Cay's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 21 Jan 2022 08:48:27 -0800 60 Cay's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Fifty Shades Trilogy Bundle (Fifty Shades, #1-3)]]> 13641626 New York Times #1 bestselling trilogy has been hailed by Entertainment Weekly as being "in a class by itself." Beginning with the GoodReads Choice Award Romance Finalist Fifty Shades of Grey, the Fifty Shades Trilogy will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever.


This bundle includes the following novels:

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY: When college student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating. The unworldly Ana realizes she wants this man, and Grey admits he wants her, too - but on his own terms. When the couple embarks on a daring, passionately physical affair, Ana discovers Christian's secrets and explores her own desires.

FIFTY SHADES DARKER: Daunted by Christian's dark secrets and singular tastes, Ana has broken off their relationship to start a new career. But desire for Christian still dominates her every waking thought. They rekindle their searing sensual affair, and while Christian wrestles with his inner demons, Ana is forced to make the most important decision of her life.

FIFTY SHADES FREED: Now, Ana and Christian have it all - love, passion, intimacy, wealth, and a world of possibilities for their future. But Ana knows that loving her Fifty Shades will not be easy, and that being together will pose challenges that neither of them would anticipate. Just when it seems that their strength together will eclipse any obstacle, misfortune, malice, and fate conspire to turn Ana's deepest fears into reality.


This book is intended for mature audiences.]]> 1501 E.L. James Cay 5 4.18 2005 Fifty Shades Trilogy Bundle (Fifty Shades, #1-3)
author: E.L. James
name: Cay
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2005
rating: 5
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date added: 2022/01/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Bad Habits: Confessions of a Recovering Catholic]]> 13624101 New York Times bestselling author--candidly recounts her humorous Catholic upbringing, from her childhood dream of becoming a nun to her Playmate of the Year centerfold, and all of the Hail Mary's in between.

In keeping with the theme of her comedic New York Times bestsellers, from Belly Laughs to Love, Lust & Faking It, McCarthy brings her trademark honesty, humility, and humor to bear as she chronicles her often embarrassing, occasionally outlandish, and always entertaining life as a born-and-raised Catholic girl.

Jenny attended one of the most prestigious all-girl Catholic schools in Chicago. While most young girls in Jenny's neighborhood were playing with Cabbage Patch dolls for fun, Jenny was playing with Jesus, Mary, and Joseph dolls. She had every intention of growing up and becoming a nun, but a few hilarious speed bumps and blinking red lights along the way changed her mind. Jenny never did accept Sister Mary's reasoning that she could avoid purgatory if she just bought a string necklace for $10. The fact that two of her aunts are simultaneously nuns and cops-yes, they carry guns and shoot people while wearing a habit-never made complete sense to her. And neither does her mother's insistence that Jenny bury certain religious statues in the front lawns of her houses before she sells them. But then again, Jenny does have four of them buried across Southern California.

This book tells the story of what went wrong during Jenny's Catholic upbringing, or, as Jenny puts it now, what went right. Chapters include: "I Knew I Should Have Worn Underwear to Church", "Jesus' Baby Mama", "Can Someone Kill Our Dog, Please?", and "Oh No, My Mom is Going to Hell."

BAD HABITS is a brutally honest, hilarious memoir that will delight the legions of Jenny McCarthy fans.]]> 222 Jenny McCarthy 1401324657 Cay 0 Funny, quick read! 3.62 2012 Bad Habits: Confessions of a Recovering Catholic
author: Jenny McCarthy
name: Cay
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/11/01
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Funny, quick read!
]]> <![CDATA[Fifty Shades of Grey (Fifty Shades, #1)]]> 10818853
Shocked yet thrilled by Grey’s singular erotic tastes, Ana hesitates. For all the trappings of success—his multinational businesses, his vast wealth, his loving family—Grey is a man tormented by demons and consumed by the need to control. When the couple embarks on a daring, passionately physical affair, Ana discovers Christian Grey’s secrets and explores her own dark desires.

Erotic, amusing, and deeply moving, the Fifty Shades Trilogy is a tale that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever.

This book is intended for mature audiences.]]> 356 E.L. James 1612130291 Cay 0 3.68 2011 Fifty Shades of Grey (Fifty Shades, #1)
author: E.L. James
name: Cay
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/07/18
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]]> To the Hilt 8543 352 Dick Francis 042519681X Cay 0 4.10 1996 To the Hilt
author: Dick Francis
name: Cay
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at: 2012/04/06
date added: 2012/04/06
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]]> The Average American Male 151724 246 Chad Kultgen 0061231673 Cay 0 3.43 2007 The Average American Male
author: Chad Kultgen
name: Cay
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/04/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Assholes Finish First (Tucker Max, #2)]]> 89284
What do you do when you've become rich and famous for writing a #1 best-selling book about your drunken, sexual misadventures? I'll tell you what I do: I write another fucking book.

This is that book. Assholes Finish First is hilarious in ways you will recognize from I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, and in other, newer ways you won't. Of course it has all the sex and debauchery you expect from my writing, but with a twist. You already know how I deal with women when I am poor and anonymous. You have no idea how I do it when I have money and fame.

It also answers the hard questions you've never thought of asking. What's it like to have sex with a midget? How about two of 'em? What happens when you eat too much beef jerky and then drink a gallon of vegetable juice? Or get head in an X-ray machine? The answers are inside, they are absurd, and they are the product of one man's experiences:

My name is still Tucker Max, and I am still an asshole.]]> 404 Tucker Max 1416938745 Cay 0 3.62 2008 Assholes Finish First (Tucker Max, #2)
author: Tucker Max
name: Cay
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/01/06
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]]> <![CDATA[I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (Tucker Max, #1)]]> 9010 The Book That Inspired The Movie

My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole. I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging dickhead. But, I do contribute to humanity in one very important way: I share my adventures with the world. —from the Introduction

Actual reader feedback:

"I find it truly appalling that there are people in the world like you. You are a disgusting, vile, repulsive, repugnant, foul creature. Because of you, I don't believe in God anymore. No just God would allow someone like you to exist."

"I'll stay with God as my lord, but you are my savior. I just finished reading your brilliant stories, and I laughed so hard I almost vomited. I want to bring that kind of joy to people. You're an artist of the highest order and a true humanitarian to boot. I'm in both shock and awe at how much I want to be you."

Now with 16 Pages of Photos and a New Introduction

]]> 277 Tucker Max 0806527285 Cay 0 3.49 2006 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (Tucker Max, #1)
author: Tucker Max
name: Cay
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/01/06
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]]> The Lovely Bones 12232938
So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her -- her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. Out of unspeakable tragedy and loss, The Lovely Bones succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even joy.]]> 372 Alice Sebold 0316166685 Cay 5 3.87 2002 The Lovely Bones
author: Alice Sebold
name: Cay
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2002
rating: 5
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date added: 2011/08/09
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]]> The Four Loves 30633 The Four Loves summarizes four kinds of human love--affection, friendship, erotic love, and the love of God. Masterful without being magisterial, this book's wise, gentle, candid reflections on the virtues and dangers of love draw on sources from Jane Austen to St. Augustine. The chapter on charity (love of God) may be the best thing Lewis ever wrote about Christianity. Consider his reflection on Augustine's teaching that one must love only God, because only God is eternal, and all earthly love will someday pass away:
Who could conceivably begin to love God on such a prudential ground--because the security (so to speak) is better? Who could even include it among the grounds for loving? Would you choose a wife or a Friend--if it comes to that, would you choose a dog--in this spirit? One must be outside the world of love, of all loves, before one thus calculates.
His description of Christianity here is no less forceful and opinionated than in Mere Christianity or The Problem of Pain, but it is far less anxious about its reader's response--and therefore more persuasive than any of his apologetics. When he begins to describe the nature of faith, Lewis writes: "Take it as one man's reverie, almost one man's myth. If anything in it is useful to you, use it; if anything is not, never give it a second thought." --Michael Joseph Gross]]> 170 C.S. Lewis 0006280897 Cay 0 4.13 1960 The Four Loves
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Cay
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1960
rating: 0
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date added: 2010/12/15
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]]> The Giving Tree 370493
So begins a story of unforgettable perception, beautifully written and illustrated by the gifted and versatile Shel Silverstein.

Every day the boy would come to the tree to eat her apples, swing from her branches, or slide down her trunk...and the tree was happy. But as the boy grew older he began to want more from the tree, and the tree gave and gave and gave.

This is a tender story, touched with sadness, aglow with consolation. Shel Silverstein has created a moving parable for readers of all ages that offers an affecting interpretation of the gift of giving and a serene acceptance of another's capacity to love in return.]]> 64 Shel Silverstein 0060256656 Cay 0 to-read 4.38 1964 The Giving Tree
author: Shel Silverstein
name: Cay
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1964
rating: 0
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date added: 2010/10/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> Me: Stories of My Life 145397
“In her book about her life, Miss Hepburn insists that that woman in the movies was not her at all. ‘I’m not going to hide behind you anymore,� she says.‘Who are you anyway? You're not me.� Sure she is. The woman in the book is cocky, fearless, smart, capable, and human, on screen and off.”—Anna Quindlen, The New York Times

Admired and beloved by movie audiences for more than sixty years, four-time Academy Award winner Katharine Hepburn is an American classic and an extraordinary, enduring presence on the international cultural scene. Yet her private life has been obscured by mystery. Now Miss Hepburn breaks her long-kept silence in this absorbing and provocative memoir.

With characteristic gusto and candor, Katharine Hepburn reflects on the events, people, and places that have shaped her life—her childhood and family, her early days in New York, and her experiences with political activism. She talks about the ups and downs of her career, her long friendship with Spencer Tracy, and of course, her close collaborations with several of the leading actors, directors, and producers of the past half century. Illustrated with 165 photographs from family archives, many of which have never been published, it is an unforgettable portrait of Katharine Hepburn as we have not seen her before.

“It is the understanding heart revealed just before the final curtain that makes us fall in love with Katharine Hepburn. ”� The New York Times Book Review]]> 430 Katharine Hepburn 0345410092 Cay 0 to-read 3.82 1991 Me: Stories of My Life
author: Katharine Hepburn
name: Cay
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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date added: 2010/08/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Some Girls: My Life in a Harem]]> 7455932
At eighteen, Jillian Lauren was an NYU theater school dropout with a tip about an upcoming audition. The "casting director" told her that a rich businessman in Singapore would pay pretty American girls $20,000 if they stayed for two weeks to spice up his parties. Soon, Jillian was on a plane to Borneo, where she would spend the next eighteen months in the harem of Prince Jefri Bolkiah, youngest brother of the Sultan of Brunei, leaving behind her gritty East Village apartment for a palace with rugs laced with gold and trading her band of artist friends for a coterie of backstabbing beauties.

More than just a sexy read set in an exotic land, Some Girls is also the story of how a rebellious teen found herself-and the courage to meet her birth mother and eventually adopt a baby boy.]]> 336 Jillian Lauren 0452296315 Cay 5 3.33 2010 Some Girls: My Life in a Harem
author: Jillian Lauren
name: Cay
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2010/07/31
date added: 2010/08/01
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A fantastic insight that breaks the mold of negativity associated with harems, etc. Couldn't put the book down!
]]> My Story 182230 208 Marilyn Monroe 1589793161 Cay 0 to-read 4.11 1974 My Story
author: Marilyn Monroe
name: Cay
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1974
rating: 0
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date added: 2010/07/25
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]]> <![CDATA[When You Are Engulfed in Flames]]> 1044355 When You Are Engulfed in Flames confirms once again that David Sedaris is a master of mystery and suspense.

Or how about...

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

Oh, all right...

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

Master of nothing, at the dead center of his game, Sedaris proves that when you play with matches, you sometimes light the whole pack on fire.
(front flap)]]> 323 David Sedaris 0316143472 Cay 0 4.08 2005 When You Are Engulfed in Flames
author: David Sedaris
name: Cay
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2010/07/25
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]]> The Scarlet Letter 12296 279 Nathaniel Hawthorne 0142437263 Cay 5 3.43 1850 The Scarlet Letter
author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
name: Cay
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1850
rating: 5
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date added: 2010/07/06
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]]> Wuthering Heights 6185 You can find the redesigned cover of this edition HERE.

At the centre of this novel is the passionate love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff - recounted with such emotional intensity that a plain tale of the Yorkshire moors acquires the depth and simplicity of ancient tragedy.

This best-selling Norton Critical Edition is based on the 1847 first edition of the novel. For the Fourth Edition, the editor has collated the 1847 text with several modern editions and has corrected a number of variants, including accidentals. The text is accompanied by entirely new explanatory annotations.

New to the fourth Edition are twelve of Emily Bronte's letters regarding the publication of the 1847 edition of Wuthering Heights as well as the evolution of the 1850 edition, prose and poetry selections by the author, four reviews of the novel, and poetry selections by the author, four reviews of the novel, and Edward Chitham's insightful and informative chronology of the creative process behind the beloved work.

Five major critical interpretations of Wuthering Heights are included, three of them new to the Fourth Edition. A Stuart Daley considers the importance of chronology in the novel. J. Hillis Miller examines Wuthering Heights's problems of genre and critical reputation. Sandra M. Gilbert assesses the role of Victorian Christianity plays in the novel, while Martha Nussbaum traces the novel's romanticism. Finally, Lin Haire-Sargeant scrutinizes the role of Heathcliff in film adaptations of Wuthering Heights.

A Chronology and updated Selected Bibliography are also included.]]> 464 Emily Brontë Cay 5 3.89 1847 Wuthering Heights
author: Emily Brontë
name: Cay
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1847
rating: 5
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date added: 2010/07/06
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]]> <![CDATA[A Child Called "It" (Dave Pelzer, #1)]]> 60748 Also see: Alternate Cover Editions for this ISBN [ACE]
ACE #1

This book chronicles the unforgettable account of one of the most severe child abuse cases in California history. It is the story of Dave Pelzer, who was brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother: a mother who played tortuous, unpredictable games—games that left him nearly dead. He had to learn how to play his mother's games in order to survive because she no longer considered him a son, but a slave; and no longer a boy, but an "it." Dave's bed was an old army cot in the basement, and his clothes were torn and raunchy. When his mother allowed him the luxury of food, it was nothing more than spoiled scraps that even the dogs refused to eat. The outside world knew nothing of his living nightmare. He had nothing or no one to turn to, but his dreams kept him alive—dreams of someone taking care of him, loving him and calling him their son.]]> 184 Dave Pelzer Cay 5 4.13 1995 A Child Called "It" (Dave Pelzer, #1)
author: Dave Pelzer
name: Cay
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1995
rating: 5
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date added: 2010/07/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary]]> 25019 The Professor and the Madman, masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary -- and literary history. The compilation of the OED, begun in 1857, was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.]]> 242 Simon Winchester 0060839783 Cay 0 to-read 3.84 1998 The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
author: Simon Winchester
name: Cay
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2010/07/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream]]> 9742 The Audacity of Hope is Barack Obama's call for a new kind of politics—a politics that builds upon those shared understandings that pull us together as Americans. Lucid in his vision of America's place in the world, refreshingly candid about his family life and his time in the Senate, Obama here sets out his political convictions and inspires us to trust in the dogged optimism that has long defined us and that is our best hope going forward.]]> 375 Barack Obama 0307237699 Cay 5 3.83 2006 The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
author: Barack Obama
name: Cay
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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date added: 2010/07/06
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]]> Truman 2279
The life of Harry S. Truman is one of the greatest of American stories, filled with vivid characters—Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Wallace Truman, George Marshall, Joe McCarthy, and Dean Acheson—and dramatic events. In this riveting biography, acclaimed historian David McCullough not only captures the man—a more complex, informed, and determined man than ever before imagined—but also the turbulent times in which he rose, boldly, to meet unprecedented challenges. The last president to serve as a living link between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, Truman’s story spans the raw world of the Missouri frontier, World War I, the powerful Pendergast machine of Kansas City, the legendary Whistle-Stop Campaign of 1948, and the decisions to drop the atomic bomb, confront Stalin at Potsdam, send troops to Korea, and fire General MacArthur. Drawing on newly discovered archival material and extensive interviews with Truman’s own family, friends, and Washington colleagues, McCullough tells the deeply moving story of the seemingly ordinary “man from Missouri� who was perhaps the most courageous president in our history.]]> 1120 David McCullough 0671869205 Cay 0 4.15 1992 Truman
author: David McCullough
name: Cay
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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date added: 2010/07/06
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]]> Night 1617 Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel's memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man. This new translation by his wife and most frequent translator, Marion Wiesel, corrects important details and presents the most accurate rendering in English of Elie Wiesel's testimony to what happened in the camps and of his unforgettable message that this horror must simply never be allowed to happen again.]]> 120 Elie Wiesel 0374500010 Cay 5 4.38 1956 Night
author: Elie Wiesel
name: Cay
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1956
rating: 5
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date added: 2010/07/06
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]]> 100 Love Sonnets 11339 232 Pablo Neruda 0292760280 Cay 0 4.42 1959 100 Love Sonnets
author: Pablo Neruda
name: Cay
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1959
rating: 0
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date added: 2010/07/06
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]]> Mr. Maybe 31101
Mr. Maybe is the tale of her heartfelt but hilarious deliberation, irresistibly chronicled by bestselling author Jane Green. On one hand, Nick makes up for his low bank-account balance by his performance in the sack, or in the bathtub, as the case may be. But life with him means little more than nightly trips to the bar, a dark and grungy apartment, and plenty of dull political tirades to boot. But those blue eyes, and that tender heart...

On the other hand, there's Ed, whose luxurious house and gargantuan bank account are quite tempting to the starving Libby. But his unsavory mustache and bumbling ways make Libby wonder if the platinum AMEX and unlimited "retail therapy" are worth it. He may have fallen in love with her at first sight, but nothing seems to solve his lackluster performance in the sack � even speed reading The Joy of Sex. When the diamond shopping commences, Libby is forced to realize that the time for "maybe" is up.

Taking romantic comedy to a hip, sparkling new level, Mr. Maybe is a classic tale of what happens to one girl when her heart and her head aren't looking for the same thing. With a laugh and minute and a heroine whose struggles in the dating jungle will remind you of your own, Mr. Maybe is a story that all will leave you smitten.]]> 368 Jane Green 0767905202 Cay 0 to-read 3.48 1999 Mr. Maybe
author: Jane Green
name: Cay
average rating: 3.48
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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date added: 2010/07/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Something Borrowed (Darcy & Rachel, #1)]]> 42156 Something Borrowed tells the story of Rachel, a young attorney living and working in Manhattan.

Rachel has always been the consummate good girl—until her thirtieth birthday, when her best friend, Darcy, throws her a party. That night, after too many drinks, Rachel ends up in bed with Darcy's fiancé. Although she wakes up determined to put the one-night fling behind her, Rachel is horrified to discover that she has genuine feelings for the one guy she should run from. As the September wedding date nears, Rachel knows she has to make a choice. In doing so, she discovers that the lines between right and wrong can be blurry, endings aren't always neat, and sometimes you have to risk all to win true happiness.

Something Borrowed is a phenomenal debut novel that will have you laughing, crying, and calling your best friend.
]]> 336 Emily Giffin 031232118X Cay 0 to-read 3.89 2004 Something Borrowed (Darcy & Rachel, #1)
author: Emily Giffin
name: Cay
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2010/07/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> Jemima J 227941
With a fast-paced plot that never quits and a surprise ending no reader will see coming, Jemima J is the chronicle of one woman's quest to become the woman she's always wanted to be, learning along the way a host of lessons about attraction, addiction, the meaning of true love, and, ultimately, who she really is.]]> 373 Jane Green 0767905180 Cay 0 to-read 3.69 1998 Jemima J
author: Jane Green
name: Cay
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2010/07/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing]]> 33926 The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing maps the progress of Jane Rosenal as she sets out on a personal and spirited expedition through the perilous terrain of sex, love, and relationships as well as the treacherous waters of the workplace. With an unforgettable comic touch, Melissa Bank skillfully teases out issues of the heart; puts a new spin on the mating dance; and captures what it's like to be a young woman coming of age in America today.]]> 274 Melissa Bank 0143035479 Cay 0 to-read 3.36 1998 The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing
author: Melissa Bank
name: Cay
average rating: 3.36
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2010/07/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Good in Bed (Cannie Shapiro, #1)]]> 14748
For twenty-eight years, things have been tripping along nicely for Cannie Shapiro. Sure, her mother has come charging out of the closet, and her father has long since dropped out of her world. But she loves her friends, her rat terrier, Nifkin, and her job as pop culture reporter for The Philadelphia Examiner. She's even made a tenuous peace with her plus-size body.

But the day she opens up a national women's magazine and sees the words "Loving a Larger Woman" above her ex-boyfriend's byline, Cannie is plunged into misery...and the most amazing year of her life. From Philadelphia to Hollywood and back home again, she charts a new course for herself: mourning her losses, facing her past, and figuring out who she is and who she can become.]]> 376 Jennifer Weiner 0743418174 Cay 0 to-read 3.76 2002 Good in Bed (Cannie Shapiro, #1)
author: Jennifer Weiner
name: Cay
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2010/07/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Nanny Diaries (Nanny, #1) 228333 306 Emma McLaughlin 0312291639 Cay 4 3.47 2002 The Nanny Diaries (Nanny, #1)
author: Emma McLaughlin
name: Cay
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2002
rating: 4
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date added: 2010/07/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Confessions of a Shopaholic (Shopaholic, #1)]]> 9416
Her job writing at Successful Savings not only bores her to tears, it doesn't pay much at all. And lately Becky's been chased by dismal letters from the bank –letters with large red sums she can't bear to read–and they're getting ever harder to ignore.

She tries cutting back. But none of her efforts succeeds. Becky's only consolation is to buy herself something ... just a little something....

Finally a story arises that Becky actually cares about, and her front-page article catalyzes a chain of events that will transform her life–and the lives of those around her–forever.]]> 368 Sophie Kinsella 0440241413 Cay 3 3.71 2000 Confessions of a Shopaholic (Shopaholic, #1)
author: Sophie Kinsella
name: Cay
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/07/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood]]> 137791 383 Rebecca Wells 006075995X Cay 3 3.86 1996 Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
author: Rebecca Wells
name: Cay
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/07/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Devil Wears Prada (The Devil Wears Prada, #1)]]> 5139
Andrea Sachs, a small-town girl fresh out of college, lands the job “a million girls would die for.� Hired as the assistant to Miranda Priestly, the high-profile, fabulously successful editor of Runway magazine, Andrea finds herself in an office that shouts Prada! Armani! Versace! at every turn, a world populated by impossibly thin, heart-wrenchingly stylish women and beautiful men clad in fine-ribbed turtlenecks and tight leather pants that show off their lifelong dedication to the gym. With breathtaking ease, Miranda can turn each and every one of these hip sophisticates into a scared, whimpering child.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA gives a rich and hilarious new meaning to complaints about “The Boss from Hell.� Narrated in Andrea’s smart, refreshingly disarming voice, it traces a deep, dark, devilish view of life at the top only hinted at in gossip columns and over Cosmopolitans at the trendiest cocktail parties. From sending the latest, not-yet-in-stores Harry Potter to Miranda’s children in Paris by private jet, to locating an unnamed antique store where Miranda had at some point admired a vintage dresser, to serving lattes to Miranda at precisely the piping hot temperature she prefers, Andrea is sorely tested each and every day—and often late into the night with orders barked over the phone. She puts up with it all by keeping her eyes on the prize: a recommendation from Miranda that will get Andrea a top job at any magazine of her choosing. As things escalate from the merely unacceptable to the downright outrageous, however, Andrea begins to realize that the job a million girls would die for may just kill her. And even if she survives, she has to decide whether or not the job is worth the price of her soul.]]> 384 Lauren Weisberger 0307275558 Cay 5 3.82 2003 The Devil Wears Prada (The Devil Wears Prada, #1)
author: Lauren Weisberger
name: Cay
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2003
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Bridget Jones’s Diary (Bridget Jones, #1)]]> 227443 a. lose 7 pounds
b. stop smoking
c. develop Inner Poise

"129 lbs. (how is it possible to put on 4 pounds in the middle of the night? Could flesh have somehow solidified becoming denser and heavier? Repulsive, horrifying notion), alcohol units 4 (excellent), cigarettes 21 (poor but will give up totally tomorrow), number of correct lottery numbers 2 (better, but nevertheless useless)..."

"Bridget Jones' Diary" is the devastatingly self-aware, laugh-out-loud daily chronicle of Bridget's permanent, doomed quest for self-improvement � a year in which she resolves to: reduce the circumference of each thigh by 1.5 inches, visit the gym three times a week not just to buy a sandwich, form a functional relationship with a responsible adult - and learn to program the VCR.

Over the course of the year, Bridget loses a total of 72 pounds but gains a total of 74. She remains, however, optimistic. Through it all, Bridget will have you helpless with laughter, and � like millions of readers the world round � you'll find yourself shouting, "Bridget Jones is me!"]]> 288 Helen Fielding 014028009X Cay 5 3.81 1996 Bridget Jones’s Diary (Bridget Jones, #1)
author: Helen Fielding
name: Cay
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1996
rating: 5
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]]> Fahrenheit 451 4381 158 Ray Bradbury 0307347974 Cay 5 3.96 1953 Fahrenheit 451
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Cay
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1953
rating: 5
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]]> Brave New World 5129 Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine� (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New Worldd likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.

"Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." —Chicago Tribune]]> 268 Aldous Huxley 0060929871 Cay 5 3.99 1932 Brave New World
author: Aldous Huxley
name: Cay
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1932
rating: 5
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]]> 1984 5470 328 George Orwell Cay 5 4.15 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: Cay
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1949
rating: 5
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]]> Outlander (Outlander, #1) 10964
Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.]]> 850 Diana Gabaldon 0440242940 Cay 0 to-read 4.25 1991 Outlander (Outlander, #1)
author: Diana Gabaldon
name: Cay
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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]]> Like Water for Chocolate 6952
The number one bestseller in Mexico and America for almost two years, and subsequently a bestseller around the world, Like Water For Chocolate is a romantic, poignant tale, touched with moments of magic, graphic earthiness, bittersweet wit - and recipes.

A sumptuous feast of a novel, it relates the bizarre history of the all-female De La Garza family. Tita, the youngest daughter of the house, has been forbidden to marry, condemned by Mexican tradition to look after her mother until she dies. But Tita falls in love with Pedro, and he is seduced by the magical food she cooks. In desperation, Pedro marries her sister Rosaura so that he can stay close to her, so that Tita and Pedro are forced to circle each other in unconsummated passion. Only a freakish chain of tragedies, bad luck and fate finally reunite them against all the odds.]]> 222 Laura Esquivel Cay 0 to-read 3.96 1989 Like Water for Chocolate
author: Laura Esquivel
name: Cay
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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]]> Gone with the Wind 18405 1037 Margaret Mitchell 0446365386 Cay 5 4.30 1936 Gone with the Wind
author: Margaret Mitchell
name: Cay
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1936
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Notebook (The Notebook, #1)]]> 15931
Set amid the austere beauty of coastal North Carolina in 1946, The Notebook begins with the story of Noah Calhoun, a rural Southerner returned home from World War II. Noah, thirty-one, is restoring a plantation home to its former glory, and he is haunted by images of the beautiful girl he met fourteen years earlier, a girl he loved like no other. Unable to find her, yet unwilling to forget the summer they spent together, Noah is content to live with only memories...until she unexpectedly returns to his town to see him once again.

Allie Nelson, twenty-nine, is now engaged to another man, but realizes that the original passion she felt for Noah has not dimmed with the passage of time. Still, the obstacles that once ended their previous relationship remain, and the gulf between their worlds is too vast to ignore. With her impending marriage only weeks away, Allie is forced to confront her hopes and dreams for the future, a future that only she can shape.

Like a puzzle within a puzzle, the story of Noah and Allie is just the beginning. As it unfolds, their tale miraculously becomes something different, with much higher stakes. The result is a deeply moving portrait of love itself, the tender moments and the fundamental changes that affect us all. Shining with a beauty that is rarely found in current literature, The Notebook establishes Nicholas Sparks as a classic storyteller with a unique insight into the only emotion that really matters.

"I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough."

And so begins one of the most poignant and compelling love stories you will ever read...The Notebook]]> 214 Nicholas Sparks 0553816713 Cay 3 4.07 1996 The Notebook (The Notebook, #1)
author: Nicholas Sparks
name: Cay
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1996
rating: 3
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]]> Sense and Sensibility 14935 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141439662

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

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

This edition includes explanatory notes, textual variants between the first and second editions, and Tony Tanner's introduction to the original Penguin Classic edition.]]> 409 Jane Austen 0141439661 Cay 0 to-read 4.10 1811 Sense and Sensibility
author: Jane Austen
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average rating: 4.10
book published: 1811
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]]> Jane Eyre 10210 Alternate editions can be found here and here.

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

Charlotte Brontë tells the story of orphaned Jane Eyre, who grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic, brooding Mr Rochester. As her feelings for Rochester develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall's terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice. Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions - even if it means leaving the man she loves? A novel of intense power and intrigue, Jane Eyre dazzled readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and freedom.]]> 532 Charlotte Brontë 0142437204 Cay 0 to-read 4.14 1847 Jane Eyre
author: Charlotte Brontë
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average rating: 4.14
book published: 1847
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]]> The Time Traveler's Wife 14050 537 Audrey Niffenegger 0965818675 Cay 3 3.90 2003 The Time Traveler's Wife
author: Audrey Niffenegger
name: Cay
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2003
rating: 3
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]]> Pride and Prejudice 1885 Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen called this brilliant work "her own darling child" and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print." The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen's radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780679783268]]> 279 Jane Austen 1441341706 Cay 5 4.28 1813 Pride and Prejudice
author: Jane Austen
name: Cay
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1813
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal]]> 1097
Schlosser's myth-shattering survey stretches from California's subdivisions where the business was born to the industrial corridor along the New Jersey Turnpike where many fast food's flavors are concocted. Along the way, he unearths a trove of fascinating, unsettling truths -- from the unholy alliance between fast food and Hollywood to the seismic changes the industry has wrought in food production, popular culture, and even real estate.
(back cover)]]> 383 Eric Schlosser 0060838582 Cay 0 to-read 3.75 2001 Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
author: Eric Schlosser
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average rating: 3.75
book published: 2001
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]]> <![CDATA[Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America]]> 1869
Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages, and one day Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 to $7 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts. And one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.

Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity -- a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate strategies for survival. Instantly acclaimed for its insight, humor, and passion, this book is changing the way America perceives its working poor.]]> 240 Barbara Ehrenreich 0805063897 Cay 5 3.65 2001 Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
author: Barbara Ehrenreich
name: Cay
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2001
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference]]> 2612 The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.]]> 301 Malcolm Gladwell 0316346624 Cay 0 to-read 4.01 2002 The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Cay
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster]]> 1898
Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author of the bestseller Into the Wild. On assignment for Outside Magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the mountain, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas as a client of Rob Hall, the most respected high-altitude guide in the world. A rangy, thirty-five-year-old New Zealander, Hall had summited Everest four times between 1990 and 1995 and had led thirty-nine climbers to the top. Ascending the mountain in close proximity to Hall's team was a guided expedition led by Scott Fischer, a forty-year-old American with legendary strength and drive who had climbed the peak without supplemental oxygen in 1994. But neither Hall nor Fischer survived the rogue storm that struck in May 1996.

Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people -- including himself -- to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.]]> 368 Jon Krakauer Cay 5 4.24 1997 Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Cay
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1997
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything]]> 1202
These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much heralded scholar who studies the stuff and riddles of everyday life -- from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing -- and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.

Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives -- how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they set out to explore the hidden side of ... well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan.

What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and -- if the right questions are asked -- is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Steven Levitt, through devilishly clever and clear-eyed thinking, shows how to see through all the clutter.

Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.
(front flap)]]> 268 Steven D. Levitt 0061234001 Cay 0 to-read 4.01 2005 Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
author: Steven D. Levitt
name: Cay
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2005
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]]> In Cold Blood 168642
As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.]]> 343 Truman Capote 0679745580 Cay 0 to-read 4.08 1966 In Cold Blood
author: Truman Capote
name: Cay
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1966
rating: 0
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]]> Into the Wild 1845 Librarian's Note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

In April, 1992, a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, a party of moose hunters found his decomposed body. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.

Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw away the maps. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.]]> 207 Jon Krakauer 0385486804 Cay 5 4.01 1996 Into the Wild
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Cay
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1996
rating: 5
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]]> The Diary of a Young Girl 48855
In 1942, with the Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, the Franks and another family lived cloistered in the “Secret Annexe� of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and surprisingly humorous, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.
--back cover]]> 283 Anne Frank Cay 5 4.19 1947 The Diary of a Young Girl
author: Anne Frank
name: Cay
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1947
rating: 5
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]]> Lolita 7604 Librarian's note: Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141182537.

Humbert Humbert - scholar, aesthete and romantic - has fallen completely and utterly in love with Dolores Haze, his landlady's gum-snapping, silky skinned twelve-year-old daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert suffers greatly in the pursuit of romance; but when Lo herself starts looking for attention elsewhere, he will carry her off on a desperate cross-country misadventure, all in the name of Love. Hilarious, flamboyant, heart-breaking and full of ingenious word play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust.]]> 368 Vladimir Nabokov 0679723161 Cay 0 to-read 3.87 1955 Lolita
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Cay
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1955
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]]> The Memory Keeper's Daughter 10441 401 Kim Edwards 0143037145 Cay 0 to-read 3.70 2005 The Memory Keeper's Daughter
author: Kim Edwards
name: Cay
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2005
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]]> The Joy Luck Club 7763 Alternate cover editions of ISBN 9780143038092 can be found here.

Four mothers, four daughters, four families, whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's telling the stories. In 1949, four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, meet weekly to play mahjong and tell stories of what they left behind in China. United in loss and new hope for their daughters' futures, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Their daughters, who have never heard these stories, think their mothers' advice is irrelevant to their modern American lives � until their own inner crises reveal how much they've unknowingly inherited of their mothers' pasts.

With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.]]> 288 Amy Tan Cay 5 3.96 1989 The Joy Luck Club
author: Amy Tan
name: Cay
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1989
rating: 5
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]]> Middlesex 2187 Middlesex tells the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family, who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City and the race riots of 1967 before moving out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.]]> 529 Jeffrey Eugenides 0312422156 Cay 0 to-read 4.03 2002 Middlesex
author: Jeffrey Eugenides
name: Cay
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2002
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]]> The Poisonwood Bible 7244 The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.]]> 546 Barbara Kingsolver 0060786507 Cay 0 to-read 4.10 1998 The Poisonwood Bible
author: Barbara Kingsolver
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average rating: 4.10
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]]> Memoirs of a Geisha 930
In "Memoirs of a Geisha," we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction - at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful - and completely unforgettable.]]> 434 Arthur Golden 0739326228 Cay 5 4.07 1997 Memoirs of a Geisha
author: Arthur Golden
name: Cay
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1997
rating: 5
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]]> Moby-Dick or, The Whale 153747 "It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it."

So Melville wrote of his masterpiece, one of the greatest works of imagination in literary history. In part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopaedia of whaling lore and legend, the book can be seen as part of its author's lifelong meditation on America. Written with wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby-Dick is also a profound inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.

This edition of Moby-Dick, which reproduces the definitive text of the novel, includes invaluable explanatory notes, along with maps, illustrations, and a glossary of nautical terms.]]> 720 Herman Melville 0142437247 Cay 0 to-read 3.53 1851 Moby-Dick or, The Whale
author: Herman Melville
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average rating: 3.53
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]]> Les Misérables 24280 1463 Victor Hugo 0451525264 Cay 0 to-read 4.19 1862 Les Misérables
author: Victor Hugo
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average rating: 4.19
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]]> The Count of Monte Cristo 7126 The epic tale of wrongful imprisonment, adventure and revenge, in its definitive translation

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

Translated with an Introduction by Robin Buss

An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here]]> 1276 Alexandre Dumas 0140449264 Cay 0 to-read 4.29 1846 The Count of Monte Cristo
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average rating: 4.29
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]]> Frankenstein 18490 This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 9780141439471

'Now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart ...'

Obsessed with creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life with electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear. Mary Shelley's chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley near Byron's villa on Lake Geneva. It would become the world's most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity.

Based on the third edition of 1831, this volume contains all the revisions Mary Shelley made to her story, as well as her 1831 introduction and Percy Bysshe Shelley's preface to the first edition. This revised edition includes as appendices a select collation of the texts of 1818 and 1831 together with 'A Fragment' by Lord Byron and Dr John Polidori's 'The Vampyre: A Tale'.]]> 288 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Cay 0 to-read 3.77 1818 Frankenstein
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average rating: 3.77
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]]> A Tale of Two Cities 1953 A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens’s great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author’s novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores many of his enduring themes—imprisonment, injustice, social anarchy, resurrection, and the renunciation that fosters renewal.]]> 489 Charles Dickens 0141439602 Cay 5 3.86 1859 A Tale of Two Cities
author: Charles Dickens
name: Cay
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1859
rating: 5
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]]> The Odyssey 1381 Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.

So begins Robert Fagles' magnificent translation of the Odyssey.

If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, then the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey though life. Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces, during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance.

In the myths and legends that are retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom, and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery.

Renowned classicist Bernard Knox's superb Introduction and textual commentary provide new insights and background information for the general reader and scholar alike, intensifying the strength of Fagles' translation.

This is an Odyssey to delight both the classicist and the public at large, and to captivate a new generation of Homer's students.

--

Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, presents us with Homer's best-loved and most accessible poem in a stunning new modern-verse translation.]]> 541 Homer 0143039954 Cay 0 to-read 3.79 -700 The Odyssey
author: Homer
name: Cay
average rating: 3.79
book published: -700
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Little Women (Little Women, #1)]]> 1934 This is an alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780451529305.

Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War.

It is no secret that Alcott based Little Women on her own early life. While her father, the freethinking reformer and abolitionist Bronson Alcott, hobnobbed with such eminent male authors as Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, Louisa supported herself and her sisters with "woman’s work,� including sewing, doing laundry, and acting as a domestic servant. But she soon discovered she could make more money writing. Little Women brought her lasting fame and fortune, and far from being the "girl’s book� her publisher requested, it explores such timeless themes as love and death, war and peace, the conflict between personal ambition and family responsibilities, and the clash of cultures between Europe and America.

]]> 449 Louisa May Alcott Cay 5 4.16 1868 Little Women (Little Women, #1)
author: Louisa May Alcott
name: Cay
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1868
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]> 2956 327 Mark Twain 0142437174 Cay 5 3.82 1884 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
author: Mark Twain
name: Cay
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1884
rating: 5
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]]> Lord of the Flies 7624 182 William Golding 0140283331 Cay 0 to-read 3.70 1954 Lord of the Flies
author: William Golding
name: Cay
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1954
rating: 0
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]]> Romeo and Juliet 18135 Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a violent world, in which two young people fall in love. It is not simply that their families disapprove; the Montagues and the Capulets are engaged in a blood feud.

In this death-filled setting, the movement from love at first sight to the lovers� final union in death seems almost inevitable. And yet, this play set in an extraordinary world has become the quintessential story of young love. In part because of its exquisite language, it is easy to respond as if it were about all young lovers.]]> 281 William Shakespeare 0743477111 Cay 5 3.74 1597 Romeo and Juliet
author: William Shakespeare
name: Cay
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1597
rating: 5
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]]> One Hundred Years of Solitude 320 417 Gabriel García Márquez Cay 0 to-read 4.10 1967 One Hundred Years of Solitude
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Cay
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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]]> Me Talk Pretty One Day 4137 272 David Sedaris 0349113912 Cay 0 to-read 4.01 2000 Me Talk Pretty One Day
author: David Sedaris
name: Cay
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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]]> The Alchemist 865 197 Paulo Coelho 0061122416 Cay 0 to-read 3.85 1988 The Alchemist
author: Paulo Coelho
name: Cay
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1988
rating: 0
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]]> Slaughterhouse-Five 4981 Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.�

An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut’s writing—the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit—that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it.

Fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut's portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties.]]> 275 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Cay 0 to-read 4.10 1969 Slaughterhouse-Five
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Cay
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1969
rating: 0
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]]> Of Mice and Men 890 “I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.�

They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own.

While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in Steinbeck's work of the late 1930s, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men, creating an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual's existence meaningful.

A unique perspective on life's hardships, this story has achieved the status of timeless classic due to its remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.]]> 107 John Steinbeck 0142000671 Cay 3 3.88 1937 Of Mice and Men
author: John Steinbeck
name: Cay
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1937
rating: 3
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]]> Animal Farm 7613
The book tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, however, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon.

One night, all the animals at Mr. Jones' Manor Farm assemble in a barn to hear old Major, a pig, describe a dream he had about a world where all animals live free from the tyranny of their human masters. Old Major dies soon after the meeting, but the animals � inspired by his philosophy of Animalism � plot a rebellion against Jones.

Two pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, prove themselves important figures and planners of this dangerous enterprise. When Jones forgets to feed the animals, the revolution occurs, and Jones and his men are chased off the farm. Manor Farm is renamed Animal Farm, and the Seven Commandments of Animalism are painted on the barn wall...]]> 129 George Orwell Cay 5 3.90 1945 Animal Farm
author: George Orwell
name: Cay
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1945
rating: 5
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]]> Where the Sidewalk Ends 30119 Come in... for where the sidewalk ends, Shel Silverstein's world begins.

Shel Silverstein, theNew York Times bestselling author of The Giving Tree, A Light in the Attic, Falling Up, and Every Thing On It, has created a poetry collection that is outrageously funny and deeply profound.

You'll meet a boy who turns into a TV set, and a girl who eats a whale. The Unicorn and the Bloath live there, and so does Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who will not take the garbage out. It is a place where you wash your shadow and plant diamond gardens, a place where shoes fly, sisters are auctioned off, and crocodiles go to the dentist.

Shel Silverstein's masterful collection of poems and drawings stretches the bounds of imagination and will be cherished by readers of all ages.]]> 176 Shel Silverstein 0060513039 Cay 5 4.34 1974 Where the Sidewalk Ends
author: Shel Silverstein
name: Cay
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1974
rating: 5
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]]> The Great Gatsby 4671 The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald’s family and from his lifelong publisher.

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

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published by Scribner in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.]]> 180 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0743273567 Cay 5 3.93 1925 The Great Gatsby
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Cay
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1925
rating: 5
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]]> The Catcher in the Rye 5107 It's Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school...

Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters—shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends. The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning.

The Catcher in the Rye is an all-time classic in coming-of-age literature- an elegy to teenage alienation, capturing the deeply human need for connection and the bewildering sense of loss as we leave childhood behind.

J.D. Salinger's (1919�2010) classic novel of teenage angst and rebellion was first published in 1951. The novel was included on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. It was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It has been frequently challenged in the court for its liberal use of profanity and portrayal of sexuality and in the 1950's and 60's it was the novel that every teenage boy wants to read.]]> 277 J.D. Salinger 0316769177 Cay 5 3.81 1951 The Catcher in the Rye
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Cay
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1951
rating: 5
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]]> To Kill a Mockingbird 2657
Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, "To Kill A Mockingbird" takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.]]> 323 Harper Lee 0060935464 Cay 5 4.25 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird
author: Harper Lee
name: Cay
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1960
rating: 5
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]]>