Monica's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 17 Mar 2025 16:42:21 -0700 60 Monica's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids]]> 43618654 —Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance

A kinder, more compassionate world starts with kind and compassionate kids. In Raising Good Humans , you’ll find powerful and practical strategies to break free from “reactive parenting� habits and raise kind, cooperative, and confident kids. Whether you’re running late for school, trying to get your child to eat their vegetables, or dealing with an epic meltdown in the checkout line at a grocery store—being a parent is hard work! And, as parents, many of us react in times of stress without thinking—often by yelling. But what if, instead of always reacting on autopilot, you could respond thoughtfully in those moments, keep your cool, and get from A to B on time and in one piece? With this book, you’ll find powerful mindfulness skills for calming your own stress response when difficult emotions arise. You’ll also discover strategies for cultivating respectful communication, effective conflict resolution, and reflective listening. In the process, you’ll learn to examine your own unhelpful patterns and ingrained reactions that reflect the generational habits shaped by your parents, so you can break the cycle and respond to your children in more skillful ways. When children experience a parent reacting with kindness and patience, they learn to act with kindness as well—thereby altering generational patterns for a kinder, more compassionate future. With this essential guide, you’ll see how changing your own “autopilot reactions� can create a lasting positive impact, not just for your kids, but for generations to come.

An essential, must-read for all parents—now more than ever.

“To raise the children we hope to raise, we have to learn to become the person we hoped to be�. This wonderful book will help you handle the ride.�
—KJ Dell’Antonia, author of How to Be a Happier Parent

“Hunter Clarke-Fields shares her wisdom and personal experience to help parents create peaceful families.�
—Joanna Faber and Julie King, coauthors of How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen
]]> 184 Hunter Clarke-Fields 1684033888 Monica 0 to-read 3.90 2019 Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids
author: Hunter Clarke-Fields
name: Monica
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/17
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]]> <![CDATA[The Wolf, the Duck, and the Mouse]]> 34002075 40 Mac Barnett 076367754X Monica 0 to-read 4.24 2017 The Wolf, the Duck, and the Mouse
author: Mac Barnett
name: Monica
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/06
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]]> From Punk to Monk: A Memoir 195395461
Ray Cappo was a hardcore punk singer and pioneer of the straight-edge movement living on the Lower East Side of New York City in the �80s, where his band Youth of Today played to packed houses and thousands of fans. But despite releasing several hit records and touring all over the US, Ray wasn’t satisfied. Fame and success hadn’t brought the happiness he’d been hoping for. They’d only left him feeling empty inside.

This, along with his father’s untimely death, led Ray to abruptly quit the band and buy a one-way ticket to India in search of the answers to life’s great mysteries. Living among monks in the sacred city of Vrindavan, Ray embraced the rich, spiritual culture he discovered there. When he returned to the US, radically transformed, he founded the band Shelter, devoted to spreading a message of hope. Told with warmth, candor, and humor, this heartfelt memoir chronicles Ray’s journey from punk to monk and beyond.

Offers a unique glimpse into the punk and hardcore scene of the Lower East Side during the 80s and the birth of the straight-edge movement.

Asks (and answers) deep questions about our relationship to the world around us and the living beings that populate it.

Chronicles Ray’s spiritual journey in his own words, with warmth, candor, and humor.]]> 368 Ray Cappo 1647228689 Monica 4 4.25 From Punk to Monk: A Memoir
author: Ray Cappo
name: Monica
average rating: 4.25
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/12
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]]> As I Lay Dying 77013 As I Lay Dying is Faulkner’s harrowing account of the Bundren family’s odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Narrated in turn by each of the family members -- including Addie herself -- as well as others; the novel ranges in mood, from dark comedy to the deepest pathos. Considered one of the most influential novels in American fiction in structure, style, and drama, As I Lay Dying is a true 20th-century classic.

This edition reproduces the corrected text of As I Lay Dying as established in 1985 by Noel Polk.]]> 288 William Faulkner Monica 0 to-read 3.71 1930 As I Lay Dying
author: William Faulkner
name: Monica
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1930
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/03
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]]> The Sound and the Fury 10975 366 William Faulkner Monica 0 to-read 3.86 1929 The Sound and the Fury
author: William Faulkner
name: Monica
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1929
rating: 0
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]]> Norwegian Wood 11297
A magnificent blending of the music, the mood, and the ethos that was the sixties with the story of one college student's romantic coming of age, Norwegian Wood brilliantly recaptures a young man's first, hopeless, and heroic love.]]> 296 Haruki Murakami 0375704027 Monica 0 to-read 4.01 1987 Norwegian Wood
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Monica
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/03
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]]> <![CDATA[The Whole-Brain Child: Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind]]> 10353369
In this pioneering, practical book, Daniel J. Siegel, neuropsychiatrist and author of the bestselling Mindsight, and parenting expert Tina Payne Bryson demystify the meltdowns and aggravation, explaining the new science of how a child’s brain is wired and how it matures. The “upstairs brain,� which makes decisions and balances emotions, is under construction until the mid-twenties. And especially in young children, the right brain and its emotions tend to rule over the logic of the left brain. No wonder kids can seem—and feel—so out of control. By applying these discoveries to everyday parenting, you can turn any outburst, argument, or fear into a chance to integrate your child’s brain and foster vital growth. Raise calmer, happier children using twelve key strategies, including

� Name It to Tame It: Corral raging right-brain behavior through left-brain storytelling, appealing to the left brain’s affinity for words and reasoning to calm emotional storms and bodily tension.
� Engage, Don’t Enrage: Keep your child thinking and listening, instead of purely reacting.
� Move It or Lose It: Use physical activities to shift your child’s emotional state.
� Let the Clouds of Emotion Roll By: Guide your children when they are stuck on a negative emotion, and help them understand that feelings come and go.
� SIFT: Help children pay attention to the Sensations, Images, Feelings, and Thoughts within them so that they can make better decisions and be more flexible.
� Connect Through Conflict: Use discord to encourage empathy and greater social success.

Complete with clear explanations, age-appropriate strategies for dealing with day-to-day struggles, and illustrations that will help you explain these concepts to your child, The Whole-Brain Child shows you how to cultivate healthy emotional and intellectual development so that your children can lead balanced, meaningful, and connected lives.]]> 192 Daniel J. Siegel 0553807919 Monica 0 currently-reading 4.26 2011 The Whole-Brain Child: Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind
author: Daniel J. Siegel
name: Monica
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/10
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]]> Demon Copperhead 60194162 "Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]> 560 Barbara Kingsolver 0063251922 Monica 0 currently-reading 4.46 2022 Demon Copperhead
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Monica
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/10
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]]> I Want My Hat Back 11233988
The bear’s hat is gone, and he wants it back. Patiently and politely, he asks the animals he comes across, one by one, whether they have seen it. Each animal says no, some more elaborately than others. But just as the bear begins to despond, a deer comes by and asks a simple question that sparks the bear’s memory and renews his search with a vengeance. Told completely in dialogue, this delicious take on the classic repetitive tale plays out in sly illustrations laced with visual humor—and winks at the reader with a wry irreverence that will have kids of all ages thrilled to be in on the joke.]]> 40 Jon Klassen 0763655988 Monica 0 baby 4.34 2011 I Want My Hat Back
author: Jon Klassen
name: Monica
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/10
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]]> Lessons in Chemistry 58065033 390 Bonnie Garmus Monica 0 currently-reading 4.23 2022 Lessons in Chemistry
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: Monica
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/10
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]]> <![CDATA[How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy]]> 42771901 232 Jenny Odell 1612197493 Monica 0 currently-reading 3.68 2019 How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
author: Jenny Odell
name: Monica
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/10
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]]> Interior Castle 406639
One of the most celebrated works on mystical theology in existence, as timely today as when St. Teresa of Avila wrote it centuries ago, this is a treasury of unforgettable maxims on self-knowledge and fulfillment.]]> 235 Teresa de Ávila 0385036434 Monica 5 4.15 1588 Interior Castle
author: Teresa de Ávila
name: Monica
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1588
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[A Wilder Shore: The Romantic Odyssey of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson]]> 202102004 A portrait of the fascinating, unusual and fruitful creative partnership between Fanny and Robert Louis StevensonThe romance between Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson was an unlikely Victorian love he was an ambitious but drifting college-educated writer from a prominent family in Scotland; she was a forceful and determined farm girl from Indiana with a high school education. She was married, with children, and 10 years his senior when they met in France in 1876. How could a union between them work?A Wilder Shore is a portrait of these two extraordinary people and a nuanced examination of the improbable union that stimulated, frustrated and ultimately sustained them. The book travels the world with the couple as they seek better health for him, a looser lifestyle and more creative freedom, beginning in an art colony outside Paris and ending in Samoa, where they lived and joined the native islanders� fight for independence from imperialist powers. Along the way, the ferment of the Stevensons� deeply loving but stormy marriage produced literary masterpieces by Robert such as Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.This sweeping love story of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson and their search for freedom and self-discovery opens up new perspectives on both writers, as well as showing how astonishingly modern they were for their times.]]> 480 Camille Peri 0670786195 Monica 0 to-read 3.87 A Wilder Shore: The Romantic Odyssey of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson
author: Camille Peri
name: Monica
average rating: 3.87
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]]> <![CDATA[The Letters of Emily Dickinson]]> 197877744
Emily Dickinson was a letter writer before she was a poet. And it was through letters that she shared prose reflections―alternately humorous, provocative, affectionate, and philosophical―with her extensive community. While her letters often contain poems, and some letters consist entirely of a single poem, they also constitute a rich genre all their own. Through her correspondence, Dickinson appears in her many facets as a reader, writer, and thinker; social commentator and comedian; friend, neighbor, sister, and daughter.

The Letters of Emily Dickinson is the first collected edition of the poet’s correspondence since 1958. It presents all 1,304 of her extant letters, along with the small number available from her correspondents. Almost 300 are previously uncollected, including letters published after 1958, letters more recently discovered in manuscript, and more than 200 “letter-poems� that Dickinson sent to correspondents without accompanying prose. This edition also redates much of her correspondence, relying on records of Amherst weather patterns, historical events, and details about flora and fauna to locate the letters more precisely in time. Finally, updated annotations place Dickinson’s writing more firmly in relation to national and international events, as well as the rhythms of daily life in her hometown. What emerges is not the reclusive Dickinson of legend but a poet firmly embedded in the political and literary currents of her time.

Dickinson’s letters shed light on the soaring and capacious mind of a great American poet and her vast world of relationships. This edition presents her correspondence anew, in all its complexity and brilliance.]]> 976 Emily Dickinson 0674982975 Monica 0 to-read 4.59 2024 The Letters of Emily Dickinson
author: Emily Dickinson
name: Monica
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> The God of the Woods 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Monica 0 to-read 4.16 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Monica
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2) 199798868 New York Times bestselling author comes a spectacularly moving and intense novel of secrecy, misunderstanding, and love, the story of Eilis Lacey, the complex and enigmatic heroine of Brooklyn, Tóibín’s most popular work, twenty years later.

Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers, all of whom live in neighboring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives and children and Tony’s parents, a huge extended family that lives and works, eats and plays together. It is the spring of 1976 and Eilis, now in her forties with two teenage children, has no one to rely on in this still-new country. Though her ties to Ireland remain stronger than those that hold her to her new land and home, she has not returned in decades.

One day, when Tony is at his job and Eilis is in her home office doing her accounting, an Irishman comes to the door asking for her by name. He tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but instead deposit it on Eilis’s doorstep. It is what Eilis does—and what she refuses to do—in response to this stunning news that makes Tóibín’s novel so riveting.

Long Island is about longings unfulfilled, even unrecognized. The silences in Eilis� life are thunderous and dangerous, and there’s no one more deft than Tóibín at giving them language. This is a gorgeous story of a woman alone in a marriage and the deepest bonds she rekindles on her return to the place and people she left behind, to ways of living and loving she thought she’d lost.]]> 294 Colm Tóibín 1476785112 Monica 0 to-read 3.68 2024 Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2)
author: Colm Tóibín
name: Monica
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> New People 33275357 Caucasia, a subversive and engrossing novel of race, class and manners in contemporary America.

As the twentieth century draws to a close, Maria is at the start of a life she never thought possible. She and Khalil, her college sweetheart, are planning their wedding. They are the perfect couple, "King and Queen of the Racially Nebulous Prom." Their skin is the same shade of beige. They live together in a black bohemian enclave in Brooklyn, where Khalil is riding the wave of the first dot-com boom and Maria is plugging away at her dissertation, on the Jonestown massacre. They've even landed a starring role in a documentary about "new people" like them, who are blurring the old boundaries as a brave new era dawns. Everything Maria knows she should want lies before her--yet she can't stop daydreaming about another man, a poet she barely knows. As fantasy escalates to fixation, it dredges up secrets from the past and threatens to unravel not only Maria's perfect new life but her very persona.

Heartbreaking and darkly comic, New People is a bold and unfettered page-turner that challenges our every assumption about how we define one another, and ourselves.]]> 240 Danzy Senna 159448709X Monica 0 to-read 3.24 2017 New People
author: Danzy Senna
name: Monica
average rating: 3.24
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/24
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]]> The Nightingale 21853621 In love we find out who we want to be.
In war we find out who we are.

FRANCE, 1939

In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says good-bye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.

Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gaëtan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can…completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.]]> 564 Kristin Hannah 0312577222 Monica 0 to-read 4.63 2015 The Nightingale
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Monica
average rating: 4.63
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/01
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]]> Another Country 38474
Stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality, this book depicts men and women, blacks and whites, stripped of their masks of gender and race by love and hatred at the most elemental and sublime.]]> 448 James Baldwin 0141186372 Monica 5 4.32 1962 Another Country
author: James Baldwin
name: Monica
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at: 2018/12/18
date added: 2023/07/27
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]]> Suttree 394469 471 Cormac McCarthy 0679736328 Monica 0 to-read 4.20 1979 Suttree
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Monica
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1979
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/06/25
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]]> The Road 6288
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,� are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.]]> 241 Cormac McCarthy 0307265439 Monica 0 to-read 3.99 2006 The Road
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Monica
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/06/25
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]]> Call and Response 61065979 Richly drawn stories about the lives of ordinary families in contemporary Botswana as they navigate relationships, tradition and caretaking in a rapidly changing world.

A young widow adheres to the expectations of wearing mourning clothes for nearly a year, though she's unsure what the traditions mean or whether she is ready to meet the world without their protection. An older sister returns home from a confusing time in America, only to explain at every turn why she's left the land of opportunity. A younger sister hides her sexual exploits from her family, while her older brother openly flaunts his infidelity.

The stories collected in Call and Response are strongly anchored in place - in the village of Serowe, where the author is from, and in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana - charting the emotional journeys of women seeking love and opportunity beyond the barriers of custom and circumstance.

Gothataone Moeng is part of a new generation of writers coming out of Africa whose voices are ready to explode onto the literary scene. In the tradition of writers like Chimamanda Adiche and Jhumpa Lahiri, she offers us insight into communities, experiences and landscapes through stories that are cinematic in their sweep, with unforgettable female protagonists.
]]> 304 Gothataone Moeng 0593490983 Monica 0 to-read 3.53 2023 Call and Response
author: Gothataone Moeng
name: Monica
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/02/11
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]]> <![CDATA[How to Keep House While Drowning]]> 60139504 How to Keep House While Drowning will introduce you to six life-changing principles that will revolutionize the way you approach home care—without endless to-do lists. Presented in 31 daily thoughts, this compassionate guide will help you begin to get free of the shame and anxiety you feel over home care.

Inside you will learn:
· How to shift your perspective of care tasks from moral to functional;
· How to stop negative self-talk and shame around care tasks;
· How to give yourself permission to rest, even when things aren’t finished;
· How to motivate yourself to care for your space.]]> 151 K.C. Davis 166800285X Monica 0 to-read 4.22 2022 How to Keep House While Drowning
author: K.C. Davis
name: Monica
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/01/08
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]]> <![CDATA[The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus]]> 197354 160 Marvin W. Meyer 006065581X Monica 0 to-read 4.14 100 The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus
author: Marvin W. Meyer
name: Monica
average rating: 4.14
book published: 100
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/17
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]]> Our Wives Under the Sea 58659343
Moving through something that only resembles normal life, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had before might be gone. Though Leah is still there, Miri can feel the woman she loves slipping from her grasp.

Our Wives Under The Sea is the debut novel from Julia Armfield, the critically acclaimed author of Salt Slow. It’s a story of falling in love, loss, grief, and what life there is in the deep deep sea.]]> 240 Julia Armfield 152901722X Monica 0 to-read 3.75 2022 Our Wives Under the Sea
author: Julia Armfield
name: Monica
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/09
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]]> Go Down, Moses 17726
Go Down, Moses is composed of seven interrelated stories, all of them set in Faulkner’s mythic Yoknapatawpha County. From a variety of perspectives, Faulkner examines the complex, changing relationships between blacks and whites, between man and nature, weaving a cohesive novel rich in implication and insight.]]> 365 William Faulkner 0679732179 Monica 0 to-read 3.93 1942 Go Down, Moses
author: William Faulkner
name: Monica
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1942
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/11/12
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]]> The Souls of Black Folk 318742 Publication of The Souls of Black Folk was a dramatic event that helped to polarize black leaders into two groups: the more conservative followers of Washington and the more radical supporters of aggressive protest. Its influence cannot be overstated. It is essential reading for everyone interested in African-American history and the struggle for civil rights in America.]]> 288 W.E.B. Du Bois Monica 0 to-read 4.30 1903 The Souls of Black Folk
author: W.E.B. Du Bois
name: Monica
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1903
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/11/12
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]]> Either/Or 58890783 From the acclaimed and bestselling author of The Idiot, the continuation of beloved protagonist Selin's quest for self-knowledge, as she travels abroad and tests the limits of her newfound adulthood

Selin is the luckiest person in her family: the only one who was born in America and got to go to Harvard. Now it's sophomore year, 1996, and Selin knows she has to make it count. The first order of business: to figure out the meaning of everything that happened over the summer. Why did Selin's elusive crush, Ivan, find her that job in the Hungarian countryside? What was up with all those other people in the Hungarian countryside? Why is Ivan's weird ex-girlfriend now trying to get in touch with Selin? On the plus side, it feels like the plot of an exciting novel. On the other hand, why do so many novels have crazy abandoned women in them? How does one live a life as interesting as a novel--a life worthy of becoming a novel--without becoming a crazy abandoned woman oneself?

Guided by her literature syllabus and by her more worldly and confident peers, Selin reaches certain conclusions about the universal importance of parties, alcohol, and sex, and resolves to execute them in practice--no matter what the cost. Next on the list: international travel.

Unfolding with the propulsive logic and intensity of youth, Either/Or is a landmark novel by one of our most brilliant writers. Hilarious, revelatory, and unforgettable, its gripping narrative will confront you with searching questions that persist long after the last page.]]> 368 Elif Batuman 0525557598 Monica 0 to-read 4.01 2022 Either/Or
author: Elif Batuman
name: Monica
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/05/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles of an American Troubadour]]> 55200729 Have you met Ms. Jones?

One night in 1979, a woman in a red beret skyrocketed to fame after a performance on Saturday Night Live. The song was “Chuck E’s in Love,� and the singer, Rickie Lee Jones. A vital part of the burgeoning Los Angeles jazz pop scene, she would soon be pronounced “Duchess of Coolsville� by TIME magazine.

Last Chance Texaco is the first no-holds-barred account of the life of one of rock’s hardest working women in her own words. With candour and lyricism, Rickie Lee Jones takes us on the journey of her exceptional life, including her nomadic childhood as the granddaughter of vaudevillian performers; her father’s abandonment of the family and her years as a teenage runaway; her beginnings at LA’s Troubadour club; her tumultuous relationship with Tom Waits and her battle with drugs; and her longevity as a woman in rock and roll.

These are never-before-told stories of the girl in the raspberry beret, a songwriter who would inspire American culture for decades.]]> 384 Rickie Lee Jones 1443464627 Monica 0 to-read 4.09 2021 Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles of an American Troubadour
author: Rickie Lee Jones
name: Monica
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/04/07
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]]> In the Country 23616578
A pharmacist living in New York smuggles drugs to his ailing father in Manila, only to discover alarming truths about his family and his past. In Bahrain, a Filipina teacher drawn to a special pupil finds, to her surprise, that she is questioning her own marriage. A college student leans on her brother, a laborer in Saudi Arabia, to support her writing ambitions, without realizing that his is the life truly made for fiction. And in the title story, a journalist and a nurse face an unspeakable trauma amidst the political turmoil of the Philippines in the 1970s and �80s.

In the Country speaks to the heart of everyone who has ever searched for a place to call home. From teachers to housemaids, from mothers to sons, Alvar’s powerful debut collection explores the universal experiences of loss, displacement, and the longing to connect across borders both real and imagined. Deeply compassionate and richly felt, In the Country marks the emergence of a formidable new writer.]]> 347 Mia Alvar 0385352816 Monica 0 to-read 4.07 2015 In the Country
author: Mia Alvar
name: Monica
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/04/07
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review:

]]> The Art of War 10534 170 Sun Tzu Monica 0 to-read 3.98 -400 The Art of War
author: Sun Tzu
name: Monica
average rating: 3.98
book published: -400
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/01/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Goodbye, Again: Essays, Reflections, and Illustrations]]> 49989288 238 Jonny Sun Monica 0 to-read 3.99 2021 Goodbye, Again: Essays, Reflections, and Illustrations
author: Jonny Sun
name: Monica
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/01/14
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]]> Flights 36885304 Flights interweaves reflections on travel with an in-depth exploration of the human body, broaching life, death, motion, and migration. Chopin’s heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister. A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriously vanish during a vacation and just as suddenly reappear. Through these brilliantly imagined characters and stories, interwoven with haunting, playful, and revelatory meditations, Flights explores what it means to be a traveler, a wanderer, a body in motion not only through space but through time. Where are you from? Where are you coming in from? Where are you going? we call to the traveler. Enchanting, unsettling, and wholly original, Flights is a master storyteller’s answer.

Here I am --
World in your head --
Your head in the world --
Syndrome --
Cabinet of curiosities --
Seeing is knowing --
Seven years of trips --
Guidance from Cioran --
Kunicki: water (I) --
Benedictus, quivenit]]> 416 Olga Tokarczuk 0525534199 Monica 0 to-read 3.73 2007 Flights
author: Olga Tokarczuk
name: Monica
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/12/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Arid Dreams 43191957
With curious wit, this collection offers revelatory insight and subtle critique, exploring class, gender, and disenchantment in a changing country.]]> 216 Duanwad Pimwana 1936932563 Monica 0 to-read 3.30 2014 Arid Dreams
author: Duanwad Pimwana
name: Monica
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Last Bookshop in London 53331577 Inspired by the true World War II history of the few bookshops to survive the Blitz, The Last Bookshop in London is a timeless story of wartime loss, love and the enduring power of literature.

August 1939: London prepares for war as Hitler’s forces sweep across Europe. Grace Bennett has always dreamed of moving to the city, but the bunkers and blackout curtains that she finds on her arrival were not what she expected. And she certainly never imagined she’d wind up working at Primrose Hill, a dusty old bookshop nestled in the heart of London.

Through blackouts and air raids as the Blitz intensifies, Grace discovers the power of storytelling to unite her community in ways she never dreamed—a force that triumphs over even the darkest nights of the war.]]> 325 Madeline Martin 133528480X Monica 4 4.07 2021 The Last Bookshop in London
author: Madeline Martin
name: Monica
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2021/11/18
date added: 2021/11/18
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review:

]]> Under a Soprano Sky 840626 101 Sonia Sanchez 0865430535 Monica 0 to-read 4.28 1987 Under a Soprano Sky
author: Sonia Sanchez
name: Monica
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/11/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Rosa 39106 She had not sought this moment but she was ready for it. When the policeman bent down to ask “Auntie, are you going to move?� all the strength of all the people through all those many years joined in her. She said, “No.�

A picture book account of Rosa Park's historic choice.]]> 40 Nikki Giovanni 0805071067 Monica 0 to-read 4.36 2005 Rosa
author: Nikki Giovanni
name: Monica
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/11/04
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]]> <![CDATA[The Collected Poetry, 1968-1998]]> 39102
Nikki self–published her first book Black Feeling, Black Talk/BlackJudgement in 1969, selling 10,000 copies; William Morrow published in 1970. Know for its iconic revolutionary phrases, it is heralded as one of the most important volumes of modern African–American poetry and is considered the seminal volume of Nikki's body of work.

My House (Morrow 1972) marks a new dimension in tone and philosphy––This is Giovanni's first foray into the autobiographical.

In The Women and the Men (Morrow 1975), Nikki displays her compassion for the people, things and places she has encountered––She reveres the ordinary and is in search of the extraordinary.

Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day (Morrow 1978) is one of the most poignant and introspective of all Giovanni's collections. These poems chronicle the drastic change that took place during the 1970s––when the dreams of the Civil Rights era seemed to have evaporated.

Those Who Ride the Night Winds (Morrow 1983) is devoted to "the day trippers and midnight cowboys," the ones who have devoted their lives to pushing the limits of the human condition and shattered the constraints of the stautus quo.]]> 512 Nikki Giovanni 0060724293 Monica 0 to-read 4.42 2003 The Collected Poetry, 1968-1998
author: Nikki Giovanni
name: Monica
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/11/04
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]]> <![CDATA[My Year Abroad (Random House Large Print)]]> 55333981 From the award-winning author of Native Speaker and On Such a Full Sea, an exuberant, provocative story about a young American life transformed by an unusual Asian adventure - and about the human capacities for pleasure, pain, and connection.

Tiller is an average American college student with a good heart but minimal aspirations. Pong Lou is a larger-than-life, wildly creative Chinese American entrepreneur who sees something intriguing in Tiller beyond his bored exterior and takes him under his wing. When Pong brings him along on a boisterous trip across Asia, Tiller is catapulted from ordinary young man to talented protégé, and pulled into a series of ever more extreme and eye-opening experiences that transform his view of the world, of Pong, and of himself.

In the breathtaking, "precise, elliptical prose" that Chang-rae Lee is known for (The New York Times), the narrative alternates between Tiller's outlandish, mind-boggling year with Pong and the strange, riveting, emotionally complex domestic life that follows it, as Tiller processes what happened to him abroad and what it means for his future. Rich with commentary on Western attitudes, Eastern stereotypes, capitalism, global trade, mental health, parenthood, mentorship, and more, My Year Abroad is also an exploration of the surprising effects of cultural immersion—on a young American in Asia, on a Chinese man in America, and on an unlikely couple hiding out in the suburbs. Tinged at once with humor and darkness, electric with its accumulating surprises and suspense, My Year Abroad is a novel that only Chang-rae Lee could have written, and one that will be read and discussed for years to come.]]> 672 Chang-rae Lee 0593396022 Monica 0 to-read 3.35 2021 My Year Abroad (Random House Large Print)
author: Chang-rae Lee
name: Monica
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/10/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> Beloved (Beloved Trilogy, #1) 6149 Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby.

Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison.]]> 325 Toni Morrison Monica 0 3.96 1987 Beloved (Beloved Trilogy, #1)
author: Toni Morrison
name: Monica
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at: 2021/10/27
date added: 2021/10/27
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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 Monica 0 currently-reading 4.29 2020 Shuggie Bain
author: Douglas Stuart
name: Monica
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/10/27
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]]> <![CDATA[The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing]]> 55574506 By the award-winning writer of Beautiful Thing, a masterly inquest into how the mysterious deaths of two teenage girls shone a light into the darkest corners of a nation.

The girls' names were Padma and Lalli, but they were so inseparable that people in the village called them Padma Lalli. Sixteen-year-old Padma sparked and burned. Fourteen-year-old Lalli was an incorrigible romantic.

They grew up in Katra Sadatganj, an eye-blink of a village in western Uttar Pradesh crammed into less than one square mile of land. It was out in the fields, in the middle of mango season, that the rumors started.

Then one night in the summer of 2014 the girls went missing; and hours later they were found hanging in the orchard. Who they were, and what had happened to them, was already less important than what their disappearance meant to the people left behind.

In the ensuing months, the investigation into their deaths would implode everything that their small community held to be true, and instigate a national conversation about sex and violence. Slipping deftly behind political maneuvering, caste systems and codes of honor in a village in northern India, The Good Girls returns to the scene of Padma and Lalli's short lives and shameful deaths, and dares to ask: what is the human cost of shame?]]> 314 Sonia Faleiro 080215820X Monica 0 currently-reading 3.74 2021 The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing
author: Sonia Faleiro
name: Monica
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/10/27
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]]> Red at the Bone 43697186
As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's coming of age ceremony in her grandparents' Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody's mother, for her own ceremony-- a celebration that ultimately never took place.

Unfurling the history of Melody's parents and grandparents to show how they all arrived at this moment, Woodson considers not just their ambitions and successes but also the costs, the tolls they've paid for striving to overcome expectations and escape the pull of history. As it explores sexual desire and identity, ambition, gentrification, education, class and status, and the life-altering facts of parenthood, Red at the Bone most strikingly looks at the ways in which young people must so often make long-lasting decisions about their lives--even before they have begun to figure out who they are and what they want to be.]]> 196 Jacqueline Woodson 0525535276 Monica 0 currently-reading 3.96 2019 Red at the Bone
author: Jacqueline Woodson
name: Monica
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/10/27
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]]> Cloud Cuckoo Land 56783258 When everything is lost, it’s our stories that survive.

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

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

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

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

Bound together by a single ancient text, these tales interweave to form a tapestry of solace and resilience and a celebration of storytelling itself. Like its predecessor All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr’s new novel is a tale of hope and of profound human connection.]]> 626 Anthony Doerr 1982168439 Monica 0 to-read 4.24 2021 Cloud Cuckoo Land
author: Anthony Doerr
name: Monica
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/10/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Mindset: The New Psychology of Success]]> 40745 A newer edition of this book can be found here.

After decades of research, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., discovered a simple but groundbreaking idea: the power of mindset. In this brilliant book, she shows how success in school, work, sports, the arts, and almost every area of human endeavor can be dramatically influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities. People with a fixed mindset � those who believe that abilities are fixed � are less likely to flourish than those with a growth mindset � those who believe that abilities can be developed. Mindset reveals how great parents, teachers, managers, and athletes can put this idea to use to foster outstanding accomplishment.

In this edition, Dweck offers new insights into her now famous and broadly embraced concept. She introduces a phenomenon she calls false growth mindset and guides people toward adopting a deeper, truer growth mindset. She also expands the mindset concept beyond the individual, applying it to the cultures of groups and organizations. With the right mindset, you can motivate those you lead, teach, and love � to transform their lives and your own.]]> 276 Carol S. Dweck Monica 0 to-read 4.09 2006 Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
author: Carol S. Dweck
name: Monica
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/10/11
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]]> <![CDATA[I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness]]> 57155092 A darkly funny, soul-rending novel of love in an epoch of collapse--one woman's furious revisiting of family, marriage, work, sex, and motherhood.

Since my baby was born, I have been able to laugh and see the funny side of things. a) As much as I ever did. b) Not quite as much now. c) Not so much now. d) Not at all. Leaving behind her husband and their baby daughter, a writer gets on a flight for a speaking engagement in Reno, not carrying much besides a breast pump and a spiraling case of postpartum depression. Her temporary escape from domestic duties and an opportunity to reconnect with old friends mutates into an extended romp away from the confines of marriage and motherhood, and a seemingly bottomless descent into the past. Deep in the Mojave Desert where she grew up, she meets her ghosts at every turn: the first love whose self-destruction still haunts her; her father, a member of the most famous cult in American history; her mother, whose native spark gutters with every passing year. She can't go back in time to make any of it right, but what exactly is her way forward? Alone in the wilderness, at last she begins to make herself at home in the world.

Bold, tender, and often hilarious, I Love You but I've Chosen Darkness reaffirms Watkins as one of the signal writers of our time.]]> 304 Claire Vaye Watkins 0593330218 Monica 0 to-read 3.13 2021 I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
author: Claire Vaye Watkins
name: Monica
average rating: 3.13
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/10/08
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]]> Paradise 765618 256 Abdulrazak Gurnah Monica 0 to-read 3.63 1994 Paradise
author: Abdulrazak Gurnah
name: Monica
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/10/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal]]> 40630096 The Wisdom of Anxiety, counselor Sheryl Paul examines the deeper meaning of the racing thoughts, sweaty palms, and insomnia that accompany the uncertain moments of our lives. No one likes to feel anxiety—and yet, Paul asserts it can be a remarkably direct messenger of our subconscious. Here you will learn how you can pause and listen to your anxieties to discover inner truths that you’ve been avoiding.

Here you will learn:

The nature of intrusive thoughts and how to manage them.
? How to explore states of loneliness, apathy, regret, and shame without being caught up in them.
? Feeling anxiety around feeling good? Discover why and what to do about it.
? How to cultivate your own loving inner parent.
? Why anxiety can arise from boredom and longing.
? How to create healthy and meaningful personal rituals to relieve anxiety.
? Navigating the many sources of anxiety in relationships.]]> 239 Sheryl Paul 1683642503 Monica 0 to-read 4.37 The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal
author: Sheryl Paul
name: Monica
average rating: 4.37
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/08/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Impossible Parenting: Creating a New Culture of Mental Health for Parents]]> 49223459 A roadmap for parents who want to feel less pressure and more joy during the intense early years of childrearing.


Why is it that research suggests people who don’t have kids are happier than people who do?


Olivia Scobie provides practical solutions for parents who find themselves pushing beyond their capacity to meet impossible standards, and challenges parents to shift their thinking from child-centred to family-centred.


By naming today’s unrealistic parenting expectations as impossible from the get-go, Impossible Parenting creates the space to acknowledge harmful expectations for new parents and begins a conversation that focuses on healing and doing the best one can with the resources available.]]> 232 Olivia Scobie 1459746546 Monica 0 to-read 4.28 Impossible Parenting: Creating a New Culture of Mental Health for Parents
author: Olivia Scobie
name: Monica
average rating: 4.28
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/08/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[What Is This Thing Called Love: Poems]]> 411247 128 Kim Addonizio 0393327094 Monica 0 to-read 4.12 2004 What Is This Thing Called Love: Poems
author: Kim Addonizio
name: Monica
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/08/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Of Women and Salt 53138197
From 19th-century cigar factories to present-day detention centers, from Cuba to Mexico, Gabriela Garcia's Of Women and Salt is a kaleidoscopic portrait of betrayals—personal and political, self-inflicted and those done by others—that have shaped the lives of these extraordinary women. A haunting meditation on the choices of mothers, the legacy of the memories they carry, and the tenacity of women who choose to tell their stories despite those who wish to silence them, this is more than a diaspora story; it is a story of America’s most tangled, honest, human roots.]]> 207 Gabriela Garcia 1250776686 Monica 0 to-read 3.68 2021 Of Women and Salt
author: Gabriela Garcia
name: Monica
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/07/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Ugly Cry 55746188 290 Danielle Henderson 0525559353 Monica 0 to-read 4.22 2021 The Ugly Cry
author: Danielle Henderson
name: Monica
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/06/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[And Now I Spill the Family Secrets: An Illustrated Memoir]]> 54619012
Using old diary entries, hospital records, home videos, and other archives, Margaret pieces together a narrative map of her childhood—her mother's bipolar disorder, her grandmother's institutionalization, and her brother's increasing struggles—in an attempt to understand what no one likes to talk about: the fractures in her family.]]> 288 Margaret Kimball 0063007444 Monica 0 to-read 3.65 2021 And Now I Spill the Family Secrets: An Illustrated Memoir
author: Margaret Kimball
name: Monica
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/05/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hebron Journal: Stories of Nonviolent Peacemaking]]> 939561 304 Arthur G. Gish 0836191684 Monica 0 to-read 4.02 2001 Hebron Journal: Stories of Nonviolent Peacemaking
author: Arthur G. Gish
name: Monica
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/05/12
shelves: to-read
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]]> Too Much Happiness: Stories 6464937
Ten superb new stories by one of our most beloved and admired writers—the winner of the 2009 Man Booker International Prize.

In the first story a young wife and mother receives release from the unbearable pain of losing her three children from a most surprising source. In another, a young woman, in the aftermath of an unusual and humiliating seduction, reacts in a clever if less-than-admirable fashion. Other stories uncover the “deep-holes� in a marriage, the unsuspected cruelty of children, and how a boy’s disfigured face provides both the good things in his life and the bad. And in the long title story, we accompany Sophia Kovalevsky—a late-nineteenth-century Russian émigré and mathematician—on a winter journey that takes her from the Riviera, where she visits her lover, to Paris, Germany, and, Denmark, where she has a fateful meeting with a local doctor, and finally to Sweden, where she teaches at the only university in Europe willing to employ a female mathematician.

With clarity and ease, Alice Munro once again renders complex, difficult events and emotions into stories that shed light on the unpredictable ways in which men and women accommodate and often transcend what happens in their lives.

Dimensions --
Fiction --
Wenlock edge --
Deep-holes --
Free radicals --
Face --
Some women --
Child's play --
Wood --
Too much happiness]]> 304 Alice Munro 0307269760 Monica 0 to-read 3.87 2009 Too Much Happiness: Stories
author: Alice Munro
name: Monica
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/05/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> Klara and the Sun 54120408
In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?]]> 340 Kazuo Ishiguro 059331817X Monica 0 to-read 3.71 2021 Klara and the Sun
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Monica
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/05/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Momofuku 6487388
Never before has there been a phenomenon like Momofuku. A once-unrecognizable word, it's now synonymous with the award-winning restaurants of the same name in New York City (Momofuku Noodle Bar, Ssäm Bar, Ko, Má Pêche, Fuku, Nishi, and Milk Bar), Toronto, and Sydney. Chef David Chang single-handedly revolutionized cooking in America and beyond with his use of bold Asian flavors and impeccable ingredients, his mastery of the humble ramen noodle, and his thorough devotion to pork.

Chang relays with candor the tale of his unwitting rise to superstardom, which, though wracked with mishaps, happened at light speed. And the dishes shared in this book are coveted by all who've dined—or yearned to—at any Momofuku location (yes, the pork buns are here). This is a must-read for anyone who truly enjoys food.]]> 304 David Chang 030745195X Monica 0 to-read 3.93 2009 Momofuku
author: David Chang
name: Monica
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/05/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Sixty Meters to Anywhere 26716319 --Kevin Fedarko, author of The Emerald Mile

When Brendan Leonard moved to the West at age 23, he was a mess. He had a tenuous grip on sobriety, only six months after his last drink had landed him in yet another jail cell. It was the final mistake in a long list that included multiple arrests, wrecked cars, broken bones, fistfights, and ruined relationships. In Montana, he took his first steps into the Rocky Mountains, unwittingly beginning a decade-long obsession with climbing and a journey that would take him all over the West and Europe. Written with unflinching honesty and vulnerability, Sixty Meters to Anywhere is the memoir of a barstool storyteller who left the bar and found adventure, redemption, and a life that almost never happened.]]> 208 Brendan Leonard 1680510401 Monica 0 to-read 4.15 2016 Sixty Meters to Anywhere
author: Brendan Leonard
name: Monica
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World]]> 12676712
IN THIS GROUNDBREAKING BOOK, education expert Tony Wagner provides a powerful rationale for developing an innovation-driven economy. He explores what parents, teachers, and employers must do to develop the capacities of young people to become innovators. In profiling compelling young American innovators such as Kirk Phelps, product manager for Apple’s first iPhone, and Jodie Wu, who founded a company that builds bicycle-powered maize shellers in Tanzania, Wagner reveals how the adults in their lives nurtured their creativity and sparked their imaginations, while teaching them to learn from failures and persevere. Wagner identifies a pattern—a childhood of creative play leads to deep-seated interests, which in adolescence and adulthood blossom into a deeper purpose for career and life goals. Play, passion, and These are the forces that drive young innovators.

Wagner shows how we can apply this knowledge as educators and what parents can do to compensate for poor schooling. He takes readers into the most forward-thinking schools, colleges, and workplaces in the country, where teachers and employers are developing cultures of innovation based on collaboration, interdisciplinary problem-solving, and intrinsic motivation. The result is a timely, provocative, and inspiring manifesto that will change how we look at our schools and workplaces, and provide us with a road map for creating the change makers of tomorrow.

Creating Innovators will feature its own innovative more than sixty original videos that expand on key ideas in the book through interviews with young innovators, teachers, writers, CEOs, and entrepreneurs, including Thomas Friedman, Dean Kamen, and Annmarie Neal. Produced by filmmaker Robert A. Compton, the videos are embedded into the ebook edition in video-enabled eReaders and accessible in this print edition via QR codes placed throughout the chapters or via .]]> 288 Tony Wagner 1451611498 Monica 0 to-read 3.85 2012 Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World
author: Tony Wagner
name: Monica
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Sun Also Rises 3876 The Sun Also Rises (Fiesta) is one of Ernest Hemingway's masterpieces and a classic example of his spare but powerful writing style. A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation, the novel introduces two of Hemingway's most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. It is an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions. First published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises helped to establish Hemingway as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.]]> 189 Ernest Hemingway Monica 0 to-read 3.81 1926 The Sun Also Rises
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Monica
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1926
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/03/24
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]]> Valley of the Dolls 581811 448 Jacqueline Susann 0802135196 Monica 0 to-read 3.96 1966 Valley of the Dolls
author: Jacqueline Susann
name: Monica
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1966
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Lying Life of Adults 48616787 336 Elena Ferrante 1609455916 Monica 0 to-read 3.67 2019 The Lying Life of Adults
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Monica
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Vanishing Half 51791252
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.]]> 343 Brit Bennett 0525536299 Monica 0 to-read 4.12 2020 The Vanishing Half
author: Brit Bennett
name: Monica
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Nickel Boys 42270835 Author of The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in 1960s Florida.

Elwood Curtis has taken the words of Dr Martin Luther King to heart: he is as good as anyone. Abandoned by his parents, brought up by his loving, strict and clear-sighted grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But given the time and the place, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy his future, and so Elwood arrives at The Nickel Academy, which claims to provide 'physical, intellectual and moral training' which will equip its inmates to become 'honorable and honest men'.

In reality, the Nickel Academy is a chamber of horrors, where physical, emotional and sexual abuse is rife, where corrupt officials and tradesmen do a brisk trade in supplies intended for the school, and where any boy who resists is likely to disappear 'out back'. Stunned to find himself in this vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold on to Dr King's ringing assertion, 'Throw us in jail, and we will still love you.' But Elwood's fellow inmate and new friend Turner thinks Elwood is naive and worse; the world is crooked, and the only way to survive is to emulate the cruelty and cynicism of their oppressors.

The tension between Elwood's idealism and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision which will have decades-long repercussions.

Based on the history of a real reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped and destroyed the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative by a great American novelist whose work is essential to understanding the current reality of the United States.]]> 213 Colson Whitehead Monica 4 4.25 2019 The Nickel Boys
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Monica
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2021/02/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity]]> 615570 The Artist’s Way is the seminal book on the subject of creativity. An international bestseller, millions of readers have found it to be an invaluable guide to living the artist’s life. Still as vital today—or perhaps even more so—than it was when it was first published one decade ago, it is a powerfully provocative and inspiring work. In a new introduction to the book, Julia Cameron reflects upon the impact of The Artist’s Way and describes the work she has done during the last decade and the new insights into the creative process that she has gained. Updated and expanded, this anniversary edition reframes The Artist’s Way for a new century.]]> 237 Julia Cameron 1585421464 Monica 0 to-read 3.93 2002 The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
author: Julia Cameron
name: Monica
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/04
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism]]> 250792 Ain't I a Woman examines the impact of sexism on black women during slavery, the historic devaluation of black womanhood, black male sexism, racism within the recent women's movement, and black women's involvement with feminism.]]> 205 bell hooks 089608129X Monica 0 to-read 4.51 1981 Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism
author: bell hooks
name: Monica
average rating: 4.51
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics]]> 168484 123 bell hooks 0896086283 Monica 0 to-read 4.16 2000 Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics
author: bell hooks
name: Monica
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> All About Love: New Visions 17607 All About Love offers radical new ways to think about love by showing its interconnectedness in our private and public lives. In eleven concise chapters, hooks explains how our everyday notions of what it means to give and receive love often fail us, and how these ideals are established in early childhood. She offers a rethinking of self-love (without narcissism) that will bring peace and compassion to our personal and professional lives, and asserts the place of love to end struggles between individuals, in communities, and among societies. Moving from the cultural to the intimate, hooks notes the ties between love and loss and challenges the prevailing notion that romantic love is the most important love of all.

Visionary and original, hooks shows how love heals the wounds we bear as individuals and as a nation, for it is the cornerstone of compassion and forgiveness and holds the power to overcome shame.

For readers who have found ongoing delight and wisdom in bell hooks's life and work, and for those who are just now discovering her, All About Love is essential reading and a brilliant book that will change how we think about love, our culture-and one another.]]> 240 bell hooks 0688168442 Monica 0 to-read 4.06 1999 All About Love: New Visions
author: bell hooks
name: Monica
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk]]> 769016 Recently revised and updated with fresh insights and suggestions, How to Talk so Kids Will Listen & Listen so Kids Will Talk is full of practical, innovative ways to solve common problems and build foundations for lasting relationships.]]> 286 Adele Faber 0380811960 Monica 0 to-read 4.26 1980 How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk
author: Adele Faber
name: Monica
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son]]> 88362 White Like Me, Tim Wise offers a highly personal examination of the ways in which racial privilege shapes the lives of most white Americans, overtly racist or not, to the detriment of people of color, themselves, and society. The book shows the breadth and depth of the phenomenon within institutions such as education, employment, housing, criminal justice, and healthcare. By critically assessing the magnitude of racial privilege and its enormous costs, Wise provides a rich memoir that will inspire activists, educators, or anyone interested in understanding the way that race continues to shape the experiences of people in the U.S. Using stories instead of stale statistics, Wise weaves a narrative that is at once readable and scholarly, analytical and accessible.]]> 250 Tim Wise 1932360689 Monica 0 to-read 4.10 2004 White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son
author: Tim Wise
name: Monica
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear]]> 24453082 Big Magic cracks open a world of wonder and joy.]]> 276 Elizabeth Gilbert 1594634718 Monica 0 to-read 3.95 2015 Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
author: Elizabeth Gilbert
name: Monica
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/01/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> Assata: An Autobiography 100322
This intensely personal and political autobiography belies the fearsome image of JoAnne Chesimard long projected by the media and the state. With wit and candor, Assata Shakur recounts the experiences that led her to a life of activism and portrays the strengths, weaknesses, and eventual demise of Black and White revolutionary groups at the hand ofgovernment officials. The result is a signal contribution to the literature about growing up Black in America that has already taken its place alongside The Autobiography of Malcolm X and the works of Maya Angelou.

Two years after her conviction, Assata Shakur escaped from prison. She was given political asylum by Cuba, where she now resides.]]> 274 Assata Shakur 1556520743 Monica 0 to-read 4.59 1987 Assata: An Autobiography
author: Assata Shakur
name: Monica
average rating: 4.59
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/01/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> Nejma 22523971 of the
unsleeping. gold sweeping. poems.
i have in my hands.]]> 172 Nayyirah Waheed Monica 0 to-read 3.97 2014 Nejma
author: Nayyirah Waheed
name: Monica
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> Slowness 26097 divertimento, an opera buffa, Slowness is also the first of this author's fictional works to have been written in French.

Disconcerted and enchanted, the reader follows the narrator of Slowness through a midsummer's night in which two tales of seduction, separated by more than two hundred years, interweave and oscillate between the sublime and the comic. Underlying this libertine fantasy is a profound meditation on contemporary life: about the secret bond between slowness and memory, about the connection between our era's desire to forget and the way we have given ourselves over to the demon of speed. And about "dancers" possessed by the passion to be seen, for whom life is just merely a perpetual show emptied of every intimacy and every joy.]]> 156 Milan Kundera 0060928417 Monica 0 currently-reading 3.72 1995 Slowness
author: Milan Kundera
name: Monica
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/07
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Keep Me in Your Heart a While: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri]]> 6080833
Katagiri's teaching was at once powerful, gentle, and sometimes almost even casual. For Dosho, some of the richest teachings came in these simple, casual moments during everyday interactions. The structure of this book is built around a series of such vivid truth-happening places, evocative of the ancient koans of the Zen tradition, touching on such topics as the nature and purpose of Zen, the dynamic and working of realization, and, of course, the functioning of the teacher-student relationship.]]> 124 Dosho Port 0861715683 Monica 0 to-read 3.94 2008 Keep Me in Your Heart a While: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri
author: Dosho Port
name: Monica
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/11/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You]]> 52220686 Stamped from the Beginning for ages 12 and up.

A timely, crucial, and empowering exploration of racism--and antiracism--in America.

This is NOT a history book.
This is a book about the here and now.
A book to help us better understand why we are where we are.
A book about race.

The construct of race has always been used to gain and keep power, to create dynamics that separate and silence. This is a remarkable reimagining of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning, winner of a National Book Award. It reveals the history of racist ideas in America and inspires hope for an antiracist future.

Stamped takes you on a race journey from then to now, shows you why we feel how we feel, and why the poison of racism lingers. It also proves that while racist ideas have always been easy to fabricate and distribute, they can also be discredited.

Through a gripping, fast-paced, and energizing narrative, Jason Reynolds shines a light on the many insidious forms of racist ideas--and on ways readers can identify and stamp out racist thoughts in their daily lives.]]> 294 Jason Reynolds 0316453692 Monica 0 to-read 4.46 2020 Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
author: Jason Reynolds
name: Monica
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/09/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers' Strike of 1909]]> 15818081
But that did not stop Clara.

She went to night school, spent hours studying English, and helped support her family by sewing in a factory.

Clara never quit. And she never accepted that girls should be treated poorly and paid little.

So Clara fought back. Fed up with the mistreatment of her fellow laborers, Clara led the largest walkout of women workers in the country's history.

Clara had learned a lot from her short time in America. She learned that everyone deserved a fair chance. That you had to stand together and fight for what you wanted. And, most importantly, that you could do anything you put your mind to.

“In her simple but powerful text Markel shows how multiple arrests, serious physical attacks, and endless misogyny failed to deter this remarkable woman as she set off on her lifelong path as a union activist.� --The Horn Book]]> 32 Michelle Markel 0061804428 Monica 0 to-read, baby 4.21 2013 Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers' Strike of 1909
author: Michelle Markel
name: Monica
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/09/07
shelves: to-read, baby
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]]> Be Here Now 41580312 116 Ram Dass Monica 0 to-read 4.40 1971 Be Here Now
author: Ram Dass
name: Monica
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1971
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/09/06
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]]> Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea 50175369 big idea: they would turn their empty apartment courtyard into a playground!

This is the uplifting tale of how the author’s aunt and mother first learned to persevere in the face of disappointment and turned a dream into reality. This is a story of children’s ability to make a difference and of a community coming together to transform their neighborhood.]]> 32 Meena Harris 0062937405 Monica 0 to-read, baby 4.16 2020 Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea
author: Meena Harris
name: Monica
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/08/12
shelves: to-read, baby
review:

]]> Actual Air 160653 David Berman is a young Virginian poet with a sly,
intense regard for the past. He comes on like a prankster, restocking the imperial orations of Wallace Stevens and the byzantine monologues of John Ashbery with the pop- cultural bric-a-brac of a new generation: "I am not cub scout seduced by Iron Maiden's mirror worlds." But his words have an easy, eloquent gait; each line needs to be a line. The landscapes are crisply American, and history, especially Southern history, casts a shadow. � The New Yorker

David Berman's poems are beautiful, strange, intelligent and funny. They are narratives that freeze life in impossible contortions. They take the familiar and make it new, so new the reader is stunned and will not soon forget. I found much to savor on every page of Actual Air. It's a book for everyone. � James Tate]]> 96 David Berman 1890447048 Monica 0 to-read 4.38 1999 Actual Air
author: David Berman
name: Monica
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/08/06
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]]> <![CDATA[No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison]]> 39284186 Winner of The Victorian Prize for Literature, and the Prize for Non-Fiction, Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2019

Where have I come from? From the land of rivers, the land of waterfalls, the land of ancient chants, the land of mountains...

In 2013, Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani was illegally detained on Manus Island. He has been there ever since.

People would run to the mountains to escape the warplanes and found asylum within their chestnut forests...

This book is the result. Laboriously tapped out on a mobile phone and translated from the Farsi. It is a voice of witness, an act of survival. A lyric first-hand account. A cry of resistance. A vivid portrait through five years of incarceration and exile.

Do Kurds have any friends other than the mountains?]]> 416 Behrouz Boochani 176055538X Monica 0 to-read 3.96 2018 No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison
author: Behrouz Boochani
name: Monica
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/08/06
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]]> Speedboat 129344 One of the most acclaimed novels of the late 20th century is back.

When members of the National Book Critics Circle were polled to see which book they would most like to see republished, they chose Speedboat—“by far.� This story of a young female newspaper reporter coming of age in New York City was originally published serially in the New Yorker; it is made out of seemingly unrelated vignettes—tart observations distilled through relentless intellect—which add up to an analysis of our brittle, urban existence. It remains as fresh as when it was first published.

]]> 192 Renata Adler 0060971436 Monica 0 to-read 3.78 1976 Speedboat
author: Renata Adler
name: Monica
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1976
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/08/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> Are Prisons Obsolete? 108428
In Are Prisons Obsolete?, Professor Davis seeks to illustrate that the time for the prison is approaching an end. She argues forthrightly for "decarceration", and argues for the transformation of the society as a whole.]]> 128 Angela Y. Davis 1583225811 Monica 0 to-read 4.53 2003 Are Prisons Obsolete?
author: Angela Y. Davis
name: Monica
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/07/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> March: Book One (March, #1) 17346698
Book One spans John Lewis' youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a stunning climax on the steps of City Hall.

Many years ago, John Lewis and other student activists drew inspiration from the 1950s comic book Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story. Now, his own comics bring those days to life for a new audience, testifying to a movement whose echoes will be heard for generations.

(Back flap)]]> 128 John Lewis 1603093001 Monica 0 to-read 4.34 2013 March: Book One (March, #1)
author: John Lewis
name: Monica
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/07/18
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]]> The Grapes of Wrath 18114322
First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics.]]> 496 John Steinbeck 067001690X Monica 5 4.06 1939 The Grapes of Wrath
author: John Steinbeck
name: Monica
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1939
rating: 5
read at: 2020/07/12
date added: 2020/07/12
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]]> Girl in a Band 22693211 273 Kim Gordon 0062295896 Monica 2 3.66 2015 Girl in a Band
author: Kim Gordon
name: Monica
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2016/03/09
date added: 2020/07/12
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]]> Desert Solitaire 214614 Desert Solitaire is one of Edward Abbey’s most critically acclaimed works and marks his first foray into the world of nonfiction writing. Written while Abbey was working as a ranger at Arches National Park outside of Moab, Utah, Desert Solitaire is a rare view of one man’s quest to experience nature in its purest form.

Through prose that is by turns passionate and poetic, Abbey reflects on the condition of our remaining wilderness and the future of a civilization that cannot reconcile itself to living in the natural world as well as his own internal struggle with morality. As the world continues its rapid development, Abbey’s cry to maintain the natural beauty of the West remains just as relevant today as when this book was written.]]> 337 Edward Abbey 0345326490 Monica 3 4.18 1968 Desert Solitaire
author: Edward Abbey
name: Monica
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1968
rating: 3
read at: 2020/05/04
date added: 2020/07/12
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1) Audible Audiobook]]> 48724644
In this first volume of her six books of autobiography, Maya Angelou beautifully evokes her childhood with her grandmother in the American south of the 1930s. She learns the power of the white folks at the other end of town and suffers the terrible trauma of rape by her mother's lover.

"I write about being a Black American woman, however, I am always talking about what it's like to be a human being. This is how we are, what makes us laugh, and this is how we fall and how we somehow, amazingly, stand up again." (Maya Angelou)

Listening Length: 10 hours and 11 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged]]> Maya Angelou Monica 5 4.34 1969 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1) Audible Audiobook
author: Maya Angelou
name: Monica
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1969
rating: 5
read at: 2019/11/18
date added: 2020/07/04
shelves:
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]]> The Water Dancer 43982054 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here and here.

Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her—but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known.

So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North. Even as he’s enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, Hiram’s resolve to rescue the family he left behind endures.

This is the dramatic story of an atrocity inflicted on generations of women, men, and children—the violent and capricious separation of families—and the war they waged to simply make lives with the people they loved. Written by one of today’s most exciting thinkers and writers, The Water Dancer is a propulsive, transcendent work that restores the humanity of those from whom everything was stolen.]]> 416 Ta-Nehisi Coates Monica 0 to-read 4.03 2019 The Water Dancer
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: Monica
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/06/29
shelves: to-read
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]]> Sing, Unburied, Sing 32920226 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781501126062

In Jesmyn Ward’s first novel since her National Book Award–winning Salvage the Bones, this singular American writer brings the archetypal road novel into rural twenty-first-century America. Drawing on Morrison and Faulkner, The Odyssey and the Old Testament, Ward gives us an epochal story, a journey through Mississippi’s past and present that is both an intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle. Ward is a major American writer, multiply awarded and universally lauded, and in Sing, Unburied, Sing she is at the height of her powers.

Jojo and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their grandparents, Mam and Pop, and the occasional presence of their drug-addicted mother, Leonie, on a farm on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Leonie is simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she’s high; Mam is dying of cancer; and quiet, steady Pop tries to run the household and teach Jojo how to be a man. When the white father of Leonie’s children is released from prison, she packs her kids and a friend into her car and sets out across the state for Parchman farm, the Mississippi State Penitentiary, on a journey rife with danger and promise.

Sing, Unburied, Sing grapples with the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power, and limitations, of the bonds of family. Rich with Ward’s distinctive, musical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing is a majestic new work and an essential contribution to American literature.]]> 285 Jesmyn Ward Monica 0 to-read 4.00 2017 Sing, Unburied, Sing
author: Jesmyn Ward
name: Monica
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/06/29
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]]> Omeros 786699 325 Derek Walcott 0374523509 Monica 0 to-read 3.98 1990 Omeros
author: Derek Walcott
name: Monica
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/06/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> Brown Girl Dreaming 20821284
Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson’s eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become.]]> 337 Jacqueline Woodson 0399252517 Monica 0 to-read 4.14 2014 Brown Girl Dreaming
author: Jacqueline Woodson
name: Monica
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/06/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> An American Marriage 33590210
This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.]]> 308 Tayari Jones 1616201347 Monica 0 to-read 3.91 2018 An American Marriage
author: Tayari Jones
name: Monica
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/06/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> Americanah 15796700 477 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Monica 0 to-read 4.32 2013 Americanah
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Monica
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/06/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> My Name Is Why 42123247 200 Lemn Sissay Monica 0 to-read 4.28 2019 My Name Is Why
author: Lemn Sissay
name: Monica
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/06/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[What a Time to Be Alone: The Slumflower's Guide to Why You Are Already Enough]]> 38744579
In What A Time To Be Alone, The Slumflower will be your life guru, confidante and best friend. She'll show you that being alone is not just okay: it's just about the best freaking thing that's ever happened to you. As she says, 'You're bad as hell and you were made with intention.' It's about time you realised.

Peppered with insightful Igbo proverbs from Chidera's Nigerian mother and full of her own original artwork, What A Time To Be Alone will help you navigate the modern world. We can all decide our own fates and Chidera shows us how, using a three-part approach filled with sass, wisdom and charm.


Learn how to celebrate YOU - decide your self-worth, take time to heal and empower yourself in this messy world.

Don't worry about THEM - avoid other people's demons and realize that everyone is protecting themselves from something - no matter how aggressive their method.

Feel the togetherness in US - sustain and grow healthy relationships and avoid toxicity in your friendships.

Own your story. Create your own narrative. Read this book. #WATTBA]]> 192 Chidera Eggerue 1787132110 Monica 0 to-read 3.73 2018 What a Time to Be Alone: The Slumflower's Guide to Why You Are Already Enough
author: Chidera Eggerue
name: Monica
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2018
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]]> <![CDATA[This Is My Century: New and Collected Poems]]> 1883150 230 Margaret Walker 0820311359 Monica 0 to-read 4.24 1989 This Is My Century: New and Collected Poems
author: Margaret Walker
name: Monica
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1989
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]]> The Collected Poems 133906
Alongside such famous works as "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" and Montage of a Dream Deferred, The Collected Poems includes the author's lesser-known verse for children; topical poems distributed through the Associated Negro Press; and poems such as "Goodbye Christ" that were once suppressed.Lyrical and pungent, passionate and polemical, the result is a treasure of a book, the essential collection of a poet whose words have entered our common language.]]> 736 Langston Hughes 0679764089 Monica 0 to-read 4.36 1994 The Collected Poems
author: Langston Hughes
name: Monica
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1994
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]]> <![CDATA[Your Silence Will Not Protect You: Essays and Poems]]> 36355617
"Lorde seems prophetic, perhaps alive right now, writing in and about the US of 2017 in which a misogynist with white supremacist followers is president. But she was born in 1934, published her first book of poetry in 1968, and died in 1992. Black, lesbian and feminist; the child of immigrant parents; poet and essayist, writer and activist, Lorde knew about harbouring multitudes. Political antagonists tried, for instance, to discredit her among black students by announcing her sexuality, and she decided: “The only way you can head people off from using who you are against you is to be honest and open first, to talk about yourself before they talk about you.� Over and over again, in the essays, speeches and poems collected in Your Silence Will Not Protect You, Lorde emphasises how important it is to speak up. To give witness: “What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?� ']]> 229 Audre Lorde 0995716226 Monica 0 to-read 4.64 2017 Your Silence Will Not Protect You: Essays and Poems
author: Audre Lorde
name: Monica
average rating: 4.64
book published: 2017
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]]> <![CDATA[Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance]]> 44890071


In 1925, Barnard student Zora Neale Hurston—the sole black student at the college—was living in New York, “desperately striving for a toe-hold on the world.� During this period, she began writing short works that captured the zeitgeist of African American life and transformed her into one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Nearly a century later, this singular talent is recognized as one of the most influential and revered American artists of the modern period.

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston’s “lost� Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives. These stories challenge conceptions of Hurston as an author of rural fiction and include gems that flash with her biting, satiric humor, as well as more serious tales reflective of the cultural currents of Hurston’s world. All are timeless classics that enrich our understanding and appreciation of this exceptional writer’s voice and her contributions to America’s literary traditions.]]> 304 Zora Neale Hurston 0062915797 Monica 0 to-read 3.98 2020 Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance
author: Zora Neale Hurston
name: Monica
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2020
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