Jay's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 19 Dec 2024 08:50:54 -0800 60 Jay's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Third Gilmore Girl 207298106 Brought to you by Penguin.

Beloved award-winning actress Kelly Bishop, famous for playing the iconic Emily Gilmore in Gilmore Girls , finally tells the whole story of her six decades in show business.

Kelly Bishop’s storied career has been defined by landmark achievements, from winning a Tony Award for her turn in the original Broadway cast of A Chorus Line to her memorable performance as Jennifer Grey’s mother in Dirty Dancing, but it is probably her role as matriarch Emily in the modern classic Gilmore Girls that cemented her legacy.
Now, Bishop reflects on her remarkable life and looks towards the future, sharing some of her greatest stories and the life lessons she’s learned on her journey. From her early transition from dance to drama, to marrying young to a compulsive gambler, to the losses and achievements she experienced—among them marching for women’s rights and losing her second husband to cancer—Bishop offers a rich, genuine celebration of her life.
Full of witty insights, The Third Gilmore Girl is a warm, unapologetic, and powerful memoir from a woman who has left indelible impressions on her audiences for decades.

]]> 256 Kelly Bishop 1668023776 Jay 0 to-read 4.35 2024 The Third Gilmore Girl
author: Kelly Bishop
name: Jay
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/19
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]]> Connie: A Memoir 206119058 In an industry dominated by white men, Connie Chung stood alone, the first and only Asian woman to break into the television news industry. This is her extraordinary story, told with incisive wit and remarkable candor. Connie Chung is a pioneer.In 1969 at the age of 23, this once-shy daughter of Chinese parents took her first job at a local TV station in her hometown of Washington, D.C. and soon thereafter began working at CBS news as a correspondent.Profoundly influenced by her family’s cultural traditions,yet growing up completely Americanized in the United States, Chung describes her career as an Asian woman in a white male-centered world.Overt sexism was a way of life,but Chung was tenacious in her pursuit of stories � battling rival reporters to secure scoops that ranged from interviewing Magic Johnson to covering the Watergate scandal � and quickly becamea household name. She made history when she achieved her dream of being the first woman to co-anchor theCBS Evening Newsand the first Asianto anchor any news program in the U.S. Chung pulls no punches as she provides a behind-the-scenestour ofher singular life. Fromshowdowns withpowerful men in and out of the newsroom to the stories behind some of her career-defining reporting and the unwavering support of her husband, Maury Povich, nothing is off-limits � good, bad, or ugly. So be sure to tune in for an irreverent and inspiring this is CONNIE like you’ve never seen her before.]]> 336 Connie Chung 1538766981 Jay 0 to-read 4.10 2024 Connie: A Memoir
author: Connie Chung
name: Jay
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens]]> 152034931 A rollicking historyof England's earliest kings and queens, a story ofnarcissists, excessive beheadings, middle-management insurrection, uncivil wars,and more, fromaward-winning British actor and comedian David Mitchell

Think you know the kings and queens of England? Think again.

In Unruly , David Mitchell explores how early England’s monarchs, while acting as feared rulers firmly guiding their subjects� destinies, were in reality a bunch of lucky bastards who were mostly as silly and weird in real life as they appear to us today in their portraits.

Taking us right back to King Arthur ( he didn’t exist), Mitchell tells the founding story of post-Roman England right up to the reign of Elizabeth I ( she dies), as the monarchy began to lose its power. It’s a tale of bizarre and curious ascensions, inadequate self-control, and at least one total Cnut, as the English evolved from having their crops stolen by the thug with the largest armed gang to bowing and paying taxes to a divinely anointed King.

How this happened, who it happened to, and why the hell it matters are all questions Mitchell answers with brilliance, wit, and the full erudition of a man who once studied history—and is damned if he’ll let it off the hook for the mess it’s made of everything.

A funny book that takes history seriously, Unruly is for anyone who has ever wondered how the monarchy came to be—and who is to blame.]]> 433 David Mitchell 0593728491 Jay 0 to-read 4.13 2023 Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens
author: David Mitchell
name: Jay
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma]]> 18693771 A pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing.

Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world's foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers' capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain's natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk's own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.]]> 464 Bessel van der Kolk 0670785938 Jay 0 4.36 2014 The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
author: Bessel van der Kolk
name: Jay
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed]]> 37570546 From a psychotherapist, and national advice columnist comes a thought-provoking new book that takes us behind the scenes of a therapist's world -- where her patients are looking for answers (and so is she).

One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose office she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.

As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients' lives -- a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can't stop hooking up with the wrong guys -- she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell.

With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is revolutionary in its candor, offering a deeply personal yet universal tour of our hearts and minds and providing the rarest of gifts: a boldly revealing portrait of what it means to be human, and a disarmingly funny and illuminating account of our own mysterious lives and our power to transform them.]]> 415 Lori Gottlieb 1328662055 Jay 0 4.36 2019 Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed
author: Lori Gottlieb
name: Jay
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> Mansfield Park 45032 488 Jane Austen Jay 0 3.86 1814 Mansfield Park
author: Jane Austen
name: Jay
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/27
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]]> All the Broken Places 61111301
Then, a new family moves into the apartment below her. In spite of herself, Gretel can't help but begin a friendship with the little boy, Henry, though his presence brings back memories she would rather forget. One night, she witnesses a disturbing, violent argument between Henry's beautiful mother and his arrogant father, one that threatens Gretel's hard-won, self-contained existence.

All The Broken Places moves back and forth in time between Gretel's girlhood in Germany to present-day London as a woman whose life has been haunted by the past. Now, Gretel faces a similar crossroads to one she encountered long ago. Back then, she denied her own complicity, but now, faced with a chance to interrogate her guilt, grief and remorse, she can choose to save a young boy. If she does, she will be forced to reveal the secrets she has spent a lifetime protecting. This time, she can make a different choice than before -- whatever the cost to herself....

From the New York Times bestselling author John Boyne, a devastating, beautiful story about a woman who must confront the sins of her own terrible past, and a present in which it is never too late for bravery. ]]> 400 John Boyne 0593653068 Jay 5 4.43 2022 All the Broken Places
author: John Boyne
name: Jay
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/07
date added: 2024/10/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated]]> 8555260 320 Alison Arngrim 0062000101 Jay 3 4.26 2010 Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated
author: Alison Arngrim
name: Jay
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2010
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/09/24
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]]> <![CDATA[The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store]]> 65678550
Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, which served the neighborhood's quirky collection of blacks and European immigrants, helped by her husband, Moshe, a Romanian-born theater owner who integrated the town's first dance hall. When the state came looking for a deaf black child, claiming that the boy needed to be institutionalized, Chicken Hill's residents—roused by Chona's kindess and the courage of a local black worker named Nate Timblin—banded together to keep the boy safe.

As the novel unfolds, it becomes clear how much the people of Chicken Hill have to struggle to survive at the margins of white Christian America and how damaging bigotry, hypocrisy, and deceit can be to a community. When the truth is revealed about the skeleton, the boy, and the part the town’s establishment played in both, McBride shows that it is love and community—heaven and earth—that ultimately sustain us.]]> 385 James McBride 0593422945 Jay 3 3.83 2023 The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
author: James McBride
name: Jay
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/08/28
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]]> <![CDATA[The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir]]> 203708995 400 Griffin Dunne 0593652827 Jay 4 4.01 2024 The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir
author: Griffin Dunne
name: Jay
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/08/28
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]]> <![CDATA[The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet]]> 58678422 ŷ Choice winner for Nonfiction 2021 and instant #1 bestseller! A deeply moving collection of personal essays from John Green, the author of The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All the Way Down.

The Anthropocene is the current geologic age, in which humans have profoundly reshaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his groundbreaking podcast, bestselling author John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale—from the QWERTY keyboard and sunsets to Canada geese and Penguins of Madagascar.

Funny, complex, and rich with detail, the reviews chart the contradictions of contemporary humanity. As a species, we are both far too powerful and not nearly powerful enough, a paradox that came into sharp focus as we faced a global pandemic that both separated us and bound us together.

John Green’s gift for storytelling shines throughout this masterful collection. The Anthropocene Reviewed is an open-hearted exploration of the paths we forge and an unironic celebration of falling in love with the world.]]> 304 John Green 0525556532 Jay 0 to-read 4.42 2021 The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
author: John Green
name: Jay
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/10
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]]> Marple: Twelve New Mysteries 58935130
This collection of a dozen original short stories, all featuring Jane Marple, will introduce the character to a whole new generation. Each author reimagines Agatha Christie’s Marple through their own unique perspective while staying true to the hallmarks of a traditional mystery.

Naomi Alderman
Leigh Bardugo
Alyssa Cole
Lucy Foley
Elly Griffiths
Natalie Haynes
Jean Kwok
Val McDermid
Karen M. McManus
Dreda Say Mitchell
Kate Mosse
Ruth Ware

Miss Marple was first introduced to readers in a story Agatha Christie wrote for The Royal Magazine in 1927 and made her first appearance in a full-length novel in 1930’s The Murder at the Vicarage. It has been 45 years since Agatha Christie’s last Marple novel, Sleeping Murder, was published posthumously in 1976, and this collection of ingenious new stories by twelve Christie devotees will be a timely reminder why Jane Marple remains the most famous fictional female detective of all time.]]> 384 Agatha Christie 0063136058 Jay 4 3.79 2022 Marple: Twelve New Mysteries
author: Agatha Christie
name: Jay
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/20
date added: 2024/04/20
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]]> North Woods 71872930
When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become home to an extraordinary succession of inhabitants . An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins survive war and famine, only to succumb to envy and desire.A crime reporter unearths a mass grave, but finds the ancient trees refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a conman, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle; as each one confronts the mysteries of the north woods, they come to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.

Traversing cycles of history, nature, and even literature, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we’re connected to our environment and to one another, across time, language and space. Written along with the seasons and divided into the twelve months of the year, it is an unforgettable novel about secrets and fates that asks the timeless how do we live on, even after we’re gone?]]> 372 Daniel Mason 0593597036 Jay 5 4.11 2023 North Woods
author: Daniel Mason
name: Jay
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/20
date added: 2024/04/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)]]> 61431922 Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders...

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

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

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

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

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

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die]]> 528 Rebecca Yarros 1649374046 Jay 4
There are many weaknesses: There is not much depth to the characters. I appreciated that the main character has a disability but thought there were too many examples of others providing her accommodations. The times when she used her intelligence were more rewarding to me as a reader. I had trouble caring about any character in the first section of the book. And the author had to have been watching American Ninja Warriors as she typed the vertical obstacle course scene.

BUT THEN…the dragons! They had more interesting and more complex personalities. I really cared about them. The book took a turn when the dragons were incorporated. Then I was hooked the way so many readers have been. I did stay up too late finishing it and the final twist did surprise me. It pretty much guaranteed that I will read the next one.

Other minor complaints: the protagonist grows weak when in the presence of one of the men on almost every page. We get it. The sex scenes are way too long and laughably cliched. She held on to his “length�. Who talks like that? I would have been happy if the author had stuck to the fiery passion between the lovers and left out her attempt at the specifics. Most of the other riders are interchangeable with maybe 2-3 exceptions.

It is fluff but entertaining fluff, especially in the last half.]]> 4.56 2023 Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Jay
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/03/06
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I fell for the hype, ok? I dont read fantasy novels but I like a page turner so I thought I would give it a shot.

There are many weaknesses: There is not much depth to the characters. I appreciated that the main character has a disability but thought there were too many examples of others providing her accommodations. The times when she used her intelligence were more rewarding to me as a reader. I had trouble caring about any character in the first section of the book. And the author had to have been watching American Ninja Warriors as she typed the vertical obstacle course scene.

BUT THEN…the dragons! They had more interesting and more complex personalities. I really cared about them. The book took a turn when the dragons were incorporated. Then I was hooked the way so many readers have been. I did stay up too late finishing it and the final twist did surprise me. It pretty much guaranteed that I will read the next one.

Other minor complaints: the protagonist grows weak when in the presence of one of the men on almost every page. We get it. The sex scenes are way too long and laughably cliched. She held on to his “length�. Who talks like that? I would have been happy if the author had stuck to the fiery passion between the lovers and left out her attempt at the specifics. Most of the other riders are interchangeable with maybe 2-3 exceptions.

It is fluff but entertaining fluff, especially in the last half.
]]> Trust 58210933 An unparalleled novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception

Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly boundless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.

Hernan Diaz's TRUST elegantly puts these competing narratives into conversation with one another—and in tension with the perspective of one woman bent on disentangling fact from fiction. The result is a novel that spans over a century and becomes more exhilarating with each new revelation.

At once an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle, TRUST engages the reader in a quest for the truth while confronting the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts.]]> 402 Hernan Diaz 0593420314 Jay 3 3.77 2022 Trust
author: Hernan Diaz
name: Jay
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/06
date added: 2024/02/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage]]> 55115150 "Anne Lamott is my Oprah." -Chicago Tribune

From the bestselling author of Help, Thanks, Wow comes an inspiring guide to restoring hope and joy in our lives.

In Dusk Night Dawn, Anne Lamott explores the tough questions that many of us grapple with. How can we recapture the confidence we once had as we stumble through the dark times that seem increasingly bleak? As bad news piles up--from climate crises to daily assaults on civility--how can we cope? Where, she asks, "do we start to our world and joy and hope and our faith in life itself back . . . with our sore feet, hearing loss, stiff fingers, poor digestion, stunned minds, broken hearts?"

We begin, Lamott says, by accepting our flaws and embracing our humanity.

Drawing from her own experiences, Lamott shows us the intimate and human ways we can adopt to move through life's dark places and toward the light of hope that still burns ahead for all of us.

As she does in Help, Thanks, Wow and her other bestselling books, Lamott explores the thorny issues of life and faith by breaking them down into manageable, human-sized questions for readers to ponder, in the process showing us how we can amplify life's small moments of joy by staying open to love and connection. As Lamott notes in Dusk Night Dawn, "I got Medicare three days before I got hitched, which sounds like something an old person might do, which does not describe adorably ageless me." Marrying for the first time with a grown son and a grandson, Lamott explains that finding happiness with a partner isn't a function of age or beauty but of outlook and perspective.

Full of the honesty, humor, and humanity that have made Lamott beloved by millions of readers, Dusk Night Dawn is classic Anne Lamott--thoughtful and comic, warm and wise--and further proof that Lamott truly speaks to the better angels in all of us.]]> 224 Anne Lamott 0593189698 Jay 3 3.95 2021 Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage
author: Anne Lamott
name: Jay
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2021
rating: 3
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date added: 2023/12/31
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]]> Middlemarch 19089 "People are almost always better than their neighbours think they are"

George Eliot’s most ambitious novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfillment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; the charming but tactless Dr Lydgate, whose pioneering medical methods, combined with an imprudent marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamond, threaten to undermine his career; and the religious hypocrite Bulstrode, hiding scandalous crimes from his past. As their stories interweave, George Eliot creates a richly nuanced and moving drama, hailed by Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people".]]> 912 George Eliot 0451529170 Jay 0 currently-reading 4.00 1872 Middlemarch
author: George Eliot
name: Jay
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1872
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/30
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]]> In the Lives of Puppets 60784549
The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled “HAP,� he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio–a past spent hunting humans.

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

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

Inspired by Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio, and like Swiss Family Robinson meets Wall-E, In the Lives of Puppets is a masterful stand-alone fantasy adventure from the beloved author who brought you The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door.]]> 432 T.J. Klune 125021744X Jay 0 3.90 2023 In the Lives of Puppets
author: T.J. Klune
name: Jay
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2023/09/30
date added: 2023/09/30
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]]> Flowers for Algernon 18373 Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, the powerful, classic story about a man who receives an operation that turns him into a genius...and introduces him to heartache.

Charlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ, he has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence � a procedure that has already been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon.

As the treatment takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment appears to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance, until Algernon suddenly deteriorates. Will the same happen to Charlie?]]> 311 Daniel Keyes 015603008X Jay 0 4.19 1966 Flowers for Algernon
author: Daniel Keyes
name: Jay
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1966
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/16
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]]> <![CDATA[The Madness of Crowds (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #17)]]> 56269078 You’re a coward.

Time and again, as the New Year approaches, that charge is leveled against Armand Gamache.

It starts innocently enough.

While the residents of the Québec village of Three Pines take advantage of the deep snow to ski and toboggan, to drink hot chocolate in the bistro and share meals together, the Chief Inspector finds his holiday with his family interrupted by a simple request.

He’s asked to provide security for what promises to be a non-event. A visiting Professor of Statistics will be giving a lecture at the nearby university.

While he is perplexed as to why the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec would be assigned this task, it sounds easy enough. That is until Gamache starts looking into Professor Abigail Robinson and discovers an agenda so repulsive he begs the university to cancel the lecture.

They refuse, citing academic freedom, and accuse Gamache of censorship and intellectual cowardice. Before long, Professor Robinson’s views start seeping into conversations. Spreading and infecting. So that truth and fact, reality and delusion are so confused it’s near impossible to tell them apart.

Discussions become debates, debates become arguments, which turn into fights. As sides are declared, a madness takes hold.

Abigail Robinson promises that, if they follow her, ça va bien aller. All will be well. But not, Gamache and his team know, for everyone.

When a murder is committed it falls to Armand Gamache, his second-in-command Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and their team to investigate the crime as well as this extraordinary popular delusion.

And the madness of crowds.]]> 436 Louise Penny 1250145260 Jay 3 4.05 2021 The Madness of Crowds (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #17)
author: Louise Penny
name: Jay
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2023/07/10
date added: 2023/07/10
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]]> I Have Some Questions for You 61053829
But when the Granby School invites her back to teach a course, Bodie is inexorably drawn to the case and its increasingly apparent flaws. In their rush to convict Omar, did the school and the police overlook other suspects? Is the real killer still out there? As she falls down the very rabbit hole she was so determined to avoid, Bodie begins to wonder if she wasn't as much of an outsider at Granby as she'd thought—if, perhaps, back in 1995, she knew something that might have held the key to solving the case.]]> 438 Rebecca Makkai 0593490142 Jay 0 to-read 3.57 2023 I Have Some Questions for You
author: Rebecca Makkai
name: Jay
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/06/11
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]]> Under the Whispering Door 53205888 Welcome to Charon's Crossing.
The tea is hot, the scones are fresh, and the dead are just passing through.

When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead.

And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he’s definitely dead.

But even in death he’s not ready to abandon the life he barely lived, so when Wallace is given one week to cross over, he sets about living a lifetime in seven days.

Hilarious, haunting, and kind, Under the Whispering Door is an uplifting story about a life spent at the office and a death spent building a home.]]> 376 T.J. Klune 1250217342 Jay 0 4.11 2021 Under the Whispering Door
author: T.J. Klune
name: Jay
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)]]> 45047384
Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.

When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.

But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.

An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.]]> 394 T.J. Klune Jay 0 4.37 2020 The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Jay
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/07
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]]> The Last Chairlift 60320396 John Irving, one of the world’s greatest novelists, returns with his first novel in seven years—a ghost story, a love story, and a lifetime of sexual politics.

In Aspen, Colorado, in 1941, Rachel Brewster is a slalom skier at the National Downhill and Slalom Championships. Little Ray, as she is called, finishes nowhere near the podium, but she manages to get pregnant. Back home, in New England, Little Ray becomes a ski instructor.

Her son, Adam, grows up in a family that defies conventions and evades questions concerning the eventful past. Years later, looking for answers, Adam will go to Aspen. In the Hotel Jerome, where he was conceived, Adam will meet some ghosts; in The Last Chairlift, they aren’t the first or the last ghosts he sees.]]> 889 John Irving 1501189271 Jay 0 3.31 2022 The Last Chairlift
author: John Irving
name: Jay
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/06/07
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]]> Shuggie Bain 52741293 Shuggie Bain is the unforgettable story of young Hugh "Shuggie" Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher's policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city's notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings.

Shuggie's mother Agnes walks a wayward path: she is Shuggie's guiding light but a burden for him and his siblings. She dreams of a house with its own front door while she flicks through the pages of the Freemans catalogue, ordering a little happiness on credit, anything to brighten up her grey life. Married to a philandering taxi-driver husband, Agnes keeps her pride by looking good--her beehive, make-up, and pearly-white false teeth offer a glamourous image of a Glaswegian Elizabeth Taylor. But under the surface, Agnes finds increasing solace in drink, and she drains away the lion's share of each week's benefits--all the family has to live on--on cans of extra-strong lager hidden in handbags and poured into tea mugs.

Agnes's older children find their own ways to get a safe distance from their mother, abandoning Shuggie to care for her as she swings between alcoholic binges and sobriety. Shuggie is meanwhile struggling to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but everyone has realized that he is "no right," a boy with a secret that all but him can see. Agnes is supportive of her son, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her--even her beloved Shuggie.

A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a working-class family that is rarely seen in fiction. Recalling the work of Edouard Louis, Alan Hollinghurst, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, it is a blistering debut by a brilliant novelist who has a powerful and important story to tell.]]> 430 Douglas Stuart 0802148042 Jay 0 to-read 4.29 2020 Shuggie Bain
author: Douglas Stuart
name: Jay
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/25
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]]> To Paradise 57739876 From the author of the classic A Little Life, a bold, brilliant novel spanning three centuries and three different versions of the American experiment, about lovers, family, loss and the elusive promise of utopia.

In an alternate version of 1893 America, New York is part of the Free States, where people may live and love whomever they please (or so it seems). The fragile young scion of a distinguished family resists betrothal to a worthy suitor, drawn to a charming music teacher of no means. In a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his much older, wealthier partner, hiding his troubled childhood and the fate of his father. And in 2093, in a world riven by plagues and governed by totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist’s damaged granddaughter tries to navigate life without him—and solve the mystery of her husband’s disappearances.

These three sections are joined in an enthralling and ingenious symphony, as recurring notes and themes deepen and enrich one another: A townhouse in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village; illness, and treatments that come at a terrible cost; wealth and squalor; the weak and the strong; race; the definition of family, and of nationhood; the dangerous righteousness of the powerful, and of revolutionaries; the longing to find a place in an earthly paradise, and the gradual realization that it can’t exist. What unites not just the characters, but these Americas, are their reckonings with the qualities that make us human: Fear. Love. Shame. Need. Loneliness.

To Paradise is a fin de siècle novel of marvellous literary effect, but above all it is a work of emotional genius. The great power of this remarkable novel is driven by Yanagihara’s understanding of the aching desire to protect those we love � partners, lovers, children, friends, family and even our fellow citizens � and the pain that ensues when we cannot.]]> 720 Hanya Yanagihara 0385547935 Jay 1 3.74 2022 To Paradise
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: Jay
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2022
rating: 1
read at: 2022/07/21
date added: 2022/07/21
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]]> The Final Girl Support Group 55829194 In horror movies, the final girls are the ones left standingwhen the credits roll. They made it through the worst night of their lives…but what happens after?

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

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

But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.]]> 352 Grady Hendrix 059320123X Jay 0 to-read 3.49 2021 The Final Girl Support Group
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Jay
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/03/28
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]]> People We Meet on Vacation 54985743 Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love.

Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.

Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.

Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.

Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?]]> 400 Emily Henry 1984806750 Jay 0 to-read 3.85 2021 People We Meet on Vacation
author: Emily Henry
name: Jay
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/03/28
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]]> Spells for Forgetting 59559145
August knows he is not welcome on Saoirse, not after the night everything changed. As a fire raged on at the Salt family orchard, Lily Morgan was found dead in the dark woods, shaking the bedrock of their tight-knit community and branding August a murderer. When he returns to bury his mother’s ashes, he must confront the people who turned their backs on him and face the one wound from his past that has never healed—Emery. But the town has more than one reason to want August gone, and the emergence of deep betrayals and hidden promises spanning generations threaten to reveal the truth behind Lily’s mysterious death once and for all.]]> 351 Adrienne Young 0593358511 Jay 0 to-read 3.85 2022 Spells for Forgetting
author: Adrienne Young
name: Jay
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/03/11
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]]> She’s Come Undone 5203
Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Stranded in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally orbits into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before she really goes under.]]> 465 Wally Lamb 0671021001 Jay 4 3.91 1992 She’s Come Undone
author: Wally Lamb
name: Jay
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1992
rating: 4
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date added: 2022/02/14
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]]> Love in the Time of Cholera 9712 348 Gabriel García Márquez 140003468X Jay 0 3.92 1985 Love in the Time of Cholera
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Jay
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/02/14
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]]> Mere Christianity 11138 191 C.S. Lewis 0684823780 Jay 0 4.32 1952 Mere Christianity
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Jay
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1952
rating: 0
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]]> The Little Stranger 6065182 466 Sarah Waters 1594488800 Jay 2 3.51 2009 The Little Stranger
author: Sarah Waters
name: Jay
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2009
rating: 2
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]]> The Accidental Tourist 60792 352 Anne Tyler 0345452003 Jay 4 3.90 1985 The Accidental Tourist
author: Anne Tyler
name: Jay
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1985
rating: 4
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date added: 2022/02/14
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]]> The Complete Stories 284996 ISBN: 0374515360 (ISBN13: 9780374515362

Winner of the National Book Award

The publication of this extraordinary volume firmly established Flannery O'Connor's monumental contribution to American fiction. There are thirty-one stories here in all, including twelve that do not appear in the only two story collections O'Connor put together in her short lifetime - Everything That Rises Must Converge and A Good Man Is Hard to Find.

O'Connor published her first story, "The Geranium," in 1946, while she was working on her master's degree at the University of Iowa. Arranged chronologically, this collection shows that her last story, "Judgement Day" - sent to her publisher shortly before her death - is a brilliantly rewritten and transfigured version of "The Geranium." Taken together, these stories reveal a lively, penetrating talent that has given us some of the most powerful and disturbing fiction of the twentieth century. Also included is an introduction by O'Connor's longtime editor and friend, Robert Giroux.

Contents:
The geranium --
The barber --
Wildcat --
The crop --
The turkey --
The train --
The peeler --
The heart of the park --
A stoke of good fortune --
Enoch and the gorilla --
A good man is hard to find --
A late encounter with the enemy --
The life you save may be your own --
The river --
A circle in the fire --
The displaced person --
A temple of the Holy Ghost --
The artificial nigger --
Good country people --
You can't be any poorer than dead --
Greenleaf --
A view of the woods --
The enduring chill --
The comforts of home --
Everything that rises must converge --
The partridge festival --
The lame shall enter first --
Why do the heathen rage? --
Revelation --
Parker's back --
Judgement Day.]]> 555 Flannery O'Connor Jay 5 4.41 1971 The Complete Stories
author: Flannery O'Connor
name: Jay
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1971
rating: 5
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]]> The Song of Achilles 13623848 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062060624.

Achilles, "the best of all the Greeks," son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods' wrath.

They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.]]> 408 Madeline Miller Jay 0 4.30 2011 The Song of Achilles
author: Madeline Miller
name: Jay
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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]]> The Lincoln Highway 57109107 The bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility and master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction returns with a stylish and propulsive novel set in 1950s America

In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the work farm where he has just served a year for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother and head west where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden’s car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett’s future.

Spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view, Towles’s third novel will satisfy fans of his multi-layered literary styling while providing them an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters, and themes.]]> 576 Amor Towles 0735222355 Jay 2 4.18 2021 The Lincoln Highway
author: Amor Towles
name: Jay
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2022/02/13
date added: 2022/02/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life]]> 50891570 The refreshingly original debut memoir of a guarded, over-achieving, self-lacerating young lawyer who reluctantly agrees to get psychologically and emotionally naked in a room of six complete strangers—her psychotherapy group—and in turn finds human connection, and herself.

Christie Tate had just been named the top student in her law school class and finally had her eating disorder under control. Why then was she driving through Chicago fantasizing about her own death? Why was she envisioning putting an end to the isolation and sadness that still plagued her in spite of her achievements?

Enter Dr. Rosen, a therapist who calmly assures her that if she joins one of his psychotherapy groups, he can transform her life. All she has to do is show up and be honest. About everything—her eating habits, childhood, sexual history, etc. Christie is skeptical, insisting that that she is defective, beyond cure. But Dr. Rosen issues a nine-word prescription that will change everything: “You don’t need a cure, you need a witness.

So begins her entry into the strange, terrifying, and ultimately life-changing world of group therapy. Christie is initially put off by Dr. Rosen’s outlandish directives, but as her defenses break down and she comes to trust Dr. Rosen and to depend on the sessions and the prescribed nightly phone calls with various group members, she begins to understand what it means to connect.

Group is a deliciously addictive read, and with Christie as our guide—skeptical of her own capacity for connection and intimacy, but hopeful in spite of herself—we are given a front row seat to the daring, exhilarating, painful, and hilarious journey that is group therapy—an under-explored process that breaks you down, and then reassembles you so that all the pieces finally fit.]]> 282 Christie Tate Jay 0 3.77 2020 Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life
author: Christie Tate
name: Jay
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> 150 Glimpses of the Beatles 50403474 Winner of the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction



A distinctive portrait of the Fab Four by one of the sharpest and wittiest writers of our time

If you want to know what it was like to live those extraordinary Beatles years in real time, read this book. --Alan Johnson, The Spectator

Though fifty years have passed since the breakup of the Beatles, the fab four continue to occupy an utterly unique place in popular culture. Their influence extends far beyond music and into realms as diverse as fashion and fine art, sexual politics and religion. When they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, fresh off the plane from England, they provoked an epidemic of hoarse-throated fandom that continues to this day.

Who better, then, to capture the Beatles phenomenon than Craig Brown--the inimitable author of Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret and master chronicler of the foibles and foppishness of British high society? This wide-ranging portrait of the four lads from Liverpool rivals the unique spectacle of the band itself by delving into a vast catalog of heretofore unexamined lore.

When actress Eleanor Bron touched down at Heathrow with the Beatles, she thought that a flock of starlings had alighted on the roof of the terminal--only to discover that the birds were in fact young women screaming at the top of their lungs. One journalist, mistaken for Paul McCartney as he trailed the band in his car, found himself nearly crushed to death as fans climbed atop the vehicle and pressed their bodies against the windshield. Or what about the Baptist preacher who claimed that the Beatles synchronized their songs with the rhythm of an infant's heartbeat so as to induce a hypnotic state in listeners? And just how many people have employed the services of a Canadian dentist who bought John Lennon's tooth at auction, extracted its DNA, and now offers paternity tests to those hoping to sue his estate?

150 Glimpses of the Beatles is, above all, a distinctively kaleidoscopic examination of the Beatles' effect on the world around them and the world they helped bring into being. Part anthropology and part memoir, and enriched by the recollections of everyone from Tom Hanks to Bruce Springsteen, this book is a humorous, elegiac, and at times madcap take on the Beatles' role in the making of the sixties and of music as we know it.]]> 592 Craig Brown 0374109311 Jay 2 4.16 2020 150 Glimpses of the Beatles
author: Craig Brown
name: Jay
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 2
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date added: 2022/02/10
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]]> The Midnight Library 52578297
When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.

The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren't always what she imagined they'd be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger.

Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?]]> 288 Matt Haig 0525559477 Jay 4 3.96 2020 The Midnight Library
author: Matt Haig
name: Jay
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 4
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date added: 2021/11/30
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]]> One Two Three 42346406 In a town where nothing ever changes, suddenly everything does...

Everyone knows everyone in the tiny town of Bourne, but the Mitchell triplets are especially beloved. Mirabel is the smartest person anyone knows, and no one doubts it just because she can’t speak. Monday is the town’s purveyor of books now that the library’s closed―tell her the book you think you want, and she’ll pull the one you actually do from the microwave or her sock drawer. Mab’s job is hardest of all: get good grades, get into college, get out of Bourne.

For a few weeks seventeen years ago, Bourne was national news when its water turned green. The girls have come of age watching their mother’s endless fight for justice. But just when it seems life might go on the same forever, the first moving truck anyone’s seen in years pulls up and unloads new residents and old secrets. Soon, the Mitchell sisters are taking on a system stacked against them and uncovering mysteries buried longer than they’ve been alive. Because it's hard to let go of the past when the past won't let go of you.

Three unforgettable narrators join together here to tell a spellbinding story with wit, wonder, and deep affection. As she did in This Is How It Always Is, Laurie Frankel has written a laugh-out-loud-on-one-page-grab-a-tissue-the-next novel, as only she can, about how expanding our notions of normal makes the world a better place for everyone and how when days are darkest, it’s our daughters who will save us all.]]> 416 Laurie Frankel 1250236770 Jay 3 3.85 2021 One Two Three
author: Laurie Frankel
name: Jay
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2021
rating: 3
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date added: 2021/11/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Check, Please! Book 1: #Hockey (Check, Please!, #1-2)]]> 37534577
Eric Bittle is a former Georgia junior figure skating champion, vlogger extraordinaire, and amateur pâtissier. But as accomplished as he is, nothing could prepare him for his freshman year of playing hockey at the prestigious Samwell University in Samwell, Massachusetts. It's nothing like co-ed club hockey back in the South! For one? There’s checking. Second, there is Jack—his very attractive but moody captain.

A collection of the first half of the mega-popular webcomic series of the same name, Check, Please!: # Hockey is the first in a hilarious and stirring two-volume coming-of-age story about hockey, bros, and trying to find yourself during the best four years of your life.]]> 288 Ngozi Ukazu 1250177952 Jay 0 4.22 2018 Check, Please! Book 1: #Hockey (Check, Please!, #1-2)
author: Ngozi Ukazu
name: Jay
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/06/15
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]]> Lie With Me 40539136 The award-winning, bestselling French novel by Philippe Besson about an affair between two teenage boys in 1984 France, translated with subtle beauty and haunting lyricism by the iconic and internationally acclaimed actress/writer Molly Ringwald.

We drive at high speed along back roads, through woods, vineyards, and oat fields. The bike smells like gasoline and makes a lot of noise, and sometimes I’m frightened when the wheels slip on the gravel on the dirt road, but the only thing that matters is that I’m holding on to him, that I’m holding on to him outside.

Just outside a hotel in Bordeaux, Philippe chances upon a young man who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back at the relationship he’s never forgotten, a hidden affair with a gorgeous boy named Thomas during their last year of high school. Without ever acknowledging they know each other in the halls, they steal time to meet in secret, carrying on a passionate, world-altering affair.

Dazzlingly rendered in English by Ringwald in her first-ever translation, Besson’s powerfully moving coming-of-age story captures the eroticism and tenderness of first love—and the heartbreaking passage of time.]]> 149 Philippe Besson 1501197878 Jay 5 4.25 2017 Lie With Me
author: Philippe Besson
name: Jay
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2017
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Evergreen (Werner Family Saga, #1)]]> 182496 698 Belva Plain 0440132940 Jay 3 4.01 1978 Evergreen (Werner Family Saga, #1)
author: Belva Plain
name: Jay
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1978
rating: 3
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date added: 2021/06/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks]]> 32768516
Librarians spend their lives weeding--not weeds but books! Books that have reached the end of their shelf life, both literally and figuratively. They remove the books that patrons no longer check out. And they put back the books they treasure. Annie Spence, who has a decade of experience as a Midwestern librarian, does this not only at her Michigan library but also at home, for her neighbors, at cocktail parties—everywhere. In Dear Fahrenheit 451, she addresses those books directly. We read her love letters to The Goldfinch and Matilda, as well as her snarky break-ups with Fifty Shades of Grey and Dear John. Her notes to The Virgin Suicides and The Time Traveler’s Wife feel like classics, sure to strike a powerful chord with readers. Through the lens of the books in her life, Annie comments on everything from women’s psychology to gay culture to health to poverty to childhood aspirations. Hilarious, compassionate, and wise, Dear Fahrenheit 451 is the consummate book-lover's birthday present, stocking stuffer, holiday gift, and all-purpose humor book.]]> 244 Annie Spence 1250106494 Jay 2 3.78 2017 Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks
author: Annie Spence
name: Jay
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2017
rating: 2
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]]> Oliver's Story 936091 Love Story.. Now, two years later, her husband, Oliver is still unable to come to terms with his guilt and grief. All around him friends go on with the joyous experience of living. But he exists in a void.

Until one day, by accident, he meets an unusual woman whose personal life is veiled in mystery. Oliver's search to find out who she is becomes a quest for his own emotional identity: to find out who he is.]]> 264 Erich Segal 0060138521 Jay 1 3.16 1977 Oliver's Story
author: Erich Segal
name: Jay
average rating: 3.16
book published: 1977
rating: 1
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]]> Heartburn 225343
Seven months into her pregnancy, Rachel Samstat discovers that her husband, Mark, is in love with another woman. The fact that the other woman has "a neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb and you should see her legs" is no consolation. Food sometimes is, though, since Rachel writes cookbooks for a living. And in between trying to win Mark back and loudly wishing him dead, Ephron's irrepressible heroine offers some of her favorite recipes. "Heartburn" is a sinfully delicious novel, as soul-satisfying as mashed potatoes and as airy as a perfect soufflé.]]> 179 Nora Ephron Jay 4 3.59 1983 Heartburn
author: Nora Ephron
name: Jay
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1983
rating: 4
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date added: 2021/06/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Little House on the Prairie (Little House, #3)]]> 29449048
All year long, Ma, Pa, Mary, Laura, and Baby Carrie put their hearts into the land and their safe little house. But the prairie belonged to the Indians, and in the end the government made them move on again.]]> 323 Laura Ingalls Wilder Jay 0 4.41 1935 Little House on the Prairie (Little House, #3)
author: Laura Ingalls Wilder
name: Jay
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1935
rating: 0
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]]> Love Story 99756 She is Jenny Cavilleri, a wisecracking working-class beauty studying music at Radcliffe.
Opposites in nearly every way, Oliver and Jenny immediately attract, sharing a love that defies everything... yet will end too soon. Here is a love that will linger in your heart now and forever.]]> 131 Erich Segal 0060748095 Jay 2 3.71 1969 Love Story
author: Erich Segal
name: Jay
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1969
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2021/06/15
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]]> The Gown 39893613 “Millions willwelcome this joyous event as a flash of color on the long road we have totravel.�—Sir Winston Churchill on the news of Princess Elizabeth’sforthcoming wedding

London, 1947: Besieged by the harshest winter in living memory,burdened by onerous shortages and rationing, the people of postwar Britain are enduring lives of quiet desperation despite their nation’s recent victory.Among them are Ann Hughes and Miriam Dassin, embroiderers at the famed Mayfairfashionhouse of Norman Hartnell. Together they forge an unlikely friendship,but their nascent hopes for a brighter future are tested when they arechosen for a once-in-a-lifetime honor: taking part in the creation of PrincessElizabeth’s wedding gown.

Toronto, 2016: More than half a century later, Heather Mackenzie seeksto unravel the mystery of a set of embroidered flowers, a legacy fromher lategrandmother. How did her beloved Nan, a woman who never spoke of her oldlife in Britain, come to possess the priceless embroideries that so closely resemble the motifs on the stunning gown worn by Queen Elizabeth II at herwedding almost seventy years before? And what was her Nan’s connection to thecelebrated textile artistand holocaust survivor Miriam Dassin?

With The Gown, Jennifer Robson takes us inside the workrooms where one of the most famous weddinggowns in history was created. Balancing behind-the-scenes details with asweeping portrait of a society left reeling by the calamitouscosts of victory, she introduces readers to three unforgettable heroines, their points of view alternating and intersectingthroughout its pages,whose lives are woven together by the pain of survival, the bonds of friendship, and the redemptive power of love.]]> 371 Jennifer Robson 0062674951 Jay 4 4.10 2018 The Gown
author: Jennifer Robson
name: Jay
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2018
rating: 4
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]]> The Portable Dorothy Parker 46231 610 Dorothy Parker 0140150749 Jay 5 4.34 1944 The Portable Dorothy Parker
author: Dorothy Parker
name: Jay
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1944
rating: 5
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date added: 2021/06/15
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]]> The Book of Ruth 5187 328 Jane Hamilton 0385265700 Jay 3 3.86 1988 The Book of Ruth
author: Jane Hamilton
name: Jay
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1988
rating: 3
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date added: 2021/06/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Mrs. Bridge (Mrs and Mr Bridge, #1)]]> 129972 Alternate-cover edition for ISBN 0865470561 / 9780865470569 can be found here

The wife of a successful lawyer in 1930s Kansas City, India Bridge, tries to cope with her dissatisfaction with an easy, though empty, life.

Before Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique there was Mrs. Bridge, an inspired novel set in the years around World War II that testified to the sapping ennui of an unexamined suburban life. India Bridge, the title character, has three children and a meticulous workaholic husband. She defends her dainty, untouched guest towels from son Douglas, who has the gall to dry his hands on one, and earnestly attempts to control her daughters with pronouncements such as "Now see here, young lady ... in the morning one doesn't wear earrings that dangle." Though her life is increasingly filled with leisure and plenty, she can't shuffle off vague feelings of dissatisfaction, confusion, and futility. Evan S. Connell, who also wrote the twinned novel Mr. Bridge, builds a world with tiny brushstrokes and short, telling vignettes.]]> 246 Evan S. Connell 0865470561 Jay 4 4.05 1959 Mrs. Bridge (Mrs and Mr Bridge, #1)
author: Evan S. Connell
name: Jay
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1959
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Mr. Bridge (Mrs and Mr Bridge, #2)]]> 129936 367 Evan S. Connell 0865470545 Jay 4 3.98 1969 Mr. Bridge (Mrs and Mr Bridge, #2)
author: Evan S. Connell
name: Jay
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1969
rating: 4
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]]> Check, Please!: Year One 27411088
There's checking.

It's a story about hockey and friendship and bros and trying to find yourself during the best four years of your life.]]> 236 Ngozi Ukazu 1946360023 Jay 3 4.45 2014 Check, Please!: Year One
author: Ngozi Ukazu
name: Jay
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2014
rating: 3
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date added: 2021/06/15
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]]> <![CDATA[A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #15)]]> 44034500 Catastrophic spring flooding, blistering attacks in the media, and a mysterious disappearance greet Chief Inspector Armand Gamache as he returns to the Sûreté du Québec in the latest novel by #1 New York Times bestselling author Louise Penny.

It's Gamache's first day back as head of the homicide department, a job he temporarily shares with his previous second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Floodwaters are rising across the province. In the middle of the turmoil, a father approaches Gamache, pleading for help in finding his daughter.

As crisis piles upon crisis, Gamache tries to hold off the encroaching chaos, and realizes the search for Vivienne Godin should be abandoned. But with a daughter of his own, he finds himself developing a profound, and perhaps unwise, empathy for her distraught father.

Increasingly hounded by the question, how would you feel..., he resumes the search.

As the rivers rise, and the social media onslaught against Gamache becomes crueler, a body is discovered. And in the tumult, mistakes are made.

In the next novel in this "constantly surprising series that deepens and darkens as it evolves" (The New York Times Book Review), Gamache must face a horrific possibility, and a burning question.

What would you do if your child's killer walked free?]]> 437 Louise Penny 1250066212 Jay 1
This book falls in the last category.

I realize I am almost “caught up� but I am not sure I will even continue the series. There was no motivation for the murderer to have “dunnit�. They seem to want to be punished but that goal could have been achieved in the first few chapters of the book by simply speaking up. I urge those who have read this to think about whether the actions of the murderer made any sense in light of their relationship with the victim.

I realize this is a controversial opinion so I anticipate the fallout I will receive, but really, is this book worth defending? ]]> 4.20 2019 A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #15)
author: Louise Penny
name: Jay
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2019
rating: 1
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date added: 2021/06/15
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During the pandemic, I decided to read all of the Gamache books in order. For the most part I have enjoyed them. I do find that I am more interested in the villagers than the mysteries and I feel that, in the later books, the murderers are either too obvious or their motivations are too convoluted or too out of character to be satisfying.

This book falls in the last category.

I realize I am almost “caught up� but I am not sure I will even continue the series. There was no motivation for the murderer to have “dunnit�. They seem to want to be punished but that goal could have been achieved in the first few chapters of the book by simply speaking up. I urge those who have read this to think about whether the actions of the murderer made any sense in light of their relationship with the victim.

I realize this is a controversial opinion so I anticipate the fallout I will receive, but really, is this book worth defending?
]]> Solutions and Other Problems 51323365
Solutions and Other Problems includes humorous stories from Allie Brosh’s childhood; the adventures of her very bad animals; merciless dissection of her own character flaws; incisive essays on grief, loneliness, and powerlessness; as well as reflections on the absurdity of modern life.

This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features all-new material with more than 1,600 pieces of art.]]> 519 Allie Brosh 1982156945 Jay 3 4.21 2020 Solutions and Other Problems
author: Allie Brosh
name: Jay
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 3
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]]> Alexander Hamilton 16130 An alternate cover edition can be found here.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Chernow presents a landmark biography of Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who galvanized, inspired, scandalized, and shaped the newborn nation.

In the first full-length biography of Alexander Hamilton in decades, Ron Chernow tells the riveting story of a man who overcame all odds to shape, inspire, and scandalize the newborn America. According to historian Joseph Ellis, Alexander Hamilton is “a robust full-length portrait, in my view the best ever written, of the most brilliant, charismatic and dangerous founder of them all.�

Few figures in American history have been more hotly debated or more grossly misunderstood than Alexander Hamilton. Chernow’s biography gives Hamilton his due and sets the record straight, deftly illustrating that the political and economic greatness of today’s America is the result of Hamilton’s countless sacrifices to champion ideas that were often wildly disputed during his time. “To repudiate his legacy,� Chernow writes, “is, in many ways, to repudiate the modern world.� Chernow here recounts Hamilton’s turbulent life: an illegitimate, largely self-taught orphan from the Caribbean, he came out of nowhere to take America by storm, rising to become George Washington’s aide-de-camp in the Continental Army, coauthoring The Federalist Papers, founding the Bank of New York, leading the Federalist Party, and becoming the first Treasury Secretary of the United States.Historians have long told the story of America’s birth as the triumph of Jefferson’s democratic ideals over the aristocratic intentions of Hamilton. Chernow presents an entirely different man, whose legendary ambitions were motivated not merely by self-interest but by passionate patriotism and a stubborn will to build the foundations of American prosperity and power. His is a Hamilton far more human than we’ve encountered before—from his shame about his birth to his fiery aspirations, from his intimate relationships with childhood friends to his titanic feuds with Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Monroe, and Burr, and from his highly public affair with Maria Reynolds to his loving marriage to his loyal wife Eliza. And never before has there been a more vivid account of Hamilton’s famous and mysterious death in a duel with Aaron Burr in July of 1804.

Chernow’s biography is not just a portrait of Hamilton, but the story of America’s birth seen through its most central figure. At a critical time to look back to our roots, Alexander Hamilton will remind readers of the purpose of our institutions and our heritage as Americans.]]> 818 Ron Chernow Jay 0 4.19 2004 Alexander Hamilton
author: Ron Chernow
name: Jay
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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]]> All Adults Here 51907346
Astrid’s youngest son is drifting and unfocused, making parenting mistakes of his own. Her daughter is intentionally pregnant yet struggling to give up her own adolescence. And her eldest seems to measure his adult life according to standards no one else shares. But who gets to decide, so many years later, which long-ago lapses were the ones that mattered? Who decides which apologies really count? It might be that only Astrid’s thirteen-year-old granddaughter and her new friend really understand the courage it takes to tell the truth to the people you love the most.

In All Adults Here, Emma Straub’s unique alchemy of wisdom, humor, and insight come together in a deeply satisfying story about adult siblings, aging parents, high school boyfriends, middle school mean girls, the lifelong effects of birth order, and all the other things that follow us into adulthood, whether we like them to or not.]]> 356 Emma Straub 1594634696 Jay 0 to-read 3.54 2020 All Adults Here
author: Emma Straub
name: Jay
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> Their Eyes Were Watching God 37415 238 Zora Neale Hurston 0061120065 Jay 0 to-read 3.98 1937 Their Eyes Were Watching God
author: Zora Neale Hurston
name: Jay
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1937
rating: 0
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]]> Memorial 48902303 A funny, sexy, profound dramedy about two young people at a crossroads in their relationship and the limits of love.

Benson and Mike are two young guys who live together in Houston. Mike is a Japanese American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson's a Black day care teacher, and they've been together for a few years -- good years -- but now they're not sure why they're still a couple. There's the sex, sure, and the meals Mike cooks for Benson, and, well, they love each other.

But when Mike finds out his estranged father is dying in Osaka just as his acerbic Japanese mother, Mitsuko, arrives in Texas for a visit, Mike picks up and flies across the world to say goodbye. In Japan he undergoes an extraordinary transformation, discovering the truth about his family and his past. Back home, Mitsuko and Benson are stuck living together as unconventional roommates, an absurd domestic situation that ends up meaning more to each of them than they ever could have predicted. Without Mike's immediate pull, Benson begins to push outwards, realizing he might just know what he wants out of life and have the goods to get it.

Both men will change in ways that will either make them stronger together, or fracture everything they've ever known. And just maybe they'll all be okay in the end. Memorial is a funny and profound story about family in all its strange forms, joyful and hard-won vulnerability, becoming who you're supposed to be, and the limits of love.]]> 320 Bryan Washington Jay 0 to-read 3.54 2020 Memorial
author: Bryan Washington
name: Jay
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous]]> 41880609 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born � a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam � and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one's own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.]]> 246 Ocean Vuong 0525562028 Jay 0 4.05 2019 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
author: Ocean Vuong
name: Jay
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death]]> 43785830
In Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?, Doughty blends her mortician’s knowledge and the intriguing history behind common misconceptions about corpses to offer factual, hilarious, and candid answers to thirty-five questions. In her inimitable voice, Doughty details the lore and science of what happens to, and inside, our bodies after we die. Why do corpses groan? What causes bodies to turn colors during decomposition? And why do hair and nails appear longer after death? Readers will learn the best soil for mummifying, whether you can preserve your best friend’s skull as a keepsake, and what happens when you die on a plane. Beautifully illustrated by Dianné Ruz, Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? shows us that death is science and art, and only by asking questions can we begin to embrace it.]]> 200 Caitlin Doughty 039365270X Jay 0 to-read 4.13 2019 Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death
author: Caitlin Doughty
name: Jay
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/06/02
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]]> Antoni in the Kitchen 39977443 Queer Eye, meets people where they live—literally. With appealing vulnerability, he shows cooks of all levels how to become more confident and casual in the kitchen. The verve and naturalness of his approach earned raves from Food & Wine and Bon Appétit to GQ and the New York Times, which noted his dishes prove that “sometimes simple is anything but simplistic.�

Some of the recipes in this book are weeknight healthyish meals, while others are perfect for off-the-cuff entertaining. Visual stunners, they’re often composed of fewer than five ingredients. Whether Bastardized Easy Ramen; Malaysian Chili Shrimp; Roasted Carrots with Carrot-Top Pesto; or Salty Lemon Squares, all are visual stunners and can be carried off with panache, even by beginners. ]]> 272 Antoni Porowski 1328631346 Jay 0 3.99 2019 Antoni in the Kitchen
author: Antoni Porowski
name: Jay
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/05/04
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]]> Grown Ups 43779862
Johnny Casey, his two brothers Ed and Liam, their beautiful, talented wives and all their kids spend a lot of time together - birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, weekends away. And they're a happy family. Johnny's wife, Jessie - who has the most money - insists on it.

Under the surface, though, conditions are murkier. While some people clash, other people like each other far too much . . .

Everything stays under control until Ed's wife Cara, gets concussion and can't keep her thoughts to herself. One careless remark at Johnny's birthday party, with the entire family present, starts Cara spilling out all their secrets.

In the subsequent unravelling, every one of the adults finds themselves wondering if it's time - finally - to grow up?]]> 636 Marian Keyes 0718179749 Jay 1 3.89 2020 Grown Ups
author: Marian Keyes
name: Jay
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2020
rating: 1
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date added: 2020/11/17
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]]> The Eighth Detective 53139064
Until Julia Hart, a sharp, ambitious editor knocks on his door. Julia wishes to republish his book, and together they must revisit those old stories: an author hiding from his past, and an editor, keen to understand it.

But there are things in the stories that don’t add up. Inconsistencies left by Grant that a sharp-eyed editor begins to suspect are more than mistakes. They may be clues, and Julia finds herself with a mystery of her own to solve.]]> 304 Alex Pavesi 125075593X Jay 2 3.50 2020 The Eighth Detective
author: Alex Pavesi
name: Jay
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2020/11/17
date added: 2020/11/17
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]]> <![CDATA[The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore]]> 8109709 578 Benjamin Hale 0446571571 Jay 0 3.58 2011 The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore
author: Benjamin Hale
name: Jay
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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]]> Plays Well with Others 41349
Funny and heartbreaking, as eventful as Dickens and as atmospheric as one of Fitzgerald's parties, Plays Well with Others combines a fable's high-noon energy with an elegy's evening grace.Allan Gurganus's celebrated new novel is a lovesong to imperishable friendship, a hymn to a brilliant and now-vanished world.]]> 368 Allan Gurganus 0375702032 Jay 0 3.95 1997 Plays Well with Others
author: Allan Gurganus
name: Jay
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Kingdom of the Blind (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #14)]]> 38232379
None of them had ever met the elderly woman.

The will is so odd and includes bequests that are so wildly unlikely that Gamache and the others suspect the woman must have been delusional. But what if, Gamache begins to ask himself, she was perfectly sane?

When a body is found, the terms of the bizarre suddenly seem less peculiar and far more menacing.

But it isn't the only menace Gamache is facing.

The investigation into what happened six months ago—the events that led to his suspension—has dragged on, into the dead of winter. And while most of the opioids he allowed to slip through his hands, in order to bring down the cartels, have been retrieved, there is one devastating exception.

Enough narcotic to kill thousands has disappeared into inner-city Montréal. With the deadly drug about to hit the streets, Gamache races for answers.

As he uses increasingly audacious, even desperate, measures to retrieve the drug, Armand Gamache begins to see his own blind spots. And the terrible things hiding there.]]> 389 Louise Penny 1250066204 Jay 2 4.25 2018 Kingdom of the Blind (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #14)
author: Louise Penny
name: Jay
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2020/11/14
date added: 2020/11/14
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]]> Cleanness 45892271 In the highly anticipated follow-up to his beloved debut, What Belongs to You, Garth Greenwell deepens his exploration of foreignness, obligation, and desire

Sofia, Bulgaria, a landlocked city in southern Europe, stirs with hope and impending upheaval. Soviet buildings crumble, wind scatters sand from the far south, and political protesters flood the streets with song.

In this atmosphere of disquiet, an American teacher navigates a life transformed by the discovery and loss of love. As he prepares to leave the place he’s come to call home, he grapples with the intimate encounters that have marked his years abroad, each bearing uncanny reminders of his past. A queer student’s confession recalls his own first love, a stranger’s seduction devolves into paternal sadism, and a romance with another foreigner opens, and heals, old wounds. Each echo reveals startling insights about what it means to seek connection: with those we love, with the places we inhabit, and with our own fugitive selves.]]> 240 Garth Greenwell 0374124582 Jay 0 3.82 2020 Cleanness
author: Garth Greenwell
name: Jay
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2020/11/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family]]> 50088631 The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand the disease.

Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins—aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony—and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic. How could all this happen to one family?

What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenogenic mother to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amid profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. And unbeknownst to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease for future generations.

With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family's unforgettable legacy of suffering, love, and hope.]]> 377 Robert Kolker 038554376X Jay 4 4.13 2020 Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family
author: Robert Kolker
name: Jay
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2020/09/30
date added: 2020/09/30
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]]> <![CDATA[The Secret Life of the American Musical: How Broadway Shows Are Built]]> 25664518 A New York Times Bestseller

For almost a century, Americans have been losing their hearts and losing their minds in an insatiable love affair with the American musical. It often begins in childhood in a darkened theater, grows into something more serious for high school actors, and reaches its passionate zenith when it comes time for love, marriage, and children, who will start the cycle all over again. Americans love musicals. Americans invented musicals. Americans perfected musicals. But what, exactly, is a musical?

In The Secret Life of the American Musical, Jack Viertel takes them apart, puts them back together, sings their praises, marvels at their unflagging inventiveness, and occasionally despairs over their more embarrassing shortcomings. In the process, he invites us to fall in love all over again by showing us how musicals happen, what makes them work, how they captivate audiences, and how one landmark show leads to the next—by design or by accident, by emulation or by rebellion—from Oklahoma! to Hamilton and onward.

Structured like a musical, The Secret Life of the American Musical begins with an overture and concludes with a curtain call, with stops in between for “I Want� songs, “conditional� love songs, production numbers, star turns, and finales. The ultimate insider, Viertel has spent three decades on Broadway, working on dozens of shows old and new as a conceiver, producer, dramaturg, and general creative force; he has his own unique way of looking at the process and at the people who collaborate to make musicals a reality. He shows us patterns in the architecture of classic shows and charts the inevitable evolution that has taken place in musical theater as America itself has evolved socially and politically.

The Secret Life of the American Musical makes you feel as though you’ve been there in the rehearsal room, in the front row of the theater, and in the working offices of theater owners and producers as they pursue their own love affair with that rare and elusive beast—the Broadway hit.]]> 312 Jack Viertel 0374256926 Jay 4 4.06 2016 The Secret Life of the American Musical: How Broadway Shows Are Built
author: Jack Viertel
name: Jay
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2020/09/01
date added: 2020/09/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Find Me (Call Me By Your Name, #2)]]> 44581535 In this spellbinding exploration of the varieties of love, the author of the worldwide bestseller Call Me by Your Name revisits its complex and beguiling characters decades after their first meeting.

No novel in recent memory has spoken more movingly to contemporary readers about the nature of love than André Aciman’s haunting Call Me by Your Name. First published in 2007, it was hailed as “a love letter, an invocation . . . an exceptionally beautiful book� (Stacey D’Erasmo, The New York Times Book Review). Nearly three quarters of a million copies have been sold, and the book became a much-loved, Academy Award–winning film starring Timothée Chalamet as the young Elio and Armie Hammer as Oliver, the graduate student with whom he falls in love.

In Find Me, Aciman shows us Elio’s father, Samuel, on a trip from Florence to Rome to visit Elio, who has become a gifted classical pianist. A chance encounter on the train with a beautiful young woman upends Sami’s plans and changes his life forever.

Elio soon moves to Paris, where he, too, has a consequential affair, while Oliver, now a New England college professor with a family, suddenly finds himself contemplating a return trip across the Atlantic.

Aciman is a master of sensibility, of the intimate details and the emotional nuances that are the substance of passion. Find Me brings us back inside the magic circle of one of our greatest contemporary romances to ask if, in fact, true love ever dies.]]> 260 André Aciman 0374155011 Jay 3 3.26 2019 Find Me (Call Me By Your Name, #2)
author: André Aciman
name: Jay
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2019
rating: 3
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]]> Me 44303730 Rocketman.

Christened Reginald Dwight, he was a shy boy with Buddy Holly glasses who grew up in the London suburb of Pinner and dreamed of becoming a pop star. By the age of twenty-three, he was on his first tour of America, facing an astonished audience in his tight silver hotpants, bare legs and a T-shirt with ROCK AND ROLL emblazoned across it in sequins. Elton John had arrived and the music world would never be the same again.

His life has been full of drama, from the early rejection of his work with song-writing partner Bernie Taupin to spinning out of control as a chart-topping superstar; from half-heartedly trying to drown himself in his LA swimming pool to disco-dancing with the Queen; from friendships with John Lennon, Freddie Mercury and George Michael to setting up his AIDS Foundation. All the while, Elton was hiding a drug addiction that would grip him for over a decade.

In Me Elton also writes about getting clean and changing his life, about finding love with David Furnish and becoming a father.]]> 374 Elton John 1250147603 Jay 4 4.30 2019 Me
author: Elton John
name: Jay
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2019
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[My Autobiography of Carson McCullers]]> 41817577 My Autobiography of Carson McCullers is an audacious new form of nonfiction that remakes the boundaries between criticism, biography, and autobiography in search of two identities.

While working as an intern in the archives at the Harry Ransom Center, Jenn Shapland encounters the love letters of Carson and a woman named Annemarie―letters are that are tender, intimate, and unabashed in their feelings. Shapland recognizes herself in the letters� language―but does not see Carson as history has portrayed her.

And so, Shapland is compelled to undertake a recovery of the full narrative and language of Carson's life: She wades through the therapy transcripts; she stays at Carson’s childhood home, where she lounges in her bathtub and eats delivery pizza; she relives Carson’s days at her beloved Yaddo. As Shapland reckons with the expanding and collapsing distance between her and Carson, she see the way Carson’s story has become a way to articulate something about herself. The results articulate something entirely new not only about this one remarkable, walleyed life, but about the way we tell queer love stories.

In genre-defying vignettes, Jenn Shapland interweaves her own story with Carson McCullers’s to create a vital new portrait of one of America’s most beloved writers, and shows us how the writers we love and the stories we tell about ourselves make us who we are.]]> 266 Jenn Shapland 1947793284 Jay 1 4.10 2020 My Autobiography of Carson McCullers
author: Jenn Shapland
name: Jay
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2020
rating: 1
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]]> <![CDATA[Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #13)]]> 33602101
From the moment the creature's shadow falls over the village, Gamache, now Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté du Quebec, suspects it has deep roots and a dark purpose. Yet he does nothing. What can he do? Only watch and wait. And hope his mounting fears are not realized.

But when the figure vanishes overnight and a body is discovered, it falls to Gamache to discover if a debt has been paid or levied.

Months later, on a steamy July day, as the trial for the accused begins in Montréal, Chief Superintendent Gamache continues to struggle with actions he set in motion that bitter November from which there is no going back. More than the accused is on trial. Gamache's own conscience is standing in judgment.

In her latest utterly gripping book, number-one New York Times bestselling author Louise Penny shatters the conventions of the crime novel to explore what Gandhi called the court of conscience. A court that supersedes all others.]]> 391 Louise Penny 1250066190 Jay 0 4.24 2017 Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #13)
author: Louise Penny
name: Jay
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/08/30
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]]> <![CDATA[A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #12)]]> 28220985
Given to Armand Gamache as a gift the first day of his new job, the map eventually leads him to shattering secrets. To an old friend and older adversary. It leads the former Chief of Homicide for the Sûreté du Québec to places even he is afraid to go. But must.

And there he finds four young cadets in the Sûreté academy, and a dead professor. And, with the body, a copy of the old, odd map.

Everywhere Gamache turns, he sees Amelia Choquet, one of the cadets. Tattooed and pierced. Guarded and angry. Amelia is more likely to be found on the other side of a police line-up. And yet she is in the academy. A protégée of the murdered professor.

The focus of the investigation soon turns to Gamache himself and his mysterious relationship with Amelia, and his possible involvement in the crime. The frantic search for answers takes the investigators back to Three Pines and a stained glass window with its own horrific secrets.

For both Amelia Choquet and Armand Gamache, the time has come for a great reckoning.

Number-one New York Times bestselling author Louise Penny pulls back the layers to reveal a brilliant and emotionally powerful truth in her latest spellbinding novel.]]> 389 Louise Penny 1250022134 Jay 0 4.36 2016 A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #12)
author: Louise Penny
name: Jay
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/08/30
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]]> <![CDATA[The Nature of the Beast (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #11)]]> 24586590
But when the boy disappears, the villagers are faced with the possibility that one of his tall tales might have been true.

And so begins a frantic search for the boy and the truth. What they uncover deep in the forest sets off a sequence of events that leads to murder, leads to an old crime, leads to an old betrayal. Leads right to the door of an old poet.

And now it is now, writes Ruth Zardo. And the dark thing is here.

A monster once visited Three Pines. And put down deep roots. And now, Ruth knows, it is back.

Armand Gamache, the former head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec, must face the possibility that, in not believing the boy, he himself played a terrible part in what happens next.]]> 376 Louise Penny 1250022088 Jay 0 4.17 2015 The Nature of the Beast (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #11)
author: Louise Penny
name: Jay
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/08/30
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]]> <![CDATA[The Long Way Home (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #10)]]> 19561922 The Balm in Gilead, in his large hands. "There is a balm in Gilead," his neighbor Clara Morrow reads from the dust jacket, "to make the wounded whole."

While Gamache doesn’t talk about his wounds and his balm, Clara tells him about hers. Peter, her artist husband, has failed to come home. Failed to show up as promised on the first anniversary of their separation. She wants Gamache’s help to find him. Having finally found sanctuary, Gamache feels a near revulsion at the thought of leaving Three Pines. "There’s power enough in Heaven," he finishes the quote as he contemplates the quiet village, "to cure a sin-sick soul." And then he gets up. And joins her.

Together with his former second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and Myrna Landers, they journey deeper and deeper into Québec. And deeper and deeper into the soul of Peter Morrow. A man so desperate to recapture his fame as an artist, he would sell that soul. And may have. The journey takes them further and further from Three Pines, to the very mouth of the great St. Lawrence River. To an area so desolate, so damned, the first mariners called it "the land God gave to Cain." And there they discover the terrible damage done by a sin-sick soul.]]> 373 Louise Penny 1250022061 Jay 0 3.99 2014 The Long Way Home (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #10)
author: Louise Penny
name: Jay
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #9)]]> 17167084
When Gamache receives a message from Myrna Landers, in the village of Three Pines, he welcomes the chance to get away from the city for a few hours. Myrna's longtime friend, who was due to spend Christmas in the village, has failed to arrive. When Chief Inspector Gamache presses for information, Myrna is reluctant to reveal her friend's name. Mystified, Gamache soon discovers the missing woman was once one of the most famous people not just in North America but in the world, and now goes unrecognized by virtually everyone except the mad, brilliant poet Ruth Zardo.

As events come to a head at the Sûreté, Gamache is drawn ever deeper into the world of Three Pines. Increasingly, he is not only investigating the disappearance of Myrna's friend but also seeking a safe place for himself and his still-loyal colleagues—if such a refuge exists amid mounting danger. Is there peace to be found even in Three Pines, and at what cost to Gamache and the people he holds dear?]]> 405 Louise Penny 0312655479 Jay 0 4.43 2013 How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #9)
author: Louise Penny
name: Jay
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/08/30
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]]> <![CDATA[The Beautiful Mystery (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #8)]]> 16045144
But when the renowned choir director is murdered, the lock on the monastery's massive wooden door is drawn back to admit Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Sûreté du Québec. There they discover disquiet beneath the silence, discord in the apparent harmony. But before finding the killer, before restoring peace, the Chief must first consider the divine, the human, and the cracks in between.]]> 373 Louise Penny 1250031125 Jay 3 4.14 2012 The Beautiful Mystery (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #8)
author: Louise Penny
name: Jay
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2012
rating: 3
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date added: 2020/07/05
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]]> <![CDATA[A Trick of the Light (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #7)]]> 10680329 "Hearts are broken," Lillian Dyson carefully underlined in a book. "Sweet relationships are dead."

But now Lillian herself is dead. Found among the bleeding hearts and lilacs of Clara Morrow's garden in Three Pines, shattering the celebrations of Clara's solo show at the famed Musée in Montréal. Chief Inspector Gamache, the head of homicide at the Sûreté du Québec, is called to the tiny Québec village and there he finds the art world gathered, and with it a world of shading and nuance, a world of shadow and light. Where nothing is as it seems. Behind every smile there lurks a sneer. Inside every sweet relationship there hides a broken heart. And even when facts are slowly exposed, it is no longer clear to Gamache and his team if what they've found is the truth, or simply a trick of the light.]]> 339 Louise Penny 0312655452 Jay 5 4.26 2011 A Trick of the Light (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #7)
author: Louise Penny
name: Jay
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2020/07/05
date added: 2020/07/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Bury Your Dead (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #6)]]> 7945049
Although he is supposed to be on leave, Gamache cannot walk away from a crime that threatens to ignite long-smoldering tensions between the English and the French. Meanwhile, he is receiving disquieting letters from the village of Three Pines, where beloved Bistro owner Olivier was recently convicted of murder. "It doesn't make sense," Olivier’s partner writes every day. "He didn't do it, you know." As past and present collide in this astonishing novel, Gamache must relive the terrible event of his own past before he can bury his dead.]]> 371 Louise Penny 0312377045 Jay 0 4.31 2010 Bury Your Dead (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #6)
author: Louise Penny
name: Jay
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2020/05/27
date added: 2020/05/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Peril at End House (Hercule Poirot, #8)]]> 16424
Poirot quickly takes a particular interest in the young woman. Recently, she has narrowly escaped a series of life-threatening accidents. Something tells the Belgian sleuth that these so-called accidents are more than just mere coincidences or a spate of bad luck. Something like a bullet! It seems all too clear to him that someone is trying to do away with poor Nick, but who? And, what is the motive? In his quest for answers, Poirot must delve into the dark history of End House. The deeper he gets into his investigation, the more certain he is that the killer will soon strike again. And, this time, Nick may not escape with her life.]]> 287 Agatha Christie 0007119305 Jay 0 4.00 1932 Peril at End House (Hercule Poirot, #8)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Jay
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1932
rating: 0
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]]> The Death of Bunny Munro 6389257 288 Nick Cave 1847673767 Jay 0 3.46 2009 The Death of Bunny Munro
author: Nick Cave
name: Jay
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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]]> The Boys from Brazil 99894
Why has Mengele marked a number of harmless aging men for murder? What is the hidden link that binds them? What interest can they possibly hold for their killers: six former SS men dispatched from South America by the most wanted Nazi still alive, the notorious "Angel of Death"? One man alone must answer these questions and stop the killings � Lieberman, himself aging and thought by some to be losing his grip on reality.]]> 213 Ira Levin 0394402677 Jay 0 4.07 1976 The Boys from Brazil
author: Ira Levin
name: Jay
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1976
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Along Came a Spider (Alex Cross, #1)]]> 13145
Gary Soneji wants to commit the crime of the century. Alex Cross is the brilliant homicide detective pitted against him. Jezzie Flanagan is the first female supervisor of the Secret Service. They complete one of the most unusual suspense triangles in any thriller you have ever read.

Alex and Jezzie are about to have a forbidden love affair—at the worst possible time for both of them. Because Gary Soneji is playing at the top of his game. The latest of the unspeakable crimes happens in Alex Cross's precinct and it happens under the nose of Jezzie and her men.

Alex faces the ultimate test: how do you outmaneuver a brilliant psychopath?]]> 449 James Patterson 0446692638 Jay 0 4.13 1993 Along Came a Spider (Alex Cross, #1)
author: James Patterson
name: Jay
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1993
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Five Orange Pips (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, #5)]]> 1740633
In "The Five Orange Pips," one of the short stories in "Adventures ..," John Openshaw visits Baker Street to consult Sherlock Holmes as to the mysterious deaths of both his uncle and father upon the arrival of letters containing only five dried orange pips and an envelope mark 'K.K.K.'. The young gentleman further relates that he too has received a similar envelope with instructions to surrender some papers. Holmes quickly deduces that his client faces imminent danger from a secret society in America.

The short stories comprising "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" have been amusingly illustrated using only Lego® brand minifigures and bricks. The illustrations recreate, through custom designed Lego models, the composition of the black and white drawings by Sidney Paget that accompanied the original publication of these adventures appearing in "The Strand Magazine" from July 1891 to June 1892. Paget's iconic illustrations are largely responsible for the popular image of Sherlock Holmes, including his deerstalker cap and Inverness cape, details never mentioned in the writings of Conan Doyle. This uniquely illustrated collection, which features some of the most famous and enjoyable cases investigated by Sherlock Holmes and his devoted friend and biographer Dr. John H. Watson, including "A Scandal in Bohemia" and "The Red-Headed League," is sure to delight Lego enthusiasts, as well as fans of the Great Detective, both old and new.

Librarian's note: this entry relates to the story, "The Five Orange Pips." Collections of short stories, including the entry for "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" can be found elsewhere on ŷ.]]> 40 Arthur Conan Doyle 0890610622 Jay 0 3.79 1891 The Five Orange Pips (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, #5)
author: Arthur Conan Doyle
name: Jay
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1891
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All]]> 95105 Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All became an instant classic upon its publication. Critics and readers alike fell in love with the voice of ninety-nine-year-old Lucy Marsden, one of the most entertaining and loquacious heoines in American literature.

Lucy married at the turn of the last century, when she was fifteen and her husband was fifty. If Colonel William Marsden was a veteran of the "War for Southern Independence", Lucy became a "veteran of the veteran" with a unique perspective on Southern history and Southern manhood. Her story encompasses everything from the tragic death of a Confederate boy soldier to the feisty narrator's daily battles in the Home--complete with visits from a mohawk-coiffed candy-striper.]]> 736 Allan Gurganus 0375726632 Jay 0 3.84 1984 Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All
author: Allan Gurganus
name: Jay
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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]]> The Yellow Wallpaper 8217236
In a private journal, the woman records her growing obsession with the “horrid� wallpaper. Its strange pattern mutates in the moonlight, revealing what appears to be a human figure in the design. With nothing else to occupy her mind, the woman resolves to unlock the mystery of the wallpaper. Her quest, however, leads not to the truth, but into the darkest depths of madness.

A condemnation of the patriarchy, The Yellow Wallpaper explores with terrifying economy the oppression, grave misunderstanding, and willful dismissal of women in late nineteenth-century society.

First published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine.

Excerpt:
Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house. I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency. So I try.]]> 63 Charlotte Perkins Gilman Jay 0 4.05 1892 The Yellow Wallpaper
author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
name: Jay
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1892
rating: 0
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]]> The Sittaford Mystery 16339
Is this black magic or simply a macabre joke? The only way to be certain is to locate Captain Trevelyan. Unfortunately, his home is six miles away and, with snowdrifts blocking the roads, someone will have to make the journey on foot...]]> 248 Agatha Christie 0007136846 Jay 0 3.77 1931 The Sittaford Mystery
author: Agatha Christie
name: Jay
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1931
rating: 0
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]]> Reflections in a Golden Eye 243924 136 Carson McCullers 0618084754 Jay 0 3.89 1941 Reflections in a Golden Eye
author: Carson McCullers
name: Jay
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1941
rating: 0
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]]> Last Exit to Brooklyn 50275 Last Exit to Brooklyn, and this Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting.

Described by various reviewers as hellish and obscene, Last Exit to Brooklyn tells the stories of New Yorkers who at every turn confront the worst excesses in human nature. Yet there are moments of exquisite tenderness in these troubled lives. Georgette, the transvestite who falls in love with a callous hoodlum; Tralala, the conniving prostitute who plumbs the depths of sexual degradation; and Harry, the strike leader who hides his true desires behind a boorish masculinity, are unforgettable creations. Last Exit to Brooklyn was banned by British courts in 1967, a decision that was reversed the following year with the help of a number of writers and critics including Anthony Burgess and Frank Kermode.

Hubert Selby, Jr. (1928-2004) was born in Brooklyn, New York. At the age of 15, he dropped out of school and went to sea with the merchant marines. While at sea he was diagnosed with lung disease. With no other way to make a living, he decided to try writing: 'I knew the alphabet. Maybe I could be a writer.' In 1964 he completed his first book, Last Exit to Brooklyn, which has since become a cult classic. In 1966, it was the subject of an obscenity trial in the UK. His other books include The Room, The Demon, Requiem for a Dream, The Willow Tree and Waiting Period. In 2000, Requiem for a Dream was adapted into a film starring Jared Leto and Ellen Burstyn, and directed by Darren Aronofsky.

'Last Exit to Brooklyn will explode like a rusty hellish bombshell over America, and still be eagerly read in 100 years'
Allen Ginsberg

'An urgent tickertape from hell'
Spectator]]> 290 Hubert Selby Jr. 0747549923 Jay 0 3.94 1964 Last Exit to Brooklyn
author: Hubert Selby Jr.
name: Jay
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1964
rating: 0
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]]> Endless Night 16366
The title Endless Night was taken from William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence and describes Christie’s favourite theme in the novel: a “twisted� character, who always chooses evil over good.

Christie finished Endless Night in six weeks, as opposed to the three-four months that most of her other novels took. Despite being in her seventies while writing it, she told an interviewer that being Michael, the twenty-something narrator, “wasn’t difficult. After all, you hear people like him talking all the time.�

The book is dedicated to Christie's relative "Nora Prichard from whom I first heard the legend of Gipsy's Acre." Gipsy's Acre was a field on the Welsh moors.]]> 303 Agatha Christie 0007151675 Jay 0 3.82 1967 Endless Night
author: Agatha Christie
name: Jay
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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]]> I Am the Cheese 48974 233 Robert Cormier 0141300515 Jay 0 3.77 1977 I Am the Cheese
author: Robert Cormier
name: Jay
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1977
rating: 0
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]]> Snuff 1840511 From the master of literary mayhem and provocation, a full-frontal Triple X novel that goes where no American work of fiction has gone before

Cassie Wright, porn priestess, intends to cap her legendary career by breaking the world record for serial fornication. On camera. With six hundred men. Snuff unfolds from the perspectives of Mr. 72, Mr. 137, and Mr. 600, who await their turn on camera in a very crowded green room. This wild, lethally funny, and thoroughly researched novel brings the huge yet underacknowledged presence of pornography in contemporary life into the realm of literary fiction at last. Who else but Chuck Palahniuk would dare do such a thing? Who else could do it so well, so unflinchingly, and with such an incendiary (you might say) climax?]]> 208 Chuck Palahniuk 0385517882 Jay 0 3.23 2008 Snuff
author: Chuck Palahniuk
name: Jay
average rating: 3.23
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Man in the Brown Suit (Colonel Race, #1)]]> 209194 Pretty, young Anne came to London looking for adventure. In fact, adventure comes looking for her—and finds her immediately at Hyde Park Corner tube station. Anne is present on the platform when a thin man, reeking of mothballs, loses his balance and is electrocuted on the rails.


The Scotland Yard verdict is accidental death. But Anne is not satisfied. After all, who was the man in the brown suit who examined the body? And why did he race off, leaving a cryptic message behind: "17-122 Kilmorden Castle"?


Twisty, clever, and intriguing, The Man in the Brown Suit showcases Agatha Christie once again at her very best.

]]> 381 Agatha Christie 0007151667 Jay 0 3.97 1924 The Man in the Brown Suit (Colonel Race, #1)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Jay
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1924
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Angel's Game (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #2)]]> 3362016 In the turbulent and mysterious Barcelona of the 1920s, David Martín, a young novelist obsessed with a forbidden love, receives an offer from an enigmatic publisher to write a book like no other before—a book for which "people will live and die." In return, he is promised a fortune and, perhaps, much more.

Once again, the author of The Shadow of the Wind takes us into the gothic universe of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and creates a breathtaking adventure of intrigue, romance, and tragedy, and a dizzingly constructed labyrinth of secrets where the magic of books, passion, and friendship blend into a masterful story.

]]> 441 Carlos Ruiz Zafón 0297855549 Jay 0 3.81 2008 The Angel's Game (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #2)
author: Carlos Ruiz Zafón
name: Jay
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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]]> Glamorama 9913 “Impeccable . . . cold and pitiless and modern.� �The Village Voice

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

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

Victor Ward, a twenty-something model in fashion- and celebrity-obsessed Manhattan, is gradually, imperceptibly drawn into a shadowy looking-glass of that society, there and in London and Paris, and then finds himself trapped on the other side, in a much darker place where fame and terrorism and family and politics are inextricably linked and sometimes indistinguishable. At once implicated and horror-stricken, his ways of escape blocked at every turn, he ultimately discovers—back on the other, familiar side—that there was no mirror, no escape, no world but this one in which hotels implode and planes fall from the sky.]]> 546 Bret Easton Ellis 0375703845 Jay 0 3.55 1998 Glamorama
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Jay
average rating: 3.55
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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]]> Death Comes as the End 121645 267 Agatha Christie 0312981619 Jay 0 3.87 1944 Death Comes as the End
author: Agatha Christie
name: Jay
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1944
rating: 0
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]]>