reconcile them. The Thing Around Your Neck is a resounding confirmation of the prodigious literary powers of one of our most essential writers.]]> 218 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 0307271072 Stella 4 4.24 2008 The Thing Around Your Neck
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Stella
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2008
rating: 4
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]]> Animal Farm 170448 Librarian's note: There is an Alternate Cover Edition for this edition of this book here.

A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned –a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.
When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.]]> 141 George Orwell 0451526341 Stella 4 4.07 1945 Animal Farm
author: George Orwell
name: Stella
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1945
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Junk Science: How Politicians, Corporations, and Other Hucksters Betray Us]]> 152962
During the next thirty years, the American public will suffer from a rampage against reason by special interests in government, commerce, and the faith industry, and the rampage has already begun. In Junk Science, Dan Agin offers a response--a stinging condemnation of the egregious and constant warping of science for ideological gain.

In this provocative, wide-ranging, and hard-hitting book, Agin argues from the center that we will pay a heavy price for the follies of people who consciously twist the public's understanding of the real world.

In an entertaining but frank tone, Agin separates fact from conveniently "scientific" fiction and exposes the data faking, reality ignoring, fear mongering, and outright lying that contribute to intentionally manufactured public ignorance. Many factions twist scientific data to maintain riches and power, and Agin outs them all in sections like

--"Buyer Beware" (genetically modified foods, aging, and tobacco companies)
--"Medical Follies" (chiropractics, health care, talk therapy)
--"Poison and Bombs in the Greenhouse" (pollution, warfare, global warming)
--"Religion, Embryos, and Cloning"
--"Genes, Behavior, and Race"

We already pay a heavy price for many groups' conscious manipulation of the public's understanding of science, and Junk Science arms us with understanding, cutting through the fabric of lies and setting the record straight.]]> 336 Dan Agin 0312352417 Stella 0 to-read 3.19 2006 Junk Science: How Politicians, Corporations, and Other Hucksters Betray Us
author: Dan Agin
name: Stella
average rating: 3.19
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention� and How to Think Deeply Again]]> 57933306 Our ability to pay attention is collapsing. From the New York Times bestselling author of Chasing the Scream and Lost Connections comes a groundbreaking examination of why this is happening--and how to get our attention back.

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

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

Crucially, Hari learned how we can reclaim our focus--as individuals, and as a society--if we are determined to fight for it. Stolen Focus will transform the debate about attention and finally show us how to get it back.]]> 357 Johann Hari 0593138511 Stella 5 favourites 4.22 2022 Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention— and How to Think Deeply Again
author: Johann Hari
name: Stella
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2022
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/03/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion]]> 43126457 Trick Mirror is an enlightening, unforgettable trip through the river of self-delusion that surges just beneath the surface of our lives. This is a book about the incentives that shape us, and about how hard it is to see ourselves clearly in a culture that revolves around the self. In each essay, Jia writes about the cultural prisms that have shaped her: the rise of the nightmare social internet; the American scammer as millennial hero; the literary heroine’s journey from brave to blank to bitter; the mandate that everything, including our bodies, should always be getting more efficient and beautiful until we die.]]> 303 Jia Tolentino 0525510540 Stella 3 4.04 2019 Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
author: Jia Tolentino
name: Stella
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2023/03/02
date added: 2023/03/02
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]]> Emma 6969 The newest edition is here. Another alternate cover can be found here.

Emma Woodhouse is one of Austen's most captivating and vivid characters. Beautiful, spoilt, vain and irrepressibly witty, Emma organizes the lives of the inhabitants of her sleepy little village and plays matchmaker with devastating effect.]]> 474 Jane Austen 0141439580 Stella 0 4.05 1815 Emma
author: Jane Austen
name: Stella
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1815
rating: 0
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]]> Gulliver’s Travels 7733 A wickedly clever satire uses comic inversions to offer telling insights into the nature of man and society. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.

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

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.]]> 306 Jonathan Swift 0141439491 Stella 0 3.59 1726 Gulliver’s Travels
author: Jonathan Swift
name: Stella
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1726
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]]> And Then There Were None 16299
"Ten little boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were nine. Nine little boys sat up very late; One overslept himself and then there were eight. Eight little boys traveling in Devon; One said he'd stay there then there were seven. Seven little boys chopping up sticks; One chopped himself in half and then there were six. Six little boys playing with a hive; A bumblebee stung one and then there were five. Five little boys going in for law; One got in Chancery and then there were four. Four little boys going out to sea; A red herring swallowed one and then there were three. Three little boys walking in the zoo; A big bear hugged one and then there were two. Two little boys sitting in the sun; One got frizzled up and then there was one. One little boy left all alone; He went out and hanged himself and then there were none."

When they realize that murders are occurring as described in the rhyme, terror mounts. One by one they fall prey. Before the weekend is out, there will be none. Who has choreographed this dastardly scheme? And who will be left to tell the tale? Only the dead are above suspicion.]]> 264 Agatha Christie 0312330871 Stella 0 4.28 1939 And Then There Were None
author: Agatha Christie
name: Stella
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1939
rating: 0
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]]> The Bell Jar 6514 294 Sylvia Plath 0571268862 Stella 0 to-read 4.05 1963 The Bell Jar
author: Sylvia Plath
name: Stella
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1963
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)]]> 15881
And strike it does. For in Harry’s second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor and a spirit who haunts the girls� bathroom. But then the real trouble begins � someone is turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects� Harry Potter himself!]]> 352 J.K. Rowling Stella 0 4.42 1998 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Stella
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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]]> A Tale of Two Cities 1953 A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens’s great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author’s novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores many of his enduring themes—imprisonment, injustice, social anarchy, resurrection, and the renunciation that fosters renewal.]]> 489 Charles Dickens 0141439602 Stella 0 3.86 1859 A Tale of Two Cities
author: Charles Dickens
name: Stella
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1859
rating: 0
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]]> Where the Wild Things Are 19543 38 Maurice Sendak 0099408392 Stella 0 4.25 1963 Where the Wild Things Are
author: Maurice Sendak
name: Stella
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1963
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited]]> 5479 Brave New World, originally published in 1932, presents Aldous Huxley's vision of the future--of a world utterly transformed. Through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering, people are genetically designed to be passive and therefore consistently useful to the ruling class. This powerful work of speculative fiction sheds a blazing critical light on the present and is considered to be Aldous Huxley's most enduring masterpiece.

The non-fiction work Brave New World Revisited, published in 1958, is a fascinating work in which Huxley uses his tremendous knowledge of human relations to compare the modern-day world with his prophetic fantasy envisioned in Brave New World, including the threats to humanity, such as over-population, propaganda, and chemical persuasion.]]> 340 Aldous Huxley 0060776099 Stella 0 4.17 1958 Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited
author: Aldous Huxley
name: Stella
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1958
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)]]> 1 652 J.K. Rowling Stella 0 4.57 2005 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Stella
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)]]> 6 734 J.K. Rowling 0439139597 Stella 0 4.56 2000 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Stella
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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]]> The Picture of Dorian Gray 5297
In this celebrated work Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in late-19th-century England. Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book centers on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world. For over a century, this mesmerizing tale of horror and suspense has enjoyed wide popularity. It ranks as one of Wilde's most important creations and among the classic achievements of its kind.]]> 272 Oscar Wilde Stella 0 to-read 4.13 1890 The Picture of Dorian Gray
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Stella
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1890
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)]]> 5 435 J.K. Rowling 043965548X Stella 0 4.57 1999 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Stella
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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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 Stella 0 4.61 2007 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Stella
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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]]> Jane Eyre 10210 Alternate editions can be found here and here.

A gothic masterpiece of tempestuous passions and dark secrets, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is edited with an introduction and notes by Stevie Davis in Penguin Classics.

Charlotte Brontë tells the story of orphaned Jane Eyre, who grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic, brooding Mr Rochester. As her feelings for Rochester develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall's terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice. Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions - even if it means leaving the man she loves? A novel of intense power and intrigue, Jane Eyre dazzled readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and freedom.]]> 532 Charlotte Brontë 0142437204 Stella 0 4.14 1847 Jane Eyre
author: Charlotte Brontë
name: Stella
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1847
rating: 0
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]]> Diary of an Oxygen Thief 1561703
Say there was a novel in which Holden Caulfield was an alcoholic and Lolita was a photographer’s assistant and, somehow, they met in Bright Lights, Big City. He’s blinded by love. She by ambition. Diary of an Oxygen Thief is an honest, hilarious, and heartrending novel, but above all, a very realistic account of what we do to each other and what we allow to have done to us.]]> 140 Anonymous 908105841X Stella 0 2.72 2006 Diary of an Oxygen Thief
author: Anonymous
name: Stella
average rating: 2.72
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/07
date added: 2022/12/07
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]]> Lord of the Flies 7624 182 William Golding 0140283331 Stella 0 to-read 3.70 1954 Lord of the Flies
author: William Golding
name: Stella
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1954
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/11/28
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]]> <![CDATA[My Year of Rest and Relaxation]]> 44279110
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn’t she? She’s young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.]]> 289 Ottessa Moshfegh 0525522131 Stella 5 favourites 3.62 2018 My Year of Rest and Relaxation
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: Stella
average rating: 3.62
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]]> The Book Thief 19063 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

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.

(Note: this title was not published as YA fiction)]]> 592 Markus Zusak Stella 5 favourites 4.38 2005 The Book Thief
author: Markus Zusak
name: Stella
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2005
rating: 5
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]]> Romeo and Juliet 18135 Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a violent world, in which two young people fall in love. It is not simply that their families disapprove; the Montagues and the Capulets are engaged in a blood feud.

In this death-filled setting, the movement from love at first sight to the lovers� final union in death seems almost inevitable. And yet, this play set in an extraordinary world has become the quintessential story of young love. In part because of its exquisite language, it is easy to respond as if it were about all young lovers.]]> 281 William Shakespeare 0743477111 Stella 5 3.74 1597 Romeo and Juliet
author: William Shakespeare
name: Stella
average rating: 3.74
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]]> Of Mice and Men 890 “I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.�

They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own.

While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in Steinbeck's work of the late 1930s, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men, creating an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual's existence meaningful.

A unique perspective on life's hardships, this story has achieved the status of timeless classic due to its remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.]]> 107 John Steinbeck 0142000671 Stella 0 to-read 3.88 1937 Of Mice and Men
author: John Steinbeck
name: Stella
average rating: 3.88
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]]> A Little Life 22822858
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.]]> 720 Hanya Yanagihara 0385539258 Stella 5 4.28 2015 A Little Life
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: Stella
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Harry Potter, #1)]]> 72193
]]> 223 J.K. Rowling Stella 5 4.45 1997 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Harry Potter, #1)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Stella
average rating: 4.45
book published: 1997
rating: 5
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]]> Little Fires Everywhere 34273236
In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned � from the layout of the winding roads, to the colours of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren � an enigmatic artist and single mother � who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than just tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother–daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past, and a disregard for the rules that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town � and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at an unexpected and devastating cost . . .]]> 338 Celeste Ng 0735224293 Stella 0 to-read 4.05 2017 Little Fires Everywhere
author: Celeste Ng
name: Stella
average rating: 4.05
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]]> Beowulf 52357 259 Unknown 0393320979 Stella 0 to-read 3.46 1000 Beowulf
author: Unknown
name: Stella
average rating: 3.46
book published: 1000
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]]> The Silent Patient 40097951
Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him....

The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive.]]> 336 Alex Michaelides 1250301696 Stella 0 to-read 4.18 2019 The Silent Patient
author: Alex Michaelides
name: Stella
average rating: 4.18
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]]> Gone Girl 19288043 What have we done to each other?

These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren't made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone.

So what did happen to Nick's beautiful wife?]]> 415 Gillian Flynn 0307588378 Stella 0 to-read 4.22 2012 Gone Girl
author: Gillian Flynn
name: Stella
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2012
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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 Stella 5 4.15 1985 The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Stella
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1985
rating: 5
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]]> The Midnight Library 52578297
When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.

The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren't always what she imagined they'd be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger.

Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?]]> 288 Matt Haig 0525559477 Stella 4 3.96 2020 The Midnight Library
author: Matt Haig
name: Stella
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
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]]> Pride and Prejudice 1885 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.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780679783268]]> 279 Jane Austen 1441341706 Stella 5 4.28 1813 Pride and Prejudice
author: Jane Austen
name: Stella
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]]> <![CDATA[The Princess Saves Herself in This One (Women Are Some Kind of Magic, #1)]]> 30075802
A poetry collection divided into four different parts: the princess, the damsel, the queen, & you. the princess, the damsel, & the queen piece together the life of the author in three stages, while you serves as a note to the reader & all of humankind. Explores life & all of its love, loss, grief, healing, empowerment, & inspirations.]]> 156 Amanda Lovelace 1532913680 Stella 0 to-read 3.83 2016 The Princess Saves Herself in This One (Women Are Some Kind of Magic, #1)
author: Amanda Lovelace
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average rating: 3.83
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]]> The Sun and Her Flowers 35606560 256 Rupi Kaur 1449486797 Stella 0 to-read 4.09 2018 The Sun and Her Flowers
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average rating: 4.09
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]]> The Iliad 1371
Combining the skills of a poet and scholar, Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, brings the energy of contemporary language to this enduring heroic epic. He maintains the drive and metric music of Homer’s poetry, and evokes the impact and nuance of the Iliad’s mesmerizing repeated phrases in what Peter Levi calls “an astonishing performance.”]]> 614 Homer 0140275363 Stella 5 3.88 -800 The Iliad
author: Homer
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average rating: 3.88
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]]> Sophie’s World 10959 An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here

One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.]]> 403 Jostein Gaarder 1857993284 Stella 4 3.94 1991 Sophie’s World
author: Jostein Gaarder
name: Stella
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1991
rating: 4
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]]> The Shining (The Shining, #1) 11588 497 Stephen King 0450040186 Stella 0 to-read 4.28 1977 The Shining (The Shining, #1)
author: Stephen King
name: Stella
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1977
rating: 0
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]]> 1984 61439040
Alternate cover edition can be found here.]]> 368 George Orwell 0452284236 Stella 0 to-read 4.21 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: Stella
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1949
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]]> The Color Purple 52892857 Read the original inspiration for the new, boldly reimagined film from producers Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, starring Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, and Fantasia Barrino.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award

A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery and Sofia and their experience. The Color Purple broke the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, narrating the lives of women through their pain and struggle, companionship and growth, resilience and bravery. Deeply compassionate and beautifully imagined, Alice Walker's epic carries readers on a spirit-affirming journey towards redemption and love.

𲹻徱Բ The Color Purple was the first time I had seen Southern, Black women’s literature as world literature. In writing us into the world—bravely, unapologetically, and honestly—Alice Walker has given us a gift we will never be able to repay.� —Tayari Jones

�The Color Purple was what church should have been, what honest familial reckoning could have been, and it is still the only art object in the world by which all three generations of Black artists in my family judge American art.� —Kiese Laymon]]> 287 Alice Walker 0143135694 Stella 0 to-read 4.40 1982 The Color Purple
author: Alice Walker
name: Stella
average rating: 4.40
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]]> The Secret History 29044 559 Donna Tartt 1400031702 Stella 0 to-read 4.17 1992 The Secret History
author: Donna Tartt
name: Stella
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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]]> Crime and Punishment 7144 671 Fyodor Dostoevsky Stella 0 to-read 4.26 1866 Crime and Punishment
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Stella
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1866
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Perks of Being a Wallflower]]> 22628 offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see
what it looks like from the dance floor.

This haunting novel about the dilemma of passivity vs. passion marks the stunning debut of a provocative new voice in contemporary fiction: The Perks of Being A WALLFLOWER

This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. We may not know where he lives. We may not know to whom he is writing. All we know is the world he shares. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that the perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite.

Through Charlie, Stephen Chbosky has created a deeply affecting coming-of-age story, a powerful novel that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller coaster days known as growing up.

(back cover)]]> 213 Stephen Chbosky Stella 4 4.24 1999 The Perks of Being a Wallflower
author: Stephen Chbosky
name: Stella
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1999
rating: 4
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]]> Holes (Holes, #1) 38709
It doesn’t take long for Stanley to realize there’s more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. But what could be buried under a dried-up lake? Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment—and redemption.]]> 272 Louis Sachar 0439244196 Stella 0 to-read 4.01 1998 Holes (Holes, #1)
author: Louis Sachar
name: Stella
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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]]> Wonder (Wonder, #1) 11387515 I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse.

August Pullman was born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid—but his new classmates can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face. Wonder, begins from Auggie’s point of view, but soon switches to include his classmates, his sister, her boyfriend, and others.]]> 315 R.J. Palacio 0375869026 Stella 4 4.34 2012 Wonder (Wonder, #1)
author: R.J. Palacio
name: Stella
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2012
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[The Tattooist of Auschwitz (The Tattooist of Auschwitz, #1)]]> 38359036 äٴǷɾ (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.

Imprisoned for more than two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive.

One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.

A vivid, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful re-creation of Lale Sokolov's experiences as the man who tattooed the arms of thousands of prisoners with what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is also a testament to the endurance of love and humanity under the darkest possible conditions.]]> 272 Heather Morris 006287067X Stella 4 4.32 2018 The Tattooist of Auschwitz (The Tattooist of Auschwitz, #1)
author: Heather Morris
name: Stella
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2018
rating: 4
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]]> Normal People 41057294
A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.]]> 273 Sally Rooney 1984822179 Stella 2 3.81 2018 Normal People
author: Sally Rooney
name: Stella
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2018
rating: 2
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]]> <![CDATA[Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine]]> 35900387 No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine.

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

Soon to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the smart, warm, and uplifting story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . .

The only way to survive is to open your heart. ]]> 390 Gail Honeyman 0008172145 Stella 3 4.17 2017 Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
author: Gail Honeyman
name: Stella
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2017
rating: 3
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]]> Where the Crawdads Sing 36809135
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.

In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.]]> 384 Delia Owens 0735219117 Stella 4 4.35 2018 Where the Crawdads Sing
author: Delia Owens
name: Stella
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2018
rating: 4
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]]> The Alchemist 18144590 The Alchemist has become a modern classic, selling millions of copies around the world and transforming the lives of countless readers across generations.

Paulo Coelho's masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different—and far more satisfying—than he ever imagined. Santiago's journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, most importantly, following our dreams.]]> 182 Paulo Coelho 0062315005 Stella 4 4.01 1988 The Alchemist
author: Paulo Coelho
name: Stella
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1988
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium #1)]]> 2429135
An international publishing sensation, Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel.]]> 480 Stieg Larsson 0670069019 Stella 0 to-read 4.17 2005 The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium #1)
author: Stieg Larsson
name: Stella
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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]]> Daisy Jones & The Six 40597810 Everyone knows DAISY JONES & THE SIX, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.

Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ’n� roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.

Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.

Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.

The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.]]> 368 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1524798622 Stella 0 to-read 4.20 2019 Daisy Jones & The Six
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Stella
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> Water for Elephants 43641
Beautifully written, Water for Elephants is illuminated by a wonderful sense of time and place. It tells a story of a love between two people that overcomes incredible odds in a world in which even love is a luxury that few can afford.]]> 368 Sara Gruen 1565125606 Stella 0 to-read 4.11 2006 Water for Elephants
author: Sara Gruen
name: Stella
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)]]> 386162
Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years.

Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!]]> 193 Douglas Adams Stella 4 4.28 1979 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)
author: Douglas Adams
name: Stella
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1979
rating: 4
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]]> All the Light We Cannot See 18143977
In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.

From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the stunningly beautiful instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

An alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here]]> 544 Anthony Doerr 1476746583 Stella 5 4.31 2014 All the Light We Cannot See
author: Anthony Doerr
name: Stella
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2014
rating: 5
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]]> The Help 4667024
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women, mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends, view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.


Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here]]> 464 Kathryn Stockett 0399155341 Stella 5 4.46 2009 The Help
author: Kathryn Stockett
name: Stella
average rating: 4.46
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rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time]]> 1618 226 Mark Haddon 1400032717 Stella 0 to-read 3.89 2003 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
author: Mark Haddon
name: Stella
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)]]> 9969571 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

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

But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to win—and confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.]]> 480 Ernest Cline 030788743X Stella 4 4.21 2011 Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)
author: Ernest Cline
name: Stella
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2011
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest]]> 332613 9780451163967

Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy � the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. Ken Kesey's extraordinary first novel is an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.]]> 325 Ken Kesey Stella 0 to-read 4.20 1962 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
author: Ken Kesey
name: Stella
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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]]> A Clockwork Orange 41817486 A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil and the meaning of human freedom. This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition, and Burgess’s introduction, “A Clockwork Orange Resucked.”]]> 240 Anthony Burgess 0393341763 Stella 0 to-read 4.04 1962 A Clockwork Orange
author: Anthony Burgess
name: Stella
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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]]> Catch-22 168668
Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller’s masterpiece with a new introduction by Christopher Buckley; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos from Joseph Heller’s personal archive; and much more. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.]]> 453 Joseph Heller 0684833395 Stella 5 3.99 1961 Catch-22
author: Joseph Heller
name: Stella
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1961
rating: 5
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]]> Dune (Dune, #1) 44767458
When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.]]> 658 Frank Herbert 059309932X Stella 5 4.33 1965 Dune (Dune, #1)
author: Frank Herbert
name: Stella
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1965
rating: 5
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]]> Brave New World 5129 Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine� (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New Worldd likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.

"Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." —Chicago Tribune]]> 268 Aldous Huxley 0060929871 Stella 4 3.99 1932 Brave New World
author: Aldous Huxley
name: Stella
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1932
rating: 4
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]]> Fahrenheit 451 13079982 Sixty years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before.

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.� But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.]]> 194 Ray Bradbury Stella 4 3.97 1953 Fahrenheit 451
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Stella
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1953
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo]]> 32620332
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the �80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.]]> 389 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1501139231 Stella 4 4.39 2017 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Stella
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 4
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]]> The Diary of a Young Girl 48855
In 1942, with the Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, the Franks and another family lived cloistered in the “Secret Annexe� of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and surprisingly humorous, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.
--back cover]]> 283 Anne Frank Stella 4 4.19 1947 The Diary of a Young Girl
author: Anne Frank
name: Stella
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1947
rating: 4
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]]> Great Expectations 2623
Pip must discover his true self, and his own set of values and priorities. Whether such values allow one to prosper in the complex world of early Victorian England is the major question posed by Great Expectations, one of Dickens's most fascinating, and disturbing, novels.

This edition includes the original, discarded ending, Dickens's brief working notes, and the serial instalments and chapter divisions in different editions. It also uses the definitive Clarendon text.]]> 544 Charles Dickens 0192833596 Stella 4 3.78 1861 Great Expectations
author: Charles Dickens
name: Stella
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1861
rating: 4
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]]> Sense and Sensibility 14935 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141439662

'The more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!'

Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love—and its threatened loss—the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.

This edition includes explanatory notes, textual variants between the first and second editions, and Tony Tanner's introduction to the original Penguin Classic edition.]]> 409 Jane Austen 0141439661 Stella 4 4.10 1811 Sense and Sensibility
author: Jane Austen
name: Stella
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1811
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1)]]> 8127 Anne of Green Gables is also a wonderful portrait of a time, a place, a family� and, most of all, love.

WITH AN AFTERWORD BY JENNIFER LEE CARELL]]> 320 L.M. Montgomery 0451528824 Stella 3 4.30 1908 Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1)
author: L.M. Montgomery
name: Stella
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1908
rating: 3
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]]> The Little Prince 157993
Few stories are as widely read and as universally cherished by children and adults alike as The Little Prince, presented here in a stunning new translation with carefully restored artwork. The definitive edition of a worldwide classic, it will capture the hearts of readers of all ages.]]> 96 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 0152023984 Stella 4 4.32 1943 The Little Prince
author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
name: Stella
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1943
rating: 4
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]]> The Giver (The Giver, #1) 3636 208 Lois Lowry 0385732554 Stella 3 4.12 1993 The Giver (The Giver, #1)
author: Lois Lowry
name: Stella
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1993
rating: 3
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]]> Wuthering Heights 6185 You can find the redesigned cover of this edition HERE.

At the centre of this novel is the passionate love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff - recounted with such emotional intensity that a plain tale of the Yorkshire moors acquires the depth and simplicity of ancient tragedy.

This best-selling Norton Critical Edition is based on the 1847 first edition of the novel. For the Fourth Edition, the editor has collated the 1847 text with several modern editions and has corrected a number of variants, including accidentals. The text is accompanied by entirely new explanatory annotations.

New to the fourth Edition are twelve of Emily Bronte's letters regarding the publication of the 1847 edition of Wuthering Heights as well as the evolution of the 1850 edition, prose and poetry selections by the author, four reviews of the novel, and poetry selections by the author, four reviews of the novel, and Edward Chitham's insightful and informative chronology of the creative process behind the beloved work.

Five major critical interpretations of Wuthering Heights are included, three of them new to the Fourth Edition. A Stuart Daley considers the importance of chronology in the novel. J. Hillis Miller examines Wuthering Heights's problems of genre and critical reputation. Sandra M. Gilbert assesses the role of Victorian Christianity plays in the novel, while Martha Nussbaum traces the novel's romanticism. Finally, Lin Haire-Sargeant scrutinizes the role of Heathcliff in film adaptations of Wuthering Heights.

A Chronology and updated Selected Bibliography are also included.]]> 464 Emily Brontë Stella 3 3.89 1847 Wuthering Heights
author: Emily Brontë
name: Stella
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1847
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[Little Women (Little Women, #1)]]> 1934 This is an alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780451529305.

Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War.

It is no secret that Alcott based Little Women on her own early life. While her father, the freethinking reformer and abolitionist Bronson Alcott, hobnobbed with such eminent male authors as Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, Louisa supported herself and her sisters with "woman’s work,� including sewing, doing laundry, and acting as a domestic servant. But she soon discovered she could make more money writing. Little Women brought her lasting fame and fortune, and far from being the "girl’s book� her publisher requested, it explores such timeless themes as love and death, war and peace, the conflict between personal ambition and family responsibilities, and the clash of cultures between Europe and America.

]]> 449 Louisa May Alcott Stella 3 4.16 1868 Little Women (Little Women, #1)
author: Louisa May Alcott
name: Stella
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1868
rating: 3
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]]> The Great Gatsby 4671 The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald’s family and from his lifelong publisher.

This edition is the enduring original text, updated with the author’s own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with a new introduction by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published by Scribner in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.]]> 180 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0743273567 Stella 4 3.93 1925 The Great Gatsby
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Stella
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1925
rating: 4
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]]> To Kill a Mockingbird 2657
Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, "To Kill A Mockingbird" takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.]]> 323 Harper Lee 0060935464 Stella 5 4.25 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird
author: Harper Lee
name: Stella
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1960
rating: 5
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]]>