en-US Tue, 03 May 2016 13:52:07 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 231614 --back cover]]> 109 Elie Wiesel 0553272535 Patrik 4 4.29 1956
author: Elie Wiesel
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1956
rating: 4
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date added: 2016/05/03
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]]> 320 417 Gabriel García Márquez Patrik 5 4.10 1967
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1967
rating: 5
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date added: 2011/08/29
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]]> 55876 Vanity Fair. Other Brits had taken Manhattan--Alistair Cooke, Tina Brown, Anna Wintour--so why couldn't he?But things didn't quite go according to plan. Within the space of two years he was fired from Vanity Fair, banned from the most fashionable bar in the city, and couldn't get a date for love or money. Even the local AA group wanted nothing to do with him.How to Lose Friends and Alienate People is Toby Young's hilarious and best-selling account of the five years he spent looking for love in all the wrong places and steadily working his way down the New York food chain, from glossy magazine editor to crash-test dummy for interactive sex toys. A seditious attack on the culture of celebrity from inside the belly of the beast, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People is also a "nastily funny read." --USA Today]]> 368 Toby Young 0306812274 Patrik 3 3.30 2002
author: Toby Young
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2002
rating: 3
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date added: 2009/12/17
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I bought this book the day it came out I was very excited at the time to read this.. because of the whole vanity fair connection... i read it in 12 hours and exchanged it the next day for a book totally unrelated... althou this book is probably a bit abstract for someone who has no concept of publishing/ bullshiting your way thru a career i found it funny if predictable..
]]> 217207
"Here's your chance to have all the benefits of a tortured adolescence without the shitty childhood. Congradulations!"
—Sarah Silverman]]> 288 Lesley Arfin 1576873838 Patrik 5 3.44 2007
author: Lesley Arfin
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2007/07/01
date added: 2009/12/17
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Totally Brilliant both bummed and relieved my teens/20's were not like hers, saying this is exactly what she makes fun of but this book feels like a friend
]]> 86147 Bright Lights, Big City in 1984, Jay McInerney became a literary sensation, heralded as the voice of a generation. The novel follows a young man, living in Manhattan as if he owned it, through nightclubs, fashion shows, editorial offices, and loft parties as he attempts to outstrip mortality and the recurring approach of dawn. With nothing but goodwill, controlled substances, and wit to sustain him in this anti-quest, he runs until he reaches his reckoning point, where he is forced to acknowledge loss and, possibly, to rediscover his better instincts. This remarkable novel of youth and New York remains one of the most beloved, imitated, and iconic novels in America.]]> 208 Jay McInerney Patrik 5 3.80 1984
author: Jay McInerney
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1984
rating: 5
read at: 2007/03/01
date added: 2009/12/17
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Although not as psychotic as Easton Ellis thats what I ended up loving so much about it truly beautiful with still retaining a bit of the 80's corporate ladder in ny.
]]> 256566 276 Jonathan Safran Foer 0060529709 Patrik 5 3.91 2002
author: Jonathan Safran Foer
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2002
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/10/26
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]]> 1097
Schlosser's myth-shattering survey stretches from California's subdivisions where the business was born to the industrial corridor along the New Jersey Turnpike where many fast food's flavors are concocted. Along the way, he unearths a trove of fascinating, unsettling truths -- from the unholy alliance between fast food and Hollywood to the seismic changes the industry has wrought in food production, popular culture, and even real estate.
(back cover)]]> 383 Eric Schlosser 0060838582 Patrik 3 3.75 2001
author: Eric Schlosser
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2001
rating: 3
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]]> 2179832
Dozens of characters pass across the reader's sight lines—some never to be seen again—but James Frey lingers on a handful of LA's lost souls and captures the dramatic narrative of their lives: a bright, ambitious young Mexican-American woman who allows her future to be undone by a moment of searing humiliation; a supremely narcissistic action-movie star whose passion for the unattainable object of his affection nearly destroys him; a couple, both nineteen years old, who flee their suffocating hometown and struggle to survive on the fringes of the great city; and an aging Venice Beach alcoholic whose life is turned upside down when a meth-addled teenage girl shows up half-dead outside the restroom he calls home.

Throughout this strikingly powerful novel there is the relentless drumbeat of the millions of other stories that, taken as a whole, describe a city, a culture, and an age. A dazzling tour de force, Bright Shiny Morning illuminates the joys, horrors, and unexpected fortunes of life and death in Los Angeles.]]> 501 James Frey 0061573132 Patrik 2 3.84 2008
author: James Frey
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2008
rating: 2
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date added: 2009/10/26
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]]> 4143 National Enquirer, Sedaris’s collection of essays is a rollicking tour through the national Zeitgeist: a do-it-yourself suburban dad saves money by performing home surgery; a man who is loved too much flees the heavyweight champion of the world; a teenage suicide tries to incite a lynch mob at her funeral; a bitter Santa abuses the elves.

David Sedaris made his debut on NPR’s Morning Edition with “SantaLand Diaries�, recounting his strange-but-true experiences as an elf at Macy’s, and soon became one of the show’s most popular commentators. With a perfect eye and a voice infused with as much empathy as wit, Sedaris writes stories and essays that target the soulful ridiculousness of our behavior. Barrel Fever is like a blind date with modern life, and anything can happen.

Parade --
Music for lovers --
The last you'll hear from me --
My manuscript --
Firestone --
We get along --
Glen's homophobia newsletter vol. 3, no. 2 --
Don's story --
Season's greeting to our friends and family!!! --
Jamboree --
After Malison --
Barrel fever --
Diary of a smoker --
Giantess --
The curly kind --
SantaLand diaries]]> 196 David Sedaris 0316779423 Patrik 3 3.80 1994
author: David Sedaris
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1994
rating: 3
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date added: 2009/10/26
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]]> 1044355 When You Are Engulfed in Flames confirms once again that David Sedaris is a master of mystery and suspense.

Or how about...

when set on fire, most of us either fumble for our wallets or waste valuable time feeling sorry for ourselves. David Sedaris has studied this phenomenon, and his resulting insights may very well save your life. Author of the national bestsellers Should You Be Attacked By Snakes and If You Are Surrounded by Mean Ghosts, David Sedaris, with When You Are Engulfed in Flames, is clearly at the top of his game.

Oh, all right...

David Sedaris has written yet another book of essays (his sixth). Subjects include a parasitic worm that once lived in his mother-in-law's leg, an encounter with a dingo, and the recreational use of an external catheter. Also recounted is the buying of a human skeleton and the author's attempt to quit smoking In Tokyo.

Master of nothing, at the dead center of his game, Sedaris proves that when you play with matches, you sometimes light the whole pack on fire.
(front flap)]]> 323 David Sedaris 0316143472 Patrik 4 4.08 2005
author: David Sedaris
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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]]> 10176 --davidsedarisbooks.com]]> 257 David Sedaris 0965904830 Patrik 4 4.12 2004
author: David Sedaris
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2004
rating: 4
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date added: 2009/10/26
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]]> 144800
But there may be more to the story, or it may be a different story altogether. As Eric begins to examine letters and papers left in the house by "the first Eric Sanderson," a staggeringly different explanation for what is happening to Eric emerges, and he and the reader embark on a quest to recover the truth and escape the remorseless predatory forces that threatens to devour him.

The Raw Shark Texts is a kaleidoscopic novel about the magnitude of love and the devastating effect of losing that love. It will dazzle you, it will move you, and will leave an indelible imprint like nothing you have read in a long time.]]> 427 Steven Hall 1841959111 Patrik 2 3.84 2007
author: Steven Hall
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2007
rating: 2
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date added: 2009/10/26
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]]> 2159007
Mitch Hrlicka lives in Owl. He plays high school football and worries about his weirdness, or lack thereof. Julia Rabia just moved to Owl. She gets free booze and falls in love with a self-loathing bison farmer who listens to Goats Head Soup. Horace Jones has resided in Owl for seventy-three years. He consumes a lot of coffee, thinks about his dead wife, and understands the truth. They all know each other completely, except that they've never met.

Like a colder, Reagan-era version of The Last Picture Show fused with Friday Night Lights, Chuck Klosterman's Downtown Owl is the unpretentious, darkly comedic story of how it feels to exist in a community where rural mythology and violent reality are pretty much the same thing. Loaded with detail and unified by a (very real) blizzard, it's technically about certain people in a certain place at a certain time...but it's really about a problem. And the problem is this: What does it mean to be a normal person? And there is no answer. But in Downtown Owl, what matters more is how you ask the question.]]> 275 Chuck Klosterman 1416544186 Patrik 2 3.57 2008
author: Chuck Klosterman
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2008
rating: 2
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]]> 331980
In the pages of Wacky Chicks readers will find life lessons from a group of fearlessly inappropriate and fabulously eccentric women, including comedienne Amy Sedaris; fashion designer turned park ranger Spider Fawke; Warhol muse Brigid Berlin; Suzanne Bartsch, the woman who showed Madonna how to vogue; and many more.

Distinguished primarily by their wild originality and rule-breaking chutzpah, these women defy rules, shape the cultural landscape, and enrich the world. They are about as diverse a flock as you can imagine, but all of them are Belligerent, Resilient, Uninhibited, Naughty, Creative, and Hilarious (B.R.U.N.C.H. for short).

In a word, they are Wacky, and they are ready to enlighten you. A book that pays tribute to the wild and unstoppable female in each of us, Wacky Chicks is the ultimate guide to embracing your inner rebel.]]> 272 Simon Doonan 0743257898 Patrik 2 3.49 2003
author: Simon Doonan
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2003
rating: 2
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date added: 2008/06/19
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while I kept thinking I wasn't really into it because of the writing style... in small doses very funny in big chunks a bit too scattered for my liking... somehow I finished it
]]> 347143
That was all Ruth had said. Even now, when she’d had months to come to terms with the fallout from this remark, she still marveled at the power of those four words, which she’d uttered without premeditation and without any sense of treading on forbidden ground. (p. 11)

Thanks to an off-hand remark made during a class discussion of oral sex, sex-ed teacher Ruth Ramsey finds herself a target of the Christian evangelicals who are increasingly influencing the schoolboard of suburban Stonewood Heights. Forced to attend remedial sessions with a smug “Virginity Consultant,� Ruth is isolated and alone, caught in the polarized red-versus-blue landscape of present-day American suburbia. It’s like “living in a horror movie,� she thinks, � The Invasion of the Body Snatchers , or something. You never knew who they were going to get to next.� Divorced and sharing custody of her daughters with her ex, and sometimes attempting a futile date, Ruth spends many a lonely weekend wondering how her bleak existence came to be.

Then one morning at her daughter’s soccer game, Ruth meets Tim Mason, a cute forty-something volunteer coach. Ruth feels an instant attraction to Tim, but when he draws the girls together for a spontaneous prayer circle after the game, she angrily yanks her daughter away from the proceedings, placing herself once again in the sights of the evangelicals.

But Ruth has another unexpected she can’t seem to get a handle on Tim, her supposed adversary, who keeps appearing at her front door. A recovering addict whose bottoming-out cost him his home and his marriage, Tim found his way to the Tabernacle of the Gospel Truth through the intervention of Pastor Dennis, the charismatic preacher who put Tim’s shattered life back together in an approximation of happiness. Thanks to Pastor Dennis, Tim is now married to Carrie, a fellow Tabernacler who is attractive and attentive, if robotic. He plays guitar at the weekly prayer sessions in a sanitized reenactment of his days in a Grateful Dead cover band. He holds a respectable if unfulfilling job as a loan officer, well aware of the irony of the post for a man with his history. He is grateful for the help he has received from his church community and Pastor Dennis. But he can’t shake the yearning for something more, and a nagging attraction to that troublesome sex-ed teacher....

With The Abstinence Teacher , Tom Perrotta wades into the murky waters of contemporary American suburbia, fully deploying his proven gift for describing the panic lurking beneath its seemingly placid surface. Already widely known to book and movie audiences for his scathing satire mixed with remarkable compassion in works including Election and Little Children (both adapted for film, Little Children garnering Perrotta an Oscar nomination), this novel once again proves, as declared by the Los Angeles Times , “Perrotta’s balance of humor and pathos has no equal.”]]> 368 Tom Perrotta 0307356361 Patrik 2 3.25 2007
author: Tom Perrotta
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2007
rating: 2
read at: 2008/05/15
date added: 2008/05/16
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I'm such a fan of his yet I gotta say I was a wee bit disappointed. Although I love his work because the setting is always eerily reminiscent in a surreal funny way of where I grew up i found this too be a bit too touchy feely... maybe I just like his writing when it's cruel
]]> 4631 192 Ernest Hemingway Patrik 0 currently-reading 4.04 1964
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1964
rating: 0
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date added: 2008/05/10
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 28116 44 Million Words
10 Billion Years Of History
1 Obsessed Man

Part memoir and part education (or lack thereof), "The Know-It-All" chronicles NPR contributor A.J. Jacobs's hilarious, enlightening, and seemingly impossible quest to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z.

To fill the ever-widening gaps in his Ivy League education, A.J. Jacobs sets for himself the daunting task of reading all thirty-two volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His wife, Julie, tells him it's a waste of time, his friends believe he is losing his mind, and his father, a brilliant attorney who had once attempted the same feat and quit somewhere around Borneo, is encouraging but unconvinced.

With self-deprecating wit and a disarming frankness, "The Know-It-All" recounts the unexpected and comically disruptive effects Operation Encyclopedia has on every part of Jacobs's life - from his newly minted marriage to his complicated relationship with his father and the rest of his charmingly eccentric New York family to his day job as an editor at "Esquire." Jacobs's project tests the outer limits of his stamina and forces him to explore the real meaning of intelligence as he endeavours to join Mensa, win a spot on Jeopardy!, and absorb 33,000 pages of learning. On his journey, he stumbles upon some of the strangest, funniest, and most profound facts about every topic under the sun, all while battling fatigue, ridicule, and the paralysing fear that attends his first real-life responsibility - the impending birth of his first child.

"The Know-It-All" is an ingenious, mightily entertaining memoir of one man's intellect, neuroses, and obsessions, and a struggle between the all-consuming quest for factual knowledge and the undeniable gift of hard-won wisdom.]]> 388 A.J. Jacobs 0743250621 Patrik 5 3.76 2004
author: A.J. Jacobs
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at: 2008/03/06
date added: 2007/11/10
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]]> 3876 The Sun Also Rises (Fiesta) is one of Ernest Hemingway's masterpieces and a classic example of his spare but powerful writing style. A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation, the novel introduces two of Hemingway's most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. It is an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions. First published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises helped to establish Hemingway as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.]]> 189 Ernest Hemingway Patrik 5 3.81 1926
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1926
rating: 5
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]]> 1055983 —Karl Lagerfeld

"Karl Lagerfeld’s case is spectacular as it shows how it is possible, through determination and willpower, to return to a harmonious balance even when excess weight is of a long-standing, deeply ingrained nature. I hope that many will be inspired by the example of the slimmed-down, elegant, and indefatigable Karl Lagerfeld to lose either the few pounds they feel should be sacrificed for their happiness or the several dozen pounds that are detrimental to their survival."
—Dr. Jean-Claude Houdret

The Karl Lagerfeld Diet , developed exclusively for Karl Lagerfeld by Dr. Jean-Claude Houdret, reveals the secret techniques of Lagerfeld’s amazing weight loss regimen. By first addressing the mental and behavioral causes of varying degrees of obesity, this book provides valuable insights and useful tips for preparing the mind and developing the willpower necessary to commit to this diet.

It then provides one hundred twenty gourmet recipes devised by Dr. Houdret, which cover breakfast, soups, starters and salads, eggs, seafood and fish, meat, pasta and pizza, vegetables, sauces, and desserts. Topping it off, Lagerfeld provides his personal tips for staying slim, attractive, and fit with additional chapters on skin care procedures, cosmetic treatments and surgery, general medical care, stress management, giving up tobacco, sleep, and exercise. Both an instructional guide and a motivational coach, The Karl Lagerfeld Diet is the ultimate accessory for healthy living.]]> 224 Karl Lagerfeld 1576872513 Patrik 4 3.52 2004
author: Karl Lagerfeld
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2004
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/10/28
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totally hilarious / thinspiration
]]> 2657
Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, "To Kill A Mockingbird" takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.]]> 323 Harper Lee 0060935464 Patrik 4 4.25 1960
author: Harper Lee
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1960
rating: 4
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]]> 5470 328 George Orwell Patrik 3 4.15 1949
author: George Orwell
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1949
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/10/28
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]]> 7624 182 William Golding 0140283331 Patrik 3 3.70 1954
author: William Golding
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1954
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/10/28
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]]> 5129 Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine� (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New Worldd likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.

"Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." —Chicago Tribune]]> 268 Aldous Huxley 0060929871 Patrik 5 3.99 1932
author: Aldous Huxley
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1932
rating: 5
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]]> 7613
The book tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, however, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon.

One night, all the animals at Mr. Jones' Manor Farm assemble in a barn to hear old Major, a pig, describe a dream he had about a world where all animals live free from the tyranny of their human masters. Old Major dies soon after the meeting, but the animals � inspired by his philosophy of Animalism � plot a rebellion against Jones.

Two pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, prove themselves important figures and planners of this dangerous enterprise. When Jones forgets to feed the animals, the revolution occurs, and Jones and his men are chased off the farm. Manor Farm is renamed Animal Farm, and the Seven Commandments of Animalism are painted on the barn wall...]]> 129 George Orwell Patrik 3 3.90 1945
author: George Orwell
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1945
rating: 3
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]]> 5107 It's Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school...

Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters—shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends. The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning.

The Catcher in the Rye is an all-time classic in coming-of-age literature- an elegy to teenage alienation, capturing the deeply human need for connection and the bewildering sense of loss as we leave childhood behind.

J.D. Salinger's (1919�2010) classic novel of teenage angst and rebellion was first published in 1951. The novel was included on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. It was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It has been frequently challenged in the court for its liberal use of profanity and portrayal of sexuality and in the 1950's and 60's it was the novel that every teenage boy wants to read.]]> 277 J.D. Salinger 0316769177 Patrik 4 3.81 1951
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1951
rating: 4
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]]> 28865 S'ouvre alors un monde étrange et poétique, peuplé de métaphores, décrit à travers les paroles d'un "petit prince" qui porte aussi sur notre monde à nous un regard tout neuf, empli de naïveté, de fraîcheur et de gravité. Très vite, vous découvrez d'étranges planètes, peuplées d'hommes d'affaires, de buveurs, de vaniteux, d'allumeurs de réverbères.

Cette évocation onirique, à laquelle participent les aquarelles de l'auteur, a tout d'un parcours initiatique, où l'enfant apprendra les richesses essentielles des rapports humains et le secret qui les régit : "On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur, l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux."

Oeuvre essentielle de la littérature, ce livre de Saint-Exupéry est un ouvrage que l'on aura à coeur de raconter à son enfant, page après page, histoire aussi de redécouvrir l'enfant que l'on était autrefois, avant de devenir une grande personne !]]> 87 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 0156013983 Patrik 5 4.36 1943
author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1943
rating: 5
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date added: 2007/10/28
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]]> 2956 327 Mark Twain 0142437174 Patrik 3 3.82 1884
author: Mark Twain
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1884
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/10/28
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]]> 5114
"Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" is a story about the Glass family, narrated by Buddy, the second oldest brother. Buddy is attending his brother Seymour's wedding to a gal named Muriel, but he's on Army leave during active duty in World War II. At the wedding, everyone is stunned when Seymour does not show up.

The action of the story picks up when several characters end up carpooling together following the failed wedding. The others (the Matron of Honor and her husband, and a couple of stragglers) are talking about Seymour and the disappointment of his not showing up, and Buddy never tells them that he is secretly Seymour's brother, so they talk more openly with him than they otherwise would.

They criticize Seymour and speculate about his character flaws and deficiencies, but Buddy finds their assessments quite judgmental and biased. He then decides to tell the car who he really is, shaming them for their loose criticisms.

He finds Seymour's journal, and he discovers a strange message from their sister Boo Boo for Seymour on their bathroom mirror: "Raise high the roof beam, carpenters. Like Ares comes the bridegroom/ taller far than a tall man." This is a fragment from the Greek poet Sappho.

"Seymour: An Introduction" is a kind of elegy for Seymour from Buddy, told in the form of an introduction to the reader. The reader makes Seymour's acquaintance while knowing that Seymour technically isn't alive when the story is published, having killed himself in 1948.

This portion of the story is told in stream of consciousness, and it discusses Eastern religious mysticism.]]> 256 J.D. Salinger 0316766941 Patrik 0 4.13 1955
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1955
rating: 0
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]]> 5113 �Everything everybody does is so—I don’t know—not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and—sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you’re conforming just as much only in a different way.�

First published in The New Yorker as two sequential stories, �Franny� and �Zooey� offer a dual portrait of the two youngest members of J. D. Salinger’s fictional Glass family.

Franny Glass is a pretty, effervescent college student on a date with her intellectually confident boyfriend, Lane. They appear to be the perfect couple, but as they struggle to communicate with each other about the things they really care about, slowly their true feelings come to the surface. The second story in this book, �Zooey�, plunges us into the world of her ethereal, sophisticated family. When Franny’s emotional and spiritual doubts reach new heights, her older brother Zooey, a misanthropic former child genius, offers her consolation and brotherly advice.

Written in Salinger’s typically irreverent style, these two stories offer a touching snapshot of the distraught mindset of early adulthood and are full of the insightful emotional observations and witty turns of phrase that have helped make Salinger’s reputation what it is today.]]> 201 J.D. Salinger 0316769029 Patrik 4 3.97 1957
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1957
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/10/28
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]]> 71969 Toastis Nigel Slater’s biography of a childhood remembered through food. Whether recalling his mother’s surprisingly good rice pudding, his father’s bold foray into spaghetti and his dreaded Boxing Day stew, or such culinary highlights as Arctic Roll and Grilled Grapefruit (then considered something of a status symbol in Wolverhampton), this memoir vividly recreates daily life in 1960s suburban England.]]> 238 Nigel Slater 1592401619 Patrik 3 mmmm quite]]> 3.77 2003
author: Nigel Slater
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2003
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/10/28
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It took me awhile to get into this but a third of the way thru I really, really got into it. It's pretty tragic and the overall pervyness sexual and food wise are super british, really enjoyed
mmmm quite
]]> 1768202 In a memoir studded with delicious lines and unforgettable set pieces, Robert Leleux describes his East Texas boyhood and coming of age under the tutelage of his eccentric, bewigged, flamboyant, and knowing mother. Left high and dry by Daddy and living on their in-laws� horse ranch in a white-pillared house they can’t afford, Robert and Mother find themselves chronically low on cash. Soon they are forced into more modest quarters, and as a teenaged Robert watches with hilarity and horror, Mother begins a desperate regimen of makeovers, extreme plastic surgeries, and finally hairpiece epoxies---all calculated to secure a new, wealthy husband. Mother’s strategy takes her, with Robert in tow, from the glamorous environs of the Neiman Marcus beauty salon to questionable surgery offices and finally to a storefront clinic on the wrong side of Houston. Meanwhile, Robert begins his own journey away from Mother and through the local theater’s world of miscast hopefuls and thwarted ambitions---and into a romance that surprises absolutely no one but himself. Written with a warmth and a wicked sense of fun that lighten even the most awful circumstances, The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy is a sparkling debut.]]> 288 Robert Leleux 0312361688 Patrik 4 and I Love it! 3.51 2008
author: Robert Leleux
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2007/11/10
date added: 2007/10/28
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and I Love it!
]]> 431925 176 George Marshall 1898927103 Patrik 0 to-read 4.18
author: George Marshall
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.18
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2007/09/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> 131157 Valley of the Dolls was sexy, shocking, and unrelenting in its revelations of the dangers facing women who dare to chase their most glamorous dreams. It shot to the top of the bestseller lists in 1966 and made Jacqueline Susann a superstar. It remains the quintessential big, blockbuster, must-read, can't-put-down bestseller.

Before her death in 1974, Susann spent many months working on a draft for a sequel that continued the stories of Anne Welles, Neely O'Hara, and Lyon Burke. Now, after nearly thirty years, the perfect writer has been found to turn Susann's deliciously ambitious ideas into a novel that matches the original shock for shock and thrill for thrill.

In Jacqueline Susann's Shadow of the Dolls, Rae Lawrence � herself a bestselling author � picks up the story in the late '80s and brings it right into the new century. Long a devoted “Valley� girl herself, Rae has re-imagined the original characters in a contemporary reality (and adjusted their ages just a bit), exactly as Jackie would have wanted her to. And if you've never read Valley of the Dolls, no matter. Sometimes the present is even more surprising and fun when you don't remember the past.

And what a story! Neely's golden voice has brought her fame and success, but now she craves acceptance in social circles where her kind of celebrity means nothing at all. Anne, born and bred in those very circles, must choose between returning home or pursuing a fabulous television career � and the kind of passion she once knew with Lyon. And Lyon, who loses everything including Anne, looks for happiness in the most unexpected of places.

Taking us behind the closed doors of New York, East Hampton, and Los Angeles, whetting our appetites for more with a new generation of young women and men who grow up far too fast, and spicing the whole story with a generous sprinkling of sex, drugs, and cosmetic surgery, Jacqueline Susann's Shadow of the Dolls is the ultimate beach read for our time. But feel free to devour it any time of the year, wherever you are.

It's been a long time since readers had this much fun between the covers. It's time to jump back in.

Anne Welles . . . She finds the courage to leave the only man who ever made her feel like a woman . . . She fights her way to the top of a television career that is even more cutthroat than she's been warned . . . She finds security and contentment with the kind of man she was destined to marry . . . Now she must choose between destiny and her dreams.

Neely O'Hara . . . Her talents take her to the top, while her troubles drag her through rehab after rehab . . . She grasps at the things Anne has turned her back on (her class, her man) . . . She always knows exactly what she wants, and will do whatever it takes to make her dreams come true.

Lyon Burke . . . He takes lovers over love . . . He hustles other people's
talent while neglecting his own . . . He always knows how to look, which restaurants offer the perfect drink and the most cachet, who to pursue, and where to find the best percentage . . . He waits so long to realize his dreams that in the end it may be too late.

Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls was one of the sexiest, most shocking, and most sensational novels ever to fly off the shelves. Now, thanks to bestselling novelist Rae Lawrence � working from Susann's own draft for a sequel � the fun has just begun.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 320 Rae Lawrence 0609605852 Patrik 3 3.64 2001
author: Rae Lawrence
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2001
rating: 3
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not gonna front i did read this... back in the day
]]> 50833 449 Jacqueline Susann 0739418378 Patrik 3 3.66 1966
author: Jacqueline Susann
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1966
rating: 3
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]]> 826542 The Love Machine tells the story of TV-network titan Robin Stone, "around whom women flutter like so many moths . . . and his rise and fall as he makes the international sex scene, drinks unlimited quantities, and checks out the latest Nielsens" (Newsweek).]]> 511 Jacqueline Susann 0802135447 Patrik 4 3.73 1969
author: Jacqueline Susann
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1969
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/09/17
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]]> 131155
The spectacular bestseller from the author of VALLEY OF THE DOLLS.]]> 467 Jacqueline Susann 0802135455 Patrik 4 3.75 1973
author: Jacqueline Susann
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1973
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2007/09/17
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]]> 23878
Yet if everyone knew the murder was going to happen, why did no one intervene to try and stop it? The more that is learned, the less is understood, and as the story races to its inexplicable conclusion, an entire society--not just a pair of murderers—is put on trial.]]> 120 Gabriel García Márquez 140003471X Patrik 5 3.98 1981
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1981
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2007/09/17
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review:
I read this in either jr or senior year of high school in my ap world lit class and became totally hooked, the style the drama
]]> 9712 348 Gabriel García Márquez 140003468X Patrik 5 3.92 1985
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1985
rating: 5
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date added: 2007/09/17
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]]> 415854 Brightness Falls is the story of Russell and Corrine Calloway. Set against the world of New York publishing, McInerney provides a stunningly accomplished portrayal of people contending with early success, then getting lost in the middle of their lives.]]> 432 Jay McInerney 0679745327 Patrik 0 to-read 3.78 1992
author: Jay McInerney
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2007/09/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 455554 420 Laurence O'Toole 1852427205 Patrik 3 3.71 1998
author: Laurence O'Toole
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1998
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/09/17
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review:

]]> 105992 687 Vincent Bugliosi 0393322238 Patrik 5 4.05 1974
author: Vincent Bugliosi
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1974
rating: 5
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]]> 206899 The Devil's Knot remains the most comprehensive, insightful reporting ever done on the investigation, trials, and convictions of three teenage boys who became known as the West Memphis Three.

For weeks in 1993, after the murders of three eight-year-old boys, police in West Memphis, Arkansas seemed stymied. Then suddenly, detectives charged three teenagers--alleged members of a satanic cult--with the killings. Despite the witch-hunt atmosphere of the trials and a case that included stunning investigative blunders, a confession riddled with errors, and an absence of physical evidence linking any of the accused to the crime, the teenagers were convicted. Jurors sentenced Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley to life in prison and Damien Echols, the accused ringleader, to death. The guilty verdicts were popular in their home state--even upheld on appeal--and all three remained in prison until their unprecedented release in August 2011.

With close-up views of its key participants, this award-winning account unravels the many tangled knots of this endlessly shocking case, one that will shape the American legal landscape for years to come.]]> 419 Mara Leveritt 0743417607 Patrik 3 4.17 2002
author: Mara Leveritt
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2002
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/09/17
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]]> 49098 448 Alicia Drake 0316768014 Patrik 5 4.07 2006
author: Alicia Drake
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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date added: 2007/09/17
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review:
Even if you have zero interest in fashion, i still think you'd adore this book, not as frivolous as the warhol diaries but just as exact and hilarious. The whole time I wanted to "dallas style slap" half the people in the book but yet i couldn't stop taking notes and using it as a near future template for how i should act
]]> 22628 offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see
what it looks like from the dance floor.

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

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

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

(back cover)]]> 213 Stephen Chbosky Patrik 0 4.24 1999
author: Stephen Chbosky
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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]]> 130940 POPism is Warhol’s personal view of the Pop phenomenon in New York in the 1960s and a look back at the relationships that made up the scene at the Factory, including his rela­tionship with Edie Sedgewick, focus of the upcoming film Factory Girl. In the detached, back-fence gossip style he was famous for, Warhol tells all—the ultimate inside story of a decade of cultural revolution.
]]> 416 Andy Warhol 0156031116 Patrik 0 4.09 1980
author: Andy Warhol
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1980
rating: 0
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i bought this awhile back annd have yet to get into it I dunno why but it hasnt grabbed me
]]> 48672 I'll Be Your Mirror contains more then thirty conversations revealing this unique and important artist. Each piece presents a different facet of the Sphinx-like Warhol's ever-evolving personality. Writer Kenneth Goldsmith provides context and provenance for each selection. Beginning in 1962 with a notorious interview in which Warhol literally begs the interviewer to put words into his mouth, the book covers Warhol's most important artistic period during the '60s. As Warhol shifts to filmmaking in the '70s, this collection explores his emergence as socialite, scene-maker, and trendsetter; his influential Interview magazine; and the Studio 54 scene. In the 80s, his support of young artists like Jean-Michel Basquait, his perspective on art history and the growing relationship to technology in his work are shown. Finally, his return to religious imagery and spirituality are available in an interview conducted just months before his death. Including photographs and previous unpublished interviews, this collage of Warhol showcases the artist's ability to manipulate, captivate, and enrich American culture.]]> 320 Andy Warhol 078671364X Patrik 5 3.87 2004
author: Andy Warhol
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2004
rating: 5
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]]> 376579
Spanning the mid-1970s until just a few days before his death in 1987, THE ANDY WARHOL DIARIES is a compendium of the more than twenty thousand pages of the artist's diary that he dictated daily to Pat Hackett. In it, Warhol gives us the ultimate backstage pass to practically everything that went on in the world-both high and low. He hangs out with "everybody": Jackie O ("thinks she's so grand she doesn't even owe it to the public to have another great marriage to somebody big"), Yoko Ono ("We dialed F-U-C-K-Y-O-U and L-O-V-E-Y-O-U to see what happened, we had so much fun"), and "Princess Marina of, I guess, Greece," along with art-world rock stars Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francis Bacon, Salvador Dali, and Keith Haring.

Warhol had something to say about everyone who crossed his path, whether it was Lou Reed or Liberace, Patti Smith or Diana Ross, Frank Sinatra or Michael Jackson. A true cultural artifact, THE ANDY WARHOL DIARIES amounts to a portrait of an artist-and an era-unlike any other.]]> 807 Andy Warhol 0446391387 Patrik 5 3.92 1989
author: Andy Warhol
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1989
rating: 5
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]]> 31818 A loosely formed autobiography by Andy Warhol, told with his trademark blend of irony and detachment

In The Philosophy of Andy Warhol—which, with the subtitle "(From A to B and Back Again)," is less a memoir than a collection of riffs and reflections—he talks about love, sex, food, beauty, fame, work, money, and success; about New York, America, and his childhood in McKeesport, Pennsylvania; about his good times and bad in New York, the explosion of his career in the sixties, and his life among celebrities.]]> 272 Andy Warhol 0156717204 Patrik 0 3.84 1975
author: Andy Warhol
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1975
rating: 0
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]]> 14595 A Time Out and Daily News Top Ten Book of the Year upon its initial release, Please Kill Me is the first oral history of the most nihilist of all pop movements. Iggy Pop, Danny Fields, Dee Dee and Joey Ramone, Malcom McLaren, Jim Carroll, and scores of other famous and infamous punk figures lend their voices to this definitive account of that outrageous, explosive era. From its origins in the twilight years of Andy Warhol's New York reign to its last gasps as eighties corporate rock, the phenomenon known as punk is scrutinized, eulogized, and idealized by the people who were there and who made it happen.
]]> 488 Legs McNeil 0802142648 Patrik 5 4.19 1996
author: Legs McNeil
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1996
rating: 5
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]]> 3384 'What did Karen see that December night? What pictures of tomorrow could so disturb her that she would flee into a refuge of bottomless sleep? Why would she leave me?'

It's 15th December, 1979, and Richard's girlfriend Karen has entered a deep coma. She only took a couple of valium washed down with a cocktail, but now she's locked away in suspended animation, oblivious to the passage of time. What if she were to wake up decades later - a 17-year-old girl in a distant future, a future where the world has gone dark?]]> 288 Douglas Coupland 0060987324 Patrik 3 3.63 1998
author: Douglas Coupland
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1998
rating: 3
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review:
I read this because of the title (if you don't get the smiths ref jump out of a window now!) and cover... read it when i was traveling a few years back, a guy across from me on the tube was also reading it, the british cover was much better
]]> 24476 Shout at the Devil. The fifth-grade Chuck wasn't quite ready to rock -- his hair was too short and his farm was too quiet -- but he still found a way to bang his nappy little head. Before the journey was over, he would slow-dance to Poison, sleep innocently beneath satanic pentagrams, lust for Lita Ford, and get ridiculously intellectual about Guns N' Roses. C'mon and feel his noize.]]> 320 Chuck Klosterman 0743406567 Patrik 2 3.82 2001
author: Chuck Klosterman
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2001
rating: 2
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date added: 2007/07/23
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]]> 599
Whether deconstructing Saved by the Bell episodes or the artistic legacy of Billy Joel, the symbolic importance of The Empire Strikes Back or the Celtics/Lakers rivalry, Chuck will make you think, he'll make you laugh, and he'll drive you insane -- usually all at once. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is ostensibly about art, entertainment, infotainment, sports, politics, and kittens, but -- really -- it's about us. All of us. As Klosterman realizes late at night, in the moment before he falls asleep, "In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever 'in and of itself.'" Read to believe.]]> 272 Chuck Klosterman 0743236017 Patrik 5 3.74 2003
author: Chuck Klosterman
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2003
rating: 5
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date added: 2007/07/23
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]]> 70253 328 J.G. Ballard 1582430179 Patrik 3 3.59 1996
author: J.G. Ballard
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1996
rating: 3
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]]> 70241 Crash explores the disturbing potentialities of contemporary society's increasing dependence on technology as intermediary in human relations.]]> 224 J.G. Ballard 0312420331 Patrik 5 3.62 1973
author: J.G. Ballard
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1973
rating: 5
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]]> 25657 Sellevision explores greed, obsession and third tier celebrity, in the world of a fictional home shopping network.

Welcome to the troubled world of Sellevision, America's premier retail broadcasting network. When Max Andrews, the much-loved and handsome (lonely and gay) host of "Slumber Sunday Sundown" accidentally exposes himself in front of twenty million kids and their parents during a "Toys for Tots" segment, Sellevision faces its first big scandal. As Max fails to find a job in television, another host, the popular and perky Peggy Jean Smythe is receiving sinister emails about her appearance from a stalker. Popping pills and drinking heavily, she fails to notice that her husband is spending a lot of time with the very young babysitter who lives next door. Then there's Leigh, whose affair with Sellevision boss Howard Toast is going nowhere, until she exposes him on air; and Bebe, Sellevision's star host, who finds Mr. Right through the Internet--if she can just stop her shopping addiction from taking over.]]> 229 Augusten Burroughs 0312422288 Patrik 3 3.59 2000
author: Augusten Burroughs
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2000
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/07/23
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]]> 61115 National Bestseller
Ěý
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Running with Scissors comes Augusten Burroughs's most provocative collection of true stories yet. From nicotine gum addiction to lesbian personal ads to incontinent dogs, Possible Side Effects mines Burroughs's life in a series of uproariously funny essays. These are stories that are uniquely Augusten, with all the over-the-top hilarity of Running with Scissors, the erudition of Dry, and the breadth of Magical Thinking. A collection that is universal in its appeal and unabashedly intimate, Possible Side Effects continues to explore that which is most personal, mirthful, disturbing, and cherished, with unmatched audacity. A cautionary tale in essay form. Be forewarned--hilarious, troubling, and shocking results might occur.]]> 291 Augusten Burroughs 031242681X Patrik 2 3.99 2006
author: Augusten Burroughs
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
rating: 2
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date added: 2007/07/23
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]]> 836268
It begins with a Tang Instant-Breakfast Drink television

"Yes, you, Augusten. You were great. We want you." I can now trace my manic adult tendencies to this moment. It was the first time I felt deeply thrilled about something just a fraction of an instant after being completely crushed. I believe those three words "We want you" were enough to cause my brain to rewire itself, and from then on, I would require more than other people.... - from Magical Thinking 's "Commercial Break"

A contest of wills with a deranged cleaning lady. The execution of a rodent carried out with military precision and utter horror. Telemarketing revenge. A different kind of "roof work." Dating an undertaker who shows up in a minivan. This is the fabric of Augusten Burroughs's a collection of true stories that are universal in their appeal yet unabashedly intimate, stories that shine a flashlight into both dark and hilarious places. With Magical Thinking , Augusten Burroughs goes where other memoirists fear to tread.]]> 268 Augusten Burroughs 0312315945 Patrik 5 3.85 2004
author: Augusten Burroughs
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2004
rating: 5
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date added: 2007/07/23
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]]> 242006 336 Augusten Burroughs 031242227X Patrik 5 3.77 2002
author: Augusten Burroughs
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2002
rating: 5
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]]> 32370 293 Augusten Burroughs 0312423799 Patrik 4 4.02 2003
author: Augusten Burroughs
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2003
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/07/23
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]]> 49174
These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much heralded scholar who studies the stuff and riddles of everyday life-; from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing-; and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.

Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives-; how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In "Freakonomics," they set out to explore the hidden side of ... well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan.

What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and-; if the right questions are asked-; is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Steven Levitt, through devilishly clever and clear-eyed thinking, shows how to seethrough all the clutter.

"Freakonomics" establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But "Freakonomics" can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.
(front flap)]]> 242 Steven D. Levitt Patrik 5 3.93 2005
author: Steven D. Levitt
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2005
rating: 5
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]]> 53007 276 Jean Genet 0802151574 Patrik 4 3.97 1947
author: Jean Genet
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1947
rating: 4
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]]> 905580 DBC Pierre's second novel charts the unlikely meeting between East and West that follows Ludmila Derev's appearance on a Russian Brides website. Determined to save her family from starvation in the face of marauding troops, Ludmila's journey into the world and womanhood is an odyssey of sour wit, even sourer vodka, and a Soviet tractor possibly running on goat's piss.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles to the West, the Heath twins are separated after 33 years conjoined at the abdomen. Released for the first time into the community, they are suddenly plunged into a round-the-clock world churning with opportunity, rowdy with the chatter of freedom, democracy, self-empowerment and sex.
A wild picaresque dripping with flavours of British bacon and nasty Russian vodka, Ludmila's Broken English is a tale of tangoing twins on a journey into the unknown.]]> 318 D.B.C. Pierre 0571230954 Patrik 0 currently-reading 2.81 2006
author: D.B.C. Pierre
name: Patrik
average rating: 2.81
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2007/07/19
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 9914 240 Bret Easton Ellis 0330339184 Patrik 5 3.42 1994
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.42
book published: 1994
rating: 5
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]]> 9912 From the bestselling author of American Psycho comes this satirical black comedy about the death of romance.

Set at an affluent liberal arts college during the height of the Reagan eighties, The Rules of Attraction follows a handful of rowdy, spoiled, sexually promiscuous students with no plans for the future—or even the present. Three of them—Sean, Paul, and Lauren—become involved in a love triangle of sorts within a sequence of drug runs, "Dressed to Get Screwed" parties, and "End of the World" parties.

As Bret Easton Ellis trains his incisive gaze on the kids at the self-consciously bohemian Camden College, treating their sexual posturing and agonies with a mixture of acrid hilarity and compassion, he exposes the moral vacuum at the center of their lives.]]> 283 Bret Easton Ellis 067978148X Patrik 4 3.74 1987
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1987
rating: 4
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]]> 9913 “Impeccable . . . cold and pitiless and modern.� �The Village Voice

“Compelling and scary. A political thriller bursting with conspiracies, double agents and international terrorism. Glamorama is like a Semtex attack on our superficialities.� �The Face

The author of American Psycho continues to shock and haunt us with his incisive and brilliant dissection of the modern world. In his most ambitious and gripping book yet, Bret Easton Ellis delivers a gripping and brilliant dissection of our celebrity-obsessed culture.

Victor Ward, a twenty-something model in fashion- and celebrity-obsessed Manhattan, is gradually, imperceptibly drawn into a shadowy looking-glass of that society, there and in London and Paris, and then finds himself trapped on the other side, in a much darker place where fame and terrorism and family and politics are inextricably linked and sometimes indistinguishable. At once implicated and horror-stricken, his ways of escape blocked at every turn, he ultimately discovers—back on the other, familiar side—that there was no mirror, no escape, no world but this one in which hotels implode and planes fall from the sky.]]> 546 Bret Easton Ellis 0375703845 Patrik 4 3.55 1998
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.55
book published: 1998
rating: 4
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]]> 28676 American Psycho is a bleak, bitter, black comedy about a world we all recognize but do not wish to confront.]]> 399 Bret Easton Ellis 0679735771 Patrik 5 3.82 1991
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1991
rating: 5
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]]> 9915
Clay comes home for Christmas vacation from his Eastern college and re-enters a landscape of limitless privilege and absolute moral entropy, where everyone drives Porches, dines at Spago, and snorts mountains of cocaine. He tries to renew feelings for his girlfriend, Blair, and for his best friend from high school, Julian, who is careering into hustling and heroin. Clay's holiday turns into a dizzying spiral of desperation that takes him through the relentless parties in glitzy mansions, seedy bars, and underground rock clubs, and into the seamy world of L.A. after dark.]]> 208 Bret Easton Ellis Patrik 4 3.62 1985
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1985
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/07/19
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]]> 4031 Lunar Park, is a writer whose first novel Less Than Zero catapulted him to international stardom while he was still in college. In the years that followed, he found himself adrift in a world of wealth, drugs, and fame, as well as dealing with the unexpected death of his abusive father. After a decade of decadence, a chance for salvation arrives; the chance to reconnect with an actress he was once involved with, and their son. But almost immediately his new life is threatened by a freak sequence of events and a bizarre series of murders that all seem to connect to Ellis’s past.

Reality, memoir, and fantasy combine to create not only a fascinating version of this most controversial writer but also a deeply moving novel about love and loss, parents and children, and ultimately forgiveness.]]> 404 Bret Easton Ellis 0375727272 Patrik 2 3.65 2005
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2005
rating: 2
read at: 2007/01/01
date added: 2007/07/19
shelves:
review:
not as sharp as the ones before it. Only for die hard fans of Easton Ellis or mass paranoia
]]> 4009
The stories are:

"A Perfect Day for Bananafish"
"Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut"
"Just Before the War with the Eskimos"
"The Laughing Man"
"Down at the Dinghy"
"For Esmé � with Love and Squalor"
"Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes"
"De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period"
"Teddy"]]> 302 J.D. Salinger 0316767727 Patrik 5 4.20 1953
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1953
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2007/07/19
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]]> 11711 This is an alternative cover edition for ISBN 9780571215164

Named as one of the 100 Best Things in the World by GQ magazine in 2003, the riotous adventures of Vernon Gregory Little in small town Texas and beachfront Mexico mark one of the most spectacular, irreverent and bizarre debuts of the twenty-first century so far. Its depiction of innocence and simple humanity (all seasoned with a dash of dysfunctional profanity) in an evil world is never less than astonishing. The only novel to be set in the barbecue sauce capital of Central Texas, Vernon God Little suggests that desperate times throw up the most unlikely of heroes.]]> 279 D.B.C. Pierre Patrik 5 3.61 2003
author: D.B.C. Pierre
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2007/07/19
shelves:
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]]> 6288
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,� are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.]]> 241 Cormac McCarthy 0307265439 Patrik 4 3.99 2006
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2007/07/19
shelves:
review:

]]> 4137 272 David Sedaris 0349113912 Patrik 3 4.01 2000
author: David Sedaris
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2007/07/19
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review:

]]> 4138 Naked, Sedaris turns the mania for memoir on its proverbial ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview—a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable. A tart-tongued mother does dead-on imitations of her young son's nervous tics, to the great amusement of his teachers; a stint of Kerouackian wandering is undertaken (of course!) with a quadriplegic companion; a family gathers for a wedding in the face of imminent death. Through it all is Sedaris's unmistakable voice, without doubt one of the freshest in American writing.]]> 304 David Sedaris Patrik 3 4.10 1997
author: David Sedaris
name: Patrik
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1997
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/07/19
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review:

]]> 4671 The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald’s family and from his lifelong publisher.

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

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published by Scribner in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.]]> 180 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0743273567 Patrik 4 3.93 1925
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1925
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/07/19
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review:

]]> 4953 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that holds a family together.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is an instant classic that will be read for decades to come.]]> 530 Dave Eggers 0375725784 Patrik 2 3.70 2000
author: Dave Eggers
name: Patrik
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2000
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2007/07/19
shelves:
review:

]]>