en-US Sun, 02 Mar 2025 00:19:04 -0800 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 22609310
For once, Auburn takes a chance and puts her heart in control, only to discover that Owen is hiding a huge secret. The magnitude of his past threatens to destroy everything Auburn loves most, and the only way to get her life back on track is to cut Owen out of it—but can she do it?]]> 306 Colleen Hoover 1476791457 Ana 0 to-read 4.14 2015
author: Colleen Hoover
name: Ana
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 22103881 The One Minute Manager® has helped millions achieve more successful professional and personal lives. While the principles it lays out are timeless, our world has changed drastically since the book’s publication. The exponential rise of technology, global flattening of markets, instant communication, and pressures on corporate workforces to do more with less—including resources, funding, and staff—have all revolutionized the world in which we live and work.

Now, Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson have written The New One Minute Manager to introduce the book’s powerful, important lessons to a new generation. In their concise, easy-to-read story, they teach readers three very practical secrets about leading others—and explain why these techniques continue to work so well.

As compelling today as the original was thirty years ago, this classic parable of a young man looking for an effective manager is more relevant and useful than ever.]]> 112 Kenneth H. Blanchard 0062367544 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.76 1981
author: Kenneth H. Blanchard
name: Ana
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 43347544 512 Gabriel García Márquez 9588894174 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.24 2007
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Ana
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/16
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 35967101 A brilliantly original high concept murder mystery from a fantastic new talent: Gosford Park meets Inception, by way of Agatha Christie and Black Mirror.

'Somebody's going to be murdered at the ball tonight. It won't appear to be a murder and so the murderer won't be caught. Rectify that injustice and I'll show you the way out.'

It is meant to be a celebration but it ends in tragedy. As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed.

But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden � one of the guests summoned to Blackheath for the party � can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with the fateful pistol shot.

The only way to break this cycle is to identify the killer. But each time the day begins again, Aiden wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is determined to prevent him ever escaping Blackheath...

Also titled as The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.]]> 505 Stuart Turton Ana 0 to-read 3.87 2018
author: Stuart Turton
name: Ana
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 5978529 120 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 8483168545 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.41 1943
author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
name: Ana
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1943
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/14
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 51173803 192 Barbara Minto 9353943639 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.90 1987
author: Barbara Minto
name: Ana
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/23
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 25242224 The Guardian about the Neapolitan novels in 2014. Against the backdrop of a Naples that is as seductive as it is perilous and a world undergoing epochal change, Elena Ferrante tells the story of a lifelong friendship between two women with unmatched honesty and brilliance.

The Story of the Lost Child is the concluding volume in the dazzling saga of two women � the brilliant, bookish Elena, and the fiery, uncontainable Lila. Both are now adults, with husbands, lovers, aging parents, and children. Their friendship has been the gravitational center of their lives. Both women fought to escape the neighborhood in which they grew up � a prison of conformity, violence, and inviolable taboos. Elena married, moved to Florence, started a family, and published several well-received books. In this final novel she has returned to Naples, drawn back as if responding to the city's obscure magnetism. Lila, on the other hand, could never free herself from the city of her birth. She has become a successful entrepreneur, but her success draws her into closer proximity with the nepotism, chauvinism, and criminal violence that infect the neighborhood. Proximity to the world she has always rejected only brings her role as its unacknowledged leader into relief. For Lila is unstoppable, unmanageable, unforgettable.

The four volumes in this series constitute a long remarkable story that readers will return to again and again, and each return will bring with it new revelations.]]> 473 Elena Ferrante 1609452860 Ana 0 4.47 2014
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Ana
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/18
date added: 2022/02/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 23156040 418 Elena Ferrante Ana 0 4.38 2013
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Ana
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/07
date added: 2022/02/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 18143977
In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.

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

An alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here]]> 544 Anthony Doerr 1476746583 Ana 0 books-i-own 4.31 2014
author: Anthony Doerr
name: Ana
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2018/03/12
date added: 2022/02/01
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 48616787 336 Elena Ferrante 1609455916 Ana 0 to-read 3.67 2019
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Ana
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 17465515 My Brilliant Friend introduced readers to the unforgettable Elena and Lila, whose lifelong friendship provides the backbone for the Neapolitan Novels. The Story of a New Name is the second book in this series. With these books, which the New Yorker's James Wood described as "large, captivating, amiably peopled ... a beautiful and delicate tale of confluence and reversal," Ferrante proves herself to be one of Italy's most accomplished storytellers. She writes vividly about a specific neighborhood of Naples from the late-1950s through to the current day and about two remarkable young women who are very much the products of that place and time. Yet in doing so she has created a world in which readers will recognize themselves and has drawn a marvelously nuanced portrait of friendship.

In The Story of a New Name, Lila has recently married and made her entrée into the family business; Elena, meanwhile, continues her studies and her exploration of the world beyond the neighborhood that she so often finds stifling. Love, jealousy, family, freedom, commitment, and above all friendship: these are signs under which both women live out this phase in their stories. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila, and the pressure to excel is at times too much for Elena. Yet the two young women share a complex and evolving bond that is central to their emotional lives and is a source of strength in the face of life's challenges. In these Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante, the acclaimed author of The Days of Abandonment, gives readers a poignant and universal story about friendship and belonging.]]> 471 Elena Ferrante Ana 0 4.47 2012
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Ana
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/01
date added: 2022/02/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 35036409 My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante’s inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighbourhood, a city and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her two protagonists.]]> 331 Elena Ferrante Ana 0 books-i-own 4.08 2011
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Ana
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/01
date added: 2022/02/01
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 50042494
A new relationship couldn't have come at a better time - her thirties have not been the liberating, uncomplicated experience she was sold. Everywhere she turns, she is reminded of time passing and opportunities dwindling. Friendships are fading, ex-boyfriends are moving on and, worse, everyone's moving to the suburbs. There's no solace to be found in her family, with a mum who's caught in a baffling mid-life makeover and a beloved dad who is vanishing in slow-motion into dementia.

Dolly Alderton's debut novel is funny and tender, filled with whip-smart observations about relationships, family, memory, and how we live now.]]> 352 Dolly Alderton 0241434548 Ana 0 3.86 2020
author: Dolly Alderton
name: Ana
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/01
date added: 2022/02/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 56213354
Look what you started.]]> 307 Paula Hawkins 073521123X Ana 0 to-read 3.45 2021
author: Paula Hawkins
name: Ana
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 6493208
Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored� ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia � a land of wooden quarters for enslaved people, faith healings, and voodoo � to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.

Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality� until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family � past and present � is inextricably connected to the history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family—especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah, who was devastated to learn about her mother’s cells. She was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Did it hurt her when researchers infected her cells with viruses and shot them into space? What happened to her sister, Elsie, who died in a mental institution at the age of fifteen? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance?

Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.]]> 370 Rebecca Skloot 1400052173 Ana 0 4.12 2010
author: Rebecca Skloot
name: Ana
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2021/09/17
date added: 2021/09/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 43890641 Hamnet is a luminous portrait of a marriage, at its heart the loss of a beloved child.

Warwickshire in the 1580s. Agnes is a woman as feared as she is sought after for her unusual gifts. She settles with her husband in Henley street, Stratford, and has three children: a daughter, Susanna, and then twins, Hamnet and Judith. The boy, Hamnet, dies in 1596, aged eleven. Four years or so later, the husband writes a play called Hamlet.

Award-winning author Maggie O'Farrell's new novel breathes full-blooded life into the story of a loss usually consigned to literary footnotes, and provides an unforgettable vindication of Agnes, a woman intriguingly absent from history.

A New York Times Notable Book (2020), Best Book of 2020: Guardian, Financial Times, Literary Hub, and NPR.]]> 372 Maggie O'Farrell 1472223799 Ana 5 4.16 2020
author: Maggie O'Farrell
name: Ana
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2021/09/09
date added: 2021/09/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 51475209 Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper, disappointed in love and � on the brink of forty � living a limited existence with her truculent mother: a small life from which there is no likelihood of escape.

When a young Swiss woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud. But the more Jean investigates, the more her life becomes strangely (and not unpleasantly) intertwined with that of the Tilburys: Gretchen is now a friend, and her quirky and charming daughter Margaret a sort of surrogate child. And Jean doesn't mean to fall in love with Gretchen's husband, Howard, but Howard surprises her with his dry wit, his intelligence and his kindness � and when she does fall, she falls hard.

But he is married, and to her friend � who is also the subject of the story she is researching for the newspaper, a story that increasingly seems to be causing dark ripples across all their lives. And yet Jean cannot bring herself to discard the chance of finally having a taste of happiness...

But there will be a price to pay, and it will be unbearable.]]> 352 Clare Chambers 1474613888 Ana 0 3.69 2021
author: Clare Chambers
name: Ana
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/09/06
date added: 2021/09/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 52741293 Shuggie Bain is the unforgettable story of young Hugh "Shuggie" Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher's policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city's notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings.

Shuggie's mother Agnes walks a wayward path: she is Shuggie's guiding light but a burden for him and his siblings. She dreams of a house with its own front door while she flicks through the pages of the Freemans catalogue, ordering a little happiness on credit, anything to brighten up her grey life. Married to a philandering taxi-driver husband, Agnes keeps her pride by looking good--her beehive, make-up, and pearly-white false teeth offer a glamourous image of a Glaswegian Elizabeth Taylor. But under the surface, Agnes finds increasing solace in drink, and she drains away the lion's share of each week's benefits--all the family has to live on--on cans of extra-strong lager hidden in handbags and poured into tea mugs.

Agnes's older children find their own ways to get a safe distance from their mother, abandoning Shuggie to care for her as she swings between alcoholic binges and sobriety. Shuggie is meanwhile struggling to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but everyone has realized that he is "no right," a boy with a secret that all but him can see. Agnes is supportive of her son, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her--even her beloved Shuggie.

A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a working-class family that is rarely seen in fiction. Recalling the work of Edouard Louis, Alan Hollinghurst, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, it is a blistering debut by a brilliant novelist who has a powerful and important story to tell.]]> 430 Douglas Stuart 0802148042 Ana 0 books-i-own 4.29 2020
author: Douglas Stuart
name: Ana
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/09/02
date added: 2021/09/02
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 46000520
But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?

Alternate cover edition can be found here .]]> 382 Richard Osman Ana 0 3.87 2020
author: Richard Osman
name: Ana
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/08/14
date added: 2021/08/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 51791252
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.]]> 343 Brit Bennett 0525536299 Ana 0 4.12 2020
author: Brit Bennett
name: Ana
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/08/10
date added: 2021/08/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 55361205
In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency—a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.

Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nation’s highest office.

Reflecting on the presidency, he offers a unique and thoughtful exploration of both the awesome reach and the limits of presidential power, as well as singular insights into the dynamics of U.S. partisan politics and international diplomacy. Obama brings readers inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room, and to Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, and points beyond. We are privy to his thoughts as he assembles his cabinet, wrestles with a global financial crisis, takes the measure of Vladimir Putin, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, clashes with generals about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, tackles Wall Street reform, responds to the devastating Deepwater Horizon blowout, and authorizes Operation Neptune’s Spear, which leads to the death of Osama bin Laden.

A Promised Land is extraordinarily intimate and introspective—the story of one man’s bet with history, the faith of a community organizer tested on the world stage. Obama is candid about the balancing act of running for office as a Black American, bearing the expectations of a generation buoyed by messages of “hope and change,� and meeting the moral challenges of high-stakes decision-making. He is frank about the forces that opposed him at home and abroad, open about how living in the White House affected his wife and daughters, and unafraid to reveal self-doubt and disappointment. Yet he never wavers from his belief that inside the great, ongoing American experiment, progress is always possible.

This beautifully written and powerful book captures Barack Obama’s conviction that democracy is not a gift from on high but something founded on empathy and common understanding and built together, day by day.]]> 768 Barack Obama 1524763187 Ana 0 books-i-own 4.32 2020
author: Barack Obama
name: Ana
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/08/05
date added: 2021/08/05
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 51152447 The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.

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

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

Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.]]> 544 Isabel Wilkerson 0593230256 Ana 5 books-i-own 4.52 2020
author: Isabel Wilkerson
name: Ana
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2021/07/30
date added: 2021/07/30
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 92371 332 Ken Follett 0451210468 Ana 0 3.83 1985
author: Ken Follett
name: Ana
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at: 2021/07/23
date added: 2021/07/23
shelves:
review:

]]> 5053 the man from St. Petersburg...

The Man From St Petersburg is a dark tale of family secrets and political consequences. Ken Follett's masterful storytelling brings to life the danger of a world on the brink of war. A Secret Negotiation 1914. Tensions are rising as Europe finds itself caught in a web of alliances and dangerous warmongering. To help tip the balance in their favour, Britain aims to draw Russia into an alliance with them instead of Germany. Czar Nicholas’s nephew, Prince Aleksei, is sent to London for secret naval talks with Lord Walden. A Play for Power Walden has a personal connection to Aleksei; his wife is Aleksei’s aunt. And they are not the only ones interested in the Russian's arrival; so too are Walden’s willful, idealistic daughter, the head of Special Branch, and a ruthless Russian anarchist. A World at War With the British desperately needing a signed treaty and the fate of the world hanging in the balance, the destinies of these individuals become inextricably linked, as tragedy threatens to shatter the Waldens� complacency . . .]]> 320 Ken Follett 0451208706 Ana 0 3.88 1982
author: Ken Follett
name: Ana
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at: 2021/07/23
date added: 2021/07/23
shelves:
review:

]]> 23885 170 Gabriel García Márquez 0060751576 Ana 0 3.88 1961
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Ana
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1961
rating: 0
read at: 2021/07/22
date added: 2021/07/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 38140077
When his master's eccentric brother chooses him to be his manservant, Wash is terrified of the cruelties he is certain await him. But Christopher Wilde, or "Titch," is a naturalist, explorer, scientist, inventor, and abolitionist.

He initiates Wash into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky; where two people, separated by an impossible divide, might begin to see each other as human; and where a boy born in chains can embrace a life of dignity and meaning. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash's head, Titch abandons everything to save him.

What follows is their flight along the eastern coast of America, and, finally, to a remote outpost in the Arctic, where Wash, left on his own, must invent another new life, one which will propel him further across the globe.

From the sultry cane fields of the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, Washington Black tells a story of friendship and betrayal, love and redemption, of a world destroyed and made whole again--and asks the question, what is true freedom?]]> 334 Esi Edugyan 0525521429 Ana 5 3.93 2018
author: Esi Edugyan
name: Ana
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2021/07/22
date added: 2021/07/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 42872088
In her memoir, Power offers an urgent response to the question "What can one person do?"—and a call for a clearer eye, a kinder heart, and a more open and civil hand in our politics and daily lives. The Education of an Idealist traces Power’s distinctly American journey from immigrant to war correspondent to presidential Cabinet official. In 2005, her critiques of US foreign policy caught the eye of newly elected senator Barack Obama, who invited her to work with him on Capitol Hill and then on his presidential campaign. After Obama was elected president, Power went from being an activist outsider to a government insider, navigating the halls of power while trying to put her ideals into practice. She served for four years as Obama’s human rights adviser, and in 2013, he named her US Ambassador to the United Nations, the youngest American to assume the role.

A Pulitzer Prize–winning writer, Power transports us from her childhood in Dublin to the streets of war-torn Bosnia to the White House Situation Room and the world of high-stakes diplomacy. The Education of an Idealist lays bare the battles and defining moments of her life and shows how she juggled the demands of a 24/7 national security job with the challenge of raising two young children. Along the way, she illuminates the intricacies of politics and geopolitics, reminding us how the United States can lead in the world, and why we each have the opportunity to advance the cause of human dignity.]]> 592 Samantha Power 0062820710 Ana 5 4.34 2019
author: Samantha Power
name: Ana
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/07/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 10644930
In 2011, Jake Epping, an English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, sets out on an insane � and insanely possible � mission to prevent the Kennedy assassination.

Leaving behind a world of computers and mobile phones, he goes back to a time of big American cars and diners, of Lindy Hopping, the sound of Elvis, and the taste of root beer.

In this haunting world, Jake falls in love with Sadie, a beautiful high school librarian. And, as the ominous date of 11/22/63 approaches, he encounters a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald...]]> 849 Stephen King 1451627289 Ana 0 books-i-own 4.33 2011
author: Stephen King
name: Ana
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2021/07/22
date added: 2021/07/22
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 54120408
In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?]]> 340 Kazuo Ishiguro 059331817X Ana 0 3.71 2021
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Ana
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/07/22
date added: 2021/07/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 52275335 In this urgent, authoritative book, Bill Gates sets out a wide-ranging, practical - and accessible - plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate catastrophe.

Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science, and finance, he has focused on what must be done in order to stop the planet's slide toward certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only explains why we need to work toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases, but also details what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal.

He gives us a clear-eyed description of the challenges we face. Drawing on his understanding of innovation and what it takes to get new ideas into the market, he describes the areas in which technology is already helping to reduce emissions, where and how the current technology can be made to function more effectively, where breakthrough technologies are needed, and who is working on these essential innovations. Finally, he lays out a concrete, practical plan for achieving the goal of zero emissions-suggesting not only policies that governments should adopt, but what we as individuals can do to keep our government, our employers, and ourselves accountable in this crucial enterprise.

As Bill Gates makes clear, achieving zero emissions will not be simple or easy to do, but if we follow the plan he sets out here, it is a goal firmly within our reach.]]> 272 Bill Gates 0241448301 Ana 0 to-read 4.12 2021
author: Bill Gates
name: Ana
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/03/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 37542581
The man was a spy for MI6. A senior KGB officer, for more than a decade he had supplied his British spymasters with a stream of priceless secrets from deep within the Soviet intelligence machine. No spy had done more to damage the KGB. The Safeway bag was a signal: to activate his escape plan to be smuggled out of Soviet Russia.

So began one of the boldest and most extraordinary episodes in the history of spying. Ben Macintyre reveals a tale of espionage, betrayal and raw courage that changed the course of the Cold War forever...]]> 384 Ben Macintyre 0771060335 Ana 5 books-i-own 4.48 2018
author: Ben Macintyre
name: Ana
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2021/02/09
date added: 2021/02/09
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 12605157 Ěý
“Thoughtful, funny, and compulsively readable, this guide shows how ordinary people can build solid livings, with independence and purpose, on their own terms.”—Gretchen Rubin, author of the #1Ěý New York Times Ěýbestseller ĚýThe Happiness Project
Ěý
Still in his early thirties, Chris Guillebeau completed a tour of every country on earth and yet he’s never held a “real jobâ€� or earned a regular paycheck. Rather, he has a special genius for turning ideas into income, and he uses what he earns both to support his life of adventure and to give back.Ěý
Ěý
Chris identified 1,500 individuals who have built businesses earning $50,000 or more from a modest investment (in many cases, $100 or less), and focused on the 50 most intriguing case studies.ĚýIn nearly all cases, people with no special skills discovered aspects of their personal passions that could be monetized, and were able to restructure their lives in ways that gave them greater freedom and fulfillment.
Ěý
Here, finally, distilled into one easy-to-use guide, are the most valuable lessons from those who’ve learned how to turn what they do into a gateway to self-fulfillment.ĚýIt’s all about finding the intersection between your “expertise”—even if you don’t consider it such—and what other people will pay for.Ěý You don’t need an MBA, a business plan or even employees. All you need is a product or service that springs from what you love to do anyway, people willing to pay, and a way to get paid.
Ěý
Not content to talk in generalities, Chris tells you exactly how many dollars his group of unexpected entrepreneurs required to get their projects up and running; what these individuals did in the first weeks and months to generate significant cash; some of the key mistakes they made along the way, and the crucial insights that made the business stick.ĚýAmong Chris’s key principles: If you’re good at one thing, you’re probably good at something else; never teach a man to fishâ€� sell Ěýhim the fish instead; and in the battle between planning and action, action wins.
Ěý
In ancient times, people who were dissatisfied with their lives dreamed of finding magic lamps, buried treasure, or streets paved with gold.ĚýToday, we know that it’s up to us to change our lives.ĚýAnd the best part is, if we change ourĚý own Ěýlife, we can help others changeĚý theirs. ĚýThis remarkable book will start you on your way.]]> 268 Chris Guillebeau 0307951529 Ana 0 to-read 3.89 2012
author: Chris Guillebeau
name: Ana
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 7507825
Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.� The bathroom provides the occasion for a history of hygiene; the bedroom, sex, death, and sleep; the kitchen, nutrition and the spice trade; and so on, as Bryson shows how each has figured in the evolution of private life. Whatever happens in the world, he demonstrates, ends up in our house, in the paint and the pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture.
(front flap)]]> 497 Bill Bryson 0767919386 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.98 2010
author: Bill Bryson
name: Ana
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/04
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 28259132 Liar’s Poker meets The Social Network in an irreverent exposé of life inside the tech bubble, from industry provocateur Antonio García Martínez, a former Twitter advisor, Facebook product manager and startup founder/CEO.

The reality is, Silicon Valley capitalism is very simple:

Investors are people with more money than time.

Employees are people with more time than money.

Entrepreneurs are the seductive go-between.

Marketing is like sex: only losers pay for it.Ěý

Imagine a chimpanzee rampaging through a datacenter powering everything from Google to Facebook. Infrastructure engineers use a software version of this “chaos monkey� to test online services� robustness—their ability to survive random failure and correct mistakes before they actually occur. Tech entrepreneurs are society’s chaos monkeys, disruptors testing and transforming every aspect of our lives, from transportation (Uber) and lodging (AirBnB) to television (Netflix) and dating (Tinder). One of Silicon Valley’s most audacious chaos monkeys is Antonio García Martínez.

After stints on Wall Street and as CEO of his own startup, García Martínez joined Facebook’s nascent advertising team, turning its users� data into profit for COO Sheryl Sandberg and chairman and CEO Mark “Zuck� Zuckerberg. Forced out in the wake of an internal product war over the future of the company’s monetization strategy, García Martínez eventually landed at rival Twitter. He also fathered two children with a woman he barely knew, committed lewd acts and brewed illegal beer on the Facebook campus (accidentally flooding Zuckerberg's desk), lived on a sailboat, raced sport cars on the 101, and enthusiastically pursued the life of an overpaid Silicon Valley wastrel.

Now, this gleeful contrarian unravels the chaotic evolution of social media and online marketing and reveals how it is invading our lives and shaping our future. Weighing in on everything from startups and credit derivatives to Big Brother and data tracking, social media monetization and digital “privacy,� García Martínez shares his scathing observations and outrageous antics, taking us on a humorous, subversive tour of the fascinatingly insular tech industry. Chaos Monkeys lays bare the hijinks, trade secrets, and power plays of the visionaries, grunts, sociopaths, opportunists, accidental tourists, and money cowboys who are revolutionizing our world. The question is, will we survive?]]> 528 Antonio García Martínez 0062458191 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.66 2016
author: Antonio GarcĂ­a MartĂ­nez
name: Ana
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/04
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 313605 200 Roger Fisher 0140157352 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.95 1981
author: Roger Fisher
name: Ana
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/04
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 23316526 Jeopardy! players. Digital technologies—with hardware, software, and networks at their core—will in the near future diagnose diseases more accurately than doctors can, apply enormous data sets to transform retailing, and accomplish many tasks once considered uniquely human.
In The Second Machine Age MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee—two thinkers at the forefront of their field—reveal the forces driving the reinvention of our lives and our economy. As the full impact of digital technologies is felt, we will realize immense bounty in the form of dazzling personal technology, advanced infrastructure, and near-boundless access to the cultural items that enrich our lives.


Amid this bounty will also be wrenching change. Professions of all kinds—from lawyers to truck drivers—will be forever upended. Companies will be forced to transform or die. Recent economic indicators reflect this shift: fewer people are working, and wages are falling even as productivity and profits soar.


Drawing on years of research and up-to-the-minute trends, Brynjolfsson and McAfee identify the best strategies for survival and offer a new path to prosperity. These include revamping education so that it prepares people for the next economy instead of the last one, designing new collaborations that pair brute processing power with human ingenuity, and embracing policies that make sense in a radically transformed landscape.


A fundamentally optimistic book, The Second Machine Age alters how we think about issues of technological, societal, and economic progress.]]> 336 Erik Brynjolfsson 0393350649 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.87 2014
author: Erik Brynjolfsson
name: Ana
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/04
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 44135420 Effective software teams are essential for any organization to deliver value continuously and sustainably. But how do you build the best team organization for your specific goals, culture, and needs?

Team Topologies is a practical, step-by-step, adaptive model for organizational design and team interaction based on four fundamental team types and three team interaction patterns. It is a model that treats teams as the fundamental means of delivery, where team structures and communication pathways are able to evolve with technological and organizational maturity.

In Team Topologies, IT consultants Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais share secrets of successful team patterns and interactions to help readers choose and evolve the right team patterns for their organization, making sure to keep the software healthy and optimize value streams.

Team Topologies is a major step forward in organizational design for software, presenting a well-defined way for teams to interact and interrelate that helps make the resulting software architecture clearer and more sustainable, turning inter-team problems into valuable signals for the self-steering organization.

]]> 240 Matthew Skelton 1942788827 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.15 2019
author: Matthew Skelton
name: Ana
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/04
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 10127019 Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.

Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.



The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on "validated learning," rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.

Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs - in companies of all sizes - a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it's too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.]]> 299 Eric Ries 0307887898 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.11 2011
author: Eric Ries
name: Ana
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/04
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 48902541 408 Various Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.09
author: Various
name: Ana
average rating: 4.09
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/04
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 30971376 296 Salud Hernández Mora Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.23
author: Salud Hernández Mora
name: Ana
average rating: 3.23
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/04
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 61505 Eine kurze Weltgeschichte fĂĽr junge Leser was published in Vienna to immediate success, and is now available in seventeen languages across the world. Toward the end of his long life, Gombrich embarked upon a revision and, at last, an English translation. A Little History of the World presents his lively and involving history to English-language readers for the first time. Superbly designed and freshly illustrated, this is a book to be savored and collected. In forty concise chapters, Gombrich tells the story of man from the stone age to the atomic bomb. In between emerges a colorful picture of wars and conquests, grand works of art, and the spread and limitations of science. This is a text dominated not by dates and facts, but by the sweep of mankind's experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity's achievements and an acute witness to its frailties. The product of a generous and humane sensibility, this timeless account makes intelligible the full span of human history.]]> 284 E.H. Gombrich 0300108834 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.11 1936
author: E.H. Gombrich
name: Ana
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1936
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/04
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 25152052
Decades later, Alma is nearing the end of her long and eventful life. Irina Bazili, a care worker struggling to come to terms with her own troubled past, meets the elderly woman and her grandson, Seth, at San Francisco's charmingly eccentric Lark House nursing home. As Irina and Seth forge a friendship, they become intrigued by a series of mysterious gifts and letters sent to Alma, eventually learning about Ichimei and this extraordinary secret passion that has endured for nearly seventy years.]]> 322 Isabel Allende 1501116975 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.79 2015
author: Isabel Allende
name: Ana
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/04
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 665369
These are the true-life accounts of nine Jewish boys and girls whose lives spiraled into danger and fear as the Holocaust overtook Europe. In a time of great horror, these children each found a way to make it through the nightmare of war. Some made daring escapes into the unknown, others disguised their true identities, and many witnessed unimaginable horrors. But what they all shared was the unshakable belief in-- and hope for-- survival.
Their legacy of courage in the face of hatred will move you, captivate you, and, ultimately, inspire you.
]]> 208 Allan Zullo 0439669960 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.23 2004
author: Allan Zullo
name: Ana
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/04
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 442239 383 Colin Woodard 0151013020 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.85 2007
author: Colin Woodard
name: Ana
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/04
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 35711517
Now 'the greatest living advocate of the global ecosystem' this is the story of the voyages that started it all. Staying with local tribes while trekking in search of giant anteaters in Guyana, Komodo dragons in Indonesia and armadillos in Paraguay, he and the rest of the team battled with cannibal fish, aggressive tree porcupines and escape-artist wild pigs, as well as treacherous terrain and unpredictable weather, to record the incredible beauty and biodiversity of these regions. The methods may be outdated now, but the fascination and respect for the wildlife, the people and the environment - and the importance of protecting these wild places - is not.

Written with his trademark wit and charm, Adventures of a Young Naturalist is not just the story of a remarkable adventure, but of the man who made us fall in love with the natural world, and who is still doing so today.]]> 398 David Attenborough 1473664403 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.27 2017
author: David Attenborough
name: Ana
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/04
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 53056522 From the author of the New York Times bestseller So You Want to Talk About Race, a history of white male America and a scathing indictment of what it has cost us socially, economically, and politically

After the election of Donald Trump, and the escalation of white male rage and increased hostility toward immigrants that came with him, New York Times-bestselling author Ijeoma Oluo found herself in conversation with Americans around the country, pondering one central question: How did we get here?

In this ambitious survey of the last century of American history, Oluo answers that question by pinpointing white men's deliberate efforts to subvert women, people of color, and the disenfranchised. Through research, interviews, and the powerful, personal writing for which she is celebrated, Oluo investigates the backstory of America's growth, from immigrant migration to our national ethos around ingenuity, from the shaping of economic policy to the protection of sociopolitical movements that fortify male power. In the end, she shows how white men have long maintained a stranglehold on leadership and sorely undermined the pursuit of happiness for all.]]> 278 Ijeoma Oluo 1580059511 Ana 0 to-read 4.40 2020
author: Ijeoma Oluo
name: Ana
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 5907 Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent. The text in this 372-page paperback edition is based on that first published in Great Britain by Collins Modern Classics (1998), and includes a note on the text by Douglas A. Anderson (2001).]]> 366 J.R.R. Tolkien Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.29 1937
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Ana
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1937
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 838729 385 J.R.R. Tolkien 0345240340 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.64 1955
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Ana
average rating: 4.64
book published: 1955
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 222910 Alternate Cover Edition ISBN 0345296060 (ISBN13: 9780345296061)

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

Frodo and his Companions of the Ring have been beset by danger during their quest to prevent the Ruling Ring from falling into the hands of the Dark Lord by destroying it in the Cracks of Doom. They have lost the wizard, Gandalf, in a battle in the Mines of Moria. And Boromir, seduced by the power of the Ring, tried to seize it by force. While Frodo and Sam made their escape, the rest of the company was attacked by Orcs. Now they continue the journey alone down the great River Anduin—alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go.]]> 447 J.R.R. Tolkien Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.57 1954
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Ana
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1954
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 3263607 One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, as told in The Hobbit.

In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.]]> 527 J.R.R. Tolkien Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.51 1954
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Ana
average rating: 4.51
book published: 1954
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 320 417 Gabriel García Márquez Ana 0 books-i-own 4.10 1967
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Ana
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1967
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 43124137 The unforgettable love story of a mother blinded by loss and her husband who insists on their survival as they undertake the Syrian refugee trail to Europe.

Nuri is a beekeeper; his wife, Afra, an artist. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo--until the unthinkable happens. When all they care for is destroyed by war, they are forced to escape. But what Afra has seen is so terrible she has gone blind, and so they must embark on a perilous journey through Turkey and Greece towards an uncertain future in Britain. On the way, Nuri is sustained by the knowledge that waiting for them is Mustafa, his cousin and business partner, who has started an apiary and is teaching fellow refugees in Yorkshire to keep bees.

As Nuri and Afra travel through a broken world, they must confront not only the pain of their own unspeakable loss, but dangers that would overwhelm the bravest of souls. Above all, they must journey to find each other again.

Moving, powerful, compassionate, and beautifully written, The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a testament to the triumph of the human spirit. It is the kind of book that reminds us of the power of storytelling.]]> 317 Christy Lefteri 1984821210 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.14 2019
author: Christy Lefteri
name: Ana
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 41795733
Plenty of experts argue that anyone who wants to develop a skill, play an instrument, or lead their field should start early, focus intensely, and rack up as many hours of deliberate practice as possible. If you dabble or delay, you'll never catch up to the people who got a head start. But a closer look at research on the world's top performers, from professional athletes to Nobel laureates, shows that early specialization is the exception, not the rule.

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

Provocative, rigorous, and engrossing, Range makes a compelling case for actively cultivating inefficiency. Failing a test is the best way to learn. Frequent quitters end up with the most fulfilling careers. The most impactful inventors cross domains rather than deepening their knowledge in a single area. As experts silo themselves further while computers master more of the skills once reserved for highly focused humans, people who think broadly and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives will increasingly thrive.]]> 339 David Epstein 0735214484 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.12 2019
author: David Epstein
name: Ana
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 45033931 The Tattooist of Auschwitz, the author tells the story, based on a true one, of a woman who survives Auschwitz, only to find herself locked away again.

Cilka Klein is 18 years old when Auschwitz-Birkenau is liberated by Soviet soldiers. But Cilka is one of the many women who is sentenced to a labor camp on charges of having helped the Nazis--with no consideration of the circumstances Cilka and women like her found themselves in as they struggled to survive. Once at the Vorkuta gulag in Sibera, where she is to serve her 15-year sentence, Cilka uses her wits, charm, and beauty to survive.]]> 352 Heather Morris 1250265703 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.38 2019
author: Heather Morris
name: Ana
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 1953 A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens’s great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author’s novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores many of his enduring themes—imprisonment, injustice, social anarchy, resurrection, and the renunciation that fosters renewal.]]> 489 Charles Dickens 0141439602 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.86 1859
author: Charles Dickens
name: Ana
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1859
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 4671 The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald’s family and from his lifelong publisher.

This edition is the enduring original text, updated with the author’s own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with a new introduction by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published by Scribner in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.]]> 180 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0743273567 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.93 1925
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Ana
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1925
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 51227088 The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dead Wake and The Devil in the White City delivers a startlingly fresh portrait of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz

On Winston Churchill's first day as prime minister, Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons (30,000 of them Londoners) and destroying two million homes. It was up to Churchill to hold the country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally--that she was willing to fight to the end.

In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people "the art of being fearless." It is a story of political brinksmanship but also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill's prime-ministerial country house, Chequers, and his wartime residence, Ditchley, where Churchill and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest. Drawing on a wealth of untapped sources, including recently declassified files, intelligence reports, and personal diaries only now available, Larson provides a new lens on London's darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their daughters, Sarah, Diana, and the youngest, Mary, who chafes against her parents' wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; her illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the cadre of close advisors who comprised Churchill's "Secret Circle," including his dangerously observant private secretary, John Colville; newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook; and the Rasputin-like Federick Lindemann.

The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today's political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when--in the face of unrelenting horror--Churchill's eloquence, strategic brilliance, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.]]> 585 Erik Larson Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.28 2020
author: Erik Larson
name: Ana
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 26082916 An unexpected quest. Two worlds at stake. Are you ready?

Days after winning Oasis founder James Halliday's contest, Wade Watts makes a discovery that changes everything.

Hidden within Halliday's vaults, waiting for his heir to find, lies a technological advancement that will once again change the world and make the Oasis a thousand times more wondrous—and addictive—than even Wade dreamed possible.

With it comes a new riddle, and a new quest—a last Easter egg from Halliday, hinting at a mysterious prize.

And an unexpected, impossibly powerful, and dangerous new rival awaits, one who'll kill millions to get what he wants.

Wade's life and the future of the Oasis are again at stake, but this time the fate of humanity also hangs in the balance.

Lovingly nostalgic and wildly original as only Ernest Cline could conceive it, Ready Player Two takes us on another imaginative, fun, action-packed adventure through his beloved virtual universe, and jolts us thrillingly into the future once again.]]> 370 Ernest Cline 1524761338 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.39 2020
author: Ernest Cline
name: Ana
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 40722446 384 Brett King 9814771767 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.98
author: Brett King
name: Ana
average rating: 3.98
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 23692271 512 Yuval Noah Harari Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.34 2011
author: Yuval Noah Harari
name: Ana
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 11529868
Considering himself "a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world," Jun Do becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his Korean overlords in order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves, Sun Moon, a legendary actress "so pure, she didn't know what starving people looked like."

Part breathless thriller, part story of innocence lost, part story of romantic love, The Orphan Master's Son is also a riveting portrait of a world heretofore hidden from view: a North Korea rife with hunger, corruption, and casual cruelty but also camaraderie, stolen moments of beauty, and love. A towering literary achievement, The Orphan Master's Son ushers Adam Johnson into the small group of today's greatest writers.

An epic novel and a thrilling literary discovery, The Orphan Master's Son follows a young man's journey through the icy waters, dark tunnels, and eerie spy chambers of the world's most mysterious dictatorship, North Korea.]]> 443 Adam Johnson 0812992792 Ana 0 books-i-own 4.05 2012
author: Adam Johnson
name: Ana
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2020/03/18
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 45165692
Paris, today. The Museum of Broken Promises is a place of wonder and sadness, hope and loss. Every object in the museum has been donated - a cake tin, a wedding veil, a baby's shoe. And each represent a moment of grief or terrible betrayal. The museum is a place where people come to speak to the ghosts of the past and, sometimes, to lay them to rest. Laure, the owner and curator, has also hidden artefacts from her own painful youth amongst the objects on display.

Prague, 1985. Recovering from the sudden death of her father, Laure flees to Prague. But life behind the Iron Curtain is a complex thing: drab and grey yet charged with danger. Laure cannot begin to comprehend the dark, political currents that run beneath the surface of this communist city. Until, that is, she meets a young dissident musician. Her love for him will have terrible and unforeseen consequences. It is only years later, having created the museum, that Laure can make finally face up to her past and celebrate the passionate love which has directed her life.]]> 416 Elizabeth Buchan 1786495287 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.53 2019
author: Elizabeth Buchan
name: Ana
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 35003282 An Orchestra of Minorities is narrated by the chi, or spirit of a young poultry farmer named Chinonso. His life is set off course when he sees a woman who is about to jump off a bridge. Horrified by her recklessness, he hurls two of his prized chickens off the bridge. The woman, Ndali, is stopped in her tracks.

Chinonso and Ndali fall in love but she is from an educated and wealthy family. When her family objects to the union on the grounds that he is not her social equal, he sells most of his possessions to attend college in Cyprus. But when he arrives in Cyprus, he discovers that he has been utterly duped by the young Nigerian who has made the arrangements for him. Penniless, homeless, we watch as he gets further and further away from his dream and from home.]]> 448 Chigozie Obioma 0316412392 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.68 2019
author: Chigozie Obioma
name: Ana
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 43726511 Ethiopia. 1935.

With the threat of Mussolini's army looming, recently orphaned Hirut struggles to adapt to her new life as a maid. Her new employer, Kidane, an officer in Emperor Haile Selassie's army, rushes to mobilize his strongest men before the Italians invade.

Hirut and the other women long to do more than care for the wounded and bury the dead. When Emperor Haile Selassie goes into exile and Ethiopia quickly loses hope, it is Hirut who offers a plan to maintain morale. She helps disguise a gentle peasant as the emperor and soon becomes his guard, inspiring other women to take up arms. But how could she have predicted her own personal war, still to come, as a prisoner of one of Italy's most vicious officers?

The Shadow King is a gorgeously crafted and unputdownable exploration of female power, and what it means to be a woman at war.]]> 448 Maaza Mengiste 039308356X Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.63 2019
author: Maaza Mengiste
name: Ana
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 43521657
Then she finds a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds, and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger. Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.]]> 374 Alix E. Harrow 0316421995 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.99 2019
author: Alix E. Harrow
name: Ana
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 19049128 This is an alternate cover edition for ASIN: B009YBU8CQ

The limits of fifteen-year-old Kambili’s world are defined by the high walls of her family estate and the dictates of her fanatically religious father. Her life is regulated by schedules: prayer, sleep, study, prayer.

When Nigeria is shaken by a military coup, Kambili’s father, involved mysteriously in the political crisis, sends her to live with her aunt. In this house, noisy and full of laughter, she discovers life and love � and a terrible, bruising secret deep within her family.

This extraordinary debut novel from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of �Half of a Yellow Sun�, is about the blurred lines between the old gods and the new, childhood and adulthood, love and hatred � the grey spaces in which truths are revealed and real life is lived.]]> 321 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Ana 0 books-i-own 4.22 2003
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Ana
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2019/12/19
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 18749 A masterly, haunting new novel from a writer heralded by The Washington Post Book World as “the 21st-century daughter of Chinua Achebe,� Half of a Yellow Sun re-creates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria in the 1960s, and the chilling violence that followed.

With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor’s beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna’s twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and the three must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another.

Epic, ambitious, and triumphantly realized, Half of a Yellow Sun is a remarkable novel about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race—and the ways in which love can complicate them all. Adichie brilliantly evokes the promise and the devastating disappointments that marked this time and place, bringing us one of the most powerful, dramatic, and intensely emotional pictures of modern Africa that we have ever had.]]> 435 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 1400044162 Ana 0 books-i-own 4.34 2006
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Ana
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2018/09/03
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 13079982 Sixty years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before.

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.� But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.]]> 194 Ray Bradbury Ana 0 books-i-own 3.97 1953
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Ana
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1953
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 35097255 The President is Missing.

As the novel opens, a threat looms. Enemies are planning an attack of unprecedented scale on America. Uncertainty and fear grip Washington. There are whispers of cyberterror and espionage and a traitor in the cabinet. The President himself becomes a suspect, and then goes missing...

Set in real time, over the course of three days, The President Is Missing is one of the most dramatic thrillers in decades. And it could all really happen. The President Is Missing is Bill Clinton and James Patterson's totally authentic and spellbinding thriller.]]> 513 Bill Clinton Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.82 2018
author: Bill Clinton
name: Ana
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 4214 460 Yann Martel 0770430074 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.94 2001
author: Yann Martel
name: Ana
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 36154097
In this brilliant reimagining, Sally Magnusson gives a voice to �sta, the pastor's wife. Enslaved in an alien Arab culture �sta meets the loss of both her freedom and her children with the one thing she has brought from home: the stories in her head. Steeped in the sagas and folk tales of her northern homeland, she finds herself experiencing not just the separations and agonies of captivity, but the reassessments that come in any age when intelligent eyes are opened to other lives, other cultures and other kinds of loving.

The Sealwoman's Gift is about the eternal power of storytelling to help us survive. The novel is full of stories - Icelandic ones told to fend off a slave-owner's advances, Arabian ones to help an old man die. And there are others, too: the stories we tell ourselves to protect our minds from what cannot otherwise be borne, the stories we need to make us happy.]]> 360 Sally Magnusson 147363895X Ana 0 books-i-own 4.06 2018
author: Sally Magnusson
name: Ana
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2018/07/23
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 39072210
After rushing to the scene, Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, sets up a perimeter and begins making a plan to communicate with the gunman. As his phone vibrates with incoming text messages he glances at it and, to his horror, finds out that his fifteen-year-old daughter, Wren, is inside the clinic.

But Wren is not alone. She will share the next and tensest few hours of her young life with a cast of unforgettable characters: A nurse who calms her own panic in order save the life of a wounded woman. A doctor who does his work not in spite of his faith but because of it, and who will find that faith tested as never before. A pro-life protester disguised as a patient, who now stands in the cross hairs of the same rage she herself has felt. A young woman who has come to terminate her pregnancy. And the disturbed individual himself, vowing to be heard.

Told in a daring and enthralling narrative structure that counts backward through the hours of the standoff, this is a story that traces its way back to what brought each of these very different individuals to the same place on this fateful day.

Jodi Picoult—one of the most fearless writers of our time—tackles a complicated issue in this gripping and nuanced novel. How do we balance the rights of pregnant women with the rights of the unborn they carry? What does it mean to be a good parent? A Spark of Light will inspire debate, conversation . . . and, hopefully, understanding.]]> 381 Jodi Picoult 0345544994 Ana 0 books-i-own 3.75 2018
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Ana
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2018/11/15
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 45308037
Six years after leaving her illegitimate daughter Clara at London's Foundling Hospital, Bess Bright returns to reclaim the child she has never known. Dreading the worst - that Clara has died in care - the last thing she expects to hear is that her daughter has already been reclaimed - by her. Her life is turned upside down as she tries to find out who has taken her little girl - and why. Less than a mile from Bess' lodgings in the city, in a quiet, gloomy townhouse on the edge of London, a young widow has not left the house in a decade. When her close friend - an ambitious young doctor at the Foundling Hospital - persuades her to hire a nursemaid for her daughter, she is hesitant to welcome someone new into her home and her life. But her past is threatening to catch up with her and tear her carefully constructed world apart.

From the bestselling author of The Familiars, and set against the vibrant backdrop of Georgian London, The Foundling explores families, secrets, class, equality, power and the meaning of motherhood.]]> 288 Stacey Halls 1488055327 Ana 0 books-i-own 3.97 2020
author: Stacey Halls
name: Ana
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2020/02/22
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 25899336
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi's transformation from a naĂŻve medical student "possessed," as he wrote, "by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life" into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.

Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. "I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything," he wrote. "Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: 'I can't go on. I'll go on.'" When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.]]> 208 Paul Kalanithi 0812988418 Ana 0 books-i-own 4.41 2016
author: Paul Kalanithi
name: Ana
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 160251 (back cover)]]> 263 Judith Guest Ana 0 to-read 3.92 1976
author: Judith Guest
name: Ana
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1976
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 7604 Librarian's note: Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141182537.

Humbert Humbert - scholar, aesthete and romantic - has fallen completely and utterly in love with Dolores Haze, his landlady's gum-snapping, silky skinned twelve-year-old daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert suffers greatly in the pursuit of romance; but when Lo herself starts looking for attention elsewhere, he will carry her off on a desperate cross-country misadventure, all in the name of Love. Hilarious, flamboyant, heart-breaking and full of ingenious word play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust.]]> 368 Vladimir Nabokov 0679723161 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.87 1955
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Ana
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1955
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 77203 371 Khaled Hosseini 159463193X Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.34 2003
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Ana
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 40961230
An instant international bestseller and indie bestseller, The Travelling Cat Chronicles has charmed readers around the world. With simple yet descriptive prose, this novel gives voice to Nana the cat and his owner, Satoru, as they take to the road on a journey with no other purpose than to visit three of Satoru's longtime friends. Or so Nana is led to believe...

With his crooked tail—a sign of good fortune—and adventurous spirit, Nana is the perfect companion for the man who took him in as a stray. And as they travel in a silver van across Japan, with its ever-changing scenery and seasons, they will learn the true meaning of courage and gratitude, of loyalty and love.]]> 281 Hiro Arikawa 0735235244 Ana 0 books-i-own 4.35 2012
author: Hiro Arikawa
name: Ana
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 35504431
Aza Holmes never intended to pursue the disappearance of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Pickett’s son Davis.

Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.]]> 290 John Green 0525555366 Ana 0 books-i-own 3.88 2017
author: John Green
name: Ana
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2019/10/05
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 27774596 A newer edition of ISBN 978-0143108863 can be found here.
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Giver of Stars, discover the love story that captured over 20 million hearts in Me Before You, After You, and Still Me.

“You’re going to feel uncomfortable in your new world for a bit. But I hope you feel a bit exhilarated too. Live boldly. Push yourself. Don’t settle. Just live well. Just live. Love, Will.�

How do you move on after losing the person you loved? How do you build a life worth living?

Louisa Clark is no longer just an ordinary girl living an ordinary life. After the transformative six months spent with Will Traynor, she is struggling without him. When an extraordinary accident forces Lou to return home to her family, she can’t help but feel she’s right back where she started.

Her body heals, but Lou herself knows that she needs to be kick-started back to life. Which is how she ends up in a church basement with the members of the Moving On support group, who share insights, laughter, frustrations, and terrible cookies. They will also lead her to the strong, capable Sam Fielding—the paramedic, whose business is life and death, and the one man who might be able to understand her. Then a figure from Will’s past appears and hijacks all her plans, propelling her into a very different future. . . .

For Lou Clark, life after Will Traynor means learning to fall in love again, with all the risks that brings. But here Jojo Moyes gives us two families, as real as our own, whose joys and sorrows will touch you deeply, and where both changes and surprises await.]]> 352 Jojo Moyes Ana 0 books-i-own 3.75 2015
author: Jojo Moyes
name: Ana
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 5129 Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine� (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New Worldd likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.

"Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." —Chicago Tribune]]> 268 Aldous Huxley 0060929871 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.99 1932
author: Aldous Huxley
name: Ana
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1932
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 33253215 real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from � and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.

In this, Boyne's most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit.]]> 582 John Boyne Ana 5 books-i-own 4.51 2017
author: John Boyne
name: Ana
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 50265329
Dawn, miraculously, survives the crash, but so do all the doubts that have suddenly been raised. She has led a good life. Back in Boston, there is her husband, Brian, her beloved daughter, and her work as a death doula, where she helps ease the transition between life and death for patients in hospice.

But somewhere in Egypt is Wyatt Armstrong, who works as an archaeologist unearthing ancient burial sites, a job she once studied for, but was forced to abandon when life suddenly intervened. And now, when it seems that fate is offering her second chances, she is not as sure of the choice she once made.

After the crash landing, the airline ensures the survivors are seen by a doctor, then offers transportation wherever they want to go. The obvious option for Dawn is to continue down the path she is on and go home to her family. The other is to return to the archaeological site she left years before, reconnect with Wyatt and their unresolved history, and maybe even complete her research on The Book of Two Ways--the first known map of the afterlife.

As the story unfolds, Dawn's two possible futures unspool side by side, as do the secrets and doubts long buried beside them. Dawn must confront the questions she's never truly asked: What does a life well-lived look like? When we leave this earth, what do we leave behind? Do we make choices...or do our choices make us? And who would you be, if you hadn't turned out to be the person you are right now?]]> 416 Jodi Picoult 198481835X Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.61 2020
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Ana
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 40400269
Working as a waiter in a West Berlin hotel in 1988, Maurice engineers the perfect opportunity: a chance encounter with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann. He quickly ingratiates himself with the powerful � but desperately lonely � older man, teasing out of Erich a terrible, long-held secret about his activities during the war. Perfect material for Maurice’s first novel.

Once Maurice has had a taste of literary fame, he knows he can stop at nothing in pursuit of that high. Moving from the Amalfi Coast, where he matches wits with Gore Vidal, to Manhattan and London, Maurice hones his talent for deceit and manipulation, preying on the talented and vulnerable in his cold-blooded climb to the top. But the higher he climbs, the further he has to fall. . . .

Sweeping across the late twentieth century, A Ladder to the Sky is a fascinating portrait of a relentlessly immoral man, a tour de force of storytelling, and the next great novel from an acclaimed literary virtuoso.]]> 362 John Boyne 1984823019 Ana 0 books-i-own 4.18 2018
author: John Boyne
name: Ana
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 39338454
As a mixed-race girl living in the slums of Ho Chi Minh City, Esme Tran has always felt out of place. When the opportunity arises to come to America and meet a potential husband, she can’t turn it down, thinking this could be the break her family needs. Seducing Khai, however, doesn’t go as planned. Esme’s lessons in love seem to be working…but only on herself. She’s hopelessly smitten with a man who’s convinced he can never return her affection.

With Esme’s time in the United States dwindling, Khai is forced to understand he’s been wrong all along. And there’s more than one way to love.]]> 320 Helen Hoang 0451490827 Ana 0 books-i-own 3.80 2019
author: Helen Hoang
name: Ana
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2020/05/09
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 22822858
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride.ĚýYet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.]]> 720 Hanya Yanagihara 0385539258 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.28 2015
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: Ana
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 37912970 378 Harriet Tyce 1472252756 Ana 0 books-i-own 3.72 2019
author: Harriet Tyce
name: Ana
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2019/12/25
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 38530939 My real name, no one remembers. The truth about that summer, no one else knows.

In the summer of 1862, a group of young artists led by the passionate and talented Edward Radcliffe descends upon Birchwood Manor on the banks of the Upper Thames. Their plan: to spend a secluded summer month in a haze of inspiration and creativity. But by the time their stay is over, one woman has been shot dead while another has disappeared; a priceless heirloom is missing; and Edward Radcliffe’s life is in ruins.

Over one hundred and fifty years later, Elodie Winslow, a young archivist in London, uncovers a leather satchel containing two seemingly unrelated items: a sepia photograph of an arresting-looking woman in Victorian clothing, and an artist’s sketchbook containing the drawing of a twin-gabled house on the bend of a river.

Why does Birchwood Manor feel so familiar to Elodie? And who is the beautiful woman in the photograph? Will she ever give up her secrets?]]> 485 Kate Morton 1451649398 Ana 0 books-i-own 3.73 2018
author: Kate Morton
name: Ana
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2018/10/24
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 15790842
On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war.

Does Ursula's apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can - will she?]]> 544 Kate Atkinson 0316176486 Ana 0 books-i-own 3.76 2013
author: Kate Atkinson
name: Ana
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2018/07/06
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 39927096 You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years now engaged to someone else. You can’t say yes--it would all be too awkward--and you can’t say no--it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of half-baked literary invitations you’ve received from around the world.

QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?

ANSWER: You accept them all.

If you are Arthur Less.

Thus begins an around-the-world-in-eighty-days fantasia that will take Arthur Less to Mexico, Italy, Germany, Morocco, India and Japan and put thousands of miles between him and the problems he refuses to face. What could possibly go wrong?

Well: Arthur will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Sahara sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and arrive in Japan too late for the cherry blossoms. In between: science fiction fans, crazed academics, emergency rooms, starlets, doctors, exes and, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to see. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. The second phase of life, as he thinks of it, falling behind him like the second phase of a rocket. There will be his first love. And there will be his last.

A love story, a satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, by an author The New York Times has hailed as “inspired, lyrical,� “elegiac,� “ingenious,� as well as “too sappy by half,� Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.]]> 273 Andrew Sean Greer Ana 0 books-i-own 3.61 2017
author: Andrew Sean Greer
name: Ana
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 52892857 Read the original inspiration for the new, boldly reimagined film from producers Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, starring Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, and Fantasia Barrino.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award

A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery and Sofia and their experience. The Color Purple broke the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, narrating the lives of women through their pain and struggle, companionship and growth, resilience and bravery. Deeply compassionate and beautifully imagined, Alice Walker's epic carries readers on a spirit-affirming journey towards redemption and love.

â€Áč±đ˛ą»ĺľ±˛Ô˛µ The Color Purple was the first time I had seen Southern, Black women’s literature as world literature. In writing us into the world—bravely, unapologetically, and honestly—Alice Walker has given us a gift we will never be able to repay.â€� —Tayari Jones

�The Color Purple was what church should have been, what honest familial reckoning could have been, and it is still the only art object in the world by which all three generations of Black artists in my family judge American art.� —Kiese Laymon]]> 287 Alice Walker 0143135694 Ana 0 books-i-own 4.40 1982
author: Alice Walker
name: Ana
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 32920226 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781501126062

In Jesmyn Ward’s first novel since her National Book Award–winning Salvage the Bones, this singular American writer brings the archetypal road novel into rural twenty-first-century America. Drawing on Morrison and Faulkner, The Odyssey and the Old Testament, Ward gives us an epochal story, a journey through Mississippi’s past and present that is both an intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle. Ward is a major American writer, multiply awarded and universally lauded, and in Sing, Unburied, Sing she is at the height of her powers.

Jojo and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their grandparents, Mam and Pop, and the occasional presence of their drug-addicted mother, Leonie, on a farm on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Leonie is simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she’s high; Mam is dying of cancer; and quiet, steady Pop tries to run the household and teach Jojo how to be a man. When the white father of Leonie’s children is released from prison, she packs her kids and a friend into her car and sets out across the state for Parchman farm, the Mississippi State Penitentiary, on a journey rife with danger and promise.

Sing, Unburied, Sing grapples with the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power, and limitations, of the bonds of family. Rich with Ward’s distinctive, musical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing is a majestic new work and an essential contribution to American literature.]]> 285 Jesmyn Ward Ana 0 books-i-own 4.00 2017
author: Jesmyn Ward
name: Ana
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2018/10/05
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 2657
Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, "To Kill A Mockingbird" takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.]]> 323 Harper Lee 0060935464 Ana 0 books-i-own 4.25 1960
author: Harper Lee
name: Ana
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1960
rating: 0
read at: 2016/02/27
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 33606119
Exploring issues from eradicated black history to the political purpose of white dominance, whitewashed feminism to the inextricable link between class and race, Reni Eddo-Lodge offers a timely and essential new framework for how to see, acknowledge and counter racism. It is a searing, illuminating, absolutely necessary exploration of what it is to be a person of colour in Britain today.]]> 249 Reni Eddo-Lodge 140887055X Ana 0 books-i-own 4.37 2017
author: Reni Eddo-Lodge
name: Ana
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 170448 Librarian's note: There is an Alternate Cover Edition for this edition of this book here.

A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned –a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.
When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.]]> 141 George Orwell 0451526341 Ana 0 books-i-own 4.07 1945
author: George Orwell
name: Ana
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1945
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 13214
Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide.

Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.� At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age—and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors (“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare�) will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.

Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.]]> 289 Maya Angelou 0553279378 Ana 0 books-i-own 4.30 1969
author: Maya Angelou
name: Ana
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1969
rating: 0
read at: 2020/06/28
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 36047860
Milkman is a tale of gossip and hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness. It is the story of inaction with enormous consequences.]]> 352 Anna Burns 0571338763 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.51 2018
author: Anna Burns
name: Ana
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 40776644 A debut from Forbes' third most powerful woman in the world, Melinda Gates, a timely and necessary call to action for women's empowerment.

For the last twenty years, Melinda Gates has been on a mission. Her goal, as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has been to find solutions for people with the most urgent needs, wherever they live. Throughout this journey, one thing has become increasingly clear to her: If you want to lift a society up, invest in women.

In this candid and inspiring book, Gates traces her awakening to the link between women's empowerment and the health of societies. She shows some of the tremendous opportunities that exist right now to “turbo-charge" change. And she provides simple and effective ways each one of us can make a difference.

Convinced that all women should be free to decide whether and when to have children, Gates took her first step onto the global stage to make a stand for family planning. That step launched her into further efforts: to ensure women everywhere have access to every kind of job; to encourage men around the globe to share equally in the burdens of household work; to advocate for paid family leave for everyone; to eliminate gender bias in all its forms.

Throughout, Gates introduces us to her heroes in the movement towards equality, offers startling data, shares moving conversations she's had with women from all over the world—and shows how we can all get involved.

A personal statement of passionate conviction, this book tells of Gates' journey from a partner working behind the scenes to one of the world's foremost advocates for women, driven by the belief that no one should be excluded, all lives have equal value, and gender equity is the lever that lifts everything.]]> 273 Melinda French Gates 1250313570 Ana 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.26 2019
author: Melinda French Gates
name: Ana
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> 33621427
Then Eamonn enters the sisters� lives. Son of a powerful political figure, he has his own birthright to live up to—or defy. Is he to be a chance at love? The means of Parvaiz’s salvation? Suddenly, two families� fates are inextricably, devastatingly entwined, in this searing novel that asks: What sacrifices will we make in the name of love?

The suspenseful and heartbreaking story of an immigrant family driven to pit love against loyalty, with devastating consequences ]]> 276 Kamila Shamsie 0735217688 Ana 0 books-i-own 4.00 2017
author: Kamila Shamsie
name: Ana
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2018/06/15
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> 29751398 The Power the world is a recognizable place: There's a rich Nigerian boy who lounges around the family pool; a foster kid whose religious parents hide their true nature; an ambitious American politician; and a tough London girl from a tricky family. But then a vital new force takes root and flourishes, causing their lives to converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls now have immense physical power: They can cause agonizing pain and even death. With this small twist of nature, the world drastically resets.]]> 341 Naomi Alderman 0670919985 Ana 0 books-i-own 3.75 2016
author: Naomi Alderman
name: Ana
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2018/04/03
date added: 2020/12/27
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]>