Lisa's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 09 Dec 2024 10:15:26 -0800 60 Lisa's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Insurgent (Divergent, #2) 11735983
Tris's initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable—and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.

New York Times bestselling author Veronica Roth's much-anticipated second book of the dystopian DIVERGENT series is another intoxicating thrill ride of a story, rich with hallmark twists, heartbreaks, romance, and powerful insights about human nature.]]> 525 Veronica Roth 0007442912 Lisa 0 3.97 2012 Insurgent (Divergent, #2)
author: Veronica Roth
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/09
date added: 2024/12/09
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]]> <![CDATA[The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness]]> 6792458
As the United States celebrates the nation's "triumph over race" with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or have been labeled felons for life. Although Jim Crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status--much like their grandparents before them.

In this incisive critique, former litigator-turned-legal-scholar Michelle Alexander provocatively argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. Alexander shows that, by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness. The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community--and all of us--to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.]]> 290 Michelle Alexander Lisa 0 currently-reading 4.52 2010 The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
author: Michelle Alexander
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/04
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]]> Into the Beautiful North 5970496 The Magnificent Seven, Nayeli decides to go north herself and recruit seven men--her own "Siete Magníficos"--to repopulate her hometown and protect it from the bandidos who plan on taking it over.

Filled with unforgettable characters and prose as radiant as the Sinaloan sun, Into the Beautiful North is the story of an irresistible young woman's quest to find herself on both sides of the fence.]]> 343 Luis Alberto Urrea 0316025275 Lisa 4 currently-reading 3.78 2009 Into the Beautiful North
author: Luis Alberto Urrea
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2017/10/25
date added: 2024/09/11
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]]> <![CDATA[In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose]]> 60943 418 Alice Walker 0156028646 Lisa 0 currently-reading 4.29 1983 In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose
author: Alice Walker
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1983
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Persepolis. The story of a childhood (Persepolis, #1)]]> 9516
Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life. Marjane’s child’s-eye view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, with laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love.]]> 153 Marjane Satrapi 037571457X Lisa 0 4.27 2003 Persepolis. The story of a childhood (Persepolis, #1)
author: Marjane Satrapi
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/23
date added: 2024/08/27
shelves: currently-reading, example-books
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]]> <![CDATA[Outcasts United: A Refugee Team, an American Town]]> 2874621
Clarkston, Georgia, was a typical Southern town until it was designated a refugee settlement centre in the 1990s, becoming home to scores of families in flight from the world's war zones—from Liberia and Sudan to Iraq and Afghanistan. Suddenly Clarkston's streets were filled with women wearing the hijab, the smells of cumin and curry, and kids of all colours playing football in any open space they could find. Among them was Luma Mufleh, a Jordanian woman who founded a youth football team to unify Clarkston's refugee children and keep them off the streets. These kids named themselves the Fugees.

Outcasts United follows a pivotal season in the life of the Fugees and their charismatic coach. Warren St. John documents the lives of a diverse group of young people as they miraculously coalesce into a band of brothers, while also drawing a fascinating portrait of a fading American town struggling to accommodate its new arrivals. At the centre of the story is fiery Coach Luma, who relentlessly drives her players to success on the football field while holding together their lives—and the lives of their families—in the face of a series of daunting challenges.

This fast-paced chronicle of a single season is a complex and inspiring tale of a small town becoming a global community—and an account of the ingenious and complicated ways we create a home in a changing world.]]> 320 Warren St. John 0385522037 Lisa 0 currently-reading 3.84 2009 Outcasts United: A Refugee Team, an American Town
author: Warren St. John
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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]]> After the Rain 53590505 Nnedi Okorafor’s story of Chioma, a young Nigerian-American woman whose destiny is revealed during a furious rainstorm—now in paperback, with bonus content including Q&As with the creative team and never-before-seen art and designs!After the Rain is an adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor’s short story, “On the Road.� The adaptation, written by John Jennings and illustrated by David Brame, begins in Nigeria during a powerful and unexpected storm. While visiting her grandmother, a young Nigerian-American woman named Chioma answers a knock at the door and is horrified by what she sees—a young boy with a severe head wound is standing on the doorstep. When he touches Chioma, his hand burns like fire and just as suddenly as he arrived, he disappears. Her grandmother comes down to see what is wrong and chastises Chioma for opening the door for a stranger. Outside there are only footprints in the mud which vanish in the same manner as their owner. This event sets off a chain of mysterious occurrences that become more and more terrifying. Chioma knows that something is wrong, and that the boy has “marked� her in some way. . . . Haunted and hunted, Chioma must embrace her heritage in order to survive.]]> 128 Nnedi Okorafor 1683358341 Lisa 0 currently-reading 3.65 2021 After the Rain
author: Nnedi Okorafor
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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]]> Dune (Dune, #1) 44767458
When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.]]> 658 Frank Herbert 059309932X Lisa 0 currently-reading 4.33 1965 Dune (Dune, #1)
author: Frank Herbert
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1965
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/28
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]]> <![CDATA[I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter]]> 29010395
But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga’s role.

Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead and Julia left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. And no one seems to acknowledge that Julia is broken, too. Instead, her mother seems to channel her grief into pointing out every possible way Julia has failed.

But it’s not long before Julia discovers that Olga might not have been as perfect as everyone thought. With the help of her best friend Lorena, and her first kiss, first love, first everything boyfriend Connor, Julia is determined to find out. Was Olga really what she seemed? Or was there more to her sister’s story? And either way, how can Julia even attempt to live up to a seemingly impossible ideal?]]> 344 Erika L. Sánchez 1524700487 Lisa 4 4.00 2017 I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
author: Erika L. Sánchez
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/25
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]]> Yellowface 62047984
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.

But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.]]> 319 R.F. Kuang 000853277X Lisa 3 3.69 2023 Yellowface
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/25
date added: 2024/01/25
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]]> There There 36692478 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780525520375.

Tommy Orange's wondrous and shattering novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize.

Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle's death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American--grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism.

Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable.]]> 294 Tommy Orange Lisa 0 to-read 3.98 2018 There There
author: Tommy Orange
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> Villain (Monster, #2) 38091286 Acclaimed author Michael Grant’s globally bestselling Gone series continues with Villain, where old foes return and new ones rise, with action-packed scenes, gory battles, and plot twists that will leave readers scrambling for more.

It’s been four years since the events of GONE. The Perdido Beach dome is down, but the horrors within have spread. The alien virus-infested rock that created the FAYZ is creating monsters—monsters that walk the cities and countryside, terrorizing all.

There are tanks in the street and predator drones in the sky, doomed efforts to stop the disintegration of civilization. Into this chaos comes a villain with the power to control anyone with just the sound of his voice. Dillon Poe wanted to be a comedian once…but everyone made fun of him. Dillon the loser. Dillon the freak. Now he’s sending thousands to their death. Who’s laughing now?

The only people who can stop a superpowered villain are superpowered heroes. Dekka, Shade, Cruz, Malik, Armo, and a new mutant with unmatched powers, are all that stand in Dillon’s way. But when the lines begin to blur between hero and villain—some begin to wonder who’s really the monster.

Praise for the Gone series:

“Exciting, high-tension stories. I love these books.� —Stephen King

“Intense, marvelously plotted, paced, and characterized.� —ALA Booklist (starred review)

]]> 331 Michael Grant Lisa 0 3.82 2018 Villain (Monster, #2)
author: Michael Grant
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> Warrior Girl Unearthed 61675933
Thankfully she has the other outcasts of the summer program, Team Misfit Toys, and even her twin sister Pauline. Together they ace obstacle courses, plan vigils for missing women in the community, and make sure summer doesn’t feel so lost after all.

But when she attends a meeting at a local university, Perry learns about the “Warrior Girl�, an ancestor whose bones and knife are stored in the museum archives, and everything changes. Perry has to return Warrior Girl to her tribe. Determined to help, she learns all she can about NAGPRA, the federal law that allows tribes to request the return of ancestral remains and sacred items. The university has been using legal loopholes to hold onto Warrior Girl and twelve other Anishinaabe ancestors� remains, and Perry and the Misfits won’t let it go on any longer.

Using all of their skills and resources, the Misfits realize a heist is the only way to bring back the stolen artifacts and remains for good. But there is more to this repatriation than meets the eye as more women disappear and Pauline’s perfectionism takes a turn for the worse. As secrets and mysteries unfurl, Perry and the Misfits must fight to find a way to make things right � for the ancestors and for their community.]]> 396 Angeline Boulley 1250766583 Lisa 0 to-read 4.31 2023 Warrior Girl Unearthed
author: Angeline Boulley
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Willie Brown: The Hall of Fame Oakland Raiders Gem, sports biographies, American Football Books, Fitness Books, USA Sports History, Nonfiction]]> 48577961
Willie Brown � Was the acclaimed American Footballer who was added to the hall of fame for his achievements. Willie Firdie Brown was born on 02/12/1940 & played for the Oakland Raiders & Denver Broncos NFL teams,plus, was a coach & executive & a winner.

Willie Brown excited the American Football world with his outstanding skills and distinctive playing style and managed to forge a great American Football career from a humble background.

Discover how Willie Brown managed to turn his life around enabling him to become one of the best American Footballers ever.

Willie The Hall of Fame Oakland Raiders Gem

Willie Brown will always be remembered as a true Raider. He exemplified the spirit of the Raiders by originally joining the AFL as a novice free agent who graduated from Grambling State before joining the ranks of the Silver and Black in 1967. He remained an integral part of the franchise for six decades. His unforgettable antics in the Football field changed the way corners were played and his teachings as a coach, mentor and administrator permeated throughout the organization touching the lives of countless individuals both outside and inside the field.

Become thrilled with this great biographical account andReflectionof his life and career.

African American - African American History - Historical African Biographies - Biography & True Account]]> 18 Indiana Ellington Lisa 0 to-read 4.25 Willie Brown: The Hall of Fame Oakland Raiders Gem, sports biographies, American Football Books, Fitness Books, USA Sports History, Nonfiction
author: Indiana Ellington
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.25
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date added: 2024/01/18
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]]> <![CDATA[The Dead Take the A Train (Carrion City, #1)]]> 65214080 Bestselling authors Cassandra Khaw and Richard Kadrey have teamed up to deliver a dark new story with magic, monsters, and mayhem, perfect for fans of Neil Gaiman and Joe Hill.

Julie Crews is a coked-up, burnt-out thirty-something who packs a lot of magic into her small body. She’s been trying to establish herself in the NYC magic scene, and she’ll work the most gruesome gigs to claw her way to the top.

Julie is desperate for a quick career boost to break the dead-end grind, but her pleas draw the attention of an eldritch god who is hungry for revenge. Her power grab sets off a deadly chain of events that puts her closest friends � and the entire world � directly in the path of annihilation.

The first explosive adventure in the Carrion City Duology, The Dead Take the A Train fuses Khaw’s cosmic horror and Kadrey’s gritty fantasy into a full-throttle thrill ride straight into New York’s magical underbelly.]]> 391 Cassandra Khaw 1250867029 Lisa 0 to-read 3.58 2023 The Dead Take the A Train (Carrion City, #1)
author: Cassandra Khaw
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Haruki Murakami Manga Stories 1: Super-Frog Saves Tokyo, Where I'm Likely to Find It, Birthday Girl, The Seventh Man]]> 124825303 Haruki Murakami's stories in graphic novel form for the first time!

Haruki Murakami's novels, essays and short stories have sold millions of copies worldwide and been translated into dozens of languages. Now for the first time, many of Murakami's best-loved short stories are available in graphic novel form in English. Haruki Murakami Manga Stories 1 is the first of three volumes, which will present a total of 9 short stories from Murakami's bestselling collections.

With their trademark mix of realism and fantasy, centering around Murakami's characteristic themes of loss, remorse and confusion, the four stories in this volume are:

Super-Frog Saves Tokyo: A few days after an earthquake, Katagiri discovers a giant frog in this home. The frog promises to save Tokyo from another earthquake, but Katagiri must help him. Is this real, or is Katagiri dreaming?

Where I'm Likely to Find It: A woman's husband goes missing so she hires detective. As the detective traces the man's whereabouts, he reflects on the meaning of his own life.

Birthday Girl: A woman tells her friend the story of a surreal encounter she has on her twentieth birthday with the owner of the restaurant where she works, who grants her a wish.

The Seventh Man: The story of a man scarred by the death of his childhood friend in a tsunami.

This novel visual take on these classic Murakami stories will be devoured by his fans and provide a new window onto his work for younger readers not yet familiar with it!]]> 153 Jean-Christophe Deveney 1462924166 Lisa 0 to-read 3.67 2023 Haruki Murakami Manga Stories 1: Super-Frog Saves Tokyo, Where I'm Likely to Find It, Birthday Girl, The Seventh Man
author: Jean-Christophe Deveney
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/03
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]]> <![CDATA[While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence]]> 61885057 From award-winning journalist Meg Kissinger, a searing memoir of a family besieged by mental illness, as well as an incisive exploration of the systems that failed them and a testament to the love that sustained them.

Growing up in the 1960s in the suburbs of Chicago, Meg Kissinger’s family seemed to live a charmed life. With eight kids and two loving parents, the Kissingers radiated a warm, boisterous energy. Whether they were spending summer days on the shores of Lake Michigan, barreling down the ski slopes, or navigating the trials of their Catholic school, the Kissingers always knew how to live large and play hard.

But behind closed doors, a harsher reality was unfolding—a heavily medicated mother hospitalized for anxiety and depression, a manic father prone to violence, and children in the throes of bipolar disorder and depression, two of whom would take their own lives. Through it all, the Kissingers faced the world with their signature dark humor and the unspoken family rule: never talk about it.

While You Were Out begins as the personal story of one family’s struggles then opens outward, as Kissinger details how childhood tragedy catalyzed a journalism career focused on exposing our country’s flawed mental health care. Combining the intimacy of memoir with the rigor of investigative reporting, the book explores the consequences of shame, the havoc of botched public policy, and the hope offered by new treatment strategies.

Powerful, candid and filled with surprising humor, this is the story of one family’s love and resilience in face of great loss.]]> 320 Meg Kissinger 1250793777 Lisa 0 to-read 4.26 2023 While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence
author: Meg Kissinger
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> Once Were Warriors 133496 Once Were Warriors is Alan Duff's harrowing vision of his country's indigenous people two hundred years after the English conquest. In prose that is both raw and compelling, it tells the story of Beth Heke, a Maori woman struggling to keep her family from falling apart, despite the squalor and violence of the housing projects in which they live. Conveying both the rich textures of Maori tradition and the wounds left by its absence, Once Were Warriors is a masterpiece of unblinking realism, irresistible energy, and great sorrow.]]> 192 Alan Duff 0679761810 Lisa 0 to-read 3.99 1990 Once Were Warriors
author: Alan Duff
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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]]> The Bone People 460635 The powerful, visionary, Booker Award–winning novel about the complicated relationships between three outcasts of mixed European and Maori heritage.

“This book is just amazingly, wondrously great.� —Alice Walker

In a tower on the New Zealand sea lives Kerewin Holmes: part Maori, part European, asexual and aromantic, an artist estranged from her art, a woman in exile from her family.

One night her solitude is disrupted by a visitor—a speechless, mercurial boy named Simon, who tries to steal from her and then repays her with his most precious possession.

As Kerewin succumbs to Simon’s feral charm, she also falls under the spell of his Maori foster father Joe, who rescued the boy from a shipwreck and now treats him with an unsettling mixture of tenderness and brutality.

Out of this unorthodox trinity Keri Hulme has created what is at once a mystery, a love story, and an ambitious exploration of the zone where indigenous and European New Zealand meet, clash, and sometimes merge.

Winner of both a Booker Prize and Pegasus Prize for Literature, The Bone People is a work of unfettered wordplay and mesmerizing emotional complexity.]]> 450 Keri Hulme 0140089225 Lisa 0 4.05 1984 The Bone People
author: Keri Hulme
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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]]> The Magic Fish 42394599 Tiến loves his family and his friends…but Tiến has a secret he's been keeping from them, and it might change everything. An amazing YA graphic novel that deals with the complexity of family and how stories can bring us together.

Real life isn't a fairytale.

But Tiến still enjoys reading his favorite stories with his parents from the books he borrows from the local library. It's hard enough trying to communicate with your parents as a kid, but for Tiến, he doesn't even have the right words because his parents are struggling with their English. Is there a Vietnamese word for what he's going through?

Is there a way to tell them he's gay?

A beautifully illustrated story by Trung Le Nguyen that follows a young boy as he tries to navigate life through fairytales, an instant classic that shows us how we are all connected. The Magic Fish tackles tough subjects in a way that accessible with readers of all ages, and teaches us that no matter what—we can all have our own happy endings.]]> 256 Trung Le Nguyen Lisa 0 to-read 4.50 2020 The Magic Fish
author: Trung Le Nguyen
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2020
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]]> The Whale Rider 133497
Kahu will not be ignored. And in her struggle she has a unique ally: the whale rider himself, from whom she has inherited the ability to communicate with whales. Once that sacred gift is revealed, Kahu may be able to reestablish her people's ancestral connections, earn her great-grandfather's attention—and lead her tribe to a bold new future.]]> 152 Witi Ihimaera 0152050167 Lisa 0 to-read 3.84 1987 The Whale Rider
author: Witi Ihimaera
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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]]> Mexican WhiteBoy 2815261
But at his private school, they don’t expect much else from him. Danny� s brown. Half-Mexican brown. And growing up in San Diego that close to the border means everyone else knows exactly who he is before he even opens his mouth. Before they find out he can’t speak Spanish, and before they realize his mom has blond hair and blue eyes, they’ve got him pegged. But it works the other way too. And Danny’s convinced it’s his whiteness that sent his father back to Mexico.

That’s why he’s spending the summer with his dad’s family. Only, to find himself, he may just have to face the demons he refuses to see--the demons that are right in front of his face. And open up to a friendship he never saw coming.

Set in the alleys and on the ball fields of San Diego County, Mexican Whiteboy is a story of friendship, acceptance, and the struggle to find your identity in a world of definitions.]]> 256 Matt de la Peña 0385733100 Lisa 4 3.85 2008 Mexican WhiteBoy
author: Matt de la Peña
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/28
date added: 2023/09/28
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]]> <![CDATA[A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier]]> 43015
My new friends have begun to suspect I haven’t told them the full story of my life.
“Why did you leave Sierra Leone?�
“Because there is a war.�
“You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?�
“Yes, all the time.�
“CǴDZ.�
I smile a little.
“You should tell us about it sometime.�
“Yes, sometime.�

This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.

What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.

In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he’d been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts.

This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.]]> 229 Ishmael Beah 0374105235 Lisa 4 4.16 2007 A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
author: Ishmael Beah
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2007
rating: 4
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]]> We Are Not From Here 52419786
Pulga, Chico, and Pequeña have no false illusions about the town they've grown up in and the dangers that surround them. Though their families--both biological and found--create a warm community for them, threats lurk around every corner. And when those threats become all too real, the three teens know they have no choice but to run: for the border, for the hope of freedom, and for their very lives.

Crossing from Guatemala through Mexico with their eyes on the U.S. border, they follow the route of La Bestia, a system of trains that promise the hope of freedom--if they are lucky enough to survive the harrowing journey. With nothing but the bags on their backs and the desperation that courses through their very veins, Pulga, Chico, and Pequeña know that there's no turning back, dangerous though the road ahead might be.

In this story inspired by real--and current--events, the plight at our southern border is brought to life.]]> 344 Jenny Torres Sanchez 1984812262 Lisa 0 4.46 2020 We Are Not From Here
author: Jenny Torres Sanchez
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2023/09/18
date added: 2023/09/18
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]]> <![CDATA[WOLFPACK: How to Come Together, Unleash Our Power, and Change the Game]]> 41812857 Based on her inspiring, viral 2018 commencement speech to Barnard College’s graduates in New York City, New York Times bestselling author, two-time Olympic gold medalist and FIFA World Cup champion Abby Wambach delivers her empowering rally cry for women to unleash their individual power, unite with their pack, and emerge victorious together.

Abby Wambach became a champion because of her incredible talent as a soccer player. She became an icon because of her remarkable wisdom as a leader. As the co-captain of the 2015 Women’s World Cup Champion Team, she created a culture not just of excellence, but of honor, commitment, resilience, and sisterhood. She helped transform a group of individual women into one of the most successful, powerful and united Wolfpacks of all time.

In her retirement, Abby’s ready to do the same for her new team: All Women Everywhere.

In Wolfpack, Abby’s message to women is:

We have never been Little Red Riding Hood. We Are the Wolves.
We must wander off the path and blaze a new one: together.

She insists that women must let go of old rules of leadership that neither include or serve them. She’s created a new set of Wolfpack rules to help women unleash their individual power, unite with their Wolfpack, and change the landscape of their lives and world: from the family room to the board room to the White House.

· Make failure your fuel: Transform failure to wisdom and power.
· Lead from the bench: Lead from wherever you are.
· Champion each other: Claim each woman’s victory as your own.
· Demand the effing ball: Don’t ask permission: take what you’ve earned.

In Abby’s vision, we are not Little Red Riding Hoods, staying on the path because we’re told to. We are the wolves, fighting for a better tomorrow for ourselves, our pack, and all the future wolves who will come after us.]]> 112 Abby Wambach 1250217709 Lisa 0 4.13 2019 WOLFPACK: How to Come Together, Unleash Our Power, and Change the Game
author: Abby Wambach
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2023/09/18
date added: 2023/09/18
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]]> Lord of the Flies 7624 182 William Golding 0140283331 Lisa 0 to-read 3.70 1954 Lord of the Flies
author: William Golding
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1954
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/29
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]]> <![CDATA[National Geographic Guide to National Parks of the United States]]> 13070271
The parks are grouped region by region so that vacationers can plan trips to one or more central location. Each chapter is introduced by a map and a geographical profile, followed by the parks in alphabetical order. Individual parks start with a portrait of the natural wonders available, their history, and the ecological setting and stresses they face. A practical "How to Get There" follows with suggestions on when best to visit and a "How to Visit" section with advice on which activities to engage in, how much time to provide for each, and how to savor the beauty of the place. After the descriptions, each park has an "Information & Activities" page with detailed visitor information, including the location of the visitor centers, the fees, pet guidance, special advisories, camping, and lodging details. Suggested brief, nearby excursions are provided to encourage the traveler to explore beyond the park boundaries.

This update includes the lastest information on the 2009 Tsunami which devistated America Samoa National Park, information on road changes that resulted from the recent flooding in Olympic National Park, and changes in Arches National Park, including the collapse of Wall Arch in late 2008. The new edition also has 200 new photos by noted nature photographer Phil Schermeister. These pictures, many of which have never been published before, reflect the beauty and grandeur of our national treasures, while the accompanying text, written by experienced National Geographic writers who have traveled the parks, is full of personal, useful, and practical information.]]> 480 National Geographic Society 1426208693 Lisa 0 to-read 4.34 2011 National Geographic Guide to National Parks of the United States
author: National Geographic Society
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/10/16
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]]> The House on Mango Street 139253 The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero.

Told in a series of vignettes � sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous–it is the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers.]]> 110 Sandra Cisneros 0679734775 Lisa 4 3.69 1984 The House on Mango Street
author: Sandra Cisneros
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1984
rating: 4
read at: 2022/10/06
date added: 2022/10/06
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]]> The Book Thief 19063 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

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

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

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

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

(Note: this title was not published as YA fiction)]]> 592 Markus Zusak Lisa 0 4.38 2005 The Book Thief
author: Markus Zusak
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at: 2022/10/06
date added: 2022/10/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know]]> 43848929 Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Outliers, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers -- and why they often go wrong.

How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn't true?

While tackling these questions, Malcolm Gladwell was not solely writing a book for the page. He was also producing for the ear. In the audiobook version of Talking to Strangers, you'll hear the voices of people he interviewed--scientists, criminologists, military psychologists. Court transcripts are brought to life with re-enactments. You actually hear the contentious arrest of Sandra Bland by the side of the road in Texas. As Gladwell revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, and the suicide of Sylvia Plath, you hear directly from many of the players in these real-life tragedies. There's even a theme song - Janelle Monae's "Hell You Talmbout."

Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don't know. And because we don't know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world.]]> 388 Malcolm Gladwell 0316478520 Lisa 0 to-read 4.00 2019 Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/01/07
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]]> Call Us What We Carry 56805404 The Hill We Climb and Other Poems, Amanda Gorman’s remarkable new collection reveals an energizing and unforgettable voice in American poetry. Call Us What We Carry is Gorman at her finest. Including “The Hill We Climb,� the stirring poem read at the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden, and bursting with musical language and exploring themes of identity, grief, and memory, this lyric of hope and healing captures an important moment in our country’s consciousness while being utterly timeless.

The breakout poetry collection by #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman.]]> 228 Amanda Gorman 0593465067 Lisa 0 to-read 4.27 2021 Call Us What We Carry
author: Amanda Gorman
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/01/04
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]]> <![CDATA[The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements]]> 7247854
The periodic table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventure, betrayal, and obsession. These fascinating tales follow every element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, conflict, the arts, medicine, and in the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. "The Disappearing Spoon" masterfully fuses science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, discovery, and alchemy, from the big bang through the end of time.


* Though solid at room temperature, gallium is a moldable metal that melts at 84 degrees Fahrenheit. A classic science prank is to mold gallium spoons, serve them with tea, and watch guests recoil as their utensils disappear.]]> 394 Sam Kean 0316051640 Lisa 0 to-read 3.92 2010 The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
author: Sam Kean
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/01/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood]]> 29780253
Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents� indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.]]> 289 Trevor Noah 0385689225 Lisa 0 to-read 4.48 2016 Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
author: Trevor Noah
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Call and Response: The Story of Black Lives Matter]]> 58479963
In this essential history, New York Times editors Veronica Chambers and Jennifer Harlan explore Black Lives Matter through striking photographs, in-depth reporting, stunning visual timelines and graphics, and compelling quotes. Call and Response is perfect for young readers who need an introduction to this impactful movement—and for any reader looking for concrete information on this timely topic.

In 2020, the world watched history being made in the streets of America. The rallying cry of Black Lives Matter captured global attention and spurred thousands of people of all ages, races, genders, and backgrounds to stand up for major progressive social reform. The widespread protests, rooted in the call-and-response tradition of the Black community, were fueled by a growing understanding for many that systemic racism undermines the very nature of democracy. But where did this movement begin? And why, after years of work by everyday people, did the world finally begin to take notice?

Call and The Story of Black Lives Matter covers the rise of Black Lives Matter and how it has been shaped by U.S. history. From the founders of the movement—Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi—to the watershed moments that challenged people to take action, this book tells the story of how a hashtag became a movement. It follows the activists and organizers on their journeys, examines some of the ways that protest has been fundamental to American history, and shows how marches, rallies, and demonstrations can be vital tools for making meaningful change.]]> 160 Veronica Chambers 035857384X Lisa 0 4.56 Call and Response: The Story of Black Lives Matter
author: Veronica Chambers
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.56
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rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Ratchetdemic: Reimagining Academic Success]]> 53285750 A revolutionary new educational model that encourages educators to provide spaces for students to display their academic brilliance without sacrificing their identities

Building on the ideas introduced in his New York Times best-selling book, For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood, Christopher Emdin introduces an alternative educational model that will help students (and teachers) celebrate ratchet identity in the classroom. Ratchetdemic advocates for a new kind of student identity--one that bridges the seemingly disparate worlds of the ivory tower and the urban classroom.

Because modern schooling often centers whiteness, Emdin argues, it dismisses ratchet identity (the embodying of "negative" characteristics associated with lowbrow culture, often thought to be possessed by people of a particular ethnic, racial, or socioeconomic status) as anti-intellectual and punishes young people for straying from these alleged "academic norms," leaving young people in classrooms frustrated and uninspired. These deviations, Emdin explains, include so-called "disruptive behavior" and a celebration of hip-hop music and culture.

Emdin argues that being "ratchetdemic," or both ratchet and academic (like having rap battles about science, for example), can empower students to embrace themselves, their backgrounds, and their education as parts of a whole, not disparate identities. This means celebrating protest, disrupting the status quo, and reclaiming the genius of youth in the classroom.]]> 264 Christopher Emdin 0807089508 Lisa 0 currently-reading 4.44 Ratchetdemic: Reimagining Academic Success
author: Christopher Emdin
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.44
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rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream]]> 9742 The Audacity of Hope is Barack Obama's call for a new kind of politics—a politics that builds upon those shared understandings that pull us together as Americans. Lucid in his vision of America's place in the world, refreshingly candid about his family life and his time in the Senate, Obama here sets out his political convictions and inspires us to trust in the dogged optimism that has long defined us and that is our best hope going forward.]]> 375 Barack Obama 0307237699 Lisa 0 currently-reading 3.83 2006 The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
author: Barack Obama
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/08/31
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]]> <![CDATA[Flight of the Quetzal Mama: How to Raise Latino Superstars and Get Them Into the Best Colleges]]> 16191738 186 Roxanne Ocampo M.A. 1475062613 Lisa 0 currently-reading 4.17 2012 Flight of the Quetzal Mama: How to Raise Latino Superstars and Get Them Into the Best Colleges
author: Roxanne Ocampo M.A.
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/02/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Love & Gelato (Love & Gelato, #1)]]> 25756328 “I made the wrong choice.�

Lina is spending the summer in Tuscany, but she isn’t in the mood for Italy’s famous sunshine and fairy-tale landscape. She’s only there because it was her mother’s dying wish that she get to know her father. But what kind of father isn’t around for sixteen years? All Lina wants to do is go back home.

But then she is given a journal that her mom had kept when she lived in Italy. Suddenly Lina’s uncovering a magical world of secret romances, art, and hidden bakeries. A world that inspires her, along with the ever-so-charming Ren, to follow in her mother’s footsteps and unearth a secret that has been kept for far too long. It’s a secret that will change everything she knew about her mother, her father—and even herself.

People come to Italy for love and gelato, someone tells her, but sometimes they discover much more.]]> 386 Jenna Evans Welch 1481432540 Lisa 0 to-read 4.03 2016 Love & Gelato (Love & Gelato, #1)
author: Jenna Evans Welch
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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]]> The Goldfinch 17333223
Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love - and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettably vivid characters and thrilling suspense, it is a beautiful, addictive triumph - a sweeping story of loss and obsession, of survival and self-invention, of the deepest mysteries of love, identity and fate.]]> 771 Donna Tartt 0316055433 Lisa 0 to-read 3.94 2013 The Goldfinch
author: Donna Tartt
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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]]> Educated 35133922
Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.

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

Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it.]]> 352 Tara Westover 0399590501 Lisa 0 4.46 2018 Educated
author: Tara Westover
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> Tomie 29632242 750 Junji Ito 1421590565 Lisa 0 to-read 4.14 1987 Tomie
author: Junji Ito
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/01/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves]]> 18222705
This man was a freediver, and his amphibious abilities inspired Nestor to seek out the secrets of this little-known discipline. In Deep, Nestor embeds with a gang of extreme athletes and renegade researchers who are transforming not only our knowledge of the planet and its creatures, but also our understanding of the human body and mind. Along the way, he takes us from the surface to the Atlantic’s greatest depths, some 28,000 feet below sea level. He finds whales that communicate with other whales hundreds of miles away, sharks that swim in unerringly straight lines through pitch-black waters, and seals who dive to depths below 2,400 feet for up to eighty minutes—deeper and longer than scientists ever thought possible. As strange as these phenomena are, they are reflections of our own species� remarkable, and often hidden, potential—including echolocation, directional sense, and the profound physiological changes we undergo when underwater. Most illuminating of all, Nestor unlocks his own freediving skills as he communes with the pioneers who are expanding our definition of what is possible in the natural world, and in ourselves.]]> 272 James Nestor 0547985525 Lisa 0 to-read 4.43 2014 Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves
author: James Nestor
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness]]> 35883430 From a powerful new voice on racial justice, an eye-opening account of growing up Black, Christian, and female in middle-class white America.

Austin Channing Brown's first encounter with a racialized America came at age 7, when she discovered her parents named her Austin to deceive future employers into thinking she was a white man. Growing up in majority-white schools, organizations, and churches, Austin writes, "I had to learn what it means to love blackness," a journey that led to a lifetime spent navigating America's racial divide as a writer, speaker and expert who helps organizations practice genuine inclusion.

In a time when nearly all institutions (schools, churches, universities, businesses) claim to value "diversity" in their mission statements, I'm Still Here is a powerful account of how and why our actions so often fall short of our words. Austin writes in breathtaking detail about her journey to self-worth and the pitfalls that kill our attempts at racial justice, in stories that bear witness to the complexity of America's social fabric--from Black Cleveland neighborhoods to private schools in the middle-class suburbs, from prison walls to the boardrooms at majority-white organizations.

For readers who have engaged with America's legacy on race through the writing of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michael Eric Dyson, I'm Still Here is an illuminating look at how white, middle-class, Evangelicalism has participated in an era of rising racial hostility, inviting the reader to confront apathy, recognize God's ongoing work in the world, and discover how blackness--if we let it--can save us all.]]> 185 Austin Channing Brown Lisa 0 to-read 4.36 2018 I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness
author: Austin Channing Brown
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> Remote Control 34215764 The new book by Nebula and Hugo Award-winner, Nnedi Okorafor.

"She’s the adopted daughter of the Angel of Death. Beware of her. Mind her. Death guards her like one of its own."

The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From hereon in she would be known as Sankofa­­--a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past.

Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. And she walks--alone, except for her fox companion--searching for the object that came from the sky and gave itself to her when the meteors fell and when she was yet unchanged; searching for answers.

But is there a greater purpose for Sankofa, now that Death is her constant companion?]]> 156 Nnedi Okorafor Lisa 0 to-read 3.86 2021 Remote Control
author: Nnedi Okorafor
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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]]> Scythe (Arc of a Scythe, #1) 28954189 Thou shalt kill.

A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery. Humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now scythes are the only ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control.

Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe—a role that neither wants. These teens must master the “art� of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.

An alternate cover edition of ISBN: 9781442472426]]> 435 Neal Shusterman Lisa 0 example-books 4.32 2016 Scythe (Arc of a Scythe, #1)
author: Neal Shusterman
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/01/21
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]]> Basketball: A Love Story 37966379 A sweeping and revelatory history of basketball, drawing upon hundreds of hours of interviews with the greatest players, coaches, executives, and journalists in the history of the game.

In an effort to tell the complete story of basketball in all its fascinating dimensions, celebrated journalists Jackie Macmullan and Rafe Bartholomew have compiled nearly a thousand hours' worth of interviews with a staggering number of basketball greats. They've talked to hundreds of legendary players, such as Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Magic Johnson, and spoken with renowned coaches, including Phil Jackson and Coach K, as well as numerous executives, commissioners, and journalists. Most impressive was the extraordinary quality of the interviews. Again and again, players spoke candidly about secrets and told stories they'd never before discussed on the record.

The book that grew out of those interviews is an extraordinary project and quite possibly the most ambitious basketball book ever written. At once a definitive oral history and something far more literary and intimate, this is the never-before-told story of how basketball came to be, and about what it means to those who've given their lives to the game.]]> Jackie MacMullan 052552939X Lisa 0 example-books 4.18 2018 Basketball: A Love Story
author: Jackie MacMullan
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> The Martian 18007564
Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error� are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills � and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit � he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

]]> 384 Andy Weir 0804139024 Lisa 0 example-books 4.41 2011 The Martian
author: Andy Weir
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/01/21
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]]> The Guest List 51933429
On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.

But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.

And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?]]> 330 Lucy Foley Lisa 0 example-books 3.64 2020 The Guest List
author: Lucy Foley
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Unlearn: 101 Simple Truths for a Better Life]]> 40775118 Unlearn offers short, accessible, and counterintuitive lessons for reaching our full potential.

Beloved for his sincerity, playfulness, and sage advice, globally famous rapper, spoken word artist, poet, blogger, and influencer Humble the Poet has traditionally shared his message of self-discovery, creativity, and empowerment with his fans through music and written word. That message has now been extended to this empowering book, offering insights and wisdom that challenge conventional thinking and help you tap into your best, most authentic self.

Humble sees life with unique clarity. In Unlearn, he opens our eyes to our own lives, helping us to recognize the possibilities that await us and the challenges that prevent us from realizing our dreams. With his characteristic honesty and forthrightness, he helps us shed the problematic lessons we’ve learned throughout our lives that limit us, from sabotaging habits, to fixed mindsets, to past regrets, and relearn new, unconventional ways of moving through life. Among his 101 lessons are:


Fitting In Is a Pointless Activity
Don’t Trust Everything You Feel
Killing Expectations Births Happiness
Comparisons are Killer
Baby Steps Add Up
You Decide Your Worth
Profound in its simplicity, Unlearn is the perfect invitation to a new beginning and to pursue a life of fulfillment.]]> 320 Humble the Poet 0062905163 Lisa 0 example-books 3.98 2014 Unlearn: 101 Simple Truths for a Better Life
author: Humble the Poet
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> The Outsiders 231804 The Outsiders is about two weeks in the life of a 14-year-old boy. The novel tells the story of Ponyboy Curtis and his struggles with right and wrong in a society in which he believes that he is an outsider. According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers--until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc. The murder gets under Ponyboy's skin, causing his bifurcated world to crumble and teaching him that pain feels the same whether a soc or a greaser.

Librarian note: This record is for one of the three editions published with different covers and with ISBN 0-140-38572-X / 978-0-14-038572-4. The records are for the 1988 cover (this record), the 1995 cover, and the 2008 cover which is also the current in-print cover.]]> 208 S.E. Hinton 0670532576 Lisa 4 4.13 1967 The Outsiders
author: S.E. Hinton
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1967
rating: 4
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date added: 2021/01/21
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]]> Na minha pele 35604497 152 Lázaro Ramos 8547000410 Lisa 3 4.28 2017 Na minha pele
author: Lázaro Ramos
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2021/01/21
date added: 2021/01/21
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]]> This is How We Fly 51553245 A loose retelling of Cinderella, about a high-school graduate who--after getting grounded for the whole summer--joins a local Quidditch league and finds her footing.

17-year-old vegan feminist Ellen Lopez-Rourke has one muggy Houston summer left before college. She plans to spend every last moment with her two best friends before they go off to the opposite ends of Texas for school. But when Ellen is grounded for the entire summer by her (sometimes) evil stepmother, all her plans are thrown out the window.

Determined to do something with her time, Ellen (with the help of BFF Melissa) convinces her parents to let her join the local muggle Quidditch team. An all-gender, full-contact game, Quidditch isn't quite what Ellen expects. There's no flying, no magic, just a bunch of scrappy players holding PVC pipe between their legs and throwing dodgeballs. Suddenly Ellen is thrown into the very different world of sports: her life is all practices, training, and running with a group of Harry Potter fans.

Even as Melissa pulls away to pursue new relationships and their other BFF Xiumiao seems more interested in moving on from high school (and from Ellen), Ellen is steadily finding a place among her teammates. Maybe Quidditch is where she belongs.

But with her home life and friend troubles quickly spinning out of control--Ellen must fight for the future that she wants, now she's playing for keeps.]]> 480 Anna Meriano 0593116879 Lisa 0 to-read 3.67 2020 This is How We Fly
author: Anna Meriano
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/01/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> After the Shot Drops 31179039
A powerful novel about friendship, basketball, and one teen's mission to create a better life for his family in the tradition of Jason Reynolds,Matt de la Pena, and Walter Dean Myers.

Bunny and Nasir have been best friends forever, but when Bunny accepts an athletic scholarship across town, Nasir feels betrayed. While Bunny tries to fit in with his new, privileged peers, Nasir spends more time with his cousin, Wallace, who is being evicted. Nasir can't help but wonder why the neighborhood is falling over itself to help Bunny when Wallace is in trouble.

When Wallace makes a bet against Bunny, Nasir is faced with an impossible decision—maybe a dangerous one.
Told from alternating perspectives,After the Shot Dropsis a heart-poundingstory about the responsibilities of great talentand the importance of compassion.
]]> 336 Randy Ribay 1328476871 Lisa 0 to-read 4.14 2018 After the Shot Drops
author: Randy Ribay
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/01/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> Check, Please!: Year One 27411088
There's checking.

It's a story about hockey and friendship and bros and trying to find yourself during the best four years of your life.]]> 236 Ngozi Ukazu 1946360023 Lisa 0 to-read 4.45 2014 Check, Please!: Year One
author: Ngozi Ukazu
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Brief, Horrible Moments: A collection of one sentence horror stories]]> 33865618
Monsters, demons, creatures and oddities. Murder, death and the dead. Family, friends, love and relationships. Food and eating. Fear, dread, and the unknown. Crime and punishment. The human body.

Lock the doors, turn up the lights, and take a deep breath. A series of brief, horrible moments await.]]> 115 Marko Pandza Lisa 0 to-read 3.39 2017 Brief, Horrible Moments: A collection of one sentence horror stories
author: Marko Pandza
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> Come Nightfall (Nightfall #1) 55196601
After tragedy strikes, Aspen Troy and her family are forced to uproot their lives and travel across the world to live in an old house that fuels a small town’s legends and horror stories. Besides her dread and aspirations to be anywhere else, Aspen isn’t completely unhappy until the nightmares start.

Horrific dreams leave her waking with very real scars and the image of a man she can’t seem to shake out of her head. A man who turns out to be the reason the disturbing stories circulating town exist to begin with.

Then there’s the Draven family. They seem normal enough, but their intertwining history with her ancestors is strange. It’s not until she comes face to face with one of them that she’s sure something is off. But it’s hard to be skeptical because, as it turns out, the devilishly handsome Miles Draven saved her life.

Or is it possible he ended it?

When Aspen is presented with a choice—live and pledge her life to a clan of vampires, or die and sacrifice herself to the clan she would have been born into—she’s forced to make an unfathomable decision before her time runs out.]]> 261 Lexi Kingston 1735282219 Lisa 0 to-read 3.06 Come Nightfall (Nightfall #1)
author: Lexi Kingston
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.06
book published:
rating: 0
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]]> I'll Fly Away (Button Poetry) 51135126 Helium, Rudy Fransico has created a collection of poems that savor the day-to-day. Treating it as worship, turning it into an opportunity to plant new seeds of growth. Language so often fails us, but Fransico has found his way around this as he creates his own words for the things our language cannot give name to. "Felenter (Noun) Definition: Someone who finds joy in things that people believe to be mundane." I'll Fly Away Uses fascinating metaphors to convey common emotional states. These poems are an act of remembrance, and an act of believing that you dear reader, are a celebration waiting for the lights to come up.]]> 124 Rudy Francisco 1943735697 Lisa 0 to-read 4.32 2020 I'll Fly Away (Button Poetry)
author: Rudy Francisco
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/01/11
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]]> The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm 633270 311 Nancy Farmer 0140376410 Lisa 4 3.86 1994 The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm
author: Nancy Farmer
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1994
rating: 4
read at: 2021/01/10
date added: 2021/01/10
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]]> <![CDATA[An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (ReVisioning American History, #3)]]> 20588662 The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples

Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire.

With growing support for movements such as the campaign to abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples� Day and the Dakota Access Pipeline protest led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, An Indigenous Peoples� History of the United States is an essential resource providing historical threads that are crucial for understanding the present. In An Indigenous Peoples� History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. And as Dunbar-Ortiz reveals, this policy was praised in popular culture, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military. Shockingly, as the genocidal policy reached its zenith under President Andrew Jackson, its ruthlessness was best articulated by US Army general Thomas S. Jesup, who, in 1836, wrote of the Seminoles: “The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them.�

Spanning more than four hundred years, this classic bottom-up peoples� history radically reframes US history and explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative.

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is a 2015 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature.]]> 320 Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz 080700040X Lisa 0 currently-reading 4.38 2014 An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (ReVisioning American History, #3)
author: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/11/19
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom]]> 40642377 Drawing on personal stories, research, and historical events, an esteemed educator offers a vision of educational justice inspired by the rebellious spirit and methods of abolitionists.

Drawing on her life's work of teaching and researching in urban schools, Bettina Love persuasively argues that educators must teach students about racial violence, oppression, and how to make sustainable change in their communities through radical civic initiatives and movements. She argues that the US educational system is maintained by and profits from the suffering of children of color. Instead of trying to repair a flawed system, educational reformers offer survival tactics in the forms of test-taking skills, acronyms, grit labs, and character education, which Love calls the educational survival complex.

To dismantle the educational survival complex and to achieve educational freedom--not merely reform--teachers, parents, and community leaders must approach education with the imagination, determination, boldness, and urgency of an abolitionist. Following in the tradition of activists like Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, and Fannie Lou Hamer, We Want to Do More Than Survive introduces an alternative to traditional modes of educational reform and expands our ideas of civic engagement and intersectional justice.]]> 200 Bettina L. Love 0807069159 Lisa 0 4.53 2019 We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom
author: Bettina L. Love
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2020/10/20
date added: 2020/10/20
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hate U Give (The Hate U Give, #1)]]> 32075671 An alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062498533 can be found here.

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a powerful and gripping YA novel about one girl's struggle for justice.]]> 454 Angie Thomas 0062498533 Lisa 0 4.46 2017 The Hate U Give (The Hate U Give, #1)
author: Angie Thomas
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2020/10/19
date added: 2020/10/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You]]> 52220686 Stamped from the Beginning for ages 12 and up.

A timely, crucial, and empowering exploration of racism--and antiracism--in America.

This is NOT a history book.
This is a book about the here and now.
A book to help us better understand why we are where we are.
A book about race.

The construct of race has always been used to gain and keep power, to create dynamics that separate and silence. This is a remarkable reimagining of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning, winner of a National Book Award. It reveals the history of racist ideas in America and inspires hope for an antiracist future.

Stamped takes you on a race journey from then to now, shows you why we feel how we feel, and why the poison of racism lingers. It also proves that while racist ideas have always been easy to fabricate and distribute, they can also be discredited.

Through a gripping, fast-paced, and energizing narrative, Jason Reynolds shines a light on the many insidious forms of racist ideas--and on ways readers can identify and stamp out racist thoughts in their daily lives.]]> 294 Jason Reynolds 0316453692 Lisa 0 4.46 2020 Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
author: Jason Reynolds
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2020/10/19
date added: 2020/10/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration]]> 8171378
Wilkerson tells this interwoven story through the lives of three unforgettable protagonists: Ida Mae Gladney, a sharecropper’s wife, who in 1937 fled Mississippi for Chicago; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, and Robert Foster, a surgeon who left Louisiana in 1953 in hopes of making it in California.

Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous cross-country journeys by car and train and their new lives in colonies in the New World. The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration� within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is a modern classic.]]> 622 Isabel Wilkerson 0679444327 Lisa 0 4.45 2010 The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
author: Isabel Wilkerson
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2020/10/19
date added: 2020/10/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents]]> 51152447 The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.

“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.�

In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.

Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.]]> 544 Isabel Wilkerson 0593230256 Lisa 0 currently-reading 4.52 2020 Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
author: Isabel Wilkerson
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/09/09
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]]> How to Be an Antiracist 40265832 How to be an Antiracist, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it.

In this book, Kendi weaves together an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science, bringing it all together with an engaging personal narrative of his own awakening to antiracism. How to Be an Antiracist is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond an awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a truly just and equitable society.]]> 305 Ibram X. Kendi 0525509283 Lisa 0 4.36 2019 How to Be an Antiracist
author: Ibram X. Kendi
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2020/01/15
date added: 2020/01/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade]]> 17286721 Junkyard Planet, Adam Minter—veteran journalist and son of an American junkyard owner—travels deeply into a vast, often hidden, multibillion-dollar industry that’s transforming our economy and environment.

Minter takes us from back-alley Chinese computer recycling operations to high-tech facilities capable of processing a jumbo jet’s worth of recyclable trash every day. Along the way, we meet an unforgettable cast of characters who've figured out how to build fortunes from what we throw away: Leonard Fritz, a young boy "grubbing" in Detroit's city dumps in the 1930s; Johnson Zeng, a former plastics engineer roaming America in search of scrap; and Homer Lai, an unassuming barber turned scrap titan in Qingyuan, China. Junkyard Planet reveals how “going green� usually means making money—and why that’s often the most sustainable choice, even when the recycling methods aren’t pretty.

With unmatched access to and insight on the junk trade, and the explanatory gifts and an eye for detail worthy of a John McPhee or William Langewiesche, Minter traces the export of America’s recyclables and the massive profits that China and other rising nations earn from it. What emerges is an engaging, colorful, and sometimes troubling tale of consumption, innovation, and the ascent of a developing world that recognizes value where Americans don’t. Junkyard Planet reveals that we might need to learn a smarter way to take out the trash.]]> 304 Adam Minter 1608197913 Lisa 0 3.85 2013 Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade
author: Adam Minter
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2019/10/30
date added: 2019/10/30
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]]> <![CDATA[Knock Twice: 25 modern folk tales for troubling times (There was a knock at the door Book 2)]]> 36518526
From tales of deeply questionable corporations, to mysterious phone apps and a natural world fighting back, Knock twice unleashes creative minds to run riot over problems that seem unsolvable in the impoverished arena of daily politics.

These are modern folk tales for troubling times because we’re unlikely to get a better world without using our imaginations. Knock twice, open the covers and see what happens�

“Stories are one of the most ancient and most effective ways of making sense of the world� When we try to live a good life in a world we seem to be simultaneously destroying, there is nothing more valuable or worth encouraging.�
Philip Pullman, on the first collection in this series, There was a knock at the door]]> 250 Andrew Simms Lisa 5 3.50 Knock Twice: 25 modern folk tales for troubling times (There was a knock at the door Book 2)
author: Andrew Simms
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.50
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2019/09/26
date added: 2019/10/30
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]]> The Boy in the Black Suit 21490991 When I Was the Greatest.

Matt wears a black suit every day. No, not because his mom died—although she did, and it sucks. But he wears the suit for his gig at the local funeral home, which pays way better than the Cluck Bucket, and he needs the income since his dad can’t handle the bills (or anything, really) on his own. So while Dad’s snagging bottles of whiskey, Matt’s snagging fifteen bucks an hour. Not bad. But everything else? Not good. Then Matt meets Lovey. She’s got a crazy name, and she’s been through more crazy than he can imagine. Yet Lovey never cries. She’s tough. Really tough. Tough in the way Matt wishes he could be. Which is maybe why he’s drawn to her, and definitely why he can’t seem to shake her. Because there’s nothing more hopeful than finding a person who understands your loneliness—and who can maybe even help take it away.]]> 272 Jason Reynolds 1442459506 Lisa 0 to-read 4.01 2015 The Boy in the Black Suit
author: Jason Reynolds
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/10/16
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]]> <![CDATA[The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)]]> 38447
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.]]> 311 Margaret Atwood 038549081X Lisa 0 to-read 4.15 1985 The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/10/16
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]]> The Kite Runner 77203 371 Khaled Hosseini 159463193X Lisa 0 to-read 4.34 2003 The Kite Runner
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/10/16
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]]> Big Lonesome: Stories 1261202 189 Jim Ruland 0975396439 Lisa 4 bla bla bla 4.47 2005 Big Lonesome: Stories
author: Jim Ruland
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2019/10/16
date added: 2019/10/16
shelves:
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bla bla bla
]]> Becoming 38746485
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same.]]> 426 Michelle Obama 1524763136 Lisa 4 bla bla bla bla bla bla 4.42 2018 Becoming
author: Michelle Obama
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2019/10/16
date added: 2019/10/16
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bla bla bla bla bla bla
]]> <![CDATA[Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America]]> 25898216 Stamped from the Beginning uses the lives of five major American intellectuals to offer a window into the contentious debates between assimilationists and segregationists and between racists and anti-racists. From Puritan minister Cotton Mather to Thomas Jefferson, from fiery abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to brilliant scholar W. E. B. Du Bois to legendary anti-prison activist Angela Davis, Kendi shows how and why some of our leading pro-slavery and pro–civil rights thinkers have challenged or helped cement racist ideas in America.

As Kendi illustrates, racist thinking did not arise from ignorance or hatred. Racist ideas were created and popularized in an effort to defend deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and to rationalize the nation’s racial inequities in everything from wealth to health. While racist ideas are easily produced and easily consumed, they can also be discredited. In shedding much-needed light on the murky history of racist ideas, Stamped from the Beginning offers tools to expose them—and in the process, reason to hope.]]> 592 Ibram X. Kendi 1568584636 Lisa 0 to-read 4.53 2016 Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
author: Ibram X. Kendi
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/10/16
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]]> The Water Dancer 43982054 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here and here.

Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her—but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known.

So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North. Even as he’s enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, Hiram’s resolve to rescue the family he left behind endures.

This is the dramatic story of an atrocity inflicted on generations of women, men, and children—the violent and capricious separation of families—and the war they waged to simply make lives with the people they loved. Written by one of today’s most exciting thinkers and writers, The Water Dancer is a propulsive, transcendent work that restores the humanity of those from whom everything was stolen.]]> 416 Ta-Nehisi Coates Lisa 0 to-read 4.03 2019 The Water Dancer
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/10/16
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]]> Turtles All the Way Down 35504431
Aza Holmes never intended to pursue the disappearance of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Pickett’s son Davis.

Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.]]> 290 John Green 0525555366 Lisa 0 to-read 3.88 2017 Turtles All the Way Down
author: John Green
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/10/16
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]]> <![CDATA[The Valedictorian of Being Dead: The True Story of Dying Ten Times to Live]]> 40539150
For years, Heather B. Armstrong has alluded to her struggle with depression on her website. But in 2016, Heather found herself in the depths of a depression she just couldn’t shake, an episode darker and longer than anything she had previously experienced.

This book recalls the torturous eighteen months of suicidal depression she endured and the month-long experimental study in which doctors used propofol anesthesia to quiet all brain activity for a full fifteen minutes before bringing her back from a flatline. Ten times. The experience wasn’t easy. Not for Heather or her family. But a switch was flipped, and Heather hasn’t experienced a single moment of suicidal depression since. The Valedictorian of Being Dead brings to light a groundbreaking new treatment for depression.]]> 272 Heather B. Armstrong 1501197045 Lisa 0 to-read 3.99 2019 The Valedictorian of Being Dead: The True Story of Dying Ten Times to Live
author: Heather B. Armstrong
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/04/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Am I Blue?: Coming Out from the Silence]]> 444525
"Michael's Little Sister" / C. S. Adler
"Dancing Backwards" / Marion Dane Bauer
"Winnie and Tommy" / Francesca Lia Block
"Am I Blue" / Bruce Coville
"Parents Night" / Nancy Garden
"Three Mondays in July" / James Cross Giblin
"Running" / Ellen Howard
"We Might as Well Be Strangers" / M. E. Kerr
"Hands" / Jonathan London
"Holding" / Lois Lowry
"The Honorary Shepherds" / Gregory Maguire
"Supper" / Lesléa Newman
"50% Chance of Lightning" / Cristina Salat
"In the Tunnels" / William Sleator
"Slipping Away" / Jacqueline Woodson
"Blood Sister" / Jane Yolen]]> 288 Marion Dane Bauer 0064405877 Lisa 5 3.95 1995 Am I Blue?: Coming Out from the Silence
author: Marion Dane Bauer
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2019/01/05
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity]]> 11869272
In this brilliantly written, fast-paced book, based on three years of uncompromising reporting, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human.

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

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

With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects human beings to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century's hidden worlds, and into the lives of people impossible to forget.]]> 278 Katherine Boo 1400067553 Lisa 0 spring-2017, abandoned 3.97 2012 Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
author: Katherine Boo
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2018/12/19
date added: 2018/12/19
shelves: spring-2017, abandoned
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]]> Ghost (Track, #1) 28954126 181 Jason Reynolds 1481450158 Lisa 0 4.18 2016 Ghost (Track, #1)
author: Jason Reynolds
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2018/12/19
date added: 2018/12/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Material World: A Global Family Portrait]]> 486749 256 Peter Menzel 0871564378 Lisa 0 4.51 1994 Material World: A Global Family Portrait
author: Peter Menzel
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.51
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at: 2018/12/17
date added: 2018/12/17
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orïsha, #1)]]> 34728667 They killed my mother.
They took our magic.
They tried to bury us.

Now we rise.

Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls.

But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.

Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.

Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers and her growing feelings for an enemy.]]> 544 Tomi Adeyemi 1250170974 Lisa 0 4.10 2018 Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orïsha, #1)
author: Tomi Adeyemi
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2018/09/12
date added: 2018/09/12
shelves:
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]]> Purple Hibiscus 14569052 A previously published edition of ISBN 9781616202415 can be found here.

Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria. They live in a beautiful house, with a caring family, and attend an exclusive missionary school. They're completely shielded from the troubles of the world. Yet, as Kambili reveals in her tender-voiced account, things are less perfect than they appear. Although her Papa is generous and well respected, he is fanatically religious and tyrannical at home—a home that is silent and suffocating.

As the country begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili and Jaja are sent to their aunt, a university professor outside the city, where they discover a life beyond the confines of their father’s authority. Books cram the shelves, curry and nutmeg permeate the air, and their cousins� laughter rings throughout the house. When they return home, tensions within the family escalate, and Kambili must find the strength to keep her loved ones together.

Purple Hibiscus is an exquisite novel about the emotional turmoil of adolescence, the powerful bonds of family, and the bright promise of freedom.]]> 336 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 1616202416 Lisa 0 4.18 2003 Purple Hibiscus
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2018/08/29
date added: 2018/08/29
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds (Emergent Strategy, #0)]]> 29633913
Inspired by Octavia Butler's explorations of our human relationship to change, Emergent Strategy is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help designed to shape the futures we want to live. Change is constant. The world is in a continual state of flux. It is a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, this book invites us to feel, map, assess, and learn from the swirling patterns around us in order to better understand and influence them as they happen. This is a resolutely materialist “spirituality� based equally on science and science fiction, a visionary incantation to transform that which ultimately transforms us.]]> 280 Adrienne Maree Brown 1849352607 Lisa 5 4.27 2017 Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds (Emergent Strategy, #0)
author: Adrienne Maree Brown
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/08/26
shelves:
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]]> Box Out 3188339
Liam has just been bumped up to starter on the varsity basketball team, and the pressure's on. With the girls' team heading to State, the boys' team is under even greater scrutiny than usual in Liam's small midwestern town. When the team's coach starts counting on the power of prayer---and enforcing teamwide participation---Liam finds himself in a spotlight that's more nerve-racking than any trip to the free-throw line. In trying to stand up for what's right, Liam is forced to stand up for himself---against his teammates, his fellow students, and even his parents.]]> 304 John Coy 0439870321 Lisa 0 to-read 3.98 2008 Box Out
author: John Coy
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/02/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage]]> 126620
Said to “read like a thriller� (Library Journal), Gone Tomorrow excavates the history of rubbish handling from the 1800s to the present, pinpointing the roots of today’s waste-addicted society. With a “lively authorial voice� (New York Press), Rogers draws connections between modern industrial production, consumer culture, and our throwaway lifestyle. She also investigates controversial topics like the politics of recycling and the export of trash to poor countries, while offering a potent argument for change.]]> 288 Heather Rogers 1595581200 Lisa 0 to-read, spring-2017 3.85 2005 Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage
author: Heather Rogers
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/12/28
shelves: to-read, spring-2017
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash]]> 112191
Into our trash cans go dead batteries, dirty diapers, bygone burritos, broken toys, tattered socks, eight-track cassettes, scratched CDs, banana peels � But where do these things go next? In a country that consumes and then casts off more and more, what actually happens to the things we throw away?]]> 294 Elizabeth Royte 031615461X Lisa 0 to-read, spring-2017 3.74 2005 Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash
author: Elizabeth Royte
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/12/28
shelves: to-read, spring-2017
review:

]]> Trash 7740772
One unlucky-lucky day, Raphael finds something very special and very mysterious. So mysterious that he decides to keep it, even when the city police offer a handsome reward for its return. That decision brings with it terrifying consequences, and soon the dumpsite boys must use all of their cunning and courage to stay ahead of their pursuers. It’s up to Raphael, Gardo, and Rat—boys who have no education, no parents, no homes, and no money—to solve the mystery and right a terrible wrong.

Andy Mulligan has written a powerful story about unthinkable poverty—and the kind of hope and determination that can transcend it. With twists and turns, unrelenting action, and deep, raw emotion, Trash is a heart-pounding, breath-holding novel.]]> 240 Andy Mulligan 0385752148 Lisa 0 to-read, spring-2017 3.54 2010 Trash
author: Andy Mulligan
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/12/28
shelves: to-read, spring-2017
review:

]]> Hidden Figures 25953369 349 Margot Lee Shetterly Lisa 0 to-read 3.97 2016 Hidden Figures
author: Margot Lee Shetterly
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/03/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> Something in Between 28688476 It feels like there’s no ground beneath me, like everything I’ve ever done has been a lie. Like I’m breaking apart, shattering. Who am I? Where do I belong?

Jasmine de los Santos has always done what’s expected of her. Pretty and popular, she’s studied hard, made her Filipino immigrant parents proud and is ready to reap the rewards in the form of a full college scholarship.

And then everything shatters. A national scholar award invitation compels her parents to reveal the truth: their visas expired years ago. Her entire family is illegal. That means no scholarships, maybe no college at all and the very real threat of deportation.

For the first time, Jasmine rebels, trying all those teen things she never had time for in the past. Even as she’s trying to make sense of her new world, it’s turned upside down by Royce Blakely, the charming son of a high-ranking congressman. Jasmine no longer has any idea where—or if—she fits into the American Dream. All she knows is that she’s not giving up. Because when the rules you lived by no longer apply, the only thing to do is make up your own.]]> 432 Melissa de la Cruz 0373212380 Lisa 0 to-read 3.74 2016 Something in Between
author: Melissa de la Cruz
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ready: Heartbreak, Dating & My Journey Toward Love]]> 33100410 226 Heather Alaine Lisa 5 4.86 Ready: Heartbreak, Dating & My Journey Toward Love
author: Heather Alaine
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.86
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2017/03/22
date added: 2017/03/26
shelves:
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Quick but really fun adventurous read - vicariously experienced the psychological house of mirrors which is internet dating, and loved hearing Heather grow in confidence and clarity as she spoke up and honed her own vision with her values. Sweet, sad, funny, great.
]]> Sold 201114
He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid working for a wealthy woman in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi undertakes the long journey to India and arrives at "Happiness House" full of hope. But she soon learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution.

An old woman named Mumtaz rules the brothel with cruelty and cunning. She tells Lakshmi that she is trapped there until she can pay off her family's debt—then cheats Lakshmi of her meager earnings so that she can never leave.

Lakshmi's life becomes a nightmare from which she cannot escape. Still, she lives by her mother's words�"Simply to endure is to triumph"—and gradually, she forms friendships with the other girls that enable her to survive in this terrifying new world. Then the day comes when she must make a decision—will she risk everything for a chance to reclaim her life?

Written in spare and evocative vignettes, this powerful novel renders a world that is as unimaginable as it is real, and a girl who not only survives but triumphs.]]> 268 Patricia McCormick 0786851716 Lisa 0 4.23 2006 Sold
author: Patricia McCormick
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2017/03/02
date added: 2017/03/02
shelves:
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]]> From Somalia with Love 3352999 160 Na'ima B. Robert 1845078322 Lisa 0 to-read 3.94 2008 From Somalia with Love
author: Na'ima B. Robert
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Little Daughter: A Memoir of Survival in Burma and the West]]> 6421997 352 Zoya Phan 067006968X Lisa 0 to-read 4.00 2009 Little Daughter: A Memoir of Survival in Burma and the West
author: Zoya Phan
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families]]> 11472 356 Philip Gourevitch 0312243359 Lisa 0 to-read 4.21 1998 We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
author: Philip Gourevitch
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> What Is the What 4952 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, What Is the What is the epic novel based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng who, along with thousands of other children —the so-called Lost Boys—was forced to leave his village in Sudan at the age of seven and trek hundreds of miles by foot, pursued by militias, government bombers, and wild animals, crossing the deserts of three countries to find freedom. When he finally is resettled in the United States, he finds a life full of promise, but also heartache and myriad new challenges. Moving, suspenseful, and unexpectedly funny, What Is the What is an astonishing novel that illuminates the lives of millions through one extraordinary man.
-back cover]]> 475 Dave Eggers 1932416641 Lisa 0 to-read 4.14 2006 What Is the What
author: Dave Eggers
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan]]> 143819
Amid the chaos, screams, conflagration, and gunfire, 5-year-old Benson and 7-year-old Benjamin fled into the dark night. Two years later, Alepho, age 7, was forced to do the same. Across the Southern Sudan, over the next 5 years, thousands of other boys did likewise, joining this stream of child refugees that became known as the Lost Boys. Their journey would take them more than 1000 miles across a war-ravaged country, through landmine-sown paths, crocodile-infested waters, and grotesque extremes of hunger, thirst, and disease. The refugee camps they eventually filtered through offered little respite from the brutality they were fleeing.

In They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky, Alepho, Benson, and Benjamin, by turn, recount their experiences along this unthinkable journey. They vividly recall the family, friends, and tribal world they left far behind them and their desperate efforts to keep track of one another. This is a captivating memoir of Sudan and a powerful portrait of war as seen through the eyes of children. And it is, in the end, an inspiring and unforgettable tribute to the tenacity of even the youngest human spirits.]]> 334 Benson Deng 1586483889 Lisa 0 to-read 4.21 2005 They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan
author: Benson Deng
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War]]> 26153738
Burning Country explores the complicated reality of life in present-day Syria withunprecedented detail and sophistication, drawing on new first-hand testimonies from opposition fighters, exiles lost in an archipelago of refugee camps, and courageous human rights activists. Yassin-Kassab and Al-Shami expertly interweave these stories with an incisive analysis of the militarization of the uprising, the rise of the Islamists and sectarian warfare, and the role of Syria’s government in exacerbating the brutalization of the conflict. Through these accounts and a broad range of secondary source material, the authors persuasively argue that the international community has failed in its stated commitments to support the Syrian opposition movements.

Covering ISIS and Islamism, regional geopolitics, new grassroots revolutionary organizations, and the worst refugee crisis since World War Two, Burning Country is a vivid and groundbreaking look at a modern-day political and humanitarian nightmare.]]> 262 Robin Yassin-Kassab 0745336221 Lisa 0 to-read 4.34 2016 Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War
author: Robin Yassin-Kassab
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> Children of War 4640204 144 Deborah Ellis 0888999070 Lisa 0 to-read 4.04 2009 Children of War
author: Deborah Ellis
name: Lisa
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran]]> 129118
“An immensely moving, extraordinarily eloquent, and passionate memoir.”—Harold Bloom

Roya Hakakian was twelve years old in 1979 when the revolution swept through Tehran. The daughter of an esteemed poet, she grew up in a household that hummed with intellectual life. Family gatherings were punctuated by witty, satirical exchanges and spontaneous recitations of poetry. But the Hakakians were also part of the very small Jewish population in Iran who witnessed the iron fist of the Islamic fundamentalists increasingly tightening its grip. It is with the innocent confusion of youth that Roya describes her discovery of a swastika—“a plus sign gone awry, a dark reptile with four hungry claws”—painted on the wall near her home. As a schoolgirl she watched as friends accused of reading blasphemous books were escorted from class by Islamic Society guards, never to return. Only much later did Roya learn that she was spared a similar fate because her teacher admired her writing.

Hakakian relates in the most poignant, and at times painful, ways what life was like for women after the country fell into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists who had declared an insidious war against them, but we see it all through the eyes of a strong, youthful optimist who somehow came up in the world believing that she was different, knowing she was special.

A wonderfully evocative story, Journey from the Land of No reveals an Iran most readers have not encountered and re-createsa time and place dominated by religious fanaticism, violence, and fear with an open heart.]]> 256 Roya Hakakian 0609810308 Lisa 0 to-read 3.75 2004 Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran
author: Roya Hakakian
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America]]> 46349 Funny in Farsi chronicles the American journey of Dumas's wonderfully engaging family: her engineer father, a sweetly quixotic dreamer who first sought riches on Bowling for Dollars and in Las Vegas, and later lost his job during the Iranian revolution; her elegant mother, who never fully mastered English (nor cared to); her uncle, who combated the effects of American fast food with an army of miraculous American weight-loss gadgets; and Firoozeh herself, who as a girl changed her name to Julie, and who encountered a second wave of culture shock when she met and married a Frenchman, becoming part of a one-couple melting pot.]]> 240 Firoozeh Dumas 0812968379 Lisa 0 to-read 3.84 2003 Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America
author: Firoozeh Dumas
name: Lisa
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>