en-US Mon, 03 Feb 2025 12:41:10 -0800 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 35289217 In 2045 Kenneth Durand leads Interpol s most effective team against genetic crime, hunting down black market labs that perform "vanity edits" on human embryos for a price. These illegal procedures augment embryos in ways that are rapidly accelerating human evolution preying on human-trafficking victims to experiment and advance their technology.
With the worlds of genetic crime and human trafficking converging, Durand and his fellow Interpol agents discover that one figure looms behind it all: Marcus Demang Wyckes, leader of a powerful and sophisticated cartel known as the Huli jing.
But the Huli jing have identified Durand, too. After being forcibly dosed with a radical new change agent, Durand wakes from a coma weeks later to find he s been genetically transformed into someone else his most wanted suspect: Wyckes.
Now a fugitive, pursued through the genetic underworld by his former colleagues and the police, Durand is determined to restore his original DNA by locating the source of the mysterious and highly valuable change agent. But Durand hasn t anticipated just how difficult locating his enemy will be. With the technology to genetically edit the living, Wyckes and his Huli jing could be anyone and everyone and they have plans to undermine identity itself."]]> 15 Daniel Suarez 0451485122 Larry 0 currently-reading 3.50 2017
author: Daniel Suarez
name: Larry
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/03
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]]> 32600718
In 2088, humankind is at last ready to explore beyond Earth’s solar system. But one uncertainty remains: Where do we go?

Astrophysicist Reggie Straifer has an idea. He’s discovered an anomalous star that appears to defy the laws of physics, and proposes the creation of a deep-space mission to find out whether the star is a weird natural phenomenon, or something manufactured.

The journey will take eons. In order to maintain the genetic talent of the original crew, humankind’s greatest ambition—to explore the furthest reaches of the galaxy—is undertaken by clones. But a clone is not a perfect copy, and each new generation has its own quirks, desires, and neuroses. As the centuries fly by, the society living aboard the nine ships (designated “Convoy Seven�) changes and evolves, but their mission remains the same: to reach Reggie’s mysterious star and explore its origins—and implications.

A mosaic novel of discovery, Noumenon—in a series of vignettes—examines the dedication, adventure, growth, and fear of having your entire world consist of nine ships in the vacuum of space. The men and women, and even the AI, must learn to work and live together in harmony, as their original DNA is continuously replicated and they are born again and again into a thousand new lives. With the stars their home and the unknown their destination, they are on a voyage of many lifetimes—an odyssey to understand what lies beyond the limits of human knowledge and imagination.]]> 420 Marina J. Lostetter 0062497847 Larry 3 3.71 2017
author: Marina J. Lostetter
name: Larry
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/02/02
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]]> 537257 256 Chuck Barris 0091890373 Larry 3 3.69 1984
author: Chuck Barris
name: Larry
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1984
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/28
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]]> 61327450 An account of how the major transformations in history—from the rise of Homo sapiens to the birth of capitalism—have been shaped not by humans but by germs

According to the accepted narrative of progress, humans have thrived thanks to their brains and brawn, collectively bending the arc of history. But in this revelatory book, Professor Jonathan Kennedy argues that the myth of human exceptionalism overstates the role that we play in social and political change. Instead, it is the humble microbe that wins wars and topples empires.

Drawing on the latest research in fields ranging from genetics and anthropology to archaeology and economics, Pathogenesis takes us through sixty thousand years of history, exploring eight major outbreaks of infectious disease that have made the modern world. Bacteria and viruses were protagonists in the demise of the Neanderthals, the growth of Islam, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the devastation wrought by European colonialism, and the evolution of the United States from an imperial backwater to a global superpower. Even Christianity rose to prominence in the wake of a series of deadly pandemics that swept through the Roman Empire in the second and third centuries: Caring for the sick turned what was a tiny sect into one of the world’s major religions.

By placing disease at the center of his wide-ranging history of humankind, Kennedy challenges some of the most fundamental assumptions about our collective past—and urges us to view this moment as another disease-driven inflection point that will change the course of history. Provocative and brimming with insight, Pathogenesis transforms our understanding of the human story.]]> 304 Jonathan Kennedy 0593240472 Larry 3 3.92 2023
author: Jonathan Kennedy
name: Larry
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/24
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]]> 6582277 128 David Eagleman 0143172158 Larry 3 4.26 2009
author: David Eagleman
name: Larry
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/09
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]]> 56015023 This Is Your Mind on Plants, Michael Pollan dives deep into three plant drugs--opium, caffeine, and mescaline--and throws the fundamental strangeness, and arbitrariness, of our thinking about them into sharp relief. Exploring and participating in the cultures that have grown up around these drugs while consuming (or, in the case of caffeine, trying not to consume) them, Pollan reckons with the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants. Why do we go to such great lengths to seek these shifts in consciousness, and then why do we fence that universal desire with laws and customs and fraught feelings?]]> 288 Michael Pollan 0593296907 Larry 3 3.86 2021
author: Michael Pollan
name: Larry
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/08
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]]> 217223362 ąó°ů´ÇłľĚýNew York TimesĚýbestselling author Christopher Moore comes a hilariously deranged tale of a mad scientist, a famous painter, and an undead woman’s electrifying journey of self-discovery.

Vienna, 1911. Gustav Klimt, the most famous painter in the Austrian Empire, the darling of Viennese society, spots a woman’s nude body in the Danube canal. He knows he should summon a policeman, but he can’t resist stopping to make a sketch first. And as he draws, the woman coughs. She’s alive!

Back at his studio, Klimt and his model-turned-muse Wally tend to the erstwhile-drowned girl. She’s nearly feral and doesn’t remember who she is, or how she came to be floating in the canal. Klimt names her Judith, after one of his most famous paintings, and resolves to help her find her memory.

With a little help from Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, Judith recalls being stranded in the arctic one hundred years ago, locked in a crate by a man named Victor Frankenstein, and visiting the Underworld.

So how did she get here? And why are so many people chasing her, including Geoff, the giant croissant-eating devil dog of the North?

Poor Things meets Bride of Frankenstein in Anima Rising, Christopher Moore’s most ingenious (and probably most hilarious) novel yet.


]]> 400 Christopher Moore 0062434152 Larry 0 to-read 3.95
author: Christopher Moore
name: Larry
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]]> 15811496 Cooked, Michael Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen. Here, he discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements - fire, water, air, and earth - to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to grill with fire, cook with liquid, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beer. In the course of his journey, he discovers that the cook occupies a special place in the world, standing squarely between nature and culture. Both realms are transformed by cooking, and so, in the process, is the cook.

Each section of Cooked tracks Pollan's effort to master a single classic recipe using one of the four elements. A North Carolina barbecue pit master tutors him in the primal magic of fire; a Chez Panisse-trained cook schools him in the art of braising; a celebrated baker teaches him how air transforms grain and water into a fragrant loaf of bread; and finally, several mad-genius "fermentos" (a tribe that includes brewers, cheese makers, and all kinds of picklers) reveal how fungi and bacteria can perform the most amazing alchemies of all. The listener learns alongside Pollan, but the lessons move beyond the practical to become an investigation of how cooking involves us in a web of social and ecological relationships: with plants and animals, the soil, farmers, our history and culture, and, of course, the people our cooking nourishes and delights. Cooking, above all, connects us.

The effects of not cooking are similarly far reaching. Relying upon corporations to process our food means we consume huge quantities of fat, sugar, and salt; disrupt an essential link to the natural world; and weaken our relationships with family and friends. In fact, Cooked argues, taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make the American food system healthier and more sustainable. Reclaiming cooking as an act of enjoyment and self-reliance, learning to perform the magic of these everyday transformations, opens the door to a more nourishing life.]]> 468 Michael Pollan 1594204217 Larry 0 to-read 4.06 2013
author: Michael Pollan
name: Larry
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2013
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]]> 315425 The Omnivore's Dilemma, launched a national conversation about the American way of eating; now In Defense of Food shows us how to change it, one meal at a time. Pollan proposes a new answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Pollan's bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating.,,,]]> 205 Michael Pollan 1594201455 Larry 0 to-read 4.07 2008
author: Michael Pollan
name: Larry
average rating: 4.07
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]]> 41021145 304 Michael Pollan Larry 0 to-read 4.07 2001
author: Michael Pollan
name: Larry
average rating: 4.07
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]]> 6751
Contains: "Big Red Son," "Certainly the End of Something or Other, One Would Sort of Have to Think," "Some Remarks on Kafka's Funniness from Which Probably Not Enough Has Been Removed," "Authority and American Usage," "The View from Mrs. Thompson's," "How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart," "Up, Simba," "Consider the Lobster," "Joseph Frank's Dostoevsky" and "Host."]]> 343 David Foster Wallace 0316156116 Larry 0 to-read 4.19 2005
author: David Foster Wallace
name: Larry
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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]]> 195888511
Is the Constitution a living document that needs to evolve with the times? Or should we try to divine the original meaning that our Founding Fathers intended, and hew to that as strictly as possible, as present-day originalists suggest?

In The Year of Living Constitutionally , A.J. Jacobs tries to get inside the minds of the Founding Fathers by living as closely as possible to the original meaning of the Constitution. He exercises his Second Amendment rights by marching around Manhattan with a colonial musket. He asserts his right to free speech by writing his opinions on parchment and handing them out in Times Square. He turns his home into a traditional 1790s household by lighting candles, boiling mutton, and—because women were not allowed to sign contracts—taking over the household finances from his much more business-savvy wife.

The book blends unforgettable adventures—traveling to the Capitol to personally deliver a list of grievances to Congress, consenting to quarter soldiers in his apartment, and battling Redcoats as part of a Revolutionary War reenactment group--with dozens of interviews from constitutional experts from both sides of the debate. Much like he did with the Bible in The Year of Living Biblically , Jacobs provides a crash course on our Constitution as he experiences the benefits and perils of living like it’s the 1790s. In the process, he showcases the potentially dangerous effects originalism has on our democracy as well as the progress we’ve made since the time of its writing in 1789, when, for instance, life expectancy was forty-five years and married women couldn’t own property.

Now more than ever, Americans need to understand the meaning and value of the Constitution. As conservative politicians and Supreme Court Justices continue to argue for a more literal interpretation of the Constitution, A.J. Jacobs provides an entertaining yet illuminating look into how this storied document fits into our democracy today.]]> 304 A.J. Jacobs 0593136748 Larry 0 3.99 2024
author: A.J. Jacobs
name: Larry
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> 41940388 Idir is sitting the British Citizenship Test.
He wants his family to belong.

Twenty-five questions to determine their fate. Twenty-five chances to impress.

When the test takes an unexpected and tragic turn, Idir is handed the power of life and death.
How do you value a life when all you have is multiple choice?]]> 108 Sylvain Neuvel 1250312833 Larry 3 3.82 2019
author: Sylvain Neuvel
name: Larry
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/16
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]]> 1898
Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author of the bestseller Into the Wild. On assignment for Outside Magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the mountain, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas as a client of Rob Hall, the most respected high-altitude guide in the world. A rangy, thirty-five-year-old New Zealander, Hall had summited Everest four times between 1990 and 1995 and had led thirty-nine climbers to the top. Ascending the mountain in close proximity to Hall's team was a guided expedition led by Scott Fischer, a forty-year-old American with legendary strength and drive who had climbed the peak without supplemental oxygen in 1994. But neither Hall nor Fischer survived the rogue storm that struck in May 1996.

Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people -- including himself -- to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.]]> 368 Jon Krakauer Larry 4 4.24 1997
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Larry
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/12
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]]> 203578812 A standalone darkly humorous thriller set in modern America's age of anxiety, by New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin.

Outside Los Angeles, a driver pulls up to find a young woman sitting on a large black box. She offers him $200,000 cash to transport her and that box across the country, to Washington, DC.

But there are rules:

He cannot look inside the box.
He cannot ask questions.
He cannot tell anyone.
They must leave immediately.
He must leave all trackable devices behind.

As these eccentric misfits hit the road, rumors spread on social media that the box is part of a carefully orchestrated terror attack intended to plunge the USA into civil war.

The truth promises to be even stranger, and may change how you see the world.]]> 400 Jason Pargin 125028595X Larry 3 3.97 2024
author: Jason Pargin
name: Larry
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/31
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]]> 43669273 AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST
LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD

"Glorious. . .You will marvel at the brilliance and vast weirdness of your design." --The Washington Post

Bill Bryson, bestselling author of A Short History of Nearly Everything, takes us on a head-to-toe tour of the marvel that is the human body. As addictive as it is comprehensive, this is Bryson at his very best, a must-read owner's manual for everybody.

Bill Bryson once again proves himself to be an incomparable companion as he guides us through the human body--how it functions, its remarkable ability to heal itself, and (unfortunately) the ways it can fail. Full of extraordinary facts (your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this) and irresistible Bryson-esque anecdotes, The Body will lead you to a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and you in particular. As Bill Bryson writes, "We pass our existence within this wobble of flesh and yet take it almost entirely for granted." The Body will cure that indifference with generous doses of wondrous, compulsively readable facts and information.]]> 14 Bill Bryson 0147526914 Larry 3 4.25 2019
author: Bill Bryson
name: Larry
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/07
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]]> 43438782 Octavia E. Butler meets Marvel’s Black Panther in The Deep, a story rich with Afrofuturism, folklore, and the power of memory, inspired by the Hugo Award–nominated song “The Deep� from Daveed Diggs’s rap group clipping.

Yetu holds the memories for her people—water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners—who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly is forgotten by everyone, save one—the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu.

Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities—and discovers a world her people left behind long ago.

Yetu will learn more than she ever expected about her own past—and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identity—and own who they really are.

The Deep is “a tour de force reorientation of the storytelling gaze…a superb, multilayered work,� (Publishers Weekly, starred review) and a vividly original and uniquely affecting story inspired by a song produced by the rap group clipping.]]> 175 Rivers Solomon Larry 3 3.81 2019
author: Rivers Solomon
name: Larry
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2020/08/07
date added: 2024/09/25
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]]> 32191706 de facto segregation—that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation—the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments—that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.

Through extraordinary revelations and extensive research that Ta-Nehisi Coates has lauded as "brilliant" (The Atlantic), Rothstein comes to chronicle nothing less than an untold story that begins in the 1920s, showing how this process of de jure segregation began with explicit racial zoning, as millions of African Americans moved in a great historical migration from the south to the north.

As Jane Jacobs established in her classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, it was the deeply flawed urban planning of the 1950s that created many of the impoverished neighborhoods we know. Now, Rothstein expands our understanding of this history, showing how government policies led to the creation of officially segregated public housing and the demolition of previously integrated neighborhoods. While urban areas rapidly deteriorated, the great American suburbanization of the post–World War II years was spurred on by federal subsidies for builders on the condition that no homes be sold to African Americans. Finally, Rothstein shows how police and prosecutors brutally upheld these standards by supporting violent resistance to black families in white neighborhoods.

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited future discrimination but did nothing to reverse residential patterns that had become deeply embedded. Yet recent outbursts of violence in cities like Baltimore, Ferguson, and Minneapolis show us precisely how the legacy of these earlier eras contributes to persistent racial unrest. “The American landscape will never look the same to readers of this important book� (Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund), as Rothstein’s invaluable examination shows that only by relearning this history can we finally pave the way for the nation to remedy its unconstitutional past.]]> 368 Richard Rothstein 1631492853 Larry 0 to-read 4.44 2017
author: Richard Rothstein
name: Larry
average rating: 4.44
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]]> 53205922 The new book by Nebula and Hugo Award-winner, Nnedi Okorafor.

"She’s the adopted daughter of the Angel of Death. Beware of her. Mind her. Death guards her like one of its own."

The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From hereon in she would be known as Sankofa­­--a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past.

Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. And she walks--alone, except for her fox companion--searching for the object that came from the sky and gave itself to her when the meteors fell and when she was yet unchanged; searching for answers.

But is there a greater purpose for Sankofa, now that Death is her constant companion?]]> 160 Nnedi Okorafor 125077280X Larry 3 3.79 2021
author: Nnedi Okorafor
name: Larry
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/05
date added: 2024/09/05
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]]> 285092
Rob does. He keeps a list, in fact. But Laura isn't on it—even though she's just become his latest ex. He's got his life back, you see. He can just do what he wants when he wants: like listen to whatever music he likes, look up the girls that are on his list, and generally behaves as if Laura never mattered. But Rob finds he can't move on. He's stuck in a really deep groove—and it's called Laura. Soon, Rob's asking himself some big questions: about love, about life—and about why we choose to share ours with the people we do.]]> 323 Nick Hornby 1573225517 Larry 0 to-read 3.92 1995
author: Nick Hornby
name: Larry
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/03
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]]> 53348614
All will be revealed inside this one-off publication, him hiding inside the pages of a book, simply because he's too scared to get up on stage and say anything out loud. A memoir of insightful topics, passionate rants and things that puzzle him on a daily basis, which confusingly leads him to believe he's not worthy of your laughter at all. Only available in paperback (with pictures inside the book too) Jimmy talks about his writing career, a caravan, even astrology, randomly talking everything a stand-up comedian would talk about in one of their own sell out shows. Question is � Why is Jimmy considered a comedian gone wrong?

We've built him up, we've laid the path, so get ready for some of his craziness, never seen in one of his books until now. This is it, Jimmy Tudeski in all his glory, ready to entertain and give you... Fu$king hell, talking about yourself in third person and selling yourself on the back of a book is actually harder than writing the inside part for you!]]> 452 Jimmy Tudeski Larry 0 to-read 4.00
author: Jimmy Tudeski
name: Larry
average rating: 4.00
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]]> 13554058
I’ve never seen the night, nor seen a star; I’ve seen neither spring, nor fall, nor winter. I was born at the end of the Reining Age, just as the Earth’s rotation was coming to a final halt.

The Sun is about to unleash a helium flash, threatening to swallow all terrestrial planets in the solar system. On Earth, the Unity Government has erected Earth Engines. With them it plans to propel our planet out of the solar system, setting it on a journey into outer space in search of a new sun. The Earth begins its centuries-long, wandering travels through outer space.

Just as we began our journey, my grandfather passed away, his burnt body ravaged by infection. In his final moments, he repeated over and over, “Oh, Earth, my wandering Earth...�

China Galaxy Science Fiction Award of Year 2000.]]> 440 Liu Cixin Larry 4 4.08 2000
author: Liu Cixin
name: Larry
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/02
date added: 2024/09/02
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]]> 48484 Two months since the stars fell...

Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous fist, screaming to the heavens as the atmosphere burned them to ash. Two months since that moment of brief, bright surveillance by agents unknown.

Two months of silence while a world holds its breath.

Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune’s orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever’s out there isn’t talking to us. It’s talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route.

So who do you send to force introductions on an intelligence with motives unknown, maybe unknowable? Who do you send to meet the alien when the alien doesn’t want to meet?

You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees X-rays and tastes ultrasound, so compromised by grafts and splices he no longer feels his own flesh. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won’t be needed, and a fainter hope she’ll do any good if she is needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called “vampire,� recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist � an informational topologist with half his mind gone � as an interface between here and there, a conduit through which the Dead Center might hope to understand the Bleeding Edge.

You send them all to the edge of interstellar space, praying you can trust such freaks and retrofits with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they’ve been sent to find.

But you’d give anything for that to be true, if you only knew what was waiting for them…]]> 384 Peter Watts 0765312182 Larry 2 4.01 2006
author: Peter Watts
name: Larry
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2006
rating: 2
read at: 2022/04/28
date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> 145624807
In our deluge of information, it's getting harder and harder to distinguish the revelatory from the contradictory. How do we make health decisions in the face of conflicting medical advice? Does that article on GMOs even show what the authors claim? How can we navigate the next Thanksgiving discussion with our in-laws, who follow completely different experts on climate?
Ěý
In Third Millennium Thinking , a physicist, a psychologist, and a philosopher introduce readers to the tools and frameworks that scientists have developed to keep from fooling themselves, to understand the world, and to make decisions. We can all borrow these trust-building techniques to tackle problems both big and small.
Ěý
Readers will Ěý
Using provocative thought exercises, jargon-free language, and vivid illustrations drawn from history, daily life, and scientists� insider stories, Third Millennium Thinking offers a novel approach for readers to make sense of the nonsense.]]> 320 Saul Perlmutter 0316438103 Larry 0 currently-reading 3.63
author: Saul Perlmutter
name: Larry
average rating: 3.63
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date added: 2024/07/21
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]]> 17286725 A joint biography of John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, who led the United States into an unseen war that decisively shaped today's world

During the 1950s, when the Cold War was at its peak, two immensely powerful brothers led the United States into a series of foreign adventures whose effects are still shaking the world.

John Foster Dulles was secretary of state while his brother, Allen Dulles, was director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In this book, Stephen Kinzer places their extraordinary lives against the background of American culture and history. He uses the framework of biography to ask: Why does the United States behave as it does in the world?

The Brothers explores hidden forces that shape the national psyche, from religious piety to Western movies—many of which are about a noble gunman who cleans up a lawless town by killing bad guys. This is how the Dulles brothers saw themselves, and how many Americans still see their country's role in the world.

Propelled by a quintessentially American set of fears and delusions, the Dulles brothers launched violent campaigns against foreign leaders they saw as threats to the United States. These campaigns helped push countries from Guatemala to the Congo into long spirals of violence, led the United States into the Vietnam War, and laid the foundation for decades of hostility between the United States and countries from Cuba to Iran.

The story of the Dulles brothers is the story of America. It illuminates and helps explain the modern history of the United States and the world.
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013]]> 416 Stephen Kinzer 0805094970 Larry 3 4.08 2013
author: Stephen Kinzer
name: Larry
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/20
date added: 2024/07/21
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]]> 1111 The Power Broker tells the hidden story behind the shaping (and mis-shaping) of twentieth-century New York (city and state) and makes public what few have known: that Robert Moses was, for almost half a century, the single most powerful man of our time in New York, the shaper not only of the city's politics but of its physical structure and the problems of urban decline that plague us today.

In revealing how Moses did it--how he developed his public authorities into a political machine that was virtually a fourth branch of government, one that could bring to their knees Governors and Mayors (from La Guardia to Lindsay) by mobilizing banks, contractors, labor unions, insurance firms, even the press and the Church, into an irresistible economic force--Robert Caro reveals how power works in all the cities of the United States. Moses built an empire and lived like an emperor. He personally conceived and completed public works costing 27 billion dollars--the greatest builder America (and probably the world) has ever known. Without ever having been elected to office, he dominated the men who were--even his most bitter enemy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, could not control him--until he finally encountered, in Nelson Rockefeller, the only man whose power (and ruthlessness in wielding it) equalled his own.]]> 1246 Robert A. Caro 0394720245 Larry 5 4.51 1974
author: Robert A. Caro
name: Larry
average rating: 4.51
book published: 1974
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/13
date added: 2024/07/13
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]]> 211332081
The next step � Mars.

Elma York, the Lady Astronaut, lands on the Red Planet, optimistic about preparing for the first true wave of inhabitants. The mission objective is more than just building the infrastructure of a habitat � they are trying to preserve the many cultures and nuances of life on Earth without importing the hate.

But from the moment she arrives, something is off.

Disturbing signs hint at a hidden disaster during the First Mars Expedition that never made it into the official transcript. As Elma and her crew try to investigate, they face a wall of silence and obfuscation. Their attempts to build a thriving Martian community grind to a halt.

What you don’t know CAN harm you. And if the truth doesn’t come to light, the ripple effects could leave humanity stranded on a dying Earth…]]> 384 Mary Robinette Kowal 1250237033 Larry 0 to-read 4.21 2025
author: Mary Robinette Kowal
name: Larry
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> 62854850
We don’t know the answers to any of these questions (that includes the shower-curtain one, which is a mystery that has eluded scientists for decades, and which they are still trying to solve). But don’t worry, no matter what questions you have, you can bet on the fact that there is someone (or something) out there, investigating it on your behalf � and this book collects their latest findings.

From the Silicon Valley tech billionaires currently trying to work out whether or not the universe is one giant video game simulation; to the self-proclaimed community of Italian time-travellers who are trying to save the world from destruction; The Theory of Everything Else will act as a handbook for those who want to think differently.]]> 368 Dan Schreiber 0063259192 Larry 4 3.97 2023
author: Dan Schreiber
name: Larry
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/28
date added: 2023/12/28
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]]> 65211701 Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse.

Everyone's favorite lethal SecUnit is back.

Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize.

But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast.

Yeah, this plan is... not going to work.]]> 245 Martha Wells 1250826977 Larry 3 4.19 2023
author: Martha Wells
name: Larry
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/23
date added: 2023/12/23
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]]> 78508 The River of Doubt is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth.

The River of Doubt—it is a black, uncharted tributary of the Amazon that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the world. Indians armed with poison-tipped arrows haunt its shadows; piranhas glide through its waters; boulder-strewn rapids turn the river into a roiling cauldron.

After his humiliating election defeat in 1912, Roosevelt set his sights on the most punishing physical challenge he could find, the first descent of an unmapped, rapids-choked tributary of the Amazon. Together with his son Kermit and Brazil’s most famous explorer, Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Roosevelt accomplished a feat so great that many at the time refused to believe it. In the process, he changed the map of the western hemisphere forever.

Along the way, Roosevelt and his men faced an unbelievable series of hardships, losing their canoes and supplies to punishing whitewater rapids, and enduring starvation, Indian attack, disease, drowning, and a murder within their own ranks. Three men died, and Roosevelt was brought to the brink of suicide. The River of Doubt brings alive these extraordinary events in a powerful nonfiction narrative thriller that happens to feature one of the most famous Americans who ever lived.
From the soaring beauty of the Amazon rain forest to the darkest night of Theodore Roosevelt’s life, here is Candice Millard’s dazzling debut.]]> 416 Candice Millard 0767913736 Larry 0 to-read 4.18 2005
author: Candice Millard
name: Larry
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/20
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]]> 10335318
But the shot didn’t kill Garfield. The drama of what hap­pened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in tur­moil. The unhinged assassin’s half-delivered strike shattered the fragile national mood of a country so recently fractured by civil war, and left the wounded president as the object of a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle for power—over his administration, over the nation’s future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. A team of physicians administered shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. As his con­dition worsened, Garfield received help: Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, worked around the clock to invent a new device capable of finding the bullet.

Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, The Destiny of the Republic will stand alongside The Devil in the White City and The Professor and the Madman as a classic of narrative history.]]> 339 Candice Millard 0385526261 Larry 0 to-read 4.19 2011
author: Candice Millard
name: Larry
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> 16158542
It was an unlikely quest from the start. With a team composed of the sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the University of Washington’s eight-oar crew team was never expected to defeat the elite teams of the East Coast and Great Britain, yet they did, going on to shock the world by defeating the German team rowing for Adolf Hitler. The emotional heart of the tale lies with Joe Rantz, a teenager without family or prospects, who rows not only to regain his shattered self-regard but also to find a real place for himself in the world. Drawing on the boys� own journals and vivid memories of a once-in-a-lifetime shared dream, Brown has created an unforgettable portrait of an era, a celebration of a remarkable achievement, and a chronicle of one extraordinary young man’s personal quest.]]> 404 Daniel James Brown 067002581X Larry 0 to-read 4.37 2013
author: Daniel James Brown
name: Larry
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> 55521481
As told by Dolly Parton in her own inimitable words, explore the songs that have defined her journey. Illustrated throughout with previously unpublished images from Dolly Parton's personal and business archives.

Mining over 60 years of songwriting, Dolly Parton highlights 150 of her songs and brings readers behind the lyrics.

- Packed with never-before-seen photographs and classic memorabilia
- Explores personal stories, candid insights, and myriad memories behind the songs

Dolly Parton, My Life in Lyrics reveals the stories and memories that have made Dolly a beloved icon across generations, genders, and social and international boundaries.

Containing rare photos and memorabilia from Parton's archives, this book is a show-stopping must-have for every Dolly Parton fan.

- Learn the history behind classic Parton songs like "Jolene," "9 to 5," "I Will Always Love You," and more.
- The perfect gift for Dolly Parton fans (everyone loves Dolly!) as well as lovers of music history and country

Add it to the shelf with books like Coat of Many Colors by Dolly Parton, The Beatles Anthology by The Beatles, and Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen.]]> 380 Dolly Parton 1529349796 Larry 0 to-read 4.45 2020
author: Dolly Parton
name: Larry
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/04
shelves: to-read
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]]> 68412177
That will be a problem this year, with history's most ridiculous mayoral election playing out in the background. The city has divided into roughly two camps, supporting each of the major candidates: One is a stern, calculating activist out to restore traditional morality to the city at all costs, the other is Megaboss Alonzo, whose platform is that he will pay you ten dollars if you vote for him.

When a horrific crime is broadcast live on the all-seeing social network Blink, the former seems poised to reap the benefits in the polls. The Suits suspect the nature and timing of the crime are a little too convenient and may be a carefully-staged hoax. But in a city in which lies are always served in layers, even that explanation will prove to be far too simple.

As tensions ratchet tighter, Zoey comes to realize that this is really a battle of narratives: Every culture needs a collective story to believe in, so it's just a matter of coming up with one and then carefully sculpting reality to make it fit. How hard can that be? They have the whole weekend.]]> 384 Jason Pargin Larry 4 4.39 2023
author: Jason Pargin
name: Larry
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/20
date added: 2023/11/21
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]]> 62315993 Ěý
“Will entice fans of Key & Peele …Ěýa fun and funny primerĚýon the art form.â€� â€� Booklist

Authors Keegan-Michael Key and Elle Key build on the popularity of their 2022 Webby Award � winning podcast and delve deeper into the world of sketch, helped along with new essays created expressly for the book by comedy greats.

The History of Sketch Comedy will appeal to all kinds of comedy fans as well as fans of Keegan-Michael Key, whether they know him from his EmmyĚýand Peabody-winning work on Key & Peele; Ěýhis roles in Fargo , The Prom , Schmigadoon! , The Bubble , and the upcoming Wonka ; voiceover work in The Lion King ;Ěýor as President Barack Obama's anger translator, Luther.

With epic personal tangents and hilarious asides, the KeysĚýtakeĚýyou on an illuminating journey throughĚýall facets of comedy from the stock characters of commedia del arte in the 16thĚýcentury, to the rise of vaudeville and burlesque, the golden age of television comedy, the influence of the most well-known comedy schools, and the ascension of comedy films and TV specials—all the way through to a look at the future of sketch on social media platforms. Along the way, we hear tales of Keegan'sĚýchildhood, his comedy influences, and the vicissitudes of his career path. As the New York Times said in its review of their podcast, "this comedy nerd history is filtered through memoir, with Key relating stories of his budding fandom, training and rise from improv comic to television sketch artist."

Part memoir, part masterclass, and hilariously embellished with priceless commentary, The History of Sketch Comedy highlightsĚýthe essential building blocks of sketch comedy while interweaving Keegan'sĚýpersonal career journey and the influence of his comedy heroes.ĚýThe text is complemented by original art by Elle Key and exclusive essays compiled from conversations with influential performers, sketch writers, and uber comedy fans including Mel Brooks, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Mike Myers, Chris Rock, John Oliver, Tracy Morgan, Carol Burnett, Jim Carrey, Jordan Peele, and many more. This book is as entertaining as it is enlightening—a must-read for fans of comedy and all who aspire to comic greatness.

EXPANDING THE HIT With content from the #1 trending, NAACP-award-nominated and Webby-Award-winning Audible podcast, and featuring new-for-the-book material as well as never-before-heard stories and essays, this book will be a hit for newcomers and avid listeners of the podcast alike.

MASTER OF THE Keegan-Michael Key is a bona fide maestro of comedy, with the chops, experience, and love for the history of the medium that make him the perfect expert on all things sketch. As co-writer Elle Key likes to say, "If Keegan-Michael Key was a guest lecturer at NYU teaching a course called 'The History of Sketch Comedy,' it would be a very popular class."

EXCLUSIVE Keegan and Elle interviewed over a dozen comedy legends exclusively for this book, and got their takes on topics ranging from the influence of Saturday Night Live , to women in comedy, to the mathematics of sketch. Hear, in their own words, from Mel Brooks, Mike Myers, Jordan Peele, Julia-Louis Dreyfus, John Oliver, Tracy Morgan, Stephen Colbert, Carol Burnett, Chris Rock, Bob Odenkirk, Mike Birbiglia, Matt Lucas, Ken Jeong, Christopher Guest, Gary Oldman, Kevin Nealon, Laraine Newman, and Jim Carrey.

GIFTABLE VOLUME OF COMEDY Original illustrations and personal photographs throughout make this unique comedy book as visually entertaining as it is enlightening. The perfect gift for comedy fans of all ages as well as anyone aspiring to write, perform, or produce comedic art.

Perfect ]]> 300 Keegan-Michael Key 179721683X Larry 3 3.77 2023
author: Keegan-Michael Key
name: Larry
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/13
date added: 2023/11/13
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]]> 61190770
Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE's corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar's path have devastating consequences.

Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system's unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means.]]> 367 Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah 0593317335 Larry 2 4.13 2023
author: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
name: Larry
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2023/11/09
date added: 2023/11/10
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]]> 65214162
Airplane! premiered on July 2nd, 1980. With a budget of $3.5 million it went on to make nearly $200 million in sales and has influenced a multitude of comedians on both sides of the camera.

Surely You Can’t Be Serious is the first-ever oral history of the making of Airplane! by the creators, and of the beginnings of the ZAZ trio (Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker) � charting the rise of their comedy troupe Kentucky Fried Theater in Madison, Wisconsin all the way to premiere night. The directors explain what drew them to filmmaking and in particular, comedy. With anecdotes, behind the scenes trivia, and never-before-revealed factoids � these titans of comedy filmmaking unpack everything from how they persuaded Peter Graves to be in the movie after he thought the script was a piece of garbage, how Lorna Patterson auditioned for the stewardess role in the back seat of Jerry’s Volvo, and how Leslie Nielsen’s pranks got the entire crew into trouble, to who really wrote the jive talk. The book also features testimonials and personal anecdotes from well-known faces in the film, television, and comedy sphere � proving how influential Airplane! has been from day one.

Four decades after its release, Airplane! continues to make new generations laugh. Its many one-liners and visual gags have worked their way into the mainstream culture. This fully organic expansion of the ZAZ trio’s fan-base, prompted solely by word-of-mouth, comes as no surprise to longtime fans. When all around us is in flux � laughter is priceless.]]> 352 David Zucker 1250289319 Larry 5 4.08 2023
author: David Zucker
name: Larry
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/27
date added: 2023/10/27
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]]> 28511250 The clock is ticking down again for Riley Hale.

She may be the newest member of Outer Earth's law enforcement team, but she feels less in control than ever. A twisted doctor bent on revenge is blackmailing her with a deadly threat. If Riley's to survive, she must follow his orders, and break a dangerous prisoner out of jail. To save her own skin, Riley must go against all her beliefs, and break every law that she's just sworn to protect. Riley's mission will get even tougher when all sectors are thrown into lock-down. A lethal virus has begun to spread through Outer Earth, and it seems little can stop it. If Riley doesn't live long enough to help to find a cure, then the last members of the human race will perish along with her.

The future of humanity hangs in the balance. And time is running out.

ZERO-G is the nonstop sequel to Rob Boffard's Tracer, a brutal, gripping thrill-ride, where the hero moves like lightning and the consequences for failure are deadly.]]> 480 Rob Boffard Larry 3 3.61 2016
author: Rob Boffard
name: Larry
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2023/10/24
date added: 2023/10/24
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]]> 24994516
A huge space station orbits the Earth, holding the last of humanity. It's broken, rusted, falling apart. We've wrecked our planet, and now we have to live with the consequences: a new home that's dirty, overcrowded and inescapable.

What's more, there's a madman hiding on the station. He's about to unleash chaos. And when he does, there'll be nowhere left to run.

In space, every second counts. Who said nobody could hear you scream?]]> 398 Rob Boffard 0356505138 Larry 3 3.35 2015
author: Rob Boffard
name: Larry
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2023/10/15
date added: 2023/10/16
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]]> 62326571 Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place.

Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.

Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.

But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they're coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.

It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyper-intelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.

In a dog-eat-dog world...be a cat.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 264 John Scalzi 0765389231 Larry 4 4.30 2023
author: John Scalzi
name: Larry
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/05
date added: 2023/10/05
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]]> 1265289
When Mack’s neighbors are kidnapped, Mack sets off on a journey through the dark alleys and gleaming skyscrapers of Empire City. Along the way, he runs afoul of a talking gorilla, a brainy dame, a mutant lowlife, a little green mob boss, and the secret conspiracy at the heart of Empire’s founders---not to mention more trouble than he bargained for. What started out as one missing family becomes a battle for the future of Empire and every citizen that calls her home.]]> 317 A. Lee Martinez 0765318342 Larry 3 3.95 2008
author: A. Lee Martinez
name: Larry
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2023/10/03
date added: 2023/10/03
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]]> 58437529
The Adventurer. The Great Snurkab. The Caretaker. Constance Verity returns, having accepted and secured her place in the universe while juggling her expanded life. Until she comes up against The Caretaker’s nemesis, a foe she can’t just beat the hell out of, Connie must defeat the idea of inevitable entropy, the end of everything.

Impossible you may think, but Connie always has an angle, and this time it’s by upping her game, by stopping enough calamities, by answering every tug at her innate sense of adventure, she can build up enough power to counteract the end of the universe. The problem is, she’s still a human woman, and even she can’t keep this up for long. As she starts to fade her friends figure out a way to Destroy the world.]]> 304 A. Lee Martinez 1481443577 Larry 3 4.07 2022
author: A. Lee Martinez
name: Larry
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/28
date added: 2023/09/28
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]]> 32919664 Constance Verity Saves the World is the next book in the witty Constance Verity trilogy, which Booklist named a Top 10 SF/Fantasy book of 2016.
Constance successfully became an ordinary person. People warned her it would be boring and they were right. That s exactly why Connie loves it. But there s an Adventurer-shaped hole in the cosmos now, and a lot of interested parties eager to fill it. Not all of those candidates are fit for the role, and if The Adventurer falls into the wrong hands, it can lead to chaos and destruction.
Constance still has all the skills of her old life, but she s no longer chosen. Yet when the fate of the world is at stake, she sets off, reluctantly, to keep the forces of evil from stealing the destiny she abandoned."]]> 400 A. Lee Martinez 1481443542 Larry 3 3.89 2018
author: A. Lee Martinez
name: Larry
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/27
date added: 2023/09/27
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]]> 45046591
Math-genius mercenary Cas Russell has stopped a shadow organization from brainwashing the world and discovered her past was deliberately erased and her superhuman abilities deliberately created.

And that's just the when a demolitions expert targets Cas and her friends, and the hidden conspiracy behind Cas's past starts to reappear, the past, present, and future collide in a race to save one of her dearest friends.]]> 368 S.L. Huang 1250180368 Larry 3 3.82 2020
author: S.L. Huang
name: Larry
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/23
date added: 2023/09/23
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]]> 41555930
But Cas’s own power also has a history, one she can’t remember—or control. One that's creeping into her mind and fracturing her sanity...just when she’s gotten herself on the hit list of every crime lord on the West Coast. And her best, only, sociopathic friend. Cas won’t be able to save the world. She might not even be able to save herself.]]> 320 S.L. Huang 1250180309 Larry 3 3.65 2019
author: S.L. Huang
name: Larry
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/19
date added: 2023/09/19
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]]> 38362809 Tade Thompson's Rosewater is the start of an award-winning, cutting edge trilogy set in Nigeria, by one of science fiction's most engaging new voices.

Rosewater is a town on the edge. A community formed around the edges of a mysterious alien biodome, its residents comprise the hopeful, the hungry and the helpless—people eager for a glimpse inside the dome or a taste of its rumored healing powers.

Kaaro is a government agent with a criminal past. He has seen inside the biodome, and doesn't care to again—but when something begins killing off others like himself, Kaaro must defy his masters to search for an answer, facing his dark history and coming to a realization about a horrifying future.]]> 432 Tade Thompson 0316449059 Larry 3 3.71 2017
author: Tade Thompson
name: Larry
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/15
date added: 2023/09/15
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]]> 62595513 Season of Skulls continues Hugo Award-winning author Charles Stross's Lovecraftian Laundry Files series.

Welcome to the sunlit uplands of the 21st century! Britain's avuncular Prime Minister is an ancient eldritch god of unimaginable power. Crime is plummeting as almost every offense is punishable by death. And everywhere you look, there are people with strange powers, some of which they can control, and some, not so much.

Hyperorganized and formidable, Eve Starkey defeated her boss, the louche magical adept and billionaire Rupert de Montfort Bigge, in a supernatural duel to the death. At least, she has reason to hope he's dead. But though she's now in charge of the Bigge Corporation, she's not free of him yet. Through the fecklessness of her brother Imp, combined with the intricate feudal law of a tiny Channel Island, it would appear that unbeknownst to her, she was married to Bigge--and that proving his death and releasing herself from his arcane bindings will take years and cost millions.

Then an emissary of the Prime Minister arrives with an offer that she absolutely can't...well, you know.

This is the final novel in the trilogy that began with Dead Lies Dreaming and continued with Quantum of Nightmares.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 376 Charles Stross 1250839408 Larry 0 to-read 4.17 2023
author: Charles Stross
name: Larry
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 37534869 A blockbuster, near-future science fiction thriller, S.L. Huang's Zero Sum Game introduces a math-genius mercenary who finds herself being manipulated by someone possessing unimaginable power.....

Cas Russell is good at math. Scary good. The vector calculus blazing through her head lets her smash through armed men twice her size and dodge every bullet in a gunfight, and she'll take any job for the right price.

As far as Cas knows, she’s the only person around with a superpower...until she discovers someone with a power even more dangerous than her own. Someone who can reach directly into people’s minds and twist their brains into Moebius strips. Someone intent on becoming the world’s puppet master.

Cas should run, like she usually does, but for once she's involved. There’s only one problem...
She doesn’t know which of her thoughts are her own anymore.]]> 336 S.L. Huang 1250180252 Larry 3 3.60 2014
author: S.L. Huang
name: Larry
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/03
date added: 2023/09/03
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]]> 255998 288 Tim Dorsey 006113922X Larry 2 3.70 1999
author: Tim Dorsey
name: Larry
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1999
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2023/08/30
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]]> 40859000
Isolated and pushed beyond their breaking points, Tighe and his fellow twenty-first century adventurers--ex-soldiers, former astronauts, BASE jumpers, and mountain climbers--must rely on each other to survive not only the dangers of a multi-year expedition but the harsh realities of business in space. They're determined to transform humanity from an Earth-bound species to a space-faring one--or die trying.]]> 437 Daniel Suarez 1524742414 Larry 3 4.11 2019
author: Daniel Suarez
name: Larry
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/27
date added: 2023/08/27
shelves:
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]]> 26869939
Ever since she was granted a wish at birth by her fairy godmother, Constance Verity has become one of the world’s great adventurers. It all began at her seventh birthday party when she defeated a snake. She has become a master of exotic martial arts, a keen detective, and possesses a collection of strange artifacts gathered from her adventures. But Constance has spent the past twenty-eight years saving the world, and she’s tired of it. All she wants is to work in an office and date a nice, normal guy. And she is finally figured out a way to do it: she’s going to kill her fairy godmother and reset her life. The only problem, though, is that saving the world is Constance’s destiny. She’s great at it, and there are forces at work to make sure she stays in the job.

Then again, it’s also her destiny to have a glorious death.]]> 384 A. Lee Martinez 1481443518 Larry 3 3.62 2016
author: A. Lee Martinez
name: Larry
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/20
date added: 2023/08/20
shelves:
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]]> 20434467 577 Brian Bagnall 0986832235 Larry 4 4.20 2005
author: Brian Bagnall
name: Larry
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/16
date added: 2023/08/20
shelves:
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]]> 43679321 Two time-traveling agents from warring futures, working their way through the past, begin to exchange letters-and fall in love in this thrilling and romantic book from award-winning authors Amal-El Mohtar and Max Gladstone.

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading.

Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There's still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war. That's how war works. Right?

Cowritten by two beloved and award-winning sci-fi writers, This Is How You Lose the Time War is an epic love story spanning time and space.]]> Amal El-Mohtar 1508287074 Larry 4 3.90 2019
author: Amal El-Mohtar
name: Larry
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/16
date added: 2023/08/17
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]]> 2143934 320 Bill Fitzhugh 0380788683 Larry 3 3.88 1996
author: Bill Fitzhugh
name: Larry
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/13
date added: 2023/08/13
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]]> 43190272
Ariadne is one such explorer. As an astronaut on an extrasolar research vessel, she and her fellow crewmates sleep between worlds and wake up each time with different features. Her experience is one of fluid body and stable mind and of a unique perspective on the passage of time. Back on Earth, society changes dramatically from decade to decade, as it always does.

Ariadne may awaken to find that support for space exploration back home has waned, or that her country of birth no longer exists, or that a cult has arisen around their cosmic findings, only to dissolve once more by the next waking. But the moods of Earth have little bearing on their mission: to explore, to study, and to send their learnings home.

Carrying all the trademarks of her other beloved works, including brilliant writing, fantastic world-building and exceptional, diverse characters, Becky's first audiobook outside of the Wayfarers series is sure to capture the imagination of listeners all over the world.]]> 153 Becky Chambers 0062936018 Larry 3 4.19 2019
author: Becky Chambers
name: Larry
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/11
date added: 2023/08/11
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]]> 55659625 In the vein of Neal Stephenson and Jeff VanderMeer, an epic speculative novel from Young Lions Fiction Award–finalist Matt Bell, a breakout book that explores climate change, manifest destiny, humanity's unchecked exploitation of natural resources, and the small but powerful magic contained within every single apple.Ěý

In eighteenth-century Ohio, two brothers travel into the wooded frontier, planting apple orchards from which they plan to profit in the years to come. As they remake the wilderness in their own image, planning for a future of settlement and civilization, the long-held bonds and secrets between the two will be tested, fractured and broken—and possibly healed.

Fifty years from now, in the second half of the twenty-first century, climate change has ravaged the Earth. Having invested early in genetic engineering and food science, one company now owns all the world’s resources. But a growing resistance is working to redistribute both land and power—and in a pivotal moment for the future of humanity, one of the company’s original founders will return to headquarters, intending to destroy what he helped build.

A thousand years in the future, North America is covered by a massive sheet of ice. One lonely sentient being inhabits a tech station on top of the glacier—and in a daring and seemingly impossible quest, sets out to follow a homing beacon across the continent in the hopes of discovering the last remnant of civilization.

Hugely ambitious in scope and theme, Appleseed is the breakout novel from a writer “as self-assured as he is audaciousâ€� (NPR) who “may well have invented the pulse-pounding novel of ideasâ€� (Jess Walter). Part speculative epic, part tech thriller, part reinvented fairy tale, Appleseed is an unforgettable meditation on climate change; corporate, civic, and familial responsibility; manifest destiny; and the myths and legends that sustain us all.Ěý]]> 465 Matt Bell 006304014X Larry 0 to-read 3.54 2021
author: Matt Bell
name: Larry
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/11
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]]> 17432399
"A bluebear has twenty-seven lives. I shall recount thirteen and a half of them in this book but keep quiet about the rest," says the narrator of Walter Moers’s epic adventure. "What about the Minipirates? What about the Hobgoblins, the Spiderwitch, the Babbling Billows, the Troglotroll, the Mountain Maggot…Mine is a tale of mortal danger and eternal love, of hair’s breadth, last-minute escapes."]]> 699 Walter Moers 1468307193 Larry 0 to-read 4.25 1999
author: Walter Moers
name: Larry
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/11
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]]> 23731839
Ex-PI Joe Kurtz's survival is on the line when an ambush leaves him badly wounded and his parole officer, Peg O'Toole, clinging to life. Their respective professions have ensured that neither suffers from a shortage of enemies, so narrowing down the suspects isn't easy. But Kurtz knows who's at the head of his Angelina Farino Ferrara, the lethal beauty who leads the Farino crime family, and her mob rival, Toma Gonzaga.

The odd thing is, each would rather hire Joe Kurtz than fire at him. Someone's causing trouble beneath the gray skies of western New York, and it's drawn the notice of the mobs and the cops. Kurtz is caught in the middle along with the rest of them, and no one knows who's tightening the vise.]]> 416 Dan Simmons 031621342X Larry 3 3.85 2003
author: Dan Simmons
name: Larry
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/09
date added: 2023/08/09
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]]> 22875060
Joe Kurtz, former investigator and convicted felon, is on parole. But the years he spent in Attica didn't make his old haunts any safer. Back on the streets of Buffalo, he's already marked by a local Mafia don.

As if watching his back weren't enough work, Kurtz has also been hired by a gravely ill John Frears, whose daughter met a grisly fate at the hands of a murderer. Frears wants one thing before he for Kurtz to find the fiend that the authorities couldn't. But the calculating killer -- a master at changing identities -- has a little unfinished business of his own. Dodging a contract on his head and tracking a serial killer on the loose, Kurtz plunges headfirst into the icy waters of revenge as both victim and avenger.]]> 336 Dan Simmons 0316213500 Larry 3 3.82 2002
author: Dan Simmons
name: Larry
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/07
date added: 2023/08/08
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]]> 151908270 A young man caught between two disparate worlds searches for his place in the universe in a wrenching short story by New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Roanhorse.

Light-years from home, it’s Ira’s second chance. Just another anonymous student at a space station university. Not the orphan whose Earther heritage was erased. Not some social experiment put on display by his adoptive father. Not the criminal recruited by the human rebels. But when Ira’s loyalties clash once again, two wars break one on the ground and one within himself. Which will Ira stand with? Which will take him down?

Rebecca Roanhorse’s Falling Bodies is part of The Far Reaches, a collection of science-fiction stories that stretch the imagination and open the heart. They can be read or listened to in one sitting.]]> 35 Rebecca Roanhorse 1662515030 Larry 3 3.66 2023
author: Rebecca Roanhorse
name: Larry
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2023
rating: 3
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]]> 151908304 New York Times bestselling author John Scalzi.

Equipped with the entirety of human knowledge, a sentient ship is launched on a last-ditch journey to find a new home for civilization. Trillions of miles. Tens of thousands of years. In the space between, the AI has plenty of time to think about life, the vastness of the universe, everything it was meant to do, and—with a perspective created but not limited by humans—what it should do.

John Scalzi’s Slow Time Between the Stars is part of The Far Reaches, a collection of science-fiction stories that stretch the imagination and open the heart. They can be read or listened to in one sitting.]]> 28 John Scalzi 1662515332 Larry 3 4.17 2023
author: John Scalzi
name: Larry
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/04
date added: 2023/08/05
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]]> 151908306 New York Times bestselling and Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author Ann Leckie.

On a far-off colony, humans tower over the local species who grow the plants they need. Narr keeps the workers in line—someone has to. But when Narr learns just how short-lived their species is, the little alien embarks on a big to find out why their people die and how to stop it. Stubborn and hopeful, Narr has a plan for the locals, for humans, and for the future.

Ann Leckie’s The Long Game is part of The Far Reaches, a collection of science-fiction stories that stretch the imagination and open the heart. They can be read or listened to in one sitting.]]> 31 Ann Leckie 1662515677 Larry 2 3.62 2023
author: Ann Leckie
name: Larry
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2023/08/04
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]]> 151908136 New York Times bestselling, award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor.

Tornado Onwubiko is one of seven people on Earth paired with sentient ships to explore and research the cosmos for twenty million euros. A decade of solitary life for a lifetime of wealth. Five years into the ten-year mission of total isolation comes a a temporary meetup among fellow travelers. A lot can happen in a week. For Tornado, who left a normal life behind, a little company can be life-changing.

Nnedi Okorafor’s Just Out of Jupiter’s Reach is part of The Far Reaches, a collection of science-fiction stories that stretch the imagination and open the heart. They can be read or listened to in one sitting.]]> 45 Nnedi Okorafor 1662516789 Larry 2 3.84 2023
author: Nnedi Okorafor
name: Larry
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2023/08/04
date added: 2023/08/05
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]]> 127306396
New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune invites you deep into the heart of a peculiar forest and on the extraordinary journey of a family assembled from spare parts.

Most Anticipated from BookPage â€� Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ â€� The Nerd Daily â€� Paste Magazine â€� LitReactor â€� OverDrive â€� LGBTQ Reads â€� Tor â€� LibraryReads â€� m ore

“An enchanting tale of Pinocchio in the end times.� ―P. Djèlí Clark

In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees, live three robots―fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. They’re a family, hidden and safe.

The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled “HAP,� he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio–a past spent hunting humans.

When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio’s former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe. Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. So together, the rest of Vic’s assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.

Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for Can he accept love with strings attached?

Inspired by Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio , and like Swiss Family Robinson meets Wall-E , In the Lives of Puppets is a masterful stand-alone fantasy adventure from the beloved author who brought you The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door.

� “An epic quest of rescue and discovery [with] the author’s trademark charm, heart, and bittersweetness.� � Library Journal , starred review

Praise for TJ Klune’s previous "Like being wrapped up in a big gay blanket." � V.E. SCHWAB � “Very close to perfect.� � SEANAN McGUIRE � “Utterly absorbing.� � GAIL CARRIGER � "It will renew your faith in humanity.� � TERRY BROOKS � “It healed me.� � CASSANDRA KHAW � “Compassionate.� � RYKA AOKI]]> 480 T.J. Klune 1250217431 Larry 3 3.94 2023
author: T.J. Klune
name: Larry
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/03
date added: 2023/08/03
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]]> 41121 603 Kim Stanley Robinson 0553585819 Larry 4 3.71 2005
author: Kim Stanley Robinson
name: Larry
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2009/07/16
date added: 2023/07/30
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]]> 61885029
Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.

Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.

But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they're coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.

It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyperintelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.

In a dog-eat-dog world...be a cat.]]> 264 John Scalzi 0765389223 Larry 0 to-read 4.09 2023
author: John Scalzi
name: Larry
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/24
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]]> 844055
HARDCASE

Joe Kurtz has been wronged one too many times. So when he takes out the drug-dealing thug who killed his girlfriend, the ex-PI gets to cool his heels for 11 years in Attica. It's there that he meets "Little Skag" Farino, the son of an aging Buffalo, New York, mob boss. In exchange for protecting the kid's manhood against any unwanted jailhouse affection, Kurtz gets an audience with Little Skag's father upon his release from prison.

Semi-retired Don Byron Farino is still clinging to what dwindling power he holds on the New York organized crime scene. He enlists Kurtz's help to track down the Family's missing accountant--a man with too much knowledge of Family business to have on the loose. But someone doesn't want the accountant found. As the story twists and turns and the body count rises, Kurtz no longer knows whom he can trust. Everyone seems to be after something, from the mob boss's sultry yet dangerous daughter, to a hit man named The Dane, an albino killer who is good with a knife, and a dwarf who is armed to the teeth and hell-bent on revenge.

Bestselling author Dan Simmons expertly builds the tension as he springs one surprise after another, all the while daring the reader to take a ride with Kurtz through the cold, windy streets of Buffalo where one wrong move could mean a belly-full of lead.]]> 288 Dan Simmons 0312274971 Larry 3 3.62 1993
author: Dan Simmons
name: Larry
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1993
rating: 3
read at: 2023/07/22
date added: 2023/07/22
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]]> 55278507 The Arthur C. Clarke award-winning author of Children of Time brings us an extraordinary space opera about humanity on the brink of extinction, and how one man's discovery will save or destroy us all.

The war is over. Its heroes forgotten. Until one chance discovery . . .

Idris has neither aged nor slept since they remade him in the war. And one of humanity's heroes now scrapes by on a freelance salvage vessel, to avoid the attention of greater powers.

After earth was destroyed, mankind created a fighting elite to save their species, enhanced humans such as Idris. In the silence of space they could communicate, mind-to-mind, with the enemy. Then their alien aggressors, the Architects, simply disappeared—and Idris and his kind became obsolete.

Now, fifty years later, Idris and his crew have discovered something strange abandoned in space. It's clearly the work of the Architects—but are they returning? And if so, why? Hunted by gangsters, cults and governments, Idris and his crew race across the galaxy hunting for answers. For they now possess something of incalculable value, that many would kill to obtain.]]> Adrian Tchaikovsky 1549106392 Larry 3 4.09 2021
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Larry
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2023/07/21
date added: 2023/07/21
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]]> 60534118
Save the future.

One morning, Dr. Sam Anderson wakes up to find that the woman he loves has been murdered.

For Sam, the horror is only beginning. He and his daughter are accused of the crime. The evidence is ironclad. They will be convicted. And so, to ensure his daughter goes free, Sam does what he must: he confesses. But in the future, murderers aren't sent to prison. Thanks to a machine Sam helped invent, the world's worst criminals are now sent to the past � approximately 200 million years into the past, to the dawn of the time of the dinosaurs � where they must live out their lives alone, in exile from the human race. Sam accepts his fate. But his daughter doesn't. Adeline Anderson has already lost her mother to a deadly, unfair disease. She can't bear to lose her father as well. So she sets out on a quest to prove him innocent. And to get him back. People around her insist that both are impossible tasks. But Adeline doesn't give up. She only works harder. She soon learns that impossible tasks are her specialty. And that she is made of tougher stuff than she ever imagined. As she peels back the layers of the mystery that tore her father from this world, Adeline finds more questions than answers. Everyone around her is hiding a secret. But which ones are connected to the murder that exiled her father?]]> 464 A.G. Riddle 1804541761 Larry 4 3.86 2022
author: A.G. Riddle
name: Larry
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/06
date added: 2023/07/06
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]]> 62039305
Hot dogs. Poor people created them. Rich people found a way to charge fifteen dollars for them. They’re high culture, they’re low culture, they’re sports food, they’re kids' food, they’re hangover food, and they’re deeply American, despite having no basis whatsoever in America's Indigenous traditions. You can love them, you can hate them, but you can’t avoid the great American hot dog.

Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs is part investigation into the cultural and culinary significance of hot dogs and part travelog documenting a cross-country road trip researching them as they’re served today. From avocado and spice in the West to ass-shattering chili in the East to an entire salad on a slice of meat in Chicago, Loftus, her pets, and her ex eat their way across the country during the strange summer of 2021. It’s a brief window into the year between waves of a plague that the American government has the resources to temper, but not the interest.

So grab a dog, lay out your picnic blanket, and dig into the delicious and inevitable product of centuries of violence, poverty, and ambition, now rolling around at your local 7-Eleven.]]> 301 Jamie Loftus 1250847745 Larry 4 3.90 2023
author: Jamie Loftus
name: Larry
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/03
date added: 2023/07/04
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]]> 49676965 New York Times bestselling author of Recursion.

Maxine was made to do one thing: die. Except the minor non-player character in the world Riley is building makes her own impossible decision—veering wildly off course and exploring the boundaries of the map. When the curious Riley extracts her code for closer examination, an emotional relationship develops between them. Soon Riley has all new plans for her spontaneous AI, including bringing Max into the real world. But what if Max has real-world plans of her own?

Blake Crouch’s Summer Frost is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.]]> 85 Blake Crouch 1542043638 Larry 0 4.10 2019
author: Blake Crouch
name: Larry
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2023/07/01
date added: 2023/07/01
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]]> 151909273 50 Veronica Roth 1662516223 Larry 0 3.85 2023
author: Veronica Roth
name: Larry
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2023/07/01
date added: 2023/07/01
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]]> 151908910 New York Times bestselling author of The Expanse series.

Roy Court and his crew are taking the trip of a lifetime—several lifetimes in fact—duplicated and dispatched across the galaxies searching for Earthlike planets. Many possibilities for the future. Yet for Roy, no matter how many of him there are, there’s still just one painful, unchangeable past. In what world can a broken relationship be reborn? The universe is so vast, there’s always room for hope.

James S. A. Corey’s How It Unfolds is part of The Far Reaches, a collection of science-fiction stories that stretch the imagination and open the heart. They can be read or listened to in one sitting.]]> 38 James S.A. Corey 1662515723 Larry 0 3.99 2023
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Larry
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2023/06/30
date added: 2023/07/01
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]]> 33154379
But instead of being taken to his usual suite, he is led to an attic room with a window the size of a chessboard. Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely.

While Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval, the Count, stripped of the trappings that defined his life, is forced to question what makes us who we are. And with the assistance of a glamorous actress, a cantankerous chef and a very serious child, Rostov unexpectedly discovers a new understanding of both pleasure and purpose.]]> 462 Amor Towles 0099558785 Larry 2 4.29 2016
author: Amor Towles
name: Larry
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at: 2023/06/24
date added: 2023/06/24
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]]> 64402331
Earth failed. In a desperate bid to escape, the spaceship Enkidu and its captain, Heorest Holt, carried its precious human cargo to a potential new paradise. Generations later, this fragile colony has managed to survive, eking out a hardy existence. Yet life is tough, and much technological knowledge has been lost.

Then strangers appear. They possess unparalleled knowledge and thrilling technology � and they've arrived from another world to help humanity’s colonies. But not all is as it seems, and the price of the strangers' help may be the colony itself.

Children of Memory by Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky is a far-reaching space opera spanning generations, species and galaxies.]]> 1 Adrian Tchaikovsky 1668629216 Larry 3 3.77 2022
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Larry
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/06/21
date added: 2023/06/21
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]]> 61334669 One groundbreaking discovery...will change everything.

Welcome to 'QUANTUM RADIO', A.G. Riddle's first new novel in almost two years - a spell-binding epic filled with science, history, and enough plot twists to keep you up late into the night.

On September 10th, 2008, the Large Hadron Collider began operating at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. It was - and still is - the largest machine ever built. It has a simple purpose: to examine the smallest building blocks of the universe. That work could solve the greatest scientific mysteries of all time: the nature of space and time itself and the origins of our universe.

Recently, the Large Hadron Collider was upgraded. Today, it has the ability to detect sub-atomic particles researchers have never seen before. Some of those particles hid a secret, a revelation that will rewrite our very understanding of the universe.

A few days ago, a quantum physicist working at CERN made an incredible discovery. Using a computer algorithm, Doctor Ty Vogel identified a pattern in the sub-atomic particles being generated by the LHC. This pattern is a data transmission across space and time - a signal being broadcast by a sort of...quantum radio. That signal - and the message it carries - will change the world forever.]]> 502 A.G. Riddle 1803281693 Larry 4 3.81 2023
author: A.G. Riddle
name: Larry
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/03
date added: 2023/06/03
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]]> 63039277 Can humanity survive on a new world?
On Eos, the last survivors of the Long Winter face their greatest challenge yet--and race to unravel the deepest secrets of the grid. It's a journey across space and time and into humanity's past and future--with a twist you'll never forget.

The Lost Colony
The last survivors of the human race escaped a ruined Earth. Their new homeworld—Eos—seemed perfect at first. Warm. Hospitable. Safe from the grid. But everything isn’t as it seems.

The first colony of settlers—from the Carthage—have disappeared. Their settlement is still there, but everyone is gone. As James digs into the mystery of the lost colony, he discovers a series of spheres, buried on Eos. Are they the key to finding the lost colonists? Or are they responsible for their deaths?

Just as James is unraveling the secrets of the spheres, a storm hits Jericho City. Emma, recently elected mayor, struggles to lead her people to safety while James tries to make his way home. In the middle of the chaos, a new danger emerges—a threat no one saw coming.

With time running out to save the colonists, James and Emma face their hardest choice yet.]]> A.G. Riddle 1664749136 Larry 4 4.20 2019
author: A.G. Riddle
name: Larry
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2023/05/31
date added: 2023/05/31
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]]> 179022 454 S.M. Stirling 0451457439 Larry 3 4.03 1999
author: S.M. Stirling
name: Larry
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at: 2023/05/29
date added: 2023/05/29
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]]> 55609557 * Now a Wall Street Journal bestseller! *

We thought the war was over.
We were wrong.

They decimated Earth during the Long Winter.
Now the grid has returned, and they won't stop until the human race is extinct.

On a ruined world, humanity's last survivors fight against impossible odds. In their darkest hour, they discover a new hope for survival. But it comes at an unthinkable price, with consequences that will change everything.

Buy now and continue the series (or read for free in Kindle Unlimited).


Selected Praise For A.G. Riddle

“This is apocalyptic sci-fi at its best.�
� Daily Mail on The Solar War

�...reads like a superior collaboration between Dan Brown and Michael Crichton.�
� The Guardian on Pandemic

“I finished the book fast because I just couldn’t wait...�
� WIRED GeekDad on Departure

“Riddle... keep(s) the focus on his characters... rather than the technological marvels�
�Publisher’s Weekly on Departure

“Well-constructed and tightly-wound as a fine Swiss watch�DEPARTURE has non-stop action, an engaging plot and, of course, wheels within wheels.�
�Diana Gabaldon, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Outlander


An Extended Look at The Solar War

After the Long Winter, Emma Matthews and James Sinclair hoped life would get back to normal. They’ve settled down in Camp Seven and welcomed their first child, a daughter. And they have waited and watched the sky for any signs of the grid’s return.

When NASA discovers that several asteroids have broken from the Kuiper Belt and are headed for Earth, James instantly realizes the truth: the grid is back. And this battle will be one to the very end.

As he and his team prepare for humanity’s last stand in space and on the ground, Emma makes a discovery closer to home, one that will change life for her and James once again.

With war raging around them, Emma and James fight to keep their family alive. In the cold darkness, humanity splinters. New alliances emerge. At every turn, Emma and James face new dangers—and question whom to trust.

Just when it seems that all hope is lost, James uncovers what may be the key to humanity’s survival. But it comes with enormous risks. To implement his plan, he and Emma will have to survive the grid and another, even more deadly enemy. One thing is certain: their gambit will change the future of the human race forever.


The Solar War is the second book in The Long Winter trilogy, which began with Winter World. Start reading this fast-paced, post-apocalyptic thriller now!


About the Author

A.G. Riddle’s debut novel, The Atlantis Gene, became a global phenomenon, topping best seller charts in the US and abroad. Every year, Amazon compiles a list of the top 100 bestselling Kindle eBooks of the year (by total sales volume). The Atlantis Gene has made Amazon’s annual Kindle bestseller list an unprecedented five years in a row—every year since the book’s release (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017). Since then, Riddle has released eight more novels, selling millions of copies in two dozen languages. His books feature a unique mix of science, history, and suspense that has delighted fans of Michael Crichton, Dan Brown, Clive Cussler, and James Rollins and continues to sell year after year. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.]]> A.G. Riddle 1664478094 Larry 3 4.29 2019
author: A.G. Riddle
name: Larry
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2023/05/11
date added: 2023/05/11
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]]> 43720168 A new ice age... and a shocking discovery...
will change humanity forever.

In the near future, a new ice age has begun.

Humanity stands on the brink of extinction.

Desperate for answers, scientists send probes into the solar system to take readings. Near Mars, a probe spots a mysterious object drifting toward the Sun. Is it the cause of the ice age? Or could it be our only hope of survival?

With time running out, NASA launches an international mission to make contact with the object. But it isn’t what anyone thought. In the dark of space, alone, the team makes a shocking discovery that will change the course of human history—and possibly end it.]]> 472 A.G. Riddle 1940026202 Larry 3 4.18 2019
author: A.G. Riddle
name: Larry
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2023/05/03
date added: 2023/05/03
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]]> 60784302
Teenager Aster barely escapes with her life when her adoptive father is killed in a shooting. Suddenly finding herself under the protection of a special US military unit, she learns that blood tests indicate that she's not even human. Unsure who or what she might be - or if any of this is true - Aster's first instinct is to flee.

Unfortunately, she soon finds she is caught between two warring sides: on one, her mortal enemies, the alien Trackers, and on the other, the American government.

Then, from the most unexpected quarter, she finds someone offering to help her - someone her instincts tell her can't be trusted . . .

Now Aster can be certain of just two things: her blood is more vital than she ever knew and the fate of the world rests upon her survival.]]> 320 Sylvain Neuvel 1250262577 Larry 3 3.85 2023
author: Sylvain Neuvel
name: Larry
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/04/30
date added: 2023/04/30
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]]> 53231680 A revolutionary new approach to ADD/ADHD featuring cutting-edge research and strategies to help readers thrive, by the bestselling authors of the seminal books Driven to Distraction and Delivered from Distraction

"An inspired road map for living with a distractible brain . . . If you or your child suffer from ADHD, this book should be on your shelf. It will give you courage and hope."--Michael Thompson, Ph.D., New York Times bestselling co-author of Raising Cain

World-renowned authors Dr. Edward M. Hallowell and Dr. John J. Ratey literally "wrote the book" on ADD/ADHD more than two decades ago. Their bestseller, Driven to Distraction, largely introduced this diagnosis to the public and sold more than a million copies along the way.

Now, most people have heard of ADHD and know someone who may have it. But lost in the discussion of both childhood and adult diagnosis of ADHD is the potential upside: Many hugely successful entrepreneurs and highly creative people attribute their achievements to ADHD. Also unknown to most are the recent research developments, including innovations that give a clearer understanding of the ADHD brain in action. In ADHD 2.0, Drs. Hallowell and Ratey, both of whom have this "variable attention trait," draw on the latest science to provide both parents and adults with ADHD a plan for minimizing the downside and maximizing the benefits of ADHD at any age. They offer an arsenal of new strategies and lifestyle hacks for thriving with ADHD, including

- Find the right kind of difficult. Use these behavior assessments to discover the work, activity, or creative outlet best suited to an individual's unique strengths.
- Reimagine environment. What specific elements to look for--at home, at school, or in the workplace--to enhance the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit inherent in the ADHD mind.
- Embrace innate neurological tendencies. Take advantage of new findings about the brain's default mode network and cerebellum, which confer major benefits for people with ADHD.
- Tap into the healing power of connection. Tips for establishing and maintaining positive connection "the other Vitamind C" and the best antidote to the negativity that plagues so many people with ADHD.
- Consider medication. Gets the facts about the underlying chemistry, side effects, and proven benefits of all the pharmaceutical options.

As inspiring as it is practical, 'ADHD 2.0' will help you tap into the power of this mercurial condition and find the key that unlocks potential.




RUNNING TIME => 7hrs.

©2021 Edward M. Hallowell and John J. Ratey (P)2021 Random House Audio]]> 208 Edward M. Hallowell 0399178732 Larry 3 4.05 2021
author: Edward M. Hallowell
name: Larry
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2023/04/29
date added: 2023/04/29
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]]> 28464896
When one of the remaining airships is damaged in an electrical storm, a Hell Diver team is deployed to a hostile zone called Hades. But there’s something down there far worse than the mutated creatures discovered on dives in the past—something that threatens the fragile future of humanity.]]> Nicholas Sansbury Smith 1504713958 Larry 0 to-read 3.83 2016
author: Nicholas Sansbury Smith
name: Larry
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> 20170404 An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse—the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.

Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.]]> 333 Emily St. John Mandel 0385353308 Larry 3 4.05 2014
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Larry
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2023/04/27
date added: 2023/04/27
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]]> 65213633
That will be a problem this year, with history's most ridiculous mayoral election playing out in the background. The city has divided into roughly two camps, supporting each of the major candidates: One is a stern, calculating activist out to restore traditional morality to the city at all costs, the other is Megaboss Alonzo, whose platform is that he will pay you ten dollars if you vote for him.

When a horrific crime is broadcast live on the all-seeing social network Blink, the former seems poised to reap the benefits in the polls. The Suits suspect the nature and timing of the crime are a little too convenient and may be a carefully-staged hoax. But in a city in which lies are always served in layers, even that explanation will prove to be far too simple.

As tensions ratchet tighter, Zoey comes to realize that this is really a battle of narratives: Every culture needs a collective story to believe in, so it's just a matter of coming up with one and then carefully sculpting reality to make it fit. How hard can that be? They have the whole weekend.]]> 416 Jason Pargin 1250285933 Larry 0 to-read 4.23 2023
author: Jason Pargin
name: Larry
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> 58724593
They hope to find the answers they seek, while making new friends, learning new concepts, and experiencing the entropic nature of the universe.

Becky Chambers's new series continues to ask: in a world where people have what they want, does having more even matter?

They're going to need to ask it a lot.]]> 152 Becky Chambers 1250236231 Larry 4 4.43 2022
author: Becky Chambers
name: Larry
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/15
date added: 2023/04/15
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]]> 60784562
It’s not going to last.

It may be sunny now, but winter is coming. The antimatter that fuels the colony is running low, and Marshall wants his bomb back. If Mickey agrees to retrieve it, he’ll be giving up the only thing that’s kept his head off of the chopping block. If he refuses, he might doom the entire colony. Meanwhile, the creepers have their own worries, and they’re not going to surrender the bomb without getting something in return. Once again, Mickey finds the fate of two species resting in his hands. If something goes wrong this time, though, he won’t be coming back.]]> 292 Edward Ashton 1250275059 Larry 4 3.89 2023
author: Edward Ashton
name: Larry
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/12
date added: 2023/04/12
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]]> 35018907 In this character driven novel of first contact by debut author Sue Burke, human survival hinges on an bizarre alliance.

Only mutual communication can forge an alliance with the planet's sentient species and prove that mammals are more than tools.

Forced to land on a planet they aren't prepared for, human colonists rely on their limited resources to survive. The planet provides a lush but inexplicable landscape--trees offer edible, addictive fruit one day and poison the next, while the ruins of an alien race are found entwined in the roots of a strange plant. Conflicts between generations arise as they struggle to understand one another and grapple with an unknowable alien intellect.]]> 333 Sue Burke 076539135X Larry 3 3.85 2018
author: Sue Burke
name: Larry
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2023/04/10
date added: 2023/04/10
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]]> 60387898 From the Pulitzer-Prize-winning New York Times reporter who has defined Donald J. Trump's presidency like no other journalist: a magnificent and disturbing reckoning that moves beyond simplistic caricature, chronicling his rise in New York City to his tortured post-presidency and his potential comeback.

Few journalists working today have covered Donald Trump more extensively than Maggie Haberman. And few understand him and his motivations better. Now, demonstrating her majestic command of this story, Haberman reveals in full the depth of her understanding of the 45th president himself, and of what the Trump phenomenon means.

Interviews with hundreds of sources and numerous interviews over the years with Trump himself portray a complicated and often contradictory historical figure. Capable of kindness but relying on casual cruelty as it suits his purposes. Pugnacious. Insecure. Lonely. Vindictive. Menacing. Smarter than his critics contend and colder and more calculating than his allies believe. A man who embedded himself in popular culture, galvanizing support for a run for high office that he began preliminary spadework for 30 years ago, to ultimately become a president who pushed American democracy to the brink.

The through-line of Trump’s life and his presidency is the enduring question of what is in it for him or what he needs to say to survive short increments of time in the pursuit of his own interests.

Confidence Man is also, inevitably, about the world that produced such a singular character, giving rise to his career and becoming his first stage. It is also about a series of relentlessly transactional relationships. The ones that shaped him most were with girlfriends and wives, with Roy Cohn, with George Steinbrenner, with Mike Tyson and Don King and Roger Stone, with city and state politicians like Robert Morgenthau and Rudy Giuliani, with business partners, with prosecutors, with the media, and with the employees who toiled inside what they commonly called amongst themselves the “Trump Disorganization.�

That world informed the one that Trump tried to recreate while in the White House. All of Trump’s behavior as President had echoes in what came before. In this revelatory and newsmaking book, Haberman brings together the events of his life into a single mesmerizing work. It is the definitive account of one of the most norms-shattering and consequential eras in American political history.]]> 597 Maggie Haberman 0593297342 Larry 4 4.03 2022
author: Maggie Haberman
name: Larry
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/31
date added: 2023/03/31
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]]> 55077657 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250236210.

Centuries before, robots of Panga gained self-awareness, laid down their tools, wandered, en masse into the wilderness, never to be seen again. They faded into myth and urban legend.

Now the life of the tea monk who tells this story is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They will need to ask it a lot. Chambers' series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?]]> 147 Becky Chambers Larry 4 4.25 2021
author: Becky Chambers
name: Larry
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/24
date added: 2023/03/24
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]]> 58884736
"A story of love and hope as interweaving characters display: how all moments, big and small, can measure a life. If you want joy, love, romance, and hope—read with us." —Jenna Bush Hager
A luminous, spirit-lifting blockbuster that asks: would you choose to find out the length of your life?

Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice.

It seems like any other day. You wake up, drink a cup of coffee, and head out.

But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. The contents of this mysterious box tells you the exact number of years you will live.

From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise?

As society comes together and pulls apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice: Do they wish to know how long they’ll live? And, if so, what will they do with that knowledge?

The Measure charts the dawn of this new world through an unforgettable cast of characters whose decisions and fates interweave with one another: best friends whose dreams are forever entwined, pen pals finding refuge in the unknown, a couple who thought they didn’t have to rush, a doctor who cannot save himself, and a politician whose box becomes the powder keg that ultimately changes everything.

Enchanting and deeply uplifting, The Measure is an ambitious, invigorating story about family, friendship, hope, and destiny that encourages us to live life to the fullest.]]> 353 Nikki Erlick 0063204207 Larry 4 3.96 2022
author: Nikki Erlick
name: Larry
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/22
date added: 2023/03/22
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]]> 54814676
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humour and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band � and meeting the man who would become her husband � her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live.

It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Vivacious, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.]]> 243 Michelle Zauner 0525657746 Larry 4 4.25 2021
author: Michelle Zauner
name: Larry
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/08
date added: 2023/03/08
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]]> 24611819
Wilf Netherton lives in London, seventy-some years later, on the far side of decades of slow-motion apocalypse. Things are pretty good now, for the haves, and there aren’t many have-nots left. Wilf, a high-powered publicist and celebrity-minder, fancies himself a romantic misfit, in a society where reaching into the past is just another hobby.Ěý

Burton’s been moonlighting online, secretly working security in some game prototype, a virtual world that looks vaguely like London, but a lot weirder. He’s got Flynne taking over shifts, promised her the game’s not a shooter. Still, the crime she witnesses there is plenty bad.

Flynne and Wilf are about to meet one another. Her world will be altered utterly, irrevocably, and Wilf’s, for all its decadence and power, will learn that some of these third-world types from the past can be badass.]]> 485 William Gibson 0425276236 Larry 3 3.77 2014
author: William Gibson
name: Larry
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2023/03/06
date added: 2023/03/06
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]]> 60279785 The Karate Kid first crane-kicked its way into the pop culture stratosphere in June 1984, there hasn't been a week Ralph Macchio hasn't heard friendly shouts of "Wax on, wax off" or "Sweep the leg!" Now, with Macchio reprising his role as Daniel LaRusso in the #1 ranked Netflix show Cobra Kai, he is finally ready to look back at this classic movie and give the fans something they've long craved.

The book will be Ralph Macchio's celebratory reflection on the legacy of The Karate Kid in film, pop culture, and his own life. It will be a comprehensive look at a film that shaped him as much as it influenced the world. Macchio will share an insider's perspective of the untold story behind his starring role--the innocence of the early days, the audition process, and the filmmaking experience--as well as take readers through the birth of some of the film's most iconic moments.

Ultimately, the book centers on the film itself, focusing on the reason that the characters and themes have endured in such a powerful way and how these personal experiences have impacted Macchio's life. It will bring readers back to the day they met Daniel LaRusso and Mr. Miyagi for the first time, but will also provide a fascinating lens into how our pasts shape all of us and how the past can come back to enrich one's life in surprising and wonderful ways.]]> 241 Ralph Macchio 0593185838 Larry 4 4.00 2022
author: Ralph Macchio
name: Larry
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/08
date added: 2023/02/08
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]]> 59366123 Butts: A Backstory, reporter, essayist, and RadioLab contributing editor Heather Radke is determined to find out.

Spanning nearly two centuries, this “whip-smart� (Publishers Weekly, starred review) cultural history takes us from the performance halls of 19th-century London to the aerobics studios of the 1980s, the music video set of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back� and the mountains of Arizona, where every year humans and horses race in a feat of gluteal endurance. Along the way, she meets evolutionary biologists who study how butts first developed; models whose measurements have defined jean sizing for millions of women; and the fitness gurus who created fads like “Buns of Steel.� She also examines the central importance of race through figures like Sarah Bartmann, once known as the “Venus Hottentot,� Josephine Baker, Jennifer Lopez, and other women of color whose butts have been idolized, envied, and despised.

Part deep dive reportage, part personal journey, part cabinet of curiosities, Butts is an entertaining, illuminating, and thoughtful examination of why certain silhouettes come in and out of fashion—and how larger ideas about race, control, liberation, and power affect our most private feelings about ourselves and others.]]> 311 Heather Radke 1982135484 Larry 4 3.74 2022
author: Heather Radke
name: Larry
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/06
date added: 2023/02/07
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]]> 54226795 An Adam Grant Spring Book Pick
Finalist for the Next Big Idea Club

A must-read this spring -- a fantastically well-written exploration of our need for ownership and the costs of greed.
--Andrew Solomon, National Book Award-winning author of Far From the Tree


A hidden set of rules governs who owns what--explaining everything from whether you can recline your airplane seat to why HBO lets you borrow a password illegally--and in this lively and entertaining guide, two acclaimed law professors reveal how things become mine.

Mine is one of the first words babies learn. By the time we grow up, the idea of ownership seems natural, whether buying a cup of coffee or a house. But who controls the space behind your airplane seat: you reclining or the squished laptop user behind? Why is plagiarism wrong, but it's okay to knock-off a recipe or a dress design? And after a snowstorm, why does a chair in the street hold your parking space in Chicago, but in New York you lose the space and the chair?

Mine! explains these puzzles and many more. Surprisingly, there are just six simple stories that everyone uses to claim everything. Owners choose the story that steers us to do what they want. But we can always pick a different story. This is true not just for airplane seats, but also for battles over digital privacy, climate change, and wealth inequality. As Michael Heller and James Salzman show--in the spirited style of Freakonomics, Nudge, and Predictably Irrational--ownership is always up for grabs.

With stories that are eye-opening, mind-bending, and sometimes infuriating, Mine! reveals the rules of ownership that secretly control our lives.]]> 336 Michael A. Heller 0385544723 Larry 4 4.11 2021
author: Michael A. Heller
name: Larry
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/16
date added: 2023/01/16
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]]> 59616363
Marion “Mops� Adamopoulos and her team were trained to clean spaceships. They were absolutely not trained to fight an interplanetary war with the xenocidal Prodryans or to make first contact with the Jynx, a race who might not be as primitive as they seem. But if there’s one lesson Mops and her crew have learned, it’s that things like “training� and “being remotely qualified� are overrated.

The war is escalating. (This might be Mops� fault.) The survival of humanity—those few who weren’t turned to feral, shambling monsters by an alien plague—as well as the fate of all other non-Prodryans, will depend on what Captain Mops and the crew of the EDFS Pufferfish discover on the ringed planet of Tuxatl.

But the Jynx on Tuxatl are fighting a war of their own, and their world’s long-buried secrets could be more dangerous than the Prodryans.

To make matters worse, Mops is starting to feel a little feral herself…]]> 336 Jim C. Hines 075641282X Larry 3 4.34 2022
author: Jim C. Hines
name: Larry
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/01/09
date added: 2023/01/09
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]]> 40376072
Long ago, Earth's terraforming program sent ships out to build new homes for humanity among the stars and made an unexpected discovery: a planet with life. But the scientists were unaware that the alien ecosystem was more developed than the primitive life forms originally discovered.

Now, thousands of years later, the Portiids and their humans have sent an exploration vessel following fragmentary radio signals. They discover a system in crisis, warring factions trying to recover from an apocalyptic catastrophe arising from what the early terraformers awoke all those years before.]]> 597 Adrian Tchaikovsky Larry 3 4.02 2019
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Larry
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2023/01/05
date added: 2023/01/05
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]]> 38359036 °ŐäłŮ´Ç·Éľ±±đ°ů±đ°ů (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.

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

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

A vivid, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful re-creation of Lale Sokolov's experiences as the man who tattooed the arms of thousands of prisoners with what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is also a testament to the endurance of love and humanity under the darkest possible conditions.]]> 272 Heather Morris 006287067X Larry 0 to-read 4.32 2018
author: Heather Morris
name: Larry
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/31
shelves: to-read
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]]> 24983
But a crisis strangely linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrin--barely of age herself--finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope during one of history's darkest hours.

Connie Willis draws upon her understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the ageless issues of evil, suffering, and the indomitable will of the human spirit.]]> 578 Connie Willis 0553562738 Larry 0 to-read 4.02 1992
author: Connie Willis
name: Larry
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/31
shelves: to-read
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]]>