Lara's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 10 Apr 2025 08:27:02 -0700 60 Lara's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection]]> 220341389 John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and a passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest disease.

Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.

In 2019, John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone while traveling with Partners in Health. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal and dynamic advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing 1.5 million people every year.

In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.]]> 208 John Green 0525556575 Lara 0 currently-reading 4.55 2025 Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
author: John Green
name: Lara
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Fear of the Animal Planet: The Hidden History of Animal Resistance (Counterpunch)]]> 8581995
"Vengeance is mine,� sayeth the captive beast. Prepare to have your illusions of security shattered as Jason Hribal shows us that a revolution is brewing among those frustrated leaping orcas, elephants in headdresses, and tigers kept behind bars. Animal spectacles, shows, and exhibits, it turns out, pose a deep, dark threat not only to nature herself but also to those who impose their will on wild spirits and those who pop in for a few hours to watch. A riveting, eye-opening book." --Ingrid Newkirk, president and co-founder of PETA

Jason Hribal is an historian and educator. He is the contemporary editor of John Oswald’s 1791 classic, The Cry of Nature .

Jeffrey St. Clair is co-editor of CounterPunch and author of Born Under a Bad Sky .]]> 280 Jason Hribal 1849350264 Lara 3 3.79 2003 Fear of the Animal Planet: The Hidden History of Animal Resistance (Counterpunch)
author: Jason Hribal
name: Lara
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves:
review:

]]> Out of Egypt: A Memoir 40940603 From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Call Me by Your Name and Find Me, a memoir of an extraordinary life.

'[A] mesmerizing portrait of a now vanished world. Aciman's story of Alexandria is the story of his own family, a Jewish family with Italian and Turkish roots that tied its future to Egypt and made its home there for three generations, only to find itself peremptorily expelled by the Government in the early 1960's. It is the story of a fractious clan of dreamers and con men and the emotional price they would pay for exile, the story of a young boy's coming of age and his memories of the city he loved in his youth.

Writing in lucid, lyrical prose, Mr. Aciman does an exquisite job of conjuring up the daily rhythms and rituals of his family's life: their weekly trips to the movies, their daily jaunts to the beach, their internecine squabbles over everything from religion to money to the pronunciation of words. There are some wonderfully vivid scenes here, as strange and marvelous as something in Garcia Marquez, as comical and surprising as something in Chekhov.' Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

Aciman's latest novel, Find Me, is now available for preorder in paperback. ]]> 352 André Aciman Lara 4 4.05 1980 Out of Egypt: A Memoir
author: André Aciman
name: Lara
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1980
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/07
date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> <![CDATA[White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue... and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation]]> 44140832 Exposes the new generation of whiteness thriving at the expense and borrowed ingenuity of black people—and explores how this intensifies racial inequality.

American culture loves blackness. From music and fashion to activism and language, black culture constantly achieves worldwide influence. Yet, when it comes to who is allowed to thrive from black hipness, the pioneers are usually left behind as black aesthetics are converted into mainstream success—and white profit.

Weaving together narrative, scholarship, and critique, Lauren Michele Jackson reveals why cultural appropriation—something that’s become embedded in our daily lives—deserves serious attention. It is a blueprint for taking wealth and power, and ultimately exacerbates the economic, political, and social inequity that persists in America. She unravels the racial contradictions lurking behind American culture as we know it—from shapeshifting celebrities and memes gone viral to brazen poets, loveable potheads, and faulty political leaders.

An audacious debut, White Negroes brilliantly summons a re-interrogation of Norman Mailer’s infamous 1957 essay of a similar name. It also introduces a bold new voice in Jackson. Piercing, curious, and bursting with pop cultural touchstones, White Negroes is a dispatch in awe of black creativity everywhere and an urgent call for our thoughtful consumption.]]> 184 Lauren Michele Jackson 0807011800 Lara 4 4.13 2019 White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue... and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation
author: Lauren Michele Jackson
name: Lara
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/03/25
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]]> All This Could Be Different 59576064
But before long, trouble arrives. Painful secrets rear their heads; jobs go off the rails; evictions loom. Sneha struggles to be truly close and open with anybody, even as her friendships deepen, even as she throws herself headlong into a dizzying romance with Marina. It's then that Tig begins to draw up a radical solution to their problems, hoping to save them all.]]> 320 Sarah Thankam Mathews 0593489128 Lara 5 3.83 2022 All This Could Be Different
author: Sarah Thankam Mathews
name: Lara
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/03/21
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]]> The No-Show 58678549
These three women are strangers who have only one thing in common: They've all been stood up on the same day, the very worst day to be stood up--Valentine's Day. And, unbeknownst to them, they've all been stood up by the same man.

Once they've each forgiven him for standing them up, they let him back into their lives and are in serious danger of falling in love with a man who seems to have not just one or two but three women on the go....

Is there more to him than meets the eye? And will they each untangle the truth before they all get their hearts broken?

Three women who seemingly have nothing in common find that they're involved with the same man in this smart new rom-com by Beth O'Leary, bestselling author of The Flatshare.]]> 337 Beth O'Leary 0593438442 Lara 4 3.75 2022 The No-Show
author: Beth O'Leary
name: Lara
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/03/18
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]]> <![CDATA[The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting: The Tragedy and The Glory of Growing Up (A Memoir)]]> 57062720 A searing memoir from Harry Potter star and activist Evanna Lynch about the bravery it takes to embrace ourselves and our dreams while navigating the battle between perfection and creativity.

Gradually, I began to feel this dawning awareness that womanhood was coming for me, that it was looming inevitably, and it didn't feel safe . . . While those around me tried to expedite it, simulate it, exacerbate it, I tried to strangle it.

Evanna Lynch has long been viewed as a role model for people recovering from anorexia, as the story of her casting as Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter films grew to almost mythic proportions--a tale of how she faced disordered eating as a young girl, found solace in a beloved book series, and several years later landed the part of her favorite character. But that is not the whole story.

Even after recovery, there remains a conflict at the very core of her being: a bitter struggle between the familiar, anesthetizing pursuit of perfection and the desire to fully and fearlessly embrace her creativity. In her book, Evanna confronts all the complexities and contradictions within herself and reveals how she began to conquer her self-hate while facing her fear of leaving the neatness and safety of girlhood for the unpredictable journey of being a woman. Revealing a startlingly accomplished voice, Evanna delves into the very heart of a woman's relationship with her own body. Unwilling to let the darkness of her eating disorder eclipse her dreams, Evanna explores the pivotal moments and choices in her life that led her down the path of creativity. Taking the reader through her personal journey, she reveals how by channeling her fears of the messy, uncharted future into joyful, ambitious endeavors, she reaches toward acceptance of the wild, sensual, and unpredictable reality of womanhood.

Honest, electrifying, and inspiring, this is a story of the tragedy and the glory of growing up, of mourning girlhood and stepping into the unknown, and how that act of courage is the most liberating thing a woman can do.]]> 463 Evanna Lynch Lara 5 Plus - it was so, so well written, and so vulnerable and honest.



(T.W. - EDs)
“I don’t want to admit my guiltiest secret of all: that sometimes, when I hear a story, told in hushed tones, of a woman who followed anorexia to her end, I feel a twinge of jealously; that I am never sure if anorexia beat her or she beat it; that I think about the thirty-three per cent who never recovered, and I wonder which of us is better off; that, sometimes, I envy the ghosts.�

“‘It will get easier� is probably the most offensive thing you can say to someone in the grip of pain. You are borrowing from a future that isn’t promised, a future that depends entirely on their endurance of the pain. ‘It will get easier� is not a helpful thing to say to someone for whom only the present moment can exist, so vivid, so intense that it’s not possible to imagine a moment beyond it.”]]> 4.53 2021 The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting: The Tragedy and The Glory of Growing Up (A Memoir)
author: Evanna Lynch
name: Lara
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves:
review:
This book blew me away, had me alternating between tears and laughter. I found the part about Evanna ‘meeting� Luna to be incredibly emotional, and her winning the role was the best argument I’ve heard for that ever-illusive thing people always seem to be talking about - fate.
Plus - it was so, so well written, and so vulnerable and honest.



(T.W. - EDs)
“I don’t want to admit my guiltiest secret of all: that sometimes, when I hear a story, told in hushed tones, of a woman who followed anorexia to her end, I feel a twinge of jealously; that I am never sure if anorexia beat her or she beat it; that I think about the thirty-three per cent who never recovered, and I wonder which of us is better off; that, sometimes, I envy the ghosts.�

“‘It will get easier� is probably the most offensive thing you can say to someone in the grip of pain. You are borrowing from a future that isn’t promised, a future that depends entirely on their endurance of the pain. ‘It will get easier� is not a helpful thing to say to someone for whom only the present moment can exist, so vivid, so intense that it’s not possible to imagine a moment beyond it.�
]]> <![CDATA[The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice]]> 56155135
In this powerful new book, Shon Faye reclaims the idea of the 'transgender issue' to uncover the reality of what it means to be trans in a transphobic society. In doing so, she provides a compelling, wide-ranging analysis of trans lives from youth to old age, exploring work, family, housing, healthcare, the prison system, and trans participation in the LGBTQ+ and feminist communities, in contemporary Britain and beyond.

The Transgender Issue is a landmark work that signals the beginning of a new, healthier conversation about trans life. It is a manifesto for change, and a call for justice and solidarity between all marginalised people and minorities. Trans liberation, as Faye sees it, goes to the root of what our society is and what it could be; it offers the possibility of a more just, free and joyful world for all of us.]]> 292 Shon Faye 0241423147 Lara 4 4.55 2021 The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice
author: Shon Faye
name: Lara
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves:
review:
“There should be more debates on the left about the extent to which policy and legal protections within a capitalist system can ever truly rectify this fundamental need for some people to be marginalized. Arguably, trans inclusion within capitalism will only ever be partial, favouring the white and the middle class among us.�
]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)]]> 15881
And strike it does. For in Harry’s second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor and a spirit who haunts the girls� bathroom. But then the real trouble begins � someone is turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects� Harry Potter himself!]]> 352 J.K. Rowling Lara 5 currently-reading
Also, this book is so funny? There are so many lines that make me laugh out loud. ‘Ron’s Comet 260 was frequently outstripped by passing butterflies.’]]> 4.42 1998 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Lara
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2022/02/12
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: currently-reading
review:
Hadn’t reread the series in ages and it’s SO MUCH FUN. I keep neglecting my other audiobooks so that I can listen to this one.

Also, this book is so funny? There are so many lines that make me laugh out loud. ‘Ron’s Comet 260 was frequently outstripped by passing butterflies.�
]]> <![CDATA[The Talent Code: Unlocking the Secret of Skill in Sports, Art, Music, Math, and Just About Everything Else]]> 5771014 What is the secret of talent? How do we unlock it? In this groundbreaking work, journalist and New York Times bestselling author Daniel Coyle provides parents, teachers, coaches, businesspeople—and everyone else—with tools they can use to maximize potential in themselves and others.

Whether you're coaching soccer or teaching a child to play the piano, writing a novel or trying to improve your golf swing, this revolutionary book shows you how to grow talent by tapping into a newly discovered brain mechanism.

Drawing on cutting-edge neurology and firsthand research gathered on journeys to nine of the world's talent hotbeds—from the baseball fields of the Caribbean to a classical-music academy in upstate New York—Coyle identifies the three key elements that will allow you to develop your gifts and optimize your performance in sports, art, music, math, or just about anything.

� Deep Practice--Everyone knows that practice is a key to success. What everyone doesn't know is that specific kinds of practice can increase skill up to ten times faster than conventional practice.

� Ignition--We all need a little motivation to get started. But what separates truly high achievers from the rest of the pack? A higher level of commitment—call it passion—born out of our deepest unconscious desires and triggered by certain primal cues. Understanding how these signals work can help you ignite passion and catalyze skill development.

� Master Coaching--What are the secrets of the world's most effective teachers, trainers, and coaches? Discover the four virtues that enable these "talent whisperers" to fuel passion, inspire deep practice, and bring out the best in their students.

These three elements work together within your brain to form myelin, a microscopic neural substance that adds vast amounts of speed and accuracy to your movements and thoughts. Scientists have discovered that myelin might just be the holy grail: the foundation of all forms of greatness, from Michelangelo's to Michael Jordan's. The good news about myelin is that it isn't fixed at birth; to the contrary, it grows, and like anything that grows, it can be cultivated and nourished.

Combining revelatory analysis with illuminating examples of regular people who have achieved greatness, this book will not only change the way you think about talent, but equip you to reach your own highest potential.]]> 288 Daniel Coyle 1598878735 Lara 3
Also, my violin practicing since starting the book has been ]]> 4.01 2009 The Talent Code: Unlocking the Secret of Skill in Sports, Art, Music, Math, and Just About Everything Else
author: Daniel Coyle
name: Lara
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves:
review:
I didn’t love the way this was written, but it did have some really interesting info and insights!

Also, my violin practicing since starting the book has been
]]> How to Blow Up a Pipeline 51686708
In this lyrical manifesto, noted climate scholar (and saboteur of SUV tires and coal mines) Andreas Malm makes an impassioned call for the climate movement to escalate its tactics in the face of ecological collapse. We need, he argues, to force fossil fuel extraction to stop—with our actions, with our bodies, and by defusing and destroying its tools. We need, in short, to start blowing up some oil pipelines.

Offering a counter-history of how mass popular change has occurred, from the democratic revolutions overthrowing dictators to the movement against apartheid and for women’s suffrage, Malm argues that the strategic acceptance of property destruction and violence has been the only route for revolutionary change. In a braided narrative that moves from the forests of Germany and the streets of London to the deserts of Iraq, Malm offers us an incisive discussion of the politics and ethics of pacifism and violence, democracy and social change, strategy and tactics, and a movement compelled by both the heart and the mind. Here is how we fight in a world on fire.]]> 208 Andreas Malm 1839760257 Lara 4
‘Every respite, every little intermission in business-as-usual is a reminder that a world - not another world, this world - might still be possible.�


‘It is the rich that drive the emergency, and a climate movement that does not want to eat the rich, with all the hunger of those who struggle to put food on the table, will never hit home.’]]> 3.94 2021 How to Blow Up a Pipeline
author: Andreas Malm
name: Lara
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves:
review:
Very short but incredibly dense.

‘Every respite, every little intermission in business-as-usual is a reminder that a world - not another world, this world - might still be possible.�


‘It is the rich that drive the emergency, and a climate movement that does not want to eat the rich, with all the hunger of those who struggle to put food on the table, will never hit home.�
]]> <![CDATA[Making Space for Indigenous Feminism]]> 2638372
This book is by and about Indigenous feminists, whose work demonstrates a powerful and original intellectual and political contribution demonstrating that feminism has much to offer Indigenous women in their struggles against oppression and for equality. Indigenous feminism is international in its scope: the contributors here are from Canada, the USA, Sapmi (Samiland), and Aotearoa/New Zealand. The chapters include theoretical contributions, stories of political activism, and deeply personal accounts of developing political consciousness as Aboriginal feminists.]]> 256 Joyce Green 1842779400 Lara 4 4.33 2007 Making Space for Indigenous Feminism
author: Joyce Green
name: Lara
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves:
review:

]]> Mickey7 (Mickey7, #1) 57693457 After several deaths punctuating a series of all-too-brief life spans, a clone reassesses his purpose � and his humanity � in Edward Ashton’s Mickey7, “a unique blend of thought-provoking sci-fi concepts, farcical relationship drama, and exotic body horror� (New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin).

EXPENDABLE \ik’spen-d�-b’l\ n. A human clone utilized for dangerous work on space exploration missions. An Expendable’s personality and memories may be transferred intact to a new body if and when the current host dies.

Mickey Barnes is an Expendable, now on his seventh iteration, living � and dying � among his fellow colonists on the near-uninhabitable ice world of Niflheim. Some consider him immortal. Others believe he’s a soulless monstrosity. For the past nine years, he has been deployed for hazardous assignments and subjected to experiments that test the limits of human endurance, his humanity sacrificed for the greater good.

While on reconnaissance, Mickey7 is injured and left for dead, only to be saved by Niflheim’s native species, thought to be insentient by the colonists. Returning to base, Mickey7 meets his next generation, Mickey8. Neither clone is willing to recycle himself, but if anyone discovers multiple Mickeys exist, they’ll both be executed � and there won’t ever be a Mickey9.

But Mickey7’s premature twin isn’t his only secret. He hasn’t uploaded his memories in a month, leaving his clone in the dark about his near death and close encounter with the planet’s inhabitants. Mickey7 also doesn’t know how all of his previous selves died, and those he remembers have left him traumatized and mistrustful of the colony’s mission. A mission that has Mickey Barnes questioning his moral and mortal existence...again...and again....]]> 296 Edward Ashton 1250275032 Lara 3 3.74 2022 Mickey7 (Mickey7, #1)
author: Edward Ashton
name: Lara
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty]]> 43868109 The highly anticipated portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, by the prize-winning, bestselling author of Say Nothing.

The Sackler name adorns the walls of many storied institutions: Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, the Louvre. They are one of the richest families in the world, known for their lavish donations to the arts and sciences. The source of the family fortune was vague, however, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing OxyContin, a blockbuster painkiller that was a catalyst for the opioid crisis.

Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented and ferociously compelling.]]> 535 Patrick Radden Keefe 0385545681 Lara 5
Wowowow this book was remarkable. I was dreading picking it up because it’s so long and dense (and I had struggled with the author’s previous book), but it was so fascinating and did not drag at all. And I loved the writing style, what a wordsmith. Some sentences I would read over a couple times just because they sounded so nice (‘I marveled at the mercenary willingness of a certain breed of ostensibly respectable attorney to play handmaiden to shady tycoons.�)

I think Empire of Pain is one of the best books I’ve ever read. ]]> 4.54 2021 Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
author: Patrick Radden Keefe
name: Lara
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/07
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves:
review:
‘The opioid crisis is, among other things, a parable about the awesome capability of private industry to subvert public institutions.�

Wowowow this book was remarkable. I was dreading picking it up because it’s so long and dense (and I had struggled with the author’s previous book), but it was so fascinating and did not drag at all. And I loved the writing style, what a wordsmith. Some sentences I would read over a couple times just because they sounded so nice (‘I marveled at the mercenary willingness of a certain breed of ostensibly respectable attorney to play handmaiden to shady tycoons.�)

I think Empire of Pain is one of the best books I’ve ever read.
]]> Madonna in a Fur Coat 27793819 The bestselling Turkish classic of love and longing in a changing world, available in English for the first time.



'It is, perhaps, easier to dismiss a man whose face gives no indication of an inner life. And what a pity that is: a dash of curiosity is all it takes to stumble upon treasures we never expected.'

A shy young man leaves his home in rural Turkey to learn a trade in 1920s Berlin. The city's crowded streets, thriving arts scene, passionate politics and seedy cabarets provide the backdrop for a chance meeting with a woman, which will haunt him for the rest of his life. Emotionally powerful, intensely atmospheric and touchingly profound, Madonna in a Fur Coat is an unforgettable novel about new beginnings and the unfathomable nature of the human soul.



'Passionate but clear . . . Ali's success [is in ] his ability to describe the emergence of a feeling, seemingly straightforward from the outside but swinging back and forth between opposite extremes at its core, revealing the tensions that accompanies such rise and fall.' Atilla Özkirimli, writer and literary historian]]> 168 Sabahattin Ali 014198127X Lara 1
So confused about the high praise for this book. Perhaps it is better in its original Turkish.]]> 4.19 1943 Madonna in a Fur Coat
author: Sabahattin Ali
name: Lara
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1943
rating: 1
read at: 2025/01/28
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves:
review:
A man ‘falls in love� with someone (he doesn’t actually know her, so that’s why it’s in quotations) and then she stops responding to his letters so he sleepwalks through and wastes the rest of his life, doesn’t engage with/pay attention to his wife or children. I failed to see this as romantic�

So confused about the high praise for this book. Perhaps it is better in its original Turkish.
]]> The God of the Woods 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Lara 4 4.16 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Lara
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA["The Caribou Taste Different Now": Inuit Elders Observe Climate Change]]> 35041628 Published 2017-11-22]]> 314 forward Mary Simon 1897568398 Lara 4 4.00 "The Caribou Taste Different Now": Inuit Elders Observe Climate Change
author: forward Mary Simon
name: Lara
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/16
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves:
review:

]]> Babel 57945316 From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire's quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?]]> 544 R.F. Kuang 0063021420 Lara 5

‘Robin saw a great spider’s web in his mind then. Cotton from India to Britain, opium from India to China, silver becoming tea and porcelain in China, and everything flowing back to Britain. It sounded so abstract - just categories of us, exchange, and value - until it wasn’t; until you realized the web you lived in and the exploitations your lifestyle demanded, until you saw looming above it all the spectre of colonial labour and colonial pain.’]]> 4.17 2022 Babel
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Lara
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/14
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves:
review:
Almost a masterpiece - what a book. I think it would have been better as a series (3 books or more), because so much was crammed into it and there was so much that we missed.


‘Robin saw a great spider’s web in his mind then. Cotton from India to Britain, opium from India to China, silver becoming tea and porcelain in China, and everything flowing back to Britain. It sounded so abstract - just categories of us, exchange, and value - until it wasn’t; until you realized the web you lived in and the exploitations your lifestyle demanded, until you saw looming above it all the spectre of colonial labour and colonial pain.�
]]> <![CDATA[Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1)]]> 44421460 What would you change if you could go back in time?

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer's, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?]]> 213 Toshikazu Kawaguchi 1529029589 Lara 2 3.67 2015 Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1)
author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
name: Lara
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves:
review:

]]> The Final Girl Support Group 55829194 In horror movies, the final girls are the ones left standingwhen the credits roll. They made it through the worst night of their lives…but what happens after?

Like his bestselling novel The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, Grady Hendrix’s latest is a fast-paced, frightening, and wickedly humorous thriller. Fromchainsaws to summer camp slayers, The Final Girl Support Group pays tribute to and slyly subverts our most popular horror films—movies like The TexasChainsaw Massacre, ANightmare on Elm Street, and Scream.

Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece.

But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.]]> 352 Grady Hendrix 059320123X Lara 0 books-not-finished, to-read 3.49 2021 The Final Girl Support Group
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Lara
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves: books-not-finished, to-read
review:

]]> Convenience Store Woman 36739755 Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura.

Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,� she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction―many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual―and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal� person excellently, more or less. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action�

A brilliant depiction of a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures we all feel to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.]]> 163 Sayaka Murata 0802128254 Lara 3 3.65 2016 Convenience Store Woman
author: Sayaka Murata
name: Lara
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/01/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year]]> 199531989 Knives Out gets a rom-com twist in this rivals-to-lovers Christmas romance-mystery from New York Times bestselling author Ally Carter

The bridge is out. The phones are down. And the most famous mystery writer in the world just disappeared out of a locked room three days before Christmas.

Meet Maggie Chase and Ethan Wyatt:
She’s the new Queen of the Cozy Mystery.
He’s Mr. Big-Time Thriller Guy.

She hates his guts.

He thinks her name is Marcie (no matter how many times she’s told him otherwise.)

But when they both accept a cryptic invitation to attend a Christmas house party at the English estate of a reclusive fan, neither is expecting their host to be the most powerful author in the world: Eleanor Ashley, the Duchess of Death herself.

That night, the weather turns, and the next morning Eleanor is gone.

She vanished from a locked room, and Maggie has to wonder: Is Eleanor in danger? Or is it all some kind of test? Is Ethan the competition? Or is he the only person in that snowbound mansion she can trust?

As the snow gets deeper and the stakes get higher, every clue will bring Maggie and Ethan closer to the truth—and each other. Because, this Christmas, these two rivals are going to have to become allies (and maybe more) if they have any hope of saving Eleanor.

Assuming they don’t kill each other first.]]> 293 Ally Carter 0063276682 Lara 2 3.92 2024 The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year
author: Ally Carter
name: Lara
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:
Not good. Very cringe-inducing.
]]> Three Holidays and a Wedding 75670229
As strangers and seatmates Maryam Aziz and Anna Gibson fly to Toronto over the holidays—Maryam to her sister’s impromptu wedding, and Anna to meet her boyfriend’s wealthy family for the first time—neither expect that severe turbulence will scare them into confessing their deepest hopes and fears to one another. At least they’ll never see each other again. And the love of Maryam’s life, Saif, wasn’t sitting two rows behind them hearing it all. Oops.
An emergency landing finds Anna, Saif, Maryam, and her sister’s entire bridal party snowbound at the quirky Snow Falls Inn in a picture-perfect town, where fate has Anna’s actor-crush filming a holiday romance. As Maryam finds the courage to open her heart to Saif, and Anna feels the magic of being snowbound with an unexpected new love—both women soon realize there’s no place they’d rather be for the holidays.]]> 384 Uzma Jalaluddin 0593543920 Lara 3 Too cheesy for me. 3.55 2023 Three Holidays and a Wedding
author: Uzma Jalaluddin
name: Lara
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/20
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:
Too cheesy for me.
]]> <![CDATA[The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet]]> 55145261 A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green

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

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.]]> 304 John Green 0525555218 Lara 5 4.37 2021 The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
author: John Green
name: Lara
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/04/26
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves:
review:

]]> Take My Hand 55650158 Inspired by true events that rocked the nation, a profoundly moving novel about a Black nurse in post-segregation Alabama who blows the whistle on a terrible wrong done to her patients, from the New York Times bestselling author of Wench.

Montgomery, Alabama 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend has big plans to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she intends to help women make their own choices for their lives and bodies.

But when her first week on the job takes her down a dusty country road to a worn down one-room cabin, she’s shocked to learn that her new patients are children—just 11 and 13 years old. Neither of the Williams sisters has even kissed a boy, but they are poor and Black and for those handling the family’s welfare benefits that’s reason enough to have the girls on birth control. As Civil grapples with her role, she takes India, Erica and their family into her heart. Until one day, she arrives at the door to learn the unthinkable has happened and nothing will ever be the same for any of them.

Decades later, with her daughter grown and a long career in her wake, Dr. Civil Townsend is ready to retire, to find her peace and to leave the past behind. But there are people and stories that refuse to be forgotten.That must not be forgotten.

Because history repeats what we don’t remember.]]> 359 Dolen Perkins-Valdez 0593337697 Lara 5 I didn’t love the framing device of Civil looking back at her life (I don’t think I ever enjoy when authors do this), but I can ignore that issue.


I loved the author’s note:

‘How could these events have been allowed to happen in plain sight? I began to ask questions about culpability and silence that contemporaneous documents in the archive could not answer.
�
In a world inundated by information about these tragedies and more, I still passionately believe in the power of the novel (and its readers!) to raise the alarm, influence hearts, and impact lives.’]]> 4.36 2022 Take My Hand
author: Dolen Perkins-Valdez
name: Lara
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/23
date added: 2024/12/23
shelves:
review:
4.5 stars that deserved to be rounded up! Well written, absorbing and affecting subject matter (medical racism and reproductive justice), and so many gut punches.
I didn’t love the framing device of Civil looking back at her life (I don’t think I ever enjoy when authors do this), but I can ignore that issue.


I loved the author’s note:

‘How could these events have been allowed to happen in plain sight? I began to ask questions about culpability and silence that contemporaneous documents in the archive could not answer.
�
In a world inundated by information about these tragedies and more, I still passionately believe in the power of the novel (and its readers!) to raise the alarm, influence hearts, and impact lives.�
]]> <![CDATA[Er stromen rivieren in de lucht]]> 210267850
Turkije, 2014. De 10-jarige Narin moet vluchten voor isis, samen met haar oma, die uit een lange lijn van vrouwelijke zieners komt.

Londen, 2018. Zaleekhah vindt troost in haar onderzoek naar rivieren, en komt via een vriendin in aanraking met een bijzondere oude taal.

Wat de drie buitenstaanders door de eeuwen heen met elkaar verbindt, is het water, ‘Water bewaart alle herinneringen. Het zijn de mensen die vergeten.’]]> 588 Elif Shafak 9046832082 Lara 0 to-read 4.42 2024 Er stromen rivieren in de lucht
author: Elif Shafak
name: Lara
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Taylor Swift Style: Fashion Through the Eras]]> 203578773 Dazzling. Incomparable. Unforgettable. The definitive book of Taylor Swift's fashion evolution. For Taylor Swift, fashion and music go hand-in-hand—each playing a powerful role in shaping the narrative of this generation’s most prolific storyteller. Red lipstick isn’t just a makeup choice—it’s the emblem of an era. A mini skirt isn’t simply part of a cute outfit—it’s a suit of armor. From cowboy boots to teetering heels, fairytale dresses to bleach-tinged tresses, and the many memorable moments in between, Taylor Swift Style tells the fashion story behind every single Taylor Swift album, tracing Swift’s musical evolution along with her ever-changing personal style. From red carpet looks, to streetwear, to tour costumes, Sarah Chapelle of the successful Instagram and blog Taylor Swift Style, has spent more than a decade documenting Swift’s fashion choices and the intention behind each ensemble. Her deep dives into songs, lyrics, and behind-the-scenes insights paint a portrait of a megastar who knows exactly what she is doing. Taylor Swift Style explains the ‘why� behind Swift’s outfits—the easter eggs and deeper meanings behind every hemline and haircut—that speak to the emotional context of each musical moment. With over two hundred photos dating from Swift’s earliest days as a country singer in Nashville, up through the present as a renowned pop icon, paired with insightful commentary, Taylor Swift Style is a one-of-a-kind keepsake and a must-have for Swifties.]]> 352 Sarah Chapelle 1250906156 Lara 4 4.24 2024 Taylor Swift Style: Fashion Through the Eras
author: Sarah Chapelle
name: Lara
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/13
date added: 2024/12/13
shelves:
review:
I found the style analysis in this so interesting! Wish there was a chapter on TTPD.
]]> You Are Here 201465867
Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his wife's departure, he has begun taking himself on long, solitary walks across the English countryside. Becoming ever more reclusive, he’ll do anything to avoid his empty house.

Marnie, on the other hand, is stuck. Hiding alone in her London flat, she avoids old friends and any reminders of her rotten, selfish ex-husband. Curled up with a good book, she’s battling the long afternoons of a life that feels like it’s passing her by.

When a persistent mutual friend and some very unpredictable weather conspire to toss Michael and Marnie together on the most epic of ten-day hikes, neither of them can think of anything worse. Until, of course, they discover exactly what they’ve been looking for.

Michael and Marnie are on the precipice of a bright future . . . if they can survive the journey.]]> 368 David Nicholls 0063394057 Lara 4 3.97 2024 You Are Here
author: David Nicholls
name: Lara
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/12
date added: 2024/12/12
shelves:
review:

]]> I Who Have Never Known Men 60811826 Deep underground, forty women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.


As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl—the fortieth prisoner—sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.


Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.]]> 184 Jacqueline Harpman 1945492600 Lara 5 Usually, with dystopia/futuristic books like this, I want some kind of explanation for the state of the world. But with this, I was hoping that the questions would go unanswered.]]> 4.12 1995 I Who Have Never Known Men
author: Jacqueline Harpman
name: Lara
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/06
date added: 2024/12/07
shelves:
review:
4.5 stars rounded up.
Usually, with dystopia/futuristic books like this, I want some kind of explanation for the state of the world. But with this, I was hoping that the questions would go unanswered.
]]> <![CDATA[Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman]]> 59808451 Madly Deeply is a rare invitation into the mind of Alan Rickman—one of the most magnetic, beloved performers of our time.

From his breakout role in Die Hard to his outstanding, multifaceted performances in the Harry Potter films, Galaxy Quest, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and more, Alan Rickman cemented his legacy as a world-class actor. His air of dignity, his sonorous voice, and the knowing wit he brought to each role continue to captivate audiences today.

But Rickman’s ability to breathe life into projects wasn't confined to just his performances. As you'll find, Rickman's diaries detail the extraordinary and the ordinary, flitting between worldly and witty and gossipy, while remaining utterly candid throughout. He takes us inside his home, on trips with friends across the globe, and on the sets of films and plays ranging from Sense and Sensibility, to Noël Coward's Private Lives, to the final film he directed, A Little Chaos.

Running from 1993 to his death in 2016, the diaries provide singular insight into Rickman's public and private life. Reading them is like listening to Rickman chatting to a close companion. Meet Rickman the consummate professional actor, but also the friend, the traveler, the fan, the director, the enthusiast; in short, the man beyond the icon.

Madly, Deeply features a photo insert, a foreword by Emma Thompson, and an afterword by Rima Horton.]]> 469 Alan Rickman 1250847958 Lara 5
I’ve never looked up so many people/places/things as I did during this read.]]> 3.54 2022 Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman
author: Alan Rickman
name: Lara
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/04
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves:
review:
Remarkable - seeing world events play out over the course of 30 years of a person’s life would have been interesting regardless, but through the eyes and words of Alan Rickman, it was fascinating.

I’ve never looked up so many people/places/things as I did during this read.
]]> <![CDATA[We Have Always Lived in the Castle]]> 89724 Shirley Jackson’s beloved gothic tale of a peculiar girl named Merricat and her family’s dark secret

Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate. This edition features a new introduction by Jonathan Lethem.]]> 152 Shirley Jackson 0143039970 Lara 2
But, reading the Libby description, I think I may have missed the point.]]> 3.93 1962 We Have Always Lived in the Castle
author: Shirley Jackson
name: Lara
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1962
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/02
date added: 2024/12/02
shelves:
review:
A whole lot of zero payoff.

But, reading the Libby description, I think I may have missed the point.
]]> <![CDATA[Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory]]> 25189315
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters and unforgettable scenes. Caring for dead bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, Caitlin soon becomes an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. She describes how she swept ashes from the machines (and sometimes onto her clothes) and reveals the strange history of cremation and undertaking, marveling at bizarre and wonderful funeral practices from different cultures.

Her eye-opening, candid, and often hilarious story is like going on a journey with your bravest friend to the cemetery at midnight. She demystifies death, leading us behind the black curtain of her unique profession. And she answers questions you didn’t know you had: Can you catch a disease from a corpse? How many dead bodies can you fit in a Dodge van? What exactly does a flaming skull look like?

Honest and heartfelt, self-deprecating and ironic, Caitlin's engaging style makes this otherwise taboo topic both approachable and engrossing. Now a licensed mortician with an alternative funeral practice, Caitlin argues that our fear of dying warps our culture and society, and she calls for better ways of dealing with death (and our dead).]]> 254 Caitlin Doughty 0393351904 Lara 4 4.25 2014 Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory
author: Caitlin Doughty
name: Lara
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/05
date added: 2024/12/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World]]> 208840291 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.

As indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love.

Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution insures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”]]> 112 Robin Wall Kimmerer 1668072246 Lara 4 4.39 2024 The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World
author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
name: Lara
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis]]> 27161156 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062300546.

Hillbilly Elegy recounts J.D. Vance's powerful origin story...

From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate now serving as a U.S. Senator from Ohio and the Republican Vice Presidential candidate for the 2024 election, an incisive account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America's white working class.

Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.

The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.'s grandparents were "dirt poor and in love," and moved north from Kentucky's Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history.

A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.]]> 264 J.D. Vance Lara 1 reading-challenge-2017 3.81 2016 Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
author: J.D. Vance
name: Lara
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2016
rating: 1
read at: 2017/03/18
date added: 2024/11/09
shelves: reading-challenge-2017
review:
Changing my rating bc jd Vance doesn’t deserve this high a rating in anything
]]> Verity 59344312
Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity's notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of what really happened the day her daughter died.

Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents would devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen's feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife's words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue to love her.]]> 336 Colleen Hoover 153872474X Lara 3 4.29 2018 Verity
author: Colleen Hoover
name: Lara
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/04
date added: 2024/11/04
shelves:
review:
Couldn’t decide between 2 and 3 stars. This book was hard to put down but I also disliked it immensely. I found it disturbing, and not just for the reasons it was supposed to be.
]]> Wrong Place Wrong Time 59947696
It is midnight on the morning of Halloween, and Jen anxiously waits up for her 18-year-old son, Todd, to return home. But worries about his broken curfew transform into something much more dangerous when Todd finally emerges from the darkness. As Jen watches through the window, she sees her funny, seemingly happy teenage son stab a total stranger.

She doesn’t know who the victim is, or why Todd has committed such a devastating act of violence. All she knows is that her life, and Todd’s, have been shattered.

After her son is taken into custody, Jen falls asleep in despair. But when she wakes up� it is yesterday. The murder has not happened yet—and there may be a chance to stop it. Each morning, when Jen wakes, she is further back in the past, first weeks, then years, before the murder. And Jen realizes that somewhere in the past lies the trigger for Todd’s terrible crime…and it is her mission to find it, and prevent it from taking place.]]> 416 Gillian McAllister 0063252341 Lara 4 3.95 2022 Wrong Place Wrong Time
author: Gillian McAllister
name: Lara
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/29
date added: 2024/10/29
shelves:
review:
4.5 stars for the originality and good twists.
]]> <![CDATA[A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #1)]]> 40916679
Pretty and popular high school senior Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend, Sal Singh, who then killed himself. It was all anyone could talk about. And five years later, Pip sees how the tragedy still haunts her town.

But she can't shake the feeling that there was more to what happened that day. She knew Sal when she was a child, and he was always so kind to her. How could he possibly have been a killer?

Now a senior herself, Pip decides to reexamine the closed case for her final project, at first just to cast doubt on the original investigation. But soon she discovers a trail of dark secrets that might actually prove Sal innocent . . . and the line between past and present begins to blur. Someone in Fairview doesn't want Pip digging around for answers, and now her own life might be in danger.]]> 433 Holly Jackson 1405293187 Lara 4 4.30 2019 A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #1)
author: Holly Jackson
name: Lara
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/22
date added: 2024/10/22
shelves:
review:

]]> Sandwich 200028726 From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go.

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.

This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

It's one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.]]> 240 Catherine Newman 0063345161 Lara 3
I didn’t understand why SO MUCH of the book was the main character thinking out loud about how old, ugly and saggy she had gotten? I’m only 30 but I was low key offended.]]> 3.55 2024 Sandwich
author: Catherine Newman
name: Lara
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/07
date added: 2024/10/22
shelves:
review:
I really didn’t like the first third, but I got more invested after that point.

I didn’t understand why SO MUCH of the book was the main character thinking out loud about how old, ugly and saggy she had gotten? I’m only 30 but I was low key offended.
]]> Persuasion 2156 249 Jane Austen 0192802631 Lara 4
I want a spin off book about Mrs. Clay, I was so sympathetic towards her and everyone was so awful to her.]]> 4.15 1817 Persuasion
author: Jane Austen
name: Lara
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1817
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/14
date added: 2024/10/14
shelves:
review:
The best Austen book I’ve read so far! I found this far easier to get through - and even fun - compared to the other ones. I still had the usual problem of not knowing who was who a lot of the time, because everyone had the same name. Why were there 3 Charles’s, two being main characters!?!

I want a spin off book about Mrs. Clay, I was so sympathetic towards her and everyone was so awful to her.
]]> <![CDATA[The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)]]> 11
Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years.

Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!]]> 216 Douglas Adams Lara 3 4.21 1979 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)
author: Douglas Adams
name: Lara
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1979
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/30
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves:
review:
Too ridiculous for me. I contemplated giving it 2 stars but there was a lot of inventiveness in here so it deserved points for that.
]]> <![CDATA[Isuma: Inuit Video Art (McGill-Queen's Native and Northern Series, #52)]]> 168286899 256 Michael Robert Evans Lara 5 5.00 2008 Isuma: Inuit Video Art (McGill-Queen's Native and Northern Series, #52)
author: Michael Robert Evans
name: Lara
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/25
date added: 2024/09/26
shelves:
review:

]]> Uglies (Uglies, #1) 24770
But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to become a pretty. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world—and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally a choice: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. Tally's choice will change her world forever....]]> 425 Scott Westerfeld 0689865384 Lara 4 3.85 2005 Uglies (Uglies, #1)
author: Scott Westerfeld
name: Lara
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/24
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves:
review:
This book still held up really well! It certainly feels very YA, but the dystopia element feels just realistic enough in today’s world. It also feels like a precursor to The Hunger Games, to me - less mature, less skillfully written, but similar.
]]> Rental House 208584952 From the award-winning author of Chemistry, a sharp-witted, insightful novel about a marriage as seen through the lens of two family vacations

Keru and Nate are college sweethearts who marry despite their family differences: Keru’s strict, Chinese, immigrant parents demand perfection (“To use a dishwasher is to admit defeat,� says her father), while Nate’s rural, white, working-class family distrusts his intellectual ambitions and his “foreign� wife.

Some years into their marriage, the couple invites their families on vacation. At a Cape Cod beach house, and later at a luxury Catskills bungalow, Keru, Nate, and their giant sheepdog navigate visits from in-laws and unexpected guests, all while wondering if they have what it takes to answer the big questions: How do you cope when your spouse and your family of origin clash? How many people (and dogs) make a family? And when the pack starts to disintegrate, what can you do to shepherd everyone back together?

With her “wry, wise, and simply spectacular� style (People) and “hilarious deadpan that recalls Gish Jen and Nora Ephron� (O, The Oprah Magazine), Weike Wang offers a portrait of family that is equally witty, incisive, and tender.]]> 224 Weike Wang 0593545540 Lara 0 to-read 3.31 2024 Rental House
author: Weike Wang
name: Lara
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Old Man and the Sea 2165 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

This short novel, already a modern classic, is the superbly told, tragic story of a Cuban fisherman in the Gulf Stream and the giant Marlin he kills and loses—specifically referred to in the citation accompanying the author's Nobel Prize for literature in 1954.]]> 96 Ernest Hemingway 0684830493 Lara 3 3.81 1952 The Old Man and the Sea
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Lara
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1952
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/23
date added: 2024/09/23
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood]]> 29780253
Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents� indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.]]> 289 Trevor Noah 0385689225 Lara 4 4.48 2016 Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
author: Trevor Noah
name: Lara
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/16
date added: 2024/09/16
shelves:
review:

]]> A Room with a View 3087
Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for her, until she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, and finds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance. Her eyes are opened by the unconventional characters she meets at the Pension Bertolini: flamboyant romantic novelist Eleanor Lavish, the Cockney Signora, curious Mr Emerson and, most of all, his passionate son George.

Lucy finds herself torn between the intensity of life in Italy and the repressed morals of Edwardian England, personified in her terminally dull fiancé Cecil Vyse. Will she ever learn to follow her own heart?]]> 119 E.M. Forster 1420925431 Lara 4 3.92 1908 A Room with a View
author: E.M. Forster
name: Lara
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1908
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/05
date added: 2024/09/05
shelves:
review:

]]> Swimming in the Dark 49977811 Set in early 1980s Poland against the violent decline of communism,a tender and passionate story of first love between two young men who eventually find themselves on opposite sides of the political divide—a stunningly poetic and heartrending literary debut for fans of Andre Aciman, Garth Greenwell, and Alan Hollinghurst.

When university student Ludwik meets Janusz at a summer agricultural camp, he is fascinated yet wary of this handsome, carefree stranger. But a chance meeting by the river soon becomes an intense, exhilarating, and all-consuming affair. After their camp duties are fulfilled, the pair spend a dreamlike few weeks camping in the countryside, bonding over an illicit copy of James Baldwin’sGiovanni’s Room. Inhabiting a beautiful natural world removed from society and its constraints, Ludwik and Janusz fall deeply in love. But in their repressive communist and Catholic society, the passion they share is utterly unthinkable.

Once they return to Warsaw, the charismatic Janusz quickly rises in the political ranks of the party and is rewarded with a highly-coveted position in the ministry. Ludwik is drawn toward impulsive acts of protest, unable to ignore rising food prices and the stark economic disparity around them. Their secret love and personal and political differences slowly begin to tear them apart as both men struggle to survive in a regime on the brink of collapse.

Shifting from the intoxication of first love to the quiet melancholy of growing up and growing apart,Swimming in the Darkis a potent blend of romance, post-war politics, intrigue, and history. Lyrical and sensual, immersive and intense, Tomasz Jedrowski has crafted an indelible and thought-provoking literary debut that explores freedom and love in all its incarnations.]]> 191 Tomasz Jedrowski 006289000X Lara 4 4.25 2020 Swimming in the Dark
author: Tomasz Jedrowski
name: Lara
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/18
date added: 2024/09/05
shelves:
review:

]]> Much Ado about Nada 62802747 A sparkling second-chance romance inspired by Jane Austen's Persuasion...

Nada Syed is stuck. On the cusp of thirty, she's still living at home with her brothers and parents in the Golden Crescent neighbourhood of Toronto, resolutely ignoring her mother's unsubtle pleas to get married already. While Nada has a good job as an engineer, it's a far cry from realizing her start-up dreams for her tech baby, Ask Apa, the app that launched with a whimper instead of a bang because of a double-crossing business partner. Nothing in her life has turned out the way it was supposed to, and Nada feels like a failure. Something needs to change, but the past is holding on too tightly to let her move forward.

Nada's best friend Haleema is determined to pry her from her shell...and what better place than at the giant annual Muslim conference held downtown, where Nada can finally meet Haleema's fiancé, Zayn. And did Haleema mention Zayn's brother Baz will be there?

What Haleema doesn't know is that Nada and Baz have a past--some of it good, some of it bad and all of it secret. At the conference, that past all comes hurtling at Nada, bringing new complications and a moment of reckoning. Can Nada truly say goodbye to once was or should she hold tight to her dreams and find their new beginnings?]]> 320 Uzma Jalaluddin 0593336380 Lara 4 3.82 2023 Much Ado about Nada
author: Uzma Jalaluddin
name: Lara
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/19
date added: 2024/08/19
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I only found out that this was a Persuasion adaptation from reading the comments
]]> The Return of Faraz Ali 58542844 "Stunning not only on account of the author's talent, of which there is clearly plenty, but also in its humanity." --New York Times Book Review (cover)

Sent back to his birthplace--Lahore's notorious red-light district--to hush up the murder of a girl, a man finds himself in an unexpected reckoning with his past.

Not since childhood has Faraz returned to the Mohalla, in Lahore's walled inner city, where women continue to pass down the art of courtesan from mother to daughter. But he still remembers the day he was abducted from the home he shared with his mother and sister there, at the direction of his powerful father, who wanted to give him a chance at a respectable life. Now Wajid, once more dictating his fate from afar, has sent Faraz back to Lahore, installing him as head of the Mohalla police station and charging him with a mission: to cover up the violent death of a young girl.

It should be a simple assignment to carry out in a marginalized community, but for the first time in his career, Faraz finds himself unable to follow orders. As the city assails him with a jumble of memories, he cannot stop asking questions or winding through the walled city's labyrinthine alleyways chasing the secrets--his family's and his own--that risk shattering his precariously constructed existence.

Profoundly intimate and propulsive, The Return of Faraz Ali is a spellbindingly assured first novel that poses a timeless question: Whom do we choose to protect, and at what price?]]> 352 Aamina Ahmad 0593330188 Lara 4 3.86 2022 The Return of Faraz Ali
author: Aamina Ahmad
name: Lara
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/09
date added: 2024/08/09
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]]> Tom Lake 63241104 In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.]]> 309 Ann Patchett 006332752X Lara 4 3.92 2023 Tom Lake
author: Ann Patchett
name: Lara
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/07
date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation]]> 57693601 Part memoir and part literary true crime, Tell Me Everything is the mesmerizing story of a landmark sexual assault investigation and the private investigator who helped crack it open.

Erika Krouse has one of those faces. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this,� people say, spilling confessions. In fall 2002, Krouse accepts a new contract job investigating lawsuits as a private investigator. The role seems perfect for her, but she quickly realizes she has no idea what she’s doing. Then a lawyer named Grayson assigns her to investigate a sexual assault, a college student who was attacked by football players and recruits at a party a year earlier. Krouse knows she should turn the assignment down; her own history with sexual violence makes it all too personal. But she takes the job anyway, inspired by Grayson’s conviction that he could help change things forever--and maybe she could, too.

Over the next five years, Krouse learns everything she can about P. I. technique, tracking down witnesses and investigating a culture of sexual assault and harassment ingrained in the university’s football program. But as the investigation grows into a national scandal and a historic civil rights case, she finds herself increasingly consumed. When the case and her life both implode at the same time, she must figure out how to help win the case without losing herself.]]> 288 Erika Krouse 1250240301 Lara 4 3.74 2022 Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation
author: Erika Krouse
name: Lara
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/05
date added: 2024/08/05
shelves:
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]]> The Flatshare 36478784 Tiffy and Leon share a flat
Tiffy and Leon share a bed
Tiffy and Leon have never met�

Tiffy Moore needs a cheap flat, and fast. Leon Twomey works nights and needs cash. Their friends think they’re crazy, but it’s the perfect solution: Leon occupies the one-bed flat while Tiffy’s at work in the day, and she has the run of the place the rest of the time.

But with obsessive ex-boyfriends, demanding clients at work, wrongly imprisoned brothers and, of course, the fact that they still haven’t met yet, they’re about to discover that if you want the perfect home you need to throw the rulebook out the window…]]> 394 Beth O'Leary 1787474402 Lara 4 3.97 2019 The Flatshare
author: Beth O'Leary
name: Lara
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/11
date added: 2024/07/11
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Laundry Love: Finding Joy in a Common Chore]]> 49247159 Patric Richardson, aka the "Laundry Evangelist,� reveals his revolutionary methods for cleaning clothes—and making laundry loads more fun.

Doing laundry is rarely anyone’s favorite task. But to Patric Richardson, laundry isn't just fun—it's a way of life. After years of running Laundry Camp at the Mall of America for thousands of eager learners, he's ready to share his tips, tricks, and hacks—bringing surprise and delight to this commonly dreaded chore.

Sorting your laundry? It's not all about whites and darks. Pondering the wash cycles? Every load, even your delicates, should be washed using express or quick-wash on warm. Facing expensive dry cleaning bills? You'll learn how to wash everything—yes everything—at home. And those basically clean but smelly clothes? Richardson has a secret for freshening those too (hint: It involves vodka, not soap).

Changing your relationship with laundry can also change your life. Richardson’s handy advice shows us how to save time and money (and the planet!) with our laundry—and he intersperses it all with a healthy dose of humor, real-life laundry stories, and lessons from his Appalachian upbringing and career in fashion.

Laundry Love will make you wonder why you ever stressed about ironing, dry cleaning, or (god forbid) red-wine spills on your new couch. No matter the issue, Richardson is here to help you make laundry miracles happen—wrinkles and stains be damned.]]> 208 Patric Richardson Lara 3 4.14 2021 Laundry Love: Finding Joy in a Common Chore
author: Patric Richardson
name: Lara
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/06
date added: 2024/07/06
shelves:
review:
I’m sure that this book would be an easy 5 star read for many! I was just not the right audience for a book about laundry.
]]> <![CDATA[Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada]]> 51345609 368 Rodney Diverlus 0889776989 Lara 4 4.30 2020 Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada
author: Rodney Diverlus
name: Lara
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/03
date added: 2024/07/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[We Are Each Other's Harvest: Celebrating African American Farmers, Land, and Legacy]]> 54626230 From the author of Queen Sugar—now a critically acclaimed series on OWN directed by Ava Duvernay—comes a beautiful exploration and celebration of black farming in America.

In this impressive anthology, Natalie Baszile brings together essays, poems, photographs, quotes, conversations, and first-person stories to examine black people’s connection to the American land from Emancipation to today. In the 1920s, there were over one million black farmers; today there are just 45,000. Baszile explores this crisis, through the farmers� personal experiences. In their own words, middle aged and elderly black farmers explain why they continue to farm despite systemic discrimination and land loss. The "Returning Generation"—young farmers, who are building upon the legacy of their ancestors, talk about the challenges they face as they seek to redress issues of food justice, food sovereignty, and reparations.

These farmers are joined by other influential voices, including noted historians Analena Hope Hassberg and Pete Daniel, and award-winning author Clyde W. Ford, who considers the arrival of Africans to American shores; and James Beard Award-winning writers and Michael Twitty, reflects on black culinary tradition and its African roots. Poetry and inspirational quotes are woven into these diverse narratives, adding richness and texture, as well as stunning four-color photographs from photographers Alison Gootee and Malcom Williams, and Baszile’s personal collection.

As Baszile reveals, black farming informs crucial aspects of American culture—the family, the way our national identity is bound up with the land, the pull of memory, the healing power of food, and race relations. She reminds us that the land, well-earned and fiercely protected, transcends history and signifies a home that can be tended, tilled, and passed to succeeding generations with pride. We Are Each Other’s Harvest elevates the voices and stories of black farmers and people of color, celebrating their perseverance and resilience, while spotlighting the challenges they continue to face. Luminous and eye-opening, this eclectic collection helps people and communities of color today reimagine what it means to be dedicated to the soil.]]> 368 Natalie Baszile 0062932551 Lara 4 4.34 2021 We Are Each Other's Harvest: Celebrating African American Farmers, Land, and Legacy
author: Natalie Baszile
name: Lara
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/14
date added: 2024/07/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Most Agreeable Murder (Beatrice Steele, #1)]]> 62794526 When a wealthy bachelor drops dead at a ball, a young lady takes on the decidedly improper role of detective in this action-packed debut comedy of manners and murder.

Feisty, passionate Beatrice Steele has never fit the definition of a true lady, according to the strict code of conduct that reigns in Swampshire, her small English township--she is terrible at needlework, has absolutely no musical ability, and her artwork is so bad it frightens people. Nevertheless, she lives a perfectly agreeable life with her marriage-scheming mother, prankster father, and two younger sisters-- beautiful Louisa and forgettable Mary. But she harbors a dark secret: She is obsessed with the true crime cases she reads about in the newspaper. If anyone in her etiquette-obsessed community found out, she'd be deemed a morbid creep and banished from respectable society forever.

For her family's sake, she's vowed to put her obsession behind her. Because eligible bachelor Edmund Croaksworth is set to attend the approaching autumnal ball, and the Steele family hopes that Louisa will steal his heart. If not, Martin Grub, their disgusting cousin, will inherit the family's estate, and they will be ruined or, even worse, forced to move to France. So Beatrice must be on her best behavior . . . which is made difficult when a disgraced yet alluring detective inexplicably shows up to the ball.

Beatrice is just holding things together when Croaksworth drops dead in the middle of a minuet. As a storm rages outside, the evening descends into a frenzy of panic, fear, and betrayal as it becomes clear they are trapped with a killer. Contending with competitive card games, tricky tonics, and Swampshire's infamous squelch holes, Beatrice must rise above decorum and decency to pursue justice and her own desires--before anyone else is murdered.]]> 352 Julia Seales 0593449983 Lara 4 3.67 2023 A Most Agreeable Murder (Beatrice Steele, #1)
author: Julia Seales
name: Lara
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/25
date added: 2024/06/25
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland]]> 40163119
Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders.

Patrick Radden Keefe writes an intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.]]> 441 Patrick Radden Keefe 0385521316 Lara 3
For much of the book, I was so lost!]]> 4.47 2018 Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
author: Patrick Radden Keefe
name: Lara
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/20
date added: 2024/06/20
shelves:
review:
This was extremely challenging on audio; perhaps on paper it would have been easier, as one could flip back and forth to check names, dates, etc.

For much of the book, I was so lost!
]]> Beyond the Gender Binary 51794301 Beyond the Gender Binary, spoken word poet Alok Vaid-Menon challenges the world to see gender not in black and white, but in full color. Taking from their own experiences as a gender-nonconforming artist, they show us that gender is a malleable and creative form of expression. The only limit is your imagination.]]> 64 Alok Vaid-Menon 0593094654 Lara 4 4.48 2020 Beyond the Gender Binary
author: Alok Vaid-Menon
name: Lara
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/20
date added: 2024/06/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 382 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Lara 0 to-read 4.67 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Lara
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Behind You 197448227 As terror grips a city, a young girl faces danger closer to home and chilling memories that last a lifetime.

Catherine Hernandez's most gripping and affecting novel yet, Behind You is inspired by a horrifying chapter in Canadian history and follows fictional characters terrorized by a fictional perpetrator.

Alma is a Filipina woman who works as a film editor for a cheesy True Crime series featuring the most notorious killers of the 20th century called Infamous. On the surface she seems to live a good life with her wife Nira and teenage son, Mateo. But there is so much left unsaid.

It's not until Infamous' last episode features the Scarborough Stalker that she remembers coming of age while the serial rapist and killer was attacking women and girls in Scarborough in the late 80s and early 90s.

What unfolds are two In the past, young Alma watches an entire city become consumed with a manhunt for an elusive, terrifying suspect, while she herself is in jeopardy from closer corners. In the present, adult Alma must come to terms with her own ideas of consent to stop her son's dangerous behaviour towards his girlfriend.

Weaving back and forth in time,Behind You, is a moving story of one girl’s resilience into adulthood and a chilling portrayal of the insidiousness if rape culture. It daringly turns the Whodunit genre on its head by asking the question "Who hasn't done it?" As in, who has not been complicit in sexual harm?]]> 309 Catherine Hernandez 1443469297 Lara 4 3.95 Behind You
author: Catherine Hernandez
name: Lara
average rating: 3.95
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/05
date added: 2024/06/05
shelves:
review:

]]> Small Things Like These 58662236
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.]]> 128 Claire Keegan 0802158749 Lara 4 4.14 2021 Small Things Like These
author: Claire Keegan
name: Lara
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/02
date added: 2024/06/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World]]> 138505710
Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience―she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who. Destabilized, she lost her bearings, until she began to understand the experience as one manifestation of a strangeness many of us have come to know but struggle to define: AI-generated text is blurring the line between genuine and spurious communication; New Age wellness entrepreneurs turned anti-vaxxers are scrambling familiar political allegiances of left and right; and liberal democracies are teetering on the edge of absurdist authoritarianism, even as the oceans rise. Under such conditions, reality itself seems to have become unmoored. Is there a cure for our moment of collective vertigo?

Naomi Klein is one of our most trenchant and influential social critics, an essential analyst of what branding, austerity, and climate profiteering have done to our societies and souls. Here she turns her gaze inward to our psychic landscapes, and outward to the possibilities for building hope amid intersecting economic, medical, and political crises. With the assistance of Sigmund Freud, Jordan Peele, Alfred Hitchcock, and bell hooks, among other accomplices, Klein uses wry humor and a keen sense of the ridiculous to face the strange doubles that haunt us―and that have come to feel as intimate and proximate as a warped reflection in the mirror.

Combining comic memoir with chilling reportage and cobweb-clearing analysis, Klein seeks to smash that mirror and chart a path beyond despair. Doppelganger What do we neglect as we polish and perfect our digital reflections? Is it possible to dispose of our doubles and overcome the pathologies of a culture of multiplication? Can we create a politics of collective care and undertake a true reckoning with historical crimes? The result is a revelatory treatment of the way many of us think and feel now―and an intellectual adventure story for our times.]]> 416 Naomi Klein 0374610320 Lara 4
I wrote down so many quotes:

‘Our education did not ask us to probe the parts of ourselves that might be capable of inflicting great harm on others, and to figure out how to resist them. It asked us to be as outraged and indignant about what happened to our ancestors as if it had happened to us.�

‘The Nazi’s industrial killing was new. And the Jewish case was different.
But so is every case. And some things are all too similar. The flip side of the post world war 2 cries of ‘never again� was an unspoken ‘never before.� The insistence on lifting the Holocaust out of history - the failure to recognize these patterns and the refusal to see where the Nazis fit inside the arc of colonial genocides - have all come at a high cost.’]]> 4.21 2023 Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World
author: Naomi Klein
name: Lara
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/28
date added: 2024/05/28
shelves:
review:
Naomi Klein’s writing is SO good but so dense that her books take me ages to get through. This is the only excuse I have for not having read them all.

I wrote down so many quotes:

‘Our education did not ask us to probe the parts of ourselves that might be capable of inflicting great harm on others, and to figure out how to resist them. It asked us to be as outraged and indignant about what happened to our ancestors as if it had happened to us.�

‘The Nazi’s industrial killing was new. And the Jewish case was different.
But so is every case. And some things are all too similar. The flip side of the post world war 2 cries of ‘never again� was an unspoken ‘never before.� The insistence on lifting the Holocaust out of history - the failure to recognize these patterns and the refusal to see where the Nazis fit inside the arc of colonial genocides - have all come at a high cost.�
]]> <![CDATA[The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club, #1)]]> 46000520
But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?

Alternate cover edition can be found here .]]> 382 Richard Osman Lara 4 Got a bit confused by the ending, and there were so many similar character names that I had zero clue who some people were by the end. John and Johnny, Steve and Stephen? Out of all of the names in the world??

But I loved the writing style and the Britishness.]]> 3.87 2020 The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club, #1)
author: Richard Osman
name: Lara
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/26
date added: 2024/05/27
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review:
Very fun read!!
Got a bit confused by the ending, and there were so many similar character names that I had zero clue who some people were by the end. John and Johnny, Steve and Stephen? Out of all of the names in the world??

But I loved the writing style and the Britishness.
]]> The Song of Achilles 11250317
Profoundly moving and breathtakingly original, this rendering of the epic Trojan War is a dazzling feat of the imagination, a devastating love story, and an almighty battle between gods and kings, peace and glory, immortal fame and the human heart.]]> 352 Madeline Miller 1408816032 Lara 0 to-read 4.38 2011 The Song of Achilles
author: Madeline Miller
name: Lara
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents]]> 51152447 The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.

“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.�

In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.

Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.]]> 544 Isabel Wilkerson 0593230256 Lara 5 4.52 2020 Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
author: Isabel Wilkerson
name: Lara
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/16
date added: 2024/05/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence]]> 39089024
In a witty, irreverent op-ed piece that went viral, Kristen Ghodsee argued that women had better sex under socialism. The response was tremendous � clearly she articulated something many women had sensed for the problem is with capitalism, not with us.

Ghodsee, an acclaimed ethnographer and professor of Russian and East European Studies, spent years researching what happened to women in countries that transitioned from state socialism to capitalism. She argues here that unregulated capitalism disproportionately harms women, and that we should learn from the past. By rejecting the bad and salvaging the good, we can adapt some socialist ideas to the 21st century and improve our lives.

She tackles all aspects of a woman's life - work, parenting, sex and relationships, citizenship, and leadership. In a chapter called " Like Men, But Cheaper," she talks about women in the workplace, discussing everything from the wage gap to harassment and discrimination. In "What To Expect When You're Expecting Exploitation," she addresses motherhood and how "having it all" is impossible under capitalism.

Women are standing up for themselves like never before, from the increase in the number of women running for office to the women's march to the long-overdue public outcry against sexual harassment. Interest in socialism is also on the rise -- whether it's the popularity of Bernie Sanders or the skyrocketing membership numbers of the Democratic Socialists of America. It's become increasingly clear to women that capitalism isn't working for us, and Ghodsee is the informed, lively guide who can show us the way forward.]]> 240 Kristen R. Ghodsee 1568588909 Lara 5 3.99 2018 Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence
author: Kristen R. Ghodsee
name: Lara
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/06
date added: 2024/05/06
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Son of Elsewhere: A Memoir in Pieces]]> 58885793 An enlightening and deliciously witty collection of essays on Blackness, faith, pop culture, and the challenges--and rewards--of finding one's way in the world, from a BuzzFeed editor and podcast host.

"A memoir that is immense in its desire to give . . . a rich offering of image, of music, of place."--Hanif Abdurraqib, author of A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022--The Millions

At twelve years old, Elamin Abdelmahmoud emigrates with his family from his native Sudan to Kingston, Ontario, arguably one of the most homogenous cities in North America. At the airport, he's handed his Blackness like a passport, and realizes that he needs to learn what this identity means in a new country.

Like all teens, Abdelmahmoud spent his adolescence trying to figure out who he was, but he had to do it while learning to balance a new racial identity and all the false assumptions that came with it. Abdelmahmoud learned to fit in, and eventually became "every liberal white dad's favorite person in the room." But after many years spent trying on different personalities, he now must face the parts of himself he's kept suppressed all this time. He asks, "What happens when those identities stage a jailbreak?"

In his debut collection of essays, Abdelmahmoud gives full voice to each and every one of these conflicting selves. Whether reflecting on how The O.C. taught him about falling in love, why watching wrestling allowed him to reinvent himself, or what it was like being a Muslim teen in the aftermath of 9/11, Abdelmahmoud explores how our experiences and our environments help us in the continuing task of defining who we truly are.

With the perfect balance of relatable humor and intellectual ferocity, Son of Elsewhere confronts what we know about ourselves, and most important, what we're still learning.]]> 288 Elamin Abdelmahmoud 059349685X Lara 4 4.17 2022 Son of Elsewhere: A Memoir in Pieces
author: Elamin Abdelmahmoud
name: Lara
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/15
date added: 2024/04/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Unquiet Dead (Rachel Getty & Esa Khattak #1)]]> 22545465
Despite their many differences, Detective Rachel Getty trusts her boss, Esa Khattak, implicitly. But she's still uneasy at Khattak's tight-lipped secrecy when he asks her to look into Christopher Drayton's death. Drayton's apparently accidental fall from a cliff doesn't seem to warrant a police investigation, particularly not from Rachel and Khattak's team, which handles minority-sensitive cases. But when she learns that Drayton may have been living under an assumed name, Rachel begins to understand why Khattak is tip-toeing around this case. It soon comes to light that Drayton may have been a war criminal with ties to the Srebrenica massacre of 1995.

If that's true, any number of people might have had reason to help Drayton to his death, and a murder investigation could have far-reaching ripples throughout the community. But as Rachel and Khattak dig deeper into the life and death of Christopher Drayton, every question seems to lead only to more questions, with no easy answers. Had the specters of Srebrenica returned to haunt Drayton at the end, or had he been keeping secrets of an entirely different nature? Or, after all, did a man just fall to his death from the Bluffs?

In her spellbinding debut, Ausma Zehanat Khan has written a complex and provocative story of loss, redemption, and the cost of justice that will linger with readers long after turning the final page.]]> 352 Ausma Zehanat Khan 1250055113 Lara 4
I also thought the second half was much better than the first half. All that being said, I learned a lot, so I’m glad I read it]]> 3.80 2015 The Unquiet Dead (Rachel Getty & Esa Khattak #1)
author: Ausma Zehanat Khan
name: Lara
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/14
date added: 2024/04/14
shelves:
review:
I found this book wildly uneven - sometimes I thought the writing was really strong, and I appreciated particular turns of phrases. But the romantic aspects of it were pretty cringey (I started getting Fourth Wing flashbacks). Esa was acting like a 12 year old, and I just didn’t buy it.

I also thought the second half was much better than the first half. All that being said, I learned a lot, so I’m glad I read it
]]> <![CDATA[The Right to Be Cold: One Woman's Story of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic and the Whole Planet]]> 25734152 Now in paperback, one of Canada's most passionate environmental and human rights activists addresses the global threat of climate change from the intimate perspective of her own Arctic childhood

The Arctic ice is receding each year, but just as irreplaceable is the culture, the wisdom that has allowed the Inuit to thrive in the Far North for so long. And it's not just the Arctic. The whole world is changing in dangerous, unpredictable ways. Sheila Watt-Cloutier has devoted her life to protecting what is threatened and nurturing what has been wounded. In this culmination of Watt-Cloutier's regional, national, and international work over the last twenty-five years, The Right to Be Cold explores the parallels between safeguarding the Arctic and the survival of Inuit culture, of which her own background is such an extraordinary example. This is a human story of resilience, commitment, and survival told from the unique vantage point of an Inuk woman who, in spite of many obstacles, rose from humble beginnings in the Arctic to become one of the most influential and decorated environmental, cultural, and human rights advocates in the world.]]> 368 Sheila Watt-Cloutier 0143187643 Lara 4 3.58 2015 The Right to Be Cold: One Woman's Story of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic and the Whole Planet
author: Sheila Watt-Cloutier
name: Lara
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/09
date added: 2024/04/09
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]]> All Our Wrong Todays 27405006
Except Tom just can't seem to find his place in this dazzling, idealistic world, and that's before his life gets turned upside down. Utterly blindsided by an accident of fate, Tom makes a rash decision that drastically changes not only his own life but the very fabric of the universe itself. In a time-travel mishap, Tom finds himself stranded in our 2016, what we think of as the real world. For Tom, our normal reality seems like a dystopian wasteland.

But when he discovers wonderfully unexpected versions of his family, his career, and—maybe, just maybe—his soul mate, Tom has a decision to make. Does he fix the flow of history, bringing his utopian universe back into existence, or does he try to forge a new life in our messy, unpredictable reality? Tom’s search for the answer takes him across countries, continents, and timelines in a quest to figure out, finally, who he really is and what his future—our future—is supposed to be.]]> 384 Elan Mastai Lara 4 Niels Bohr and everything!]]> 3.75 2017 All Our Wrong Todays
author: Elan Mastai
name: Lara
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/02
date added: 2024/04/03
shelves:
review:
I interpreted Goettreider as Oppenheimer� just me?
Niels Bohr and everything!
]]> <![CDATA[Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education]]> 101160309 From the New York Times bestselling author who inspired the hit Netflix series about a struggling mother barely making ends meet as a housecleaner—a gripping memoir about college, motherhood, poverty, and life after Maid.

When Stephanie Land set out to write her memoir Maid, she never could have imagined what was to come. Handpicked by President Barack Obama as one of the best books of 2019, it was called “an eye-opening journey into the lives of the working poor� (People). Later it was adapted into the hit Netflix series Maid, which was viewed by 67 million households and was Netflix’s fourth most-watched show in 2021, garnering three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Stephanie’s escape out of poverty and abuse in search of a better life inspired millions.

Maid was a story about a housecleaner, but it was also a story about a woman with a dream. In Class, Land takes us with her as she finishes college and pursues her writing career. Facing barriers at every turn including a byzantine loan system, not having enough money for food, navigating the judgments of professors and fellow students who didn’t understand the demands of attending college while under the poverty line—Land finds a way to survive once again, finally graduating in her mid-thirties.

Class paints an intimate and heartbreaking portrait of motherhood as it converges and often conflicts with personal desire and professional ambition. Who has the right to create art? Who has the right to go to college? And what kind of work is valued in our culture? In clear, candid, and moving prose, Class grapples with these questions, offering a searing indictment of America’s educational system and an inspiring testimony of a mother’s triumph against all odds.]]> 288 Stephanie Land 1982151412 Lara 4 3.59 2023 Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education
author: Stephanie Land
name: Lara
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/02
date added: 2024/04/02
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Stories of Your Life and Others]]> 223380 ]]> 281 Ted Chiang 0330426648 Lara 4 4.28 2002 Stories of Your Life and Others
author: Ted Chiang
name: Lara
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/27
date added: 2024/03/27
shelves:
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Ted Chiang has a remarkable mind.
]]> <![CDATA[The Running Grave (Cormoran Strike, #7)]]> 139399948 In the seventh installment in the Strike series, Cormoran and Robin must rescue a man ensnared in the trap of a dangerous cult.

Private Detective Cormoran Strike is contacted by a worried father whose son, Will, has gone to join a religious cult in the depths of the Norfolk countryside.

The Universal Humanitarian Church is, on the surface, a peaceable organization that campaigns for a better world. Yet Strike discovers that beneath the surface there are deeply sinister undertones, and unexplained deaths.

In order to try to rescue Will, Strike's business partner, Robin Ellacott, decides to infiltrate the cult, and she travels to Norfolk to live incognito among its members. But in doing so, she is unprepared for the dangers that await her there or for the toll it will take on her. . .

Utterly pulse-pounding, The Running Grave moves Strike's and Robin's story forward in this epic, unforgettable seventh installment of the series.]]> 960 Robert Galbraith 0316572101 Lara 0 4.56 2023 The Running Grave (Cormoran Strike, #7)
author: Robert Galbraith
name: Lara
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/03/24
date added: 2024/03/24
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]]> Ninth House (Alex Stern, #1) 43263680
Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs� are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.]]> 461 Leigh Bardugo 1250313074 Lara 3 4.00 2019 Ninth House (Alex Stern, #1)
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Lara
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/19
date added: 2024/03/19
shelves:
review:

]]> Lessons in Chemistry 58065033 390 Bonnie Garmus Lara 4
BUT Elizabeth Zott was an absolute delight, and I loved all the good characters.]]> 4.23 2022 Lessons in Chemistry
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: Lara
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/08
date added: 2024/03/08
shelves:
review:
I found the first third or so so challenging to read because the men were so completely frustrating (which, I know, is the point). I couldn’t wait til Calvin was out of the picture because I found him so awful. Having grown up in the last 20 years, it’s so hard to imagine the way women were treated in the 50s.

BUT Elizabeth Zott was an absolute delight, and I loved all the good characters.
]]> Ring Shout 49247242 In America, demons wear white hoods.

In 1915, The Birth of a Nation cast a spell across America, swelling the Klan's ranks and drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of white folk. All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the vulnerable. They plan to bring Hell to Earth. But even Ku Kluxes can die.

Standing in their way is Maryse Boudreaux and her fellow resistance fighters, a foul-mouthed sharpshooter and a Harlem Hellfighter. Armed with blade, bullet, and bomb, they hunt their hunters and send the Klan's demons straight to Hell. But something awful's brewing in Macon, and the war on Hell is about to heat up.

Can Maryse stop the Klan before it ends the world?]]> 185 P. Djèlí Clark 1250767024 Lara 3 3.96 2020 Ring Shout
author: P. Djèlí Clark
name: Lara
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/06
date added: 2024/03/06
shelves:
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]]> Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2) 90202302 “The first year is when some of us lose our lives. The second year is when the rest of us lose our humanity.� —Xaden Riorson

Everyone expected Violet Sorrengail to die during her first year at Basgiath War College—Violet included. But Threshing was only the first impossible test meant to weed out the weak-willed, the unworthy, and the unlucky.

Now the real training begins, and Violet’s already wondering how she’ll get through. It’s not just that it’s grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it’s designed to stretch the riders� capacity for pain beyond endurance. It’s the new vice commandant, who’s made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is–unless she betrays the man she loves.

Although Violet’s body might be weaker and frailer than everyone else’s, she still has her wits—and a will of iron. And leadership is forgetting the most important lesson Basgiath has taught her: Dragon riders make their own rules.

But a determination to survive won’t be enough this year.

Because Violet knows the real secret hidden for centuries at Basgiath War College—and nothing, not even dragon fire, may be enough to save them in the end.]]> 623 Rebecca Yarros 1649374178 Lara 2 4.34 2023 Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Lara
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2024/02/20
date added: 2024/02/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight]]> 121561903
� The Country of the Blind is about seeing—but also about marriage and family and the moral and emotional challenge of accommodating the parts of ourselves that scare us. A warm, profound, and unforgettable meditation on how we adjust to new ways of being in the world.� —Rachel Aviv, author of Strangers to Ourselves

We meet Andrew Leland as he’s suspended in the liminal state of the soon-to-be he’s midway through his life with retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that ushers those who live with it from sightedness to blindness over years, even decades. He grew up with full vision, but starting in his teenage years, his sight began to degrade from the outside in, such that he now sees the world as if through a narrow tube. Soon—but without knowing exactly when—he will likely have no vision left.

Full of apprehension but also dogged curiosity, Leland embarks on a sweeping exploration of the state of being that awaits not only the physical experience of blindness but also its language, politics, and customs. He negotiates his changing relationships with his wife and son, and with his own sense of self, as he moves from his mainstream, “typical� life to one with a disability. Part memoir, part historical and cultural investigation, The Country of the Blind represents Leland’s determination not to merely survive this transition but to grow from it—to seek out and revel in that which makes blindness enlightening.

Thought-provoking and brimming with warmth and humor, The Country of the Blind is a deeply personal and intellectually exhilarating tour of a way of being that most of us have never paused to consider—and from which we have much to learn.]]> 368 Andrew Leland 1984881426 Lara 0 to-read 4.10 2023 The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight
author: Andrew Leland
name: Lara
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bleed: Destroying Myths and Misogyny in Endometriosis Care]]> 62878733 A scorching examination of how we treat endometriosis today

Have you ever been told that your pain is imaginary? That feeling better just takes yoga, CBD oil, and the blood of a unicorn on a full moon? That’s the reality of the more than 190 million people suffering the excruciating condition known as endometriosis. This disease affecting one in ten cis women and uncounted numbers of others is chronically overlooked, underfunded, and misunderstood � and improperly treated across the medical system. Discrimination and medical gaslighting are rife in endo care, often leaving patients worse off than when they arrived.

Journalist Tracey Lindeman knows it all too well. Decades of suffering from endometriosis propelled the creation of BLEED � part memoir, part investigative journalism, and all scathing indictment of how the medical system fails patients. Through extensive interviews and research, BLEED tracks the modern endo experience to the origins of medicine and how the system gained its power by marginalizing women. Using an intersectional lens, BLEED dives into how the system perpetuates misogyny, racism, classism, ageism, transphobia, fatphobia, and other prejudices to this day.

BLEED isn’t a self-help book. It’s an evidence file and an eye-opening, enraging read. It will validate those who have been gaslit, mistreated, or ignored by medicine and spur readers to fight for nothing short of revolution.]]> 336 Tracey Lindeman 1770416536 Lara 0 to-read 4.33 2023 Bleed: Destroying Myths and Misogyny in Endometriosis Care
author: Tracey Lindeman
name: Lara
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> True Biz 58395049 TRUE BIZ (adj./exclamation; American Sign Language): really, seriously, definitely, real-talk

True biz? The students at the River Valley School for the Deaf just want to hook up, pass their history finals, and have politicians, doctors, and their parents stop telling them what to do with their bodies. This revelatory novel plunges readers into the halls of a residential school for the deaf, where they'll meet Charlie, a rebellious transfer student who's never met another deaf person before; Austin, the school's golden boy, whose world is rocked when his baby sister is born hearing; and February, the headmistress, who is fighting to keep her school open and her marriage intact, but might not be able to do both. As a series of crises both personal and political threaten to unravel each of them, Charlie, Austin, and February find their lives inextricable from one another's—and changed forever.

This is a story of sign language and lip-reading, disability and civil rights, isolation and injustice, first love and loss, and, above all, great persistence, daring, and joy. Absorbing and assured, idiosyncratic and relatable, this is an unforgettable journey into the Deaf community and a universal celebration of human connection.]]> 386 Sara Nović 0593241509 Lara 5
I’m not sure if anything I read this year will top this book.
I’d never read a book about the Deaf community, and I realized while reading True Biz what a loss this was. We are taught the histories of many marginalized people, but nothing about Deaf communities. This book made me incredibly emotional because of the injustices described, of which I was completely ignorant.]]> 4.06 2022 True Biz
author: Sara Nović
name: Lara
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/31
date added: 2024/02/12
shelves:
review:
‘Sign language had been so thoroughly stigmatized that in trying to avoid it parents had unknowingly opted for a modern version of institutionalization, locking their children away in their own minds.�

I’m not sure if anything I read this year will top this book.
I’d never read a book about the Deaf community, and I realized while reading True Biz what a loss this was. We are taught the histories of many marginalized people, but nothing about Deaf communities. This book made me incredibly emotional because of the injustices described, of which I was completely ignorant.
]]> <![CDATA[Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence]]> 434051 PARENTS CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN GIRL WORLD

Do you feel as though your adolescent daughter exists in a different world, speaking a different language and living by different laws? She does.

This groundbreaking book takes you inside the secret world of girls� friendships, translating and decoding them, so parents can better understand and help their daughters navigate through these crucial years. Rosalind Wiseman has spent more than a decade listening to thousands of girls talk about the powerful role cliques play in shaping what they wear and say, how they feel about school, how they respond to boys, and how they feel about themselves. In this candid and insightful book, Wiseman

� Queen Bees, Wannabes, Targets, Torn Bystanders, and how to tell what role your daughter plays and help her be herself
� Girls� power plays, from birthday invitations to cafeteria seating arrangements and illicit parties, and how to handle them
� Good popularity and bad how cliques bear on every situation
� Hip Parents, Best-Friend Parents, Pushover Parents, and examine your own parenting style, “Check Your Baggage,� and identify how your own background and biases affect how you relate to your daughter
� Related movies, books, websites, and a carefully annotated resources section provides opportunities to follow up on your own and with your daughter

Enlivened with the voices of dozens of girls and parents and a welcome sense of humor, Queen Bees and Wannabes is compelling reading for parents and daughters alike. A conversation piece and a reference guide, it offers the tools you need to help your daughter feel empowered and make smarter choices.]]> 336 Rosalind Wiseman 1400047927 Lara 0 to-read 3.78 2002 Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence
author: Rosalind Wiseman
name: Lara
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)]]> 61431922 Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders...

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile� humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die]]> 665 Rebecca Yarros 1649374046 Lara 3
So my take home is that I do like fantasy, but I don’t like the YA writing style. If someone can recommend this genre of book but with a Hunger Games-esque writing style, I think I would like that better.]]> 4.56 2023 Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Lara
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/02
date added: 2024/02/04
shelves:
review:
This was a lot of fun to read! But I was internally cringing and rolling my eyes a lot because of the excessive hyperbole that is frequently found in YA fantasy books. The way the romance was written was waaaaaay over the top. But I really liked the world building and I thought this was very cinematic - I could see scenes playing out like a movie in my head.

So my take home is that I do like fantasy, but I don’t like the YA writing style. If someone can recommend this genre of book but with a Hunger Games-esque writing style, I think I would like that better.
]]> Bullshit Jobs: A Theory 34466958 From bestselling writer David Graeber, a powerful argument against the rise of meaningless, unfulfilling jobs, and their consequences.

Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world? In the spring of 2013, David Graeber asked this question in a playful, provocative essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.� It went viral. After a million online views in seventeen different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer.

There are millions of people—HR consultants, communication coordinators, telemarketing researchers, corporate lawyers—whose jobs are useless, and, tragically, they know it. These people are caught in bullshit jobs.

Graeber explores one of society’s most vexing and deeply felt concerns, indicting among other villains a particular strain of finance capitalism that betrays ideals shared by thinkers ranging from Keynes to Lincoln. Bullshit Jobs gives individuals, corporations, and societies permission to undergo a shift in values, placing creative and caring work at the center of our culture. This book is for everyone who wants to turn their vocation back into an avocation.]]> 335 David Graeber 150114331X Lara 4
TDLR: ‘A population busy working, even at completely useless occupations, doesn’t have time to do much else.�

This was in interesting exploration of the phenomenon of ‘bullshit jobs�, and I agree with many of Graeber’s assessments of labor. I found it hard to believe that so much of the population has pointless jobs, though - as much as 40%, apparently. Either everyone I know has been lying to me or they haven’t yet realized that the work they do is nonsense. Either way, UBI still seems like the best way forward.]]> 4.03 2018 Bullshit Jobs: A Theory
author: David Graeber
name: Lara
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/21
date added: 2024/01/21
shelves:
review:
3.75 ⭐️

TDLR: ‘A population busy working, even at completely useless occupations, doesn’t have time to do much else.�

This was in interesting exploration of the phenomenon of ‘bullshit jobs�, and I agree with many of Graeber’s assessments of labor. I found it hard to believe that so much of the population has pointless jobs, though - as much as 40%, apparently. Either everyone I know has been lying to me or they haven’t yet realized that the work they do is nonsense. Either way, UBI still seems like the best way forward.
]]> <![CDATA[I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations]]> 40591258
In I Think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening), two working moms from opposite ends of the political spectrum contend that there is a better way. They believe that we can choose to respect the dignity of every person, choose to recognize that issues are nuanced and can’t be reduced to political talking points, choose to listen in order to understand, choose gentleness and patience.

Sarah from the left and Beth from the right invite those looking for something better than the status quo to pull up a chair and listen to the principles, insights, and practical tools they have learned hosting their fast-growing podcast Pantsuit Politics. As impossible as it might seem, people from opposing political perspectives truly can have calm, grace-­filled conversations with one another—by putting relationship before policy and understanding before argument.]]> 205 Sarah Stewart Holland 1400208416 Lara 3 4.08 2019 I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations
author: Sarah Stewart Holland
name: Lara
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/18
date added: 2024/01/18
shelves:
review:

]]> Strangers 1347446 208 Taichi Yamada 1932234039 Lara 0 to-read 3.64 1987 Strangers
author: Taichi Yamada
name: Lara
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo]]> 32620332
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the �80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.]]> 389 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1501139231 Lara 4 I didn’t need the framing device of the writer interviewing Evelyn, though - I was bored by the sections about the writer character. Which means that I didn’t love the ending. I was actually surprised by the twist, but I feel like the last bit could have been written better.]]> 4.39 2017 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Lara
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/10
date added: 2024/01/13
shelves:
review:
I still enjoyed Daisy Jones and the Six more, but I get the hype for this book!
I didn’t need the framing device of the writer interviewing Evelyn, though - I was bored by the sections about the writer character. Which means that I didn’t love the ending. I was actually surprised by the twist, but I feel like the last bit could have been written better.
]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)]]> 136251
In this final, seventh installment of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling unveils in spectacular fashion the answers to the many questions that have been so eagerly awaited.]]> 759 J.K. Rowling Lara 5 4.61 2007 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Lara
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/09
date added: 2024/01/09
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street]]> 125035
Helene’s time in London exceeds her wildest expectations. She visits landmarks like Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle; explores Shakespeare’s favorite pub, Dickens’s house, and the Oxford University courtyard where John Donne used to walk; and makes a host of new friends from all walks of life, who take her to the theater, introduce her to institutions like Harrod’s, and share with her their favorite corners of countryside.

A love letter to England and its literary heritage, written by a Manhattanite who isn’t afraid to speak her mind (or tell a British barman how to make a real American martini), The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street is an endearing account of two wildly different worlds colliding; it’s an outsider’s witty, vibrant portrait of idiosyncratic British culture at its best, as well as a profound commentary about the written word’s power to sustain us, transport us, and unite us.]]> 160 Helene Hanff 155921144X Lara 0 to-read 4.01 1973 The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street
author: Helene Hanff
name: Lara
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1973
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Communist Manifesto 30474
Originally published on the eve of the 1848 European revolutions, The Communist Manifesto is a condensed and incisive account of the worldview Marx and Engels developed during their hectic intellectual and political collaboration. Formulating the principles of dialectical materialism, they believed that labor creates wealth, hence capitalism is exploitive and antithetical to freedom.

This new edition includes an extensive introduction by Gareth Stedman Jones, Britain's leading expert on Marx and Marxism, providing a complete course for students of The Communist Manifesto, and demonstrating not only the historical importance of the text, but also its place in the world today.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.]]> 288 Karl Marx 0140447571 Lara 3 3.67 1848 The Communist Manifesto
author: Karl Marx
name: Lara
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1848
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/31
date added: 2023/12/31
shelves:
review:
Great ideas but utterly unintelligible (to a pleb like me).
]]> <![CDATA[Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist]]> 25373
This he said/she said romance told by YA stars Rachel Cohn and David Levithan is a sexy, funny roller coaster of a story about one date over one very long night, with two teenagers, both recovering from broken hearts, who are just trying to figure out who they want to be- and where the next great band is playing.

Told in alternating chapters, teeming with music references, humor, angst, and endearing side characters, this is a love story you'll wish were your very own. Working together for the first time, Rachel Cohn and David Levithan have combined forces to create a book that is sure to grab readers of all ages and never let them go.]]> 183 Rachel Cohn 0375835318 Lara 4 3.71 2006 Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist
author: Rachel Cohn
name: Lara
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/29
date added: 2023/12/29
shelves:
review:

]]> God Spare the Girls 55276644
Luke Nolan has led The Hope congregation for over a decade, while his wife and daughters patiently uphold what it means to live righteously. Made famous by a viral sermon on purity co-written with his eldest daughter, Abigail, Luke is the prototype of a modern preacher: tall, handsome, a spellbinding speaker. But his youngest daughter Caroline has started to notice the cracks in their comfortable life. She is certain that her perfect, pristine sister is about to marry the wrong man—and Caroline has slid into sin with a boy she’s known her entire life, wondering why God would care so much about her virginity anyway.

When it comes to light, six weeks before Abigail’s wedding, that Luke has been having an affair with another woman, the entire Nolan family falls into a tailspin. Caroline seizes the opportunity to be alone with her sister. The two girls flee to the ranch they inherited from their maternal grandmother, far removed from the embarrassing drama of their parents and the prying eyes of the community. But with the date of Abigail’s wedding fast approaching, the sisters will have to make a hard decision about which familial bonds are worth protecting.

An intimate coming-of-age story and a modern woman’s read, God Spare the Girls lays bare the rabid love of sisterhood and asks what we owe our communities, our families, and ourselves.]]> 320 Kelsey McKinney 0063020254 Lara 4
The essay included after the end ‘Losing My Religion - and My Virginity� answered a lot of my questions, but made me think I would have preferred this book as a memoir than fiction.

I’d have loved the narrative to look at how the culture portrayed (Evangelical Christianity) is impacted by and impacts the broader politics in the US. It takes place in Texas, and just this week there’s a legal battle going on with the state’s abortion law. Texas used to record ~50,000 abortions a year. So far in 2023, there have been 34. That's purity culture right there. Bleak.]]> 3.53 2021 God Spare the Girls
author: Kelsey McKinney
name: Lara
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/17
date added: 2023/12/28
shelves:
review:
I was almost more interested in what inspired this book than the book itself - much of it felt so realistic that I knew it had to have been true to the author’s life.

The essay included after the end ‘Losing My Religion - and My Virginity� answered a lot of my questions, but made me think I would have preferred this book as a memoir than fiction.

I’d have loved the narrative to look at how the culture portrayed (Evangelical Christianity) is impacted by and impacts the broader politics in the US. It takes place in Texas, and just this week there’s a legal battle going on with the state’s abortion law. Texas used to record ~50,000 abortions a year. So far in 2023, there have been 34. That's purity culture right there. Bleak.
]]> <![CDATA[Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery]]> 49127514
Each patient presents a mystery, one that will only be unpacked over years. They seek Gildiner's help to overcome an immediate challenge in their lives, but discover that the source of their suffering has been long buried.

As in such recent classics as The Glass Castle and Educated, each patient embodies self-reflection, stoicism, perseverance, and forgiveness as they work unflinchingly to face the truth. Gildiner's account of her journeys with them is moving, insightful, and sometimes very funny. Good Morning Monster offers an almost novelistic, behind-the-scenes look into the therapist's office, illustrating how the process can heal even the most unimaginable wounds.]]> 368 Catherine Gildiner 1250271487 Lara 4
This was somewhere between 4.5-4.75, but I couldn’t quite round it up to a 5-star rating.]]> 4.44 2020 Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery
author: Catherine Gildiner
name: Lara
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/04
date added: 2023/12/28
shelves:
review:
This was the best book I’ve read in awhile. I GASPED a couple times while reading it, which says a lot about a non fiction book. In the third and fourth stories, I found it really hard to even put down.

This was somewhere between 4.5-4.75, but I couldn’t quite round it up to a 5-star rating.
]]> And Then There Were None 16299
"Ten little boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were nine. Nine little boys sat up very late; One overslept himself and then there were eight. Eight little boys traveling in Devon; One said he'd stay there then there were seven. Seven little boys chopping up sticks; One chopped himself in half and then there were six. Six little boys playing with a hive; A bumblebee stung one and then there were five. Five little boys going in for law; One got in Chancery and then there were four. Four little boys going out to sea; A red herring swallowed one and then there were three. Three little boys walking in the zoo; A big bear hugged one and then there were two. Two little boys sitting in the sun; One got frizzled up and then there was one. One little boy left all alone; He went out and hanged himself and then there were none."

When they realize that murders are occurring as described in the rhyme, terror mounts. One by one they fall prey. Before the weekend is out, there will be none. Who has choreographed this dastardly scheme? And who will be left to tell the tale? Only the dead are above suspicion.]]> 264 Agatha Christie 0312330871 Lara 3 4.28 1939 And Then There Were None
author: Agatha Christie
name: Lara
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1939
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/29
date added: 2023/12/28
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Last House on Needless Street]]> 54621094
All these things are true. And yet they are all lies...

You think you know what's inside the last house on Needless Street. You think you've read this story before. That's where you're wrong.

In the dark forest at the end of Needless Street, lies something buried. But it's not what you think...]]> 337 Catriona Ward 1788166167 Lara 4 3.82 2021 The Last House on Needless Street
author: Catriona Ward
name: Lara
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/16
date added: 2023/12/28
shelves:
review:
Really impressive twists and turns - this was not at all the book I thought it was going to be (a fun horror book). It was very heavy, though, and I’m really glad there was an afterword.
]]> <![CDATA[A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency]]> 52557002 464 Seth Klein 1770415459 Lara 4 4.5 4.28 A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency
author: Seth Klein
name: Lara
average rating: 4.28
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/19
date added: 2023/12/28
shelves:
review:
4.5
]]> <![CDATA[White Feminism: From the Suffragettes to Influencers and Who They Leave Behind]]> 54238294 JOURNALIST KOA BECK’S AMBITIOUS HARVARD RESEARCH-BASED DEEP DIVE INTI HOW FEMINISM HAS BEEN COMMODIFIED AND RACIALIZED—AND THE REVOLUTIONARY WAY OF THINKING THAT COULD DRIVE A NEW MOVEMENT

Fourth-wave feminism preaches empowerment for women, centering an intersectionality that has been missing from the start. Long before the Lean In phenomenon and branded empowerment conferences, women have been encouraged to “find their power� and to “know their value� when combatting institutional sexism. But we’ve also funded patriarchal institutions that have cashed in on “feminism� without actually making a real difference in the lives of the women they supposedly uplift.

From the formation of the suffragette movement over a century ago to the Women’s March in 2017, mainstream feminism has been defined by parameters dictated and sanctioned by the white women they most benefit. In White Feminism, Koa Beck details the conventions that marginalized genders have needed to adopt in order to be recognized and exposes how Indigenous, Black, brown, transgender, disabled, and undocumented women, among other disenfranchised peoples, have been overlooked in order to champion a different feminist narrative. With insights spanning from the rise of girl bosses to widespread civil unrest during a global pandemic, Beck illuminates how white feminism adheres to a political strategy that commercializes struggle and reinforces white Western supremacy.

Combining her quick-witted, cutting commentary with methodical historical research, Beck pulls from years of experience in the media industry to highlight the extent of racial prejudice, elitism, and privilege that fuels the dominant feminist discourse. She delivers a call to action that urges readers to reinvent the narrow feminist ideas that have become staples in modern gender politics, asking readers to join her in scrutinizing the capitalist, individualist, and heteronormative paradigms under which white feminism operates. In this wide-ranging analysis of the dangers of homogenizing the global feminist experience, Beck advocates for a new landscape that accounts for visibility and inclusivity.]]> 300 Koa Beck 1982134410 Lara 5 4.26 2021 White Feminism: From the Suffragettes to Influencers and Who They Leave Behind
author: Koa Beck
name: Lara
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2021/05/10
date added: 2023/12/28
shelves:
review:
4.5 but rounded up because I felt like this book deserved it! Would have liked more about current day influencers but I found this book pretty comprehensive. It didn't feel too academic on the whole and I wrote down a lot of great stuff.
]]> <![CDATA[Black Leopard, Red Wolf (The Dark Star Trilogy, #1)]]> 50608676
Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: "He has a nose," people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard.

Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has written an adventure that's also an ambitious, involving read. Defying categorization and full of unforgettable characters, Black Leopard, Red Wolf explores the fundamentals of truths, the limits of power, the excesses of ambition, and our need to understand them all.]]> 640 Marlon James 0735220182 Lara 0 books-not-finished, to-read 3.47 2019 Black Leopard, Red Wolf (The Dark Star Trilogy, #1)
author: Marlon James
name: Lara
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/25
shelves: books-not-finished, to-read
review:

]]> Miracle Creek 40121959 Miracle Creek is a powerhouse debut about how far we'll go to protect our families, and our deepest secrets.

In rural Miracle Creek, Virginia, Young and Pak Yoo run an experimental medical treatment device known as the Miracle Submarine. A pressurized oxygen chamber that patients enter for therapeutic “dives,� it's also a repository of hopes and dreams: the dream of a mom that her child can be like other kids; the dream of a young doctor desperate to cure his infertility and save his marriage; the dream of the Yoos themselves, Korean immigrants who have come to the United States so their teenage daughter can have a better life.

When the oxygen chamber mysteriously explodes, killing two people, all these dreams shatter with it, and the ensuing murder trial uncovers imaginable secrets and lies. In Miracle Creek, Angie Kim takes a classic form—courtroom drama—and draws on her own experience as an immigrant, a lawyer, and the mother of a real-life "submarine" patient to turn it into something wholly original, unputdownable . . . real. This is a spellbinding novel by an exciting new voice.]]> 355 Angie Kim 0374156026 Lara 4 3.86 2019 Miracle Creek
author: Angie Kim
name: Lara
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/24
date added: 2023/12/24
shelves:
review:
This book was so well-crafted and the characters all so well drawn. The courtroom scenes, surprisingly, were some of the most compelling.
]]> Transcendent Kingdom 48570454 Homegoing is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama.

Gifty is a fifth-year candidate in neuroscience at Stanford School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after a knee injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her.

But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive. Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief--a novel about faith, science, religion, love. Exquisitely written, emotionally searing, this is an exceptionally powerful follow-up to Gyasi's phenomenal debut.]]> 264 Yaa Gyasi Lara 4 4.11 2020 Transcendent Kingdom
author: Yaa Gyasi
name: Lara
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/23
date added: 2023/12/23
shelves:
review:
Brilliant characters, heartbreaking writing.
]]> Conversations with Friends 32187419 A sharply intelligent novel about two college students and the strange, unexpected connection they forge with a married couple.

Frances is twenty-one years old, cool-headed, and darkly observant. A college student and aspiring writer, she devotes herself to a life of the mind--and to the beautiful and endlessly self-possessed Bobbi, her best friend and comrade-in-arms. Lovers at school, the two young women now perform spoken-word poetry together in Dublin, where a journalist named Melissa spots their potential. Drawn into Melissa's orbit, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman's sophisticated home and tall, handsome husband. Private property, Frances believes, is a cultural evil--and Nick, a bored actor who never quite lived up to his potential, looks like patriarchy made flesh. But however amusing their flirtation seems at first, it gives way to a strange intimacy neither of them expect. As Frances tries to keep her life in check, her relationships increasingly resist her control: with Nick, with her difficult and unhappy father, and finally even with Bobbi. Desperate to reconcile herself to the desires and vulnerabilities of her body, Frances's intellectual certainties begin to yield to something new: a painful and disorienting way of living from moment to moment.

Written with gem-like precision and probing intelligence, Conversations With Friends is wonderfully alive to the pleasures and dangers of youth."]]> 304 Sally Rooney 0451499077 Lara 2
Sped through this because I just wanted it to be over.]]> 3.74 2017 Conversations with Friends
author: Sally Rooney
name: Lara
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2023/12/11
date added: 2023/12/11
shelves:
review:
I hope people can see my previous comments while I was reading it as part of this review. The ending I somewhat liked because there was less of the main character being herself.

Sped through this because I just wanted it to be over.
]]>