Rhea's bookshelf: all en-US Sat, 08 Mar 2025 18:48:55 -0800 60 Rhea's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Excession (Culture, #5) 12013 Excession, the Culture's espionage and dirty tricks section orders Diplomat Byr Gen-Hofoen to steal the soul of a long-dead starship captain. By accepting the mission, Byr irrevocably plunges himself into a conspiracy: one that could either lead the universe into an age of peace or to the brink of annihilation.]]> 500 Iain M. Banks 0553575376 Rhea 0 currently-reading 4.20 1996 Excession (Culture, #5)
author: Iain M. Banks
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/08
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]]> <![CDATA[The State of the Art (Culture, #4)]]> 122495953 ąó°ů´ÇłľĚý New York Times bestsellingĚýand modern master of science fiction, Iain M. Banks,Ěý The State of the ArtĚý is the acclaimed collection of Banks's short fiction.Ěý

“Banks is a phenomenon...writing pure science fiction of a peculiarly gnarly energy and elegance.”Ěý–William Gibson

This is a striking addition to the body of Culture lore, and adds definition and scale to the previous works by using the Earth of 1977 as contrast. The stories in the collection range from science fiction to horror, dark-coated fantasy to morality tale. All bear the indefinable stamp of Iain Banks's staggering talent.

“Few of us have been exposed to a talent so manifest and of such extraordinary breadth.� �New York Review of Science Fiction
Ěý
“[Banks] can summon up sense-of-wonder Big Concepts you've never seen before and display them with narration as deft as a conjuror's fingers."Ěý–scifi.com

The Culture
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
The State of the Art
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata ]]> 217 Iain M. Banks 0316565660 Rhea 4 3.68 1991 The State of the Art (Culture, #4)
author: Iain M. Banks
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1991
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/05
date added: 2025/03/05
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]]> Red Plenty 18634818 "Spufford cunningly maps out a literary genre of his own . . . Freewheeling and fabulous." —The Times (London)Strange as it may seem, the gray, oppressive USSR was founded on a fairy tale. It was built on the twentieth-century magic called "the planned economy," which was going to gush forth an abundance of good things that the lands of capitalism could never match. And just for a little while, in the heady years of the late 1950s, the magic seemed to be working. Red Plenty is about that moment in history, and how it came, and how it went away; about the brief era when, under the rash leadership of Khrushchev, the Soviet Union looked forward to a future of rich communists and envious capitalists, when Moscow would out-glitter Manhattan and every Lada would be better engineered than a Porsche. It's about the scientists who did their genuinely brilliant best to make the dream come true, to give the tyranny its happy ending. Red Plenty is history, it's fiction, it's as ambitious as Sputnik, as uncompromising as an Aeroflot flight attendant, and as different from what you were expecting as a glass of Soviet champagne.]]> 453 Francis Spufford Rhea 4 4.08 2010 Red Plenty
author: Francis Spufford
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/02/20
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]]> Use of Weapons (Culture, #3) 6305619 The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks and military action.

The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and pushed him towards his present eminence, but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought.

The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman's life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner. It believed the man to be a lost cause. But not even its machine could see the horrors in his past.

Ferociously intelligent, both witty and horrific, USE OF WEAPONS is a masterpiece of science fiction.]]> 352 Iain M. Banks Rhea 4 4.07 1990 Use of Weapons (Culture, #3)
author: Iain M. Banks
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/29
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]]> <![CDATA[The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions - and How The World Lost its Mind]]> 197716282 304 Dan Davies 1782839259 Rhea 0 to-read 3.93 2024 The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions - and How The World Lost its Mind
author: Dan Davies
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/18
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]]> <![CDATA[The Player of Games (Culture, #2)]]> 19819475
Praise for Iain M. Banks:

"Poetic, humorous, baffling, terrifying, sexy -- the books of Iain M. Banks are all these things and more" -- NME

"An exquisitely riotous tour de force of the imagination which writes its own rules simply for the pleasure of breaking them." -- Time Out]]> 417 Iain M. Banks Rhea 5 4.36 1988 The Player of Games (Culture, #2)
author: Iain M. Banks
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1988
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/09
date added: 2024/10/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Vendetta's Rise (The Dragon Realms Saga #1)]]> 36174569 388 J.M. Gillespie Rhea 0 to-read 4.09 Vendetta's Rise (The Dragon Realms Saga #1)
author: J.M. Gillespie
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.09
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/27
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]]> <![CDATA[The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness]]> 37929220 An international bestseller and TikTok sensation with more than 10 million copies sold worldwide, The Courage to Be Disliked is a transformative and practical guide to personal happiness and self-fulfillment.Now you can unlock your full potential and free yourself from the shackles of past traumas and societal expectations to find true personal happiness. Based on the theories of renowned psychologist Alfred Adler, this book guides you through the principles of self-forgiveness, self-care, and mind decluttering in a straightforward, easy-to-digest style that’s accessible to all.The Courage to Be Disliked unfolds as a dialogue between a philosopher and a young man, who, over the course of five enriching conversations, realizes that each of us is in control of our life’s direction, independent of past burdens and expectations of others. Wise, empowering, and profoundly liberating, this book is a life-changing experience that shows you a path to lasting happiness and how to finally be the person you truly want to be. Millions are already benefiting from its teachings—and you can be next.]]> 289 Ichiro Kishimi Rhea 0 4.18 2013 The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness
author: Ichiro Kishimi
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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]]> Collected Poems 111879 Collected Poems brings together not only all his books--The North Ship, The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings, and High Windows--but also his uncollected poems from 1940 to 1984.

This new edition reflects Larkin's own ordering for his poems and is the first collection to present the body of his work with the organization he preferred. Preserving everything he published in his lifetime, the new Collected Poems is an indispensable contribution to the legacy of an icon of twentieth-century poetry.]]> 218 Philip Larkin 0374529205 Rhea 0 4.21 1988 Collected Poems
author: Philip Larkin
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1988
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Delirium Brief (Laundry Files, #8)]]> 32063117 The Delirium Brief, the next installment to Charles Stross� Hugo Award-winning comedic dark fantasy Laundry Files series!

Bob Howard’s career in the Laundry, the secret British government agency dedicated to protecting the world from unspeakable horrors from beyond spacetime, has entailed high combat, brilliant hacking, ancient magic, and combat with indescribably repellent creatures of pure evil. It has also involved a wearying amount of paperwork and office politics, and his expense reports are still a mess.

Now, following the invasion of Yorkshire by the Host of Air and Darkness, the Laundry’s existence has become public, and Bob is being trotted out on TV to answer pointed questions about elven asylum seekers. What neither Bob nor his managers have foreseen is that their organization has earned the attention of a horror far more terrifying than any demon: a British government looking for public services to privatize.

Inch by inch, Bob Howard and his managers are forced to consider the truly unthinkable: a coup against the British government itself.

Laundry Files
1. The Atrocity Archives
2. The Jennifer Morgue
3. The Fuller Memorandum
4. The Apocalypse Codex
5. The Rhesus Chart
6. The Annihilation Score
7. The Nightmare Stacks

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

]]> 384 Charles Stross Rhea 0 4.25 2017 The Delirium Brief (Laundry Files, #8)
author: Charles Stross
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Consider Phlebas (Culture, #1)]]> 8279737 The first book in Iain M. Banks's seminal science fiction series, The Culture. Consider Phlebas introduces readers to the utopian conglomeration of human and alien races that explores the nature of war, morality, and the limitless bounds of mankind's imagination.The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender.Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, actually to find it, and with it their own destruction.The Culture SeriesConsider PhlebasThe Player of GamesUse of WeaponsThe State of the ArtExcessionInversionsLook to WindwardMatterSurface DetailThe Hydrogen Sonata]]> 545 Iain M. Banks Rhea 5 3.81 1987 Consider Phlebas (Culture, #1)
author: Iain M. Banks
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1987
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/19
date added: 2024/08/20
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]]> <![CDATA[The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal]]> 59234968 From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning history The Dead Hand comes the riveting story of a spy who cracked open the Soviet military research establishment and aĚýpenetrating portrait of the CIA’s Moscow station, an outpost of daring espionage in the last years of the Cold War
Ěý
ĚýĚýĚýWhile driving out of the American embassy in Moscow on the evening of February 16, 1978, the chief of the CIA’s Moscow station heard a knock on his car window. A man on the curb handed him an envelope whose contents stunned U.S. intelligence: details of top-secret Soviet research and developments in military technology that were totally unknown to the United States. In the years that followed, the man, Adolf Tolkachev, an engineer in a Soviet military design bureau, used his high-level access to hand over tens of thousands of pages of technical secrets. His revelations allowed America to reshape its weapons systems to defeat Soviet radar on the ground and in the air, giving the United States near total superiority in the skies over Europe.
ĚýĚýĚýOne of the most valuable spies to work for the United States in the four decades of global confrontation with the Soviet Union, Tolkachev took enormous personal risks—but so did the Americans. The CIA had long struggled to recruit and run agents in Moscow, and Tolkachev was a singular breakthrough. Using spy cameras and secret codes as well as face-to-face meetings in parks and on street corners, Tolkachev and his handlers succeeded for years in eluding the feared KGB in its own backyard, until the day came when a shocking betrayal put them all at risk.Ěý
ĚýĚýĚýDrawing on previously secret documents obtained from the CIA and on interviews with participants, David Hoffman has created an unprecedented and poignant portrait of Tolkachev, a man motivated by the depredations of the Soviet state to master the craft of spying against his own country. Stirring, unpredictable, and at times unbearably tense, The Billion Dollar Spy is a brilliant feat of reporting that unfolds like an espionage thriller.

]]> 310 David E. Hoffman Rhea 4 4.51 2015 The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal
author: David E. Hoffman
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/02
date added: 2024/08/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Spies in the Congo: America's Atomic Mission in World War II]]> 31812144 In the 1940s, the brightest minds of the United States and Nazi Germany raced to West Africa with a single to secure the essential ingredient of the atomic bomb -- and to make sure nobody saw them doing it Albert Einstein told President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 that the world's only supply of uniquely high-quality uranium ore -- the key ingredient for bomb -- could be found in the Katanga province of the Belgian Congo at the Shinkolobwe Mine. Once the US Manhattan Project was committed to developing atomic weapons for the war against Germany and Japan, the rush to procure this uranium became a top priority -- one deemed "vital to the welfare of the United States." But covertly exporting it from Africa posed a major the ore had to travel via a spy-infested Angolan port or 1,500 miles by rail through the Congo, and then be shipped by boats or Pan Am Clippers to safety in the United States. It could be poached or smuggled at any point on the orders of Nazi Germany. To combat that threat, the US Office of Strategic Services sent in a team of intrepid spies, led by Wilbur Owings "Dock" Hogue, to be America's eyes and ears and to protect its most precious and destructive cargo. Packed with newly discovered details from American and British archives, this is the gripping, true story of the unsung heroism of a handful of good men -- and one woman -- in colonial Africa who risked their lives in the fight against fascism and helped deny Hitler his atomic bomb.]]> 400 Susan Williams 1610396553 Rhea 4 3.90 2016 Spies in the Congo: America's Atomic Mission in World War II
author: Susan Williams
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/27
date added: 2024/07/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight]]> 2422710 Digital Apollo, engineer-historian David Mindell takes this famous moment as a starting point for an exploration of the relationship between humans and computers in the Apollo program. In each of the six Apollo landings, the astronaut in command seized control from the computer and landed with his hand on the stick. Mindell recounts the story of astronauts' desire to control their spacecraft in parallel with the history of the Apollo Guidance Computer. From the early days of aviation through the birth of spaceflight, test pilots and astronauts sought to be more than "spam in a can" despite the automatic controls, digital computers, and software developed by engineers.

Digital Apollo examines the design and execution of each of the six Apollo moon landings, drawing on transcripts and data telemetry from the flights, astronaut interviews, and NASA's extensive archives. Mindell's exploration of how human pilots and automated systems worked together to achieve the ultimate in flight -- a lunar landing -- traces and reframes the debate over the future of humans and automation in space. The results have implications for any venture in which human roles seem threatened by automated systems, whether it is the work at our desktops or the future of exploration.]]> 359 David A. Mindell 0262134977 Rhea 0 to-read 4.24 2008 Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight
author: David A. Mindell
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/22
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]]> Apollo's Outcasts 19137896 311 Allen M. Steele Rhea 0 to-read 4.00 2012 Apollo's Outcasts
author: Allen M. Steele
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/22
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]]> All's Well 57114892
Miranda Fitch’s life is a waking nightmare. The accident that ended her burgeoning acting career left her with excruciating, chronic back pain, a failed marriage, and a deepening dependence on painkillers. And now she’s on the verge of losing her job as a college theater director. Determined to put on Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well, the play that promised, and cost, her everything, she faces a mutinous cast hellbent on staging Macbeth instead. Miranda sees her chance at redemption slip through her fingers.

That’s when she meets three strange benefactors who have an eerie knowledge of Miranda’s past and a tantalizing promise for her future: one where the show goes on, her rebellious students get what’s coming to them, and the invisible, doubted pain that’s kept her from the spotlight is made known.

With prose Margaret Atwood has described as “no punches pulled, no hilarities dodged...genius,� Mona Awad has concocted her most potent, subversive novel yet. All’s Well is the story of a woman at her breaking point and a formidable, piercingly funny indictment of our collective refusal to witness and believe female pain.]]> 361 Mona Awad 1982169680 Rhea 0 currently-reading 3.70 2021 All's Well
author: Mona Awad
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/13
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence]]> 63858891 An NPR 2023 "Books We Love" Pick

One of the Next Big Idea Club's Must-Read Books



"An invaluable primer to arguably the most important driver of change for our future." —P. W. Singer, author of Burn-In



An award-winning defense expert tells the story of today’s great power rivalry—the struggle to control artificial intelligence.


A new industrial revolution has begun. Like mechanization or electricity before it, artificial intelligence will touch every aspect of our lives—and cause profound disruptions in the balance of global power, especially among the AI China, the United States, and Europe. Autonomous weapons expert Paul Scharre takes readers inside the fierce competition to develop and implement this game-changing technology and dominate the future.


Four Battlegrounds argues that four key elements define this data, computing power, talent, and institutions. Data is a vital resource like coal or oil, but it must be collected and refined. Advanced computer chips are the essence of computing power—control over chip supply chains grants leverage over rivals. Talent is about which country attracts the best researchers and most advanced technology companies? The fourth “battlefield� is maybe the most the ultimate global leader in AI will have institutions that effectively incorporate AI into their economy, society, and especially their military.


Scharre’s account surges with futuristic technology. He explores the ways AI systems are already discovering new strategies via millions of war-game simulations, developing combat tactics better than any human, tracking billions of people using biometrics, and subtly controlling information with secret algorithms. He visits China’s “National Team� of leading AI companies to show the chilling synergy between China’s government, private sector, and surveillance state. He interviews Pentagon leadership and tours U.S. Defense Department offices in Silicon Valley, revealing deep tensions between the military and tech giants who control data, chips, and talent. Yet he concludes that those tensions, inherent to our democratic system, create resilience and resistance to autocracy in the face of overwhelmingly powerful technology.


Engaging and direct, Four Battlegrounds offers a vivid picture of how AI is transforming warfare, global security, and the future of human freedom—and what it will take for democracies to remain at the forefront of the world order.]]> 486 Paul Scharre 0393866874 Rhea 0 currently-reading 3.98 2023 Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
author: Paul Scharre
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/02
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]]> Wireless 204111572 Science fiction guru Charles Stross “sizzles with ideas� (Denver Post) in his first major short story collection.

The Hugo Award-winning author of such groundbreaking and innovative novels as Accelerando, Halting State, and Saturn’s Children delivers a rich selection of speculative fiction� including a novella original to this volume� brought together for the first time in one collection, showcasing the limitless imagination of one of the twenty-first century’s most daring visionaries.]]> Charles Stross Rhea 5 4.44 2009 Wireless
author: Charles Stross
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/29
date added: 2024/03/29
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]]> Siren Queen 54102727 "Lyrical, mesmerizing, and otherworldly. . . stunning proof that Nghi Vo is one of the most original writers we have today. A beautiful, brutal, monstrous Hollywood fantasy.”—Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Immortality is just a casting call away.

Locus Award Finalist
Ignyte Award Finalist
An Amazon Best Book of 2022
One of NPR’s Best Books of 2022
Vulture’s #1 Fantasy Novel of 2022

Best of Year Selections at Apple Books | B&N Booksellers | LibraryReads | TIME Magazine | Oprah Daily | The Philadelphia Inquirer | Publishers Weekly | Buzzfeed | Chicago Review of Books | LitHub | Book Riot | Paste Magazine | Geek Girl Authority | Bookish | The Mary Sue | New York Public Library | Vulture | Locus Recommended Reading List | Kobo | The Quill to Live | L. A. Public Library | Audible | Amazon | NPR

An Indie Next and LibraryReads Pick
A Brooklyn Library Prize Finalist

It was magic. In every world, it was a kind of magic.

“No maids, no funny talking, no fainting flowers.� Luli Wei is beautiful, talented, and desperate to be a star. Coming of age in pre-Code Hollywood, she knows how dangerous the movie business is and how limited the roles are for a Chinese American girl from Hungarian Hill—but she doesn't care. She’d rather play a monster than a maid.

But in Luli's world, the worst monsters in Hollywood are not the ones on screen. The studios want to own everything from her face to her name to the women she loves, and they run on a system of bargains made in blood and ancient magic, powered by the endless sacrifice of unlucky starlets like her. For those who do survive to earn their fame, success comes with a steep price. Luli is willing to do whatever it takes—even if that means becoming the monster herself.

Siren Queen offers up an enthralling exploration of an outsider achieving stardom on her own terms, in a fantastical Hollywood where the monsters are real and the magic of the silver screen illuminates every page.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 281 Nghi Vo 1250788854 Rhea 0 to-read 3.68 2022 Siren Queen
author: Nghi Vo
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/01
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]]> Immortality Inc. 39937017 Thomas Blaine remembered the car accident that killed him—and then he woke up in the hospital. A nurse told him where he was. “You’d call it being in the future.â€� A future where bodies are sold to the highest bidder as new homes for the minds of the rich, who are greedy for more life when their own bodies wear out or are damaged. Suddenly, keeping body and soul together has taken on a new, and very sinister, meaning.Ěý
Ěý
From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized by fans, reviewers, and fellow authors as a master storyteller and the wittiest satirist working in the science fiction field. Open Road is proud to republish his acclaimed body of work, with nearly thirty volumes of full-length fiction and short story collections. Rediscover, or discover for the first time, a master of science fiction who, according to the New York Times, was “a precursor to Douglas Adams.�
Ěý]]> 228 Robert Sheckley 1480496731 Rhea 0 to-read 3.85 1959 Immortality Inc.
author: Robert Sheckley
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1959
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Chrysler's Turbine Car: The Rise and Fall of Detroit's Coolest Creation]]> 8568736
These turbine engines would run on any flammable liquid--tequila, heating oil, Chanel #5, diesel, alcohol, kerosene. If the cars had been mass produced, we might have cars today that do not require petroleum-derived fuels. The engine was also much simpler than the piston engine--it contained one-fifth the number of moving parts and required much less maintenance. The cars had no radiators or fan belts and never needed oil changes.

Yet Chrysler crushed and burned most of the cars two years later; the jet car's brief glory was over. Where did it all go wrong? Controversy still follows the program, and questions about how and why it was killed have never been satisfactorily answered.

Steve Lehto has interviewed all the surviving members of the turbine car program--from the metallurgist who created the exotic metals for the interior of the engine to the test driver who drove it at Chrysler’s proving grounds for days on end. Lehto takes these first-hand accounts and weaves them into a great story about the coolest car Detroit ever produced.]]> 224 Steve Lehto 1569765499 Rhea 0 to-read 4.06 2010 Chrysler's Turbine Car: The Rise and Fall of Detroit's Coolest Creation
author: Steve Lehto
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> Detransition, Baby 50240841 A whipsmart debut about three very different women--transgender and cisgender--whose lives collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires around gender, motherhood, and sex

Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.

Ames isn't happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese--and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby--and that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it--Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family--and raise the baby together?

This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can't reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.]]> 352 Torrey Peters 0593133390 Rhea 0 3.90 2021 Detransition, Baby
author: Torrey Peters
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2023/12/17
date added: 2023/12/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Nazi Gold: The Sensational Story of the World's Greatest Robbery � and the Greatest Criminal Cover-Up]]> 22021929 388 Ian Sayer Rhea 0 3.63 1984 Nazi Gold: The Sensational Story of the World's Greatest Robbery – and the Greatest Criminal Cover-Up
author: Ian Sayer
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at: 2023/04/08
date added: 2023/08/22
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]]> <![CDATA[The Battery: How Portable Power Sparked a Technological Revolution]]> 7220134 320 Henry R. Schlesinger 0061442933 Rhea 3 energy, history, technology 3.58 2010 The Battery: How Portable Power Sparked a Technological Revolution
author: Henry R. Schlesinger
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2010/11/15
date added: 2023/07/10
shelves: energy, history, technology
review:
A fascinating history of the battery technology. Does very well in the early, historical sections, revealing numerous points about the role of batteries just before centralized power was widely availible. However, sputters out a bit in the modern age. Would have liked to see the author explore resources like lithium, and control of it, along with how technical advancement vs mass production engineering was balanced at different times.
]]> <![CDATA[I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted]]> 9325847 From the famous gender rights activist and bestselling author ofĚýShe’s Not ThereĚýcomes another buoyant, unforgettable memoir—about growing up in a haunted house...and making peace with the ghosts that dwell in our hearts. For Jennifer Boylan, creaking stairs, fleeting images in the mirror, and the remote whisper of human voices were everyday events in the Pennsylvania house in which she grew up in the 1970s. But these weren’t the only specters beneath the roof of the mansion known as the “Coffin House.â€� Jenny herself—born James—lived in a haunted body, and both her mysterious, diffident father and her wild, unpredictable sister would soon become ghosts to Jenny as well. I’m Looking Through YouĚýis an engagingly candid investigation of what it means to be “haunted.â€� Looking back on the spirits who invaded her family home, Boylan launches a full investigation with the help of a group of earnest, if questionable, ghostbusters. Boylan also examines the ways we find connections between the people we once were and the people we become. With wit and eloquence, Boylan shows us how love, forgiveness, and humor help us find peace—with our ghosts, with our loved ones, and with the uncanny boundaries, real and imagined, between men and women.]]> 290 Jennifer Finney Boylan Rhea 5 biography, gender, popculture 4.17 2008 I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted
author: Jennifer Finney Boylan
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2022/03/25
date added: 2023/07/10
shelves: biography, gender, popculture
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs]]> 48517994 From bestselling author of She’s Not There, New York Times opinion columnist, and human rights activist Jennifer Finney Boylan, Good My Life in Seven Dogs, a memoir of the transformative power of loving dogs.This is a book about the love we have for them, and the way that love helps us understand the people we have been. It’s in the love of dogs, and my love for them, that I can best now take the measure of the child I once was, and the bottomless, unfathomable desires that once haunted me.There are times when it is hard for me to fully remember that love, which was once so fragile, and so fierce. Sometimes it seems to fade before me, like breath on a mirror.But I remember the dogs. In her New York Times opinion column, Jennifer Finney Boylan wrote about her relationship with her beloved dog Indigo, and her wise, funny, heartbreaking piece went viral. In Good Boy, Boylan explores what should be the simplest topic in the world, but never finding and giving love.Good Boy is a universal account of a remarkable showing how a young boy became a middle-aged woman—accompanied at seven crucial moments of growth and transformation by seven memorable dogs. “Everything I know about love,� she writes, “I learned from dogs.� Their love enables us to pull off what seem like impossible to find our way home when we are lost, to live our lives with humor and courage, and above all, to best become our true selves.]]> 256 Jennifer Finney Boylan 1250261864 Rhea 5 biography, gender, popculture 3.93 2020 Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs
author: Jennifer Finney Boylan
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2022/03/20
date added: 2023/07/10
shelves: biography, gender, popculture
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story]]> 41646234 A heart-wrenching, eye-opening, and giggle-inducing memoir about what it's like to grow up not sure if you're (a) a boy, (b) a girl, (c) something in between, or (d) all of the above.

"When the political reality facing this country seems dark, we need shinier, sparklier thinkers in the public eye. With a signature style matched only by their wit, Jacob fits that bill perfectly." --Alan Cumming

From the moment a doctor in Cary, North Carolina put "male" on Jacob Tobia's birth certificate, everything went wrong. Alongside "male" came many other, far less neutral words: words that carried expectations about who Jacob was and who Jacob should be, like "masculine" and "aggressive" and "cargo shorts" and "SPORTS!"

Naturally sensitive, playful, creative, and glitter-obsessed, as a child Jacob was given the label "sissy." In the two decades that followed, "sissy" joined forces with "gay," "trans," "nonbinary," and "too-queer-to-function" to become a source of pride, a curse-turned-blessing, a freak-flag hoisted high.

Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story charts those decades, from Jacob's Methodist childhood to the hallowed halls of Duke University and the portrait-laden parlors of the White House, taking you on a gender odyssey you won't soon forget. With the snarky voice and wrenching vulnerability that have made them a media sensation, Jacob shatters the long-held notion that people are easily sortable into "men" and "women." Sissy guarantees that you'll never think about gender--both other people's and your own--the same way again.]]> 336 Jacob Tobia 0735218838 Rhea 4 biography, gender, popculture 4.02 2019 Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story
author: Jacob Tobia
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2021/01/04
date added: 2023/07/10
shelves: biography, gender, popculture
review:

]]> <![CDATA[It Never Goes Away: Gender Transition at a Mature Age]]> 45887427 219 Anne Lauren Koch 0813598427 Rhea 4 biography, gender 4.29 It Never Goes Away: Gender Transition at a Mature Age
author: Anne Lauren Koch
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.29
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2020/11/22
date added: 2023/07/10
shelves: biography, gender
review:

]]> <![CDATA[She's Not the Man I Married: My Life with a Transgender Husband]]> 15600453 Boyd's first book, My Husband Betty, explored the relationships of cross-dressing men and their partners. Now, She's Not the Man I Married is both a sequel and a more expansive examination of gender in relationships. It's for couples who are homosexual or heterosexual, and for readers who fall anywhere along the gender continuum.
As Boyd struggles to understand the nature of marriage, passion, and love, she shares her confusion and anger, providing a fascinating observation of the ways in which relationships are gendered, and how we cope, or don't, with the emotional and sexual pressures that gender roles can bring to our marriages and relationships.]]> 322 Helen Boyd Rhea 0 biography, gender 4.07 2007 She's Not the Man I Married: My Life with a Transgender Husband
author: Helen Boyd
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/10
shelves: biography, gender
review:

]]> Conundrum 19092011 One of the first-ever books on gender transition, this poignant memoir by a trans woman is “the best first-hand account ever written by a traveler across the boundaries of sex� (Newsweek). “A profoundly poetic story.� —The New York Times“An exquisite read.� —Maria Popova, The MarginalianThe great travel writer Jan Morris was born James Morris. James Morris distinguished himself in the British military, became a successful and physically daring reporter, climbed mountains, crossed deserts, and established a reputation as a historian of the British empire. He was happily married, with several children. To all appearances, he was not only a man, but a man’s man.Except that appearances, as James Morris had known from early childhood, can be deeply misleading. James Morris had known all his conscious life that at heart he was a woman.Conundrum, one of the earliest books to discuss transsexuality with honesty and without prurience, tells the story of James Morris� hidden life and how he decided to bring it into the open, as he resolved first on a hormone treatment and, second, on risky experimental surgery that would turn him into the woman that he truly was.]]> 193 Jan Morris 1590177126 Rhea 0 biography, gender, popculture 4.26 1974 Conundrum
author: Jan Morris
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1974
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/10
shelves: biography, gender, popculture
review:

]]> <![CDATA[True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism--For Families, Friends, Coworkers, and Helping Professionals]]> 8267137 288 Mildred L. Brown Rhea 0 gender 3.73 1996 True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism--For Families, Friends, Coworkers, and Helping Professionals
author: Mildred L. Brown
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/10
shelves: gender
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Walt and the Promise of Progress City]]> 12914253 374 Sam Gennawey 0615540244 Rhea 3 biography, history 3.97 2011 Walt and the Promise of Progress City
author: Sam Gennawey
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/07/10
shelves: biography, history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Stuck in the Middle With You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders]]> 15799171 New York Times bestseller and acclaimed author Jennifer Finney Boylan returns with a remarkable memoir about gender and parenting, including incredible interviews discussing gender, how families are shaped, and the difficulties and wonders of being human.

A father for ten years, a mother for eight, and for a time in between, neither, or both ("the parental version of the schnoodle, or the cockapoo"), Jennifer Finney Boylan has seen parenthood from both sides of the gender divide. When her two children were young, Boylan came out as transgender, and as Jenny transitioned from a man to a woman and from a father to a mother, her family faced unique challenges and questions. In this thoughtful, tear-jerking, hilarious memoir, Jenny asks what it means to be a father, or a mother, and to what extent gender shades our experiences as parents. "It is my hope," she writes, "that having a father who became a woman in turn helped my sons become better men."

Through both her own story and incredibly insightful interviews with others, including Richard Russo, Edward Albee, Ann Beattie, Augusten Burroughs, Susan Minot, Trey Ellis, Timothy Kreider, and more, Jenny examines relationships with fathers and mothers, people's memories of the children they were and the parents they became, and the many different ways a family can be. Followed by an Afterword by Anna Quindlen that includes Jenny and her wife discussing the challenges they've faced and the love they share, Stuck in the Middle with You is a brilliant meditation on raising � and on being � a child.]]> 304 Jennifer Finney Boylan 0767921763 Rhea 5 popculture, gender, biography 3.75 2013 Stuck in the Middle With You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders
author: Jennifer Finney Boylan
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/07/10
shelves: popculture, gender, biography
review:
For the generation which grew up before the millennium and transitioned thereafter Boylan's books are a touchstone. This book collects memoirs of (and nearby to) those who have crossed this social divide, sharing their pain, wisdom and joy.
]]> Tea and Transition 25656067
This is a marvelously candid memoir of gender and acceptance; one that breaks down many complex issues, though it is her enchanting British humor that makes them such a joy to read. Inner and outer recognition is uncovered through dating debacles, painful family discussions, and trips to Victoria’s Secret. Challenges of pesky pronouns, passport humiliation and underwhelming cup sizes test her spirit yet her charismatic wit never wanes. There are laugh out loud moments, heart-wrenching ones too as she tussles with the balance between he and she, and how gender is perceived—for herself and for those around her.

Back in the 80s and 90s Chase was a globe-trotting DJ who played exotic clubs in the Middle East and southern China, then an indie music radio host in Hong Kong. However, having played at rooftop parties for sheiks, been a maestro in the clubs, and a household name on the airwaves, it was only after relocating to New York that the real journey began.

Why was he feeling like a she? The feeling wouldn’t go away. Then the first cross-dressing steps into Manhattan as a woman. Embarrassing wigs, stares on the subway, and heels an inch from respectability. Through painful, unexpected, and hilarious experiences, a tipping point of gender was reached. But how to tell those who knew her as a man before?

Friends were both won and lost, but the biggest announcement was over a cup of Earl Grey: the excruciating moment of disclosure with her 80-year old mother. The devolution and rebuilding of that amazing relationship is one of the most heart-rending threads of this book.

Humor drives her forward as she explores the New York dating life as a woman. She gets thrown out of a strip club as a perceived threat to business, initiates her first bikini moment, and has a love match at the US Open Tennis Championships. Puberty happens for a renewed time in a different gender, and with that, dodgy fashion choices and overzealous make-up. She was a 16 year old girl in her 40s.

As she considers life changing surgery, one moment of epiphany ensues, yet clarity comes with a kick. What would be next?

There are martinis on top of the world, the pyramids at dawn, and high-speed motorbike rides through Asian back streets, but Tea and Transition is far more than a globetrotting travelogue or another tale of a right-soul-in-the-wrong-body. This is a wonderfully personal journey through places beyond the physical. Of change and the human spirit, love and family values, and how one man became one woman.]]> 316 Nicola Jane Chase 1941536999 Rhea 0 biography, gender 4.43 2015 Tea and Transition
author: Nicola Jane Chase
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/10
shelves: biography, gender
review:

]]> In the Darkroom 30194254 PULITZER PRIZE FINALISTONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEARWINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZEFrom the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author of Backlash, comes In the Darkroom, an astonishing confrontation with the enigma of her father and the larger riddle of identity consuming our age.“In the summer of 2004 I set out to investigate someone I scarcely knew, my father. The project began with a grievance, the grievance of a daughter whose parent had absconded from her life. I was in pursuit of a scofflaw, an artful dodger who had skipped out on so many things—obligation, affection, culpability, contrition. I was preparing an indictment, amassing discovery for a trial. But somewhere along the line, the prosecutor became a witness.� So begins Susan Faludi’s extraordinary inquiry into the meaning of identity in the modern world and in her own haunted family saga. When the feminist writer learned that her 76-year-old father—long estranged and living in Hungary—had undergone sex reassignment surgery, that investigation would turn personal and urgent. How was this new parent who identified as “a complete woman now� connected to the silent, explosive, and ultimately violent father she had known, the photographer who’d built his career on the alteration of images? Faludi chases that mystery into the recesses of her suburban childhood and her father’s many previous American dad, Alpine mountaineer, swashbuckling adventurer in the Amazon outback, Jewish fugitive in Holocaust Budapest. When the author travels to Hungary to reunite with her father, she drops into a labyrinth of dark histories and dangerous politics in a country hell-bent on repressing its past and constructing a fanciful—and virulent—nationhood. The search for identity that has transfixed our century was proving as treacherous for nations as for individuals. Faludi’s struggle to come to grips with her father’s metamorphosis takes her across borders—historical, political, religious, sexual--to bring her face to face with the question of the Is identity something you “choose,� or is it the very thing you can’t escape?]]> 432 Susan Faludi 0805095993 Rhea 0 gender, biography 3.99 2016 In the Darkroom
author: Susan Faludi
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/10
shelves: gender, biography
review:

]]> <![CDATA[She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders]]> 54935 The exuberant memoir of a man named James who became a woman named Jenny.

She’s Not There is the story of a person changing genders, the story of a person bearing and finally revealing a complex secret; above all, it is a love story.

By turns funny and deeply moving, Jennifer Finney Boylan explores the remarkable territory that lies between men and women, examines changing friendships, and rejoices in the redeeming power of family. She’s Not There is a portrait of a loving marriage—the love of James for his wife, Grace, and, against all odds, the enduring love of Grace for the woman who becomes her "sister," Jenny.

To this extraordinary true story, Boylan brings the humorous, fresh voice that won her accolades as one of the best comic novelists of her generation. With her distinctive and winning perspective, She’s Not There explores the dramatic outward changes and unexpected results of life as a woman: Jenny fights the urge to eat salad, while James consumed plates of ribs; gone is the stability of "one damn mood, all the damn time."

While Boylan’s own secret was unusual, to say the least, she captures the universal sense of feeling uncomfortable, out of sorts with the world, and misunderstood by her peers. Jenny is supported on her journey by her best friend, novelist Richard Russo, who goes from begging his friend to "Be a man" (in every sense of the word) to accepting her as an attractive, buoyant woman. "The most unexpected thing," Russo writes in his Afterword to the book, "is in how Jenny’s story we recognize our shared humanity."

As James evolves into Jennifer in scenes that are by turns tender, startling, and witty, a marvelously human perspective emerges on issues of love, sex, and the fascinating relationship between our physical and our intuitive selves. Through the clear eyes of a truly remarkable woman, She’s Not There provides a new window on the often confounding process of accepting ourselves.]]> 320 Jennifer Finney Boylan 0767914295 Rhea 5 gender 3.93 2003 She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders
author: Jennifer Finney Boylan
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/07/10
shelves: gender
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality]]> 45861624 Myths of Gender argues that even the most fundamental knowledge about sex is shaped by the culture in which scientific knowledge is produced.Drawing on astonishing real-life cases and a probing analysis of centuries of scientific research, Fausto-Sterling demonstrates how scientists have historically politicized the body. In lively and impassioned prose, she breaks down three key dualisms - sex/gender, nature/nurture, and real/constructed - and asserts that individuals born as mixtures of male and female exist as one of five natural human variants and, as such, should not be forced to compromise their differences to fit a flawed societal definition of normality.]]> 496 Anne Fausto-Sterling Rhea 0 history, popculture, gender 4.75 2000 Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality
author: Anne Fausto-Sterling
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.75
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/10
shelves: history, popculture, gender
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Escape from Yokai Land (Laundry Files, #6.5)]]> 55967850
Escape from Puroland explains what he was doing there.

Bob's been assigned to work with the Miyamoto Group, checking the wards that lock down Japan's warded sites—a task previously handled by his predecessor Dr. Angleton, the Eater of Souls. This mostly involves policing yokai: traditional magical beings, increasingly grown more annoying and energetic.

But then Bob's simple trip turns into a deadly confrontation with the ultimate yokai. It's massively powerful. It's pink. And it says "Hello."]]> 96 Charles Stross Rhea 0 4.09 2022 Escape from Yokai Land (Laundry Files, #6.5)
author: Charles Stross
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/07/10
date added: 2023/07/10
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]]> The Ministry for the Future 59355202 The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, postapocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us. Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of the year, this extraordinary novel from visionary science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson will change the way you think about the climate crisis.]]> 577 Kim Stanley Robinson 0316300160 Rhea 0 4.06 2020 The Ministry for the Future
author: Kim Stanley Robinson
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2023/07/10
date added: 2023/07/10
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]]> The Spare Man 41892799 384 Mary Robinette Kowal 125082916X Rhea 4 3.95 2022 The Spare Man
author: Mary Robinette Kowal
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/09
date added: 2023/07/09
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #2)]]> 53086262 Harrow the Ninth, the sequel to the sensational, USA today best-selling novel Gideon the Ninth, turns a galaxy inside out as one necromancer struggles to survive the wreckage of herself aboard the Emperor's haunted space station.

She answered the Emperor's call.

She arrived with her arts, her wits, and her only friend.

In victory, her world has turned to ash.

After rocking the cosmos with her deathly debut, Tamsyn Muir continues the story of the penumbral Ninth House in Harrow the Ninth, a mind-twisting puzzle box of mystery, murder, magic, and mayhem. Nothing is as it seems in the halls of the Emperor, and the fate of the galaxy rests on one woman's shoulders.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, last necromancer of the Ninth House, has been drafted by her Emperor to fight an unwinnable war. Side-by-side with a detested rival, Harrow must perfect her skills and become an angel of undeath � but her health is failing, her sword makes her nauseous, and even her mind is threatening to betray her.

Sealed in the gothic gloom of the Emperor's Mithraeum with three unfriendly teachers, hunted by the mad ghost of a murdered planet, Harrow must confront two unwelcome is somebody trying to kill her? And if they succeeded, would the universe be better off?

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 512 Tamsyn Muir Rhea 0 4.28 2020 Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #2)
author: Tamsyn Muir
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2023/05/24
date added: 2023/05/24
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]]> Mad Honey 60214567 464 Jodi Picoult 1984818392 Rhea 0 4.20 2022 Mad Honey
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/04/08
date added: 2023/04/08
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]]> <![CDATA[The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)]]> 58709846 The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience the Hugo Award-winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin.

Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.]]> 400 Liu Cixin Rhea 4 4.15 2006 The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)
author: Liu Cixin
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/19
date added: 2022/12/19
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)]]> 55710230
The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.

Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead nonsense.

Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth unveils a solar system of swordplay, cut-throat politics, and lesbian necromancers. Her characters leap off the page, as skillfully animated as arcane revenants. The result is a heart-pounding epic science fantasy.

Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won’t set her free without a service.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will be become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon’s sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.]]> 479 Tamsyn Muir Rhea 4 4.26 2019 Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)
author: Tamsyn Muir
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/26
date added: 2022/12/04
shelves:
review:

]]> Terminal Boredom: Stories 55251809 The first English language publication of the work of Izumi Suzuki, a legend of Japanese science fiction and a countercultural icon.

In a future where men are contained in ghettoised isolation, women enjoy the fruits of a queer matriarchal utopia—until a boy escapes and a young woman’s perception of the world is violently interrupted.

The last family in a desolate city struggles to approximate twentieth- century life on Earth, lifting what notions they can from 1960s popular culture. But beneath these badly learned behaviours lies an atavistic appetite for destruction.

Two new friends enjoy drinks on a holiday resort planet where all is not as it seems, and the air itself seems to carry a treacherously potent nostalgia.

Back on Earth, Emma’s not certain if her emotionally abusive, green-haired boyfriend is in fact an intergalactic alien spy, or if she’s been hitting the bottles and baggies too hard.

And in the title story, the tyranny of enforced screen-time and the mechanisation of labour foster a cold-hearted and ultimately tragic disaffection among the youth of Tokyo.

Nonchalantly hip and full of deranged prescience, Suzuki’s singular slant on speculative fiction would be echoed in countless later works, from Neuromancer to The Handmaid’s Tale. In these darkly playful and punky stories, the fantastical elements are always grounded in the universal pettiness of strife between the sexes, and the gritty reality of life on the lower rungs, whatever planet that ladder might be on.]]> 240 Izumi Suzuki 1788739906 Rhea 0 3.52 2021 Terminal Boredom: Stories
author: Izumi Suzuki
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/05/24
date added: 2022/05/24
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]]> <![CDATA[I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted]]> 1038316 From the bestselling author of She's Not There comes another buoyant, unforgettable memoir�I'm Looking Through You is about growing up in a haunted house...and making peace with the ghosts that dwell in our hearts.

For Jennifer Boylan, creaking stairs, fleeting images in the mirror, and the remote whisper of human voices were everyday events in the Pennsylvania house in which she grew up in the 1970s. But these weren't the only specters beneath the roof of the mansion known as the "Coffin House." Jenny herself—born James—lived in a haunted body, and both her mysterious, diffident father and her wild, unpredictable sister would soon become ghosts to Jenny as well.

I'm Looking Through You is an engagingly candid investigation of what it means to be "haunted." Looking back on the spirits who invaded her family home, Boylan launches a full investigation with the help of a group of earnest, if questionable, ghostbusters. Boylan also examines the ways we find connections between the people we once were and the people we become. With wit and eloquence, Boylan shows us how love, forgiveness, and humor help us find peace—with our ghosts, with our loved ones, and with the uncanny boundaries, real and imagined, between men and women.]]> 288 Jennifer Finney Boylan 0767921747 Rhea 0 to-read 3.69 2008 I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted
author: Jennifer Finney Boylan
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Eat, Pray, Love 32728835
Around the time Elizabeth Gilbert turned thirty, she went through an early-onslaught midlife crisis. She had everything an educated, ambitious American woman was supposed to want—a husband, a house, a successful career. But instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she was consumed with panic, grief, and confusion. She went through a divorce, a crushing depression, another failed love, and the eradication of everything she ever thought she was supposed to be.

To recover from all this, Gilbert took a radical step. In order to give herself the time and space to find out who she really was and what she really wanted, she got rid of her belongings, quit her job, and undertook a yearlong journey around the world—all alone. Eat, Pray, Love is the absorbing chronicle of that year. Her aim was to visit three places where she could examine one aspect of her own nature set against the backdrop of a culture that has traditionally done that one thing very well. In Rome, she studied the art of pleasure, learning to speak Italian and gaining the twenty-three happiest pounds of her life. India was for the art of devotion, and with the help of a native guru and a surprisingly wise cowboy from Texas, she embarked on four uninterrupted months of spiritual exploration. In Bali, she studied the art of balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence. She became the pupil of an elderly medicine man and also fell in love the best way—unexpectedly.

An intensely articulate and moving memoir of self-discovery, Eat, Pray, Love is about what can happen when you claim responsibility for your own contentment and stop trying to live in imitation of society’s ideals. It is certain to touch anyone who has ever woken up to the unrelenting need for change.]]> 387 Elizabeth Gilbert Rhea 0 currently-reading 4.05 2006 Eat, Pray, Love
author: Elizabeth Gilbert
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/03/06
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Committed 8170778 The #1ĚýNew York TimesĚýbestselling follow-up toĚýEat Pray Loveâ€�an intimate and erudite celebration of love from the author of Big Magic and City of Girls.Ěý

At the end of her bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe, a Brazilian-born man of Australian citizenship who'd been living in Indonesia when they met. Resettling in America, the couple swore eternal fidelity to each other, but also swore to never, ever, under any circumstances get legally married. (Both were survivors of previous bad divorces. Enough said.) But providence intervened one day in the form of the United States government, which-after unexpectedly detaining Felipe at an American border crossing-gave the couple a they could either get married, or Felipe would never be allowed to enter the country again. Having been effectively sentenced to wed, Gilbert tackled her fears of marriage by delving into this topic completely, trying with all her might to discover through historical research, interviews, and much personal reflection what this stubbornly enduring old institution actually is. Told with Gilbert's trademark wit, intelligence and compassion, Committed attempts to "turn on all the lights" when it comes to matrimony, frankly examining questions of compatibility, infatuation, fidelity, family tradition, social expectations, divorce risks and humbling responsibilities. Gilbert's memoir is ultimately a clear-eyed celebration of love with all the complexity and consequence that real love, in the real world, actually entails.]]> 305 Elizabeth Gilbert 1101189835 Rhea 0 currently-reading 3.67 2009 Committed
author: Elizabeth Gilbert
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/06
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Lost City of the Monkey God]]> 40873920 A five-hundred-year-old legend. An ancient curse. A stunning medical mystery. And a pioneering journey into the unknown heart of the world's densest jungle.

Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found the Lost City of the Monkey God-but then committed suicide without revealing its location.

Three quarters of a century later, author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a rickety, single-engine plane carrying the machine that would change everything: lidar, a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization.

Venturing into this raw, treacherous, but breathtakingly beautiful wilderness to confirm the discovery, Preston and the team battled torrential rains, quickmud, disease-carrying insects, jaguars, and deadly snakes. But it wasn't until they returned that tragedy struck: Preston and others found they had contracted in the ruins a horrifying, sometimes lethal-and incurable-disease.]]> 326 Douglas Preston Rhea 5 3.95 2017 The Lost City of the Monkey God
author: Douglas Preston
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2022/02/09
date added: 2022/02/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Carbide Tipped Pens: Seventeen Tales of Hard Science Fiction]]> 23776824 Seventeen hard science fiction tales by today's top authorsHard science fiction is the literature of change, rigorously examining the impact-both beneficial and dangerous-of science and technology on humanity, the future, and the cosmos. As science advances, expanding our knowledge of the universe, astounding new frontiers in storytelling open up as well.In Carbide Tipped Pens, over a dozen of today's most creative imaginations explore these frontiers, carrying on the grand tradition of such legendary masters as Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and John W. Campbell, while bringing hard science fiction into the 21st century by extrapolating from the latest scientific developments and discoveries. Ranging from ancient China to the outer reaches of the solar system, this outstanding collection of original stories, written by an international roster of authors, finds wonder, terror, and gripping human drama in topics as diverse as space exploration, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, climate change, alternate history, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, interplanetary war, and even the future of baseball. From tattoos that treat allergies to hazardous missions to Mars and beyond, from the end of the world to the farthest limits of human invention, Carbide Tipped Pens turns startling new ideas into state-of-the art science fiction.Includes short stories by Ben Bova, Gregory Benford, Robert Reed, Aliette de Bodard, Jack McDevitt, Howard Hendrix, Daniel H. Wilson, and many others!At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 401 Ben Bova 146681019X Rhea 3 3.85 2014 Carbide Tipped Pens: Seventeen Tales of Hard Science Fiction
author: Ben Bova
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2022/01/19
date added: 2022/01/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Insecure Mind of Sergei Kraev]]> 58214503
The year is 2100. The lack of trust that characterized the early Internet era is long behind us. Mathematical proof ensures neural implants can't be hacked, and the Board of Reality Overseers blocks false information from spreading.

When undergraduate Sergei Kraev, who dreams of becoming a professor, is accepted into the Technion's computer science graduate program, he throws himself into his research project: making it possible for neural implants to transmit information directly to the brain. If he succeeds, he'll earn a full professorship.

But Sergei falls under the influence of Sunny Kim, the beautiful and charismatic leader of a K-pop dance cult. Sergei believes in Sunny's good intentions and wants to protect her from critics, leading him to perform a feat of engineering that leaves billions of brains vulnerable to attack.

With the clock ticking towards catastrophe, can Sergei see the truth about Sunny and undo what he's done?

Weaving together compelling characters and spanning decades and continents, The Insecure Mind of Sergei Kraev is a classic tale of love, ambition, and self-interest building to a shattering finish.]]> 392 Eric Silberstein 1737351927 Rhea 5 4.19 2021 The Insecure Mind of Sergei Kraev
author: Eric Silberstein
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2021/12/29
date added: 2021/12/29
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]]> <![CDATA[The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the Nineteenth Century]]> 24225524 The Railway Journey, Schivelbusch examines the origins of this industrialized consciousness by exploring the reaction in the nineteenth century to the first dramatic avatar of technological change, the railroad.

In a highly original and engaging fashion, Schivelbusch discusses the ways in which our perceptions of distance, time, autonomy, speed, and risk were altered by railway travel. As a history of the surprising ways in which technology and culture interact, this book covers a wide range of topics, including the changing perception of landscapes, the death of conversation while traveling, the problematic nature of the railway compartment, the space of glass architecture, the pathology of the railway journey, industrial fatigue and the history of shock, and the railroad and the city.

Belonging to a distinguished European tradition of critical sociology best exemplified by the work of Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin, The Railway Journey is anchored in rich empirical data and full of striking insights about railway travel, the industrial revolution, and technological change. Now updated with a new preface,ĚýThe Railway Journey is an invaluable resource for readers interested in nineteenth-century culture and technology and the prehistory of modern media and digitalization.]]> 247 Wolfgang Schivelbusch 0520957903 Rhea 4 3.57 1977 The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the Nineteenth Century
author: Wolfgang Schivelbusch
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1977
rating: 4
read at: 2021/12/23
date added: 2021/12/23
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]]> <![CDATA[The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man]]> 28460427 Featuring 15 explosive new chapters, this new edition of the New York Times bestseller brings the story of Economic Hit Men up-to-date and, chillingly, home to the U.S.―but it also gives us hope and the tools to fight back.The previous edition of this now-classic book revealed the existence and subversive manipulations of "economic hit men. John Perkins wrote that they are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. In Perkins's case the tool was debt-convincing strategically important countries to borrow huge amounts of money for enormous, development projects that served the very rich while driving the country deeper into poverty and debt. And once indebted, these countries could be controlled. In this latest edition, Perkins provides revealing new details about how he and others did their work. But more importantly, in an explosive new section he describes how the EHM tools are being used around the world more widely than ever-even in the U. S. itself. The cancer has metastasized, yet most people still aren't aware of it. Fear and debt drive the EHM system. We are hammered with messages that terrify us into believing that we must pay any price, assume any debt, to stop the enemies who, we are told, lurk at our doorsteps. The EHM system-employing false economics, bribes, surveillance, deception, debt, coups, assassinations, unbridled military power-has become the dominant system of economics, government, and society today. It has created what Perkins calls a Death Economy. But Perkins offers he concludes with dozens of specific, concrete suggestions for actions all of us can take to wrest control of our world away from the economic hit men, and help give birth to a Life Economy.]]> 385 John Perkins 1626566763 Rhea 3 4.05 2016 The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
author: John Perkins
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2021/12/21
date added: 2021/12/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA]]> 8135743 999 Tim Weiner Rhea 5 4.10 2007 Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
author: Tim Weiner
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2021/11/21
date added: 2021/11/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League, Et Al: A Compendium of Evils]]> 57429217 A world-class hero confronts ancient "supernatural" evils in an adventure that spans entire planets and defies everyday notions of reality!Still mourning the losses of his beloved Penny Priddy and his surrogate father Professor Hikita, Buckaroo Banzai must also contend with the constant threat of attack from his immortal nemesis Hanoi Xan, ruthless leader of the World Crime League. To make matters worse, Planet 10 warrior queen John Emdall has sent her Lectroid legions against Earth with a brutal ultimatum. Or is her true target Buckaroo Banzai? As the apocalyptic threats continue to mount, only Buckaroo and his Hong Kong Cavaliers stand in the way of global destruction. The long-awaited sequel to The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is finally here after more than 35 years! As told by the Reno Kid to Buckaroo Banzai chronicler E.M. Rauch, this tale follows everyone's favorite scientist-surgeon-entertainer-daredevil as he sets off on a brand-new hair-raising adventure!]]> 632 Earl Mac Rauch 1506722148 Rhea 0 to-read 2.19 2021 Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League, Et Al: A Compendium of Evils
author: Earl Mac Rauch
name: Rhea
average rating: 2.19
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/11/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century]]> 350025 240 Wolfgang Schivelbusch 0520203542 Rhea 0 to-read 4.19 1983 Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century
author: Wolfgang Schivelbusch
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1983
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/10/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Relentless Moon (Lady Astronaut Universe #3)]]> 50881172
The Earth is coming to the boiling point as the climate disaster of the Meteor strike becomes more and more clear, but the political situation is already overheated. Riots and sabotage plague the space program. The IAC’s goal of getting as many people as possible off Earth before it becomes uninhabitable is being threatened.

Elma York is on her way to Mars, but the Moon colony is still being established. Her friend and fellow Lady Astronaut Nicole Wargin is thrilled to be one of those pioneer settlers, using her considerable flight and political skills to keep the program on track. But she is less happy that her husband, the Governor of Kansas, is considering a run for President.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 538 Mary Robinette Kowal 1250236487 Rhea 4 4.45 2020 The Relentless Moon (Lady Astronaut Universe #3)
author: Mary Robinette Kowal
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/09/18
date added: 2021/09/18
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]]> Vertical Run 12337798 They're wrong. Dave was once a soldier, a Green Beret to be exact, and his old instincts are coming back. As his pursuers will soon learn, Dave doesn't intend to die quietly - or alone - and not before he gets some answers.]]> 322 Joseph R. Garber Rhea 3 3.98 1995 Vertical Run
author: Joseph R. Garber
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1995
rating: 3
read at: 2021/09/05
date added: 2021/09/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Under the Skin (An Elizabeth Goodweather Appalachian Mystery, #6)]]> 11742180
Elizabeth Goodweather and her city-girl sister, Gloria, couldn’t be more different. Elizabeth lives on a farm in the Great Smoky Mountains. Gloria lives in Florida off an ex-husband’s fortune. Gloria is a beauty; Elizabeth isn’t. Now, to Elizabeth’s intense displeasure, Gloria parks herself at Full Circle Farm, on the run from her latest man, who, she insists, is trying to kill her. Elizabeth thinks this is just another of her sister’s fantasies. Besides, Elizabeth has her wedding to plan—if only she can overcome her fear that the man who already shares her life may not be what he appears to be. At this precarious crossroads, the sisters must turn to each other—or face a lifetime of consequences.]]> 400 Vicki Lane Rhea 0 crime, fiction, to-read 3.94 2011 Under the Skin (An Elizabeth Goodweather Appalachian Mystery, #6)
author: Vicki Lane
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/09/01
shelves: crime, fiction, to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity]]> 29465033 This classic manifesto is “a foundational text for anyone hoping to understand transgender politics and culture in the U.S. today.â€� (NPR)*Named as one of 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of All Time by Ms. Magazine* Ěý In Whipping Girl, biologist and trans activist Julia Serano shares her experiences and insights—both pre- and post-transition—to reveal the ways in which fear, suspicion, and dismissiveness toward femininity shape our attitudes toward trans women, as well as gender and sexuality as a whole. Serano's well-honed arguments and pioneering advocacy stem from her ability to bridge the gap between the often-disparate biological and social perspectives on gender. In this provocative manifesto, she exposes how deep-rooted the cultural belief is that femininity is frivolous, weak, and passive. In addition to debunking popular misconceptions about being transgender, Serano makes the case that today's feminists and transgender activists must work to embrace and empower femininity—in all of its wondrous forms. Ěý]]> 414 Julia Serano Rhea 0 currently-reading 4.51 2007 Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity
author: Julia Serano
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/09/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician #1)]]> 22521286 Yet the spells Ceony learns under the strange yet kind Thane turn out to be more marvelous than she could have ever imagined—animating paper creatures, bringing stories to life via ghostly images, even reading fortunes. But as she discovers these wonders, Ceony also learns of the extraordinary dangers of forbidden magic.

An Excisioner—a practitioner of dark, flesh magic—invades the cottage and rips Thane’s heart from his chest. To save her teacher’s life, Ceony must face the evil magician and embark on an unbelievable adventure that will take her into the chambers of Thane’s still-beating heart—and reveal the very soul of the man.


From the imaginative mind of debut author Charlie N. Holmberg, The Paper Magician is an extraordinary adventure both dark and whimsical that will delight readers of all ages.

Short-Listed for the 2015 ALA Fantasy Reading List

]]> 234 Charlie N. Holmberg 147787383X Rhea 3 3.84 2014 The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician #1)
author: Charlie N. Holmberg
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2021/08/30
date added: 2021/08/30
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]]> The Peripheral (Jackpot #1) 22010718 William Gibson returns with his first novel since 2010’s New York Times–b±đ˛őłŮ˛ő±đ±ô±ôľ±˛Ô˛µ Zero History.


Where Flynne and her brother, Burton, live, jobs outside the drug business are rare. Fortunately, Burton has his veteran’s benefits, for neural damage he suffered from implants during his time in the USMC’s elite Haptic Recon force. Then one night Burton has to go out, but there’s a job he’s supposed to do—a job Flynne didn’t know he had. Beta-testing part of a new game, he tells her. The job seems to be simple: work a perimeter around the image of a tower building. Little buglike things turn up. He’s supposed to get in their way, edge them back. That’s all there is to it. He’s offering Flynne a good price to take over for him. What she sees, though, isn’t what Burton told her to expect. It might be a game, but it might also be murder.
]]> 496 William Gibson 0698170709 Rhea 4 4.14 2014 The Peripheral (Jackpot #1)
author: William Gibson
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2021/08/28
date added: 2021/08/28
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]]> <![CDATA[Stories of Your Life and Others]]> 18626849 Stories of Your Life and Others delivers dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar, often presenting characters who must confront sudden change—the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens—with some sense of normalcy.

With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty, but also by beauty and wonder. An award-winning collection from one of today's most lauded writers, Stories of Your Life and Others is a contemporary classic.

Contents:
Tower of Babylon --
Understand --
Division by Zero --
Story of Your Life --
Seventy-Two Letters --
The Evolution of Human Science --
Hell is the Absence of God --
Liking What You See: A Documentary --
Story Notes.]]> 285 Ted Chiang Rhea 4 4.31 2002 Stories of Your Life and Others
author: Ted Chiang
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2021/02/26
date added: 2021/02/26
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]]> Agency (Jackpot #2) 34943643 New York Times bestselling The Peripheral, a gifted "app-whisperer" is hired by a mysterious San Francisco start-up and finds herself in contact with a unique and surprisingly combat-savvy AI.]]> 413 William Gibson 1101986956 Rhea 4 3.81 2020 Agency (Jackpot #2)
author: William Gibson
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2020/12/19
date added: 2020/12/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Dead Lies Dreaming (Laundry Files #10; The New Management, #1)]]> 49993380 In a world where magic has gone mainstream, a policewoman and a group of petty criminals are pulled into a heist to find a forbidden book of spells that should never be opened.

The secret agents of the Laundry Files novels were unable to stop magic becoming public knowledge - in book one of this new series by Charles Stross, the repercussions of that failure are felt by ordinary people everywhere, as the world slides unknowingly towards occult cataclysm...

]]> 376 Charles Stross 1250267013 Rhea 4 4.13 2020 Dead Lies Dreaming (Laundry Files #10; The New Management, #1)
author: Charles Stross
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2020/12/10
date added: 2020/12/10
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]]> <![CDATA[The John Varley Reader: Thirty Years of Short Fiction]]> 55025255 The Ophiuchi Hotline, and many other important works span thirty years of his distinguished career. In these pages are Hugo, Nebula, Prix Tour-Apollo, and James Tiptree Jr. Award winners, including "The Persistence of Vision," "PRESS ENTER [ ]," "The Pusher," and "The Barbie Murders," among other outstanding works of speculative short fiction. As a valuable bonus, each story includes an autobiographical introduction by the author.

Stories:
Picnic on Nearside
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
In the Hall of the Martian Kings
Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance
The Barbie Murders
The Phantom of Kansas
Beatnik Bayou
Air Raid
The Persistence of Vision
Press Enter
The Pusher
Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo
Options
Just Another Perfect Day
In Fading Suns and Dying Moons
The Flying Dutchman
Good Intentions
The Bellman]]> 548 John Varley 1504063414 Rhea 0 to-read 4.19 2004 The John Varley Reader: Thirty Years of Short Fiction
author: John Varley
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/11/20
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]]> <![CDATA[The Naked God (Night's Dawn, #3)]]> 8161932 The Naked God is the brilliant climax to Peter F. Hamilton's awe-inspiring Night's Dawn Trilogy, a space opera that is “big, boisterous, and has something for everyoneâ€� (Science Fiction Weekly). ĚýAs the Confederation begins to collapse politically and economically, the “possessedâ€� insidiously infiltrate more and more worlds.Meanwhile, Quinn Dexter is loose on Earth, destroying the giant arcologies one at a time. As Louise Kavanagh tries to track him down, she manages to acquire some strange and powerful allies whose goals don’t quite match her own.ĚýThe campaign to liberate Mortonridge from the possessed degenerates into a horrendous land battle, the kind which hasn't been seen by humankind for six hundred years.ĚýAnd finally, Joshua Calvert and Syrinx race to fly their starships on a mission to find the Sleeping God â€� which an alien race believes holds the key to overthrowing the possessed.Ěý"Elements of space opera, Straubesque horror and adrenaline-laced action make this a demanding, rewarding read." —Publishers Weekly on The Reality DysfunctionĚýĚýThe Night’s Dawn TrilogyThe Reality DysfunctionThe Neutronium AlchemistThe Naked God]]> 1364 Peter F. Hamilton Rhea 0 4.27 1999 The Naked God (Night's Dawn, #3)
author: Peter F. Hamilton
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/09/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed]]> 101438 382 Ben R. Rich Rhea 0 4.45 1994 Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed
author: Ben R. Rich
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.45
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories]]> 8357651 "Vivid and amusing...Magically funny."-Ursula K. LeGuin, Los Angeles Times An enchanting collection of stories, set in the same world, from the author of the award-winning, internationally bestselling Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.Following the international bestseller Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke returns with an enchanting collection of stories brimming with all the ingredients of good fairy petulant princesses, vengeful owls, ladies who pass their time in embroidering terrible fates, endless paths in deep, dark woods, and houses that never appear the same way twice. The heroines and heroes who must grapple with these problems include the Duke of Wellington, a conceited Regency clergyman, an eighteenth-century Jewish doctor, and Mary Queen of Scots, as well as two characters from Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell; Strange himself and the Raven King. The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories introduces readers to a world where charm is always tempered by eerieness, and picaresque comedy is always darkened by the disturbing shadow of Faerie.]]> 256 Susanna Clarke 1596917458 Rhea 0 to-read 4.00 2006 The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/09/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance between the Vatican, the CIA, and the Mafia]]> 22245430
Williams argues that Operation Gladio soon gave rise to the toppling of governments, wholesale genocide, the formation of death squads, financial scandals on a grand scale, the creation of the mujahideen, an international narcotics network, and, most recently, the ascendancy of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a Jesuit cleric with strong ties to Operation Condor (an outgrowth of Gladio in Argentina) as Pope Francis I.

Sure to be controversial, Operation Gladio connects the dots in ways the mainstream media often overlooks.]]> 381 Paul L. Williams 1616149744 Rhea 0 to-read 4.03 2015 Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance between the Vatican, the CIA, and the Mafia
author: Paul L. Williams
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/09/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Rule of Capture (Dystopian Lawyer, #1)]]> 43789390 Better Call Saul meets Nineteen Eighty-Four in this first volume in an explosive legal thriller series set in the world of Tropic of Kansas—a finalist for the 2018 Campbell Award for best science fiction novel of the year.

Defeated in a devastating war with China, America is on the brink of a bloody civil war. Seizing power after a controversial election, the ruling regime has begun cracking down on dissidents fighting the nation’s slide toward dictatorship. For Donny Kimoe, chaos is good for business. He’s a lawyer who makes his living defending enemies of the state.

His newest client, young filmmaker Xelina Rocafuerte, witnessed the murder of an opposition leader and is now accused of terrorism. To save her from the only sentence worse than death, Donny has to extract justice from a system that has abandoned the rule of law. That means breaking the rules—and risking the same fate as his clients.

When Donny bungles Xelina’s initial hearing, he has only days to save the young woman from being transferred to a detention camp from which no one returns. His only chance of winning is to find the truth—a search that begins with the opposition leader’s death and leads to a dark conspiracy reaching the highest echelons of power.

Now, Donny isn’t just fighting for his client’s life—he’s battling for his own. But as the trial in the top secret court begins, Xelina’s friends set into motion a revolutionary response that could destroy the case. And when another case unexpectedly collides with Xelina’s, Donny uncovers even more devastating secrets, knowledge that will force him to choose between saving one client . . . or the future of the entire country.]]> 336 Christopher Brown Rhea 0 to-read 3.78 2019 Rule of Capture (Dystopian Lawyer, #1)
author: Christopher Brown
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/08/10
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]]> The Conquest of Happiness 51783 183 Bertrand Russell 0415378478 Rhea 0 to-read 4.06 1930 The Conquest of Happiness
author: Bertrand Russell
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1930
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/07/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer Trilogy, #1)]]> 45107 alternate cover for ISBN 0006480098

Fitz is a royal bastard, cast out into the world with only his magical link with animals for solace and companionship.
But when Fitz is adopted into the royal household, he must give up his old ways and learn a new life: weaponry, scribing, courtly manners; and how to kill a man secretly. Meanwhile, raiders ravage the coasts, leaving the people Forged and soulless. As Fitz grows towards manhood, he will have to face his first terrifying mission, a task that poses as much a risk to himself as it does to his target: Fitz is a threat to the throne� but he may also be the key to the future of the kingdom.

Cover illustration by John Howe

]]> 460 Robin Hobb Rhea 0 to-read 4.14 1995 Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer Trilogy, #1)
author: Robin Hobb
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/06/12
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]]> <![CDATA[A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II]]> 51153322
The target in their sights was Virginia Hall, a Baltimore socialite who talked her way into Special Operations Executive, the spy organization dubbed Winston Churchill's "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare." She became the first Allied woman deployed behind enemy lines and--despite her prosthetic leg--helped to light the flame of the French Resistance, revolutionizing secret warfare as we know it.

Virginia established vast spy networks throughout France, called weapons and explosives down from the skies, and became a linchpin for the Resistance. Even as her face covered wanted posters and a bounty was placed on her head, Virginia refused order after order to evacuate. She finally escaped through a death-defying hike over the Pyrenees into Spain, her cover blown. But she plunged back in, adamant that she had more lives to save, and led a victorious guerilla campaign, liberating swathes of France from the Nazis after D-Day.

Based on new and extensive research, Sonia Purnell has for the first time uncovered the full secret life of Virginia Hall--an astounding and inspiring story of heroism, spycraft, resistance, and personal triumph over shocking adversity.]]> 368 Sonia Purnell 0735225311 Rhea 0 to-read 4.19 2019 A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
author: Sonia Purnell
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology]]> 40740411 The fascinating untold story of how the ancients imagined robots and other forms of artificial life—and even invented real automated machines The first robot to walk the earth was a bronze giant called Talos. This wondrous machine was created not by MIT Robotics Lab, but by Hephaestus, the Greek god of invention. More than 2,500 years ago, long before medieval automata, and centuries before technology made self-moving devices possible, Greek mythology was exploring ideas about creating artificial life—and grappling with still-unresolved ethical concerns about biotechne, “life through craft.� In this compelling, richly illustrated book, Adrienne Mayor tells the fascinating story of how ancient Greek, Roman, Indian, and Chinese myths envisioned artificial life, automata, self-moving devices, and human enhancements—and how these visions relate to and reflect the ancient invention of real animated machines.As early as Homer, Greeks were imagining robotic servants, animated statues, and even ancient versions of Artificial Intelligence, while in Indian legend, Buddha’s precious relics were defended by robot warriors copied from Greco-Roman designs for real automata. Mythic automata appear in tales about Jason and the Argonauts, Medea, Daedalus, Prometheus, and Pandora, and many of these machines are described as being built with the same materials and methods that human artisans used to make tools and statues. And, indeed, many sophisticated animated devices were actually built in antiquity, reaching a climax with the creation of a host of automata in the ancient city of learning, Alexandria, the original Silicon Valley.A groundbreaking account of the earliest expressions of the timeless impulse to create artificial life, Gods and Robots reveals how some of today’s most advanced innovations in robotics and AI were foreshadowed in ancient myth—and how science has always been driven by imagination. This is mythology for the age of AI.]]> 407 Adrienne Mayor 0691185441 Rhea 0 currently-reading 3.67 2018 Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology
author: Adrienne Mayor
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/05/03
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Landscape and Memory 21071
In Landscape and Memory Schama ranges over continents and centuries to reveal the psychic claims that human beings have made on nature. He tells of the Nazi cult of the primeval German forest; the play of Christian and pagan myth in Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers; and the duel between a monumental sculptor and a feminist gadfly on the slopes of Mount Rushmore. The result is a triumphant work of history, naturalism, mythology, and art.

"A work of great ambition and enormous intellectual scope...consistently provocative and revealing."--New York Times

"Extraordinary...a summary cannot convey the riches of this book. It will absorb, instruct, and fascinate."--New York Review of Books]]> 672 Simon Schama 0679735127 Rhea 0 to-read 4.18 1995 Landscape and Memory
author: Simon Schama
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/05/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Jasons: The Secret History of Science's Postwar Elite]]> 8264818 348 Ann Finkbeiner 1101201282 Rhea 3 3.71 2006 The Jasons: The Secret History of Science's Postwar Elite
author: Ann Finkbeiner
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2020/02/15
date added: 2020/02/15
shelves:
review:

]]> Recursion 41941223 A thriller about time, identity, and memory...

Reality is broken.

At first, it looks like a disease. An epidemic that spreads through no known means, driving its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived. But the force that’s sweeping the world is no pathogen. It’s just the first shock wave, unleashed by a stunning discovery—and what’s in jeopardy is not our minds but the very fabric of time itself.

In New York City, Detective Barry Sutton is closing in on the truth—and in a remote laboratory, neuroscientist Helena Smith is unaware that she alone holds the key to this mystery... and the tools for fighting back.

Together, Barry and Helena will have to confront their enemy—before they, and the world, are trapped in a loop of ever-growing chaos.]]> 324 Blake Crouch 1524759805 Rhea 0 to-read 4.26 2019 Recursion
author: Blake Crouch
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Dead Djinn in Cairo (Dead Djinn Universe, #0.1)]]> 30225035 Alex Award-winning author P. Djèlí Clark, A Dead Djinn in Cairo is a Tor.com original historcal fantasy set in an alternate early twentieth century infused with the otherworldly.

Egypt, 1912. In Cairo, the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities investigate disturbances between the mortal and the (possibly) divine.

What starts off as an odd suicide case for Special Investigator Fatma el-Sha’arawi leads her through the city’s underbelly as she encounters rampaging ghouls, saucy assassins, clockwork angels, and a plot that could unravel time itself.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 47 P. Djèlí Clark Rhea 5 4.14 2016 A Dead Djinn in Cairo (Dead Djinn Universe, #0.1)
author: P. Djèlí Clark
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2019/09/25
date added: 2020/01/04
shelves:
review:
An appealing setting and short but clever story.
]]> <![CDATA[The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the Rise of Cyberculture]]> 34950670 ]]> 598 Brian Dear 1101871563 Rhea 4 4.36 2017 The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the Rise of Cyberculture
author: Brian Dear
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2020/01/04
date added: 2020/01/04
shelves:
review:

]]> Equoid (Laundry Files, #2.9) 18583436
At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.]]> 98 Charles Stross Rhea 3 4.03 2013 Equoid (Laundry Files, #2.9)
author: Charles Stross
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2019/12/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Roadside Picnic Revisited: Seven Articles on the Soviet Novel that Inspired the Film "Stalker" (Sirius Fiction Articles)]]> 31360122 58 Michael Andre-Driussi Rhea 0 to-read 2.87 Roadside Picnic Revisited: Seven Articles on the Soviet Novel that Inspired the Film "Stalker" (Sirius Fiction Articles)
author: Michael Andre-Driussi
name: Rhea
average rating: 2.87
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/10/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Rust Maidens 40874196
It’s the summer of 1980 in Cleveland, Ohio, and Phoebe Shaw and her best friend Jacqueline have just graduated high school, only to confront an ugly, uncertain future. Across the city, abandoned factories populate the skyline; meanwhile at the shore, one strong spark, and the Cuyahoga River might catch fire. But none of that compares to what’s happening in their own west side neighborhood. The girls Phoebe and Jacqueline have grown up with are changing. It starts with footprints of dark water on the sidewalk. Then, one by one, the girls� bodies wither away, their fingernails turning to broken glass, and their bones exposed like corroded metal beneath their flesh.

As rumors spread about the grotesque transformations, soon everyone from nosy tourists to clinic doctors and government men start arriving on Denton Street, eager to catch sight of “the Rust Maidens� in metamorphosis. But even with all the onlookers, nobody can explain what’s happening or why—except perhaps the Rust Maidens themselves. Whispering in secret, they know more than they’re telling, and Phoebe realizes her former friends are quietly preparing for something that will tear their neighborhood apart.

Alternating between past and present, Phoebe struggles to unravel the mystery of the Rust Maidens—and her own unwitting role in the transformations—before she loses everything she’s held dear: her home, her best friend, and even perhaps her own body.]]> 252 Gwendolyn Kiste 1947654446 Rhea 0 to-read 3.70 2018 The Rust Maidens
author: Gwendolyn Kiste
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/10/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction]]> 44594661 Frankenstein to The Haunting of Hill HouseĚýand beyond.

Frankenstein was just the beginning: horror stories and other weird fiction wouldn’t exist without the women who created it. From Gothic ghost stories to psychological horror to science fiction, women have been primary architects of speculative literature of all sorts. And their own life stories are as intriguing as their fiction. Everyone knows about Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein, who was rumored to keep her late husband’s heart in her desk drawer. But have you heard ofĚýMargaret “Mad Madgeâ€� Cavendish, who wrote a science-fiction epic 150 years earlier (and liked to wear topless gowns to the theater)? If you know the astounding work ofĚýShirley Jackson, whose novelĚýThe Haunting of Hill House was reinvented as a Netflix series, then try the psychological hauntings ofĚýViolet Paget, who was openly involved in long-term romantic relationships with women in the Victorian era. You’ll meet celebrated icons (Ann Radcliffe, V. C. Andrews), forgotten wordsmiths (Eli Colter, Ruby Jean Jensen), and today’s vanguard (Helen Oyeyemi). Curated reading lists point you to their most spine-chilling tales.

Part biography, part reader’s guide, the engaging write-ups and detailed reading lists will introduce you to more than a hundred authors and over two hundred of their mysterious and spooky novels, novellas, and stories.]]> 320 Lisa Kröger 1683691385 Rhea 0 to-read 4.14 2019 Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction
author: Lisa Kröger
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/10/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Fated Sky (Lady Astronaut Universe, #2)]]> 36238888 384 Mary Robinette Kowal 0765398931 Rhea 5
Briefly: what a tonic!

After consuming years of swaggery about the early space program, both real and fictionalized, this series had a refreshing angle. It balances on the period correct trials of our hero "The Lady Astronaut," and feels both unique and honest.

The stories begin with a heady problem: how society reacts to a world changing asteroid strike and the decades of environmental problems predicted to follow. These ignite a push into space, but 10-15 years earlier than our own, and far more ambitious. In this fictional world that puts the 50s / 60s stresses of race and gender squarely next to those of funding an enormous space program, and the international political attention both need.

Also worth nothing is that, though technology is not a main character its treated with respect. As an engineer (well, CS and Electrical) I wasn't distracted by gross errors or physics busting assumptions.

Bravo to the author and here's hoping the series is optioned for production. ]]> 4.40 2018 The Fated Sky (Lady Astronaut Universe, #2)
author: Mary Robinette Kowal
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2019/10/19
date added: 2019/10/20
shelves: fiction, scifi, space, history
review:
Having enjoyed "Hidden Figures" I was jarred by the inevitable "long tail" of web articles, each expressing fresh surprise at a different woman who contributed to the space program. While real women were practically invisible in the early space program, there have been many (often not well written) "female" characters in science fiction, however there seemed to be almost none in my own favorite genre: alternate history. So once found, I quickly read the short story which forms a postscript for this series and then immediately jumped back to the first and second novels.

Briefly: what a tonic!

After consuming years of swaggery about the early space program, both real and fictionalized, this series had a refreshing angle. It balances on the period correct trials of our hero "The Lady Astronaut," and feels both unique and honest.

The stories begin with a heady problem: how society reacts to a world changing asteroid strike and the decades of environmental problems predicted to follow. These ignite a push into space, but 10-15 years earlier than our own, and far more ambitious. In this fictional world that puts the 50s / 60s stresses of race and gender squarely next to those of funding an enormous space program, and the international political attention both need.

Also worth nothing is that, though technology is not a main character its treated with respect. As an engineer (well, CS and Electrical) I wasn't distracted by gross errors or physics busting assumptions.

Bravo to the author and here's hoping the series is optioned for production.
]]> <![CDATA[Reticence (The Custard Protocol, #4)]]> 31570843 Bookish and proper Percival Tunstell finds himself out of his depth when floating cities, spirited plumbing, and soggy biscuits collide in this conclusion to The Custard Protocol series.

Percival Tunstell loves that his sister and her best friend are building themselves a family of misfits aboard their airship, The Spotted Custard. Of course, he'd never admit that he belongs among them. He's always been on the outside � dispassionate, aloof, and hatless. But accidental spies, a trip to Japan, and one smart and beautiful doctor may have him renegotiating his whole philosophy on life.

Except hats. He's done with hats. Thank you very much.]]> 339 Gail Carriger 0316433918 Rhea 0 to-read 4.28 2019 Reticence (The Custard Protocol, #4)
author: Gail Carriger
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/09/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Atomic Summer 15723335
In 1953, three teenage girls� innocent conversations about what each of them would do if the end of the world were imminent, coupled with a friend’s obsession, become the catalyst for a prank that spins wildly beyond control and draws in an entire town. Left behind in the wake of that summer’s events are their unrealized dreams and open wounds. In 1973, a reunion trip to the small town of their youths returns them to the summer of 1953 and the passion and betrayal that changed their lives.

The world is ripe for destruction in 1953. The Korean War drags on and the Rosenbergs are executed as spies. Senator Joseph McCarthy convinces the country communists are infiltrating the government, and the threat of nuclear war festered in the collective consciousness of the nation. While American’s constructed backyard bomb shelters, the government conducted nuclear tests in the desert.

Women’s Fiction Author, Elaine D. Walsh, captures the anxiety of the times and draws the reader in with rich characters that linger long after the story ends.]]> 384 Elaine D Walsh 0985566310 Rhea 3 3.47 2012 Atomic Summer
author: Elaine D Walsh
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2019/08/25
date added: 2019/08/25
shelves:
review:

]]> Warlight 36410100 NATIONAL BEST SELLER

From the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author of The English Patient: a mesmerizing new novel that tells a dramatic story set in the decade after World War II through the lives of a small group of unexpected characters and two teenagers whose lives are indelibly shaped by their unwitting involvement.

In a narrative as beguiling and mysterious as memory itself--shadowed and luminous at once--we read the story of fourteen-year-old Nathaniel, and his older sister, Rachel. In 1945, just after World War II, they stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and they grow both more convinced and less concerned as they come to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women joined by a shared history of unspecified service during the war, all of whom seem, in some way, determined now to protect, and educate (in rather unusual ways) Rachel and Nathaniel. But are they really what and who they claim to be? And what does it mean when the siblings' mother returns after months of silence without their father, explaining nothing, excusing nothing? A dozen years later, Nathaniel begins to uncover all that he didn't know and understand in that time, and it is this journey--through facts, recollection, and imagination--that he narrates in this masterwork from one of the great writers of our time.]]> 304 Michael Ondaatje Rhea 3 3.79 2018 Warlight
author: Michael Ondaatje
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2019/08/09
date added: 2019/08/09
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Glory and Failure: The Difference Engines of Johann MĂĽller, Charles Babbage, and Georg and Edvard Sheutz (History of Computing)]]> 264218 415 Michael Lindgren 0262121468 Rhea 0 technology, history, to-read 4.20 1990 Glory and Failure: The Difference Engines of Johann MĂĽller, Charles Babbage, and Georg and Edvard Sheutz (History of Computing)
author: Michael Lindgren
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/04/29
shelves: technology, history, to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Innovation and public policy: The case of personal rapid transit]]> 3462951 401 Catherine G. Burke 0669031674 Rhea 0 0.0 1979 Innovation and public policy: The case of personal rapid transit
author: Catherine G. Burke
name: Rhea
average rating: 0.0
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at: 2009/02/12
date added: 2019/04/29
shelves: transportation, history, politics, to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need]]> 49464 195 Blake Snyder 1932907009 Rhea 0 writing, film, to-read 4.00 2005 Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need
author: Blake Snyder
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/04/29
shelves: writing, film, to-read
review:

]]> The Denial of Death 8135626 The Denial of Death is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the "why" of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie -- man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more than twenty years after its writing.]]> 337 Ernest Becker Rhea 0 to-read 4.20 1973 The Denial of Death
author: Ernest Becker
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1973
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/04/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (Dead Djinn, #0.3)]]> 36558166 P. Djèlí Clark returns to the historical fantasy universe of "A Dead Djinn in Cairo", with the otherworldly adventure novella The Haunting of Tram Car 015.

Finalist for the 2020 Hugo Award
Finalist for the 2020 Nebula Award
Finalist for the 2020 Locus Award

Cairo, 1912: The case started as a simple one for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities � handling a possessed tram car.

Soon, however, Agent Hamed Nasr and his new partner Agent Onsi Youssef are exposed to a new side of Cairo stirring with suffragettes, secret societies, and sentient automatons in a race against time to protect the city from an encroaching danger that crosses the line between the magical and the mundane.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 96 P. Djèlí Clark Rhea 4 4.16 2019 The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (Dead Djinn, #0.3)
author: P. Djèlí Clark
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2019/04/25
date added: 2019/04/25
shelves:
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]]> Virtual Light (Bridge, #1) 18917994 370 William Gibson 0307831183 Rhea 0 4.11 1993 Virtual Light (Bridge, #1)
author: William Gibson
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/04/23
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review:

]]> Blue Champagne 25410472 A collection of science fiction stories from "the best writer in America" (Tom Clancy)—Hugo and Nebula award-winning author John Varley.

John Varley's unique blend of startling technology and genuinely human characters has won him every major science fiction award several times over for both his novels and his short fiction.

Blue Champagne collects eight thought-provoking stories from one of the genre's undisputed masters, including the Hugo Award-winner "The Pusher," and the Hugo and Nebula award-winner "Press Enter."]]> 295 John Varley 1101655828 Rhea 0 4.24 1986 Blue Champagne
author: John Varley
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/04/23
shelves:
review:

]]> Bandwidth (Analog #1) 36458711
Like everyone else, Dag relies on his digital feed for everything—a feed that is as personal as it is pervasive, and may not be as private as it seems. As he struggles to make sense of the dark forces closing in on him, he discovers that activists are hijacking the feed to manipulate markets and governments. Going public would destroy everything he’s worked so hard to build, but it’s not just Dag’s life on the line—a shadow war is coming, one that will secure humanity’s future or doom the planet to climate catastrophe. Ultimately, Dag must decide the price he’s willing to pay to change the world.]]> 272 Eliot Peper 1612184529 Rhea 0 3.68 2018 Bandwidth (Analog #1)
author: Eliot Peper
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/04/22
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man (Burton & Swinburne, #2)]]> 18499918 359 Mark Hodder 1616143606 Rhea 0 3.82 2011 The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man (Burton & Swinburne, #2)
author: Mark Hodder
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/04/22
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Dangerous Woman: American Beauty, Noted Philanthropist, Nazi Collaborator—The Life of Florence Gould]]> 36296715 A revealing biography of Florence Gould, fabulously wealthy socialite and patron of the arts, who hid a dark past as a Nazi collaborator in 1940’s Paris.Born in turn-of-the-century San Francisco to French parents, Florence moved to Paris at the age of eleven. Believing that only money brought respectability and happiness, she became the third wife of Frank Jay Gould, son of the railway millionaire Jay Gould. She guided Frank’s millions into hotels and casinos, creating a luxury hotel and casino empire. She entertained Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, Joseph Kennedy, and many Hollywood stars—like Charlie Chaplin, who became her lover. While the party ended for most Americans after the Crash of 1929, Frank and Florence stayed on, fearing retribution by the IRS. During the Occupation, Florence took several German lovers and hosted a controversial Nazi salon. As the Allies closed in, the unscrupulous Florence became embroiled in a notorious money laundering operation for Hermann Göring’s Aerobank. Yet after the war, not only did she avoid prosecution, but her vast fortune bought her respectability as a significant contributor to the Metropolitan Museum and New York University, among many others. It also earned her friends like Estée Lauder who obligingly looked the other way. A seductive and utterly amoral woman who loved to say “money doesn’t care who owns it,� Florence’s life proved a strong argument that perhaps money can buy happiness after all.]]> 382 Susan Ronald 1250092221 Rhea 0 3.40 A Dangerous Woman: American Beauty, Noted Philanthropist, Nazi Collaborator—The Life of Florence Gould
author: Susan Ronald
name: Rhea
average rating: 3.40
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/04/22
shelves:
review:

]]> <![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 Rhea 3 crime, history 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: Rhea
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1998
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2019/04/22
shelves: crime, history
review:
Fascinating in details but the locus of the story was held on one of the sadder and less interesting people. The tragic life of William Minor would have been better told if the author could have gone farther afield into it's connections to the time and attitudes. Indeed the creation of the OED was a Herculean effort, but in the end one of scale not variety.
]]> The Martian 31686251
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.

Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.

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

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

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

Source: andyweirauthor.com]]> 387 Andy Weir Rhea 4 4.52 2011 The Martian
author: Andy Weir
name: Rhea
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2019/01/25
shelves:
review:

]]>