en-US Wed, 30 Apr 2025 05:21:59 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 53285047 We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we?

Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other Bunny, and seem to move and speak as one.

But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled Smut Salon, and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus Workshop where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision.

The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.

Named a Best Book of 2019 by TIME, Vogue, Electric Literature, and The New York Public Library]]> 305 Mona Awad 0525559752 g.m. 0 3.43 2019
author: Mona Awad
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 44891773
Ένας αδέσποτος γάτος τρυπώνει σε ένα άγνωστο διαμέρισμα για λίγη τροφή και δροσιά. Ένας σοφός γάτος κι ένας άνθρωπος που τον χρειάζεται. και οι ιστορίες μπλέκουν μεταξύ τους. Τι το παράξενο όμως τις συνδέει;

Έρχεται τελικά η λύτρωση μέσα στο πομπώδες παραλήρημα της ύπαρξης;

Τι κρύβει ο κάθε άνθρωπος πίσω από την προσωπική του αυλαία; Τι γίνεται όταν κανένας δεν μνημονεύει την ιστορία του;

Τι παραμονεύει τη νύχτα κάτω από το παιδικό κρεβάτι;]]> 184 Βασιλική Χαλιαμπάλια 9606261158 g.m. 0 to-read 4.67 2019
author: Βασιλική Χαλιαμπάλια
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 604731 With eloquence and compassion, Jenny Offill weaves a luminous story of a wounded family and of a young girl yearning to understand the difference between fiction, fact, and hope. A novel of vibrant imagination and searing intelligence, Last Things is a stunning literary achievement.]]> 264 Jenny Offill 0385334958 g.m. 0 to-read 3.66 1999
author: Jenny Offill
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 18162954 An enchanting short story from Madeline Miller that boldly reimagines the myth of Galatea and Pygmalion.

In ancient Greece, a skilled marble sculptor has been blessed by a goddess who has given his masterpiece �� the most beautiful woman the town has ever seen �� the gift of life. Now his wife, he expects Galatea to please him, to be obedience and humility personified. But she has desires of her own and yearns for independence.

In a desperate bid by her obsessive husband to keep her under control, Galatea is locked away under the constant supervision of doctors and nurses. But with a daughter to rescue, she is determined to break free, whatever the cost...]]> 27 Madeline Miller 1408848147 g.m. 0 3.93 2013
author: Madeline Miller
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/21
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 32871394 An original, imaginative, and hilarious debut novel about love, anxiety, and sea creatures, from the author of So Sad Today.

Lucy has been writing her dissertation about Sappho for thirteen years when she and Jamie break up. After she hits rock bottom in Phoenix, her Los Angeles-based sister insists Lucy housesit for the summer—her only tasks caring for a beloved diabetic dog and trying to learn to care for herself. Annika’s home is a gorgeous glass cube atop Venice Beach, but Lucy can find no peace from her misery and anxiety—not in her love addiction group therapy meetings, not in frequent Tinder meetups, not in Dominic the foxhound’s easy affection, not in ruminating on the ancient Greeks. Yet everything changes when Lucy becomes entranced by an eerily attractive swimmer one night while sitting alone on the beach rocks.

Whip-smart, neurotically funny, sexy, and above all, fearless, The Pisces is built on a premise both sirenic and incredibly real—what happens when you think love will save you but are afraid it might also kill you.]]> 270 Melissa Broder 1524761559 g.m. 0 to-read 3.31 2018
author: Melissa Broder
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 925761 144 Alan Garner 0385295170 g.m. 0 to-read 3.60 1986
author: Alan Garner
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 208931300 An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family—but especially love—from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.]]> 454 Sally Rooney 0374602638 g.m. 0 3.86 2024
author: Sally Rooney
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 45032 488 Jane Austen g.m. 0 to-read 3.86 1814
author: Jane Austen
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60029469 Be the first to pre-order Sh**ged. Married. Annoyed. from Chris and Rosie Ramsey, stars of the phenomenally successful chart-topping podcast.

SH**GED
Saturday nights out on the tiles, undying crushes, dating like it's a competitive sport, awkward tales of dating woes, one-night stands, the walk of shame, ghosting, tears and break-ups.

MARRIED
Finding 'the one', meeting their parents, first holidays and romantic weekends away, engagement rings, big moment proposals, wedding bells, the hen do, the stag, the much anticipated - and feared - best man speech, the honeymoon of a lifetime.

ANNOYED
Who stacks a dishwasher like this? Empty milk cartons placed back into the fridge, pregnancy, sleepless nights, toilet seats up, toothpaste everywhere, less and less frequent date nights, DIY weekends, divorce.

Whether you're sh**ged, married, annoyed, or, all of the above, Chris and Rosie Ramsey, hosts of the number one podcast, write hilariously and with honesty about the universal highs and lows of life, dating, relationships, arguments, parenting and everything in between.]]> Chris Ramsey g.m. 0 4.00 2020
author: Chris Ramsey
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2022/09/06
date added: 2024/11/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 2125357 D.H. Lawrence g.m. 0 3.66 1911
author: D.H. Lawrence
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1911
rating: 0
read at: 2024/09/22
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 54539 262 George Eliot g.m. 0 currently-reading 3.67 1861
author: George Eliot
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1861
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 139399948 In the seventh installment in the Strike series, Cormoran and Robin must rescue a man ensnared in the trap of a dangerous cult.

Private Detective Cormoran Strike is contacted by a worried father whose son, Will, has gone to join a religious cult in the depths of the Norfolk countryside.

The Universal Humanitarian Church is, on the surface, a peaceable organization that campaigns for a better world. Yet Strike discovers that beneath the surface there are deeply sinister undertones, and unexplained deaths.

In order to try to rescue Will, Strike's business partner, Robin Ellacott, decides to infiltrate the cult, and she travels to Norfolk to live incognito among its members. But in doing so, she is unprepared for the dangers that await her there or for the toll it will take on her. . .

Utterly pulse-pounding, The Running Grave moves Strike's and Robin's story forward in this epic, unforgettable seventh installment of the series.]]> 960 Robert Galbraith 0316572101 g.m. 0 4.56 2023
author: Robert Galbraith
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/09/10
date added: 2024/09/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 54304105 The Pisces and So Sad Today.

Rachel is twenty-four, a lapsed Jew who has made calorie restriction her religion. By day, she maintains an illusion of existential control, by way of obsessive food rituals, while working as an underling at a Los Angeles talent management agency. At night, she pedals nowhere on the elliptical machine. Rachel is content to carry on subsisting—until her therapist encourages her to take a ninety-day communication detox from her mother, who raised her in the tradition of calorie counting.

Early in the detox, Rachel meets Miriam, a zaftig young Orthodox Jewish woman who works at her favorite frozen yogurt shop and is intent upon feeding her. Rachel is suddenly and powerfully entranced by Miriam—by her sundaes and her body, her faith and her family—and as the two grow closer, Rachel embarks on a journey marked by mirrors, mysticism, mothers, milk, and honey.

Pairing superlative emotional insight with unabashed vivid fantasy, Broder tells a tale of appetites: physical hunger, sexual desire, spiritual longing, and the ways that we as humans can compartmentalize these so often interdependent instincts. Milk Fed is a tender and riotously funny meditation on love, certitude, and the question of what we are all being fed, from one of our major writers on the psyche—both sacred and profane.]]> 304 Melissa Broder 1982142499 g.m. 0 3.56 2021
author: Melissa Broder
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/20
date added: 2024/08/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 56743410 620 Ann Radcliffe g.m. 0 to-read 3.61 1794
author: Ann Radcliffe
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.61
book published: 1794
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62898932 Do you know what happened already?
Did you know her?
Did you see it on the internet?
Did you listen to a podcast?
Did the hosts make jokes?

Did you see the pictures of the body?

Did you look for them?

It's been nearly a decade since the horrifying murder of sixteen-year-old Joan Wilson rocked Crow-on-Sea, and the events of that terrible night are now being published for the first time.

That story is Penance, a dizzying feat of masterful storytelling, where Eliza Clark manoeuvres us through accounts from the inhabitants of this small seaside town. Placing us in the capable hands of journalist Alec Z. Carelli, Clark allows him to construct what he claims is the 'definitive account' of the murder - and what led up to it. Built on hours of interviews with witnesses and family members, painstaking historical research, and most notably, correspondence with the killers themselves, the result is a riveting snapshot of lives rocked by tragedy, and a town left in turmoil.

The only question is: how much of it is true?]]> 336 Eliza Clark 0571371795 g.m. 0 3.87 2023
author: Eliza Clark
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/08
date added: 2024/04/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 56754296 The people he hurt. The way he lied about it so easily. The way she defended him. Now he’s back.
He says a murderer is after her. He says only he can protect her. Would you trust him?
The clock is ticking for Ingrid to decide. Because the killer is ready to strike…]]> 480 Jane Casey 0008477922 g.m. 2 3.80 2021
author: Jane Casey
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2024/01/18
date added: 2024/01/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 52623750 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593189481.

An intimate, revelatory book exploring the ways we can care for and repair ourselves when life knocks us down.

Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a break up, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered.

A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May’s story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters and sailing arctic seas.

Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.]]> 241 Katherine May g.m. 0 3.82 2020
author: Katherine May
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/09
date added: 2024/01/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 56393249
'Raw, tender and urgent' Jessica Andrews, author of Saltwater


'Irreducible. Once read, it will never be forgotten' Helen Mort, author of Division Street


This is the story of an abortion.

The days and hours before the first visit to the clinic and the weeks and months after.

The pregnancy was a mistake and the narrator immediately arranges a termination. But a gulf yawns between politics and personal experience. The polarised public debate and the broader cultural silence did not prepare her for the physical event or the emotional aftermath. She finds herself compulsively telling people about the abortion (and counting those who know), struggling at work and researching the procedure. She feels alone in her pain and confusion.

Part diary, part prose poem, part literary collage, Larger than an Orange is an uncompromising, intimate and original memoir. With raw precision and determined honesty, Lucy Burns carves out a new space for complexity, ambivalence and individual experience.


'Lucy Burns' writing on choice and its aftermath is boldly innovative, achingly human, and powerfully vulnerable'
Dr Elinor Cleghorn, author of Unwell Women


'Rapturous, engrossing and beautifully impossible' Holly Pester, author of Comic Timing]]> 224 Lucy Burns 1784744417 g.m. 0 4.27 2021
author: Lucy Burns
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2023/12/20
date added: 2023/12/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 10287791
Jessie Lamb is just an ordinary sixteen-year-old girl living in extraordinary times, who begins to question her parents' attitudes and behavior in her struggle to become independent. As the world collapses and the certainties of childhood are ripped away, her idealism and courage drive her toward the ultimate act of heroism. But is she being heroic, or innocent and impressionable as her father fears, incapable of understanding where her actions will lead?]]> 240 Jane Rogers 1905207581 g.m. 0 3.09 2011
author: Jane Rogers
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.09
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2023/12/20
date added: 2023/12/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 6294 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

Sophie has the great misfortune of being the eldest of three daughters, destined to fail miserably should she ever leave home to seek her fate. But when she unwittingly attracts the ire of the Witch of the Waste, Sophie finds herself under a horrid spell that transforms her into an old lady. Her only chance at breaking it lies in the ever-moving castle in the hills: the Wizard Howl's castle. To untangle the enchantment, Sophie must handle the heartless Howl, strike a bargain with a fire demon, and meet the Witch of the Waste head-on. Along the way, she discovers that there's far more to Howl—and herself—than first meets the eye.]]> 329 Diana Wynne Jones 006441034X g.m. 5 4.30 1986
author: Diana Wynne Jones
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1986
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/22
date added: 2023/04/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 60144955
When frantic, disheveled Edie Ledwell appears in the office begging to speak to her, private detective Robin Ellacott doesn’t know quite what to make of the situation. The co-creator of a popular cartoon, The Ink Black Heart, Edie is being persecuted by a mysterious online figure who goes by the pseudonym of Anomie. Edie is desperate to uncover Anomie’s true identity.

Robin decides that the agency can’t help with this—and thinks nothing more of it until a few days later, when she reads the shocking news that Edie has been tasered and then murdered in Highgate Cemetery, the location of The Ink Black Heart.

Robin and her business partner, Cormoran Strike, become drawn into the quest to uncover Anomie’s true identity. But with a complex web of online aliases, business interests and family conflicts to navigate, Strike and Robin find themselves embroiled in a case that stretches their powers of deduction to the limits �� and which threatens them in new and horrifying ways . . .]]> 1391 Robert Galbraith 0316473537 g.m. 0 4.07 2022
author: Robert Galbraith
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/02/24
date added: 2023/02/24
shelves:
review:

]]> 14201
Proceeding to London, he raises a beautiful woman from the dead and summons an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French. Yet the cautious, fussy Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange.

Young, handsome and daring, Strange is the very antithesis of Norrell. So begins a dangerous battle between these two great men which overwhelms that between England and France. And their own obsessions and secret dabblings with the dark arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine.]]> 1006 Susanna Clarke g.m. 0 3.84 2004
author: Susanna Clarke
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at: 2023/02/01
date added: 2023/02/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 15161
With Clarke's characteristic historical detail and diction, these dark, enchanting tales unfold in a slightly distorted version of our own world, where people are bedeviled by mischievous interventions from the fairies. With appearances from beloved characters from her novel, including Jonathan Strange and Childermass, and an entirely new spin on certain historical figures, including Mary, Queen of Scots, this is a must-have for fans of Susanna Clarke's and an enticing introduction to her work for new readers.

Some of these stories have never before been published; others have appeared in the "New York Times" or in highly regarded anthologies. In this collection, they come together to expand the reach of Clarke's land of enchantment.]]> 235 Susanna Clarke 1596912510 g.m. 0 3.87 2006
author: Susanna Clarke
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/30
date added: 2022/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 36316300
'You may not run away from the thing that you are because it comes and comes and comes as sure as you breathe.'

This is the story of Yrsa Daley-Ward, and all the things that happened - 'even the Terrible Things (and God, there were Terrible Things)'. It's about her childhood in the north-west of England with her beautiful, careworn mother Marcia, Linford (the man formerly known as Dad, 'half-fun, half-frightening') and her little brother Roo, who sees things written in the stars. It's about growing up and discovering the power and fear of her own sexuality, of pitch grey days of pills and powder and encounters. It's about damage and pain, but also joy. Told with raw intensity, shocking honesty and the poetry of the darkest of fairy tales, The Terrible is a memoir of going under, losing yourself, and finding your voice.]]> 224 Yrsa Daley-Ward 0525504532 g.m. 0 4.17 2018
author: Yrsa Daley-Ward
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/09
date added: 2022/12/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 43789029
Reminiscent of the suspense of Shirley Jackson and soaked in the folk horror of the British landscape, Water Shall Refuse Them is an atmospheric coming-of-age novel and a thrilling debut.]]> 257 Lucie McKnight Hardy 1911585568 g.m. 0 currently-reading 3.44 2019
author: Lucie McKnight Hardy
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/09
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 835458 The Pursuit of Love satirizes British aristocracy in the twenties and thirties through the amorous adventures of the Radletts, an exuberantly unconventional family closely modelled on Mitford's own.

The Radletts of Alconleigh occupy the heights of genteel eccentricity, from terrifying Lord Alconleigh (who, like Mitford's father, used to hunt his children with bloodhounds when foxes were not available), to his gentle wife, Sadie, their wayward daughter Linda, and the other six lively Radlett children. Mitford's wickedly funny prose follows these characters through misguided marriages and dramatic love affairs, as the shadow of World War II begins to close in on their rapidly vanishing world.]]> 192 Nancy Mitford 0140007113 g.m. 0 3.94 1945
author: Nancy Mitford
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1945
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/07
date added: 2022/12/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 26210520 Fen is a liminal land. Real people live their lives here. They wrestle with familiar instincts, with sex and desire, with everyday routine. But the wild is always close at hand, ready to erupt. This is a place where animals and people commingle and fuse, where curious metamorphoses take place, where myth and dark magic still linger. So here a teenager may starve herself into the shape of an eel. A house might fall in love with a girl. A woman might give birth to a �� well what?]]> 208 Daisy Johnson 1910702331 g.m. 0 3.64 2016
author: Daisy Johnson
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/05
date added: 2022/12/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 49083140
Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina’s relationship with her obsessive best friend, and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention��

Boy Parts is the incendiary debut novel from Eliza Clark, a pitch-black comedy both shocking and hilarious, fearlessly exploring the taboo regions of sexuality and gender roles in the twenty-first century.]]> 304 Eliza Clark 1910312649 g.m. 0 3.74 2020
author: Eliza Clark
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/05
date added: 2022/12/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 56897445 320 Helen Joyce 0861540492 g.m. 0 4.18 2021
author: Helen Joyce
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/11/06
date added: 2022/11/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 50202953
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.]]> 272 Susanna Clarke 163557563X g.m. 0 4.22 2020
author: Susanna Clarke
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2022/10/25
date added: 2022/10/25
shelves:
review:

]]> 35959740
Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts, and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from or with the mortals she has come to love.]]> 393 Madeline Miller 0316556343 g.m. 0 4.22 2018
author: Madeline Miller
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2022/10/20
date added: 2022/10/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 7933129
Written in 1934, early in Hitler’s rise, Wigs on the Green lightheartedly skewers the devoted followers of British fascism.

The sheltered and unworldy Eugenia Malmains is one of the richest girls in England and an ardent supporter of General Jack and his Union Jackshirts. World-weary Noel Foster and his scheming friend Jasper Aspect are in search of wealthy heiresses to marry; Lady Marjorie, disguised as a commoner, is on the run from the Duke she has just jilted at the altar; and her friend Poppy is considering whether to divorce her rich husband.

When these characters converge with the colorful locals at a grandly misconceived costume pageant that turns into a brawl between Pacifists and Jackshirts, madcap farce ensues. Long suppressed by the author out of sensitivity to family feelings, Wigs on the Green can now be enjoyed by fans of Mitford’s superbly comic novels.]]> 177 Nancy Mitford 0307740854 g.m. 0 3.42 1935
author: Nancy Mitford
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.42
book published: 1935
rating: 0
read at: 2022/10/14
date added: 2022/10/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 22609317
As a teenager at the prestigious Bradley School, Ani FaNelli endured a shocking, public humiliation that left her desperate to reinvent herself. Now, with a glamorous job, expensive wardrobe, and handsome blue blood fiancé, she’s this close to living the perfect life she’s worked so hard to achieve.

But Ani has a secret.

There’s something else buried in her past that still haunts her, something private and painful that threatens to bubble to the surface and destroy everything.

With a singular voice and twists you won’t see coming, Luckiest Girl Alive explores the unbearable pressure that so many women feel to “have it all�� and introduces a heroine whose sharp edges and cutthroat ambition have been protecting a scandalous truth, and a heart that's bigger than it first appears.

The question remains: will breaking her silence destroy all that she has worked for—or, will it at long last, set Ani free?]]> 338 Jessica Knoll 1476789630 g.m. 0 3.50 2015
author: Jessica Knoll
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2022/10/14
date added: 2022/10/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 59364173
Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,�� eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?�� She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

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

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.]]> 320 Jennette McCurdy g.m. 0 4.45 2022
author: Jennette McCurdy
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/10/12
date added: 2022/10/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 53071025 Declutter your desk and brighten up your business with this transformative guide from an organizational psychologist and the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

The workplace is a magnet for clutter and mess. Who hasn’t felt drained by wasteful meetings, disorganized papers, endless emails, and unnecessary tasks? These are the modern-day hazards of working, and they can slowly drain the joy from work, limit our chances of career progress, and undermine our well-being.

There is another way. In Joy at Work, bestselling author and Netflix star Marie Kondo and Rice University business professor Scott Sonenshein offer stories, studies, and strategies to help you eliminate clutter and make space for work that really matters.

Using the world-renowned KonMari Method and cutting-edge research, Joy at Work will help you overcome the challenges of workplace mess and enjoy the productivity, success, and happiness that come with a tidy desk and mind.]]> 244 Marie Kondō 0316423327 g.m. 0 3.47 2020
author: Marie Kondō
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2022/10/11
date added: 2022/10/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 34661984 Don't Cry; Love Sport; Play Rough; Drink Beer; Don't Talk About Feelings

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

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

Hilarious and heartbreaking, How Not To Be a Boy explores the relationships that made Robert who he is as a man, the lessons we learn as sons and daughters, and the understanding that sometimes you aren't the Luke Skywalker of your life - you're actually Darth Vader.]]> 337 Robert Webb g.m. 0 4.19 2017
author: Robert Webb
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2022/09/13
date added: 2022/09/13
shelves:
review:

]]> 40725154 Guardian US columnist Jessica Valenti has been leading the national conversation on gender and politics for over a decade. Now, in a darkly funny and bracing memoir, Valenti explores the toll that sexism takes from the every day to the existential.

Sex Object explores the painful, funny, embarrassing, and sometimes illegal moments that shaped Valenti’s adolescence and young adulthood in New York City, revealing a much shakier inner life than the confident persona she has cultivated as one of the most recognizable feminists of her generation.

In the tradition of writers like Joan Didion and Mary Karr, this literary memoir is sure to shock those already familiar with Valenti’s work and enthrall those who are just finding it.]]> 172 Jessica Valenti 0062435108 g.m. 0 3.71 2016
author: Jessica Valenti
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2022/09/07
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 13623848 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062060624.

Achilles, "the best of all the Greeks," son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods' wrath.

They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.]]> 408 Madeline Miller g.m. 0 4.30 2011
author: Madeline Miller
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2022/09/06
date added: 2022/09/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 29751398 The Power the world is a recognizable place: There's a rich Nigerian boy who lounges around the family pool; a foster kid whose religious parents hide their true nature; an ambitious American politician; and a tough London girl from a tricky family. But then a vital new force takes root and flourishes, causing their lives to converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls now have immense physical power: They can cause agonizing pain and even death. With this small twist of nature, the world drastically resets.]]> 341 Naomi Alderman 0670919985 g.m. 0 3.75 2016
author: Naomi Alderman
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2022/07/04
date added: 2022/07/04
shelves:
review:

]]> 50984842
These outstanding stories examine masculinity, male power and broken relationships, while revealing �� with astonishing insight and clarity �� those moments of misunderstanding that can have life-changing consequences. And there is an unexpected violence, ever-present but unseen, in the depiction of the complicated interactions between men and women, and families. Subtle, sophisticated and displaying an extraordinary understanding of human behaviour, these stories are unforgettable.]]> 288 Emma Cline 0812998642 g.m. 0 3.32 2021
author: Emma Cline
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/05/19
date added: 2022/05/19
shelves:
review:

]]> 49090884
His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition.�� Now, eating human meat—“special meat”—is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing.

Then one day he’s given a a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he’s aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.]]> 209 Agustina Bazterrica 1982150920 g.m. 0 3.75 2017
author: Agustina Bazterrica
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2022/04/18
date added: 2022/04/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 54785558 From the author of the Outline trilogy, a fable of human destiny and decline, enacted in a closed system of intimate, fractured relationships.

A woman invites a famed artist to visit the remote coastal region where she lives, in the belief that his vision will penetrate the mystery of her life and landscape. His provocative presence provides the frame for a study of female fate and male privilege, of the geometries of human relationships, and of the struggle to live morally in the intersecting spaces of our internal and external worlds.

With its examination of the possibility that art can both save and destroy us, Rachel Cusk's Second Place is deeply affirming of the human soul, while grappling with its darkest demons.]]> 186 Rachel Cusk 0374279225 g.m. 0 3.69 2021
author: Rachel Cusk
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/04/18
date added: 2022/04/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 57313311
"I’ve come to accept that being audacious is a gift I can’t escape."

People "know" my on-stage comedy persona or my scripted ballsy characters and wrongly assume that I must stomp around all day in designer dresses eviscerating those who dare to cross my path. But mostly, I’m just sat eating pickles and being nice to some dogs.

Whatever strangers think of me is fine with me. How audacious is that? I can always take a joke, I don’t waste time worrying about things I can’t control. I embrace the reality that you just can’t please everyone, so you might as well put yourself out there and have a laugh. As my mother always said, "Katherine, if we all liked the same thing, we’d all be married to your father."

I’m often asked how I developed my lurid level of courage and assurance and for tips on how others can match. The Audacity is my chance to share my blueprint for just that. You will learn:

�� How To Be the Most Popular Girl in School
�� How to Waste All Your Money on Designer Dogs
�� How To Attract Toxic Men�� AND Keep Them Interested!
And so much more��

Secrets are my favourite things to be told and I figured I’d better tell a few juicy ones myself, too. Why not? No matter what I do, there will always be something about me that reads as simply, outrageously audacious.]]> 294 Katherine Ryan g.m. 0 4.12
author: Katherine Ryan
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.12
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2022/04/10
date added: 2022/04/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 56597885 356 Sally Rooney 0374602603 g.m. 5 3.53 2021
author: Sally Rooney
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/04/10
date added: 2022/04/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 23296678
It is 1154 and Henry Plantagenet avenges his family honour by taking back the English throne from Stephen the Usurper. The kingdom he inherits is impoverished, lawless and broken by years of civil war. By his side is the beautiful, wealthy and indomitable Eleanor of Aquitaine. Combining forces, this golden couple use their charisma and shrewd diplomacy to crush rebellious barons and restore England's prestige and glory.

However, an equally ambitious financial magician is needed to restore the royal treasury. Opportunistic Thomas Becket answers the call, using his appointment of Chancellor to fill not only the King's coffers but also his own. In a dance of ambition, vengeance and forbidden passions, Henry, his Queen and the Chancellor fight for political power and control against forces seen and imagined, each with their own agenda, each determined to hide their own shameful secrets.

"Blanche d'Alpuget has now turned to medieval history to produce an extraordinary tale of ruthlessly pursued political and personal aims. It seems she has reproduced the very texture of those times, their sophistication, their ambitions and stratagems. I was expecting the normal historical novel. This isn't it. This is fresh and invigorating and absolutely gripping. The revision she provides of the motives and character of Thomas Becket will rivet readers as they have not been riveted since Hilary Mantel's Thomas Cromwell." - Thomas Keneally, AO]]> 466 Blanche d'Alpuget 0992527309 g.m. 0 3.56 2014
author: Blanche d'Alpuget
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2022/01/17
date added: 2022/01/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 41447687
Unauthorized Bread is a tale of immigration, toxic economic stratification and a young woman's perilously illegal quest to fix a broken toaster.

In Model Minority a superhero finds himself way out his depth when he confronts the corruption of the police and justice system.

Radicalized is the story of a desperate husband, a darknet forum and the birth of a violent uprising against the US health care system.

The final story, The Masque of the Red Death, tracks an uber-wealthy survivalist and his followers as they hole up and attempt to ride out the collapse of society.]]> 304 Cory Doctorow 1789541093 g.m. 0 4.01 2019
author: Cory Doctorow
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2022/01/15
date added: 2022/01/15
shelves:
review:

]]> 18329668 Plantagenet, the mightiest royal dynasty in English history.

To seize England's throne, he had to marry the most dangerous woman in Europe.

Returning from the Crusades with her pious husband, Louis of France, the beautiful French Queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, starts a dangerous affair with Geoffrey, Duke of Normandy. Geoffrey’s secret intent is to make her his spy in the French court where the struggle for dominance between Normandy, France and England plays out. But what begins in
cool calculation becomes a passionate affair. Despite this, Geoffrey remains committed to a covert goal: to see his young warrior son, Henry, seize the English throne.

Saving his father from discovery and execution by the French, Henry falls foul of Eleanor �� and madly in love with her Byzantine maid. Should he become King of England, this dazzling girl will never be acceptable as his consort. These intertwined relationships �� heated, forbidden and perilous �� are the heart of a vivid story of ambition, vengeance and dynastic intrigue.and political intrigue set in the glorious flowering of troubadour culture, mysticism and learning that is 12th century France.


‘Blanche d’Alpuget �� has a remarkable ear for the passions and cravings of her characters. Her narrative is so fresh and energetic you will swear she’s bringing us a first-hand account. This is a writer who has returned to fiction with a boldness and vigour that mirrors the Young Lion himself …��
Stephanie Dowrick]]> 480 Blanche d'Alpuget 0732296692 g.m. 0 3.02 2013
author: Blanche d'Alpuget
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.02
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2022/01/07
date added: 2022/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 54503958
Grow Green is a practical guide and tackles a topic close to Jen Chillingsworth's heart �� growing sustainably. Packed with easy tips and advice, this little book reveals how to adjust your outdoor space and create a wildlife haven, while reducing your impact on the environment as you grow your own cut flowers, fruit and veg. Drawing on her wealth of knowledge, Jen will hold your hand as she takes you through all the gardening essentials, teaching you how to get started �� no matter how small or big your space might be.

From making your own fertilizer with leftovers, planting in pots, reducing energy consumption and conserving water, to dealing with pests and diseases, Jen removes the stress and simply shows you how to garden green. Whether you are a first-time gardener or have seasoned green fingers �� discover how to get the most out of your space with Grow Green by gardening with intention.

Live simply. Grow Green.]]> 160 Jen Chillingsworth 1787135721 g.m. 0 to-read 4.08
author: Jen Chillingsworth
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.08
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 28922
Now, as the mature Ono struggles through the aftermath of that war, his memories of his youth and of the “floating world”—the nocturnal world of pleasure, entertainment, and drink—offer him both escape and redemption, even as they punish him for betraying his early promise. Indicted by society for its defeat and reviled for his past aesthetics, he relives the passage through his personal history that makes him both a hero and a coward but, above all, a human being.]]> 206 Kazuo Ishiguro 0571225365 g.m. 0 to-read 3.79 1986
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 24612118
At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed.]]> 390 Lauren Groff 1594634475 g.m. 0 to-read 3.55 2015
author: Lauren Groff
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40537588 157 Jen Chillingsworth 1787133192 g.m. 0 3.72
author: Jen Chillingsworth
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.72
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2021/12/23
date added: 2021/12/23
shelves:
review:

]]> 50788186 A New York Times Notable Book (2020) from a Booker Prize finalist and international literary star: a blazing portrait of one darkly riveting sibling relationship, from the inside out..

Now she returns with Sisters, a haunting story about two sisters caught in a powerful emotional web and wrestling to understand where one ends and the other begins.

Born just ten months apart, July and September are thick as thieves, never needing anyone but each other. Now, following a case of school bullying, the teens have moved away with their single mother to a long-abandoned family home near the shore. In their new, isolated life, July finds that the deep bond she has always shared with September is shifting in ways she cannot entirely understand. A creeping sense of dread and unease descends inside the house. Meanwhile, outside, the sisters push boundaries of behavior—until a series of shocking encounters tests the limits of their shared experience, and forces shocking revelations about the girls�� past and future.

Sisters is a one-two punch of wild fury and heartache—a taut, powerful, and deeply moving account of sibling love and what happens when two sisters must face each other’s darkest impulses.]]> 210 Daisy Johnson 0593188950 g.m. 0 3.48 2020
author: Daisy Johnson
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/12/23
date added: 2021/12/23
shelves:
review:

]]> 42815544
But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled "Smut Salon," and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus "Workshop" where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision.

The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.]]> 307 Mona Awad 0525559736 g.m. 0 currently-reading 3.53 2019
author: Mona Awad
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/16
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 6396579 ��
Initially Aristotle hopes for a short stay in what he considers the brutal backwater of his childhood. But, as a man of relentless curiosity and reason, Aristotle warms to the challenge of instructing his young charges, particularly Alexander, in whom he recognizes a kindred spirit, an engaged, questioning mind coupled with a unique sense of position and destiny.
��
Aristotle struggles to match his ideas against the warrior culture that is Alexander’s birthright. He feels that teaching this startling, charming, sometimes horrifying boy is a desperate necessity. And that what the boy �� thrown before his time onto his father’s battlefields �� needs most is to learn the golden mean, that elusive balance between extremes that Aristotle hopes will mitigate the boy’s will to conquer.
��
Aristotle struggles to inspire balance in Alexander, and he finds he must also play a cat-and-mouse game of power and influence with Philip in order to manage his own ambitions.
��
As Alexander’s position as Philip’s heir strengthens and his victories on the battlefield mount, Aristotle’s attempts to instruct him are honoured, but increasingly unheeded. And despite several troubling incidents on the field of battle, Alexander remains steadfast in his desire to further the reach of his empire to all known and unknown corners of the world, rendering the intellectual pursuits Aristotle offers increasingly irrelevant.
��
Exploring this fabled time and place, Annabel Lyon tells her story in the earthy, frank, and perceptive voice of Aristotle himself. With sensual and muscular prose, she explores how Aristotle’s genius touched the boy who would conquer the known world. And she reveals how we still live with the ghosts of both men.]]> 304 Annabel Lyon 0307356205 g.m. 0 3.49 2009
author: Annabel Lyon
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at: 2021/12/16
date added: 2021/12/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 44587970
Laura may be burned out. Her hands have been raw from washing as long as she can remember. When she sleeps, she dreams of water; when she wakes, she finds herself lying next to a man who doesn't love her any more. And there is a strange figure dancing in the corner of her vision, always just beyond her reach.

Dark yet luminous, sensual yet chilling, ringing with strange music and laced with dread, Rest and Be Thankful is an unforgettable novel that confirms Emma Glass as a visionary new voice.]]> 144 Emma Glass 1526601079 g.m. 0 3.51 2020
author: Emma Glass
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/12/16
date added: 2021/12/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 10626594
At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.

Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition �� the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.]]> 409 Maggie Stiefvater 054522490X g.m. 0 to-read 4.09 2011
author: Maggie Stiefvater
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 17607 All About Love offers radical new ways to think about love by showing its interconnectedness in our private and public lives. In eleven concise chapters, hooks explains how our everyday notions of what it means to give and receive love often fail us, and how these ideals are established in early childhood. She offers a rethinking of self-love (without narcissism) that will bring peace and compassion to our personal and professional lives, and asserts the place of love to end struggles between individuals, in communities, and among societies. Moving from the cultural to the intimate, hooks notes the ties between love and loss and challenges the prevailing notion that romantic love is the most important love of all.

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

For readers who have found ongoing delight and wisdom in bell hooks's life and work, and for those who are just now discovering her, All About Love is essential reading and a brilliant book that will change how we think about love, our culture-and one another.]]> 240 bell hooks 0688168442 g.m. 0 to-read 4.06 1999
author: bell hooks
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 34957071 Introducing a dazzling new literary voice--a wholly original novel as groundbreaking as the works of Eimear McBride and Max Porter.

Something has happened to Peach. Staggering around the town streets in the aftermath of an assault, Peach feels a trickle of blood down her legs, a lingering smell of her anonymous attacker on her skin. It hurts to walk, but she manages to make her way to her home, where she stumbles into another oddly nightmarish reality: Her parents can't seem to comprehend that anything has happened to their daughter.

The next morning, Peach tries to return to the routines of her ordinary life, going to classes, spending time with her boyfriend, Green, trying to find comfort in the thought of her upcoming departure for college. And yet, as Peach struggles through the next few days, she is stalked by the memories of her unacknowledged trauma. Sleeping is hard when she is haunted by the glimpses of that stranger's gaping mouth. Working is hard when her assailant's rancid smell still fills her nostrils. Eating is impossible when her stomach is swollen tight as a drum. Though she tries to close her eyes to what has happened, Peach at last begins to understand the drastic, gruesome action she must take.

In this astonishing debut, Emma Glass articulates the unspeakable with breathtaking verve. Intensely physical, with rhythmic, visceral prose, Peach marks the arrival of a visionary new voice.]]> 112 Emma Glass 1635571308 g.m. 0 3.05 2018
author: Emma Glass
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.05
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2021/12/14
date added: 2021/12/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 51115322
The Art of Rest draws on ground-breaking research Claudia Hammond collaborated on - 'The Rest Test' - the largest global survey into rest ever undertaken, which was completed by 18,000 people across 135 different countries. Much of value has been written about sleep, but rest is different; it is how we unwind, calm our minds and recharge our bodies. And, as the survey revealed, how much rest you get is directly linked to your sense of well-being.

Counting down through the top ten activities which people find most restful, Hammond explains why rest matters, examines the science behind the results to establish what really works and offers a roadmap for a new, more restful and balanced life.]]> 304 Claudia Hammond 1786892804 g.m. 5 3.59 2019
author: Claudia Hammond
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2021/12/13
date added: 2021/12/13
shelves:
review:

]]> 55959528 A piercing howl of a novel about one young woman’s endless quest for an apartment of her own and the aspirations and challenges faced by the Millennial generation as it finds its footing in the world, from a shockingly talented debut author.

“A woman must have money and a room of one’s own.�� So said Virginia Woolf in her classic A Room of One’s Own, but in this scrupulously observed, gorgeously wrought debut novel, Jo Hamya pushes that adage powerfully into the twenty-first��century, to a generation of people living in rented rooms. What a woman needs now is an apartment of her own, the ultimate mark of financial stability, unattainable for many.

Set in one year, Three Rooms follows a young woman as she moves��from a rented room at Oxford, where she’s working as a research assistant; to a stranger’s sofa, all she can afford as a copyediting temp at a society magazine; to her childhood home, where she’s been forced to return, jobless, even a room of her own out of reach. As politics shift to nationalism, the streets fill with protestors, and news drip-feeds into her phone, she struggles to live a meaningful life on her own terms, unsure if she’ll ever be able to afford to do so.]]> 208 Jo Hamya 0358572096 g.m. 5 3.01 2021
author: Jo Hamya
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.01
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2021/12/13
date added: 2021/12/13
shelves:
review:

]]> 27161213 From the multi-award-winning and critically acclaimed author of The Testament of Jessie Lamb comes this riveting novel about the devastating secrets revealed in the midst of a disintegrating marriage.

The story of a marriage, and of two lives in science.

When Conrad fails to return from a conference, Eleanor wonders if it is because of the affair she is having? Or perhaps it is because his research into transgenic monkey hearts is stalling; perhaps he is sick of having the less successful career of the two of them? She is a leading expert in stem cell research. Their grown-up children suspect Eleanor of murdering their father; El secretly fears that what has driven Con away is his discovery of their daughter Cara’s parentage.

While his family in Manchester, England, scrabble for clues and reasons, Conrad—alone, confused, and on the run from a crazed animal rights activist—loses himself in the cold foggy streets of Bologna, Italy. He revisits the stages of his long marriage to El, from the happiness of the year of Cara’s birth to the grief and anger he now feels. Both partners are forced to re-examine their relationship, and, in the process, to move closer to an understanding of what it is that matters most to each of them.

Conrad and Eleanor is a radical, remarkably nuanced look at marriage.]]> 336 Jane Rogers 0062423274 g.m. 0 3.23 2016
author: Jane Rogers
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.23
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2021/12/11
date added: 2021/12/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 53733106
As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats—from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness—begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void. An avalanche of images, details, and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. "Are we in hell?" the people of the portal ask themselves. "Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?"

Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: "Something has gone wrong," and "How soon can you get here?" As real life and its stakes collide with the increasingly absurd antics of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary.

Fragmentary and omniscient, incisive and sincere, No One Is Talking About This is at once a love letter to the endless scroll and a profound, modern meditation on love, language, and human connection from a singular voice in American literature.]]> 210 Patricia Lockwood 0593189582 g.m. 0 3.56 2021
author: Patricia Lockwood
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/12/02
date added: 2021/12/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 76479 Wanderlust), or using the life of photographer Eadweard Muybridge as a lens to discuss the transformations of space and time in late nineteenth-century America (River of Shadows), Rebecca Solnit has emerged as an inventive and original writer whose mind is daring in the connections it makes. A Field Guide to Getting Lost draws on emblematic moments and relationships in Solnit's own life to explore the issues of wandering, being lost, and the uses of the unknown. The result is a distinctive, stimulating, and poignant voyage of discovery.]]> 209 Rebecca Solnit 0143037242 g.m. 0 3.97 2005
author: Rebecca Solnit
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at: 2021/12/01
date added: 2021/12/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 51807232
Strike has never tackled a cold case before, let alone one forty years old. But despite the slim chance of success, he is intrigued and takes it on; adding to the long list of cases that he and his partner in the agency, Robin Ellacott, are currently working on. And Robin herself is also juggling a messy divorce and unwanted male attention, as well as battling her own feelings about Strike.

As Strike and Robin investigate Margot's disappearance, they come up against a fiendishly complex case with leads that include tarot cards, a psychopathic serial killer and witnesses who cannot all be trusted. And they learn that even cases decades old can prove to be deadly . . .]]> 944 Robert Galbraith 0751579939 g.m. 0 4.32 2020
author: Robert Galbraith
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/11/03
date added: 2021/11/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 22749796 The diet revolution is here. And it’s armed.

Plum Kettle does her best not to be noticed, because when you’re fat, to be noticed is to be judged. Or mocked. Or worse. With her job answering fan mail for a popular teen girls�� magazine, she is biding her time until her weight-loss surgery. Only then can her true life as a thin person finally begin.

Then, when a mysterious woman starts following her, Plum finds herself falling down a rabbit hole and into an underground community of women who live life on their own terms. There Plum agrees to a series of challenges that force her to deal with her past, her doubts, and the real costs of becoming “beautiful.�� At the same time, a dangerous guerrilla group called “Jennifer�� begins to terrorize a world that mistreats women, and as Plum grapples with her personal struggles, she becomes entangled in a sinister plot. The consequences are explosive.

Dietland is a bold, original, and funny debut novel that takes on the beauty industry, gender inequality, and our weight loss obsession—from the inside out, and with fists flying.]]> 320 Sarai Walker 054437343X g.m. 5 3.52 2015
author: Sarai Walker
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2021/02/15
date added: 2021/10/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 42283287
Trying to get to the bottom of Billy's story, Strike and Robin Ellacott �� once his assistant, now a partner in the agency �� set off on a twisting trail that leads them through the backstreets of London, into a secretive inner sanctum within Parliament, and to a beautiful but sinister manor house deep in the countryside.

And during this labyrinthine investigation, Strike's own life is far from straightforward: his newfound fame as a private eye means he can no longer operate behind the scenes as he once did. Plus, his relationship with his former assistant is more fraught than it ever has been �� Robin is now invaluable to Strike in the business, but their personal relationship is much, much trickier than that.

The most epic Robert Galbraith novel yet, Lethal White is both a gripping mystery and a page-turning next instalment in the ongoing story of Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott.]]> 650 Robert Galbraith 0316422770 g.m. 5 4.22 2018
author: Robert Galbraith
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2021/08/11
date added: 2021/10/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 36478784 Tiffy and Leon share a flat
Tiffy and Leon share a bed
Tiffy and Leon have never met��

Tiffy Moore needs a cheap flat, and fast. Leon Twomey works nights and needs cash. Their friends think they’re crazy, but it’s the perfect solution: Leon occupies the one-bed flat while Tiffy’s at work in the day, and she has the run of the place the rest of the time.

But with obsessive ex-boyfriends, demanding clients at work, wrongly imprisoned brothers and, of course, the fact that they still haven’t met yet, they’re about to discover that if you want the perfect home you need to throw the rulebook out the window…]]> 394 Beth O'Leary 1787474402 g.m. 3 3.97 2019
author: Beth O'Leary
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2021/10/21
date added: 2021/10/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 840876 With her signature blend of psychological intensity and strong moral underpinnings, Jane Rogers skillfully leads us into a primal, almost mythic world where our darkest impulses and most profound fears are played out to shocking consequence. Part fairy tale, part murder mystery, ISLAND is, like the madness it depicts, terrifying, logical, and utterly consuming.]]> 272 Jane Rogers 0618139311 g.m. 5 3.75 2000
author: Jane Rogers
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2021/10/21
date added: 2021/10/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 23692271 512 Yuval Noah Harari g.m. 0 4.33 2011
author: Yuval Noah Harari
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2021/09/10
date added: 2021/09/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 43317482 251 Carmen Maria Machado 1644450038 g.m. 0 4.41 2019
author: Carmen Maria Machado
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2021/09/10
date added: 2021/09/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 395003 Librarian's note: There is an Alternate Cover Edition for this edition of this book here and here

In this novel - a story of irreconcilable loves and infidelities - Milan Kundera addresses himself to the nature of twentieth-century 'Being' In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. We feel, says the novelist, 'the unbearable lightness of being' - not only as the consequence of our private acts but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine.

Juxtaposing Prague, Geneva, Thailand and the United States, this masterly novel encompasses the extremes of comedy and tragedy, and embraces, it seems, all aspects of human existence. It offers a wide range of brilliant and amusing philosophical speculations and it descants on a variety of styles. In this classic novel Kundera draws together the Czechoslovakia of the Prague Spring and the Russian invasion, the philosophy of Nietzsche, and the love affairs of a number of heartbreakingly familiar characters.]]> 305 Milan Kundera g.m. 0 currently-reading 4.00 1984
author: Milan Kundera
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/08/26
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 38901702
For two years, Lyons ventured in search of answers. From the innovation-crazed headquarters of the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, to a cult-like "Holocracy" workshop in San Francisco, and to corporate trainers who specialize in ... Legos, Lyons immersed himself in the often half-baked and frequently lucrative world of what passes for management science today. He shows how new tools, workplace practices, and business models championed by tech's empathy-impaired power brokers have shattered the social contract that once existed between companies and their employees. These dystopian beliefs--often masked by pithy slogans like "We're a Team, Not a Family"--have dire consequences: millions of workers who are subject to constant change, dehumanizing technologies--even health risks.

A few companies, however, get it right. With Lab Rats, Lyons makes a passionate plea for business leaders to understand this dangerous transformation, showing how profit and happy employees can indeed coexist.]]> 272 Dan Lyons 031656186X g.m. 5 3.88 2018
author: Dan Lyons
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2021/08/26
date added: 2021/08/26
shelves:
review:

]]> 22822858
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride.��Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.]]> 720 Hanya Yanagihara 0385539258 g.m. 2 4.28 2015
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2021/08/26
date added: 2021/08/26
shelves:
review:

]]> 13537891 NW is a quietly devastating novel of encounters, mercurial and vital, like the city itself.]]> 296 Zadie Smith 0241144140 g.m. 0 3.49 2012
author: Zadie Smith
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2021/08/11
date added: 2021/08/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 56272893 0 Anastasia Charisiou 1867522969 g.m. 0 3.22
author: Anastasia Charisiou
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.22
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2021/08/11
date added: 2021/08/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 36959639 New York Times bestselling adult author of��The Bear and the Nightingale makes her middle grade debut with a creepy, spellbinding ghost story destined to become a classic

After suffering a tragic loss, eleven-year-old Ollie only finds solace in books. So when she happens upon a crazed woman at the river threatening to throw a book into the water, Ollie doesn't think—she just acts, stealing the book and running away. As she begins to read the slender volume, Ollie discovers a chilling story about a girl named Beth, the two brothers who both loved her, and a peculiar deal made with "the smiling man," a sinister specter who grants your most tightly held wish, but only for the ultimate price.��

Ollie is captivated by the tale until her school trip the next day to Smoke Hollow, a local farm with a haunting history all its own. There she stumbles upon the graves of the very people she's been reading about. Could it be the story about the smiling man is true? Ollie doesn't have too long to think about the answer to that. On the way home, the school bus breaks down, sending their teacher back to the farm for help. But the strange bus driver has some advice for the kids left behind in his care: "Best get moving. At nightfall they'll come for the rest of you." Nightfall is, indeed, fast descending when Ollie's previously broken digital wristwatch, a keepsake reminder of better times, begins a startling countdown and delivers a terrifying message: RUN.��

Only Ollie and two of her classmates heed the bus driver's warning. As the trio head out into the woods--bordered by a field of scarecrows that seem to be watching them--the bus driver has just one final piece of advice for Ollie and her friends: "Avoid large places. Keep to small."��

And with that, a deliciously creepy and hair-raising adventure begins.

]]> 218 Katherine Arden 052551502X g.m. 0 4.00 2018
author: Katherine Arden
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2021/08/11
date added: 2021/08/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 36303871
Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why its absence is so damaging to our health. Compared to the other basic drives in life - eating, drinking, and reproducing - the purpose of sleep remained elusive.

Now, in this book, the first of its kind written by a scientific expert, Professor Matthew Walker explores twenty years of cutting-edge research to solve the mystery of why sleep matters. Looking at creatures from across the animal kingdom as well as major human studies, Why We Sleep delves in to everything from what really happens during REM sleep to how caffeine and alcohol affect sleep and why our sleep patterns change across a lifetime, transforming our appreciation of the extraordinary phenomenon that safeguards our existence.]]> 360 Matthew Walker 0141983760 g.m. 0 to-read 4.40 2017
author: Matthew Walker
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/06/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 36621586 Following their adventures in The Bear and the Nightingale and The Girl in the Tower, Vasya and Morozko return in this stunning conclusion to the bestselling Winternight Trilogy, battling enemies mortal and magical to save both Russias, the seen and the unseen.


Now Moscow has been struck by disaster. Its people are searching for answers—and for someone to blame. Vasya finds herself alone, beset on all sides. The Grand Prince is in a rage, choosing allies that will lead him on a path to war and ruin. A wicked demon returns, stronger than ever and determined to spread chaos. Caught at the center of the conflict is Vasya, who finds the fate of two worlds resting on her shoulders. Her destiny uncertain, Vasya will uncover surprising truths about herself and her history as she desperately tries to save Russia, Morozko, and the magical world she treasures. But she may not be able to save them all.

Advance praise for The Winter of the Witch

“Katherine Arden’s Winternight Trilogy isn’t just good—it’s hug-to-your-chest, straight-to-the-favorites-shelf, reread-immediately good, and each book just gets better. The Winter of the Witch plunges us back to fourteenth-century Moscow, where old gods and new vie for the soul of Russia and fate rests on a witch girl’s slender shoulders. Prepare to have your heart ripped out, loaned back to you full of snow and magic, and ripped out some more.”��Laini Taylor]]> 400 Katherine Arden 1101886005 g.m. 0 4.48 2019
author: Katherine Arden
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2021/06/06
date added: 2021/06/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 34050917 The Bear and the Nightingale, Katherine Arden’s enchanting first novel, introduced readers to an irresistible heroine. Vasilisa has grown up at the edge of a Russian wilderness, where snowdrifts reach the eaves of her family’s wooden house and there is truth in the fairy tales told around the fire. Vasilisa’s gift for seeing what others do not won her the attention of Morozko—Frost, the winter demon from the stories—and together they saved her people from destruction. But Frost’s aid comes at a cost, and her people have condemned her as a witch.

In The Girl in the Tower, Vasilisa faces an impossible choice. Driven from her home by frightened villagers, she has only two options left: marriage or the convent. She cannot bring herself to accept either fate and instead chooses adventure, dressing herself as a boy and setting off astride her magnificent stallion Solovey.

But after she prevails in a skirmish with bandits, everything changes. The Grand Prince of Moscow anoints her a hero for her exploits, and she is reunited with her beloved sister and brother, who are now part of the Grand Prince’s inner circle. She dares not reveal to the court that she is a girl, for if her deception were discovered it would have terrible consequences for herself and her family. Before she can untangle herself from Moscow’s intrigues—and as Frost provides counsel that may or may not be trustworthy—she will also confront an even graver threat lying in wait for all of Moscow itself.]]> 360 Katherine Arden 1101885963 g.m. 0 4.34 2017
author: Katherine Arden
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2021/06/06
date added: 2021/06/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 52228 A Room of One's Own (1929), she examines the work of past women writers, and looks ahead to a time when women's creativity will not be hampered by poverty, or by oppression. In Three Guineas (1938), however, Woolf argues that women's historical exclusion offers them the chance to form a political and cultural identity which could challenge the drive towards fascism and war.]]> 470 Virginia Woolf 0192834843 g.m. 0 currently-reading 4.21 1938
author: Virginia Woolf
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1938
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/09
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 41104077
Celebrated feminist advocate Caroline Criado Perez investigates the shocking root cause of gender inequality and research in Invisible Women��, diving into women’s lives at home, the workplace, the public square, the doctor’s office, and more. Built on hundreds of studies in the US, the UK, and around the world, and written with energy, wit, and sparkling intelligence, this is a groundbreaking, unforgettable exposé that will change the way you look at the world.]]> 448 Caroline Criado Pérez 1419729071 g.m. 5 4.35 2019
author: Caroline Criado Pérez
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2021/04/09
date added: 2021/04/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 98532
When Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch was first published it created a shock wave of recognition in women, one that could be felt around the world. It went on to become an international bestseller, translated into more than twelve languages, and a landmark in the history of the women's movement. Positing that sexual liberation is the key to women's liberation, Greer looks at the inherent and unalterable biological differences between men and women as well as at the profound psychological differences that result from social conditioning. Drawing on history, literature, biology, and popular culture, Greer's searing examination of women's oppression is a vital, passionately argued social commentary that is both an important historical record of where we've been and a shockingly relevant treatise on what still remains to be achieved.]]> 400 Germaine Greer 0374527628 g.m. 0 3.72 1970
author: Germaine Greer
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1970
rating: 0
read at: 2021/04/09
date added: 2021/04/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 36366224 Set in the same universe as Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, these five linked Hainish stories follow far-future human colonies living in the distant solar system

Here for the first time is the complete suite of five linked stories from Ursula K. Le Guin’s acclaimed Hainish series, which tells the history of the Ekumen, the galactic confederation of human colonies founded by the planet Hain. First published as Four Ways to Forgiveness, and now joined by a fifth story, Five Ways to Forgiveness focuses on the twin planets Werel and Yeowe—two worlds whose peoples, long known as “owners�� and “assets,�� together face an uncertain future after civil war and revolution.

In “Betrayals�� a retired science teacher must make peace with her new neighbor, a disgraced revolutionary leader. In “Forgiveness Day,�� a female official from the Ekumen arrives to survey the situation on Werel and struggles against its rigidly patriarchal culture. Embedded within “A Man of the People,�� which describes the coming of age of Havzhiva, an Ekumen ambassador to Yeowe, is Le Guin’s most sustained description of the Ur-planet Hain. “A Woman’s Liberation�� is the remarkable narrative of Rakam, born an asset on Werel, who must twice escape from slavery to freedom. Joined to them is “Old Music and the Slave Women,�� in which the charismatic Hainish embassy worker, who appears in two of the four original stories, returns for a tale of his own. Of this capstone tale Le Guin has written, “the character called Old Music began to tell me a fifth tale about the latter days of the civil war . . . I’m glad to see it joined to the others at last.”]]> 288 Ursula K. Le Guin g.m. 0 to-read 4.38 2017
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 3224191
"Excerpt from the dedication:
'I dedicate this play to Me;
a continuous source of strength and guidance, and without whose unflinching loyalty, devotion and faith, this play could never have been written.
Additional acknowledgements: Myself-
For proofreading, editorial comment, helpful hints, criticism and suggestions and an exquisite job of typing.
I -
for Independent research into men, married women and other degenerates...'

"The main character is Bongi Perez. She is a hustler and a panhandler. She is also a lesbian. Bongi Perez says: 'I'm so female, I'm subversive.'

She loiters around the street, making money, cruising broads ('lowdown, funky broads'), and generally spouting witticisms and pontificating on the pitfalls of an American male dominated society. She encounters various characters as she goes about her day. One such character is Ginger who catches Bongi's eye as she's searching around the sidewalk for a misplaced turd she needs for a dinner party that she's hosting for two male friends later. Bongi asks Ginger if she's going to serve her guests the turd. Ginger replies, 'You're impossible! I assure you I have no intention, whatsoever, of serving my guests a turd. The turd's for me. Everybody knows that men have much more respect for women who are good at lapping up shit.' Another character is Mrs. Arthur Hazlitt, a housewife who ends up strangling her child with his super glue erection(I shudder to think). These are only two in what seems to be a whole plethora of personalities who have exchanges of one sort or another with Bongi."
(Taken from )

In 2000, 35 years after being written, the drama premiered on stage in San Francisco, CA. (taken from )]]> 61 Valerie Solanas 8868993309 g.m. 0 3.89 1965
author: Valerie Solanas
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1965
rating: 0
read at: 2021/02/10
date added: 2021/02/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 34879265 Lykke (Luu-kah) (n): Happiness

Meik Wiking is the CEO of the world's only Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen. His job is to travel around the world, seeking out the happiest people and uncovering what they do differently. In The Little Book of Lykke, he reveals what he has found.

This captivating read features case studies from Bhutan to Australia, South Korea to Canada, France to Denmark, taking the reader on a happiness treasure hunt. Written in the same warm tone as Meik's phenomenal bestseller The Little Book of Hygge, this easy-to-understand book will change the way you think about how you relate to your neighbours, the rituals around cooking and eating dinner, and when to book your next holiday - and is guaranteed to put a smile on your face.]]> 288 Meik Wiking 0241302013 g.m. 0 3.98 2017
author: Meik Wiking
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2021/02/10
date added: 2021/02/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 30045683 Hygge has been described as everything from "cosines of the soul" to "the pursuit of everyday pleasures". The Little Book of Hygge is the book we all need right now, and is guaranteed to bring warmth and comfort to you and your loved ones this winter.

Hooga? Hhyooguh? Heurgh? It is not really important how you choose to pronounce 'hygge'. What is important is that you feel it. Whether you're cuddled up on a sofa with a loved one, or sharing comfort food with your closest friends, hygge is about creating an atmosphere where you can let your guard down.]]> 289 Meik Wiking 0241283914 g.m. 0 3.76 2016
author: Meik Wiking
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2021/02/10
date added: 2021/02/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 33375622 Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.

A wife refuses her husband's entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store's prom dresses. One woman's surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella Especially Heinous, Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a show we naively assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgangers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes.

Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction.

The husband stitch --
Inventory --
Mothers --
Especially heinous --
Real women have bodies --
Eight bites --
The resident --
Difficult at parties]]> 248 Carmen Maria Machado 155597788X g.m. 0 3.85 2017
author: Carmen Maria Machado
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2021/01/26
date added: 2021/01/26
shelves:
review:

]]> 33038790
Discover how to maximize your concentration in order to boost your productivity and creativity. As the ultimate technique for "working smarter, not harder," deep work is a way to consistently find a state of concentration so focused that you are able to take your skills and creativity to a new level, and achieve more than ever before.

The approach outlined in Deep Work taps into the brain's natural processes, to get both your conscious and subconscious mind working toward the same goal. The result will not only help to increase your value within the industry that you work in, but can also allow you to feel deep satisfaction in your work, and give you more time to spend on the leisure and social activities that you enjoy the most. This book holds the key to getting the most out of your professional, academic, and creative activities, so get ready to "go deep!"

You will
· How to cut down or eliminate the distracting daily tasks that break concentration
· Techniques to help you enter the intensely-focused state required for deep work
· How to harness deep work methods to become more productive.]]> 26 Joosr 1785673637 g.m. 0 3.80
author: Joosr
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.80
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2021/01/14
date added: 2021/01/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 23453099 So here we are. My name was Eileen Dunlop. Now you know me. I was twenty-four years old then, and had a job that paid fifty-seven dollars a week as a kind of secretary at a private juvenile correctional facility for teenage boys. I think of it now as what it really was for all intents and purposes—a prison for boys. I will call it Moorehead. Delvin Moorehead was a terrible landlord I had years later, and so to use his name for such a place feels appropriate. In a week, I would run away from home and never go back.

This is the story of how I disappeared.

The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman trapped between her role as her alcoholic father’s caretaker in a home whose squalor is the talk of the neighborhood and a day job as a secretary at the boys�� prison, filled with its own quotidian horrors. Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary days with perverse fantasies and dreams of escaping to the big city. In the meantime, she fills her nights and weekends with shoplifting, stalking a buff prison guard named Randy, and cleaning up her increasingly deranged father’s messes. When the bright, beautiful, and cheery Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counselor at Moorehead, Eileen is enchanted and proves unable to resist what appears at first to be a miraculously budding friendship. In a Hitchcockian twist, her affection for Rebecca ultimately pulls her into complicity in a crime that surpasses her wildest imaginings.

Played out against the snowy landscape of coastal New England in the days leading up to Christmas, young Eileen’s story is told from the gimlet-eyed perspective of the now much older narrator. Creepy, mesmerizing, and sublimely funny, in the tradition of Shirley Jackson and early Vladimir Nabokov, this powerful debut novel enthralls and shocks, and introduces one of the most original new voices in contemporary literature. Ottessa Moshfegh is also the author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Homesick for Another World: Stories, and McGlue.]]> 260 Ottessa Moshfegh 1594206627 g.m. 0 3.57 2015
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2021/01/13
date added: 2021/01/13
shelves:
review:

]]> 25489134
After Vasilisa's mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa's new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.

And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa's stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.

As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed—this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse's most frightening tales.

The Bear and the Nightingale is a magical debut novel from a gifted and gorgeous voice. It spins an irresistible spell as it announces the arrival of a singular talent.]]> 319 Katherine Arden 1101885939 g.m. 5 4.07 2017
author: Katherine Arden
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2021/01/07
date added: 2021/01/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 368593
Join Tim Ferriss as he teaches you:
- How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want?
- How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs?
- How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist?
- How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and freuent "mini-retirements"?
- What the crucial difference is between absolute and relative income?
- How to train your boss to value performance over presence, or kill your job (or company) if it's beyond repair?
- What automated cash-flow "muses" are and how to create one in 2 to 4 weeks?
- How to cultivate selective ignorance-and create time-with a low-information diet?
- What the management secrets of Remote Control CEOs are?
- How to get free housing worldwide and airfare at 50-80% off?
- How to fill the void and create a meaningful life after removing work and the office]]> 308 Timothy Ferriss 0307353133 g.m. 1
Like others have said here, Tim Ferriss comes off as a self-centred ass with little to no empathy. In this book he is advocating picking up meanigless work with the sole purpose of not doing it, and adding to the informational and material clutter in the world in the process, for no reason besides profit. Want to do meaningful work or contribute to the wellbeing society? Pff, that stuff is for losers. Don't be a doctor, a nurse, an architect or an office drone, when you can be an online drone, and create the things that make the internet (and by consequence all of our lives) worse. Be a peddler of fodder, an individualistic, opportunistic and amoral peddler of shit no one needs. Live off the work of others. Strive to be as useless as possible.

There is some good advice in there (hence the one star) but it's like 0.01% of the whole book, and most of it you will probably already know because it is a) common sense, and b) gets thrown around so much that if you've read any article or watched any video on how to increace effectiveness and efficiency you will have already heard it. Don't waste your time; go into youtube and look up Matt D'Avela or one of those productivity guys that have read it and can directly give you the tips and the good bits.

Do. Not. Waste. Your. Time.

I feel like I'm a worse person just for having read this.

In conclusion, this book is not worth the reading time, unless you want to learn how to skive off, become robotic, or live an empty life, Tim Ferriss is an ass and it must be so boring inside his head, and I don't get how the good advice comprising 0.01% of the book justifies its sales numbers.]]> 3.93 2007
author: Timothy Ferriss
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2007
rating: 1
read at: 2021/01/13
date added: 2021/01/12
shelves:
review:
Soulless is the perfect descriptor for this book, the author, and the life he proposes you build with it. It should have been called "How To Get Away With Putting In The Least Amount Of Effort Possible By Giving Your Work To Underpaid People To Do Until Your Boss Realises And Decides To Cut You Out". It's just that in this era of AI threatening to eliminate jobs and a highly competitive job market, making yourself replaceable seems like the last thing you should be striving for.

Like others have said here, Tim Ferriss comes off as a self-centred ass with little to no empathy. In this book he is advocating picking up meanigless work with the sole purpose of not doing it, and adding to the informational and material clutter in the world in the process, for no reason besides profit. Want to do meaningful work or contribute to the wellbeing society? Pff, that stuff is for losers. Don't be a doctor, a nurse, an architect or an office drone, when you can be an online drone, and create the things that make the internet (and by consequence all of our lives) worse. Be a peddler of fodder, an individualistic, opportunistic and amoral peddler of shit no one needs. Live off the work of others. Strive to be as useless as possible.

There is some good advice in there (hence the one star) but it's like 0.01% of the whole book, and most of it you will probably already know because it is a) common sense, and b) gets thrown around so much that if you've read any article or watched any video on how to increace effectiveness and efficiency you will have already heard it. Don't waste your time; go into youtube and look up Matt D'Avela or one of those productivity guys that have read it and can directly give you the tips and the good bits.

Do. Not. Waste. Your. Time.

I feel like I'm a worse person just for having read this.

In conclusion, this book is not worth the reading time, unless you want to learn how to skive off, become robotic, or live an empty life, Tim Ferriss is an ass and it must be so boring inside his head, and I don't get how the good advice comprising 0.01% of the book justifies its sales numbers.
]]> 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:
-��Make time for new habits (even when life gets crazy);
-��Overcome 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 g.m. 0 4.34 2018
author: James Clear
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2021/01/04
date added: 2021/01/04
shelves:
review:

]]> 18528190
She ends on a serious note�� because the ultimate problem is the silencing of women who have something to say, including those saying things like, “He’s trying to kill me!��

This book features that now-classic essay with six perfect complements, including an examination of the writer Virginia Woolf ’s embrace of mystery, of not knowing, of doubt and ambiguity, a highly original inquiry into marriage equality, and a terrifying survey of the scope of contemporary violence against women.]]> 130 Rebecca Solnit 1608463869 g.m. 0 3.84 2014
author: Rebecca Solnit
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2021/01/02
date added: 2021/01/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 33606119
Exploring issues from eradicated black history to the political purpose of white dominance, whitewashed feminism to the inextricable link between class and race, Reni Eddo-Lodge offers a timely and essential new framework for how to see, acknowledge and counter racism. It is a searing, illuminating, absolutely necessary exploration of what it is to be a person of colour in Britain today.]]> 249 Reni Eddo-Lodge 140887055X g.m. 0 4.37 2017
author: Reni Eddo-Lodge
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2021/01/01
date added: 2021/01/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 724693
Lawrence wrote most of this brief novel whilst spending five months of the summer of 1924 at what is now known as the D. H. Lawrence Ranch, a property which he and wife, Frieda, acquired from Mabel Dodge Luhan earlier that year.

St Mawr first appeared in St Mawr and Other Stories which, in addition to the novella, consists of two short stories 'The Overtone' and 'The Princess', and two unfinished stories 'The Wilful Woman' and 'The Flying Fish'. All these works were written during Lawrence's stay in America between 1922 and 1925.]]> 232 D.H. Lawrence g.m. 0 3.44 1929
author: D.H. Lawrence
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.44
book published: 1929
rating: 0
read at: 2020/09/20
date added: 2020/12/31
shelves:
review:

]]> 31869108 What science has gotten so shamefully wrong about women, and the fight, by both female and male scientists, to rewrite what we thought we knew

For hundreds of years it was common sense: women were the inferior sex. Their bodies were weaker, their minds feebler, their role subservient. No less a scientist than Charles Darwin asserted that women were at a lower stage of evolution, and for decades, scientists—most of them male, of course—claimed to find evidence to support this.

Whether looking at intelligence or emotion, cognition, or behavior, science has continued to assert that men and women are fundamentally different. Biologists claim women are better suited to raising families or are, more gently, uniquely empathetic. Men, on the other hand, continue to be regarded as excelling at tasks that require logic, spatial reasoning, and motor skills. But a huge wave of new research reveals that women are as strong, strategic, and smart as anyone else.

In Inferior, acclaimed science writer Angela Saini weaves together a fascinating—and necessary—new science of women, investigating the gender wars in biology, psychology, and anthropology, and delving into cutting-edge studies to uncover a fascinating new portrait of women's brains, bodies, and role in human evolution. As Saini takes readers on a journey to uncover science's failure to understand women, she finds that we're still living with the legacy of an establishment that's just beginning to recover from centuries of entrenched exclusion and prejudice.]]> 200 Angela Saini 0807071706 g.m. 0 4.03 2017
author: Angela Saini
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2020/12/05
date added: 2020/12/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 32187419 A sharply intelligent novel about two college students and the strange, unexpected connection they forge with a married couple.

Frances is twenty-one years old, cool-headed, and darkly observant. A college student and aspiring writer, she devotes herself to a life of the mind--and to the beautiful and endlessly self-possessed Bobbi, her best friend and comrade-in-arms. Lovers at school, the two young women now perform spoken-word poetry together in Dublin, where a journalist named Melissa spots their potential. Drawn into Melissa's orbit, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman's sophisticated home and tall, handsome husband. Private property, Frances believes, is a cultural evil--and Nick, a bored actor who never quite lived up to his potential, looks like patriarchy made flesh. But however amusing their flirtation seems at first, it gives way to a strange intimacy neither of them expect. As Frances tries to keep her life in check, her relationships increasingly resist her control: with Nick, with her difficult and unhappy father, and finally even with Bobbi. Desperate to reconcile herself to the desires and vulnerabilities of her body, Frances's intellectual certainties begin to yield to something new: a painful and disorienting way of living from moment to moment.

Written with gem-like precision and probing intelligence, Conversations With Friends is wonderfully alive to the pleasures and dangers of youth."]]> 304 Sally Rooney 0451499077 g.m. 0 3.74 2017
author: Sally Rooney
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2020/11/21
date added: 2020/11/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 40860689 Just Eat It isn't just a book. It's part of a movement to give women power and control over our bodies. To free us from restrictive dieting, disordered eating and punishing exercise. To reject the guilt and anxiety associated with eating and, ultimately, to help us feel good about ourselves.

"Truly life-changing" —Dolly Alderton, bestselling author of Everything I Know About Love

This anti-diet guide from registered nutritionist Laura Thomas PhD can help you sort out your attitude to food and ditch punishing exercise routines. As a qualified practitioner of Intuitive Eating—a method that helps followers tune in to innate hunger and fullness cues—Thomas gives you the freedom to enjoy food on your own terms.

There are no rules: only simple, practical tools and exercises including mindfulness techniques to help you recognise physiological and emotional hunger, sample conversations with friends and colleagues, and magazine and blog critiques that call out diet culture.

So, have you ever been on a diet? Spent time worrying that you looked fat when you could have been doing something useful? Compared the size of your waistline to someone else's? Felt guilt, actual guilt, about the serious crime of…eating a doughnut? You're not alone. Just Eat It gives you everything you need to develop a more trusting, healthy relationship with food and your body.]]> 414 Laura Thomas 1509893911 g.m. 0 4.05 2019
author: Laura Thomas
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2020/10/28
date added: 2020/10/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 36203391
This story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs, designed to heal us from our alienation from this world, shows us how reasonable, even necessary, that alienation sometimes is. Blackly funny, both merciless and compassionate �� dangling its legs over the ledge of 9/11 �� this novel is a showcase for the gifts of one of America’s major young writers working at the height of her powers.]]> 289 Ottessa Moshfegh 1787330419 g.m. 0 3.66 2018
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: g.m.
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2020/10/27
date added: 2020/10/27
shelves:
review:

]]> 286957
In a private journal, the woman records her growing obsession with the “horrid�� wallpaper. Its strange pattern mutates in the moonlight, revealing what appears to be a human figure in the design. With nothing else to occupy her mind, the woman resolves to unlock the mystery of the wallpaper. Her quest, however, leads not to the truth, but into the darkest depths of madness.

A condemnation of the patriarchy, The Yellow Wallpaper explores with terrifying economy the oppression, grave misunderstanding, and willful dismissal of women in late nineteenth-century society.

First published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine.

Excerpt:
Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house. I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency. So I try.]]> 62 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 1558611584 g.m. 0 4.11 1892
author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
name: g.m.
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1892
rating: 0
read at: 2020/10/27
date added: 2020/10/27
shelves:
review:

]]>