Erin's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 30 Apr 2025 15:58:40 -0700 60 Erin's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Gene: An Intimate History 27276428
The story of the gene begins in an obscure Augustinian abbey in Moravia in 1856 where a monk stumbles on the idea of a ‘unit of heredity�. It intersects with Darwin’s theory of evolution, and collides with the horrors of Nazi eugenics in the 1940s. The gene transforms post-war biology. It reorganizes our understanding of sexuality, temperament, choice and free will. This is a story driven by human ingenuity and obsessive minds � from Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel to Francis Crick, James Watson and Rosalind Franklin, and the thousands of scientists still working to understand the code of codes.

This is an epic, moving history of a scientific idea coming to life, by the author of The Emperor of All Maladies. But woven through The Gene, like a red line, is also an intimate history � the story of Mukherjee’s own family and its recurring pattern of mental illness, reminding us that genetics is vitally relevant to everyday lives. These concerns reverberate even more urgently today as we learn to “read� and “write� the human genome � unleashing the potential to change the fates and identities of our children.

Majestic in its ambition, and unflinching in its honesty, The Gene gives us a definitive account of the fundamental unit of heredity � and a vision of both humanity’s past and future.]]> 592 Siddhartha Mukherjee Erin 5 4.34 2016 The Gene: An Intimate History
author: Siddhartha Mukherjee
name: Erin
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/15
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: read-for-school, already-own, 2025, favorites, five-stars
review:
A must-read. Full review to come! I read this for a Genetics of Human Disease class, and I think I learned more from the book than I did from the class :/
]]> <![CDATA[Enough Is Enuf: Our Failed Attempts to Make English Eezier to Spell]]> 216497085 A brief and humorous 500-year history of the Simplified Spelling Movement

Why does the first "g" in "George" sound different from the first "g" in "gorge"? Why does "c" begin both case and cease? And why is it funny when a philologist faints, but not polight to laf about it? Anyone who has ever had the misfortune to write in English has, at one time or another, struggled with its spelling.

So why do we continue to use it? If our system of writing words is so tragically inconsistent, why haven’t we standardized it, phoneticized it, brought it into line? How many brave linguists have ever had the courage to state, in a declaration of phonetic revolt: “Enough is enuf�?

The answer: many. In the comic annals of linguistic history, legions of rebel wordsmiths have died on the hill of spelling reform, risking their reputations to bring English into the realm of the rational. This book is about them: Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin, Eliza Burnz, C.S. Lewis, George Bernard Shaw, Charles Darwin, and the innumerable others on both sides of the Atlantic who, for a time in their life, became fanatically occupied with writing "thru" instead of "through," "tho" for "though," "laf" for "laugh," "beleev" for "believe," and "dawter" for "daughter" (and tried futilely to get everyone around them to do it, too).

Gabe Henry takes his humorous and informative chronicle right up to today as the language seems to naturally be simplifying to fit the needs of our changing world thanks to technology—from texting to Instagram to emojis, the Simplified Spelling Movement may finally be having its day.]]> 304 Gabe Henry 0063360217 Erin 0 2025, audio 4.55 Enough Is Enuf: Our Failed Attempts to Make English Eezier to Spell
author: Gabe Henry
name: Erin
average rating: 4.55
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/30
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: 2025, audio
review:

]]> What Happened to Nina? 171793386
From the #1 internationally bestselling author of The Murder Rule comes an emotional novel of suspense about two families at war.

Nina and Simon are the perfect couple. Young, fun and deeply in love. Until they leave for a weekend at his family’s cabin in Vermont, and only Simon comes home.

WHAT HAPPENED TO NINA?

Nobody knows. Simon’s explanation about what happened in their last hours together doesn’t add up. Nina’s parents push the police for answers, and Simon’s parents rush to protect him. They hire expensive lawyers and a PR firm that quickly ramps up a vicious, nothing-is-off-limits media campaign.

HOW FAR WILL HIS FAMILY GO TO KEEP HIM SAFE?

Soon, facts are lost in a swirl of accusation and counter-accusation. Everyone chooses a side, and the story goes viral, fueled by armchair investigators and wild conspiracy theories and illustrated with pretty pictures taken from Nina’s social media accounts. Journalists descend on their small Vermont town, followed by a few obsessive "fans."

HOW FAR WILL HER FAMILY GO TO GET TO THE TRUTH?

Nina’s family is under siege, but they never lose sight of the only thing that really matters—finding their daughter. Out-gunned by Simon’s wealthy, powerful family, Nina’s parents recognize that if playing by the rules won’t get them anywhere, it’s time to break them.]]> 328 Dervla McTiernan Erin 4 2025 4.05 2024 What Happened to Nina?
author: Dervla McTiernan
name: Erin
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/01
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> Daisy Jones & The Six 40597810 Everyone knows DAISY JONES & THE SIX, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.

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

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

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

The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.]]> 368 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1524798622 Erin 0 currently-reading 4.20 2019 Daisy Jones & The Six
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Erin
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Say You'll Remember Me 217182552 disastrously close. A gorgeous veterinarian giving Greek god vibes—all while cuddling a tiny kitten? Immediately yes. That is until Xavier opens his mouth and proves that even sculpted gods can say the absolute wrong thing. Like, really wrong. Of course, there’s nothing Samantha loves more than proving an asshole wrong�

. . . unless, of course, he can admit he made a mistake. But after one incredible and seemingly endless date—possibly the best in living history—Samantha is forced to admit the truth, that her family is in crisis and any kind of relationship would be impossible. Samantha begs Xavier to forget her. To remember their night together as a perfect moment, as crushing as that may be.

Only no amount of distance or time is nearly enough to forget that something between them. And the only thing better than one single perfect memory is to make a life—and even a love—worth remembering.]]> 368 Abby Jimenez 1538759195 Erin 0 gave-up-on 4.15 2025 Say You'll Remember Me
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Erin
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: gave-up-on
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup]]> 37976541 The full inside story of the breathtaking rise and shocking collapse of a multibillion-dollar startup, by the prize-winning journalist who first broke the story and pursued it to the end in the face of pressure and threats from the CEO and her lawyers.

In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup "unicorn" promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood tests significantly faster and easier. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at $9 billion, putting Holmes's worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn't work.

For years, Holmes had been misleading investors, FDA officials, and her own employees. When Carreyrou, working at The Wall Street Journal, got a tip from a former Theranos employee and started asking questions, both Carreyrou and the Journal were threatened with lawsuits. Undaunted, the newspaper ran the first of dozens of Theranos articles in late 2015. By early 2017, the company's value was zero and Holmes faced potential legal action from the government and her investors.

Here is the riveting story of the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a disturbing cautionary tale set amid the bold promises and gold-rush frenzy of Silicon Valley.]]> 339 John Carreyrou Erin 0 to-read 4.38 2018 Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
author: John Carreyrou
name: Erin
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks]]> 154924
For eighteen years Ed Viesturs pursued climbing’s holy to stand atop the world’s fourteen 8,000-meter peaks, without the aid of bottled oxygen. But No Shortcuts to the Top is as much about the man who would become the first American to achieve that goal as it is about his stunning quest. As Viesturs recounts the stories of his most harrowing climbs, he reveals a man torn between the flat, safe world he and his loved ones share and the majestic and deadly places where only he can go.

A preternaturally cautious climber who once turned back 300 feet from the top of Everest but who would not shrink from a peak (Annapurna) known to claim the life of one climber for every two who reached its summit, Viesturs lives by an unyielding motto, “Reaching the summit is optional. Getting down is mandatory.� It is with this philosophy that he vividly describes fatal errors in judgment made by his fellow climbers as well as a few of his own close calls and gallant rescues. And, for the first time, he details his own pivotal and heroic role in the 1996 Everest disaster made famous in Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air.

In addition to the raw excitement of Viesturs’s odyssey, No Shortcuts to the Top is leavened with many funny moments revealing the camaraderie between climbers. It is more than the first full account of one of the staggering accomplishments of our time; it is a portrait of a brave and devoted family man and his beliefs that shaped this most perilous and magnificent pursuit.]]> 368 Ed Viesturs 0767924703 Erin 0 2025, audio 4.11 2006 No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks
author: Ed Viesturs
name: Erin
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/16
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: 2025, audio
review:

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

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

Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented and ferociously compelling.]]> 535 Patrick Radden Keefe 0385545681 Erin 5 2025, audio, five-stars 4.54 2021 Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
author: Patrick Radden Keefe
name: Erin
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/10
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: 2025, audio, five-stars
review:

]]> The Girl on the Train 22557272
An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.]]> 336 Paula Hawkins 1594633665 Erin 0 currently-reading 3.97 2015 The Girl on the Train
author: Paula Hawkins
name: Erin
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Book Club for Troublesome Women]]> 216052751 Four dissatisfied sixties-era housewives form a book club turned sisterhood that will hold fast amid the turmoil of a rapidly changing world and alter the course of each of their lives.

By early 1960s standards, Margaret Ryan, Viv Buschetti, and Bitsy Cobb, suburban housewives in a brand-new "planned community" in Northern Virginia, appear to have it all. The fact that "all" doesn't feel like enough leaves them feeling confused and guilty, certain the fault must lie with them. Things begin to change when they form a book club with Charlotte Gustafson--the eccentric and artsy "new neighbor" from Manhattan--and read Betty Friedan's just-released book, The Feminine Mystique.

Controversial and groundbreaking, the book struck a chord with an entire generation of women, helping them realize that they weren't alone in their dissatisfactions, or their longings, lifting their eyes to new horizons of possibility and achievement. Margaret, Charlotte, Bitsy, and Viv are among them. But is it really the book that alters the lives of these four very different women? Or is it the bond of sisterhood that helps them find courage to confront the past, navigate turmoil in a rapidly changing world, and see themselves in a new and limitless light?]]> 384 Marie Bostwick 1400344743 Erin 0 to-read 4.16 2025 The Book Club for Troublesome Women
author: Marie Bostwick
name: Erin
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection]]> 220341389 John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and a passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest disease.

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

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

In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.]]> 208 John Green 0525556575 Erin 5 4.51 2025 Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
author: John Green
name: Erin
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: 2025-tbr, judged-by-its-cover, 2025
review:

]]> Dream Count 219520778 A publishing event ten years in the making�a searing, exquisite new novel by the best-selling and award-winning author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists�the story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires.

Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until � betrayed and brokenhearted � she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America � but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.

In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations on the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.]]> 416 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 0593802721 Erin 4 2025, audio 3.93 2025 Dream Count
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Erin
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: 2025, audio
review:

]]> The Celebrants 62049729
It’s been a minute—or five years—since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they’ve reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living “funerals,� celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living—that their lives mean something, to one another if not to themselves.

But this reunion is different. They’re not gathered as they were to bolster Marielle as her marriage crumbled, to lift Naomi after her parents died, or to intervene when Craig pleaded guilty to art fraud. This time, Jordan is sitting on a secret that will upend their pact.

A deeply honest tribute to the growing pains of selfhood and the people who keep us going, coupled with Steven Rowley’s signature humor and heart, The Celebrants is a moving tale about the false invincibility of youth and the beautiful ways in which friendshiphelps uscelebrate our lives, even amid the deepest challenges of living.]]> 320 Steven Rowley 0593540425 Erin 0 to-read 3.59 2023 The Celebrants
author: Steven Rowley
name: Erin
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Cloud Cuckoo Land 56783258 When everything is lost, it’s our stories that survive.

How do we weather the end of things? Cloud Cuckoo Land brings together an unforgettable cast of dreamers and outsiders from past, present and future to offer a vision of survival against all odds.

Constantinople, 1453:
An orphaned seamstress and a cursed boy with a love for animals risk everything on opposite sides of a city wall to protect the people they love.

Idaho, 2020:
An impoverished, idealistic kid seeks revenge on a world that’s crumbling around him. Can he go through with it when a gentle old man stands between him and his plans?

Unknown, Sometime in the Future:
With her tiny community in peril, Konstance is the last hope for the human race. To find a way forward, she must look to the oldest stories of all for guidance.

Bound together by a single ancient text, these tales interweave to form a tapestry of solace and resilience and a celebration of storytelling itself. Like its predecessor All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr’s new novel is a tale of hope and of profound human connection.]]> 626 Anthony Doerr 1982168439 Erin 0 2025-tbr, 2025, gave-up-on 4.24 2021 Cloud Cuckoo Land
author: Anthony Doerr
name: Erin
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: 2025-tbr, 2025, gave-up-on
review:

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

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

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

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 387 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Erin 4
Overall, I thought this was a great puzzle piece to fit between TBoSaS and the original trilogy. The themes of propaganda and governmental corruption were well-developed throughout the book. It, unfortunately, was quite applicable to the current political climate in the US. I appreciated the characterization of the other tributes--all just scared kids who wanted to go home. I also liked the level of detail we got about Haymitch. I'm looking forward to rereading the original trilogy with this new perspective.

While I was listening, I was going back and forth on whether the inclusion of Mags, Wiress, Beetee, Effie, and Plutarch were actual plot devices or just fan service. I think it was a little bit of both.

On one hand, their inclusion characterizes the arena escape in Catching Fire and that revolution was always involved in the games. It also provides food for thought about other known victors--was the flood in Annie's games caused by her and then edited to look like it was done by the gamemakers? Was Johanna ACTUALLY weak, or was she up to some mischief throughout the games that the Capitol didn't want shown on the broadcast? Beetee and Plutarch especially made sense to me, and I enjoyed the connections to Catching Fire there (well, as much as I could enjoy Beetee and Ampert :( I cried so hard)

On the other hand, why was Mags the mentor at all? Wiress made some sense to me, her being the victor from the year before and kind of a rebel/bad victor by Capitol standards since she didn't kill anyone. But MAGS? Who would have been 55? Idk. Could the themes have been incorporated with new characters? Absolutely, but they probably were more obvious with characters that previous readers already knew. I'm still back and forth about it.

I was surprised that I reacted so strongly to this book even though I KNEW the end result. I KNEW that Haymitch's family was going to die. I KNEW all of the other tributes would die. But how could I KNOW that Haymitch wasn't actually reaped? Or that Louella would die in the tribute parade and be replaced with a girl from District 11? Or that Maysilee would be my favorite character? Or that Beetee's son was put in simply to punish him? All of the details just continued to twist the knife. THE GUMDROPS?? THE BREAD AND MILK?? Just rip my heart out, Ms. Collins.

The deaths were so graphic oh my goodness? Suzanne really said no more thirsting over Snow, he is EVIL (as I always knew don't worry). It was interesting because I had been talking to my mom earlier this week about how old I was when I read the original trilogy (11 turning 12). Full disclosure--I read them under my covers in one all-nighter because she told me I wasn't old enough/they were too scary. Was she right? Yes. Do I regret it? No. Now, should my barely-10-year-old sister be allowed to read them? Probably not the original trilogy, but DEFINITELY not this one hahaha, I've become the mean "mom" myself.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. Nostalgia was a primary factor in my enjoying it I think, but is that so bad?

-
-
-
okay GOODBYE I could not make myself go to bed until I finished and I am RUINED. Full review after I sleep because it’s 5am]]> 4.61 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Erin
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: 2025-tbr, 2025, audio, four-stars
review:
I was first in line on the hold list for this book and that will forever be my greatest accomplishment. Normally I need something to do in the background while listening to an audiobook, but I was sitting in my bed absolutely riveted by the story. My own personal callback to reading the original trilogy??

Overall, I thought this was a great puzzle piece to fit between TBoSaS and the original trilogy. The themes of propaganda and governmental corruption were well-developed throughout the book. It, unfortunately, was quite applicable to the current political climate in the US. I appreciated the characterization of the other tributes--all just scared kids who wanted to go home. I also liked the level of detail we got about Haymitch. I'm looking forward to rereading the original trilogy with this new perspective.

While I was listening, I was going back and forth on whether the inclusion of Mags, Wiress, Beetee, Effie, and Plutarch were actual plot devices or just fan service. I think it was a little bit of both.

On one hand, their inclusion characterizes the arena escape in Catching Fire and that revolution was always involved in the games. It also provides food for thought about other known victors--was the flood in Annie's games caused by her and then edited to look like it was done by the gamemakers? Was Johanna ACTUALLY weak, or was she up to some mischief throughout the games that the Capitol didn't want shown on the broadcast? Beetee and Plutarch especially made sense to me, and I enjoyed the connections to Catching Fire there (well, as much as I could enjoy Beetee and Ampert :( I cried so hard)

On the other hand, why was Mags the mentor at all? Wiress made some sense to me, her being the victor from the year before and kind of a rebel/bad victor by Capitol standards since she didn't kill anyone. But MAGS? Who would have been 55? Idk. Could the themes have been incorporated with new characters? Absolutely, but they probably were more obvious with characters that previous readers already knew. I'm still back and forth about it.

I was surprised that I reacted so strongly to this book even though I KNEW the end result. I KNEW that Haymitch's family was going to die. I KNEW all of the other tributes would die. But how could I KNOW that Haymitch wasn't actually reaped? Or that Louella would die in the tribute parade and be replaced with a girl from District 11? Or that Maysilee would be my favorite character? Or that Beetee's son was put in simply to punish him? All of the details just continued to twist the knife. THE GUMDROPS?? THE BREAD AND MILK?? Just rip my heart out, Ms. Collins.

The deaths were so graphic oh my goodness? Suzanne really said no more thirsting over Snow, he is EVIL (as I always knew don't worry). It was interesting because I had been talking to my mom earlier this week about how old I was when I read the original trilogy (11 turning 12). Full disclosure--I read them under my covers in one all-nighter because she told me I wasn't old enough/they were too scary. Was she right? Yes. Do I regret it? No. Now, should my barely-10-year-old sister be allowed to read them? Probably not the original trilogy, but DEFINITELY not this one hahaha, I've become the mean "mom" myself.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. Nostalgia was a primary factor in my enjoying it I think, but is that so bad?

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-
-
okay GOODBYE I could not make myself go to bed until I finished and I am RUINED. Full review after I sleep because it’s 5am
]]> Project Hail Mary 54493401
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?]]> 476 Andy Weir 0593135202 Erin 5 4.49 2021 Project Hail Mary
author: Andy Weir
name: Erin
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/30
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: five-stars, favorites, judged-by-its-cover, already-own
review:

]]> Maame 60784605 Shortlisted for the TikTok Book Awards in the Book of the Year, 2023 and the ŷ Debut and Fiction Book of the Year, 2023.

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

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

Smart, funny, and deeply affecting, Jessica George's Maame deals with the themes of our time with humor and poignancy: from familial duty and racism, to female pleasure, the complexity of love, and the life-saving power of friendship. Most important, it explores what it feels like to be torn between two homes and cultures―and it celebrates finally being able to find where you belong.]]> 320 Jessica George Erin 4 4.03 2023 Maame
author: Jessica George
name: Erin
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/21
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: 2025-tbr, judged-by-its-cover, 2025, four-stars
review:

]]> The Night Guest 127306444
Iðunn is in yet another doctor's office. She knows her constant fatigue is a sign that something's not right, but practitioners dismiss her symptoms and blood tests haven't revealed any cause.

When she talks to friends and family about it, the refrain is the same � have you tried eating better? exercising more? establishing a nighttime routine? She tries to follow their advice, buying everything from vitamins to sleeping pills to a step-counting watch. Nothing helps.

Until one night Iðunn falls asleep with the watch on, and wakes up to find she’s walked over 40,000 steps in the night . . .

What is happening when she’s asleep? Why is she waking up with increasingly disturbing injuries? And why won’t anyone believe her?]]> 197 Hildur Knútsdóttir 1250322049 Erin 0 2025, audio 3.30 2021 The Night Guest
author: Hildur Knútsdóttir
name: Erin
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: 2025, audio
review:

]]> Gifted & Talented 211004124 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six comes the story of three siblings who, upon the death of their father, are forced to reckon with their long-festering rivalries, dangerous abilities, and the crushing weight of all their unrealized adolescent potential.

Where there’s a will, there’s a war.

Thayer Wren, the brilliant CEO of Wrenfare Magitech and so-called father of modern technology, is dead. Any one of his three telepathically and electrokinetically gifted children would be a plausible inheritor to the Wrenfare throne.

Or at least, so they like to think.

Meredith, textbook accomplished eldest daughter and the head of her own groundbreaking biotech company, has recently cured mental illness. You're welcome! If only her father's fortune wasn't her last hope for keeping her journalist ex-boyfriend from exposing what she really is: a total fraud.

Arthur, second-youngest congressman in history, fights the good fight every day of his life. And yet, his wife might be leaving him, and he's losing his re-election campaign. But his dead father’s approval in the form of a seat on the Wrenfare throne might just turn his sinking ship around.

Eilidh, once the world's most famous ballerina, has spent the last five years as a run-of-the-mill marketing executive at her father’s company after a life-altering injury put an end to her prodigious career. She might be lacking in accolades compared to her siblings, but if her father left her everything, it would finally validate her worth—by confirming she'd been his favorite all along.

On the pipeline of gifted kid to clinically depressed adult, nobody wins—but which Wren will come out on top?]]> 512 Olivie Blake 1250883407 Erin 0 to-read 3.82 2025 Gifted & Talented
author: Olivie Blake
name: Erin
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> I Leave It Up to You 214269353 From the award-winning author of Flux comes a dazzling novel about love, family, and the art of sushi that asks: What if you could return to the point of a fateful choice, wiser than before, and find the courage to forge a new path?

A coma can change a man, but the world Jack Jr. awakens to is one he barely recognizes. His advertising job is history, his Manhattan apartment is gone, and the love of his life has left him behind. He’s been asleep for two years; with no one to turn to, he realizes it’s been ten years since he last saw his family.

Lost and disoriented, he makes a reluctant homecoming back to the bustling Korean American enclave of Fort Lee, New Jersey; back into the waiting arms of his parents, who are operating under the illusion he never left; and back to Joja, their ever-struggling sushi restaurant that he was set to inherit before he ran away from it all. As he steps back into the life he abandoned—learning his Appa’s life lessons over crates of tuna on bleary-eyed 4 AM fish runs, doling out amberjack behind the omakase counter while his Umma tallies the night's pitiful number of customers, and sparring with his recovering alcoholic brother, James—he embraces new roles, That of romantic interest to the male nurse who took care of him throughout, and that of sage (but underqualified) uncle to his gangly teenage nephew.

There is value in the joyous rhythms of this once-abandoned life. But second chances are an even messier business than running a restaurant, and the lure of a self-determined path might, once again, prove too hard to resist.

Why do we run from those we love, and why do we still love those who run from us? A highly entertaining and poignant story about second chances and self-discovery, I Leave It Up to You pilots through the loss, love, and absurdity of finding one’s footing after the ground gives way.]]> 311 Jinwoo Chong 0593727053 Erin 0 to-read 4.02 2025 I Leave It Up to You
author: Jinwoo Chong
name: Erin
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World--Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It]]> 202698 Biohazard is the never-before-told story of Russia’s darkest, deadliest, and most closely guarded Cold War secret.

No one knows more about Russia’s astounding experiments with biowarfare than Ken Alibek. Now the mastermind behind Russia’s germ warfare effort reveals two decades of shocking breakthroughs . . . how Moscow’s leading scientists actually reengineered hazardous microbes to make them even more virulent . . . the secrets behind the discovery of an invisible, untraceable new class of biological agents just right for use in political assassinations . . . the startling story behind Russia’s attempt to turn a sample of the AIDS virus into the ultimate bioweapon. And in a chilling work of real-world intrigue, Biohazard offers us all a rare glimpse into a shadowy scientific underworld where doctors manufacture mass destruction, where witnesses to errors are silenced forever, and where ground zero is closer than we ever dared believe.]]> 319 Ken Alibek 0385334966 Erin 0 to-read 4.09 1999 Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World--Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It
author: Ken Alibek
name: Erin
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Not Quite Dead Yet 220223963 The #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder—now a hit Netflix series—returns with her first novel for adults: a twisty thriller about a young woman trying to solve her own murder.

In seven days Jet Mason will be dead.

Jet is the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Woodstock, Vermont. Twenty-seven years old, she’s still waiting for her life to begin. I’ll do it later, she always says. She has time.

Until Halloween night, when Jet is violently attacked by an unseen intruder.

She suffers a catastrophic head injury. The doctor is certain that within a week, the injury will trigger a deadly aneurysm.

Jet has never thought of herself as having enemies. But now she looks at everyone in a new light: her family, her former best friend turned sister-in-law, her ex-boyfriend.

She has at most seven days, and as her condition deteriorates she has only her childhood friend Billy for help. But nevertheless, she’s absolutely determined to finally finish something:

Jet is going to solve her own murder.]]> 400 Holly Jackson 059397705X Erin 0 to-read 4.35 2025 Not Quite Dead Yet
author: Holly Jackson
name: Erin
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Conspiracies & Conspiracy Theories: What We Should and Shouldn't Believe - and Why]]> 50878183
The stuff of conspiracy theories makes for great, entertaining stories in movies, books, and television. And there is no shortage of subjects: from who really killed JFK to the truth behind 9/11. And then, there are subjects from alien invasions to the Moon landing was simulated - theories that are truly out of this world, which according to some, is flat. Many of these crazy concepts have jumped off the pages or screens to become so pervasive in our culture that thousands - even millions - subscribe to them as reality.

Does the idea that millions of Americans buy into conspiracy theories feel like a ... conspiracy? Consider that:

81 percent believes more than one person was responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy;
One-third of this country believes 9/11 was an "inside job" by the Bush administration;
21 percent believes aliens crash-landed in Roswell and are being hidden in Area 51; and
Seven percent believes the Moon landing was faked.
What causes people, frequently well-educated and highly regarded people, to advocate these unfounded - often disproven - ideas as reality? And more disturbing, why is the power of conspiracies so compelling - powerful enough to motivate people to act, to even participate in horrific undertakings?

In this eye-opening Audible Original, Professor Michael Shermer takes you through some of the most prevalent conspiracy theories of history, giving you a foundational understanding of how and why they came about, who was likely to believe and perpetuate them, and the reality behind the beliefs. Whether you are looking for the truth that is out there; fascinated by the psychology of why people buy into conspiracy theories; or interested in how conspiracy theories shaped and were shaped, by history, this course will provide you with all the tools you need to better understand the pervasiveness of conspiracy theories in our culture.]]> 7 Michael Shermer Erin 0 to-read 3.80 2019 Conspiracies & Conspiracy Theories: What We Should and Shouldn't Believe - and Why
author: Michael Shermer
name: Erin
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Pull of the Stars 52722079
In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other's lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work.

In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue once again finds the light in the darkness in this new classic of hope and survival against all odds.]]> 295 Emma Donoghue 0316499013 Erin 0 to-read 3.91 2020 The Pull of the Stars
author: Emma Donoghue
name: Erin
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Rom-Commers 195790586 She’s rewriting his love story. But can she rewrite her own?

Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter. She’s spent her life studying, obsessing over, and writing romantic comedies―good ones! That win contests! But she’s also been the sole caretaker for her kind-hearted dad, who needs full-time care. Now, when she gets a chance to re-write a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates―The Charlie Yates! Her personal writing god!―it’s a break too big to pass up.

Emma’s younger sister steps in for caretaking duties, and Emma moves to L.A. for six weeks for the writing gig of a lifetime. But what is it they say? Don’t meet your heroes? Charlie Yates doesn’t want to write with anyone―much less “a failed, nobody screenwriter.� Worse, the romantic comedy he’s written is so terrible it might actually bring on the apocalypse. Plus! He doesn’t even care about the script―it’s just a means to get a different one green-lit. Oh, and he thinks love is an emotional Ponzi scheme.

But Emma’s not going down without a fight. She will stand up for herself, and for rom-coms, and for love itself. She will convince him that love stories matter―even if she has to kiss him senseless to do it. But . . . what if that kiss is accidentally amazing? What if real life turns out to be so much . . . more real than fiction? What if the love story they’re writing breaks all Emma’s rules―and comes true?]]> 336 Katherine Center 1250283809 Erin 4 2024, four-stars 4.06 2024 The Rom-Commers
author: Katherine Center
name: Erin
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: 2024, four-stars
review:
Okay see but THIS is why I haven't given up on romance as a genre. Really enjoyed, except I never like the third-act-miscommunication-breakup trope, ESPECIALLY as it's used in this book.
]]> The Love Hypothesis 56732449
That man is none other than Adam Carlsen, a young hotshot professor--and well-known ass. Which is why Olive is positively floored when Stanford's reigning lab tyrant agrees to keep her charade a secret and be her fake boyfriend. But when a big science conference goes haywire, putting Olive's career on the Bunsen burner, Adam surprises her again with his unyielding support and even more unyielding... six-pack abs.

Suddenly their little experiment feels dangerously close to combustion. And Olive discovers that the only thing more complicated than a hypothesis on love is putting her own heart under the microscope.]]> 356 Ali Hazelwood 0593336828 Erin 2 2024, two-stars
I want to be a romance girlie so bad though!]]> 4.10 2021 The Love Hypothesis
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Erin
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: 2024, two-stars
review:
Maybe I should give up on romance novels because this was my fourth two-star romance read of the year. But I still couldn't look away. I can't get over that this is Reylo fanfiction (thanks Emma).

I want to be a romance girlie so bad though!
]]> <![CDATA[The Reappearance of Rachel Price]]> 182484360
Lights. Camera. Lies.

18-year-old Bel has lived her whole life in the shadow of her mom’s mysterious disappearance. Sixteen years ago, Rachel Price vanished and young Bel was the only witness, but she has no memory of it. Rachel is gone, long presumed dead, and Bel wishes everyone would just move on.

But the case is dragged up from the past when the Price family agree to a true crime documentary. Bel can’t wait for filming to end, for life to go back to normal. And then the impossible happens. Rachel Price reappears, and life will never be normal again.

Rachel has an unbelievable story about what happened to her. Unbelievable, because Bel isn’t sure it’s real. If Rachel is lying, then where has she been all this time? And � could she be dangerous? With the cameras still rolling, Bel must uncover the truth about her mother, and find out why Rachel Price really came back from the dead . . .

From world-renowned author Holly Jackson comes a mind-blowing masterpiece about one girl’s search for the truth, and the terror in finding out who your family really is.]]> 438 Holly Jackson 0593374207 Erin 4 2024, four-stars I liked Ash though!]]> 4.09 2024 The Reappearance of Rachel Price
author: Holly Jackson
name: Erin
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: 2024, four-stars
review:
Jaw-dropping plot twist :) Flat, unlikeable main character :(
I liked Ash though!
]]> <![CDATA[Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine]]> 35900387 No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine.

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

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

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

The only way to survive is to open your heart. ]]> 390 Gail Honeyman 0008172145 Erin 4 2025, four-stars 4.17 2017 Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
author: Gail Honeyman
name: Erin
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: 2025, four-stars
review:
If I had rated this book after the first half, it would not have gotten four stars. The second half was way better. Loved Raymond, Eleanor was a bit hard to love at first, but I liked her by the end. Overall, I am glad I finished it, but I don't think I'll come back to it anytime soon.
]]> Sunshine Nails 62917605
A tender, humorous, and page-turning debut about a Vietnamese Canadian family in Toronto who will do whatever it takes to protect their no-frills nail salon after a new high end salon opens up—even if it tears the family apart. Perfect for readers of Olga Dies Dreaming and The Fortunes of Jaded Women.

Vietnamese refugees Debbie and Phil Tran have built a comfortable life for themselves in Toronto with their family nail salon. But when an ultra-glam chain salon opens across the street, their world is rocked.

Complicating matters further, their landlord has jacked up the rent and it seems only a matter of time before they lose their business and everything they’ve built. They enlist the help of their daughter, Jessica, who has just returned home after a messy breakup and a messier firing. Together with their son, Dustin, and niece, Thuy, they devise some good old-fashioned sabotage. Relationships are put to the test as the line between right and wrong gets blurred. Debbie and Phil must choose: do they keep their family intact or fight for their salon?

Sunshine Nails is a light-hearted, urgent fable of gentrification with a cast of memorable and complex characters who showcase the diversity of immigrant experiences and community resilience.]]> Mai Nguyen 179715754X Erin 3 2025, audio, three-stars 3.56 2023 Sunshine Nails
author: Mai Nguyen
name: Erin
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: 2025, audio, three-stars
review:
This was fine. It was the kind of listen where I had it on in the background while I was working and it didn't impact my understanding of the plot at all. I did like the family dynamic, but the multiple plotlines were kind of a lot.
]]> I Who Have Never Known Men 43208407 ‘For a very long time, the days went by, each just like the day before, then I began to think, and everything changed�

Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only vague recollection of their lives before.

As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl - the fortieth prisoner - sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.]]> 188 Jacqueline Harpman 152911179X Erin 4 audio, 2025, four-stars
No one writes dystopia like this anymore.]]> 4.24 1995 I Who Have Never Known Men
author: Jacqueline Harpman
name: Erin
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/16
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: audio, 2025, four-stars
review:
Holy cow. My roommate was reading this a while ago, but I just got around to reading it. The author does such a great job of establishing the tone early on, and you root for the main character the whole way through even though her prospects look more and more bleak with each page. I have a hard time with open endings, but I was content (ish) with this one. I definitely would not have complained if there had been a concrete ending haha. I bet it hits even harder in French

No one writes dystopia like this anymore.
]]> <![CDATA[The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality]]> 176443264 Cultish and host of the podcast Sounds Like a Cult, a delicious blend of cultural criticism and personal narrative that explores our cognitive biases and the power, disadvantages, and highlights of magical thinking.

Utilizing the linguistic insights of her “witty and brilliant� first book Wordslut and the sociological explorations of her breakout hit Cultish, Amanda Montell now turns her erudite eye to the inner workings of the human mind and its biases in her most personal and electrifying work yet.

“Magical thinking� can be broadly defined as the belief that one’s internal thoughts can affect unrelated events in the external Think of the conviction that one can manifest their way out of poverty, stave off cancer with positive vibes, thwart the apocalypse by learning to can their own peaches, or transform an unhealthy relationship to a glorious one with loyalty alone. In all its forms, magical thinking works in service of restoring agency amid chaos, but in The Age of Magical Overthinking, Montell argues that in the modern information age, our brain’s coping mechanisms have been overloaded, and our irrationality turned up to an eleven.

In a series of razor sharp, deeply funny chapters, Montell delves into a cornucopia of the cognitive biases that run rampant in our brains, from how the “Halo effect� cultivates worship (and hatred) of larger than life celebrities, to how the “Sunk Cost Fallacy� can keep us in detrimental relationships long after we’ve realized they’re not serving us. As she illuminates these concepts with her signature brilliance and wit, Montell’s prevailing message is one of hope, empathy, and ultimately forgiveness for our anxiety-addled human selves. If you have all but lost faith in our ability to reason, Montell aims to make some sense of the senseless. To crack open a window in our minds, and let a warm breeze in. To help quiet the cacophony for a while, or even hear a melody in it.]]> 259 Amanda Montell 1668007975 Erin 4 3.45 2024 The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality
author: Amanda Montell
name: Erin
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/23
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: 2025-tbr, 2025, judged-by-its-cover
review:
Amanda Montell always delivers a fun listen. I will admit that I was expecting a completely different book based on the title, but it was alright nonetheless. Some of the essays were well-rounded and some left me wanted more, and I felt like the connections could have been better.
]]> <![CDATA[Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?]]> 61796683 REESE'S BOOK CLUB MAY 2023 PICK

BOOK OF THE MONTH MAY 2023 PICK

A multigenerational saga that traverses the glamour of old Hollywood and the seductive draw of modern-day showbiz

When Kitty Karr Tate, a White icon of the silver screen, dies and bequeaths her multimillion-dollar estate to the St. John sisters, three young, wealthy Black women, it prompts questions. Lots of questions.

A celebrity in her own right, Elise St. John would rather focus on sorting out Kitty’s affairs than deal with the press. But what she discovers in one of Kitty’s journals rocks her world harder than any other brewing scandal could—and between a cheating fiancé and the fallout from a controversial social media post, there are plenty.

The truth behind Kitty's ascent to stardom from her beginnings in the segregated South threatens to expose a web of unexpected family ties, debts owed, and debatable crimes that could, with one pull, unravel the all-American fabric of the St. John sisters and those closest to them.

As Elise digs deeper into Kitty's past, she must also turn the lens upon herself, confronting the gifts and burdens of her own choices and the power that the secrets of the dead hold over the living. Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? is a sprawling page-turner set against the backdrop of the Hollywood machine, an insightful and nuanced look at the inheritances of family, race, and gender—and the choices some women make to break free of them.]]> 416 Crystal Smith Paul 1250815304 Erin 3 2025, audio, three-stars 3.70 2023 Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?
author: Crystal Smith Paul
name: Erin
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: 2025, audio, three-stars
review:
I LOVED the Hazel and Kitty chapters, but everything set in the present fell flat for me. It was definitely a slow burn, and I didn't feel super invested until an hour or two into the audiobook.
]]> The Ministry of Time 199798179 A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all: Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley.

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats� from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge�: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as �1847� or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,� “Spotify,� and “the collapse of the British Empire.� But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.

An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks: What does it mean to defy history, when history is living in your house? Kaliane Bradley’s answer is a blazing, unforgettable testament to what we owe each other in a changing world.]]> 339 Kaliane Bradley 1668045141 Erin 3
I could have read an entire book of the bridges helping the expats adjust to modern life with the ending staying the same. I didn't like the romance aspect, and I think the plot could have stayed mostly the same if the characters had just remained best friends (obviously a few points would have had to change).

]]> 3.54 2024 The Ministry of Time
author: Kaliane Bradley
name: Erin
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: 2025-tbr, judged-by-its-cover, 2025, three-stars
review:
I liked the first 2/3 and then it got weird and I no longer liked it as much

I could have read an entire book of the bridges helping the expats adjust to modern life with the ending staying the same. I didn't like the romance aspect, and I think the plot could have stayed mostly the same if the characters had just remained best friends (obviously a few points would have had to change).


]]> Take Me Apart 45892241
When the famed photographer Miranda Brand died mysteriously at the height of her career, it sent shock waves through Callinas, California. Decades later, old wounds are reopened when her son, Theo, hires ex-journalist Kate Aitken to create an archive of his mother's work.

From Miranda's vast maze of personal effects, Kate pieces together a portrait of a vibrant artist buckling under the pressures of ambition, motherhood, and marriage. As the summer progresses, Kate navigates vicious local rumors and her growing attraction to the enigmatic Theo, all while unearthing the shocking details of Miranda's private life. But Kate has secrets of her own, and when she stumbles across a diary that may finally resolve the mystery of Miranda's death, her curiosity starts to spiral into a dangerous obsession.

With breathtaking and haunting imagery, Take Me Apart paints a vivid picture of two magnetic young women, separated by years, but bonded by shared struggles. Sara Sligar draws readers into a web of secrets and lies, alternating between the present and the past and revealing the truth about Miranda's death through the objects she left behind.]]> 368 Sara Sligar 0374272611 Erin 0 to-read 3.61 2020 Take Me Apart
author: Sara Sligar
name: Erin
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Sirens 210411871 A story of sisters separated by hundreds of years but bound together in more ways than they can imagine

2019: Lucy awakens in her ex-lover’s room in the middle of the night with her hands around his throat. Horrified, she flees to her sister’s house on the coast of New South Wales hoping Jess can help explain the vivid dreams that preceded the attack—but her sister is missing. As Lucy waits for her return, she starts to unearth strange rumours about Jess’s town—tales of numerous missing men, spread over decades. A baby abandoned in a sea-swept cave. Whispers of women’s voices on the waves. All the while, her dreams start to feel closer than ever.

1800: Mary and Eliza are torn from their loving home in Ireland and forced onto a convict ship heading for Australia. As the boat takes them farther and farther away from all they know, they begin to notice unexplainable changes in their bodies.

A breathtaking tale of female resilience, The Sirens is an extraordinary novel that captures the sheer power of sisterhood and the indefinable magic of the sea.]]> 337 Emilia Hart 1250280826 Erin 0 to-read 3.81 2025 The Sirens
author: Emilia Hart
name: Erin
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> How to Be an Antiracist 40265832 How to be an Antiracist, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it.

In this book, Kendi weaves together an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science, bringing it all together with an engaging personal narrative of his own awakening to antiracism. How to Be an Antiracist is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond an awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a truly just and equitable society.]]> 305 Ibram X. Kendi 0525509283 Erin 0 2025, audio, due-for-a-reread 4.36 2019 How to Be an Antiracist
author: Ibram X. Kendi
name: Erin
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: 2025, audio, due-for-a-reread
review:

]]> Memphis 52268640
Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected.

As she grows up, Joan finds relief in her artwork, painting portraits of the community in Memphis. One of her subjects is their enigmatic neighbor Miss Dawn, who claims to know something about curses, and whose stories about the past help Joan see how her passion, imagination, and relentless hope are, in fact, the continuation of a long matrilineal tradition. Joan begins to understand that her mother, her mother’s mother, and the mothers before them persevered, made impossible choices, and put their dreams on hold so that her life would not have to be defined by loss and anger—that the sole instrument she needs for healing is her paintbrush.

Unfolding over seventy years through a chorus of unforgettable voices that move back and forth in time, Memphis paints an indelible portrait of inheritance, celebrating the full complexity of what we pass down, in a family and as a country: brutality and justice, faith and forgiveness, sacrifice and love.]]> 272 Tara M. Stringfellow 0593230485 Erin 4 4.05 2022 Memphis
author: Tara M. Stringfellow
name: Erin
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/17
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: 2024, four-stars, audio, judged-by-its-cover, due-for-a-reread
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1)]]> 37781 Things Fall Apart is written with remarkable economy and subtle irony. Uniquely and richly African, at the same time it reveals Achebe's keen awareness of the human qualities common to men of all times and places.]]> 215 Chinua Achebe Erin 1 3.73 1958 Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1)
author: Chinua Achebe
name: Erin
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1958
rating: 1
read at: 2018/03/20
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: hated-it, read-for-school, one-star, due-for-a-reread
review:

]]> Of Mice and Men 40698
Laborers in California’s dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they land jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, the fulfillment of their dream seems to be within their grasp. But even George cannot guard Lennie from the provocations of a flirtatious woman, nor predict the consequences of Lennie’s unswerving obedience to the things George taught him.

--back cover]]> 107 John Steinbeck Erin 1 This book was stupid 3.84 1937 Of Mice and Men
author: John Steinbeck
name: Erin
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1937
rating: 1
read at: 2017/01/02
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: hated-it, read-for-school, one-star, due-for-a-reread
review:
This book was stupid
]]> <![CDATA[The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America]]> 397483
Burnham's challenge was immense. In a short period of time, he was forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous other obstacles to construct the famous "White City" around which the fair was built. His efforts to complete the project, and the fair's incredible success, are skillfully related along with entertaining appearances by such notables as Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and Thomas Edison.

The activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is believed to be responsible for scores of murders around the time of the fair, are equally remarkable. He devised and erected the World's Fair Hotel, complete with crematorium and gas chamber, near the fairgrounds and used the event as well as his own charismatic personality to lure victims.

Combining the stories of an architect and a killer in one book, mostly in alternating chapters, seems like an odd choice but it works. The magical appeal and horrifying dark side of 19th-century Chicago are both revealed through Larson's skillful writing. - John Moe]]> 464 Erik Larson 0609608444 Erin 0 read-for-school 4.02 2003 The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
author: Erik Larson
name: Erin
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: read-for-school
review:

]]> The Kite Runner 77203 371 Khaled Hosseini 159463193X Erin 0 4.34 2003 The Kite Runner
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Erin
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: five-stars, impacted-my-life, read-for-school, want-to-own, due-for-a-reread
review:

]]> A Thousand Splendid Suns 128029
With the passing of time comes Taliban rule over Afghanistan, the streets of Kabul loud with the sound of gunfire and bombs, life a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear, the women's endurance tested beyond their worst imaginings. Yet love can move people to act in unexpected ways, lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism. In the end it is love that triumphs over death and destruction.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a portrait of a wounded country and a story of family and friendship, of an unforgiving time, an unlikely bond, and an indestructible love.]]> 372 Khaled Hosseini 1594489505 Erin 0 4.44 2007 A Thousand Splendid Suns
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Erin
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: four-stars, want-to-own, due-for-a-reread
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Little Women (Little Women, #1)]]> 1934 This is an alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780451529305.

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

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

]]> 449 Louisa May Alcott Erin 4 four-stars, due-for-a-reread 4.16 1868 Little Women (Little Women, #1)
author: Louisa May Alcott
name: Erin
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1868
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: four-stars, due-for-a-reread
review:

]]> Number the Stars 47281 137 Lois Lowry 0440227534 Erin 0 read-for-school 4.19 1989 Number the Stars
author: Lois Lowry
name: Erin
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: read-for-school
review:

]]> Animal Farm 170448 Librarian's note: There is an Alternate Cover Edition for this edition of this book here.

A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned –a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.
When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.]]> 141 George Orwell 0451526341 Erin 0 4.07 1945 Animal Farm
author: George Orwell
name: Erin
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1945
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/12
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review:

]]> The Little Prince 157993
Few stories are as widely read and as universally cherished by children and adults alike as The Little Prince, presented here in a stunning new translation with carefully restored artwork. The definitive edition of a worldwide classic, it will capture the hearts of readers of all ages.]]> 96 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 0152023984 Erin 0 4.32 1943 The Little Prince
author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
name: Erin
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1943
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/12
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review:

]]> Fahrenheit 451 4381 158 Ray Bradbury 0307347974 Erin 5 3.96 1953 Fahrenheit 451
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Erin
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1953
rating: 5
read at: 2018/05/18
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: favorites, five-stars, read-for-school, due-for-a-reread
review:

]]> Night 1617 Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel's memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man. This new translation by his wife and most frequent translator, Marion Wiesel, corrects important details and presents the most accurate rendering in English of Elie Wiesel's testimony to what happened in the camps and of his unforgettable message that this horror must simply never be allowed to happen again.]]> 120 Elie Wiesel 0374500010 Erin 5 4.38 1956 Night
author: Elie Wiesel
name: Erin
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1956
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: five-stars, impacted-my-life, read-for-school, due-for-a-reread
review:

]]> 1984 40961427 Nineteen Eighty-Four is a rare work that grows more haunting as its futuristic purgatory becomes more real. Published in 1949, the book offers political satirist George Orwell's nightmarish vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one poor stiff's attempt to find individuality. The brilliance of the novel is Orwell's prescience of modern life—the ubiquity of television, the distortion of the language—and his ability to construct such a thorough version of hell. Required reading for students since it was published, it ranks among the most terrifying novels ever written.]]> 298 George Orwell Erin 0 due-for-a-reread 4.24 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: Erin
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1949
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/12
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review:

]]> Firstborn Girls: A Memoir 215514839 From award-winning author and creative writing teacher at Tulane University comes an intimate and powerful memoir exploring inherited trauma, family secrets, and the enduring bonds of love between mothers and daughters.

On her second birthday in 1967, Bernice McFadden died in a car crash near Detroit, only to be resuscitated after her mother pulled her from the flaming wreckage. Firstborn Girls traces her remarkable life from that moment up to the publication of her first novel, Sugar.

Growing up in 1980s Brooklyn, Bernice finds solace in books, summer trips to Barbados, and boarding school to escape her alcoholic father. Discovering the works of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, she finally sees herself and her loved ones reflected in their stories of “messy, beautiful, joyful Black people.�

Interwoven with Bernice's personal journey is her family's history, beginning with her four-times enslaved great-grandmother Louisa Vicey Wilson in 1822 Hancock County, Georgia. Her descendants survived Reconstruction and Jim Crow, joined the Great Migration, and mourned Dr. King’s assassination during the Civil Rights Movement. These women's wisdom, secrets, and fierce love are passed down like Louisa's handmade quilt.

A memoir of many threads, Firstborn Girls is an extraordinarily moving portrait of a life shaped by family, history, and the drive to be something more.]]> 400 Bernice L. McFadden 0593184971 Erin 4
The audiobook was also a nice touch, even though the author doesn't read it herself. It made her narrative come alive, and it almost felt like we were sitting together.

If I could describe the book in one word, it would be "overcome." I couldn't even fathom how much trauma McFadden endured, and hearing about how she was able to rise above and face rejection head on to live her dreams was inspiring.]]> 4.42 2025 Firstborn Girls: A Memoir
author: Bernice L. McFadden
name: Erin
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: 2025-tbr, 2025, four-stars, audio
review:
As a firstborn girl myself, I was very excited for this memoir (and was the first one to check out the audiobook at my library)! I enjoyed the way that McFadden narrated each of her ancestors' stories and connected them to her life.

The audiobook was also a nice touch, even though the author doesn't read it herself. It made her narrative come alive, and it almost felt like we were sitting together.

If I could describe the book in one word, it would be "overcome." I couldn't even fathom how much trauma McFadden endured, and hearing about how she was able to rise above and face rejection head on to live her dreams was inspiring.
]]> <![CDATA[The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession]]> 209363566 One of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of the twenty-first the story of the world’s most prolific art thief, Stéphane Breitwieser.

In this spellbinding portrait of obsession and flawed genius, the best-selling author of The Stranger in the Woods brings us into Breitwieser’s strange world—unlike most thieves, he never stole for money, keeping all his treasures in a single room where he could admire them.

For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than two hundred heists over nearly eight years—in museums and cathedrals all over Europe—Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than three hundred objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion.

In The Art Thief, Michael Finkel brings us into Breitwieser’s strange and fascinating world. Unlike most thieves, Breitwieser never stole for money. Instead, he displayed all his treasures in a pair of secret rooms where he could admire them to his heart’s content. Possessed of a remarkable athleticism and an innate ability to circumvent practically any security system, Breitwieser managed to pull off a breathtaking number of audacious thefts. Yet these strange talents bred a growing disregard for risk and an addict’s need to score, leading Breitwieser to ignore his girlfriend’s pleas to stop—until one final act of hubris brought everything crashing down.

This is a riveting story of art, crime, love, and an insatiable hunger to possess beauty at any cost.]]> 224 Michael Finkel 1984898450 Erin 0 put-aside-for-now, to-read 4.05 2023 The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession
author: Michael Finkel
name: Erin
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: put-aside-for-now, to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution]]> 127283004 Semafor's Best Political Book of 2023

A riveting insider account of the progressive movement in Congress centering A.O.C., Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Ayanna Pressley, and Ilhan Omar—their rise, their efforts to set an ambitious agenda for the country, and their struggle to find their footing within the Democratic party.

The Squad is the definitive, must-read book about the most exciting figures defining our new era. The story is urgent, and the stakes are high—for the country and the world—and Grim, an experienced political reporter who covered the Squad before they were the Squad, is uniquely qualified to tell it.

When Bernie Sanders, an obscure Vermont senator, launched his quixotic 2016 presidential campaign, few could have seen just how radically the Democratic Party would transform in just a few short years—or that such a transformation could be led by a Bronx bartender volunteering for Bernie in her spare time. The world as it was when that campaign began is almost unrecognizable today, and the Squad has both shaped and been shaped by the seismic social, cultural, and political changes underway.

Referred to informally as the Squad, led by the preternaturally politically savvy Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the group laid down a marker for an aggressive left-wing agenda. Grim takes you behind the scenes as that new energy makes impact with Washington, and the Squad spends as much time fending off assaults from Donald Trump—who regularly singled them out and led chants of “send them back� at rallies—as they did battling their own party’s sclerotic leadership. As they’ve grown in office, they’ve had to contend with the eternal question that confronts outsiders who power their way into the inside: Are they still radical organizers willing and able to lead a political revolution?]]> 336 Ryan Grim 1250869072 Erin 0 to-read 4.00 The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution
author: Ryan Grim
name: Erin
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
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]]> Alphabetical Diaries 127282792
Sheila Heti kept a record of her thoughts over a ten-year period, then arranged the sentences from A to Z. Passionate and reflective, joyful and despairing, these are her alphabetical diaries.]]> 224 Sheila Heti 0374610789 Erin 0 to-read 3.94 2024 Alphabetical Diaries
author: Sheila Heti
name: Erin
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/11
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]]> Grief Is for People 134059453 Following the death of her closest friend, Sloane Crosley explores multiple kinds of loss in this disarmingly witty and poignant memoir.

Grief Is for People is a deeply moving and surprisingly suspenseful portrait of friendship and a book about loss packed with verve for life. Sloane Crosley is one of our most renowned observers of contemporary behavior, and now the pathos that has been ever present in her trademark wit is on full display. After the pain and confusion of losing her closest friend to suicide, Crosley looks for answers in friends, philosophy, and art, hoping for a framework more useful than the unavoidable stages of grief.]]> 224 Sloane Crosley 0374609853 Erin 0 to-read 3.75 2024 Grief Is for People
author: Sloane Crosley
name: Erin
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[What I Talk About When I Talk About Running]]> 2195464
Equal parts training log, travelogue, and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers his four-month preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon and takes us to places ranging from Tokyo’s Jingu Gaien gardens, where he once shared the course with an Olympian, to the Charles River in Boston among young women who outpace him. Through this marvelous lens of sport emerges a panorama of memories and insights: the eureka moment when he decided to become a writer, his greatest triumphs and disappointments, his passion for vintage LPs, and the experience, after fifty, of seeing his race times improve and then fall back.

By turns funny and sobering, playful and philosophical, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is rich and revelatory, both for fans of this masterful yet guardedly private writer and for the exploding population of athletes who find similar satisfaction in running.]]> 188 Haruki Murakami Erin 0 to-read 3.87 2007 What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Erin
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/11
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People]]> 199534697 A surprising and beautiful meditation on the color blue—and its fascinating role in Black history and culture—from National Book Award winner Imani Perry

Throughout history, the concept of Blackness has been remarkably intertwined with another color: blue. In daily life, it is evoked in countless ways. Blue skies and blue water offer hope for that which lies beyond the current conditions. But blue is also the color of deep melancholy and heartache, echoing Louis Armstrong’s question, “What did I do to be so Black and blue?� In this book, celebrated author Imani Perry uses the world’s favorite color as a springboard for a riveting emotional, cultural, and spiritual journey—an examination of race and Blackness that transcends politics or ideology.

Perry traces both blue and Blackness from their earliest roots to their many embodiments of contemporary culture, drawing deeply from her own life as well as art and history: The dyed indigo cloths of West Africa that were traded for human life in the 16th century. The mixture of awe and aversion in the old-fashioned characterization of dark-skinned people as “Blue Black.� The fundamentally American art form of blues music, sitting at the crossroads of pain and pleasure. The blue flowers Perry plants to honor a loved one gone too soon.

Poignant, spellbinding, and utterly original, Black in Blues is a brilliant new work that could only have come from the mind of one of our greatest writers and thinkers. Attuned to the harrowing and the sublime aspects of the human experience, it is every bit as vivid, rich, and striking as blue itself.]]> 256 Imani Perry 0062977393 Erin 0 to-read 4.34 2025 Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People
author: Imani Perry
name: Erin
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation]]> 57693601 Part memoir and part literary true crime, Tell Me Everything is the mesmerizing story of a landmark sexual assault investigation and the private investigator who helped crack it open.

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

Over the next five years, Krouse learns everything she can about P. I. technique, tracking down witnesses and investigating a culture of sexual assault and harassment ingrained in the university’s football program. But as the investigation grows into a national scandal and a historic civil rights case, she finds herself increasingly consumed. When the case and her life both implode at the same time, she must figure out how to help win the case without losing herself.]]> 288 Erika Krouse 1250240301 Erin 0 to-read 3.74 2022 Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation
author: Erika Krouse
name: Erin
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/11
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]]> The Book of Lost Names 52762903 The Book of Lost Names.

The accompanying article discusses the looting of libraries by the Nazis across Europe during World War II—an experience Eva remembers well—and the search to reunite people with the texts taken from them so long ago. The book in the photograph, an eighteenth-century religious text thought to have been taken from France in the waning days of the war, is one of the most fascinating cases. Now housed in Berlin’s Zentral- und Landesbibliothek library, it appears to contain some sort of code, but researchers don’t know where it came from—or what the code means. Only Eva holds the answer—but will she have the strength to revisit old memories and help reunite those lost during the war?

As a graduate student in 1942, Eva was forced to flee Paris after the arrest of her father, a Polish Jew. Finding refuge in a small mountain town in the Free Zone, she begins forging identity documents for Jewish children fleeing to neutral Switzerland. But erasing people comes with a price, and along with a mysterious, handsome forger named Rémy, Eva decides she must find a way to preserve the real names of the children who are too young to remember who they really are. The records they keep in The Book of Lost Names will become even more vital when the resistance cell they work for is betrayed and Rémy disappears.

An engaging and evocative novel reminiscent of The Lost Girls of Paris and The Alice Network, The Book of Lost Names is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of bravery and love in the face of evil.]]> 388 Kristin Harmel 1982131896 Erin 0 to-read 4.41 2020 The Book of Lost Names
author: Kristin Harmel
name: Erin
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/11
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]]> <![CDATA[The Girl with the Louding Voice]]> 50214741 All you have are your words.

Adunni is a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl who knows what she wants: an education.

As the only daughter of a broke father, she is a valuable commodity. Removed from school and sold as a third wife to an old man, Adunni's life amounts to this: four goats, two bags of rice, some chickens and a new TV. When unspeakable tragedy swiftly strikes in her new home, she is secretly sold as a domestic servant to a household in the wealthy enclaves of Lagos, where no one will talk about the strange disappearance of her predecessor, Rebecca. No one but Adunni...

As a yielding daughter, a subservient wife, and a powerless servant, fourteen-year-old Adunni is repeatedly told that she is nothing. But Adunni won't be silenced. She is determined to find her voice - in a whisper, in song, in broken English - until she can speak for herself, for the girls like Rebecca who came before, and for all the girls who will follow.

]]> 371 Abi Daré 1524746029 Erin 0 to-read 4.40 2020 The Girl with the Louding Voice
author: Abi Daré
name: Erin
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> The Push 52476830 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

A tense, page-turning psychological drama about the making and breaking of a family–and a woman whose experience of motherhood is nothing at all what she hoped for–and everything she feared.

Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had.

But in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter–she doesn’t behave like most children do.

Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well.

Then their son Sam is born–and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth.

The Push is a tour de force you will read in a sitting, an utterly immersive novel that will challenge everything you think you know about motherhood, about what we owe our children, and what it feels like when women are not believed.]]> 307 Ashley Audrain 1984881663 Erin 0 to-read 4.03 2021 The Push
author: Ashley Audrain
name: Erin
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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]]> Writers & Lovers 45289222 Euphoria, Lily King returns with an unforgettable portrait of an artist as a young woman.

Blindsided by her mother's sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she's been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey's fight to fulfil her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink.

Writers & Lovers follows Casey--a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist--in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Written with King's trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, Writers & Lovers is a transfixing novel that explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another.]]> 320 Lily King Erin 0 to-read 3.98 2020 Writers & Lovers
author: Lily King
name: Erin
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> The Book of Love 157981682 The Book of Love showcases Kelly Link at the height of her powers, channeling potent magic and attuned to all varieties of love—from friendship to romance to abiding family ties—with her trademark compassion, wit, and literary derring-do. Readers will find joy (and a little terror) and an affirmation that love goes on, even when we cannot.

Late one night, Laura, Daniel, and Mo find themselves beneath the fluorescent lights of a high school classroom, almost a year after disappearing from their hometown, the small seaside community of Lovesend, Massachusetts, having long been presumed dead. Which, in fact, they are.

With them in the room is their previously unremarkable high school music teacher, who seems to know something about their disappearance—and what has brought them back again. Desperate to reclaim their lives, the three agree to the terms of the bargain their music teacher proposes. They will be given a series of magical tasks; while they undertake them, they may return to their families and friends, but they can tell no one where they’ve been. In the end, there will be winners and there will be losers.

But their resurrection has attracted the notice of other supernatural figures, all with their own agendas. As Laura, Daniel, and Mo grapple with the pieces of the lives they left behind, and Laura’s sister, Susannah, attempts to reconcile what she remembers with what she fears, these mysterious others begin to arrive, engulfing their community in danger and chaos, and it becomes imperative that the teens solve the mystery of their deaths to avert a looming disaster.]]> 628 Kelly Link 0812996585 Erin 0 to-read 3.45 2024 The Book of Love
author: Kelly Link
name: Erin
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> Hangman 62039176 An enthralling and original first novel about exile, diaspora, and the impossibility of Black refuge in America and beyond.

In the morning, I received a phone call and was told to board a flight. The arrangements had been made on my behalf. I packed no clothes, because my clothes had been packed for me. A car arrived to pick me up.

A man returns home to sub-Saharan Africa after twenty-six years in America. When he arrives, he finds that he doesn’t recognize the country or anyone in it. Thankfully, someone recognizes him, a man who calls him brother—setting him on a quest to find his real brother, who is dying.

In Hangman, Maya Binyam tells the story of that search, and of the phantoms, guides, tricksters, bureaucrats, debtors, taxi drivers, relatives, riddles, and strangers that will lead to the truth.

It is an uncommonly assured debut: an existential journey; a tragic farce; a slapstick tragedy; and a strange, and strangely honest, story of one man’s stubborn quest to find refuge—in this world and in the world that lies beyond it.]]> 194 Maya Binyam 037461007X Erin 0 to-read 3.62 2023 Hangman
author: Maya Binyam
name: Erin
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> Recitatif 57282239
Another work of genius by this masterly writer, Recitatif keeps Twyla's and Roberta's races ambiguous throughout the story. Morrison herself described Recitatif , a story which will keep readers thinking and discussing for years to come, as "an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial." We know that one is white and one is Black, but which is which? And who is right about the race of the woman the girls tormented at the orphanage?

A remarkable look into what keeps us together and what keeps us apart, and how perceptions are made tangible by reality, Recitatif is a gift to readers in these changing times.]]> 96 Toni Morrison 0593315030 Erin 0 to-read 4.41 1983 Recitatif
author: Toni Morrison
name: Erin
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1983
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Dancing with the Octopus: The Telling of a True Crime]]> 53025968 One Omaha winter day in 1978, when Debora Harding was just fourteen, she was abducted at knife-point, thrown into a van, assaulted, held for ransom, and left to die.

But what if this wasn't the most traumatic, defining event in her childhood?

Undertaking a radical project, Debora Harding dexterously shifts between the past and present to unravel her story. From the immediate aftermath to the possibility of restorative justice twenty years later, Dancing with the Octopus lays bare the social and political forces that act upon us after the experience of serious crime. A vivid, sly and intimate portrait of one family's disintegration, this is a darkly humorous and ground-breaking narrative of reckoning and recovery.

Extraordinary' Kate Mosse

'Electric' Lemn Sissay

'Searing' Julia Samuel]]> 384 Debora Harding 1788165160 Erin 0 to-read 4.33 2020 Dancing with the Octopus: The Telling of a True Crime
author: Debora Harding
name: Erin
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying]]> 207567772 “Do you know what happens if you laugh while crying? Hair grows out of your butthole.� It was a constant truism Youngmi Mayer’s mother would say threateningly after she would make her daughter laugh while crying. Her mother used it to cheer her up in moments when she could tell Youngmi was overtaken with grief. The humorous saying would never fail to lighten the mood, causing both daughter and mother to laugh and cry at the same time. Her mother had learned this trick from her mother, and her mother had learned this from her mother before it had also helped an endless string of her family laugh through suffering.

In I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying, Youngmi jokes through the retelling of her childhood as an offbeat biracial kid in Saipan, a place next to a place that Americans might know. She jokes through her difficult adolescence where she must parent her own mother, who married her husband because he looked like white Jesus (and the singer of The Bee Gees). And with humor and irreverence and full-throated openness, she jokes even while sharing the story of what her family went through during the last century of colonialism and war in Korea, while reflecting how years later, their wounds affect her in New York City as a single mom, all the while interrogating whiteness, gender, and sexuality.

Youngmi jokes through these stories in hopes of passing onto the reader what her family passed down to The gift of laughing while crying. The gift of a hairy butthole. Because throughout it all, the one thing she learned was one cannot exist without the other. And like a yin and yang, this duality is reflected in this whip-smart, heart-wrenching, and disarmingly funny memoir told by a bright new voice with so much heart and wisdom.

]]> 256 Youngmi Mayer 0316569232 Erin 0 to-read 4.25 2024 I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying
author: Youngmi Mayer
name: Erin
average rating: 4.25
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]]> Elena Knows 56802275 A unique tale that interweaves crime fiction with intimate tales of morality and search for individual freedom.

After Rita is found dead in the bell tower of the church she used to attend, the official investigation into the incident is quickly closed. Her sickly mother is the only person still determined to find the culprit. Chronicling a difficult journey across the suburbs of the city, an old debt and a revealing conversation, Elena Knows unravels the secrets of its characters and the hidden facets of authoritarianism and hypocrisy in our society.]]> 143 Claudia Piñeiro Erin 0 to-read 4.09 2007 Elena Knows
author: Claudia Piñeiro
name: Erin
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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]]> Negative Space 150778873 176 Gillian Linden 1324065540 Erin 0 to-read 3.22 2024 Negative Space
author: Gillian Linden
name: Erin
average rating: 3.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> Elsewhere 359410 Welcome to Elsewhere. It is warm, with a breeze, and the beaches are marvelous. It's quiet and peaceful. You can't get sick or any older. Curious to see new paintings by Picasso? Swing by one of Elsewhere's museums. Need to talk to someone about your problems? Stop by Marilyn Monroe's psychiatric practice.

Elsewhere is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she has died. It is a place so like Earth, yet completely different. Here Liz will age backward from the day of her death until she becomes a baby again and returns to Earth. But Liz wants to turn sixteen, not fourteen again. She wants to get her driver's license. She wants to graduate from high school and go to college. And now that she's dead, Liz is being forced to live a life she doesn't want with a grandmother she has only just met. And it is not going well. How can Liz let go of the only life she has ever known and embrace a new one? Is it possible that a life lived in reverse is no different from a life lived forward?

This moving, often funny book about grief, death, and loss will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned.]]> 277 Gabrielle Zevin Erin 0 3.91 2005 Elsewhere
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Erin
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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]]> Joan Is Okay 57677144
Joan is a thirtysomething ICU doctor at a busy New York City hospital. The daughter of Chinese parents who came to the United States to secure the American dream for their children, Joan is intensely devoted to her work, happily solitary, successful. She does look up sometimes and wonder where her true roots lie: at the hospital, where her white coat makes her feel needed, or with her family, who try to shape her life by their own cultural and social expectations.

Once Joan and her brother, Fang, were established in their careers, her parents moved back to China, hoping to spend the rest of their lives in their homeland. But when Joan’s father suddenly dies and her mother returns to America to reconnect with her children, a series of events sends Joan spiraling out of her comfort zone just as her hospital, her city, and the world are forced to reckon with a health crisis more devastating than anyone could have imagined.

Deceptively spare yet quietly powerful, laced with sharp humor, Joan Is Okay touches on matters that feel deeply resonant: being Chinese-American right now; working in medicine at a high-stakes time; finding one’s voice within a dominant culture; being a woman in a male-dominated workplace; and staying independent within a tight-knit family. But above all, it’s a portrait of one remarkable woman so surprising that you can’t get her out of your head.]]> 240 Weike Wang 0525654844 Erin 0 to-read 3.86 2022 Joan Is Okay
author: Weike Wang
name: Erin
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> The Long Answer 59089911 A woman considers pregnancy, motherhood, and the nature of female relationships in this profound and provocative novel.

Twelve weeks pregnant for the first time, Anna speaks to her sister on the other side of the country and learns she has just miscarried her second child. As this loss strains their bond and complications with Anna's own pregnancy emerge, her tenuous steps towards motherhood are shadowed and illuminated by the women she meets along the way, whose stories of the children they have had, or longed for, or lost, crowd in.

The Long Answer is a stunning novel of secrets kept, and secrets shared. Deeply empathetic and hugely absorbing, it unravels the intimate dynamics of female friendship, sisterhood, motherhood and grief, and the ways that women are bound together and pulled apart by their shared and contrasting experiences of pregnancy, abortion, miscarriage, and infertility.]]> 304 Anna Hogeland 0593418131 Erin 0 to-read, judged-by-its-cover 3.83 2022 The Long Answer
author: Anna Hogeland
name: Erin
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> What Are You Going Through 51152434
A woman describes a series of encounters she has with various people in the ordinary course of her life: an ex she runs into by chance at a public forum, an Airbnb owner unsure how to interact with her guests, a stranger who seeks help comforting his elderly mother, a friend of her youth now hospitalized with terminal cancer. In each of these people the woman finds a common need: the urge to talk about themselves and to have an audience to their experiences. The narrator orchestrates this chorus of voices for the most part as a passive listener, until one of them makes an extraordinary request, drawing her into an intense and transformative experience of her own.

In What Are You Going Through, Nunez brings wisdom, humor, and insight to a novel about human connection and the changing nature of relationships in our times. A surprising story about empathy and the unusual ways one person can help another through hardship, her book offers a moving and provocative portrait of the way we live now.]]> 210 Sigrid Nunez 0593191412 Erin 0 to-read 3.73 2020 What Are You Going Through
author: Sigrid Nunez
name: Erin
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> Severance 38472277 Maybe it’s the end of the world, but not for Candace Chen, a millennial, first-generation American and office drone meandering her way into adulthood in Ling Ma’s offbeat, wryly funny, apocalyptic satire, Severance.

Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she’s had her fill of uncertainty. She’s content just to carry on: She goes to work, troubleshoots the teen-targeted Gemstone Bible, watches movies in a Greenpoint basement with her boyfriend.

So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies cease operations. The subways screech to a halt. Her bosses enlist her as part of a dwindling skeleton crew with a big end-date payoff. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost.

Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers?

A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma’s Severance is a moving family story, a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale, and a hilarious, deadpan satire. Most important, it’s a heartfelt tribute to the connections that drive us to do more than survive.]]> 267 Ling Ma 0374717117 Erin 0 to-read 3.93 2018 Severance
author: Ling Ma
name: Erin
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories]]> 22929586 A Manual for Cleaning Women compiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With the grit of Raymond Carver, the humor of Grace Paley, and a blend of wit and melancholy all her own, Berlin crafts miracles from the everyday, uncovering moments of grace in the laundromats and halfway houses of the American Southwest, in the homes of the Bay Area upper class, among switchboard operators and struggling mothers, hitchhikers and bad Christians. Readers will revel in this remarkable collection from a master of the form and wonder how they'd ever overlooked her in the first place.]]> 406 Lucia Berlin 0374202397 Erin 0 to-read 4.22 2015 A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories
author: Lucia Berlin
name: Erin
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2015
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]]> I'm Thinking of Ending Things 30891847 steadily crescendos into a harrowing endingone that will have
you at the edge of your seats and one that you will never see coming.
Thinking of Ending Things is an edgy, haunting debut.
Tense, gripping, and atmospheric, this novel will pull you in from
the very first page]]and will never let you go.]]> 275 Iain Reid 1410494144 Erin 0 to-read 3.44 2016 I'm Thinking of Ending Things
author: Iain Reid
name: Erin
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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]]> The Color Purple 52892857 Read the original inspiration for the new, boldly reimagined film from producers Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, starring Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, and Fantasia Barrino.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award

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

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

�The Color Purple was what church should have been, what honest familial reckoning could have been, and it is still the only art object in the world by which all three generations of Black artists in my family judge American art.� —Kiese Laymon]]> 287 Alice Walker 0143135694 Erin 0 to-read 4.40 1982 The Color Purple
author: Alice Walker
name: Erin
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1982
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]]> The Starless Sea 43671440
Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues--a bee, a key, and a sword--that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to an ancient library, hidden far below the surface of the earth.

What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians--it is a place of lost cities and seas, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also those who are intent on its destruction.

Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly-soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose--in both the mysterious book and in his own life.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Night Circus, a timeless love story set in a secret underground world--a place of pirates, painters, lovers, liars, and ships that sail upon a starless sea.]]> 752 Erin Morgenstern 0593106482 Erin 0 to-read 3.85 2019 The Starless Sea
author: Erin Morgenstern
name: Erin
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2019
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]]> Bridge of Clay 39212696
At the center of the Dunbar family is Clay, a boy who will build a bridge—for his family, for his past, for greatness, for his sins, for a miracle.

The question is, how far is Clay willing to go? And how much can he overcome?]]> 537 Markus Zusak 1984830155 Erin 0 to-read 3.72 2018 Bridge of Clay
author: Markus Zusak
name: Erin
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> Swear on This Life 23492533
Yet from the very first page, Emiline is entranced by the story of Emerson and Jackson, two childhood best friends who fall in love and dream of a better life beyond the long dirt road that winds through their impoverished town in rural Ohio.

That’s because the novel is patterned on Emiline’s own dark and desperate childhood, which means that “J. Colby� must be Jase: the best friend and first love she hasn’t seen in over a decade. Far from being flattered that he wrote the novel from her perspective, Emiline is furious that he co-opted her painful past and took some dramatic creative liberties with the ending.

The only way she can put her mind at ease is to find and confront “J. Colby,� but is she prepared to learn the truth behind the fiction?]]> 303 Renee Carlino 1501105795 Erin 0 to-read 4.09 2016 Swear on This Life
author: Renee Carlino
name: Erin
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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]]> S. 17860739 One book. Two readers. A world of mystery, menace, and desire.

A young woman picks up a book left behind by a stranger. Inside it are his margin notes, which reveal a reader entranced by the story and by its mysterious author. She responds with notes of her own, leaving the book for the stranger, and so begins an unlikely conversation that plunges them both into the unknown.

THE BOOK: Ship of Theseus, the final novel by a prolific but enigmatic writer named V. M. Straka, in which a man with no past is shanghaied onto a strange ship with a monstrous crew and launched onto a disorienting and perilous journey.

THE WRITER: Straka, the incendiary and secretive subject of one of the world’s greatest mysteries, a revolutionary about whom the world knows nothing apart from the words he wrote and the rumours that swirl around him.

THE READERS: Jennifer and Eric, a college senior and a disgraced grad student, both facing crucial decisions about who they are, who they might become, and how much they’re willing to trust another person with their passions, hurts, and fears.

S. , conceived by filmmaker J. J. Abrams and written by award-winning novelist Doug Dorst, is the chronicle of two readers finding each other in the margins of a book and enmeshing themselves in a deadly struggle between forces they don’t understand. It is also Abrams and Dorst’s love letter to the written word.
]]> 469 J.J. Abrams 0316201642 Erin 0 to-read 3.86 2013 S.
author: J.J. Abrams
name: Erin
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2013
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]]> When We Were Friends 60023128
But now, more than ten years later, Jessica has unexpectedly reappeared in Fern’s life.

A lot has changed for them both—but can their relationship be different now that they are older? Is it possible for either of them to rewrite the roles they've been cast in? Or will their shared history ultimately be doomed to repeat itself again?]]> 416 Holly Bourne 0778311295 Erin 0 to-read 3.89 2022 When We Were Friends
author: Holly Bourne
name: Erin
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, & Advice for Living Your Best Life]]> 44600621 Ali Wong's heartfelt and hilarious letters to her daughters (the two she put to work while they were still in utero), covering everything they need to know in life, like the unpleasant details of dating, how to be a working mom in a male-dominated profession, and how she trapped their dad.

In her hit Netflix comedy special Baby Cobra, an eight-month pregnant Ali Wong resonated so heavily that she became a popular Halloween costume. Wong told the world her remarkably unfiltered thoughts on marriage, sex, Asian culture, working women, and why you never see new mom comics on stage but you sure see plenty of new dads.

The sharp insights and humor are even more personal in this completely original collection. She shares the wisdom she's learned from a life in comedy and reveals stories from her life off stage, including the brutal singles life in New York (i.e. the inevitable confrontation with erectile dysfunction), reconnecting with her roots (and drinking snake blood) in Vietnam, tales of being a wild child growing up in San Francisco, and parenting war stories. Though addressed to her daughters, Ali Wong's letters are absurdly funny, surprisingly moving, and enlightening (and disgusting) for all.]]> 240 Ali Wong 052550883X Erin 0 to-read 3.83 2019 Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, & Advice for Living Your Best Life
author: Ali Wong
name: Erin
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Magnolia Parks (Magnolia Parks Universe, #1)]]> 58527403 423 Jessa Hastings 1737281198 Erin 0 to-read 3.68 2021 Magnolia Parks (Magnolia Parks Universe, #1)
author: Jessa Hastings
name: Erin
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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]]> Vicious (Villains, #1) 40874032 A masterful tale of ambition, jealousy, desire, and superpowers.

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.

Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?

In Vicious, V. E. Schwab brings to life a gritty comic-book-style world in vivid prose: a world where gaining superpowers doesn't automatically lead to heroism, and a time when allegiances are called into question.]]> 402 Victoria E. Schwab Erin 0 to-read 4.17 2013 Vicious (Villains, #1)
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Erin
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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]]> Carrie Soto Is Back 60435878 Carrie Soto is fierce, and her determination to win at any cost has not made her popular.

By the time Carrie retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Slam titles. And if you ask her, she is entitled to every one. She sacrificed nearly everything to become the best, with her father as her coach.

But six years after her retirement, Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 US Open, watching her record be taken from her by a brutal, stunning, British player named Nicki Chan.

At thirty-seven years old, Carrie makes the monumental decision to come out of retirement and be coached by her father for one last year in an attempt to reclaim her record. Even if the sports media says that they never liked the 'Battle-Axe' anyway. Even if her body doesn't move as fast as it did. And even if it means swallowing her pride to train with a man she once almost opened her heart to: Bowe Huntley. Like her, he has something to prove before he gives up the game forever.

In spite of it all: Carrie Soto is back, for one epic final season. In this riveting and unforgettable novel, Taylor Jenkins Reid tells a story about the cost of greatness and a legendary athlete attempting a comeback.]]> 384 Taylor Jenkins Reid 0593158687 Erin 0 to-read 4.19 2022 Carrie Soto Is Back
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Erin
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1)]]> 17934530 Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.

The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.

They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.]]> 195 Jeff VanderMeer 0374104093 Erin 0 to-read 3.79 2014 Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1)
author: Jeff VanderMeer
name: Erin
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> Reamde 10552338
For Richard, the game was the perfect opportunity to launder his aging hundred dollar bills and begin his own high-tech start up—a venture that has morphed into a Fortune 500 computer gaming group, Corporation 9592, with its own super successful online role-playing game, T’Rain. But the line between fantasy and reality becomes dangerously blurred when a young gold farmer accidently triggers a virtual war for dominance—and Richard is caught at the center.

In this edgy, 21st century tale, Neal Stephenson, one of the most ambitious and prophetic writers of our time, returns to the terrain of his cyberpunk masterpieces Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, leading readers through the looking glass and into the dark heart of imagination.]]> 1044 Neal Stephenson 0061977969 Erin 0 to-read 3.97 2011 Reamde
author: Neal Stephenson
name: Erin
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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]]> Redshirts 13055592 Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting, and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to the ship’s Xenobiology laboratory.

Life couldn’t be better…until Andrew begins to pick up on the fact that:
(1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces
(2) the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations
(3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed.

Not surprisingly, a great deal of energy below decks is expended on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned to an Away Mission. Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his colleagues� understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is…and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives.]]> 320 John Scalzi 0765316994 Erin 0 to-read 3.85 2012 Redshirts
author: John Scalzi
name: Erin
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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]]> Seveneves 22816087
A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space.

But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain . . .

Five thousand years later, their progeny—seven distinct races now three billion strong—embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown . . . to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.

A writer of dazzling genius and imaginative vision, Neal Stephenson combines science, philosophy, technology, psychology, and literature in a magnificent work of speculative fiction that offers a portrait of a future that is both extraordinary and eerily recognizable. As he did in Anathem, Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle, and Reamde, Stephenson explores some of our biggest ideas and perplexing challenges in a breathtaking saga that is daring, engrossing, and altogether brilliant.]]> 872 Neal Stephenson Erin 0 to-read 4.01 2015 Seveneves
author: Neal Stephenson
name: Erin
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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]]> 11/22/63 10644930
In 2011, Jake Epping, an English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, sets out on an insane � and insanely possible � mission to prevent the Kennedy assassination.

Leaving behind a world of computers and mobile phones, he goes back to a time of big American cars and diners, of Lindy Hopping, the sound of Elvis, and the taste of root beer.

In this haunting world, Jake falls in love with Sadie, a beautiful high school librarian. And, as the ominous date of 11/22/63 approaches, he encounters a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald...]]> 849 Stephen King 1451627289 Erin 0 to-read 4.33 2011 11/22/63
author: Stephen King
name: Erin
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
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]]> Cloud Atlas 49628
Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. . . .

Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter. . . . From there we jump to the West Coast in the 1970s and a troubled reporter named Luisa Rey, who stumbles upon a web of corporate greed and murder that threatens to claim her life. . . . And onward, with dazzling virtuosity, to an inglorious present-day England; to a Korean superstate of the near future where neocapitalism has run amok; and, finally, to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history.

But the story doesn't end even there. The narrative then boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, Mitchell reveals how his disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky.

As wild as a videogame, as mysterious as a Zen koan, Cloud Atlas is an unforgettable tour de force that, like its incomparable author, has transcended its cult classic status to become a worldwide phenomenon.]]> 509 David Mitchell 0375507256 Erin 0 to-read 4.02 2004 Cloud Atlas
author: David Mitchell
name: Erin
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2004
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]]> <![CDATA[Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1)]]> 36510196
The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.

John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger.]]> 318 John Scalzi Erin 0 to-read 4.25 2005 Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1)
author: John Scalzi
name: Erin
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2005
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]]> <![CDATA[The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance]]> 46722
A New York Times notable book

Unpurified drinking water. Improper use of antibiotics. Local warfare. Massive refugee migration. Changing social and environmental conditions around the world have fostered the spread of new and potentially devastating viruses and diseases—HIV, Lassa, Ebola, and others. Laurie Garrett takes you on a fifty-year journey through the world's battles with microbes and examines the worldwide conditions that have culminated in recurrent outbreaks of newly discovered diseases, epidemics of diseases migrating to new areas, and mutated old diseases that are no longer curable. She argues that it is not too late to take action to prevent the further onslaught of viruses and microbes, and offers possible solutions for a healthier future.]]> 750 Laurie Garrett 0140250913 Erin 0 to-read 4.20 1994 The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance
author: Laurie Garrett
name: Erin
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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]]> The Blind Assassin 78433 The Blind Assassin is a richly layered and uniquely rewarding experience.

It opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. But just as the reader expects to settle into Laura's story, Atwood introduces a novel-within-a-novel. Entitled The Blind Assassin, it is a science fiction story told by two unnamed lovers who meet in dingy backstreet rooms. When we return to Iris, it is through a 1947 newspaper article announcing the discovery of a sailboat carrying the dead body of her husband, a distinguished industrialist.

For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The Blind Assassin proves once again that Atwood is one of the most talented, daring, and exciting writers of our time. Like The Handmaid's Tale, it is destined to become a classic.]]> 637 Margaret Atwood Erin 0 to-read 3.96 2000 The Blind Assassin
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Erin
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2000
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]]> <![CDATA[Every Patient Tells a Story: Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis]]> 6691125 New York Times Magazine column "Diagnosis," the inspiration for the hit Fox TV series House, M.D.

The experience of being ill can be like waking up in a foreign country. Life, as you formerly knew it, is on hold while you travel through this other world as unknown as it is unexpected. When I see patients in the hospital or in my office who are suddenly, surprisingly ill, what they really want to know is, ‘What is wrong with me?� They want a road map that will help them manage their new surroundings. The ability to give this unnerving and unfamiliar place a name, to know it–on some level–restores a measure of control, independent of whether or not that diagnosis comes attached to a cure. Because, even today, a diagnosis is frequently all a good doctor has to offer.

A healthy young man suddenly loses his memory–making him unable to remember the events of each passing hour. Two patients diagnosed with Lyme disease improve after antibiotic treatment–only to have their symptoms mysteriously return. A young woman lies dying in the ICU–bleeding, jaundiced, incoherent–and none of her doctors know what is killing her. In Every Patient Tells a Story, Dr. Lisa Sanders takes us bedside to witness the process of solving these and other diagnostic dilemmas, providing a firsthand account of the expertise and intuition that lead a doctor to make the right diagnosis.

Never in human history have doctors had the knowledge, the tools, and the skills that they have today to diagnose illness and disease. And yet mistakes are made, diagnoses missed, symptoms or tests misunderstood. In this high-tech world of modern medicine, Sanders shows us that knowledge, while essential, is not sufficient to unravel the complexities of illness. She presents an unflinching look inside the detective story that marks nearly every illness–the diagnosis–revealing the combination of uncertainty and intrigue that doctors face when confronting patients who are sick or dying. Through dramatic stories of patients with baffling symptoms, Sanders portrays the absolute necessity and surprising difficulties of getting the patient’s story, the challenges of the physical exam, the pitfalls of doctor-to-doctor communication, the vagaries of tests, and the near calamity of diagnostic errors. In Every Patient Tells a Story, Dr. Sanders chronicles the real-life drama of doctors solving these difficult medical mysteries that not only illustrate the art and science of diagnosis, but often save the patients� lives.]]> 304 Lisa Sanders Erin 0 to-read 3.96 2009 Every Patient Tells a Story: Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis
author: Lisa Sanders
name: Erin
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2009
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]]> <![CDATA[When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales of Neurosurgery]]> 193749 --Dr. Bernie Siegel, author of Love, Medicine and Miracles

Rule One for the neurologist in "You ain't never the same when the air hits your brain." In this fascinating book, Dr. Frank Vertosick brings that fact to life through intimate portraits of patients and unsparing yet gripping descriptions of brain surgery.

With insight, humor, and poignancy, Dr. Vertosick chronicles his remarkable evolution from naive young intern to world-class neurosurgeon, where he faced, among other challenges, a six week-old infant with a tumor in her brain, a young man struck down in his prime by paraplegia, and a minister with a .22 caliber bullet lodged in his skull. In candid detail, WHEN THE AIR HITS YOUR BRAIN illuminates both the mysteries of the mind and the realities of the operating room.

"Riveting."
--Publishers Weekly]]> 288 Frank T. Vertosick Jr. 0449227138 Erin 0 to-read 4.31 1996 When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales of Neurosurgery
author: Frank T. Vertosick Jr.
name: Erin
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1996
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]]> <![CDATA[Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner]]> 18775327
Just two months before the September 11 terrorist attacks, Dr. Judy Melinek began her training as a New York City forensic pathologist. With her husband T.J. and their toddler Daniel holding down the home front, Judy threw herself into the fascinating world of death investigation, performing autopsies, investigating death scenes, counseling grieving relatives. Working Stiff chronicles Judy's two years of training, taking readers behind the police tape of some of the most harrowing deaths in the Big Apple, including a firsthand account of the events of September 11, the subsequent anthrax bio-terrorism attack, and the disastrous crash of American Airlines flight 587.

Lively, action-packed, and loaded with mordant wit, Working Stiff offers a firsthand account of daily life in one of America's most arduous professions, and the unexpected challenges of shuttling between the domains of the living and the dead. The body never lies, and through the murders, accidents, and suicides that land on her table, Dr. Melinek lays bare the truth behind the glamorized depictions of autopsy work on shows like CSI and Law and Order to reveal the secret story of the real morgue.]]> 258 Judy Melinek 1476727252 Erin 0 to-read 4.23 2014 Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner
author: Judy Melinek
name: Erin
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2014
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]]> <![CDATA[Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain]]> 1297985 400 Oliver Sacks Erin 0 to-read 3.95 2007 Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
author: Oliver Sacks
name: Erin
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2007
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]]> <![CDATA[The Andromeda Strain (Andromeda, #1)]]> 7670
Two years later, seventeen satellites are sent into the outer fringes of space to collect organisms and dust for study. One of them falls to earth, landing in a desolate area of Arizona.

Twelve miles from the landing site, in the town of Piedmont, a shocking discovery is made: the streets are littered with the dead bodies of the town's inhabitants, as if they dropped dead in their tracks.
--back cover]]> 327 Michael Crichton 0060541814 Erin 0 to-read 3.92 1969 The Andromeda Strain (Andromeda, #1)
author: Michael Crichton
name: Erin
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1969
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary]]> 25019 The Professor and the Madman, masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary -- and literary history. The compilation of the OED, begun in 1857, was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.]]> 242 Simon Winchester 0060839783 Erin 0 to-read 3.84 1998 The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
author: Simon Winchester
name: Erin
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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