Missy's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 31 Mar 2025 08:05:17 -0700 60 Missy's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[American Hippo (River of Teeth, #1-2)]]> 36152812 River of Teeth and Taste of Marrow, two action-packed novellas that introduced readers to an alternate America in which hippos rule the colossal swamp that was once the Mississippi River. Now readers have the chance to own both novellas in American Hippo, a single, beautiful volume.

Years ago, in an America that never was, the United States government introduced herds of hippos to the marshlands of Louisiana to be bred and slaughtered as an alternative meat source. This plan failed to take into account some key facts about hippos: they are savage, they are fast, and their jaws can snap a man in two.

By the 1890s, the vast bayou that was once America's greatest waterway belongs to feral hippos, and Winslow Houndstooth has been contracted to take it back. To do so, he will gather a crew of the damnedest cons, outlaws, and assassins to ever ride a hippo. American Hippo is the story of their fortunes, their failures, and his revenge.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 301 Sarah Gailey 1250176425 Missy 5 3.89 2018 American Hippo (River of Teeth, #1-2)
author: Sarah Gailey
name: Missy
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: all-time-favorites, dystopian, historical-fiction, speculative-history, steampunk, thriller, lgbt
review:

]]> A Dirty Job (Grim Reaper, #1) 33456
It's a dirty job. But, hey! Somebody's got to do it.]]> 387 Christopher Moore 0060590270 Missy 0 to-read 4.04 2006 A Dirty Job (Grim Reaper, #1)
author: Christopher Moore
name: Missy
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Devil in the Device (Goddess in the Machine, #2)]]> 40249642 The thrilling, much-anticipated conclusion to Lora Beth Johnson's Goddess in the Machine duology.

Zhade's power might be going to his head.

He's still getting used to wearing Maret's face, but he can't deny that the influence it affords him has its perks. But when the magic of Eerensed starts to turn deadly, Zhade must master the Crown if he's going to save his people, and Tsurina's destructive plans for Eerensed aren't going to make that easy. Worse, he's starting to see her point.

Meanwhile, Andra is in hiding.

Assumed dead by the people of Eerensed, she must stay underground if she's going to live long enough to build the rocket that will finally save the colonists from this dying planet. But when Andra hears voices urging her to destroy everything, she starts to dig deeper into her subconcious. What she finds leads her to question whether she's destined to be a savior after all.

Battling the dangerous forces buried within their minds, can Andra and Zhade truly decide their own fates? They must find a way to work together before two power-hungry leaders and a deadly swarm of rogue technology destroy humanity for good.]]> 432 Lora Beth Johnson 1984835955 Missy 0 to-read 3.81 2021 Devil in the Device (Goddess in the Machine, #2)
author: Lora Beth Johnson
name: Missy
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials]]> 176443387
Witchcraft is a dramatic journey through thirteen witch trials across history, some famous—like the Salem witch trials—and some on Vardø island, Norway, in the 1620s, where an indigenous Sami woman was accused of murder; in France in 1731, during the country’s last witch trial, where a young woman was pitted against her confessor and cult leader; in Pennsylvania in 1929 where a magical healer was labelled a “witch�; in Lesotho in 1948, where British colonial authorities executed local leaders. Exploring how witchcraft became feared, decriminalized, reimagined, and eventually reframed as gendered persecution, Witchcraft takes on the intersections between gender and power, indigenous spirituality and colonial rule, and political conspiracy and individual resistance.

Offering a vivid, compelling, and dramatic story, unspooling through centuries, about the men and women who were accused—some of whom survived their trials, and some who did not� Witchcraft empowers the people who were and are victimized and marginalized, giving a voice to those who were silenced by history.]]> 320 Marion Gibson 1668002426 Missy 0 3.64 2023 Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials
author: Marion Gibson
name: Missy
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: currently-reading, history, religion, politics, social-justice, true-crime
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World's First Artists]]> 287493
He takes us with him on his own journey of discovery, making us see the astonishing sophistication and power of the paintings, telling us what is known about their creators, the Cro-Magnon people who settled the area some 40,000 years ago.

Beginning in 1879 with Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, who found the astonishing paintings on the ceiling of a cave at Altamira, Curtis takes us among the scholars of prehistory, the archaeologists, the art historians who devoted their lives to studying and writing about the paintings. Among the famous Abbé Henri Breuil, who lay on his back in damp caves lit only by a lantern held patiently aloft by his faithful—and silent—female assistant, to produce the exquisite tracings that are the most reproduced renderings of the art; Max Raphael, the art historian who first understood that the animals on the walls were not single portraits but part of larger compositions; the beautiful Annette Lamming-Emperaire, resistance fighter turned archaeologist, whose doctoral thesis was so important that all theory since has flowed from her work; Jean Clottes and others still working as new caves and information come to light.

In his own search for the caves� meaning, Curtis takes us through the major theories—that the art was part of fertility or hunting rituals, or used for religious or shamanistic purposes, or was clan mythology—examining the ways in which ethnography, archaeology, and religion have influenced the thinking about the cave paintings over time.

The Cave Painters is rich in detail, personalities, and history—and permeated with the mystery at the core of this art created so many thousands of years ago by human beings who had developed, perhaps for the first time, both the ability for abstract thought and a profound and beautiful way to express it.]]> 288 Gregory Curtis 1400043484 Missy 5 history, nonfiction, science 4.01 2006 The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World's First Artists
author: Gregory Curtis
name: Missy
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: history, nonfiction, science
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 382 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Missy 0 to-read 4.67 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Missy
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[This Is How You Lose the Time War]]> 41093489 Two time-traveling agents from warring futures, working their way through the past, begin to exchange letters—and fall in love in this thrilling and romantic book from award-winning authors Amal-El Mohtar and Max Gladstone.

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading.

Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war. That’s how war works. Right?

Cowritten by two beloved and award-winning sci-fi writers, This Is How You Lose the Time War is an epic love story spanning time and space.]]> 198 Amal El-Mohtar 1534431004 Missy 5 3.82 2019 This Is How You Lose the Time War
author: Amal El-Mohtar
name: Missy
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: all-time-favorites, dystopian, historical-fiction, science-fiction, time-travel, romance, lgbt
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says about the End]]> 61271799 A “humane, thoughtful, and intelligent� (The New York Times Book Review) bestselling Biblical scholar reveals why our popular understanding of the Apocalypse is all wrong—and why that matters.

You’ll find nearly everything the Bible says about the end in the Book of Revelation: a mystifying prophecy filled with bizarre symbolism, violent imagery, mangled syntax, confounding contradictions, and very firm ideas about the horrors that await us all. But no matter what you think Revelation reveals—whether you read it as a literal description of what will soon come to pass, interpret it as a metaphorical expression of hope for those suffering now, or only recognize its highlights from pop culture—you’re almost certainly wrong.

In Armageddon, acclaimed New Testament authority Bart D. Ehrman delves into the most misunderstood—and possibly most dangerous—book of the Bible, on a “vigilantly persuasive� (The Washington Post) tour through three millennia of Judeo-Christian thinking about how our world will end. With wit and verve, he explores the alarming social and political consequences of expecting an imminent apocalypse, considers whether the message of Revelation may be at odds with the teachings of Jesus, and offers inspiring insight into how to live in the face of an uncertain future.

By turns hilarious, moving, troubling, and provocative, Armageddon is nothing short of revelatory in its account of what the Bible really says about the end.]]> 8 Bart D. Ehrman 1797151797 Missy 4 4.16 2023 Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says about the End
author: Bart D. Ehrman
name: Missy
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: all-time-favorites, history, nonfiction, religion
review:

]]> Between the World and Me 25489625 “This is your country, this is your world, this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.�

In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,� a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?

Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.]]> 152 Ta-Nehisi Coates Missy 0 4.40 2015 Between the World and Me
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: Missy
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: history, memoirs, social-justice, biography
review:

]]> Democracy in America 16619 Democracy in America has had the singular honor of being even to this day the work that political commentators of every stripe refer to when they seek to draw large conclusions about the society of the USA. Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat, came to the young nation to investigate the functioning of American democracy & the social, political & economic life of its citizens, publishing his observations in 1835 & 1840. Brilliantly written, vividly illustrated with vignettes & portraits, Democracy in America is far more than a trenchant analysis of one society at a particular point in time. What will most intrigue modern readers is how many of the observations still hold true: on the mixed advantages of a free press, the strained relations among the races & the threats posed to democracies by consumerism & corruption. So uncanny is Tocqueville’s insight & so accurate are his predictions, that it seems as tho he were not merely describing the American identity but actually helping to create it.]]> 983 Alexis de Tocqueville 0140447601 Missy 0 to-read 4.03 1835 Democracy in America
author: Alexis de Tocqueville
name: Missy
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1835
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest]]> 42389 Foreword
"We wanted those wings"; Camp Toccoa, 7-12/42
"Stand up & hook up"; Benning, Mackall, Bragg, Shanks, 12/42-9/43
"Duties of the latrine orderly"; Aldbourne, 9/43-3/44
"Look out, Hitler! Here we come!"; Slapton Sands, Uppottery, 4/1-6/5/44
"Follow me"; Normandy, 6/6/44
"Move out!"; Carentan, 6/7-7/12/44
Healing wounds & scrubbed missions; Aldbourne, 7/13-9/16/44
"Hell's highway"; Holland, 9/17-10/1/44
Island; Holland, 10/2-11/25/44
Resting, recovering & refitting: Mourmelon-le-Grand, 11/26-12/18/44
"They got us surrounded-the poor bastards"; Bastogne, 12/19-31/44
Breaking point; Bastogne, 1/1-13/45
Attack; Noville, 1/14-17/45
Patrol: Haguenau, 1/18-2/23/45
"Best feeling in the world": Mourmelon, 2/25-4/2/45
Getting to know the enemy: Germany, 4/2-30/45
Drinking Hitler's champagne; Berchtesgaden, 5/1-8/45
Soldier's dream life; Austria, 5/8-7/31/45
Postwar careers; 1945-91
Acknowledgments & Sources
Index]]> 432 Stephen E. Ambrose 0743464117 Missy 0 to-read 4.43 1992 Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest
author: Stephen E. Ambrose
name: Missy
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Last Lecture 2318271
When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave, 'Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams', wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because time is all you have and you may find one day that you have less than you think). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humour, inspiration, and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.]]> 206 Randy Pausch 1401323251 Missy 0 to-read 4.25 2008 The Last Lecture
author: Randy Pausch
name: Missy
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine]]> 26889576 The #1 New York Times bestseller: "It is the work of our greatest financial journalist, at the top of his game. And it's essential reading."—Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair

The real story of the crash began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn't shine and the SEC doesn't dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower- and middle-class Americans who can't pay their debts. The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren't talking.




Michael Lewis creates a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 bestseller Liar's Poker. Out of a handful of unlikely-really unlikely-heroes, Lewis fashions a story as compelling and unusual as any of his earlier bestsellers, proving yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our time.]]> 291 Michael Lewis 039335315X Missy 0 to-read 4.34 2010 The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
author: Michael Lewis
name: Missy
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families]]> 11472 356 Philip Gourevitch 0312243359 Missy 0 to-read 4.21 1998 We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
author: Philip Gourevitch
name: Missy
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany]]> 767171 No other powerful empire ever bequeathed such mountains of evidence about its birth and destruction as the Third Reich. When the bitter war was over, and before the Nazis could destroy their files, the Allied demand for unconditional surrender produced an almost hour-by-hour record of the nightmare empire built by Adolph Hitler. This record included the testimony of Nazi leaders and of concentration camp inmates, the diaries of officials, transcripts of secret conferences, army orders, private letters—all the vast paperwork behind Hitler's drive to conquer the world.

The famed foreign correspondent and historian William L. Shirer, who had watched and reported on the Nazis since 1925, spent five and a half years sifting through this massive documentation. The result is a monumental study that has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of one of the most frightening chapters in the history of mankind.

This worldwide bestseller has been acclaimed as the definitive book on Nazi Germany; it is a classic work.

The accounts of how the United States got involved and how Hitler used Mussolini and Japan are astonishing, and the coverage of the war-from Germany's early successes to her eventual defeat-is must reading

]]> 1147 William L. Shirer 0671728687 Missy 0 to-read 4.20 1960 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
author: William L. Shirer
name: Missy
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1960
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl]]> 40961608 In a tour de force of historical reportage, Timothy Egan’s National Book Award–winning story rescues an iconic chapter of American history from the shadows. The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Timothy Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, he does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes, “the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgency and respect� (New York Times). In an era that promises ever-greater natural disasters, The Worst Hard Time is “arguably the best nonfiction book yet� (Austin Statesman Journal) on the greatest environmental disaster ever to be visited upon our land and a powerful reminder about the dangers of trifling with nature.]]> 352 Timothy Egan 0547347774 Missy 0 to-read 4.09 2005 The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
author: Timothy Egan
name: Missy
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War]]> 18300212
The Trigger puts this right, filling out as never before a figure who changed our world and whose legacy still has an impact on all of us today. Born a penniless backwoodsman, Princip’s life changed when he trekked through Bosnia and Serbia to attend school. As he ventured across fault lines of faith, nationalism and empire, so tightly clustered in the Balkans, radicalisation slowly transformed him from a frail farm boy into history’s most influential assassin.

By retracing Princip’s journey from his highland birthplace, through the mythical valleys of Bosnia to the fortress city of Belgrade and ultimately Sarajevo, Tim Butcher illuminates our understanding both of Princip and the places that shaped him. Tim uncovers details about Princip that have eluded historians for a century and draws on his own experience, as a war reporter in the Balkans in the 1990s, to face down ghosts of conflicts past and present.

The Trigger is a rich and timely work that brings to life both the moment the world first went to war and an extraordinary region with a potent hold over history.]]> 352 Tim Butcher 070118793X Missy 0 to-read 3.77 2014 The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War
author: Tim Butcher
name: Missy
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong]]> 296662 Lies My Teacher Told Me won the American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship.

James W. Loewen, a sociology professor and distinguished critic of history education, puts 12 popular textbooks under the microscope-and what he discovers will surprise you. In his opinion, every one of these texts fails to make its subject interesting or memorable. Worse still is the proliferation of blind patriotism, mindless optimism and misinformation filling the pages.

From the truth about Christopher Columbus to the harsh reality of the Vietnam War, Loewen picks apart the lies we've been told. This audiobook, narrated by Brian Keeler (The Hurricane, "All My Children") will forever change your view of the past.]]> 383 James W. Loewen 0684818868 Missy 0 to-read 3.96 1995 Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
author: James W. Loewen
name: Missy
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![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 Missy 0 to-read 4.16 2000 In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
author: Nathaniel Philbrick
name: Missy
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present]]> 2767 Zinn portrays a side of American history that can largely be seen as the exploitation and manipulation of the majority by rigged systems that hugely favor a small aggregate of elite rulers from across the orthodox political parties.
A People's History has been assigned as reading in many high schools and colleges across the United States. It has also resulted in a change in the focus of historical work, which now includes stories that previously were ignored

Library Journal calls Howard Zinn’s book “a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those…whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories.”]]> 729 Howard Zinn 0060838655 Missy 0 to-read 4.07 1980 A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present
author: Howard Zinn
name: Missy
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space]]> 199798785
On January 28, 1986, just seventy-three seconds into flight, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven people on board. Millions of Americans witnessed the tragic deaths of a crew including New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. Like 9/11 or JFK’s assassination, the Challenger disaster is a defining moment in 20th-century history—yet the details of what took place that day, and why, have largely been forgotten. Until now.

Based on extensive archival records and meticulous, original reporting, Challenger follows a handful of central protagonists—including each of the seven members of the doomed crew—through the years leading up to the accident, a detailed account of the tragedy itself, and into the investigation that followed. It’s a tale of optimism and promise undermined by political cynicism and cost-cutting in the interests of burnishing national prestige; of hubris and heroism; and of an investigation driven by leakers and whistleblowers determined to bring the truth to light. Throughout, there are the ominous warning signs of a tragedy to come, recognized but then ignored, and ultimately kept from the public.

Higginbotham reveals the history of the shuttle program, the lives of men and women whose stories have been overshadowed by the disaster as well as the designers, engineers, and test pilots who struggled against the odds to get the first shuttle into space.]]> 576 Adam Higginbotham 198217661X Missy 0 to-read 4.53 2024 Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space
author: Adam Higginbotham
name: Missy
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #2)]]> 199347538 Somewhere Beyond the Sea is the hugely anticipated sequel to TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea, one of the best-loved and best-selling fantasy novels of the past decade. Featuring gorgeous orange sprayed edges!

A magical house. A secret past. A summons that could change everything.

Arthur Parnassus lives a good life built on the ashes of a bad one.

He’s the master of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six dangerous and magical children who live there.

Arthur works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. He is not alone: joining him is the love of his life, Linus Baker, a former caseworker in the Department In Charge of Magical Youth. And there’s the island’s sprite, Zoe Chapelwhite, and her girlfriend, Mayor Helen Webb. Together, they will do anything to protect the children.

But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve.

And when a new magical child hopes to join them on their island home—one who finds power in calling himself monster, a name that Arthur worked so hard to protect his children from—Arthur knows they’re at a breaking point: their family will either grow stronger than ever or fall apart.

Welcome back to Marsyas Island. This is Arthur’s story.

Somewhere Beyond the Sea is a story of resistance, lovingly told, about the daunting experience of fighting for the life you want to live and doing the work to keep it.]]> 416 T.J. Klune 125088120X Missy 0 to-read 4.17 2024 Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #2)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Missy
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Under the Whispering Door 53205888 Welcome to Charon's Crossing.
The tea is hot, the scones are fresh, and the dead are just passing through.

When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead.

And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he’s definitely dead.

But even in death he’s not ready to abandon the life he barely lived, so when Wallace is given one week to cross over, he sets about living a lifetime in seven days.

Hilarious, haunting, and kind, Under the Whispering Door is an uplifting story about a life spent at the office and a death spent building a home.]]> 376 T.J. Klune 1250217342 Missy 0 to-read 4.11 2021 Under the Whispering Door
author: T.J. Klune
name: Missy
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)]]> 45047384
Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.

When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.

But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.

An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.]]> 394 T.J. Klune Missy 0 to-read 4.37 2020 The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Missy
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Drowned Cities (Ship Breaker, #2)]]> 12814594 Soldier boys emerged from the darkness. Guns gleamed dully. Bullet bandoliers and scars draped their bare chests. Ugly brands scored their faces. She knew why these soldier boys had come. She knew what they sought, and she knew, too, that if they found it, her best friend would surely die.

In a dark future America where violence, terror, and grief touch everyone, young refugees Mahlia and Mouse have managed to leave behind the war-torn lands of the Drowned Cities by escaping into the jungle outskirts. But when they discover a wounded half-man--a bioengineered war beast named Tool--who is being hunted by a vengeful band of soldiers, their fragile existence quickly collapses. One is taken prisoner by merciless soldier boys, and the other is faced with an impossible decision: Risk everything to save a friend, or flee to a place where freedom might finally be possible.

This thrilling companion to Paolo Bacigalupi's highly acclaimed Ship Breaker is a haunting and powerful story of loyalty, survival, and heart-pounding adventure.]]> 437 Paolo Bacigalupi 0316056243 Missy 5 dystopian, young-adult 3.88 2012 The Drowned Cities (Ship Breaker, #2)
author: Paolo Bacigalupi
name: Missy
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/25
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: dystopian, young-adult
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War]]> 195608683 The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War—a slow-burning crisis that finally tore a deeply divided nation in two.

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston: Fort Sumter.

Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.�

At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between both. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous Secretary of State, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable—one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans.

Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.]]> 565 Erik Larson 0385348746 Missy 4 4.13 2024 The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
author: Erik Larson
name: Missy
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/25
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: historical-fiction, history, nonfiction, politics
review:

]]> The Abbot's Tale 36327062
At his side is the priest Dunstan of Glastonbury, full of ambition and wit (perhaps enough to damn his soul). His talents will take him from the villages of Wessex to the royal court, to the hills of Rome—from exile to exaltation. Through Dunstan's vision, by his guiding hand, England will either come together as one great country or fall back into anarchy and misrule . . .

From one of our finest historical writers,The Abbott’s Taleis an intimate portrait of a priest and performer, a visionary, a traitor and confessor to kings—the man who canchangethe fate of England.]]> 480 Conn Iggulden 1681777304 Missy 3 historical-fiction 3.94 2017 The Abbot's Tale
author: Conn Iggulden
name: Missy
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: historical-fiction
review:

]]> Darien (Empire of Salt, #1) 33245839 TWELVE FAMILIES. ONE THRONE. WELCOME TO THE EMPIRE OF SALT.

The city of Darien stands at the weary end of a golden age. Twelve families keep order with soldiers and artefacts, spies and memories, clinging to a peace that shifts and crumbles. The people of the city endure what they cannot change.

Here, amongst old feuds, a plot is hatched to kill a king. It will summon strangers to the city - Elias Post, a hunter, Tellius, an old swordsman banished from his home, Arthur, a boy who cannot speak, Daw Threefold, a chancer and gambler, Vic Deeds, who feels no guilt - and Nancy, a girl whose talent might be the undoing of them all.

Their arrival inside the walls as the sun sets will set off a series of explosive events. Before the sun returns, five destinies will have been made - and lost - in Darien.]]> 352 C.F. Iggulden 071818646X Missy 0 to-read 3.76 2017 Darien (Empire of Salt, #1)
author: C.F. Iggulden
name: Missy
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ship Breaker (Ship Breaker, #1)]]> 7095831 326 Paolo Bacigalupi 0316056219 Missy 5 3.75 2010 Ship Breaker (Ship Breaker, #1)
author: Paolo Bacigalupi
name: Missy
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/10
date added: 2024/12/16
shelves: all-time-favorites, dystopian, young-adult
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1)]]> 41161349
Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from the surrounding anarchy. In a society where any vulnerability is a risk, she suffers from hyperempathy, a debilitating sensitivity to others' pain.

Precocious and clear-eyed, Lauren must make her voice heard in order to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community stubbornly ignores. But what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: the birth of a new faith...and a startling vision of human destiny.

This highly acclaimed post-apocalyptic novel of hope and terror from award-winning author Octavia E. Butler “pairs well with 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale� (John Green, New York Times)—now with a new foreword by N. K. Jemisin.]]> 329 Octavia E. Butler 1538732181 Missy 0 to-read 4.17 1993 Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1)
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Missy
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Finish What We Started: The MAGA Movement’s Ground War to End Democracy]]> 61398921 An explosive, behind-the-scenes look at how a radical group of activists—supported by former President Trump and other radical members of the Republican Party� have secretly compromised the electoral system, precinct by precinct, around the country without anyone noticing. The biggest threat to democracy going forward may not be coming out of Washington, but at the local level, across the country.

While the country remains focused on the gridlock in Washington, and how to properly think about the events of January 6th, a growing movement of activists have begun plotting around the country with one goal in mind: how to make the Big Lie a reality. Radicalized by Trump’s stirring message of a stolen election, deluged by a tidal wave of propaganda, this national movement have moved beyond rhetoric and into action. They’ve begun capturing local precincts, installing like-minded insurgents, and have developed a new way forward: how to ensure, against all odds, that only their preferred candidates will win elections, now and in the future.

Isaac Arnsdorf has been at the vanguard of reporting on this growing movement for the past year. In September, for ProPublica, he broke the news of the “Precinct Strategy,� revealing how the stolen election myth has inspired thousands of Republicans to infiltrate the party apparatus at the bottom rungs and use their positions to manipulate future elections. While journalists from across mainstream media have covered different aspects of the radicalized Right strategy, from the focus on “critical race theory� to the buildup of white militias,The Redeemerswill follow the men and women who are driving this change, the people who are puppeteering them, and those who see the truth but don’t know how to fight back against relentless misinformation and violent rhetoric.

Shocking, alarming, and full of breaking news,The Redeemersis the definitive story of how the insurgents will distort the most sacred institution of democracy: the electoral system itself.

]]> 272 Isaac Arnsdorf 0316497517 Missy 0 to-read 3.82 Finish What We Started: The MAGA Movement’s Ground War to End Democracy
author: Isaac Arnsdorf
name: Missy
average rating: 3.82
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Conspiracy to End America: Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy]]> 158403323
Former chief Republican strategist, Lincoln Project adviser, and bestselling author of It Was All a Lie , Stuart Stevens offers an ominous warning that the GOP is dragging our country toward autocracy—and if we don’t wake up to the crisis in our system, 2024 may well be our last free and fair election. Today’s Republican party is not a “normal� political party in the American tradition. It has become an autocratic movement masquerading as a political party. As Stuart Stevens argues in THE CONSPIRACY TO END AMERICA, if we look away from that truth, we greatly increase the likelihood that the America we love will slip away, never to return.

Whenever a democracy slides into autocracy, there are five critical elements at financers, propagandists, party support, legal theories to legitimize, and shock troops. THE CONSPIRACY TO END AMERICA examines each of these driving forces on the Right and makes clear how they are working in concert to end our democracy as we know it.

In the tradition of It Can’t Happen Here and On Tyranny , THE CONSPIRACY TO END AMERICA is a blinking red distress call about the dark intentions lurking within Stevens� old party and a rallying cry to beat back this perilous threat and save the Republic.]]> 240 Stuart Stevens 1538765403 Missy 0 to-read 4.30 The Conspiracy to End America: Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy
author: Stuart Stevens
name: Missy
average rating: 4.30
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism]]> 168677579
Inspired by her research for the hit podcast Ultra, Rachel Maddow charts the rise of a wild American strain of authoritarianism that has been alive on the far-right edge of our politics for the better part of a century. Before and even after our troops had begun fighting abroad in World War II, a clandestine network flooded the country with disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of the U.S. war effort and persuading Americans that our natural alliance was with the Axis, not against it. It was a sophisticated and shockingly well-funded campaign to undermine democratic institutions, promote antisemitism, and destroy citizens� confidence in their elected leaders, with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the U.S. government and installing authoritarian rule.

That effort worked—tongue and groove—alongside an ultra-right paramilitary movement that stockpiled bombs and weapons and trained for mass murder and violent insurrection.

At the same time, a handful of extraordinary activists and journalists were tracking the scheme, exposing it even as it was unfolding. In 1941 the U.S. Department of Justice finally made a frontal attack, identifying the key plotters, finding their backers, and prosecuting dozens in federal court.

None of it went as planned.

While the scheme has been remembered in history—if at all—as the work of fringe players, in reality, it involved alarge number of some of the country’s most influential elected officials. Their interference in law enforcement efforts against the plot is a dark story of the rule of law bending and then breaking under the weight of political intimidation.

That failure of the legal system had consequences. The tentacles of that unslain beast have reached forward into our history for decades. But the heroic efforts of the activists, journalists, prosecutors, and regular citizens who sought to expose the insurrectionists also make for a deeply resonant, deeply relevant tale in our own disquieting times.]]> 416 Rachel Maddow 0593444515 Missy 0 4.36 2023 Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism
author: Rachel Maddow
name: Missy
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves: currently-reading, history, nonfiction, politics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania]]> 22551730
On May 1, 1915, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were anxious. Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone, and for months, its U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era's great transatlantic "Greyhounds" and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. He knew, moreover, that his ship - the fastest then in service - could outrun any threat.

Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger's U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small - hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more--all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.

It is a story that many of us think we know but don't, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour, mystery, and real-life suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope Riddle to President Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love. Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster that helped place America on the road to war.]]> 430 Erik Larson 0307408868 Missy 4 4.10 2015 Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
author: Erik Larson
name: Missy
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/01
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves: historical-fiction, history, nonfiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bookshops & Bonedust (Legends & Lattes, #0)]]> 65213543 When an injury throws a young, battle-hungry orc off her chosen path, she may find that what we need isn't always what we seek.

In Bookshops & Bonedust, a prequel to Legends & Lattes, author Travis Baldree takes us on a journey of high fantasy, first loves, and second-hand books.

Viv's career with the notorious mercenary company Rackam's Ravens isn't going as planned.

Wounded during the hunt for a powerful necromancer, she's packed off against her will to recuperate in the sleepy beach town of Murk—so far from the action that she worries she'll never be able to return to it.

What's a thwarted soldier of fortune to do?

Spending her hours at a beleaguered bookshop in the company of its foul-mouthed proprietor is the last thing Viv would have predicted, but it may be both exactly what she needs and the seed of changes she couldn't possibly imagine.

Still, adventure isn't all that far away. A suspicious traveler in gray, a gnome with a chip on her shoulder, a summer fling, and an improbable number of skeletons prove Murk to be more eventful than Viv could have ever expected.]]> 336 Travis Baldree 1250886104 Missy 5 4.13 2023 Bookshops & Bonedust (Legends & Lattes, #0)
author: Travis Baldree
name: Missy
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/01
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves: all-time-favorites, fantasy, lgbt
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Legends & Lattes (Legends & Lattes, #1)]]> 60314494 A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes.

After a lifetime of bounties and bloodshed, Viv is hanging up her sword for the last time.

The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success—not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is.

If Viv wants to put the blade behind her and make her plans a reality, she won't be able to go it alone.

But the true rewards of the uncharted path are the travelers you meet along the way. And whether drawn together by ancient magic, flaky pastry, or a freshly brewed cup, they may become partners, family, and something deeper than she ever could have dreamed.]]> 305 Travis Baldree Missy 5 4.13 2022 Legends & Lattes (Legends & Lattes, #1)
author: Travis Baldree
name: Missy
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/01
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves: all-time-favorites, fantasy, lgbt, romance
review:

]]> <![CDATA[In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin]]> 9938498
A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the New Germany, she has one affair after another, including with the surprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler's true character and ruthless ambition.

Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Goring and the expectedly charming—yet wholly sinister—Goebbels, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively readable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror.]]> 448 Erik Larson 0307408841 Missy 3 history, nonfiction, politics 3.87 2011 In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
author: Erik Larson
name: Missy
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves: history, nonfiction, politics
review:

]]> Thunderstruck 40067
A true story of love, murder, and the end of the world’s “great hush�

In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men—Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication—whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.

Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when great shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest ocean liners, scientific advances dazzled the public with visions of a world transformed, and the rich outdid one another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this background, Marconi races against incredible odds and relentless skepticism to perfect his invention: the wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, “the kindest of men,� nearly commits the perfect crime.

With his superb narrative skills, Erik Larson guides these parallel narratives toward a relentlessly suspenseful meeting on the waters of the North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic love affair that was described on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover, and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way we communicate. Thunderstruck presents a vibrant portrait of an era of séances, science, and fog, inhabited by inventors, magicians, and Scotland Yard detectives, all presided over by the amiable and fun-loving Edward VII as the world slid inevitably toward the first great war of the twentieth century. Gripping from the first page, and rich with fascinating detail about the time, the people, and the new inventions that connect and divide us, Thunderstruck is splendid narrative history from a master of the form.]]> 463 Erik Larson 1400080665 Missy 3 3.73 2006 Thunderstruck
author: Erik Larson
name: Missy
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/11
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves: nonfiction, science, mystery, true-crime, history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Religion of Whiteness: How Racism Distorts Christian Faith]]> 197189626
Recent years have seen a growing recognition of the role that White Christian Nationalism plays in American society. As White Christian Nationalism has become a major force, and as racial and religious attitudes become increasingly aligned among whites--for example, the more likely you are to say that the decline of white people as a share of the population is "bad for society," the more likely you are to believe the government should support religious values--it has become reasonable to wonder which of the adjectives in the phrase "White Christian Nationalism" takes precedence.

In this book, Michael O. Emerson and Glenn E. Bracey II respond the answer is "white." The majority of white Christians in America, they argue, are believers in a "Religion of Whiteness" that shapes their faith, their politics, and more. The Religion of Whiteness, they argue, raises the perpetuation of racial inequality to a level of spiritual commitment that rivals followers' commitment to Christianity itself. This religion has its own unique beliefs, practices, sacred symbols, and organizations. What is more, this religion affects more than just churches. It drives the nation's politics, divides families, and is especially harmful to communities of color.

Using national survey data, in-depth interviews, and focus group results gathered over several years, Emerson and Bracey show how the Religion of Whiteness shapes the practice of Christianity for millions of Americans--and what can be done to confront it.]]> 208 Michael O. Emerson 0197746284 Missy 0 to-read 4.31 The Religion of Whiteness: How Racism Distorts Christian Faith
author: Michael O. Emerson
name: Missy
average rating: 4.31
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity]]> 215805908 How did America cease to be the land of opportunity?

We take it for granted that good neighborhoods—with good schools and good housing—are only accessible to the wealthy. But in America, this wasn’t always the case.

Though for most of world history, your prospects were tied to where you were born, Americans came up with a revolutionary If you didn’t like your lot in life, you could find a better location and reinvent yourself there. Americans moved to new places with unprecedented frequency, and, for two hundred years, that remarkable mobility was the linchpin of American economic and social opportunity.

In this illuminating debut, Yoni Appelbaum, historian and journalist for The Atlantic, shows us that this idea has been under attack since reformers first developed zoning laws to ghettoize Chinese Americans in nineteenth-century Modesto, California. The century of legal segregation that ensued—from the zoning laws enacted to force Jewish workers back into New York’s Lower East Side to the private-sector discrimination and racist public policy that trapped Black families in Flint, Michigan to Jane Jacobs� efforts to protect her vision of the West Village—has raised housing prices, deepened political divides, emboldened bigots, and trapped generations of people in poverty. Appelbaum shows us that these problems have a common people can’t move as readily as they used to. They are, in a word, stuck.

Cutting through more than a century of mythmaking, Stuck tells a vivid, surprising story of the people and ideas that caused our economic and social sclerosis and lays out common-sense ways to get Americans moving again.]]> 320 Yoni Appelbaum 0593449290 Missy 0 to-read 4.33 2025 Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity
author: Yoni Appelbaum
name: Missy
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The 1619 Project: A Visual Experience]]> 203608467 Anillustrated edition of The 1619 Project, with newly commissioned artwork and archival images, The New York Times Magazine's award-winning reframing of the American founding and its contemporary echoes, placing slavery and resistance at the center ofthe American story.

Here, in these pages, Black art provides refuge. The marriage of beautiful, haunting and profound words and imagery creates an experience for the reader, a wanting to reflect, to sit in both the discomfort and the joy, to contemplate what a nation owes a people who have contributed so much and yet received so little, and maybe even, to act. --Nikole Hannah-Jones, from the Preface

Curated by the editors of The New York Times Magazine, led by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, this illustrated edition of The 1619 Project features seven chapters from the original book that lend themselves to beautiful, engaging visuals, deepening the experience of the content. The 1619 A Visual Experience offers the same revolutionary idea as the original book, an argument for a new national origin story that begins in late August of 1619, when a cargo ship of enslaved people from Africa arrived on the shores of Jamestown, Virginia. Only by reckoning with this difficult history and understanding its powerful influence on our present can we prepare ourselves for a more just future.

Filled with original art by thirteen Black artists like Carrie Mae Weems, Calida Rawles, Vitus Shell, Xaviera Simmons, on the themes of resistance and freedom, a brand-new photo essay about slave auction sites, vivid photos of Black Americans celebrating their own forms of patriotism, and a collection of archival images of Black families by Black photographers, this gorgeous volume offers readers a dynamic new way of experiencing the impact of The 1619 Project.

Complete with many of the powerful essays and vignettes from the original edition, written by some of the most brilliant journalists, scholars, and thinkers of our time, The 1619 A Visual Experience brings to life a fuller, more comprehensive understanding of American history and culture.]]> 288 Nikole Hannah-Jones 0593232259 Missy 0 to-read 4.44 The 1619 Project: A Visual Experience
author: Nikole Hannah-Jones
name: Missy
average rating: 4.44
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Blood: The Science, Medicine, and Mythology of Menstruation]]> 75496481 Dr. Jen Gunter fights myths and fear-mongering with real science, inclusive facts, and shame-free advice on the topic that impacts more than 72 million Americans every month: menstruation.

Most women, transgender, and non-binary people who menstruate can expect to have hundreds of periods in a lifetime. So why is real information so hard to find? Despite the significance of menstruation, most education focuses on either increasing the chances of pregnancy or preventing it. Those who menstruate deserve to know more about their bodies than just what happens in service to reproduction. At a time when charlatans, politicians, and social media are succeeding in propagating damaging disinformation with real and devastating consequences, Dr. Gunter provides the antidote with science, myth busting, and no-nonsense facts.]]> 480 Jen Gunter 0806540680 Missy 0 to-read 4.21 2024 Blood: The Science, Medicine, and Mythology of Menstruation
author: Jen Gunter
name: Missy
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Parenting with Pride: Unlearn Bias and Embrace, Empower, and Love Your LGBTQ+ Teen]]> 195720490
Your kid just came out to you, and amid the flurry of emotion or worry you might feel, you know you would do anything to protect their health and happiness. And you are not alone! Heather Hester, coach, advocate, and host of the #1 rated podcast, Just Parenting Your LGBTQ Teen , combines an honest retelling of her own son’s coming-out experience with wide-ranging research, conversations with dozens of professionals, and the unique experiences of other families to provide the ultimate guidebook for parents embarking on this journey.
In Parenting with Unlearn Bias and Embrace, Empower, and Love Your LGBTQ+ Teen , Hester provides parents and caregivers with four transformations that gently, but purposefully, walk them through the four pillars toward fully supporting and loving your LGBTQ+ Embrace, Educate (or Unlearn), Empower, Love.

With trustworthy information and an accessible, straightforward plan, Parenting with Pride provides actionable yet profound tools and mental shifts to help parents support their teens and themselves and to be a catalyst for change in their communities.]]> 224 Heather Hester 164170912X Missy 0 to-read 4.32 Parenting with Pride: Unlearn Bias and Embrace, Empower, and Love Your LGBTQ+ Teen
author: Heather Hester
name: Missy
average rating: 4.32
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age]]> 213395468 'Brilliantly written ... evokes the wonder of an entire civilisation.' Tom Holland, author of Pax and co-host of The Rest is History

'Splendid - an intimate portrait of the Viking Age. Highly recommended.' Neil Price, author of The Children of Ash and A History of the Vikings

'Takes us beyond the familiar into a real, visceral, far more satisfying Viking world.' Dan Snow

Imagine a Viking, and a certain image springs to a nameless, faceless warrior, leaping ashore from a longboat, and ready to terrorise the hapless local population of a northern European country.

Yet while such characters define the Viking Age today, they were in the minority. This is the history of all the other people - children, enslaved people, seers, artisans, travellers, writers - who inhabited the medieval Nordic world. Encompassing not just Norway, Denmark and Sweden, but also Iceland, Greenland, parts of the British Isles, Continental Europe and Russia, this is a history of a Viking Age filled with real people of different ages, genders and ethnicities, as told through the traces that they left behind, from hairstyles to place names, love-notes to gravestones.

For the first time, you can immerse yourself in the day-to-day lives of extraordinary culture which spanned centuries and spread from the edge of the North American continent to the Russian steppes, from the Arctic wastelands to the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Caliphate.]]> 384 Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough 1324089237 Missy 0 to-read 4.00 2024 Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age
author: Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough
name: Missy
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy]]> 211003831 In an explosive follow-up to The Power Worshippers, Katherine Stewart traces the disparate yet united “engine of unreason� roiling American culture and politics.

Why have so many Americans turned against democracy? In this deeply reported book, Katherine Stewart takes us to conferences of conspiracy-mongers, back-room strategy gatherings, and services at extremist churches, and profiles the people who want to tear it all down. She introduces us to reactionary Catholic activists, atheist billionaires, pseudo-Platonist intellectuals, self-appointed apostles of Jesus, disciples of Ayn Rand, women-hating opponents of “the gynocracy,� pro-natalists preoccupied with the dearth of white babies, Covid truthers, militia members masquerading as "concerned moms," and battalions of spirit warriors who appear to be inventing a new religion even as they set about attacking democracy and its foundations.

Along the way, she provides a compelling analysis of the authoritarian reaction in the United States. She demonstrates that the movement relies on three very different groups-the funders, the thinkers, and the foot-soldiers-each with different beliefs and often conflicting aims. Stewart's reporting and comprehensive political analysis helps reframe the conversation about the moral collapse of conservatism in America and points the way forward toward a democratic future.
]]> 352 Katherine Stewart 163557854X Missy 0 to-read 4.21 Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy
author: Katherine Stewart
name: Missy
average rating: 4.21
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Integrated: How American Schools Failed Black Children]]> 214986248 A powerful, incisive reckoning with the impacts of school desegregation that traces four generations of the author’s family to show how integration decimated Black school systems and was a disservice to much of the Black community

On May 17, 1954 the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education deemed racial segregation in schools unconstitutional. Heralded as a massive victory for civil rights, the decision's goal was to give Black students equal access to educational opportunities and clear a path to a better future. Yet in the years following the ruling, schools in predominantly Black neighborhoods were shuttered or saw their funding dwindle; Black educators were firedenmasse; and Black students faced discrimination and violence from their white peers as they joined resource-rich schools that were ill-prepared for the influx of additional students.

Award-winning interdisciplinary scholar of education and Black history Noliwe Rooks weaves together sociological data and cultural history to challenge the idea that integration was a boon for Black people. She shows how present-day discrimination lawsuits directly stem from the mistakes made during integration. She tells the story of her grandparents, who were among the thousands of Black teachers fired following the Brown decision; of her father, who was traumatized by his experiences at a predominantly white school; of her own experiences moving from a flourishing, racially diverse school to an underserved inner-city one; and finally, of her son and his Black peers, who struggle with hostility and prejudice from white teachers and white students alike.

At once assiduously researched and deeply engaging, Integrated proves how education has remained both a tool for community progress and a seemingly inscrutable cultural puzzle. Rooks's deft hand turns the story of integration's past and future on its head, and shows how to better understand and support generations of students to come.]]> 240 Noliwe Rooks 0553387391 Missy 0 to-read 4.45 2025 Integrated: How American Schools Failed Black Children
author: Noliwe Rooks
name: Missy
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 (World War II Liberation Trilogy, #3)]]> 16044941 The magnificent conclusion to Rick Atkinson’s acclaimed Liberation Trilogy about the Allied triumph in Europe during World War II

It is the twentieth century’s unrivaled epic: at a staggering price, the United States and its allies liberated Europe and vanquished Hitler. In the first two volumes of his bestselling Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson recounted how the American-led coalition fought through North Africa and Italy to the threshold of victory. Now he tells the most dramatic story of all—the titanic battle for Western Europe.

D-Day marked the commencement of the final campaign of the European war, and Atkinson’s riveting account of that bold gamble sets the pace for the masterly narrative that follows. The brutal fight in Normandy, the liberation of Paris, the disaster that was Operation Market Garden, the horrific Battle of the Bulge, and finally the thrust to the heart of the Third Reich—all these historic events and more come alive with a wealth of new material and a mesmerizing cast of characters. Atkinson tells the tale from the perspective of participants at every level, from presidents and generals to war-weary lieutenants and terrified teenage riflemen. When Germany at last surrenders, we understand anew both the devastating cost of this global conflagration and the enormous effort required to win the Allied victory.

With the stirring final volume of this monumental trilogy, Atkinson’s accomplishment is manifest. He has produced the definitive chronicle of the war that unshackled a continent and preserved freedom in the West.

]]> 877 Rick Atkinson 0805062904 Missy 0 to-read 4.44 2013 The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 (World War II Liberation Trilogy, #3)
author: Rick Atkinson
name: Missy
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (World War II Liberation Trilogy, #2)]]> 716532 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERIn the second volume of his epic trilogy about the liberation of Europe in World War II, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson tells the harrowing story of the campaigns in Sicily and Italy

In An Army at Dawn—winner of the Pulitzer Prize—Rick Atkinson provided a dramatic and authoritative history of the Allied triumph in North Africa. Now, in The Day of Battle, he follows the strengthening American and British armies as they invade Sicily in July 1943 and then, mile by bloody mile, fight their way north toward Rome.

The Italian campaign’s outcome was never certain; in fact, Roosevelt, Churchill, and their military advisers engaged in heated debate about whether an invasion of the so-called soft underbelly of Europe was even a good idea. But once under way, the commitment to liberate Italy from the Nazis never wavered, despite the agonizingly high price. The battles at Salerno, Anzio, and Monte Cassino were particularly difficult and lethal, yet as the months passed, the Allied forces continued to drive the Germans up the Italian peninsula. Led by Lieutenant General Mark Clark, one of the war’s most complex and controversial commanders, American officers and soldiers became increasingly determined and proficient. And with the liberation of Rome in June 1944, ultimate victory at last began to seem inevitable.


Drawing on a wide array of primary source material, written with great drama and flair, this is narrative history of the first rank. With The Day of Battle, Atkinson has once again given us the definitive account of one of history’s most compelling military campaigns.]]> 793 Rick Atkinson 0805062890 Missy 0 to-read 4.34 2007 The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (World War II Liberation Trilogy, #2)
author: Rick Atkinson
name: Missy
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 (World War II Liberation Trilogy, #1)]]> 541920
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
In the first volume of his monumental trilogy about the liberation of Europe in WW II, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson tells the riveting story of the war in North Africa
The liberation of Europe and the destruction of the Third Reich is a story of courage and enduring triumph, of calamity and miscalculation. In this first volume of the Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson shows why no modern reader can understand the ultimate victory of the Allied powers without a grasp of the great drama that unfolded in North Africa in 1942 and 1943. That first year of the Allied war was a pivotal point in American history, the moment when the United States began to act like a great power.

Beginning with the daring amphibious invasion in November 1942, An Army at Dawn follows the American and British armies as they fight the French in Morocco and Algeria, and then take on the Germans and Italians in Tunisia. Battle by battle, an inexperienced and sometimes poorly led army gradually becomes a superb fighting force. Central to the tale are the extraordinary but fallible commanders who come to dominate the battlefield: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, Montgomery, and Rommel.

Brilliantly researched, rich with new material and vivid insights, Atkinson's narrative provides the definitive history of the war in North Africa.]]> 681 Rick Atkinson 0805062882 Missy 0 to-read 4.28 2002 An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 (World War II Liberation Trilogy, #1)
author: Rick Atkinson
name: Missy
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780]]> 216971226 In the second volume of the landmark American Revolution trilogy by the Pulitzer Prize-winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author of The British Are Coming, George Washington's army fights on the knife edge between victory and defeat.
The first twenty-one months of the American Revolution--which began at Lexington and ended at Princeton--was the story of a ragged group of militiamen and soldiers fighting to forge a new nation. By the winter of 1777, the exhausted Continental Army could claim only that it had escaped annihilation by the world's most formidable fighting force.

Two years into the war, George III is as determined as ever to bring his rebellious colonies to heel. But the king's task is now far more complicated: fighting a determined enemy on the other side of the Atlantic has become ruinously expensive, and spies tell him that the French and Spanish are threatening to join forces with the Americans.

Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson provides a riveting narrative covering the middle years of the Revolution. Stationed in Paris, Benjamin Franklin woos the French; in Pennsylvania, George Washington pleads with Congress to deliver the money, men, and materiel he needs to continue the fight. In New York, General William Howe, the commander of the greatest army the British have ever sent overseas, plans a new campaign against the Americans--even as he is no longer certain that he can win this searing, bloody war. The months and years that follow bring epic battles at Brandywine, Saratoga, and Charleston, as well as a winter of misery at Valley Forge, and yet more appeals for sacrifice by every American committed to the struggle for freedom.

Timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the Revolution, Atkinson's brilliant account of the lethal struggle between the Americans and the British offers not only deeply researched and spectacularly dramatic history, but also a fresh perspective on the demands that a democracy makes on each of its citizens.]]> 880 Rick Atkinson 0593799186 Missy 0 to-read 4.68 2025 The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780
author: Rick Atkinson
name: Missy
average rating: 4.68
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777]]> 41812830 776 Rick Atkinson 1627790438 Missy 0 to-read 4.39 2019 The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777
author: Rick Atkinson
name: Missy
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Lucy Undying 203608430 In this epic and seductive gothic fantasy, a vampire escapes the thrall of Dracula and embarks on her own search for self-discovery and true love.

Her name was written in the pages of someone else's story: Lucy Westenra was one of Dracula's first victims.

But her death was only the beginning. Lucy rose from the grave a vampire, and has spent her immortal life trying to escape from Dracula's clutches--and trying to discover who she really is and what she truly wants.

Her undead life takes an unexpected turn when, in twenty-first-century London, she meets another woman who is also yearning to break free from her past. Iris’s family has built a health empire based on a sinister secret, and they’ll do anything to stay in power.

Lucy has long believed she would never love again. But she finds herself compelled by the charming Iris, while Iris is mesmerized by the confident and glamorous Lucy. But their intense connection and blossoming love is threatened by forces from without. Iris's mother won't let go of her without a fight, and Lucy's past still has fangs: Dracula is on the prowl again.

Lucy Westenra has been a tragically murdered teen, a lonesome adventurer, and a fearsome hunter, but happiness always eluded her. Can she find the strength to destroy Dracula once and for all, or will her heart once again be her undoing?]]> 464 Kiersten White 0593724402 Missy 0 to-read 3.71 2024 Lucy Undying
author: Kiersten White
name: Missy
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Boudicca 212217970 From P. C. Cast, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the landmark House of Night urban fantasy series, comes an epic, lusty, magic-filled romantasy about British warrior queen Boudicca. Perfect for fans of Sue Lynn Tan and Madeline Miller!

In Roman-occupied Britain, the Iceni tribe crowns an extraordinary new queen. Tall and flame-haired, Boudicca is devoted to Andraste, the Iceni’s patron goddess, known for her raven familiar, her fierceness and her swirling blue tattoos. Boudicca and her two young daughters will carry the tribe forward in dangerous times.

Roman tax collector Catus Decianus, expecting weakness in a female ruler, launches a devastating attack on the tribe’s stronghold. Boudicca and her family barely survive—but they refuse to bend the knee. She calls a war council, bringing together her most trustworthy allies, including her childhood friend Rhan, now a powerful Druid seer, and the horse master Maldwyn, whose devotion to Boudicca runs deeper than a warrior to a queen.

Surprising the Romans, Boudicca’s armies sack the wealthy cities of Camulodunum, Londinium and Veralamium. As the snow falls, the Celts retreat to a hidden valley to plot their assault on the remaining Roman legions, determined to force the invaders from Britan.

But in the jagged ice of winter the Druid Rhan foresees a tragic end to Boudicca’s rebellion. Although the defeat of the Iceni is spelled out in signs sent by the gods, Rhan swears she will alter the future and save her queen. Now the battle-hardened Boudicca must put her trust in the powers of the otherworld to save her from both the traitors in her midst and from Rome’s mighty legions.

Inspired by the rich history of Boudicca’s attack on Roman Britain, bestselling author P. C. Cast crafts an epic, mythic retelling of one of time’s most legendary female warriors.]]> 480 P.C. Cast 0063294974 Missy 0 to-read 3.59 Boudicca
author: P.C. Cast
name: Missy
average rating: 3.59
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Everything Is Poison 211399778 304 Joy McCullough 0593855876 Missy 0 to-read 3.91 2025 Everything Is Poison
author: Joy McCullough
name: Missy
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Boxcar Librarian 214325867 🎧Run Time = 13 hours and 20 minutes

A brand-new 2025 release from an author whose writing “historical fiction fans will adore� (New York Times bestselling author Madeline Martin): The stories of three women converge in 1936 Montana when editor Millie Lang arrives from DC to work on a series of travel books � only to find a town riddled with mystery, corruption, and secrets.


Inspired by true events, a thrilling Depression-era novel from the author of The Librarian of Burned Books about a woman’s quest to uncover a mystery surrounding a local librarian and the Boxcar Library—a converted mining train that brought books to isolated rural towns in Montana.

When Works Progress Administration (WPA) editor Millie Lang finds herself on the wrong end of a potential political scandal, she’s shipped off to Montana to work on the state’s American Guide Series—travel books intended to put the nation’s destitute writers to work.

Millie arrives to an eclectic staff claiming their missed deadlines are due to sabotage, possibly from the state’s powerful Copper Kings who don’t want their long and bloody history with union organizers aired for the rest of the country to read. But Millie begins to suspect that the answer might instead lie with the town’s mysterious librarian, Alice Monroe.

More than a decade earlier, Alice Monroe created the Boxcar Library in order to deliver books to isolated mining towns where men longed for entertainment and connection. Alice thought she found the perfect librarian to staff the train car in Colette Durand, a miner’s daughter with a shotgun and too many secrets behind her eyes.

Now, no one in Missoula will tell Millie why both Alice and Colette went out on the inaugural journey of the Boxcar Library, but only Alice returned.

The three women’s stories dramatically converge in the search to uncover what someone is so desperately trying to what happened to Colette Durand.

Inspired by the fascinating, true history of Missoula’s Boxcar Library, the novel blends the story of the strong, courageous women who survived and thrived in the rough and rowdy West with that of the power of standing together to fight for workers� lives. And through it all shines the capacity of books to provide connection and light to those who need it most.]]> 464 Brianna Labuskes 006337630X Missy 0 to-read 4.11 2025 The Boxcar Librarian
author: Brianna Labuskes
name: Missy
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[When Light Breaks Through: A Salem Witch Trials Story]]> 155613121 Nine years after Joseph's arrival, Ann asks his help, seeking forgiveness and the chance to become part of the community that has shunned her since the devastating effects of her actions during the witch trials. Together, they delve into the darkness of her past, uncovering startling truths about her family and her childhood motivations. Standing before the neighbors whose loved ones she has sent to jail or to their deaths, she makes an appeal that could finally unite the people in forgiveness.
The compelling narrative takes us from what begin as adolescent games invented by Ann's friend Abigail Williams, the other ringleader in the witch trials, to the intense, often shocking drama of the trials themselves, and to the small farming village in 17 th -century Massachusetts where Joseph pursues his quest to unite a bitterly divided people.
When Light Breaks Through is a fact-based historical novel. Its characters are based on real people. Its account of the witch trials and the public events surrounding them is grounded in public documents and historical research.]]> 294 Brenda Murphy 0997366990 Missy 0 to-read 5.00 When Light Breaks Through: A Salem Witch Trials Story
author: Brenda Murphy
name: Missy
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Medusa: New & Ancient Greek Tales]]> 208840272 Foreword by Miriam Robbins Dexter

Variously described as a fiend, a monster, a charming seductress who was felled by the righteous might of Perseus, son of Zeus, Medusa is perhaps the most misunderstood of mythological women. Described by male historians, poets and epic writers such as Hesiod and Ovid, there are many aspects of her imagined life which find resonance in the struggles of the outsider, the cursed and those used in the service another's vision of the world around them. This fascinating collection brings together new stories and ancient origins, offering a wider perspective on the whole life of the powerful, wonderful Medusa.

About the series: Discover the mythology of humankind through its heroes, characters, gods and immortal figures. Myths, Gods and Immortals brings together the new and the ancient, familiar stories with a fresh and imaginative twist. Each book brings back to life a legendary, mythological or folkloric figure, with completely new stories alongside the original tales and a 30,000 word essay which emphasises ancient and modern connections, tracing history and stories across continents, cultures and peoples. New and emerging writers from open submissions reveal hidden themes, casting fresh perspectives on well known stories, alongside the specially commissioned story of the origins and the cultural background from the era. The first titles are Medusa, Odin, Anansi and Circe.]]> 368 Liv Albert 1804179337 Missy 0 to-read 4.31 Medusa: New & Ancient Greek Tales
author: Liv Albert
name: Missy
average rating: 4.31
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Boutwell: Radical Republican and Champion of Democracy]]> 213395496 The first major biography of the statesman who fought for racial and economic equality alongside Presidents Lincoln and Grant.


During his seven-decade career in public life, George Sewall Boutwell, the son of a Massachusetts farming family of modest means, was a key figure in the politics of racial and economic equity and the principled use of American power abroad. From 1840 to 1905, Boutwell was at the center of efforts to abolish slavery, establish the Republican Party, facilitate President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, and frame the civil rights–focused Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. He helped lay the foundations of the modern American economy with President Grant, investigated white terrorism in Mississippi in the 1870s, and opposed American imperialism following the Spanish-American War alongside Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, and Booker T. Washington.


The first major biography of an important public figure who has long been hiding in plain sight, Boutwell is as much a history of nineteenth-century century US politics as it is a critique of the failures of governance during a turbulent and formative period in American history.]]> 368 Jeffrey Boutwell 1324074264 Missy 0 to-read 4.57 2025 Boutwell: Radical Republican and Champion of Democracy
author: Jeffrey Boutwell
name: Missy
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America]]> 150065063
MSNBC's legal expert breaks down the ways disinformation has become a tool to drive voters to extremes, disempower our legal structures, and consolidate power in the hands of the few.

"One of the most acute observers of our time shares . . . a compelling work about a challenge that—left unexamined and left unchecked—could undermine our democracy." —Eric H. Holder Jr, 82nd Attorney General of the United States

American society is more polarized than ever before. We are strategically being pushed apart by disinformation—the deliberate spreading of lies disguised as truth—and it comes at us from all opportunists on the far right, Russian misinformed social media influencers, among others. It's endangering our democracy and causing havoc in our electoral system, schools, hospitals, workplaces, and in our Capitol. Advances in technology including rapid developments in artificial intelligence threaten to make the problems even worse by amplifying false claims and manufacturing credibility.

In Attack from Within , legal scholar and analyst Barbara McQuade, shows us how to identify the ways disinformation is seeping into all facets of our society and how we can fight against it. The book


Disinformation is designed to evoke a strong emotional response to push us toward more extreme views, unable to find common ground with others. The false claims that led to the breathtaking attack on our Capitol in 2020 may have been only a dress rehearsal. Attack from Within shows us how to prevent it from happening again, thus preserving our country’s hard-won democracy.]]> 384 Barbara McQuade 164421363X Missy 0 to-read 4.11 2024 Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America
author: Barbara McQuade
name: Missy
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism]]> 112975131
For millions of conservative Christians, America is their kingdom—a land set apart, a nation uniquely blessed, a people in special covenant with God. This love of country, however, has given way to right-wing nationalist fervor, a reckless blood-and-soil idolatry thattrivializes the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Alberta retraces the arc of the modern evangelical movement, placing political and cultural inflection points in the context of church teachings and traditions, explaining how Donald Trump's presidency and the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated historical trends that long pointed toward disaster. Reporting from half-empty sanctuaries and standing-room-only convention halls across the country, the author documents a growing fracture inside American Christianity and journeys with readers through this strange new environment in which loving your enemies is "woke" and owning the libs is the answer to WWJD.

Accessing the highest echelons of the American evangelical movement, Alberta investigates the ways in which conservative Christians have pursued, exercised, and often abused power in the name of securing this earthly kingdom. He highlights the battles evangelicals are fighting—and the weapons of their warfare—to demonstrate the disconnect from Contra the dictates of the New Testament, today's believers are struggling mightily against flesh and blood, eyes fixed on the here and now, desperate for a power that is frivolous and fleeting. Lingering at the intersection of real cultural displacement and perceived religious persecution, Alberta portrays a rapidly secularizing America that has come to distrust the evangelical church, and weaves together present-day narratives of individual pastors and their churches as they confront the twin challenges of lost status and diminished standing.

Sifting through the wreckage—pastors broken, congregations battered, believers losing their religion because of sex scandals and political schemes—Alberta If the American evangelical movement has ceased to glorify God, what is its purpose?]]> 506 Tim Alberta 006322688X Missy 0 to-read 4.42 2023 The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism
author: Tim Alberta
name: Missy
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present]]> 53597796
Ruth Ben-Ghiat covers a century of authoritarianism to explain why strongman rulers in Africa, Europe, and Latin America, drawing from a common playbook of machismo, propaganda, violence, and corruption, have found popular support even as they bring ruin to their countries. The fruit of decades of research, Strongmen gives readers insight into how such rulers think, who and what they depend on, and how they can be opposed.



]]> 384 Ruth Ben-Ghiat 1324001542 Missy 0 to-read 4.22 2020 Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present
author: Ruth Ben-Ghiat
name: Missy
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> American Gods 30166675 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman (Sandman, Anansi Boys, The Graveyard Book) rocked the literary world with American Gods—his breathtaking tale of the war on Earth between old gods and new. For those who have yet to experience Gaiman’s bestselling tour de force—a novel USA Today called “a powerful, searing force that makes readers confront what is real and what is not”—and for those eager to enter this astonishing world again, comes the Author’s Preferred Text 10th Anniversary Edition. Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and Bram Stoker Awards, with a special introduction by the author, this is American Gods as Neil Gaiman always meant it to be.]]> 541 Neil Gaiman 0062080237 Missy 0 to-read 4.13 2001 American Gods
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Missy
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[To End in Fire (Honorverse: Crown of Slaves #4)]]> 59219308 THE CROWN OF SLAVES SAGA CONTINUES.ADVENTURE AND INTRIGUEIN THE STAR KINGDOM FROMNEW YORK TIMESBEST-SELLING AUTHORSDAVID WEBER AND ERIC FLINT.

The Solarian League lies in defeat, crushed by the Grand Alliance of Manticore, Haven, and Grayson.

Obedient to the Alliance's surrender demands, the League is writing a new Constitution, to prevent the reemergence of out-of-control bureaucrats, like the "Mandarins" who led it to disaster. Frontier Security has been disbanded, the Outworlds' have regained control of their own economic destinies, and multiple star systems will soon secede from the League entirely.

Yet the League is � and will remain � the largest, most economically powerful human star nation in existence, and despite the overwhelming evidence that their unelected political leaders were the driving force behind the war, many League citizens deeply resent the fashion in which their star nation —�the Solarian League� has been humbled. And those who most resent the Grand Alliance continue to blame Manticore for the nuclear bombardment of the planet Mesa after its surrender. They refuse to accept that the League � and the members of the Grand Alliance � could have been manipulated by a deeply hidden interstellar conspiracy called the Mesan Alignment. The Alignment is only an invention of the Grand Alliance, no more than a mask, a cover, for its own horrific Eridani Violations.

Those Solarians will never accept the "war guilt" of the League, because they know the Grand Alliance was just as bad. Because they deeply resent the way in which the Grand Alliance pretends to be the innocent "good guys." And in the fullness of time,thoseSolarians will seek vengeance upon their enemies.

Not all Solarians feel that way, but even some of those who accept that there was an interstellar conspiracy cherish doubts about its origins. But it is still out there, and now defeated Solarians and agents of the victorious Alliance must join forces to find it. Even if they don't believe in it, it believes in them.

They must find it and identify it, to prove to revanchist Solarians that therewasa conspiracy.

And they must find it anddestroyit to end its evil once and for all.]]> 856 David Weber 1625798415 Missy 0 to-read 4.36 2021 To End in Fire (Honorverse: Crown of Slaves #4)
author: David Weber
name: Missy
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Uncompromising Honor (14) (Honor Harrington)]]> 43822304 Uncompromising Courage. Uncompromising Vengeance. Uncompromising Honor.

The Solarian League—for hundreds of years they have borne the banner of human civilization. But the bureaucratic Mandarins who rule today’s League are corrupt and looking for scapegoats. They’ve decided the upstart Star Kingdom of Manticore must be annihilated.

Honor Harrington has worn the Star Kingdom’s uniform for half a century. So far, hers has been a voice of caution. But now the Mandarins have committed atrocities such as the galaxy has not known in a thousand years. They have finally killed too many of the people Honor Harrington loves.

Now Honor Harrington is coming for the Solarian League. And Hell is riding in her wake.

AboutUncompromising Honor:

“…a balanced mix of interstellar intrigue,counterespionage, and epic fleet action…with all the hard- and software details and tactical proficiency that Weber delivers like no one else; along with a large cast of well-developed, believable characters, giving each clash of fleets emotional weight.�—BǴǰ

�. . . moves. . . as inexorably as the Star Kingdom’s Grand Fleet, commanded by series protagonist Honor Harrington. . . . Weber is the Tom Clancy of science fiction. . . . His fans will relish this latest installment. . . .”�Publishers Weekly

“[E]ach book contains food for multiple tastes [and] provides a feast. Readers . . . will get enough hardware-geek stuff and space battles to make their palms sweaty. Those who love political intrigue will nigh have their brains explode from following all the tentacles of strategy. . . .Those who love fully drawn characters with everything at stake . . . will have lots to cheer about. And those who love bad guys committing atrocious deeds, only to get what they deserve from the good guys, will sleep contentedly at night because justice has been served.Uncompromising Honorprovide[s] a long, luxurious trip. . . [that is]emotionally and intellectually gratifying. . .”�New York Journal of Books-West

“Weber’s books [are]enjoyable as fiction and profound as works of art. . . . [in them] great power competition makes its way into the space age on a galactic scale. . . . Battles are described in vivid, suspenseful detail. . . . both sides grapple to do their duty as they understand it . . . [and] it is the human touches that make this book so gripping.. . .Weber’s fans will greatly enjoyUncompromising Honor[and be left] eagerly awaiting the next installment of this magnificent series.”—Mark Vandroff,Center for International Maritime Security

“This latest Honor Harrington novel brings the saga to another crucial turning point…Readers may feel confident that they will be Honored many more times and enjoy it every time.”�Booklist

About David Weber and the Honor Harrington series:

�. . .everything you could want in a heroine �. Excellent � plenty of action.”�Science Fiction Age

“Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant!”–Anne McCaffrey

“Compelling combat combined with engaging characters for a great space opera adventure.”�Locus

“Weber combines realistic, engaging characters with intelligent technological projection . . . Fans of this venerable space opera will rejoice . . .”�Publishers Weekly
]]> 1120 David Weber 198212413X Missy 3 science-fiction 4.09 2018 Uncompromising Honor (14) (Honor Harrington)
author: David Weber
name: Missy
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/01
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: science-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)]]> 11
Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years.

Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!]]> 216 Douglas Adams Missy 5 4.21 1979 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)
author: Douglas Adams
name: Missy
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1979
rating: 5
read at: 1996/01/01
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: all-time-favorites, humor, science-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Rising Thunder (Honor Harrington, #13)]]> 12269981
The war between the People's Republic of Haven and the Star Kingdom is finally won and peace established, but grave danger looms -- for there is a plan well on its way to completion designed to enslave the entire human species. Behind that plan lies the shadowy organization known as the Mesan Alignment.

Task number one for Honor is to defend against another devastating Mesan strike -- a strike that may well spell the doom of the Star Kingdom in one fell blow. It is time to shut down and secure the wormhole network that is the source of the Star Kingdom's wealth and power -- but also its greatest vulnerability. Yet this is an act that the Earth-based Solarian League inevitably will take as a declaration of war.

The thunder of battle rolls as the Solarian League directs its massive power against the Star Kingdom. And once again, Honor Harrington is thrust into a desperate battle that she must win if she is to survive to take the fight to the real enemy of galactic freedom -- the insidious puppetmasters of war who lurk behind the Mesan Alignment!]]> 458 David Weber 145163806X Missy 3 science-fiction 4.08 2012 A Rising Thunder (Honor Harrington, #13)
author: David Weber
name: Missy
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/01
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: science-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister]]> 43980644 The official companion book to the HBO series Gentleman Jack created by Sally Wainwright and starring Suranne Jones

In 1834, Anne Lister made history by celebrating and recording the first ever known marriage to another woman. This is her remarkable, true story.

Anne Lister was extraordinary. Fearless, charismatic and determined to explore her lesbian sexuality, she forged her own path in a society that had no language to define her. She was a landowner, an industrialist and a prolific diarist, whose output has secured her legacy as one of the most fascinating figures of the 19th century. Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister follows Anne from her crumbling ancestral home in Yorkshire to the glittering courts of Denmark as she resolves to put past heartbreak behind her and find herself a wife. This biographical portrait introduces the real Gentleman Jack, featuring unpublished journal extracts decrypted for the first time by series creator Sally Wainwright and historian Anne Choma.]]> 258 Anne Choma 0143134566 Missy 4 3.98 2019 Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister
author: Anne Choma
name: Missy
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/01
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: biography, history, lgbt, nonfiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Please Don't Tell My Parents I've Got Henchmen]]> 28485843
Now, all of her relationships are changing. She has a not-at-all-secret admirer, who wants to be Penny's partner almost as much as she wants to be Penny's rival. The meanest girl in school has gained super powers and lost her mind. Can Penny help her find a better one? Can she help an aging supervillain connect with his daughter, and mend the broken hearts of two of the most powerful people in the world? And in all this, where will she find time for her own supervillainous fun, or even more dangerous, to start dating?

It's going to be a long, strange semester.]]> 300 Richard Roberts 1620074257 Missy 0 to-read 4.20 2016 Please Don't Tell My Parents I've Got Henchmen
author: Richard Roberts
name: Missy
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times (The Midwife Trilogy #1)]]> 18753249
Viewers everywhere have fallen in love with this candid look at post-war London. In the 1950s, twenty-two-year-old Jenny Lee leaves her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in London's East End slums. While delivering babies all over the city, Jenny encounters a colorful cast of women—from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lives, to the woman with twenty-four children who can't speak English, to the prostitutes of the city's seedier side.

An unfortgettable story of motherhood, the bravery of a community, and the strength of remarkable and inspiring women, Call the Midwife is the true story behind the beloved PBS series, which will soon return for its sixth season.]]> 352 Jennifer Worth 1101614404 Missy 0 to-read 4.36 2002 Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times (The Midwife Trilogy #1)
author: Jennifer Worth
name: Missy
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet]]> 58678422 ŷ Choice winner for Nonfiction 2021 and instant #1 bestseller! A deeply moving collection of personal essays from John Green, the author of The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All the Way Down.

The Anthropocene is the current geologic age, in which humans have profoundly reshaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his groundbreaking podcast, bestselling author John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale—from the QWERTY keyboard and sunsets to Canada geese and Penguins of Madagascar.

Funny, complex, and rich with detail, the reviews chart the contradictions of contemporary humanity. As a species, we are both far too powerful and not nearly powerful enough, a paradox that came into sharp focus as we faced a global pandemic that both separated us and bound us together.

John Green’s gift for storytelling shines throughout this masterful collection. The Anthropocene Reviewed is an open-hearted exploration of the paths we forge and an unironic celebration of falling in love with the world.]]> 304 John Green 0525556532 Missy 0 to-read 4.42 2021 The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
author: John Green
name: Missy
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Gentleman Jack: A Biography of Anne Lister, Regency Landowner, Seducer and Secret Diarist]]> 40054063 Longlisted for the 2019 Portico Prize The extraordinary life of history's first modern lesbian who inspired the popular television series Gentleman Jack.Anne Lister's journals were so shocking that the first person to crack their secret code hid them behind a fake panel in his ancestral home. Anne Lister was a Regency landowner, an intrepid world traveller ... and an unabashed lover of other women.In this bold new biography, prizewinning author Angela Steidele uses the diaries to create a portrait of Anne Lister as we've never seen her a woman in some ways very much of her time and in others far ahead of it. Anne Lister recorded everything from the most intimate details of her numerous liaisons through to her plans to make her fortune by exploiting the coal seams under her family estate in Halifax and her reaction to the Peterloo massacre. She conducted a love life of labyrinthine complexity, all while searching for a girlfriend who could provide her with both financial security and true love.Anne Lister's rich and unconventional life is now the subject of the major BBC TV drama series Gentleman Jack.]]> 393 Angela Steidele 1788161009 Missy 0 to-read 3.78 2017 Gentleman Jack: A Biography of Anne Lister, Regency Landowner, Seducer and Secret Diarist
author: Angela Steidele
name: Missy
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan]]> 27161226 The New York Times bestselling author of The Kennedy Women chronicles the powerful and spellbinding true story of a brutal race-based killing in 1981 and subsequent trials that undid one of the most pernicious organizations in American history—the Ku Klux Klan.

On a Friday night in March 1981 Henry Hays and James Knowles scoured the streets of Mobile in their car, hunting for a black man. The young men were members of Klavern 900 of the United Klans of America. They were seeking to retaliate after a largely black jury could not reach a verdict in a trial involving a black man accused of the murder of a white man. The two Klansmen found nineteen-year-old Michael Donald walking home alone. Hays and Knowles abducted him, beat him, cut his throat, and left his body hanging from a tree branch in a racially-mixed residential neighborhood.

Arrested, charged, and convicted, Hays was sentenced to death—the first time in nearly a century that the state of Alabama had found a white man guilty of killing a black man. On behalf of Michael’s grieving mother, Morris Dees, the legendary civil rights lawyer and co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, filed a civil suit against the members of the local Klan unit involved and the UKA, the largest Klan organization. Charging them with conspiracy, Dees put the Klan on trial, resulting in a verdict that would level a deadly blow to its organization.

Based on countless interviews and extensive archival research, The Lynching brings to life two dramatic trials, during which the Alabama Klan's motives and philosophy were exposed for the evil they represent. In addition to telling a gripping and consequential story, Laurence Leamer chronicles the KKK and its activities in the second half the twentieth century, and illuminates its lingering effect on race relations in America today.]]> 384 Laurence Leamer 0062458345 Missy 0 to-read 4.03 2016 The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan
author: Laurence Leamer
name: Missy
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History]]> 239186
Using Cline's own telegrams, letters, and reports, the testimony of scores of survivors, and our latest understanding of the science of hurricanes, Erik Larson builds a chronicle of one man's heroic struggle and fatal miscalculation in the face of a storm of unimaginable magnitude. Riveting, powerful, and unbearably suspenseful, Isaac's Storm is the story of what can happen when human arrogance meets the great uncontrollable force of nature.]]> 323 Erik Larson 0375708278 Missy 0 to-read 4.04 1999 Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
author: Erik Larson
name: Missy
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1)]]> 46756 Oryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey–with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake–through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.]]> 389 Margaret Atwood Missy 0 to-read 4.01 2003 Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Missy
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Independent Study (The Testing, #2)]]> 17165932 320 Joelle Charbonneau 0547959206 Missy 5 3.94 2014 Independent Study (The Testing, #2)
author: Joelle Charbonneau
name: Missy
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe]]> 9507278 236 Edgar Allan Poe 1453744517 Missy 4 4.54 1849 The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Missy
average rating: 4.54
book published: 1849
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: horror, mystery, poetry, short-stories, thriller
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution]]> 305826
"In order for all women to have real choices all along the line," Adrienne Rich writes, "we need fully to understand the power and powerlessness embodied in motherhood in patriarchal culture." Rich's investigation, in this influential and landmark book, concerns both experience and institution. The experience is her own - as a woman, a poet, a feminist, and a mother - but it is an experience determined by the institution, imposed in its many variations on all women everywhere. She draws on personal materials, history, research, and literature to create a document of universal importance.

One of our most distinguished poets, ADRIENNE RICH was born in Baltimore in 1929. Over the last forty years she has published more than seventeen volumes of poetry and five books of nonfiction prose, including Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations; On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Blood, Bread, and Poetry; and What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics. She has received numerous awards, including the Ruth Lilly Prize, the Lambda Book Award, the National Book Award, and the Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. She lives in California.]]> 322 Adrienne Rich 0393312844 Missy 0 to-read 4.23 Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution
author: Adrienne Rich
name: Missy
average rating: 4.23
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Martian Contingency (Lady Astronaut Universe, #4)]]> 211332081
The next step � Mars.

Elma York, the Lady Astronaut, lands on the Red Planet, optimistic about preparing for the first true wave of inhabitants. The mission objective is more than just building the infrastructure of a habitat � they are trying to preserve the many cultures and nuances of life on Earth without importing the hate.

But from the moment she arrives, something is off.

Disturbing signs hint at a hidden disaster during the First Mars Expedition that never made it into the official transcript. As Elma and her crew try to investigate, they face a wall of silence and obfuscation. Their attempts to build a thriving Martian community grind to a halt.

What you don’t know CAN harm you. And if the truth doesn’t come to light, the ripple effects could leave humanity stranded on a dying Earth…]]> 400 Mary Robinette Kowal 1250237033 Missy 0 to-read 4.26 2025 The Martian Contingency (Lady Astronaut Universe, #4)
author: Mary Robinette Kowal
name: Missy
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Dragonfruit 181325033 From acclaimed author Makiia Lucier, a dazzling, romantic fantasy inspired by Pacific Island mythology.

In the old tales, it is written that the egg of a seadragon, dragonfruit, holds within it the power to undo a person’s greatest sorrow. An unwanted marriage, a painful illness, and unpaid debt ... gone. But as with all things that promise the moon and the stars and offer hope when hope has gone, the tale comes with a warning.

Every wish demands a price.

Hanalei of Tamarind is the cherished daughter of an old island family. But when her father steals a seadragon egg meant for an ailing princess, she is forced into a life of exile. In the years that follow, Hanalei finds solace in studying the majestic seadragons that roam the Nominomi Sea. Until, one day, an encounter with a female dragon offers her what she desires most. A chance to return home, and to right a terrible wrong.

Samahtitamahenele, Sam, is the last remaining prince of Tamarind. But he can never inherit the throne, for Tamarind is a matriarchal society. With his mother ill and his grandmother nearing the end of her reign. Sam is left with two to marry, or to find a cure for the sickness that has plagued his mother for ten long years. When a childhood companion returns from exile, she brings with her something he has not felt in a very long time - hope.

But Hanalei and Sam are not the only ones searching for the dragonfruit. And as they battle enemies both near and far, there is another danger they cannot escape…that of the dragonfruit itself. ]]> 356 Makiia Lucier 0358272106 Missy 0 to-read 3.85 2024 Dragonfruit
author: Makiia Lucier
name: Missy
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Phoenix Keeper 123691960
But saving an entire species from extinction requires more than stellar animal handling skills. Carnivorous water horses, tempestuous thunderhawks, mischievous dragons... Aila has no problem wrangling beasts. Inspiring zoo patrons? That's another story. Mustering the courage to ask for help from the hotshot griffin keeper at the zoo's most popular exhibit? Virtually impossible.

Especially when the hotshot griffin keeper in question just so happens to be her arch-rival from college: Luciana, an annoyingly brooding and even more annoyingly insufferable know-it-all with the grace of a goblin and the face of a goddess who's convinced that Aila's beloved phoenix would serve their cause better as an active performer rather than as a passive conservation exhibit.

With the world watching and the threat of poachers looming, Aila's success is no longer merely a matter of keeping her job...

She is the keeper of the phoenix, and the future of a species now rests on her shoulders.

There's just one thing she has to remember: she is also not alone.

Against an epic fantasy backdrop teeming with all your favourite mythical beasts from dragons and unicorns to kelpies and krakens, The Phoenix Keeper combines the visceral effervescence of cozy fantasy kings TJ Klune and Travis Baldree with the soul-restoring romance of queer icons Alice Oseman and Casey McQuiston.]]> 400 S.A. MacLean 1399616587 Missy 0 to-read 3.99 2024 The Phoenix Keeper
author: S.A. MacLean
name: Missy
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Penelope Rex and the Problem with Pets (Penelope Rex, #4)]]> 181037637
Most kids have dogs and cats and fish and guinea pigs. Penelope Rex has Mittens.

Penelope wasn’t sure she even wanted a pet when Mittens came into her life. But now that he’s here, she is determined to make the best of it.
Pets, however—especially ones that are six hundred pounds with six-inch-long teeth—can cause very big, very messy problems.

In this companion to We Don’t Eat Our Classmates , Penelope Rex discovers the challenges and rewards (but mostly challenges) of pet ownership.

Read all of the Penelope Rex books!]]> 48 Ryan T. Higgins 1368089607 Missy 5 children-picture-book, humor description

I love this series...the art, the subtle humor, the little arc of the lesson that the small humans and dinosaurs learn in each title. Good stuff.

]]> 4.40 2024 Penelope Rex and the Problem with Pets (Penelope Rex, #4)
author: Ryan T. Higgins
name: Missy
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/10
date added: 2024/05/10
shelves: children-picture-book, humor
review:
I really appreciated what I saw as an homage to Calvin & Hobbes in the "Penelope comes home and is tackled by Mittens" sequences. Sent me straight back to my childhood. :)
description

I love this series...the art, the subtle humor, the little arc of the lesson that the small humans and dinosaurs learn in each title. Good stuff.


]]> <![CDATA[Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart Again]]> 64645760
Since 2017, and especially after the January 6 insurrection, many Americans have feared a constitutional crisis that would paralyze the institutions central to our nation’s democracy. Robert Kagan is among them. As he argues, Donald Trump will run again for president in 2024; if he loses, he will not accept the outcome. The amateurish “Stop the Steal� efforts of 2020 will be replaced by a more organized and powerful effort to rig the election in his favor. And if Trump wins, or maneuvers his way into office, there is no telling what he might do in a second term.

In Everything Is at Stake, Kagan sounds a dire warning, diving deeper than the op-eds and think pieces to explore the historical forces that have brought us to this moment—from the political compromises that led to slavery, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow; to “America First� and the latent fascism of the 1930s; and to modern conservatism’s complicated attraction to autocratic leaders such as Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán. Above all, he explores previous crisis moments in American history and asks whether the rise of Trumpism is a temporary phenomenon constructed entirely around a single individual, or whether it is a larger political force that is here to stay.

This is an elegant and deeply informed synthesis of history and politics and ideas that sheds important new light on this crucial moment.]]> 256 Robert Kagan 0753560291 Missy 0 to-read 4.43 2024 Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart Again
author: Robert Kagan
name: Missy
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ashes of Victory (Honor Harrington, #9)]]> 77742 672 David Weber 0671319779 Missy 5 science-fiction 4.17 2001 Ashes of Victory (Honor Harrington, #9)
author: David Weber
name: Missy
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/23
date added: 2024/04/27
shelves: science-fiction
review:

]]> Teenage Dirtbags 150352911 384 James Acker 1335009965 Missy 0 to-read 4.01 2024 Teenage Dirtbags
author: James Acker
name: Missy
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Trapped in a Curse 52107154 266 Dale Johnson 0228816009 Missy 0 to-read 3.20 2019 Trapped in a Curse
author: Dale Johnson
name: Missy
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon (Mead Mishaps, #1)]]> 85158509
All she wanted to do was live her life in peace—maybe get a cat, expand the family spice farm. Really, anything that didn't involve going on an adventure where an orc might rip her face off. But they say the Goddess has favorite, and if so, Cin is clearly not one of them...

After saving the demon Fallon in a wine-drunk stupor, all Fallon wants to do is kill an evil witch enslaving his people. And, who can blame him? But he's dragging Cinnamon along for the ride.On the bright side, at least he keeps burning off his shirt.]]> 288 Kimberly Lemming 0316570273 Missy 0 to-read 3.82 2021 That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon (Mead Mishaps, #1)
author: Kimberly Lemming
name: Missy
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Off With Their Heads 194477936 Fans of Chloe Gong and Judy I. Lin will devour this Korean-inspired Alice in Wonderland retelling about two very wicked girls, forever bonded by blood and betrayal . . .

In a world where Saints are monsters and Wonderland is the dark forest where they lurk, it’s been five years since young witches and lovers Caro Rabbit and Iccadora Alice Sickle were both sentenced to that forest for a crime they didn’t commit—and four years since they shattered one another’s hearts, each willing to sacrifice the other for a chance at freedom.

Now, Caro is a successful royal Saint-harvester, living the high life in the glittering capital and pretending not to know of the twisted monster experiments that her beloved Red Queen hides deep in the bowels of the palace. But for Icca, the memory of Caro’s betrayal has hardened her from timid girl to ruthless hunter. A hunter who will stop at nothing to exact her vengeance: On Caro. On the queen. On the throne itself.

But there’s a secret about the Saints the Queen’s been guarding, and a volatile magic at play even more dangerous to Icca and Caro than they are to each other�

Lush, terrifying, and uncanny, Zoe Hana Mikuta—author of Gearbreakers and Godslayers —takes a delicate knife straight through the heart of this beloved surrealist fairytale.]]> 408 Zoe Hana Mikuta 1368099068 Missy 0 to-read 3.49 2024 Off With Their Heads
author: Zoe Hana Mikuta
name: Missy
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Witch & The City 177623565
Osylum’s newest inmate, the witch Oneirotheria, has no memory of who she is, where she came from, or why she is imprisoned. Instead, her mind is a mess of spells and lore and other people’s voices. The city mirrors her internal confusion; a jumble of broken buildings covered in hundreds of snippets of graffiti.

As Oneirotheria re-assembles her own shattered past (aided by a few inmates of dubious intent), she learns she may hold not just the key to escape, but the intertwined secrets of the city’s origin and a lost love that transcends countless lives.

For readers of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi and Madeline Miller’s Circe, The Witch & The City introduces a lyrical and baroque fantasy world, where an ocean lurks behind every mirror, puppets pull the strings of the living, and even the skulls have secrets to tell... if a witch knows how to listen.]]> 283 Jake Burnett 1734664274 Missy 0 to-read 5.00 2023 The Witch & The City
author: Jake Burnett
name: Missy
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> DARK and the Boy in the Hole 210196811 330 M.A. Batten 0975640569 Missy 0 to-read 4.28 DARK and the Boy in the Hole
author: M.A. Batten
name: Missy
average rating: 4.28
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Of Jade and Dragons (Fall of the Dragon, #1)]]> 199087657
Disguised as her brother, Ying manages to infiltrate the guild’s male-only apprenticeship trial with the help of an unlikely ally—Aogiya Ye-yang, the taciturn eighth prince of the High Command. With her father’s renown placing a target firmly on her back, Ying must stay one step ahead of her fellow competitors, the jealous guild masters, and the killer still hunting for her father’s journal. Complicating everything is her increasingly tangled relationship with the prince, who may have mysterious plans of his own.

The secrets concealed within the guild can be as deadly as the weapons they build—and with her life and the future of her homeland at stake, Ying doesn’t know who to trust. Can she avenge her father even if it means going against everything he stood for, or will she be next in the mastermind’s line of fire?]]> 470 Amber Chen 0593622758 Missy 0 to-read 3.70 2024 Of Jade and Dragons (Fall of the Dragon, #1)
author: Amber Chen
name: Missy
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Pinquickle's Folly 178019513
In Pinquickle’s Folly , New York Times bestselling author R. A. Salvatore returns to his signature world of Corona, introducing a dynamic new part of the southern coast never written of before as a great starting place for readers in the DemonWars The Buccaneers.

The first adventure in the Buccaneers trilogy begins in the free sea outside of the control of the usurping Xoconai empire, where the dwarven powrie pirates and merchants sail. But the golden-skinned Xoconai have begun to encroach upon these waters behind the rapacious attacks of the frigate Crocodile , helmed by Captain Aketz. But when forced to submit, these sailors choose to live, free to do as they please, without some fool or another pretending to hold power over them.

Fantasy master R. A. Salvatore brings together a misfit band of Xoconai, powerie, and human sailors—once enemies, now fierce friends with a common enemy, and the spark of rebellion in this action-packed piratical adventure.]]> 448 R.A. Salvatore 1982175443 Missy 0 to-read 4.06 2024 Pinquickle's Folly
author: R.A. Salvatore
name: Missy
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Illustrated Girl (The Chronicles of Lucitopia, #1)]]> 204432295
Ever wish you could travel inside your favorite book and become the main character? Of course you have. Everyone has. But if you ever manage to pull it off, here’s a tip. Timing is everything�

Take Holly for example, who after saying a spell is transported inside a fairytale called The Chronicles of Lucitopia, a magical world infested with grifter grandmas, halitosis-riddled bandits, and devoid of any functioning toilets.

Holly becomes Princess Pleasant exactly as she wished, but she gets there too late, right after an evil sorcerer turns Lucitopia into a tetanus-ridden hellhole. And now, it’s up to Holly to make things right.

With the help of a freakishly handsome, yet frustratingly virtuous knight, Holly sets out to fix her story, but she only has fifteen days left to do so or she risks being stuck in Lucitopia for the rest of her life, which may prove to be a short one considering she’s overdue for her shots.]]> 264 Josephine Angelini Missy 0 to-read 4.07 Illustrated Girl (The Chronicles of Lucitopia, #1)
author: Josephine Angelini
name: Missy
average rating: 4.07
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Deep Is the Fen 191746452
But Merry’s best friend, Teddy, is joining the Toadmen—a secret society who specialize in backward thinking and suspiciously supernatural traditions—and Merry is determined to stop him. Even if it means teaming up with the person she hates most: her academic archnemesis, Caraway Boswell, an ice-cold snob who hides his true face under a glamour.

An ancient Toad ritual is being held in the sinister Deeping Fen, and if Merry doesn’t rescue Teddy before it’s finished, she’ll lose him forever. But the Toadmen have been keeping dangerous secrets, and so has Caraway. The farther Merry travels into Deeping Fen’s foul waters, the more she wonders if she’s truly come to save her friend . . . or if she’s walking straight into a trap.

There’s nothing the Toadmen love more than a damsel in distress.]]> 416 Lili Wilkinson 0593562704 Missy 0 to-read 3.65 2024 Deep Is the Fen
author: Lili Wilkinson
name: Missy
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[It Starts with One: The Legend and Legacy of Linkin Park]]> 207567836 From the executive director of music atBillboard, an extensive look inside the 20+ year career of mega-selling rock band Linkin Park, featuring new interviews, exclusive quotes, and insights from the band’s associates and collaborators Linkin Park is one of the 21stCentury’s most important--and most underrated--rock bands. When you look at album and streaming numbers, hit singles, tickets sold, their enduring legacy within rock and the contributions that this groundbreaking band have made in all metrics of music consumption and fandom, there’s no group bigger in recent memory. Despite this, there has not yet been a full, comprehensive biography of the band--until now. InIT STARTS WITH ONE, Billboard's executive director of music, Jason Lipshutz, chronicles the story of this legendary band, from their early childhoods to the moment their paths crossed to the genesis of their iconic first album,Hybrid Theory,and all that followed. The book features in-depth reporting and interviews, as well as new reflections from their collaborators and contemporaries. Through it all,Lipshutz explores how one band could mean so much to so many people; how they were able, in an post-grunge era of the late 90s and early 2000s, to synthesize trends in pop and hip-hop; and finally, rightfully, place Linkin Park in the pantheon of American rock acts.
� Linkin Park helped usher in an era of artists (and fans) that are more open to discussing mental health and prioritizing inclusivity, led by their front men, Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda, who balanced each other artistically and chose to write about their issues openly rather than suffer in silence. The philosophy of the band was to combine sounds, artistry, and talents into something that truly hadn’t been heard before. And the people loved it. Tragically, Chester succumbed to his demons and passed away in 2017, but the music endures, and the fans are primed for the real behind-the-scenes story.
� Beyond anything else, Linkin Park’s singular power was to bring people together, but along the way they made music history and changed what we expect from musicians.IT STARTS WITH ONEis finally here to cement that legacy.]]> 368 Jason Lipshutz 030683250X Missy 0 to-read 4.34 It Starts with One: The Legend and Legacy of Linkin Park
author: Jason Lipshutz
name: Missy
average rating: 4.34
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bare Knuckle: Bobby Gunn, 73-0 Undefeated. A Dad. A Dream. A Fight Like You've Never Seen]]> 53210771 370 Stayton Bonner 1982650710 Missy 0 to-read 4.26 Bare Knuckle: Bobby Gunn, 73-0 Undefeated. A Dad. A Dream. A Fight Like You've Never Seen
author: Stayton Bonner
name: Missy
average rating: 4.26
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Echoes of Honor (Honor Harrington, #8)]]> 77741
For eight bloody years, the Star Kingdom of Manticore and its allies have taken the war to the vastly more powerful People's Republic of Haven, and Commodore Honor Harrington has been in the forefront of that war. But now Honor has fallen, captured by the Peep Navy, turned over to the forces of State Security ... and executed on the interstellar network's nightly news.

The Manticoran Alliance is stunned and infuriated by Honor's death and grimly resolved to avenge it. Yet their military is over-extended and the People's Republic is poised to take (he offensive once more, this time with a new strategy, new weapons, a new command team, and a whole new determination to win. The war is about to enter a phase of unprecedented ferocity . . . and the Alliance is on the short end of the stick.

But even as powerful Peep fleets hurtle towards their objectives, neither they nor the Alliance are aware of events occurring on a distant, isolated, inescapable prison planet called Hell. For what no one knows, not even State Security, is that Honor Harrington is not dead. She and a handful of her people are trapped on Hell, and determined to disprove the Peep boast that no one can ever escape it. Honor Harrington is going home, and taking her people with her... even if she has to conquer Hell to do it.]]> 718 David Weber 0671578332 Missy 5 science-fiction 4.22 1998 Echoes of Honor (Honor Harrington, #8)
author: David Weber
name: Missy
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/12
date added: 2024/04/13
shelves: science-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[In Enemy Hands (Honor Harrington, #7)]]> 77740
Honor Harrington's career has its ups and its downs. She's survived ship-to-ship battles, assassins, political vendettas, and duels. She's been shot at, shot down, and just plain shot, had starships blown out from under her, and made personal enemies who will stop at nothing to ruin her, and somehow she's survived it all.

But this time she's really in trouble.

The People's Republic of Haven has finally found an admiral who can win battles, and Honor's orders take her straight into an ambush. Outnumbered, outgunned, and unable to run, she has just two options: see the people under her command die in a hopeless, futile battle... or surrender them-and herself-to the Peeps.

There can be only one choice, and at least the People's Navy promises to treat their prisoners honorably. But the Navy is overruled by the political authorities, and Honor finds herself bound for a prison planet aptly named "Hell"... and her scheduled execution.

Put into solitary confinement, separated from her officers and her treecat Nimitz, and subjected to systematic humiliation by her gaolers, Honor's future has become both bleak and short. Yet bad as things look, they're about to get worse ...for the Peeps.]]> 530 David Weber 0671577700 Missy 5 science-fiction 4.23 1998 In Enemy Hands (Honor Harrington, #7)
author: David Weber
name: Missy
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/06
date added: 2024/04/13
shelves: science-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Brief History of Timekeeping: The Science of Marking Time, from Stonehenge to Atomic Clocks]]> 58721072 A Brief History of Timekeeping is a story not just about the science of sundials, sandglasses, and mechanical clocks, but also the politics of calendars and time zones, the philosophy of measurement, and the nature of space and time itself.]]> 324 Chad Orzel 1953295606 Missy 0 to-read 3.67 2022 A Brief History of Timekeeping: The Science of Marking Time, from Stonehenge to Atomic Clocks
author: Chad Orzel
name: Missy
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Brief History of Black Holes: And why nearly everything you know about them is wrong]]> 61324554
Right now, you are orbiting a black hole. The Earth goes around the Sun, and the Sun goes around the centre of the Milky Way: a supermassive black hole—the strangest and most misunderstood phenomenon in the galaxy.

In A Brief History of Black Holes University of Oxford astrophysicist Dr. Becky Smethurst charts the scientific breakthroughs that have uncovered the weird and wonderful world of black holes, from the collapse of massive stars to the iconic first photographs of a black hole in 2019. A cosmic tale of discovery, you’ll learn: why black holes aren’t really ‘black,� that you never ever want to be ‘spaghettified,� how black holes are more like sofa cushions than hoovers, and why beyond the event horizon, the future is a direction in space rather than in time. Full of wit and learning, this captivating book explains why black holes contain the secrets to the most profound questions about our universe.]]> 279 Becky Smethurst 1529086701 Missy 0 to-read 4.31 2022 A Brief History of Black Holes: And why nearly everything you know about them is wrong
author: Becky Smethurst
name: Missy
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Suddenly 30320656
Jamie and P. J. have gone to the same school since grade school but, because they ran in different circles, Jamie had never really paid much attention to P. J. She only knew that P. J. had been in a lot of trouble over the past few years and had run with a rough crowd. After seeing P. J. working at McDonald’s, thoughts of P. J. fill Jamie’s mind and she realizes she is developing a crush on this girl.

Fate intertwines the girls� lives and they slowly become friends. Some of the other people in Jamie’s life are not happy about the budding friendship between the two girls, including Jamie’s ex-boyfriend, Todd; the leader of her cheerleading squad, Diane; and Jamie’s mother.

The two girls have to deal with friends and family finding out about their relationship. Jamie’s mother is determined to keep the two girls apart. P. J. is determined not to lose Jamie. In the end, the two girls find they have allies in unexpected places. Allies who want to help the girls be together, hopefully forever.]]> 389 M.E. Tudor Missy 0 to-read 3.89 2012 Suddenly
author: M.E. Tudor
name: Missy
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>