Vin's bookshelf: all en-US Sat, 31 Aug 2024 17:07:56 -0700 60 Vin's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Around the World in Eighty Days]]> 7114366
With his excitable French manservant in tow, Fogg undertakes the exercise immediately, with no preparations, trusting that his traveling funds will make up for delays along the way. But unbeknownst to him, British police are desperately seeking to arrest him for the theft of a huge sum by someone who resembles him, and they will track him around the world, if necessary, to apprehend him.

This is an adventure novel of the first water, with wholly unexpected perils, hair-breadth escapes, brilliant solutions to insoluble problems, and even a love story. And can this be? � That he returns to London just five minutes too late to win his wager and retain his fortune?]]> 9 Jules Verne Vin 4 3.74 1872 Around the World in Eighty Days
author: Jules Verne
name: Vin
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1872
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/08/31
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]]> <![CDATA[The Monogram Murders (New Hercule Poirot Mysteries, #1)]]> 23462620 ‘I’m a dead woman, or I shall be soon…�

Hercule Poirot's quiet supper in a London coffeehouse is interrupted when a young woman confides to him that she is about to be murdered. She is terrified � but begs Poirot not to find and punish her killer.Once she is dead, she insists, justice will have been done.

Later that night, Poirot learns that three guests at a fashionable London Hotel have been murdered, and a cufflink has been placed in each one’s mouth. Could there be a connection with the frightened woman? While Poirot struggles to put together the bizarre pieces of the puzzle, the murderer prepares another hotel bedroom for a fourth victim...]]> 302 Sophie Hannah 0062297228 Vin 0 to-read 3.44 2014 The Monogram Murders (New Hercule Poirot Mysteries, #1)
author: Sophie Hannah
name: Vin
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/19
shelves: to-read
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]]> Never 60621097 New York Times Bestseller

The new must-read epic from master storyteller Ken Follett: more than a thriller, it's an action-packed, globe-spanning drama set in the present day.

"A compelling story, and only too realistic." --Lawrence H. Summers, former U.S. Treasury Secretary

"Every catastrophe begins with a little problem that doesn't get fixed." So says Pauline Green, president of the United States, in Follett's nerve-racking drama of international tension.

A shrinking oasis in the Sahara Desert; a stolen US Army drone; an uninhabited Japanese island; and one country's secret stash of deadly chemical poisons: all these play roles in a relentlessly escalating crisis.

Struggling to prevent the outbreak of world war are a young woman intelligence officer; a spy working undercover with jihadists; a brilliant Chinese spymaster; and Pauline herself, beleaguered by a populist rival for the next president election.

Never is an extraordinary novel, full of heroines and villains, false prophets and elite warriors, jaded politicians and opportunistic revolutionaries. It brims with cautionary wisdom for our times, and delivers a visceral, heart-pounding read that transports readers to the brink of the unimaginable.]]> 816 Ken Follett 0593300033 Vin 0 to-read 3.96 2021 Never
author: Ken Follett
name: Vin
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/05/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Judge's List (The Whistler, #2)]]> 57865158
Then she meets a mysterious woman who is so frightened she uses a number of aliases. Jeri Crosby’s father was murdered twenty years earlier in a case that remains unsolved and that has grown stone cold. But Jeri has a suspect whom she has become obsessed with and has stalked for two decades. Along the way, she has discovered other victims.

The man Jeri holds responsible for all these deaths is brilliant, patient, and always one step ahead of law enforcement. He is the most cunning of all serial killers. He knows forensics, police procedure, and most important: he knows the law.

He is a judge, in Florida—under Lacy’s jurisdiction.

But the man keeps a record of all his victims and targets, people unlucky enough to have crossed his path and wronged him in some way. Lacy must work to take him down, while somehow keeping her name off his list.]]> 357 John Grisham 0385546025 Vin 0 to-read 3.95 2021 The Judge's List (The Whistler, #2)
author: John Grisham
name: Vin
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/09/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Essential Paulo Coelho 37969137 The Alchemist, The Pilgrimage, Warrior of the Light, The Valkyries,Veronika Decides to Die, and Eleven Minutes.]]> 1448 Paulo Coelho 0062845063 Vin 0 to-read 4.43 The Essential Paulo Coelho
author: Paulo Coelho
name: Vin
average rating: 4.43
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/09/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[There Will Come a Darkness (The Age of Darkness, #1)]]> 52751029
The Age of Darkness approaches.
Five lives stand in its way.
Who will stop it . . . or unleash it?

For generations, the Seven Prophets guided humanity. Using their visions of the future, they ended wars and united nations—until the day, one hundred years ago, when the Prophets disappeared.

All they left behind is one final, secret prophecy, foretelling an Age of Darkness and the birth of a new Prophet who could be the world’s salvation . . . or the cause of its destruction. As chaos takes hold, five souls are set on a collision course:

A prince exiled from his kingdom.
A ruthless killer known as the Pale Hand.
A once-faithful leader torn between his duty and his heart.
A reckless gambler with the power to find anything or anyone.
And a dying girl on the verge of giving up.

One of them—or all of them—could break the world. Will they be savior or destroyer? Perfect for fans of Throne of Glass, Children of Blood and Bone, and An Ember in the Ashes.]]> 512 Katy Rose Pool 1250619858 Vin 0 to-read 3.87 2019 There Will Come a Darkness (The Age of Darkness, #1)
author: Katy Rose Pool
name: Vin
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown]]> 54017883 Author Steve Sheinkin presents a follow up to his award-winning book Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon, taking readers on a journey into the Cold War and our mutual assured destruction.

As World War II comes to a close, the United States and the Soviet Union emerge as the two greatest world powers on extreme opposites of the political spectrum. After the United States showed its hand with the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, the Soviets refuse to be left behind. With Communism sweeping the globe, the two nations begin a neck-and-neck competition to build even more destructive bombs and conquer the Space Race. In their battle for dominance, spy planes fly above, armed submarines swim deep below, and undercover agents meet in the dead of night.

The Cold War game grows more precarious as weapons are pointed towards each other, with fingers literally on the trigger. The decades-long showdown culminates in the Cuban Missile Crisis, the world's close call with the third—and final—world war.]]> 342 Steve Sheinkin 1250149010 Vin 0 to-read 4.35 2021 Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown
author: Steve Sheinkin
name: Vin
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems]]> 5931

This collection of Neruda’s most essential poems will prove indispensable. Selected by a team of poets and prominent Neruda scholars in both Chile and the United States, this is a definitive selection that draws from the entire breadth and width of Neruda’s various styles and themes. An impressive group of translators that includes Alaistair Reid, Stephen Mitchell, Robert Hass, Stephen Kessler and Jack Hirschman have come together to revisit or completely retranslate the poems. A bilingual edition, with English on one side of the page, the original Spanish on the other. This selection sets the standard for a general, high--quality introduction to Neruda’s complete oeuvre.

Pablo Neruda was born in Chile in 1904. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.

]]> 200 Pablo Neruda 0872864286 Vin 0 to-read 4.42 1979 The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems
author: Pablo Neruda
name: Vin
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1979
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/01/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Joy at Work: Organizing Your Professional Life]]> 53071025 Declutter your desk and brighten up your business with this transformative guide from an organizational psychologist and the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

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

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

Using the world-renowned KonMari Method and cutting-edge research, Joy at Work will help you overcome the challenges of workplace mess and enjoy the productivity, success, and happiness that come with a tidy desk and mind.]]> 244 Marie Kondō 0316423327 Vin 0 to-read 3.47 2020 Joy at Work: Organizing Your Professional Life
author: Marie Kondō
name: Vin
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/04/08
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]]> <![CDATA[The Whistler (The Whistler, #1)]]> 29354916
But what happens when a judge bends the law or takes a bribe? It’s rare, but it happens.

Lacy Stoltz is an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct. She is a lawyer, not a cop, and it is her job to respond to complaints dealing with judicial misconduct. After nine years with the Board, she knows that most problems are caused by incompetence, not corruption.

But a corruption case eventually crosses her desk. A previously disbarred lawyer is back in business with a new identity. He now goes by the name Greg Myers, and he claims to know of a Florida judge who has stolen more money than all other crooked judges combined. And not just crooked judges in Florida. All judges, from all states, and throughout U.S. history.

What’s the source of the ill-gotten gains? It seems the judge was secretly involved with the construction of a large casino on Native American land. The Coast Mafia financed the casino and is now helping itself to a sizable skim of each month’s cash. The judge is getting a cut and looking the other way. It’s a sweet deal: Everyone is making money.

But now Greg wants to put a stop to it. His only client is a person who knows the truth and wants to blow the whistle and collect millions under Florida law. Greg files a complaint with the Board on Judicial Conduct, and the case is assigned to Lacy Stoltz, who immediately suspects that this one could be dangerous.

Dangerous is one thing. Deadly is something else.]]> 424 John Grisham 0385541201 Vin 4 3.96 2016 The Whistler (The Whistler, #1)
author: John Grisham
name: Vin
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2019/11/16
date added: 2019/11/16
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]]> Everything I Know About Love 46041465
When it comes to the trials and triumphs of becoming an adult, journalist and former Sunday Times columnist Dolly Alderton has seen and tried it all. In her memoir, she vividly recounts falling in love, finding a job, getting drunk, getting dumped, realizing that Ivan from the corner shop might just be the only reliable man in her life, and that absolutely no one can ever compare to her best girlfriends. Everything I Know About Love is about bad dates, good friends and—above all else� realizing that you are enough.

Glittering with wit and insight, heart and humor, Dolly Alderton’s unforgettable debut weaves together personal stories, satirical observations, a series of lists, recipes, and other vignettes that will strike a chord of recognition with women of every age—making you want to pick up the phone and tell your best friends all about it. Like Bridget Jones� Diary but all true, Everything I Know About Love is about the struggles of early adulthood in all its terrifying and hopeful uncertainty.]]> 368 Dolly Alderton 0062968785 Vin 0 to-read 3.98 2018 Everything I Know About Love
author: Dolly Alderton
name: Vin
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/10/24
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]]> The Cobra 7774883 An extraordinary cutting-edge thriller from the New York Times-bestselling grandmaster of international suspense.

Meticulous research, crisp narratives, plots as current as today's headlines-Frederick Forsyth has helped define the international thriller as we know it. And now he does it again.

What if you had carte blanche to fight evil? Nothing held back, nothing off the table. What would you do? For decades, the world has been fighting the drug cartels, and losing, their billions of dollars making them the most powerful and destructive organizations on earth. Until one man is asked to take charge. Paul Devereaux used to run Special Operations for the CIA before they retired him for being too ruthless. Now he can have anything he requires, do anything he thinks necessary. No boundaries, no rules, no questions asked.

The war is on-though who the ultimate winner will be, no one can tell...]]> 364 Frederick Forsyth 0399156801 Vin 2 3.57 2010 The Cobra
author: Frederick Forsyth
name: Vin
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2010
rating: 2
read at: 2019/08/18
date added: 2019/09/01
shelves:
review:
Not the best Frederick Forsyth I have read in fact his others are far far better. He has set a such a high bar for himself, it must be hard to reach it each time. Nevertheless still a good read and better than the average thriller writers out there. I quickly finished this one.
]]> The Switch 32673427
And Senator Robbins is not the only one who wants the laptop back... Suddenly, Tanner is a hunted man. On the run, terrified for the safety of his family � he is in desperate need of a plan � but who can he trust?]]> 373 Joseph Finder 110198578X Vin 3 3.64 2017 The Switch
author: Joseph Finder
name: Vin
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2019/08/26
date added: 2019/09/01
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review:
A good book fast paced wasn't sure how it was going to end. The author kept the story moving along at a good pace! Would recommend this book for a fast paced thriller.
]]> The Flight Attendant 35506211 368 Chris Bohjalian 0385542429 Vin 4 3.53 2018 The Flight Attendant
author: Chris Bohjalian
name: Vin
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2019/01/05
date added: 2019/01/05
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review:
A good fast paced thriller! A nice read.
]]> Munich 33539583 From the internationally best-selling author of Fatherland and the Cicero Trilogy--a new spy thriller about treason and conscience, loyalty and betrayal, set against the backdrop of the fateful Munich Conference of September, 1938.

Guy Legat is a rising star of the British diplomatic service, serving in 10 Downing Street as a private secretary to the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. Rikard von Holz is on the staff of the German Foreign Office--and secretly a member of the anti-Hitler resistance. The two men were friends at Oxford in the 1920s, but have not been in contact since. Now, when Guy flies with Chamberlain from London to Munich, and Rikard travels on Hitler's train overnight from Berlin, their paths are set on a disastrous collision course. And once again, Robert Harris gives us actual events of historical importance--here are Hitler, Chamberlain, Mussolini, Daladier--at the heart of an electrifying, un-put-downable novel.]]> 352 Robert Harris 1473519691 Vin 5 3.77 2017 Munich
author: Robert Harris
name: Vin
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2019/01/03
date added: 2019/01/03
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review:
An excellent book, thrilling and makes me want to read more books about World War 2. The book is very well written and a page turner. I plan to read more from Robert Harris.
]]> The Friends We Keep 42359080 The Friends We Keep is the heartwarming and unforgettable new novel from Jane Green, New York Times bestselling author of The Sunshine Sisters and The Beach House.

Evvie, Maggie, and Topher have known one another since college. Their friendship was something they swore would last forever. Now years have passed, the friends have drifted apart, and they never found the lives they wanted--the lives they dreamed of when they were young and everything seemed possible.

Evvie starved herself to become a supermodel but derailed her career by sleeping with a married man.

Maggie married Ben, the boy she fell in love with in college, never imagining the heartbreak his drinking would cause.

Topher became a successful actor, but the shame of a childhood secret shut him off from real intimacy.

By their thirtieth reunion, these old friends have lost touch with one another and with the people they dreamed of becoming. Together again, they have a second chance at happiness . . . until a dark secret is revealed that changes everything.

The Friends We Keep is about how despite disappointments we've had or mistakes we've made, it's never too late to find a place to call home.]]> 384 Jane Green 0399583343 Vin 0 to-read 3.62 2019 The Friends We Keep
author: Jane Green
name: Vin
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/01/03
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]]> <![CDATA[A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2)]]> 25558608
Laia is determined to break into Kauf—the Empire’s most secure and dangerous prison—to save her brother, who is the key to the Scholars� survival. And Elias is determined to help Laia succeed, even if it means giving up his last chance at freedom.

But dark forces, human and otherworldly, work against Laia and Elias. The pair must fight every step of the way to outsmart their enemies: the bloodthirsty Emperor Marcus, the merciless Commandant, the sadistic Warden of Kauf, and, most heartbreaking of all, Helene—Elias’s former friend and the Empire’s newest Blood Shrike.

Bound to Marcus’s will, Helene faces a torturous mission of her own—one that might destroy her: find the traitor Elias Veturius and the Scholar slave who helped him escape…and kill them both.]]> 452 Sabaa Tahir Vin 4 4.23 2016 A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2)
author: Sabaa Tahir
name: Vin
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2018/12/26
date added: 2018/12/27
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[When You're Back (Rosemary Beach, #12)]]> 25558629 304 Abbi Glines 1471122360 Vin 4 4.14 2015 When You're Back (Rosemary Beach, #12)
author: Abbi Glines
name: Vin
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2015
rating: 4
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date added: 2018/12/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Walter the Lazy Mouse (Nancy Pearl's Book Crush Rediscoveries)]]> 24833504 96 Marjorie Flack 147782734X Vin 5 4.05 1937 Walter the Lazy Mouse (Nancy Pearl's Book Crush Rediscoveries)
author: Marjorie Flack
name: Vin
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1937
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/12/26
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]]> <![CDATA[An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1)]]> 27774758 Alternative Cover Edition #1

Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free.

Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.

It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do.

But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy.

There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.

From the Hardcover edition.]]> 446 Sabaa Tahir Vin 5 4.23 2015 An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1)
author: Sabaa Tahir
name: Vin
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2018/10/16
date added: 2018/10/16
shelves:
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]]> The Fox 38649861
'Forsyth has lost none of his storytelling finesse and geopolitical grasp . . . this is Forsyth at his spellbinding best' Daily Mail

'An ingenious, expertly written and serious look at international conflicts which threaten the future of the world' Washington Post

Most weapons do what you tell them. Most weapons you can control.

But what if the most dangerous weapon in the world isn't a smart missile or a stealth submarine or even an AI computer programme?What if it's a 17-year-old boy with a blisteringly brilliant mind, who can run rings around the most sophisticated security services across the globe, who can manipulate that weaponry and turn it against the superpowers themselves? How valuable would he be? And what wouldn't you do to get hold of him?

The Fox is a race-against-time thriller across continents to find and capture, or protect and save, an asset with the means to change the balance of world power. Whatever happens he must not fall into the wrong hands. Because what follows after that is unthinkable...]]> 371 Frederick Forsyth Vin 0 to-read 4.17 2018 The Fox
author: Frederick Forsyth
name: Vin
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/08/31
shelves: to-read
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]]> 61 Hours (Jack Reacher, #14) 6977769
The countdown has begun. Get ready for the most exciting 61 hours of your life. #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child’s latest thriller is a ticking time bomb of suspense that builds electric tension on every page.

Sixty-one hours. Not a minute to spare.

A tour bus crashes in a savage snowstorm and lands Jack Reacher in the middle of a deadly confrontation. In nearbyBolton,South Dakota, one brave woman is standing up for justice in a small town threatened by sinister forces. If she’s going to live long enough to testify, she’ll need help. Because a killer is coming toBolton, a coldly proficient assassin who never misses.

Reacher’s original plan was to keep on moving. But the next 61 hours will change everything. The secrets are deadlier and his enemies are stronger than he could have guessed—but so is the woman whose life he’ll risk his own to save.

In 61 Hours , Lee Child has written a showdown thriller with anexplosiveending that readers will talk about for a long time to come.]]> 383 Lee Child 0385340583 Vin 3 4.08 2010 61 Hours (Jack Reacher, #14)
author: Lee Child
name: Vin
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2018/06/10
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]]> The Runaway Jury 24192
The jury is behaving strangely, and at least one juror is convinced he's being watched. Soon they have to be sequestered. Then a tip from an anonymous young woman suggests she is able to predict the jurors' increasingly odd behavior.

Is the jury somehow being manipulated, or even controlled? If so, by whom? And, more importantly, why?

From the Trade Paperback edition.]]> 464 John Grisham 0385339690 Vin 4 4.03 1996 The Runaway Jury
author: John Grisham
name: Vin
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/06/10
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]]> Timeline 7669 489 Michael Crichton 0099244721 Vin 3 3.87 1999 Timeline
author: Michael Crichton
name: Vin
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2018/06/10
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]]> <![CDATA[The Andromeda Strain (Andromeda, #1)]]> 7670
Two years later, seventeen satellites are sent into the outer fringes of space to collect organisms and dust for study. One of them falls to earth, landing in a desolate area of Arizona.

Twelve miles from the landing site, in the town of Piedmont, a shocking discovery is made: the streets are littered with the dead bodies of the town's inhabitants, as if they dropped dead in their tracks.
--back cover]]> 327 Michael Crichton 0060541814 Vin 4 3.92 1969 The Andromeda Strain (Andromeda, #1)
author: Michael Crichton
name: Vin
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1969
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/06/10
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]]> <![CDATA[A Time to Kill (Jake Brigance, #1)]]> 32542 This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 9780385338608

Before The Firm and The Pelican Brief made him a superstar, John Grisham wrote this riveting story of retribution and justice. In this searing courtroom drama, best-selling author John Grisham probes the savage depths of racial violence, as he delivers a compelling tale of uncertain justice in a small southern town, Clanton, Mississippi.

The life of a ten-year-old girl is shattered by two drunken and remorseless young men. The mostly white town reacts with shock and horror at the inhuman crime. That is, until her black father acquires an assault rifle and takes matters into his hands.

For ten days, as burning crosses and the crack of sniper fire spread through the streets of Clanton, the nation sits spellbound as young defense attorney Jake Brigance struggles to save his client's life, and then his own.]]> 738 John Grisham Vin 4 4.11 1989 A Time to Kill (Jake Brigance, #1)
author: John Grisham
name: Vin
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1989
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/06/10
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan, #3)]]> 19691 Somewhere under the Atlantic, a Soviet sub commander has just made a fateful decision. The Red October is heading west. The Americans want her. The Russians want her back. And the most incredible chase in history is on...

]]> 432 Tom Clancy 0425172902 Vin 0 to-read 4.11 1984 The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan, #3)
author: Tom Clancy
name: Vin
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/06/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> Deception Point 976 here

A shocking scientific discovery.
A conspiracy of staggering brilliance.
A thriller unlike any you've ever read....

When a new NASA satellite spots evidence of an astonishingly rare object buried deep in the Arctic ice, the floundering space agency proclaims a much-needed victory� a victory that has profound implications for U.S. space policy and the impending presidential election.

With the Oval Office in the balance, the President dispatches White House Intelligence analyst Rachel Sexton to the Milne Ice Shelf to verify the authenticity of the find. Accompanied by a team of experts, including the charismatic academic Michael Tolland, Rachel uncovers the unthinkable—evidence of scientific trickery—a bold deception that threatens to plunge the world into controversy.

But before Rachel can contact the President, she and Michael are attacked by a deadly task force…a private team of assassins controlled by a mysterious powerbroker who will stop at nothing to hide the truth. Fleeing for their lives in an environment as desolate as it is lethal, they possess only one hope, to find out who is behind this masterful ploy. The truth, they will learn, is the most shocking deception of all…]]> 556 Dan Brown 0671027387 Vin 3 3.76 2001 Deception Point
author: Dan Brown
name: Vin
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2018/06/10
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]]> When the Lights Go Out 36796312 A woman is forced to question her own identity in this riveting and emotionally charged thriller.

Jessie Sloane is on the path to rebuilding her life after years of caring for her ailing mother. She rents a new apartment and applies for college. But when the college informs her that her social security number has raised a red flag, Jessie discovers a shocking detail that causes her to doubt everything she’s ever known.

Finding herself suddenly at the center of a bizarre mystery, Jessie tumbles down a rabbit hole, which is only exacerbated by grief and a relentless lack of sleep. As days pass and the insomnia worsens, it plays with Jessie’s mind. Her judgment is blurred, her thoughts are hampered by fatigue. Jessie begins to see things until she can no longer tell the difference between what’s real and what she’s only imagined.

Meanwhile, twenty years earlier and two hundred and fifty miles away, another woman’s split-second decision may hold the key to Jessie’s secret past. Has Jessie’s whole life been a lie or have her delusions gotten the best of her?]]> 332 Mary Kubica 0778330788 Vin 0 to-read 3.25 2018 When the Lights Go Out
author: Mary Kubica
name: Vin
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/06/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Legendary (Caraval, #2) 36329818
After being swept up in the magical world of Caraval, Donatella Dragna has finally escaped her father and saved her sister, Scarlett, from a disastrous arranged marriage. The girls should be celebrating, but Tella isn’t yet free. She made a desperate bargain with a mysterious criminal, and what Tella owes him no one has ever been able to deliver: Caraval Master Legend’s true name.

The only chance of uncovering Legend’s identity is to win Caraval, so Tella throws herself into the legendary competition once more—and into the path of the murderous heir to the throne, a doomed love story, and a web of secrets…including her sister's. Caraval has always demanded bravery, cunning, and sacrifice, but now the game is asking for more. If Tella can’t fulfill her bargain and deliver Legend’s name, she’ll lose everything she cares about—maybe even her life. But if she wins, Legend and Caraval will be destroyed forever...

Welcome, welcome to Caraval . . . the games have only just begun.]]> 451 Stephanie Garber 125009531X Vin 0 to-read 4.12 2018 Legendary (Caraval, #2)
author: Stephanie Garber
name: Vin
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/06/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Impossibility of Us 35795898
When Elise meets Mati, they quickly discover how much they have in common. Mati is new to town too, visiting the U.S. with his family. Over the course of the summer, their relationship begins to blossom, and what starts out as a friendship becomes so much more.

But as Elise and Mati grow closer, her family becomes more and more uncomfortable with their relationship, and their concerns all center on one fact—Mati is Afghan.

Beautifully written, utterly compelling, and ultimately hopeful, THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF US asks—how brave can you be when your relationship is questioned by everyone you love?]]> 305 Katy Upperman 1250127998 Vin 0 to-read 4.13 2018 The Impossibility of Us
author: Katy Upperman
name: Vin
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/06/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Lost Queen (The Lost Queen, #1)]]> 38355440 �Outlander meets Camelot� (Kirsty Logan, author of The Gracekeepers) in the first book of an exciting historical trilogy that reveals the untold story of Languoreth—a powerful and, until now, tragically forgotten queen of sixth-century Scotland—twin sister of the man who inspired the legendary character of Merlin.

Intelligent, passionate, rebellious, and brave, Languoreth is the unforgettable heroine of The Lost Queen, a tale of conflicted loves and survival set against the cinematic backdrop of ancient Scotland, a magical land of myths and superstition inspired by the beauty of the natural world. One of the most powerful early medieval queens in British history, Languoreth ruled at a time of enormous disruption and bloodshed, when the burgeoning forces of Christianity threatened to obliterate the ancient pagan beliefs and change her way of life forever.

Together with her twin brother Lailoken, a warrior and druid known to history as Merlin, Languoreth is catapulted into a world of danger and violence. When a war brings the hero Emrys Pendragon, to their door, Languoreth collides with the handsome warrior Maelgwn. Their passionate connection is forged by enchantment, but Languoreth is promised in marriage to Rhydderch, son of the High King who is sympathetic to the followers of Christianity. As Rhydderch's wife, Languoreth must assume her duty to fight for the preservation of the Old Way, her kingdom, and all she holds dear.

“Moving, thrilling, and ultimately spellbinding� (BookPage), The Lost Queen brings this remarkable woman to life—rescuing her from obscurity, and reaffirming her place at the center of the most enduring legends of all time. “Moving, thrilling, and ultimately spellbinding, The Lost Queen is perfect for readers of historical fiction like The Clan of the Cave Bear and Wolf Hall, and for lovers of fantasy like Outlander and The Mists of Avalon� (BookPage).]]> 527 Signe Pike 1501191411 Vin 0 to-read 4.14 2018 The Lost Queen (The Lost Queen, #1)
author: Signe Pike
name: Vin
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/06/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Tiffany Blues 36373384
But Jenny’s past has followed her to Long Island. Images of her beloved mother, her hard-hearted stepfather, waterfalls, and murder, and the dank hallways of Canada’s notorious Andrew Mercer Reformatory for Women overwhelm Jenny’s thoughts, even as she is inextricably drawn to Oliver, Tiffany’s charismatic grandson.

As the summer shimmers on, and the competition between the artists grows fierce as they vie for a spot at Tiffany’s New York gallery, a series of suspicious and disturbing occurrences suggest someone knows enough about Jenny’s childhood trauma to expose her.

Supported by her closest friend Minx Deering, a seemingly carefree socialite yet dedicated sculptor, and Oliver, Jenny pushes her demons aside. Between stolen kisses and stolen jewels, the champagne flows and the jazz plays on until one moonless night when Jenny’s past and present are thrown together in a desperate moment, that will threaten her promising future, her love, her friendships, and her very life.]]> 317 M.J. Rose 1501173596 Vin 0 to-read 3.75 2018 Tiffany Blues
author: M.J. Rose
name: Vin
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/05/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Chaser (Dive Bar, #3) 34348621
Starting over in a small town, Jean is determined to turn her wild lifestyle around and be the kind of mother she always wished she'd had. Since local bar owner and all round hottie, Eric Collins, is now determined to steer clear of her pregnant self, it should be easy. When she goes into labour during a snow storm and her car slides on some ice, it's Eric who comes to the rescue.

There seems to be a bond between them now, but is it enough? And can Eric give up his manwhore ways to be the man Jean needs?]]> 270 Kylie Scott 1250083230 Vin 0 to-read 3.83 2018 Chaser (Dive Bar, #3)
author: Kylie Scott
name: Vin
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/03/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Blink 35804752 336 Sasha Dawn 1512439770 Vin 0 to-read 3.78 2018 Blink
author: Sasha Dawn
name: Vin
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Seismic Seven 36203874 This action-packed, science-infused adventure from the critically acclaimed author of The Countdown Conspiracy follows a group of seven kids racing to save the world from a deadly supervolcano. Perfect for fans of Chris Grabenstein and Peter Lerangis.

Brianna Dobson has been chosen to work with world-renowned geologist Dr. Grier in Yellowstone National Park for the summer, and she couldn’t be more excited!

But then Dr. Grier tells her and the other kids on the project the real reason she’s invited them to Yellowstone: A massive supervolcano in the park is about to erupt—and if they can’t stop it, Earth will be plunged into an endless winter, and civilization will be destroyed.

Bri and her new friends are ready and willing to help stop the eruption, but unexpected dangers threaten to foil their efforts. Will the Seismic Seven be able to defy nature and save the world?]]> 352 Katie Slivensky 0062463187 Vin 0 to-read 3.80 2018 The Seismic Seven
author: Katie Slivensky
name: Vin
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/03/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Bonfire 34259859 Should you ever go back?

It has been ten years since Abby Williams left home and scrubbed away all visible evidence of her small town roots. Now working as an environmental lawyer in Chicago, she has a thriving career, a modern apartment, and her pick of meaningless one-night stands.

But when a new case takes her back home to Barrens, Indiana, the life Abby painstakingly created begins to crack. Tasked with investigating Optimal Plastics, the town's most high-profile company and economic heart, Abby begins to find strange connections to Barrens� biggest scandal from more than a decade ago involving the popular Kaycee Mitchell and her closest friends—just before Kaycee disappeared for good.

Abby knows the key to solving any case lies in the weak spots, the unanswered questions. But as Abby tries to find out what really happened to Kaycee, she unearths an even more disturbing secret—a ritual called “The Game,� which will threaten the reputations, and lives, of the community and risk exposing a darkness that may consume her.

With tantalizing twists, slow-burning suspense, and a remote, rural town of just five claustrophobic miles, Bonfire is a dark exploration of the question: can you ever outrun your past?]]> 288 Krysten Ritter 1524759848 Vin 0 to-read 3.59 2017 Bonfire
author: Krysten Ritter
name: Vin
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/02/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Pinkalicious 731804 This sparkling New York Times bestselling picture book from Victoria and Elizabeth Kann celebrates all things pink while showing readers that being yourself is the best of all. This 10th anniversary edition of Pinkalicious features a special sticker and a glittery jacket just for the occasion.

Pinkalicious loves all things pink. From fairy dresses to cotton candy to bubblegum. Most importantly she loves eating pink cupcakes. Mommy and Daddy warn her not to eat too many, but Pinkalicious can’t help herself. They’re just too good! But when Pinkalicious eats one too many, she turns pink herself! What will she do?

Pinkalicious is the first picture book starring Pinkalicious and her family. She stars in five more picture books�Purplicious, Goldilicious, Silverlicious, Emeraldalicious, and Aqualicious—as well as I Can Reads, doodle books, and more!]]> 32 Victoria Kann 0060776390 Vin 0 to-read 4.08 2006 Pinkalicious
author: Victoria Kann
name: Vin
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/02/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Fractions Essentials Workbook with Answers]]> 38461251 * fractions, decimals, and percentages
* how to find a common denominator
* repeating decimals
* adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing fractions
* converting between mixed numbers and improper fractions
* solving problems with ratios or proportions
* word problems
* long division with remainders
* reducing fractions
* finding reciprocals
* what a fraction means visually
This workbook includes a pretest and a posttest to help assess student learning. Comparing pretest and posttest scores helps to measure how much students have learned by using this workbook. Teachers, parents, and even students may find this helpful.]]> 256 Chris McMullen 1941691250 Vin 0 to-read 4.26 Fractions Essentials Workbook with Answers
author: Chris McMullen
name: Vin
average rating: 4.26
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/02/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Astrophysics for People in a Hurry]]> 32191710
But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in tasty chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day.]]> 223 Neil deGrasse Tyson 0393609391 Vin 0 to-read 4.07 2017 Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
author: Neil deGrasse Tyson
name: Vin
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/01/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Artemis 34928122
Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent.

Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. But pulling off the impossible is just the start of her problems, as she learns that she's stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself—and that now, her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even riskier than the first.]]> 305 Andy Weir 0553448129 Vin 0 to-read 3.66 2017 Artemis
author: Andy Weir
name: Vin
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/01/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> UNSUB (UNSUB, #1) 32811580
Caitlin Hendrix has been a Narcotics detective for six months when the killer at the heart of all her childhood nightmares reemerges: the Prophet. An UNSUB—what the FBI calls an unknown subject—the Prophet terrorized the Bay Area in the 1990s and nearly destroyed her father, the lead investigator on the case.

The Prophet’s cryptic messages and mind games drove Detective Mack Hendrix to the brink of madness, and Mack’s failure to solve the series of ritualized murders—eleven seemingly unconnected victims left with the ancient sign for Mercury etched into their flesh—was the final nail in the coffin for a once promising career.

Twenty years later, two bodies are found bearing the haunting signature of the Prophet. Caitlin Hendrix has never escaped the shadow of her father’s failure to protect their city. But now the ruthless madman is killing again and has set his sights on her, threatening to undermine the fragile barrier she rigidly maintains for her own protection, between relentless pursuit and dangerous obsession.

Determined to decipher his twisted messages and stop the carnage, Caitlin ignores her father’s warnings as she draws closer to the killer with each new gruesome murder. Is it a copycat, or can this really be the same Prophet who haunted her childhood? Will Caitlin avoid repeating her father’s mistakes and redeem her family name, or will chasing the Prophet drag her and everyone she loves into the depths of the abyss?]]> 367 Meg Gardiner 1101985526 Vin 5 4.02 2017 UNSUB (UNSUB, #1)
author: Meg Gardiner
name: Vin
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/01/06
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review:
Brilliant! Gripping till the end, waiting for the next one.
]]> Letters to the Pianist 35989543
In war torn London, 1941, fourteen-year-old Ruth Goldberg and her two younger siblings, Gabi and Hannah, survive the terrifying bombing of their family home. They believe their parents are dead, their bodies buried underneath the burnt remains � but unbeknownst to them, their father, Joe, survives and is taken to hospital with amnesia.

Four years on, Ruth, stumbles across a newspaper photo of a celebrated pianist and is struck by the resemblance to her father. Desperate for evidence she sends him a letter, and as the pianist’s dormant memories emerge, his past unravels, revealing his true identity � as her beloved father, Joe.

Ruth sets out to meet him, only to find herself plunged into an aristocratic world of sinister dark secrets. Can she help him escape and find a way to stay alive?


LETTERS TO THE PIANIST is a compelling page turner packed with drama, intrigue and suspense. If you loved The Book Thief, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and Foyles War then discover this exciting new novel.
]]> 412 S.D. Mayes Vin 0 to-read 4.30 2017 Letters to the Pianist
author: S.D. Mayes
name: Vin
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/11/04
shelves: to-read
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]]> A Legacy of Spies 34496330
Interweaving past with present so that each may tell its own intense story, John le Carré has spun a single plot as ingenious and thrilling as the two predecessors on which it looks back: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. In a story resonating with tension, humor and moral ambivalence, le Carré and his narrator Peter Guillam present the reader with a legacy of unforgettable characters old and new.]]> 265 John Le Carré 0241308542 Vin 0 to-read 4.02 2017 A Legacy of Spies
author: John Le Carré
name: Vin
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/09/05
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Eye of Mumbai 35717437
Warning herself not to get personally involved with the attractive investigator, Susan soon finds herself becoming progressively more entangled in the theft and in her feelings for Richard.

When things go wrong and she is placed in great danger, Susan must rely on her own abilities and help from Richard, a man she hardly knows, to save her from disaster.]]> 146 Glen Ebisch Vin 0 to-read 4.00 The Eye of Mumbai
author: Glen Ebisch
name: Vin
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/08/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bluebird, Bluebird (Highway 59, #1)]]> 34219838 A powerful thriller about the explosive intersection of love, race, and justice from a writer and producer of the Emmy winning Fox TV show Empire.

When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules--a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger, knows all too well. Deeply ambivalent about growing up black in the lone star state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him home.

When his allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town of Lark, where two murders--a black lawyer from Chicago and a local white woman--have stirred up a hornet's nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes--and save himself in the process--before Lark's long-simmering racial fault lines erupt.

A rural noir suffused with the unique music, color, and nuance of East Texas, Bluebird, Bluebird is an exhilarating, timely novel about the collision of race and justice in America.]]> 307 Attica Locke 0316363294 Vin 0 to-read 3.82 2017 Bluebird, Bluebird (Highway 59, #1)
author: Attica Locke
name: Vin
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/08/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Upside of Unrequited (Simonverse, #2)]]> 30653853 always have to be careful.

Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly’s totally not dying of loneliness—except for the part where she is. Luckily, Cassie’s new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. Will is funny and flirtatious and just might be perfect crush material. Maybe more than crush material. And if Molly can win him over, she’ll get her first kiss and she’ll get her twin back.

There’s only one problem: Molly’s coworker Reid. He’s an awkward Tolkien superfan with a season pass to the Ren Faire, and there’s absolutely no way Molly could fall for him. Right?]]> 336 Becky Albertalli 0062348701 Vin 0 to-read 3.89 2017 The Upside of Unrequited (Simonverse, #2)
author: Becky Albertalli
name: Vin
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/08/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Plot Against America 703
For one boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh's election is the first in a series of ruptures that threatens to destroy his small, safe corner of America - and with it, his mother, his father, and his older brother.]]> 391 Philip Roth 1400079497 Vin 0 to-read 3.79 2004 The Plot Against America
author: Philip Roth
name: Vin
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/04/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Road 6288
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,� are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.]]> 241 Cormac McCarthy 0307265439 Vin 0 to-read 3.99 2006 The Road
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Vin
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/04/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Gift of Anger: And Other Lessons from My Grandfather Mahatma Gandhi]]> 31945429 ב"מתנת הכעס" מבקש ארוּן גנדי לחלוק עם הקוראים 11 שיעורי חיים מאלפים ויוצאי דופן שלמד מסבו, תוך שהוא משלב אותם בסיפורים מתוך חייו האישיים והיכרותו הבלתי אמצעית עם מי שהפך לאחת הדמויות האיקוניות של המאה ה-20. שיעורי החיים מעוררי ההשראה הללו נוגעים בנושאים אוניברסליים כמו גילוי עצמי, זהות, התמודדות עם כעס, דכאון, בדידות, חברוּת ומשפחה � ונדמה שבעולם הכאוטי של ימינו הם רלוונטיים עוד יותר מתמיד.
ארון גנדי, יליד 1934, היה עיתונאי במשך יותר משלושים שנה בטיימס ההודי, וכתב גם עבור הוושינגטון פוסט. בימים אלה הוא משמש כנשיא המכון העולמי לחינוך על שם מהטמה גנדי, ונוסע ברחבי העולם על מנת לדבר עם מנהיגים, כמו גם עם סטודנטים ותלמידי תיכון, על חשיבות השלום ואי-האלימות. הוא מתגורר ברוטצ'סטר, ניו יורק.]]> 292 Arun Gandhi 1476754853 Vin 0 to-read 4.16 2017 The Gift of Anger: And Other Lessons from My Grandfather Mahatma Gandhi
author: Arun Gandhi
name: Vin
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Death at Chinatown (Emily Cabot Mysteries)]]> 22263767 226 Frances McNamara 0989053555 Vin 0 to-read 3.75 2014 Death at Chinatown (Emily Cabot Mysteries)
author: Frances McNamara
name: Vin
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/02/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Make Me (Jack Reacher, #20) 23664710 “Why is this town called Mother’s Rest?�

That’s all Reacher wants to know. But no one will tell him. It’s a tiny place hidden in a thousand square miles of wheat fields, with a railroad stop, and sullen and watchful people, and a worried woman named Michelle Chang, who mistakes him for someone else: her missing partner in a private investigation she thinks must have started small and then turned lethal.

Reacher has no particular place to go, and all the time in the world to get there, and there’s something about Chang . . . so he teams up with her and starts to ask around. He thinks: How bad can this thing be? But before long he’s plunged into a desperate race through LA, Chicago, Phoenix, and San Francisco, and through the hidden parts of the internet, up against thugs and assassins every step of the way—right back to where he started, in Mother’s Rest, where he must confront the worst nightmare he could imagine.

Walking away would have been easier. But as always, Reacher’s rule is: If you want me to stop, you’re going to have to make me.]]> 428 Lee Child 0593073894 Vin 4 3.93 2015 Make Me (Jack Reacher, #20)
author: Lee Child
name: Vin
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2016/07/03
date added: 2016/07/16
shelves:
review:
Loved it! Lee Child writes great Jack Reacher stories! This one is one of the better ones. Loved it!
]]> A Gentleman in Moscow 29430012 He can't leave. You won't want to.

With his breakout novel Rules of Civility, Amor Towles established himself as a master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction, bringing late-1930s Manhattan to life with splendid atmosphere and a flawless command of style. A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov.

When, in 1922, the thirty-year-old Count is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, he is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. An indomitable man of erudition and wit, Rostov must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors.

Unexpectedly, the Count's reduced circumstances provide him entry to a much larger world of emotional discovery as he forges friendships with the hotel's other denizens, including a willful actress, a shrewd Kremlinite, a gregarious American, and a temperamental chef. But when fate suddenly puts the life of a young girl in his hands, he must draw on all his ingenuity to protect the future she so deserves.

Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the Count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.]]> 462 Amor Towles Vin 0 to-read 4.33 2016 A Gentleman in Moscow
author: Amor Towles
name: Vin
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/07/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Gravity 25898657
For seventeen-year-old Ellie Engebretsen, the 2011 decision to include women’s ski jumping in the Olympics is a game changer. She’d love to bring home the gold for her father, a former Olympic competitor whose dreams were blown along with his knees on an ill-timed landing. But can she defy the pull of gravity that draws her to Kate Moreau, her biggest competition and the girl of her dreams?

How can Ellie soar through the air when all she feels like doing is falling hard?


"A spicy novel about two young women daring to fly free in life and love while accurately depicting the thrill of ski jumping!"

~ Sarah Hendrickson, Olympic Ski Jumper and Member of the US Women's Ski Jumping Team]]> 224 Juliann Rich 1626394830 Vin 0 to-read 3.63 2016 Gravity
author: Juliann Rich
name: Vin
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/07/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel]]> 27213220
إن كتاب "الملاك"، الذي يستند إلى أبحاث دقيقة ومقابلات حصرية مع الشخصيات الهامة ذات الصلة، هو أول كتاب يناقش دوافع مروان في التجسس، وكيف تم الكشف عن هويته كجاسوس للموساد ليس من أحد آخر سوى الرئيس السابق للاستخبارات العسكرية الإسرائيلية، وكيف تمت الاستفادة من � وإساءة استخدام � المعلومات التي قدَّمها. وبالتوسع حول هذه القضية، يُلقي الكتاب الضوء على التاريخ المعاصر للشرق الأوسط والدور الحاسم للجاسوسية البشرية في تشكيل مصير الأمم. وهو، لأول مرة، يجيب عن الأسئلة التي تلف ميراث مروان، وفي آخر الأمر، من الذي كان أشرف مروان يخونه حقاً؟ ومن قتله؟

_____________
A gripping feat of reportage that exposes—for the first time in English—the sensational life and mysterious death of Ashraf Marwan, an Egyptian senior official who spied for Israel, offering new insight into the turbulent modern history of the Middle East.

As the son-in-law of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and a close advisor to his successor, Anwar Sadat, Ashraf Marwan had access to the deepest secrets of the country’s government. But Marwan himself had a secret: He was a spy for the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. Under the codename “The Angel,� Marwan turned Egypt into an open book for the Israeli intelligence services—and, by alerting the Mossad in advance of the joint Egyptian-Syrian attack on Yom Kippur, saved Israel from a devastating defeat.

Drawing on meticulous research and interviews with many key participants, Uri Bar Joseph pieces together Marwan’s story. In the process, he sheds new light on this volatile time in modern Egyptian and Middle Eastern history, culminating in 2011’s Arab Spring. The Angel also chronicles the discord within the Israeli government that brought down Prime Minister Golda Meir.

However, this nail-biting narrative doesn’t end with Israel’s victory in the Yom Kippur War. Marwan eluded Egypt’s ruthless secret services for many years, but then somebody talked. Five years later, in 2007, his body was found in the garden of his London apartment building. Police suspected he had been thrown from his fifth-floor balcony, and thanks to explosive new evidence, Bar-Joseph can finally reveal who, how, and why.]]> 384 Uri Bar-Joseph 0062420100 Vin 0 to-read 3.81 2010 The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel
author: Uri Bar-Joseph
name: Vin
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/07/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman]]> 10260
El placer de descubrir permite acceder al mundo personal, social y cientíco de Richard Feynman, por ejemplo, a sus aventuras mientras participó en el Proyecto Manhattan, cuando se divertía —y escandalizaba� descifrando las claves de cajas fuertes, o a cómo se inició, siendo un niño, en el estudio de la naturaleza (en el «placer de descubrir»), que terminaría ocupando toda su vida. Podemos, asimismo, conocer sus pioneras ideas sobre las computadoras del futuro, su opinión acerca del valor de la ciencia o la explicación, tan sencilla como profunda, que dio al desastre de la lanzadera espacial Challenger. Es este, sin duda, un libro tan fascinante como su autor.]]> 270 Richard P. Feynman Vin 0 to-read 4.26 1999 The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman
author: Richard P. Feynman
name: Vin
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/06/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sleeping Giants (Themis Files, #1)]]> 25733990
Seventeen years later, the mystery of the bizarre artifact remains unsolved - the object's origins, architects, and purpose unknown.

But some can never stop searching for answers.

Rose Franklin is now a highly trained physicist leading a top-secret team to crack the hand's code. And along with her colleagues, she is being interviewed by a nameless interrogator whose power and purview are as enigmatic as the relic they seek. What's clear is that Rose and her compatriots are on the edge of unravelling history's most perplexing discovery-and finally figuring out what it portends for humanity. But once the pieces of the puzzle are in place, will the result be an instrument of lasting peace or a weapon of mass destruction?]]> 320 Sylvain Neuvel 1101886692 Vin 5 3.82 2016 Sleeping Giants (Themis Files, #1)
author: Sylvain Neuvel
name: Vin
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2016/05/20
date added: 2016/06/03
shelves:
review:
Loved this book! Looking fwd to the next in the series. Well written!
]]> The Rumor 23341607
And rumor has it...

...that Madeline, a novelist, is battling writer's block, with a deadline looming, bills piling up, and blank pages driving her to desperation--and a desperately bad decision;

...that Grace, hard at work to transform her backyard into a garden paradise, has been collaborating a bit more closely than necessary with her ruggedly handsome landscape architect;

...that Grace's husband, successful island real estate developer "Fast Eddie" Pancik, has embarked on quite an unusual side project;

...that the storybook romance between Madeline's son, Brick, and Grace's daughter Allegra is on the rocks, heading for disaster.

As the gossip escalates, and they face the possible loss of the happy lives they've worked so hard to create, Grace and Madeline try mightily to set the record straight--but the truth might be even worse than rumor has it.
]]> 370 Elin Hilderbrand 0316334529 Vin 0 to-read 3.71 2015 The Rumor
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Vin
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/05/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Crossing (Harry Bosch, #18; Harry Bosch Universe, #28)]]> 25010281
Bosch doesn't want anything to do with crossing the aisle to work for the defense. He feels it will undo all the good he's done in his thirty years as a homicide cop. But Mickey promises to let the chips fall where they may. If Harry proves that his client did it, under the rules of discovery, they are obliged to turn over the evidence to the prosecution.

Though it goes against all his instincts, Bosch reluctantly takes the case. The prosecution's file just has too many holes and he has to find out for himself: if Haller's client didn't do it, then who did? With the secret help of his former LAPD partner Lucy Soto, Harry starts digging. Soon his investigation leads him inside the police department, where he realizes that the killer he's been tracking has also been tracking him.]]> 388 Michael Connelly 0316225886 Vin 5 4.20 2015 The Crossing (Harry Bosch, #18; Harry Bosch Universe, #28)
author: Michael Connelly
name: Vin
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2016/03/09
date added: 2016/03/10
shelves:
review:
Loved it! I need to read more by Michael Connelly, this one was my first by him. Fast paced and gripping, a page turner.
]]> <![CDATA[The Spanish Game (Alec Milius #2)]]> 876732 For six years, Alec Milius has been trying to escape his past, but his past refuses to release him. Abandoned by MI6 after a disastrous operation against the CIA, Milius has slowly rebuilt his life in Madrid. Older and wiser than the young spy who first caught the eye of British Intelligence, Milius still has a talent for deception-and a fatal weakness for secrets. So when a prominent politician disappears under suspicious circumstances, Milius can't resist tracking him down.

But the rules have changed. Alec is now working alone, outside the boundaries of any official agency. Paranoid and expendable, he soon becomes vulnerable to the ruthless duplicities of a secret world in which no one can be trusted. Yet as he comes face to face with the nightmare of modern terror, Alec is given one last chance for redemption.]]> 480 Charles Cumming 014101783X Vin 2 3.71 2006 The Spanish Game (Alec Milius #2)
author: Charles Cumming
name: Vin
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2006
rating: 2
read at: 2016/02/29
date added: 2016/03/10
shelves:
review:
Was expecting more out this, it never seemed to hit it's stride.
]]> The Mind Club 25784102 From dogs to gods, dive into the science of mysterious minds—including your own.

Nothing seems more real than the minds of other people. When you consider what your boss is thinking or whether your spouse is happy, you are admitting them into the “mind club.� It’s easy to assume other humans can think and feel, but what about a cow, a computer, a corporation? What kinds of mind do they have? Daniel M. Wegner and Kurt Gray are award-winning psychologists who have discovered that minds—while incredibly important—are a matter of perception. Their research opens a trove of new findings, with insights into human behavior that are fascinating, frightening and funny. The Mind Club explains why we love some animals and eat others, why people debate the existence of God so intensely, how good people can be so cruel, and why robots make such poor lovers. By investigating the mind perception of extraordinary targets—animals, machines, comatose people, god—Wegner and Gray explain what it means to have a mind, and why it matter so much. Fusing cutting-edge research and personal anecdotes, The Mind Club explores the moral dimensions of mind perception with wit and compassion, revealing the surprisingly simple basis for what compels us to love and hate, to harm and to protect.]]> 416 Daniel M. Wegner 0670785830 Vin 0 to-read 3.87 2016 The Mind Club
author: Daniel M. Wegner
name: Vin
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/01/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Winner's Crime (The Winner's Trilogy, #2)]]> 20443207
The engagement of Lady Kestrel to Valoria’s crown prince means one celebration after another. But to Kestrel it means living in a cage of her own making. As the wedding approaches, she aches to tell Arin the truth about her engagement... if she could only trust him. Yet can she even trust herself? For—unknown to Arin—Kestrel is becoming a skilled practitioner of deceit: an anonymous spy passing information to Herran, and close to uncovering a shocking secret.

As Arin enlists dangerous allies in the struggle to keep his country’s freedom, he can’t fight the suspicion that Kestrel knows more than she shows. In the end, it might not be a dagger in the dark that cuts him open, but the truth. And when that happens, Kestrel and Arin learn just how much their crimes will cost them.]]> 416 Marie Rutkoski 0374384711 Vin 0 to-read 4.08 2015 The Winner's Crime (The Winner's Trilogy, #2)
author: Marie Rutkoski
name: Vin
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/12/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Choice 25402194
Travis Parker has everything a man could want: a good job, loyal friends, even a waterfront home in small-town North Carolina. In full pursuit of the good life - boating, swimming , and regular barbecues with his good-natured buddies -- he holds the vague conviction that a serious relationship with a woman would only cramp his style. That is, until Gabby Holland moves in next door. Spanning the eventful years of young love, marriage and family, THE CHOICE ultimately confronts us with the most heartwrenching question of all: how far would you go to keep the hope of love alive?]]> 325 Nicholas Sparks Vin 0 to-read 4.01 2007 The Choice
author: Nicholas Sparks
name: Vin
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/12/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Once Upon a Crime (Brothers Grimm Mystery, #2)]]> 25328876 New York Times bestselling author P. J. Brackston comes the prequel to Gretel and the Case of the Missing Frog Prints, the new novel in the rollicking series featuring Gretel, all grown up and working as a private investigator in 18th century Bavaria.

Gretel (yes, that Gretel) is now 35, very large, still living with her brother Hans, and working as a private investigator. The small, sleepy town of Gesternstadt is shaken to its pretty foundations when the workshop of the local cart maker is burnt to the ground, and a body is discovered in the ashes. It is Gretel who notices that the cadaver is missing a finger.

At first, she does not see this as significant, as her mind is fully focused on a new case. Not that she wouldn’t far rather be investigating an intriguing murder, but her client is willing to pay over the odds, so she must content herself with trying to trace three missing cats. It is not until she is further into her investigations that she realizes the two events are inextricably and dangerously connected, and that the mystery of the missing cats will lead her into perilous situations and frightening company.

Very soon Gretel finds herself accused of kidnapping Princess Charlotte, twice locked up in the cells at the Summer Schloss, repelling the advances of an amorous troll, strapped to a rack in Herr Schmerz’s torture chamber, and fleeing a murder charge. With dubious help from her brother (whose scant wits are habitually addled by drink), she must prove her innocence, solve the puzzle of the unidentified corpse, and find the stolen cats before they meet a grisly end.]]> 352 P.J. Brackston 160598812X Vin 0 to-read 3.60 2015 Once Upon a Crime (Brothers Grimm Mystery, #2)
author: P.J. Brackston
name: Vin
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/12/22
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]]> <![CDATA[A Pocket Guide for Project Managers: Maximize People, Process, and Tools]]> 24355134 214 Michael J. Bettigole 1491731990 Vin 0 to-read 4.43 2014 A Pocket Guide for Project Managers: Maximize People, Process, and Tools
author: Michael J. Bettigole
name: Vin
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/12/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes]]> 18079825 The New York Times bestselling guide to thinking like literature's greatest detective
No fictional character is more renowned for his powers of thought and observation than Sherlock Holmes. But is his extraordinary intellect merely a gift of fiction, or can we learn to cultivate these abilities ourselves, to improve our lives at work and at home?

We can, says psychologist and journalist Maria Konnikova, and in Mastermind she shows us how. Beginning with the “brain attic”—Holmes’s metaphor for how we store information and organize knowledge—Konnikova unpacks the mental strategies that lead to clearer thinking and deeper insights. Drawing on twenty-first-century neuroscience and psychology, Mastermind explores Holmes’s unique methods of ever-present mindfulness, astute observation, and logical deduction. In doing so, it shows how each of us, with some self-awareness and a little practice, can employ these same methods to sharpen our perceptions, solve difficult problems, and enhance our creative powers. For Holmes aficionados and casual readers alike, Konnikova reveals how the world’s most keen-eyed detective can serve as an unparalleled guide to upgrading the mind.]]> 288 Maria Konnikova 014312434X Vin 0 to-read 3.58 2013 Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes
author: Maria Konnikova
name: Vin
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/12/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Flawless (New York Confidential #1)]]> 25855514
It’s a pub in lower Manhattan, run by the Finnegan family for generations and now owned by Kieran and her three brothers. Kieran Finnegan, who still works there whenever she can, has become a criminal psychologist—a fitting reaction, perhaps, to her less-than-lawful past.

Meanwhile, New York’s Diamond District has been hit by a rash of thefts. No one’s been killed—until now. FBI agent Craig Frasier is brought in to investigate; he and Kieran meet at a jewelry store in the middle of a heist. She’s there to “unsteal� a flawless stone taken by her light-fingered youngest brother as an act of vengeance. He’s there to stop the gang.

But the police and FBI soon discover that there are two gangs of diamond thieves, the original and a copycat group of killers. And the second group seems to think their scheme is as flawless as the stones they steal.

Thrown together by circumstance, drawn together by attraction, Kieran and Craig both end up working on the case. Unfortunately, there’s more and more evidence that, somehow, the pub is involved. Because everyone goes to Finnegan's.…]]> 299 Heather Graham 0778318818 Vin 0 to-read 3.75 2016 Flawless (New York Confidential #1)
author: Heather Graham
name: Vin
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/12/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Faces of Strangers 26154354 The highly acclaimed author of Where Earth Meets Water returns with an arresting exploration of family and culture.

When native New Yorker Nicholas Grand applies for an international student exchange program, he thinks it's an opportunity to broaden his horizons and meet some interesting people. He never imagines that a single year would have repercussions that would follow him throughout his lifetime.

Nicholas is sent to Estonia, where he meets shy, sensitive Paavo, his beautiful sister, Mari, and their gruff father, Leo, a family grappling with the challenges of life in a small country struggling to assert its post-Soviet identity. Nicholas sets off on an unforgettable journey through a foreign landscape that ultimately teaches him that some bonds can never be broken.

Bridging two uniquely captivating cities, The Faces of Strangers traces the intertwined lives of two seemingly symmetrical families from extraordinarily different worlds. This compelling odyssey through friendship and self-discovery illuminates the universality of how deeply we are defined by our connections with others.

]]> 320 Pia Padukone 0778318052 Vin 0 to-read 3.43 2016 The Faces of Strangers
author: Pia Padukone
name: Vin
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/12/21
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Girl in the Spider's Web (Millennium, #4)]]> 25074850
Late one night, Blomkvist receives a phone call from a source claiming to have information vital to the United States. The source has been in contact with a young female superhacker—a hacker resembling someone Blomkvist knows all too well. The implications are staggering. Blomkvist, in desperate need of a scoop for Millennium, turns to Salander for help. She, as usual, has her own agenda. The secret they are both chasing is at the center of a tangled web of spies, cybercriminals, and governments around the world, and someone is prepared to kill to protect it . . .

The duo who captivated millions of readers in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest join forces again in this adrenaline-charged, uniquely of-the-moment thriller.]]> 400 David Lagercrantz 0385354282 Vin 0 to-read 3.74 2015 The Girl in the Spider's Web (Millennium, #4)
author: David Lagercrantz
name: Vin
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/12/19
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The English Spy (Gabriel Allon, #15)]]> 23460947 First there was The English Assassin.

Then there was The English Girl.

Now comes The English Spy...

Master novelist Daniel Silva has thrilled readers with seventeen thoughtful and gripping spy novels featuring a diverse cast of compelling characters, and ingenious plots that have taken them around the globe and back—from the United States to Europe, Russia to the Middle East. His brilliant hero, Gabriel Allon - art restorer, assassin, spy - has joined the pantheon of great fictional secret agents, including George Smiley, Jack Ryan, Jason Bourne and Simon Templar.

Following the success of his smash hit The Heist, Daniel Silva returns with another powerhouse of a novel - one that showcases his outstanding skill and brilliant imagination, and which is sure to be a must-read for both his multitudes of fans and growing legions of converts.]]> 484 Daniel Silva 0062320130 Vin 0 to-read 4.15 2015 The English Spy (Gabriel Allon, #15)
author: Daniel Silva
name: Vin
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/12/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The First Order (Sam Capra, #5)]]> 25744918 Sam Capra is on a one-man mission to find his brother . . .
And to stop a war.

THE FIRST ORDER >

Two brothers. One dead, executed by extremists on a grainy video. The other forged into a top undercover agent. But now, Sam Capra has reason to believe that his brother, Danny, may be alive. And if Danny has been living a secret life these past years, where has he been--and what has he become?

Sam's desperate search for his brother leads him into a modern heart of darkness: the Russian elite inner circle, a group of ruthless ex-KGB billionaires who owe fealty to Russia's corrupt president, Morozov. One of these men wants Morozov dead. And Danny will be the one to kill him--on American soil.

To save his brother--and to save the world from certain war--Sam, along with his mysterious partner, Mila, must stop Danny from killing Morozov. The mission will take Sam from the slums of Pakistan to the hipster galleries of Brooklyn to the Caribbean playgrounds of the superrich. And as Sam untangles the secret past locked in his brother's heart, he may be forced to make a choice between his brother--and the greater good . . .]]> 391 Jeff Abbott 1455558419 Vin 0 to-read 3.87 2016 The First Order (Sam Capra, #5)
author: Jeff Abbott
name: Vin
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/12/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World]]> 25744928 One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results.

Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way.

In Deep Work, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules," for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill.

A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, Deep Work takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories-from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air-and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. Deep Work is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.]]> 296 Cal Newport 1455586692 Vin 0 to-read 4.16 2016 Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
author: Cal Newport
name: Vin
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/12/03
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Corrupted (Rosato & DiNunzio, #3)]]> 24952205 424 Lisa Scottoline 1250027934 Vin 0 to-read 4.05 2015 Corrupted (Rosato & DiNunzio, #3)
author: Lisa Scottoline
name: Vin
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/10/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Sherlock Holmes Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained]]> 25194263 The Sherlock Holmes Book, the latest in DK's award-winning Big Ideas Simply Explained series, tackles the most "elementary" of subjects � the world of Sherlock Holmes, as told by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The Sherlock Holmes Book is packed with witty illustrations, clear graphics, and memorable quotes that make it the perfect Sherlock Holmes guide, covering every case of the world's greatest detective, from A Study in Scarlet to The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place, placing the sorties in a wider context. Stories include at-a-glance flowcharts that show how Holmes reaches his conclusions through deductive reasoning, and character guides provide handy reference for readers and an invaluable resource for fans of the Sherlock Holmes films and TV series.

The Sherlock Holmes Book holds a magnifying glass to the world of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary detective.]]> 352 Leslie S. Klinger 1465438491 Vin 0 to-read 4.22 1998 The Sherlock Holmes Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained
author: Leslie S. Klinger
name: Vin
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/10/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Wild Drinks and Cocktails: Handcrafted Squashes, Shrubs, Switchels, Tonics, and Infusions to Mix at Home]]> 25067082 Using ingredients you can find in your own backyard, farm, or local market, you can create artisan drinks that will leave you feeling refreshed and even revitalized. Learn useful fermentation techniques to make your own water kefir and homemade soda. Brew your own teas, mix your own squashes, shrubs, switchels, tonics, and infusions. You can even use the recipes to create powerful and healthful craft cocktails.
Craft drink expert Emily Han creates unique flavors in the 100 drink recipes, each with powerful health benefits, along with a sentimental nod to drinks of another era. Wild Drinks & Cocktails teaches you the techniques you need to know to handcraft your own infused waters, syrups, vinegar drinks, spirits, wines, and sodas.
Join the drink renaissance with Wild Drinks & Cocktails. "Emily Han's carefully crafted book, Wild Drinks & Cocktails dispels the common wisdom of great drinks are only to be built by professionals. These simple cocktails are not short of brilliant- from locally-gathered ingredients constructed with our own, very capable hands, no pros needed!" - Warren Bobrow, author of Apothecary Cocktails, Whiskey Cocktails, and Bitters and Shrub Syrup Cocktails]]> 192 Emily Han 1592337074 Vin 0 to-read 4.21 2015 Wild Drinks and Cocktails: Handcrafted Squashes, Shrubs, Switchels, Tonics, and Infusions to Mix at Home
author: Emily Han
name: Vin
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/10/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> Circle of Shadows 14425254
He manages to forge the documents necessary for him to get into high school and to get part-time jobs to support himself, but living in the shadows, his life becomes one of isolation, deception, and the constant threat of discovery.

In the segregationist South, Steve's friendship with Taliaferro, a Negro teenager, must be kept secret. Romance nds him, and his growing relationship with his girlfriend, Laura, brightens his life and gives meaning to it. However, his life must be conducted in and out of shadows, and any meeting of the three most important people in his life, Awillah, Taliaferro, and Laura, could bring his carefully crafted facade tumbling down, sending him back to his father!

In this compelling tale, his accidental discovery sends the novel in unexpected directions, ending in a twist of fate that brings resolution to the story."]]> 212 Keith M. Heim 1469744732 Vin 3 4.03 2012 Circle of Shadows
author: Keith M. Heim
name: Vin
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2015/10/18
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review:
I got this book as part of the ŷ giveaway. I am glad I got it! I nice satisfactory read. Worth my time.
]]> The Grownup 26025580
“The Grownup,� originally appeared as “What Do You Do?� in George R. R. Martin’s Rogues anthology.]]> 64 Gillian Flynn 0804188971 Vin 0 to-read 3.55 2014 The Grownup
author: Gillian Flynn
name: Vin
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/10/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Travelers 25731543 New York Times bestselling author of The Expats and The Accident.

It s 3:00 am. Do you know where your husband is? Meet Will Rhodes: travel writer, recently married, barely solvent, his idealism rapidly giving way to disillusionment and the worry that he's living the wrong life. Then one night, on assignment for the award-winning Travelers magazine in the wine region of Argentina, a beautiful woman makes him an offer he can't refuse. Soon Will's bad choices and dark secrets take him across Europe, from a chateau in Bordeaux to a midnight raid on a Paris mansion, from a dive bar in Dublin to a mega-yacht in the Mediterranean and an isolated cabin perched on the rugged cliffs of Iceland.

As he's drawn further into a tangled web of international intrigue, it becomes clear that nothing about Will Rhodes was ever ordinary, that the network of deception ensnaring him is part of an immense and deadly conspiracy with terrifying global implications and that the people closest to him may pose the greatest threat of all.

It's 3:00 am. Your husband has just become a spy.]]> 433 Chris Pavone 0385348487 Vin 0 to-read 3.55 2016 The Travelers
author: Chris Pavone
name: Vin
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/10/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Extraordinary Voyages of the Panchatantra]]> 25604717
What made the ancient Sanskrit fables of THE PANCHATANTRA so durable and well travelled? What role did live-action storytelling have in their origin and long-distance migration? What is the function of these stories, if any, beyond entertainment? Why are they so beautiful and hauntingly compelling?

Along their way westward they spawned equally famous classics in both Arabic and Persian � indeed the oldest extant manuscripts of THE PANCHATANTRA are versions of KALILA AND DIMNA, a 750CE Arabic derivative of the long-lost Sanskrit and Pahlavi originals. From the Persian and Arab world, these fables migrated across the Mediterranean into Europe and by the 16th century existed in Spanish, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, French and English versions.

This Essay derives from a Lecture at The Power of Stories seminar.
presented by the Institute for Cultural Research in London at the School of
Oriental and African Studies 28/29th May, 2009.]]> 28 Ramsay Wood 0904674525 Vin 0 to-read 4.07 2011 Extraordinary Voyages of the Panchatantra
author: Ramsay Wood
name: Vin
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/10/11
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]]> The Martian 18007564
Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.

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

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

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

]]> 384 Andy Weir 0804139024 Vin 5 4.41 2011 The Martian
author: Andy Weir
name: Vin
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2015/09/19
date added: 2015/10/11
shelves:
review:
Loved it! An exciting read, loved the pacing of the novel. Parts of it were technical but did not distract. Great first novel!
]]> <![CDATA[Photography in the Digital Age: Volume I -- The Art of Image Capture]]> 26809963 Ansel Adams, with his editor Robert Baker, authored a series of three books on photography entitled The Camera, The Negative, and The Print. These three books stand as the definitive works for the traditional art of emulsion and chemical-based photography. However, Adams was insightful enough to understand the impact that electronics would have on the art of photography. In the introduction to his second volume, The Negative, Adams discusses the imminent "electronic revolution".



Since the publication of Adams' books, that electronic revolution has indeed changed the face of photography in a profound manner, but until now, there was no comprehensive series of books which explored all of the aspects of the art of photography in the context of the electronic revolution. Photography in the Digital Age is a series of three volumes that address the shift to this new technology, and explore the integration of traditional photographic techniques with digital photography.



The three volumes are as follows:



Volume I - The Art of Image Capture



Volume II - The Image Master File



Volume III - Images for Print, Licensing, and Internet
]]> 234 Hugh J. Lawton 0990747409 Vin 0 to-read 4.00 2015 Photography in the Digital Age: Volume I -- The Art of Image Capture
author: Hugh J. Lawton
name: Vin
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/10/07
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]]> The Heirloom 26187266

When CIA Agent, Ted Bester, meets a woman who was publicly buried as an assassin's victim, he’s understandably skeptical of her far-fetched explanation. She expects him to believe she’s tied to the assassin's mind through a four hundred year old locket with an ancient curse on it. And she’s alive because the spell has protected her.
It takes meeting a presence he can’t explain to convince Bester Amelia might be telling the truth. And if she’s right, Bester has a lot more to be worried about than a curse. The unorthodox link between Amelia and the killer shows that he takes inordinate pride in his perfect kill record, and Bester knows that it's only a matter of days before the killer learns that he has made a mistake. Then he’ll return to finish the job.
Agency protocol dictates that Amelia should be used as bait to draw him in. Ordinarily, Bester wouldn’t have a problem with such a ruthless approach. This time it’s the last thing he wants to do, and hesitation could end up killing a lot more people than just the beautiful woman he’s drawn to.]]> 406 Edita A. Petrick 0996442308 Vin 0 to-read 5.00 2015 The Heirloom
author: Edita A. Petrick
name: Vin
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/09/19
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]]> Landfalls 22929561
Deeply grounded in historical fact but refracted through a powerful imagination, Landfalls follows the exploits and heartbreaks not only of the men on the ships but also of the people affected by the voyage-indigenous people and other Europeans the explorers encountered, loved ones left waiting at home, and those who survived and remembered the expedition later. Each chapter is told from a different point of view and is set in a different part of the world, ranging from London to Tenerife, from Alaska to remote South Pacific islands to Siberia, and eventually back to France. The result is a beautifully written and absorbing tale of the high seas, scientific exploration, human tragedy, and the world on the cusp of the modern era.


By turns elegiac, profound, and comic, Landfalls reinvents the maritime adventure novel for the twenty-first century.]]> 315 Naomi J. Williams 0374183155 Vin 0 to-read 3.90 2015 Landfalls
author: Naomi J. Williams
name: Vin
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/09/19
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]]> The Devil's Alternative 825473 432 Frederick Forsyth 0553264907 Vin 3 4.05 1979 The Devil's Alternative
author: Frederick Forsyth
name: Vin
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1979
rating: 3
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date added: 2015/09/18
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]]> Ice Station Zebra 149621
The atomic submarine 'Dolphin' has impossible orders: to sail beneath the ice-floes of the Arctic Ocean to locate and rescue the men of weather-station Zebra, gutted by fire and drifting with the ice-pack somewhere north of the Arctic Circle.

But the orders do not say what the 'Dolphin' will find if she succeeds � that the fire at Ice Station Zebra was sabotage, and that one of the survivors is a killer…]]> 254 Alistair MacLean 0006161413 Vin 3 4.00 1963 Ice Station Zebra
author: Alistair MacLean
name: Vin
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1963
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2015/09/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Palace of Treason (Red Sparrow Trilogy, #2)]]> 22609257
From the bestselling, Edgar Award–winning author of the “terrifically good� (The New York Times) Red Sparrow, a compulsively readable new novel about star-crossed Russian agent Dominika Egorova and CIA's Nate Nash in a desperate race to the finish.
Captain Dominika Egorova of the Russian Intelligence Service (SVR) has returned from the West to Moscow. She despises the men she serves, the oligarchs, and crooks, and thugs of Putin’s Russia. What no one knows is that Dominika is working for the CIA as Washington’s most sensitive penetration of SVR and the Kremlin.

As she expertly dodges exposure, Dominika deals with a murderously psychotic boss; survives an Iranian assassination attempt; escapes a counterintelligence ambush; rescues an arrested agent and exfiltrates him out of Russia; and has a chilling midnight conversation in her nightgown with President Putin. Complicating these risks is the fact that Dominika is in love with her CIA handler, Nate Nash, and their lust is as dangerous as committing espionage in Moscow. And when a mole in the SVR finds Dominika’s name on a restricted list of sources, it is a virtual death sentence�

Just as fast-paced, heart-pounding, and action-packed as Red Sparrow, Jason Matthews’s second novel confirms he is “an insider’s insider…and a masterful storyteller� (Vince Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author).

]]> 480 Jason Matthews 1476793743 Vin 4 4.13 2015 Palace of Treason (Red Sparrow Trilogy, #2)
author: Jason Matthews
name: Vin
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2015/09/04
date added: 2015/09/08
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Well written, I was hooked and quickly finished this book! Look forward to reading others from Jason Matthews.
]]> <![CDATA[Red Sparrow (Red Sparrow Trilogy, #1)]]> 15803037
In present-day Russia, ruled by blue-eyed, unblinking President Vladimir Putin, Russian intelligence officer Dominika Egorova struggles to survive in the post-Soviet intelligence jungle. Ordered against her will to become a “Sparrow,� a trained seductress, Dominika is assigned to operate against Nathaniel Nash, a young CIA officer who handles the Agency’s most important Russian mole.

Spies have long relied on the “honey trap,� whereby vulnerable men and women are intimately compromised. Dominika learns these techniques of “sexpionage� in Russia’s secret “Sparrow School,� hidden outside of Moscow. As the action careens between Russia, Finland, Greece, Italy, and the United States, Dominika and Nate soon collide in a duel of wills, tradecraft, and—inevitably—forbidden passion that threatens not just their lives but those of others as well. As secret allegiances are made and broken, Dominika and Nate’s game reaches a deadly crossroads. Soon one of them begins a dangerous double existence in a life-and-death operation that consumes intelligence agencies from Moscow to Washington, DC.

Page by page, veteran CIA officer Jason Matthews’s Red Sparrow delights and terrifies and fascinates, all while delivering an unforgettable cast, from a sadistic Spetsnaz “mechanic� who carries out Putin’s murderous schemes to the weary CIA Station Chief who resists Washington “cake-eaters� to MARBLE, the priceless Russian mole. Packed with insider detail and written with brio, this tour-de-force novel brims with Matthews’s life experience, including his knowledge of espionage, counterintelligence, surveillance tradecraft, spy recruitment, cyber-warfare, the Russian use of “spy dust,� and covert communications. Brilliantly composed and elegantly constructed, Red Sparrow is a masterful spy tale lifted from the dossiers of intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic. Authentic, tense, and entertaining, this novel introduces Jason Matthews as a major new American talent.]]> 434 Jason Matthews 1476706123 Vin 0 to-read 3.86 2013 Red Sparrow (Red Sparrow Trilogy, #1)
author: Jason Matthews
name: Vin
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/08/29
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]]> Trust No One 23492648 JERRY GREY CAN TRUST NO ONE. LEAST OF ALL HIMSELF.

Most of the world knows Jerry Grey by his crime-writing pseudonym, Henry Cutter - a name that's been keeping readers at the edge of their seats for more than a decade. But now that he's been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's at the age of forty-nine, Jerry's career is coming to an abrupt end.

His twelve books tell stories of brutal murders, of a world out of balance, of victims finding the darkest forms of justice. As his dementia continues to break down the wall between his real life and the lives of his characters, Jerry confesses his most terrible secret: the stories are real. He committed the crimes himself. His friends, family, and caretakers insist that it's all in his head, just a side effect of the devastating disease - but is it?

One of the most talented and trailblazing suspense writers at work today, Edgar-nominated author Paul Cleave takes us down a dark and clever path to determine the fine line between simple fact and dangerous fiction.]]> 342 Paul Cleave 1476779171 Vin 0 to-read 3.61 2015 Trust No One
author: Paul Cleave
name: Vin
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/08/17
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]]> <![CDATA[The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge: A Christmas Carol Continued]]> 24611435 A delightful sequel to Dickens’s beloved A Christmas Carol by the bestselling author of First Impressions and The Bookman’s Tale

On a hot summer day some twenty years after he was famously converted to kindness, Ebenezer Scrooge still roams the streets of London, spreading Christmas cheer, much to the annoyance of his creditors, nephew, and his employee Bob Cratchit. However, when Scrooge decides to help his old friend and former partner Jacob Marley, as well as other inhabitants of the city, he will need the assistance of the very people he’s annoyed. He’ll also have to call on the three ghosts that visited him two decades earlier. By the time they’re done, they’ve convinced everyone to celebrate Christmas all year long by opening their wallets, arms, and hearts to those around them.

Written in uncannily Dickensian prose, Charlie Lovett’s The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge is both a loving and winking tribute to the Victorian classic, perfect for readers of A Christmas Carol and other timeless holiday tales.]]> 107 Charlie Lovett 0525429107 Vin 0 to-read 3.46 2015 The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge: A Christmas Carol Continued
author: Charlie Lovett
name: Vin
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/08/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Magna Carta: The Birth of Liberty]]> 24611571 From the author of the New York Times bestseller The Plantagenets, a short, lively, action-packed history of how the Magna Carta came to be

The Magna Carta is revered around the world as the founding document of Western liberty. Its principles can be found in our Bill of Rights and in the Constitution. But what was this strange document that dwells on tax relief and greater fishing rights, and how did it gain legendary status?

Dan Jones takes us back to 1215, the turbulent year when the Magna Carta was just a peace treaty between England’s King John and a group of self-interested, violent barons who were tired of his high taxes and endless foreign wars. The treaty would fail within two months of its confirmation.

But this important document marked the first time a king was forced to obey his own laws. Jones’s 1215 follows the story of the Magna Carta’s creation, its failure, and the war that subsequently engulfed England and is book that will appeal to fans of microhistories of pivotal years like 1066, 1491, and especially 1776—when American patriots, inspired by that long-ago defiance, dared to pick up arms against another English king.]]> 272 Dan Jones 0525428291 Vin 0 to-read 3.99 2015 Magna Carta: The Birth of Liberty
author: Dan Jones
name: Vin
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/08/16
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]]> Rome: A Photographic Tour 25458065 86 Alexandru Ciobanu 1511870826 Vin 0 to-read 4.15 2015 Rome: A Photographic Tour
author: Alexandru Ciobanu
name: Vin
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/08/16
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]]> <![CDATA[The Smarter Screen: Surprising Ways to Influence and Improve Online Behavior]]> 23493696
Office workers spend the majority of their waking hours staring at screens. Unfortunately, few of us are aware of the visual biases and behavioral patterns that influence our thinking when we’re on our laptops, iPads, smartphones, or smartwatches. The sheer volume of information and choices available online, combined with the ease of tapping "buy," often make for poor decision making on screens.

In The Smarter Screen, behavioral economist Shlomo Benartzi reveals a tool kit of interventions for the digital age. Using engaging reader exercises and provocative case studies, Benartzi shows how digital designs can influence our decision making on screens in all sorts of surprising ways.

For
•You’re more likely to add bacon to your pizza if you order online.
•If you read this book on a screen, you’re less likely to remember its content.
•You might buy an item just because it’s located in a screen hot spot, even if betteroptions are available.
•If you shop using a touch screen, you’ll probably overvalue the product you’re considering.
•You’re more likely to remember a factoid like this one if it’s displayed in an ugly, difficult-to-read font.

Drawing on the latest research on digital nudging, Benartzi reveals how we can create an online world that helps us think better, not worse.]]> 256 Shlomo Benartzi 1591847869 Vin 0 to-read 3.97 2015 The Smarter Screen: Surprising Ways to Influence and Improve Online Behavior
author: Shlomo Benartzi
name: Vin
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/08/14
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]]> Dennis Stock: James Dean 25620766 East of Eden, Rebel Without A Cause, and Giant � all released within a year of each other and within months of his tragic death, James Dean captured the world’s imagination and has never let it go.

Magnum photographer Dennis Stock met James Dean at the Château Marmont in Hollywood in 1954, and they became fast friends. Stock captured Dean’s essence in a stunning series of images of the actor in the midst of family and friends, as well as alone, sleeping, lost in thought, in the frozen fields of Indiana, and on a rainy day in Manhattan. It was an extraordinary collaboration between two people in full command of their respective talents.

In the words of the Life magazine article that accompanied the first publication of these photographs, James Dean was “the most exciting actor to hit Hollywood since Marlon Brando,� but at the time the photographs were taken, he was still poised on the brink of fame. Dennis Stock: James Dean reintroduces these iconic photographs, taken at the dawn and high noon of a brief and brilliant career, with Dennis Stock’s original accompanying text and a later introduction by Joe Hyams.]]> 144 Dennis Stock 0500544514 Vin 0 to-read 4.66 2015 Dennis Stock: James Dean
author: Dennis Stock
name: Vin
average rating: 4.66
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/08/12
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]]> Madame X (Madame X, #1) 25065523 Madame X invites you to test the limits of control in this provocative new novel from New York Times bestselling author Jasinda Wilder.

My name is Madame X.
I’m the best at what I do.
And you’d do well to follow my rules...

Hired to transform the uncultured, inept sons of the wealthy and powerful into decisive, confident men, Madame X is a master of the art of control. With a single glance she can cut you down to nothing, or make you feel like a king.

But there is only one man who can claim her body—and her soul.

Undone time and again by his exquisite dominance, X craves and fears his desire in equal measure. And while she longs for a different path, X has never known anything or anyone else—until now...]]> 295 Jasinda Wilder 1101986883 Vin 0 to-read 3.84 2015 Madame X (Madame X, #1)
author: Jasinda Wilder
name: Vin
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/08/12
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]]> Travelers Rest 25258314 A chilling fable about a family marooned in a snowbound town whose grievous history intrudes on the dreamlike present.

The Addisons-Julia and Tonio, ten-year-old Dewey, and derelict Uncle Robbie-are driving home, cross-country, after collecting Robbie from yet another trip to rehab. When a terrifying blizzard strikes outside the town of Good Night, Idaho, they seek refuge in the town at the Travelers Rest, a formerly opulent but now crumbling and eerie hotel where the physical laws of the universe are bent.

Once inside the hotel, the family is separated. As Julia and Tonio drift through the maze of the hotel's spectral interiors, struggling to make sense of the building's alluring powers, Dewey ventures outward to a secret-filled diner across the street. Meanwhile, a desperate Robbie quickly succumbs to his old vices, drifting ever further from the ones who love him most. With each passing hour, dreams and memories blur, tearing a hole in the fabric of our perceived reality and leaving the Addisons in a ceaseless search for one another. At each turn a mysterious force prevents them from reuniting, until at last Julia is faced with an impossible choice. Can this mother save her family from the fate of becoming Souvenirs-those citizens trapped forever in magnetic Good Night-or, worse, from disappearing entirely?

With the fearsome intensity of a ghost story, the magical spark of a fairy tale, and the emotional depth of the finest family sagas, Keith Lee Morris takes us on a journey beyond the realm of the known. Featuring prose as dizzyingly beautiful as the mystical world Morris creates, Travelers Rest is both a mind-altering meditation on the nature of consciousness and a heartbreaking story of a family on the brink of survival.]]> 358 Keith Lee Morris 0316335827 Vin 0 to-read 2.86 2016 Travelers Rest
author: Keith Lee Morris
name: Vin
average rating: 2.86
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/08/11
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]]> Villa America 23507478 A dazzling novel set in the Cap D'Antibes based on the real-life inspirations for Fitzgerald's Tender is The Night.

In this gorgeous, glamorous, and affecting novel, Liza Klaussmann does for Sara and Gerald Murphy what Paula McLain and Michael Cunningham did for Ernest Hemingway and Virginia Woolf in The Paris Wife and The Hours. Villa America was in fact a real house on the French Riviera that Sara and Gerald Murphy built to escape to in the 1920's. Members of a group of expat Americans, they were known for their fabulous parties and for making the Riviera into the glamorous place it is today. Their freewheeling days were filled with champagne and caviar, but these were people who kept secrets and who were, of course, heartbreakingly human.
This is a stunning story about the Lost Generation, about a marriage, about a golden age which could not last.]]> 426 Liza Klaussmann 0316211362 Vin 0 to-read 3.60 2015 Villa America
author: Liza Klaussmann
name: Vin
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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]]> The Witches: Salem, 1692 24819449 Cleopatra, provides an electrifying, fresh view of the Salem witch trials.

The panic began early in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister's niece began to writhe and roar. It spread quickly, confounding the most educated men and prominent politicians in the colony. Neighbors accused neighbors, husbands accused wives, parents and children one another. It ended less than a year later, but not before nineteen men and women had been hanged and an elderly man crushed to death.

Speaking loudly and emphatically, adolescent girls stood at the center of the crisis. Along with suffrage and Prohibition, the Salem witch trials represent one of the few moments when women played the central role in American history. Drawing masterfully on the archives, Stacy Schiff introduces us to the strains on a Puritan adolescent's life and to the authorities whose delicate agendas were at risk. She illuminates the demands of a rigorous faith, the vulnerability of settlements adrift from the mother country, perched--at a politically tumultuous time--on the edge of what a visitor termed a "remote, rocky, barren, bushy, wild-woody wilderness." With devastating clarity, the textures and tension of colonial life emerge; hidden patterns subtly, startlingly detach themselves from the darkness. Schiff brings early American anxieties to the fore to align them brilliantly with our own. In an era of religious provocations, crowdsourcing, and invisible enemies, this enthralling story makes more sense than ever.

The Witches is Schiff's riveting account of a seminal episode, a primal American mystery unveiled--in crackling detail and lyrical prose--by one of our most acclaimed historians.]]> 498 Stacy Schiff 0316200603 Vin 0 to-read 3.27 2015 The Witches: Salem, 1692
author: Stacy Schiff
name: Vin
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/08/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Number Eleven: A Love Story in 1960's Bombay]]> 25932432 By 1966, Amir has built a new life for himself in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. To keep the promise to his mother, he flies to Bombay, India to meet with the ten eligible women his family has found. The first few visits are unsuccessful, and with only three weeks to find a wife, he’s getting discouraged. Amir is pleasantly surprised by a last-minute addition to the list, and his opinions of the whole process change dramatically.



Could number eleven be the one?



Nazeera is unlike any of the other women he’s met. Captivated, he can no longer imagine his life without her. But will she leave her family and friends to marry him and move to America?



Amir is not the first man to propose marriage to Nazeera. But, he is the first man to say he admires her self-confidence and independence.



Suddenly, she has two tempting proposals to consider. One man treats her with respect - but lives in a land far away from her family. The other seems to offer everything she’s ever wanted - but something about him bothers her. Her married friend assures her that if she follows her head, her heart will comply eventually.



The problem is, she doesn’t know what to do. Which man will truly make her happy?

"
]]> 342 Zia McNeal 1480815071 Vin 0 to-read 3.67 2015 Number Eleven: A Love Story in 1960's Bombay
author: Zia McNeal
name: Vin
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/08/08
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]]> Shadow Play (Eve Duncan, #19) 23847964 332 Iris Johansen 1250020107 Vin 0 to-read 3.99 2015 Shadow Play (Eve Duncan, #19)
author: Iris Johansen
name: Vin
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/08/08
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]]> The Dogs of War 460717
The man selected to plan and carry out the sack of Zangaro is Cat Shannon, a 33-year-old Anglo-Irishman from Nigeria. If the goal is clear, the means are not, for there are no up-to-date manuals on overthrowing governments by force. By the time he has set forth this sinister venture in all its ramifications, Frederick Forsyth has fashioned that manual and given us a classic of terror and enthrallment.]]> 400 Frederick Forsyth 0553268465 Vin 3 3.99 1974 The Dogs of War
author: Frederick Forsyth
name: Vin
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1974
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2015/08/07
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]]>