Margaret's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 12 May 2025 12:11:36 -0700 60 Margaret's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Great Big Beautiful Life 218559595 Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.

Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years--or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century.

When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.

One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.

Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication

Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.

But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.]]> 432 Emily Henry Margaret 0 to-read 4.10 2025 Great Big Beautiful Life
author: Emily Henry
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/12
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]]> Honor 56271394
IndianAmerican journalistSmita has returned to India to cover a story, but reluctantly: long ago she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back. As she follows the case of Meena—a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and her own family for marrying a Muslim man—Smita comes face to face with a society where tradition carries more weight than one’s own heart, and a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of Smita’s own past. While Meena’s fate hangs in the balance, Smita tries in every way she can to right the scales. She also finds herself increasingly drawn to Mohan, an Indian man she meets while on assignment. But the dual love stories of Honor are as different as the cultures of Meena and Smita themselves: Smita realizes she has the freedom to enter into a casual affair, knowing she can decide later how much it means to her.

In this tender and evocative novel about love, hope, familial devotion, betrayal, and sacrifice, Thrity Umrigar shows us two courageous women trying to navigate how to be true to their homelands and themselves at the same time.]]> 326 Thrity Umrigar 161620995X Margaret 4 4.32 2022 Honor
author: Thrity Umrigar
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2022
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/05/12
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]]> The Covenant of Water 180357146 From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala's Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humor, deep emotion, and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.]]> 715 Abraham Verghese 0802162177 Margaret 5 4.34 2023 The Covenant of Water
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/12
date added: 2025/05/12
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]]> Like Mother, Like Mother 203164564
Detroit, 1960. Lila Pereira is two years old when her angry, abusive father has her mother committed to an asylum. Lila never sees her mother again. Three decades later, having mustered everything she has—brains, charm, talent, blond hair—Lila rises to the pinnacle of American media as the powerful, brilliant executive editor of The Washington Globe. Lila unapologetically prioritizes her career, leaving the rearing of her daughters to her generous husband, Joe. He doesn’t mind—until he does.

But Grace, their youngest daughter, feels abandoned. She wishes her mother would attend PTA meetings, not White House correspondents� dinners. As she grows up, she cannot shake her resentment. She wants out from under Lila’s shadow, yet the more she resists, the more Lila seems to shape her life. Grace becomes a successful reporter, even publishing a bestselling book about her mother. In the process of writing it, she realizes how little she knows about her own family. Did Lila’s mother, Grace’s grandmother, die in that asylum? Is refusal to look back the only way to create a future? How can you ever be yourself, Grace wonders, if you don’t know where you came from?

Spanning generations, and populated by complex, unforgettable characters, Like Mother, Like Mother is an exhilarating, portrait of family, marriage, ambition, power, the stories we inherit, and the lies we tell to become the people we believe we’re meant to be.]]> 336 Susan Rieger 0525512497 Margaret 0 to-read 3.75 2024 Like Mother, Like Mother
author: Susan Rieger
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/21
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]]> Queen Bees and Wannabes 8135294 Queen Bees and Wannabes, Empower cofounder Rosalind Wiseman takes you inside the secret world of girls� friendships. Wiseman has spent more than a decade listening to thousands of girls talk about the powerful role cliques play in shaping what they wear and say, how they respond to boys, and how they feel about themselves. In this candid, insightful book, she dissects each role in the Queen Bees, Wannabes, Messengers, Bankers, Targets, Torn Bystanders, and more. She discusses girls� power plays, from birthday invitations to cafeteria seating arrangements and illicit parties. She takes readers into “Girl World� to analyze teasing, gossip, and reputations; beauty and fashion; alcohol and drugs; boys and sex; and more, and how cliques play a role in every situation.Each chapter includes “Check Your Baggage� sections to help you identify how your own background and biases affect how you see your daughter. “What You Can Do to Help� sections offer extensive sample scripts, bulleted lists, and other easy-to-use advice to get you inside your daughter’s world and help you help her.It’s not just about helping your daughter make it alive out of junior high. This book will help you understand how your daughter’s relationship with friends and cliques sets the stage for other intimate relationships as she grows and guides her when she has tougher choices to make about intimacy, drinking and drugs, and other hazards. With its revealing look into the secret world of teenage girls and cliques, enlivened with the voices of dozens of girls and a much-needed sense of humor, Queen Bees and Wannabes will equip you with all the tools you need to build the right foundation to help your daughter make smarter choices and empower her during this baffling, tumultuous time of life.]]> 448 Rosalind Wiseman 0307459977 Margaret 4 3.86 2002 Queen Bees and Wannabes
author: Rosalind Wiseman
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2002
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/09/17
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must read for those with young girls. interesting what the little "groups" are.
]]> One Hundred Years of Solitude 320 417 Gabriel García Márquez Margaret 0 currently-reading 4.10 1967 One Hundred Years of Solitude
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/05
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> The God of the Woods 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

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

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Margaret 0 to-read 4.15 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/05
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]]> <![CDATA[The Man in the Wooden Hat (Old Filth, #2)]]> 6570431 Old Filth has been acclaimed as Jane Gardam's masterpiece, a book where life and art merge. And now that beautiful, haunting novel has been joined by a companion that also bursts with humor and wisdom: The Man in the Wooden Hat.

Old Filth was Eddie's story. The Man in the Wooden Hat is the history of his marriage told from the perspective of his wife, Betty, a character as vivid and enchanting as Filth himself.

They met in Hong Kong after the war. Betty had spent the duration in a Japanese internment camp. Filth was already a successful barrister, handsome, fast becoming rich, in need of a wife but unaccustomed to romance. A perfect English couple of the late 1940s.

As a portrait of a marriage, with all the bittersweet secrets and surprising fulfillment of the 50-year union of two remarkable people, the novel is a triumph. The Man in the Wooden Hat is fiction of a very high order from a great novelist working at the pinnacle of her considerable power. It will be read and loved and recommended by all the many thousands of readers who found its predecessor, Old Filth, so compelling and so thoroughly satisfying.]]> 233 Jane Gardam 1933372893 Margaret 0 to-read 4.04 The Man in the Wooden Hat (Old Filth, #2)
author: Jane Gardam
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.04
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> The Wealth of Shadows 197516645
1939. Tax attorney Ansel Luxford has everything a man could want—a comfortable career, a brilliant wife, a beautiful new baby. But he is obsessed by a belief that Europe is on the precipice of a war that will grow to consume the world. The United States is officially proclaiming neutrality in any foreign conflict, but when Ansel is offered an opportunity to move to Washington, D.C., to join a clandestine team within the Treasury Department that is conspiring to undermine Nazi Germany, he uproots his family overnight and takes on the challenge of a lifetime.

How can they defeat the enemy without firing a bullet?

To thwart the Nazis, Ansel and his team invent a powerful new theater of economic warfare. Money is a dangerous weapon, and Ansel’s efforts will plunge him into a world full of espionage, peril, and deceit. He will crisscross the globe to broker backroom deals, undertake daring heists, and spar with titans of industry like J.P. Morgan and the century's greatest economic mind, Britain's John Maynard Keynes. When Ansel’s wife takes a job with the FBI to hunt for spies within the government, the need for subterfuge extends to the home front. And Ansel discovers that he might be closer to those spies than he could ever imagine.

The Wealth of Shadows is a gripping, mind-expanding thriller about the mysterious powers of money and the lies worth telling to defeat evil, as witnessed by an unassuming American at the center of the hidden war that shaped the modern world.]]> 384 Graham Moore 0593731921 Margaret 0 to-read 4.05 2024 The Wealth of Shadows
author: Graham Moore
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/20
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]]> Table for Two 195474144 From the bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Rules of Civility, a richly detailed and sharply drawn collection of stories set in New York and Los Angeles. The millions of readers of Amor Towles are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter six stories set in New York City and a novella in Los Angeles. The New York stories, most of which are set around the turn of the millennium, take up everything from the death-defying acrobatics of the male ego, to the fateful consequences of brief encounters, and the delicate mechanics of compromise which operate at the heart of modern marriages. In Towles’s novel, Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September, 1938, with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, “Eve in Hollywood� describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself—and others—in the midst of Hollywood’s golden age. Throughout the stories, two characters often find themselves sitting across a table for two where the direction of their futures may hinge upon what they say to each other next. Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting historical fiction.]]> 451 Amor Towles 0593296370 Margaret 0 currently-reading 4.15 2024 Table for Two
author: Amor Towles
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/03
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]]> All the Broken Places 61111301
Then, a new family moves into the apartment below her. In spite of herself, Gretel can't help but begin a friendship with the little boy, Henry, though his presence brings back memories she would rather forget. One night, she witnesses a disturbing, violent argument between Henry's beautiful mother and his arrogant father, one that threatens Gretel's hard-won, self-contained existence.

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

From the New York Times bestselling author John Boyne, a devastating, beautiful story about a woman who must confront the sins of her own terrible past, and a present in which it is never too late for bravery. ]]> 400 John Boyne 0593653068 Margaret 0 to-read 4.43 2022 All the Broken Places
author: John Boyne
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/03
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]]> <![CDATA[How Much of These Hills Is Gold]]> 45895362
Ba dies in the night; Ma is already gone. Newly orphaned children of immigrants, Lucy and Sam are suddenly alone in a land that refutes their existence. Fleeing the threats of their western mining town, they set off to bury their father in the only way that will set them free from their past. Along the way, they encounter giant buffalo bones, tiger paw prints, and the specters of a ravaged landscape as well as family secrets, sibling rivalry, and glimpses of a different kind of future.

Both epic and intimate, blending Chinese symbolism and re-imagined history with fiercely original language and storytelling, How Much of These Hills Is Gold is a haunting adventure story, an unforgettable sibling story, and the announcement of a stunning new voice in literature. On a broad level, it explores race in an expanding country and the question of where immigrants are allowed to belong. But page by page, it's about the memories that bind and divide families, and the yearning for home.]]> 288 C Pam Zhang 0525537201 Margaret 0 to-read 3.77 2020 How Much of These Hills Is Gold
author: C Pam Zhang
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow]]> 58784475 In this exhilarating novel, 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. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

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, 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.]]> 401 Gabrielle Zevin 0735243344 Margaret 3 4.12 2022 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/04/23
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]]> The Women 127305853
Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances "Frankie" McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm's way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.]]> 471 Kristin Hannah 1250178630 Margaret 4 4.58 2024 The Women
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/22
date added: 2024/04/22
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]]> None of This Is True 62334530
A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.

But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.

Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?]]> 390 Lisa Jewell 1982179007 Margaret 3 4.08 2023 None of This Is True
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/22
date added: 2024/03/07
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]]> Bright Young Women 101124639
The survivors, including key witness Pamela Schumacher, will be forever changed by this night. They have all become victims. But they tell their perspectives here, they remain masters of their stories. And they hunt the perpetrator on their own - against resistance from the justice system and the police; against public opinion, which idolizes the serial killer.]]> 384 Jessica Knoll 1501153226 Margaret 3 3.99 2023 Bright Young Women
author: Jessica Knoll
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/07
date added: 2024/03/07
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]]> River East, River West 127823210 SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
SHORTLISTED FOR THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAYA ANGELOU BOOK AWARD
FINALIST FOR THE STANFORDS' FICTION WITH A SENSE OF PLACE AWARD
LONGLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD
LONGLISTED FOR THE MASSACHUSETTS BOOK AWARD

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 openafter he meets an American woman who makes him confront difficult questions abouthis 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,River 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 profoundlymoving exploration of race and class, cultural identity and belonging, and the often-false promise of the American Dream.]]> 352 Aube Rey Lescure 0063257858 Margaret 0 currently-reading 3.99 2024 River East, River West
author: Aube Rey Lescure
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Shanghai Girls (Shanghai Girls, #1)]]> 5960325
In 1937, Shanghai is the Paris of Asia, a city of great wealth and glamour, the home of millionaires and beggars, gangsters and gamblers, patriots and revolutionaries, artists and warlords. Thanks to the financial security and material comforts provided by their father’s prosperous rickshaw business, twenty-one-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives. Though both sisters wave off authority and tradition, they couldn’t be more different: Pearl is a Dragon sign, strong and stubborn, while May is a true Sheep, adorable and placid. Both are beautiful, modern, and carefree . . . until the day their father tells them that he has gambled away their wealth and that in order to repay his debts he must sell the girls as wives to suitors who have traveled from California to find Chinese brides.

As Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, Pearl and May set out on the journey of a lifetime, one that will take them through the Chinese countryside, in and out of the clutch of brutal soldiers, and across the Pacific to the shores of America. In Los Angeles they begin a fresh chapter, trying to find love with the strangers they have married, brushing against the seduction of Hollywood, and striving to embrace American life even as they fight against discrimination, brave Communist witch hunts, and find themselves hemmed in by Chinatown’s old ways and rules.]]> 309 Lisa See 1400067111 Margaret 0 3.91 2009 Shanghai Girls (Shanghai Girls, #1)
author: Lisa See
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/20
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]]> Carrie Soto Is Back 60435878 Carrie Soto is fierce, and her determination to win at any cost has not made her popular.

By the time Carrie retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Slam titles. And if you ask her, she is entitled to every one. She sacrificed nearly everything to become the best, with her father as her coach.

But six years after her retirement, Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 US Open, watching her record be taken from her by a brutal, stunning, British player named Nicki Chan.

At thirty-seven years old, Carrie makes the monumental decision to come out of retirement and be coached by her father for one last year in an attempt to reclaim her record. Even if the sports media says that they never liked the 'Battle-Axe' anyway. Even if her body doesn't move as fast as it did. And even if it means swallowing her pride to train with a man she once almost opened her heart to: Bowe Huntley. Like her, he has something to prove before he gives up the game forever.

In spite of it all: Carrie Soto is back, for one epic final season. In this riveting and unforgettable novel, Taylor Jenkins Reid tells a story about the cost of greatness and a legendary athlete attempting a comeback.]]> 384 Taylor Jenkins Reid 0593158687 Margaret 0 to-read 4.19 2022 Carrie Soto Is Back
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/20
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]]> No. 23 Burlington Square 185040105
On the morning of Friday 5th February, 1927, Miss Agnes Humphries � the landlady of the attractive, if-slightly shabby, white-fronted townhouse at Number 23 Burlington Square � has a decision to make.

The rooms of the second floor lie empty, since poor Mr Blandford’s unfortunate demise, God rest his soul. And Agnes must make up her mind as to who will be her new lodger� Will it be her spirited, young niece Clara, who drifts through the glamorous world of London’s Bright Young Things? Or Stephen, the sensible, church-going, respectable banker who seems just be too good to be true? Or the timid war widow named Mercy, who is clearly running from something � or someone�?

Agnes must choose between them. But what will her decision lead to? One of the choices could result in scandal, one in devastation, and one could even lead to happiness. If only she gets it right�

As all three lodgers enter Number 23, in alternate timelines, relationships are formed and destroyed, feathers are ruffled, and secrets are exposed. Three different choices. Three very different paths. And Agnes is to discover that nobody � including herself � is quite who they seem�]]> 426 Jenni Keer 178513955X Margaret 0 to-read 4.19 2023 No. 23 Burlington Square
author: Jenni Keer
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/20
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]]> The Shipping News 7354
A vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary American family, The Shipping News shows why E. Annie Proulx is recognized as one of the most gifted and original writers in America today.
(back cover)]]> 337 Annie Proulx 0743225422 Margaret 1 3.88 1993 The Shipping News
author: Annie Proulx
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1993
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2023/10/31
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]]> I'm Glad My Mom Died 59364173
Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,� eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?� She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly , she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!�), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.]]> 320 Jennette McCurdy Margaret 3 4.45 2022 I'm Glad My Mom Died
author: Jennette McCurdy
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2022
rating: 3
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date added: 2023/09/12
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue]]> 50623864
Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.]]> 448 Victoria E. Schwab 0765387565 Margaret 4 4.16 2020 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 4
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date added: 2023/09/12
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]]> Horse 59109077 A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history

Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack.

New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.

Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse--one studying the stallion's bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.

Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.]]> 401 Geraldine Brooks 0399562966 Margaret 0 to-read 4.17 2022 Horse
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/06
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]]> Wicked: The Grimmerie 24937 Wicked

Wicked: The Grimmerie is the behind-the-scenes story of the hit that has captivated Broadway—and now the world. Designed to resemble the ancient book of spells that changes Ozian history, Wicked: The Grimmerie includes profiles of the cast and creative team, the complete, illustrated lyrics to all the songs, and more than 200 full-color photographs. Packed with thrillifying details, Wicked: The Grimmerie is also full of bonus features that will delight fans of the show, from an Ozian Glossararium and an Oz travelogue to a step-by-step look at how Elphaba gets green. No need for innuendo or outuendo: This is a must-have for Wicked fans of all ages.]]> 191 David Cote 1401308201 Margaret 0 to-read 4.19 2005 Wicked: The Grimmerie
author: David Cote
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Underground Railroad 29584452 Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, the #1 New York Times bestseller from Colson Whitehead, a magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.
In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.
Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.]]> 322 Colson Whitehead Margaret 4 4.19 2016 The Underground Railroad
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/02
date added: 2023/07/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Crazy Rich Asians (Crazy Rich Asians, #1)]]> 18158562
Rachel might as well have a target on her back. Initiated into a world of dynastic splendor beyond imagination, Rachel meets Astrid, the It Girl of Singapore society; Eddie, whose family practically lives in the pages of the Hong Kong socialite magazines; and Eleanor, Nick's formidable mother, a woman who has very strong feelings about who her son should--and should not--marry.

Uproarious, addictive, and filled with jaw-dropping opulence, Crazy Rich Asians is an insider's look at the Asian JetSet; a perfect depiction of the clash between old money and new money; between Overseas Chinese and Mainland Chinese; and a fabulous novel about what it means to be young, in love, and gloriously,crazilyrich.]]> 546 Kevin Kwan 0385536984 Margaret 3 3.99 2013 Crazy Rich Asians (Crazy Rich Asians, #1)
author: Kevin Kwan
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2023/07/02
date added: 2023/07/02
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]]> The Whalebone Theatre 59900661
With her step-parents blithely distracted by their endless party guests, Cristabel and her siblings, Flossie and Digby, scratch together an education from the plays they read in their freezing attic, drunken conversations eavesdropped through oak-panelled doors, and the esoteric lessons of Maudie their maid.

But as the children grow to adulthood and war approaches, jolting their lives on to very different tracks, it becomes clear that the roles they are expected to play are no longer those they want. As they find themselves drawn into the conflict, they must each find a way to write their own story...

This is the story of an old English manor house by the sea, with crumbling chimneys, draping ivy and a library full of dusty hardbacks. It's the story of the three children who grow up there, and the adventures they create for themselves while the grown-ups entertain endless party guests: the worlds they imagine from books they aren't supposed to read, and the lessons they learn from eavesdropping through oak-panelled doors.

This is the story of a whale that washes up on a beach, whose bones are claimed by a twelve-year-old girl with big ambitions and an even bigger imagination. An unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, chafing under the confines of her traditional upbringing and fiercely determined to do things differently.]]> 558 Joanna Quinn 0593321707 Margaret 0 to-read 3.98 2022 The Whalebone Theatre
author: Joanna Quinn
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/02
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]]> Yellowface 59357120
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.

But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.]]> 329 R.F. Kuang Margaret 0 currently-reading 3.84 2023 Yellowface
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/19
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Between Shades of Gray 7824322
Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously—and at great risk—documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.]]> 344 Ruta Sepetys 0399254129 Margaret 0 to-read 4.36 2011 Between Shades of Gray
author: Ruta Sepetys
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/06/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Eye of the Elephant: An Epic Adventure in the African Wilderness]]> 613929 306 Delia Owens 0395680905 Margaret 0 to-read 4.08 1992 The Eye of the Elephant: An Epic Adventure in the African Wilderness
author: Delia Owens
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/16
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]]> Age of Vice 60177466 This is the age of vice, where money, pleasure, and power are everything, and the family ties that bind can also kill.

New Delhi, 3 a.m. A speeding Mercedes jumps the curb and in the blink of an eye, five people are dead. It’s a rich man’s car, but when the dust settles there is no rich man at all, just a shell-shocked servant who cannot explain the strange series of events that led to this crime. Nor can he foresee the dark drama that is about to unfold.

Deftly shifting through time and perspective in contemporary India, Age of Vice is an epic, action-packed story propelled by the seductive wealth, startling corruption, and bloodthirsty violence of the Wadia family � loved by some, loathed by others, feared by all.

In the shadow of lavish estates, extravagant parties, predatory business deals and calculated political influence, three lives become dangerously intertwined: Ajay is the watchful servant, born into poverty, who rises through the family’s ranks. Sunny is the playboy heir who dreams of outshining his father, whatever the cost. And Neda is the curious journalist caught between morality and desire. Against a sweeping plot fueled by loss, pleasure, greed, yearning, violence and revenge, will these characters� connections become a path to escape, or a trigger of further destruction?

Equal parts crime thriller and family saga, transporting readers from the dusty villages of Uttar Pradesh to the urban energy of New Delhi, Age of Vice is an intoxicating novel of gangsters and lovers, false friendships, forbidden romance, and the consequences of corruption. It is binge-worthy entertainment at its literary best.]]> 544 Deepti Kapoor 0593328795 Margaret 4 3.55 2023 Age of Vice
author: Deepti Kapoor
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2023
rating: 4
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date added: 2023/04/16
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]]> The Lincoln Highway 57109107 The bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility and master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction returns with a stylish and propulsive novel set in 1950s America

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

Spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view, Towles’s third novel will satisfy fans of his multi-layered literary styling while providing them an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters, and themes.]]> 576 Amor Towles 0735222355 Margaret 4 4.18 2021 The Lincoln Highway
author: Amor Towles
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/09
date added: 2023/03/09
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]]> Orphan Train 36269116 The #1 New York Times Bestseller

“A lovely novel about the search for family that also happens to illuminate a fascinating and forgotten chapter of America’s history. Beautiful.”—Ann Packer

Between 1854 and 1929, so-called orphan trains ran regularly from the cities of the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest, carrying thousands of abandoned children whose fates would be determined by pure luck. Would they be adopted by a kind and loving family, or would they face a childhood and adolescence of hard labor and servitude?

As a young Irish immigrant, Vivian Daly was one such child, sent by rail from New York City to an uncertain future a world away. Returning east later in life, Vivian leads a quiet, peaceful existence on the coast of Maine, the memories of her upbringing rendered a hazy blur. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past.

Seventeen-year-old Molly Ayer knows that a community service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping her out of juvenile hall. But as Molly helps Vivian sort through her keepsakes and possessions, she discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they appear. A Penobscot Indian who has spent her youth in and out of foster homes, Molly is also an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past.

Moving between contemporary Maine and Depression-era Minnesota, Orphan Train is a powerful novel of upheaval and resilience, of second chances, and unexpected friendship.]]> 403 Christina Baker Kline Margaret 3 4.42 2013 Orphan Train
author: Christina Baker Kline
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2023/03/09
date added: 2023/03/09
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]]> The Goldfinch 17333223
Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love - and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettably vivid characters and thrilling suspense, it is a beautiful, addictive triumph - a sweeping story of loss and obsession, of survival and self-invention, of the deepest mysteries of love, identity and fate.]]> 771 Donna Tartt 0316055433 Margaret 3 3.94 2013 The Goldfinch
author: Donna Tartt
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2013/12/27
date added: 2022/10/02
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]]> The Silent Patient 40396699 Promising to be the debut novel of the season The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive�

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him....]]> 362 Alex Michaelides Margaret 1 4.18 2019 The Silent Patient
author: Alex Michaelides
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2019
rating: 1
read at: 2019/09/22
date added: 2022/10/02
shelves:
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]]> The Underground Railroad 30555488
In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor--engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.

Like the protagonist of Gulliver's Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey--hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.]]> 320 Colson Whitehead 0385542364 Margaret 4 4.04 2016 The Underground Railroad
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2022/10/02
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]]> Malibu Rising 58745185 An alternate cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Four famous siblings throw an epic party to celebrate the end of the summer. But over the course of twenty-four hours, their lives will change forever.

Malibu: August 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together, the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over—especially as the offspring of the legendary singer Mick Riva.

The only person not looking forward to the party of the year is Nina herself, who never wanted to be the center of attention, and who has also just been very publicly abandoned by her pro tennis player husband. Oh, and maybe Hud—because it is long past time to confess something to the brother from whom he’s been inseparable since birth.

Jay, on the other hand, is counting the minutes until nightfall, when the girl he can’t stop thinking about promised she’ll be there.

And Kit has a couple secrets of her own—including a guest she invited without consulting anyone.

By midnight the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family’s generations will all come rising to the surface.

Malibu Rising is a story about one unforgettable night in the life of a family: the night they each have to choose what they will keep from the people who made them . . . and what they will leave behind.]]> 369 Taylor Jenkins Reid Margaret 1 3.98 2021 Malibu Rising
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2021
rating: 1
read at: 2022/10/02
date added: 2022/10/02
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]]> Little Fires Everywhere 34331079
Enter Mia Warren—an enigmatic artist and single mother—who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town—and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs.

Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood—and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.

Named a Best Book of the Year by: People, The Washington Post, Bustle, Esquire, Southern Living, The Daily Beast, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Audible, ŷ, Library Reads, Book of the Month, Paste, Kirkus Reviews, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and many more...

Perfect for book clubs! Visit celesteng.com for discussion guides and more. ]]> 348 Celeste Ng Margaret 5 4.23 2017 Little Fires Everywhere
author: Celeste Ng
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2017/10/25
date added: 2022/02/09
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]]> The School for Good Mothers 57846320 An alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781982156121 can be found here.

In this taut and explosive debut novel, one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.

Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents� sacrifices. What’s worse is she can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with their angelic daughter Harriet does Frida finally feel she’s attained the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she’s just enough.

Until Frida has a horrible day.

The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida � ones who check their phones while their kids are on the playground; who let their children walk home alone; in other words, mothers who only have one lapse of judgement. Now, a host of government officials will determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion. Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that she can live up to the standards set for mothers � that she can learn to be good.

This propulsive, witty page-turner explores the perils of “perfect� upper-middle-class parenting, the violence enacted upon women by the state and each other, and the boundless love a mother has for her daughter.]]> 336 Jessamine Chan Margaret 0 to-read 3.51 2022 The School for Good Mothers
author: Jessamine Chan
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/02/08
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]]> <![CDATA[The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963]]> 108077 The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963 , celebrates 20 years with this anniversary edition featuring a special letter from Christopher Paul Curtis and an introduction by noted educator Dr. Pauletta Bracy.
Enter the hilarious world of ten-year-old Kenny and his family, the Weird Watsons of Flint, Michigan. There's Momma, Dad, little sister Joetta, and brother Byron, who's thirteen and an "official juvenile delinquent." When Momma and Dad decide it's time for a visit to Grandma, Dad comes home with the amazing Ultra-Glide, and the Watsons set out on a trip like no other. They're heading South to Birmingham, Alabama, toward one of the darkest moments in America's history.]]> 224 Christopher Paul Curtis 044022800X Margaret 0 to-read 4.00 1995 The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963
author: Christopher Paul Curtis
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/01/29
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]]> Those Who Save Us 49465
Driven by the guilt of her heritage, Trudy, now a professor of German history, begins investigating the past and finally unearths the dramatic and heartbreaking truth of her mother's life.

Combining a passionate, doomed love story, a vivid evocation of life during the war, and a poignant mother/daughter drama, Those Who Save Us is a profound exploration of what we endure to survive and the legacy of shame.]]> 479 Jenna Blum 0156031663 Margaret 0 4.10 2004 Those Who Save Us
author: Jenna Blum
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/29
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]]> The Orphan's Tale 29239940 Alternate cover edition for ASIN B01HB9Q7CW

A powerful novel of friendship set in a traveling circus during World War II, The Orphan's Tale introduces two extraordinary women and their harrowing stories of sacrifice and survival.

Sixteen-year-old Noa has been cast out in disgrace after becoming pregnant by a Nazi soldier and being forced to give up her baby. She lives above a small rail station, which she cleans in order to earn her keep. When Noa discovers a boxcar containing dozens of Jewish infants bound for a concentration camp, she is reminded of the child that was taken from her. And in a moment that will change the course of her life, she snatches one of the babies and flees into the snowy night.

Noa finds refuge with a German circus, but she must learn the flying trapeze act so she can blend in undetected, spurning the resentment of the lead aerialist, Astrid. At first rivals, Noa and Astrid soon forge a powerful bond. But as the facade that protects them proves increasingly tenuous, Noa and Astrid must decide whether their friendship is enough to save one another - or if the secrets that burn between them will destroy everything.]]> 353 Pam Jenoff 0778319814 Margaret 0 to-read 4.00 2017 The Orphan's Tale
author: Pam Jenoff
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/29
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]]> The Book of Lost Friends 53025903 A new novel inspired by historical events: a story of three young women on a journey in search of family amidst the destruction of the post-Civil War South, and of a modern-day teacher who rediscovers their story and its connection to her own students' lives.

Lisa Wingate brings to life stories from actual "Lost Friends" advertisements that appeared in Southern newspapers after the Civil War, as freed slaves desperately searched for loved ones who had been sold off.

Louisiana, 1875 In the tumultuous aftermath of Reconstruction, three young women set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest: Lavinia, the pampered heir to a now-destitute plantation; Juneau Jane, her illegitimate free-born Creole half-sister; and Hannie, Lavinia's former slave. Each carries private wounds and powerful secrets as they head for Texas, following dangerous roads rife with ruthless vigilantes and soldiers still fighting a war lost a decade before. For Lavinia and Juneau Jane, the journey is one of inheritance and financial desperation, but for Hannie, torn from her mother and eight siblings before slavery's end, the pilgrimage westward reignites an agonizing question: Could her long-lost family still be out there? Beyond the swamps lie the seemingly limitless frontiers of Texas and, improbably, hope.

Louisiana, 1987 For first-year teacher Benedetta Silva, a subsidized job at a poor rural school seems like the ticket to canceling her hefty student debt--until she lands in a tiny, out-of-step Mississippi River town. Augustine, Louisiana, seems suspicious of new ideas and new people, and Benny can scarcely comprehend the lives of her poverty-stricken students. But amid the gnarled oaks and run-down plantation homes lies the century-old history of three young women, a long-ago journey, and a hidden book that could change everything.]]> 388 Lisa Wingate 1984819887 Margaret 0 to-read 4.11 2020 The Book of Lost Friends
author: Lisa Wingate
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/01/29
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]]> The Personal Librarian 55333938 This is a previously-published edition of ISBN 9780593101537.

The remarkable, little-known story of Belle da Costa Greene, J. P. Morgan's personal librarian—who became one of the most powerful women in New York despite the dangerous secret she kept in order to make her dreams come true, from New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict and acclaimed author Victoria Christopher Murray.

In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture on the New York society scene and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps build a world-class collection.

But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle's complexion isn't dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as white—her complexion is dark because she is African American.

The Personal Librarian tells the story of an extraordinary woman, famous for her intellect, style, and wit, and shares the lengths to which she must go—for the protection of her family and her legacy—to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lives.]]> 341 Marie Benedict Margaret 0 to-read 3.98 2021 The Personal Librarian
author: Marie Benedict
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/01/29
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]]> And the Mountains Echoed 16115612 404 Khaled Hosseini 159463176X Margaret 0 4.06 2012 And the Mountains Echoed
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/01/29
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]]> Slaughterhouse-Five 4981 Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.�

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

Fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut's portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties.]]> 275 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Margaret 0 to-read 4.10 1969 Slaughterhouse-Five
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1969
rating: 0
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]]> Catch-22 168668
Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller’s masterpiece with a new introduction by Christopher Buckley; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos from Joseph Heller’s personal archive; and much more. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.]]> 453 Joseph Heller 0684833395 Margaret 0 to-read 3.99 1961 Catch-22
author: Joseph Heller
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1961
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hangman's Daughter (The Hangman's Daughter, #1)]]> 9496240
Jakob Kuisl is charged with extracting a confession from her and torturing her until he gets one. Convinced she is innocent, he, Magdalena, and her would-be suitor race against the clock to find the true killer. Approaching Walpurgisnacht, when witches are believed to dance in the forest and mate with the devil, another tattooed orphan is found dead and the town becomes frenzied. More than one person has spotted what looks like the devil—a man with a hand made only of bones. The hangman, his daughter, and the doctor’s son face a terrifying and very real enemy.

Page Numbers Source ISBN: 054774501X]]> 448 Oliver Pötzsch Margaret 0 to-read 3.72 2008 The Hangman's Daughter (The Hangman's Daughter, #1)
author: Oliver Pötzsch
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Little House on the Prairie (Little House, #3)]]> 77767
Pa Ingalls decides to sell the little log house, and the family sets out for Indian country! They travel from Wisconsin to Kansas, and there, finally, Pa builds their little house on the prairie. Sometimes farm life is difficult, even dangerous, but Laura and her family are kept busy and are happy with the promise of their new life on the prairie.

LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE is the second book in the Laura Years series.
--back cover]]> 335 Laura Ingalls Wilder Margaret 0 4.21 1935 Little House on the Prairie (Little House, #3)
author: Laura Ingalls Wilder
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1935
rating: 0
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]]> The Thorn Birds 3412
The central figures in this enthralling story are the indomitable Meggie, the only Cleary daughter, and the one man she truly loves, the stunningly handsome and ambitious priest Ralph de Bricassart. Ralph's course moves him a long way indeed, from a remote Outback parish to the halls of the Vatican; and Meggie's except for a brief and miserable marriage elsewhere, is fixed to the Drogheda that is part of her bones - but distance does not dim their feelings though it shapes their lives.

Wonderful characters people this book; strong and gentle, Paddy, hiding a private memory; dutiful Fiona, holding back love because it once betrayed her, violent, tormented Frank, and the other hardworking Cleary sons who give the boundless lands of Drogheda the energy and devotion most men save for women; Meggie; Ralph; and Meggie's children, Justine and Dane. And the land itself; stark, relentless in its demands, brilliant in its flowering, prey to gigantic cycles of drought and flood, rich when nature is bountiful, surreal like no other place on earth.

Alternate Cover Edition ISBN 0380018179 (ISBN13: 9780380018178)]]> 692 Colleen McCullough Margaret 0 to-read 4.24 1977 The Thorn Birds
author: Colleen McCullough
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1977
rating: 0
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]]> March 13529 Winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

From the author of the acclaimed Year of Wonders, a historical novel and love story set during a time of catastrophe, on the front lines of the American Civil War. Acclaimed author Geraldine Brooks gives us the story of the absent father from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women—and conjures a world of brutality, stubborn courage and transcendent love. An idealistic abolitionist, March has gone as chaplain to serve the Union cause. But the war tests his faith not only in the Union—which is also capable of barbarism and racism—but in himself. As he recovers from a near-fatal illness, March must reassemble and reconnect with his family, who have no idea of what he has endured. A love story set in a time of catastrophe, March explores the passions between a man and a woman, the tenderness of parent and child, and the life-changing power of an ardently held belief.]]> 280 Geraldine Brooks Margaret 0 to-read 3.77 2005 March
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Master and Commander (Aubrey & Maturin, #1)]]> 53597791 Sophie. Meanwhile—after a heated first encounter that nearly comes to a duel—Aubrey and a brilliant but down-on-his-luck physician, Stephen Maturin, strike up an unlikely rapport. On a whim, Aubrey invites Maturin to join his crew as the Sophie’s surgeon. And so begins the legendary friendship that anchors this beloved saga set against the thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars.


Through every ensuing adventure on which Aubrey and Maturin embark, from the witty parley of their lovers and enemies to the roar of broadsides as great ships close in battle around them, O’Brian “provides endlessly varying shocks and surprises—comic, grim, farcical and tragic.� [A] whole, solidly living world for the imagination to inhabit� (A. S. Byatt).]]> 384 Patrick O'Brian 0393541584 Margaret 0 to-read 4.00 1969 Master and Commander (Aubrey & Maturin, #1)
author: Patrick O'Brian
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1969
rating: 0
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]]> War and Peace 656
War and Peace broadly focuses on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both men.

As Napoleon’s army invades, Tolstoy brilliantly follows characters from diverse backgrounds—peasants and nobility, civilians and soldiers—as they struggle with the problems unique to their era, their history, and their culture. And as the novel progresses, these characters transcend their specificity, becoming some of the most moving—and human—figures in world literature.


Tolstoy gave his personal approval to this translation, published here in a new single volume edition, which includes an introduction by Henry Gifford, and Tolstoy's important essay `Some Words about War and Peace'.]]> 1392 Leo Tolstoy 0192833987 Margaret 0 to-read 4.14 1869 War and Peace
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1869
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Killer Angels (The Civil War Trilogy, #2)]]> 682804 The Killer Angels is unique, sweeping, unforgettable—a dramatic re-creation of the battleground for America's destiny.]]> 345 Michael Shaara 0345348109 Margaret 0 to-read 4.32 1974 The Killer Angels (The Civil War Trilogy, #2)
author: Michael Shaara
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1974
rating: 0
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]]> The Great Alone 34912895 Unpredictable. Unforgiving. Untamed.
For a family in crisis, the ultimate test of survival.

Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.

Thirteen-year-old Leni, a girl coming of age in a tumultuous time, caught in the riptide of her parents� passionate, stormy relationship, dares to hope that a new land will lead to a better future for her family. She is desperate for a place to belong. Her mother, Cora, will do anything and go anywhere for the man she loves, even if it means following him into the unknown.

At first, Alaska seems to be the answer to their prayers. In a wild, remote corner of the state, they find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the Allbrights� lack of preparation and dwindling resources.

But as winter approaches and darkness descends on Alaska, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates and the family begins to fracture. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own. In the wild, there is no one to save them but themselves.

In this unforgettable portrait of human frailty and resilience, Kristin Hannah reveals the indomitable character of the modern American pioneer and the spirit of a vanishing Alaska―a place of incomparable beauty and danger. The Great Alone is a daring, beautiful, stay-up-all-night story about love and loss, the fight for survival, and the wildness that lives in both man and nature.]]> 435 Kristin Hannah Margaret 1 did-not-like 4.44 2018 The Great Alone
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2018
rating: 1
read at: 2018/09/15
date added: 2022/01/29
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]]> The Poisonwood Bible 7244 The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.]]> 546 Barbara Kingsolver 0060786507 Margaret 0 did-not-like 4.10 1998 The Poisonwood Bible
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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]]> The Light Between Oceans 13158800 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

Australia, 1926. After four harrowing years fighting on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns home to take a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day's journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby's cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.

Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom's judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.

M. L. Stedman's mesmerizing, beautifully written debut novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel's decision to keep this "gift from God." And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another's tragic loss.]]> 362 M.L. Stedman 1451681739 Margaret 0 4.02 2012 The Light Between Oceans
author: M.L. Stedman
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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]]> Daisy Jones & The Six 40597810 Everyone knows DAISY JONES & THE SIX, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.

Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ’n� roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.

Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.

Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.

The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.]]> 368 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1524798622 Margaret 0 4.20 2019 Daisy Jones & The Six
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> Circe 35959740
Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts, and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from or with the mortals she has come to love.]]> 393 Madeline Miller 0316556343 Margaret 5 much-loved-reads 4.22 2018 Circe
author: Madeline Miller
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2021/12/11
date added: 2021/12/12
shelves: much-loved-reads
review:

]]> The Banker’s Wife 36398129
Meanwhile, ambitious society journalist Marina Tourneau has finally landed at the top. Now that she's engaged to Grant Ellis, she will stop writing about powerful families and finally be a part of one. Her entry into the upper echelons of New York's social scene is more appealing than any article could ever be, but, after the death of her mentor, she agrees to dig into one more story. While looking into Swiss United, Marina uncovers information that implicates some of the most powerful men in the financial world, including a few who are too close to home. The story could also be the answer to Annabel's heartbreaking search--if Marina chooses to publish it.]]> 341 Cristina Alger 0735218455 Margaret 1 did-not-like 3.84 2018 The Banker’s Wife
author: Cristina Alger
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2018
rating: 1
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]]> Cloud Cuckoo Land 56783258 When everything is lost, it’s our stories that survive.

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

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

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

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

Bound together by a single ancient text, these tales interweave to form a tapestry of solace and resilience and a celebration of storytelling itself. Like its predecessor All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr’s new novel is a tale of hope and of profound human connection.]]> 626 Anthony Doerr 1982168439 Margaret 0 to-read 4.24 2021 Cloud Cuckoo Land
author: Anthony Doerr
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Beautiful World, Where Are You]]> 56597885 356 Sally Rooney 0374602603 Margaret 0 to-read 3.53 2021 Beautiful World, Where Are You
author: Sally Rooney
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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]]> Apeirogon 50024187 From the National Book Award–winning andbestselling author of Let the Great World Spin comes an epic novel rooted in the real-life friendship between two men united by loss.

Colum McCann’s most ambitious work to date, Apeirogon—named for a shape with a countably infinite number of sides—is a tour de force concerning friendship, love, loss, and belonging.

Bassam Aramin is Palestinian. Rami Elhanan is Israeli. They inhabit a world of conflict that colors every aspect of their daily lives, from the roads they are allowed to drive on, to the schools their daughters, Abir and Smadar, each attend, to the checkpoints, both physical and emotional, they must negotiate.

Their worlds shift irreparably after ten-year-old Abir is killed by a rubber bullet and thirteen-year-old Smadar becomes the victim of suicide bombers. When Bassam and Rami learn of each other’s stories, they recognize the loss that connects them and they attempt to use their grief as a weapon for peace.

McCann crafts Apeirogon out of a universe of fictional and nonfictional material. He crosses centuries and continents, stitching together time, art, history, nature, and politics in a tale both heartbreaking and hopeful. Musical, cinematic, muscular, delicate, and soaring, Apeirogon is a novel for our time.]]> 480 Colum McCann 067960460X Margaret 0 currently-reading 4.29 2019 Apeirogon
author: Colum McCann
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> Sold on a Monday 40216845 Celebrating five months on the NEW YORK TIMES & USA TODAY bestsellers lists and almost a million copies sold!

From bestselling author Kristina McMorris comes another unforgettable novel inspired by a stunning piece of history.

2 CHILDREN FOR SALE

The scrawled sign, peddling young siblings on a farmhouse porch, captures the desperation sweeping the country in 1931. It’s an era of breadlines, bank runs, and impossible choices.

For struggling reporter Ellis Reed, the gut-wrenching scene evokes memories of his family’s dark past. He snaps a photograph of the children, not meant for publication. But when the image leads to his big break, the consequences are devastating in ways he never imagined.

Haunted by secrets of her own, secretary Lillian Palmer sees more in the picture than a good story and is soon drawn into the fray. Together, the two set out to right a wrongdoing and mend a fractured family, at the risk of everything they value.

Inspired by an actual newspaper photo that stunned readers across the nation, this touching novel explores the tale within the frame and behind the lens—a journey of ambition, love, and the far-reaching effects of our actions.]]> 352 Kristina McMorris 1492664006 Margaret 0 currently-reading 4.17 2018 Sold on a Monday
author: Kristina McMorris
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/11/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Stillhouse Lake (Stillhouse Lake, #1)]]> 33128934 An Amazon Charts and USA Today bestseller.

Gina Royal is the definition of average—a shy Midwestern housewife with a happy marriage and two adorable children. But when a car accident reveals her husband’s secret life as a serial killer, she must remake herself as Gwen Proctor—the ultimate warrior mom.

With her ex now in prison, Gwen has finally found refuge in a new home on remote Stillhouse Lake. Though still the target of stalkers and Internet trolls who think she had something to do with her husband’s crimes, Gwen dares to think her kids can finally grow up in peace.

But just when she’s starting to feel at ease in her new identity, a body turns up in the lake—and threatening letters start arriving from an all-too-familiar address. Gwen Proctor must keep friends close and enemies at bay to avoid being exposed—or watch her kids fall victim to a killer who takes pleasure in tormenting her. One thing is she’s learned how to fight evil. And she’ll never stop.

]]> 301 Rachel Caine 1477821554 Margaret 0 currently-reading 4.12 2017 Stillhouse Lake (Stillhouse Lake, #1)
author: Rachel Caine
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/09/09
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]]> The Island of Sea Women 40538657 9781501154850

Set on the Korean island of Jeju, The Island of Sea Women follows Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls from very different backgrounds, as they begin working in the sea with their village’s all-female diving collective. Over many decades—through the Japanese colonialism of the 1930s and 1940s, World War II, the Korean War, and the era of cellphones and wet suits for the women divers—Mi-ja and Young-sook develop the closest of bonds. Nevertheless, their differences are impossible to ignore: Mi-ja is the daughter of a Japanese collaborator, forever marking her, and Young-sook was born into a long line of haenyeo and will inherit her mother’s position leading the divers. After hundreds of dives and years of friendship, forces outside their control will push their relationship to the breaking point.

This beautiful, thoughtful novel illuminates a unique and unforgettable culture, one where the women are in charge, engaging in dangerous physical work, and the men take care of the children. A classic Lisa See story—one of women’s friendships and the larger forces that shape them�The Island of Sea Women introduces readers to the fierce female divers of Jeju Island and the dramatic history that shaped their lives.]]> 374 Lisa See Margaret 2 4.29 2019 The Island of Sea Women
author: Lisa See
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2019
rating: 2
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]]> <![CDATA[The Sanatorium (Detective Elin Warner, #1)]]> 56935099 You won't want to leave...until you can't.

Half hidden by forest and overshadowed by threatening peaks, Le Sommet has always been a sinister place. Long plagued by troubling rumors, the former abandoned sanatorium has since been renovated into a five-star minimalist hotel.

An imposing, isolated getaway spot high up in the Swiss Alps is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But Elin's taken time off from her job as a detective, so when her estranged brother, Isaac, and his fiancée, Laure, invite her to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, Elin really has no reason not to accept.

Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge--there's something about the hotel that makes her nervous. And when they wake the following morning to discover Laure is missing, Elin must trust her instincts if they hope to find her. With the storm closing off all access to the hotel, the longer Laure stays missing, the more the remaining guests start to panic.

Elin is under pressure to find Laure, but no one has realized yet that another woman has gone missing. And she's the only one who could have warned them just how much danger they are all in...]]> 390 Sarah Pearse 0593296672 Margaret 0 to-read 3.33 2020 The Sanatorium (Detective Elin Warner, #1)
author: Sarah Pearse
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/25
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]]> Pachinko 34051011
Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters—strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis—survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.]]> 496 Min Jin Lee Margaret 0 currently-reading 4.35 2017 Pachinko
author: Min Jin Lee
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/02/08
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]]> The Banty House 52635854
An abandoned teen with a baby on the way and nowhere to go, she’s given a room to call her own for as long as she wants. The kind invitation is made all the sweeter when Ginger meets the sisters� young handyman, Sloan Baker. But with a past as broken as Ginger’s, he’s vowed never to get close to anyone again. As a season of change unfolds, Ginger and Sloan might discover a warm haven to heal in the Banty House, a place to finally belong, where hope and dreams never fade.]]> 289 Carolyn Brown 1542017238 Margaret 0 to-read 4.33 2020 The Banty House
author: Carolyn Brown
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/02/08
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]]> <![CDATA[JFK and Mary Meyer: A Love Story]]> 49090879
John F. Kennedy said he needed sex every three days or he got a headache. In the White House, he never had a headache. Kennedy met Mary Pinchot in 1935, when he was eighteen and she was sixteen. Twenty years later, when she was living in Virginia and married to Cord Meyer, a high-ranking CIA official, she was Jack and Jackie Kennedy’s next-door neighbor. In 1962, she was an artist, divorced, living in Washington—and Kennedy’s first serious romance. Mary Pinchot Meyer was more than a bedmate. She was Kennedy’s beacon his sole female adviser, spending mornings in the Oval Office, and, at night, discussing issues. After the 1964 election, Kennedy said, he would divorce Jackie and marry her.

After the assassination, Mary didn’t believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, and she shared that view, loudly and often, in Washington’s most elite circles. Her ex-husband urged her to be silent, but when the report of the Warren Commission was released, she was even more loudly critical.

On October 10, 1964, two days before her forty-forth birthday, as she walked in Georgetown, a man shot her in the head and the heart. That night, Mary's best friend called her sister. “Mary had a diary,� she said. “Get it.�

The diary was filled with sketches, notes for paintings—and ten pages about an affair with an unnamed lover. Her sister burned it. In JFK and Mary A Love Story , Jesse Kornbluth recreates the diary Mary might have written. Working from a timeline of Kennedy’s presidency and every documented account of their public relationship, he has written a high-octane thriller that tracks this secret, doomed romance—and invites readers to solve Mary’s murder.]]> 192 Jesse Kornbluth 1510759158 Margaret 4 3.54 JFK and Mary Meyer: A Love Story
author: Jesse Kornbluth
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.54
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2021/02/08
date added: 2021/02/08
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]]> Send for Me 53481714 An achingly beautiful work of historical fiction that moves between Germany on the eve of World War II and present day Wisconsin, unspooling a thread of love, longing, and the ceaseless push and pull of family

Annelise is a dreamer: imagining her future while working at her parents' popular bakery in Feldenheim, Germany, anticipating all the delicious possibilities yet to come. There are rumors that anti-Jewish sentiment is on the rise, but Annelise and her parents can't quite believe that it will affect them; they're hardly religious at all. But as Annelise falls in love, marries, and gives birth to her daughter, the dangers grow closer: a brick thrown through her window; a childhood friend who cuts ties with her; customers refusing to patronize the bakery. Luckily Annelise and her husband are given the chance to leave for America, but they must go without her parents, whose future and safety are uncertain.

Two generations later, in a small Midwestern city, Annelise's granddaughter, Clare, is a young woman newly in love. But when she stumbles upon a trove of her grandmother's letters from Germany, she sees the history of her family's sacrifices in a new light, and suddenly she's faced with an impossible choice: the past, or her future. A novel of dazzling emotional richness, Send for Me is a major departure for this acclaimed author, an epic and intimate exploration of mothers and daughters, duty and obligation, hope and forgiveness.]]> 272 Lauren Fox Margaret 0 to-read 3.37 2021 Send for Me
author: Lauren Fox
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/02/08
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]]> Bloodline 50416762 An ITW Thriller Award and Anthony Award winner.

Perfect town. Perfect homes. Perfect families. It’s enough to drive some women mad�

In a tale inspired by real events, pregnant journalist Joan Harken is cautiously excited to follow her fiancé back to his Minnesota hometown. After spending a childhood on the move and chasing the screams and swirls of news-rich city life, she’s eager to settle down. Lilydale’s motto, “Come Home Forever,� couldn’t be more inviting.

And yet, something is off in the picture-perfect village.

The friendliness borders on intrusive. Joan can’t shake the feeling that every move she makes is being tracked. An archaic organization still seems to hold the town in thrall. So does the sinister secret of a little boy who vanished decades ago. And unless Joan is imagining things, a frighteningly familiar figure from her past is on watch in the shadows.

Her fiancé tells her she’s being paranoid.He might be right. Then again, she might have moved to the deadliest small town on earth.]]> 347 Jess Lourey 1542016290 Margaret 0 to-read 3.89 2021 Bloodline
author: Jess Lourey
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Midnight Library 52578297
When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.

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

Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?]]> 288 Matt Haig 0525559477 Margaret 0 to-read 3.96 2020 The Midnight Library
author: Matt Haig
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/07
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]]> A Splendid Ruin 55373408
The eve of destruction. After her mother’s death, penniless May Kimble lives a lonely life until an aunt she didn’t know existed summons her to San Francisco. There she’s welcomed into the wealthy Sullivan family and their social circle.

Initially overwhelmed by the opulence of her new life, May soon senses that dark mysteries lurk in the shadows of the Sullivan mansion. Her glamorous cousin often disappears in the night. Her aunt wanders about in a laudanum fog. And a maid keeps hinting that May is in danger. Trapped by betrayal, madness, and murder, May stands to lose everything, including her freedom, at the hands of those she trusts most.

Then, on an early April morning, San Francisco comes tumbling down. Out of the smoldering ruins, May embarks on a harrowing road to reclaim what is hers. This tragic twist of fate, along with the help of an intrepid and charismatic journalist, puts vengeance within May’s reach. But will she take it?]]> 347 Megan Chance 154202238X Margaret 0 to-read 4.15 2021 A Splendid Ruin
author: Megan Chance
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/07
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]]> The Woman in the Window 40389527
Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, a mother and their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble and its shocking secrets are laid bare.

What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems.]]> 455 A.J. Finn Margaret 0 to-read 3.94 2018 The Woman in the Window
author: A.J. Finn
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/02/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Thief of Lanwyn Manor (Cornwall, #2)]]> 44441973 In Regency England an advantageous match could set up a lady for life. Julia knows Matthew Blake, copper mine owner and very eligible bachelor, is the gentleman she should set her eyes upon. But why can’t she steal her gaze away from his younger brother, Isaac?

Cornwall, England, 1818

Julia Twethewey needs a diversion to mend her broken heart, so when her cousin invites her to Lanwyn Manor, Julia eagerly accepts. The manor is located at the heart of Cornwall’s mining industry, and as a guest Julia is swept into its intricate world. It’s not long, though, before she realizes something dark lurks within the home’s ancient halls.

As a respected mine owner’s younger son, Isaac Blake is determined to keep his late father’s legacy alive through the family business, despite his brother’s careless attitude. In order to save their livelihood—and that of the people around them—the brothers approach the master of Lanwyn Manor with plans to bolster the floundering local industry. Isaac can’t deny his attraction to the man’s charming niece, but his brother has made clear his intentions to court the lovely visitor. And Isaac knows his place.

When tragedy strikes, mysteries arise, and valuables go missing, Julia and Isaac find they are pulled together in a swirl of strange circumstances, but despite their best efforts to bow to social expectations, their hearts aren’t so keen to surrender.

Sweet Regency Romance
Full-length novel, approximately 90,000 words
Second in the Cornwall series, but can be read alone

Perfect for fans of Poldark, Sarah Ladd’s latest Regency romance, The Thief of Lanwyn Manor, explores Cornwall, England, and the secrets within one of its historic manor houses.]]> 352 Sarah E. Ladd 0785223185 Margaret 0 to-read 3.93 2020 The Thief of Lanwyn Manor (Cornwall, #2)
author: Sarah E. Ladd
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/02/07
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]]> If I Had Your Face 52696537 If I Had Your Face plunges us into the mesmerising world of contemporary Seoul - a place where extreme plastic surgery is as routine as getting a haircut, where women compete for spots in secret 'room salons' to entertain wealthy businessmen after hours, where K-Pop stars are the object of all-consuming obsession and ruthless social hierarchies dictate your every move.

Navigating this cutthroat city are four young women balancing on the razor edge of survival: Kyuri, an exquisitely beautiful woman whose hard-won status at an exclusive 'room salon' is threatened by an impulsive mistake with a client; her flatmate, Miho, an orphan who wins a scholarship to a prestigious art school in New York, where her life becomes tragically enmeshed with the super-wealthy offspring of the Korean elite; Wonna, their neighbour, pregnant with a child that she and her husband have no idea how they will afford to raise in a fiercely competitive economy; and Ara, a hair stylist living down the hall, whose infatuation with a fresh-faced K-Pop star drives her to violent extremes.]]> 288 Frances Cha 0593129466 Margaret 0 to-read 3.74 2020 If I Had Your Face
author: Frances Cha
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/12/17
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]]> Educated 36247169 A newer cover edition of ASIN B072BLVM83 can be found here.

Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard.

Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it.]]> 336 Tara Westover Margaret 0 4.56 2018 Educated
author: Tara Westover
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2020/10/29
date added: 2020/10/29
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]]> My Dear Hamilton 41014257 New York Times bestselling authors of America’s First Daughter comes the epic story of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton—a revolutionary woman who, like her new nation, struggled to define herself in the wake of war, betrayal, and tragedy. Haunting, moving, and beautifully written, Dray and Kamoie used thousands of letters and original sources to tell Eliza’s story as it’s never been told before—not just as the wronged wife at the center of a political sex scandal—but also as a founding mother who shaped an American legacy in her own right.

A general’s daughter�

Coming of age on the perilous frontier of revolutionary New York, Elizabeth Schuyler champions the fight for independence. And when she meets Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s penniless but passionate aide-de-camp, she’s captivated by the young officer’s charisma and brilliance. They fall in love, despite Hamilton’s bastard birth and the uncertainties of war.

A founding father’s wife...

But the union they create—in their marriage and the new nation—is far from perfect. From glittering inaugural balls to bloody street riots, the Hamiltons are at the center of it all—including the political treachery of America’s first sex scandal, which forces Eliza to struggle through heartbreak and betrayal to find forgiveness.

The last surviving light of the Revolution�

When a duel destroys Eliza’s hard-won peace, the grieving widow fights her husband’s enemies to preserve Alexander’s legacy. But long-buried secrets threaten everything Eliza believes about her marriage and her own legacy. Questioning her tireless devotion to the man and country that have broken her heart, she’s left with one last battle—to understand the flawed man she married and the imperfect union he could never have created without her…]]> 652 Stephanie Dray Margaret 0 to-read 4.31 2018 My Dear Hamilton
author: Stephanie Dray
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/10/27
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]]> American Dirt 45046527
Lydia lives in Acapulco. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while cracks are beginning to show in Acapulco because of the cartels, Lydia’s life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. But after her husband’s tell-all profile of the newest drug lord is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.

Forced to flee, Lydia and Luca find themselves joining the countless people trying to reach the United States. Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to?]]> 459 Jeanine Cummins Margaret 4 4.32 2020 American Dirt
author: Jeanine Cummins
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2020/08/20
date added: 2020/08/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation]]> 8218896 Read the book that inspired theAcademy Award and Golden Globe winning2009 film INVICTUS featuring Morgan Freeman and Matt Daymon, directed by Clint Eastwood.Beginning in a jail cell and ending in a rugby tournament- the true story of how the most inspiring charm offensive in history brought South Africa together. After being released from prison and winning South Africa's first free election, Nelson Mandela presided over a country still deeply divided by fifty years of apartheid. His plan was ambitious if not use the national rugby team, the Springboks-long an embodiment of white-supremacist rule-to embody and engage a new South Africa as they prepared to host the 1995 World Cup. The string of wins that followed not only defied the odds, but capped Mandela's miraculous effort to bring South Africans together again in a hard-won, enduring bond.]]> 308 John Carlin 1440634246 Margaret 0 currently-reading 4.43 2008 Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation
author: John Carlin
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/06/05
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (Phaedrus, #1)]]> 629 Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is an examination of how we live, a meditation on how to live better set around the narration of a summer motorcycle trip across America's Northwest, undertaken by a father & his young son.]]> 540 Robert M. Pirsig 0060589469 Margaret 0 3.78 1974 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (Phaedrus, #1)
author: Robert M. Pirsig
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/05/18
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]]> <![CDATA[My Name Is Lucy Barton (Amgash, #1)]]> 25893709 193 Elizabeth Strout 1400067693 Margaret 0 to-read 3.56 2016 My Name Is Lucy Barton (Amgash, #1)
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/04/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> Last Friends (Old Filth, #3) 15812211
Of Edward Feathers, a.k.a. Old Filth, the New York Times wrote, “he belongs in the Dickensian pantheon of memorable characters.� Filth, which stands for Failed in London Try Hong Kong, is a successful barrister who has spent most of his career practicing law in Southeast Asia. He met his wife, Betty, after she was released from an internment camp at the close of World War II. The first two books in this series—Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat� told the story of their life together first from Edward's perspective, and then from Betty's. Last Friends is Edward's longtime nemesis and Betty's sometime lover, Terry Veneering's turn and with its telling a magnificent and deeply moving story comes to its satisfying final pages.
As the Washington Post commented, these “absolutely wonderful� books give us “an astute, subtle depiction of marriage.� With this third revealing view of Betty and Edward's life together the depiction is completed as readers renew their connection to this remarkable, unforgettable couple.]]> 205 Jane Gardam 1609450930 Margaret 0 to-read 3.80 2013 Last Friends (Old Filth, #3)
author: Jane Gardam
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/04/26
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]]> Old Filth (Old Filth, #1) 37060
Borrowing from biography and history, Jane Gardam has written a literary masterpiece reminiscent of Rudyard Kipling's Baa Baa, Black Sheep that retraces much of the twentieth century's torrid and momentous history. Feathers' childhood in Malaya during the British Empire's heyday, his schooling in pre-war England, his professional success in Southeast Asia and his return to England toward the end of the millennium, are vantage points from which the reader can observe the march forward of an eventful era and the steady progress of that man, Sir Edward Feathers, Old Filth himself, who embodies the century's fate.

Old Filth was nominated for the 2005 Orange Prize.

]]> 290 Jane Gardam 1933372133 Margaret 0 to-read 3.94 2004 Old Filth (Old Filth, #1)
author: Jane Gardam
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/04/26
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]]> The Secret Wife 36395189

1914


Russia is on the brink of collapse, and the Romanov family faces a terrifyingly uncertain future. Grand Duchess Tatiana has fallen in love with injured cavalry officer Dmitri, but events take a catastrophic turn, placing their romance � and their lives � in danger . . .


2016


Kitty Fisher escapes to her great-grandfather’s remote cabin in America, after a devastating revelation forces her to flee London. There, on the shores of Lake Akanabee, she discovers the spectacular jewelled pendant that will lead her to an extraordinary, long-buried family secret . . .


Haunting, moving and beautifully written, The Secret Wife effortlessly crosses centuries, as past merges with present in an unforgettable story of love, loss and resilience.


Perfect for fans of Kate Morton and Dinah Jefferies.]]> 417 Gill Paul Margaret 1 didnt-get-through 4.28 2016 The Secret Wife
author: Gill Paul
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2016
rating: 1
read at: 2020/04/18
date added: 2020/04/18
shelves: didnt-get-through
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]]> Victoria 31499153
In 1837, less than a month after her eighteenth birthday, Alexandrina Victoria � sheltered, small in stature, and female became Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Many thought it was Alexandrina � Drina to her family � had always been tightly controlled by her mother and her household, and was surely too unprepossessing to hold the throne. Yet from the moment William IV died, the young Queen startled abandoning her hated first name in favor of Victoria; insisting, for the first time in her life, on sleeping in a room apart from her mother; resolute about meeting with her ministers alone.

One of those ministers, Lord Melbourne, became Victoria’s private secretary. Perhaps he might have become more than that, except everyone argued she was destined to marry her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. But Victoria had met Albert as a child and found him stiff and surely the last man she would want for a husband�.

Drawing on Victoria’s diaries as well as her own brilliant gifts for history and drama, Daisy Goodwin, author of the bestselling novels The American Heiress and The Fortune Hunter as well as creator and screenwriter of the new PBS/Masterpiece drama Victoria, brings the young queen even more richly to life in this magnificent novel.]]> 331 Daisy Goodwin 1466844108 Margaret 0 to-read 4.15 2016 Victoria
author: Daisy Goodwin
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/04/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Eighth Moon: The True Story of a Young Girl's Life in Communist China]]> 2017398 192 Bette Bao Lord 0722156138 Margaret 0 to-read 3.95 1964 Eighth Moon: The True Story of a Young Girl's Life in Communist China
author: Bette Bao Lord
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1964
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/04/18
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]]> The World That We Knew 43822062 In 1941, during humanity’s darkest hour, three unforgettable young women must act with courage and love to survive, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dovekeepers and The Marriage of Opposites Alice Hoffman.

In Berlin, at the time when the world changed, Hanni Kohn knows she must send her twelve-year-old daughter away to save her from the Nazi regime. She finds her way to a renowned rabbi, but it’s his daughter, Ettie, who offers hope of salvation when she creates a mystical Jewish creature, a rare and unusual golem, who is sworn to protect Lea. Once Ava is brought to life, she and Lea and Ettie become eternally entwined, their paths fated to cross, their fortunes linked.

Lea and Ava travel from Paris, where Lea meets her soulmate, to a convent in western France known for its silver roses; from a school in a mountaintop village where three thousand Jews were saved. Meanwhile, Ettie is in hiding, waiting to become the fighter she’s destined to be.

What does it mean to lose your mother? How much can one person sacrifice for love? In a world where evil can be found at every turn, we meet remarkable characters that take us on a stunning journey of loss and resistance, the fantastical and the mortal, in a place where all roads lead past the Angel of Death and love is never ending.]]> 372 Alice Hoffman 1501137573 Margaret 0 to-read 4.14 2019 The World That We Knew
author: Alice Hoffman
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/04/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Who's Irish? (Electric Literature's Recommended Reading Book 278)]]> 36452404
---

About the GuestEditor: Celeste Ng’s latest novel, Little Fires Everywhere, was recently published by Penguin Press. Ng grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Shaker Heights, Ohio. She attended Harvard University and earned an MFA from the University of Michigan. Her debut novel, Everything I Never Told You, won the Hopwood Award, the Massachusetts Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature and the ALA’s Alex Award and is a 2016 NEA fellow. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. To learn more about her and her work, visit her website at celesteng.com or follow her on Twitter: @pronounced_ing.

About theAuthor: The author of six previous books, Jen has published short work in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and dozens of other periodicals and anthologies. Her work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories four times, including The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike. Nominated for a National Book Critics� Circle Award, her work was featured in a PBS American Masters� special on the American novel, and is widely taught.
Jen is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has been awarded a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, a Guggenheim fellowship, a Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study fellowship, and numerous other awards. An American Academy of Arts and Letters jury comprised of John Updike, Cynthia Ozick, Don DeLillo, and Joyce Carol Oates granted her a five-year Mildred and Harold Strauss Living award; Jen delivered the William E. Massey, Sr. Lectures in the History of American Civilization at Harvard University in 2012. Her most recent book is The Girl at the Baggage Claim: Explaining the East-West Culture Gap.

About the Publisher: Electric Literature is an independent publisher amplifying the power of storytelling through digital innovation. Electric Literature’s weekly fiction magazine, Recommended Reading, invites established authors, indie presses, and literary magazines to recommended great fiction. Once a month we feature our own recommendation of original, previously unpublished fiction. Recommended Reading is supported by the Amazon Literary Partnership, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. For other links from Electric Literature, follow us, or sign up for our eNewsletter.]]> 28 Gish Jen Margaret 0 to-read 3.94 1999 Who's Irish? (Electric Literature's Recommended Reading Book 278)
author: Gish Jen
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/04/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> A Gentleman in Moscow 30007916
Newer cover editions of this title can be found here, here, and here.

He can’t leave his hotel. You won’t want to.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Civility—a transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel.

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.]]> 502 Amor Towles Margaret 3 4.47 2016 A Gentleman in Moscow
author: Amor Towles
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2020/04/01
date added: 2020/04/01
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]]> When Breath Becomes Air 25614898 When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,� as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life� into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.]]> 229 Paul Kalanithi 081298840X Margaret 5 4.37 2016 When Breath Becomes Air
author: Paul Kalanithi
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2020/04/01
date added: 2020/04/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed]]> 15802944 An inspirational, sidesplittingly funny exploration of the power of living with love, forgiveness, and honesty.

In Carry On, Warrior, Glennon Doyle Melton shares new stories and the best-loved material from Momastery.com She recounts her mistakes and triumphs with candor and humor, and gives language to our universal (yet often secret) experiences. She believes that by shedding our armor, we can stop hiding, competing, striving for the mirage of perfection, and making motherhood, marriage, and friendship harder by pretending they’re not hard. In this one woman trying to love herself and others, readers find a wise and witty friend who will inspire them to forgive their own imperfections, make the most of their gifts, and commit to small acts of love that will change the world.]]> 269 Glennon Doyle 1451697244 Margaret 3 4.07 2013 Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed
author: Glennon Doyle
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2020/04/01
date added: 2020/04/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet]]> 3367956 290 Jamie Ford 0345505336 Margaret 4 ]]> 4.03 2009 Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
author: Jamie Ford
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2011/03/01
date added: 2020/04/01
shelves:
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I enjoyed mostly the historical story of this book. It was an interesting time and the main character lent such a good perspective, from that of an enamoured young boy who is "different" in many ways. Also coping as the first generation in America.

]]> A Long Petal of the Sea 45897568 From the New York Times bestselling author of The House of the Spirits comes an epic novel spanning decades and crossing continents, following two young people as they flee the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in search of a new place to call home.

In the late 1930s, civil war gripped Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life irreversibly intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them wants, and together are sponsored by poet Pablo Neruda to embark on the SS Winnipeg along with 2,200 other refugees in search of a new life. As unlikely partners, they embrace exile and emigrate to Chile as the rest of Europe erupts in World War.

Starting over on a new continent, their trials are just beginning. Over the course of their lives, they will face test after test. But they will also find joy as they wait patiently for a day when they are exiles no more, and will find friends in the most unlikely of places. Through it all, it is that hope of being reunited with their home that keeps them going. And in the end, they will find that home might have been closer than they thought all along.]]> 325 Isabel Allende 198482015X Margaret 0 to-read 3.92 2019 A Long Petal of the Sea
author: Isabel Allende
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/04/01
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]]> The Dutch House 44569767 The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakeable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.

Set over the course of five decades,The Dutch Houseis a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.

]]> 353 Ann Patchett 0062963694 Margaret 5 4.25 2019 The Dutch House
author: Ann Patchett
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2020/02/10
date added: 2020/02/10
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]]> A House in the Sky 18462197 The dramatic and redemptive memoir of a woman whose curiosity led her to the world’s most beautiful and remote places, its most imperiled and perilous countries, and then into fifteen months of harrowing captivity—an exquisitely written story of courage, resilience, and grace.

As a child, Amanda Lindhout escaped a violent household by paging through issues of National Geographic and imagining herself in its exotic locales. At the age of nineteen, working as a cocktail waitress in Calgary, Alberta, she began saving her tips so she could travel the globe. Aspiring to understand the world and live a significant life, she backpacked through Latin America, Laos, Bangladesh, and India, and emboldened by each adventure, went on to Sudan, Syria, and Pakistan. In war-ridden Afghanistan and Iraq she carved out a fledgling career as a television reporter. And then, in August 2008, she traveled to Somalia—“the most dangerous place on earth.� On her fourth day, she was abducted by a group of masked men along a dusty road.

Held hostage for 460 days, Amanda converts to Islam as a survival tactic, receives “wife lessons� from one of her captors, and risks a daring escape. Moved between a series of abandoned houses in the desert, she survives on memory—every lush detail of the world she experienced in her life before captivity—and on strategy, fortitude, and hope. When she is most desperate, she visits a house in the sky, high above the woman kept in chains, in the dark, being tortured.

Vivid and suspenseful, as artfully written as the finest novel, A House in the Sky is the searingly intimate story of an intrepid young woman and her search for compassion in the face of unimaginable adversity.]]> 384 Amanda Lindhout Margaret 4 4.39 2013 A House in the Sky
author: Amanda Lindhout
name: Margaret
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2020/02/06
date added: 2020/02/06
shelves:
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]]> Interior Chinatown 44436221 A deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play.

Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life: he’s merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but always he is relegated to a prop. Yet every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy—the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. Or is it?

After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he’s ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family. Infinitely inventive and deeply personal, exploring the themes of pop culture, assimilation, and immigration�Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu’s most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet.]]> 288 Charles Yu Margaret 0 to-read 3.95 2020 Interior Chinatown
author: Charles Yu
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/02/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Library Book 40019010
Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling book that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before.

In The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries across the country and around the world, from their humble beginnings as a metropolitan charitable initiative to their current status as a cornerstone of national identity; brings each department of the library to vivid life through on-the-ground reporting; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; reflects on her own experiences in libraries; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago.

Along the way, Orlean introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters from libraries past and present—from Mary Foy, who in 1880 at eighteen years old was named the head of the Los Angeles Public Library at a time when men still dominated the role, to Dr. C.J.K. Jones, a pastor, citrus farmer, and polymath known as “The Human Encyclopedia� who roamed the library dispensing information; from Charles Lummis, a wildly eccentric journalist and adventurer who was determined to make the L.A. library one of the best in the world, to the current staff, who do heroic work every day to ensure that their institution remains a vital part of the city it serves.

Brimming with her signature wit, insight, compassion, and talent for deep research, The Library Book is Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks that reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and w]]> 338 Susan Orlean Margaret 0 currently-reading 3.93 2018 The Library Book
author: Susan Orlean
name: Margaret
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/01/19
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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