Nadia's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 05 Feb 2025 10:32:16 -0800 60 Nadia's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The House on the Strand 50246
Alternate cover is available here.]]>
329 Daphne du Maurier Nadia 0 to-read 3.85 1969 The House on the Strand
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1969
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/05
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<![CDATA[Death in Venice and Other Tales]]> 53064 384 Thomas Mann 0141181737 Nadia 0 currently-reading 3.92 1911 Death in Venice and Other Tales
author: Thomas Mann
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1911
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: currently-reading
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Mansfield Park 45032 488 Jane Austen Nadia 2 3.86 1814 Mansfield Park
author: Jane Austen
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 2
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date added: 2024/08/07
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Everytime I picked up this book, I wanted nothing more than to shake Fanny Price by the shoulders and knock some gumption into her.
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Sharp Objects 66559
Sent to investigate the disappearance of two little girls, Camille finds herself reluctantly installed in the family mansion, reacquainting herself with her distant mother and a precocious thirteen-year-old half-sister she barely knows. Haunted by a family tragedy, troubled by the disquieting grip her young sister has on the town, Camille struggles with a familiar need to be accepted.

But as clues turn into dead ends, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims and realises: she will have to unravel the puzzle of her own past if she's to survive this homecoming.]]>
254 Gillian Flynn 0307341542 Nadia 4 3.89 2006 Sharp Objects
author: Gillian Flynn
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2006
rating: 4
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date added: 2014/07/22
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<![CDATA[The Hottentot Venus: The Life and Death of Saartjie Baartman (Born 1789 - Buried 2002)]]> 461131 But celebrity brought unexpected consequences. Abolitionists initiated a High Court lawsuit to win Saartjie's freedom that electrified the English public. In Paris, a team of scientists subjected her to a humiliating ordeal as they probed the mystery of her sexual allure. Stared at, stripped, pinched, painted, worshipped and ridiculed, Saartjie came to symbolise the erotic obsession at the heart of colonialism. But behind the costumes, caricatures and the glare of publicity, this young Khoisan woman was a real person beginning to understand the true nature of her fate. Nearly two centuries after her death, Saattjie made headlines once again as Nelson Mandela launched an international campaign to have her remains returned to the land of her birth.
In this meticulously researched book, published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in Britain and its dominions, the full arc of Saartjie's extraordinary life and death is traced for the first time - a story that still resonates today.]]>
256 Rachel Holmes 0747577765 Nadia 3 3.47 2008 The Hottentot Venus: The Life and Death of Saartjie Baartman (Born 1789 - Buried 2002)
author: Rachel Holmes
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2008
rating: 3
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date added: 2014/05/08
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The Distant Hours 6746018
Inside the decaying castle, Edie begins to unravel her mother’s past. But there are other secrets hidden in the stones of Milderhurst, and Edie is about to learn more than she expected. The truth of what happened in ‘the distant hours� of the past has been waiting a long time for someone to find it.

Morton once again enthralls readers with an atmospheric story featuring unforgettable characters beset by love and circumstance and haunted by memory, that reminds us of the rich power of storytelling.]]>
562 Kate Morton 1439152780 Nadia 2 3.88 2010 The Distant Hours
author: Kate Morton
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2010
rating: 2
read at: 2013/02/23
date added: 2014/05/06
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Pop. 1280 (Crime Masterworks) 118149 192 Jim Thompson 0752851845 Nadia 3 4.10 1964 Pop. 1280 (Crime Masterworks)
author: Jim Thompson
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1964
rating: 3
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date added: 2014/04/18
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Villette 31173 Villette, Charlotte Brontë reached the height of her artistic power. First published in 1853, Villette is Brontë's most accomplished and deeply felt work, eclipsing even Jane Eyre in critical acclaim. Her narrator, the autobiographical Lucy Snowe, flees England and a tragic past to become an instructor in a French boarding school in the town of Villette. There she unexpectedly confronts her feelings of love and longing as she witnesses the fitful romance between Dr. John, a handsome young Englishman, and Ginerva Fanshawe, a beautiful coquette. The first pain brings others, and with them comes the heartache Lucy has tried so long to escape. Yet in spite of adversity and disappointment, Lucy Snowe survives to recount the unstinting vision of a turbulent life's journey - a journey that is one of the most insightful fictional studies of a woman's consciousness in English literature.]]> 573 Charlotte Brontë Nadia 2 3.78 1853 Villette
author: Charlotte Brontë
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1853
rating: 2
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date added: 2014/03/21
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After Dark 17803 In After Dark—a gripping novel of late night encounters—Murakami’s trademark humor and psychological insight are distilled with an extraordinary, harmonious mastery.

Nineteen-year-old Mari is waiting out the night in an anonymous Denny’s when she meets a young man who insists he knows her older sister, thus setting her on an odyssey through the sleeping city. In the space of a single night, the lives of a diverse cast of Tokyo residents—models, prostitutes, mobsters, and musicians—collide in a world suspended between fantasy and reality. Utterly enchanting and infused with surrealism, After Dark is a thrilling account of the magical hours separating midnight from dawn.]]>
191 Haruki Murakami 0307265838 Nadia 3 3.75 2004 After Dark
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2004
rating: 3
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date added: 2013/08/17
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Sputnik Sweetheart 9557 alternate cover can be found here

Sumire is in love with a woman seventeen years her senior. But whereas Miu is glamorous and successful, Sumire is an aspiring writer who dresses in an oversized second-hand coat and heavy boots like a character in a Kerouac novel.

Sumire spends hours on the phone talking to her best friend K about the big questions in life: what is sexual desire, and should she ever tell Miu how she feels for her? Meanwhile K wonders whether he should confess his own unrequited love for Sumire.

Then, a desperate Miu calls from a small Greek island: Sumire has mysteriously vanished...]]>
229 Haruki Murakami 0099448475 Nadia 4 3.85 1999 Sputnik Sweetheart
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1999
rating: 4
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date added: 2013/08/17
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Everything Is Illuminated 4584 276 Jonathan Safran Foer 0141008253 Nadia 2 3.79 2002 Everything Is Illuminated
author: Jonathan Safran Foer
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2002
rating: 2
read at: 2013/02/23
date added: 2013/02/23
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<![CDATA[In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex]]> 17780
In the Heart of the Sea brings to new life the incredible story of the wreck of the whaleship Essex - an event as mythic in its own century as the Titanic disaster in ours, and the inspiration for the climax of Moby-Dick. In a harrowing page-turner, Nathaniel Philbrick restores this epic story to its rightful place in American history.

In 1820, the 240-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage for whales. Fifteen months later, in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, it was repeatedly rammed and sunk by an eighty-ton bull sperm whale. Its twenty-man crew, fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, made for the 3,000-mile-distant coast of South America in three tiny boats. During ninety days at sea under horrendous conditions, the survivors clung to life as one by one, they succumbed to hunger, thirst, disease, and fear.

Philbrick interweaves his account of this extraordinary ordeal of ordinary men with a wealth of whale lore and with a brilliantly detailed portrait of the lost, unique community of Nantucket whalers. Impeccably researched and beautifully told, the book delivers the ultimate portrait of man against nature, drawing on a remarkable range of archival and modern sources, including a long-lost account by the ship's cabin boy.

At once a literary companion and a page-turner that speaks to the same issues of class, race, and man's relationship to nature that permeate the works of Melville, In the Heart of the Sea will endure as a vital work of American history.]]>
302 Nathaniel Philbrick 0141001828 Nadia 4 4.16 2000 In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
author: Nathaniel Philbrick
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2013/02/23
date added: 2013/02/23
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The Mayor of Casterbridge 305386 334 Thomas Hardy 0451525191 Nadia 3 3.58 1886 The Mayor of Casterbridge
author: Thomas Hardy
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.58
book published: 1886
rating: 3
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1984 5470 328 George Orwell Nadia 4 4.15 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1949
rating: 4
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The Essential Rumi 304079 The Essential Rumi includes a new introduction by Coleman Barks and more than 80 never-before-published poems.

Through his lyrical translations, Coleman Barks has been instrumental in bringing this exquisite literature to a remarkably wide range of readers, making the ecstatic, spiritual poetry of thirteenth-century Sufi Mystic Rumi more popular than ever.

The Essential Rumi continues to be the bestselling of all Rumi books, and the definitive selection of his beautiful, mystical poetry.]]>
416 Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi 0062509594 Nadia 0 to-read 4.40 1273 The Essential Rumi
author: Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1273
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Woman Who Died a Lot (Thursday Next, #7)]]> 13001274
A time, then, or relaxation, recuperation, and rest. A time to spend with her beloved family, avoid stress, take it easy, meet old friends and do very little.

If only life were that simple...]]>
389 Jasper Fforde 0340963115 Nadia 0 to-read 4.06 2012 The Woman Who Died a Lot (Thursday Next, #7)
author: Jasper Fforde
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/11/16
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Complete Works of Oscar Wilde 5289 1270 Oscar Wilde 0007144350 Nadia 5 4.47 1908 Complete Works of Oscar Wilde
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1908
rating: 5
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date added: 2012/10/20
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Full of wit and hidden wisdom.. Wilde was a genius, even as his life ended tragically.. As you read his works, you sense his frustration with life, its rigid rules and barriers..
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<![CDATA[Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)]]> 6148028 Sparks are igniting.
Flames are spreading.
And the Capitol wants revenge.

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

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

In Catching Fire, the second novel of the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, testing her more than ever before . . . and surprising readers at every turn.]]>
391 Suzanne Collins 0439023491 Nadia 4 4.34 2009 Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2009
rating: 4
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date added: 2012/08/17
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<![CDATA[Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)]]> 7260188 My name is Katniss Everdeen.
Why am I not dead?
I should be dead.

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

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

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay—no matter what the personal cost.]]>
390 Suzanne Collins 0439023513 Nadia 3 4.10 2010 Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2010
rating: 3
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date added: 2012/08/17
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The Marriage Plot 10964693
As Madeleine tries to understand why "it became laughable to read writers like Cheever and Updike, who wrote about the suburbia Madeleine and most of her friends had grown up in, in favor of reading the Marquis de Sade, who wrote about deflowering virgins in eighteenth century France," real life, in the form of two very different guys, intervenes. Leonard Bankhead - charismatic loner, college Darwinist, and lost Portland boy - suddenly turns up in a semiotics seminar, and soon Madeleine finds herself in a highly charged erotic and intellectual relationship with him. At the same time, her old "friend" Mitchell Grammaticus - who's been reading Christian mysticism and generally acting strange - resurfaces, obsessed with the idea that Madeleine is destined to be his mate.

Over the next year, as the members of the triangle in this amazing, spellbinding novel graduate from college and enter the real world, events force them to reevaluate everything they learned in school. Leonard and Madeleine move to a biology laboratory on Cape Cod, but can't escape the secret responsible for Leonard's seemingly inexhaustible energy and plunging moods. And Mitchell, traveling around the world to get Madeleine out of his mind, finds himself face-to-face with ultimate questions about the meaning of life, the existence of God, and the true nature of love.

Are the great love stories of the nineteenth century dead? Or can there be a new story, written for today and alive to the realities of feminism, sexual freedom, prenups, and divorce? With devastating wit and an abiding understanding of and affection for his characters, Jeffrey Eugenides revives the motivating energies of the Novel, while creating a story so contemporary and fresh that it reads like the intimate journal of our own lives.]]>
406 Jeffrey Eugenides 0374203059 Nadia 3 3.46 2011 The Marriage Plot
author: Jeffrey Eugenides
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2011
rating: 3
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date added: 2012/08/17
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The Sense of an Ending 10746542 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

By an acclaimed writer at the height of his powers, The Sense of an Ending extends a streak of extraordinary books that began with the best-selling Arthur & George and continued with Nothing to Be Frightened Of and, most recently, Pulse.

This intense novel follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he has never much thought about - until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance, one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony Webster thought he'd left all this behind as he built a life for himself, and by now his marriage and family and career have fallen into an amicable divorce and retirement. But he is then presented with a mysterious legacy that obliges him to reconsider a variety of things he thought he'd understood all along, and to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.

A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single sitting, with stunning psychological and emotional depth and sophistication, The Sense of an Ending is a brilliant new chapter in Julian Barnes's oeuvre.]]>
150 Julian Barnes 0224094157 Nadia 4 3.73 2011 The Sense of an Ending
author: Julian Barnes
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2011
rating: 4
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date added: 2012/08/17
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<![CDATA[The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)]]> 2767052
Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. . . .

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.]]>
374 Suzanne Collins 0439023483 Nadia 4 4.34 2008 The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2008
rating: 4
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date added: 2012/02/28
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Candide 123800 Publisher's series: Unabridged classics

Caustic and hilarious, Candide has ranked as one of the world's great satires since its first publication in 1759. It concerns the adventures of the youthful Candide, disciple of Dr. Pangloss.
In the course of his travels in Europe and South America, Candide sees and suffers such misfortune that it is difficult for him to believe that this is “the best of all possible worlds,� as Dr. Pangloss has assured him. Indeed, it seems to be quite the opposite. In brilliantly skewering such naiveté, Voltaire mercilessly exposes and satirizes romance, science, philosophy, religion, and government—the ideas and forces that permeate and control the lives of men.
After many trials and travails, Candide is reunited with Cunegonde, his sweetheart. He then buys a little farm in Turkey where he and Cunegonde, Dr. Pangloss, and others retire. In the end, Candide decides that the best thing in the world is to cultivate one's own garden.]]>
0 Voltaire 1400100445 Nadia 3 3.57 1759 Candide
author: Voltaire
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1759
rating: 3
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date added: 2012/01/29
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The Help 4667024
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women, mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends, view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.


Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here]]>
464 Kathryn Stockett 0399155341 Nadia 4 4.46 2009 The Help
author: Kathryn Stockett
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2011/11/26
date added: 2011/11/26
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The Count of Monte Cristo 7126 The epic tale of wrongful imprisonment, adventure and revenge, in its definitive translation

Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantès is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to use the treasure to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. Dumas� epic tale of suffering and retribution, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was a huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s.

Translated with an Introduction by Robin Buss

An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here]]>
1276 Alexandre Dumas 0140449264 Nadia 5 4.29 1846 The Count of Monte Cristo
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1846
rating: 5
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date added: 2011/08/27
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<![CDATA[The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Millennium, #3)]]> 6892870
Lisbeth Salander - the heart of Larsson's two previous novels - lies in critical condition, a bullet wound to her head, in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She's fighting for her life in more ways than one: if and when she recovers, she'll be taken back to Stockholm to stand trial for three murders. With the help of her friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she will not only have to prove her innocence, but also identify and denounce those in authority who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse and violence. And, on her own, she will plot revenge - against the man who tried to kill her, and the corrupt government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life.

Once upon a time, she was a victim. Now Salander is fighting back.

~from the jacket]]>
566 Stieg Larsson 030726999X Nadia 4 4.23 2007 The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Millennium, #3)
author: Stieg Larsson
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2011/08/27
date added: 2011/08/27
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The Lovely Bones 12232938
So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her -- her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. Out of unspeakable tragedy and loss, The Lovely Bones succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even joy.]]>
372 Alice Sebold 0316166685 Nadia 3 3.87 2002 The Lovely Bones
author: Alice Sebold
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at: 2010/09/13
date added: 2011/08/09
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<![CDATA[The Founding Myths of Modern Israel]]> 115692
This readable, thoroughly documented study examines the brutal dispossession and mass expulsion of Palestine's Arabs, exposes the farce of the Nuremberg victors' show trial, and shows that the notorious German "final solution" term referred to a "territorial" program of resettlement, not extermination. Founding Myths details the secret collaboration fo prominent Jews withthe young Nazi regime, and the 1941 offer by some Zionists, including a future israeli prime minister, to join Hitler's Germany in a military alliance against Britain. The author presents a frank assessment of the powerful Jewish-Zionist lobby in the United States, showing how it effectively controls US policy regarding Israel, and plays a crucial role in shaping American public opinion.

For decades Roger Garaudy was prominent in the French Communist Party, making a name for himself as a Communist deputy in the French National Assembly, and as a leading Marxist intellectual and theoretician. Later he broke with Communism, eventually becoming a Muslim. When Founding Myths first appeared in France, it touched off a storm of controversy among intellectuals and a furious uproar in the media. Soon Garaudy was charged with violating France's notorious Gayssot law, which makes it a crime to "contest" the "crimes against humanity" as defined by the Nuremberg Tribunal of 1945-46. A paris court found him guilty and fined him $40,000. His trial and conviction for Holocaust heresy prompted wide international support, above all from across the Arab and Muslim world.

Relying on a vast range of Zionist, Soviet, American, and German source references, this well-documented study is packed with hundreds of eye-openning quotations, many by prominent Jewish scholars and personalities. Here, at last, this important work is available in a handsome, professionally edited English-language edition, with a valuable foreword by Theodore J. O'Keefe.]]>
224 Roger Garaudy 0939484757 Nadia 0 to-read 3.87 1995 The Founding Myths of Modern Israel
author: Roger Garaudy
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/07/25
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<![CDATA[Brain Bugs: How the Brain's Flaws Shape Our Lives]]> 11213439 A lively, surprising tour of our mental glitches and how they arise.

With its trillions of connections, the human brain is more beautiful and complex than anything we could ever build, but it's far from perfect. Our memory is unreliable; we can't multiply large sums in our heads; advertising manipulates our judgment; we tend to distrust people who are different from us; supernatural beliefs and superstitions are hard to shake; we prefer instant gratification to long-term gain; and what we presume to be rational decisions are often anything but.

Drawing on striking examples and fascinating studies, neuroscientist Dean Buonomano illuminates the causes and consequences of these "bugs" in terms of the brain's innermost workings and their evolutionary purposes. He then goes one step further, examining how our brains function-and malfunction-in the digital, predator-free, information-saturated, special effects-addled world that we have built for ourselves. Along the way, Brain Bugs gives us the tools to hone our cognitive strengths while recognizing our inherent weaknesses.

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310 Dean Buonomano 0393076024 Nadia 0 to-read 3.79 2011 Brain Bugs: How the Brain's Flaws Shape Our Lives
author: Dean Buonomano
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/07/13
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<![CDATA[When You Are Engulfed in Flames]]> 1044355 When You Are Engulfed in Flames confirms once again that David Sedaris is a master of mystery and suspense.

Or how about...

when set on fire, most of us either fumble for our wallets or waste valuable time feeling sorry for ourselves. David Sedaris has studied this phenomenon, and his resulting insights may very well save your life. Author of the national bestsellers Should You Be Attacked By Snakes and If You Are Surrounded by Mean Ghosts, David Sedaris, with When You Are Engulfed in Flames, is clearly at the top of his game.

Oh, all right...

David Sedaris has written yet another book of essays (his sixth). Subjects include a parasitic worm that once lived in his mother-in-law's leg, an encounter with a dingo, and the recreational use of an external catheter. Also recounted is the buying of a human skeleton and the author's attempt to quit smoking In Tokyo.

Master of nothing, at the dead center of his game, Sedaris proves that when you play with matches, you sometimes light the whole pack on fire.
(front flap)]]>
323 David Sedaris 0316143472 Nadia 3 4.08 2005 When You Are Engulfed in Flames
author: David Sedaris
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2005
rating: 3
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date added: 2011/05/30
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<![CDATA[The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium #1)]]> 2429135
An international publishing sensation, Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel.]]>
480 Stieg Larsson 0670069019 Nadia 4 4.17 2005 The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium #1)
author: Stieg Larsson
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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date added: 2011/05/30
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<![CDATA[The Girl Who Played With Fire (Millennium #2)]]> 5060378 Millenium publisher Mikael Blomkvist has made his reputation exposing corrupt establishment figures. So when a young journalist approaches him with an investigation into sex trafficking, Blomkvist cannot resist waging war on the powerful figures who control this lucrative industry.

The Murder
When a young couple is found dead in their Stockholm apartment, it's a straightforward job for Inspector Bublanski and his team. The killer left the weapon at the scene - and the fingerprints on the gun point in only one direction.

The Girl Who Played with Fire
Ex-security analyst Lisbeth Salander is wanted for murder. Her history of unpredictable and vengeful behaviour makes her an official danger to society - but no-one can find her. The only way Salander can be reached is by computer. But she can break into almost any network she chooses...]]>
503 Stieg Larsson 0307269981 Nadia 4 4.25 2006 The Girl Who Played With Fire (Millennium #2)
author: Stieg Larsson
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2011/05/30
shelves:
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A Prisoner of Birth 1611988 International bestseller and master storyteller Jeffrey Archer is at the very top of his game in this story of fate and fortune, redemption and revenge.

If Danny Cartwright had proposed to Beth Wilson the day before, or the day after, he would not have been arrested and charged with the murder of his best friend. But when the four prosecution witnesses are a barrister, a popular actor, an aristocrat, and the youngest partner in an established firm's history, who is going to believe his side of the story?

Danny is sentenced to twenty-two years and sent to Belmarsh prison, the highest-security jail in the land, from where no inmate has ever escaped.

However, Spencer Craig, Lawrence Davenport, Gerald Payne, and Toby Mortimer all underestimate Danny's determination to seek revenge, and Beth's relentless quest to pursue justice, which ends up with all four fighting for their lives.

Thus begins Jeffrey Archer's most powerful novel since Kane and Abel, with a cast of characters that will remain with you long after you've turned the last page.

And if that is not enough, prepare for an ending that will shock even the most ardent of Archer's fans.

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501 Jeffrey Archer 0312379293 Nadia 0 to-read 4.15 2008 A Prisoner of Birth
author: Jeffrey Archer
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/01/13
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism]]> 1237300 The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free market economic revolution. In contrast to the popular myth of this movement's peaceful global victory, Klein shows how it has exploited moments of shock and extreme violence in order to implement its economic policies in so many parts of the world from Latin America and Eastern Europe to South Africa, Russia, and Iraq. At the core of disaster capitalism is the use of cataclysmic events to advance radical privatization combined with the privatization of the disaster response itself. By capitalizing on crises, created by nature or war, Klein argues that the disaster capitalism complex now exists as a booming new economy, and is the violent culmination of a radical economic project that has been incubating for fifty years.]]> 558 Naomi Klein 0805079831 Nadia 0 to-read 4.27 2007 The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
author: Naomi Klein
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/10/25
shelves: to-read
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Nights of Rain and Stars 41958
Tourists enter the hilltop tavern, alone and in pairs, for a casual lunch. But a sudden tragedy in the harbor below causes these perfect strangers to become unlikely friends as their lives begin to entwine...

Fiona left her nursing career in Ireland to be with the man everyone thinks is wrong for her. Elsa fled Germany and her high-powered television job once she learned what the man she loved was hiding from her. Thomas mourns his failed marriage and misses his young son in California, while David yearns to reconcile with his family in England without having to go into the family business. Chance has brought them together, and together they will find new ways of looking at the lives they left behind.

“By the time the bouzouki players start up on the last page, you’ll feel you’ve known these people all your life.â€â€� The Seattle Times

“The sort of book you should take with you on a trip to the Greek islands.â€â€� The Boston Globe]]>
392 Maeve Binchy 0752865366 Nadia 2 3.70 2004 Nights of Rain and Stars
author: Maeve Binchy
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2004
rating: 2
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date added: 2010/07/28
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<![CDATA[This Year It Will Be Different]]> 34305
These stories, and a dozen more, powerfully evoke many lives--from step-families grappling with exes to children caught in grown-up tugs-of-war--during the one holiday when feelings cannot be easily hidden.  The time of year may be magical, imbued with meaning.  But the situations are timeless.  And Maeve Binchy makes us care about them all.]]>
259 Maeve Binchy 0440223571 Nadia 3 3.57 1995 This Year It Will Be Different
author: Maeve Binchy
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1995
rating: 3
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date added: 2010/07/28
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The Copper Beech 34312 From the Hardcover edition.

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407 Maeve Binchy 0752876813 Nadia 3 3.93 1992 The Copper Beech
author: Maeve Binchy
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1992
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/07/28
shelves:
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<![CDATA[The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street (The Cairo Trilogy #1-3)]]> 5488
The novels of The Cairo Trilogy trace three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. Palace Walk introduces us to his gentle, oppressed wife, Amina, his cloistered daughters, Aisha and Khadija, and his three sons–the tragic and idealistic Fahmy, the dissolute hedonist Yasin, and the soul-searching intellectual Kamal. Al-Sayyid Ahmad’s rebellious children struggle to move beyond his domination in Palace of Desire, as the world around them opens to the currents of modernity and political and domestic turmoil brought by the 1920s. Sugar Street brings Mahfouz’s vivid tapestry of an evolving Egypt to a dramatic climax as the aging patriarch sees one grandson become a Communist, one a Muslim fundamentalist, and one the lover of a powerful politician.

Throughout the trilogy, the family's trials mirror those of their turbulent country during the years spanning the two World Wars, as change comes to a society that has resisted it for centuries. Filled with compelling drama, earthy humor, and remarkable insight, The Cairo Trilogy is the achievement of a master storyteller.]]>
1313 Naguib Mahfouz Nadia 0 to-read 4.45 1957 The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street (The Cairo Trilogy #1-3)
author: Naguib Mahfouz
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.45
book published: 1957
rating: 0
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date added: 2010/06/26
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<![CDATA[Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible & Why We Don't Know About Them]]> 6101996 New York Times bestseller Misquoting Jesus left off, Jesus, Interrupted addresses the larger issue of what the New Testament actually teaches—and it's not what most people think. Here Ehrman reveals what scholars have unearthed:
•The authors of the New Testament have diverging views about who Jesus was and how salvation works
•The New Testament contains books that were forged in the names of the apostles by Christian writers who lived decades later
•Jesus, Paul, Matthew and John all represented fundamentally different religions
•Established Christian doctrines—such as the suffering messiah, the divinity of Jesus and the trinity—were the inventions of still later theologians
These aren't idiosyncratic perspectives of just one scholar. They've been the standard widespread views of scholars across a full spectrum of denominations and traditions. Why is it most people have never heard such things? This is the book that pastors, educators and anyone interested in the Bible have been waiting for—a compelling account of the central challenges faced when attempting to reconstruct Jesus' life and message.]]>
304 Bart D. Ehrman 0061173932 Nadia 0 to-read 3.95 2009 Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible & Why We Don't Know About Them
author: Bart D. Ehrman
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2010/05/27
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<![CDATA[The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)]]> 38447
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.]]>
311 Margaret Atwood 038549081X Nadia 3 4.15 1985 The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1985
rating: 3
read at: 2010/05/25
date added: 2010/05/25
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<![CDATA[Mr Darcy's Diary: The romantic hero of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE tells his own story]]> 217662 256 Maya Slater 0753822660 Nadia 1 Basically a load of shite.. 3.12 2009 Mr Darcy's Diary: The romantic hero of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE tells his own story
author: Maya Slater
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.12
book published: 2009
rating: 1
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date added: 2010/05/09
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Basically a load of shite..
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Lipstick Jungle 6614 Lipstick Jungle picks up where her career-defining book Sex and the City left off, in the money-soaked, power-hungry, beauty-obsessed jungle that is New York City. This time around, the ladies are a bit older, a lot richer, but not particularly wiser nor more endearing than Bushnell's earlier heroines.

Lipstick Jungle weaves the stories of Nico O'Neilly, Wendy Healy, and Victory Ford, numbers 8, 12, and 17 on The New York Post's list of "New York's 50 Most Powerful Women."

But this is 21st Century New York, and to get ahead and stay ahead, these women will do anything, including jeopardizing their personal and professional relationships. Take for example Nico, editor-in-chief of Bonfire magazine, who betrays her boss to rise to the top of the entire magazine division at media mega-giant Splatch-Verner. As president of Paradour Pictures, Wendy may be poised to win an Oscar for her 10-year labor-of-love, Ragged Pilgrims, but her marriage is in shambles and her children care more about a $50,000 pony than their mother. And for single, 43-year-old fashion designer Victory, pleasing tough critics may be more important than ever finding the real relationship she's convinced herself she doesn't need.

This racy tale of women behaving badly manages to shrewdly flip the tables to show us how gender roles are essentially interchangeable, given the right circumstances. Whether that was Bushnell's intent when crafting this wicked tale is another story. --Gisele Toueg



Q: Were Victory, Wendy, and Nico inspired by any real-life women?
A: The characters and situations in Lipstick Jungle were inspired by the real-life women I know and admire in New York City. As with Sex and the City, I spent a lot of time thinking about where women were today, and what I noticed was that there was a fascinating group of women in their forties who were leading non-traditional lives. They were highly successful and motivated, they often had children, and usually were the providers for their families, and yet, they didn't fit the old stereotype of the witchy businesswoman. Indeed, so many of these women were the girls next door, the girls who reminded me of my best friends when I was a kid and we used to fantasize about the great things we were going to do in life. Like the women in Sex and the City, the Lipstick Jungle women are charting new lives for themselves, redefining what it means to be a woman when you really are as powerful, or more powerful, than a man.

Of course, you probably want specifics, so I will say that there was a moment when it all clicked. Tina Brown used to write a terrific column in the Washington Post, and one of the things she was always mentioning was how there was a group of powerful women who were meeting and lunching at Michael's restaurant. They'd been working for over twenty years, their children were now in their early teens and didn't need them every minute, and now, in their forties or early fifties, they had time to strive for new career goals and to spend more time with their girlfriends. I thought, "Aha--that's the Lipstick Jungle."

Q: What kind of research did you do to cover fashion, film, and publishing in one book?
A: To research fashion, film and publishing, I did what I always do--I talked to my girlfriends! Of course, it helps that I've worked in magazine publishing and have had my share of experience with Hollywood. I'm also lucky enough to have a couple of girlfriends who are top designers, who offered to help me out with the specific details. I still remember the afternoon when one of my girlfriends and I sat down to talk--she was over eight months pregnant, and I was worried that we were going to have to run to the hospital!]]>
496 Candace Bushnell 0786887079 Nadia 1 3.44 2005 Lipstick Jungle
author: Candace Bushnell
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2005
rating: 1
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date added: 2010/04/17
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A few lessons in gender politics.. but essentially a cheap story.
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<![CDATA[Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal]]> 28881 Philadelphia Inquirer).

Verily, the story Biff has to tell is a miraculous one, filled with remarkable journeys, magic, healings, kung fu, corpse reanimations, demons, and hot babes. Even the considerable wiles and devotion of the Savior's pal may not be enough to divert Joshua from his tragic destiny. But there's no one who loves Josh more—except maybe "Maggie," Mary of Magdala—and Biff isn't about to let his extraordinary pal suffer and ascend without a fight.]]>
444 Christopher Moore 0380813815 Nadia 2 4.23 2002 Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal
author: Christopher Moore
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2002
rating: 2
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date added: 2010/01/27
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The Evolution of God 6340873
Nearly a decade in the making, The Evolution of God is a breathtaking re-examination of the past, and a visionary look forward.]]>
567 Robert Wright 0316734918 Nadia 3 3.93 2009 The Evolution of God
author: Robert Wright
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2010/01/27
date added: 2010/01/27
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<![CDATA[Sharon and My Mother-in-Law: Ramallah Diaries]]> 455854 Sharon and My Mother-in-Law evokes the frustrations, cabin fever, and downright misery of daily life in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Amiry writes with elegance and humor about the enormous difficulty of moving from one place to another, the torture of falling in love with someone from another town, the absurdity of her dog receiving a Jerusalem identity card when thousands of Palestinians could not, and the trials of having her ninety-two-year-old mother-in-law living in her house during a forty-two day curfew. With a wickedly sharp ear for dialogue and a keen eye for detail, Amiry gives us an original, ironic, and firsthand glimpse into the absurdity � and agony � of life in the Occupied Territories.]]> 224 Suad Amiry 1400096499 Nadia 4 3.91 2003 Sharon and My Mother-in-Law: Ramallah Diaries
author: Suad Amiry
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2003
rating: 4
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date added: 2010/01/27
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Memoirs of a Geisha 933
A young peasant girl is sold as servant and apprentice to a renowned geisha house. She tells her story many years later from the Waldorf Astoria in New York. Her memoirs conjure up the perfection and the ugliness of life behind rice-paper screens, where young girls learn the arts of geisha - dancing and singing, how to wind the kimono, how to walk and pour tea, and how to beguile the land's most powerful men.]]>
434 Arthur Golden Nadia 3 4.11 1997 Memoirs of a Geisha
author: Arthur Golden
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at: 2006/03/01
date added: 2009/12/16
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Much better than the movie! Includes much more detail and background info about different traditions and activities..
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Birdsong 6259 483 Sebastian Faulks 0679776818 Nadia 0 to-read 4.11 1993 Birdsong
author: Sebastian Faulks
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1993
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/10/07
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[The Lost Symbol (Robert Langdon, #3)]]> 6411961
Washington DC: Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned at the last minute to deliver an evening lecture in the Capitol Building. Within moments of his arrival, however, a disturbing object - gruesomely encoded with five symbols - is discovered at the epicentre of the Rotunda. It is, he recognises, an ancient invitation, meant to beckon its recipient towards a long-lost world of hidden esoteric wisdom.

When Langdon's revered mentor, Peter Solomon - philanthropist and prominent mason - is brutally kidnapped, Langdon realizes that his only hope of saving his friend's life is to accept this mysterious summons and follow wherever it leads him.

Langdon finds himself quickly swept behind the facade of America's most historic city into the unseen chambers, temples and tunnels which exist there. All that was familiar is transformed into a shadowy, clandestine world of an artfully concealed past in which Masonic secrets and never-before-seen revelations seem to be leading him to a single impossible and inconceivable truth.

A brilliantly composed tapestry of veiled histories, arcane icons and enigmatic codes, The Lost Symbol is an intelligent, lightning-paced thriller that offers surprises at every turn. For, as Robert Langdon will discover, there is nothing more extraordinary or shocking than the secret which hides in plain sight...]]>
509 Dan Brown 0385504225 Nadia 4 3.75 2009 The Lost Symbol (Robert Langdon, #3)
author: Dan Brown
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2009
rating: 4
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date added: 2009/10/07
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The House at Riverton 1278752 The House at Riverton is a gorgeous debut novel set in England between the wars. Perfect for fans of "Downton Abbey," it's the story of an aristocratic family, a house, a mysterious death, and a way of life that vanished forever, told in flashback by a woman who witnessed it all.

The novel is full of secrets - some revealed, others hidden forever, reminiscent of the romantic suspense of Daphne du Maurier. It's also a meditation on memory and the devastation of war and a beautifully rendered window into a fascinating time in history.]]>
599 Kate Morton 0330448447 Nadia 3 3.95 2006 The House at Riverton
author: Kate Morton
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2009/07/27
date added: 2009/07/27
shelves:
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If you're looking for something light and entertaining (in a Gothic mystery/romance way), this is a good book to read. It doesn't require much focus and is fairly predictable, but at the end of the day, it's a nice story. Most people accuse it of being a rehash of Upstairs Downstairs and such, which is true...
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The Map of Love 89821 In the Eye of the Sun, Ahdaf Soueif garnered comparisons to Tolstoy, Flaubert, and George Eliot.  In her latest novel, which was shortlisted for Britain's prestigious Booker Prize, she combines the romantic skill of the nineteenth-century novelists with a very modern sense of culture and politics--both sexual and international.

At either end of the twentieth century, two women fall in love with men outside their familiar worlds. In 1901, Anna Winterbourne, recently widowed, leaves England for Egypt, an outpost of the Empire roiling with nationalist sentiment. Far from the comfort of the British colony, she finds herself enraptured by the real Egypt and in love with Sharif Pasha al-Baroudi. Nearly a hundred years later, Isabel Parkman, a divorced American journalist and descendant of Anna and Sharif has fallen in love with Omar al-Ghamrawi, a gifted and difficult Egyptian-American conductor with his own passionate politics. In an attempt to understand her conflicting emotions and to discover the truth behind her heritage, Isabel, too, travels to Egypt, and enlists Omar's sister's help in unravelling the story of Anna and Sharif's love.

Joining the romance and intricate storytelling of A.S. Byatt's Possession and Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, Ahdaf Soueif has once again created a mesmerizing tale of genuine eloquence and lasting importance.]]>
529 Ahdaf Soueif 0385720114 Nadia 4 I really enjoyed reading it and found the plot to be very enjoyable. The title makes it seem as though it's just a romance novel, but it really is so much more..]]> 3.76 1999 The Map of Love
author: Ahdaf Soueif
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2007/01/01
date added: 2009/06/30
shelves:
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It gives a good account of what Egypt was like under British colonial rule around 1900 and also has some interesting information in it regarding the Zionist movement in Palestine.
I really enjoyed reading it and found the plot to be very enjoyable. The title makes it seem as though it's just a romance novel, but it really is so much more..
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<![CDATA[Something Rotten (Thursday Next, #4)]]> 26999 The Merry Wives of Windsor is becoming entangled with Hamlet. Can Thursday find a Shakespeare clone to stop this hostile takeover? Can she vanquish Kaine and prevent the world from plunging into war? And, most important, will she ever find reliable childcare? Find out in this totally original, action-packed romp, sure to be another escapist thrill for Jasper Fforde's legion of fans.]]> 385 Jasper Fforde 014303541X Nadia 4 4.15 2004 Something Rotten (Thursday Next, #4)
author: Jasper Fforde
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2009/05/19
date added: 2009/05/19
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<![CDATA[Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape]]> 3204677
“It was over on that side,� the soldier pointed out, smiling. “I was there.�

When Raja Shehadeh first started hill walking in Palestine, in the late 1970s, he was not aware that he was traveling through a vanishing landscape. In recent years, his hikes have become less than bucolic and sometimes downright dangerous. That is because his home is Ramallah, on the Palestinian West Bank, and the landscape he traverses is now the site of a tense standoff between his fellow Palestinians and settlers newly arrived from Israel.

In this original and evocative book, we accompany Raja on six walks taken between 1978 and 2006. The earlier forays are peaceful affairs, allowing our guide to meditate at length on the character of his native land, a terrain of olive trees on terraced hillsides, luxuriant valleys carved by sacred springs, carpets of wild iris and hyacinth and ancient monasteries built more than a thousand years ago. Shehadeh's love for this magical place saturates his renderings of its history and topography. But latterly, as seemingly endless concrete is poured to build settlements and their surrounding walls, he finds the old trails are now impassable and the countryside he once traversed freely has become contested ground. He is harassed by Israeli border patrols, watches in terror as a young hiking companion picks up an unexploded missile and even, on one occasion when accompanied by his wife, comes under prolonged gunfire.

Amid the many and varied tragedies of the Middle East, the loss of a simple pleasure such as the ability to roam the countryside at will may seem a minor matter. But in Palestinian Walks, Raja Shehadeh's elegy for his lost footpaths becomes a heartbreaking metaphor for the deprivations of an entire people estranged from their land.]]>
224 Raja Shehadeh 1416569669 Nadia 0 to-read 4.27 2008 Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape
author: Raja Shehadeh
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/04/08
shelves: to-read
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Germinal 28407
Etienne Lantier, an unemployed railway worker, is a clever but uneducated young man with a dangerous temper. Forced to take a back-breaking job at Le Voreux mine when he cannot get other work, he discovers that his fellow miners are ill, hungry, in debt, and unable to feed and clothe their families. When conditions in the mining community deteriorate even further, Lantier finds himself leading a strike that could mean starvation or salvation for all.

•New translation
� Includes introduction, suggestions for further reading, filmography, chronology, explanatory notes, and glossary]]>
592 Émile Zola 0140447423 Nadia 3 4.17 1885 Germinal
author: Émile Zola
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1885
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2009/04/07
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<![CDATA[The Worst Witch (Worst Witch, #1)]]> 351023 107 Jill Murphy 0141319623 Nadia 4 3.95 1974 The Worst Witch (Worst Witch, #1)
author: Jill Murphy
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1974
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2009/04/07
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One of my favourite books as a child!
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The Witches 6327 Note: This edition shares ISBN 0590032496 with another edition.

This is not a fairy-tale. This is about real witches. Real witches don't ride around on broomsticks. They don't even wear black cloaks and hats. They are vile, cunning, detestable creatures who disguise themselves as nice, ordinary ladies. So how can you tell when you're face to face with one? Well, if you don't know yet you'd better find out quickly-because there's nothing a witch loathes quite as much as children and she'll wield all kinds of terrifying powers to get rid of them.]]>
208 Roald Dahl 0590032496 Nadia 4 4.18 1981 The Witches
author: Roald Dahl
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1981
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2009/04/07
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The Bell Jar 6514 294 Sylvia Plath 0571268862 Nadia 3 4.05 1963 The Bell Jar
author: Sylvia Plath
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1963
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2009/03/24
shelves:
review:
I'd shied away from this book for a long time thinking it was going to be a depressing read.. and it was, though there were definite moments of humour. I found myself growing angry when I read of Esther's depression and suicide attempts when she had so much going for her.. But at the same time, I could understand her 'bell jar' concept, and I think many of us have probably experienced similar feelings. Despite having options open to you, there are always limitations hemming you in, expectations and responsibilities based on gender, culture, family, finances... At some point we've all been the fly trapped under the bell jar..
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<![CDATA[International Assistance to the Palestinians after Oslo: Political Guilt, Wasted Money]]> 6351116 239 Anne Le More 0415453852 Nadia 0 to-read 0.0 2008 International Assistance to the Palestinians after Oslo: Political Guilt, Wasted Money
author: Anne Le More
name: Nadia
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/22
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The Satanic Verses 12781
From the back cover.]]>
561 Salman Rushdie 0312270828 Nadia 0 to-read 3.73 1988 The Satanic Verses
author: Salman Rushdie
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2009/03/22
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Charlie Bucket, #1)]]> 6310 (back cover)]]> 176 Roald Dahl 0142403881 Nadia 3 4.16 1964 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Charlie Bucket, #1)
author: Roald Dahl
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1964
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2009/03/22
shelves:
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Tess of the D’Urbervilles 32261 here and here.

When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D’Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her ‘cousin� Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future.]]>
518 Thomas Hardy Nadia 2 3.83 1891 Tess of the D’Urbervilles
author: Thomas Hardy
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1891
rating: 2
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date added: 2009/03/22
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Bleak House 31242
“Jarndyce and Jarndyce� is an infamous lawsuit that has been in process for generations. Nobody can remember exactly how the case started but many different individuals have found their fortunes caught up in it. Esther Summerson watches as her friends and neighbours are consumed by their hopes and disappointments with the proceedings. But while the intricate puzzles of the lawsuit are being debated by lawyers, other more dramatic mysteries are unfolding that involve heartbreak, lost children, blackmail and murder.

The fog and cold that permeate Bleak House mirror a Victorian England mired in spiritual insolvency. Dickens brought all his passion, brilliance, and narrative verve to this huge novel of lives entangled in a multi-generational lawsuit—and through it, he achieved, at age 41, a stature almost Shakespearean.]]>
1017 Charles Dickens 0143037617 Nadia 0 to-read 4.01 1853 Bleak House
author: Charles Dickens
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1853
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/22
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My Cousin Rachel 50239
Now Rachel has arrived at Philip's newly inherited estate. Could this exquisite woman, who seems to genuinely share Philip's grief at Ambrose's death, really be as cruel as Philip imagined? Or is she the kind, passionate woman with whom Ambrose fell in love? Philip struggles to answer this question, knowing Ambrose's estate, and his own future, will be destroyed if his answer is wrong.

Bonus Reading Group Guide Included]]>
374 Daphne du Maurier 1579125697 Nadia 2 3.87 1951 My Cousin Rachel
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1951
rating: 2
read at: 2009/03/22
date added: 2009/03/22
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The Time Traveler's Wife 14050 537 Audrey Niffenegger 0965818675 Nadia 0 to-read 3.90 2003 The Time Traveler's Wife
author: Audrey Niffenegger
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/02/24
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Echoes 34301 Clare and David--divided as children by a rigid social code that branded her as shanty Irish and him as gentry...brought together as adults by a desire that knew no class, no barriers, only the urgent hunger of two people destined to love--and ready to defy a world determined to keep them apart.

Even at fifteen, David Power knew the echo would answer eleven-year-old Clare O'Brien's dearest wish, to win a school prize. But it was years before Dr. Power's cherished only son saw in the huckster's daughter the answer to his own heart's desire.

Here in Castlebay, perched precariously on the seaside cliffs, the lines between them were clearly drawn. Clare's only hope is to leave the town where time stopped, propelled by scholarships to Dublin, fueled by her own drive and brilliance, far from the insular, gossipy world of Castlebay and those in its thrall... Angela O'Hara, beautiful, isolated, a teacher trapped in the convent school, who risks everything to help Clare escape... Gerry Doyle, the town charmer who finds in Clare the woman he vows to have at any price... Caroline Nolan, the beautiful, rich outsider who comes to plunder...

For Clare, that was before the wild freedom of Dublin, and love. And David.  Before fate drove them back to Castlebay, and the past...]]>
496 Maeve Binchy 0440122090 Nadia 4 3.79 1985 Echoes
author: Maeve Binchy
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1985
rating: 4
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Sons and Lovers 32071 "She was a brazen hussy."

"She wasn't. And she was pretty, wasn't she?"

"I didn't look ... And tell your girls, my son, that when they're running after you, they're not to come and ask your mother for you - tell them that - brazen baggages you meet at dancing classes"

The marriage of Gertrude and Walter Morel has become a battleground. Repelled by her uneducated and sometimes violent husband, delicate Gertrude devotes her life to her children, especially to her sons, William and Paul - determined they will not follow their father into working down the coal mines. But conflict is evitable when Paul seeks to escape his mother's suffocating grasp through relationships with women his own age. Set in Lawrence's native Nottinghamshire, Sons and Lovers is a highly autobiographical and compelling portrayal of childhood, adolescence and the clash of generations.]]>
654 D.H. Lawrence Nadia 3 3.65 1913 Sons and Lovers
author: D.H. Lawrence
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1913
rating: 3
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The Scarlet Letter 12296 279 Nathaniel Hawthorne 0142437263 Nadia 3 3.43 1850 The Scarlet Letter
author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1850
rating: 3
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Emma 1878306 548 Jane Austen 3458322116 Nadia 4 4.01 1815 Emma
author: Jane Austen
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1815
rating: 4
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Persuasion 2156 249 Jane Austen 0192802631 Nadia 4 4.15 1817 Persuasion
author: Jane Austen
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1817
rating: 4
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Northanger Abbey 50398 Northanger Abbey is often referred to as Jane Austen's "Gothic parody." Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers give the story an uncanny air, but one with a decidedly satirical twist.

The story's unlikely heroine is Catherine Morland, a remarkably innocent seventeen-year-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, a great reader of Gothic thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old mansion fill her mind with terrible suspicions. What is the mystery surrounding the death of Henry's mother? Is the family concealing a terrible secret within the elegant rooms of the Abbey? Can she trust Henry, or is he part of an evil conspiracy? Catherine finds dreadful portents in the most prosaic events, until Henry persuades her to see the peril in confusing life with art.

Executed with high-spirited gusto, Northanger Abbey is a lighthearted, yet unsentimental commentary on love and marriage.]]>
260 Jane Austen 1593082649 Nadia 2 3.85 1817 Northanger Abbey
author: Jane Austen
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1817
rating: 2
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<![CDATA[Murder on the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot, #10)]]> 16304 322 Agatha Christie 0425200450 Nadia 5 4.16 1934 Murder on the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot, #10)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1934
rating: 5
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<![CDATA[The Man in the Brown Suit (Colonel Race, #1)]]> 209194 Pretty, young Anne came to London looking for adventure. In fact, adventure comes looking for her—and finds her immediately at Hyde Park Corner tube station. Anne is present on the platform when a thin man, reeking of mothballs, loses his balance and is electrocuted on the rails.


The Scotland Yard verdict is accidental death. But Anne is not satisfied. After all, who was the man in the brown suit who examined the body? And why did he race off, leaving a cryptic message behind: "17-122 Kilmorden Castle"?


Twisty, clever, and intriguing, The Man in the Brown Suit showcases Agatha Christie once again at her very best.

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381 Agatha Christie 0007151667 Nadia 5 3.97 1924 The Man in the Brown Suit (Colonel Race, #1)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1924
rating: 5
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They Came to Baghdad 140337
But no daydream of love could match the real life adventure that unfolded: a stranger was stabbed in her bed, someone issued a hushed warning, and her rival for Edward's affections neatly arranged her kidnapping. From the steamy Arab marketplace to the vast and arid desert, Victoria was pursued by an unknown power that threatened not only her, but the fate of the entire world ...]]>
368 Agatha Christie 0007154933 Nadia 4 3.83 1951 They Came to Baghdad
author: Agatha Christie
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1951
rating: 4
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Sense and Sensibility 14935 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141439662

'The more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!'

Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love—and its threatened loss—the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.

This edition includes explanatory notes, textual variants between the first and second editions, and Tony Tanner's introduction to the original Penguin Classic edition.]]>
409 Jane Austen 0141439661 Nadia 4 4.10 1811 Sense and Sensibility
author: Jane Austen
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1811
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1)]]> 960
A devastating new weapon of destruction.
When world-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a mysterious symbol -- seared into the chest of a murdered physicist -- he discovers evidence of the unimaginable: the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati...the most powerful underground organization ever to walk the earth. The Illuminati has now surfaced to carry out the final phase of its legendary vendetta against its most hated enemy -- the Catholic Church.

Langdon's worst fears are confirmed on the eve of the Vatican's holy conclave, when a messenger of the Illuminati announces they have hidden an unstoppable time bomb at the very heart of Vatican City. With the countdown under way, Langdon jets to Rome to join forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and mysterious Italian scientist, to assist the Vatican in a desperate bid for survival.
Embarking on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that snakes across Rome toward the long-forgotten Illuminati lair...a clandestine location that contains the only hope for Vatican salvation.

An explosive international thriller, Angels & Demons careens from enlightening epiphanies to dark truths as the battle between science and religion turns to war.]]>
736 Dan Brown 1416524797 Nadia 3 3.95 2000 Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1)
author: Dan Brown
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2000
rating: 3
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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 Nadia 1 3.76 2001 Deception Point
author: Dan Brown
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2001
rating: 1
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<![CDATA[The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)]]> 968 The da Vinci Code, The da Vinci Code, The da Vinci Code, and The da Vinci Code

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci -- clues visible for all to see -- yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion -- an actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others.

In a breathless race through Paris, London, and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who seems to anticipate their every move. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory's ancient secret -- and an explosive historical truth -- will be lost forever.

The Da Vinci Code heralds the arrival of a new breed of lightning-paced, intelligent thriller utterly unpredictable right up to its stunning conclusion.]]>
489 Dan Brown Nadia 3 3.92 2003 The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)
author: Dan Brown
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2003
rating: 3
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<![CDATA[America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction]]> 706 The Daily Show, and his coterie of patriots, deliver a hilarious look at American government.

American-style democracy is the world's most beloved form of government, which explains why so many other nations are eager for us to impose it on them. But what is American democracy? In America (The Book), Jon Stewart and The Daily Show writing staff offer their insights into our unique system of government, dissecting its institutions, explaining its history and processes, and exploring the reasons why concepts like one man, one vote, government by the people, and every vote counts have become such popular urban myths. Topics include: Ancient Rome: The First Republicans; The Founding Fathers: Young, Gifted, and White; The Media: Can it Be Stopped?; and more!

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228 Jon Stewart 0713998946 Nadia 4 4.00 2004 America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
author: Jon Stewart
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2004
rating: 4
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Great Expectations 2623
Pip must discover his true self, and his own set of values and priorities. Whether such values allow one to prosper in the complex world of early Victorian England is the major question posed by Great Expectations, one of Dickens's most fascinating, and disturbing, novels.

This edition includes the original, discarded ending, Dickens's brief working notes, and the serial instalments and chapter divisions in different editions. It also uses the definitive Clarendon text.]]>
544 Charles Dickens 0192833596 Nadia 4 3.78 1861 Great Expectations
author: Charles Dickens
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1861
rating: 4
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A Tale of Two Cities 1953 A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens’s great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author’s novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores many of his enduring themes—imprisonment, injustice, social anarchy, resurrection, and the renunciation that fosters renewal.]]> 489 Charles Dickens 0141439602 Nadia 4 3.86 1859 A Tale of Two Cities
author: Charles Dickens
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1859
rating: 4
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The Tenant of Wildfell Hall 337113 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a powerful depiction of a woman's fight for domestic independence and creative freedom.]]> 576 Anne Brontë 0140434747 Nadia 4 4.00 1848 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
author: Anne Brontë
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1848
rating: 4
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Jane Eyre 10210 Alternate editions can be found here and here.

A gothic masterpiece of tempestuous passions and dark secrets, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is edited with an introduction and notes by Stevie Davis in Penguin Classics.

Charlotte Brontë tells the story of orphaned Jane Eyre, who grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic, brooding Mr Rochester. As her feelings for Rochester develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall's terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice. Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions - even if it means leaving the man she loves? A novel of intense power and intrigue, Jane Eyre dazzled readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and freedom.]]>
532 Charlotte Brontë 0142437204 Nadia 4 4.14 1847 Jane Eyre
author: Charlotte Brontë
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1847
rating: 4
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Circle of Friends 41977
On their first day at University College, Dublin, the inseparable pair are thrown together with fellow students Nan Mahon, beautiful but selfish, and handsome Jack Foley. But trouble is brewing for Benny and Eve's new circle of friends, and before long, they find passion, tragedy - and the independence they yearned for.]]>
722 Maeve Binchy 0099498596 Nadia 4 4.06 1980 Circle of Friends
author: Maeve Binchy
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1980
rating: 4
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Tara Road 5196
Drawn into lifestyles vastly differing from their own, at first each resents the news of how well the other is getting on. Ria seems to have become quite a hostess, entertaining half the neighborhood, which at first irritates the reserved and withdrawn Marilyn, a woman who has always guarded her privacy. Marilyn seems to have become bosom friends with Ria's children, as well as with Colm, a handsome restaurateur, whom Ria has begun to miss terribly. At the end of the summer, the women at last meet face-to-face. Having learned a great deal, about themselves and about each other, they find that they have become, firmly and forever, good friends.

A moving story rendered with the deft touch of a master artisan, "Tara Road" is Maeve Binchy at her very best � utterly beautiful, hauntingly unforgettable, entirely original, and wholly enjoyable.]]>
648 Maeve Binchy 0440235596 Nadia 4 3.93 1998 Tara Road
author: Maeve Binchy
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1998
rating: 4
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Scarlet Feather 41951 Scarlet Feather is the story of Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather, their spouses, families, and friends, and the struggling new catering business that transforms their lives in ways big and small.]]> 549 Maeve Binchy 0451203771 Nadia 4 3.97 2000 Scarlet Feather
author: Maeve Binchy
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2000
rating: 4
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Quentins 41950 QUENTINS 403 Maeve Binchy 0752849522 Nadia 4 3.91 2002 Quentins
author: Maeve Binchy
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2002
rating: 4
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The Glass Lake 34310 704 Maeve Binchy 0752876872 Nadia 4 3.95 1994 The Glass Lake
author: Maeve Binchy
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1994
rating: 4
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Evening Class 41967 528 Maeve Binchy 0752876821 Nadia 2 4.01 1996 Evening Class
author: Maeve Binchy
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1996
rating: 2
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Silver Wedding 34309 _________________________________________
Another unforgettable novel from the bestselling author of Light a Penny Candle and Circle of Friends

Desmond and Deirdre Doyle will have been married for twenty-five years in October. It falls to the Doyles' eldest daughter, Anna, to decide how best to commemorate her parents' Silver Wedding. No use asking her sister Helen, living in her London convent, or her brother Brendan, who has chosen another form of exile on a bleak farm in the West of Ireland.

But it is unthinkable not to have a party, even though for the Doyles, family occasions are more difficult than for most. For each of them is keeping up a front, nursing a secret wound, or smarting over a hidden betrayal. And as the day draws nearer, so the tension mounts, until finally the guests gather at the party itself...]]>
272 Maeve Binchy 0099498626 Nadia 3 3.65 1988 Silver Wedding
author: Maeve Binchy
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1988
rating: 3
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Light a Penny Candle 41962
Writing with warmth, wit and great compassion, Maeve Binchy tells a magnificent story of the lives and loves of two women, bound together in a friendship that nothing could tear asunder -- not even the man who threatened to come between them forever.]]>
832 Maeve Binchy 009949857X Nadia 3 3.92 1982 Light a Penny Candle
author: Maeve Binchy
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1982
rating: 3
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Firefly Summer 34303
But when the estate is bought by Patrick O’Neill, the wealthy Irish American, his grand plans for its development threaten to shatter the peace. A new luxury hotel promises to breathe new life into the village, and yet it could also spell disaster for the Ryan family.

And as old values and traditions begin to crumble away, no-one � not even Patrick � can predict what his big dreams will do to the heart of their quiet village.]]>
928 Maeve Binchy 0099498669 Nadia 4 3.88 1987 Firefly Summer
author: Maeve Binchy
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1987
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[The Big Four (Hercule Poirot, #5)]]> 16316
Librarian's note #1: the concept of The Big Four first appeared as weekly short stories very loosely connected in 'The Sketch' in 1924. The 12 original stories were: 1) The Unexpected Guest, 2) The Adventure of the Dartmoor Bungalow, 3) The Lady on the Stairs, 4) The Radium Thieves, 5) In the House of the Enemy, 6) The Yellow Jasmine Mystery, 7) The Chess Problem, 8) The Baited Trap, 9) The Adventure of the Peroxide Blond, 10) The Terrible Catastrophe, 11) The Dying Chinaman, and 12) The Crag in the Dolomites. For her 1927 novel, Christie enhanced the linkages between the stories and shuffled them somewhat.

Librarian's note: the first fifteen novels in the Hercule Poirot series are 1) The Mysterious Affair at Styles, 1920; 2) The Murder on the Links, 1923; 3) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, 1926; 4) The Big Four, 1927; 5) The Mystery of the Blue Train, 1928; 6) Peril at End House, 1932; 7) Lord Edgware Dies, 1933; 8) Murder on the Orient Express, 1934; 9) Three Act Tragedy, 1935; 10) Death in the Clouds, 1935; 11) The A.B.C. Murders, 1936; 12) Murder in Mesopotamia, 1936; 13) Cards on the Table, 1936; 14) Dumb Witness, 1937; and 15) Death on the Nile, 1937. These are just the novels; Poirot also appears in this period in a play, Black Coffee, 1930, and two collections of short stories, Poirot Investigates, 1924, and Murder in the Mews, 1937. Each novel, play and short story has its own entry on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ.]]>
272 Agatha Christie 0007120818 Nadia 4 3.54 1927 The Big Four (Hercule Poirot, #5)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.54
book published: 1927
rating: 4
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Nemesis (Miss Marple, #11) 31304
Rafiel had left instructions for her to investigate a crime after his death. The only problem was, he had failed to tell her who was involved or where and when the crime had been committed. It was most intriguing. Soon she is faced with a new crime - the ultimate crime - murder. It seems someone is adamant that past evils remain buried.

Librarian's note: this entry is for the novel, "Nemesis." Collections and other Miss Marple stories are located elsewhere on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ. The series includes 12 novels and 20 short stories. Entries for the short stories can be found by searching Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ for: "a Miss Marple Short Story."]]>
213 Agatha Christie 0451200187 Nadia 5 3.86 1971 Nemesis (Miss Marple, #11)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1971
rating: 5
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<![CDATA[Sad Cypress (Hercule Poirot, #22)]]> 433035
Beautiful young Elinor Carlisle stood serenely in the dock, accused of the murder of Mary Gerrard, her rival in love. The evidence was damning: only Elinor had the motive, the opportunity and the means to administer the fatal poison.

Yet, inside the hostile courtroom, only one man still presumed Elinor was innocent until proven guilty: Hercule Poirot was all that stood between Elinor and the gallows…]]>
336 Agatha Christie Nadia 4 3.91 1940 Sad Cypress (Hercule Poirot, #22)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1940
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[The Pale Horse (Ariadne Oliver, #5)]]> 95382 "Wickedness...such wickedness...."
The dying woman turned to Father Gorman with agony in her eyes. "Stopped....It must be stopped....You will...."

The priest spoke with reassuring authority. "I will do what is necessary. You can trust me."

Father Gorman tucked the list of names she had given him into his shoe. It was a meaningless list; the names were of people who had nothing in common.

On his way home, Father Gorman was murdered. But the police found the list and when Mark Easterbrook came to inquire into the circumstances of the people listed, he began to discover a connection between them, and an ominous pattern....

Every name of that list was either already dead or, he suspected, marked for murder.]]>
288 Agatha Christie 0312981716 Nadia 4 3.82 1961 The Pale Horse (Ariadne Oliver, #5)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1961
rating: 4
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Kane & Abel (Kane & Abel, #1) 78983 592 Jeffrey Archer 0312995059 Nadia 4 4.31 1979 Kane & Abel (Kane & Abel, #1)
author: Jeffrey Archer
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1979
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[Shall We Tell the President? (Kane & Abel, #3)]]> 78989 228 Jeffrey Archer 0449208060 Nadia 3 3.73 1977 Shall We Tell the President? (Kane & Abel, #3)
author: Jeffrey Archer
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1977
rating: 3
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An Ideal Husband 5296 Sooner or later, Wilde notes, we shall all have to pay for what we do. But he adds that, No one should be entirely judged by their past.Together with The Importance of Being Earnest, it is often considered Wilde's dramatic masterpiece. After Earnest, it is his most popularly produced play"]]> 78 Oscar Wilde 048641423X Nadia 5 4.01 1893 An Ideal Husband
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1893
rating: 5
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<![CDATA[The Importance of Being Earnest]]> 92303
Cecily Cardew and Gwendolen Fairfax are both in love with the same mythical suitor. Jack Worthing has wooed Gwendolen as Ernest while Algernon has also posed as Ernest to win the heart of Jack's ward, Cecily. When all four arrive at Jack's country home on the same weekend the "rivals" to fight for Ernest's undivided attention and the "Ernests" to claim their beloveds pandemonium breaks loose. Only a senile nursemaid and an old, discarded hand-bag can save the day!

This Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition includes a glossary and reader's notes to help the modern reader appreciate Wilde's wry wit and elaborate plot twists.]]>
89 Oscar Wilde 158049580X Nadia 5 4.17 1895 The Importance of Being Earnest
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1895
rating: 5
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The Woman in White 5890 Librarian note: Alternate covers can be found here and here.

'In one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop... There, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth, stood the figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot in white'

The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter becomes embroiled in the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his 'charming' friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons, and poison. Pursuing questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism.

Matthew Sweet's introduction explores the phenomenon of Victorian 'sensation' fiction, and discusses Wilkie Collins's biographical and societal influences. Included in this edition are appendices on theatrical adaptations of the novel and its serialisation history.]]>
672 Wilkie Collins Nadia 4 4.00 1859 The Woman in White
author: Wilkie Collins
name: Nadia
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1859
rating: 4
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Treasure Island 295 Treasure Island has never been surpassed. From the moment young Jim Hawkins first encounters the sinister Blind Pew at the Admiral Benbow Inn until the climactic battle for treasure on a tropic isle, the novel creates scenes and characters that have fired the imaginations of generations of readers. Written by a superb prose stylist, a master of both action and atmosphere, the story centers upon the conflict between good and evil - but in this case a particularly engaging form of evil. It is the villainy of that most ambiguous rogue Long John Silver that sets the tempo of this tale of treachery, greed, and daring. Designed to forever kindle a dream of high romance and distant horizons, Treasure Island is, in the words of G. K. Chesterton, 'the realization of an ideal, that which is promised in its provocative and beckoning map; a vision not only of white skeletons but also green palm trees and sapphire seas.' G. S. Fraser terms it 'an utterly original book' and goes on to write: 'There will always be a place for stories like Treasure Island that can keep boys and old men happy.']]> 352 Robert Louis Stevenson 0753453800 Nadia 3 3.84 1882 Treasure Island
author: Robert Louis Stevenson
name: Nadia
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1882
rating: 3
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date added: 2009/02/24
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