en-US Sat, 15 Feb 2025 03:31:55 -0800 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 60913708
After several acclaimed productions in Australia and winning the Australian Writers' Guild Award for Drama, the play received its European premiere at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London's West End in April 2022.]]> 98 Suzie Miller 1839040645 M 0 to-read 4.68
author: Suzie Miller
name: M
average rating: 4.68
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]]> 7354
A vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary American family, The Shipping News shows why E. Annie Proulx is recognized as one of the most gifted and original writers in America today.
(back cover)]]> 337 Annie Proulx 0743225422 M 0 to-read 3.88 1993
author: Annie Proulx
name: M
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1993
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/31
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]]> 55883882
Collects MONSTRESS #1-6

About the Creators:

New York Times bestselling and award-winning writer Marjorie Liu is best known for her fiction and comic books. She teaches comic book writing at MIT, and leads a class on Popular Fiction at the Voices of Our Nation (VONA) workshop. Ms. Liu's extensive work includes the bestselling "Astonishing X-Men" for Marvel Comics, which featured the gay wedding of X-Man Northstar and was subsequently nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for outstanding media images of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Prior to writing full-time, Liu was a lawyer. She currently resides in Boston.

Sana Takeda is an illustrator and comic book artist who was born in Niigata, and now resides in Tokyo, Japan. At age 20 she started out as a 3D CGI designer for SEGA, a Japanese video game company, and became a freelance artist when she was 25. She is still an artist, and has worked on titles such as "X-23" and "Ms. Marvel" for Marvel Comics, and is an illustrator for trading card games in Japan.]]> 192 Marjorie M. Liu 1632157098 M 0 3.96 2016
author: Marjorie M. Liu
name: M
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2016
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]]> 58724626 From the award-winning author of The Twisted Ones comes a gripping and atmospheric retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's classic "The Fall of the House of Usher."

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruravia.

What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.]]> 165 T. Kingfisher 1250830753 M 0 to-read 3.86 2022
author: T. Kingfisher
name: M
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/06/07
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]]> 59430548
At thirty-five, Mika Suzuki’s life is a mess. Her last relationship ended in flames. Her roommate-slash-best friend might be a hoarder. She’s a perpetual disappointment to her traditional Japanese parents. And, most recently, she’s been fired from her latest dead-end job.

Mika is at her lowest point when she receives a phone call from Penny—the daughter she placed for adoption sixteen years ago. Penny is determined to forge a relationship with her birth mother, and in turn, Mika longs to be someone Penny is proud of. Faced with her own inadequacies, Mika embellishes a fact about her life. What starts as a tiny white lie slowly snowballs into a fully-fledged fake life, one where Mika is mature, put-together, successful in love and her career.

The details of Mika’s life might be an illusion, but everything she shares with curious, headstrong Penny is real: her hopes, dreams, flaws, and Japanese heritage. The harder-won heart belongs to Thomas Calvin, Penny’s adoptive widower father. What starts as a rocky, contentious relationship slowly blossoms into a friendship and, over time, something more. But can Mika really have it all—love, her daughter, the life she’s always wanted? Or will Mika’s deceptions ultimately catch up to her? In the end, Mika must face the truth—about herself, her family, and her past—and answer the question, just who is Mika in real life?

Perfect for fans of Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age, Gayle Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, and Rebecca Serle’s In Five Years, Mika in Real Life is at once a heart-wrenching and uplifting novel that explores the weight of silence, the secrets we keep, and what it means to be a mother.

In this brilliant new novel by from Emiko Jean, the author of the New York Times bestselling young adult novel Tokyo Ever After, comes a whip-smart, laugh-out-loud funny, and utterly heartwarming novel about motherhood, daughterhood, and love—how we find it, keep it, and how it always returns.]]> 384 Emiko Jean 0063215683 M 0 to-read 3.88 2022
author: Emiko Jean
name: M
average rating: 3.88
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]]> 43521785 England, 1879. Annabelle Archer, the brilliant but destitute daughter of a country vicar, has earned herself a place among the first cohort of female students at the renowned University of Oxford. In return for her scholarship, she must support the rising women's suffrage movement. Her charge: recruit men of influence to champion their cause. Her target: Sebastian Devereux, the cold and calculating Duke of Montgomery who steers Britain's politics at the Queen's command. Her challenge: not to give in to the powerful attraction she can't deny for the man who opposes everything she stands for.

Sebastian is appalled to find a suffragist squad has infiltrated his ducal home, but the real threat is his impossible feelings for green-eyed beauty Annabelle. He is looking for a wife of equal standing to secure the legacy he has worked so hard to rebuild, not an outspoken commoner who could never be his duchess. But he wouldn't be the greatest strategist of the Kingdom if he couldn't claim this alluring bluestocking without the promise of a ring... or could he?

Locked in a battle with rising passion and a will matching her own, Annabelle will learn just what it takes to topple a duke....

A stunning debut for author Evie Dunmore and her Oxford suffragists in which a fiercely independent vicar's daughter takes on a powerful duke in a fiery love story that threatens to upend the British social order.]]> 335 Evie Dunmore 1984805681 M 0 to-read 3.91 2019
author: Evie Dunmore
name: M
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2019
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]]> 25817900 Jane Eyre.

A fixture in the literary canon, Charlotte Brontë is revered by readers all over the world. Her novels featuring unforgettable, strong heroines still resonate with millions today. And who could forget one of literature’s best-known lines: “Reader, I married him� from her classic novel Jane Eyre?

Part of a remarkable family that produced three acclaimed female writers at a time in 19th-century Britain when few women wrote, and fewer were published, Brontë has become a great source of inspiration to writers, especially women, ever since. Now in Reader, I Married Him, twenty of today’s most celebrated women authors have spun original stories, using the line from Jane Eyre as a springboard for their own flights of imagination.

Reader, I Married Him will feature stories by:

Tracy Chevalier, Tessa Hadley, Sarah Hall, Helen Dunmore, Kirsty Gunn, Joanna Briscoe, Jane Gardam, Emma Donaghue, Susan Hill, Francine Prose, Elif Shafak, Evie Wyld, Patricia Park, Salley Vickers, Nadifa Mohamed, Esther Freud, Linda Grant, Lionel Shriver, Audrey Niffenegger, Namwali Serpell, and Elizabeth McCracken.Ěý

Unique, inventive, and poignant, the stories in Reader, I Married Him pay homage to the literary genius of Charlotte Brontë, and demonstrate once again that her extraordinary vision continues to inspire readers and writers.]]> 295 Tracy Chevalier 0062447092 M 0 to-read 3.18 2016
author: Tracy Chevalier
name: M
average rating: 3.18
book published: 2016
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]]> 30710341 336 Adrian Cooper 1908213418 M 0 to-read 3.87 2016
author: Adrian Cooper
name: M
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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]]> 61871774 Mass for Shut-Ins is the 117th volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets, selected by award-winning poet Rae Armantrout.
Ěý
Mary-Alice Daniel confronts tricontinental culture shock and her curious placement within many worlds. African and Western mythic systems and modern rituals originate an ill-omened universe. Here, it is always night, grim night, under absurd moons. Venturing through dreamscapes, hellscapes, and lurid landscapes, poems map speculative fields of spiritual warfare. This collection is controlled chaos powered by nightmare fuel. It animates an utterly odd organism: a cosmology cobbled with scripture, superstition, mass media, mad science. Horrid, holy, unholy—these pages overrun with the unhinged, intrusive thoughts that obsess us all late into nighttime.]]> 120 Mary-Alice Daniel 0300267991 M 0 to-read 4.20 2023
author: Mary-Alice Daniel
name: M
average rating: 4.20
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]]> 38371234 32 J. Patrick Lewis 1568463111 M 0 to-read 3.78
author: J. Patrick Lewis
name: M
average rating: 3.78
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]]> 61144950 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A Book Riot best book of 2023
A Science Friday best book of 2023
An Audible best well-being audiobook of 2023

By the time they reach kindergarten, most kids believe that “fat� is bad. By middle school, more than a quarter of them have gone on a diet. What are parents supposed to do?

Kids learn, as we’ve all learned, that thinness is a survival strategy in a world that equates body size and value. Parents worry if their kids care too much about being thin, but even more about the consequences if they aren’t. And multibillion-dollar industries thrive on this fear of fatness. We’ve fought the “war on obesity� for over forty years and Americans aren’t thinner or happier with their bodies. But it’s not our kids—or their weight—who need fixing.

In this illuminating narrative, journalist Virginia Sole-Smith exposes the daily onslaught of fatphobia and body shaming that kids face from school, sports, doctors, diet culture, and parents themselves—and offers strategies for how families can change the conversation around weight, health, and self-worth.

Fat Talk is a stirring, deeply researched, and groundbreaking book that will help parents learn to reckon with their own body biases, identify diet culture, and empower their kids to navigate this challenging landscape. Sole-Smith draws on her extensive reporting and interviews with dozens of parents and kids to offer a provocative new approach for thinking about food and bodies, and a way for us all to work toward a more weight-inclusive world.]]> 384 Virginia Sole-Smith 1250831210 M 0 to-read 4.28 2023
author: Virginia Sole-Smith
name: M
average rating: 4.28
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]]> 53487148 This is the women’s war, just as much as it is the men’s. They have waited long enough for their turn . . .

This was never the story of one woman, or two. It was the story of them all . . .

In the middle of the night, a woman wakes to find her beloved city engulfed in flames. Ten seemingly endless years of conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans are over. Troy has fallen.

From the Trojan women whose fates now lie in the hands of the Greeks, to the Amazon princess who fought Achilles on their behalf, to Penelope awaiting the return of Odysseus, to the three goddesses whose feud started it all, these are the stories of the women whose lives, loves, and rivalries were forever altered by this long and tragic war.

A woman’s epic, powerfully imbued with new life, A Thousand Ships puts the women, girls and goddesses at the center of the Western world’s great tale ever told.]]> 368 Natalie Haynes 0063065398 M 0 to-read 4.05 2019
author: Natalie Haynes
name: M
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/11
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]]> 33413929
When Abelard posts a quote from The Letters of Abelard and Heloise online, their mutual affinity for ancient love letters connects them. The two fall for each other. Hard. But is it enough to bridge their differences in person?

This hilarious, heartbreaking story of human connection between two neurodivergent teens creates characters that will stay with you long after you finish reading.]]> 339 Laura Creedle 0544932056 M 0 currently-reading 3.83 2017
author: Laura Creedle
name: M
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/11
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]]> 51824384
Jacob Wayne is in control. Always. The bed and breakfast owner’s on a mission to dominate the hospitality industry—and he expects nothing less than perfection. So when a purple-haired tornado of a woman turns up out of the blue to interview for his open chef position, he tells her the brutal truth: not a chance in hell. Then she hits him with her car—supposedly by accident. Yeah, right.

Now his arm is broken, his B&B is understaffed, and the dangerously unpredictable Eve is fluttering around, trying to help. Before long, she’s infiltrated his work, his kitchen—and his spare bedroom. Jacob hates everything about it. Or rather, he should. Sunny, chaotic Eve is his natural-born nemesis, but the longer these two enemies spend in close quarters, the more their animosity turns into something else. Like Eve, the heat between them is impossible to ignore—and it’s melting Jacob’s frosty exterior.]]> 400 Talia Hibbert 0062941283 M 0 currently-reading 4.07 2021
author: Talia Hibbert
name: M
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/11
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]]> 7430962 � READER, I BURIED HIM . �

A timeless tale of love,Ěý devotion . . .Ěýand the undead.

Jane Slayre, our plucky demon-slaying heroine, a courageous orphan who spurns the detestable vampyre kin who raised her, sets out on the advice of her ghostly uncle to hone her skills as the fearless slayer she’s meant to be. When she takes a job as a governess at a country estate, she falls head-over-heels for her new master, Mr. Rochester, only to discover he’s hiding a violent werewolf in the attic—in the form of his first wife. Can a menagerie of bloodthirsty, flesh-eating, savage creatures-of-the-night keep a swashbuckling nineteenth-century lady from the gentleman she intends to marry? Vampyres, zombies, and werewolves transform Charlotte Brontë’s unforgettable masterpiece into an eerie paranormal adventure that will delight and terrify.]]> 391 Sherri Browning Erwin 1439191182 M 3 3.70 2010
author: Sherri Browning Erwin
name: M
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2010
rating: 3
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]]> 58313993
But when her longtimeĚýmanager Pippa sends Jane to London to regroup,Ěýshe’s seated next to an intriguing stranger on the flight—theĚý otherĚý Tom Hardy, an elegantly handsome Oxford professor of literature. Jane is instantly smitten by Tom, and soon, truly inspired. But it’s not Jane’sĚýpastĚýalone thatĚýhaunts her second chance at stardom, and at love. Is Tom all that he seems? And can Jane emergeĚýfrom the shadow of Jonesy's earlier hit,Ěýand into the light of her own?

In turns deeply sexy, riotously funny, and utterly joyful,Ěý This Bird Has Flown Ěýexplores love, passion, and the ghosts of our past, and offers a glimpse inside the music business that could only come from beloved songwriter Susanna Hoffs.]]> 368 Susanna Hoffs 0316409316 M 0 to-read 3.06 2023
author: Susanna Hoffs
name: M
average rating: 3.06
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]]> 40498931 96 Anita Ganeri 1787410307 M 0 to-read 3.98
author: Anita Ganeri
name: M
average rating: 3.98
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]]> 13642
Hungry for power and knowledge, Sparrowhawk tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance.]]> 183 Ursula K. Le Guin M 0 4.02 1968
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: M
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1968
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]]> 60877625
Ro Devereux can predict your future. Or, at least, the app she built for her senior project can.

Working with her neighbor, a retired behavioral scientist, Ro created an app called MASH, designed around the classic game Mansion Apartment Shack House, that can predict a person’s future with 93% accuracy. The app will even match users with their soul mates. Though it was only supposed to be a class project, MASH quickly takes off and gains the attention of tech investors.

Ro’s dream is to work in Silicon Valley, and she’ll do anything to prove to her new backing company—and the world—that the app works. So it’s a huge shock when the app says her soul mate is Miller, her childhood best friend with whom she had a friendship-destroying fight three years ago. Now thrust into a fake dating scenario, Ro and Miller must address the years of pain between them if either of them will have any chance of achieving their dreams.

Fans of Emma Lord and Alex Light will love this stand-alone contemporary novel with a masterful slow-burn romance at its core.]]> 320 Ellen O'Clover 0063255030 M 0 to-read 3.93 2023
author: Ellen O'Clover
name: M
average rating: 3.93
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]]> 58311926
Lena came to America with nothing but a dream—and an exceptional ability to drape and snip and stitch. She never used a pattern or a tape measure, but every dress she sewed turned out to be a perfect fit.

Then, one day, a customer presented her with a new challenge. Could she design a stylish, comfortable gown for a body shape that did not meet the current standards of fashion?

Lena took the challenge. Under the company name Lane Bryant, she became famous for flattering and modish clothing designed for all different shapes and sizes. The world of fashion would never be the same.]]> 32 Mara Rockliff 035812543X M 0 to-read 4.17
author: Mara Rockliff
name: M
average rating: 4.17
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]]> 51200095 Yes, I'm Hot in This, Huda Fahmy tells the hilarious story of how she met and married her husband. Navigating mismatched suitors, gossiping aunties, and societal expectations for Muslim women, That Can Be Arranged deftly and hilariously reveals to readers what it can be like to find a husband as an observant Muslim woman in the twenty-first century.

So relevant in today's evolving cultural climate, Fahmy's story offers a perceptive and personal glimpse into the sometimes sticky but ultimately rewarding balance of independent choice and tradition.]]> 192 Huda Fahmy 1524856223 M 0 to-read 4.20 2020
author: Huda Fahmy
name: M
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2020
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]]> 59807954 An enchanting tale filled with magical realism and moments of pure love that won’t let you go.

Between the real and the imaginary, there are stories that take flight in the most extraordinary ways.

Right off the coast of South Carolina, on Mallow Island, The Dellawisp sits—a stunning old cobblestone building shaped like a horseshoe, and named after the tiny turquoise birds who, alongside its human tenants, inhabit an air of magical secrecy.

When Zoey comes to claim her deceased mother’s apartment at the Dellawisp she meets her quirky and secretive neighbors, including a young woman with a past, two estranged middle-aged sisters, and a lonely chef, and three ghosts. The sudden death of one of Zoey's new neighbors sets off a search that leads to the island's famous author and to a long-estranged relative of the sisters.
Each of them has a story, and each story has an ending which hasn't yet been written.]]> 290 Sarah Addison Allen 1250019869 M 3 4.00 2022
author: Sarah Addison Allen
name: M
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2022
rating: 3
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Like all Allen's books, this was a comforting read with minor peril (I'm sounding like an MPAA rating).
]]> 60564466 An intimate, candid memoir about a lifelong struggle to speak.

"Soulful...Profoundly moving."--Esquire

"Life On Delay brims with empathy and honesty ... It moved me in ways that I haven't experienced before. It's fantastic."--Clint Smith, author of How the Word Is Passed

"I can't remember the last time I read a book that made me want to both cry and cheer so much, often at the same time."--Robert Kolker, author of Hidden Valley Road

In the fall of 2019, John Hendrickson wrote a groundbreaking story for The Atlantic about Joe Biden's decades-long journey with stuttering, as well as his own. The article went viral, reaching readers around the world and altering the course of Hendrickson's life. Overnight, he was forced to publicly confront an element of himself that still caused him great pain.

He soon learned he wasn't alone with his feelings: strangers who stutter began sending him their own personal stories, something that continues to this day. Now, in this reported memoir, Hendrickson takes us deep inside the mind and heart of a stutterer as he sets out to answer lingering questions about himself and his condition that he was often too afraid to ask.

In Life on Delay, Hendrickson writes candidly about bullying, substance abuse, depression, isolation, and other issues stutterers like him face daily. He explores the intricate family dynamics surrounding his own stutter and revisits key people from his past in unguarded interviews. Readers get an over-the-shoulder view of his childhood; his career as a journalist, which once seemed impossible; and his search for a romantic partner. Along the way, Hendrickson guides us through the evolution of speech therapy, the controversial quest for a "magic pill" to end stuttering, and the burgeoning self-help movement within the stuttering community. Beyond his own experiences, he shares portraits of fellow stutterers who have changed his life, and he writes about a pioneering doctor who is upending the field of speech therapy.

Life on Delay is an indelible account of perseverance, a soulful narrative about not giving up, and a glimpse into the process of making peace with our past and present selves.]]> 255 John Hendrickson 0593319133 M 0 to-read 4.47 2023
author: John Hendrickson
name: M
average rating: 4.47
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]]> 55938279
"I make all things new," proclaimed the Lord. Regrettably, many are still mired in the past, in ways we have not recognized. In this book, Fiona and Terryl Givens trace the roots of our religious vocabulary, explore how a flawed inheritance compounds the wounds and challenges of a life devoted to discipleship, and suggest ways of reformulating our language in more healthy ways all in the hope that, as B. H. Roberts urged, we may all "cooperate in the works of the Spirit" to find "a truer expression" of a gospel restored.]]> 206 Fiona Givens 1953677037 M 0 4.59
author: Fiona Givens
name: M
average rating: 4.59
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]]> 61721310 40 Jacqueline K. Rayner 1328967204 M 0 to-read 3.52
author: Jacqueline K. Rayner
name: M
average rating: 3.52
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date added: 2023/04/04
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]]> 50195086 Note to Parents and Caregivers with more information on ADHD, self-esteem, and helping children focus on the positives.]]> 32 Merriam Sarcia Saunders 143383183X M 0 3.96
author: Merriam Sarcia Saunders
name: M
average rating: 3.96
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date added: 2023/04/03
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]]> 60221974 384 Pádraig Ó Tuama 1324035471 M 0 currently-reading 4.54 2022
author: Pádraig Ó Tuama
name: M
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/03
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]]> 59808347
Once burned, twice shy, Rake has given up on relationships. And feelings. And any form of intimacy for that matter. Yet something about charming, chaotic Lizzie has him lowering his guard. For two nights, that is. Then it’s back home to Australia and far away from the pesky feelings Lizzie pulls from him. But when Lizzie tells him she’s got an unexpected bun in the oven, he’ll do whatever it takes to be a part of his child’s life� except be emotionally vulnerable, obviously. He’s never going to make that mistake again.

Through a series of mishaps, totally “platonic� single bed sharing, and an underground erotic baking scheme, Lizzie and Rake learn that even the biggest mistakes can have the most beautiful consequences.]]> 336 Mazey Eddings 1250806003 M 3 3.84 2022
author: Mazey Eddings
name: M
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2022
rating: 3
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date added: 2023/04/03
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]]> 50042494
A new relationship couldn't have come at a better time - her thirties have not been the liberating, uncomplicated experience she was sold. Everywhere she turns, she is reminded of time passing and opportunities dwindling. Friendships are fading, ex-boyfriends are moving on and, worse, everyone's moving to the suburbs. There's no solace to be found in her family, with a mum who's caught in a baffling mid-life makeover and a beloved dad who is vanishing in slow-motion into dementia.

Dolly Alderton's debut novel is funny and tender, filled with whip-smart observations about relationships, family, memory, and how we live now.]]> 352 Dolly Alderton 0241434548 M 2 3.86 2020
author: Dolly Alderton
name: M
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2020
rating: 2
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date added: 2023/04/03
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]]> 42424403 Jen is used to not getting what she wants. So suddenly moving to the country and getting new stepsisters shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

Jen did not want to leave the city. She did not want to move to a farm with her mom and her mom's new boyfriend, Walter. She did not want to leave her friends and her dad.

Most of all, Jen did not want to get new "sisters," Andy and Reese.

If learning new chores on Peapod Farm wasn't hard enough, then having to deal with perfect-at-everything Andy might be the last straw for Jen. Besides cleaning the chicken coop, trying to keep up with the customers at the local farmers' market, and missing her old life, Jen has to deal with her own insecurities about this new family . . . and where she fits in.]]> 224 Lucy Knisley M 0 4.01 2020
author: Lucy Knisley
name: M
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/03
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]]> 55926460
When Nema and her friends discover a hidden sugar-hooked society holding lost kids, they find their perfect world in danger. The strange, sticky place hides the truth about Nema’s missing brother, and a plot to destroy the free world she knows. But only they can reverse a code to prevent a rock candy robot invasion and rescue the captives. Fail and they might never make it back home...

This dystopian, cli-fi mystery is a quirky adventure featuring a neurodivergent cast and autistic/dyslexic/adhd main characters, for readers 10 years and up. Highly recommended as a family read due to the thought-provoking concepts and subject matter introduced.

Set in the utopian world of post-catastrophe 'Surrey Isles', Britain 2054, where neurodivergents live in harmony with nature and technology, and the hidden dystopian 'Gajoomdom'.

Anyone who has ever felt different or had trouble fitting in will identify with this story about finding the strength to be your true self. A fun, Alice-esque adventure revealing what it means to be neurodivergent, in a way that’s relatable to all.

Fans of Dahl, Baum and Carroll, will love MOOJAG.]]> 288 N.E. McMorran 1838097805 M 0 to-read 4.12 2020
author: N.E. McMorran
name: M
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/30
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]]> 61245963
Centuries later, autistic Milo lovingly tends Gia’s statue. He hopes to earn a place in the temple of Ennio, the immortal protector. When Milo’s prayers free Gia from Ennio’s curse, she awakens to a world that worships the man who betrayed her. Now she must break the city’s faith in Ennio and avenge her sister.

Even if she has to kill his followers to do it. Even if she must hunt the boy who woke her.]]> 368 Leanne Schwartz M 0 to-read 4.33 2023
author: Leanne Schwartz
name: M
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 29102841
Astronomy-loving Calliope June has Tourette syndrome, so she sometimes makes faces or noises that she doesn't mean to make. When she and her mother move yet again, she tries to hide her TS. But it isn't long before the kids at her new school realize she's different. Only Calli's neighbor, who is also the popular student body president, sees her as she truly is—an interesting person and a good friend. But is he brave enough to take their friendship public?

As Calli navigates school, she must also face her mother's new relationship and the fact that she might be moving, again, just as she starts to make friends and finally accept her differences.]]> 336 Ellie Terry 1250096278 M 0 to-read 3.90 2017
author: Ellie Terry
name: M
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 61851518 From actor-author-broadcaster-comedian-filmmaker Richard Ayoade comes a book narrated by . . . a book. Quirky, smart, and genre-busting, this is the saga of a book that nobody wants to read—until the day it meets YOU.

The life of a book isn’t easy, especially when people judge you by your cover (not every book can be adorned with sparkly unicorns!). And this narrator should know—it’s the book itself, and it has a lot of opinions. It gets irritated when readers bend its pages back, and it finds authors quite annoying. But it does have a story to tell. Through witty direct address and charming illustrations, readers meet a book that has never been read, with a cover the boring color of a school lunch table and pages so dry they give bookworms indigestion. But what happens when this book meets you, a curious reader? Multitalented author Richard Ayoade and award-winning illustrator Tor Freeman bring to life a hilariously subversive take on the nature of books and reading, with a heartening theme of finding the courage to tell our own stories. Readers of all ages will be delighted by the myriad bookish references and laughs on every page.]]> 128 Richard Ayoade 153622216X M 5 middle-reader 3.71 2022
author: Richard Ayoade
name: M
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/03/30
shelves: middle-reader
review:

]]> 61355268 From the New York Times-bestselling author of Wintering, an invitation to rediscover the feelings of awe and wonder available to us all.

Many of us feel trapped in a grind of constant change: rolling news cycles, the chatter of social media, our families split along partisan lines. We feel fearful and tired, on edge in our bodies, not quite knowing what has us perpetually depleted. For Katherine May, this low hum of fatigue and anxiety made her wonder what she was missing. Could there be a different way to relate to the world, one that would allow her to feel more rested and at ease, even as seismic changes unfold on the planet? Might there be a way for all of us to move through life with curiosity and tenderness, sensitized to the subtle magic all around?

In Enchantment, May invites the reader to come with her on a journey to reawaken our innate sense of wonder and awe. With humor, candor, and warmth, she shares stories of her own struggles with work, family, and the aftereffects of pandemic, particularly feelings of overwhelm as the world rushes to reopen. Craving a different way to live, May begins to explore the restorative properties of the natural world, moving through the elements of earth, water, fire, and air and identifying the quiet traces of magic that can be found only when we look for them. Through deliberate attention and ritual, she unearths the potency and nourishment that come from quiet reconnection with our immediate environment. Blending lyricism and storytelling, sensitivity and empathy, Enchantment invites each of us to open the door to human experience in all its sensual complexity, and to find the beauty waiting for us there.]]> 212 Katherine May 0593329996 M 3 3.60 2023
author: Katherine May
name: M
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/03/30
date added: 2023/03/30
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]]> 33858905
This is a story of new motherhood in a terrifying setting: a familiar world made dangerous and unstable, its people forced to become refugees. Startlingly beautiful, Megan Hunter's The End We Start From is a gripping novel that paints an imagined future as realistic as it is frightening. And yet, though the country is falling apart around them, this family’s world � of new life and new hope � sings with love.]]> 160 Megan Hunter M 4 3.41 2017
author: Megan Hunter
name: M
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/30
date added: 2023/03/30
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]]> 55843603 Set in the northern Minnesota wilderness, a timeless novel about a boy and his imaginary dog explores the legacy of guilt and blame--and what really constitutes a family.

Newbery Honoree Marion Dane Bauer evokes the "summer that changed everything" in the life of a boy growing up without a mother. Since as far back as Ben can remember, it's been him, his devoted dad, and Sunshine--Ben's little dog, who rarely leaves Ben's side. It was Mom who did the leaving, and Ben's about to spend a whole week with his suddenly present mother in the wilds of northern Minnesota. On the remote island she calls home, Ben will learn to camp, canoe, weather the elements, and weigh a burning question: when will she come back to where she belongs? A must-read for dog lovers, children of divorce, and the imaginative and outdoorsy, Sunshine is a poignant, ultimately hopeful story about self-discovery, facing big realities, and finally, forgiving the things--and people--you can't forget.]]> 208 Marion Dane Bauer 1536214116 M 4 middle-reader 3.60 2021
author: Marion Dane Bauer
name: M
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/03/25
shelves: middle-reader
review:

]]> 11042036
And so begins the scamper of their lives as Helena, her siblings, and their humans set sail on a life-changing voyage into the great world of titled humans . . . and titled mice, and surprise endings for all. On the eve of Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee, will our Cranston heroes squeak by, or will they go entirely overboard?]]> 238 Richard Peck 0803734557 M 0 middle-reader 3.67 2011
author: Richard Peck
name: M
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/25
shelves: middle-reader
review:

]]> 60316963 A middle-grade survival story that traces a family secret back to the Holodomor, a terrible famine that devastated Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s.

Thirteen-year-old Matthew is miserable. His journalist dad is stuck overseas indefinitely, and his mom has moved in his one-hundred-year-old great-grandmother to ride out the pandemic, adding to his stress and isolation.

But when Matthew finds a tattered black-and-white photo in his great-grandmother’s belongings, he discovers a clue to a hidden chapter of her past, one that will lead to a life-shattering family secret. Set in alternating timelines that connect the present-day to the 1930s and the US to the USSR, Katherine Marsh’s latest novel sheds fresh light on the Holodomor � the horrific famine that killed millions of Ukrainians, and which the Soviet government covered up for decades.

Inspired by Marsh’s own family history.]]> 368 Katherine Marsh 1250313600 M 0 to-read 4.47 2023
author: Katherine Marsh
name: M
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> 36717949
Then he meets Max, a thirteen-year-old American boy from Washington, D.C. Lonely and homesick, Max is struggling at his new school and just can’t seem to do anything right. But with one startling discovery, Max and Ahmed’s lives collide and a friendship begins to grow. Together, Max and Ahmed will defy the odds, learning from each other what it means to be brave and how hope can change your destiny.]]> 366 Katherine Marsh 0525632026 M 0 to-read 4.35 2018
author: Katherine Marsh
name: M
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> 53404781
When Cordelia's father Prospero and his ship, the Jolly Bonnet, are lost at sea during a mission to collect hat ingredients, Cordelia is determined to find him. But Uncle Tiberius and Aunt Ariadne have no time to help the littlest Hatmaker, for an ancient rivalry between the Maker families is threatening to surface. Worse, someone seems to be using Maker magic to start a war.

It's up to Cordelia to find out who, and why . . .

Featuring illustrations by Paola Escobar.]]> 368 Tamzin Merchant 1324016035 M 0 to-read 4.04 2021
author: Tamzin Merchant
name: M
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> 38085814
They have almost no money for food or shelter and must carry only the essentials for survival on their backs as they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey.

The Salt Path is an honest and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt, and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.]]> 288 Raynor Winn 0241349648 M 4 3.97 2018
author: Raynor Winn
name: M
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/25
date added: 2023/03/25
shelves:
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Read because Katherine May (The Electricity of Every Living Thing) recommended it. Makes me want to walk the South West Coast Path
]]> 34106336
At first, track is as much of a disaster as everything else in Joseph’s life. But slowly Joseph hits his stride, and instead of running from the bulls . . . he’s just running.]]> 188 Diana Harmon Asher M 0 to-read 4.13 2017
author: Diana Harmon Asher
name: M
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> 42202089 Shortlisted for the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize and a Best Book of the Year according to Real Simple, the Globe and Mail, and the CBC, this follows the love story of two people who are at once mere weeks and many years apart.

In this novel America is in the grip of a deadly flu pandemic. When Frank catches the virus, his girlfriend Polly will do whatever it takes to save him—even if it means risking everything. When she finds out there’s a company that has invented time travel, she agrees to a radical contract: if she signs up for a one-way-trip into the future to work as a bonded laborer, the company will pay for the life-saving treatment Frank needs. Polly promises to meet Frank again in Galveston, Texas, where she will arrive in twelve years.

But when Polly is re-routed an extra five years into the future, Frank is nowhere to be found. Alone in a transformed and divided America, with no status and no money, Polly must navigate a new life and find a way to locate Frank, to determine if he is alive, and if their love has endured.

An Ocean of Minutes is a gorgeous and heartbreaking story that paints an intimate portrait of endurance and complexity of human relationships and the cost of holding onto the past—and the price of letting it go.]]> 336 Thea Lim M 0 to-read 3.40 2018
author: Thea Lim
name: M
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> 53175340
She and her best friend, Otto, love to search for treasure . . . but often find trouble instead.
Messy trouble.
Tricky trouble.
Even shark-related trouble.
That’s never stopped them before, though!

After all, no proper treasure hunt is without some adventure. But when the grandest treasure yet is stuck in a deep, dark rift, Oona’s not sure if she can dive right in. What might be waiting for her in those unknown waters?]]> 32 Kelly DiPucchio 0062982249 M 0 3.80 2021
author: Kelly DiPucchio
name: M
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/21
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]]> 23310709 Mom and Dad say I'm a blend of dark and light:
"We mixed you perfectly, and got you just right."

Mike has awesome hair. He has LOTS of energy! His parents love him. And Mike is a PERFECT blend of the two of them.

Still, Mike has to answer LOTS of questions about being mixed. And he does, with LOTS of energy and joy in this charming story about a day in the life of a mixed-race child.]]> 40 Taye Diggs 1250047196 M 0 3.80 2015
author: Taye Diggs
name: M
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/21
shelves:
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]]> 36196857 104 Zidrou 230206397X M 0 to-read 3.57 2017
author: Zidrou
name: M
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> 402252
The book's strip-cartoon format is deceptively simple; it possesses a wealth of detail and an emotional depth that are remarkable in such a short volume. Briggs's marvelous illustrations and succinct, true-to-life dialogue create a real sense of time and place, of what it was like to experience such enormous changes. Almost as much a social history as it is a personal account, Ethel & Ernest is a moving tribute to ordinary people living in an extraordinary time.]]> 104 Raymond Briggs 0375407588 M 3 4.19 1998
author: Raymond Briggs
name: M
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1998
rating: 3
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date added: 2023/03/20
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]]> 82882
In Algeria in the 1930s, a cat belonging to a widowed rabbi and his beautiful daughter, Zlabya, eats the family parrot and gains the ability to speak. To his master’s consternation, the cat immediately begins to tell lies (the first being that he didn’t eat the parrot). The rabbi vows to educate him in the ways of the Torah, while the cat insists on studying the kabbalah and having a Bar Mitzvah. They consult the rabbi’s rabbi, who maintains that a cat can’t be Jewish � but the cat, as always, knows better.

Zlabya falls in love with a dashing young rabbi from Paris, and soon master and cat, having overcome their shared self-pity and jealousy, are accompanying the newlyweds to France to meet Zlabya’s cosmopolitan in-laws. Full of drama and adventure, their trip invites countless opportunities for the rabbi and his cat to grapple with all the important � and trivial � details of life.

Rich with the colors, textures, and flavors of Algeria’s Jewish community, The Rabbi’s Cat brings a lost world vibrantly to life � a time and place where Jews and Arabs coexisted � and peoples it with endearing and thoroughly human characters, and one truly unforgettable cat.

Originally published in France in three volumes as Le Chat du Rabbin, 1.La Bar-Mitsva; Le Chat du Rabbin, 2. Le Malka des Lions; and Le Chat du Rabbin, 3. L'Exode by Dargaud, Paris, in 2001, 2002, and 2003.]]> 142 Joann Sfar 0375422811 M 0 to-read 4.05 2001
author: Joann Sfar
name: M
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> 22487952
After the success of the Nashville sit-in campaign, John Lewis is more committed than ever to changing the world through nonviolence - but as he and his fellow Freedom Riders board a bus into the vicious heart of the deep south, they will be tested like never before.

Faced with beatings, police brutality, imprisonment, arson, and even murder, the young activists of the movement struggle with internal conflicts as well. But their courage will attract the notice of powerful allies, from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy... and once Lewis is elected chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, this 23-year-old will be thrust into the national spotlight, becoming one of the "Big Six" leaders of the civil rights movement and a central figure in the landmark 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.]]> 192 John Lewis 1603094008 M 0 to-read 4.48 2015
author: John Lewis
name: M
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> 80834
Guy Delisle was born in Quebec City in 1966 and has spent the last decade living and working in the South of France with his wife and son. Delisle has spent ten years, mostly in Europe, working in animation, an experience that taught him about movement and drawing. He is now currently focusing on his cartooning. Delisle has written and drawn six graphic novels, including "Pyongyang," his first graphic novel in English.]]> 192 Guy Delisle 1897299214 M 0 to-read 3.89 2003
author: Guy Delisle
name: M
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> 10767466 Hark! A Vagrant is an uproarious romp through history and literature seen through the sharp, contemporary lens of New Yorker cartoonist and comics-sensation Kate Beaton. No era or tome emerges unscathbed as Beaton rightly skewers the Western world's revolutionaries, leaders, sycophants, and suffragists while equally honing her wit on the hapless heroes, heroines, and villains of the best-loved fiction. She deftly points out what really happened when Brahms fell asleep listening to Liszt, that the world's first hipsters were obviously the Incroyables and the Merveilleuses from eighteenth-century France, that Susan B. Anthony is, of course, a "Samantha," and that the polite banality of Canadian culture never gets old. Hark! A Vagrant features sexy Batman, the true stories behind classic Nancy Drew covers, and Queen Elizabeth doing the albatross. As the 5600.000 unique monthly visitors to already know, no one turns the ironic absurdities of history and literature into comedic fodder as hilarious as Beaton.]]> 168 Kate Beaton 1770460608 M 0 to-read 4.21 2011
author: Kate Beaton
name: M
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> 37811512 But when Nan gets stuck in a deadly chimney fire, she fears her time has come. Instead, she wakes to find herself in an abandoned attic. And she is not alone. Huddled in the corner is a mysterious creature--a golem--made from ash and coal. This is the creature that saved her from the fire.
Sweep is the story of a girl and her monster. Together, these two outcasts carve out a life together--saving one another in the process.]]> 400 Jonathan Auxier 073526435X M 4 4.45 2018
author: Jonathan Auxier
name: M
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2018
rating: 4
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date added: 2023/03/20
shelves:
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]]> 52669271 A New York Times-bestselling author looks for the meaning of a good life by seeking advice from the very young and the very old.

When his first book tour ended, Brad Montague missed hearing other people's stories so much that he launched what he dubbed a Listening Tour. First visiting elementary schools and later also nursing homes and retirement communities, he hoped to glean new wisdom as to how he might become a better grownup. Now, in this playful and buoyant book, he shares those insights with rest of us --timeless, often surprising lessons that bypass the head we're always stuck in, and go straight to the heart we sometimes forget.

Each of the book's three sections begins with the illustrated story of "The Incredible Floating Girl." Brad weaves this story together with lessons of success, fear, regret, gratitude, love, happiness, and dreams to reveal the true reason we are here: to fly, and to help others fly.

Beautifully designed and featuring Montague's own whimsical 4-color illustrations that appeal to the kid in all of us, Becoming Better Grownups shares the purpose and meaning we can all discover merely by listening, and reveals that--in a world that seems increasingly childish--the secret to joy is in fact to become more childlike.]]> 320 Brad Montague 0525537848 M 0 currently-reading 4.31
author: Brad Montague
name: M
average rating: 4.31
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/16
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 49089632
There are some differences. This America has been shaped dramatically by the magic, monsters, knowledge, and legends of its peoples, those Indigenous and those not. Some of these forces are charmingly everyday, like the ability to make an orb of light appear or travel across the world through rings of fungi. But other forces are less charming and should never see the light of day.

Elatsoe lives in this slightly stranger America. She can raise the ghosts of dead animals, a skill passed down through generations of her Lipan Apache family. Her beloved cousin has just been murdered in a town that wants no prying eyes. But she is going to do more than pry. The picture-perfect facade of Willowbee masks gruesome secrets, and she will rely on her wits, skills, and friends to tear off the mask and protect her family.]]> 362 Darcie Little Badger 1646140052 M 4 3.98 2020
author: Darcie Little Badger
name: M
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2020
rating: 4
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date added: 2023/03/16
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review:
Made me jump at the odd sounds in the night while I was reading. Fascinating to see into a culture I know very little about, and to have it mixed so well with vampires and other scary monsters.
]]> 60091379
Their country is a cage. Will they be able to fly free?

Adam and his sister, Leila, are Nons—second-class citizens, living under the Permitted ruling class. Though their life in the Stone City is filled with family, stories, and music, they must carefully follow the rules, have all paperwork on hand, and never, ever do anything to anger a Permitted. When their father unexpectedly dies, they are even restricted in how they are allowed to grieve.

Soon, Adam and Leila are back to school and practicing music again. But when Adam’s friend Zak plays a bold prank on a group of Permitted boys, and Adam is implicated in Zak’s “crime,� Adam knows their lives will never be the same again.

Not to be missed by any reader who was moved by Veena Hiranandani’s The Night Diary or Alan Gratz’s Refugee.]]> 240 Beverley Naidoo 006309696X M 0 to-read 3.62 2022
author: Beverley Naidoo
name: M
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/16
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]]> 57252015
Zeinab is 20 and she loves being a woman in Iran. She says that she feels like a queen! And despite all the risks, she confesses that she makes love with her boyfriend because the danger excites her.

Vahid is 26. He was a leader with the Green Movement. Then he watched his friend Neda die right in front of him. Now he keeps his head down, trying to finish his studies.

In a series of vignettes based on clandestine interviews, this award-winning graphic novel explores the politics and love lives of ten young Iranian men and women from diverse backgrounds. The result is an honest portrait of Iranian youth today and a rare glimpse into a society where the sexes are strictly segregated--and Western journalists aren't welcome. Through rare testimonies from across the country, we learn about traditional marriages, the pressures of living under the regime, and how young people escape the police and defy tradition to live their love stories.]]> 144 Jane Deuxard 163779004X M 3 4.02
author: Jane Deuxard
name: M
average rating: 4.02
book published:
rating: 3
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date added: 2023/03/16
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Stories of forbidden love, arranged marriage, and the oppression from the current Iranian regime.
]]> 38489136 They were the first and only all-female gang in the American West. Though the newspapers refuse to give them credit, their exploits don't go unnoticed. Now, they've got a rival male gang on their trail and an old score to settle.

Margaret Parker and Hattie LaCour never intended to turn outlaw.

After being run off their ranch by a greedy cattleman, their family is left destitute. As women alone they have few choices: marriage, lying on their backs for money, or holding a gun. For Margaret and Hattie the choice is simple. With their small makeshift family, the gang pulls off a series of heists across the West.

Though the newspapers refuse to give the female gang credit, their exploits don't go unnoticed. Pinkertons are on their trail, a rival male gang is determined to destroy them, and secrets among the group threaten to tear them apart. Now, Margaret and Hattie must find a way to protect their family, finish one last job, and avoid the hangman's noose.

For more from Melissa Lenhardt, check out:

The Sawbones Series
Sawbones
Blood Oath
Badlands]]> 480 Melissa Lenhardt 0316435333 M 0 to-read 4.02 2018
author: Melissa Lenhardt
name: M
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> 3618548
In an instant, Alissa's world was thrown into chaos. Forced to deal with unimaginable challenges, Alissa suddenly found herself cast into the role of 9/11 widow, tossed into a storm of bureaucracy, politics, patriotism, mourning, consolation, and, soon enough, motherhood.

Beautifully and thoughtfully illustrated, American Widow is the affecting account of one woman's journey through shock, pain, birth, and rebirth in the aftermath of a great tragedy. It is also the story of a young couple's love affair: how a Colombian immigrant and a strong-minded New Yorker met, fell in love, and struggled to fulfill their dreams. Above all, American Widow is a tribute to the resilience of the human heart and the very personal story of how one woman endured a very public tragedy.]]> 224 Alissa Torres 0345500695 M 3 3.38 2008
author: Alissa Torres
name: M
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2008
rating: 3
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date added: 2023/03/16
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]]> 17899948 Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again...

The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady's maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives--presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave.

First published in 1938, this classic gothic novel is such a compelling read that it won the Anthony Award for Best Novel of the Century.]]> 449 Daphne du Maurier 0316323705 M 0 4.28 1938
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: M
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1938
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/11
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]]> 55711552 Part graphic novel, part memoir, Wake is an imaginative tour-de-force that tells the story of women-led slave revolts and chronicles scholar Rebecca Hall’s efforts to uncover the truth about these women warriors who, until now, have been left out of the historical record.

Women warriors planned and led slave revolts on slave ships during the Middle Passage. They fought their enslavers throughout the Americas. And then they were erased from history.

Wake tells the story of Dr. Rebecca Hall, a historian, granddaughter of slaves, and a woman haunted by the legacy of slavery. The accepted history of slave revolts has always told her that enslaved women took a back seat. But Rebecca decides to look deeper, and her journey takes her through old court records, slave ship captain’s logs, crumbling correspondence, and even the forensic evidence from the bones of enslaved women from the “negro burying ground� uncovered in Manhattan. She finds women warriors everywhere.

Using in-depth archival research and a measured use of historical imagination, Rebecca constructs the likely pasts of Adono and Alele, women rebels who fought for freedom during the Middle Passage, as well as the stories of women who led slave revolts in Colonial New York. We also follow Rebecca’s own story as the legacy of slavery shapes life, both during her time as a successful attorney and later as a historian seeking the past that haunts her.

Illustrated beautifully in black and white, Wake will take its place alongside classics of the graphic novel genre, like Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and Art Spiegelman’s Maus. The story of both a personal and national legacy, it is a powerful reminder that while the past is gone, we still live in its wake.]]> 208 Rebecca Hall 1982115181 M 0 to-read 4.28 2021
author: Rebecca Hall
name: M
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> 105265 345 Dorothy I. Height 1586482866 M 0 to-read 4.16 2003
author: Dorothy I. Height
name: M
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> 29496453 Two great spiritual masters share their own hard-won wisdom about living with joy even in the face of adversity.
Ěý
The occasion was a big birthday. And it inspired two close friends to get together in Dharamsala for a talk about something very important to them. The friends were His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The subject was joy. Both winners of the Nobel Prize, both great spiritual masters and moral leaders of our time, they are also known for being among the most infectiously happy people on the planet.

From the beginning the book was envisioned as a three-layer birthday cake: their own stories and teachings about joy, the most recent findings in the science of deep happiness, and the daily practices that anchor their own emotional and spiritual lives. Both the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu have been tested by great personal and national adversity, and here they share their personal stories of struggle and renewal. Now that they are both in their eighties, they especially want to spread the core message that to have joy yourself, you must bring joy to others.

Most of all, during that landmark week in Dharamsala, they demonstrated by their own exuberance, compassion, and humor how joy can be transformed from a fleeting emotion into an enduring way of life.]]> 354 Dalai Lama XIV 0399185046 M 0 to-read 4.37 2016
author: Dalai Lama XIV
name: M
average rating: 4.37
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]]> 16056498 A cutting-edge account of the latest science of autism, from the best-selling author and advocate.

When Temple Grandin was born in 1947, autism had only just been named. Today it is more prevalent than ever, with one in 88 children diagnosed on the spectrum. And our thinking about it has undergone a transformation in her lifetime: Autism studies have moved from the realm of psychology to neurology and genetics, and there is far more hope today than ever before thanks to groundbreaking new research into causes andĚýtreatments. Now Temple Grandin reports from the forefront of autism science, bringing her singular perspective to a thrilling journey into the heart of the autism revolution.

Weaving her own experience with remarkable new discoveries, Grandin introduces the neuroimaging advances and genetic research that link brain science to behavior, even sharing her own brain scan to show us which anomalies might explain common symptoms. We meet the scientists and self-advocates who are exploring innovative theories of what causes autism and how we can diagnose and best treat it. Grandin also highlights long-ignored sensory problems and the transformative effects we can have by treating autism symptom by symptom, rather than with an umbrella diagnosis. Most exciting, she argues that raising and educating kids on the spectrum isn't just a matter of focusing on their weaknesses; in the science that reveals their long-overlooked strengths she shows us new ways to foster their unique contributions.

From the "aspies" in Silicon Valley to the five-year-old without language, Grandin understands the true meaning of the word spectrum. The Autistic Brain is essential reading from the most respected and beloved voices in the field.]]> 240 Temple Grandin 0547636458 M 0 to-read 4.09 2013
author: Temple Grandin
name: M
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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]]> 19522090 Annabel Pitcher M 0 to-read 3.93 2011
author: Annabel Pitcher
name: M
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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]]> 25899336
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi's transformation from a naĂŻve medical student "possessed," as he wrote, "by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life" into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.

Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. "I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything," he wrote. "Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: 'I can't go on. I'll go on.'" When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.]]> 208 Paul Kalanithi 0812988418 M 0 4.41 2016
author: Paul Kalanithi
name: M
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2016
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]]> 41104077
Celebrated feminist advocate Caroline Criado Perez investigates the shocking root cause of gender inequality and research in Invisible Women�, diving into women’s lives at home, the workplace, the public square, the doctor’s office, and more. Built on hundreds of studies in the US, the UK, and around the world, and written with energy, wit, and sparkling intelligence, this is a groundbreaking, unforgettable exposé that will change the way you look at the world.]]> 448 Caroline Criado Pérez 1419729071 M 0 4.35 2019
author: Caroline Criado PĂ©rez
name: M
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> 34137106 32 Bao Phi 1479597465 M 0 4.27 2017
author: Bao Phi
name: M
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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]]> 44280830 In his latest graphic novel, New York Times bestselling author Gene Luen Yang turns the spotlight on his life, his family, and the high school where he teaches.

Gene understands stories—comic book stories, in particular. Big action. Bigger thrills. And the hero always wins.

But Gene doesn’t get sports. As a kid, his friends called him “Stick� and every basketball game he played ended in pain. He lost interest in basketball long ago, but at the high school where he now teaches, it's all anyone can talk about. The men’s varsity team, the Dragons, is having a phenomenal season that’s been decades in the making. Each victory brings them closer to their ultimate goal: the California State Championships.

Once Gene gets to know these young all-stars, he realizes that their story is just as thrilling as anything he’s seen on a comic book page. He knows he has to follow this epic to its end. What he doesn’t know yet is that this season is not only going to change the Dragons’s lives, but his own life as well.]]> 446 Gene Luen Yang 1626720797 M 0 4.32 2020
author: Gene Luen Yang
name: M
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> 39916
Epileptic gathers together and makes available in English for the first time all six volumes of the internationally acclaimed graphic work.

David B. was born Pierre-François Beauchard in a small town near Orléans, France. He spent an idyllic early childhood playing with the neighborhood kids and, along with his older brother, Jean-Christophe, ganging up on his little sister, Florence. But their lives changed abruptly when Jean-Christophe was struck with epilepsy at age eleven. In search of a cure, their parents dragged the family to acupuncturists and magnetic therapists, to mediums and macrobiotic communes. But every new cure ended in disappointment as Jean-Christophe, after brief periods of remission, would only get worse.

Angry at his brother for abandoning him and at all the quacks who offered them false hope, Pierre-François learned to cope by drawing fantastically elaborate battle scenes, creating images that provide a fascinating window into his interior life. An honest and horrifying portrait of the disease and of the pain and fear it sowed in the family, Epileptic is also a moving depiction of one family’s intricate history. Through flashbacks, we are introduced to the stories of Pierre-François’s grandparents and we relive his grandfathers� experiences in both World Wars. We follow Pierre-François through his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, all the while charting his complicated relationship with his brother and Jean-Christophe”s losing battle with epilepsy. Illustrated with beautiful and striking black-and-white images, Epileptic is as astonishing, intimate, and heartbreaking as the best literary memoir.

Contents:
Tome 1, 1996, pp. 1-52
Tome 2, 1997, pp. 53-112
Tome 3, 1998, pp. 113-164
Tome 4, 1999, pp. 165-216
Tome 5, 2000, pp. 217-276
Tome 6, 2003, pp. 277-362]]> 362 David B. 0375714685 M 0 to-read 3.88 1996
author: David B.
name: M
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1996
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]]> 34895950 Princess Princess Ever After comes The Tea Dragon Society, a charming all-ages book that follows the story of Greta, a blacksmith apprentice, and the people she meets as she becomes entwined in the enchanting world of tea dragons.

After discovering a lost tea dragon in the marketplace, Greta learns about the dying art form of tea dragon care-taking from the kind tea shop owners, Hesekiel and Erik. As she befriends them and their shy ward, Minette, Greta sees how the craft enriches their lives—and eventually her own.]]> 71 Kay O'Neill 1620104415 M 0 to-read 4.35 2017
author: Kay O'Neill
name: M
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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]]> 22488052 161 Lucy Knisley 1606998102 M 0 3.94 2015
author: Lucy Knisley
name: M
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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]]> 608883 103 Fumiyo Kouno 0867196653 M 0 to-read 4.03 2004
author: Fumiyo Kouno
name: M
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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]]> 5967064 288 Emmanuel Guibert 1596433752 M 0 4.26 2003
author: Emmanuel Guibert
name: M
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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]]> 9844623 Feynman tells the story of the great man's life from his childhood in Long Island to his work on the Manhattan Project and the Challenger disaster. Ottaviani tackles the bad with the good, leaving the reader delighted by Feynman's exuberant life and staggered at the loss humanity suffered with his death. Anyone who ever wanted to know more about Richard P. Feynman, quantum electrodynamics, the fine art of the bongo drums, the outrageously obscure nation of Tuva, or the development and popularization of the field of physics in the United States need look no further than this rich and joyful work.

� One of School Library Journal's Best Adult Books 4 Teens titles of 2011
� One of Horn Book's Best Nonfiction Books of 2011]]> 266 Jim Ottaviani 1596432594 M 0 3.80 2011
author: Jim Ottaviani
name: M
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2011
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]]> 42527866 A graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei's childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon -- and America itself.

Long before George Takei braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father's -- and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future.

In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten "relocation centers," hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard.

They Called Us Enemy is Takei's firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.]]> 204 George Takei 1603094504 M 0 to-read 4.40 2019
author: George Takei
name: M
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> 17346698
Book One spans John Lewis' youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a stunning climax on the steps of City Hall.

Many years ago, John Lewis and other student activists drew inspiration from the 1950s comic book Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story. Now, his own comics bring those days to life for a new audience, testifying to a movement whose echoes will be heard for generations.

(Back flap)]]> 128 John Lewis 1603093001 M 0 to-read 4.34 2013
author: John Lewis
name: M
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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]]> 2086132 What It Is demonstrates a tried-and-true creative method that is playful, powerful, and accessible to anyone with an inquisitive wish to write or to remember. Composed of completely new material, each page of Barry’s first Drawn & Quarterly book is a full-color collage that is not only a gentle guide to this process but an invigorating example of exactly what it is: “The ordinary is extraordinary.”]]> 210 Lynda Barry 1897299354 M 0 4.16 2008
author: Lynda Barry
name: M
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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]]> 29936927 The Best We Could Do, the debut graphic novel memoir by Thi Bui, is an intimate look at one family's journey from their war-torn home in Vietnam to their new lives in America. Exploring the anguish of immigration and the lasting effects that displacement has on a child and her family, Bui documents the story of her family's daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves. At the heart of Bui's story is a universal struggle: While adjusting to life as a first-time mother, she ultimately discovers what it means to be a parent � the endless sacrifices, the unnoticed gestures, and the depths of unspoken love. Despite how impossible it seems to take on the simultaneous roles of both parent and child, Bui pushes through.

With haunting, poetic writing and breathtaking art, she examines the strength of family, the importance of identity, and the meaning of home. The Best We Could Do brings to life her journey of understanding and provides inspiration to all who search for a better future while longing for a simpler past.]]> 329 Thi Bui 1419718770 M 5 4.35 2017
author: Thi Bui
name: M
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2017
rating: 5
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The most beautiful GN I've ever read. Heavy, and eye opening
]]> 2626492 thought was her mother.

Every day, when the little girl played in her pretty garden, she grew more curious about what lay on the other side of the garden wall . . . a rather enormous garden wall.

And every year, as she grew older, things seemed weirder and weirder, until the day she finally climbed to the top of the wall and looked over into the mines and desert beyond.

Newbery Honor-winning author Shannon Hale teams up with husband Dean Hale and brilliant artist Nathan Hale (no relation) to bring readers a swashbuckling and hilarious twist on the classic story as you've never seen it before. Watch as Rapunzel and her amazing hair team up with Jack (of beanstalk fame) to gallop around the wild and western landscape, changing lives, righting wrongs, and bringing joy to every soul they encounter.]]> 144 Shannon Hale 159990070X M 0 3.90 2008
author: Shannon Hale
name: M
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2008
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]]> 18594409 #1 New York Times Bestseller

2014 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST

In her first memoir, Roz Chast brings her signature wit to the topic of aging parents. Spanning the last several years of their lives and told through four-color cartoons, family photos, and documents, and a narrative as rife with laughs as it is with tears, Chast's memoir is both comfort and comic relief for anyone experiencing the life-altering loss of elderly parents.

When it came to her elderly mother and father, Roz held to the practices of denial, avoidance, and distraction. But when Elizabeth Chast climbed a ladder to locate an old souvenir from the "crazy closet"—with predictable results—the tools that had served Roz well through her parents' seventies, eighties, and into their early nineties could no longer be deployed.

While the particulars are Chast-ian in their idiosyncrasies—an anxious father who had relied heavily on his wife for stability as he slipped into dementia and a former assistant principal mother whose overbearing personality had sidelined Roz for decades—the themes are universal: adult children accepting a parental role; aging and unstable parents leaving a family home for an institution; dealing with uncomfortable physical intimacies; managing logistics; and hiring strangers to provide the most personal care.

An amazing portrait of two lives at their end and an only child coping as best she can, Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant will show the full range of Roz Chast's talent as cartoonist and storyteller.]]> 228 Roz Chast 1608198065 M 0 4.14 2014
author: Roz Chast
name: M
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> 18225810 Three weeks. Two sisters. One car. A True Story

Raina can’t wait to be a big sister. But once Amara is born, things aren’t quite how she expected them to be. Amara is cute, but she’s also a cranky, grouchy baby, and mostly prefers to play by herself. Their relationship doesn’t improve much over the years, but when a baby brother enters the picture and later, when something doesn’t seem right between their parents, they realize they must figure out how to get along. They are sisters, after all.

Raina uses her signature humor and charm in both present-day narrative and perfectly placed flashbacks to tell the story of her relationship with her sister, which unfolds during the course of a road trip from their home in San Francisco to a family reunion in Colorado.]]> 199 Raina Telgemeier 0545540607 M 0 4.32 2014
author: Raina Telgemeier
name: M
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> 177395 Castle Waiting graphic novel tells the story of an isolated, abandoned castle, and the eccentric inhabitants who bring it back to life. A fable for modern times, Castle Waiting is a fairy tale that's not about rescuing the princess, saving the kingdom, or fighting the ultimate war between Good and Evil, but about being a hero in your own home.

The opening story, "The Brambly Hedge," tells the origin of the castle itself, which is abandoned by its princess in a comic twist on "Sleeping Beauty" when she rides off into the sunset with her Prince Charming. The castle becomes a refuge for misfits, outcasts, and others seeking sanctuary, playing host to a lively and colorful cast of characters that inhabits the subsequent stories, including a talking anthropomorphic horse, a mysteriously pregnant Lady on the run, and a bearded nun.]]> 457 Linda Medley 1560977477 M 0 4.00 2006
author: Linda Medley
name: M
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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]]> 22822839 THE THRILLING ADVENTURES OF LOVELACE AND BABBAGE . . . in which Sydney Padua transforms one of the most compelling scientific collaborations into a hilarious series of adventures.

Meet Victorian London’s most dynamic duo: Charles Babbage, the unrealized inventor of the computer, and his accomplice, Ada, Countess of Lovelace, the peculiar protoprogrammer and daughter of Lord Byron. When Lovelace translated a description of Babbage’s plans for an enormous mechanical calculating machine in 1842, she added annotations three times longer than the original work. Her footnotes contained the first appearance of the general computing theory, a hundred years before an actual computer was built. Sadly, Lovelace died of cancer a decade after publishing the paper, and Babbage never built any of his machines.

But do not despair! The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage presents a rollicking alternate reality in which Lovelace and Babbage do build the Difference Engine and then use it to build runaway economic models, battle the scourge of spelling errors, explore the wilder realms of mathematics, and, of course, fight crime—for the sake of both London and science. Complete with extensive footnotes that rival those penned by Lovelace herself, historical curiosities, and never-before-seen diagrams of Babbage’s mechanical, steam-powered computer, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is wonderfully whimsical, utterly unusual, and, above all, entirely irresistible.

(With black-and-white illustrations throughout.)Ěý]]> 317 Sydney Padua M 0 to-read 4.02 2015
author: Sydney Padua
name: M
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2015
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]]> 17214302 Hélène weighs 216; she smells like BO. Her loving mother is too tired to be any help. Fortunately, Hélène has one consolation, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Hélène identifies strongly with Jane’s tribulations, and when she is lost in the pages of this wonderful book, she is able to ignore her tormentors. But when Hélène is humiliated on a class trip in front of her entire grade, she needs more than a fictional character to allow her to see herself as a person deserving of laughter and friendship.

Leaving the outcasts� tent one night, Hélène encounters a fox, a beautiful creature with whom she shares a moment of connection. But when Suzanne Lipsky frightens the fox away, insisting that it must be rabid, Hélène’s despair becomes even more pronounced: now she believes that only a diseased and dangerous creature would ever voluntarily approach her. But then a new girl joins the outcasts� circle, Géraldine, who does not even appear to notice that she is in danger of becoming an outcast herself. And before long Hélène realizes that the less time she spends worrying about what the other girls say is wrong with her, the more able she is to believe that there is nothing wrong at all.

This emotionally honest and visually stunning graphic novel reveals the casual brutality of which children are capable, but also assures readers that redemption can be found through connecting with another, whether the other is a friend, a fictional character or even, amazingly, a fox.]]> 104 Fanny Britt 1554983606 M 0 to-read 3.97 2012
author: Fanny Britt
name: M
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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]]> 13436373
Callie loves theater. And while she would totally try out for her middle school's production of Moon Over Mississippi, she can't really sing. Instead she's the set designer for the drama department stage crew, and this year she's determined to create a set worthy of Broadway on a middle-school budget. But how can she, when she doesn't know much about carpentry, ticket sales are down, and the crew members are having trouble working together? Not to mention the onstage AND offstage drama that occurs once the actors are chosen. And when two cute brothers enter the picture, things get even crazier!]]> 238 Raina Telgemeier 0545326990 M 0 4.18 2012
author: Raina Telgemeier
name: M
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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]]> 15786110
Lucy Knisley loves food. The daughter of a chef and a gourmet, this talented young cartoonist comes by her obsession honestly. In her forthright, thoughtful, and funny memoir, Lucy traces key episodes in her life thus far, framed by what she was eating at the time and lessons learned about food, cooking, and life. Each chapter is bookended with an illustrated recipe—many of them treasured family dishes, and a few of them Lucy's original inventions.

A welcome read for anyone who ever felt more passion for a sandwich than is strictly speaking proper, Relish is a book for our time: it invites the reader to celebrate food as a connection to our bodies and a connection to the earth, rather than an enemy, a compulsion, or a consumer product.]]> 173 Lucy Knisley 1596436239 M 0 3.95 2013
author: Lucy Knisley
name: M
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2013
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]]> 227350 Shortcomings, Adrian Tomine's first long-form graphic novel, is the story of Ben Tanaka, a confused, obsessive Japanese American male in his late twenties, and his cross-country search for contentment (or at least the perfect girl). Along the way, Tomine tackles modern culture, sexual mores, and racial politics with brutal honesty and lacerating, irreverent humor, while deftly bringing to life a cast of painfully real antihero characters. A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, Tomine has acquired a cultlike fan following and has earned status as one of the most widely acclaimed cartoonists of our time.

Shortcomings was serialized in Tomine's iconic comic book series Optic Nerve and was excerpted in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern #13.]]> 108 Adrian Tomine 1897299168 M 1 3.64 2007
author: Adrian Tomine
name: M
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2007
rating: 1
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]]> 9673436 534 Brian Selznick M 0 4.22 2007
author: Brian Selznick
name: M
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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]]> 2795053
These seven children form the Umbrella Academy, a dysfunctional family of superheroes with bizarre powers. Their first adventure at the age of ten pits them against an erratic and deadly Eiffel Tower, piloted by the fearsome zombie-robot Gustave Eiffel. Nearly a decade later, the team disbands, but when Hargreeves unexpectedly dies, these disgruntled siblings reunite just in time to save the world once again.

Collecting: The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite 1-6, as well as out-of-print short stories and an expanded sketchbook section featuring work by Gabriel Bá, James Jean, and Gerard Way]]> 184 Gerard Way M 0 3.87 2007
author: Gerard Way
name: M
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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]]> 118944
Born to rule over all the monkeys in the world, the story of the Monkey King is one of the oldest and greatest Chinese fables. Adored by his subjects, master of the arts of kung-fu, he is the most powerful monkey on earth. But the Monkey King doesn't want to be a monkey. He wants to be hailed as a god...

Chin-Kee is the ultimate negative Chinese stereotype, and he's ruining his cousin Danny's life. Danny's a popular kid at school, but every year Chin-Kee comes to visit, and every year Danny has to transfer to a new school to escape the shame. This year, though, things quickly go from bad to worse...

These three apparently unrelated tales come together with an unexpected twist, in a modern fable that is hilarious, poignant and action-packed. American Born Chinese is an amazing rise, all the way up to the astonishing climax--and confirms what a growing number of readers already know: Gene Yang is a major talent.]]> 233 Gene Luen Yang 1596431520 M 0 3.89 2006
author: Gene Luen Yang
name: M
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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]]> 15195
The Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust� (The New York Times).

Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us.]]> 296 Art Spiegelman 0141014083 M 0 4.57 1980
author: Art Spiegelman
name: M
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1980
rating: 0
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]]> 60316964 A debut YA graphic memoir about a Korean-American girl's coming-of-age story—and a coming home story—set between a New Jersey suburb and Seoul, South Korea.

Deborah (Jung-Jin) Lee knows she's different. Ever since her family emigrated from South Korea to the United States, she's felt her Otherness. For a while, her English isn't perfect. None of her teachers can pronounce her Korean name. Her face and her eyes—especially her eyes—stand out. As the pressures of high school ramp up, friendships change and end, and everything gets harder. Even home isn't a safe place, as fights with her mom escalate. Deb is caught in a limbo, with nowhere to go, and her mental health plummets.

But Deb is resilient. She discovers art and self-care, and gradually begins to start recovering. And during a return trip to South Korea, she realizes something that changes her perspective on her family, her heritage, and herself.

This stunning debut graphic memoir features page after page of gorgeous, evocative art, perfect for Tillie Walden fans. It's a cross section of the Korean-American diaspora and mental health, a moving and powerful read in the vein of Hey, Kiddo and The Best We Could Do.]]> 348 Deb J.J. Lee 1250252652 M 0 to-read 4.17 2023
author: Deb J.J. Lee
name: M
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2023
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]]> 61326287 Maria Latif is used to not having a space of her own. But what happens when she feels the sudden urge to put down roots in the most unexpected of places?

Growing up in Pakistan, Maria Latif has been bounced between reluctant relatives for as long as she can remember--first because of her parents' constant travel, and then because of their deaths. Maria has always been a difficult child, and it never takes long for her guardians to tire of her. So when old friends of her parents offer to "give her a better life" in the United States, Maria is shipped to a host family across the world.

When Maria arrives on Long Island, things are not quite what she was expecting. Mr. Clayborne has left on an extended business trip, Mrs. Clayborne seems emotionally fraught, and inexplicable things keep happening in the Claybornes' sprawling house. And then Maria finds a locked gate to an off-limits garden. Since she's never been good at following rules, Maria decides to investigate and discovers something she never thought she'd find: a place where she feels at home.

With a prickly main character, a sullen boy, two friendly allies, and a locked garden, A Bit of Earth is a reimagining of The Secret Garden.]]> 368 Karuna Riazi 0063098660 M 0 to-read 3.91 2023
author: Karuna Riazi
name: M
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 33865643 Ěý
World War II continues, and forces the small community to come together and rely on one another. Ada has never been interested in getting to know her friend’s family—especially Maggie’s mother, the formidable Lady Thorton. However, circumstances bring them in close proximity along with other unexpected characters.

Ada comes face to face with another German! This time she isn’t sure what she should do. How can she help the ones she loves and keep them safe?

Ada’s first story, The War that Saved My Life, won a Newbery Honor, the Schneider Family Book Award, and the Josette Frank Award, in addition to appearing on multiple best-of-the-year lists. This second, marvelous volume continues Ada’s powerful, uplifting story.]]> 387 Kimberly Brubaker Bradley 0525429204 M 4 4.46 2017
author: Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
name: M
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/03/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 8093

Originally published in Imaginary Lands]]> 52 Robin McKinley 0152000178 M 2 Illustrated novella, but to what purpose?]]> 3.39 1998
author: Robin McKinley
name: M
average rating: 3.39
book published: 1998
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2023/03/11
shelves:
review:
I don't know what to think of this one.
Illustrated novella, but to what purpose?
]]> 56136151 An accessible and easy-to-follow comic book cookbook for bringing Asian dumplings into the home kitchen, with recipes for savory and sweet dumplings, dipping sauces, riffs, and more—from the authors of Let’s Make Ramen!

Chef Hugh Amano and comics artist Sarah Becan invite you to explore the big little world of Asian dumplings! Ideal for both newbies and seasoned cooks, this comic book cookbook takes a fun approach to a classic treat that is imbued with history across countless regions. From wontons to potstickers, buuz to momos, Amano’s expert guidance paired with Becan’s colorful and detailed artwork prove that intricate folding styles and flavorful fillings are achievable in the home kitchen.

Let’s Make Dumplings! includes dumpling lore; a master folding guide that familiarizes readers with popular styles, like the pleated crescent of a potsticker or the 4-pointed star of a crab rangoon; and a series of cooking directions to choose from, such as steaming or pan-frying. The recipes range from savory Gyoza to sweet Cambodian Num Kom; from classic Baozi to riffs such as Sesame Chicken Dumplings.

Whether it is the family-style eating experience of stacked steamer baskets filled with succulent shumai and plump xiaolongbao or the interactive process of working together to fold hundreds of jiaozi for a celebration, Let’s Make Dumplings! captures the deep level of connection that dumplings bring to any gathering and shows you how to re-create it in your own home.]]> 208 Hugh Amano 1984858750 M 4 The bao is tempting though, maybe next checkout]]> 4.38 2021
author: Hugh Amano
name: M
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/03/11
shelves:
review:
Very informational, beautiful illustrations. However, I'm too chicken to try out any recipes.
The bao is tempting though, maybe next checkout
]]> 21853633 Garden Spells comes a story of the Waverley family, in a novel as sparkling as the first dusting of frost on new-fallen leaves..

It's October in Bascom, North Carolina, and autumn will not go quietly. As temperatures drop and leaves begin to turn, the Waverley women are made restless by the whims of their mischievous apple tree... and all the magic that swirls around it. But this year, first frost has much more in store.

Claire Waverley has started a successful new venture, Waverley’s Candies. Though her handcrafted confections � rose to recall lost love, lavender to promote happiness and lemon verbena to soothe throats and minds � are singularly effective, the business of selling them is costing her the everyday joys of her family, and her belief in her own precious gifts.

Sydney Waverley, too, is losing her balance. With each passing day she longs more for a baby � a namesake for her wonderful Henry. Yet the longer she tries, the more her desire becomes an unquenchable thirst, stealing the pleasure out of the life she already has.

Sydney’s daughter, Bay, has lost her heart to the boy she knows it belongs to.. if only he could see it, too. But how can he, when he is so far outside her grasp that he appears to her as little more than a puff of smoke?

When a mysterious stranger shows up and challenges the very heart of their family, each of them must make choices they have never confronted before. And through it all, the Waverley sisters must search for a way to hold their family together through their troublesome season of change, waiting for that extraordinary event that is First Frost.

Lose yourself in Sarah Addison Allen's enchanting world and fall for her charmed characters in this captivating story that proves that a happily-ever-after is never the real ending to a story. It’s where the real story begins.]]> 296 Sarah Addison Allen 1250019834 M 3 3.96 2015
author: Sarah Addison Allen
name: M
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/03/11
shelves:
review:
Ellen recommended Sarah Addison Allen, and I haven't met a book of hers I don't like. Just enough magical realism to satisfy
]]> 56803179 In every person's story, there is something to hide...

The ornate reading room at the Boston Public Library is quiet, until the tranquility is shattered by a woman's terrified scream. Security guards take charge immediately, instructing everyone inside to stay put until the threat is identified and contained. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers, who'd happened to sit at the same table, pass the time in conversation and friendships are struck. Each has his or her own reasons for being in the reading room that morning—it just happens that one is a murderer.

Award-winning author Sulari Gentill delivers a sharply thrilling read with The Woman in the Library, an unexpectedly twisty literary adventure that examines the complicated nature of friendship and shows us that words can be the most treacherous weapons of all.]]> 292 Sulari Gentill M 5 3.46 2022
author: Sulari Gentill
name: M
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/11
date added: 2023/03/11
shelves:
review:
Oh the ending! Not what I expected, at all
]]> 60784605 Shortlisted for the TikTok Book Awards in the Book of the Year, 2023 and the Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ Debut and Fiction Book of the Year, 2023.

It’s fair to say that Maddie’s life in London is far from rewarding. With a mother who spends most of her time in Ghana (yet still somehow manages to be overbearing), Maddie is the primary caretaker for her father, who suffers from advanced stage Parkinson’s. At work, her boss is a nightmare and Maddie is tired of always being the only Black person in every meeting.

When her mum returns from her latest trip to Ghana, Maddie leaps at the chance to get out of the family home and finally start living. A self-acknowledged late bloomer, she’s ready to experience some important “firsts�: She finds a flat share, says yes to after-work drinks, pushes for more recognition in her career, and throws herself into the bewildering world of internet dating. But it's not long before tragedy strikes, forcing Maddie to face the true nature of her unconventional family, and the perils—and rewards—of putting her life on the line.

Smart, funny, and deeply affecting, Jessica George's Maame deals with the themes of our time with humor and poignancy: from familial duty and racism, to female pleasure, the complexity of love, and the life-saving power of friendship. Most important, it explores what it feels like to be torn between two homes and cultures―and it celebrates finally being able to find where you belong.]]> 320 Jessica George M 0 to-read 4.03 2023
author: Jessica George
name: M
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/07
shelves: to-read
review:

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