Namrata's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 06 Apr 2025 00:20:05 -0700 60 Namrata's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Putin: His Life and Times 60032304 848 Philip Short 1847923372 Namrata 3 4.30 2022 Putin: His Life and Times
author: Philip Short
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/04/06
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]]> The Profiler 221207871
‘Truly exceptional…twists and turns that I didn't see coming, a unique concept, and brilliant characters…simply captivating.â€� JOHN MARRS

________

He’s going to kill you. He just doesn’t know it yet.

Midnight Jones is an analyst trained to understand the human mind. But everything changes when, in the course of her work, she discovers Profile K’s file â€� because K stands for killer, and she knows that someone more dangerous than she could have ever imagined walks among them.

Midnight knows what Profile K is capable of before he even commits his first crime. But as the news rolls with the brutal murder of a local woman, no one believes what she tells them: that he is capable of so much worse.

Profile K will kill again � and, terrifyingly, Midnight realises that the moment she found his file was the moment she became his next target. Because Profile K is coming for Midnight � and the only way to escape with her life is to find him before he finds her�

The million-copy bestseller is back with a dark, terrifying journey into the mind of a psychopath that will keep you riveted until the very last page.]]> 11 Helen Sarah Fields Namrata 4 4.09 2024 The Profiler
author: Helen Sarah Fields
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness]]> 171681821
A must-read for all parents: the generation-defining investigation into the collapse of youth mental health in the era of smartphones, social media, and big tech—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood.

“With tenacity and candor, Haidt lays out the consequences that have come with allowing kids to drift further into the virtual world . . . While also offering suggestions and solutions that could help protect a new generation of kids.â€� —Shannon Carlin, ,i>TIME, 100 Must-Read Books of 2024

After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why?

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhoodâ€� began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhoodâ€� in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhoodâ€� has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problemsâ€� that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.

Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.]]> 400 Jonathan Haidt 0593655036 Namrata 0 to-read 4.36 2024 The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
author: Jonathan Haidt
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions]]> 209786389
A fundamental principle of our legal system is a presumption of innocence, but once someone has been found guilty there is very little room to prove doubt. Framed shares ten true stories of men who were innocent but found guilty and forced to sacrifice friends, families, wives, and decades of their lives to prison while the guilty parties remained free. In each of the stories, John Grisham and Jim McCloskey recount the dramatic hard-fought battles for exoneration. They take a close look at what leads to wrongful convictions in the first place, and the racism, misconduct, flawed testimony, and the corrupt court system that can make them so hard to reverse.

Told with page-turning suspense as only John Grisham can deliver, Framed is the story of overcoming adversity when the battle already seems lost, and the deck is stacked against you.]]> 368 John Grisham 0385550448 Namrata 0 to-read 4.09 2024 Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions
author: John Grisham
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/15
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]]> Confess 22609310
For once, Auburn takes a chance and puts her heart in control, only to discover that Owen is hiding a huge secret. The magnitude of his past threatens to destroy everything Auburn loves most, and the only way to get her life back on track is to cut Owen out of it—but can she do it?]]> 306 Colleen Hoover 1476791457 Namrata 2 4.14 2015 Confess
author: Colleen Hoover
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2016/02/09
date added: 2025/03/01
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]]> Faust 406373 Faust reworks the late medieval myth of a brilliant scholar so disillusioned he resolves to make a contract with Mephistopheles. The devil will do all he asks on Earth and seeks to grant him a moment in life so glorious that he will wish it to last forever. But if Faust does bid the moment stay, he falls to Mephistopheles and must serve him after death. In this first part of Goethe’s great work, the embittered thinker and Mephistopheles enter into their agreement, and soon Faust is living a rejuvenated life and winning the love of the beautiful Gretchen. But in this compelling tragedy of arrogance, unfulfilled desire, and self-delusion, Faust heads inexorably toward an infernal destruction.]]> 503 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 0385031149 Namrata 0 to-read 3.90 1808 Faust
author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1808
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/18
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]]> <![CDATA[A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Pithy Chapters]]> 56269152
Although these membranes were leaky, the environment within them became different from the raging maelstrom beyond. These havens of order slowly refined the generation of energy, using it to form membrane-bound bubbles that were mostly-faithful copies of their parents―a foamy lather of soap-bubble cells standing as tiny clenched fists, defiant against the lifeless world. Life on this planet has continued in much the same way for millennia, adapting to literally every conceivable setback that living organisms could encounter and thriving, from these humblest beginnings to the thrilling and unlikely story of ourselves.

In A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth , Henry Gee zips through the last 4.6 billion years with infectious enthusiasm and intellectual rigor. Drawing on the very latest scientific understanding and writing in a clear, accessible style, he tells an enlightening tale of survival and persistence that illuminates the delicate balance within which life has always existed.]]> 280 Henry Gee 1250276659 Namrata 4 4.00 2021 A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Pithy Chapters
author: Henry Gee
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/05
date added: 2024/10/05
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]]> The Psychology of Money 41881472 242 Morgan Housel 0857197681 Namrata 4 4.28 2020 The Psychology of Money
author: Morgan Housel
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/04
date added: 2024/09/04
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]]> <![CDATA[The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference]]> 2612 The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.]]> 301 Malcolm Gladwell 0316346624 Namrata 0 to-read 4.01 2002 The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow]]> 58784475 In this exhilarating novel, two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.]]> 401 Gabrielle Zevin 0735243344 Namrata 4 4.12 2022 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/24
date added: 2024/08/24
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]]> The Stranger 49552 The Stranger has long been considered a classic of twentieth-century literature. Le Monde ranks it as number one on its "100 Books of the Century" list. Through this story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd."]]> 123 Albert Camus Namrata 5 4.04 1942 The Stranger
author: Albert Camus
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1942
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/30
date added: 2024/07/30
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]]> <![CDATA[Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist]]> 29214420
Can it be fixed? In Doughnut Economics, Oxford academic Kate Raworth identifies seven critical ways in which mainstream economics has led us astray, and sets out a roadmap for bringing humanity into a sweet spot that meets the needs of all within the means of the planet. En route, she deconstructs the character of ‘rational economic manâ€� and explains what really makes us tick. She reveals how an obsession with equilibrium has left economists helpless when facing the boom and bust of the real-world economy. She highlights the dangers of ignoring the role of energy and nature’s resources â€� and the far-reaching implications for economic growth when we take them into account. And in the process, she creates a new, cutting-edge economic model that is fit for the 21st century â€� one in which a doughnut-shaped compass points the way to human progress.

Ambitious, radical and rigorously argued, Doughnut Economics promises to reframe and redraw the future of economics for a new generation.]]> 384 Kate Raworth 1847941389 Namrata 3 4.17 2017 Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist
author: Kate Raworth
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/19
date added: 2024/07/19
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]]> The Briar Club 181110045 A haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, D.C. boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.

Washington, D.C., 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital, where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; police officer’s daughter Nora, who is entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Bea, whose career has ended along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare.

Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears apart the house, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: Who is the true enemy in their midst?]]> 432 Kate Quinn 0063244748 Namrata 4 4.26 2024 The Briar Club
author: Kate Quinn
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/17
date added: 2024/07/17
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]]> The Fix (Amos Decker, #3) 31562247
Even with Decker's extraordinary powers of observation and deduction, the killing is baffling. Decker and his team can find absolutely no connection between the shooter--a family man with a successful consulting business--and his victim, a schoolteacher. Nor is there a hint of any possible motive for the attack.

Enter Harper Brown. An agent of the Defense Intelligence Agency, she orders Decker to back off the case. The murder is part of an open DIA investigation, one so classified that Decker and his team aren't cleared for it.

But they learn that the DIA believes solving the murder is now a matter of urgent national security. Critical information may have been leaked to a hostile government--or worse, an international terrorist group--and an attack may be imminent.]]> 434 David Baldacci Namrata 3 4.21 2017 The Fix (Amos Decker, #3)
author: David Baldacci
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/10
date added: 2024/07/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Why Knowledge Matters: Rescuing Our Children from Failed Educational Theories]]> 30227750
Influential scholar Hirsch, author of The Knowledge Deficit , asserts that a carefully planned curriculum that imparts communal knowledge is essential in achieving one of the most fundamental aims and objectives of preparing students for lifelong success. Hirsch examines historical and contemporary evidence from the United States and other nations, including France, and affirms that a knowledge-based approach has improved both achievement and equity in schools where it has been instituted.

In contrast, educational change of the past several decades in the United States has endorsed a skills-based approach, founded on, Hirsch points out, many incorrect assumptions about child development and how children learn. He recommends new policies that are better aligned with our current understanding of neuroscience, developmental psychology, and social science.

The book focuses on six persistent problems that merit the attention of contemporary education the over-testing of students in the name of educational accountability; the scapegoating of teachers; the fadeout of preschool gains; the narrowing of the curriculum to crowd out history, geography, science, literature, and the arts; the achievement gap between demographic groups; and the reliance on standards, such as the Common Core State Standards, that are not linked to a rigorous curriculum.

Why Knowledge Matters makes a clear case for educational innovation and introduces a new generation of American educators to Hirsch’s astute and passionate analysis.]]> 280 E.D. Hirsch Jr. 1612509525 Namrata 4 4.19 Why Knowledge Matters: Rescuing Our Children from Failed Educational Theories
author: E.D. Hirsch Jr.
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.19
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/30
date added: 2024/06/29
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]]> <![CDATA[The Last Mile (Amos Decker, #2)]]> 26245853
Amos Decker, newly hired on an FBI special task force, takes an interest in Mars's case after discovering the striking similarities to his own life: Both men were talented football players with promising careers cut short by tragedy. Both men's families were brutally murdered. And in both cases, another suspect came forward, years after the killing, to confess to the crime. A suspect who may or may not have been telling the truth.

The confession has the potential to make Melvin Mars--guilty or not--a free man. Who wants Mars out of prison? And why now?

But when a member of Decker's team disappears, it becomes clear that something much larger--and more sinister--than just one convicted criminal's life hangs in the balance. Decker will need all of his extraordinary brainpower to stop an innocent man from being executed.]]> 644 David Baldacci 1455566020 Namrata 0 4.14 2016 The Last Mile (Amos Decker, #2)
author: David Baldacci
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/25
date added: 2024/06/25
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]]> Memory Man (Amos Decker, #1) 23153154
When Amos Decker returned home to find the bodies of his wife and only daughter, he didn't think he could carry on living.

Overwhelmed with grief, Decker saw his life fall apart, losing his job as a detective, his house, and his self-respect. But when his former partner visits to tell him that someone has confessed to the murder of his family, he knows he must seek justice for them.

Then tragedy strikes at the local school: teenagers are gunned down and the killer is at large. Following the serious brain injury Amos suffered as a professional footballer, he gained a remarkable gift - and the police believe that this unusual skill will assist in the hunt for the killer.

Amos Decker must endure the memories he would rather forget, and when new evidence links the murders, he is left with only one option...]]> 416 David Baldacci 1455559822 Namrata 4 4.04 2015 Memory Man (Amos Decker, #1)
author: David Baldacci
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/23
date added: 2024/06/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain]]> 9827912 290 David Eagleman 0307377334 Namrata 4 4.10 2011 Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
author: David Eagleman
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/13
date added: 2024/05/13
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Echo Man (Major Crimes, #1)]]> 58656109
Detectives Cara Elliott and Noah Deakin are on the case of a series of seemingly unconnected murders, each different in method, but each shocking and brutal. As the body count increases, they can’t ignore the details that echo famous cases of the past—Manson, Kemper, Dahmer, and more. As Elliott and Deakin get closer to unmasking the killer, the murders are moving closer to home.

Meanwhile, Jessica Ambrose is on the run. She’s been implicated as the arsonist who killed her neglectful husband and injured her young daughter. With the help of disgraced and suspended detective Nate Griffin, Jess discovers a shocking link between her case and that of the ultimate copycat killer working on his horrifying masterpiece.]]> 400 Sam Holland 1643859927 Namrata 4 4.09 2022 The Echo Man (Major Crimes, #1)
author: Sam Holland
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/10
date added: 2024/05/10
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]]> <![CDATA[The Housemaid's Secret (The Housemaid, #2)]]> 62848145 As he continues showing me their incredible penthouse apartment, I have a terrible feeling about the woman behind closed doors. But I can't risk losing this job � not if I want to keep my darkest secret safe . . .

It's hard to find an employer who doesn't ask too many questions about my past. So I thank my lucky stars that the Garricks miraculously give me a job, cleaning their stunning penthouse with views across the city and preparing fancy meals in their shiny kitchen. I can work here for a while, stay quiet until I get what I want. It's almost perfect. But I still haven't met Mrs Garrick, or seen inside the guest bedroom. I'm sure I hear her crying. I notice spots of blood around the neck of her white nightgowns when I'm doing laundry. And one day I can't help but knock on the door. When it gently swings open, what I see inside changes everything...

That's when I make a promise. After all, I've done this before. I can protect Mrs. Garrick while keeping my own secrets locked up safe. Douglas Garrick has done wrong. He is going to pay. It's simply a question of how far I'm willing to go...]]> 318 Freida McFadden 1837901317 Namrata 3 4.22 2023 The Housemaid's Secret (The Housemaid, #2)
author: Freida McFadden
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/14
date added: 2024/04/13
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]]> <![CDATA[The Housemaid (The Housemaid, #1)]]> 60556912
Every day I clean the Winchesters� beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.

I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.

I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds outâ€� and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.

But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am.

They don’t know what I’m capable ofâ€�

An unbelievably twisty read that will have you glued to the pages late into the night. Anyone who loves The Woman in the Window, The Wife Between Us and The Girl on the Train won’t be able to put this down!]]> 329 Freida McFadden 1803144378 Namrata 3 4.31 2022 The Housemaid (The Housemaid, #1)
author: Freida McFadden
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/11
date added: 2024/04/13
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]]> Educated 35133922
Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.

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

Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it.]]> 352 Tara Westover 0399590501 Namrata 2 4.46 2018 Educated
author: Tara Westover
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2019/01/31
date added: 2024/04/10
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]]> The Brain: The Story of You 25776132 224 David Eagleman 1101870532 Namrata 4 4.25 2015 The Brain: The Story of You
author: David Eagleman
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/25
date added: 2024/02/24
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Pathogenesis: How germs made history: A Sunday Times Science Book of the Year]]> 61067818 A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK

'Powerfully argued... Fascinating and pacy' Sunday Times, Book of the Week
'Superbly written... sure to please readers of Yuval Noah Harari or Rutger Bregman' The Times
'Full of amazing facts' Observer

In this revelatory book, Dr Jonathan Kennedy argues that germs have shaped humanity at every stage, from the first success of Homo sapiens over the equally intelligent Neanderthals to the fall of Rome and the rise of Islam.

How did an Indonesian volcano help cause the Black Death, setting Europe on the road to capitalism? How could 168 men extract the largest ransom in history from an opposing army of eighty thousand? And why did the Industrial Revolution lead to the birth of the modern welfare state?

The latest science reveals that infectious diseases are not just something that happens to us, but a fundamental part of who we are. Indeed, the only reason humans don't lay eggs is that a virus long ago inserted itself into our DNA, and there are as many bacteria in your body as there are human cells. We have been thinking about the survival of the fittest all evolution is not simply about human strength and intelligence, but about how we live and thrive in a world dominated by microbes.

By exploring the startling intimacy of our relationship with infectious diseases, Kennedy shows how they have been responsible for some of the seismic revolutions of the past 50,000 years. Provocative and brimming with insight, Pathogenesis transforms our understanding of the human story.

Challenges some of the greatest cliches about colonialism... A revelation' SATHNAM SANGHERA
'Thrilling and eye-opening' LEWIS DARTNELL
'Science and history at its best' MARK HONIGSBAUM
'Unpicks everything we thought we knew... Mind blowing' CAL FLYN

A TIMES SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023
A SUNDAY TIMES SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023]]> 371 Jonathan Kennedy 147359443X Namrata 5 4.02 2023 Pathogenesis: How germs made history: A Sunday Times Science Book of the Year
author: Jonathan Kennedy
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/03
date added: 2024/02/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World]]> 41795733
Plenty of experts argue that anyone who wants to develop a skill, play an instrument, or lead their field should start early, focus intensely, and rack up as many hours of deliberate practice as possible. If you dabble or delay, you'll never catch up to the people who got a head start. But a closer look at research on the world's top performers, from professional athletes to Nobel laureates, shows that early specialization is the exception, not the rule.

David Epstein examined the world's most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors, forecasters and scientists. He discovered that in most fields--especially those that are complex and unpredictable--generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel. Generalists often find their path late, and they juggle many interests rather than focusing on one. They're also more creative, more agile, and able to make connections their more specialized peers can't see.

Provocative, rigorous, and engrossing, Range makes a compelling case for actively cultivating inefficiency. Failing a test is the best way to learn. Frequent quitters end up with the most fulfilling careers. The most impactful inventors cross domains rather than deepening their knowledge in a single area. As experts silo themselves further while computers master more of the skills once reserved for highly focused humans, people who think broadly and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives will increasingly thrive.]]> 339 David Epstein 0735214484 Namrata 5 4.12 2019 Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
author: David Epstein
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/25
date added: 2024/01/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Equality or Equity: Toward a Model of Community-Responsive Education (Race and Education)]]> 61132225 248 Jeffrey M. R. Duncan-Andrade 1682537471 Namrata 0 to-read 4.38 Equality or Equity: Toward a Model of Community-Responsive Education (Race and Education)
author: Jeffrey M. R. Duncan-Andrade
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.38
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Ethics in the Real World: 86 Brief Essays on Things that Matter]]> 30272030 Peter Singer is often described as the world’s most influential philosopher. He is also one of its most controversial. The author of important books such as Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics, Rethinking Life and Death, and The Life You Can Save, he helped launch the animal rights and effective altruism movements and contributed to the development of bioethics. Now, in Ethics in the Real World, Singer shows that he is also a master at dissecting important current events in a few hundred words.

In this book of brief essays, he applies his controversial ways of thinking to issues like climate change, extreme poverty, animals, abortion, euthanasia, human genetic selection, sports doping, the sale of kidneys, the ethics of high-priced art, and ways of increasing happiness. Singer asks whether chimpanzees are people, smoking should be outlawed, or consensual sex between adult siblings should be decriminalized, and he reiterates his case against the idea that all human life is sacred, applying his arguments to some recent cases in the news. In addition, he explores, in an easily accessible form, some of the deepest philosophical questions, such as whether anything really matters and what is the value of the pale blue dot that is our planet. The collection also includes some more personal reflections, like Singer’s thoughts on one of his favorite activities, surfing, and an unusual suggestion for starting a family conversation over a holiday feast.

Provocative and original, these essays will challenge—and possibly change—your beliefs about a wide range of real-world ethical questions.

]]> 336 Peter Singer 1925355853 Namrata 0 to-read 3.94 2016 Ethics in the Real World: 86 Brief Essays on Things that Matter
author: Peter Singer
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2016
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]]> The Maid (Molly the Maid, #1) 55196813
Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life's complexities all by herself. No matter—she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection.

But Molly's orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Before she knows what's happening, Molly's unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black—but will they be able to find the real killer before it's too late?

A Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different—and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.]]> 304 Nita Prose 0593356152 Namrata 3 3.71 2022 The Maid (Molly the Maid, #1)
author: Nita Prose
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/17
date added: 2023/12/04
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]]> <![CDATA[David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants]]> 15751404 The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell has explored the ways we understand and change our world. Now he looks at the complex and surprising ways the weak can defeat the strong, the small can match up against the giant, and how our goals (often culturally determined) can make a huge difference in our ultimate sense of success. Drawing upon examples from the world of business, sports, culture, cutting-edge psychology, and an array of unforgettable characters around the world, David and Goliath is in many ways the most practical and provocative book Malcolm Gladwell has ever written.]]> 305 Malcolm Gladwell 0316204366 Namrata 4 3.97 2013 David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/07
date added: 2023/11/06
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]]> On Balance 1754796 488 Leila Seth 0670049883 Namrata 5 4.24 2003 On Balance
author: Leila Seth
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/25
date added: 2023/10/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Pegasus: How a Spy in Your Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy]]> 59808055 Featuring an introduction by Rachel Maddow, Pegasus: How a Spy in Our Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy is the behind-the-scenes story of one of the most sophisticated and invasive surveillance weapons ever created, used by governments around the world.

Pegasus is widely regarded as the most effective and sought-after cyber-surveillance system on the market. The system’s creator, the NSO Group, a private corporation headquartered in Israel, is not shy about proclaiming its ability to thwart terrorists and criminals. “Thousands of people in Europe owe their lives to hundreds of our company employees,â€� NSO’s cofounder declared in 2019. This bold assertion may be true, at least in part, but it’s by no means the whole story.

NSO’s Pegasus system has not been limited to catching bad guys. It’s also been used to spy on hundreds, and maybe thousands, of innocent people around the world: heads of state, diplomats, human rights defenders, political opponents, and journalists.

This spyware is as insidious as it is invasive, capable of infecting a private cell phone without alerting the owner, and of doing its work in the background, in silence, virtually undetectable. Pegasus can track a person’s daily movement in real time, gain control of the device’s microphones and cameras at will, and capture all videos, photos, emails, texts, and passwords—encrypted or not. This data can be exfiltrated, stored on outside servers, and then leveraged to blackmail, intimidate, and silence the victims. Its full reach is not yet known. “If they’ve found a way to hack one iPhone,â€� says Edward Snowden, “they’ve found a way to hack all iPhones.â€�

Pegasus is a look inside the monthslong worldwide investigation, triggered by a single spectacular leak of data, and a look at how an international consortium of reporters and editors revealed that cyber intrusion and cyber surveillance are happening with exponentially increasing frequency across the globe, at a scale that astounds.

Meticulously reported and masterfully written, Pegasus shines a light on the lives that have been turned upside down by this unprecedented threat and exposes the chilling new ways authoritarian regimes are eroding key pillars of democracy: privacy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech.]]> 336 Laurent Richard 1250858690 Namrata 0 to-read 3.85 2023 Pegasus: How a Spy in Your Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy
author: Laurent Richard
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Handover: How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs]]> 77264986 The Handover, Runciman explains our current situation through the history of these “artificial agentsâ€� we created to rescue us from our all-too-human limitations—and demonstrates what this radical new view of our recent past means for our collective future.

From the United States and the United Kingdom to the East India Company, Standard Oil, Facebook, and Alibaba, states and corporations have gradually, and then much more rapidly, taken over the planet. They have helped to conquer poverty and eliminate disease, but also unleashed global wars and environmental degradation. As Runciman demonstrates, states and corporations are the ultimate decision-making machines, defined by their ability to make their own choices and, crucially, to sustain the consequences of what has been chosen. And if the rapid spread of the modern state and corporation has already transformed the conditions of human existence, new AI technology promises the same.

But what happens when AI interacts with other kinds of artificial agents, the inhuman kind represented by states and corporations? Runciman argues that the twenty-first century will be defined by increasingly intense battles between state and corporate power for the fruits of the AI revolution. In the end, it is not our own, human relationship with AI that will determine our future. Rather, humanity’s fate will be shaped by the interactions among states, corporations, and thinking machines.

With clarity and verve, The Handover presents a brilliantly original history of the last three centuries and a new understanding of the immense challenges we now face.]]> 352 David Runciman 1631496948 Namrata 0 to-read 3.70 2023 The Handover: How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs
author: David Runciman
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Liberalism and Its Discontents]]> 58837538 The Origins of Political Order.

Classical liberalism is in a state of crisis. Developed in the wake of Europe's wars over religion and nationalism, liberalism is a system for governing diverse societies, which is grounded in fundamental principles of equality and the rule of law. It emphasizes the rights of individuals to pursue their own forms of happiness free from encroachment by government.

It's no secret that liberalism didn't always live up to its own ideals. In America, many people were denied equality before the law. Who counted as full human beings worthy of universal rights was contested for centuries, and only recently has this circle expanded to include women, African Americans, LGBTQ+ people, and others. Conservatives complain that liberalism empties the common life of meaning. As the renowned political philosopher Francis Fukuyama shows in Liberalism and Its Discontents, the principles of liberalism have also, in recent decades, been pushed to new extremes by both the right and the left: neoliberals made a cult of economic freedom, and progressives focused on identity over human universality as central to their political vision. The result, Fukuyama argues, has been a fracturing of our civil society and an increasing peril to our democracy.

In this short, clear account of our current political discontents, Fukuyama offers an essential defense of a revitalized liberalism for the twenty-first century.]]> 178 Francis Fukuyama 0374606714 Namrata 0 to-read 3.89 2022 Liberalism and Its Discontents
author: Francis Fukuyama
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2022
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]]> <![CDATA[You've Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us All]]> 60021166 How gamesĚýare being harnessed as instruments of exploitation—and what we can do about itĚý

Warehouse workers pack boxes while a virtual dragon races across their screen. If they beat their colleagues, they get an award. If not, they can be fired. Uber presents exhausted drivers with challenges to keep them driving. China scores its citizens so they behave well, and games with in-app purchases use achievements to empty your wallet.

Points, badges, and leaderboards are creeping into every aspect of modern life. InĚýYou’ve Been Played, game designer Adrian Hon delivers aĚýblistering takedown of how corporations, schools, and governments use games and gamification as tools for profit and coercion. TheseĚýareĚýgames that we often have no choice but to play, where losing has heavy penalties. You’ve Been PlayedĚýis a scathing indictment of a tech-drivenĚýworldĚýthat wants to convince us that misery is fun, and a call to arms for anyone who hopes to preserve their dignity and autonomy.]]> Adrian Hon 1668611767 Namrata 0 to-read 3.74 You've Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us All
author: Adrian Hon
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average rating: 3.74
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]]> <![CDATA[The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, #1)]]> 228665
Moiraine Damodred arrives in Emond’s Field on a quest to find the one prophesized to stand against The Dark One, a malicious entity sowing the seeds of chaos and destruction. When a vicious band of half-men, half beasts invade the village seeking their master’s enemy, Moiraine persuades Rand al’Thor and his friends to leave their home and enter a larger unimaginable world filled with dangers waiting in the shadows and in the light.]]> 800 Robert Jordan 0812511816 Namrata 4 4.19 1990 The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, #1)
author: Robert Jordan
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/19
date added: 2023/09/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Black Cat Murders (Heathcliff Lennox, #2)]]> 45360366 Downton Abbey meets Agatha Christie with a touch of Wodehouse and a dog of distinction.


Who killed Sir Crispin Gibbons? A wedding invitation and news of mischief that could be murder, takes Lennox to The Earl of Bloxford's country estate. He soon finds himself in a world of purloined artworks, forgeries and a priceless Bloxford Beauty. But who are the Bloxford Beauties? And why are they the focal point around which swirls death?
Lennox must confront life-long friends, unscrupulous artists and dealers to finally unravel a plot so complex that even his old adversary, Chief Inspector Swift of Scotland Yard, is perplexed.

]]> 342 Karen Baugh Menuhin Namrata 4 4.32 2019 The Black Cat Murders (Heathcliff Lennox, #2)
author: Karen Baugh Menuhin
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2019/11/17
date added: 2023/09/12
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]]> <![CDATA[The Great Mughals and Their India]]> 29860585
Mughal history abounds with all the ingredients of classical drama: ambition and frustration, triumph and despair, grandeur and decline, love and hate, and loyalty and betrayal. In other words: it is great to read and offers ample food for thought and a reflection on the human condition.

Much more importantly, Mughal history deserves to be widely read and reflected upon, because of its lasting cultural and socio-political relevance to today’s world in general and the Indian subcontinent in particular.

For, whether we like it or not, the Mughals have left us with a legacy that cannot be erased. With regard to the eventful reigns of Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb or their successors, crucial questions arise. Where did they succeed? Where did they fail? And more importantly, what should we learn from their experiences, including both triumphs and failures?

In this volume, the author attempts to narrate Mughal history from their perspective rather than from the viewpoint of, say, historians from the UK or other countries, while, at the same time, he does not shy away from dealing with controversial issues.]]> 400 Dirk Collier 9381431884 Namrata 4 4.10 The Great Mughals and Their India
author: Dirk Collier
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.10
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rating: 4
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]]> The Story of My Life 748801 0 Helen Keller 1400101298 Namrata 3 3.43 1902 The Story of My Life
author: Helen Keller
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1902
rating: 3
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date added: 2023/06/19
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]]> <![CDATA[SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome]]> 28789711 SPQR, an instant classic, Mary Beard narrates the history of Rome "with passion and without technical jargon" and demonstrates how "a slightly shabby Iron Age village" rose to become the "undisputed hegemon of the Mediterranean" (Wall Street Journal). Hailed by critics as animating "the grand sweep and the intimate details that bring the distant past vividly to life" (Economist) in a way that makes "your hair stand on end" (Christian Science Monitor) and spanning nearly a thousand years of history, this "highly informative, highly readable" (Dallas Morning News) work examines not just how we think of ancient Rome but challenges the comfortable historical perspectives that have existed for centuries. With its nuanced attention to class, democratic struggles, and the lives of entire groups of people omitted from the historical narrative for centuries, SPQR will to shape our view of Roman history for decades to come.]]> 606 Mary Beard 1631492225 Namrata 0 to-read 4.04 2015 SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome
author: Mary Beard
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/02/03
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]]> If You Could See the Sun 60099660 actually invisible.
Ěý
When her parents drop the news that they can no longer afford her tuition, even with the scholarship, Alice hatches a plan to monetize her strange new power—she’ll discover the scandalous secrets her classmates want to know, for a price.
Ěý
But as the tasks escalate from petty scandals to actual crimes, Alice must decide if it’s worth losing her conscience—or even her life.

In this genre-bending YA debut, a Chinese American girl monetizes her strange new invisibility powers by discovering and selling her wealthy classmates� most scandalous secrets.]]> 346 Ann Liang 1335915842 Namrata 3 4.01 2022 If You Could See the Sun
author: Ann Liang
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/03
date added: 2023/02/03
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]]> Stolen 61273340
Louise Erdrich meets Jo Nesbø in this spellbinding Swedish novel that follows a young indigenous woman as she struggles to defend her family’s reindeer herd and culture amidst xenophobia, climate change, and a devious hunter whose targeted kills are considered mere theft in the eyes of the law.

On a winter day north of the Arctic Circle, nine-year-old Elsa—daughter of SĂĄmi reindeer herders—sees a man brutally kill her beloved reindeer calf and threaten her into silence. When her father takes her to report the crime, local police tell them that there is nothing they can do about these “stolenâ€� animals. Killings like these are classified as theft in the reports that continue to pile up, uninvestigated. But reindeer are not just the SĂĄmi’s livelihood, they also hold spiritual significance; attacking a reindeer is an attack on the culture itself.

Ten years later, hatred and threats against the Sámi keep escalating, and more reindeer are tortured and killed in Elsa’s community. Finally, she’s had enough and decides to push back on the apathetic police force. The hunter comes after her this time, leading to a catastrophic final confrontation.

Based on real events, Ann-Helén Laestadius’s award-winning novel Stolen is part coming-of-age story, part love song to a disappearing natural world, and part electrifying countdown to a dramatic resolution—a searing depiction of a forgotten part of Sweden.]]> 400 Ann-Helén Laestadius 1668007169 Namrata 0 to-read 3.97 2021 Stolen
author: Ann-HelĂŠn Laestadius
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/01/28
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]]> Giovanni’s Room 406235 178 James Baldwin Namrata 0 to-read 4.40 1956 Giovanni’s Room
author: James Baldwin
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1956
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/01/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are]]> 28512671
Blending the informed analysis of The Signal and the Noise with the instructive iconoclasm of Think Like a Freak, a fascinating, illuminating, and witty look at what the vast amounts of information now instantly available to us reveals about ourselves and our world—provided we ask the right questions.

By the end of an average day in the early twenty-first century, human beings searching the internet will amass eight trillion gigabytes of data. This staggering amount of information—unprecedented in history—can tell us a great deal about who we are—the fears, desires, and behaviors that drive us, and the conscious and unconscious decisions we make. From the profound to the mundane, we can gain astonishing knowledge about the human psyche that less than twenty years ago, seemed unfathomable.

Everybody Lies offers fascinating, surprising, and sometimes laugh-out-loud insights into everything from economics to ethics to sports to race to sex, gender and more, all drawn from the world of big data. What percentage of white voters didn’t vote for Barack Obama because he’s black? Does where you go to school effect how successful you are in life? Do parents secretly favor boy children over girls? Do violent films affect the crime rate? Can you beat the stock market? How regularly do we lie about our sex lives and who’s more self-conscious about sex, men or women?

Investigating these questions and a host of others, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz offers revelations that can help us understand ourselves and our lives better. Drawing on studies and experiments on how we really live and think, he demonstrates in fascinating and often funny ways the extent to which all the world is indeed a lab. With conclusions ranging from strange-but-true to thought-provoking to disturbing, he explores the power of this digital truth serum and its deeper potential—revealing biases deeply embedded within us, information we can use to change our culture, and the questions we’re afraid to ask that might be essential to our health—both emotional and physical. All of us are touched by big data everyday, and its influence is multiplying. Everybody Lies challenges us to think differently about how we see it and the world.]]> 338 Seth Stephens-Davidowitz 0062390856 Namrata 4 3.88 2017 Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are
author: Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/18
date added: 2023/01/18
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]]> Norwegian Wood 9858734
Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before.

Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable.

As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman. A poignant story of one college student's romantic coming-of-age, Norwegian Wood takes us to that distant place of a young man's first, hopeless, and heroic love.]]> 389 Haruki Murakami 0099554542 Namrata 0 to-read 3.82 1987 Norwegian Wood
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/01/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes (Arsène Lupin, #2)]]> 141263 282 Maurice Leblanc 1587154641 Namrata 4 3.81 1908 Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes (Arsène Lupin, #2)
author: Maurice Leblanc
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1908
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/03
date added: 2023/01/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire]]> 57822882 From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian: a searing study of the British Empire that interrogates the country's pervasive use of violence throughout the twentieth century and traces how these practices were exported, modified, and institutionalized in colonies around the globe.

Sprawling across a quarter of the world's land mass and claiming nearly five hundred colonial subjects, Britain's twentieth-century empire was the largest empire in human history. For many Britons, it epitomized their nation's cultural superiority, but what legacy did the island nation deliver to the world? Covering more than two hundred years of history, Caroline Elkins reveals an evolutionary and racialized doctrine that espoused an unrelenting deployment of violence to secure and preserve the nation's imperial interests. She outlines how ideological foundations of violence were rooted in the Victorian era calls for punishing recalcitrant "natives," and how over time, its forms became increasingly systematized. And she makes clear that when Britain could no longer maintain control over the violence it provoked and enacted, it retreated from empire, destroying and hiding incriminating evidence of its policies and practices.

Drawing on more than a decade of research on four continents, Legacy of Violence implicates all sides of Britain's political divide in the creation, execution, and cover-up of imperial violence. By demonstrating how and why violence was the most salient factor underwriting Britain's empire and the nation's imperial identity at home, Elkins upends long-held myths and sheds new light on empire's role in shaping the world today.]]> 896 Caroline Elkins 0307272427 Namrata 0 to-read 4.24 2022 Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire
author: Caroline Elkins
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/01/09
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]]> Remarkably Bright Creatures 58733693 Remarkably Bright Creatures, an exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.

Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.]]> 368 Shelby Van Pelt 0063204150 Namrata 4 4.35 2022 Remarkably Bright Creatures
author: Shelby Van Pelt
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/26
date added: 2022/12/26
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]]> Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body 26074156 New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist: a searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself.

“I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. I buried the girl I was because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere. . . . I was trapped in my body, one that I barely recognized or understood, but at least I was safe.â€�

In her phenomenally popular essays and long-running Tumblr blog, Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and body, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,â€� Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she explores her past—including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life—and brings readers along on her journey to understand and ultimately save herself.

With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and power that have made her one of the most admired writers of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to learn to take care of yourself: how to feed your hungers for delicious and satisfying food, a smaller and safer body, and a body that can love and be loved—in a time when the bigger you are, the smaller your world becomes.]]> 306 Roxane Gay 0062362593 Namrata 0 4.17 2017 Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
author: Roxane Gay
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/18
date added: 2022/12/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief (Arsène Lupin, #1)]]> 141270 Librarian note: This is an alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780143104865.

The suave adventures of a gentleman rogue—a French Thomas Crown Created by Maurice LeBlanc during the early twentieth century, Arsene Lupin is a witty confidence man and burglar, the Sherlock Holmes of crime. The poor and innocent have nothing to fear from him; often they profit from his spontaneous generosity. The rich and powerful, and the detective who tries to spoil his fun, however, must beware. They are the target of Arsene’s mischief and tomfoolery. A masterful thief, his plans frequently evolve into elaborate capers, a precursor to such cinematic creations as Ocean’s Eleven and The Sting. Sparkling with amusing banter, these stories—the best of the Lupin series—are outrageous, melodramatic, and literate.

13 stories:
The Arrest of Arsène Lupin
Arsène Lupin in Prison
The Escape of Arsène Lupin
The Mysterious Railway Passenger
The Queen's Necklace
Sherlock Holmes Arrives Too Late
Flashes of Sunlight
The Wedding-ring
The Red Silk Scarf
Edith Swan-neck
On the Top of the Tower
ThÊrèse and Germaine
At the Sign of Mercury]]> 279 Maurice Leblanc Namrata 4 3.85 1907 Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief (Arsène Lupin, #1)
author: Maurice Leblanc
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1907
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/04
date added: 2022/12/04
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]]> The Imaginary Girlfriend 4654 The Imaginary Girlfriend is John Irving's candid memoir of his twin careers in writing and wrestling. The award-winning author of best-selling novels from The World According to Garp to In One Person, Irving began writing when he was fourteen, the same age at which he began to wrestle at Exeter. He competed as a wrestler for twenty years, was certified as a referee at twenty-four, and coached the sport until he was forty-seven. Irving coached his sons Colin and Brendan to New England championship titles, a championship that he himself was denied.

In an autobiography filled with the humor and compassion one finds in his fiction, Irving explores the interrelationship between the two disciplines of writing and wrestling, from the days when he was a beginner at both until his fourth wresting related surgery at the age of fifty-three. Writing as a father and mentor, he offers a lucid portrait of those—writers and wrestlers from Kurt Vonnegut to Ted Seabrooke—who played a mentor role in his development as a novelist, wrestler, and wrestling coach. He reveals lessons he learned about the pursuit for which he is best known, writing. “And,â€� as the Denver Post observed, in filling “his narrative with anecdotes that are every bit as hilarious as the antics in his novels, Irving combines the lessons of both obsessions (wrestling and writing) . . . into a somber reflection on the importance of living well.”]]> 180 John Irving 0345458265 Namrata 3 3.41 1996 The Imaginary Girlfriend
author: John Irving
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.41
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at: 2022/11/29
date added: 2022/11/29
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology, #1)]]> 35074096
This stunning book features classical artwork inspired by the myths, as well as learned notes from the author. Each adventure is infused with Fry's distinctive wit, voice, and writing style. Connoisseurs of the Greek myths will appreciate this fresh-yet-reverential interpretation, while newcomers will feel welcome. Retellings brim with humor and emotion and offer rich cultural context

Celebrating the thrills, grandeur, and unabashed fun of the Greek myths, Mythos breathes life into ancient tales—from Pandora's box to Prometheus's fire.

This gorgeous volume invites you to explore a captivating world with the brilliant storyteller Stephen Fry as your guide.]]> 416 Stephen Fry 0718188721 Namrata 4 4.27 2017 Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology, #1)
author: Stephen Fry
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2022/11/27
date added: 2022/11/27
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]]> Why I Killed My Husband 56517112 No one ever called me by my name again. Not Anjali, my given name or Kalyani, Madhavan’s family had decided was to be my married name. All of them just called me Bonda....'

Set in Chennai, Why I Killed My Husband is about a woman whose quiet dreams are destroyed day after day by what her Carnatic musician husband and society demands of her. Until trapped in her apartment during the great Chennai floods she discovers what she really wants for herself. And with that awakening, she unleashes a ruthless plot that will allow her to steer her life in the direction she chooses.

Why I Killed my Husband, narrated by the author Anita Nair herself, is as much a thriller as it is a story of our lives that will keep you guessing even as it teases an occasional laugh out of you.]]> Anita Nair Namrata 4 3.45 Why I Killed My Husband
author: Anita Nair
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.45
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2022/11/11
date added: 2022/11/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Attendant Lords: Bairam Khan and Abdur Rahim, Courtiers and Poets in Mughal India]]> 34225051 432 T.C.A. Raghavan 9352643062 Namrata 4 3.86 Attendant Lords: Bairam Khan and Abdur Rahim, Courtiers and Poets in Mughal India
author: T.C.A. Raghavan
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.86
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2022/11/15
date added: 2022/11/14
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]]> <![CDATA[King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa]]> 40961621 King Leopold's Ghost is the haunting account of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions, a man as cunning, charming, and cruel as any of the great Shakespearean villains. It is also the deeply moving portrait of those who fought Leopold: a brave handful of missionaries, travelers, and young idealists who went to Africa for work or adventure and unexpectedly found themselves witnesses to a holocaust. Adam Hochschild brings this largely untold story alive with the wit and skill of a Barbara Tuchman. Like her, he knows that history often provides a far richer cast of characters than any novelist could invent. Chief among them is Edmund Morel, a young British shipping agent who went on to lead the international crusade against Leopold. Another hero of this tale, the Irish patriot Roger Casement, ended his life on a London gallows. Two courageous black Americans, George Washington Williams and William Sheppard, risked much to bring evidence of the Congo atrocities to the outside world. Sailing into the middle of the story was a young Congo River steamboat officer named Joseph Conrad. And looming above them all, the duplicitous billionaire King Leopold II. With great power and compassion, King Leopold's Ghost will brand the tragedy of the Congo--too long forgotten--onto the conscience of the West]]> 442 Adam Hochschild Namrata 5 4.16 1998 King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa
author: Adam Hochschild
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2022/11/09
date added: 2022/11/09
shelves:
review:

]]> The Trial 17692 The Trial is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century: the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, Kafka's nightmare has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers. This new edition is based upon the work of an international team of experts who have restored the text, the sequence of chapters, and their division to create a version that is as close as possible to the way the author left it.

In his brilliant translation, Breon Mitchell masterfully reproduces the distinctive poetics of Kafka's prose, revealing a novel as full of energy and power as when it was first written.]]> 276 Franz Kafka 0805209999 Namrata 4 3.94 1925 The Trial
author: Franz Kafka
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1925
rating: 4
read at: 2022/11/08
date added: 2022/11/07
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Last Mrs. Parrish (Mrs. Parrish, #1)]]> 34043643
To everyone in the exclusive town of Bishops Harbor, Connecticut, Daphne—a socialite and philanthropist—and her real-estate mogul husband, Jackson, are a couple straight out of a fairy tale.

Amber’s envy could eat her alive . . . if she didn't have a plan. Amber uses Daphne’s compassion and caring to insinuate herself into the family’s life—the first step in a meticulous scheme to undermine her. Before long, Amber is Daphne’s closest confidante, traveling to Europe with the Parrishes and their lovely young daughters, and growing closer to Jackson. But a skeleton from her past may undermine everything that Amber has worked towards, and if it is discovered, her well-laid plan may fall to pieces.

With shocking turns and dark secrets that will keep you guessing until the very end, The Last Mrs. Parrish is a fresh, juicy, and utterly addictive thriller from a diabolically imaginative talent.]]> 560 Liv Constantine 0062688162 Namrata 3 3.93 2017 The Last Mrs. Parrish (Mrs. Parrish, #1)
author: Liv Constantine
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2022/11/02
date added: 2022/11/02
shelves:
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]]> Last Letter from Istanbul 36962255
The perfect read for fans of the sweeping historical novels of Santa Montefiore & Victoria Hislop.

Constantinople, 1921

Each day Nur gazes across the waters of the Bosphorus to her childhood home, a grand white house, nestled on the opposite bank. Memories float on the breeze � the fragrance of the fig trees, the saffron sunsets of languid summer evenings. But now those days are dead.

The house has been transformed into an army hospital, it is a prize of war in the hands of the British. And as Nur weaves through the streets carrying the embroideries that have become her livelihood, Constantinople swarms with Allied soldiers � a reminder of how far her she and her city have fallen.

The most precious thing in Nur’s new life is the orphan in her care â€� a boy with a terrible secret. When he falls dangerously ill Nur’s world becomes entwined with the enemy’s. She must return to where she grew up, and plead for help from Medical Officer George Monroe.

As the lines between enemy and friend become fainter, a new danger emerges � something even more threatening than the lingering shadow of war.]]> 432 Lucy Foley 0008169071 Namrata 4 3.76 2018 Last Letter from Istanbul
author: Lucy Foley
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2022/10/26
date added: 2022/10/26
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]]> The Winners (Beartown, #3) 60318890
As the locals of Beartown struggle to overcome the past, great change is on the horizon. Someone is coming home after a long time away. Someone will be laid to rest. Someone will fall in love, someone will try to fix their marriage, and someone will do anything to save their children. Someone will submit to hate, someone will fight, and someone will grab a gun and walk towards the ice rink.

So what are the residents of Beartown willing to sacrifice for their home?]]> 671 Fredrik Backman Namrata 4 4.45 2022 The Winners (Beartown, #3)
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/10/09
date added: 2022/10/08
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Beware the Past (DCI Matt Ballard, #1)]]> 37562080 One terrible case always haunted detective Matt Ballard. Now many years later, the killer seems to be back. And this time he's after Matt.

When Matt Ballard was starting out his career, three boys were murdered in the same area, the remote and bleak Gibbet Fen. When the main suspect was killed in a hit-and-run, the killings stopped. But Matt was not satisfied that the real murderer had been caught.

Over twenty-five years later, Matt gets a photo in an unmarked envelope. It's of the Gibbet Fen crime scene. And the picture was taken before the murder took place. More photos arrive, relating to the historic murders, as well as intimate pictures of Matt's very secret private life. Then another murder happens, with some of the hallmarks of the old case.

Has the killer returned, or is this just a sick copycat determined to ruin Matt's life and reputation?]]> 369 Joy Ellis Namrata 3 4.34 2017 Beware the Past (DCI Matt Ballard, #1)
author: Joy Ellis
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2022/10/01
date added: 2022/10/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Deadly Crimes (DCI Sophie Allen, #2)]]> 29770039 A young man’s mutilated body is found on top of the Agglestone, a well-known local landmark on Studland Heath
It seems that he was involved in a human trafficking and prostitution gang. But why is DCI Sophie Allen keeping something back from her team? Is it linked to the extraordinary discovery of her own father's body at the bottom of a disused mineshaft, more than forty years after he disappeared?

Discover an intricately crafted mystery that will have you gripped from start to finish.

DEADLY CRIMES is the second in a new series of police detective thrillers featuring DCI Sophie Allen, head of the recently formed Violent Crime Unit in Dorset. An English county which includes a stunning section of the coastline, but whose beauty belies darkness beneath the surface.

DCI Sophie Allen is Dorset’s acknowledged expert on murder and violent crime. She is 42 as the series starts, and lives with her husband and younger daughter in Wareham. Her elder daughter is studying in London. Sophie has a law degree and a master’s in criminal psychology. Her brilliant mind conceals some dark secrets from her past.

DS Barry Marsh is based at Swanage police station. He's quiet, methodical and dedicated, the perfect foil for Sophie's hidden fragility.]]> 281 Michael Hambling Namrata 3 4.28 2013 Deadly Crimes (DCI Sophie Allen, #2)
author: Michael Hambling
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2022/09/20
date added: 2022/09/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Dark Crimes (DCI Sophie Allen #1)]]> 28791344
It seems like a simple crime for DCI Sophie Allen and her team to solve. But not when the victim’s mother is found strangled the next morning. The case grows more complex as DCI Sophie Allen discovers that the victims had secret histories, involving violence and intimidation.

There’s an obvious suspect but Detective Allen isn't convinced. Could someone else be lurking in the shadows, someone savagely violent, looking for a warped revenge?]]> 291 Michael Hambling Namrata 3 4.15 2013 Dark Crimes (DCI Sophie Allen #1)
author: Michael Hambling
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2022/09/13
date added: 2022/09/13
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]]> Human Universe 21083719

What is a human being? Objectively, nothing of consequence. Particles of dust in an infinite arena, present for an instant in eternity. Clumps of atoms in a universe with more galaxies than people. And yet a human being is necessary for the question itself to exist, and the presence of a question in the universe � any question � is the most wonderful thing.


Questions require minds, and minds bring meaning. What is meaning? I don’t know, except that the universe and every pointless speck inside it means something to me. I am astonished by the existence of a single atom, and find my civilisation to be an outrageous imprint on reality. I don’t understand it. Nobody does, but it makes me smile.
This book asks questions about our origins, our destiny, and our place in the universe. We have no right to expect answers; we have no right to even ask. But ask and wonder we do.


Human Universe is first and foremost a love letter to humanity; a celebration of our outrageous fortune in existing at all. I have chosen to write my letter in the language of science, because there is no better demonstration of our magnificent ascent from dust to paragon of animals than the exponentiation of knowledge generated by science. Two million years ago we were apemen. Now we are spacemen. That has happened, as far as we know, nowhere else. That is worth celebrating.]]> 288 Brian Cox 0007488807 Namrata 4 4.26 2014 Human Universe
author: Brian Cox
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/12
date added: 2022/09/12
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]]> A Theory of Human Motivation 36343263 46 Abraham H. Maslow Namrata 3 4.12 1943 A Theory of Human Motivation
author: Abraham H. Maslow
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1943
rating: 3
read at: 2019/06/03
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves:
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]]> Seven Days 44557072 A race against time to save her child�

In seven days, Maggie’s son, Max, turns three. But she’s not planning a party or buying presents or updating his baby book. She’s dreading it. Because in her world, third birthdays are the days on which the unthinkable happensâ€� she loses her child.

For the last twelve years Maggie has been imprisoned in a basement. Abducted aged fifteen, she gave birth to two sons before Max, and on their third birthdays her captor came and took them from her.

She cannot let it happen again. But she has no idea how to stop it. And the clock is ticking…]]> 416 Alex Lake 0008272425 Namrata 3 4.24 2019 Seven Days
author: Alex Lake
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2022/08/31
date added: 2022/08/30
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]]> The Last Lie 37677610 THE TWISTY NEW PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF AFTER ANNA, KILLING KATE AND COPYCAT

Everyone lies…but some lies are deadly.

For Claire Daniels, life is good. She has everything she’s ever wanted â€� a career she loves, friends she can rely on and a husband who dotes on her. All she needs is to start a family of her own and things will be even better than good.

They’ll be perfect.

For Alfie, it couldn’t be more different. His life with Claire is built on a lie. A lot of lies. And she can never find out.

Because Alfie has plans for her. Plans which must never come to light. But lies have a way of taking on a life of their own, and when his do, the consequences threaten to destroy everything.

For him and Claire.]]> 368 Alex Lake 0008295123 Namrata 3 3.76 2018 The Last Lie
author: Alex Lake
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2022/08/28
date added: 2022/08/28
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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 â€� well, one fast-living demon and a somewhat fussy angel â€� would quite like the Rapture not to happen.

And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist…]]> 491 Terry Pratchett Namrata 5 4.27 1990 Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1990
rating: 5
read at: 2022/08/23
date added: 2022/08/22
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]]> <![CDATA[The Human Side of School Change: Reform, Resistance, and the Real-Life Problems of Innovation]]> 217340 336 Robert Evans 0787956112 Namrata 0 to-read 3.96 1996 The Human Side of School Change: Reform, Resistance, and the Real-Life Problems of Innovation
author: Robert Evans
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> Dodger 13516846 A storm. Rain-lashed city streets. A flash of lightning. A scruffy lad sees a girl leap desperately from a horse-drawn carriage in a vain attempt to escape her captors. Can the lad stand by and let her be caught again? Of course not, because he's...Dodger.

Seventeen-year-old Dodger may be a street urchin, but he gleans a living from London's sewers, and he knows a jewel when he sees one. He's not about to let anything happen to the unknown girl--not even if her fate impacts some of the most powerful people in England.

From Dodger's encounter with the mad barber Sweeney Todd to his meetings with the great writer Charles Dickens and the calculating politician Benjamin Disraeli, history and fantasy intertwine in a breathtaking account of adventure and mystery.

Beloved and bestselling author Sir Terry Pratchett combines high comedy with deep wisdom in this tale of an unexpected coming-of-age and one remarkable boy's rise in a complex and fascinating world.]]> 360 Terry Pratchett 0062009494 Namrata 4 3.92 2012 Dodger
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2022/08/13
date added: 2022/08/13
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones]]> 40121378 Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving—every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.

If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you'll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.

Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work. Here, he draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, readers will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field.

Learn how to:
-ĚýMake time for new habits (even when life gets crazy);
-ĚýOvercome a lack of motivation and willpower;
- Design your environment to make success easier;
- Get back on track when you fall off course;
...and much more.

Atomic Habits will reshape the way you think about progress and success, and give you the tools and strategies you need to transform your habits--whether you are a team looking to win a championship, an organization hoping to redefine an industry, or simply an individual who wishes to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, or achieve any other goal.]]> 319 James Clear Namrata 3 4.34 2018 Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
author: James Clear
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2022/08/13
date added: 2022/08/12
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Line to Kill (Hawthorne & Horowitz #3)]]> 56755487 New York Times bestselling author of the brilliantly inventive The Word Is Murder and The Sentence Is Death returns with his third literary whodunit featuring intrepid detectives Hawthorne and Horowitz.

When Ex-Detective Inspector Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, author Anthony Horowitz, are invited to an exclusive literary festival on Alderney, an idyllic island off the south coast of England, they don’t expect to find themselves in the middle of murder investigation—or to be trapped with a cold-blooded killer in a remote place with a murky, haunted past.

Arriving on Alderney, Hawthorne and Horowitz soon meet the festival’s other guests—an eccentric gathering that includes a bestselling children’s author, a French poet, a TV chef turned cookbook author, a blind psychic, and a war historian—along with a group of ornery locals embroiled in an escalating feud over a disruptive power line.

When a local grandee is found dead under mysterious circumstances, Hawthorne and Horowitz become embroiled in the case. The island is locked down, no one is allowed on or off, and it soon becomes horribly clear that a murderer lurks in their midst. But who?

Both a brilliant satire on the world of books and writers and an immensely enjoyable locked-room mystery, A Line to Kill is a triumph—a riddle of a story full of brilliant misdirection, beautifully set-out clues, and diabolically clever denouements.]]> 375 Anthony Horowitz 0062938169 Namrata 4 3.87 2021 A Line to Kill (Hawthorne & Horowitz #3)
author: Anthony Horowitz
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/08/07
date added: 2022/08/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Beginning and the End of Everything: From the Big Bang to the End of the Universe]]> 42601550 'Prepare to have your mind blown! A brilliantly written overview of the past, present and future of modern cosmology.' � DALLAS CAMPBELL, author of Ad Astra

The Beginning and the End of Everything is the whole story as we currently understand it � from nothing, to the birth of our universe, to its ultimate fate. Authoritative and engaging, Paul Parsons takes us on a rollercoaster ride through billions of light years to tell the story of the Big Bang, from birth to death.

13.8 billion years ago, something incredible happened. Matter, energy, space and time all suddenly burst into existence in a cataclysmic event that’s come to be known as the Big Bang. It was the birth of our universe. What started life smaller than the tiniest subatomic particle is now unimaginably vast and plays home to trillions of galaxies. The formulation of the Big Bang theory is a story that combines some of the most far-reaching concepts in fundamental physics with equally profound observations of the cosmos.

From our realization that we are on a planet orbiting a star in one of many galaxies, to the discovery that our universe is expanding, to the groundbreaking theories of Einstein that laid the groundwork for the Big Bang cosmology of today � as each new discovery deepens our understanding of the origins of our universe, a clearer picture is forming of how it will all end. Will we ultimately burn out or fade away? Could the end simply signal a new beginning, as the universe rebounds into a fresh expanding phase? And was our Big Bang just one of many, making our cosmos only a small part of a sprawling multiverse of parallel universes?]]> 276 Paul Parsons 1782439668 Namrata 4 4.19 2018 The Beginning and the End of Everything: From the Big Bang to the End of the Universe
author: Paul Parsons
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2022/07/30
date added: 2022/07/30
shelves:
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]]> The Diamond Eye 58490567 The New York Times bestselling author of The Rose Code returns with an unforgettable World War II tale of a quiet bookworm who becomes history's deadliest female sniper. Based on a true story.

In 1937 in the snowbound city of Kyiv, wry and bookish history student Mila Pavlichenko organizes her life around her library job and her young son--but Hitler's invasion of Ukraine and Russia sends her on a different path. Given a rifle and sent to join the fight, Mila must forge herself from studious girl to deadly sniper--a lethal hunter of Nazis known as Lady Death. When news of her three hundredth kill makes her a national heroine, Mila finds herself torn from the bloody battlefields of the eastern front and sent to America on a goodwill tour.

Still reeling from war wounds and devastated by loss, Mila finds herself isolated and lonely in the glittering world of Washington, DC--until an unexpected friendship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and an even more unexpected connection with a silent fellow sniper offer the possibility of happiness. But when an old enemy from Mila's past joins forces with a deadly new foe lurking in the shadows, Lady Death finds herself battling her own demons and enemy bullets in the deadliest duel of her life.

Based on a true story, The Diamond Eye is a haunting novel of heroism born of desperation, of a mother who became a soldier, of a woman who found her place in the world and changed the course of history forever.]]> 435 Kate Quinn 0062943510 Namrata 3 4.26 2022 The Diamond Eye
author: Kate Quinn
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2022/07/24
date added: 2022/07/24
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]]> The Rose Code 53914938 The New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Huntress and The Alice Network returns with another heart-stopping World War II story of three female code breakers at Bletchley Park and the spy they must root out after the war is over.

1940. As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to mysterious country estate Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Vivacious debutante Osla is the girl who has everything—beauty, wealth, and the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses—but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, and puts her fluent German to use as a translator of decoded enemy secrets. Imperious self-made Mab, product of East-End London poverty, works the legendary code-breaking machines as she conceals old wounds and looks for a socially advantageous husband. Both Osla and Mab are quick to see the potential in local village spinster Beth, whose shyness conceals a brilliant facility with puzzles, and soon Beth spreads her wings as one of the Park’s few female cryptanalysts. But war, loss, and the impossible pressure of secrecy will tear the three apart.

1947. As the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip whips post-war Britain into a fever, three friends-turned-enemies are reunited by a mysterious encrypted letter—the key to which lies buried in the long-ago betrayal that destroyed their friendship and left one of them confined to an asylum. A mysterious traitor has emerged from the shadows of their Bletchley Park past, and now Osla, Mab, and Beth must resurrect their old alliance and crack one last code together. But each petal they remove from the rose code brings danger—and their true enemy...]]> 624 Kate Quinn 0062943472 Namrata 4 4.42 2021 The Rose Code
author: Kate Quinn
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/07/18
date added: 2022/07/18
shelves:
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]]> The Paris Dressmaker 54287705 Based on true accounts of how Parisiennes resisted the Nazi occupation in World War II—from fashion houses to the city streets—comes a story of two courageous women who risked everything to fight an evil they couldn’t abide.

Paris, 1939. Maison Chanel has closed, thrusting haute couture dressmaker Lila de Laurent out of the world of high fashion as Nazi soldiers invade the streets and the City of Lights slips into darkness. Lila’s life is now a series of rations, brutal restrictions, and carefully controlled propaganda while Paris is cut off from the rest of the world. Yet in hidden corners of the city, the faithful pledge to resist. Lila is drawn to La Resistance and is soon using her skills as a dressmaker to infiltrate the Nazi elite. She takes their measurements and designs masterpieces, all while collecting secrets in the glamorous HĂ´tel Ritz—the heart of the Nazisâ€� Parisian headquarters. But when dashing RenĂŠ Touliard suddenly reenters her world, Lila finds her heart tangled between determination to help save his Jewish family and bolstering the fight for liberation.

Paris, 1943. Sandrine Paquet’s job is to catalog the priceless works of art bound for the Führer’s Berlin, masterpieces stolen from prominent Jewish families. But behind closed doors, she secretly forages for information from the underground resistance. Beneath her compliant façade lies a woman bent on uncovering the fate of her missing husband . . . but at what cost? As Hitler’s regime crumbles, Sandrine is drawn in deeper when she uncrates an exquisite blush Chanel gown concealing a cryptic message that may reveal the fate of a dressmaker who vanished from within the fashion elite.

Told across the span of the Nazi occupation, The Paris Dressmaker highlights the brave women who used everything in their power to resist darkness and restore light to their world.]]> 379 Kristy Cambron 0785232168 Namrata 3 3.91 2021 The Paris Dressmaker
author: Kristy Cambron
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2022/07/10
date added: 2022/07/10
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Sentence is Death (Hawthorne & Horowitz, #2)]]> 39913740
These, heard over the phone, were the last recorded words of successful celebrity-divorce lawyer. Richard Pryce, found bludgeoned to death in his bachelor pad with a bottle of wine � a 1982 Chateau Lafite worth £3,000, to be precise.

Odd, considering he didn’t drink. Why this bottle? And why those words? And why was a three-digit number painted on the wall by the killer? And, most importantly, which of the man’s many, many enemies did the deed?

Baffled, the police are forced to bring in Private Investigator Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, the author Anthony, who’s really getting rather good at this murder investigation business.

But as Hawthorne takes on the case with characteristic relish, it becomes clear that he, too, has secrets to hide. As our reluctant narrator becomes ever more embroiled in the case, he realises that these secrets must be exposed � even at the risk of death�

]]> 373 Anthony Horowitz Namrata 4 3.95 2018 The Sentence is Death (Hawthorne & Horowitz, #2)
author: Anthony Horowitz
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2022/07/04
date added: 2022/07/04
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]]> <![CDATA[The Word is Murder (Hawthorne & Horowitz, #1)]]> 36204075 SHE PLANNED HER OWN FUNERAL. BUT DID SHE ARRANGE HER OWN MURDER?

New York Times bestselling author of Magpie Murders and Moriarty, Anthony Horowitz has yet again brilliantly reinvented the classic crime novel, this time writing a fictional version of himself as the Watson to a modern-day Holmes.

One bright spring morning in London, Diana Cowper � the wealthy mother of a famous actor - enters a funeral parlor. She is there to plan her own service.

Six hours later she is found dead, strangled with a curtain cord in her own home.

Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric investigator who’s as quick with an insult as he is to crack a case. Hawthorne needs a ghost writer to document his life; a Watson to his Holmes. He chooses Anthony Horowitz.

Drawn in against his will, Horowitz soon finds himself a the center of a story he cannot control. Hawthorne is brusque, temperamental and annoying but even so his latest case with its many twists and turns proves irresistible. The writer and the detective form an unusual partnership. At the same time, it soon becomes clear that Hawthorne is hiding some dark secrets of his own.

A masterful and tricky mystery that springs many surprises, The Word is Murder is Anthony Horowitz at his very best.]]> 400 Anthony Horowitz 0062676784 Namrata 4 3.89 2017 The Word is Murder (Hawthorne & Horowitz, #1)
author: Anthony Horowitz
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2022/07/02
date added: 2022/07/01
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]]> I Know Who You Are 35483371 From Alice Feeney, the author of Sometimes I Lie, comes I Know Who You Are, a thrilling novel about a little girl who runs away from home and an actress whose husband has gone missing.

Meet Aimee Sinclair: the actress everyone thinks they know but can’t remember where from.

Except one person.

Someone who knows Aimee very well—and what she’s done. . .

When Aimee comes home and discovers her husband is missing, she doesn’t seem to know what to do or how to act. The police think she’s hiding something and they’re right, she is—but perhaps not what they thought. Aimee has a secret she’s never shared, and yet, she suspects that someone knows. As she struggles to keep her career and sanity intact, her past comes back to haunt her in ways more dangerous than she could have ever imagined.]]> 384 Alice Feeney 0008236070 Namrata 2 3.38 2019 I Know Who You Are
author: Alice Feeney
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at: 2022/06/30
date added: 2022/06/30
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]]> <![CDATA[The Beginning and the End of Everything: From the Big Bang to the End of the Universe]]> 50233261
Quelque chose d'incroyable est arrivé il y a 13,8 milliards d'années. La matière, l'énergie, l'espace et le temps sont tous soudainement apparus au cours d'un évènement cataclysmique que l'on connait désormais comme le big bang. C'était la naissance de notre univers. Après avoir formé la vie au cœur de la plus petite particule subatomique, il est désormais incroyablement vaste et est constitué des millions de galaxies. La théorie du big bang offre un récit qui combine certains des concepts les plus pointus de physique fondamentale et des observations toutes aussi profondes à propos du cosmos.

Après avoir compris que nous vivons sur une planète qui est en orbite d'une Êtoile dans l'une des nombreuses galaxies, avoir dÊcouvert que notre univers s'Êtend sans cesse et avoir acceptÊ les thÊories rÊvolutionnaires d'Einstein qui ont inspirÊ la cosmologie actuelle et sa manière d'Êtudier le big bang, nous avons dÊsormais une meilleure comprÊhension des origines de notre univers. Chaque dÊcouverte à ce sujet nous permet d'avoir une idÊe plus claire de la manière dont notre univers s'Êteindra. Allons-nous nous consumer ou nous Êteindre ? La fin pourrait-elle simplement être synonyme de nouveau commencement, avec l'univers qui entrerait à nouveau dans une phase d'expansion ? Et notre big bang n'Êtait-il qu'un parmi tant d'autres, relÊguant notre cosmos au rang d'infime partie d'un multivers composÊ de nombreux univers parallèles ?]]> Paul Parsons Namrata 0 to-read 5.00 2018 The Beginning and the End of Everything: From the Big Bang to the End of the Universe
author: Paul Parsons
name: Namrata
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> James and the Giant Peach 6689 176 Roald Dahl 0375814248 Namrata 4 4.04 1961 James and the Giant Peach
author: Roald Dahl
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1961
rating: 4
read at: 2022/06/21
date added: 2022/06/25
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]]> The Planets 39751706
These are Earth's sister planets, each one born in violence and fire, only to fade away one by one into cold lifelessness. The study of each planet sheds new light on the early life of our Solar System, and on its inevitable future. And the more we learn about our celestial neighbours, the more unlikely, the more precious our own blue marble becomes.

Andrew Cohen and Professor Brian Cox take readers on a voyage of discovery, from the fiery heart of our Solar System, to its mysterious outer reaches. They touch on the latest discoveries that have expanded our knowledge of the planets, their moons and how they come to be, alongside recent stunning and mind-boggling NASA photography.]]> 288 Brian Cox 000748884X Namrata 5 4.45 2019 The Planets
author: Brian Cox
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2022/06/26
date added: 2022/06/25
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]]> Karl Marx: A Biography 85947 502 David McLellan 1403997306 Namrata 0 to-read 3.78 1975 Karl Marx: A Biography
author: David McLellan
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1975
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Odd Women 675037 The Odd Women reflects the major sexual and cultural issues of the late nineteenth century. Unlike the "New Woman" novels of the era which challenged the idea that the unmarried woman was superfluous, Gissing satirizes that image and portrays women as "odd" and marginal in relation to an ideal. Set in a grimy, fog-ridden London, Gissing's "odd" women range from the idealistic, financially self-sufficient Mary Barfoot to the Madden sisters who struggle to subsist in low paying jobs and little chance for joy. With narrative detachment, Gissing portrays contemporary society's blatant ambivalence towards its own period of transition. Judged by contemporary critics to be as provocative as Zola and Ibsen, Gissing produced an "intensely modern" work as the issues it raises remain the subject of contemporary debate.]]> 432 George Gissing 019283312X Namrata 3 3.82 1893 The Odd Women
author: George Gissing
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1893
rating: 3
read at: 2022/06/16
date added: 2022/06/16
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]]> His & Hers 45885495 There are two sides to every story: yours and mine, ours and theirs, His & Hers. Which means someone is always lying.

When a woman is murdered in Blackdown, a quintessentially British village, newsreader Anna Andrews is reluctant to cover the case. Detective Jack Harper is suspicious of her involvement, until he becomes a suspect in his own murder investigation. Someone isn’t telling the truth, and some secrets are worth killing to keep.

His & Hers is a twisty, smart, psychological thriller. A gripping tale of suspense, told by expertly-drawn narrators that will keep readers guessing until the very end.]]> 304 Alice Feeney 1250266076 Namrata 4 4.03 2020 His & Hers
author: Alice Feeney
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2022/06/11
date added: 2022/06/11
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]]> Rock Paper Scissors 56269064 Think you know the person you married? Think again�

Things have been wrong with Mr and Mrs Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife.

Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional gifts â€� paper, cotton, pottery, tin â€� and each year Adam’s wife writes him a letter that she never lets him read. Until now. They both know this weekend will make or break their marriage, but they didn’t randomly win this trip. One of them is lying, and someone doesn’t want them to live happily ever after.

Ten years of marriage. Ten years of secrets. And an anniversary they will never forget.

Rock Paper Scissors is the latest exciting domestic thriller from the queen of the killer twist, New York Times bestselling author Alice Feeney.]]> 294 Alice Feeney 1250266106 Namrata 4 3.88 2021 Rock Paper Scissors
author: Alice Feeney
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/06/09
date added: 2022/06/09
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]]> Gone Girl 19288043 What have we done to each other?

These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren't made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone.

So what did happen to Nick's beautiful wife?]]> 415 Gillian Flynn 0307588378 Namrata 4 4.22 2012 Gone Girl
author: Gillian Flynn
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2022/06/06
date added: 2022/06/08
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]]> <![CDATA[A Pocket History of Human Evolution: How We Became Sapiens]]> 45037879
Prehistory has never been more New discoveries are overturning long-held theories left and right. Stone tools in Australia date back 65,000 years—a time when, we once thought, the first Sapiens had barely left Africa. DNA sequencing has unearthed a new hominid group—the Denisovans—and confirmed that crossbreeding with them (and Neanderthals) made Homo sapiens who we are today.A Pocket History of Human Evolution brings us up-to-date on the exploits of all our ancient relatives. Paleoanthropologist Silvana Condemi and science journalist François Savatier consider what accelerated our Was it tools, our “largeâ€� brains, language, empathy, or something else entirely? And why are we the sole survivors among many early bipedal humans? Their conclusions reveal the various ways ancient humans live on today—from gossip as modern “groomingâ€� to our gendered division of labor—and what the future might hold for our strange and unique species.]]> 162 Silvana Condemi Namrata 4 3.99 2018 A Pocket History of Human Evolution: How We Became Sapiens
author: Silvana Condemi
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2022/06/08
date added: 2022/06/07
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]]> Forces of Nature 30359599

‘What is motion?â€�
‘Why is every snowflake different?â€�
‘Why is life symmetrical?â€�


To answer these and many other questions, Professor Brian Cox uncovers some of the most extraordinary natural events on Earth and in the Universe and beyond.


From the immensity of the Universe and the roundness of Earth to the form of every single snowflake, the forces of nature shape everything we see. Pushed to extremes, the results are astonishing. In seeking to understand the everyday world, the colours, structure, behaviour and history of our home, we develop the knowledge and techniques necessary to step beyond the everyday and approach the Universe beyond.


Forces of Nature takes you to the great plains of the Serengeti, the volcanoes of Indonesia and the precipitous cliffs in Nepal, to the humpback whales of the Caribbean and the northern lights of the Arctic. Brian will answer questions on Earth that will illuminate our understanding of the Universe.


Think you know our planet?
Think again.]]> 288 Brian Cox 0007488823 Namrata 4 4.10 2016 Forces of Nature
author: Brian Cox
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2022/06/02
date added: 2022/06/02
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]]> Trying to Save Piggy Sneed 4661
Here is a treat for John Irving addicts and a perfect introduction to his work for the uninitiated. To open this spirited collection, Irving explains how he became a writer. There follow six scintillating stories written over the last twenty years ending with a homage to Charles Dickens. This irresistible collection cannot fail to delight and charm.

The first collection of short pieces--two of them previously unpublished--by the author of The World According to Garp includes memoirs, six short stories, and essays on Charles Dickens and Gu+a5nter Grass. Reprint. Tour.

This gem, a delightful collection of shorter works, both fiction and nonfiction, written by one of the country's finest--and funniest--writers, includes a living portrait of Irving's grandmother, a new, never-before-published essay, six scintillating short stories--including the O. Henry Award-winning "Interior Space"--and two essays on Irving's favorite 19th-century novelist, Charles Dickens. Trying to Save Piggy Sneed is John Irving at the top of his form.]]> 464 John Irving 0345404742 Namrata 0 to-read 3.39 1993 Trying to Save Piggy Sneed
author: John Irving
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.39
book published: 1993
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> Persephone’s Choice 58278704
As far as she knows, Sophie is an ordinary florist living an ordinary mortal life in Singapore whilst caring for an aged mother suffering from dementia. One day, a peculiar man with the same name as the ancient Greek god of the Underworld crashes into her life and falls heavier and heavier in her debt. Sophie tries to help him recover from amnesia and get back on his feet, while in the meantime, arranging for him to work for room and board at her flower shop. As time goes by, she grows accustomed to his company. She becomes unsure if she actually wants him to quickly pay off his debt and step out of her life just as abruptly as he had arrived�

Absurd, comedic, and tender at the same time, this whimsical variation of the classic Greek myth will not fail to amuse and delight.]]> 200 Yihan Sim 9814974048 Namrata 2 3.12 2021 Persephone’s Choice
author: Yihan Sim
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.12
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2022/05/31
date added: 2022/05/31
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]]> <![CDATA[Opium Inc.: How a Global Drug Trade Funded the British Empire]]> 58941172
In the 19th century, the British East India Company operated a triangle of trade that straddled the globe, running from India to China to Britain. From India to China, they took opium. From China to Britain, they took tea. From Britain to India, they brought empire. It was a machine that consumed cheap Indian land and labor and spat out money.

The British had two problems, though. They were importing enormous amounts of tea from China, but the Celestial Empire looked down on British goods and only wanted silver in return. Simultaneously, the expanding colony in India was proving far too expensive to maintain. The British solved both problems with opium, which became the source of income on which they built their empire.

For more than a century, the British knew that the drug was dangerous and continued to trade in it anyway. Its legacy in India, whether the poverty of Bihar or the wealth of Bombay, is still not acknowledged. Like many colonial institutions in India, the story of opium is one of immense pain for many and huge privileges for a few.]]> Thomas Manuel Namrata 3 3.90 Opium Inc.: How a Global Drug Trade Funded the British Empire
author: Thomas Manuel
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.90
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2022/05/30
date added: 2022/05/30
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]]> <![CDATA[Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit]]> 58405243 Now a Netflix original series

Discover the classic, behind-the-scenes chronicle of John E. Douglasâ€� twenty-five-year career in the FBI Investigative Support Unit, where he used psychological profiling to delve into the minds of the country’s most notorious serial killers and criminals.

In chilling detail, the legendary Mindhunter takes us behind the scenes of some of his most gruesome, fascinating, and challenging cases—and into the darkest recesses of our worst nightmares.

During his twenty-five year career with the Investigative Support Unit, Special Agent John Douglas became a legendary figure in law enforcement, pursuing some of the most notorious and sadistic serial killers of our time: the man who hunted prostitutes for sport in the woods of Alaska, the Atlanta child murderer, and Seattle's Green River killer, the case that nearly cost Douglas his life.

As the model for Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs, Douglas has confronted, interviewed, and studied scores of serial killers and assassins, including Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and Ed Gein, who dressed himself in his victims' peeled skin. Using his uncanny ability to become both predator and prey, Douglas examines each crime scene, reliving both the killer's and the victim's actions in his mind, creating their profiles, describing their habits, and predicting their next moves.]]> 445 John E. Douglas Namrata 3 4.27 1995 Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit
author: John E. Douglas
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1995
rating: 3
read at: 2022/05/29
date added: 2022/05/29
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]]> <![CDATA[The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter]]> 42872122
The FBI’s pioneer of criminal profiling, former special agent John Douglas, has studied and interviewed many of America’s most notorious killers—including Charles Manson, ”Son of Sam Killerâ€� David Berkowitz and ”BTK Stranglerâ€� Dennis Rader—trained FBI agents and investigators around and the world, and helped educate the country about these deadly predators and how they operate, and has become a legend in popular culture, fictionalized in The Silence of the Lambs and the hit television shows Criminal Minds and Mindhunter.

Twenty years after his famous memoir, the man who literally wrote the book on FBI criminal profiling opens his case files once again. In this riveting work of true crime, he spotlights four of the most diabolical criminals he’s confronted, interviewed and learned from. Going deep into each man’s life and crimes, he outlines the factors that led them to murder and how he used his interrogation skills to expose their means, motives, and true evil. Like the hit Netflix show, The Killer Across the Table is centered around Douglasâ€� unique interrogation and profiling process. With his longtime collaborator Mark Olshaker, Douglas recounts the chilling encounters with these four killers as he experienced them—revealing for the first time his profile methods in detail.

Going step by step through his interviews, Douglas explains how he connects each killer’s crimes to the specific conversation, and contrasts these encounters with those of other deadly criminals to show what he learns from each one. In the process, he returns to other famous cases, killers and interviews that have shaped his career, describing how the knowledge he gained from those exchanges helped prepare him for these.

A glimpse into the mind of a man who has pierced the heart of human darkness, The Killer Across the Table unlocks the ultimate mystery of depravity and the techniques and approaches that have countered evil in the name of justice.]]> John E. Douglas 0062939505 Namrata 4 4.15 2019 The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter
author: John E. Douglas
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/27
date added: 2022/05/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Pacific: The Ocean of the Future]]> 25816988
As the Mediterranean shaped the classical world, and the Atlantic connected Europe to the New World, the Pacific Ocean defines our tomorrow. With China on the rise, so, too, are the American cities of the West coast, including Seattle, San Francisco, and the long cluster of towns down the Silicon Valley.

Today, the Pacific is ascendant. Its geological history has long transformed us—tremendous earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis—but its human history, from a Western perspective, is quite young, beginning with Magellan’s sixteenth-century circumnavigation. It is a natural wonder whose most fascinating history is currently being made.

In telling the story of the Pacific, Simon Winchester takes us from the Bering Strait to Cape Horn, the Yangtze River to the Panama Canal, and to the many small islands and archipelagos that lie in between. He observes the fall of a dictator in Manila, visits aboriginals in northern Queensland, and is jailed in Tierra del Fuego, the land at the end of the world. His journey encompasses a trip down the Alaska Highway, a stop at the isolated Pitcairn Islands, a trek across South Korea and a glimpse of its mysterious northern neighbor.

Winchester’s personal experience is vast and his storytelling second to none. And his historical understanding of the region is formidable, making Pacific a paean to this magnificent sea of beauty, myth, and imagination that is transforming our lives.]]> 512 Simon Winchester 0062315412 Namrata 4 4.03 2015 Pacific: The Ocean of the Future
author: Simon Winchester
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/26
date added: 2022/05/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Explaining Life Through Evolution]]> 60553245
Looking forward to a book that explains life? Well, here it is! Explaining Life Through Evolution opens a window to the four billion year history of the millions of species we see on this planet. This book does not simply narrate the story of Ěýit brings to light who we are and where we came from. As humans we often focus on identifying our differences, no matter how small; Prosanta Chakrabarty demystifies our perceived differences and emphasizes our similarities. As more and more people take ancestry tests, sending their DNA samples and money to genealogy testing centres, we need to be educated on what the results actually mean scientifically,Ěýand we all have to decide together what it means socially. He thinks we should be celebrating the fact that our diversity comes from the same little drops of water and sunlight, each of us just shining a little differently as seen through the prism of evolution.

Prosanta encourages us to think of life as being like a book, one that is always in the making. What we see living around us today are just the last few pages. If we look out on to the millions of species that we share this planet with we can trace their histories, and ours, back through nearly four billion years of evolution. We can also think of all the living things around as the young leaves on an ancient and gigantic 'Tree of Life,'Ěýall of us connected by invisible branches not just to each other, but to our extinct relatives and our evolutionary ancestors.

Evocative, comprehensive, and thought-provoking, this is a book which will compel you to reimagine life.]]> 304 Prosanta Chakrabarty 0670095109 Namrata 0 to-read 3.53 Explaining Life Through Evolution
author: Prosanta Chakrabarty
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.53
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/05/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Best Short Stories of Anton Chekov]]> 35699179
From characteristically brief, evocative early pieces such as The Huntsman and his masterpiece A Bet to his best-known stories such as The Lady with the Little Toy Dog and The Requiem, this collection of Chekhov’s remarkable short fiction possesses the unmatched power of art to awe and change the reader.

This endlessly pleasing edition, expertly translated, is especially faithful to the meaning of Chekhov’s prose and the unique rhythms of his writing, giving readers an authentic sense of his style and a true understanding of his greatness.

This edition contains
The Lady with the Toy Dog
Small Fry
The Requiem
The Bet
Misery
At Christmas Time
The Huntsman
A Malefactor
Ward No. 6
The Looking-Glass
A Story Without A Title
A Daughter Of Albion
Fat and Thin
The Murder
A Dead Body
A Tripping Tongue
After the Theatre
A Lady’s Story
The Student
A Day in the Country
A Work of Art
A Joke
A Country Cottage]]> 156 Anton Chekhov Namrata 4 4.21 Best Short Stories of Anton Chekov
author: Anton Chekhov
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.21
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/22
date added: 2022/05/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Big Billion Startup: The Untold Flipkart Story]]> 52346729
IIT graduates Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal founded out of a Bangalore apartment what would become India’s biggest e-commerce startup. Established in October 2007, Flipkart began as an online bookstore and soon came to be known for its ‘customer obsessionâ€�. As the startup’s reputation grew, so did its value, with venture capitalists in India and abroad lining up to invest heavily in the company that stood for bold ambition, unabashed consumerism and the virtues of technology.

Investigative journalist Mihir Dalal recounts the astounding story of how the Bansals built Flipkart into a multi-billion-dollar powerhouse in the span of a few years and made internet entrepreneurship a desirable occupation. But it is also a story of big money, power and hubris, as both business and interpersonal complexities weakened the foundersâ€� control over their creation and forced them to sell out to a retailer whose dominance they had once dreamt of emulating. Flipkart’s auction involved some of the corporate world’s biggest names, from Jeff Bezos, Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai to Masayoshi Son and Doug McMillon, an ironic testimony to the strength of what the Bansals had forged.

Based on extraordinary research, extensive interviews and deep access to key characters in the Flipkart story, Big Billion Startup is the riveting and revealing account of how Sachin and Binny Bansal built and sold India’s largest internet company.]]> 320 Mihir Dalal 9389109140 Namrata 3 4.29 Big Billion Startup: The Untold Flipkart Story
author: Mihir Dalal
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.29
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2022/05/22
date added: 2022/05/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Nehru: The Debates That Defined India]]> 59614957
In life, as in afterlife, Nehru was many things to many people. Going beyond the imposed labels of contemporary discourse, this book illuminates four encounters that Nehru had with contemporaries from across the political spectrum - Muhammad Iqbal, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Sardar Patel and Syama Prasad Mookerjee - that are critical to understanding his ideas, and his long afterlife and impress on the present.

Nehru may no longer be alive to answer his critics today, but there was a time when he pitted himself vigorously against his opponents in the marketplace of ideas, debating the most profound questions in South Asian history and decisively influencing political events. It is this intellectually combative Nehru whom we meet in this book - voicing ideological disagreements, forging political alliances, moulding political opinion, offering visions of the future and staking out the political field - a key figure in the debates that defined India]]> 275 Tripurdaman Singh Namrata 4 3.78 Nehru: The Debates That Defined India
author: Tripurdaman Singh
name: Namrata
average rating: 3.78
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/20
date added: 2022/05/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI]]> 29496076 Ěý
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.

Then, one by one, they began to be killed off. One Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, watched as her family was murdered. Her older sister was shot. Her mother was then slowly poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more Osage began to die under mysterious circumstances.

In this last remnant of the Wild West—where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes such as Al Spencer, “the Phantom Terror,â€� roamed â€� virtually anyone who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll surpassed more than twenty-four Osage, the newly created F.B.I. took up the case, in what became one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations. But the bureau was then notoriously corrupt and initially bungled the case. Eventually the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including one of the only Native American agents in the bureau. They infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest modern techniques of detection. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most sinister conspiracies in American history.

In Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann revisits a shocking series of crimes in which dozens of people were murdered in cold blood. The book is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, as each step in the investigation reveals a series of sinister secrets and reversals. But more than that, it is a searing indictment of the callousness and prejudice toward Native Americans that allowed the murderers to operate with impunity for so long. Killers of the Flower Moon is utterly riveting, but also emotionally devastating.]]> 359 David Grann 0385534256 Namrata 4 4.12 2017 Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
author: David Grann
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/19
date added: 2022/05/20
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]]> <![CDATA[One for Sorrow (D.I. Callanach, #7)]]> 58823339
Edinburgh is in de greep van de grootste dreiging tot nog toe: een ogenschijnlijk zelfstandig opererende crimineel die met ingenieuze bommen aanslagen pleegt. Op meerdere plekken in de stad vallen slachtoffers, niemand lijkt veilig. Ava Turner en Luc Callanach zijn er inmiddels aan gewend om op dagelijkse basis met de dood om te gaan. Maar dan wordt duidelijk dat elke bom bedoeld is als een valstrik voor hen en dat de aanslagpleger het dus op hen gemunt heeft. De kans dat ze zelf zullen omkomen wordt steeds groter. Het dodental loopt verder op en de werkwijze van de dader wordt almaar gruwelijker. Luc en Ava moeten ontdekken wie de aanslagen pleegt, voordat ze zelf slachtoffer worden…]]> 370 Helen Sarah Fields 0008379343 Namrata 3 4.51 2022 One for Sorrow (D.I. Callanach, #7)
author: Helen Sarah Fields
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2022/05/16
date added: 2022/05/16
shelves:
review:

]]> Local Woman Missing 54737068 People don’t just disappear without a trace....

Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold.

Now, 11 years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they’ll find....

In this smart and chilling thriller, master of suspense and New York Times best-selling author Mary Kubica takes domestic secrets to a whole new level, showing that some people will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried.]]> 356 Mary Kubica 0778389448 Namrata 3 4.12 2021 Local Woman Missing
author: Mary Kubica
name: Namrata
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2022/05/14
date added: 2022/05/13
shelves:
review:

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