Diana's bookshelf: all en-US Sat, 21 Sep 2024 11:39:45 -0700 60 Diana's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover If Not Being A Dumb Ass Is the New Black; Or, A Culture-Up Manifesto]]> 8484591 In Jen's corner is a crack team of experts, including Page Six socialites, gourmet chefs, an opera aficionado, and a master sommelier. She may discover that well-regarded, high-priced stinky cheese tastes exactly as bad as it smells, and that her love for Kraft American Singles is forever. But one thing's for Eliza Doolittle's got nothing on Jen Lancaster-and failure "is" an option.
]]> 400 Jen Lancaster 1101187417 Diana 4 3.92 2010 My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover If Not Being A Dumb Ass Is the New Black; Or, A Culture-Up Manifesto
author: Jen Lancaster
name: Diana
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2011/06/26
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves:
review:
It's light, it made me laugh. Great summer reading.
]]> Honolulu 7000226 431 Alan Brennert 0312606346 Diana 4 4.13 2009 Honolulu
author: Alan Brennert
name: Diana
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2010/03/23
date added: 2024/05/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Philomena: A Mother, Her Son, and a Fifty-Year Search]]> 17707622
Philomena's son, renamed Michael Hess, grew up to be a top Washington lawyer and a leading Republican official in the Reagan and Bush administrations. But he was a gay man in a homophobic party where he had to conceal not only his sexuality but, eventually, the fact that he had AIDS. With little time left, he returned to Ireland and the convent where he was his desperate quest to find his mother before he died left a legacy that was to unfold with unexpected consequences for all involved.

The Lost Child of Philomena Lee is the tale of a mother and a son whose lives were scarred by the forces of hypocrisy on both sides of the Atlantic and of the secrets they were forced to keep. A compelling narrative of human love and loss, Martin Sixsmith's moving account is heartbreaking yet ultimately redemptive.]]> 420 Martin Sixsmith 0143124722 Diana 4 3.46 2009 Philomena: A Mother, Her Son, and a Fifty-Year Search
author: Martin Sixsmith
name: Diana
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2014/09/05
date added: 2023/08/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Harlot (Taskill Witches, #1)]]> 9920156
Forced to watch her mother burned at the stake and separated from her siblings in the aftermath, Jessie Taskill is similarly gifted, ripe with a powerful magic that must stay hidden. Until one night when she's accused by a rival, and Jessie finds herself behind prison walls with a roguish priest unlike any man of the cloth she has known.

In reality, Gregor Ramsay is as far from holy as the devil himself, but his promise of freedom in return for her services may be her salvation. Locked into a dubious agreement, Jessie resents his plan to have her seduce and ruin his lifelong enemy. But toying with Gregor’s lust for her is enjoyable, and she agrees to be his pawn while secretly intending to use him just as he is using her.]]> 329 Saskia Walker 0373605560 Diana 0 to-read 3.31 2011 The Harlot (Taskill Witches, #1)
author: Saskia Walker
name: Diana
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hangman's Daughter (The Hangman's Daughter, #1)]]> 11160742
Jakob Kuisl is charged with extracting a confession from her and torturing her until he gets one. Convinced she is innocent, he, Magdalena, and her would-be suitor race against the clock to find the true killer. Approaching Walpurgisnacht, when witches are believed to dance in the forest and mate with the devil, another tattooed orphan is found dead and the town becomes frenzied. More than one person has spotted what looks like the devil—a man with a hand made only of bones. The hangman, his daughter, and the doctor’s son face a terrifying and very real enemy.Ěý

Taking us back in history to a place where autopsies were blasphemous, coffee was an exotic drink, dried toads were the recommended remedy for the plague, and the devil was as real as anything, The Hangman’s Daughter brings to cinematic life the sights, sounds, and smells of seventeenth-century Bavaria, telling the engrossing story of a compassionate hangman who will live on in readers� imaginations long after they’ve put down the novel.]]> 435 Oliver Pötzsch 054774501X Diana 0 to-read 3.72 2008 The Hangman's Daughter (The Hangman's Daughter, #1)
author: Oliver Pötzsch
name: Diana
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/02/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Fiery Cross (Outlander, #5)]]> 7025504 Librarian's note: This is an Alternate Cover Edition for ISBN10: 0440333881 ISBN13: 9780440333883.

The year is 1771, and war is coming. Jamie Fraser’s wife tells him so. Little as he wishes to, he must believe it, for hers is a gift of dreadful prophecy—a time-traveler’s certain knowledge. Claire’s unique view of the future has brought him both danger and deliverance in the past; her knowledge of the oncoming revolution is a flickering torch that may light his way through the perilous years ahead—or ignite a conflagration that will leave their lives in ashes.]]> 1008 Diana Gabaldon Diana 4 4.10 2001 The Fiery Cross (Outlander, #5)
author: Diana Gabaldon
name: Diana
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2011/10/07
date added: 2014/11/21
shelves:
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]]> Lookaway, Lookaway 16045084 One of Slate's and Kirkus Review's Best Books of 2013 and The New York Times, National Public Radio , and Indie Bound bestseller: "Lookaway, Lookaway is a wild romp through the South, and therefore the history of our nation, written by an absolute ringmaster of fiction." ―Alice Sebold, New York Times bestselling author of The Lovely Bones

Jerene Jarvis Johnston and her husband Duke are exemplars of Charlotte, North Carolina's high society, where old Southern money―and older Southern secrets―meet the new wealth of bankers, boom-era speculators, and carpetbagging social climbers. Steely and implacable, Jerene presides over her family's legacy of paintings at the Mint Museum; Duke, the one-time college golden boy and descendant of a Confederate general, whose promising political career was mysteriously short-circuited, has settled into a comfortable semi-senescence as a Civil War re-enactor. Jerene's brother Gaston is an infamously dissolute bestselling historical novelist who has never managed to begin his long-dreamed-of literary masterpiece, while their sister Dillard is a prisoner of unfortunate life decisions that have made her a near-recluse.

As the four Johnston children wander perpetually toward scandal and mishap. Annie, the smart but matrimonially reckless real estate maven; Bo, a minister at war with his congregation; Joshua, prone to a series of gay misadventures, and Jerilyn, damaged but dutiful to her expected role as debutante and eventual society bride. Jerene must prove tireless in preserving the family's legacy, Duke's fragile honor, and what's left of the dwindling family fortune. She will stop at nothing to keep what she has―but is it too much to ask for one ounce of cooperation from her heedless family?

In Lookaway, Lookaway , Wilton Barnhardt has written a headlong, hilarious narrative of a family coming apart, a society changing beyond recognition, and an unforgettable woman striving to pull it all together.

A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of 2013]]> 361 Wilton Barnhardt 1250020832 Diana 0 currently-reading 3.15 2013 Lookaway, Lookaway
author: Wilton Barnhardt
name: Diana
average rating: 3.15
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2014/11/07
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail]]> 12262741 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State � and she would do it alone.

Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.]]> 336 Cheryl Strayed 0307592731 Diana 2 4.06 2012 Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
author: Cheryl Strayed
name: Diana
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 2
read at: 2014/10/28
date added: 2014/10/28
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]]> Burial Rites 17333319
Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.

Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only TĂłti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard.

Riveting and rich with lyricism, Burial Rites evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?]]> 336 Hannah Kent 0316243914 Diana 4 4.00 2013 Burial Rites
author: Hannah Kent
name: Diana
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2014/10/22
date added: 2014/10/22
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]]> The House Girl 15781725
Virginia, 1852. Seventeen-year-old Josephine Bell decides to run from the failing tobacco farm where she is a slave and nurse to her ailing mistress, the aspiring artist Lu Anne Bell.

New York City, 2004. Lina Sparrow, an ambitious first-year associate in an elite law firm, is given a difficult, highly sensitive assignment that could make her career: she must find the "perfect plaintiff" to lead a historic class-action lawsuit worth trillions of dollars in reparations for descendants of American slaves.

It is through her father, the renowned artist Oscar Sparrow, that Lina discovers Josephine Bell and a controversy roiling the art world: are the iconic paintings long ascribed to Lu Anne Bell really the work of her house slave, Josephine? A descendant of Josephine's would be the perfect face for the reparations lawsuit - if Lina can find one. While following the runaway girl's faint trail through old letters and plantation records, Lina finds herself questioning her own family history and the secrets that her father has never revealed: How did Lina's mother die? And why will he never speak about her?

Moving between antebellum Virginia and modern-day New York, this searing, suspenseful and heartbreaking tale of art and history, love and secrets, explores what it means to repair a wrong and asks whether truth is sometimes more important than justice.]]> 370 Tara Conklin 0062207393 Diana 4 3.74 2013 The House Girl
author: Tara Conklin
name: Diana
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2014/10/07
date added: 2014/10/07
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]]> Here I Go Again 13585792
Twenty years after ruling the halls of her suburban Chicago high school, Lissy Ryder doesn't understand why her glory days ended. Back then, she was worshipped...beloved...feared. Present day, not so much. She's been pink-slipped from her high-paying job, dumped by her husband, and kicked out of her condo. Now, at thirty-seven, she's struggling to start a business out of her parents' garage and sleeping under the hair-band posters in her old bedroom.

Lissy finally realizes karma is the only bitch bigger than she was. Her present is miserable because of her past. But it's not like she can go back in time and change who she was...or can she?]]> 320 Jen Lancaster 0451236726 Diana 3 3.53 2013 Here I Go Again
author: Jen Lancaster
name: Diana
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2014/09/29
date added: 2014/09/29
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]]> The Hundred-Foot Journey 9895914 "That skinny Indian teenager has that mysterious something that comes along once a generation. He is one of those rare chefs who is simply born. He is an artist."

And so begins the rise of Hassan Haji, the unlikely gourmand who recounts his life's journey in Richard Morais's charming novel, The Hundred-Foot Journey. Lively and brimming with the colors, flavors, and scents of the kitchen, The Hundred-Foot Journey is a succulent treat about family, nationality, and the mysteries of good taste.

Born above his grandfather's modest restaurant in Mumbai, Hassan first experienced life through intoxicating whiffs of spicy fish curry, trips to the local markets, and gourmet outings with his mother. But when tragedy pushes the family out of India, they console themselves by eating their way around the world, eventually settling in Lumière, a small village in the French Alps.

The boisterous Haji family takes Lumière by storm. They open an inexpensive Indian restaurant opposite an esteemed French relaismdash;that of the famous chef Madame Mallory—and infuse the sleepy town with the spices of India, transforming the lives of its eccentric villagers and infuriating their celebrated neighbor. Only after Madame Mallory wages culinary war with the immigrant family, does she finally agree to mentor young Hassan, leading him to Paris, the launch of his own restaurant, and a slew of new adventures.

The Hundred-Foot Journey is about how the hundred-foot distance between a new Indian kitchen and a traditional French one can represent the gulf between different cultures and desires. A testament to the inevitability of destiny, this is a fable for the ages—charming, endearing, and compulsively readable.]]> 242 Richard C. Morais 1439165653 Diana 3 3.64 2008 The Hundred-Foot Journey
author: Richard C. Morais
name: Diana
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2014/09/17
date added: 2014/09/17
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Paris Letters: A Travel Memoir about Art, Writing, and Finding Love in Paris]]> 17586508
Unfulfilled at her job and unsuccessful in the dating department, Janice MacLeod doodled this question at her desk. Then she decided to make it a challenge.

Over the next few months, with a little math and a lot of determination, she saved up enough to buy two years of freedom in Europe.

But she had only been in Paris for a few days when she met a handsome butcher (with a striking resemblance to Daniel Craig)—and never went home again.

A love story in the vein of Almost French and Lunch in Paris, Paris Letters (February 4) is a joyful romp through the City of Light, and an inspiring look at what can happen when we dare to create the life we want.

Realizing that her Parisian love affair would be forever, MacLeod began her own business on Etsy, creating beautifully-illustrated letters from Paris inspired by artists like Percy Kelly and Beatrix Potter. She now paints and writes full-time, bringing beautiful things to subscribers around the world and reviving the lost art of letter-writing.]]> 272 Janice MacLeod 1402288794 Diana 4 3.80 2014 Paris Letters: A Travel Memoir about Art, Writing, and Finding Love in Paris
author: Janice MacLeod
name: Diana
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2014/08/25
date added: 2014/08/25
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1)]]> 985873
Here is the first volume in George R. R. Martin’s magnificent cycle of novels that includes A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages and transport us to a world unlike any we have ever experienced. Already hailed as a classic, George R. R. Martin’s stunning series is destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction.

A GAME OF THRONES

Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom’s protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens.

Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.]]> 695 George R.R. Martin Diana 0 currently-reading 4.40 1996 A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1)
author: George R.R. Martin
name: Diana
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2014/05/28
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Behind The Beautiful Forevers 16221784 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 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.]]> 421 Katherine Boo 1594136181 Diana 4 4.02 2012 Behind The Beautiful Forevers
author: Katherine Boo
name: Diana
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2014/05/16
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I liked the writing but walked away never wanting to visit India and thinking its about the most corrupt place around.
]]> <![CDATA[The Other Boleyn Girl (The Tudor Court, #2)]]> 6980828
A rich and compelling tale of love, sex, ambition, and intrigue, The Other Boleyn Girl introduces a woman of extraordinary determination and desire who lived at the heart of the most exciting and glamorous court in Europe and survived by following her own heart.]]> 672 Philippa Gregory 0743233085 Diana 4 4.10 2001 The Other Boleyn Girl (The Tudor Court, #2)
author: Philippa Gregory
name: Diana
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2011/08/27
date added: 2014/05/14
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle]]> 12926432 310 Fiona Carnarvon 0770435629 Diana 4 3.60 2011 Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle
author: Fiona Carnarvon
name: Diana
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2014/04/28
date added: 2014/04/28
shelves:
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]]> The Last Town on Earth 76336
Deep in the mist-shrouded forests of the Pacific Northwest is a small mill town called Commonwealth, conceived as a haven for workers weary of exploitation. For Philip Worthy, the adopted son of the town’s founder, it is a haven in another sense–as the first place in his life he’s had a loving family to call his own.

And yet, the ideals that define this outpost are being threatened from all sides. A world war is raging, and with the fear of spies rampant, the loyalty of all Americans is coming under scrutiny. Meanwhile, another shadow has fallen across the region in the form of a deadly illness striking down vast swaths of surrounding communities.

When Commonwealth votes to quarantine itself against contagion, guards are posted at the single road leading in and out of town, and Philip Worthy is among them. He will be unlucky enough to be on duty when a cold, hungry, tired–and apparently ill–soldier presents himself at the town’s doorstep begging for sanctuary. The encounter that ensues, and the shots that are fired, will have deafening reverberations throughout Commonwealth, escalating until every human value–love, patriotism, community, family, friendship–not to mention the town’s very survival, is imperiled.

Inspired by a little-known historical footnote regarding towns that quarantined themselves during the 1918 epidemic, The Last Town on Earth is a remarkably moving and accomplished debut.]]> 387 Thomas Mullen 1400065208 Diana 3 3.64 2006 The Last Town on Earth
author: Thomas Mullen
name: Diana
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2014/02/19
date added: 2014/04/23
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]]> Girls in White Dresses 10047589
Isabella, Mary, and Lauren feel like everyone they know is getting married. On Sunday after Sunday, at bridal shower after bridal shower, they coo over toasters, collect ribbons and wrapping paper, eat minuscule sandwiches and doll-sized cakes. They wear pastel dresses and drink champagne by the case, but amid the celebration these women have their own lives to contend Isabella is working at a mailing-list company, dizzy with the mixed signals of a boss who claims she’s on a diet but has Isabella file all morning if she forgets to bring her a chocolate muffin. Mary thinks she might cry with happiness when she finally meets a nice guy who loves his mother, only to realize he’ll never love Mary quite as much. And Lauren, a waitress at a Midtown bar, swears up and down she won’t fall for the sleazy bartender—a promise that his dirty blond curls and perfect vodka sodas make hard to keep.

With a wry sense of humor, Jennifer Close brings us through those thrilling, bewildering, what-on-earth-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life years of early adulthood. These are the years when everyone else seems to have a plan, a great job, and an appropriate boyfriend, while Isabella has a blind date with a gay man, Mary has a crush on her boss, and Lauren has a goldfish named Willard. Through boozy family holidays and disastrous ski vacations, relationships lost to politics and relationships found in pet stores, Girls in White Dresses pulls us deep inside the circle of these friends, perfectly capturing the wild frustrations and soaring joys of modern life.]]> 294 Jennifer Close 0307596850 Diana 3 3.14 2011 Girls in White Dresses
author: Jennifer Close
name: Diana
average rating: 3.14
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2014/02/19
date added: 2014/02/19
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]]> Eleanor & Park 15745753 "So did Jerry Lee Lewis," Eleanor answers.
"I'm not kidding," he says.
"You should be," she says, "we're 16."
"What about Romeo and Juliet?"
"Shallow, confused, then dead."
"I love you," Park says.
"Wherefore art thou," Eleanor answers.
"I'm not kidding," he says.
"You should be."

Set over one school year in 1986, Eleanor & Park is the story of two star-crossed misfits—smart enough to know first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.]]> 328 Rainbow Rowell 1250012570 Diana 5 3.92 2012 Eleanor & Park
author: Rainbow Rowell
name: Diana
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2014/01/16
date added: 2014/01/16
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]]> This Is Where We Live 9683715 Ěý
“Part social satire, part melodrama, part intimate domestic portrait . . . Brown has an uncanny eye for contemporary characters and settings.”� Los Angeles Times
Ěý
Claudia and Jeremy, a young married couple (she’s an aspiring filmmaker, he’s an indie musician), are on the verge of making it. Her first film was a sensation at Sundance and is about to have its theatrical release; he’s got a new band that is a few songs shy of an album. They’ve recently purchased their first home—a mid-century bungalow with a breathtaking view of Los Angeles—with the magical assistance of an adjustable-rate mortgage.
Ěý
But a series of seismic events—the tanking of Claudia’s film, the return of Jeremy’s manipulative, art-star ex-girlfriend, and the staggering adjustment of their monthly mortgage payments—threaten toĚýdeal a crushing blow to their dreams of the bohemian life and their professional aspirations and make them question their shared vision of the future.]]> 352 Janelle Brown 0385524048 Diana 0 to-read 3.04 2010 This Is Where We Live
author: Janelle Brown
name: Diana
average rating: 3.04
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2014/01/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Potty Mouth at the Table 13260506
So if you’ve ever found yourself wondering if the person seated next to you on the plane is being earnest when he tells the stewardess he will handle the emergency door in the event of a crash landing or spotted a chunk of something that could be chocolate under your keyboard and desperately wanted to eat it, then this collection of sometimes bizarre and always entertaining observations is for you.]]> 256 Laurie Notaro Diana 3 3.70 2013 The Potty Mouth at the Table
author: Laurie Notaro
name: Diana
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2013/12/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger]]> 16044956 one derailed her—theĚýBestĚýMan who at the last minute begged her to reconsider the marriage. He told her that Burke had been cheating on her.ĚýFor a long time. Quinn, stunned, hurt, and confused, struggled with the obligation of fulfilling her guestsâ€� expectations—providing a wedding—and running for her life.

She chose running. With the Best Man. Who happened to be Burke’s brother, Frank.

That relationship didn’t work either. How could it, whenĚýQuinn had been engaged to, in love with, Frank’s brother? Quinn opted for neither, and, instead, spends the next seventeen years working in her family’s Middleburg, Virginia, bridal shop, Talk of the Gown, where she subconsciously does penance for the disservice she did to marriage.

But when the two men return to town for another wedding, old anger, hurt, and passion resurface. Just because you’ve traded the good guy for the bad guy for no guy doesn’t mean you have to stay away from love for the rest of your life, does it?]]> 371 Beth Harbison 0312599137 Diana 2 3.27 2013 Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger
author: Beth Harbison
name: Diana
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2013/12/17
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]]> The Night Guest 17332361
Now that Frida is in her house, is Ruth right to fear the tiger she hears on the prowl at night, far from its jungle habitat? Why do memories of childhood in Fiji press upon her with increasing urgency? How far can she trust this mysterious woman, Frida, who seems to carry with her, her own troubled past? And how far can Ruth trust herself?]]> 256 Fiona McFarlane 0865477736 Diana 4 3.44 2013 The Night Guest
author: Fiona McFarlane
name: Diana
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/12/16
shelves:
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]]> And the Mountains Echoed 16115612 404 Khaled Hosseini 159463176X Diana 0 4.06 2012 And the Mountains Echoed
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Diana
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2013/12/16
date added: 2013/12/16
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]]> The Orchardist 13540215
You belong to the earth, and the earth is hard.

At the turn of the twentieth century, in a rural stretch of the Pacific Northwest in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, a solitary orchardist named Talmadge carefully tends the grove of fruit trees he has cultivated for nearly half a century. A gentle, solitary man, he finds solace and purpose in the sweetness of the apples, apricots, and plums he grows, and in the quiet, beating heart of the land--the valley of yellow grass bordering a deep canyon that has been his home since he was nine years old. Everything he is and has known is tied to this patch of earth. It is where his widowed mother is buried, taken by illness when he was just thirteen, and where his only companion, his beloved teenaged sister Elsbeth, mysteriously disappeared. It is where the horse wranglers--native men, mostly Nez Perce--pass through each spring with their wild herds, setting up camp in the flowering meadows between the trees.

One day, while in town to sell his fruit at the market, two girls, barefoot and dirty, steal some apples. Later, they appear on his homestead, cautious yet curious about the man who gave them no chase. Feral, scared, and very pregnant, Jane and her sister Della take up on Talmadage's land and indulge in his deep reservoir of compassion. Yet just as the girls begin to trust him, brutal men with guns arrive in the orchard, and the shattering tragedy that follows sets Talmadge on an irrevocable course not only to save and protect them, putting himself between the girls and the world, but to reconcile the ghosts of his own troubled past.

Writing with breathtaking precision and empathy, Amanda Coplin has crafted an astonishing debut novel about a man who disrupts the lonely harmony of an ordered life when he opens his heart and lets the world in. Transcribing America as it once was before railways and roads connected its corners, she weaves a tapestry of solitary souls who come together in the wake of unspeakable cruelty and misfortune, bound by their search to discover the place they belong. At once intimate and epic, evocative and atmospheric, filled with haunting characters both vivid and true to life, and told in a distinctive narrative voice, The Orchardist marks the beginning of a stellar literary career.

The National Book Foundation selected Amanda Coplin as one of the authors being honored as "5 Under 35" in 2013.]]> 426 Amanda Coplin 006218850X Diana 3 3.77 2012 The Orchardist
author: Amanda Coplin
name: Diana
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2013/10/21
date added: 2013/10/21
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]]> The Casual Vacancy 13497818 A BIG NOVEL ABOUT A SMALL TOWN�

When Barry Fairbrother dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford appears to be an English idyll—with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey—but behind its charming façade lies a town at war. The rich clash with the poor, teenagers battle their parents, wives contend with their husbands, and teachers struggle with their pupils. Pagford is far from what it seems.

The empty seat Barry leaves on the town council becomes the catalyst for the fiercest conflict the town has ever seen. The election to fill his seat is fraught with passion, duplicity, and unexpected revelations. Who will triumph in this battle of wills?

Blackly comic, thought-provoking, and constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults.]]> 503 J.K. Rowling 0316228532 Diana 4 3.28 2012 The Casual Vacancy
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Diana
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2013/10/09
date added: 2013/10/09
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A little hard to get into. Lots and lots of character names but once it had me I couldn't put it down. Definitely not like Harry potter!
]]> <![CDATA[American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America]]> 12953722 Ěý
Early in her tenure as First Lady, despite being a novice gardener, Michelle Obama planted a kitchen garden on the White House’s South Lawn. To her delight, she watched as fresh vegetables, fruit, and herbs sprouted from the ground. Soon the White House Kitchen Garden inspired a new conversation all across the country about the food we feed our families and the impact it has on the nutrition and well-being of our children.
Ěý
In American Grown, Mrs. Obama invites you inside the White House Kitchen Garden, from the first planting to the satisfaction of the seasonal harvest. She reveals her early worries and struggles—would the new plants even grow?—and her joy as lettuce, corn, tomatoes, collards and kale, sweet potatoes and rhubarb flourished in the freshly tilled soil. SheĚýshares the stories ofĚýother gardens that have moved and inspired her on her journey across the nation.ĚýAnd she offers what she learned about planting your own backyard, school, or community garden.
Ěý
American Grown features:Ěý
â€� aĚýbehind-the-scenes look at every season of the garden’s growth
•Ěýunique recipes created by White House chefs
•Ěýstriking original photographs that bring theĚýWhite House garden to life
•Ěýa fascinating history of community gardens in the United States
Ěý
From a modern-day vegetable truck that brings fresh produce to underserved communities in Chicago, to Houston office workers who make the sidewalk bloom, to a New York City school that created a scented garden for the visually impaired, to a garden in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, that devotes its entire harvest to those less fortunate, American Grown isn’t just the story of a single garden. It’s a celebration of the bounty of our nation and a reminder of what we can all grow together.]]> 272 Michelle Obama 0307956024 Diana 3 3.95 2012 American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America
author: Michelle Obama
name: Diana
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2013/10/09
date added: 2013/10/09
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]]> Where'd You Go, Bernadette 13526165
When her daughter Bee claims a family trip to Antarctica as a reward for perfect grades, Bernadette, a fiercely intelligent shut-in, throws herself into preparations for the trip. But worn down by years of trying to live the Seattle life she never wanted, Ms. Fox is on the brink of a meltdown. And after a school fundraiser goes disastrously awry at her hands, she disappears, leaving her family to pick up the pieces--which is exactly what Bee does, weaving together an elaborate web of emails, invoices, and school memos that reveals a secret past Bernadette has been hiding for decades. Where'd You Go Bernadette is an ingenious and unabashedly entertaining novel about a family coming to terms with who they are and the power of a daughter's love for her mother.]]> 330 Maria Semple 0316204277 Diana 4 3.87 2012 Where'd You Go, Bernadette
author: Maria Semple
name: Diana
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2013/10/09
date added: 2013/10/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal]]> 13615414
Like all of Roach’s books, Gulp is as much about human beings as it is about human bodies.]]> 348 Mary Roach 0393081575 Diana 0 3.91 2013 Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
author: Mary Roach
name: Diana
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2013/09/20
date added: 2013/09/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)]]> 15881
And strike it does. For in Harry’s second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor and a spirit who haunts the girls� bathroom. But then the real trouble begins � someone is turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects� Harry Potter himself!]]> 352 J.K. Rowling Diana 4 4.42 1998 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Diana
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/09/09
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]]> <![CDATA[The Tao of Martha: My Year of LIVING; Or, Why I'm Never Getting All That Glitter Off of the Dog]]> 15808650
One would be wrong.

Jen’s still a little rough around the edges. Suffice it to say, she’s no Martha Stewart. And that is exactly why Jen is going to Martha up and live her life according to the advice of America’s overachieving older sister—the woman who turns lemons into lavender-infused lemonade.

By immersing herself in Martha’s media empire, Jen will embark on a yearlong quest to take herself, her house, her husband (and maybe even her pets) to the next level—from closet organization to craft making, from party planning to kitchen prep.

Maybe Jen can go four days without giving herself food poisoning if she follows Martha’s dictates on proper storage....Maybe she can grow closer to her girlfriends by taking up their boring-ass hobbies like knitting and sewing.…Maybe she can finally rid her workout clothes of meatball stains by using Martha’s laundry tips.� Maybe she can create a more meaningful anniversary celebration than just getting drunk in the pool with her husband....again. And maybe, just maybe, she’ll discover that the key to happiness does, in fact, lie in Martha’s perfectly arranged cupboards and artfully displayed charcuterie platters.

Or maybe not.]]> 335 Jen Lancaster 0451417631 Diana 4 3.79 2013 The Tao of Martha: My Year of LIVING; Or, Why I'm Never Getting All That Glitter Off of the Dog
author: Jen Lancaster
name: Diana
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2013/09/01
date added: 2013/09/01
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]]> The 19th Wife 2586771
Soon after Ann Eliza’s story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds, a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was expelled from his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside to discover the truth behind his father’s death. As Ann Eliza’s narrative intertwines with that of Jordan’s search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love, family, and faith.]]> 514 David Ebershoff 1400063973 Diana 3 3.64 2008 The 19th Wife
author: David Ebershoff
name: Diana
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2013/08/23
shelves:
review:

]]> Sarah's Key 556602
Paris, May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's sixtieth anniversary, Julia Jarmond, an American journalist, is asked by her Paris-based American magazine to write an article about this black day in France's past. Julia has lived in Paris for nearly twenty-five years, married a Frenchman, and she is shocked both by her ignorance about the event and the silence that still surrounds it. In the course of her investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connects her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from the terrible days spent shut in at the Vel' d'Hiv' to the camps and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.

Writing about the fate of her country with a pitiless clarity, Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and denial surrounding this painful episode in French history.
(front flap)]]> 294 Tatiana de Rosnay 0312370830 Diana 4 4.18 2006 Sarah's Key
author: Tatiana de Rosnay
name: Diana
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/08/23
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]]> Cutting for Stone 3591262
Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother’s death in childbirth and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Yet it will be love, not politics—their passion for the same woman—that will tear them apart and force Marion, fresh out of medical school, to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as an intern at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him—nearly destroying him—Marion must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.

An unforgettable journey into one man’s remarkable life, and an epic story about the power, intimacy, and curious beauty of the work of healing others.
(front flap)]]> 560 Abraham Verghese 0375414495 Diana 4 4.32 2009 Cutting for Stone
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Diana
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/08/23
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]]> <![CDATA[The End of Your Life Book Club]]> 13414676
Mary Anne Schwalbe is waiting for her chemotherapy treatments when Will casually asks her what she's reading. The conversation they have grows into tradition: soon they are reading the same books so they can have something to talk about in the hospital waiting room. The ones they choose range from classic to popular, from fantastic to spiritual, and we hear their passion for reading and their love for each other in their intimate and searching discussions.

A profoundly moving testament to the power of love between a child and parent, and the power of reading in our lives.]]> 336 Will Schwalbe 0307594033 Diana 4 3.80 2012 The End of Your Life Book Club
author: Will Schwalbe
name: Diana
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/08/23
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]]> Life of Pi 4214 460 Yann Martel 0770430074 Diana 3 3.94 2001 Life of Pi
author: Yann Martel
name: Diana
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2013/08/23
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner]]> 12332573 Such a Pretty Fat, Jen Lancaster learned how to come to terms with her body. In My Fair Lazy, she expanded her mind. Now the New York Times bestselling author gives herself—and her generation—a kick in the X, by facing her greatest challenge to date: acting her age.

Jen is finally ready to put away childish things (except her Barbie Styling Head, of course) and embrace the investment-making, mortgage-carrying, life-insurance-having adult she’s become. From getting a mammogram to volunteering at a halfway house, she tackles the grown-up activities she’s resisted for years, and with each rite of passage she completes, she’ll uncover a valuable—and probably humiliating—life lesson that will ease her path to full-fledged, if reluctant, adulthood.]]> 352 Jen Lancaster 0451233174 Diana 4 3.90 2012 Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner
author: Jen Lancaster
name: Diana
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/08/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #1)]]> 9460487 9781594744761

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow-impossible though it seems-they may still be alive. A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows.]]> 352 Ransom Riggs 1594744769 Diana 3 3.92 2011 Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #1)
author: Ransom Riggs
name: Diana
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2013/08/23
date added: 2013/08/23
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]]> The Soldier's Wife 10518423 404 Margaret Leroy 1401341705 Diana 4 3.89 2011 The Soldier's Wife
author: Margaret Leroy
name: Diana
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2012/02/20
date added: 2012/02/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)]]> 10335308
Perhaps you want to know what Mindy thinks makes a great best friend (someone who will fill your prescription in the middle of the night), or what makes a great guy (one who is aware of all elderly people in any room at any time and acts accordingly), or what is the perfect amount of fame (so famous you can never get convicted of murder in a court of law), or how to maintain a trim figure (you will not find that information in these pages). If so, you've come to the right book, mostly!

In Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, Mindy invites readers on a tour of her life and her unscientific observations on romance, friendship, and Hollywood, with several conveniently placed stopping points for you to run errands and make phone calls. Mindy Kaling really is just a Girl Next Door - not so much literally anywhere in the continental United States, but definitely if you live in India or Sri Lanka.]]> 222 Mindy Kaling 0307886263 Diana 4 3.86 2011 Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)
author: Mindy Kaling
name: Diana
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2012/02/20
date added: 2012/02/20
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]]> <![CDATA[How to Be an American Housewife]]> 7504179
How to Be an American Housewife is a novel about mothers and daughters, and the pull of tradition. It tells the story of Shoko, a Japanese woman who married an American GI, and her grown daughter, Sue, a divorced mother whose life as an American housewife hasn't been what she'd expected. When illness prevents Shoko from traveling to Japan, she asks Sue to go in her place. The trip reveals family secrets that change their lives in dramatic and unforeseen ways. Offering an entertaining glimpse into American and Japanese family lives and their potent aspirations, this is a warm and engaging novel full of unexpected insight.]]> 277 Margaret Dilloway 0399156372 Diana 3 3.63 2010 How to Be an American Housewife
author: Margaret Dilloway
name: Diana
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2012/01/04
date added: 2012/01/04
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]]> Damned (Damned, #1) 9912994
The author described the novel as "if The Shawshank Redemption had a baby by The Lovely Bones and it was raised by Judy Blume." And "it's kind of like The Breakfast Club set in Hell."]]> 256 Chuck Palahniuk 0385671105 Diana 3 3.41 2011 Damned (Damned, #1)
author: Chuck Palahniuk
name: Diana
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2011/12/26
date added: 2011/12/26
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]]> <![CDATA[How to Love an American Man: A True Story]]> 10865744 287 Kristine Gasbarre 0061997390 Diana 4 3.41 2011 How to Love an American Man: A True Story
author: Kristine Gasbarre
name: Diana
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2011/12/13
date added: 2011/12/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Breaking Up With God: A Love Story]]> 10918755 I broke up with God. The breakup was devastating. It was like a divorce when all the friends you had as a couple are forced to choose sides and end up not choosing yours.

Sarah Sentilles's relationship with God was not casual. When it began to unravel she was in the ordination process to become an Episcopal priest, a youth minister at a church, and a doctoral student in theology at Harvard. You might say they were engaged and that the wedding was all planned. Calling it off would be more than a little awkward. But in the studying of the religion she'd been raised on and believed wholeheartedly, one day she woke up and realized . . . it was over.

In this powerful memoir of faith, Sentilles reveals how deep our ties to God can be, and how devastating they can be to break. Without God to mold herself to and without religion as her script, who was she and what was her purpose? Her relationship with God had been connected to everything—her family, her friends, her vocation, the places she frequented, the language she used, and her way of being in the world. Not unlike after a divorce, she had to reorient her life and face a future that felt darkly unfamiliar. But this beautiful, brave book is surprisingly filled with hope, a coming-out story that lets others know it's safe to come out too, and that there's light on the other side.]]> 256 Sarah Sentilles 0061946869 Diana 3 3.66 2011 Breaking Up With God: A Love Story
author: Sarah Sentilles
name: Diana
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2011/12/07
date added: 2011/12/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love]]> 9820326
When Kristin Kimball left New York City to interview a dynamic young farmer named Mark, her world changed. On an impulse, she shed her city self and started a new farm with him on five hundred acres near Lake Champlain. The Dirty Life is the captivating chronicle of the couple’s first year on Essex Farm, from the cold North Country winter through their harvest-season wedding in the loft of the barn.

Kristin and Mark’s plan to grow everything needed to feed a community was an ambitious idea, and a bit romantic. It worked. Every Friday evening, all year round, over a hundred people travel to Essex Farm to pick up their weekly share of the “whole diet”—beef, pork, chicken, milk, eggs, maple syrup, grains, flours, dried beans, herbs, fruits, and forty different vegetables—produced by the farm. In The Dirty Life, Kristin discovers the wrenching pleasures of physical work, learns that good food is at the center of a good life, falls deeply in love, and finally finds the engagement and commitment she craved in the form of a man, a small town, and a beautiful piece of land.]]> 287 Kristin Kimball 1416551611 Diana 4 4.04 2010 The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love
author: Kristin Kimball
name: Diana
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2011/12/01
date added: 2011/12/01
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]]> If You Were Here 9713837 If You Were Here follows Amish-zombie-teen- romance author Mia and her husband Mac (and their pets) through the alternately frustrating, exciting, terrifying-but always funny-process of buying and renovating their first home in the Chicago suburbs that John hughes's movies made famous. Along their harrowing renovation journey, Mia and Mac get caught up in various wars with the homeowners' association, meet some less-than-friendly neighbors, and are joined by a hilarious cast of supporting characters, including a celebutard ex- landlady. As they struggle to adapt to their new surroundings- with Mac taking on the renovations himself- Mia and Mac will discover if their marriage is strong enough to survive months of DIY renovations.

]]> 306 Jen Lancaster 0451234383 Diana 4 3.47 2011 If You Were Here
author: Jen Lancaster
name: Diana
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2011/11/24
date added: 2011/11/24
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]]> The Violets of March 9724798 A heartbroken woman stumbled upon a diary and steps into the life of its anonymous author.

In her twenties, Emily Wilson was on top of the world: she had a bestselling novel, a husband plucked from the pages of GQ, and a one-way ticket to happily ever after.

Ten years later, the tide has turned on Emily's good fortune. So when her great-aunt Bee invites her to spend the month of March on Bainbridge Island in Washington State, Emily accepts, longing to be healed by the sea. Researching her next book, Emily discovers a red velvet diary, dated 1943, whose contents reveal startling connections to her own life.

A mesmerizing debut with an idyllic setting and intriguing dual story line, The Violets of March announces Sarah Jio as a writer to watch.]]> 296 Sarah Jio 0452297036 Diana 4 3.82 2011 The Violets of March
author: Sarah Jio
name: Diana
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2011/11/19
date added: 2011/11/19
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]]> A Visit from the Goon Squad 7331435
We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist’s couch in New York City, confronting her long-standing compulsion to steal. Later, we learn the genesis of her turmoil when we see her as the child of a violent marriage, then as a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to avert the suicidal impulses of her best friend. We plunge into the hidden yearnings and disappointments of her uncle, an art historian stuck in a dead marriage, who travels to Naples to extract Sasha from the city’s demimonde and experiences an epiphany of his own while staring at a sculpture of Orpheus and Eurydice in the Museo Nazionale. We meet Bennie Salazar at the melancholy nadir of his adult life—divorced, struggling to connect with his nine-year-old son, listening to a washed-up band in the basement of a suburban house—and then revisit him in 1979, at the height of his youth, shy and tender, reveling in San Francisco’s punk scene as he discovers his ardor for rock and roll and his gift for spotting talent. We learn what became of his high school gang—who thrived and who faltered—and we encounter Lou Kline, Bennie’s catastrophically careless mentor, along with the lovers and children left behind in the wake of Lou’s far-flung sexual conquests and meteoric rise and fall.

A Visit from the Goon Squad is a book about the interplay of time and music, about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to PowerPoint, Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption; and the universal tendency to reach for both—and escape the merciless progress of time—in the transporting realms of art and music. Sly, startling, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers.]]> 274 Jennifer Egan 0307592839 Diana 3 3.70 2010 A Visit from the Goon Squad
author: Jennifer Egan
name: Diana
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2011/11/18
date added: 2011/11/18
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]]> <![CDATA[The Implacable Order of Things]]> 2595115
Set in an unnamed Portuguese village against a backdrop of severe rural poverty, The Implacable Order of Things is told from the various points of view of two generations of men and women, hardened by hunger and toil and driven by a fate beyond them to fulfill their roles in the never-ending cycle of violence, retribution and death.

José, a taciturn shepherd, sees his happiness crumble when “the devil� tells him he is being cuckolded. Old Gabriel offers wise counsel, while a different kind of love story develops concerning Moisés and Elias, conjoined twins attached at the tips of their little fingers. Unable to live without each other, they find their tender communion shattered when Moisés falls in love with the local cook. And, of course, there is the Devil himself. Love may be a luxury, but there are moments of the greatest tenderness among even the most unlikely lovers.

Written with subtle prose and powerful imagery, The Implacable Order of Things draws us into this unique and richly textured world. It is a novel of haunting beauty and heralds the arrival of an astoundingly gifted and poetic writer.]]> 224 José Luís Peixoto 0385524463 Diana 2 3.81 2000 The Implacable Order of Things
author: José Luís Peixoto
name: Diana
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2000
rating: 2
read at: 2011/11/14
date added: 2011/11/14
shelves:
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I don't know if I was in the wrong mood for this coming off my last book, but this was the longest 215 page book of my life. Holy adjectives. I struggle putting a book down without finishing, so towards the end I was just skimming. I see it's rated pretty well ... yikes
]]> <![CDATA[An Echo in the Bone (Outlander, #7)]]> 2832909
Jamie Fraser, erstwhile Jacobite and reluctant rebel, knows three things about the American rebellion: the Americans will win, unlikely as that seems in 1778; being on the winning side is no guarantee of survival; and he’d rather die than face his illegitimate son � a young lieutenant in the British Army � across the barrel of a gun. Fraser’s time-travelling wife, Claire, also knows a couple of things: that the Americans will win, but that the ultimate price of victory is a mystery. What she does believe is that the price won’t include Jamie’s life or happiness � not if she has anything to say.

Claire’s grown daughter Brianna, and her husband, Roger, watch the unfolding of Brianna’s parents� history � a past that may be sneaking up behind their own family.]]> 820 Diana Gabaldon 0752898477 Diana 5 4.42 2009 An Echo in the Bone (Outlander, #7)
author: Diana Gabaldon
name: Diana
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2011/11/08
date added: 2011/11/08
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]]> <![CDATA[A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander, #6)]]> 10965 A Breath of Snow and Ashes continues the extraordinary story of 18th-century Scotsman Jamie Fraser and his 20th-century wife, Claire.

The year is 1772, and on the eve of the American Revolution, the long fuse of rebellion has already been lit. Men lie dead in the streets of Boston, and in the backwoods of North Carolina, isolated cabins burn in the forest.

With chaos brewing, the governor calls upon Jamie Fraser to unite the backcountry and safeguard the colony for King and Crown. But from his wife Jamie knows that three years hence the shot heard round the world will be fired, and the result will be independence � with those loyal to the King either dead or in exile. And there is also the matter of a tiny clipping from The Wilmington Gazette, dated 1776, which reports Jamie’s death, along with his kin. For once, he hopes, his time-traveling family may be wrong about the future.]]> 1008 Diana Gabaldon 0385340397 Diana 4 4.42 2005 A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander, #6)
author: Diana Gabaldon
name: Diana
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2011/10/30
date added: 2011/10/30
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]]> <![CDATA[Drums of Autumn (Outlander, #4)]]> 10988 The New York Times bestselling author Diana Gabaldon continues the story of Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser that began with the now-classic novel Outlander and continued in Dragonfly in Amber and Voyager. Once again spanning continents and centuries, Diana Gabaldon has created a work of sheer passion and brilliance....

It began at an ancient Scottish stone circle. There, a doorway, open to a select few, leads into the past—or the grave. Dr. Claire Randall survived the extraordinary passage, not once but twice.

Her first trip swept her into the arms of Jamie Fraser, an eighteenth-century Scot whose love for her became a legend—a tale of tragic passion that ended with her return to the present to bear his child. Her second journey, two decades later, brought them together again in the American colonies. But Claire had left someone behind in the twentieth century—their daughter, Brianna....

Now Brianna has made a disturbing discovery that sends her to the circle of stones and a terrifying leap into the unknown. In search of her mother and the father she has never met, she is risking her own future to try to change history ... and to save their lives. But as Brianna plunges into an uncharted wilderness, a heartbreaking encounter may strand her forever in the past ... or root her in the place she should be, where her heart and soul belong....]]> 880 Diana Gabaldon 0385335989 Diana 4 4.33 1996 Drums of Autumn (Outlander, #4)
author: Diana Gabaldon
name: Diana
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at: 2011/09/27
date added: 2011/09/27
shelves:
review:

]]> Voyager (Outlander, #3) 10987 Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber, the extraordinary saga continues.

Their passionate encounter happened long ago by whatever measurement Claire Randall took. Two decades before, she had traveled back in time and into the arms of a gallant eighteenth-century Scot named Jamie Fraser. Then she returned to her own century to bear his child, believing him dead in the tragic battle of Culloden. Yet his memory has never lessened its hold on her... and her body still cries out for him in her dreams.

Then Claire discovers that Jamie survived. Torn between returning to him and staying with their daughter in her own era, Claire must choose her destiny. And as time and space come full circle, she must find the courage to face the passion and pain awaiting her...the deadly intrigues raging in a divided Scotland... and the daring voyage into the dark unknown that can reunite or forever doom her timeless love.

]]> 870 Diana Gabaldon 0385335997 Diana 4 4.38 1993 Voyager (Outlander, #3)
author: Diana Gabaldon
name: Diana
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at: 2011/09/13
date added: 2011/09/14
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dragonfly in Amber (Outlander, #2)]]> 5364 An alternate cover edition can be found here.

From the author of Outlander... a magnificent epic that once again sweeps us back in time to the drama and passion of 18th-century Scotland...

For twenty years Claire Randall has kept her secrets. But now she is returning with her grown daughter to Scotland's majestic mist-shrouded hills. Here Claire plans to reveal a truth as stunning as the events that gave it birth: about the mystery of an ancient circle of standing stones ...about a love that transcends the boundaries of time ...and about James Fraser, a Scottish warrior whose gallantry once drew a young Claire from the security of her century to the dangers of his ....

Now a legacy of blood and desire will test her beautiful copper-haired daughter, Brianna, as Claire's spellbinding journey of self-discovery continues in the intrigue-ridden Paris court of Charles Stuart ...in a race to thwart a doomed Highlands uprising ...and in a desperate fight to save both the child and the man she loves....]]> 947 Diana Gabaldon Diana 5 4.33 1992 Dragonfly in Amber (Outlander, #2)
author: Diana Gabaldon
name: Diana
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at: 2011/09/09
date added: 2011/09/09
shelves:
review:

]]> Outlander (Outlander, #1) 10964
Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.]]> 850 Diana Gabaldon 0440242940 Diana 4 4.25 1991 Outlander (Outlander, #1)
author: Diana Gabaldon
name: Diana
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1991
rating: 4
read at: 2011/09/02
date added: 2011/09/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)]]> 1232 487 Carlos Ruiz ZafĂłn Diana 4 4.26 2001 The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)
author: Carlos Ruiz ZafĂłn
name: Diana
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2011/08/27
date added: 2011/08/27
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me]]> 9902804
"My tendency to make up stories and lie compulsively for the sake of my own amusement takes up a good portion of my day and provides me with a peace of mind not easily attainable in this economic climate." -- Chelsea Handler, from Chapter 10 of Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang

It's no Chelsea Handler loves to smoke out "dumbassness," the condition people suffer from that allows them to fall prey to her brand of complete and utter nonsense. Friends, family, co-workers--they've all been tricked by Chelsea into believing stories of total foolishness and into behaving like total fools. Luckily, they've lived to tell the tales and, for the very first time, write about them.]]> 8 Chelsea Handler 1609411153 Diana 4 3.76 2011 Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me
author: Chelsea Handler
name: Diana
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2011/08/03
date added: 2011/08/06
shelves:
review:

]]> Lord of the Flies 7624 182 William Golding 0140283331 Diana 0 3.70 1954 Lord of the Flies
author: William Golding
name: Diana
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1954
rating: 0
read at: 2010/05/12
date added: 2011/08/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)]]> 6148028 Sparks are igniting.
Flames are spreading.
And the Capitol wants revenge.

Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol—a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.

Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest that she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

In Catching Fire, the second novel of the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, testing her more than ever before . . . and surprising readers at every turn.]]> 391 Suzanne Collins 0439023491 Diana 5 4.34 2009 Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Diana
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2010/10/17
date added: 2011/08/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)]]> 7260188 My name is Katniss Everdeen.
Why am I not dead?
I should be dead.

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans—except Katniss.

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay—no matter what the personal cost.]]> 390 Suzanne Collins 0439023513 Diana 5 4.10 2010 Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Diana
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2010/10/17
date added: 2011/08/05
shelves:
review:

]]> The Zookeeper's Wife 4944356
When Germany invaded Poland, Stuka bombers devastated Warsaw—and the city’s zoo along with it. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski began smuggling Jews into empty cages. Another dozen “guests� hid inside the Zabinskis� villa, emerging after dark for dinner, socializing, and, during rare moments of calm, piano concerts. Jan, active in the Polish resistance, kept ammunition buried in the elephant enclosure and stashed explosives in the animal hospital. Meanwhile, Antonina kept her unusual household afloat, caring for both its human and its animal inhabitants—otters, a badger, hyena pups, lynxes.

With her exuberant prose and exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Diane Ackerman engages us viscerally in the lives of the zoo animals, their keepers, and their hidden visitors. She shows us how Antonina refused to give in to the penetrating fear of discovery, keeping alive an atmosphere of play and innocence even as Europe crumbled around her.]]> 369 Diane Ackerman Diana 0 3.55 2007 The Zookeeper's Wife
author: Diane Ackerman
name: Diana
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at: 2010/12/28
date added: 2011/08/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sleeping Naked is Green: How an Eco-Cynic Unplugged Her Fridge, Sold Her Car, and Found Love in 366 Days]]> 5006555
Vanessa goes to the extremes of selling her car, unplugging the fridge, and washing her hair with vinegar, but she also does easy things like switching to an all-natural lip balm. All the while, she is forced to reflect on what it truly means to be green.

Whether confronting her environmental hypocrisy or figuring out the best place in her living room for a compost bin full of worms and rotting cabbage, Vanessa writes about her foray into the green world with self-deprecating, humorous, and accessible insight. This isn't a how-to book of tips, it's not about being eco-chic; it's an honest look at what happens when an average girl throws herself into the murkiest depths of the green movement.]]> 267 Vanessa Farquharson 0547073283 Diana 0 3.55 2009 Sleeping Naked is Green: How an Eco-Cynic Unplugged Her Fridge, Sold Her Car, and Found Love in 366 Days
author: Vanessa Farquharson
name: Diana
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at: 2011/01/25
date added: 2011/08/05
shelves:
review:

]]> Revolutionary Road 48328 355 Richard Yates Diana 3 3.92 1961 Revolutionary Road
author: Richard Yates
name: Diana
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1961
rating: 3
read at: 2011/01/25
date added: 2011/08/05
shelves:
review:
Hey Rachel! It was good, not great. Pretty fast read. Makes me hate the suburbs, but sorta wanna have babies. It's confusing, I'm going to watch the movie now.
]]> Super Sad True Love Story 7334201 The Russian Debutante’s Handbook and Absurdistan, Gary Shteyngart has risen to the top of the fiction world. Now, in his hilarious and heartfelt new novel, he envisions a deliciously dark tale of America’s dysfunctional coming years—and the timeless and tender feelings that just might bring us back from the brink.

In a very near future—oh, let’s say next Tuesday—a functionally illiterate America is about to collapse. But don’t that tell that to poor Lenny Abramov, the thirty-nine-year-old son of an angry Russian immigrant janitor, proud author of what may well be the world’s last diary, and less-proud owner of a bald spot shaped like the great state of Ohio. Despite his job at an outfit called Post-Human Services, which attempts to provide immortality for its super-rich clientele, death is clearly stalking this cholesterol-rich morsel of a man. And why shouldn’t it? Lenny’s from a different century—he totally loves books (or “printed, bound media artifacts,� as they’re now known), even though most of his peers find them smelly and annoying. But even more than books, Lenny loves Eunice Park, an impossibly cute and impossibly cruel twenty-four-year-old Korean American woman who just graduated from Elderbird College with a major in Images and a minor in Assertiveness.

After meeting Lenny on an extended Roman holiday, blistering Eunice puts that Assertiveness minor to work, teaching our “ancient dork� effective new ways to brush his teeth and making him buy a cottony nonflammable wardrobe. But America proves less flame-resistant than Lenny’s new threads. The country is crushed by a credit crisis, riots break out in New York’s Central Park, the city’s streets are lined with National Guard tanks on every corner, the dollar is so over, and our patient Chinese creditors may just be ready to foreclose on the whole mess. Undeterred, Lenny vows to love both Eunice and his homeland. He’s going to convince his fickle new love that in a time without standards or stability, in a world where single people can determine a dating prospect’s “hotness� and “sustainability� with the click of a button, in a society where the privileged may live forever but the unfortunate will die all too soon, there is still value in being a real human being.

Wildly funny, rich, and humane, Super Sad True Love Story is a knockout novel by a young master, a book in which falling in love just may redeem a planet falling apart.
Ěý]]> 331 Gary Shteyngart 1400066409 Diana 0 3.45 2010 Super Sad True Love Story
author: Gary Shteyngart
name: Diana
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2011/03/20
date added: 2011/08/05
shelves:
review:
My dearest Nicole suggested this to me and I LOVE IT! One of those books that you don't want to finish because it's so good. I've heard that others thought his other novels were much better so I'm reading another of his now. This is written from two different perspectives both very different. It made me want to shut off my cell phone and sit in a park with a big ole hardback!
]]> <![CDATA[The Russian Debutante's Handbook]]> 210817
TheĚýRussian Debutante's Handbook introduces Vladimir Girshkin, one of the most original and unlikely heroes of recent times. The twenty-five-year-old unhappy lover to a fat dungeon mistress, affectionately nicknamed "Little Failure" by his high-achieving mother, Vladimir toils his days away as a lowly clerk at the bureaucratic Emma Lazarus Immigrant Absorption Society. When a wealthy but psychotic old Russian war hero appears, Vladimir embarks on an adventure of unrelenting lunacy that takes us from New York's Lower East Side to the hip frontier wilderness of Prava--the Eastern European Paris of the nineties. With the help of a murderous but fun-loving Russian mafioso, Vladimir infiltrates the Prava expat community and launches a scheme as ridiculous as it is brilliant.

Bursting with wit, humor, and rare insight, The Russian Debutante's Handbook is both a highly imaginative romp and a serious exploration of what it means to be an immigrant in America.]]> 476 Gary Shteyngart 1573229881 Diana 2 3.56 2002 The Russian Debutante's Handbook
author: Gary Shteyngart
name: Diana
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2002
rating: 2
read at: 2011/03/25
date added: 2011/08/05
shelves:
review:
This book blows. Seriously. I was all amped after reading Super Sad True Love Story to read another of his books and was so dissappointed. It was slow, I have no idea why the first half was even included and it was always right on the edge of being good without getting there. I don't think I'll read other of his.
]]> <![CDATA[The Bricklayer (Steve Vail, #1)]]> 6497521
No one but the Bricklayer.

The Bricklayer is the pulse-pounding novel introducing Steve Vail, one of the most charismatic new heroes to come along in thriller fiction in many years. He's an ex–FBI agent who's been fired for insubordination but is lured back to the Bureau to work a case that has become more unsolvable � and more deadly � by the hour.

A woman steps out of the shower in her Los Angeles home and is startled by an intruder sitting calmly in her bedroom holding a gun. But she is frozen with fear by what he has to say about the FBI � and what he says he must do...

A young agent slips into the night water off a rocky beach. He's been instructed to swim to a nearby island to deposit a million dollars demanded by a blackmailer. But his mission is riddled with hazardous tests, as if someone wanted to destroy him rather than collect the money...

Vail has resigned himself to his dismissal and is content with his life as a bricklayer. But the FBI, especially Deputy Assistant Director Kate Bannon, needs help with a shadowy group that has initiated a brilliant extortion plot. The group will keep killing their targets until the agency pays them off, the amount and number of bodies escalating each time the FBI fails. One thing is clear: someone who knows a little too much about the inner workings of the Bureau is very clever � and very angry � and will kill and kill again if it means he can disgrace the FBI.

Steve Vail's options � and his time to find answers � are swiftly running out.

Noah Boyd's The Bricklayer is written with the bracing authenticity only someone who has been a crack FBI investigator can provide. And in this masterful debut Noah Boyd has created a mind-bending maze of clues and traps inside a nonstop thrill ride that is sure to leave readers exhilarated and enthralled.]]> 390 Noah Boyd 0061827010 Diana 4 3.86 2010 The Bricklayer (Steve Vail, #1)
author: Noah Boyd
name: Diana
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2011/04/16
date added: 2011/08/05
shelves:
review:
Easy read. Good summer time, you don't have to think much about it reading. The plot moved along quickly and kept you guessing until the end. I would definitely read more of his stuff, even though I might hide the cover. Oh and there is romance. Can't beat that!
]]> Agent X (Steve Vail, #2) 7956567 391 Noah Boyd 0061826987 Diana 3 3.84 2011 Agent X (Steve Vail, #2)
author: Noah Boyd
name: Diana
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2011/04/28
date added: 2011/08/05
shelves:
review:

]]> The Color Purple 11486
Then her husband's lover, a flamboyant blues singer, barreled into her world and gave Celie the courage to ask for more - to laugh, to play, and finally - to love.]]> 295 Alice Walker Diana 4 4.22 1982 The Color Purple
author: Alice Walker
name: Diana
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2011/05/06
date added: 2011/08/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time]]> 49436 349 Greg Mortenson 0143038257 Diana 3 3.66 2006 Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time
author: Greg Mortenson
name: Diana
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2011/05/16
date added: 2011/08/05
shelves:
review:
I liked this book! Call me an ignorant American but I had a tough time keeping a lot of the names and places straight. In hindsight should have kept a bookmark cheat sheet for myself. Very inspirational story though! I teared up SEVERAL times!
]]> The Corrections 3805 After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. The oldest, Gary, a once-stable portfolio manager and family man, is trying to convince his wife and himself, despite clear signs to the contrary, that he is not clinically depressed. The middle child, Chip, has lost his seemingly secure academic job and is failing spectacularly at his new line of work. And Denise, the youngest, has escaped a disastrous marriage only to pour her youth and beauty down the drain of an affair with a married man - or so her mother fears. Desperate for some pleasure to look forward to, Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home.
Stretching from the Midwest at midcentury to the Wall Street and Eastern Europe of today, "The Corrections" brings an old-fashioned world of civic virtue and sexual inhibitions into violent collision with the era of home surveillance, hands-off parenting, do-it-yourself mental healthcare, and globalised greed. Richly realistic, darkly hilarious, deeply humane, it confirms Jonathan Franzen as one of our most brilliant interpreters of American society and the American soul.]]> 653 Jonathan Franzen 1841156736 Diana 2 3.83 2001 The Corrections
author: Jonathan Franzen
name: Diana
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2001
rating: 2
read at: 2011/05/27
date added: 2011/08/05
shelves:
review:
This book was so hard to get through. I didn't identify with any of the characters and I kinda hated them all, but not in a loveable villain way. Oprah had it wrong, not the best book.
]]> Bossypants 9418327
She has seen both these dreams come true.

At last, Tina Fey's story can be told. From her youthful days as a vicious nerd to her tour of duty on Saturday Night Live; from her passionately halfhearted pursuit of physical beauty to her life as a mother eating things off the floor; from her one-sided college romance to her nearly fatal honeymoon—from the beginning of this paragraph to this final sentence.

Tina Fey reveals all, and proves what we've all suspected: you're no one until someone calls you bossy.]]> 283 Tina Fey Diana 5 3.97 2011 Bossypants
author: Tina Fey
name: Diana
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2011/06/20
date added: 2011/08/05
shelves:
review:
I laughed out loud so many times! Tiny Fey is freaking hilarious and I loved this book. From the dust jacket to the last page, it was humor laced with her opinions and stories about her life. I read it in one sitting and was frankly a little pissed when I was done. These are the kind of books you wish were 800 pagse! Highly recommend it!
]]> Room 7937843
Told in the inventive, funny, and poignant voice of Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience—and a powerful story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible.

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough ... not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.]]> 321 Emma Donoghue Diana 3 4.04 2010 Room
author: Emma Donoghue
name: Diana
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2011/06/20
date added: 2011/08/05
shelves:
review:
I like this book. I like the point of view it was written from. However, it was two books! The first half could have been fleshed out a bit, add a bit more drama, and the same with the second half. It was two different stories which was fairly odd I thought. Worth the read for sure, but not what I expected at all.
]]> Bright Lights, Big Ass 26023
Jen Lancaster hates to burst your happy little bubble, but life in the big city isn't all it's cracked up to be. Contrary to what you see on TV and in the movies, most urbanites aren't party-hopping in slinky dresses and strappy stilettos. But lucky for us, Lancaster knows how to make the life of the lower crust mercilessly funny and infinitely entertaining.

Whether she's reporting rude neighbors to Homeland Security, harboring a crush on her grocery store clerk, or fighting-and losing-the Battle of the Stairmaster- Lancaster explores how silly, strange, and not-so-fabulous real city living can be. And if anyone doesn't like it, they can kiss her big, fat, pink, puffy down parka.]]> 380 Jen Lancaster 0451221257 Diana 4 4.03 2007 Bright Lights, Big Ass
author: Jen Lancaster
name: Diana
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2011/07/04
date added: 2011/08/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea]]> 40173
In this hilarious, deliciously skewed collection, Chelsea mines her past for stories about her family, relationships, and career that are at once singular and ridiculous. Whether she's convincing her third-grade class that she has been tapped to play Goldie Hawn's daughter in the sequel to Private Benjamin, deciding to be more egalitarian by dating a redhead, or looking out for a foulmouthed, rum-swilling little person who looks just like her... only smaller, Chelsea has a knack for getting herself into the most outrageous situations.

Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea showcases the candor and irresistible turns of phrase that have made her one of the freshest voices in comedy today.]]> 264 Chelsea Handler 0061173398 Diana 4 3.85 2008 Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea
author: Chelsea Handler
name: Diana
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2011/07/17
date added: 2011/08/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest to Discover If Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, or Why Pie Is Not the Answer]]> 2202049 400 Jen Lancaster 0451223896 Diana 4 4.04 2008 Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest to Discover If Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, or Why Pie Is Not the Answer
author: Jen Lancaster
name: Diana
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2011/07/26
date added: 2011/08/05
shelves:
review:

]]> Pretty in Plaid 5093760
In Pretty in Plaid, Jen Lancaster reveals how she developed the hubris that perpetually gets her into trouble. Using fashion icons of her youth to tell her hilarious and insightful stories, readers will meet the girl she used to be.

Think Jen Lancaster was always "like David Sedaris with pearls and a super-cute handbag?" (Jennifer Coburn) Think again. She was a badge-hungry Junior Girl Scout with a knack for extortion, an aspiring sorority girl who didn't know her Coach from her Louis Vuitton, and a budding executive who found herself bewildered by her first encounter with a fax machine. In this humorous and touching memoir, Jen Lancaster looks back on her life-and wardrobe-before bitter was the new black and shows us a young woman not so very different than the rest of us.

The author who showed us what it was like to wait in line at the unemployment office with a Prada bag, how living in the city can actually suck, and that losing weight can be fun with a trainer named Barbie and enough Ambien is ready to take you on a hilarious and heartwarming trip down memory lane in her shoes (and very pretty ones at that).]]> 365 Jen Lancaster 0451226801 Diana 3 3.89 2009 Pretty in Plaid
author: Jen Lancaster
name: Diana
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2011/08/02
date added: 2011/08/05
shelves:
review:
Not my fave of her books, but still wildly hilarious. Love Jen's books!
]]> <![CDATA[fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science]]> 10625275 Ěý
fathermothergod is Lucia Greenhouse's story about growing up in Christian Science, in a house where you could not be sick, because you were perfect; where no medicine, even aspirin, was allowed. In 1985, when Lucia and her siblings discovered that their mother was sick, they came face-to-face with the reality that they had few--if any--options to save her.

Lucia pulls back the curtain on the Christian Science faith and chronicles its complicated legacy for her family.Ěý]]> 302 Lucia Greenhouse 0307720926 Diana 0 to-read 3.85 2011 fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science
author: Lucia Greenhouse
name: Diana
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/07/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Unwasted: My Lush Sobriety 11104065
When Sacha Z. Scoblic was drinking, she was a rock star; the days were rough and the nights filled with laughter and blackouts. Then she gave it up. She had to. Here are her adventures in an utterly and maddeningly sober world. . .and how she discovered that nothing is as odd and fantastic as life without a drink in hand. . .

"Wildly entertaining. . .An unabashed account of getting clean and getting a life." --Steve Geng

Sacha Z. Scoblic is a writer living in Washington, D.C. A former editor at The New Republic and Reader's Digest, she has written about everything from space camp to pulp fiction and was a contributor to The New York Times's online series " Alcohol and American Life." She currently blogs about addiction at TheFasterTimes.com. Her sobriety date is June 15, 2005.]]> 272 Sacha Z. Scoblic 080653429X Diana 0 to-read 3.68 2011 Unwasted: My Lush Sobriety
author: Sacha Z. Scoblic
name: Diana
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/07/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 2 Days 12 Condoms 10861343 62 Joshua Wisenbaker 1439263752 Diana 0 to-read 3.64 2009 2 Days 12 Condoms
author: Joshua Wisenbaker
name: Diana
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/07/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Castles 11724394 188 Benjamin X. Wretlind 1461164591 Diana 0 to-read 3.48 2011 Castles
author: Benjamin X. Wretlind
name: Diana
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/07/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Daughters of Iraq 11414913 288 Revital Shiri-Horowitz 0615460798 Diana 0 to-read 3.62 2011 Daughters of Iraq
author: Revital Shiri-Horowitz
name: Diana
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/07/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bitter Is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office]]> 27126 The Classical Origins of Western Culture: a story in which "the central character, called a tragic protagonist or hero, suffers some serious misfortune which is not accidental and therefore meaningless, but is significant in that the misfortune is logically connected."

In other words? The bitch had it coming.]]> 400 Jen Lancaster 0451217608 Diana 4 3.88 2006 Bitter Is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office
author: Jen Lancaster
name: Diana
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2011/07/20
date added: 2011/07/20
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]]> The Tudor Throne 9376112 In the wake of King Henry VIII's death, England's throne is left in a precarious state—as is the peculiar relationship between his two daughters. Mary, the elder, once treasured, had been declared a bastard in favor of her flame-haired half-sister, Elizabeth, born of the doomed Anne Boleyn. Yet the bond between the sisters was palpable from the start. Now reinstated, Mary eventually assumes her place as queen. But as Mary's religious zeal evolves into a reign of terror, young Elizabeth gains the people's favor. Gripped by a tormenting paranoia, Mary is soon convinced that her beloved Elizabeth is in fact her worst enemy. And the virginal Elizabeth, whose true love is her country, must defy her tyrannical sister to make way for a new era. . .

A brilliant portrait of the rule of "Bloody Mary" and her intricate relationship with Elizabeth I, the adored "Virgin Queen," here is a riveting tale of one family's sordid and extraordinary chapter in the pages of history.

]]> 376 Brandy Purdy 0758255748 Diana 0 to-read 3.74 2011 The Tudor Throne
author: Brandy Purdy
name: Diana
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/07/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Louise's War (Louise Pearlie, #1)]]> 10962267 208 Sarah R. Shaber 0727880403 Diana 0 to-read 3.63 2011 Louise's War (Louise Pearlie, #1)
author: Sarah R. Shaber
name: Diana
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/07/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Snitch, Houdini and Me: Humorous Tales of Death-defying Childhood Misadventure]]> 9870994 250 Johnny Virgil 0615386938 Diana 0 to-read 4.02 2010 The Snitch, Houdini and Me: Humorous Tales of Death-defying Childhood Misadventure
author: Johnny Virgil
name: Diana
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/07/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Pioneer Cookbook: Recipes for Today's Kitchen]]> 11525109 184 Miriam Barton 1599921421 Diana 0 to-read 4.14 2011 The Pioneer Cookbook: Recipes for Today's Kitchen
author: Miriam Barton
name: Diana
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/07/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Heart Stealer 11198365 278 Tiphanie Thomas 1461036003 Diana 0 to-read 3.86 2011 Heart Stealer
author: Tiphanie Thomas
name: Diana
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/07/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Just a Nice Guy 11671087 362 Phil Torcivia 145649905X Diana 0 to-read 3.83 2011 Just a Nice Guy
author: Phil Torcivia
name: Diana
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/06/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[I Almost Divorced My Husband, But I Went On Strike Instead]]> 10780329 176 Sherri Mills 1599555174 Diana 0 to-read 3.61 2011 I Almost Divorced My Husband, But I Went On Strike Instead
author: Sherri Mills
name: Diana
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/06/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl: Observations on Life from the Shallow End of the Pool]]> 10366172
In her newest wickedly irreverent humor collection, Celia Rivenbark cracks up while getting her downward facing dog on, pines for a world in which every mom gets to behave like Betty Draper and wonders why everybody's so excited about the Science Fair when there aren't even any rides. In it you'll find essays on such topics
- Menopause Spurs Thoughts of Death and Turkey
- I Dreamed a Dream That My Lashes Were Long
- Twitter I've Got Plenty of Characters, Just No Character
- Movie To-Do Cook Like Julia, Adopt Really Big Kid
- Charlie Bit Your Finger? Good!
- And other thoughts on the virus that is YouTube
- And much more!

And much more! For any woman who longs for the good old days when Jane Fonda in legwarmers was the only one who saw you exercise, YOU DON'T SWEAT MUCH FOR A FAT GIRL is comfort food in book form.]]> 256 Celia Rivenbark 0312614209 Diana 0 to-read 3.65 2011 You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl: Observations on Life from the Shallow End of the Pool
author: Celia Rivenbark
name: Diana
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/06/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Norah: The Making of an Irish-American Woman in 19th-Century New York]]> 10555016 Norah is the story of a woman who confronts prejudice, violence, and greed in a city that mystifies and helps to mold her into becoming an Irish-American woman.]]> 330 Cynthia G. Neale Diana 0 to-read 3.97 2011 Norah: The Making of an Irish-American Woman in 19th-Century New York
author: Cynthia G. Neale
name: Diana
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/05/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Conversations and Cosmopolitans: Awkward Moments, Mixed Drinks, and How a Mother and Son Finally Shared Who They Really Are]]> 11145227
After moving from the Midwest to New York City at the age of twenty-one, Robert Rave finally found the resolve to mail a letter to his parents informing them that he was gay. Once Robert was "out," both he and his mother Jane felt a newfound freedom to be more honest with each other. From the discrimination Jane experienced as a pregnant teenager in a small town, to Robert's "manscaping," almost no topic was off-limits in their conversations. Soon, Robert was creating a "gay glossary" so that Jane could understand the lexicon and Jane was giving Robert the same dating advice that she used to give Robert's older sister ("men are jerks").

CONVERSATIONS AND COSMOPOLITANS is a frank, funny, and heartfelt look at coming out from both a mother's and son's perspective, and an inspiring memoir about building family relationships based on honesty, openness, and acceptance.]]> 304 Robert Rave 0312554230 Diana 0 to-read 3.49 2006 Conversations and Cosmopolitans: Awkward Moments, Mixed Drinks, and How a Mother and Son Finally Shared Who They Really Are
author: Robert Rave
name: Diana
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/05/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> In Stitches 8992204
Dr. Tony Youn grew up one of two Asian-American kids in a small town where diversity was uncommon. Too tall and too thin, he wore thick Coke-bottle glasses, braces, Hannibal Lecter headgear, and had a protruding jaw that one day began to grow, expanding to an unthinkable, monstrous size. After high school graduation, while other seniors partied at the beach or explored Europe, Youn lay strapped in an oral surgeon’s chair where he underwent a life-changing jaw reconstruction. Ironically, it was this brutal makeover that led him to his life’s calling, and he continued on to endure the four horrific, hilarious, sex-starved, and tension-filled years that eventually earned him an M.D. Offering a window into a side of medicine that most people never see, Youn shares his bumpy journey from a shy, skinny, awkward nerd into a renowned and successful plastic surgeon.

Now, Youn is the media’s go-to plastic surgeon. He appears regularly on The Rachael Ray Show, and his blog, Celebrity Cosmetic Surgery, is widely read and the most popular blog by a plastic surgeon in the country. But it was a long road to success, and In Stitches recounts Dr. Youn’s misfit adolescence and his four tumultuous years in medical school with striking wit, heart, and humility.

For anyone who has ever experienced the awkward teenage years, who has struggled to find his or her way in college, who has been worried that their “calling� would never come, who wants to believe that their doctor really cares, or is just ready for a read that will make you laugh and cry at the same time, this book is for you.]]> 271 Anthony Youn 1451608446 Diana 0 to-read 3.79 2011 In Stitches
author: Anthony Youn
name: Diana
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/05/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Love.com 11290473 296 R.W. Bennett 1461080665 Diana 0 to-read 3.89 2011 Love.com
author: R.W. Bennett
name: Diana
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/05/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[To Be Queen: A Novel of the Early Life of Eleanor of Aquitaine (An Eleanor of Aquitaine Novel)]]> 8499733 Chosen as one of the Top 10 Historical Fiction Novels of 2011 by the Pittsburgh Historical Fiction Examiner
The author of The Queen's Pawn delves into the early life of the legendary Eleanor of Aquitaine in her new historical novel.

After her father's sudden death, fifteen-year-old Eleanor is quickly crowned Duchess of Aquitaine and betrothed to King Louis VII. When her new husband cannot pronounce her given name, Alienor becomes Eleanor, Queen of France.

Although Louis is enamored of his bride, the newly crowned king is easily manipulated by the church and a God that Eleanor doesn't believe in. Now, if she can find the strength to fight for what she wants, Eleanor may finally find the passion she has longed for, and the means to fulfill her legacy as Queen.]]> 380 Christy English 0451232305 Diana 0 to-read 3.89 2011 To Be Queen: A Novel of the Early Life of Eleanor of Aquitaine (An Eleanor of Aquitaine Novel)
author: Christy English
name: Diana
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/05/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tropic Born War Torn: Untold Tales of WWII in the Philippines]]> 10624240 144 Susan Vance 1592995500 Diana 0 to-read 4.00 2011 Tropic Born War Torn: Untold Tales of WWII in the Philippines
author: Susan Vance
name: Diana
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/05/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Anti-Depressant 11105196
Young, vulnerable and struggling with psychological disorders, five characters share their sometimes brutal narratives in Anti-Depressant. Each holds a piece of the other’s puzzle, but the truth blurs with every interaction, and skewed perspectives cause their worlds to narrow and suffocate. Intersecting narratives capture the thought patterns, stress and emotional hijacking of depression, anxiety and panic attacks.

In the throes of obsession, Shelby lusts after Steph, to the point of losing his grip on reality. A best-selling novelist is crushed by the pressure to write a follow-up book. A young woman struggles with a system that labeled her suicidal. A battered husband finds new love in the worst of places. And an affair that neither party can remember shatters what looked to be a perfect future.

Anti-Depressant is a darkly comic coming-of-age novel for the 21st century, drenched in self-absorption, anxiety, terrible decisions and the blind hope that tomorrow will be better, if only—]]> 396 Clark Kline 0615473962 Diana 0 to-read 3.63 2011 Anti-Depressant
author: Clark Kline
name: Diana
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/05/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Defective 11367389 262 Cindy Vine 1461021561 Diana 0 to-read 3.87 2011 Defective
author: Cindy Vine
name: Diana
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/05/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life]]> 9833965
Like twelve million other Americans, Sandra Beasley suffers from food allergies. Her allergies—severe and lifelong—include dairy, egg, soy, beef, shrimp, pine nuts, cucumbers, cantaloupe, honeydew, mango, macadamias, pistachios, cashews, swordfish, and mustard. Add to that mold, dust, grass and tree pollen, cigarette smoke, dogs, rabbits, horses, and wool, and it’s no wonder Sandra felt she had to live her life as “Allergy Girl.� When butter is deadly and eggs can make your throat swell shut, cupcakes and other treats of childhood are out of the question—and so Sandra’s mother used to warn guests against a toxic, frosting-tinged kiss with “Don’t kill the birthday girl!�

It may seem that such a person is “not really designed to survive,� as one blunt nutritionist declared while visiting Sandra’s fourth-grade class. But Sandra has not only survived, she’s thrived—now an essayist, editor, and award-winning poet, she has learned to navigate a world in which danger can lurk in an unassuming corn chip. Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl is her story.

With candor, wit, and a journalist’s curiosity, Sandra draws on her own experiences while covering the scientific, cultural, and sociological terrain of allergies. She explains exactly what an allergy is, describes surviving a family reunion in heart-of-Texas beef country with her vegetarian sister, delves into how being allergic has affected her romantic relationships, exposes the dark side of Benadryl, explains how parents can work with schools to protect their allergic children, and details how people with allergies should advocate for themselves in a restaurant.

A compelling mix of memoir, cultural history, and science, Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl is mandatory reading for the millions of families navigating the world of allergies—and a not-to-be-missed literary treat for the rest of us.]]> 229 Sandra Beasley 0307588114 Diana 0 to-read 3.60 2011 Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life
author: Sandra Beasley
name: Diana
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/05/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>