Courtney's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 27 Mar 2025 10:27:53 -0700 60 Courtney's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Now You're One of Us: The Incredible Story of Redd Kross]]> 208678401
Emerging from humble beginnings in suburban Los Angeles, the McDonalds took their rock ‘n� roll fantasy and ran with it � and wound up becoming one of the most influential American bands of their time. The band’s flamboyant, genre-defying, joyously tuneful blend of musical, sartorial and pop cultural elements profoundly influenced the punk rock, glam metal and grunge movements and won them a worldwide cult of fervent admirers that includes bands like Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, Sonic Youth, L7 and The Bangles.

Redd Kross continue rocking to this day, much to the intense delight of fans old and new. And now the McDonalds team up with award-winning music journalist Dan Epstein to tell their wild, hilarious and gloriously star-spangled tale.]]> 304 Jeffrey McDonald 1915841054 Courtney 4 music-reads 4.67 Now You're One of Us: The Incredible Story of Redd Kross
author: Jeffrey McDonald
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.67
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: music-reads
review:

]]> Z for Zachariah 69477 This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 0435122118

Is anyone out there?

Ann Burden is sixteen years old and completely alone. The world as she once knew it is gone, ravaged by a nuclear war that has taken everyone from her. For the past year, she has lived in a remote valley with no evidence of any other survivors.

But the smoke from a distant campfire shatters Ann's solitude. Someone else is still alive and making his way toward the valley. Who is this man? What does he want? Can he be trusted? Both excited and terrified, Ann soon realizes there may be worse things than being the last person on Earth.]]> 249 Robert C. O'Brien Courtney 0 3.69 1974 Z for Zachariah
author: Robert C. O'Brien
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/04
date added: 2024/11/06
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Never Understood: The Jesus and Mary Chain]]> 209276145 William and Jim Reid, brothers and founding members of The Jesus and Mary Chain—a band that bridged the gap between the punk explosion and the emergence of grunge and Britpop—chronicle the chaos, confusion, and stories behind their music.

For five years after they’d swapped sought-after apprenticeships for life on the dole, brothers William and Jim Reid sat up till the early hours in the front room of their parents� East Kilbride council house, plotting their path to world domination over endless cups of tea, with the music turned down low so as not to wake their sleeping sister. They knew they couldn’t play in the same band because they’d argue too much, so they’d describe their dream ensembles to each other until finally they realized that these two perfect bands were actually the same band, and the name of that band was The Jesus and Mary Chain.

The rest was not silence, and picking up those conversations again more than 40 years later, William and Jim tell the full story of one of Britain’s greatest guitar bands for the very first time—a wildly funny and improbably moving chronicle of brotherly strife, feedback, riots, drug and alcohol addiction, eternal outsiders, and extreme shyness, that also somehow manages to be a love letter to the Scottish working class family.]]> 304 William Reid 0306835517 Courtney 0 music-reads 4.28 Never Understood: The Jesus and Mary Chain
author: William Reid
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.28
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/04
date added: 2024/11/06
shelves: music-reads
review:

]]> Please Report Your Bug Here 58478515 “An unexpected, inventive, heartfelt riff on the workplace novel—startup realism with a multiverse twist.� —Anna Wiener, author of Uncanny Valley

Introducing Josh Riedel's adrenaline-packed debut novel about a dating app employee who discovers a glitch that transports him to other worlds

Once you sign an NDA it's good for life. Meaning legally, I shouldn't tell you this story. But I have to.

A college grad with the six-figure debt to prove it, Ethan Block views San Francisco as the place to be. Yet his job at hot new dating app DateDate is a far cry from what he envisioned. Instead of making the world a better place, he reviews flagged photo queues, overworked and stressed out. But that's about to change.

Reeling from a breakup, Ethan decides to view his algorithmically matched soulmate on DateDate. He overrides the system and clicks on the profile. Then, he disappears. One minute, he’s in a windowless office, and the next, he’s in a field of endless grass, gasping for air. When Ethan snaps back to DateDate HQ, he’s convinced a coding issue caused the blip. Except for anyone to believe him, he’ll need evidence. As Ethan embarks on a wild goose chase, moving from dingy startup think tanks to Silicon Valley’s dominant tech conglomerate, it becomes clear that there’s more to DateDate than meets the eye. With the stakes rising, and a new world at risk, Ethan must choose who—and what—he believes in.

Adventurous and hypertimely, Please Report Your Bug Here is an inventive millennial coming-of-age story, a dark exploration of the corruption now synonymous with Big Tech, and, above all, a testament to the power of human connection in our digital era.]]> 288 Josh Riedel 1250813808 Courtney 4 3.39 2023 Please Report Your Bug Here
author: Josh Riedel
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/27
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves:
review:

]]> The Only Living Girl on Earth 62841210 How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe and Interior Chinatown and one of the creative minds behind HBO’s Westworld comes a sweet and searing, unexpected and delightfully absurd vision of life on Earth a thousand years in the future.

Jane is the only person left on the planet, minding the only business left: a gift shop. She wasn’t born on Earth, but her ancestors were; they lived there before the AI in charge of geoengineering failed and the oceans got too hot to sustain the terrestrial food web and before humans took off to colonize other planets.

She’s heading to college on Jupiter in the fall of 3020, so her days on the home planet—selling “American Epoch� postcards, “History: The Poster!� and “War: The Soundtrack� to tourists from the suburbs of Europa—are numbered. But as the looping promotional ad for Earth details, in the planet’s more recent past there was an amusement park, a museum, and even a model American town to draw visitors: all shuttered now, abandoned. When a man and his son crash-land their rocket and need assistance, as well as some diversion, Jane learns that the other attractions on Earth are not so defunct after all and may have taken on a life of their own.

Told, fittingly, in interconnected fragments, The Only Living Girl on Earth captures a place where only fragments of its landscape remain. At once dead serious and playful, recognizable and as otherworldly and unsettling as Yu’s other sci-fi reinventions, it is a cautionary tale about all that we could lose—are losing—by failing to live sustainably and about what we hope to leave behind for future generations. It is also a love letter to what it means to be human, how connected we are to a place and one another, and how we must fight to preserve these gifts. In this, Yu expresses his unique brand of cosmic humanism, that even in the face of dire circumstances, when we feel the most estranged from who and what we are, there is still hope.]]> 120 Charles Yu Courtney 4 3.33 2021 The Only Living Girl on Earth
author: Charles Yu
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2021/02/17
date added: 2024/09/26
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[New Kids on the Block: Workin' Out]]> 3220994 160 Seth McEvoy 0671733222 Courtney 0 3.85 1992 New Kids on the Block: Workin' Out
author: Seth McEvoy
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/14
date added: 2024/07/14
shelves:
review:

]]> Tenement Kid 57368842
Tenement Kid is Bobby Gillespie's story up to the recording and release of the album that has been credited with 'starting the 90's', Screamadelica.

Born into a working class Glaswegian family in the summer of 1961, Bobby's memoirs begin in the district of Springburn, soon to be evacuated in Edward Heath's brutal slum clearances.

Leaving school at 16 and going to work as a printers' apprentice, Bobby's rock n roll epiphany arrives like a bolt of lightning shining from Phil Lynott's mirrored pickguard at his first gig at the Apollo in Glasgow. Filled with 'the holy spirit of rock n roll' his destiny is sealed with the arrival of the Sex Pistols and punk rock which to Bobby, represents an iconoclastic vision of class rebellion and would ultimately lead to him becoming an artist initially in the Jesus and Mary Chain then in Primal Scream.

Structured in four parts, Tenement Kid builds like a breakbeat crescendo to the final quarter of the book, the Summer of Love, Boys Own parties, and the fateful meeting with Andrew Weatherall in an East Sussex field. As the '80s bleed into the '90s and a new kind of electronic soul music starts to pulse through the nation's consciousness, Primal Scream become the most innovative British band of the new decade, representing a new psychedelic vanguard taking shape at Creation Records.

Ending with the release of Screamadelica and the tour that followed in the autumn, Tenement Kid is a book filled with the joy and wonder of a rock n roll apostle who would radically reshape the future sounds of fin de siecle British pop. Published thirty years after the release of their masterpiece, Bobby Gillespie's memoir cuts a righteous path through a decade lost to Thatcherism and saved by acid house.]]> 412 Bobby Gillespie 1474622062 Courtney 0 3.93 2021 Tenement Kid
author: Bobby Gillespie
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/14
date added: 2024/07/14
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist]]> 51796259
What happens when a childhood hobby turns into a lifelong career? The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist, Adrian Tomine's funniest and most revealing foray into autobiography, offers an array of unexpected answers. When a sudden medical incident lands Tomine in the emergency room, he begins to question if it was really all worthwhile: despite the accolades, awards, and opportunities of a seemingly charmed career, it's the gaffes, humiliations, slights, and insults he's experienced (or caused) within the industry that loom largest in his memory.

But as those memories are delineated in excruciatingly hilarious detail, a different, parallel narrative plays out in the background. In between chaotic book tours, disastrous interviews, and difficult interactions with other artists, life happens: Tomine fumbles his way into marriage, parenthood, and an indisputably fulfilling existence. While mining his conflicted relationship with comics and comics culture, Tomine illustrates the amusing absurdities of life and how we choose to spend our time. Through these cringe-inducing moments, a deeper emotional story emerges, and we see Tomine’s life develop into something much more robust than the blunders.

In a bold departure in style from his award-winning Killing and Dying, Tomine distills his art to the loose, lively essentials of cartooning. His stripped-down lines communicate effortlessly, with each pen stroke economically imbued with human depth. Designed as a sketchbook complete with place-holder ribbon and an elastic band, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist shows an acclaimed artist at the peak of his career.]]> 165 Adrian Tomine 177046395X Courtney 0 4.00 2020 The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist
author: Adrian Tomine
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/26
date added: 2024/06/26
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring]]> 141222604 512 Brad Gooch 0062698265 Courtney 0 to-read 4.30 Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring
author: Brad Gooch
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.30
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)]]> 20518872 472 Liu Cixin Courtney 0 4.07 2006 The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)
author: Liu Cixin
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/14
date added: 2024/05/26
shelves:
review:

]]> Stories to Tell: A Memoir 55711716 320 Richard Marx 1982169427 Courtney 0 4.04 2021 Stories to Tell: A Memoir
author: Richard Marx
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/22
date added: 2024/05/26
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk]]> 78130090 An electric, searing memoir by the original rebel girl and legendary front woman of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre.

Hey girlfriend I got a proposition goes something like this: Dare ya to do what you want

Kathleen Hanna’s band Bikini Kill embodied the punk scene of the 90s, and today her personal yet feminist lyrics on anthems like “Rebel Girl� and “Double Dare Ya� are more powerful than ever. But where did this transformative voice come from?

In Rebel Girl, Hanna’s raw and insightful new memoir, she takes us from her tumul­tuous childhood to her formative college years and her first shows. As Hanna makes clear, being in a punk “girl band� in those years was not a simple or safe prospect. Male violence and antagonism threatened at every turn, and surviving as a singer who was a lightning rod for controversy took limitless amounts of determination.

But the relationships she developed during those years buoyed her, including with her bandmates Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox, JD Samson, and Johanna Fateman. And her friendships with musicians like Kurt Cobain, Ian MacKaye, Kim Gordon, and Joan Jett reminded her that, despite the odds, the punk world could still nurture and care for its own. Hanna opens up about falling in love with Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys and her debilitating battle with Lyme disease, and she brings us behind the scenes of her musical growth in her bands Le Tigre and The Julie Ruin. She also writes candidly about the Riot Grrrl movement, documenting with love its grassroots origins but critiquing its exclusivity.

In an uncut voice all her own, Hanna reveals the hardest times along with the most joyful—and how they continue to fuel her revolutionary art and music.]]> 326 Kathleen Hanna 0062825232 Courtney 0 4.40 2024 Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk
author: Kathleen Hanna
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/17
date added: 2024/05/26
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion]]> 28815
You'll learn the six universal principles, how to use them to become a skilled persuader—and how to defend yourself against them. Perfect for people in all walks of life, the principles of Influence will move you toward profound personal change and act as a driving force for your success.]]> 320 Robert B. Cialdini 006124189X Courtney 0 4.21 1984 Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
author: Robert B. Cialdini
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/11
date added: 2024/05/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk]]> 58903070 An Indigenous artist blends the aesthetics of punk rock with the traditional spiritual practices of the women in her lineage in this bold, contemporary journey to reclaim her heritage and unleash her power and voice while searching for a permanent home.

Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe has always longed for a sense of home. When she was a child, her family moved around frequently, often staying in barely habitable church attics and trailers, dangerous places for young Sasha.

With little more to guide her than a passion for the thriving punk scene of the Pacific Northwest and a desire to live up to the responsibility of being the namesake of her beloved great-grandmother—a linguist who helped preserve her Indigenous language of Lushootseed—Sasha throws herself headlong into the world, determined to build a better future for herself and her people.

Set against a backdrop of the breathtaking beauty of Coast Salish ancestral land and imbued with the universal spirit of punk, Red Paint is ultimately a story of the ways we learn to find our true selves while fighting for our right to claim a place of our own.

Examining what it means to be vulnerable in love and in art, Sasha offers up an unblinking reckoning with personal traumas amplified by the collective historical traumas of colonialism and genocide that continue to haunt native peoples. Red Paint is an intersectional autobiography of lineage, resilience, and, above all, the ability to heal.]]> 225 Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe 1640094148 Courtney 0 4.12 2022 Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk
author: Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2024/03/01
date added: 2024/03/12
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs]]> 150779006 384 David Bellos 1324073713 Courtney 0 3.69 2024 Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs
author: David Bellos
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/02/19
date added: 2024/03/12
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Needle and the Lens: Pop Goes to the Movies from Rock 'n' Roll to Synthwave]]> 184458863 264 Nate Patrin 1517913241 Courtney 0 4.04 2023 The Needle and the Lens: Pop Goes to the Movies from Rock 'n' Roll to Synthwave
author: Nate Patrin
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/28
date added: 2024/02/04
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dirty Thirty (Stephanie Plum, #30)]]> 101144259
With her boyfriend Morelli away in Miami on police business, Stephanie is taking care of Bob, Morelli’s giant orange dog who will devour anything, from Stephanie’s stray donuts to the upholstery in her car. Morelli’s absence also means the inscrutable, irresistible security expert Ranger is front and center in Stephanie’s life when things inevitably go sideways. And he seems determined to stay there.

To complicate matters, her best friend Lula is convinced she is being stalked by a mythological demon hell-bent on relieving her of her wardrobe. An overnight stakeout with Stephanie’s mother and Grandma Mazur reveals three generations of women with nerves of steel and driving skills worthy of NASCAR champions.

As the body count rises and witnesses start to disappear, it won’t be easy for Stephanie to keep herself clean when everyone else is playing dirty. It’s a good thing Stephanie isn’t afraid of getting a little dirty, too.]]> 336 Janet Evanovich 1668003090 Courtney 5 4.01 2023 Dirty Thirty (Stephanie Plum, #30)
author: Janet Evanovich
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/07
date added: 2024/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lisa Cheese and Ghost Guitar (Book 1): Attack of the Snack]]> 124034188
Lisa Cheese moved to Earth City hoping to make a name for herself as a folk singer� but her very first open mic was a disaster, leaving her with a bionic arm and an identity crisis. Now she’s starting a crummy office job, her parents back in their home dimension are laying on the guilt trip, her sister’s acting smug, and the cool girl at the record store leaves her tongue-tied. But none of that will matter if the city’s demonic new burger corporation achieves its evil Lisa’s very life is at stake! Fortunately, she has allies�

The astounding first graphic novel from artist/musician Kevin Alvir is packed with off-the-charts creativity and electric energy, blending vintage comic-book aesthetics with contemporary concerns and crusty lo-fi passion. Once you meet Lisa Cheese you’ll never be the same!]]> 164 Kevin Alvir 1603095284 Courtney 0 3.11 Lisa Cheese and Ghost Guitar (Book 1): Attack of the Snack
author: Kevin Alvir
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.11
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2023/10/26
date added: 2023/10/27
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Pinball: A Graphic History of the Silver Ball]]> 56978107
In 1976, champion player Roger Sharpe stepped up to a pinball machine in a Manhattan courtroom. The New York City Council had convened to consider lifting the city’s ban on pinball―a game that had been outlawed since 1942 for its supposed connections to gambling and organized crime. Sharpe was there to prove that, unlike a slot machine, pinball wasn’t a game of chance designed to fleece its players―it was a game of skill that required a measure of patience, coordination, and control. To prove his point, he proclaimed that he would launch his ball into the center lane at the far end of the playfield―much like Babe Ruth famously pointing to the fences. Sharpe pulled back the plunger and released, and the fate of this industry and art form hung in the balance.

Thus opens Jon Chad’s comprehensive graphic novel to the history of the captivating, capricious―and at times infuriating!―game of pinball. Tracing pinball’s roots back to the Court of King Louis XIV, through the immigrant experience of early 20th century America, the post-War boom and bust, right up to the present day, Chad charmingly ushers readers through the myriad facets of this most American of pursuits―capturing not just the history but also the artistry, cultural significance, and even the physics of the game.]]> 208 Jon Chad 125024921X Courtney 0 4.17 2022 Pinball: A Graphic History of the Silver Ball
author: Jon Chad
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/10/26
date added: 2023/10/27
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Halloween: 101 Frightfully Fun Ideas]]> 1999929 60 craft and decorating ideas for families.

30 delicious, fun-to-prepare recipes.

Step-by-step photos and instructions.

A variety of easy techniques, including decoupage, pumpkin carving, pumpkin painting, paper folding, and costume-making (few sewing skills required ).

]]> 144 Carol Field Dahlstrom 0696209756 Courtney 0 2.68 2000 Halloween: 101 Frightfully Fun Ideas
author: Carol Field Dahlstrom
name: Courtney
average rating: 2.68
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at: 2023/10/04
date added: 2023/10/21
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape]]> 124456529
This entertaining book charts the journey of the cassette from its invention in the early 1960s to its Walkman-led domination in the 1980s to decline at the birth of compact discs to resurgence among independent music makers. Scorned by the record industry for "killing music," the cassette tape rippled through scenes corporations couldn't control. For so many, tapes meant freedom—to create, to invent, to connect.

Marc Masters introduces readers to the tape artists who thrive underground; concert tapers who trade bootlegs; mixtape makers who send messages with cassettes; tape hunters who rescue forgotten sounds; and today's labels, which reject streaming and sell music on cassette. Their stories celebrate the cassette tape as dangerous, vital, and radical.]]> 224 Marc Masters 1469675986 Courtney 0 3.94 2023 High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape
author: Marc Masters
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2023/10/20
date added: 2023/10/21
shelves:
review:

]]> Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance 58772760 A hilariously filthy tale of sex, crime, and family dysfunction from the brilliantly twisted mind of John Waters, the legendary filmmaker and bestselling author of Mr. Know-It-All.

Marsha Sprinkle: Suitcase thief. Scammer. Master of disguise. Dogs and children hate her. Her own family wants her dead. She's smart, she's desperate, she's disturbed, and she's on the run with a big chip on her shoulder. They call her Liarmouth--until one insane man makes her tell the truth.

John Waters's first novel, Liarmouth, is a perfectly perverted "feel-bad romance," and the reader will thrill to hop aboard this delirious road trip of riotous revenge.]]> 240 John Waters 0374185727 Courtney 0 3.32 2022 Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance
author: John Waters
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/09/22
date added: 2023/09/22
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Creative Act: A Way of Being]]> 60965426 From the legendary music producer, a master at helping people connect with the wellsprings of their creativity, comes a beautifully crafted book many years in the making that offers that same deep wisdom to all of us.

"A gorgeous and inspiring work of art on creation, creativity, the work of the artist. It will gladden the hearts of writers and artists everywhere, and get them working again with a new sense of meaning and direction. A stunning accomplishment." --Anne Lamott

"I set out to write a book about what to do to make a great work of art. Instead, it revealed itself to be a book on how to be." --Rick Rubin

Many famed music producers are known for a particular sound that has its day. Rick Rubin is known for something else: creating a space where artists of all different genres and traditions can home in on who they really are and what they really offer. He has made a practice of helping people transcend their self-imposed expectations in order to reconnect with a state of innocence from which the surprising becomes inevitable. Over the years, as he has thought deeply about where creativity comes from and where it doesn't, he has learned that being an artist isn't about your specific output, it's about your relationship to the world. Creativity has a place in everyone's life, and everyone can make that place larger. In fact, there are few more important responsibilities.

The Creative Act is a beautiful and generous course of study that illuminates the path of the artist as a road we all can follow. It distills the wisdom gleaned from a lifetime's work into a luminous reading experience that puts the power to create moments--and lifetimes--of exhilaration and transcendence within closer reach for all of us.]]> 406 Rick Rubin 0593652886 Courtney 0 4.00 2023 The Creative Act: A Way of Being
author: Rick Rubin
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2023/09/15
date added: 2023/09/15
shelves:
review:

]]> West Coast Blues 6621343 Released in 2005, West Coast Blues (Le Petit bleu de la côte ouest) is Tardi's adaptation of a popular 1976 novel by the French crime writer Jean-Patrick Manchette. (The novel had been previously adapted to film under the more literal title Trois hommes à abattre, and was released in English by the San Francisco-based publisher City Lights under the English version of the same title, "3 to Kill".) Tardi's late-period, looser style infuses Manchette's dark story with a seething, malevolent energy; he doesn't shy away from the frequently grisly goings-on, while maintaining (particularly in the old-married-couple-style bickering of the two killers who are tracking Gerfaut) the mordant wit that characterizes his best work. This is the kind of graphic novel that Quentin Tarantino would love, and a double shot of Scotch for any fan of unrelenting, uncompromising crime fiction]]> 80 Jacques Tardi 1606992953 Courtney 2 3.84 West Coast Blues
author: Jacques Tardi
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.84
book published:
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2023/07/19
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Baby on the Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood, and the Mind-Baby Problem]]> 58085206
An insightful, provocative, and witty exploration of the relationship between motherhood and art―for anyone who is a mother, wants to be, or has ever had one. What does a great artist who is also a mother look like? What does it mean to create, not in “a room of one’s own,� but in a domestic space? In The Baby on the Fire Escape , award-winning biographer Julie Phillips traverses the shifting terrain where motherhood and creativity converge. With fierce empathy, Phillips evokes the intimate and varied struggles of brilliant artists and writers of the twentieth century. Ursula K. Le Guin found productive stability in family life, and Audre Lorde’s queer, polyamorous union allowed her to raise children on her own terms. Susan Sontag became a mother at nineteen, Angela Carter at forty-three. These mothers had one child, or five, or seven. They worked in a studio, in the kitchen, in the car, on the bed, at a desk, with a baby carrier beside them. They faced judgement for pursuing their creative work―Doris Lessing was said to have abandoned her children, and Alice Neel’s in-laws falsely claimed that she once, to finish a painting, left her baby on the fire escape of her New York apartment. As she threads together vivid portraits of these pathbreaking women, Phillips argues that creative motherhood is a question of keeping the baby on that apocryphal fire escape: work and care held in a constantly renegotiated, provisional, productive tension. A meditation on maternal identity and artistic greatness, The Baby on the Fire Escape illuminates some of the most pressing conflicts in contemporary life.]]> 320 Julie Phillips 0393088596 Courtney 4 4.25 2022 The Baby on the Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood, and the Mind-Baby Problem
author: Julie Phillips
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/01
date added: 2023/07/18
shelves:
review:

]]> Funny Boy 111389
In FUNNY BOY we follow the life of the family through Arjie's eyes, as he comes to terms both with his own homosexuality and with the racism of the society in which he lives. In the north of Sri Lanka there is a war going on between the army and the Tamil Tigers, and gradually it begins to encroach on the family's comfortable life. Sporadic acts of violence flare into full scale riots and lead, ultimately, to tragedy.

Written in clear, simple prose, Syam Selvadurai's first novel is masterly in its mingling of the personal and political.]]> 320 Shyam Selvadurai 015600500X Courtney 0 4.05 1994 Funny Boy
author: Shyam Selvadurai
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at: 2023/07/01
date added: 2023/07/18
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins]]> 25510906 What a rare mushroom can teach us about sustaining life on a fragile planetMatsutake is the most valuable mushroom in the world—and a weed that grows in human-disturbed forests across the northern hemisphere. Through its ability to nurture trees, matsutake helps forests to grow in daunting places. It is also an edible delicacy in Japan, where it sometimes commands astronomical prices. In all its contradictions, matsutake offers insights into areas far beyond just mushrooms and addresses a crucial what manages to live in the ruins we have made? A tale of diversity within our damaged landscapes, The Mushroom at the End of the World follows one of the strangest commodity chains of our times to explore the unexpected corners of capitalism. Here, we witness the varied and peculiar worlds of matsutake the worlds of Japanese gourmets, capitalist traders, Hmong jungle fighters, industrial forests, Yi Chinese goat herders, Finnish nature guides, and more. These companions also lead us into fungal ecologies and forest histories to better understand the promise of cohabitation in a time of massive human destruction. By investigating one of the world's most sought-after fungi, The Mushroom at the End of the World presents an original examination into the relation between capitalist destruction and collaborative survival within multispecies landscapes, the prerequisite for continuing life on earth.]]> 331 Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing 0691162751 Courtney 0 3.98 2015 The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins
author: Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2023/07/01
date added: 2023/07/18
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How To Forget Almost Everything]]> 75767815

Set in Portland, Oregon during the late-2000s financial crisis, How to Forget Almost Everything is an introspective coming-of-age story and an off-kilter adventure populated by bus transfer slips, small-town diners, a secret concrete block, and a former child chess prodigy.]]> 275 Joshua James Amberson 1957024046 Courtney 0 4.29 2022 How To Forget Almost Everything
author: Joshua James Amberson
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/07/01
date added: 2023/07/18
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Contagious: Why Things Catch On]]> 15801967 New York Times bestseller and named Best Marketing Book of 2014 by the American Marketing Association

What makes things popular? Why do people talk about certain products and ideas more than others? Why are some stories and rumors more infectious? And what makes online content go viral?

If you said advertising, think again. People don't listen to advertisements, they listen to their peers. But why do people talk about certain products and ideas more than others? Why are some stories and rumors more infectious? And what makes online content go viral?

Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger has spent the last decade answering these questions. He's studied why New York Times articles make the paper's own Most E-mailed List, why products get word of mouth, and how social influence shapes everything from the cars we buy to the clothes we wear to the names we give our children. In this book, Berger reveals the secret science behind word-of-mouth and social transmission. Discover how six basic principles drive all sorts of things to become contagious, from consumer products and policy initiatives to workplace rumors and YouTube videos.

Contagious combines groundbreaking research with powerful stories. Learn how a luxury steakhouse found popularity through the lowly cheese-steak, why anti-drug commercials might have actually increased drug use, and why more than 200 million consumers shared a video about one of the seemingly most boring products there is: a blender. If you've wondered why certain stories get shared, e-mails get forwarded, or videos go viral, Contagious explains why, and shows how to leverage these concepts to craft contagious content. This book provides a set of specific, actionable techniques for helping information spread - for designing messages, advertisements, and information that people will share. Whether you're a manager at a big company, a small business owner trying to boost awareness, a politician running for office, or a health official trying to get the word out, Contagious will show you how to make your product or idea catch on.]]> 210 Jonah Berger 1451686579 Courtney 0 3.97 2013 Contagious: Why Things Catch On
author: Jonah Berger
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2023/07/16
date added: 2023/07/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Artisan Air-Dry Clay: The Beginner’s Guide to Easy, Inexpensive & Stylish No-Kiln Pottery]]> 60695825 128 Radka Hostasova 1644032511 Courtney 0 4.07 2022 Artisan Air-Dry Clay: The Beginner’s Guide to Easy, Inexpensive & Stylish No-Kiln Pottery
author: Radka Hostasova
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/16
date added: 2023/01/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[I've Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton (American Music Series)]]> 60402663
The first time Lynn Melnick listened to a Dolly Parton song in full, she was 14 years old, in the triage room of a Los Angeles hospital, waiting to be admitted to a drug rehab program. Already in her young life as a Jewish teen in the 1980s, she had been the victim of rape, abuse, and trauma, and her path to healing would be long. But in Parton’s words and music, she recognized a fellow survivor.

In this powerful, incisive work of social and self-exploration, Melnick blends personal essay with cultural criticism to explore Parton’s dual identities as feminist icon and objectified sex symbol, identities that reflect the author’s own fraught history with rape culture and the arduous work of reclaiming her voice. Each chapter engages with the artistry and impact of one of Parton’s songs, as Melnick reckons with violence, misogyny, creativity, parenting, friendship, sex, love, and the consolations and cruelties of religion. Bold and inventive, I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive gives us an accessible and memorable framework for understanding our times and a revelatory account of survival, persistence, and self-discovery.]]> 264 Lynn Melnick 1477322671 Courtney 0 3.96 I've Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton (American Music Series)
author: Lynn Melnick
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.96
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/16
date added: 2023/01/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[And I Don't Want to Live This Life: A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Murder]]> 10055 408 Deborah Spungen 0449911411 Courtney 0 4.09 1983 And I Don't Want to Live This Life: A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Murder
author: Deborah Spungen
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1983
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/09
date added: 2023/01/14
shelves:
review:

]]> Butts: A Backstory 59366123 Butts: A Backstory, reporter, essayist, and RadioLab contributing editor Heather Radke is determined to find out.

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

Part deep dive reportage, part personal journey, part cabinet of curiosities, Butts is an entertaining, illuminating, and thoughtful examination of why certain silhouettes come in and out of fashion—and how larger ideas about race, control, liberation, and power affect our most private feelings about ourselves and others.]]> 311 Heather Radke 1982135484 Courtney 0 3.74 2022 Butts: A Backstory
author: Heather Radke
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/10
date added: 2023/01/14
shelves:
review:

]]> Growland 56027380 273 Lelia Moskowitz Courtney 0 4.43 Growland
author: Lelia Moskowitz
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.43
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/14
date added: 2023/01/14
shelves:
review:

]]> Comfort & Joy 188201
In the small town of Rain Valley, six-year-old Bobby O’Shea is facing his first Christmas without a mother. Unable to handle the loss, Bobby has closed himself off from the world, talking only to his invisible best friend. His father Daniel is beside himself, desperate to help his son cope. Yet when the little boy meets Joy, these two unlikely souls form a deep and powerful bond. In helping Bobby and Daniel heal, Joy finds herself again.

But not everything is as it seems in quiet Rain Valley, and in an instant, Joy’s world is ripped apart, and her heart is broken. On a magical Christmas Eve, a night of impossible dreams and unexpected chances, Joy must find the courage to believe in a love--and a family--that can’t possibly exist, and go in search of what she wants . . . and the new life only she can find.]]> 272 Kristin Hannah 0345483790 Courtney 0 3.38 2005 Comfort & Joy
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/14
date added: 2022/12/14
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Immortal Milk: Adventures in Cheese]]> 7796941 256 Eric LeMay 1439153043 Courtney 3 3.36 2010 Immortal Milk: Adventures in Cheese
author: Eric LeMay
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2022/12/11
date added: 2022/12/11
shelves:
review:

]]> Ann Tenna 24188496 New Yorker cartoonist and acclaimed author of Cancer Vixen, a brilliant, funny, and wildly imaginative first novel: the story of an influential gossip columnist brought face-to-face with her higher self—and a challenge to change her life for the better.

Glamorous, superconnected Ann Tenna is the founder of Eyemauler, a New York City-based Web site that’s always the first to dish the most up-to-the-minute dirt on celebrities and ordinary folks alike. Ann has ascended to the zenith of the New York media scene, attended by groups of grovelers all too willing to be trampled on by her six-inch Giuseppe Zanottis if it means better seats at the table.

But as high as her success has taken her, Ann has actually fallen far—very far—from her true self. It takes a near-fatal freak accident on her birthday—April Fool’s Day—and an intervention from her cosmic double in a realm beyond our own to make Ann realize the full cost of the humanity she has lost.

Told with laugh-out-loud humor, spot-on dialogue (including via cameo appearances from Coco Chanel, Gianni Versace, and Jimi Hendrix, to name just a few), and stunning, full-color artwork, Ann Tenna is a timely, necessary tale for our overly “media-cated� times: the newest, much-anticipated adventure from a supremely gifted artist at the height of her powers.]]> 240 Marisa Acocella Marchetto 0307267474 Courtney 0 to-read 2.96 2015 Ann Tenna
author: Marisa Acocella Marchetto
name: Courtney
average rating: 2.96
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Happy-Go-Lucky 58989873
But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most. To cope, he walks for miles through a nearly deserted city, smelling only his own breath. He vacuums his apartment twice a day, fails to hoard anything, and contemplates how sex workers and acupuncturists might be getting by during quarantine.

As the world gradually settles into a new reality, Sedaris too finds himself changed. His offer to fix a stranger’s teeth rebuffed, he straightens his own, and ventures into the world with new confidence. Newly orphaned, he considers what it means, in his seventh decade, no longer to be someone’s son. And back on the road, he discovers a battle-scarred America: people weary, storefronts empty or festooned with Help Wanted signs, walls painted with graffiti reflecting the contradictory messages of our time: Eat the Rich. Trump 2024. Black Lives Matter.

In Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about these recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all. If we must live in interesting times, there is no one better to chronicle them than the incomparable David Sedaris.]]> 272 David Sedaris 0316392456 Courtney 1 4.15 2022 Happy-Go-Lucky
author: David Sedaris
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2022
rating: 1
read at: 2022/12/07
date added: 2022/12/07
shelves:
review:
boring, annoying, not funny, obnoxious, self-centered drivel. I haven't ever been impressed by his books and I'll skip them from now on.
]]> <![CDATA[The Hippest Trip in America: Soul Train and the Evolution of Culture & Style]]> 18090056 Washington Post Book World).

When it debuted in October 1971, seven years after the Civil Rights Act, Soul Train boldly went where no variety show had gone before, showcasing the cultural preferences of young African-Americans and the sounds that defined their lives: R&B, funk, jazz, disco, and gospel music. The brainchild of radio announcer Don Cornelius, the show’s producer and host, Soul Train featured a diverse range of stars, from James Brown and David Bowie to Christina Aguilera and R. Kelly; Marvin Gaye and Elton John to the New Kids on the Block and Stevie Wonder.

The Hippest Trip in America tells the full story of this pop culture phenomenon that appealed not only to blacks, but to a wide crossover audience as well. Famous dancers like Rosie Perez and Jody Watley, performers such as Aretha Franklin, Al Green, and Barry White, and Cornelius himself share their memories, offering insights into the show and its time—a period of extraordinary social and political change. Colorful and pulsating, The Hippest Trip In America is a fascinating portrait of a revered cultural institution that has left an indelible mark on our national consciousness.]]> 256 Nelson George 0062221035 Courtney 0 3.58 2014 The Hippest Trip in America: Soul Train and the Evolution of Culture & Style
author: Nelson George
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/07
date added: 2022/12/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness]]> 361459 NATIONAL BESTSELLER � A deeply powerful memoir about bipolar illness that has both transformed and saved lives—with a new preface by the author.

Dr. Jamison is one of the foremost authorities on manic-depressive (bipolar) illness; she has also experienced it firsthand. For even while she was pursuing her career in academic medicine, Jamison found herself succumbing to the same exhilarating highs and catastrophic depressions that afflicted many of her patients, as her disorder launched her into ruinous spending sprees, episodes of violence, and an attempted suicide.

Here Jamison examines bipolar illness from the dual perspectives of the healer and the healed, revealing both its terrors and the cruel allure that at times prompted her to resist taking medication.]]> 240 Kay Redfield Jamison 0679763309 Courtney 0 4.06 1995 An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
author: Kay Redfield Jamison
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/06
date added: 2022/12/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson]]> 60012371 By the New York Times bestselling author of Showtime—the source for HBO’s Winning Time—the definitive biography of mythic multi-sport star Bo Jackson.

From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character—and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat. He became the first person to simultaneously star in two major professional sports, and overtook Michael Jordan as America’s most recognizable pitchman. He was on our televisions, in our magazines, plastered across billboards. He was half man, half myth.

Then, almost overnight, he was gone.

He was Bo Jackson.

Drawing on an astonishing 720 original interviews, New York Times bestselling sportswriter Jeff Pearlman captures as never before the elusive truth about Jackson, Auburn University’s transcendent Heisman Trophy winner, superstar of both the NFL and Major League Baseball and ubiquitous “Bo Knows� Nike pitchman. Did Bo really jump over a parked Volkswagen? (Yes.) Did he actually run a 4.13 40? (Yes.) During the 1991 flight that nearly killed every member of the Chicago White Sox, was he in the cockpit trying to help? (Oddly, yes. Or no. Or � maybe.)

Bo Jackson isn’t Jim Thorpe.

He’s not Deion Sanders, either.

No, Bo Jackson is Paul Bunyan.

The Last Folk Hero is the true tale of Bo Jackson that only “master storyteller� (NPR) Jeff Pearlman could tell.]]> 496 Jeff Pearlman 0358437679 Courtney 0 4.18 2022 The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson
author: Jeff Pearlman
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/02
date added: 2022/12/04
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Love in a Nutshell (Culhane Family #1)]]> 12019319 310 Janet Evanovich 0312651317 Courtney 0 3.65 2012 Love in a Nutshell (Culhane Family #1)
author: Janet Evanovich
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/04
date added: 2022/12/04
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Thai Stick: Surfers, Scammers, and the Untold Story of the Marijuana Trade]]> 17938800
Peter Maguire and Mike Ritter are the first historians to document this underground industry, the only record of its existence rooted in the fading memories of its elusive participants. Conducting hundreds of interviews with smugglers and law enforcement agents, the authors recount the buy, the delivery, the voyage home, and the product offload. They capture the eccentric personalities who transformed the Thai marijuana trade from a GI cottage industry into one of the world's most lucrative commodities, unraveling a rare history from the smugglers' perspective.]]> 272 Peter Maguire 0231161344 Courtney 0 3.79 2013 Thai Stick: Surfers, Scammers, and the Untold Story of the Marijuana Trade
author: Peter Maguire
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/02
date added: 2022/12/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity]]> 29939161
"I raced through Radical Candor --It’s thrilling to learn a framework that shows how to be both a better boss and a better colleague. Radical Candor is packed with illuminating truths, insightful advice, and practical suggestions, all illustrated with engaging (and often funny) stories from Kim Scott’s own experiences at places like Apple, Google, and various start-ups. Indispensable." � Gretchen Rubin author of New York Times bestseller The Happiness Project

"Reading Radical Candor will help you build, lead, and inspire teams to do the best work of their lives. Kim Scott's insights--based on her experience, keen observational intelligence and analysis--will help you be a better leader and create a more effective organization." � Sheryl Sandberg author of the New York Times bestseller Lean In

"Kim Scott has a well-earned reputation as a kick-ass boss and a voice that CEOs take seriously. In this remarkable book, she draws on her extensive experience to provide clear and honest guidance on the fundamentals of leading others: how to give (and receive) feedback, how to make smart decisions, how to keep moving forward, and much more. If you manage people--whether it be 1 person or a 1,000--you need Radical Candor . Now." � Daniel Pink author of New York Times bestseller Drive

From the time we learn to speak, we’re told that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. When you become a manager, it’s your job to say it--and your obligation.

Author Kim Scott was an executive at Google and then at Apple, where she worked with a team to develop a class on how to be a good boss. She has earned growing fame in recent years with her vital new approach to effective management, Radical Candor.

Radical Candor is a simple idea: to be a good boss, you have to Care Personally at the same time that you Challenge Directly. When you challenge without caring it’s obnoxious aggression; when you care without challenging it’s ruinous empathy. When you do neither it’s manipulative insincerity.

This simple framework can help you build better relationships at work, and fulfill your three key responsibilities as a leader: creating a culture of feedback (praise and criticism), building a cohesive team, and achieving results you’re all proud of.

Radical Candor offers a guide to those bewildered or exhausted by management, written for bosses and those who manage bosses. Taken from years of the author’s experience, and distilled clearly giving actionable lessons to the reader; it shows managers how to be successful while retaining their humanity, finding meaning in their job, and creating an environment where people both love their work and their colleagues.]]> 336 Kim Malone Scott 1250103509 Courtney 0 4.05 2017 Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity
author: Kim Malone Scott
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2022/11/19
date added: 2022/11/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture]]> 3378 Fiercely suspicious of being lumped together as an advertiser's target market, they have quit dreary careers and cut themselves adrift in the California desert. Unsure of their futures, they immerse themselves in a regime of heavy drinking and working at no-future McJobs in the service industry.
Underemployed, overeducated, intensely private and unpredictable, they have nowhere to direct their anger, no one to assuage their fears, and no culture to replace their anomie. So they tell stories; disturbingly funny tales that reveal their barricaded inner world. A world populated with dead TV shows, 'Elvis moments' and semi-disposable Swedish furniture...

]]> 211 Douglas Coupland 0349108390 Courtney 0 3.76 1991 Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture
author: Douglas Coupland
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at: 2022/11/07
date added: 2022/11/08
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Genocidal Love: A Life after Residential School]]> 52993121 Genocidal Love delves into the long-term effects of childhood trauma on those who attended residential school and demonstrates the power of story to help in recovery and healing



Presenting herself as "Myrtle," Bevann Fox recounts her early childhood filled with love and warmth on the First Nation reservation with her grandparents. At the age of seven she was sent to residential school, and her horrific experiences of abuse there left her without a voice, timid and nervous, never sure, never trusting, and always searching.

This is the story of Myrtle battling to recover her voice.

This is the story of her courage and resilience throughout the arduous process required to make a claim for compensation for the abuse she experienced at residential school--a process that turned out to be yet another trauma at the hands of the colonial power.

This is the story of one woman finally standing up to the painful truth of her past and moving beyond it for the sake of her children and grandchildren. In recounting her tumultuous life, Fox weaves truth and fiction together as a means of bringing clarity to the complex emotions and situations she faced as she walked her path toward healing.]]> 256 Bevann Fox 0889777411 Courtney 0 4.25 2020 Genocidal Love: A Life after Residential School
author: Bevann Fox
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2022/11/04
date added: 2022/11/04
shelves:
review:

]]> The Nineties 58082714 The Nineties: a wise and funny reckoning with the decade that gave us slacker/grunge irony about the sin of trying too hard, during the greatest shift in human consciousness of any decade in American history.

It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. In the beginning, almost every name and address was listed in a phone book, and everyone answered their landlines because you didn't know who it was. By the end, exposing someone's address was an act of emotional violence, and nobody picked up their new cell phone if they didn't know who it was. The '90s brought about a revolution in the human condition we're still groping to understand. Happily, Chuck Klosterman is more than up to the job.

Beyond epiphenomena like Cop Killer and Titanic and Zima, there were wholesale shifts in how society was perceived: the rise of the internet, pre-9/11 politics, and the paradoxical belief that nothing was more humiliating than trying too hard. Pop culture accelerated without the aid of a machine that remembered everything, generating an odd comfort in never being certain about anything. On a '90s Thursday night, more people watched any random episode of Seinfeld than the finale of Game of Thrones. But nobody thought that was important; if you missed it, you simply missed it. It was the last era that held to the idea of a true, hegemonic mainstream before it all began to fracture, whether you found a home in it or defined yourself against it.

In The Nineties, Chuck Klosterman makes a home in all of it: the film, the music, the sports, the TV, the politics, the changes regarding race and class and sexuality, the yin/yang of Oprah and Alan Greenspan. In perhaps no other book ever written would a sentence like, "The video for 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' was not more consequential than the reunification of Germany" make complete sense. Chuck Klosterman has written a multi-dimensional masterpiece, a work of synthesis so smart and delightful that future historians might well refer to this entire period as Klostermanian.]]> 370 Chuck Klosterman 0735217955 Courtney 0 3.86 2022 The Nineties
author: Chuck Klosterman
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/10/31
date added: 2022/10/31
shelves:
review:

]]> The Lost Ticket 59719104 Strangers aboard a London bus unite to help an elderly man find his missed love connection in the heartwarming new novel from the author of The Last Chance Library.

When Libby Nicholls arrives in London, brokenhearted and with her life in tatters, the first person she meets on the bus is elderly Frank. He tells her about the time in 1962 that he met a girl on the number 88 bus with beautiful red hair just like hers. They made plans for a date at the National Gallery art museum, but Frank lost the bus ticket with her number on it. For the past sixty years, he’s ridden the same bus trying to find her, but with no luck.

Libby is inspired to action and, with the help of an unlikely companion, she papers the bus route with posters advertising their search. Libby begins to open her guarded heart to new friendships and a budding romance, as her tightly controlled world expands. But with Frank’s dementia progressing quickly, their chance of finding the girl on the 88 bus is slipping away.

More than anything, Libby wants Frank to see his lost love one more time. But their quest also shows Libby just how important it is to embrace her own chances for happiness—before it’s too late—in a beautifully uplifting novel about how a shared common experience among strangers can transform lives in the most marvelous ways.]]> 368 Freya Sampson 0593201418 Courtney 0 4.02 2022 The Lost Ticket
author: Freya Sampson
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/10/31
date added: 2022/10/31
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Aristotle and Dante, #1)]]> 12000020
But against all odds, when Ari and Dante meet, they develop a special bond that will teach them the most important truths of their lives, and help define the people they want to be. But there are big hurdles in their way, and only by believing in each other—and the power of their friendship—can Ari and Dante emerge stronger on the other side.]]> 390 Benjamin Alire Sáenz 1442408928 Courtney 0 4.29 2012 Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Aristotle and Dante, #1)
author: Benjamin Alire Sáenz
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2022/10/26
date added: 2022/10/29
shelves:
review:

]]> The Catch 58885761 A young woman searches for the truth about her father and the secrets of her family in this electric debut novel.

Two years out of college, Ellie Adler has a job in journalism, an older lover, and a circle of smart friends. Then she finds herself shaken by the unexpected death of her father, James. At the reading of his will, Ellie learns that instead of leaving her his prized possession--a baseball that holds emotional resonance for them both--he has left her a seemingly ridiculous, even insulting gift. Worse, he's given the baseball to someone no one in the family knows.

In her grief, Ellie wonders who could have possibly meant more to her father than she did. Setting out to track this person down, she learns startling information about who her father really was and who she herself is becoming. Unforgettable, witty, and heartbreaking, The Catch is a story of the gifts we're given over the course of a lifetime--the ones we want and the ones we don't yet understand that we need.]]> 279 Alison Fairbrother 059313429X Courtney 0 3.33 2022 The Catch
author: Alison Fairbrother
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/10/29
date added: 2022/10/29
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Toaster Project: Or a Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch]]> 11467066 The Toaster Project, Thwaites asks what lies behind the smooth buttons on a mobile phone or the cushioned soles of running sneakers. What is involved in extracting and processing materials? To answer these questions, Thwaites set out to construct, from scratch, one of the most commonplace appliances in our kitchens today: a toaster.

The Toaster Project takes the reader on Thwaites s journey from dismantling the cheapest toaster he can find in London to researching how to smelt metal in a fifteenth-century treatise. His incisive restrictions all parts of the toaster must be made from scratch and Thwaites had to make the toaster himself made his task difficult, but not impossible. It took nine months and cost 250 times more than the toaster he bought at the store. In the end, Thwaites reveals the true ingredients in the products we use every day. Most interesting is not the final creation but the lesson learned.

The Toaster Project helps us reflect on the costs and perils of our cheap consumer culture and the ridiculousness of churning out millions of toasters and other products at the expense of the environment. If products were designed more efficiently, with fewer parts that are easier to recycle, we would end up with objects that last longer and we would generate less waste altogether.

Foreword by David Crowley, head of critical writing at the Royal College of Art and curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum.]]> 192 Thomas Thwaites 1568989970 Courtney 5 3.89 2007 The Toaster Project: Or a Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch
author: Thomas Thwaites
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2022/10/03
date added: 2022/10/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants]]> 17465709 Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.]]> 408 Robin Wall Kimmerer 1571313354 Courtney 0 4.52 2013 Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2022/10/02
date added: 2022/10/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional]]> 54860230 Dirtbag, Massachusetts, Fitzgerald, with warmth and humor, recounts his ongoing search for forgiveness, a more far-reaching vision of masculinity, and a more expansive definition of family and self.

Fitzgerald's memoir-in-essays begins with a childhood that moves at breakneck speed from safety to violence, recounting an extraordinary pilgrimage through trauma to self-understanding and, ultimately, acceptance. From growing up in a Boston homeless shelter to bartending in San Francisco, from smuggling medical supplies into Burma to his lifelong struggle to make peace with his body, Fitzgerald strives to take control of his own story: one that aims to put aside anger, isolation, and entitlement to embrace the idea that one can be generous to oneself by being generous to others.

Gritty and clear-eyed, loud-hearted and beautiful, Dirtbag, Massachusetts is a rollicking book that might also be a lifeline.]]> 256 Isaac Fitzgerald 1635573971 Courtney 0 3.56 2022 Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional
author: Isaac Fitzgerald
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/09/24
date added: 2022/09/24
shelves:
review:

]]> Crazy Brave 13409655
Born in Oklahoma, the end place of the Trail of Tears, Harjo grew up learning to dodge an abusive stepfather by finding shelter in her imagination, a deep spiritual life, and connection with the natural world. She attended an Indian arts boarding school, where she nourished an appreciation for painting, music, and poetry; gave birth while still a teenager; and struggled on her own as a single mother, eventually finding her poetic voice.

Narrating the complexities of betrayal and love, Crazy Brave is a memoir about family and the breaking apart necessary in finding a voice. Harjo’s tale of a hardscrabble youth, young adulthood, and transformation into an award-winning poet and musician is haunting, unique, and visionary.]]> 172 Joy Harjo 0393073467 Courtney 0 4.18 2012 Crazy Brave
author: Joy Harjo
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2022/09/05
date added: 2022/09/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech]]> 38212110
In Technically Wrong, Sara Wachter-Boettcher demystifies the tech industry, leaving those of us on the other side of the screen better prepared to make informed choices about the services we use—and to demand more from the companies behind them.

"Just as the current political climate has inspired many to pick up a sign and head out into the street for the first time, I hope Technically Wrong will inspire newcomers to start thinking more critically about the apps and algorithms around them." —Anna Lauren Hoffmann, Science

"An entertaining romp that tell us where and why the tech industry, once America's darling, went wrong, and what it might do to recover its good graces." —Tim Wu, author of The Master Switch]]> 232 Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0393356043 Courtney 0 4.04 2017 Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech
author: Sara Wachter-Boettcher
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2022/09/05
date added: 2022/09/05
shelves:
review:

]]> Eleven Minutes 1430 Eleven Minutes is the story of Maria, a young girl from a Brazilian village, whose first innocent brushes with love leave her heartbroken. At a tender age, she becomes convinced that she will never find true love, instead believing that “love is a terrible thing that will make you suffer. . . .� A chance meeting in Rio takes her to Geneva, where she dreams of finding fame and fortune.

Maria’s despairing view of love is put to the test when she meets a handsome young painter. In this odyssey of self-discovery, Maria has to choose between pursuing a path of darkness—sexual pleasure for its own sake—or risking everything to find her own “inner light� and the possibility of sacred sex, sex in the context of love.]]> 273 Paulo Coelho 0060589280 Courtney 0 3.74 2003 Eleven Minutes
author: Paulo Coelho
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2022/09/04
date added: 2022/09/05
shelves:
review:

]]> The End of Men 53717123 Set in a world where a virus stalks our male population, The End of Men is an electrifying and unforgettable debut from a remarkable new talent that what would life truly look like without men?Only men are affected by the virus; only women have the power to save us all. The year is 2025, and a mysterious virus has broken out in Scotland--a lethal illness that seems to affect only men. When Dr. Amanda MacLean reports this phenomenon, she is dismissed as hysterical. By the time her warning is heeded, it is too late. The virus becomes a global pandemic--and a political one. The victims are all men. The world becomes alien--a women's world.What follows is the immersive account of the women who have been left to deal with the virus's consequences, told through first-person narratives. Dr. MacLean; Catherine, a social historian determined to document the human stories behind the "male plague;" intelligence analyst Dawn, tasked with helping the government forge a new society; and Elizabeth, one of many scientists desperately working to develop a vaccine. Through these women and others, we see the uncountable ways the absence of men has changed society, from the personal--the loss of husbands and sons--to the political--the changes in the workforce, fertility and the meaning of family.In The End of Men, Christina Sweeney-Baird creates an unforgettable tale of loss, resilience and hope.]]> 416 Christina Sweeney-Baird 0385696639 Courtney 0 3.74 2021 The End of Men
author: Christina Sweeney-Baird
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/01/01
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves:
review:

]]> Lustlocked (Sin du Jour, #2) 27158853 The staff of New York's premier supernatural catering company, has their work cut out for them in this outrageous follow-up to Envy of Angels.

Love is in the air at Sin du Jour.

The Goblin King (yes, that one) and his Queen are celebrating the marriage of their son to his human bride. Naturally the celebrations will be legendary.

But when desire and magic mix, the results can be unpredictable.

Our heroes are going to need more than passion for the job to survive the catering event of the decade!


Praise for Sin du Jour:

"Funny and demented . . . I'll read anything this guy writes."
--Chuck Wendig, author of Blackbirds and Zer0es, on Envy of Angels

"No one makes me think, 'Dammit, I should have thought of that!' like Matt Wallace. The Sin du Jour series is something I read with equal amounts of envy and delight."
-Mur Lafferty, Campbell Award winning author of The Shambling Guide to New York City]]> 214 Matt Wallace 0765387786 Courtney 0 3.64 2016 Lustlocked (Sin du Jour, #2)
author: Matt Wallace
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2022/08/20
date added: 2022/08/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![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 Courtney 0 4.40 2020 The Girl with the Louding Voice
author: Abi Daré
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2022/08/20
date added: 2022/08/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass]]> 41963432 In the spirit of Nickel and Dimed, a necessary and revelatory expose of the invisible human workforce that powers the web—and that foreshadows the true future of work.Hidden beneath the surface of the web, lost in our wrong-headed debates about AI, a new menace is looming. Anthropologist Mary L. Gray and computer scientist Siddharth Suri team up to unveil how services delivered by companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Uber can only function smoothly thanks to the judgment and experience of a vast, invisible human labor force. These people doing "ghost work" make the internet seem smart. They perform high-tech flagging X-rated content, proofreading, designing engine parts, and much more. An estimated 8 percent of Americans have worked at least once in this “ghost economy,� and that number is growing. They usually earn less than legal minimums for traditional work, they have no health benefits, and they can be fired at any time for any reason, or none. There are no labor laws to govern this kind of work, and these latter-day assembly lines draw in—and all too often overwork and underpay—a surprisingly diverse range of harried young mothers, professionals forced into early retirement, recent grads who can’t get a toehold on the traditional employment ladder, and minorities shut out of the jobs they want. Gray and Suri also show how ghost workers, employers, and society at large can ensure that this new kind of work creates opportunity—rather than misery—for those who do it.]]> 288 Mary L. Gray 1328566285 Courtney 0 3.70 2019 Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass
author: Mary L. Gray
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2022/08/18
date added: 2022/08/18
shelves:
review:

]]> Black Cake 57926137 We can’t choose what we inherit. But can we choose who we become?

In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett’s death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage and themselves.

Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor’s true history, and fulfill her final request to “share the black cake when the time is right�? Will their mother’s revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever?

Charmaine Wilkerson’s debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names can shape relationships and history. Deeply evocative and beautifully written, Black Cake is an extraordinary journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch.]]> 385 Charmaine Wilkerson Courtney 0 to-read 4.06 2022 Black Cake
author: Charmaine Wilkerson
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Counterfeit: A Novel 61314555 Krstiin Cheen Courtney 0 to-read 3.41 Counterfeit: A Novel
author: Krstiin Cheen
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.41
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Island of the Blue Dolphins: The Complete Reader's Edition]]> 29563621 250 Scott O'Dell 0520289374 Courtney 0 4.19 1960 Island of the Blue Dolphins: The Complete Reader's Edition
author: Scott O'Dell
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1960
rating: 0
read at: 2022/08/10
date added: 2022/08/10
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[No One Left to Come Looking for You]]> 60320390
Manhattan’s East Village, 1993. Dive bars, DIY music venues, shady weirdos, and hard drugs are plentiful. Crime is high but rent is low, luring hopeful, creative kids from sleepy suburbs around the country.

One of these is Jack S., a young New Jersey rock musician. Just a few days before his band’s biggest gig, their lead singer goes missing with Jack’s prized bass, presumably to hock it to feed his junk habit. Jack’s search for his buddy uncovers a sinister entanglement of crimes tied to local real estate barons looking to remake New York City—and who might also be connected to the recent death of Jack’s punk rock mentor. Along the way, Jack encounters a cast of colorful characters, including a bewitching, quick-witted scenester who favors dressing in a nurse’s outfit, a monstrous hired killer with a devotion to both figure skating and edged weapons, a deranged if prophetic postwar novelist, and a tough-talking cop who fancies himself a retro-cool icon of the homicide squad but is harboring a surprising secret.

No One Left to Come Looking for You is a page-turning suspense novel that also serves as a love letter to a bygone era of New York City where young artists could still afford to chase their dreams.]]> 210 Sam Lipsyte 1501146122 Courtney 4 3.19 2022 No One Left to Come Looking for You
author: Sam Lipsyte
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.19
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/08/03
date added: 2022/08/04
shelves:
review:

]]> The Candy House 58437521 From one of the most dazzling and iconic writers of our time and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, an electrifying, deeply moving novel about the quest for authenticity, privacy, and meaning in a world where our memories are no longer our own—featuring characters from A Visit from the Goon Squad.

It’s 2010. Staggeringly successful and brilliant tech entrepreneur Bix Bouton is desperate for a new idea. He’s forty, with four kids, and restless when he stumbles into a conversation with mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or “externalizing� memory. Within a decade, Bix’s new technology, Own Your Unconscious—that allows you access to every memory you’ve ever had, and to share every memory in exchange for access to the memories of others—has seduced multitudes. But not everyone.

In spellbinding linked narratives, Egan spins out the consequences of Own Your Unconscious through the lives of multiple characters whose paths intersect over several decades. Egan introduces these characters in an astonishing array of styles—from omniscient to first person plural to a duet of voices, an epistolary chapter, and a chapter of tweets. In the world of Egan’s spectacular imagination, there are “counters� who track and exploit desires and there are “eluders,� those who understand the price of taking a bite of the Candy House.

Intellectually dazzling and extraordinarily moving, The Candy House is a bold, brilliant imagining of a world that is moments away. With a focus on social media, gaming, and alternate worlds, you can almost experience moving among dimensions in a role-playing game.� Egan delivers a fierce and exhilarating testament to the tenacity and transcendence of human longing for real connection, love, family, privacy and redemption.]]> 352 Jennifer Egan 1476716765 Courtney 0 3.61 2022 The Candy House
author: Jennifer Egan
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/07/29
date added: 2022/07/30
shelves:
review:

]]> Laziness Does Not Exist 54304124
Extra-curricular activities. Honors classes. 60-hour work weeks. Side hustles.

Like many Americans, Dr. Devon Price believed that productivity was the best way to measure self-worth. Price was an overachiever from the start, graduating from both college and graduate school early, but that success came at a cost. After Price was diagnosed with a severe case of anemia and heart complications from overexertion, they were forced to examine the darker side of all this productivity.

Laziness Does Not Exist explores the psychological underpinnings of the “laziness lie,� including its origins from the Puritans and how it has continued to proliferate as digital work tools have blurred the boundaries between work and life. Using in-depth research, Price explains that people today do far more work than nearly any other humans in history yet most of us often still feel we are not doing enough.

Filled with practical and accessible advice for overcoming society’s pressure to do more, and featuring interviews with researchers, consultants, and experiences from real people drowning in too much work, Laziness Does Not Exist “is the book we all need right now� (Caroline Dooner, author of The F*ck It Diet ).]]> 256 Devon Price 1982140100 Courtney 0 3.91 2021 Laziness Does Not Exist
author: Devon Price
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/07/30
date added: 2022/07/30
shelves:
review:

]]> What's My Address? 60722860 stories by Lisa Ganser In their book writing debut, Lisa Ganser paints a Matriarchal, Midwest portrait of a Poor and working class upbringing of displacement and determination. What’s my Address? is an honest question that puts an oral herstory to paper. The book is a love ritual that allows the grown-up Lisa an opportunity to express, tend and heal childhood traumas while tapping into the freedom felt being a young kid in the 70s and 80s.

Lisa Ganser is a white, Queer, bipolar, brain injured, Non Binary, formerly UNhoused Poverty Scholar, organizer and artist who tends to Squaxin and Nisqually Land. They currently live & love in so-called Olympia, WA with their partner, Nomy Lamm. They are a copwatcher, a dog walker, a sidewalk chalker and the daughter of a Momma named Sam.]]> 58 Lisa Ganser 9781956534 Courtney 5 5.00 What's My Address?
author: Lisa Ganser
name: Courtney
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2022/07/26
date added: 2022/07/26
shelves:
review:

]]> Nevada 58837536 A beloved and blistering cult classic and finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction finally back in print, Nevada follows a disaffected trans woman as she embarks on a cross-country road trip.

Maria Griffiths is almost thirty and works at a used bookstore in New York City while trying to stay true to her punk values. She's in love with her bike but not with her girlfriend, Steph. She takes random pills and drinks more than is good for her, but doesn't inject anything except, when she remembers, estrogen, because she's trans. Everything is mostly fine until Maria and Steph break up, sending Maria into a tailspin, and then onto a cross-country trek in the car she steals from Steph. She ends up in the backwater town of Star City, Nevada, where she meets James, who is probably but not certainly trans, and who reminds Maria of her younger self. As Maria finds herself in the awkward position of trans role model, she realizes that she could become James's savior—or his downfall.

One of the most beloved cult novels of our time and a landmark of trans literature, Imogen Binnie's Nevada is a blistering, heartfelt, and evergreen coming-of-age story, and a punk-smeared excavation of marginalized life under capitalism. Guided by an instantly memorable, terminally self-aware protagonist—and back in print featuring a new afterword by the author�Nevada is the great American road novel flipped on its head for a new generation.]]> 290 Imogen Binnie 0374606617 Courtney 0 3.93 2013 Nevada
author: Imogen Binnie
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2022/07/19
date added: 2022/07/20
shelves:
review:

]]> Drifters 58782839 A mystery about a girl who sets out to find her missing best friend--and discovers her small town is hiding a dark, centuries-old secret.

Jovie is adrift. She'd been feeling alone ever since her best friend, Micah, left her behind for a new group of friends--but when Micah went missing last fall, Jovie felt truly lost.

Now, months later, the search parties have been called off, and the news alerts have dried up. There's only Jovie, biking around Far Haven, Washington, putting up posters with Micah's face on them, feeling like she's the only one who remembers her friend at all.

This feeling may be far closer to the truth than Jovie knows. As strange storms beset Far Haven, she is shocked to discover that Micah isn't just missing--she's been forgotten completely by everyone in town. And Micah isn't the only one: there are others, roaming the beaches, camped in the old bunkers, who have somehow been lost from the world.

When Jovie and her new friend Sylvan dig deeper, they learn that the town's history is far stranger and more deadly than anyone knows. Something disastrous is heading for Far Haven, and Jovie and Sylvan soon realize that it is up to them to save not only Micah, but everyone else who has been lost to the world and set adrift--now, in the past, and in the future.]]> 559 Kevin Emerson 0062976966 Courtney 0 4.11 2022 Drifters
author: Kevin Emerson
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/07/19
date added: 2022/07/19
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music]]> 57648017
Having entertained the idea for years, and even offered a few questionable opportunities ("It's a piece of cake! Just do 4 hours of interviews, find someone else to write it, put your face on the cover, and voila!") I have decided to write these stories just as I have always done, in my own hand. The joy that I have felt from chronicling these tales is not unlike listening back to a song that I've recorded and can't wait to share with the world, or reading a primitive journal entry from a stained notebook, or even hearing my voice bounce between the Kiss posters on my wall as a child.

This certainly doesn't mean that I'm quitting my day job, but it does give me a place to shed a little light on what it's like to be a kid from Springfield, Virginia, walking through life while living out the crazy dreams I had as young musician. From hitting the road with Scream at 18 years old, to my time in Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, jamming with Iggy Pop or playing at the Academy Awards or dancing with AC/DC and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, drumming for Tom Petty or meeting Sir Paul McCartney at Royal Albert Hall, bedtime stories with Joan Jett or a chance meeting with Little Richard, to flying halfway around the world for one epic night with my daughters…the list goes on. I look forward to focusing the lens through which I see these memories a little sharper for you with much excitement.]]> 384 Dave Grohl 0063076098 Courtney 0 4.44 2021 The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music
author: Dave Grohl
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/06/21
date added: 2022/06/28
shelves:
review:

]]> Comic Relief 61269863 Playfully engaging the aesthetic details of Riot Grrrl zines and vintage feminist theory texts, the book serves as the first in-depth exploration and celebration of the artist’s work. Taken as a whole, Comic Relief presents the art historical intersections within Zuckerman-Hartung’s practice, the enduring cultural and aesthetic implications of Riot Grrrl’s radical feminism, as well as broader questions about the current landscape of contemporary art, queer aesthetics, and abstract painting.
In addition to dozens of images, many of which are in print for the first time, the book features a foreword by Blaffer Art Museum director Steven Matijcio and writing from Kate Nesin, a leading postwar art historian; Lisa Darms, Riot Grrrl archivist and writer; Annie Bielski, artist and former student of Zuckerman-Hartung; and Tyler Blackwell, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Associate Curator at the Blaffer.]]> 219 Molly Zuckerman-Hartung 1941753450 Courtney 0 0.0 Comic Relief
author: Molly Zuckerman-Hartung
name: Courtney
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2022/06/11
date added: 2022/06/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Most Beautiful: My Life with Prince]]> 32052074
In The Most Beautiful, a title inspired by the hit song Prince wrote about their legendary love story, Mayte Garcia for the first time shares the deeply personal story of their relationship and offers a singular perspective on the music icon and their world together: from their unconventional meeting backstage at a concert (and the long-distance romance that followed), to their fairy-tale wedding (and their groundbreaking artistic partnership), to the devastating losses that ultimately dissolved their romantic relationship for good. Throughout it all, they shared a bond more intimate than any other in Prince's life. No one else can tell this story or can provide a deeper, more nuanced portrait of Prince - both the famously private man and the pioneering, beloved artist - than Mayte, his partner during some of the most pivotal personal and professional years of his career. The Most Beautiful is a book that will be returned to for decades, as Prince's music lives on with generations to come.]]> 304 Mayte Garcia 0316468975 Courtney 0 4.09 2017 The Most Beautiful: My Life with Prince
author: Mayte Garcia
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2022/01/01
date added: 2022/06/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!]]> 9595 Slapstick presents an apocalyptic vision as seen through the eyes of the current King of Manhattan (and last President of the United States), a wickedly irreverent look at the all-too-possible results of today’s follies. But even the end of life-as-we-know-it is transformed by Kurt Vonnegut’s pen into hilarious farce—a final slapstick that may be the Almighty’s joke on us all.]]> 288 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 0385334230 Courtney 3 comedy 3.87 1976 Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1976
rating: 3
read at: 2022/06/03
date added: 2022/06/04
shelves: comedy
review:

]]> Tapestry 53696474 Tapestry is both an anthemic embodiment of second-wave feminism and an apotheosis of the Laurel Canyon singer-songwriter sound and scene. And these two elements of the album's historic significance are closely related insofar as the professional autonomy of the singer-songwriter is an expression of the freedom and independence women of King's generation sought as the turbulent sixties came to a close.

Aligning King's own development from girl to woman with the larger shift in the music industry from teen-oriented singles by girl groups to albums by adult-oriented singer-songwriters, this volume situates Tapestry both within King's original vision as the third in a trilogy (preceded by Now That Everything's Been Said and Writer) and as a watershed in musical and cultural history, challenging the male dominance of the music and entertainment industries and laying the groundwork for female dominated genres such as women's music and Riot Grrrl punk.]]> 128 Loren Glass 1501355627 Courtney 0 3.46 2021 Tapestry
author: Loren Glass
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/05/30
date added: 2022/05/30
shelves:
review:

]]> The Songlines 76844 The Songlines asks and tries to answer these questions: Why is man the most restless, dissatisfied of animals? Why do wandering people conceive the world as perfect whereas sedentary ones always try to change it? Why have the great teachers—Christ or the Buddha—recommended the Road as the way. to salvation? Do we agree with Pascal that all man's troubles stem from his inability to sit quietly in a room?

We do not often ask these questions today for we commonly assume that living in a house is normal and that the wandering life is aberrant. But for more than twenty years Chatwin has mulled over the possibility that the reverse might be the case.

Pre-colonial Australia was the last landmass on earth peopled not by herdsmen, farmers, or city dwellers, but by hunter-gatherers. Their labyrinths of invisible pathways across the continent are known to us as Songlines or Dreaming Tracks, but to the Aboriginals as the tracks of their ancestors—the Way of the Law. Along these "roads" they travel in order to perform all those activities that are distinctively human—song, dance, marriage, exchange of ideas, and arrangements of territorial boundaries by agreement rather than force.

In Chatwin's search for the Songlines, Arkady is an ideal friend and guide: Australian by birth, the son of a Cossack exile, with all the strength and warmth of his inheritance. Whether hunting kangaroo from a Land Cruiser, talking to the diminutive Rolf in his book-crammed trailer, buying drinks for a bigoted policeman (and would-be writer), cheering as Arkady's true love declares herself (part of The Songlines is a romantic comedy), Chatwin turns this almost implausible picaresque adventure into something approaching the scale of a Greek tragedy.

The life of the Aboriginals stands in vivid contrast, of course, to the prevailing cultures of our time. And The Songlines presents unforgettable details about the kinds of disputes we know all too well from less traumatic confrontations: over sacred lands invaded by railroads, mines, and construction sites, over the laws and rights of a poor people versus a wealthy invasive one. To Chatwin these are but recent, local examples of an eternal basic distinction between settlers and wanderers. His book, devoted to the latter, is a brilliant evocation of this profound optimism: that man is by nature not a bellicose aggressor but a pacific, song-creating, adaptive species whose destiny is to quest for the truth.]]> 304 Bruce Chatwin 0140094296 Courtney 0 3.99 1987 The Songlines
author: Bruce Chatwin
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at: 2022/05/30
date added: 2022/05/30
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[We Had a Little Real Estate Problem]]> 54304279
From Kliph Nesteroff, “the human encyclopedia of comedy� ( VICE ), comes the important and underappreciated story of Native Americans and comedy.

It was one of the most reliable jokes in Charlie Hill’s stand-up “My people are from Wisconsin. We used to be from New York. We had a little real estate problem.�

In We Had a Little Real Estate Problem , acclaimed comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff focuses on one of comedy’s most significant and little-known how, despite having been denied representation in the entertainment industry, Native Americans have influenced and advanced the art form.

The account begins in the late 1880s, when Native Americans were forced to tour in wild west shows as an alternative to prison. (One modern comedian said it was as “if a Guantanamo detainee suddenly had to appear on X-Factor .�) This is followed by a detailed look at the life and work of seminal figures such as Cherokee humorist Will Rogers and Hill, who in the 1970s was the first Native American comedian to appear The Tonight Show .

Also profiled are several contemporary comedians, including Jonny Roberts, a social worker from the Red Lake Nation who drives five hours to the closest comedy club to pursue his stand-up dreams; Kiowa-Apache comic Adrianne Chalepah, who formed the touring group the Native Ladies of Comedy; and the 1491s, a sketch troupe whose satire is smashing stereotypes to critical acclaim. As Ryan Red Corn, the Osage member of the 1491s, “The American narrative dictates that Indians are supposed to be sad. It’s not really true and it’s not indicative of the community experience itself…Laughter and joy is very much a part of Native culture.�

Featuring dozens of original interviews and the exhaustive research that is Nesteroff’s trademark, We Had a Little Real Estate Problem is a powerful tribute to a neglected legacy.]]> 319 Kliph Nesteroff 1982103035 Courtney 0 4.07 2021 We Had a Little Real Estate Problem
author: Kliph Nesteroff
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/01/01
date added: 2022/05/30
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Form and Emptiness]]> 57004637 A brilliantly inventive new novel about loss, growing up, and our relationship with things, by the Booker Prize-finalist author of A Tale for the Time Being

After the tragic death of his beloved musician father, fourteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house--a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn't understand what these things are saying, he can sense their emotional tone; some are pleasant, a gentle hum or coo, but others are snide, angry and full of pain. When his mother, Annabelle, develops a hoarding problem, the voices grow more clamorous.

At first, Benny tries to ignore them, but soon the voices follow him outside the house, onto the street and at school, driving him at last to seek refuge in the silence of a large public library, where objects are well-behaved and know to speak in whispers. There, Benny discovers a strange new world, where "things happen." He falls in love with a mesmerizing street artist with a smug pet ferret, who uses the library as her performance space. He meets a homeless philosopher-poet, who encourages him to ask important questions and find his own voice amongst the many.

And he meets his very own Book--a talking thing--who narrates Benny's life and teaches him to listen to the things that truly matter.

With its blend of sympathetic characters, riveting plot, and vibrant engagement with everything from jazz, to climate change, to our attachment to material possessions, The Book of Form and Emptiness is classic Ruth Ozeki--bold, wise, poignant, playful, humane and heartbreaking.]]> 548 Ruth Ozeki 0399563644 Courtney 0 4.01 2021 The Book of Form and Emptiness
author: Ruth Ozeki
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/05/27
date added: 2022/05/30
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Why Bushwick Bill Matters (Music Matters)]]> 55727440 208 Charles L. Hughes 1477322310 Courtney 0 4.23 Why Bushwick Bill Matters (Music Matters)
author: Charles L. Hughes
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.23
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2022/05/25
date added: 2022/05/25
shelves:
review:

]]> Gender Queer: A Memoir 42837514 Gender Queer is here. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.]]> 240 Maia Kobabe 1549304003 Courtney 0 4.25 2019 Gender Queer: A Memoir
author: Maia Kobabe
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2022/05/21
date added: 2022/05/22
shelves:
review:

]]> The Album of Dr. Moreau 55077550 The Album of Dr. Moreau combines the science fiction premise of the famous novel by H. G. Wells with the panache of a classic murder mystery and the spectacle of a beloved boy band.

It’s 2001, and the WyldBoyZ are the world’s hottest boy band, and definitely the world’s only genetically engineered human-animal hybrid vocal group. When their producer, Dr. M, is found murdered in his hotel room, the “boyz� become the prime suspects. Was it Bobby the ocelot (“the cute one�), Matt the megabat (“the funny one�), Tim the Pangolin (“the shy one�), Devin the bonobo (“the romantic one�), or Tusk the elephant (“the smart one�)?

Las Vegas Detective Luce Delgado has only twenty-four hours to solve a case that goes all the way back to the secret science barge where the WyldBoyZ� journey first began—a place they used to call home.]]> 168 Daryl Gregory 1250782104 Courtney 0 3.97 2021 The Album of Dr. Moreau
author: Daryl Gregory
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/05/08
date added: 2022/05/08
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Can I Freeze It?: How to Use the Most Versatile Appliance in Your Kitchen]]> 414607 224 Susie Theodorou 0060797029 Courtney 0 2.91 2007 Can I Freeze It?: How to Use the Most Versatile Appliance in Your Kitchen
author: Susie Theodorou
name: Courtney
average rating: 2.91
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at: 2022/05/05
date added: 2022/05/08
shelves:
review:

]]> Manhunt 53329296
Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned other people aren't safe.

After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate murderous TERFs, a sociopathic billionaire bunker brat, and awkward relationship dynamics―all while outrunning packs of feral men, and their own demons.]]> 296 Gretchen Felker-Martin 1250794641 Courtney 0 3.52 2022 Manhunt
author: Gretchen Felker-Martin
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/05/03
date added: 2022/05/08
shelves:
review:

]]> Vagabonds! 58446230 In the bustling streets and cloistered homes of Lagos, a cast of vivid characters—some haunted, some defiant—navigate danger, demons, and love in a quest to lead true lives.

As in Nigeria, vagabonds are those whose existence is literally outlawed: the queer, the poor, the displaced, the footloose and rogue spirits. They are those who inhabit transient spaces, who make their paths and move invisibly, who embrace apparitions, old vengeances and alternative realities. Eloghosa Osunde's brave, fiercely inventive novel traces a wild array of characters for whom life itself is a form of resistance: a driver for a debauched politician with the power to command life and death; a legendary fashion designer who gives birth to a grown daughter; a lesbian couple whose tender relationship sheds unexpected light on their experience with underground sex work; a wife and mother who attends a secret spiritual gathering that shifts her world. As their lives intertwine—in bustling markets and underground clubs, churches and hotel rooms—vagabonds are seized and challenged by spirits who command the city's dark energy. Whether running from danger, meeting with secret lovers, finding their identities, or vanquishing their shadowselves, Osunde's characters confront and support one another, before converging for the once-in-a-lifetime gathering that gives the book its unexpectedly joyous conclusion.

Blending unvarnished realism with myth and fantasy, Vagabonds! is a vital work of imagination that takes us deep inside the hearts, minds, and bodies of a people in duress—and in triumph.]]> 320 Eloghosa Osunde 0593330021 Courtney 2 3.82 2022 Vagabonds!
author: Eloghosa Osunde
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2022/04/30
date added: 2022/04/30
shelves:
review:
I liked that it was very gay but I don't like books this confusing.
]]> <![CDATA[Paint Lab: 52 Exercises inspired by Artists, Materials, Time, Place, and Method (Lab Series)]]> 17318778
This hands-on book is organized into 52 units, which may, but don't need to be explored on a weekly basis. The labs can be worked on in any order, so that you can flip around to learn a new mixed-media technique or be inspired by a particular painting theme or application. The underlying message of this book is that, as an artist, you should learn and gain expertise through experimentation and play. There is no right or wrong result, rather you will find new forms of expression in your work and gain confidence in your skills. Designed to inform and inspire new artists and rekindle passion for painting in experienced artists, this book offers a range of exercises broken down by Who (artist-inspired), What (tools and materials), When (a time-based concept), Where (a sense of place), and How (inspired by a technique or method). Paint Lab is illustrated with brilliant full-color images and multiple examples of each exercise. This book offers you a visual, non-linear approach to learning painting techniques, and reinforces a fun and fearless approach to creating art.]]> 136 Deborah Forman 1592537820 Courtney 0 4.14 2013 Paint Lab: 52 Exercises inspired by Artists, Materials, Time, Place, and Method (Lab Series)
author: Deborah Forman
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2022/04/26
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves:
review:

]]> Coming Back 56988000 A beautiful graphic novel fantasy romance that follows two young women who have to go on their own separate adventures to discover the truth about themselves and about each other.

Preet is magic.

Valissa is not.

Everyone in their village has magic in their bones, and Preet is the strongest of them all. Without any power of her own, how can Valissa ever be worthy of Preet's love? When their home is attacked, Valissa has a chance to prove herself, but that means leaving Preet behind. On her own for the first time Preet breaks the village's most sacred laws, and is rejected from the only home she's ever known and sent into a new world.

Divided by different paths, insecurities, and distance, will Valissa and Preet be able to find their way back to each other?

A beautiful story of two young women who are so focused on proving they're meant to be together that they end up hurting each other in the process. This gorgeous graphic novel is an LGTBQ+ romance about young love and how it can grow into something strong no matter what obstacles get in the way.]]> 248 Jessi Zabarsky 0593125436 Courtney 0 3.50 2022 Coming Back
author: Jessi Zabarsky
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/04/25
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves:
review:

]]> Nectar in a Sieve 101509
This beautiful and eloquent story tells of a simple peasant woman in a primitive village in India whose whole life is a gallant and persistent battle to care for those she loves—an unforgettable novel that "will wring your heart out" (The Associated Press).

Named Notable Book of 1955 by the American Library Association.]]> 186 Kamala Markandaya 0451528239 Courtney 0 3.67 1954 Nectar in a Sieve
author: Kamala Markandaya
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1954
rating: 0
read at: 2022/04/18
date added: 2022/04/18
shelves:
review:

]]> The Legend of Auntie Po 40612185 Part historical fiction, part magical realism, and 100 percent adventure. Thirteen-year-old Mei reimagines the myths of Paul Bunyan as starring a Chinese heroine while she works in a Sierra Nevada logging camp in 1885.

Aware of the racial tumult in the years after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Mei tries to remain blissfully focused on her job, her close friendship with the camp foreman's daughter, and telling stories about Paul Bunyan--reinvented as Po Pan Yin (Auntie Po), an elderly Chinese matriarch.

Anchoring herself with stories of Auntie Po, Mei navigates the difficulty and politics of lumber camp work and her growing romantic feelings for her friend Bee. The Legend of Auntie Po is about who gets to own a myth, and about immigrant families and communities holding on to rituals and traditions while staking out their own place in America.]]> 290 Shing Yin Khor Courtney 0 4.05 2021 The Legend of Auntie Po
author: Shing Yin Khor
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/04/14
date added: 2022/04/14
shelves:
review:

]]> Anthem 57941459 An epic literary thriller set where America is right now, in which a band of unlikely heroes sets out on a quest to save one innocent life—and might end up saving us all.

Something is happening to teenagers across America, spreading through memes only they can parse.

At the Float Anxiety Abatement Center, in a suburb of Chicago, Simon Oliver is trying to recover from his sister’s tragic passing. He breaks out to join a woman named Louise and a man called The Prophet on a quest as urgent as it is enigmatic. Who lies at the end of the road? A man known as The Wizard, whose past encounter with Louise sparked her own collapse. Their quest becomes a rescue mission when they join up with a man whose sister is being held captive by the Wizard, impregnated and imprisoned in a tower.

Noah Hawley’s new novel is anadventure that finds unquenchable lights in dark corners. Unforgettably vivid characters and a plot as fast and bright as pop cinema blend in a Vonnegutian story that is as timeless as a Grimm’s fairy tale. It is a leap into the idiosyncratic pulse of the American heart, written with the bravado, literary power, and feverish foresight that have made Hawley one of our most essential writers.]]> 427 Noah Hawley 1538711516 Courtney 2 3.43 2022 Anthem
author: Noah Hawley
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2022/04/07
date added: 2022/04/07
shelves:
review:
I slogged through this book that managed to be both violent and boring. From the descriptions I thought I was getting a Heathers meets Vonnegut kind of story. It was not funny like that. At least it's timely, but I almost abandoned it several times. I read a five star review that had some personal feels about being a parent so maybe not being a parent but relating to the suicidal kids made me the wrong audience.
]]> Cat’s Cradle 135479 Told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global destruction preys on our deepest fears of witnessing Armageddon and, worse still, surviving it ...

Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the founding 'fathers' of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to the world. For he's the inventor of 'ice-nine', a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. The search for its whereabouts leads to Hoenikker's three ecentric children, to a crazed dictator in the Caribbean, to madness. Felix Hoenikker's Death Wish comes true when his last, fatal gift to humankind brings about the end, that for all of us, is nigh...]]> 306 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Courtney 0 4.17 1963 Cat’s Cradle
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at: 2022/04/04
date added: 2022/04/04
shelves:
review:

]]> The Rogainers 60752447 Francis Boscoe Courtney 4 4.00 The Rogainers
author: Francis Boscoe
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2022/04/04
date added: 2022/04/04
shelves:
review:

]]> The Travelling Cat Chronicles 40961230
An instant international bestseller and indie bestseller, The Travelling Cat Chronicles has charmed readers around the world. With simple yet descriptive prose, this novel gives voice to Nana the cat and his owner, Satoru, as they take to the road on a journey with no other purpose than to visit three of Satoru's longtime friends. Or so Nana is led to believe...

With his crooked tail—a sign of good fortune—and adventurous spirit, Nana is the perfect companion for the man who took him in as a stray. And as they travel in a silver van across Japan, with its ever-changing scenery and seasons, they will learn the true meaning of courage and gratitude, of loyalty and love.]]> 281 Hiro Arikawa 0735235244 Courtney 0 4.35 2012 The Travelling Cat Chronicles
author: Hiro Arikawa
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2022/03/06
date added: 2022/03/06
shelves:
review:

]]> What I Carry 45697191 For readers of Robin Benway's Far From the Tree, a powerful and heartwarming look at a teen girl about to age out of the foster care system.

Growing up in foster care, Muir has lived in many houses. And if she's learned one thing, it is to Pack. Light.
Carry only what fits in a suitcase.
Toothbrush? Yes.
Socks? Yes.
Emotional attachment to friends? foster families? a boyfriend? Nope!
There's no room for any additional baggage.
Muir has just one year left before she ages out of the system. One year before she's free. One year to avoid anything--or anyone--that could get in her way.

Then she meets Francine. And Kira. And Sean.

And everything changes.]]> 336 Jennifer Longo 0553537725 Courtney 0 4.20 2020 What I Carry
author: Jennifer Longo
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2022/03/02
date added: 2022/03/03
shelves:
review:

]]> Slaughterhouse-Five 4981 Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.�

An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut’s writing—the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit—that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it.

Fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut's portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties.]]> 275 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Courtney 0 4.10 1969 Slaughterhouse-Five
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1969
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/27
date added: 2022/02/27
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Traditional Inuit Throat-Singing]]> 21789771
When the city hosts a Celebration of the Arctic and Sarah runs into girls from her hometown, she’s forced to confront her past in a surprisingly direct way. Rusidan’s confused. Why is Sarah picking fights with people she’s never even mentioned before? What could they possibly have done to incur such wrath?

Will Sarah finally open up to Rusidan, or will their sensual spin on traditional Inuit throat-singing allow them to communicate without words?

Word 4,500




"If ever you have the opportunity to witness first-hand the magnificent spectacle that is Inuit throat-singing, don’t pass it by. There is nothing on this planet so cosmically beautiful." Those are the words that kept running through Rusidan’s head as she watched the show.

On an outdoor stage stood two young women with nothing but a microphone between them. Gripping one another, hands on forearms, they cuddled so close their faces nearly touched. They sang a capella and needed no accompaniment. One began before the other, producing a breathy sound. Lower than low, like a sub-sonic pant, the beat of her chant pushed forward like a freight train. How could a female voice produce tones so deeply resonant?

Her partner joined in, filling the gaps. The second starter vocalized at a higher pitch, singing in fleeting, orgasmic sounds. It was like nothing she’d ever heard in popular music. The effect was intriguing, transfixing, visceral. It resonated in the core of Rusidan’s being.

Rhythmic vibrations rumbled her body like the bass line at a rock concert. Who’d have thought throat-singing could be such a turn-on? Sexual and spiritual, it was the sound of divine union.

Those women must have been romantic partners, Rusidan thought. The way they focused on one another, with their faces so close they could kiss, gave them away. They rocked one another’s bodies, pushing and pulling outstretched arms along with the music. They danced to the very song they created. It was stunning. Beyond stunning. It was spellbinding.

With a burst of laughter, they broke away from each other. The second partner giggled, giving the first a playful push as if to deny their beautiful act had ever taken place. Throat-singing represented pure female sensuality, to Rusidan. It seemed almost tawdry that she should witness their show of intimacy.

***

Giselle Renarde is a queer Canadian, avid volunteer, and contributor to more than 100 short story anthologies, including Best Women’s Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bondage Erotica, and Best Lesbian Romance. Ms Renarde has written dozens of juicy books, including Anonymous, Ondine, and Nanny State. Her book The Red Satin Collection won Best Transgender Romance in the 2012 Rainbow Awards. Giselle lives across from a park with two bilingual cats who sleep on her head.]]> 24 Giselle Renarde 131195130X Courtney 0 3.50 2013 Traditional Inuit Throat-Singing
author: Giselle Renarde
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/24
date added: 2022/02/25
shelves:
review:

]]> God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater 33290408
Trout, modeled according to Vonnegut on the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon (with whom Vonnegut had an occasional relationship) is a desperate, impoverished but visionary hack writer who functions for Eliot Rosewater as both conscience and horrid example. Rosewater, seeking to put his inheritance to some meaningful use (his father was an entrepreneur), tries to do good within the context of almost illimitable cynicism and corruption.

It is in this novel that Rosewater wanders into a science fiction conference--an actual annual event in Milford, Pennsylvania--and at the motel delivers his famous monologue evoked by science fiction writers and critics for almost half a century: "None of you can write for sour apples... but you're the only people trying to come to terms with the really terrific things which are happening today." Money does not drive Mr. Rosewater (or the corrupt lawyer who tries to shape the Rosewater fortune) so much as outrage at the human condition.

The novel was adapted for a 1979 Alan Menken musical. The novel is told mostly thru a collection of short stories dealing with Eliot's interactions with the citizens of Rosewater County, usually with the last sentence serving as a punch line. The antagonist's tale, Mushari's, is told in a similar short essay fashion. The stories reveal different hypocrisies of humankind in a darkly humorous fashion.]]> 290 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Courtney 0 4.02 1965 God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1965
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/25
date added: 2022/02/25
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)]]> 1232 487 Carlos Ruiz Zafón Courtney 0 4.26 2001 The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)
author: Carlos Ruiz Zafón
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/20
date added: 2022/02/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead]]> 13588356 Researcher and thought leader Dr. Brené Brown offers a powerful new vision that encourages us to dare greatly: to embrace vulnerability and imperfection, to live wholeheartedly, and to courageously engage in our lives.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.� —Theodore Roosevelt

Every day we experience the uncertainty, risks, and emotional exposure that define what it means to be vulnerable, or to dare greatly. Whether the arena is a new relationship, an important meeting, our creative process, or a difficult family conversation, we must find the courage to walk into vulnerability and engage with our whole hearts.

In Daring Greatly, Dr. Brown challenges everything we think we know about vulnerability. Based on twelve years of research, she argues that vulnerability is not weakness, but rather our clearest path to courage, engagement, and meaningful connection. The book that Dr. Brown’s many fans have been waiting for, Daring Greatly will spark a new spirit of truth—and trust—in our organizations, families, schools, and communities.]]> 287 Brené Brown 1592407331 Courtney 0 4.29 2012 Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
author: Brené Brown
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/08
date added: 2022/02/08
shelves:
review:

]]> Mother Night 9592 Librarian note: Alternate cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal. But is he really guilty? In this brilliant book rife with true gallows humor, Vonnegut turns black and white into a chilling shade of gray with a verdict that will haunt us all.]]> 282 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 0385334141 Courtney 0 4.23 1961 Mother Night
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1961
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/01
date added: 2022/02/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dad on Pills: Fatherhood and Mental Illness]]> 60218168
A poignant and hilarious meditation on the wild ride that is a life medicated, Dad on Pills chronicles the perpetual wrestling match of parenthood and partnership while refusing to shy away from the terrible loneliness at the bottom of “having a brain that doesn’t always work so good.� From the comic absurdity and unexpected dread of a birthing class to the sometimes fraught—for this father, at least—utterances of his toddler son, this tragicomic memoir explores Gethard’s own upbringing, as well as his mental illness and its repercussions. “I spend so much time as a parent quietly praying,� writes Gethard. “Praying that my son, my child, this beautiful boy with his big goofy grin, doesn’t feel this thing I have felt so often in my life. The depression, the manic moments, the dangerous instincts.�

But something magical happens along the way: Gethard devises a plan for always being a good and loving father no matter what vicissitudes of biochemistry his kid experiences. Resonating with honesty and vulnerability, shining much-needed light on the very real affliction of mental illness, Dad on Pills is striking in how it challenges us to be ever more humane and understanding while also constantly sucker-punching us with much hard-earned humor.]]> 62 Chris Gethard 109443907X Courtney 0 4.18 2022 Dad on Pills: Fatherhood and Mental Illness
author: Chris Gethard
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/01/28
date added: 2022/01/28
shelves:
review:

]]> The Sirens of Titan 4982 224 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Courtney 0 4.16 1959 The Sirens of Titan
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1959
rating: 0
read at: 2022/01/27
date added: 2022/01/27
shelves:
review:

]]>