Jacqui's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 18 Nov 2024 02:28:54 -0800 60 Jacqui's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Metamorphosis and Other Stories]]> 7723 The Metamorphosis,� a story that is both harrowing and amusing, and a landmark of modern literature.

Bringing together some of Kafka’s finest work, this collection demonstrates the richness and variety of the author’s artistry. �The Judgment,� which Kafka considered to be his decisive breakthrough, and �The Stoker,� which became the first chapter of his novel Amerika, are here included. These two, along with �The Metamorphosis,� form a suite of stories Kafka referred to as “The Sons,� and they collectively present a devastating portrait of the modern family.

Also included are �In the Penal Colony,� a story of a torture machine and its operators and victims, and �A Hunger Artist,� about the absurdity of an artist trying to communicate with a misunderstanding public. Kafka’s lucid, succinct writing chronicles the labyrinthine complexities, the futility-laden horror, and the stifling oppressiveness that permeate his vision of modern life.]]> 224 Franz Kafka 1593080298 Jacqui 0 4.08 1915 The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
author: Franz Kafka
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1915
rating: 0
read at: 2014/09/07
date added: 2024/11/18
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]]> Lady Chatterley's Lover 49583709
With her soft brown hair, lithe figure and big, wondering eyes, Constance Chatterley is possessed of a certain vitality. Yet she is deeply unhappy; married to an invalid, she is almost as inwardly paralyzed as her husband Clifford is paralyzed below the waist. It is not until she finds refuge in the arms of Mellors the game-keeper, a solitary man of a class apart, that she feels regenerated. Together they move from an outer world of chaos towards an inner world of fulfillment.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust theseries to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-datetranslations by award-winning translators.]]> 400 D.H. Lawrence 014303961X Jacqui 0 3.48 1928 Lady Chatterley's Lover
author: D.H. Lawrence
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.48
book published: 1928
rating: 0
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]]> Oblamov 18279101
Sin moverse de su diván, enfundado en un raído batín asiático, el héroe de esta novela es la personificación perfecta de la indolencia y la inactividad. Heredero terrateniente, eterno ausente de una hacienda fraudulentamente administrada, con una malograda carrera en el funcionariado y un retraimiento temprano de la vida social, Oblómov conocerá de pronto, al cabo de los años y a instancias de su gran amigo, el emprendedor Shtolz, un extraño renacer, una misteriosa sacudida que por un momento le hará creer en la posibilidad de otra clase de vida, en la que asoman insospechadamente la confianza y el amor.

Oblómov (1859) de Iván A. Goncharov es una de las obras centrales de la literatura rusa, una de las máximas ilustraciones del tipo del «hombre superfluo» que tanto preocupó, asimismo, a Pushkin o a Turguéniev. Diálogos y gestos puros, una perfecta organización dramática, un humor sostenido y elocuente y una narración distanciada y comprensiva a la vez son algunas de las claves de esta magnífica novela en la que todo despide vida y claridad.]]> Ivan Goncharov Jacqui 0 to-read 4.38 1859 Oblamov
author: Ivan Goncharov
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1859
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/28
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]]> Mothering Sunday 26014651
Twenty-two-year-old Jane Fairchild has worked as a maid at an English country house since she was sixteen. For almost all of those years she has been the clandestine lover to Paul Sheringham, young heir of a neighboring house. The two now meet on an unseasonably warm March day—Mothering Sunday—a day that will change Jane's life forever.

As the narrative moves back and forth from 1924 to the end of the century, what we know and understand about Jane—about the way she loves, thinks, feels, sees, remembers—expands with every vividly captured moment. Her story is one of profound self-discovery, and through her, Graham Swift has created an emotionally soaring, deeply affecting work of fiction.]]> 177 Graham Swift 1101947527 Jacqui 0 3.71 2016 Mothering Sunday
author: Graham Swift
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/30
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]]> The Outsider 18214704 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

'The sky seemed to rip apart from end to end to pour fire down upon me'

Meursault will not conform. When his mother dies, he refuses to show his emotions simply to satisfy the expectations of others. And when he commits a random act of violence on a sun-drenched beach, his lack of remorse only compounds his guilt in the eyes of society and law.

Albert Camus' portrayal of a man confronting the absurdity of human life became an existentialist classic. Yet it is also a book filled with quiet joy in the "tender indifference" of the physical world, and Sandra Smith's new translation based on listening to a recording of Camus reading aloud, sensitively renders the subtleties and dreamlike atmosphere of The Outsider.]]> 111 Albert Camus 0141198060 Jacqui 3 4.06 1942 The Outsider
author: Albert Camus
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1942
rating: 3
read at: 2015/04/29
date added: 2022/10/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town]]> 8526786 'The world's most controversial classicist debunks our movie-style myths about the Roman town with meticulous scholarship and propulsive energy ... scrutinising and animated in equal measure' Laura Silverman, Daily Mail .

WINNER OF THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2008

'The world's most controversial classicist debunks our movie-style myths about the Roman town with meticulous scholarship and propulsive energy' Laura Silverman, Daily Mail

The ruins of Pompeii, buried by an explosion of Vesuvius in 79 CE, offer the best evidence we have of everyday life in the Roman empire. This remarkable book rises to the challenge of making sense of those remains, as well as exploding many the very date of the eruption, probably a few months later than usually thought; or the hygiene of the baths which must have been hotbeds of germs; or the legendary number of brothels, most likely only one; or the massive death count, maybe less than ten per cent of the population.

An extraordinary and involving portrait of an ancient town, its life and its continuing re-discovery, by Britain's favourite classicist.]]> 368 Mary Beard 1846684714 Jacqui 3 4.10 2008 Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town
author: Mary Beard
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2008
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories]]> 9889 here.

It's New York in the 1940s, where the martinis flow from cocktail hour till breakfast at Tiffany's. And nice girls don't, except, of course, Holly Golightly. Pursued by Mafia gangsters and playboy millionaires, Holly is a fragile eyeful of tawny hair and turned-up nose, a heart-breaker, a perplexer, a traveller, a tease. She is irrepressibly 'top banana in the shock department', and one of the shining flowers of American fiction.

This edition also contains three stories: 'House of Flowers', 'A Diamond Guitar' and 'A Christmas Memory'.]]> 157 Truman Capote Jacqui 5 3.76 1958 Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories
author: Truman Capote
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1958
rating: 5
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date added: 2022/06/15
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]]> Anna Karenina 155
Set against this tragic affair is the story of Konstantin Levin, a melancholy landowner whom Tolstoy based largely on himself. While Anna looks for happiness through love, Levin embarks on his own search for spiritual fulfillment through marriage, family, and hard work. Surrounding these two central plot threads are dozens of characters whom Tolstoy seamlessly weaves together, creating a breathtaking tapestry of nineteenth-century Russian society.

From its famous opening sentence � "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”—to its stunningly tragic conclusion, this enduring tale of marriage and adultery plumbs the very depths of the human soul.]]> 803 Leo Tolstoy 1593080271 Jacqui 0 4.00 1878 Anna Karenina
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1878
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/11/29
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]]> Catch-22 4610 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

With a new preface by the author

Explosive, subversive, wild and funny, 50 years on the novel's strength is undiminished. Reading Joseph Heller's classic satire is nothing less than a rite of passage.

Set in the closing months of World War II in an American bomber squadron off the coast of Italy, Catch-22 is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he has never even met keep trying to kill him. Joseph Heller's bestselling novel is a hilarious and tragic satire on military madness, and the tale of one man's efforts to survive it.]]> 570 Joseph Heller 0099477319 Jacqui 0 3.97 1961 Catch-22
author: Joseph Heller
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1961
rating: 0
read at: 2015/07/24
date added: 2020/05/09
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]]> <![CDATA[What I Talk About When I Talk About Running]]> 4352812 Alternate cover edition here.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is a memoir by Haruki Murakami in which he writes about his interest and participation in long-distance running. Murakami started running in the early 1980s and since then has competed in over twenty marathons and an ultramarathon.
The book's title was inspired by Raymond Carver's collection of short stories entitled What We Talk About When We Talk About Love .]]> 181 Haruki Murakami Jacqui 0 to-read 3.88 2007 What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/12/26
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]]> <![CDATA[The Other Boleyn Girl (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, #9)]]> 37470 This is an alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780743227445

Two sisters competing for the greatest prize: The love of a king

When Mary Boleyn comes to court as an innocent girl of fourteen, she catches the eye of Henry VIII. Dazzled, Mary falls in love with both her golden prince and her growing role as unofficial queen. However, she soon realises just how much she is a pawn in her family's ambitious plots as the king's interest begins to wane and she is forced to step aside for her best friend and rival: her sister, Anne. Then Mary knows that she must defy her family and her king and take fate into her own hands.

A rich and compelling novel of love, sex, ambition, and intrigue, The Other Boleyn Girl introduces a woman of extraordinary determination and desire who lived at the heart of the most exciting and glamourous court in Europe and survived by following her heart.]]> 661 Philippa Gregory Jacqui 2 4.08 2001 The Other Boleyn Girl (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, #9)
author: Philippa Gregory
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2001
rating: 2
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date added: 2019/08/14
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]]> Nine Perfect Strangers 39280445 Could ten days at a health resort really change you forever?

These nine perfect strangers are about to find out...

Nine people gather at a remote health resort. Some are here to lose weight, some are here to get a reboot on life, some are here for reasons they can’t even admit to themselves. Amidst all of the luxury and pampering, the mindfulness and meditation, they know these ten days might involve some real work. But none of them could imagine just how challenging the next ten days are going to be.

Frances Welty, the formerly best-selling romantic novelist, arrives at Tranquillum House nursing a bad back, a broken heart, and an exquisitely painful paper cut. She’s immediately intrigued by her fellow guests. Most of them don’t look to be in need of a health resort at all. But the person that intrigues her most is the strange and charismatic owner/director of Tranquillum House. Could this person really have the answers Frances didn’t even know she was seeking? Should Frances put aside her doubts and immerse herself in everything Tranquillum House has to offer—or should she run while she still can?

It’s not long before every guest at Tranquillum House is asking exactly the same question.

Combining all of the hallmarks that have made Liane Moriarty's writing a go-to for anyone looking for wickedly smart, page-turning fiction that will make you laugh and gasp, Nine Perfect Strangers once again shows why she is a master of her craft.]]> 453 Liane Moriarty 1250069823 Jacqui 3 3.53 2018 Nine Perfect Strangers
author: Liane Moriarty
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2018
rating: 3
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]]> 1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3) 10357575 The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.

A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.� A world that bears a question.� Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled.

As Aomame’s and Tengo’s narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector.

A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell’s � 1Q84 is Haruki Murakami’s most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers.]]> 944 Haruki Murakami 0307593312 Jacqui 0 3.94 2009 1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3)
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Me Before You (Me Before You, #1)]]> 15507958 Discover the love story that captured over 20 million hearts in Me Before You, After You, and Still Me.

They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose . . .

Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has barely been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life—big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel—and now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is.

Will is acerbic, moody, bossy—but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.

A Love Story for this generation and perfect for fans of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, Me Before You brings to life two people who couldn’t have less in common—a heartbreakingly romantic novel that asks, What do you do when making the person you love happy also means breaking your own heart?]]> 369 Jojo Moyes Jacqui 0 4.24 2012 Me Before You (Me Before You, #1)
author: Jojo Moyes
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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]]> All the Light We Cannot See 18143977
In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.

From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the stunningly beautiful instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

An alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here]]> 544 Anthony Doerr 1476746583 Jacqui 0 4.31 2014 All the Light We Cannot See
author: Anthony Doerr
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> Disobedience 202677 Disobedience. The story begins with the death of the community's esteemed rabbi, which sets in motion plans for a memorial service and the search for a replacement. The rabbi's nephew and likely successor, Dovid, calls his cousin Ronit in New York to tell her that her father has died. Ronit, who left the community long ago to build a life for herself as a career woman, returns home when she hears the news, and her reappearance exposes tears in the fabric of the community.

Steeped in Jewish philosophy and teachings, Disobedience is a perceptive and thoughtful exploration of the laws and practices that have governed Judaism for centuries, and continue to hold sway today. Throughout the novel, Alderman retells stories from the Torah -- Judaism's fundamental source -- and the interplay between these tales and the struggles of the novel's unique characters wields enormous power and wisdom, and will surely move readers to tears.]]> 240 Naomi Alderman 0743291565 Jacqui 3 to-read 3.66 2006 Disobedience
author: Naomi Alderman
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2006
rating: 3
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date added: 2019/08/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch]]> 12067
People have been predicting the end of the world almost from its very beginning, so it’s only natural to be sceptical when a new date is set for Judgement Day. This time though, the armies of Good and Evil really do appear to be massing. The four Bikers of the Apocalypse are hitting the road. But both the angels and demons � well, one fast-living demon and a somewhat fussy angel � would quite like the Rapture not to happen.

And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist…]]> 491 Terry Pratchett Jacqui 5 4.27 1990 Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1990
rating: 5
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]]> The Heart of the Matter 3692
Feeling responsible for her unhappiness, Henry decides against his better judgment to accept a loan from a black marketeer to secure Louise’s passage. It’s just a single indiscretion, yet for Henry it precipitates a rapid fall from grace as one moral compromise after another leads him into a web of blackmail, adultery, and murder. And for a devout man like Henry, there may be nothing left but damnation.]]> 272 Graham Greene 0099478420 Jacqui 3 3.98 1948 The Heart of the Matter
author: Graham Greene
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1948
rating: 3
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date added: 2019/08/13
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]]> Everything I Know About Love 34427921
When it comes to the trials and triumphs of becoming a grown up, journalist and former Sunday Times dating columnist Dolly Alderton has seen and tried it all. In her memoir, she vividly recounts falling in love, wrestling with self-sabotage, finding a job, throwing a socially disastrous Rod-Stewart themed house party, getting drunk, getting dumped, realising that Ivan from the corner shop is the only man you've ever been able to rely on, and finding that that your mates are always there at the end of every messy night out. It's a book about bad dates, good friends and - above all else - about recognising that you and you alone are enough.

Glittering, with wit and insight, heart and humour, Dolly Alderton's powerful début weaves together personal stories, satirical observations, a series of lists, recipes, and other vignettes that will strike a chord of recognition with women of every age - while making you laugh until you fall over. Everything I know About Love is about the struggles of early adulthood in all its grubby, hopeful uncertainty.]]> 336 Dolly Alderton Jacqui 4 4.15 2018 Everything I Know About Love
author: Dolly Alderton
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2018
rating: 4
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]]> The History of Love 3867
Across New York an old man called Leo Gursky is trying to survive a little bit longer. He spends his days dreaming of the lost love who, sixty years ago in Poland, inspired him to write a book. And although he doesn't know it yet, that book also survived: crossing oceans and generations, and changing lives...

An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here]]> 255 Nicole Krauss 0393328627 Jacqui 5 3.92 2005 The History of Love
author: Nicole Krauss
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2019/08/13
date added: 2019/08/13
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]]> Hamlet 1432 This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN13:9780743477123, Hamlet.

Hamlet is the story of the Prince of Denmark who learns of the death of his father at the hands of his uncle, Claudius. Claudius murders Hamlet's father, his own brother, to take the throne of Denmark and to marry Hamlet's widowed mother. Hamlet is sunk into a state of great despair as a result of discovering the murder of his father and the infidelity of his mother. Hamlet is torn between his great sadness and his desire for the revenge of his father's murder.

Each Folger edition includes:

- Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play
- Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play
- Scene-by-scene plot summaries
- A key to famous lines and phrases
- An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language
- An essay by an outstanding scholar providing a modern perspective on the play
- Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books]]> 342 William Shakespeare Jacqui 0 4.05 1601 Hamlet
author: William Shakespeare
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1601
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small #1-2)]]> 18929854 The warm and joyful memoirs of the world's most beloved animal doctor.

Delve into the magical, unforgettable world of James Herriot, the world's most beloved veterinarian, and his menagerie of heartwarming, funny, and tragic animal patients.

For over forty years, generations of readers have thrilled to Herriot's marvelous tales, deep love of life, and extraordinary storytelling abilities. For decades, Herriot roamed the remote, beautiful Yorkshire Dales, treating every patient that came his way from smallest to largest, and observing animals and humans alike with his keen, loving eye.

In All Creatures Great and Small, we meet the young Herriot as he takes up his calling and discovers that the realities of veterinary practice in rural Yorkshire are very different from the sterile setting of veterinary school. Some visits are heart-wrenchingly difficult, such as one to an old man in the village whose very ill dog is his only friend and companion, some are lighthearted and fun, such as Herriot's periodic visits to the overfed and pampered Pekinese Tricki Woo who throws parties and has his own stationery, and yet others are inspirational and enlightening, such as Herriot's recollections of poor farmers who will scrape their meager earnings together to be able to get proper care for their working animals. From seeing to his patients in the depths of winter on the remotest homesteads to dealing with uncooperative owners and critically ill animals, Herriot discovers the wondrous variety and never-ending challenges of veterinary practice as his humor, compassion, and love of the animal world shine forth.

James Herriot's memoirs have sold 80 million copies worldwide, and continue to delight and entertain readers of all ages.]]> 442 James Herriot 1250057833 Jacqui 4 4.37 1972 All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small #1-2)
author: James Herriot
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1972
rating: 4
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date added: 2019/04/12
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]]> Freshwater 35412372 Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born "with one foot on the other side." Unsettling, heartwrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater is a sharp evocation of a rare way of experiencing the world, one that illuminates how we all construct our identities.

Ada begins her life in the south of Nigeria as a troubled baby and a source of deep concern to her family. Her parents, Saul and Saachi, successfully prayed her into existence, but as she grows into a volatile and splintered child, it becomes clear that something went terribly awry. When Ada comes of age and moves to America for college, the group of selves within her grows in power and agency. A traumatic assault leads to a crystallization of her alternate selves: Asụghara and Saint Vincent. As Ada fades into the background of her own mind and these selves--now protective, now hedonistic--move into control, Ada's life spirals in a dark and dangerous direction.

Narrated by the various selves within Ada and based in the author's realities, Freshwater dazzles with ferocious energy and serpentine grace, heralding the arrival of a fierce new literary voice.]]> 229 Akwaeke Emezi 0802127355 Jacqui 3 4.03 2018 Freshwater
author: Akwaeke Emezi
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2018
rating: 3
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date added: 2019/01/30
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]]> Random Acts Of Heroic Love 2402255
1917: Moritz Daniecki is a fugitive from a Siberian POW camp. Seven thousand kilometres over the Russian Steppes separate him from his village and his sweetheart, whose memory has kept him alive through carnage and captivity. The Great War may be over, but Moritz now faces a perilous journey across a continent riven by civil war. When Moritz finally limps back into his village to claim the hand of the woman he left behind, will she still be waiting?

Danny Scheinmann paints a dramatic portrait of two men sustaining their lives through the memory of love. Cinematic and brimming with raw emotions, it is the magnificent and emotive debut from a remarkable new writer.]]> 432 Danny Scheinmann 0552774227 Jacqui 4 3.82 2004 Random Acts Of Heroic Love
author: Danny Scheinmann
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2004
rating: 4
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date added: 2018/12/21
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]]> Alias Grace 72579
An up-and-coming expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness is engaged by a group of reformers and spiritualists who seek a pardon for Grace. He listens to her story while bringing her closer and closer to the day she cannot remember. What will he find in attempting to unlock her memories?

Captivating and disturbing, Alias Grace showcases best-selling, Booker Prize-winning author Margaret Atwood at the peak of her powers.]]> 468 Margaret Atwood 0385475713 Jacqui 3 4.08 1996 Alias Grace
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1996
rating: 3
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date added: 2018/12/09
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]]> The Song of Achilles 11250317
Profoundly moving and breathtakingly original, this rendering of the epic Trojan War is a dazzling feat of the imagination, a devastating love story, and an almighty battle between gods and kings, peace and glory, immortal fame and the human heart.]]> 352 Madeline Miller 1408816032 Jacqui 3 4.38 2011 The Song of Achilles
author: Madeline Miller
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2011
rating: 3
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date added: 2018/11/20
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]]> As I Lay Dying 77013 As I Lay Dying is Faulkner’s harrowing account of the Bundren family’s odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Narrated in turn by each of the family members -- including Addie herself -- as well as others; the novel ranges in mood, from dark comedy to the deepest pathos. Considered one of the most influential novels in American fiction in structure, style, and drama, As I Lay Dying is a true 20th-century classic.

This edition reproduces the corrected text of As I Lay Dying as established in 1985 by Noel Polk.]]> 288 William Faulkner Jacqui 0 3.71 1930 As I Lay Dying
author: William Faulkner
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1930
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan Novels, #1)]]> 35036409 My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante’s inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighbourhood, a city and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her two protagonists.]]> 331 Elena Ferrante Jacqui 2 4.08 2011 My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan Novels, #1)
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2011
rating: 2
read at: 2018/10/18
date added: 2018/10/18
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]]> How Not To Be a Boy 34661984 Don't Cry; Love Sport; Play Rough; Drink Beer; Don't Talk About Feelings

But Robert Webb has been wondering for some time are those rules actually any use? To anyone?

Looking back over his life, from schoolboy crushes (on girls and boys) to discovering the power of making people laugh (in the Cambridge Footlights with David Mitchell), and from losing his beloved mother to becoming a husband and father, Robert Webb considers the absurd expectations boys and men have thrust upon them at every stage of life.

Hilarious and heartbreaking, How Not To Be a Boy explores the relationships that made Robert who he is as a man, the lessons we learn as sons and daughters, and the understanding that sometimes you aren't the Luke Skywalker of your life - you're actually Darth Vader.]]> 337 Robert Webb Jacqui 4 4.19 2017 How Not To Be a Boy
author: Robert Webb
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2017
rating: 4
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date added: 2018/10/18
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]]> Austerlitz 88442 Austerlitz, the internationally acclaimed masterpiece by “one of the most gripping writers imaginable� (The New York Review of Books), is the story of a man’s search for the answer to his life’s central riddle. A small child when he comes to England on a Kindertransport in the summer of 1939, one Jacques Austerlitz is told nothing of his real family by the Welsh Methodist minister and his wife who raise him. When he is a much older man, the fleeting memories return to him, and obeying an instinct he only dimly understands, he follows their trail back to the world he left behind a half century before. There, faced with the void at the heart of twentieth-century Europe, he struggles to rescue his heritage from oblivion.]]> 415 W.G. Sebald 0140297995 Jacqui 3 3.97 2001 Austerlitz
author: W.G. Sebald
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at: 2018/07/15
date added: 2018/07/15
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]]> <![CDATA[One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest]]> 332613 9780451163967

Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy � the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. Ken Kesey's extraordinary first novel is an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.]]> 325 Ken Kesey Jacqui 5 4.20 1962 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
author: Ken Kesey
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1962
rating: 5
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date added: 2018/06/16
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]]> <![CDATA[The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well]]> 30045683 Hygge has been described as everything from "cosines of the soul" to "the pursuit of everyday pleasures". The Little Book of Hygge is the book we all need right now, and is guaranteed to bring warmth and comfort to you and your loved ones this winter.

Hooga? Hhyooguh? Heurgh? It is not really important how you choose to pronounce 'hygge'. What is important is that you feel it. Whether you're cuddled up on a sofa with a loved one, or sharing comfort food with your closest friends, hygge is about creating an atmosphere where you can let your guard down.]]> 289 Meik Wiking 0241283914 Jacqui 3 3.76 2016 The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well
author: Meik Wiking
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2016
rating: 3
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date added: 2018/06/16
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]]> The Luminaries 17333230 The Luminaries is a brilliantly constructed, fiendishly clever ghost story and a gripping page-turner.]]> 848 Eleanor Catton 0316074314 Jacqui 2 3.73 2013 The Luminaries
author: Eleanor Catton
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2018/06/16
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]]> A Thousand Splendid Suns 128029
With the passing of time comes Taliban rule over Afghanistan, the streets of Kabul loud with the sound of gunfire and bombs, life a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear, the women's endurance tested beyond their worst imaginings. Yet love can move people to act in unexpected ways, lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism. In the end it is love that triumphs over death and destruction.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a portrait of a wounded country and a story of family and friendship, of an unforgiving time, an unlikely bond, and an indestructible love.]]> 372 Khaled Hosseini 1594489505 Jacqui 1 4.44 2007 A Thousand Splendid Suns
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2007
rating: 1
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date added: 2018/06/16
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]]> Union Atlantic 6488598
At the heart of Union Atlantic lies a test of wills between a young banker, Doug Fanning, and a retired schoolteacher, Charlotte Graves, whose two dogs have begun to speak to her. When Doug builds an ostentatious mansion on land that Charlotte's grandfather donated to the town of Finden, Massachusetts, she determines to oust him in court. As a senior manager of Union Atlantic bank, a major financial conglomerate, Doug is embroiled in the company's struggle to remain afloat. It is Charlotte's brother, Henry Graves, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, who must keep a watchful eye on Union Atlantic and the entire financial system. Drawn into Doug and Charlotte's intensifying conflict is Nate Fuller, a troubled high-school senior who unwittingly stirs powerful emotions in each of them.

Irresistibly complex, imaginative, and witty, Union Atlantic is a singular work of fiction that is sure to be read and reread long after it causes a sensation this spring.]]> 320 Adam Haslett 0385524471 Jacqui 1 3.37 2010 Union Atlantic
author: Adam Haslett
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2010
rating: 1
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date added: 2018/06/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity]]> 11869272
In this brilliantly written, fast-paced book, based on three years of uncompromising reporting, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human.

Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees "a fortune beyond counting" in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption. With a little luck, her sensitive, beautiful daughter - Annawadi's "most-everything girl" - will soon become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a fifteen-year-old scrap-metal thief, believe themselves inching closer to the good lives and good times they call "the full enjoy."

But then Abdul the garbage sorter is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and a global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power and economic envy turn brutal. As the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true contours of a competitive age are revealed. And so, too, are the imaginations and courage of the people of Annawadi.

With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects human beings to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century's hidden worlds, and into the lives of people impossible to forget.]]> 278 Katherine Boo 1400067553 Jacqui 2 3.97 2012 Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
author: Katherine Boo
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2012
rating: 2
read at: 2014/04/30
date added: 2018/06/16
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]]> The Testament of Mary 18158202
This is Mary. A mother whose son was taken from her and lost to the world. A woman who lives now in exile, watched by those who seek to preserve the sanctity of her son's memory. But Mary's recollections of his difficult and tragic death are a truth that few who knew her son now recognize. As the myths grow around her like walls, so Mary clings to the truth, revealing, in a time of turmoil and profound change, her own fragile humanity.]]> 104 Colm Tóibín 0241962978 Jacqui 4 3.62 2012 The Testament of Mary
author: Colm Tóibín
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2012
rating: 4
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date added: 2018/06/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine]]> 31434883 No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: she struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding unnecessary human contact, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen, the three rescue one another from the lives of isolation that they had been living. Ultimately, it is Raymond’s big heart that will help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one. If she does, she'll learn that she, too, is capable of finding friendship—and even love—after all.

Smart, warm, uplifting, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . .

the only way to survive is to open your heart.]]> 336 Gail Honeyman 0735220689 Jacqui 5 4.21 2017 Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
author: Gail Honeyman
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2017
rating: 5
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date added: 2018/03/26
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]]> The Tattooist of Auschwitz 35523006
Imprisoned for over two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive.

One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.

A vivid, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful re-creation of Lale Sokolov's experiences as the man who tattooed the arms of thousands of prisoners with what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is also a testament to the endurance of love and humanity under the darkest possible conditions.]]> 277 Heather Morris 1760403172 Jacqui 5 4.20 2018 The Tattooist of Auschwitz
author: Heather Morris
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2018
rating: 5
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date added: 2018/03/12
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]]> A Man Called Ove 18774964
Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations.]]> 337 Fredrik Backman 1476738017 Jacqui 2 4.35 2012 A Man Called Ove
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2012
rating: 2
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date added: 2018/01/10
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]]> <![CDATA[The End of Your Life Book Club]]> 13414676
Mary Anne Schwalbe is waiting for her chemotherapy treatments when Will casually asks her what she's reading. The conversation they have grows into tradition: soon they are reading the same books so they can have something to talk about in the hospital waiting room. The ones they choose range from classic to popular, from fantastic to spiritual, and we hear their passion for reading and their love for each other in their intimate and searching discussions.

A profoundly moving testament to the power of love between a child and parent, and the power of reading in our lives.]]> 336 Will Schwalbe 0307594033 Jacqui 4 3.80 2012 The End of Your Life Book Club
author: Will Schwalbe
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2012
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/11/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton]]> 88642 438 Jeff Gerth 0316017426 Jacqui 0 3.53 2007 Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton
author: Jeff Gerth
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/11/19
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]]> In Evil Hour 140475 One Hundred Years of Solitude, this fascinating novel of a Colombian river town possessed by evil points to the author's later flowering and greatness. Translated by Gregory Rabassa.

"More than a prelude...the dazzling sense of place, the colorful idiosyncrasy of character are present for us to marvel over once again."--The New Republic

"An openly political novel posing the people of the land against the forces of oppression...it has the virtues of wit and compassion and reveals the foundation upon which the later novels were constructed."--Jonathan Yardley, Washington Star

"One Hundred Years of Solitude is just around the rain-drenched corner."--Boston Globe

]]> 192 Gabriel García Márquez 0060919647 Jacqui 0 3.47 1962 In Evil Hour
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.47
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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]]> The Book Thief 19063 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.

By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

(Note: this title was not published as YA fiction)]]> 592 Markus Zusak Jacqui 4 4.38 2005 The Book Thief
author: Markus Zusak
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/11/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Hillary Rodham Clinton: Do All the Good You Can]]> 25817365 352 Cynthia Levinson 0062387308 Jacqui 4 4.01 2016 Hillary Rodham Clinton: Do All the Good You Can
author: Cynthia Levinson
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2016
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/11/07
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]]> A History Of Britain 502690 0 Simon Schama 0563477849 Jacqui 4 4.22 2003 A History Of Britain
author: Simon Schama
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2003
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/11/07
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]]> Poetry of the First World War 582104 160 Marcus Clapham 185326444X Jacqui 4 3.87 1995 Poetry of the First World War
author: Marcus Clapham
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1995
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/11/07
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]]> Brooklyn (Eilis Lacey, #1) 4954833 Hauntingly beautiful and heartbreaking, Colm Tóibín's sixth novel, Brooklyn, is set in Brooklyn and Ireland in the early 1950s, when one young woman crosses the ocean to make a new life for herself.

Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the years following World War Two. Though skilled at bookkeeping, she cannot find a job in the miserable Irish economy. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America--to live and work in a Brooklyn neighborhood "just like Ireland"--she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind.

Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, a blond Italian from a big family, slowly wins her over with patient charm. He takes Eilis to Coney Island and Ebbets Field, and home to dinner in the two-room apartment he shares with his brothers and parents. He talks of having children who are Dodgers fans. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love with Tony, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her future.]]> 262 Colm Tóibín 1439138311 Jacqui 4 3.71 2009 Brooklyn (Eilis Lacey, #1)
author: Colm Tóibín
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2009
rating: 4
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]]> House of Names 29344653
Three years later, he returns home and his murderous action has set the entire family - mother, brother, sister - on a path of intimate violence, as they enter a world of hushed commands and soundless journeys through the palace's dungeons and bedchambers. As his wife seeks his death, his daughter, Electra, is the silent observer to the family's game of innocence while his son, Orestes, is sent into bewildering, frightening exile where survival is far from certain. Out of their desolating loss, Electra and Orestes must find a way to right these wrongs of the past even if it means committing themselves to a terrible, barbarous act.

House of Names is a story of intense longing and shocking betrayal. It is a work of great beauty, and daring, from one of our finest living writers.]]> 272 Colm Tóibín 0241264936 Jacqui 3 3.54 2017 House of Names
author: Colm Tóibín
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2017
rating: 3
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date added: 2017/10/10
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]]> Why the Whales Came 1289436
Set against the backdrop of the First World War, in the tradition of Friend or Foe and Private Peaceful Michael Morpurgo brings the emotional reality of conflict to life in a way that is accessible to younger readers. Look out for his other historical adventures including An Eagle in the Snow and Listen to the Moon.]]> 180 Michael Morpurgo 140522925X Jacqui 4 3.93 1985 Why the Whales Came
author: Michael Morpurgo
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1985
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/08/20
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]]> Sweet Tooth 13562049 In this stunning new novel, Ian McEwan's first female protagonist since Atonement is about to learn that espionage is the ultimate seduction.

Cambridge student Serena Frome's beauty and intelligence make her the ideal recruit for MI5. The year is 1972. The Cold War is far from over. England's legendary intelligence agency is determined to manipulate the cultural conversation by funding writers whose politics align with those of the government. The operation is code named "Sweet Tooth."

Serena, a compulsive reader of novels, is the perfect candidate to infiltrate the literary circle of a promising young writer named Tom Haley. At first, she loves his stories. Then she begins to love the man. How long can she conceal her undercover life? To answer that question, Serena must abandon the first rule of espionage: trust no one.

Once again, Ian McEwan's mastery dazzles us in this superbly deft and witty story of betrayal and intrigue, love and the invented self.]]> 320 Ian McEwan Jacqui 3 3.41 2012 Sweet Tooth
author: Ian McEwan
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2012
rating: 3
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date added: 2017/08/20
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]]> Midnight’s Children 14836 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with India’s 1,000 other “midnight’s children,� all born in that initial hour and endowed with magical gifts.

This novel is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people–a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy. Twenty-five years after its publication, Midnight� s Children stands apart as both an epochal work of fiction and a brilliant performance by one of the great literary voices of our time.]]> 647 Salman Rushdie 0099578514 Jacqui 4 3.98 1981 Midnight’s Children
author: Salman Rushdie
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1981
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance]]> 88061 453 Barack Obama 1921351438 Jacqui 5 3.93 1995 Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
author: Barack Obama
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1995
rating: 5
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date added: 2017/08/11
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]]> <![CDATA[The Life and Loves of a He Devil]]> 23281439
Graham Norton has been entertaining audiences and having fun with some of the world's biggest stars for nearly 20 years. He is loved for his delight in the peculiar and for his ability to find humor and a common ground in all that life brings. Here is Graham's funny and honest memoir on the theme of love. As he shows, it's really the things you love that make you who you are and so Graham tells his story from his Irish childhood to the present day, describing just what and who he loved—and sometimes lost—as a young boy, and his new loves and obsessions—big and small—as he's grown older. It's been 10 years since his last book and being a decade older Graham has come to realize that what makes a life interesting is less what happens to you and more what inspires and drives you, what you love. From Dolly Parton and dogs to wine and Ireland, Graham tells of his life and loves with characteristic humor and outrageous candor.]]> 304 Graham Norton 1444790269 Jacqui 5 3.76 2014 The Life and Loves of a He Devil
author: Graham Norton
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2014
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves]]> 16176440
Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, Lowell, Rosemary and her unusual sister Fern. Rosemary begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. “Until Fern’s expulsion...,� Rosemary says, “she was my twin, my funhouse mirror, my whirlwind other half and I loved her.� As a child, Rosemary never stopped talking. Then, something happened, and Rosemary wrapped herself in silence.

In We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler weaves her most accomplished work to date—a tale of loving but fallible people whose well-intentioned actions lead to heartbreaking consequences.]]> 310 Karen Joy Fowler 0399162097 Jacqui 3 3.70 2013 We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
author: Karen Joy Fowler
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2013
rating: 3
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date added: 2017/08/02
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]]> The Best of Adam Sharp 31451047 From the #1 bestselling author of The Rosie Project and The Rosie Effect, an unforgettable new novel about lost love and second chances

On the cusp of turning fifty, Adam Sharp likes his life. He’s happy with his partner Claire, he excels in music trivia at quiz night at the local pub, he looks after his mother, and he does the occasional consulting job in IT.

But he can never quite shake off his nostalgia for what might have been: his blazing affair more than twenty years ago with an intelligent and strong-willed actress named Angelina Brown who taught him for the first time what it means to find—and then lose—love. How different might his life have been if he hadn’t let her walk away?

And then, out of nowhere, from the other side of the world, Angelina gets in touch. What does she want? Does Adam dare to live dangerously?]]> 314 Graeme Simsion 1250130409 Jacqui 3 3.00 2016 The Best of Adam Sharp
author: Graeme Simsion
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2016
rating: 3
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date added: 2017/07/26
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]]> Radio Boy (Radio Boy #1) 33625095
Spike’s your average awkward 11 year old, funny and cheeky and with a mum to reckon with. When he becomes the first presenter ever to be sacked from hospital radio, he decides to carry on from a makeshift studio in the garden shed, with the help of his best friends Artie and Holly, disguising his voice and going by the moniker Radio Boy.

Week by week, word gets around and soon Spike is a star� if only people knew it was actually him. When Spike begins to believe his own hype, and goes too far with his mocking of the school headmaster, a hunt is launched for the mysterious Radio Boy.

Can Spike remain anonymous? Will he get to marry the girl of his dreams, Katherine Hamilton? Will he become famous and popular? The answer to most of these questions is no…]]> 368 Christian O'Connell 0008183325 Jacqui 3 3.96 Radio Boy (Radio Boy #1)
author: Christian O'Connell
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.96
book published:
rating: 3
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date added: 2017/07/26
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]]> PopCo 4285468 450 Scarlett Thomas 184767335X Jacqui 3 3.70 2004 PopCo
author: Scarlett Thomas
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2004
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian]]> 828387 A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian was bestselling author Marina Lewycka's bestselling debut novel which has sold over one million copies worldwide. Lewycka tells the side-splittingly funny story of two feuding sisters, Vera and Nadezhda, who join forces against their father's new, gold-digging girlfriend.

Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcée. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water, bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside.

Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must set aside a lifetime of feuding to save their émigré engineer father from voluptuous gold-digger Valentina. With her proclivity for green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, she will stop at nothing in her pursuit of Western wealth.

But the sisters' campaign to oust Valentina unearths family secrets, uncovers fifty years of Europe's darkest history and sends them back to roots they'd much rather forget . . . .]]> 326 Marina Lewycka 0141020520 Jacqui 3 3.44 2005 A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
author: Marina Lewycka
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2005
rating: 3
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]]> On Chesil Beach 815309
It is July 1962. Florence is a talented musician who dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, an earnest young history student at University College of London, who unexpectedly wooed and won her heart. Newly married that morning, both virgins, Edward and Florence arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their worries about the wedding night to come. Edward, eager for rapture, frets over Florence’s response to his advances and nurses a private fear of failure, while Florence’s anxieties run deeper: she is overcome by sheer disgust at the idea of physical contact, but dreads disappointing her husband when they finally lie down together in the honeymoon suite.

Ian McEwan has caught with understanding and compassion the innocence of Edward and Florence at a time when marriage was presumed to be the outward sign of maturity and independence. On Chesil Beach is another masterwork from McEwan—a story of lives transformed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.]]> 166 Ian McEwan 0224081187 Jacqui 4 3.61 2007 On Chesil Beach
author: Ian McEwan
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2007
rating: 4
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]]> Wonder (Wonder, #1) 11387515 I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse.

August Pullman was born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid—but his new classmates can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face. Wonder, begins from Auggie’s point of view, but soon switches to include his classmates, his sister, her boyfriend, and others.]]> 315 R.J. Palacio 0375869026 Jacqui 4 4.34 2012 Wonder (Wonder, #1)
author: R.J. Palacio
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2012
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/07/09
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]]> Apple Tree Yard 17452179 Apple Tree Yard.]]> 320 Louise Doughty 0571297889 Jacqui 3 3.65 2013 Apple Tree Yard
author: Louise Doughty
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2017/06/25
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]]> Hag-Seed 28588073
Eventually he takes a job teaching Literacy Through Theatre to the prisoners at the nearby Burgess Correctional Institution, and is making a modest success of it when an auspicious star places his enemies within his reach. With the help of their own interpretations, digital effects, and the talents of a professional actress and choreographer, the Burgess Correctional Players prepare to video their Tempest. Not surprisingly, they view Caliban as the character with whom they have the most in common. However, Felix has another twist in mind, and his enemies are about to find themselves taking part in an interactive and illusion-ridden version of The Tempest that will change their lives forever. But how will Felix deal with his invisible Miranda’s decision to take a part in the play?]]> 301 Margaret Atwood 0804141290 Jacqui 5 3.77 2016 Hag-Seed
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/06/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Saturnalia (Marcus Didius Falco, #18)]]> 576723
Justinus is love-struck once more and his wife, the temperamental Claudia, is enraged. Then Veleda escapes leaving behind a corpse. Justinus disappears too and it is up to Falco and the Chief Spy Anacrites to try to find the missing couple all against the backdrop of the orgiastic holiday period when literally anything goes . . .]]> 284 Lindsey Davis 1846050340 Jacqui 3 4.07 2007 Saturnalia (Marcus Didius Falco, #18)
author: Lindsey Davis
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2017/06/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Admissions: Life as a Brain Surgeon]]> 33574189
Following the publication of his celebrated New York Times bestseller Do No Harm, Marsh retired from his full-time job in England to work pro bono in Ukraine and Nepal. In Admissions, he describes the difficulties of working in these troubled, impoverished countries and the further insights it has given him into the practice of medicine.

Marsh also faces up to the burden of responsibility that can come with trying to reduce human suffering. Unearthing memories of his early days as a medical student and the experiences that shaped him as a young surgeon, he explores the difficulties of a profession that deals in probabilities rather than certainties and where the overwhelming urge to prolong life can come at a tragic cost for patients and those who love them.

Reflecting on what forty years of handling the human brain has taught him, Marsh finds a different purpose in life as he approaches the end of his professional career and a fresh understanding of what matters to us all in the end.]]> 288 Henry Marsh 1250127262 Jacqui 3 3.84 2017 Admissions: Life as a Brain Surgeon
author: Henry Marsh
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2017
rating: 3
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date added: 2017/05/21
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]]> Into the Water 33151805 The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller and global phenomenon The Girl on the Train returns with Into the Water, her addictive new novel of psychological suspense.

A single mother turns up dead at the bottom of the river that runs through town. Earlier in the summer, a vulnerable teenage girl met the same fate. They are not the first women lost to these dark waters, but their deaths disturb the river and its history, dredging up secrets long submerged.

Left behind is a lonely fifteen-year-old girl. Parentless and friendless, she now finds herself in the care of her mother's sister, a fearful stranger who has been dragged back to the place she deliberately ran from—a place to which she vowed she'd never return.

With the same propulsive writing and acute understanding of human instincts that captivated millions of readers around the world in her explosive debut thriller, The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins delivers an urgent, twisting, deeply satisfying read that hinges on the deceptiveness of emotion and memory, as well as the devastating ways that the past can reach a long arm into the present.

Beware a calm surface—you never know what lies beneath.]]> 386 Paula Hawkins 0735211205 Jacqui 0
Save a few hours of your life and read something else - ANYTHING else! This is puerile drivel! ]]> 3.59 2017 Into the Water
author: Paula Hawkins
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/05/16
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This is awful. It's dreadful! Rubbish - Truly dreadful, just as Girl in a Train was badly written rubbish and covered misogyny and violence again women - well here we go again - also written in diary style and multi voices. Terrible.

Save a few hours of your life and read something else - ANYTHING else! This is puerile drivel!
]]> Arthur & George 45369
As boys, George, the son of a Midlands vicar, and Arthur, living in shabby genteel Edinburgh, find themselves in a vast and complex world at the heart of the British Empire. Years later—one struggling with his identity in a world hostile to his ancestry, the other creating the world’s most famous detective while in love with a woman who is not his wife—their fates become inextricably connected.]]> 445 Julian Barnes 1400097037 Jacqui 2 3.72 2005 Arthur & George
author: Julian Barnes
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2005
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2017/05/04
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]]> <![CDATA[The Rosie Effect (Don Tillman, #2)]]> 23492671
Don sets about learning the protocols of becoming a father, but his unusual research style gets him into trouble with the law. Fortunately his best friend Gene is on hand to offer advice: he's left Claudia and moved in with Don and Rosie.

As Don tries to schedule time for pregnancy research, getting Gene and Claudia to reconcile, servicing the industrial refrigeration unit that occupies half his apartment, helping Dave the Baseball Fan save his business, and staying on the right side of Lydia the social worker, he almost misses the biggest problem of all: he might lose Rosie when she needs him the most.]]> 368 Graeme Simsion 1476767327 Jacqui 4 3.62 2014 The Rosie Effect (Don Tillman, #2)
author: Graeme Simsion
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/05/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish]]> 14236 404 Richard Flanagan 1843540703 Jacqui 3 3.73 1997 Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish
author: Richard Flanagan
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1997
rating: 3
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date added: 2017/05/03
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]]> <![CDATA[The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)]]> 38447
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.]]> 311 Margaret Atwood 038549081X Jacqui 5 4.15 1985 The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1985
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/05/03
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]]> Fahrenheit 451 17470674
Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.

The classic dystopian novel of a post-literate future, Fahrenheit 451 stands alongside Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World as a prophetic account of Western civilization’s enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity.

Bradbury’s powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a novel which, decades on from first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.

--back cover]]> 227 Ray Bradbury 0007491565 Jacqui 2 4.01 1953 Fahrenheit 451
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1953
rating: 2
read at: 2014/06/24
date added: 2017/04/29
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]]> The Sense of an Ending 10746542 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

By an acclaimed writer at the height of his powers, The Sense of an Ending extends a streak of extraordinary books that began with the best-selling Arthur & George and continued with Nothing to Be Frightened Of and, most recently, Pulse.

This intense novel follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he has never much thought about - until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance, one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony Webster thought he'd left all this behind as he built a life for himself, and by now his marriage and family and career have fallen into an amicable divorce and retirement. But he is then presented with a mysterious legacy that obliges him to reconsider a variety of things he thought he'd understood all along, and to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.

A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single sitting, with stunning psychological and emotional depth and sophistication, The Sense of an Ending is a brilliant new chapter in Julian Barnes's oeuvre.]]> 150 Julian Barnes 0224094157 Jacqui 4 3.73 2011 The Sense of an Ending
author: Julian Barnes
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2011
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/04/23
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]]> A Quiet Belief in Angels 2440137 406 R.J. Ellory 0752882635 Jacqui 3 3.84 2007 A Quiet Belief in Angels
author: R.J. Ellory
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2017/04/14
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]]> When Breath Becomes Air 25613396
What makes a virtuous and meaningful life? Paul Kalanithi believed that the answer lay in medicine’s most demanding specialization, neurosurgery. Here are patients at their life’s most critical moment. Here he worked in the most critical place for human identity, the brain. What is it like to do that every day; and what happens when life is catastrophically interrupted?

When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable reflection on the practice of medicine and the relationship between doctor and patient, from a gifted writer who became both.

With a foreword by Dr Abraham Verghese and an epilogue by the author�s wife, Lucy.]]> 229 Paul Kalanithi Jacqui 5 4.37 2016 When Breath Becomes Air
author: Paul Kalanithi
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2016
rating: 5
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date added: 2017/04/09
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]]> The Heart Goes Last 24388326
Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of an economic and social collapse. Job loss has forced them to live in their car, leaving them vulnerable to roving gangs. They desperately need to turn their situation around - and fast. The Positron Project in the town of Consilience seems to be the answer to their prayers. No one is unemployed and everyone gets a comfortable, clean house to live in... for six months out of the year. On alternating months, residents of Consilience must leave their homes and function as inmates in the Positron prison system. Once their month of service in the prison is completed, they can return to their "civilian" homes.

At first, this doesn't seem like too much of a sacrifice to make in order to have a roof over one's head and food to eat. But when Charmaine becomes romantically involved with the man who lives in their house during the months when she and Stan are in the prison, a series of troubling events unfolds, putting Stan's life in danger. With each passing day, Positron looks less like a prayer answered and more like a chilling prophecy fulfilled.]]> 320 Margaret Atwood 0385540353 Jacqui 3 3.37 2015 The Heart Goes Last
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2015
rating: 3
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date added: 2017/03/28
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]]> <![CDATA[The End of the World Running Club]]> 22617452
So when it does end in a catastrophic asteroid strike and Edgar and his family find refuge in an Edinburgh army barracks, it comes as something of a relief. His world becomes simpler, life becomes easier, things might just be looking up.

But nothing's ever that simple. Returning from a salvage run in the city, Edgar finds his family gone, taken to the south coast for evacuation by an international task force. Suddenly he finds himself facing a gruelling journey on foot across a devastated United Kingdom. Accompanied by a group of misfits that include a large, hairy tattoo artist and an old man who claims to have run around Australia, Edgar must race against time and overcome his own short-comings, not to mention 100 mile canyons and a very strange council estate, to find the people he loves before he loses them forever.

A vivid, gripping story of hope, long-distance running and how we break the limits of our own endurance.]]> 423 Adrian J. Walker Jacqui 3 3.85 2014 The End of the World Running Club
author: Adrian J. Walker
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2014
rating: 3
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date added: 2017/03/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Days Without End (Days Without End, #1)]]> 30212107
Moving from the plains of Wyoming to Tennessee, Sebastian Barry’s latest work is a masterpiece of atmosphere and language. An intensely poignant story of two men and the makeshift family they create with a young Sioux girl, Winona, Days Without End is a fresh and haunting portrait of the most fateful years in American history and is a novel never to be forgotten.]]> 259 Sebastian Barry 0525427368 Jacqui 4 3.93 2016 Days Without End (Days Without End, #1)
author: Sebastian Barry
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2016
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/03/09
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]]> And the Mountains Echoed 16115612 404 Khaled Hosseini 159463176X Jacqui 2 4.06 2012 And the Mountains Echoed
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2017/03/05
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]]> Nutshell 30008702 Nutshell is a classic story of murder and deceit, told by a narrator with a perspective and voice unlike any in recent literature. A bravura performance, it is the finest recent work from a true master.

To be bound in a nutshell, see the world in two inches of ivory, in a grain of sand. Why not, when all of literature, all of art, of human endeavour, is just a speck in the universe of possible things.]]> 208 Ian McEwan Jacqui 4 3.65 2016 Nutshell
author: Ian McEwan
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2016
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/02/20
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]]> I, Robot (Robot, #0.1) 41804
I, ROBOT

They mustn't harm a human being, they must obey human orders, and they must protect their own existence...but only so long as that doesn't violate rules one and two. With these Three Laws of Robotics, humanity embarked on perhaps its greatest adventure: the invention of the first positronic man. It was a bold new era of evolution that would open up enormous possibilities—and unforeseen risks. For the scientists who invented the earliest robots weren't content that their creations should ' remain programmed helpers, companions, and semisentient worker-machines. And soon the robots themselves; aware of their own intelligence, power, and humanity, aren't either.

As humans and robots struggle to survive together—and sometimes against each other—on earth and in space, the future of both hangs in the balance. Human men and women confront robots gone mad, telepathic robots, robot politicians, and vast robotic intelligences that may already secretly control the world. And both are asking the same questions: What is human? And is humanity obsolete?

In l, Robot Isaac Asimov changes forever our perception of robots, and human beings and updates the timeless myth of man's dream to play god. with all its rewards—and terrors.
--front flap]]> 224 Isaac Asimov 0553803700 Jacqui 4 4.22 1950 I, Robot (Robot, #0.1)
author: Isaac Asimov
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1950
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/02/20
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]]> On Cats 24606050 A raw and tenderly funny look at the human-cat relationship, from one of our most treasured and transgressive writers.

“The cat is the beautiful devil.�

Felines touched a vulnerable spot in Charles Bukowski’s crusty soul. For the writer, there was something majestic and elemental about these inscrutable creatures he admired, sentient beings whose searing gaze could penetrate deep into our being. Bukowski considered cats to be unique forces of nature, elusive emissaries of beauty and love.

On Cats offers Bukowski’s musings on these beloved animals and their toughness and resiliency. He honors them as fighters, hunters, survivors who command awe and respect as they grip tightly onto the world around “A cat is only ITSELF, representative of the strong forces of life that won’t let go.�

Funny, moving, tough, and caring, On Cats brings together the acclaimed writer’s reflections on these animals he so admired. Bukowski’s cats are fierce and demanding—he captures them stalking their prey; crawling across his typewritten pages; waking him up with claws across the face. But they are also affectionate and giving, sources of inspiration and gentle, insistent care.

Poignant yet free of treacle, On Cats is an illuminating portrait of this one-of-a-kind artist and his unique view of the world, witnessed through his relationship with the animals he considered his most profound teachers.

]]> 129 Charles Bukowski 0062396013 Jacqui 4 3.76 On Cats
author: Charles Bukowski
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.76
book published:
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/02/08
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]]> The Bird Tribunal 31454606 233 Agnes Ravatn 1910633364 Jacqui 4 3.63 2013 The Bird Tribunal
author: Agnes Ravatn
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2013
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/02/08
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]]> Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 72159 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof first heated up Broadway in 1955 with its gothic American story of brothers vying for their dying father’s inheritance amid a whirlwind of sexuality, untethered in the person of Maggie the Cat. The play also daringly showcased the burden of sexuality repressed in the agony of her husband, Brick Pollitt. In spite of the public controversy Cat stirred up, it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Drama Critics Circle Award for that year. Williams, as he so often did with his plays, rewrote Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for many years—the present version was originally produced at the American Shakespeare Festival in 1974 with all the changes that made Williams finally declare the text to be definitive, and was most recently produced on Broadway in the 2003�2004 season. This definitive edition also includes Williams&rsquoi; essay “Person-to-Person,� Williams� notes on the various endings, and a short chronology of the author’s life. One of America’s greatest living playwrights, as well as a friend and colleague of Williams, Edward Albee has written a concise introduction to the play from a playwright’s perspective, examining the candor, sensuality, power, and impact of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof then and now.]]> 208 Tennessee Williams 0811216012 Jacqui 5 4.07 1955 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
author: Tennessee Williams
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1955
rating: 5
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date added: 2017/02/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Grief Is the Thing with Feathers]]> 25334576
In this moment of despair they are visited by Crow - antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter. This self-described sentimental bird is attracted to the grieving family and threatens to stay until they no longer need him. As weeks turn to months and physical pain of loss gives way to memories, this little unit of three begin to heal.

In this extraordinary debut - part novella, part polyphonic fable, part essay on grief, Max Porter's compassion and bravura style combine to dazzling effect. Full of unexpected humour and profound emotional truth, Grief is the Thing with Feathers marks the arrival of a thrilling new talent.]]> 114 Max Porter 0571323766 Jacqui 5 3.85 2015 Grief Is the Thing with Feathers
author: Max Porter
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/02/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Ghost Road (Regeneration, #3)]]> 151926
The Ghost Road is the culminating masterpiece of Pat Barker's towering World War I fiction trilogy. The time of the novel is the closing months of the most senselessly savage of modern conflicts. In France, millions of men engaged in brutal trench warfare are all "ghosts in the making." In England, psychologist William Rivers, with severe pangs of conscience, treats the mental casualties of the war to make them whole enough to fight again. One of these, Billy Prior, risen to the officer class from the working class, both courageous and sardonic, decides to return to France with his fellow officer, poet Wilfred Owen, to fight a war he no longer believes in. Meanwhile, Rivers, enfevered by influenza, returns in memory to his experience studying a South Pacific tribe whose ethos amounted to a culture of death. Across the gulf between his society and theirs, Rivers begins to form connections that cast new light on his--and our--understanding of war.

Combining poetic intensity with gritty realism, blending biting humor with tragic drama, moving toward a denouement as inevitable as it is devastating, The Ghost Road both encapsulates history and transcends it. It is a modern masterpiece
]]> 288 Pat Barker 0452276721 Jacqui 4 4.10 1995 The Ghost Road (Regeneration, #3)
author: Pat Barker
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1995
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/02/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)]]> 1232 487 Carlos Ruiz Zafón Jacqui 5
There is a craft and skill to writing that so many modern 'popular novels' lack. Here is a thing of beauty. The characters are well defined, fully rounded and living and breathing in their believability. I had empathy with them all.

No spoilers here. Just read, revel surround and immerse yourself. In the time we find ourselves living in (2017) Open your eyes - Look & See everything - Beauty is all around! enjoy ]]> 4.26 2001 The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)
author: Carlos Ruiz Zafón
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at: 2017/01/31
date added: 2017/01/31
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Simply beautiful! A truly wonderful read. It was recommended to me and I'm so glad found the time to finally read.

There is a craft and skill to writing that so many modern 'popular novels' lack. Here is a thing of beauty. The characters are well defined, fully rounded and living and breathing in their believability. I had empathy with them all.

No spoilers here. Just read, revel surround and immerse yourself. In the time we find ourselves living in (2017) Open your eyes - Look & See everything - Beauty is all around! enjoy
]]> Stardust 16793 Alternate cover edition can be found here

Young Tristran Thorn will do anything to win the cold heart of beautiful Victoria—even fetch her the star they watch fall from the night sky. But to do so, he must enter the unexplored lands on the other side of the ancient wall that gives their tiny village its name. Beyond that old stone wall, Tristran learns, lies Faerie—where nothing not even a fallen star, is what he imagined.]]> 248 Neil Gaiman 0061142026 Jacqui 4 4.11 1998 Stardust
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1998
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/01/24
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]]> <![CDATA[The Rosie Project (Don Tillman, #1)]]> 16181775
Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a “wonderful� husband, his first reaction is shock. Yet he must concede to the statistical probability that there is someone for everyone, and he embarks upon The Wife Project. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which he approaches all things, Don sets out to find the perfect partner. She will be punctual and logical—most definitely not a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.

Yet Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also beguiling, fiery, intelligent—and on a quest of her own. She is looking for her biological father, a search that a certain DNA expert might be able to help her with. Don's Wife Project takes a back burner to the Father Project and an unlikely relationship blooms, forcing the scientifically minded geneticist to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie—and the realization that love is not always what looks good on paper.

The Rosie Project is a moving and hilarious novel for anyone who has ever tenaciously gone after life or love in the face of overwhelming challenges.]]> 292 Graeme Simsion 1476729085 Jacqui 5 4.00 2013 The Rosie Project (Don Tillman, #1)
author: Graeme Simsion
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2013
rating: 5
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date added: 2017/01/22
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]]> Eating Animals 6604712 Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his life oscillating between enthusiastic carnivore and occasional vegetarian. Once he started a family, the moral dimensions of food became increasingly important.


Faced with the prospect of being unable to explain why we eat some animals and not others, Foer set out to explore the origins of many eating traditions and the fictions involved with creating them. Traveling to the darkest corners of our dining habits, Foer raises the unspoken question behind every fish we eat, every chicken we fry, and every burger we grill.


Part memoir and part investigative report, Eating Animals is a book that, in the words of the Los Angeles Times, places Jonathan Safran Foer "at the table with our greatest philosophers."
]]> 341 Jonathan Safran Foer 0316069906 Jacqui 0 4.20 2009 Eating Animals
author: Jonathan Safran Foer
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/01/21
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]]> The Death of Bunny Munro 6389257 288 Nick Cave 1847673767 Jacqui 1 Crap! 3.46 2009 The Death of Bunny Munro
author: Nick Cave
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2009
rating: 1
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date added: 2017/01/21
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Crap!
]]> Bright, Precious Days 28007962 The Good Life a sexy, vibrant, cross-generational New York story -- a literary and commercial read of the highest order.

Russell and Corrine Calloway seem to be living the New York dream: book parties one night and high-society charity events the next; jobs they care about (and actually enjoy); twin children, a boy and a girl whose birth was truly miraculous; a loft in TriBeCa and summers in the Hamptons. But all of this comes at a high cost. Russell, an independent publisher, has cultural clout but minimal cash; as he navigates an industry that requires, beyond astute literary taste, constant financial improvisation, he encounters an audacious, expensive and potentially ruinous opportunity. Meanwhile, instead of seeking personal profit in this incredibly wealthy city, Corrine is devoted to feeding its hungry poor, and they soon discover they're being priced out of their now fashionable neighborhood.

Then Corrine's world is turned upside down when the man with whom she'd had an ill-fated affair in the wake of 9/11 suddenly reappears. As the novel unfolds across a period of stupendous change--including Obama's historic election and the global economic collapse he inherited -- the Calloways will find themselves and their marriage tested more severely than they ever could have anticipated.]]> 416 Jay McInerney 1101948000 Jacqui 2 3.57 2016 Bright, Precious Days
author: Jay McInerney
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at: 2017/01/09
date added: 2017/01/09
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Dated, boring facile and self absorbed. Stick with BoV - everything has a place and a time. This isn't it!
]]> A Monster Calls 8621462
At seven minutes past midnight, thirteen-year-old Conor wakes to find a monster outside his bedroom window. But it isn't the monster Conor's been expecting - he's been expecting the one from his nightmare, the nightmare he's had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments. The monster in his backyard is different. It's ancient. And wild. And it wants something from Conor. Something terrible and dangerous. It wants the truth.

From the final idea of award-winning author Siobhan Dowd - whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself - Patrick Ness has spun a haunting and darkly funny novel of mischief, loss, and monsters both real and imagined.]]> 226 Patrick Ness 1406311529 Jacqui 5 4.35 2011 A Monster Calls
author: Patrick Ness
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2011
rating: 5
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date added: 2016/12/22
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]]> Saturday 5015
Later, as Perowne makes his way through London streets filled with hundreds of thousands of anti-war protestors, a minor car accident brings him into a confrontation with Baxter, a fidgety, aggressive young man, on the edge of violence. To Perowne's professional eye, there appears to be something profoundly wrong with him. But it is not until Baxter makes a sudden appearance as the Perowne family gathers for a reunion, that Henry's fears seem about to be realised.]]> 289 Ian McEwan 1400076196 Jacqui 0 3.64 2005 Saturday
author: Ian McEwan
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/22
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]]> Babette’s Feast 10104532 54 Isak Dinesen 0141195932 Jacqui 4 3.94 1958 Babette’s Feast
author: Isak Dinesen
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1958
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> I Love Dick 243991
Blurring the lines of fiction, essay and memoir, Chris Kraus's novel was a literary sensation when it was first published in 1997. Widely considered to be the most important feminist novel of the past two decades, I Love Dick is still essential reading; as relevant, fierce and funny as ever.]]> 280 Chris Kraus 1584350342 Jacqui 1
I tried to read this a number of times and have finally, if disappointedly succeeded! I thought... it's gonna get better in a minute... something is going to spark my interest... it's going to make me thing soon... sadly nope. It just plodded in with more navel gazing.

I was Totally bored with the attempt to simultaneously titillate and shock in equal measures by the writer, a woman allegedly finding herself at 40 by using certain vulgar and base words as this was some amazing emancipation.

I know this was written in the mid to 1990's but none the less nothing groundbreaking here. Just pass on by and read something much more rewarding and mind expanding - imo this was a waste of a number of hours of my life which I'll never recover!

It only become of any interest near the very end where Chris critique's a number of art works with an in depth knowledge and breathtaking beauty - that and the last 19 pages where the copy I read had a literary criticism which was erudite, succinct and gave all the interesting points, questions and issues raised in what was otherwise a very poor read.

My recommendation? Don't, move on there's Nothing to see or of interest here!

To my dear friend who recommend this to me - what the £u@& were You thinking...? ]]> 3.53 1997 I Love Dick
author: Chris Kraus
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.53
book published: 1997
rating: 1
read at: 2016/12/01
date added: 2016/12/01
shelves:
review:
Well where to begin...? What an utter load of self indulgent, over hyped, over rated, self absorbed wank!

I tried to read this a number of times and have finally, if disappointedly succeeded! I thought... it's gonna get better in a minute... something is going to spark my interest... it's going to make me thing soon... sadly nope. It just plodded in with more navel gazing.

I was Totally bored with the attempt to simultaneously titillate and shock in equal measures by the writer, a woman allegedly finding herself at 40 by using certain vulgar and base words as this was some amazing emancipation.

I know this was written in the mid to 1990's but none the less nothing groundbreaking here. Just pass on by and read something much more rewarding and mind expanding - imo this was a waste of a number of hours of my life which I'll never recover!

It only become of any interest near the very end where Chris critique's a number of art works with an in depth knowledge and breathtaking beauty - that and the last 19 pages where the copy I read had a literary criticism which was erudite, succinct and gave all the interesting points, questions and issues raised in what was otherwise a very poor read.

My recommendation? Don't, move on there's Nothing to see or of interest here!

To my dear friend who recommend this to me - what the £u@& were You thinking...?
]]> The Periodic Table 427282 The Periodic Table by Primo Levi is an impassioned response to the Holocaust: Consisting of 21 short stories, each possessing the name of a chemical element, the collection tells of the author's experiences as a Jewish-Italian chemist before, during, and after Auschwitz in luminous, clear, and unfailingly beautiful prose. It has been named the best science book ever by the Royal Institution of Great Britain, and is considered to be Levi's crowning achievement.]]> 233 Primo Levi 0805210415 Jacqui 5 4.17 1975 The Periodic Table
author: Primo Levi
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1975
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/11/27
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939�45]]> 128066 The Pianist is Szpilman's account of the years inbetween, of the death and cruelty inflicted on the Jews of Warsaw and on Warsaw itself, related with a dispassionate restraint borne of shock. Szpilman, now 88, has not looked at his description since he wrote it in 1946 (the same time as Primo Levi's If This Is A Man?; it is too personally painful. The rest of us have no such excuse.

Szpilman's family were deported to Treblinka, where they were exterminated; he survived only because a music-loving policeman recognised him. This was only the first in a series of fatefully lucky escapes that littered his life as he hid among the rubble and corpses of the Warsaw Ghetto, growing thinner and hungrier, yet condemned to live. Ironically it was a German officer, Wilm Hosenfeld, who saved Szpilman's life by bringing food and an eiderdown to the derelict ruin where he discovered him. Hosenfeld died seven years later in a Stalingrad labour camp, but portions of his diary, reprinted here, tell of his outraged incomprehension of the madness and evil he witnessed, thereby establishing an effective counterpoint to ground the nightmarish vision of the pianist in a desperate reality. Szpilman originally published his account in Poland in 1946, but it was almost immediately withdrawn by Stalin's Polish minions as it unashamedly described collaborations by Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Poles and Jews with the Nazis. In 1997 it was published in Germany after Szpilman's son found it on his father's bookcase. This admirably robust translation by Anthea Bell is the first in the English language. There were 3,500,000 Jews in Poland before the Nazi occupation; after it there were 240,000. Wladyslaw Szpilman's extraordinary account of his own miraculous survival offers a voice across the years for the faceless millions who lost their lives. --David Vincent

]]> 222 Władysław Szpilman 057506708X Jacqui 0 to-read 4.23 1946 The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939–45
author: Władysław Szpilman
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1946
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/11/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Street Cat Named Bob: The Amazing True Story of One Man and His Cat]]> 32313540
Yet James couldn't resist helping the strikingly intelligent tom cat, whom he quickly christened Bob. He slowly nursed Bob back to health and then sent the cat on his way, imagining he would never see him again. But Bob had other ideas.

Soon the two were inseparable and their diverse, comic and occasionally dangerous adventures would transform both their lives, slowly healing the scars of each other's troubled pasts.

A Street Cat Named Bob is a moving and uplifting story that will touch the heart of anyone who reads it.]]> 294 James Bowen 1473633362 Jacqui 0 4.00 2012 A Street Cat Named Bob: The Amazing True Story of One Man and His Cat
author: James Bowen
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/11/14
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[All the Pretty Horses (The Border Trilogy, #1)]]> 469571 302 Cormac McCarthy 0679744398 Jacqui 0 4.04 1992 All the Pretty Horses (The Border Trilogy, #1)
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Jacqui
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/11/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Him With His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories]]> 213576 304 Saul Bellow 0141180234 Jacqui 4 3.67 1984 Him With His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories
author: Saul Bellow
name: Jacqui
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1984
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/11/02
shelves:
review:

]]>