Donna's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 12 Feb 2025 14:08:44 -0800 60 Donna's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Last of Summer (Virago Modern Classics)]]> 156248 258 Kate O'Brien 1853811653 Donna 0 to-read 3.83 1934 The Last of Summer (Virago Modern Classics)
author: Kate O'Brien
name: Donna
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1934
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hotel Avocado (Gary Thorn, #2)]]> 218501180 THE HILARIOUS AND GRIPPING NEW NOVEL BY NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING AUTHOR BOB MORTIMER]]> 10 Bob Mortimer 1398529648 Donna 0 3.76 The Hotel Avocado (Gary Thorn, #2)
author: Bob Mortimer
name: Donna
average rating: 3.76
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: currently-reading, library-books
review:

]]> Dear Thief 56157621 Samantha Harvey Donna 4 audiobook, library-books 3.33 2014 Dear Thief
author: Samantha Harvey
name: Donna
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/11
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: audiobook, library-books
review:

]]> The Boy from the Sea 216948295 An Observer Best Debut of 2025

An ordinary town.
An extraordinary boy.
The heart-warming, life-affirming debut story of a baby found on a beach and the fisherman who adopts him.

'Compassionate, lyrical and full of devilment' - Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses

1973. In a close-knit community on Ireland’s west coast, a baby is found abandoned on the beach. Named Brendan by Ambrose Bonnar, the fisherman who adopts him, the baby captivates the town and the boy he grows to be will captivate them still � no one can quite fathom Brendan Bonnar.

For Christine, Ambrose’s wife, Brendan brings both love and worry. For Declan, their son, his new brother’s arrival is the start of a life-long rivalry. And though Ambrose brings Brendan into his home out of love, it is a decision that will fracture his family and force this man � more comfortable at sea than on land � to try to understand himself and those he cares for.

Told over two decades, Garrett Carr's The Boy from the Sea is a novel about a restless boy trying to find his place in the world and a family fighting to hold itself together. It is a story of ordinary lives made extraordinary, a drama about a community who can’t help but look to the boy from the sea for answers as they face the storm of a rapidly changing world.

]]> 330 Garrett Carr 1035044544 Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 4.08 2025 The Boy from the Sea
author: Garrett Carr
name: Donna
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read, wishlist
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]]> Old Soul 211178725 The woman never goes by the same name.
She never stays in the same place too long.
She never ages. She never dies.
But those around her do.

When two grieving strangers meet by chance in Osaka airport they uncover a disturbing connection. Jake's best friend and Mariko's twin brother each died, 6,000 miles apart, in brutal and unfathomable circumstances.

Each encountered a mesmerising, dark-haired woman in the days before their deaths. A woman who came looking for Mariko - and then disappeared.

Jake, who has carried his loss and guilt for a decade, finds himself compelled to follow the trail set by Mariko's revelations. It's a trail that weaves across continents and centuries, leading back to the many who have died - in strange and terrifying and eerily similar ways - and those they left behind: bewildered, disbelieved, yet resolutely sure of what they saw.

And, at the centre of it all, there is the same beguiling woman. Her name may have changed, but her purpose has never wavered, and as Jake races to discover who, or what she is, she has already made her next choice.

But will knowing her secret be enough to stop her?]]> 352 Susan Barker 0593718291 Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 3.77 2025 Old Soul
author: Susan Barker
name: Donna
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read, wishlist
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]]> The Group 7543085 437 Mary McCarthy 1844085937 Donna 0 to-read, virago 3.62 1963 The Group
author: Mary McCarthy
name: Donna
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves: to-read, virago
review:

]]> Gliff 200459614 O brave new world, that has such people in't.

Once upon a time not very far from now, two children come home to find a line of wet red paint encircling the outside of their house.

What does it mean?

It’s a truism of our time that it’ll be the next generation who’ll sort out our increasingly toxic world.

What would that actually be like?

In a state turned hostile, a world of insiders and outsiders, what things of the past can sustain them and what shape can resistance take?

And what’s a horse got to do with any of this?

Gliff is a novel about how we make meaning and how we are made meaningless. With a nod to the traditions of dystopian fiction, a glance at the Kafkaesque, and a new take on the notion of classic, it's a moving and electrifying read, a vital and prescient tale of the versatility and variety deep-rooted in language, in nature and in human nature.]]> 288 Ali Smith 0241665574 Donna 0 to-read 4.11 2024 Gliff
author: Ali Smith
name: Donna
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Great Expectations 2619 here

Dickens's magnificent novel of guilt, desire, and redemption
The orphan Pip’s terrifying encounter with an escaped convict on the Kent marshes, and his mysterious summons to the house of Miss Havisham and her cold, beautiful ward Estella, form the prelude to his “great expectations.� How Pip comes into a fortune, what he does with it, and what he discovers through his secret benefactor are the ingredients of his struggle for moral redemption.]]> 512 Charles Dickens 0141439564 Donna 0 3.73 1861 Great Expectations
author: Charles Dickens
name: Donna
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1861
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: currently-reading, classic-fiction, gourock-book-group
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Breakfast at Tiffany's: A Short Novel and Three Stories]]> 2282 162 Truman Capote 067960085X Donna 0 to-read 3.87 1958 Breakfast at Tiffany's: A Short Novel and Three Stories
author: Truman Capote
name: Donna
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1958
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Lamb 216867498
But Mama’s want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a beautiful, white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires, and make her own bid for freedom.

With this gothic coming-of-age tale, novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire, and animal instincts—and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.]]> 336 Lucy Rose 1399619713 Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 3.91 2025 The Lamb
author: Lucy Rose
name: Donna
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> The City Changes Its Face 217587183 'Eimear McBride is that old-fashioned thing, a genius.' - Anne Enright
'One of our major novelists.' - Guardian
'McBride's themes and language prove her to be fearless, and her voice is utterly compelling and unique.' - Sinead Gleeson

From the winner of the Women's Prize - an intense story of a passionate love affair arriving at its first test.

A rainy Camden night, December 1996. 20-year-old Eily and 40-year-old Stephen retrace the course of their two-year love affair in search of what's gone wrong. Is it Stephen's reconnection with his long-lost teenage daughter, Grace? Or that he's a well-known actor while Eily's still at drama school? Maybe the autobiographical film he's just made has brought his old demons back to the surface? Or perhaps Eily's youth has led her into a mistake she doesn't know how to fix?

Intimate, experiential, and immersive, this is the story of what happens when it's love beyond question, but trouble comes along anyway.]]> 320 Eimear McBride 0571384218 Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 3.72 2025 The City Changes Its Face
author: Eimear McBride
name: Donna
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> Strange Hotel 45893518 From the multi-award-winning author of the literary phenomenon A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing.

At the mid-point of her life a woman enters an Avignon hotel room. She's been here once before - but while the room hasn't changed, she is a different person now.

Forever caught between check-in and check-out, she will go on to occupy other hotel rooms, from Prague to Oslo, Auckland to Austin, each as anonymous as the last, but bound by rules of her choosing. There, amid the detritus of her travels, the matchbooks, cigarettes, keys and room-service wine, she will negotiate with memory, with the men she sometimes meets, and with what it might mean to return home.]]> 149 Eimear McBride 0571355145 Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 2.90 2020 Strange Hotel
author: Eimear McBride
name: Donna
average rating: 2.90
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: to-read, wishlist
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]]> The Lesser Bohemians 28363987 A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing.

Upon her arrival in London, an 18-year-old Irish girl begins anew as a drama student, with all the hopes of any young actress searching for the fame she’s always dreamed of. She struggles to fit in—she’s young and unexotic, a naive new girl—but soon she forges friendships and finds a place for herself in the big city.

Then she meets an attractive older man. He’s an established actor, 20 years older, and the inevitable clamorous relationship that ensues is one that will change her forever.

A redemptive, captivating story of passion and innocence set across the bedsits of mid-1990s London, McBride holds new love under her fierce gaze, giving us all a chance to remember what it’s like to fall hard for another.]]> 320 Eimear McBride 1101903481 Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 3.83 2016 The Lesser Bohemians
author: Eimear McBride
name: Donna
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing 18218630 A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing is to plunge inside its narrator's head, experiencing her world first-hand. This isn't always comfortable - but it is always a revelation.

Touching on everything from family violence to sexuality and the personal struggle to remain intact in times of intense trauma, McBride writes with singular intensity, acute sensitivity and mordant wit. A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is moving, funny � and alarming. It is a book you will never forget.]]> 205 Eimear McBride 0957185324 Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 3.50 2013 A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing
author: Eimear McBride
name: Donna
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> Ordinary Human Failings 62713718
FINALIST FOR THE FALLON BOOK CLUB SELECTION

When we look beyond the headlines, everyone has a story to tell

It's 1990 in London and Tom Hargreaves has it all: a burgeoning career as a reporter, fierce ambition and a brisk disregard for the "peasants" - ordinary people, his readers, easy tabloid fodder. His star looks set to rise when he stumbles across a scoop: a dead child on a London estate, grieving parents loved across the neighbourhood, and the finger of suspicion pointing at one reclusive family of Irish immigrants and 'bad apples': the Greens.

At their heart sits Carmel: beautiful, otherworldly, broken, and once destined for a future beyond her circumstances until life - and love - got in her way. Crushed by failure and surrounded by disappointment, there's nowhere for her to go and no chance of escape. Now, with the police closing in on a suspect and the tabloids hunting their monster, she must confront the secrets and silences that have trapped her family for so many generations.]]> Megan Nolan 1529904129 Donna 4 audiobook, library-books 3.88 2023 Ordinary Human Failings
author: Megan Nolan
name: Donna
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/30
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves: audiobook, library-books
review:

]]> You Are Here 214848505 Listening time: 8 hours and 27 minutes

From the internationally bestselling and Booker Prize-longlisted author of One Day, one of the most enduring love stories of its generation, comes an uplifting and unputdownable love story about second chances.

Sometimes you need to get lost to find your way...

Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his wife’s departure, he has begun taking himself on long, solitary walks across the English countryside. Becoming ever more reclusive, he’ll do anything to avoid his empty house.

Marnie, on the other hand, is stuck. Hiding alone in her London flat, she avoids old friends and any reminders of her rotten, selfish ex-husband. Curled up with a good book, she’s battling the long afternoons of a life that feels like it’s passing her by.

When a persistent mutual friend and some very unpredictable weather conspire to toss Michael and Marnie together on the most epic of ten-day hikes, neither of them can think of anything worse. Until, of course, they discover exactly what they’ve been looking for.

Michael and Marnie are on the precipice of a bright future... if they can survive the journey.]]> 9 David Nicholls Donna 4 audiobook, library-books 3.87 2024 You Are Here
author: David Nicholls
name: Donna
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/22
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: audiobook, library-books
review:

]]> Planetfall (Planetfall, #1) 24237785
Renata Ghali believed in Lee Suh-Mi’s vision of a world far beyond Earth, calling to humanity. A planet promising to reveal the truth about our place in the cosmos, untainted by overpopulation, pollution, and war. Ren believed in that vision enough to give up everything to follow Suh-Mi into the unknown.

More than twenty-two years have passed since Ren and the rest of the faithful braved the starry abyss and established a colony at the base of an enigmatic alien structure where Suh-Mi has since resided, alone. All that time, Ren has worked hard as the colony's 3-D printer engineer, creating the tools necessary for human survival in an alien environment, and harboring a devastating secret.

Ren continues to perpetuate the lie forming the foundation of the colony for the good of her fellow colonists, despite the personal cost. Then a stranger appears, far too young to have been part of the first planetfall, a man who bears a remarkable resemblance to Suh-Mi.

The truth Ren has concealed since planetfall can no longer be hidden. And its revelation might tear the colony apart…]]> 336 Emma Newman Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 3.70 2015 Planetfall (Planetfall, #1)
author: Emma Newman
name: Donna
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands (Emily Wilde, #2)]]> 87185419 Ěý
Emily Wilde is a genius scholar of faerie folklore—she just wrote the world’s first comprehensive of encylopaedia of faeries. She’s learned many of the secrets of the Hidden Folk on her adventures . . . and also from her fellow scholar and former rival, Wendell Bambleby.
Ěý
Because Bambleby is more than infuriatingly charming. He’s an exiled faerie king on the run from his murderous mother, and in search of a door back to his realm. So despite Emily’s feelings for Bambleby, she’s not ready to accept his proposal of Loving one of the Fair Folk comes with secrets and danger.
Ěý
And she also has a new project to focus a map of the realms of faerie. While she is preparing her research, Bambleby lands her in trouble yet again, when assassins sent by Bambleby’s mother invade Cambridge. Now Bambleby and Emily are on another adventure, this time to the picturesque Austrian Alps, where Emily believes they may find the door to Bambley’s realm, and the key to freeing him from his family’s dark plans.
Ěý
But with new relationships for the prickly Emily to navigate and dangerous Folk lurking in every forest and hollow, Emily must unravel the mysterious workings of faerie doors, and of her own heart.]]> 352 Heather Fawcett 0356519163 Donna 0 currently-reading 4.24 2024 Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands (Emily Wilde, #2)
author: Heather Fawcett
name: Donna
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Sea of Tranquility 123639782 🎧Run Time = 5 hours and 47 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, GoodReads

"One of [Mandel's] finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet." --The New York Times

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core.

Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.

A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.]]> 258 Emily St. John Mandel 1529083516 Donna 5 library-books 4.10 2022 Sea of Tranquility
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Donna
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/22
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: library-books
review:

]]> The Kraken Wakes 8676921 240 John Wyndham Donna 0 to-read 3.71 1953 The Kraken Wakes
author: John Wyndham
name: Donna
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1953
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bill Bryson African Diary by Bill Bryson (2016-05-19)]]> 138760241
Kenya, generally regarded as the cradle of mankind, is a land of contrasts, with famous game reserves, stunning landscapes, and a vibrant cultural tradition. It also provides plenty to worry a traveller like Bill Bryson, fixated as he is on the dangers posed by snakes, insects and large predators. But on a more sober note, it is a country that shares many serious human and environmental problems with the rest of Africa: refugees, AIDS, drought and grinding poverty.

Travelling around the country, Bryson casts his inimitable eye on a continent new to him, and the resultant diary, though short in length, contains the trademark Bryson stamp of wry observation and curious insight.

All the author's royalties from Bill Bryson's African Diary, as well as all profits, will go to CARE International.]]> Bill Bryson Donna 4 4.00 2002 Bill Bryson African Diary by Bill Bryson (2016-05-19)
author: Bill Bryson
name: Donna
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: gourock-book-group, library-books
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dorothy Must Die (Dorothy Must Die #1)]]> 18053125 I didn't ask to be some kind of hero.

But when your whole life gets swept up by a tornado—taking you with it—you have no choice but to go along, you know?

Sure, I've read the books. I've seen the movies. I know the song about the rainbow and the happy little bluebirds. But I never expected Oz to look like this. To be a place where Good Witches can't be trusted, Wicked Witches may just be the good guys, and winged monkeys can be executed for acts of rebellion. There's still a yellow brick road—but even that's crumbling.

What happened? Dorothy.

They say she found a way to come back to Oz. They say she seized power and the power went to her head. And now no one is safe.

My name is Amy Gumm—and I'm the other girl from Kansas.

I've been recruited by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked.

I've been trained to fight.

And I have a mission.]]> 452 Danielle Paige 0062299182 Donna 3 audiobook, library-books 3.37 2014 Dorothy Must Die (Dorothy Must Die #1)
author: Danielle Paige
name: Donna
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/17
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: audiobook, library-books
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Absolution (Southern Reach, #4)]]> 210367505 TOP SECRET: A clear and present threat exists. Open-ended. Existential. Confirmation via uncanny op. Nature of same: Unknown. Initiating entity: Unknown. Priority: High.

Ten years after the publication of Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance � award winners and international bestsellers all, the first the basis for a now-classic film � Jeff VanderMeer brings us back for a surprise fourth and final foray into Area X.

Absolution opens decades before Area X forms, with a science expedition whose mysterious end suggests terrifying consequences for the future � and marks the Forgotten Coast as a high-priority area of interest for Central, the shadowy government agency responsible for monitoring extraordinary threats.

Many years later, the Forgotten Coast files wind up in the hands of a washed-up Central operative known as Old Jim. He starts pulling a thread that reveals a long and troubling record of government agents meddling with forces they clearly cannot comprehend. Soon, Old Jim is back out in the field, grappling with personal demons and now partnered with an unproven young agent, the two of them tasked with solving what may be an unsolvable mystery. With every turn, the stakes get higher: Central agents are being liquidated by an unknown rogue entity and Old Jim’s life is on the line.

Old Jim’s investigation culminates in the first Central expedition into what has now been labeled Area X. A border has come down, and a full team � well trained but eccentric � has been assembled to find Area X’s “off switch� somewhere in the volatile, dangerous terrain that has mysteriously defied all attempts to be explored, mapped, or controlled. A landscape that, one way or another, seems to consume all who enter it.

Sweeping in scope and rich with ideas, iconic characters, and unpredictable adventure, Absolution converges the past, present, and future in terrifying, ecstatic, and mind-bending ways. It is the final word on one of the most provocative and popular speculative fiction series of our time.]]> 441 Jeff VanderMeer 0374616590 Donna 5 3.61 2024 Absolution (Southern Reach, #4)
author: Jeff VanderMeer
name: Donna
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves:
review:

]]> Our Missing Hearts 60149573 A novel about a mother’s unbreakable love in a world consumed by fear.

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture� in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic—including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old.

Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn’t know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn’t wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change.]]> 335 Celeste Ng 0593492544 Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 3.74 2022 Our Missing Hearts
author: Celeste Ng
name: Donna
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/06
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> This Much is True 59142937 FromĚýBlackadder toĚýCall the Midwife, from the Cadbury's Caramel Rabbit toĚýHarry Potter, Miriam Margolyes is the outspoken great aunt (after two sherries) we all wish we had -- this is (at last) her extraordinary life story and it's well worth the wait.

'There is no one on earth quite so wonderful'

STEPHEN FRY

Award-winning actor, creator of a myriad of memorable characters from Lady Whiteadder to Professor Sprout, Miriam Margolyes is a national treasure.

Now, at last, at the age of 80, she has finally decided to tell her extraordinary life story. And it's far richer and stranger than any part she's played.

Find out how being conceived in an air-raid gave her curly hair; what pranks led to her being known as the naughtiest girl Oxford High School ever had; how she ended up posing nude for Augustus John aged 17, being sent to Coventry by Monty Python and the Goodies and swearing on University Challenge (she was the first woman to say F*** on TV). This book is packed with unforgettable stories from why Bob Monkhouse was the best (male) kiss she's ever had to being told off by the Queen. With a cast list stretching from Scorsese to Streisand, Leonardo di Caprio to Isaiah Berlin,ĚýThis Much is TrueĚýis as warm and honest, as full of life and surprises, as she is.]]> 15 Miriam Margolyes Donna 0 audiobook, library-books 4.00 2021 This Much is True
author: Miriam Margolyes
name: Donna
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: audiobook, library-books
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Gardener’s Almanac 2025 (National Trust)]]> 208705829 256 Greg Loades 000864134X Donna 0 currently-reading 4.80 Gardener’s Almanac 2025 (National Trust)
author: Greg Loades
name: Donna
average rating: 4.80
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> I Who Have Never Known Men 60811826 Deep underground, forty women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.


As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl—the fortieth prisoner—sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.


Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.]]> 184 Jacqueline Harpman 1945492600 Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 4.11 1995 I Who Have Never Known Men
author: Jacqueline Harpman
name: Donna
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> River East, River West 209197635 Set against the backdrop of developing modern China, this mesmerizing literary debut is part coming-of-age tale, part family and social drama, as it follows two generations searching for belonging and opportunity in a rapidly changing world.

Shanghai, 2007: Fourteen-year-old Alva has always longed for more. Raised by her American expat mother, she’s never known her Chinese father, and she is certain a better life awaits them in America. But when her mother announces her engagement to their wealthy Chinese landlord, Lu Fang, Alva’s hopes are dashed. She plots for the next best thing: the American School in Shanghai. Upon admission, though, Alva is surprised to discover an institution run by an exclusive community of expats and the ever-wilder thrills of a city where foreigners can ostensibly act as they please.

1985: In the seaside city of Qingdao, Lu Fang is a young married man and a lowly clerk in a shipping yard. Although he once dreamed of a bright future, he is now one of many casualties in his country’s harsh political reforms. So when China opens its doors to the first wave of foreigners in decades, Lu Fang’s world is split wide openĚýafter he meets an American woman who makes him confront difficult questions aboutĚýhis current status in life and how much will ever be enough.

In a stunning reversal of the east-to-west immigrant narrative and set against China’s political history and economic rise,ĚýRiver East, River West is an intimate family drama and a sharp social novel. Alternating between Alva and Lu Fang’s points of view, this is a profoundlyĚýmoving exploration of race and class, cultural identity and belonging, and the often-false promise of the American Dream.]]> 12 Aube Rey Lescure Donna 4 audiobook, library-books 3.88 2024 River East, River West
author: Aube Rey Lescure
name: Donna
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: audiobook, library-books
review:

]]> The Ministry of Time 199798179 A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all:

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

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

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.]]> 339 Kaliane Bradley 1668045141 Donna 5 gourock-book-group 3.54 2024 The Ministry of Time
author: Kaliane Bradley
name: Donna
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: gourock-book-group
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow]]> 61754241
In this exhilarating novel by the best-selling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom.

They borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo: a game where players can escape the confines of a body and the betrayals of a heart, and where death means nothing more than a chance to restart and play again. This is the story of the perfect worlds Sam and Sadie build, the imperfect world they live in, and of everything that comes after success: Money. Fame. Duplicity. Tragedy.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, games as artform, technology and the human experience, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.]]> 14 Gabrielle Zevin 0593591631 Donna 5 audiobook, library-books 3.98 2022 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Donna
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/22
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves: audiobook, library-books
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wild: Tales from Early Medieval Britain]]> 124950673 224 Amy Jeffs 1529424267 Donna 0 to-read 3.81 2022 Wild: Tales from Early Medieval Britain
author: Amy Jeffs
name: Donna
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> How to Kill Your Family 58857034 Cosmopolitan and Grazia’s best books of 2021

· Kill my family
· Make a claim on their fortune
· Get away with the above
· Adopt a dog

Meet Grace Bernard.
Daughter, sister, colleague, friend, serial killer�
Grace has lost everything. And now she wants revenge.

How to Kill Your Family is a fierce and addictive novel about class, family, love� and murder.]]> 11 Bella Mackie 0008365938 Donna 3 audiobook, library-books 3.44 2021 How to Kill Your Family
author: Bella Mackie
name: Donna
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/10
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves: audiobook, library-books
review:

]]> May Day 210717991
These poems cast an eye over several decades of political activism, from the international solidarity of the Glasgow of Kay’s childhood, accompanying her parents� Socialist campaigns, through the feminist, LGBT+ and anti-racist movements of the 80s and 90s, up to the present day when a global pandemic intersects with the urgency of Black Lives Matter.

Kay brings to life a cast of influential figures, delving beneath the surfaces of received narratives: the Jamaican model Fanny Eaton, muse of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in England; Paul Robeson, Angela Davis and the poet Audre Lorde; and a â€what-ifâ€� poem concerning Rabbie Burns and a road-not-taken towards the West Indian slave trade. Woven through the collection is a suite of lyric poems concerning the recent losses of Kay’s parents: poems of grief and profound change that are infused with the light of love and celebration.]]> 96 Jackie Kay 1509864830 Donna 5 poetry 4.48 2024 May Day
author: Jackie Kay
name: Donna
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/04
date added: 2024/12/04
shelves: poetry
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Siddhartha (Penguin Modern Classics) by Hesse, Hermann (2008) Paperback]]> 133056398 Excellent Book 0 Hermann Hesse Donna 3 4.40 1922 Siddhartha (Penguin Modern Classics) by Hesse, Hermann (2008) Paperback
author: Hermann Hesse
name: Donna
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1922
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: gourock-book-group, library-books
review:

]]> After Me Comes the Flood 58165498
He shuts up the bookshop no one ever comes to and drives out of London. When his car breaks down and he becomes lost on an isolated road, he goes looking for help, and stumbles into the grounds of a grand but dilapidated house.

Its residents welcome him with open arms - but there's more to this strange community than meets the eye. They all know him by name, they've prepared a room for him, and claim to have been waiting for him all along.

As nights and days pass John finds himself drawn into a baffling menagerie. There is Hester, their matriarchal, controlling host; Alex and Claire, siblings full of child-like wonder and delusions; the mercurial Eve; Elijah - a faithless former preacher haunted by the Bible; and chain-smoking Walker, wreathed in smoke and hostility. Who are these people? And what do they intend for John?

Elegant, gently sinister and psychologically complex, this is a haunting and hypnotic debut novel by a brilliant new voice.]]> Sarah Perry 0062985396 Donna 3 audiobook, library-books 2.80 2014 After Me Comes the Flood
author: Sarah Perry
name: Donna
average rating: 2.80
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/26
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: audiobook, library-books
review:

]]> <![CDATA[This Is How You Lose the Time War]]> 53870787
So begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents in a war that stretches through the vast reaches of time and space.

Red belongs to the Agency, a post-singularity technotopia. Blue belongs to Garden, a single vast consciousness embedded in all organic matter. Their pasts are bloody and their futures mutually exclusive. They have nothing in common---save that they're the best, and they're alone.

Now what began as a battlefield boast grows into a dangerous game, one both Red and Blue are determined to win. Because winning's that you do in war. Isn't it?

A tour de force collaboration from two powerhouse writers that spans the whole of time and space.]]> 201 Amal El-Mohtar 1534430997 Donna 4 3.91 2019 This Is How You Lose the Time War
author: Amal El-Mohtar
name: Donna
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/23
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves:
review:

]]> Travel Light 827276 The Sword in the Stone.]]> 135 Naomi Mitchison 1931520143 Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 3.88 1952 Travel Light
author: Naomi Mitchison
name: Donna
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1952
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> Barrowbeck 209180307
A father fears that his daughter has become possessed by something unholy.

A childless couple must make an agonising decision.

A widower awaits the return of his wife.

A troubled man is haunted by visions of end times.

As one generation gives way to the next and ancient land is carved up in the name of progress, darkness gathers. The people of Barrowbeck have forgotten that they are but guests in the valley.

Now there is a price to pay. Two thousand years of history is coming to an end.]]> 235 Andrew Michael Hurley 1399817515 Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 3.65 2024 Barrowbeck
author: Andrew Michael Hurley
name: Donna
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/22
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World]]> 208840291 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.

As indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love.

Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution insures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”]]> 112 Robin Wall Kimmerer 1668072246 Donna 0 to-read 4.38 2024 The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World
author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
name: Donna
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Nettle & Bone 63256274
Seeking help from a powerful gravewitch, Marra is offered the tools to kill a prince—if she can complete three impossible tasks. But, as is the way in tales of princes, witches, and daughters, the impossible is only the beginning.

On her quest, Marra is joined by the gravewitch, a reluctant fairy godmother, a strapping former knight, and a chicken possessed by a demon. Together, the five of them intend to be the hand that closes around the throat of the prince and frees Marra's family and their kingdom from its tyrannous ruler at last.]]> T. Kingfisher 1004105215 Donna 3 audiobook, library-books 3.98 2022 Nettle & Bone
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Donna
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/18
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: audiobook, library-books
review:

]]> Blood Over Bright Haven 208430658 Magic has made the city of Tiran an industrial utopia, but magic has a cost—and the collectors have come calling.

An orphan since the age of four, Sciona has always had more to prove than her fellow students. For twenty years, she has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry. When she finally claws her way up the ranks to become a highmage, however, she finds that her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues will stop at nothing to let her know she is unwelcome, beginning with giving her a janitor instead of a qualified lab assistant.

What neither Sciona nor her peers realize is that her taciturn assistant was once more than a janitor; before he mopped floors for the mages, Thomil was a nomadic hunter from beyond Tiran’s magical barrier. Ten years have passed since he survived the perilous crossing that killed his family. But working for a highmage, he sees the opportunity to finally understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the Tiranish in power.

Through their fractious relationship, mage and outsider uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever—if it doesn’t get them killed first. Sciona has defined her life by the pursuit of truth, but how much is one truth worth with the fate of civilization in the balance?

A standalone dark academia brimming with mystery, tragedy, and the damning echoes of the past. For fans of Leigh Bardugo, V. E. Schwab, and Fullmetal Alchemist.

(Content warnings for gore, sexual assault, and suicidal ideation)]]> 430 M.L. Wang 0593873351 Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 4.40 2023 Blood Over Bright Haven
author: M.L. Wang
name: Donna
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/17
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> The Sealwoman's Gift 36154097
In this brilliant reimagining, Sally Magnusson gives a voice to Ăsta, the pastor's wife. Enslaved in an alien Arab culture Ăsta meets the loss of both her freedom and her children with the one thing she has brought from home: the stories in her head. Steeped in the sagas and folk tales of her northern homeland, she finds herself experiencing not just the separations and agonies of captivity, but the reassessments that come in any age when intelligent eyes are opened to other lives, other cultures and other kinds of loving.

The Sealwoman's Gift is about the eternal power of storytelling to help us survive. The novel is full of stories - Icelandic ones told to fend off a slave-owner's advances, Arabian ones to help an old man die. And there are others, too: the stories we tell ourselves to protect our minds from what cannot otherwise be borne, the stories we need to make us happy.]]> 360 Sally Magnusson 147363895X Donna 4 library-books 4.06 2018 The Sealwoman's Gift
author: Sally Magnusson
name: Donna
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/16
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves: library-books
review:

]]> House of Names 30835133
“I have been acquainted with the smell of death.� So begins Clytemnestra’s tale of her own life in ancient Mycenae, the legendary Greek city from which her husband King Agamemnon left when he set sail with his army for Troy. Clytemnestra rules Mycenae now, along with her new lover Aegisthus, and together they plot the bloody murder of Agamemnon on the day of his return after nine years at war.

Judged, despised, cursed by gods she has long since lost faith in, Clytemnestra reveals the tragic saga that led to these bloody actions: how her husband deceived her eldest daughter Iphigeneia with a promise of marriage to Achilles, only to sacrifice her because that is what he was told would make the winds blow in his favor and take him to Troy; how she seduced and collaborated with the prisoner Aegisthus, who shared her bed in the dark and could kill; how Agamemnon came back with a lover himself; and how Clytemnestra finally achieved her vengeance for his stunning betrayal—his quest for victory, greater than his love for his child.

In House of Names, Colm Tóibín brings a modern sensibility and language to an ancient classic, and gives this extraordinary character new life, so that we not only believe Clytemnestra’s thirst for revenge, but applaud it. He brilliantly inhabits the mind of one of Greek myth’s most powerful villains to reveal the love, lust, and pain she feels. Told in fours parts, this is a fiercely dramatic portrait of a murderess, who will herself be murdered by her own son, Orestes. It is Orestes� story, too: his capture by the forces of his mother’s lover Aegisthus, his escape and his exile. And it is the story of the vengeful Electra, who watches over her mother and Aegisthus with cold anger and slow calculation, until, on the return of her brother, she has the fates of both of them in her hands.]]> 9 Colm Tóibín 1508227926 Donna 3 audiobook, library-books 3.59 2017 House of Names
author: Colm TĂłibĂ­n
name: Donna
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/16
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves: audiobook, library-books
review:

]]> <![CDATA[James Joyce: Portrait of a Dubliner: A Graphic Biography]]> 25898655
Winner of Spain's National Comic Prize and published to acclaim in Ireland, here is an extraordinary graphic biography of James Joyce that offers a fresh take on his tumultuous life. With evocative anecdotes and hundreds of ink-wash drawings, Alfonso Zapico invites the reader to share Joyce's journey, from his earliest days in Dublin to his life with his great love, Nora Barnacle, and their children, and his struggles and triumphs as an artist.

Joyce experienced poverty, rejection, censorship, charges of blasphemy and obscenity, war, and crippling ill-health. A rebel and nonconformist in Dublin and a harsh critic of Irish society, he left Ireland in self-imposed exile with Nora, moving to Paris, Pola, Trieste, Rome, London, and finally Zurich. He overcame monumental challenges in creating and publishing Dubliners , Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man , Ulysses , and Finnegan's Wake . Along the way, he encountered a colorful cast of characters, from the Irish nationalists Charles Parnell and Michael Collins to literary greats Yeats, Proust, Hemingway, and Beckett, and the likes of Carl Jung and Vladimir Lenin.]]> 231 Alfonso Zapico 1628726555 Donna 4 3.82 2011 James Joyce: Portrait of a Dubliner: A Graphic Biography
author: Alfonso Zapico
name: Donna
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/23
date added: 2024/10/23
shelves: gourock-book-group, graphic-novel, library-books
review:

]]> Little, Big 90619 Little, Big is the epic story of Smoky Barnable, an anonymous young man who travels by foot from the City to a place called Edgewood—not found on any map—to marry Daily Alice Drinkwater, as was prophesied. It is the story of four generations of a singular family, living in a house that is many houses on the magical border of an otherworld. It is a story of fantastic love and heartrending loss; of impossible things and unshakable destinies; and of the great Tale that envelops us all. It is a wonder.]]> 538 John Crowley 0061120057 Donna 5 fantasy 3.81 1981 Little, Big
author: John Crowley
name: Donna
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1981
rating: 5
read at: 2014/05/02
date added: 2024/10/22
shelves: fantasy
review:

]]> The Vegetarian 53402372 6 Han Kang 1489454349 Donna 4 audiobook, library-books 3.00 2007 The Vegetarian
author: Han Kang
name: Donna
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/22
date added: 2024/10/22
shelves: audiobook, library-books
review:

]]> Caledonian Road 210666712
May 2021. London.

Campbell Flynn - art historian and celebrity intellectual - is entering the empire of middle age. Fuelled by an appetite for admiration and the finer things, controversy and novelty, he doesn't take people half as seriously as they take themselves. Which will prove the first of his huge mistakes.

The second? Milo Manghasa, his beguiling and provocative student. Milo inhabits a more precarious world, has experiences and ideas which excite his teacher. He also has a plan.

Over the course of an incendiary year, a web of crimes and secrets and scandals will be revealed, and Campbell Flynn may not be able to protect himself from the shattering exposure of all his privilege really involves. But then, he always knew: when his life came tumbling down, it would occur in public.]]> Andrew O'Hagan Donna 4 audiobook, library-books 3.81 2024 Caledonian Road
author: Andrew O'Hagan
name: Donna
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/18
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves: audiobook, library-books
review:

]]> Water 195100472
But scandals follow like hunting dogs. And she has some questions of her own to answer. If her ex-husband is really the monster everyone says he is, then how complicit was she in his crimes?

Escaping her old life might seem like a good idea but the choices she has made throughout her marriage have consequences. Here, on the island, Vanessa must reflect on what she did - and did not do. Only then can she discover whether she is worthy of finding peace at all.]]> 176 John Boyne 0857529811 Donna 0 to-read 4.29 2023 Water
author: John Boyne
name: Donna
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The City and Its Uncertain Walls]]> 209192695 From the bestselling author of Norwegian Wood and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World comes a love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for our peculiar times.

We begin with a nameless young couple: a boy and a girl, teenagers in love. One day, she disappears . . . and her absence haunts him for the rest of his life.

Thus begins a search for this lost love that takes the man into middle age and on a journey between the real world and an other world—a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, walled town where unicorns roam, where a Gatekeeper determines who can enter and who must remain behind, and where shadows become untethered from their selves. Listening to his own dreams and premonitions, the man leaves his life in Tokyo behind and ventures to a small mountain town, where he becomes the head librarian, only to learn the mysterious circumstances surrounding the gentleman who had the job before him. As the seasons pass and the man grows more uncertain about the porous boundaries between these two worlds, he meets a strange young boy who helps him to see what he’s been missing all along.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a singular and towering achievement by one of modern literature’s most important writers.]]> 449 Haruki Murakami 0593801970 Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 3.72 2023 The City and Its Uncertain Walls
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Donna
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> Paisley Radicals 63830084 Paul Bristow Donna 3 3.00 Paisley Radicals
author: Paul Bristow
name: Donna
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/12
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: gourock-book-group, graphic-novel
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins]]> 44537 2000 List of Popular Paperbacks for YA

]]> 228 Emma Donoghue 0064407721 Donna 5 3.89 1997 Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins
author: Emma Donoghue
name: Donna
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/12
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves:
review:

]]> Orbital 123136728
Contudo, mesmo tĂŁo distantes do mundo, os seis astronautas nĂŁo conseguem escapar Ă  sua constante influĂŞncia. Chegam notĂ­cias da morte de uma mĂŁe, trazendo pensamentos de regresso e de saudades de casa. A fragilidade da vida humana torna-se um tema central nas suas conversas, nos seus medos e nos seus sonhos.

Apesar de tão longe da Terra, nunca antes se haviam sentido tão protetores dela, tão parte dela. Começam a refletir: o que será a vida sem a Terra? O que será a Terra sem a humanidade?]]> 207 Samantha Harvey 0802161545 Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 3.56 2023 Orbital
author: Samantha Harvey
name: Donna
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> James 173754979 A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780385550369.]]> 303 Percival Everett Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 4.46 2024 James
author: Percival Everett
name: Donna
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> Creation Lake 207300960 416 Rachel Kushner 1982116528 Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 3.34 2024 Creation Lake
author: Rachel Kushner
name: Donna
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> Keynotes and Discords 3294505 462 George Egerton 0860682935 Donna 0 to-read, virago 4.33 1995 Keynotes and Discords
author: George Egerton
name: Donna
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/05
shelves: to-read, virago
review:

]]> The Unlit Lamp 58154292 320 Radclyffe Hall 1513295314 Donna 0 to-read, virago 5.00 1924 The Unlit Lamp
author: Radclyffe Hall
name: Donna
average rating: 5.00
book published: 1924
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/05
shelves: to-read, virago
review:

]]> None Turn Back 2291763
This is the story of that harrowing week seen through the eyes of the women and men of London as they move through that unreal city. We meet those who gave their all for the strike - and a vision of a better world. We meet, too, those who fought to break it with every weapon they had: power, politics, money - or brute force. There are masters and workmen, fascists and communists, politicians and trade unionists, wives and mistresses, artists, writers and scientists, all cught up in the web of each other's lives. But above all we follow the thread of Hervey Russell's life as she is swept up by the political ferment around her, by the difficulties of a new marriage, and by her hopes and fears for the future...]]> 319 Storm Jameson 0860683206 Donna 0 to-read, virago 3.41 1936 None Turn Back
author: Storm Jameson
name: Donna
average rating: 3.41
book published: 1936
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/05
shelves: to-read, virago
review:

]]> <![CDATA[On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous]]> 52544164 Brilliant, heartbreaking and highly original, Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling.

This is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born. It tells of Vietnam, of the lasting impact of war, and of his family's struggle to forge a new future. And it serves as a doorway into parts of Little Dog's life his mother has never known - episodes of bewilderment, fear and passion - all the while moving closer to an unforgettable revelation.]]> 246 Ocean Vuong 1529110688 Donna 4 3.87 2019 On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
author: Ocean Vuong
name: Donna
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/29
date added: 2024/09/29
shelves: gourock-book-group, library-books
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Black Leopard, Red Wolf (The Dark Star Trilogy #1)]]> 43186170
As Tracker follows the boy's scent—from one ancient city to another; into dense forests and across deep rivers—he and the band are set upon by creatures intent on destroying them. As he struggles to survive, Tracker starts to Who, really, is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep Tracker from finding him? And perhaps the most important questions of Who is telling the truth, and who is lying?]]> 640 Marlon James 0385690339 Donna 4 ebook, library-books 3.39 2019 Black Leopard, Red Wolf (The Dark Star Trilogy #1)
author: Marlon James
name: Donna
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2020/09/23
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: ebook, library-books
review:

]]> Shuggie Bain 48589363
Shuggie is different. Fastidious and fussy, he shares his mother’s sense of snobbish propriety. The miners' children pick on him and adults condemn him as no� right. But Shuggie believes that if he tries his hardest, he can be normal like the other boys and help his mother escape this hopeless place.

Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain lays bare the ruthlessness of poverty, the limits of love, and the hollowness of pride. A counterpart to the privileged Thatcher-era London of Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty, it also recalls the work of Édouard Louis, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, a blistering debut by a brilliant writer with a powerful and important story to tell.]]> 449 Douglas Stuart 1529019303 Donna 4 ebook, library-books 4.49 2020 Shuggie Bain
author: Douglas Stuart
name: Donna
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/02/12
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: ebook, library-books
review:

]]> Ducks, Newburyport 46218941
A scorching indictment of America’s barbarity, past and present, and a lament for the way we are sleepwalking into environmental disaster, Ducks, Newburyport is a heresy, a wonder—and a revolution in the novel.

It’s also very, very funny.]]> 1020 Lucy Ellmann 1913111040 Donna 0 to-read, on-hold 3.83 2019 Ducks, Newburyport
author: Lucy Ellmann
name: Donna
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: to-read, on-hold
review:

]]> The Machine Stops 20628360 46 E.M. Forster 1434446255 Donna 0 to-read 4.04 1909 The Machine Stops
author: E.M. Forster
name: Donna
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1909
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism]]> 36458393 Groundbreaking book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when discussing racism that serve to protect their positions and maintain racial inequality

Antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo first coined the term "white fragility" in 2011, and since then it's been invoked by critics from Samantha Bee to Charles Blow. "White fragility" refers to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially. These include emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors including argumentation and silence. In this book, DiAngelo unpacks white fragility, explaining the underlying sociological phenomena. She'll draw on examples from her work and scholarship, as well as from the culture at large, to address these fundamental questions: How does white fragility develop? What does it look like? How is it triggered? What can we do to move beyond white fragility and engage more constructively?]]> 186 Robin DiAngelo 0807047422 Donna 3 ebook, library-books, factual 4.24 2018 White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
author: Robin DiAngelo
name: Donna
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2020/07/22
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: ebook, library-books, factual
review:

]]> Milkman 42378358 In an unnamed city, middle sister stands out for the wrong reasons. She reads while walking, for one. And she has been taking French night classes downtown. So when a local paramilitary known as the milkman begins pursuing her, she suddenly becomes “interesting,� the last thing she ever wanted to be. Despite middle sister’s attempts to avoid him—and to keep her mother from finding out about her maybe-boyfriend—rumors spread and the threat of violence lingers. Milkman is a story of the way inaction can have enormous repercussions, in a time when the wrong flag, wrong religion, or even a sunset can be subversive. Told with ferocious energy and sly, wicked humor, Milkman establishes Anna Burns as one of the most consequential voices of our day.

]]> 352 Anna Burns 164445100X Donna 5 ebook, library-books 3.64 2018 Milkman
author: Anna Burns
name: Donna
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2019/11/07
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves: ebook, library-books
review:

]]> The Water Dancer 46267108
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 utopic 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.]]> 320 Ta-Nehisi Coates 0241982529 Donna 4 ebook, library-books 4.09 2019 The Water Dancer
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: Donna
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2020/08/17
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves: ebook, library-books
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Superior: The Return of Race Science]]> 43446245 A powerful look at the non-scientific history of "race science," and the assumptions, prejudices, and incentives that have allowed it to reemerge in contemporary science

Superior tells the disturbing story of the persistent thread of belief in biological racial differences in the world of science.

After the horrors of the Nazi regime in WWII, the mainstream scientific world turned its back on eugenics and the study of racial difference. But a worldwide network of unrepentant eugenicists quietly founded journals and funded research, providing the kind of shoddy studies that were ultimately cited in Richard Hernstein's and Charles Murray's 1994 title, The Bell Curve, which purported to show differences in intelligence among races.

If the vast majority of scientists and scholars disavowed these ideas, and considered race a social construct, it was still an idea that managed to somehow make its way into the research into the human genome that began in earnest in the mid-1990s and continues today. Dissecting the statements and work of contemporary scientists studying human biodiversity, most of whom claim to be just following the data, Saini shows us how, again and again, science is retrofitted to accommodate race. Even as our understanding of highly complex traits like intelligence, and the complicated effect of environmental influences on human beings, from the molecular level on up, grows, the hope of finding simple genetic differences between "races"--to explain differing rates of disease, to explain poverty or test scores or to justify cultural assumptions--stubbornly persists.

At a time when racialized nationalisms are a resurgent threat throughout the world, Superior is a powerful reminder that biologically, we are all far more alike than different.]]> 292 Angela Saini 0807076945 Donna 4 ebook, my-ebooks, non-fiction 4.32 2019 Superior: The Return of Race Science
author: Angela Saini
name: Donna
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2020/07/29
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves: ebook, my-ebooks, non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[To Sleep in a Sea of Stars (Fractalverse, #1)]]> 48829708 move.

As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn't at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human.

While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity's greatest and final hope...]]> 880 Christopher Paolini 1250762847 Donna 4 audiobook, library-books 3.77 2020 To Sleep in a Sea of Stars (Fractalverse, #1)
author: Christopher Paolini
name: Donna
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/19
date added: 2024/09/19
shelves: audiobook, library-books
review:

]]> Vladimir 57452610 A provocative, razor-sharp, and timely debut novel about a beloved English professor facing a slew of accusations against her professor husband by former students—a situation that becomes more complicated when she herself develops an obsession of her own...

“When I was a child, I loved old men, and I could tell that they also loved me.�

And so we are introduced to our deliciously incisive narrator: a popular English professor whose charismatic husband at the same small liberal arts college is under investigation for his inappropriate relationships with his former students. The couple have long had a mutual understanding when it comes to their extra-marital pursuits, but with these new allegations, life has become far less comfortable for them both. And when our narrator becomes increasingly infatuated with Vladimir, a celebrated, married young novelist who’s just arrived on campus, their tinder box world comes dangerously close to exploding.

With this bold, edgy, and uncommonly assured debut, author Julia May Jonas takes us into charged territory, where the boundaries of morality bump up against the impulses of the human heart. Propulsive, darkly funny, and wildly entertaining, Vladimir perfectly captures the personal and political minefield of our current moment, exposing the nuances and the grey area between power and desire.]]> 288 Julia May Jonas 1982187654 Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 3.65 2022 Vladimir
author: Julia May Jonas
name: Donna
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/17
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> Newton's Wake 1118066 369 Ken MacLeod 1841491756 Donna 0 to-read 3.65 2004 Newton's Wake
author: Ken MacLeod
name: Donna
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Women's Weird: Strange Stories by Women, 1890-1940]]> 48616284 298 Melissa Edmundson 1912766248 Donna 0 to-read 4.03 2019 Women's Weird: Strange Stories by Women, 1890-1940
author: Melissa Edmundson
name: Donna
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Compass Rose 1395121
Contents:
- Preface (1982)
Nadir
- 'The Author of the Acacia Seeds' and Other Extracts from the Journal of the Association of Therolinguistics (1974, Fellowship of the Stars)
- The New Atlantis (1975, The New Atlantis)
- Schrödinger's Cat (1974, Universe 5)
North
- Two Delays on the Northern Line (1979, The New Yorker)
- SQ (1978, Cassandra Rising)
- Small Change (1981, Tor zu den Sternen)
East
- The First Report of the Shipwrecked Foreigner to the Kadanh of Derb (1978, Antaeus)
- The Diary of the Rose (1976, Future Power)
- The White Donkey (1980, TriQuarterly)
- The Phoenix (1982)
Zenith
- Intracom (1974, Stopwatch)
- The Eye Altering (1974, The Altered I)
- Mazes (1975, Epoch)
- The Pathways of Desire (1979, New Dimensions Science Fiction, No.9)
West
- Gwilan's Harp (1977, Redbook)
- Malheur County (1979, Kenyon Review)
- The Water Is Wide (1976, Pendragon Press (chapbook))
South
- The Wife's Story (1982)
- Some Approaches to the Problem of the Shortage of Time (1979, Omni as Where Does the Time Go?)
- Sur (1982, The New Yorker)

Cover illustration by Peter Goodfellow

]]> 286 Ursula K. Le Guin 0586060537 Donna 0 to-read 3.84 1982 The Compass Rose
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: Donna
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment]]> 51811415 ***LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2019***
*SHORTISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING 2020*

How do you pack for a one-way journey back to a country you left when you were eleven and have not visited for fifty years?

'[Gentleman's] reporting proves why an independent press is so vital.' Reni Eddo-Lodge

'A timely reminder of what truly great journalists can achieve.' David Olusoga

'It is impossible to overstate the importance of this heartbreaking book.' James O'Brien

Amelia Gentleman's exposé of the Windrush scandal shocked the nation, and led to the resignation of Amber Rudd as Home Secretary. Her tenacious reporting revealed how the government's 'hostile environment' immigration policy had led to thousands of law-abiding people being wrongly classified as illegal immigrants, with many being removed from the country, and many more losing their homes and their jobs.

In The Windrush Betrayal, Gentleman tells the full story of her investigation for the first time. Her writing shines a light on the people directly affected by the scandal and illustrates the devastating effect of politicians becoming so disconnected from the world outside Westminster that they become oblivious to the impact of their policy decisions. This is a vitally important account that exposes deeply disturbing truths about modern Britain.

'Gentleman boldly chronicles the devastating reality of a scandal that illegalised, imbruted and abandoned British citizens [w]ith the same tenacity that she used to expose the truth of Windrush in the first place'. David Lammy MP]]> 374 Amelia Gentleman 1783351861 Donna 4 4.48 2019 The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment
author: Amelia Gentleman
name: Donna
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2020/09/02
date added: 2024/09/12
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[[American Primitive] [By: Mary Oliver] [April, 1983]]]> 135507596 0 Mary Oliver Donna 4 4.50 1983 [American Primitive] [By: Mary Oliver] [April, 1983]
author: Mary Oliver
name: Donna
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1983
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/10
date added: 2024/09/10
shelves:
review:

]]> The Book of Elsewhere 202950650
There have always been whispers. Legends. The warrior who cannot be killed. Who’s seen a thousand civilizations rise and fall. He has had many names: Unute, Child of Lightning, Death himself. These days, he’s known simply as “B.�

And he wants to be able to die.

In the present day, a U.S. black-ops group has promised him they can help with that. And all he needs to do is help them in return. But when an all-too-mortal soldier comes back to life, the impossible event ultimately points toward a force even more mysterious than B himself. One at least as strong. And one with a plan all its own.

A mind-blowing epic of ancient powers, modern war, and an outcast who cannot die. Combines Miéville’s singular style and creativity with Reeves’s haunting and soul-stirring narrative, unlike anything these two genre-bending pioneers have created before, inspired by the world of the BRZRKR comic books.]]> 352 Keanu Reeves 0593446593 Donna 4 3.26 2024 The Book of Elsewhere
author: Keanu Reeves
name: Donna
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/10
date added: 2024/09/10
shelves:
review:

]]> Grimm Tales for Young and Old 16126208
From the quests and romance of classics such as 'Rapunzel', 'Snow White' and 'Cinderella' to the danger and wit of such lesser-known tales as 'The Three Snake Leaves', 'Hans-my-Hedgehog' and 'Godfather Death', Pullman brings the heart of each timeless tale to the fore, following with a brief but fascinating commentary on the story's background and history. In his introduction, he discusses how these stories have lasted so long, and become part of our collective storytelling imagination.

These new versions show the adventures at their most lucid and engaging yet. Pullman's Grimm Tales of wicked wives, brave children and villainous kings will have you reading, reading aloud and rereading them for many years to come.]]> 420 Philip Pullman 0141442220 Donna 0 to-read 3.80 2012 Grimm Tales for Young and Old
author: Philip Pullman
name: Donna
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[365: Stories by James Robertson (6-Nov-2014) Paperback]]> 144094664 0 unknown author Donna 0 to-read 0.0 365: Stories by James Robertson (6-Nov-2014) Paperback
author: unknown author
name: Donna
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Third Miss Symons (Virago Modern Classic)]]> 5139683 143 F.M. Mayor 0140161791 Donna 0 to-read, virago 3.00 1913 Third Miss Symons (Virago Modern Classic)
author: F.M. Mayor
name: Donna
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1913
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/09
shelves: to-read, virago
review:

]]> The Orchid House 2702223
Under the watchful gaze of their black nurse Lally, three white Creole girls grow up at Maison Rose on the Island of Dominica, with its glades of glittering live trees, flaring hibiscus and milky-scented frangipani. But this drowsy heat-drenched lushness conceals decay, and the orchid house echoes with the strange whispered secrets of their enclosed world. To survive, the girls must abandon their island of disease and beauty for the cold northern lands of England and America. Lally watches as they leave, one by one, and waits for their return. As return they must -- to their magic past, to the orchid house, and to the man whom all three sisters love.]]> 246 Phyllis Shand Allfrey 1853813389 Donna 0 to-read, virago 3.21 1953 The Orchid House
author: Phyllis Shand Allfrey
name: Donna
average rating: 3.21
book published: 1953
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/09
shelves: to-read, virago
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Virago Book of Women Gardeners]]> 633685 274 Deborah Kellaway 1860491537 Donna 0 to-read, virago 3.77 1996 The Virago Book of Women Gardeners
author: Deborah Kellaway
name: Donna
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/09
shelves: to-read, virago
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Out of the Silent Planet (Space Trilogy #1)]]> 50510027 184 C.S. Lewis Donna 0 to-read 4.50 1938 Out of the Silent Planet (Space Trilogy #1)
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Donna
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1938
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Moonraker (Virago Modern Classics)]]> 2740816
Captured by a pirate ship, the Moonraker, and its swashbuckling Captain Lovel, Jacky and his fellow prisoner, the handsome Frenchman Raoul, are transported to San Domingo. This is an island of high mountains, glittering streams, of parrots like streaks of green fire, where the pulse of drums beats through the thick, dark woods; where Jacky falls under the spell of the great rebel Toussaint L'Ouverture and where the bewitched Captain Lovel finally holds the destiny of all in his daring hands.]]> 176 F. Tennyson Jesse 0860681866 Donna 0 to-read, virago 3.07 1927 Moonraker (Virago Modern Classics)
author: F. Tennyson Jesse
name: Donna
average rating: 3.07
book published: 1927
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: to-read, virago
review:

]]> At Night All Blood Is Black 58107511 “Cłó´Çł¦´Ç±ô˛ąłŮâ€� soldier with the French army during World War I. When his friend Mademba Diop, in the same regiment, is seriously injured in battle, Diop begs Alfa to kill him and spare him the pain of a long and agonizing death in No Man’s Land.

Unable to commit this mercy killing, madness creeps into Alfa’s mind as he comes to see this refusal as a cruel moment of cowardice. Anxious to avenge the death of his friend and find forgiveness for himself, he begins a macabre ritual: every night he sneaks across enemy lines to find and murder a blue-eyed German soldier, and every night he returns to base, unharmed, with the German’s severed hand. At first his comrades look at Alfa’s deeds with admiration, but soon rumors begin to circulate that this super soldier isn’t a hero, but a sorcerer, a soul-eater. Plans are hatched to get Alfa away from the front, and to separate him from his growing collection of hands, but how does one reason with a demon, and how far will Alfa go to make amends to his dead friend?

Peppered with bullets and black magic, this remarkable novel fills in a forgotten chapter in the history of World War I. Blending oral storytelling traditions with the gritty, day-to-day, journalistic horror of life in the trenches, David Diop's At Night All Blood is Black is a dazzling tale of a man’s descent into madness.

Selected by students across France to win the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens, David Diop’s English-language, historical fiction debut At Night All Blood is Black is a “powerful, hypnotic, and dark novel� (Livres Hebdo) of terror and transformation in the trenches of the First World War.]]> 145 David Diop 1782277536 Donna 0 to-read 3.79 2018 At Night All Blood Is Black
author: David Diop
name: Donna
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Duncton Wood 878303 585 William Horwood 0070304343 Donna 0 to-read 4.20 1980 Duncton Wood
author: William Horwood
name: Donna
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Till We Have Faces 128752800 0 C.S. Lewis Donna 0 to-read 0.0 1956 Till We Have Faces
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Donna
average rating: 0.0
book published: 1956
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Meridian 75030938 Listening Length = 7 hours and 52 minutes

A poignant and powerful story of the American South in the 1960s and of one woman who risks her life for the people she loves from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Color Purple, now available in a new edition featuring an introduction by Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage.

Meridian Hill is a young woman at an Atlanta college attempting to find her place in the 1960s revolution for racial and social equality. She discovers the limits beyond which she will not go for the cause, but despite her decision not to follow the path of some of her peers, she makes significant sacrifices in order to further her beliefs.

Working in a campaign to register African American voters, Meridian cares broadly and deeply for the people she visits, and, while her coworkers quit and move to comfortable homes, she continues to work in the deep South despite a paralyzing illness. Meridian's nonviolent methods, though seemingly less radical than the methods of others, prove to be an effective means of furthering her beliefs.

“A classic novel of both feminism and the Civil Rights movement.� �Ms. Magazine]]> Alice Walker Donna 0 to-read 0.0 1976 Meridian
author: Alice Walker
name: Donna
average rating: 0.0
book published: 1976
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> THREE TIMES TABLES 1118213 The novel has been described as “symphonic� because of its tight structure and interwoven imagery and as “a rare blend of erudition and flamboyance� because of the way it pulls together scientific ideas and magical realist writing.]]> 224 Sara Maitland 1853812846 Donna 0 to-read, virago 3.79 1990 THREE TIMES TABLES
author: Sara Maitland
name: Donna
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: to-read, virago
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Goshawk Summer: A New Forest Season Unlike Any Other]]> 58539657 In early 2020, wildlife cameraman James Aldred was commissioned to film the lives of a family of Goshawks in the New Forest, his childhood home.ĚýHe began to plan a treetop hide in a remote site that would allow him to film the Gos nest, the newly hatched chicks and the lives of these elusive and enchanting birds.

Then lockdown.

And as the world retreated, something remarkable happened. The noise of our everyday stilled. No more cars, no more off-roaders, no more airplanes roaring in the skies, no one in the Goshawk woods � except James. At this unique moment, James was granted a once in a lifetime opportunity to keep filming.

And so, over Spring and into Summer, he began to record his experiences in a place empty of people but filled with birdsong and new life. Amidst the fragility and the fear, there was silver moonlight, tumbling fox cubs, calling curlew and, of course, the soaring Goshawks � shining like fire through one of our darkest times. A Goshawk summer unlike any other.]]> 234 James Aldred Donna 0 currently-reading 4.28 2021 Goshawk Summer: A New Forest Season Unlike Any Other
author: James Aldred
name: Donna
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/02
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Other Wind (Earthsea Cycle, #6)]]> 13658
Alder seeks advice from Ged, once Archmage. Ged tells him to go to Tenar, Tehanu, and the young king at Havnor. They are joined by amber-eyed Irian, a fierce dragon able to assume the shape of a woman.

The threat can be confronted only in the Immanent Grove on Roke, the holiest place in the world and there the king, hero, sage, wizard, and dragon make a last stand.

Le Guin combines her magical fantasy with a profoundly human, earthly, humble touch.]]> 211 Ursula K. Le Guin 044101125X Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 4.16 2001 The Other Wind (Earthsea Cycle, #6)
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: Donna
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/01
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> The Watermark 60725960
Rachel and Jaime: their story isn’t simple. It might not even be their story.

Augustus Fate, a once-lauded novelist and now renowned recluse, is struggling with his latest creation. But when Jaime and Rachel stumble into his remote cottage, he spies opportunity, imprisoning them inside his novel-in-progress. Now, the fledgling couple must try to find their way back home through a labyrinthine network of novels.

And as they move from Victorian Oxford to a utopian Manchester, a harsh Russian winter to an AI-dominated near-future, so too does the narrative of their relationship change time and again.

Together, they must figure out if this relationship of so many presents can have any future at all.

The Watermark is a heart-stopping exploration of the narratives we cling to in the course of a life, and the tendency of the world to unravel them. Kaleidoscopic and wildly imaginative, it how can we truly be ourselves, when Fate is pulling the strings?]]> 544 Sam Mills 1783789654 Donna 0 to-read, weird-fiction 3.54 2025 The Watermark
author: Sam Mills
name: Donna
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/01
shelves: to-read, weird-fiction
review:

]]> Matter (Culture, #8) 886066
Only the sister is not what she once was; Djan Seriy Anaplian has become an agent of the Culture's Special Circumstances section, charged with high-level interference in civilisations throughout the greater galaxy.

Concealing her new identity � and her particular set of abilities � might be a dangerous strategy. In the world to which Anaplian returns, nothing is quite as it seems; and determining the appropriate level of interference in someone else's war is never a simple matter.

Cover illustration by Debra Lill]]> 593 Iain M. Banks 1841494186 Donna 4 4.09 2008 Matter (Culture, #8)
author: Iain M. Banks
name: Donna
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/01
date added: 2024/09/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Around the World in Eighty Days]]> 3676708 294 Jules Verne 0141035870 Donna 4 book-swap, classic-fiction 3.86 1872 Around the World in Eighty Days
author: Jules Verne
name: Donna
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1872
rating: 4
read at: 2010/08/21
date added: 2024/08/31
shelves: book-swap, classic-fiction
review:

]]> A Thousand Ships 56920642
This was never the story of one woman, or two. It was the story of all of them�

In the middle of the night, Creusa wakes to find her beloved Troy engulfed in flames. Ten seemingly endless years of brutal conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans are over, and the Greeks are victorious. Over the next few hours, the only life she has ever known will turn to ash . . .

The devastating consequences of the fall of Troy stretch from Mount Olympus to Mount Ida, from the citadel of Troy to the distant Greek islands, and across oceans and sky in between. These are the stories of the women embroiled in that legendary war and its terrible aftermath, as well as the feud and the fatal decisions that started it all�

Powerfully told from an all-female perspective, A Thousand Ships gives voices to the women, girls and goddesses who, for so long, have been silent.

8 hours 33 minutes.
Read by the author.]]> 9 Natalie Haynes 0063065428 Donna 4 audiobook, library-books 4.06 2019 A Thousand Ships
author: Natalie Haynes
name: Donna
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2021/03/17
date added: 2024/08/30
shelves: audiobook, library-books
review:

]]> The State of the Art 12008
This limited first edition only includes the novella and no extra collections. It had a print of 400 numbered copies and comes in a slip-case signed by both author and cover artist.]]> 148 Iain M. Banks 0929480074 Donna 0 to-read 4.07 1991 The State of the Art
author: Iain M. Banks
name: Donna
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story]]> 204316857 The Nobelist's latest masterwork, set in a sanitarium on the eve of World War I, probes the horrors that lie beneath our most hallowed ideas.

In September 1913, MieczysĹ‚aw, a student suffering from tuberculosis, arrives at Wilhelm Opitz's Guesthouse for Gentlemen, a health resort inĚýGörbersdorf, what is now western Poland. Every day, its residents gather in the dining room to imbibe the hallucinogenic local liqueur, to obsess over money and status, and to discuss the great issues of the day: Will there be war? Monarchy or democracy? Do devils exist? Are women inherently inferior?

Meanwhile, disturbing things are beginning to happen in the guesthouse and its surroundings. As stories of shocking events in the surrounding highlands reach the men, a sense of dread builds. Someone—or something—seems to be watching them and attempting to infiltrate their world. Little does Mieczysław realize, as he attempts to unravel both the truths within himself and the mystery of the sinister forces beyond, that they have already chosen their next target.

A century after the publication of The Magic Mountain, Tokarczuk revisits Thomas Mann territory and lays claim to it, blending horror story, comedy, folklore, and feminist parable with brilliant storytelling.]]> 320 Olga Tokarczuk 0593712943 Donna 0 to-read, wishlist 3.66 2022 The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story
author: Olga Tokarczuk
name: Donna
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/25
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> Help the Witch 40799510
Riddled with talismans and portents, saturated by shadows beneath trees and whispers behind doors, these ten stories broaden the scope of folk tales as we know them. Inspired by our native landscapes and traversing boundaries of the past and future, this collection is Tom Cox's first foray into fiction. Funny, strange and poignant, it elicits the unexpected and unseen to raise our hackles and set imaginations whirring.

Inspired by our native landscapes, saturated by the shadows beneath trees and behind doors, listening to the run of water and half-heard voices, Tom Cox's first collection of short stories is a series of evocative and unsettling trips into worlds previously visited by the likes of M.R. James and E.F. Benson.

Railway tunnels, the lanes and hills of the Peak District, family homes, old stones, shreds fluttering on barbed wire, night drawing in, something that might be an animal shifting on the other side of a hedge: Tom has drawn on his life-long love of weird fiction, folklore and nature's unregarded corners to write a collection of stories that will delight fans old and new, and leave them very uneasy about turning the reading lamp off.]]> 241 Tom Cox 1783526696 Donna 3 audiobook, library-books 3.66 2018 Help the Witch
author: Tom Cox
name: Donna
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/20
date added: 2024/08/20
shelves: audiobook, library-books
review:

]]> Swanfolk 62897701 232 KristĂ­n Ă“marsdĂłttir 152911571X Donna 0 to-read 3.10 2019 Swanfolk
author: KristĂ­n Ă“marsdĂłttir
name: Donna
average rating: 3.10
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Virgin Blue 528340 304 Tracy Chevalier 0007108273 Donna 0 to-read 3.45 1997 The Virgin Blue
author: Tracy Chevalier
name: Donna
average rating: 3.45
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Quiet Belief in Angels 6481106 396 R.J. Ellory 1590202503 Donna 0 to-read 3.63 2007 A Quiet Belief in Angels
author: R.J. Ellory
name: Donna
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> New Boy (Hogarth Shakespeare) 35670511 From the New York Times bestselling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring comes the fifth installment in the Hogarth Shakespeare series, a modern retelling of Othello set in a suburban schoolyard

Arriving at his fifth school in as many years, a diplomat's son, Osei Kokote, knows he needs an ally if he is to survive his first day so he's lucky to hit it off with Dee, the most popular girl in school. But one student can't stand to witness this budding relationship: Ian decides to destroy the friendship between the black boy and the golden girl. By the end of the day, the school and its key players - teachers and pupils alike - will never be the same again.

The tragedy of Othello is transposed to a 1970's suburban Washington schoolyard, where kids fall in and out of love with each other before lunchtime, and practice a casual racism picked up from their parents and teachers. Peeking over the shoulders of four 11 year olds Osei, Dee, Ian, and his reluctant girlfriend Mimi, Tracy Chevalier's powerful drama of friends torn apart by jealousy, bullying and betrayal will leave you reeling.]]> 6 Tracy Chevalier 1489404031 Donna 3 audiobook, library-books 3.20 2017 New Boy (Hogarth Shakespeare)
author: Tracy Chevalier
name: Donna
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/16
date added: 2024/08/16
shelves: audiobook, library-books
review:

]]> The Fraud 123165176 🎧Audio Length = 12 hours and 26 minutes

This Earphones Award winner and New York Times bestseller was named a best book of 2023 by The New York Times, NPR, and more! When a lower-class butcher claims to be the heir to a vast fortune, the trial captivates 1873 London. And as housekeeper Eliza watches the case unfold, she begins to question her cousin’s success� Narrated by the author.
“With the virtuosic agility of an actor in a one-woman play, Smith as narrator so fully embodies each of her many distinct characters that she exposes, sometimes without their even knowing, the ways in which every one of us misrepresents ourselves in one way or another. This is a 19th-century novel of manners in which various people have very bad ones, and the result, thanks to the author’s perfect ear for comic timing, is vigorously, insistently funny…Smith bounces nimbly across the vernacular empire while leaving no mistake about her ubiquitous irony, her vocal side eye.� � Lauren Christensen, The New York Times Book Review

From acclaimed and bestselling novelist Zadie Smith, a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, about who deserves to tell their story—and who deserves to be believed

It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper—and cousin by marriage—of a once-famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years.

Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; and England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.

Andrew Bogle, meanwhile, grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica. He knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realize. When Bogle finds himself in London, star witness in a celebrated case of imposture, he knows his future depends on telling the right story.

The “Tichborne Trial”—wherein a lower-class butcher from Australia claimed he was in fact the rightful heir of a sizable estate and title—captivates Mrs. Touchet and all of England. Is Sir Roger Tichborne really who he says he is? Or is he a fraud? Mrs. Touchet is a woman of the world. Mr. Bogle is no fool. But in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what is real proves a complicated task. . . .

Based on real historical events, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about truth and fiction, Jamaica and Britain, fraudulence and authenticity and the mystery of “other people.”]]> Zadie Smith 059378877X Donna 4 audiobook, library-books 3.34 2023 The Fraud
author: Zadie Smith
name: Donna
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/13
date added: 2024/08/13
shelves: audiobook, library-books
review:

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