Tom's bookshelf: all en-US Sat, 25 Jan 2020 12:03:58 -0800 60 Tom's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[For Esmé � with Love and Squalor and Other Stories]]> 5116
The stories are:

"A Perfect Day for Bananafish"
"Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut"
"Just Before the War with the Eskimos"
"The Laughing Man"
"Down at the Dinghy"
"For Esmé � with Love and Squalor"
"Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes"
"De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period"
"Teddy"]]> 149 J.D. Salinger 0140237534 Tom 5 4.21 1953 For Esmé — with Love and Squalor and Other Stories
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Tom
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1953
rating: 5
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date added: 2020/01/25
shelves:
review:

]]> Lolita 18133 Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov's most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Most of all, it is a meditation on love—love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.]]> 317 Vladimir Nabokov Tom 5 3.97 1955 Lolita
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Tom
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1955
rating: 5
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date added: 2017/03/06
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]]> The Walk-In Closet 21953842
As Kara’s 30th birthday approaches, Leila and Hossein up the pressure. They are ready for Kara to assume the mantle of the next Mrs. Ebadi, and Bobby seems prepared to give them what they want: the illusion of a traditional home and grandchildren. How far will Kara be willing to go? And will she be willing to pull the Persian rug out from under them when she discovers that her own secret is just one of many lurking inside the Ebadi closet?]]> 265 Abdi Nazemian 0615988687 Tom 5 3.86 2014 The Walk-In Closet
author: Abdi Nazemian
name: Tom
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2014
rating: 5
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date added: 2014/09/07
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I loved this book - fun and breezy but incredibly well-written. Wonderful insights into the Persian-American community in Los Angeles. Bravo!
]]> The Lovely Bones 12232938
So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her -- her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. Out of unspeakable tragedy and loss, The Lovely Bones succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even joy.]]> 372 Alice Sebold 0316166685 Tom 5 3.87 2002 The Lovely Bones
author: Alice Sebold
name: Tom
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2002
rating: 5
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date added: 2011/08/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief]]> 419510
Bill Mason is arguably the greatest jewel thief who ever lived. During a thirty-year career he charmed his way into the inner circles of high society and stole more than $35 million worth of fabulous jewels from such celebrities as Robert Goulet, Armand Hammer, Phyllis Diller, Bob Hope, Truman Capote, Margaux Hemingway and Johnny Weissmuller—he even hit the Mafia. Along the way he seduced a high-profile Midwest socialite into leaving her prominent industrialist husband, nearly died after being shot during a robbery, tricked both Christie’s and Sotheby’s into fencing stolen goods for him and was a fugitive for five years and the object of a nationwide manhunt. Yet despite the best efforts of law enforcement authorities from several states as well as the federal government, he spent less than three years total in prison.

Shadowy, elusive and intensely private, Mason has been the subject of many magazine and newspaper features, but no journalist has ever come close to knowing the facts. Now, in his own words and with no holds barred, he reveals everything, and the real story is far more incredible than any of the reporters, detectives or FBI agents who pursued Mason ever imagined. Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief , expertly co-written by bestselling author Lee Gruenfeld, is a unique true-crime confessional.]]> 384 Bill Mason 0375760717 Tom 5 3.86 2004 Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief
author: Bill Mason
name: Tom
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2004
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/07/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft]]> 4573498 The Gardner Heist by Ulrich Boser is a fascinating account of a brazen and amazing criminal act—a book that could help police and investigators solve the mystery of the 1990 break-in and burglary at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. “A tantalizing whodunit� (Boston Globe) and a “riveting, wonderfully vivid account [that] takes you into the underworld of obsessed art detectives, con men, and thieves� (Jonathan Harr, author of The Lost Painting), The Gardner Heist is true crime history at its most spellbinding.]]> 272 Ulrich Boser 0061451835 Tom 5 3.69 2009 The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft
author: Ulrich Boser
name: Tom
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2009
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/21
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]]> <![CDATA[America's Hidden History: Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims, Fighting Women, and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped a Nation]]> 2924837 New York Times bestseller Don't Know Much About History, presents a collection of extraordinary stories, each detailing an overlooked episode that shaped the nation's destiny and character. Davis's dramatic narratives set the record straight, busting myths and bringing to light little-known but fascinating facts from a time when the nation's fate hung in the balance.

Spanning a period from the Spanish arrival in America to George Washington's inauguration in 1789, America's Hidden History details these episodes, among others:


The story of the first real Pilgrims in America, who were wine-making French Huguenots, not dour English Separatists
The coming-of-age story of Queen Isabella, who suggested that Columbus pack the moving mess hall of pigs that may have spread disease to many Native Americans
The long, bloody relationship between the Pilgrims and Indians that runs counter to the idyllic scene of the Thanksgiving feast
The little-known story of George Washington as a headstrong young soldier who committed a war crime, signed a confession, and started a war!
Full of color, intrigue, and human interest, America's Hidden History is an iconoclastic look at America's past, connecting some of the dots between history and today's headlines, proving why Davis is truly America's Teacher.]]> 368 Kenneth C. Davis 0061562882 Tom 0 to-read 3.47 2008 America's Hidden History: Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims, Fighting Women, and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped a Nation
author: Kenneth C. Davis
name: Tom
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/06/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Vein of Gold: A Journey to Your Creative Heart]]> 249238 400 Julia Cameron 0874778794 Tom 0 currently-reading 4.03 1996 The Vein of Gold: A Journey to Your Creative Heart
author: Julia Cameron
name: Tom
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/06/21
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Grand Central Terminal: Railroads, Engineering, and Architecture in New York City]]> 1441947 Kurt C. Schlichting 0801865107 Tom 0 currently-reading 4.11 2001 Grand Central Terminal: Railroads, Engineering, and Architecture in New York City
author: Kurt C. Schlichting
name: Tom
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/06/21
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Sophie’s Choice 228560 562 William Styron 0679736379 Tom 5 4.18 1979 Sophie’s Choice
author: William Styron
name: Tom
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1979
rating: 5
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]]> Wintergirls 5152478
In her most powerfully moving novel since Speak, award-winning author, Laurie Halse Anderson explores Lia's struggle, her painful path to recovery, and her desperate attempts to hold on to the most important thing of all—hope.]]> 278 Laurie Halse Anderson 067001110X Tom 5 3.96 2009 Wintergirls
author: Laurie Halse Anderson
name: Tom
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2009
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/21
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]]> The View from Saturday 4538
It happened at least partly because Noah had been the best man (quite by accident) at the wedding of Ethan's grandmother and Nadia's grandfather. It happened because Nadia discovered that she could not let a lot of baby turtles die. It happened when Ethan could not let Julian face disaster alone. And it happened because Julian valued something important in himself and saw in the other three something he also valued.

Mrs. Olinski, returning to teaching after having been injured in an automobile accident, found that her Academic Bowl team became her answer to finding confidence and success. What she did not know, at least at first, was that her team knew more than she did the answer to why they had been chosen.

This is a tale about a team, a class, a school, a series of contests and, set in the midst of this, four jewel-like short stories -- one for each of the team members -- that ask questions and demonstrate surprising answers.]]> 176 E.L. Konigsburg 0689862210 Tom 0 to-read 3.76 1996 The View from Saturday
author: E.L. Konigsburg
name: Tom
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/06/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> Jane Eyre 10210 Alternate editions can be found here and here.

A gothic masterpiece of tempestuous passions and dark secrets, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is edited with an introduction and notes by Stevie Davis in Penguin Classics.

Charlotte Brontë tells the story of orphaned Jane Eyre, who grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic, brooding Mr Rochester. As her feelings for Rochester develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall's terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice. Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions - even if it means leaving the man she loves? A novel of intense power and intrigue, Jane Eyre dazzled readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and freedom.]]> 532 Charlotte Brontë 0142437204 Tom 5 4.14 1847 Jane Eyre
author: Charlotte Brontë
name: Tom
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1847
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[A Wrinkle in Time (A Wrinkle in Time Quintet, #1)]]> 18131
It was a dark and stormy night.

Out of this wild night, a strange visitor comes to the Murry house and beckons Meg, her brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin O'Keefe on a most dangerous and extraordinary adventure—one that will threaten their lives and our universe.

A Wrinkle in Time is the first book in Madeleine L'Engle's classic Time Quintet.]]> 211 Madeleine L'Engle 0440498058 Tom 5 4.04 1962 A Wrinkle in Time (A Wrinkle in Time Quintet, #1)
author: Madeleine L'Engle
name: Tom
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1962
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/21
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]]> Bel Canto 5826 318 Ann Patchett Tom 5 3.93 2001 Bel Canto
author: Ann Patchett
name: Tom
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2001
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/21
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]]> <![CDATA[The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing]]> 33926 The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing maps the progress of Jane Rosenal as she sets out on a personal and spirited expedition through the perilous terrain of sex, love, and relationships as well as the treacherous waters of the workplace. With an unforgettable comic touch, Melissa Bank skillfully teases out issues of the heart; puts a new spin on the mating dance; and captures what it's like to be a young woman coming of age in America today.]]> 274 Melissa Bank 0143035479 Tom 5 3.36 1998 The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing
author: Melissa Bank
name: Tom
average rating: 3.36
book published: 1998
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers]]> 32145 Stiff an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two thousand years, cadavers—some willingly, some unwittingly—have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. In this fascinating account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries and tells the engrossing story of our bodies when we are no longer with them.]]> 304 Mary Roach 0393324826 Tom 5 4.06 2003 Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
author: Mary Roach
name: Tom
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2003
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/21
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]]> The Year of Magical Thinking 7815
From one of America's iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage–and a life, in good times and bad–that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child.

Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later–the night before New Year's Eve–the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma.

This powerful book is Didion's attempt to make sense of the "weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness . . . about marriage and children and memory . . . about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself."]]> 227 Joan Didion 1400078431 Tom 5 3.94 2005 The Year of Magical Thinking
author: Joan Didion
name: Tom
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2005
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/21
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]]> Revolutionary Road 48328 355 Richard Yates Tom 5 3.92 1961 Revolutionary Road
author: Richard Yates
name: Tom
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1961
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/21
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]]> On the Road 70401 307 Jack Kerouac 0140042598 Tom 5 3.63 1957 On the Road
author: Jack Kerouac
name: Tom
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1957
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/21
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]]> The Bell Jar 6514 294 Sylvia Plath 0571268862 Tom 5 4.05 1963 The Bell Jar
author: Sylvia Plath
name: Tom
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1963
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/21
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]]> <![CDATA[The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]> 2956 327 Mark Twain 0142437174 Tom 5 3.82 1884 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
author: Mark Twain
name: Tom
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1884
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/21
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]]> Atonement 6867
On a hot summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses the flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant. But Briony's incomplete grasp of adult motives—together with her precocious literary gifts—brings about a crime that will change all their lives.

As it follows that crime's repercussions through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century, Atonement engages the reader on every conceivable level, with an ease and authority that mark it as a genuine masterpiece.]]> 351 Ian McEwan 038572179X Tom 5 3.94 2001 Atonement
author: Ian McEwan
name: Tom
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2001
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/21
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]]> Lord of the Flies 7624 182 William Golding 0140283331 Tom 5 3.70 1954 Lord of the Flies
author: William Golding
name: Tom
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1954
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/21
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]]> <![CDATA[The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time]]> 1618 226 Mark Haddon 1400032717 Tom 5 3.89 2003 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
author: Mark Haddon
name: Tom
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2003
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/21
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]]> To Kill a Mockingbird 2657 "Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel - a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man's struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much.

"To Kill A Mockingbird" became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film.]]> 323 Harper Lee 0060935464 Tom 5 4.25 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird
author: Harper Lee
name: Tom
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1960
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/21
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]]> The Kite Runner 77203 371 Khaled Hosseini 159463193X Tom 5 4.34 2003 The Kite Runner
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Tom
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2003
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies]]> 28991 240 Tom Perrotta 042515954X Tom 4 3.74 1994 Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies
author: Tom Perrotta
name: Tom
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1994
rating: 4
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date added: 2009/06/20
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]]> The Wishbones 28988 288 Tom Perrotta 0425169715 Tom 4 3.52 1997 The Wishbones
author: Tom Perrotta
name: Tom
average rating: 3.52
book published: 1997
rating: 4
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date added: 2009/06/20
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]]> Joe College 28289
But Danny can use the time behind the coffee urn to try to make sense of a love life that's gotten a little complicated. There's loyal and patient hometown honey Cindy and her recently dropped bombshell to contend with, and there's also lissome Polly back in New Haven--with her shifting moods, perfect thrift store dresses, and inconvenient liaison with a dashing professor. If girl problems aren't enough, there's the constant menace of the Lunch Monsters, a group of thugs who think Danny has planted the Roach Coach in their territory.

Joe College is Tom Perrotta's warmest and funniest fiction yet, a comic journey into the dark side of love, higher education, and food service.]]> 320 Tom Perrotta 0312361785 Tom 5 3.40 2000 Joe College
author: Tom Perrotta
name: Tom
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2000
rating: 5
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]]> Election 28282
And that's just the problem, according to Mr. M -- a.k.a. Jim McAllister, faculty, advisor to the Student Government Association and a popular Winwood history teacher. In the name of democracy -- not to mention a simmering grudge against Tracy Flick -- Mr. M recruits the perfect opposition candidate. Paul Warren is a golden boy, a football hero with a brain and a heart, eager to bulk up his meager resume.

As Winwood High experiences election fever, Mr. M is distracted by a sudden attraction to his wife's best friend. The two dramas he has created -- one personal and private, the other public and political -- unfurl simultaneously, with all the players sharing in a life-altering conclusion.

Part satire, part soap opera, Election is an uncommon look at an ordinary American high school, and the extraordinary people who inhabit it.]]> 210 Tom Perrotta 0425167283 Tom 5 3.81 1998 Election
author: Tom Perrotta
name: Tom
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1998
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/20
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]]> The Abstinence Teacher 347143
That was all Ruth had said. Even now, when she’d had months to come to terms with the fallout from this remark, she still marveled at the power of those four words, which she’d uttered without premeditation and without any sense of treading on forbidden ground. (p. 11)

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

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

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

With The Abstinence Teacher , Tom Perrotta wades into the murky waters of contemporary American suburbia, fully deploying his proven gift for describing the panic lurking beneath its seemingly placid surface. Already widely known to book and movie audiences for his scathing satire mixed with remarkable compassion in works including Election and Little Children (both adapted for film, Little Children garnering Perrotta an Oscar nomination), this novel once again proves, as declared by the Los Angeles Times , “Perrotta’s balance of humor and pathos has no equal.”]]> 368 Tom Perrotta 0307356361 Tom 5 3.25 2007 The Abstinence Teacher
author: Tom Perrotta
name: Tom
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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]]> Little Children 37426 355 Tom Perrotta 0312315732 Tom 5 3.63 2004 Little Children
author: Tom Perrotta
name: Tom
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2004
rating: 5
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]]> Specials (Uglies, #3) 24765
And now she's been turned into one of them: a superamped fighting machine, engineered to keep the uglies down and the pretties stupid.

The strength, the speed, and the clarity and focus of her thinking feel better than anything Tally can remember. Most of the time. One tiny corner of her heart still remembers something more.

Still, it's easy to tune that out -- until Tally's offered a chance to stamp out the rebels of the New Smoke permanently. It all comes down to one last choice: listen to that tiny, faint heartbeat, or carry out the mission she's programmed to complete. Either way, Tally's world will never be the same.]]> 384 Scott Westerfeld 0689865406 Tom 5 3.76 2006 Specials (Uglies, #3)
author: Scott Westerfeld
name: Tom
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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]]> Pretties (Uglies, #2) 24768 Gorgeous. Popular. Perfect.

Perfectly wrong.

Tally has finally become pretty. Now her looks are beyond perfect, her clothes are awesome, her boyfriend is totally hot, and she's completely popular. It's everything she's ever wanted.

But beneath all the fun -- the nonstop parties, the high-tech luxury, the total freedom -- is a nagging sense that something's wrong. Something important. Then a message from Tally's ugly past arrives. Reading it, Tally remembers what's wrong with pretty life, and the fun stops cold.

Now she has to choose between fighting to forget what she knows and fighting for her life -- because the authorities don't intend to let anyone with this information survive.]]> 370 Scott Westerfeld 0689865392 Tom 5 3.84 2005 Pretties (Uglies, #2)
author: Scott Westerfeld
name: Tom
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2005
rating: 5
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]]> Uglies (Uglies, #1) 24770
But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to become a pretty. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world—and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally a choice: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. Tally's choice will change her world forever....]]> 425 Scott Westerfeld 0689865384 Tom 5 3.85 2005 Uglies (Uglies, #1)
author: Scott Westerfeld
name: Tom
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2005
rating: 5
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]]> The Little Friend 775346
The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi, where one Mother’s Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents� yard. Twelve years later Robin’s murder is still unsolved and his family remains devastated. So it is that Robin’s sister Harriet - unnervingly bright, insufferably determined, and unduly influenced by the fiction of Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson--sets out to unmask his killer. Aided only by her worshipful friend Hely, Harriet crosses her town’s rigid lines of race and caste and burrows deep into her family’s history of loss.]]> 624 Donna Tartt 1400031699 Tom 3 3.47 2002 The Little Friend
author: Donna Tartt
name: Tom
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2002
rating: 3
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]]> The Secret History 29044 559 Donna Tartt 1400031702 Tom 5 4.17 1992 The Secret History
author: Donna Tartt
name: Tom
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1992
rating: 5
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]]> The Short Stories 4662
In 'The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald', Matthew J. Bruccoli, the country's premier Fitzgerald scholar and biographer, assembles a sparkling collection that encompasses the full scope of Fitzgerald's short fiction.

The forty-three masterpieces range from early stories that capture the fashion of the times to later ones written after the author's fabled crack-up, which are sober reflections on his own youthful excesses.

Included are classic novellas, such as "The Rich Boy," "May Day," and "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz," as well as a remarkable body of work he wrote for the Saturday Evening Post and its sister "slicks."

These stories can be read as an autobiographical journal of a great writer's career, an experience deepened by the illuminating introductory headnotes that Matthew Bruccoli has written for each story, placing it in its literary and biographical context.

Together, these forty-three stories compose a vivid picture of a lost era, but their brilliance is timeless.

This essential collection is a monument to the genius of one of the great voices in the history of American literature.]]> 800 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0684842505 Tom 5 4.23 1920 The Short Stories
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Tom
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1920
rating: 5
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]]> This Side of Paradise 46165 This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald's romantic and witty first novel, was written when the author was only twenty-three years old. This semi-autobiographical story of the handsome, indulged, and idealistic Princeton student Amory Blaine received critical raves and catapulted Fitzgerald to instant fame. Now, readers can enjoy the newly edited, authorized version of this early classic of the Jazz Age, based on Fitzgerald's original manuscript. In this definitive text, This Side of Paradise captures the rhythms and romance of Fitzgerald's youth and offers a poignant portrait of the "Lost Generation."]]> 275 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0684843781 Tom 5 3.66 1920 This Side of Paradise
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Tom
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1920
rating: 5
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]]> Tender Is the Night 46164 Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character, Tender Is the Night is lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative.]]> 430 F. Scott Fitzgerald Tom 5 3.81 1934 Tender Is the Night
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Tom
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1934
rating: 5
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]]> The Great Gatsby 4671 The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald’s family and from his lifelong publisher.

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

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published by Scribner in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.]]> 180 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0743273567 Tom 5 3.93 1925 The Great Gatsby
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Tom
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1925
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour: An Introduction]]> 5114
"Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" is a story about the Glass family, narrated by Buddy, the second oldest brother. Buddy is attending his brother Seymour's wedding to a gal named Muriel, but he's on Army leave during active duty in World War II. At the wedding, everyone is stunned when Seymour does not show up.

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

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

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

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

This portion of the story is told in stream of consciousness, and it discusses Eastern religious mysticism.]]> 256 J.D. Salinger 0316766941 Tom 5 4.13 1955 Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour: An Introduction
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Tom
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1955
rating: 5
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]]> Nine Stories 4009
The stories are:

"A Perfect Day for Bananafish"
"Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut"
"Just Before the War with the Eskimos"
"The Laughing Man"
"Down at the Dinghy"
"For Esmé � with Love and Squalor"
"Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes"
"De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period"
"Teddy"]]> 302 J.D. Salinger 0316767727 Tom 5 4.20 1953 Nine Stories
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Tom
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1953
rating: 5
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]]> The Catcher in the Rye 5107 It's Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school...

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

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

J.D. Salinger's (1919�2010) classic novel of teenage angst and rebellion was first published in 1951. The novel was included on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. It was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It has been frequently challenged in the court for its liberal use of profanity and portrayal of sexuality and in the 1950's and 60's it was the novel that every teenage boy wants to read.]]> 277 J.D. Salinger 0316769177 Tom 5 3.81 1951 The Catcher in the Rye
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Tom
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1951
rating: 5
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]]> Franny and Zooey 5113 â€Everything everybody does is so—I don’t know—not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and—sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you’re conforming just as much only in a different way.â€�

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

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

Written in Salinger’s typically irreverent style, these two stories offer a touching snapshot of the distraught mindset of early adulthood and are full of the insightful emotional observations and witty turns of phrase that have helped make Salinger’s reputation what it is today.]]> 201 J.D. Salinger 0316769029 Tom 5 3.97 1957 Franny and Zooey
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Tom
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1957
rating: 5
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]]> The Whole World Over 27646
From the author of the beloved novel Three Junes comes a rich and commanding story about the accidents, both grand and small, that determine our choices in love and marriage. Greenie, openhearted yet stubborn, devotes most of her passionate attention to her Greenwich Village bakery and her four–year–old son, George. Her husband, Alan, seems to have fallen into a midlife depression, while Walter, a traditional gay man who has become her closest professional ally, is nursing a broken heart.

It is at Walter’s restaurant that the visiting governor of New Mexico tastes Greenie’s coconut cake and decides to woo her away from the city to be his chef. For reasons both ambitious and desperate, she accepts—and finds herself heading west without her husband. This impulsive decision will change the course of several lives within and beyond Greenie’s orbit. Alan, alone in New York, must face down his demons; Walter, eager for platonic distraction, takes in his teenage nephew. Yet Walter cannot steer clear of love trouble, and despite his enforced solitude, Alan is still surrounded by women: his powerful sister, an old flame, and an animal lover named Saga, who grapples with demons all her own. As for Greenie, living in the shadow of a charismatic politician leads to a series of unforeseen consequences that separate her from her only child. We watch as folly, chance, and determination pull all these lives together and apart over a year that culminates in the fall of the twin towers at the World Trade Center, an event that will affirm or confound the choices each character has made—or has refused to face.

Julia Glass is at her best here, weaving a glorious tapestry of lives and lifetimes, of places and people, revealing the subtle mechanisms behind our most important, and often most fragile, connections to others. In The Whole World Over she has given us another tale that pays tribute to the extraordinary complexities of love.]]> 509 Julia Glass 0375422749 Tom 4 3.49 2006 The Whole World Over
author: Julia Glass
name: Tom
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2006
rating: 4
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]]> Three Junes 227593
In June of 1989 Paul McLeod, a newspaper publisher and recent widower, travels to Greece, where he falls for a young American artist and reflects on the complicated truth about his marriage.

Six years later, again in June, Paul's death draws his three grown sons and their families back to their ancestral home. Fenno, the eldest, a wry, introspective gay man, narrates the events of this unforeseen reunion. Far from his straitlaced expatriate life as a bookseller in Greenwich Village, Fenno is stunned by a series of revelations that threaten his carefully crafted defenses.

Four years farther on, in yet another June, a chance meeting on the Long Island shore brings Fenno together with Fern Olitsky, the artist who once captivated his father. Now pregnant, Fern must weigh her guilt about the past against her wishes for the future and decide what family means to her.

In prose rich with compassion and wit, Three Junes paints a haunting portrait of love's redemptive powers.]]> 353 Julia Glass 0385721420 Tom 5 3.57 2002 Three Junes
author: Julia Glass
name: Tom
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2002
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Outliers: The Story of Success]]> 3228917 Learn what sets high achievers apart � from Bill Gates to the Beatles � in this #1 bestseller from "a singular talent" (New York Times Book Review).

In this stunning book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"—the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?

His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.]]> 309 Malcolm Gladwell 0316017922 Tom 5 4.19 2008 Outliers: The Story of Success
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Tom
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2008
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference]]> 2612 The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.]]> 301 Malcolm Gladwell 0316346624 Tom 5 4.01 2002 The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Tom
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2002
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler]]> 3980
When Claudia decided to run away, she planned very carefully. She would be gone just long enough to teach her parents a lesson in Claudia appreciation. And she would go in comfort - she would live at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She saved her money, and she invited her brother Jamie to go, mostly because he was a miser and would have money.

Claudia was a good organizer and Jamie had some ideas, too; so the two took up residence at the museum right on schedule. But once the fun of settling in was over, Claudia had two unexpected problems: She felt just the same, and she wanted to feel different; and she found a statue at the Museum so beautiful she could not go home until she had discovered its maker, a question that baffled the experts, too.

The former owner of the statue was Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Without her - well, without her, Claudia might never have found a way to go home.]]> 159 E.L. Konigsburg 0744583276 Tom 5 4.16 1967 From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
author: E.L. Konigsburg
name: Tom
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1967
rating: 5
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]]> Blue Bloods (Blue Bloods, #1) 872333 The vampires assimilated quickly into the New World. Rising to levels of enormous power, wealth, and influence, they were the celebrated blue bloods of American society.

The Blue Bloods vowed that their immortal status would remain a closely guarded secret. And they kept that secret for centuries. But now, in New York City, the secret is seeping out. Schuyler Van Alen is a sophomore at a prestigious private school. She prefers baggy, vintage clothes instead of the Prada and pearls worn by her classmates, and she lives with her reclusive grandmother in a dilapated mansion. Schuyler is a loner...and happy that way. Suddenly, when she turns fifteen, there is a visible mosaic of blue veins on her arm. She starts to crave raw food and she is having flashbacks to ancient times. Then a popular girl from her school is found dead... drained of all her blood. Schuyler doesn't know what to think, but she wants to find out the secrets the Blue Bloods are keeping. But is she herself in danger?]]> 302 Melissa de la Cruz 0786838922 Tom 5 3.71 2006 Blue Bloods (Blue Bloods, #1)
author: Melissa de la Cruz
name: Tom
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Angels on Sunset Boulevard (Angels on Sunset Boulevard, #1)]]> 483859 THE ANGELS PRACTICE, OR TAP, is the kind of cult that doesn't exist. There are no rules and no records, just a MySpace-like website. All you need to know is that it will define who you are and what you will become.


Amidst the glittering L.A. nightlife, TAP parties are the place to see and be seen, especially in the exclusive back room. Taj and her rocker boyfriend, Johnny, are TAP elite, so when Taj meets preppie outsider Nick at a party, she doesn't give him a second thought. But then Johnny goes missing, along with Nick's sister. And suddenly Taj and Nick are teaming up to question TAP's darker side....

]]> 240 Melissa de la Cruz 1416927670 Tom 5 3.43 2007 Angels on Sunset Boulevard (Angels on Sunset Boulevard, #1)
author: Melissa de la Cruz
name: Tom
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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]]> Cat's Meow 501839 What's worse, her funds are running dry.

What's a girl to do?

Marry rich. And so the ruckus begins, taking us from China for a baby adoption, to Paris for the couture shows, to the "it" world of Gotham. And that's just the hors d'oeuvres.

Punctuated with Kim DeMarco's illustrations, Cat's Meow is a spectacularly witty novel about a young woman looking for love, clothes, and what will make her truly happy in life.

]]> 219 Melissa de la Cruz 0743205049 Tom 5 2.87 2001 Cat's Meow
author: Melissa de la Cruz
name: Tom
average rating: 2.87
book published: 2001
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/20
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]]> <![CDATA[The Headless Cupid (Stanley Family, #1)]]> 2316 224 Zilpha Keatley Snyder 0440228956 Tom 5 3.87 1971 The Headless Cupid (Stanley Family, #1)
author: Zilpha Keatley Snyder
name: Tom
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1971
rating: 5
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]]> Wonder Boys 16707 The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Chabon presents a hilarious and heartbreaking work—the story of the friendship between the "wonder boys"—Grady, an aging writer who has lost his way, and Crabtree, whose relentless debauchery is capsizing his career.]]> 383 Michael Chabon 3423124172 Tom 5 3.94 1995 Wonder Boys
author: Michael Chabon
name: Tom
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1995
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay]]> 3985 639 Michael Chabon 0312282990 Tom 5 4.18 2000 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
author: Michael Chabon
name: Tom
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2000
rating: 5
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]]> The Confessions of Max Tivoli 776137 The Confessions of Max Tivoli, a heartbreaking love story with a narrator like no other.

Born with the physical appearance of an elderly man, Max grows older mentally like any child, but his body appears to age backwards, growing younger every year. And yet, his physical curse proves to be a blessing, allowing him to try to win the heart of the same woman three times as at each successive encounter she fails to recognize him, taking him for a stranger, so giving Max another chance at love.

Set against the historical backdrop of San Francisco at the turn of the twentieth century, Andrew Sean Greer's The Confessions of Max Tivoli is a beautiful and daring feat of the imagination, questioning the very nature of love, time, and what it means to be human.]]> 288 Andrew Sean Greer 0312423810 Tom 5 3.66 2004 The Confessions of Max Tivoli
author: Andrew Sean Greer
name: Tom
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2004
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace]]> 5664839 In the tradition of recent hits like The Bitch in the House and Perfect Madness comes a hilarious and controversial book that every woman will have an opinion about, written by America’s most outrageous writer.

In our mothers� day there were good mothers, neglectful mothers, and occasionally great mothers.

Today we have only Bad Mothers.

If you work, you’re neglectful; if you stay home, you’re smothering. If you discipline, you’re buying them a spot on the shrink’s couch; if you let them run wild, they will be into drugs by seventh grade. If you buy organic, you’re spending their college fund; if you don’t, you’re risking all sorts of allergies and illnesses.

Is it any wonder so many women refer to themselves at one time or another as “a bad mother�? Ayelet Waldman says it’s time for women to get over it and get on with it, in a book that is sure to spark the same level of controversy as her now legendary Modern Love piece, in which she confessed to loving her husband more than her children.

Covering topics as diverse as the hysteria of competitive parenting (Whose toddler can recite the planets in order from the sun?), the relentless pursuits of the Bad Mother police, balancing the work-family dynamic, and the bane of every mother’s existence (homework, that is), Bad Mother illuminates the anxieties that riddle motherhood today, while providing women with the encouragement they need to give themselves a break.]]> 224 Ayelet Waldman 0385527934 Tom 5 3.52 2009 Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace
author: Ayelet Waldman
name: Tom
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2009
rating: 5
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]]> Daughter's Keeper 96719
When Olivia, wild-haired and headstrong, makes a terrible mistake, she must turn to the person least likely to help--her mother, Elaine. Motherhood was a role that Elaine never embraced and her best never amounted to much. But now Olivia faces prosecution for a naive connection to a drug deal and she needs Elaine more than ever. As the days count down and Olivia's future hangs in the balance, Elaine must decide just how much she is willing to give for a second chance with her daughter.

With Daughter's Keeper, Ayelet Waldman has crafted a redemptive journey at once highly emotional and unbearably suspenseful, as Olivia and Elaine's struggle builds to a beautiful, heart-wrenching climax. In this luminous, gripping novel, Waldman brings to life the tensions and the tenderness that forge the unshakeable bond between parent and child. Daughter's Keeper reveals the unlimited boundaries of forgiveness and the sacrifices we make for love.]]> 368 Ayelet Waldman 1402203136 Tom 5 3.72 2003 Daughter's Keeper
author: Ayelet Waldman
name: Tom
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2003
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Love and Other Impossible Pursuits]]> 165145 352 Ayelet Waldman 1400095131 Tom 5 3.65 2006 Love and Other Impossible Pursuits
author: Ayelet Waldman
name: Tom
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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]]> The Danish Girl 543071 The Danish Girl eloquently portrays the unique intimacy that defines every marriage and the remarkable story of Lili Elbe, a pioneer in transgender history, and the woman torn between loyalty to her marriage and her own ambitions and desires.  The Danish Girl’s lush prose and generous emotional insight make it, after the last page is turned, a deeply moving first novel about one of the most passionate and unusual love stories of the 20th century.

A New York Times Notable Book * Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction * Winner of the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters * Finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Award * Finalist for the American Library Association Stonewall Book Award]]> 270 David Ebershoff 0140298487 Tom 5 3.69 2000 The Danish Girl
author: David Ebershoff
name: Tom
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2000
rating: 5
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]]> The 19th Wife 2586771
Soon after Ann Eliza’s story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds, a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was expelled from his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside to discover the truth behind his father’s death. As Ann Eliza’s narrative intertwines with that of Jordan’s search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love, family, and faith.]]> 514 David Ebershoff 1400063973 Tom 5 3.64 2008 The 19th Wife
author: David Ebershoff
name: Tom
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2008
rating: 5
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date added: 2009/06/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Rogues' Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money that Made the Metropolitan Museum]]> 4811188 The Metropolitan Museum of Art is America’s wealthiest and arguably the world’s greatest art museum—and behind every great institution lies a complex, multifaceted story. Now, Michael Gross gives us the first unauthorized and definitive history of the museum and the juicy details of the lives of the powerful players who made it what it is today. With a colorful cast of characters that includes directors Guy-Philippe Lannes de Montebello, Luigi Palma di Cesnola, and Thomas P. F. Hoving, and a glittering array of supporting players such as John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Annette de la Renta, J. P. Morgan, Brooke Astor, Robert Moses, Diana Vreeland, and Jane Wrightsman, Gross looks at the museum’s rich social history and exposes the secrets behind the upper class’s cultural and philanthropic ambitions. From the trustees to the donors and the curators to the collectors, the startling 138-year tale of the Met and the masterpieces that live inside its walls makes for an astonishing and satisfying read.

]]> 545 Michael Gross 0767924886 Tom 0 3.46 2009 Rogues' Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money that Made the Metropolitan Museum
author: Michael Gross
name: Tom
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building]]> 80878
For seventy-five years, it’s been Manhattan’s richest apartment building, and one of the most lusted-after addresses in the world. One apartment had 37 rooms, 14 bathrooms, 43 closets, 11 working fireplaces, a private elevator, and his-and-hers saunas; another at one time had a live-in service staff of 16. To this day, it is steeped in the purest luxury, the kind most of us could only imagine, until now.

The last great building to go up along New York’s Gold Coast, construction on 740 Park finished in 1930. Since then, 740 has been home to an ever-evolving cadre of our wealthiest and most powerful families, some of America’s (and the world’s) oldest money—the kind attached to names like Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Bouvier, Chrysler, Niarchos, Houghton, and Harkness—and some whose names evoke the excesses of today’s monied Kravis, Koch, Bronfman, Perelman, Steinberg, and Schwarzman. All along, the building has housed titans of industry, political power brokers, international royalty, fabulous scam-artists, and even the lowest scoundrels.

The book begins with the tumultuous story of the building’s construction. Conceived in the bubbling financial, artistic, and social cauldron of 1920’s Manhattan, 740 Park rose to its dizzying heights as the stock market plunged in 1929—the building was in dire financial straits before the first apartments were sold. The builders include the architectural genius Rosario Candela, the scheming businessman James T. Lee (Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s grandfather), and a raft of financiers, many of whom were little more than white-collar crooks and grand-scale hustlers.

Once finished, 740 became a magnet for the richest, oldest families in the the Brewsters, descendents of the leader of the Plymouth Colony; the socially-registered Bordens, Hoppins, Scovilles, Thornes, and Schermerhorns; and top executives of the Chase Bank, American Express, and U.S. Rubber. Outside the walls of 740 Park, these were the people shaping America culturally and economically. Within those walls, they were indulging in all of the Seven Deadly Sins.

As the social climate evolved throughout the last century, so did 740 after World War II, the building’s rulers eased their more restrictive policies and began allowing Jews (though not to this day African Americans) to reside within their hallowed walls. Nowadays, it is full to bursting with new money, people whose fortunes, though freshly-made, are large enough to buy their way in.

At its core this book is a social history of the American rich, and how the locus of power and influence has shifted haltingly from old bloodlines to new money. But it’s also much more than filled with meaty, startling, often tragic stories of the people who lived behind 740’s walls, the book gives us an unprecedented access to worlds of wealth, privilege, and extraordinary folly that are usually hidden behind a scrim of money and influence. This is, truly, how the other half—or at least the other one hundredth of one percent—lives.]]> 576 Michael Gross 0767917448 Tom 0 currently-reading 3.27 2005 740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building
author: Michael Gross
name: Tom
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/06/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>