Kate's bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 07 Jan 2025 13:27:02 -0800 60 Kate's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Away Off Shore: Nantucket Island and Its People, 1602-1890 by Nathaniel Philbrick (1996-12-12)]]> 128676416 0 unknown author Kate 4 history 4.00 Away Off Shore: Nantucket Island and Its People, 1602-1890 by Nathaniel Philbrick (1996-12-12)
author: unknown author
name: Kate
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: history
review:

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James 173754979 A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780385550369.]]>
303 Percival Everett Kate 5 4.47 2024 James
author: Percival Everett
name: Kate
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: america-oy-merica, books-addressing-human-frailty, exceedingly-wise, race-stuff, searing-social-commentary
review:

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<![CDATA[of plimouth plantation by William Bradford]]> 56494594 755 Kenneth P Minkema Kate 5 america-oy-merica, history 4.00 of plimouth plantation by William Bradford
author: Kenneth P Minkema
name: Kate
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: america-oy-merica, history
review:
Of Plimouth Plantation is the memoir of the Plymouth Plantation (the community of people later known as the Pilgrims). This is contemporaneous, first person source documentation of what Bradford, the leader of the Pilgrims, recalls about the founding of Plymouth. It is tremendously difficult to read, completely biased, but it is an original source document, so it’s kinda hard to think of it as anything other than a five star book. You really cannot get any closer to the beating hearts of the Pilgrims.
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<![CDATA[Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine]]> 35900387 No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine.

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

Soon to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the smart, warm, and uplifting story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . .

The only way to survive is to open your heart. ]]>
390 Gail Honeyman 0008172145 Kate 5 4.17 2017 Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
author: Gail Honeyman
name: Kate
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories]]> 99300
Written from a feminist perspective, often focusing on the inferior status accorded to women by society, the tales include "turned," an ironic story with a startling twist, in which a husband seduces and impregnates a naĂŻve servant; "Cottagette," concerning the romance of a young artist and a man who's apparently too good to be true; "Mr. Peebles' Heart," a liberating tale of a fiftyish shopkeeper whose sister-in-law, a doctor, persuades him to take a solo trip to Europe, with revivifying results; "The Yellow Wallpaper"; and three other outstanding stories.

These charming tales are not only highly readable and full of humor and invention, but also offer ample food for thought about the social, economic, and personal relationship of men and women � and how they might be improved.

Collects:
—The Yellow Wallpaper
—Three Thanksgivings
—The Cottagette
—TłÜ°ů˛Ô±đ»ĺ
—Making a Change
—If I Were a Man
—Mr. Peebles' Heart]]>
129 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 0486298574 Kate 5 4.05 1892 The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories
author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
name: Kate
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1892
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: you-are-woman-hear-you-roar, american-classics
review:
Short, concise, extremely creepy. Unforgettable metaphor for culture's oppression of women.
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Grimm's Fairy Tales 1727554 384 Jacob Grimm 0307171132 Kate 5 4.11 1812 Grimm's Fairy Tales
author: Jacob Grimm
name: Kate
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1812
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: children-s-books, classics-by-other-foreigners, folklore
review:
I almost shudder to call this a "children's book," since the stories are so often extremely gruesome. No wonder Germany got so screwed up if they were reading this sort of thing to their children in the 19th century!
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Complete Works 2844374 This eBook of 'Complete Works' by Edgar Allan Poe has been tested on below parameters across ALL devices (including Kindle, Android, iBook, Cloud Readers etc.). It works 100% perfectly as required.

SUCCESSFUL TESTS RESULTS ACROSS ALL DEVICES:

1) Active Footnotes & Endnotes with One-Click navigation.

2) Active Table of Contents.

3) Word Wise � Enabled.

4) Illustrations & Tables (if any) are available with ZOOM feature on double-click.

5) Formatted for Faster Reading experience with easy Font & Page adjustments.

NOTE: This is an unabridged content. Spelling errors or Typos (if any) have been corrected as per Amazon standards.

About “Complete Works� by 'Edgar Allan Poe' *

The works of American author Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809Ěýâ€� October 7, 1849) include many poems, short stories, and one novel. His fiction spans multiple genres, including horror fiction, adventure, science fiction, and detective fiction, a genre he is credited with inventing.These works are generally considered part of the Dark romanticism movement, a literary reaction to Transcendentalism.Poe's writing reflects his literary theories: he disagreed with didacticism and allegory.Meaning in literature, he said in his criticism, should be an undercurrent just beneath the surface; works whose meanings are too obvious cease to be art.Poe pursued originality in his works, and disliked proverbs.He often included elements of popular pseudosciences such as phrenology and physiognomy.His most recurring themes deal with questions of death, including its physical signs, the effects of decomposition, concerns of premature burial, the reanimation of the dead, and mourning. Though known as a masterly practitioner of Gothic fiction, Poe did not invent the genre; he was following a long-standing popular tradition.

* - This content has been taken from GoodReads.com."

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1200 Edgar Allan Poe 1583962492 Kate 5 4.50 1849 Complete Works
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Kate
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1849
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:

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The Red Badge of Courage 1833717 188 Stephen Crane 0393319547 Kate 5 war-sucks, american-classics 3.66 1895 The Red Badge of Courage
author: Stephen Crane
name: Kate
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1895
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/03/07
shelves: war-sucks, american-classics
review:
great recounting of the horrors of war. This and All's Quiet on the Western Front are both classic war reads.
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<![CDATA[A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle, #1)]]> 16029682 210 Ursula K. Le Guin 0544084373 Kate 5 4.04 1968 A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle, #1)
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: Kate
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1968
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/05
date added: 2024/01/05
shelves:
review:

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The Shipping News 7354
A vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary American family, The Shipping News shows why E. Annie Proulx is recognized as one of the most gifted and original writers in America today.
(back cover)]]>
337 Annie Proulx 0743225422 Kate 3 contemp-fiction 3.88 1993 The Shipping News
author: Annie Proulx
name: Kate
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1993
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/08/03
shelves: contemp-fiction
review:

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<![CDATA[The Lost Child of Philomena Lee: A Mother, Her Son and A Fifty-Year Search]]> 6791212
Philomena's son, renamed Michael Hess, grew up to be a top Washington lawyer and a leading Republican official in the Reagan and Bush administrations. But he was a gay man in a homophobic party where he had to conceal not only his sexuality but, eventually, the fact that he had AIDS. With little time left, he returned to Ireland and the convent where he was his desperate quest to find his mother before he died left a legacy that was to unfold with unexpected consequences for all involved.

The Lost Child of Philomena Lee is the tale of a mother and a son whose lives were scarred by the forces of hypocrisy on both sides of the Atlantic and of the secrets they were forced to keep. A compelling narrative of human love and loss, Martin Sixsmith's moving account is heartbreaking yet ultimately redemptive.]]>
452 Martin Sixsmith 0230744273 Kate 4
I feel bad that he was forcibly removed from his mother when he was a tiny little boy. That was awful and heart-wrenching. But he had a huge hand in creating the government that decided not to respond to the AIDS he wound up dying from. In a way, he died by his own hand. It is absolutely CRIMINAL that he decided to take so many others with him. A lot of truly wonderful people died of AIDS. Michael Hess was NOT one of them. He signed a bargain with the Devil, and he knew it.]]>
3.63 2009 The Lost Child of Philomena Lee: A Mother, Her Son and A Fifty-Year Search
author: Martin Sixsmith
name: Kate
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/08/02
shelves: biography, books-addressing-human-frailty, searing-social-commentary
review:
I thought this would be a book about Philomena Lee--sort of like the trailer to the movie that bears her name. But it wasn't. The vast majority of the book was the story of just how lost her son, Michael Hess, really was as he went from Irish orphan to chief counsel for the Republican National Committee during the Reagan and Bush years. And, oh yeah, he was gay. So, "Lost Child" is not just referencing the fact that his mother lost him, which is the tragic, compelling part of the story. It is also referencing the fact that he was ethically and morally bankrupt as he was mired down as the top lawyer for a bunch of Neonazi Republican assholes who have since ruined the country. So, you know, I am not really all that sympathetic toward Michael Hess, because he was a total and complete bastard hypocrite who held enough power to actually work for killing gay men by the tens of thousands during the AIDS crisis, and he fucking USED it. All the redistricting BULLSHIT that has gone on in this country since the Reagan years? Yeah. His fault.

I feel bad that he was forcibly removed from his mother when he was a tiny little boy. That was awful and heart-wrenching. But he had a huge hand in creating the government that decided not to respond to the AIDS he wound up dying from. In a way, he died by his own hand. It is absolutely CRIMINAL that he decided to take so many others with him. A lot of truly wonderful people died of AIDS. Michael Hess was NOT one of them. He signed a bargain with the Devil, and he knew it.
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Homer Price 766917 The comic genius of Robert McCloskey and his wry look at small-town America has kept readers in stitches for generations!

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149 Robert McCloskey 0140309276 Kate 4 children-s-books Another vote for nostalgia. 4.09 1943 Homer Price
author: Robert McCloskey
name: Kate
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1943
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/07/26
shelves: children-s-books
review:
Another vote for nostalgia.
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Leonard and Hungry Paul 48595115
Leonard and Hungry Paul is the story of two friends trying to find their place in the world. It is about the uncelebrated people of this world. And it asks a surprisingly enthralling question: Can kind people change the world?]]>
252 Ronan Hession 161219849X Kate 5 4.14 2019 Leonard and Hungry Paul
author: Ronan Hession
name: Kate
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/03/10
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[Out Into the Desert: Thriving Outside Organized Religion]]> 61998654
Out Into the Desert is an honest survey of Western Christianity, along with Karl and Laura's personal story as they journeyed through 20-plus years of ministry. Let the Forehands be your guide as they examine these questions and more ...Ěý

Is it okay to take some time off from religion and do this assessment?Are there things we can't see because we're too close?Where else can we find community?Is it possible to thrive outside of organized religion?If Jesus were physically here, would he go to church?Ěý]]>
213 Karl Forehand 1957007249 Kate 0 currently-reading 4.11 Out Into the Desert: Thriving Outside Organized Religion
author: Karl Forehand
name: Kate
average rating: 4.11
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/10/26
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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Pilgrim's Progress 19487338 136 John Bunyan Kate 0 currently-reading 4.56 1678 Pilgrim's Progress
author: John Bunyan
name: Kate
average rating: 4.56
book published: 1678
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/10/16
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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<![CDATA[The Weaver's Companion (The Companion Series)]]> 20318176 All the basics of weaving are provided in this succinct handbook. Filled with definitions and illustrations, the book invites weavers to refer to it as they work.

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152 Linda Collier Ligon 1620332035 Kate 4 craft-a-holic 4.54 2000 The Weaver's Companion (The Companion Series)
author: Linda Collier Ligon
name: Kate
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2022/02/11
shelves: craft-a-holic
review:
This is such a helpful book for any weaver. If you're trying to remember how to do something, or doing it for the first time, the answer is probably in here. I am coming back to the loom after many years away, and I am finding this little book a constant companion on my weaving bench. It's spiral bound, so it stays open while you're referring to it. Great little resource.
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Aesop's Fables 10893537 85 Aesop Kate 5 3.93 -560 Aesop's Fables
author: Aesop
name: Kate
average rating: 3.93
book published: -560
rating: 5
read at: 2022/02/05
date added: 2022/02/05
shelves: books-addressing-human-frailty, classics-by-other-foreigners, folklore, exceedingly-wise
review:

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The Puma Years 56930703 In this rapturous memoir, writer and activist Laura Coleman shares the story of her liberating journey in the Amazon jungle, where she fell in love with a magnificent cat who changed her life.

Laura was in her early twenties and directionless when she quit her job to backpack in Bolivia. Fate landed her at a wildlife sanctuary on the edge of the Amazon jungle where she was assigned to a beautiful and complex puma named Wayra. Wide-eyed, inexperienced, and comically terrified, Laura made the scrappy, make-do camp her home. And in Wayra, she made a friend for life.

They weren’t alone, not with over a hundred quirky animals to care for, each lost and hurt in their own a pair of suicidal, bra-stealing monkeys, a frustrated parrot desperate to fly, and a pig with a wicked sense of humor. The humans, too, were cause for laughter and tears. There were animal whisperers, committed staff, wildly devoted volunteers, handsome heartbreakers, and a machete-wielding prom queen who carried Laura through. Most of all, there was the jungle—lyrical and alive—and there was Wayra, who would ultimately teach Laura so much about love, healing, and the person she was capable of becoming.

Set against a turbulent and poignant backdrop of deforestation, the illegal pet trade, and forest fires, The Puma Years explores what happens when two desperate creatures in need of rescue find one another.]]>
321 Laura Coleman 1542022207 Kate 5 4.34 2021 The Puma Years
author: Laura Coleman
name: Kate
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/02/05
date added: 2022/02/05
shelves: nature-girl, oh-so-amusing, biography
review:

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<![CDATA[Faith-Rooted Organizing: Mobilizing the Church in Service to the World]]> 20564019
Since the 1930s, organizing movements for social justice in the U.S. have largely been built on assumptions that are secular origin—such as reliance on self-interest and having a common enemy as a motivator for change. But what if Christians were to shape their organizing around the implications of the truth that God is real and Jesus is risen?

Alexia Salvatierra has developed a model of social action that is rooted in the values and convictions born of faith. Together with theologian Peter Heltzel, this model of "faith-rooted organizing" offers a path to meaningful social change that takes seriously the command to love God and to love our neighbor as ourself.]]>
209 Alexia Salvatierra 0830864695 Kate 4 4.50 2013 Faith-Rooted Organizing: Mobilizing the Church in Service to the World
author: Alexia Salvatierra
name: Kate
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/05
date added: 2022/02/05
shelves: curmudgeons-for-justice, religion
review:

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<![CDATA[The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living]]> 31200948 A beautifully packaged, gifty daily devotional of Stoic wisdom, from the author of The Obstacle is the Way.
Ěý
Modern readers praise Stoic philosophy for its unique blend of practicality and wisdom. But it's admittedly hard for the average reader to decipher the Dover Thrift edition of Marcus Aurelius' work. The antiquated, needlessly formal language of most modern translations is stripped down in this book, revealing powerful aphorisms that cut straight to the heart of our day-to-day challenges.
Ěý
Presented in a page-per-day format, this daily resource of Stoic inspiration combines new translations of Seneca, Epictetus, Zeno by Stephen Hanselman with calls to further reflection--and action--by Ryan Holiday. Arranged topically following the same three movements (Perception, Action, Will) that Holiday used inThe Obstacle is the Way, this guide features twelve principles for overcoming obstacles and achieving greater satisfaction.
Ěý
Aimed at the high-octane, action-oriented, doers of our wired world, this book is intended to open to them a new daily ritual and a new orientation that will bring balanced action, insight, effectiveness, and serenity.]]>
397 Ryan Holiday 0735211744 Kate 5 deep-philosophical-rants 4.56 2016 The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
author: Ryan Holiday
name: Kate
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2022/02/05
date added: 2022/02/05
shelves: deep-philosophical-rants
review:

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<![CDATA[The High 5 Habit: Take Control of Your Life with One Simple Habit]]> 58581516
And now, she's back with The High 5 Habit and on a mission to help you change your life.

Don't let the title fool you. This isn't a book about high fiving everyone else in your life. You're already doing that.

Instead, Mel teaches you how to start high fiving the most important person in your life, the one who is staring back at you in the mirror: YOURSELF.

If you struggle with self-doubt (and who doesn't?) ...If you're tired of that nagging critic in your head (could somebody evict them already?) ...If you're wildly successful but all you focus on is what's going wrong (you're not alone) ...If you're sick of watching everybody else get ahead while you sit on the couch with your dog (don't bring your dog into this) ...
...Mel dedicates this book to you.

Using her signature science-backed wisdom, Mel will teach you how to make believing in yourself a habit so that you operate with the confidence that your goals and dreams demand.

The High 5 Habit is a simple yet profound tool that changes your attitude, your mindset and your behaviour. So be prepared to laugh and learn as you take steps to immediately boost your confidence, happiness and results.]]>
241 Mel Robbins 1401962130 Kate 3 4.37 2021 The High 5 Habit: Take Control of Your Life with One Simple Habit
author: Mel Robbins
name: Kate
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2022/02/05
date added: 2022/02/05
shelves: desperate-attempts-at-self-improvem
review:

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<![CDATA[Doing Justice: Congregations and Community Organizing]]> 21320845 156 Dennis A. Jacobsen Kate 3 currently-reading 4.05 2001 Doing Justice: Congregations and Community Organizing
author: Dennis A. Jacobsen
name: Kate
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2022/02/05
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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<![CDATA[Confessions of a Curious Bookseller]]> 55543206 A heartening and uproariously funny novel of high hopes, bad choices, book love, and one woman’s best—and worst—intentions.

Without question, Fawn Birchill knows that her used bookstore is the heart of West Philadelphia, a cornerstone of culture for a community that, for the past twenty years, has found the quirkiness absolutely charming. When an amicable young indie bookseller invades her block, Fawn is convinced that his cushy couches, impressive selection, coffee bar, and knowledgeable staff are a neighborhood blight. Misguided yet blindly resilient, Fawn readies for battle.

But as she wages her war, Fawn is forced to reflect on a few unavoidable truths: the tribulations of online dating, a strained relationship with her family, and a devoted if not always law-abiding intern—not to mention what to do about a pen pal with whom she hasn’t been entirely honest and the litany of repairs her aging store requires.

Through emails, journal entries, combative online reviews, texts, and tweets, Fawn plans her next move. Now it’s time for her to dig deep and use every trick at her disposal if she’s to reclaim her beloved business—and her life.]]>
483 Elizabeth Green 1542025869 Kate 0 currently-reading 2.83 2021 Confessions of a Curious Bookseller
author: Elizabeth Green
name: Kate
average rating: 2.83
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/14
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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<![CDATA[Counterfeiting and Technology: A History Of The Long Struggle Between Paper-Money Counterfeiters And Security Printing]]> 27163080 Counterfeiting and Technology presents the history of paper money in a way that's never been seen before. It combines chemistry and artistry, inventions and escapades, tales of arrest and daring escapes. Collectors and historians of American money will love this engaging and informative narrative about our nation's paper currency.]]> 480 Bob McCabe 0794843956 Kate 0 to-read 0.0 2016 Counterfeiting and Technology: A History Of The Long Struggle Between Paper-Money Counterfeiters And Security Printing
author: Bob McCabe
name: Kate
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/11/03
shelves: to-read
review:

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It Can't Happen Here 11371 Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith, It Can't Happen Here is a cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America. Written during the Great Depression when America was largely oblivious to Hitler's aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a President who becomes a dictator to "save the nation." Now finally back in print, It Can't Happen Here remains uniquely important, a shockingly prescient novel that's as fresh and contemporary as today's news.]]> 400 Sinclair Lewis 045121658X Kate 5 3.77 1935 It Can't Happen Here
author: Sinclair Lewis
name: Kate
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1935
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/09/03
shelves: america-oy-merica, american-classics, curmudgeons-for-justice, deep-philosophical-rants, great-books-nobody-ever-read
review:

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<![CDATA[One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest]]> 332613 9780451163967

Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy � the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. Ken Kesey's extraordinary first novel is an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.]]>
325 Ken Kesey Kate 5 4.20 1962 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
author: Ken Kesey
name: Kate
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/09/03
shelves: contemp-fiction, exceedingly-wise, american-classics
review:

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Jude the Obscure 207083 Jude The Obscure, sent shockwaves of indignation rolling across Victorian England. Hardy had dared to write frankly about sexuality and to indict the institutions of marriage, education, and religion. But he had, in fact, created a deeply moral work. The stonemason Jude Fawley is a dreamer; his is a tragedy of unfulfilled aims. With his tantalizing cousin Sue Bridehead, the last and most extraordinary of Hardy's heroines, Jude takes on the world and discovers, tragically, its brutal indifference. The most powerful expression of Hardy's philosophy, and a profound exploration of man's essential loneliness, Jude The Obscure is a great and beautiful book. 'His style touches sublimity.'—T.S. Eliot]]> 494 Thomas Hardy 0375757414 Kate 4 brit-lit 3.96 1895 Jude the Obscure
author: Thomas Hardy
name: Kate
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1895
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2020/09/03
shelves: brit-lit
review:

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<![CDATA[The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook: A Delicious Alternative for Lifelong Health]]> 1058115 528 Nancy Harmon Jenkins 0553096087 Kate 3 foodie 4.06 1994 The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook: A Delicious Alternative for Lifelong Health
author: Nancy Harmon Jenkins
name: Kate
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1994
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2020/03/28
shelves: foodie
review:

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The Screwtape Letters 480236 209 C.S. Lewis Kate 2 religion 4.21 1942 The Screwtape Letters
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Kate
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1942
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2019/12/22
shelves: religion
review:
I suppose this is a rather charming book about the devil, if you're interested in charming books about the devil. Again, it's C.S. Lewis--to the evangelical world, he's a theological genius. To the rest of us, he's just, feh.
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Calypso 38348476
If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris's cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong.

When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself.

With Calypso, Sedaris sets his formidable powers of observation toward middle age and mortality. Make no mistake: these stories are very, very funny--it's a book that can make you laugh 'til you snort, the way only family can. Sedaris's powers of observation have never been sharper, and his ability to shock readers into laughter unparalleled. But much of the comedy here is born out of that vertiginous moment when your own body betrays you and you realize that the story of your life is made up of more past than future.

This is beach reading for people who detest beaches, required reading for those who loathe small talk and love a good tumor joke. Calypso is simultaneously Sedaris's darkest and warmest book yet--and it just might be his very best.]]>
272 David Sedaris 0316392359 Kate 5 4.11 2018 Calypso
author: David Sedaris
name: Kate
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2019/08/26
shelves:
review:

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The Very Hungry Caterpillar 516346 THE all-time classic picture book, from generation to generation, sold somewhere in the world every 30 seconds! Have you shared it with a child or grandchild in your life?

Carle's classic tale of a voracious caterpillar who eats his way through the days of the week and then changes into a beautiful butterfly has been reissued in a sumptuous twenty-fifth anniversary edition with a shiny, silver-coated cover and wonderfully thick, durable pages.
--The Horn Book

"The very hungry caterpillar literally eats his way through the pages of the book--and right into your child's heart..."
--Mother's Manual

"Gorgeously illustrated, brilliantly innovative..."
--The New York Times Book Review]]>
28 Eric Carle 0399208534 Kate 3 children-s-books 4.42 1969 The Very Hungry Caterpillar
author: Eric Carle
name: Kate
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1969
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2019/05/08
shelves: children-s-books
review:
I believe this book is THE MAJOR CAUSE of the childhood obesity epidemic currently sweeping the nation. Still, nice illustrations.
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<![CDATA[Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #1)]]> 338691
But Gamache knows that evil is lurking somewhere behind the white picket fences and that, if he watches closely enough, Three Pines will start to give up its dark secrets...]]>
293 Louise Penny 0312948557 Kate 4 3.86 2005 Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #1)
author: Louise Penny
name: Kate
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/09/23
shelves:
review:

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Small Great Things 41021501
Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy. Conflicted by Kennedy's counsel, Ruth tries to keep life as normal as possible for her family—especially her teenage son—as the case becomes a media sensation. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each other's trust, and come to see that what they've been taught their whole lives about others—and themselves—might be wrong.

With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion—and doesn't offer easy answers. Small Great Things is a remarkable achievement from a writer at the top of her game.]]>
510 Jodi Picoult 034554496X Kate 1 4.38 2016 Small Great Things
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Kate
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2016
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2018/09/15
shelves:
review:
My first Picault book, and I really didn’t like it. As a former hospital chaplain who worked specifically in L&D, and as a former Vermonter, I found several bones to pick. No labor and delivery nurse worth his or her salt would ever let a baby die because a parent ordered him or her to not intervene. Just. No. So the whole premise of the book is just wrong. That ate at me for the whole story. And, while there are white supremacist in every state, why did she pick Vermont? Granola-loving, socialist, Birkenstock-wearing Vermont. Even the nastiest of Vermonters cruelest line is “Mind yer own GD business.� If she had relocated the supremacists to New Hampshire, that would have made more sense. There are tons more hate groups in neighbouring New Hampshire! Look it up on the SPLC website. I am white, and I don’t presume to have intimate knowledge of black experience, certainly not enough to represent it in any meaningful way in a book that deals specifically with a black main character. I am not sure how this book was received in circles of black readers. But I’d be curious to know. The end was just contrived as can be. So, not a fan of this author. Won’t be picking up another of her books. I rarely give one star, but, there ya go.
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<![CDATA[Fear: Trump in the White House]]> 41012533
Fear is the most intimate portrait of a sitting president ever published during the president’s first years in office. The focus is on the explosive debates and the decision-making in the Oval Office, the Situation Room, Air Force One and the White House residence.

Woodward draws from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand sources, meeting notes, personal diaries, files and documents. Often with day-by-day details, dialogue and documentation, Fear tracks key foreign issues from North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran, the Middle East, NATO, China and Russia. It reports in-depth on Trump’s key domestic issues particularly trade and tariff disputes, immigration, tax legislation, the Paris Climate Accord and the racial violence in Charlottesville in 2017.

Fear presents vivid details of the negotiations between Trump’s attorneys and Robert Mueller, the special counsel in the Russia investigation, laying out for the first time the meeting-by-meeting discussions and strategies. It discloses how senior Trump White House officials joined together to steal draft orders from the president’s Oval Office desk so he would not issue directives that would jeopardize top secret intelligence operations.

“It was no less than an administrative coup d’état,� Woodward writes, “a nervous breakdown of the executive power of the most powerful country in the world.”]]>
448 Bob Woodward 1501175513 Kate 5 3.83 2018 Fear: Trump in the White House
author: Bob Woodward
name: Kate
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/09/14
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[Hot Dogs & Hamburgers: Unlocking Life's Potential by Inspiring Literacy at Any Age]]> 22064729 206 Rob Shindler 1938416104 Kate 3
A bit of the book feels sort of self-indulgent including a rather gross violation of his son's privacy (won't go into more detail), but if you have the foreknowledge to skip that part, I liked a lot of what he had to say. The triumph of his son parallels the triumph of the author's adult literacy students. There's even a little literacy miracle in there around the book Black Beauty. So, overall, I liked the book--just not the "TMI" part.]]>
4.18 2012 Hot Dogs & Hamburgers: Unlocking Life's Potential by Inspiring Literacy at Any Age
author: Rob Shindler
name: Kate
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2014/08/01
date added: 2018/09/10
shelves: books-addressing-human-frailty
review:
This book addresses a really important topic, and does so in an easily readable manner. It's not just the story of a bunch of adults learning to read; it's also the story of a father trying to teach his son, who has literacy difficulties, to read. I'm from the Chicago area, so I knew exactly who the author was talking about when he mentioned the preacher on Washington and State. I even know Flick Park! So, I loved the book for its familiarity. I recognize many readers won't share this sense of place, and that might make them like the book less.

A bit of the book feels sort of self-indulgent including a rather gross violation of his son's privacy (won't go into more detail), but if you have the foreknowledge to skip that part, I liked a lot of what he had to say. The triumph of his son parallels the triumph of the author's adult literacy students. There's even a little literacy miracle in there around the book Black Beauty. So, overall, I liked the book--just not the "TMI" part.
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<![CDATA[Here Is Real Magic: A Magician's Search for Wonder in the Modern World]]> 34921564 An extraordinary memoir about finding wonder in everyday life, from magician Nate Staniforth.

Nate Staniforth has spent most of his life and all of his professional career trying to understand wonder—what it is, where to find it, and how to share it with others. He became a magician because he learned at a young age that magic tricks don’t have to be frivolous. Magic doesn’t have to be about sequins and smoke machines—rather, it can create a moment of genuine astonishment.

The paradox is that the better you get at creating wonder with magic for other people, the harder it gets to experience it yourself. After years on the road as a young professional magician, crisscrossing the country and performing four or five nights a week, every week, Nate was disillusioned, burned out, and ready to quit.

Instead, he went to India in search of magic. Here Is Real Magic follows Nate Staniforth’s evolution from an obsessed young magician to a broken wanderer and back again. It tells the story of his rediscovery of astonishment—and the importance of wonder in everyday life—during his trip to the slums of India, where he infiltrated a three-thousand-year-old clan of street magicians. Here Is Real Magic is a call to all of us—to welcome awe back into our lives, to marvel in the everyday, and to seek magic all around us.]]>
256 Nate Staniforth 163286424X Kate 5 4.14 Here Is Real Magic: A Magician's Search for Wonder in the Modern World
author: Nate Staniforth
name: Kate
average rating: 4.14
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/09/01
shelves: biography, books-addressing-human-frailty, deep-philosophical-rants, exceedingly-wise, performing-arts
review:

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<![CDATA[Bunch of Amateurs: A Search for the American Character]]> 18899363 WHAT IS IT THAT DRIVES THE SUCCESS OF AMERICA AND THE IDENTITY OF ITS PEOPLE? ACCLAIMED WRITER AND CONTRIBUTING EDITOR TO THIS AMERICAN LIFE JACK HITT THINKS IT’S BECAUSE WE’RE ALL A BUNCH OF AMATEURS.America’s self-invented tinkerers are back at it in their metaphorical garages—fiddling with everything from solar-powered cars to space elevators. In Bunch of Amateurs, Jack Hitt visits a number of different garages and has written a fascinating book that looks at America’s current batch of amateurs and their pursuits. From a tattooed young woman in the Bay Area trying to splice a fish’s glow-in-the-dark gene into common yogurt (all done in her kitchen using salad spinners)to a space fanatic on the brink of developing the next generation of telescopes from his mobile home, Hitt not only tells the stories of people in the grip of a passion but argues that America’s history is bound up in a cycle of amateur surges.Beginning with Ben Franklin’s kite and leading all the way to the current TV hit American Idol, Hitt argues that the nation’slove of self-invented obsessives has always driven the country to rediscover the true heart of the American dream. Amateur pursuits are typically lamented as a world that just passed until a Sergey Brin or Mark Zuckerberg steps out of his garage (or dorm room) with the rare but crucial success story. In Bunch of Amateurs, Hitt argues that America is now poised to pioneer at another frontier that will lead, one more time, to the newest version of the American dream.]]> 290 Jack Hitt Kate 5 Bunch of fabulous

Wow. Loved, loved loved this book. Snappy, tight, funny-as-hell writing and fascinating stories of our American quirk of amateurism. From Ben Franklin to Kennewick Man to the Sidewalk Astronomers, and back to Ben, it is clear that amateurs are responsible for fueling the innovation and energy of our nation. Brilliantly written. Must read. Get it!]]>
3.70 2012 Bunch of Amateurs: A Search for the American Character
author: Jack Hitt
name: Kate
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2016/04/16
date added: 2018/08/14
shelves: exceedingly-wise, oh-so-amusing
review:
Bunch of fabulous

Wow. Loved, loved loved this book. Snappy, tight, funny-as-hell writing and fascinating stories of our American quirk of amateurism. From Ben Franklin to Kennewick Man to the Sidewalk Astronomers, and back to Ben, it is clear that amateurs are responsible for fueling the innovation and energy of our nation. Brilliantly written. Must read. Get it!
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<![CDATA[Own the Day, Own Your Life: Optimised practices for waking, working, learning, eating, training, playing, sleeping and sex]]> 38494610 Revolutionise your life one day at a time with this empowering handbook designed for men and women which provides simple strategies for each element of your day. Aubrey Marcus, author of the book is CEO of Onnit, a human performance company that he has built into one of the fastest growing companies in the world.

How can we get the most out of our body and mind on a daily basis? Want to change your life for the better?

Aubrey Marcus answers these questions in this handbook that guides the reader to optimise each moment of the day. With small, actionable changes implemented throughout the course of one day we can feel better, perform more efficiently and live happier. And these habits turn into weekly routines, ultimately becoming part of a lifelong healthy choice.

From workouts and diet to inbox triage, mindfulness, shower temperature and sex this groundbreaking manual provides strategies for each element of your day. Drawing on the latest studies and traditional practices from around the world, this book delivers cutting-edge life hacks, nutritional expertise, brain upgrades and fitness regimes.

Own the Day presents a path to change. It guides readers through a single 24-hour day of positive choices and optimal living that will form the groundwork for all their days to come. From foundational elements like workouts, diet, and mindfulness, to more routine opportunities to optimize your choices, such as shower temperature and inbox triage, readers will learn to make the most of every moment.

Ultimately, Marcus creates a choose-your-own-adventure guide to living that brings the reader's mind, body, and spirit to life. It is a promise delivered on the back of real, concrete strategies for better living. And the all-encompassing results are what make this book's simplistic approach so successful. By focusing on optimal decision making for just one day —by making several small, key changes in your daily approach—you end up addressing your health at every level. And owning your day.

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462 Aubrey Marcus 0008286426 Kate 2 3.91 2018 Own the Day, Own Your Life: Optimised practices for waking, working, learning, eating, training, playing, sleeping and sex
author: Aubrey Marcus
name: Kate
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2018/08/14
shelves: desperate-attempts-at-self-improvem
review:

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<![CDATA[The Garden of Small Beginnings]]> 32570475 In the spirit of A Man Called Ove and Good Grief--a poignant, funny, and utterly believable novel about life and loss.

Give grief a chance . . .

Lilian Girvan has been a single mother for three years--ever since her husband died in a car accident. One mental breakdown and some random suicidal thoughts later, she's just starting to get the hang of this widow thing. She can now get her two girls to school, show up to work, and watch TV like a pro. The only problem is she's becoming overwhelmed with being underwhelmed.

At least her textbook illustrating job has some perks--like actually being called upon to draw whale genitalia. Oh, and there's that vegetable-gardening class her boss signed her up for. Apparently, being the chosen illustrator for a series of boutique vegetable guides means getting your hands dirty, literally. Wallowing around in compost on a Saturday morning can't be much worse than wallowing around in pajamas and self-pity.

After recruiting her kids and insanely supportive sister to join her, Lilian shows up at the Los Angeles botanical garden feeling out of her element. But what she'll soon discover--with the help of a patient instructor and a quirky group of gardeners--is that into every life a little sun must shine, whether you want it to or not...

READERS GUIDE INCLUDED]]>
368 Abbi Waxman 0399583580 Kate 3 chick-lit 3.90 2017 The Garden of Small Beginnings
author: Abbi Waxman
name: Kate
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2018/08/14
shelves: chick-lit
review:

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<![CDATA[A Quiet Life in the Country (Lady Hardcastle Mysteries #1)]]> 23356969 In these, the first of Lady Hardcastle's adventures, she and Florence Armstrong, her faithful lady’s maid, fumble their way through four mysteries.
The Body in the Woods sets them on their new path when a supposed suicide turns out to be more than it appears.
When The Circus Comes to Town, the amateur sleuths meet an old friend and must track down a multiple murderer who has turned the lives of the travelling entertainers upside down.
The Case of the Missing Case sees a musician murdered at a country house party, but once again all is not as it seems and our heroines work with the Bristol police to solve the murder before the trail goes cold.
In The Half Death of GĂĽnther Ehrlichmann, Emily finally uncovers the truth of her husband's death and seals her own fate when an assassin tracks her down.]]>
279 T.E. Kinsey Kate 4 mysstery, oh-so-amusing 3.67 2016 A Quiet Life in the Country (Lady Hardcastle Mysteries #1)
author: T.E. Kinsey
name: Kate
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/06/30
shelves: mysstery, oh-so-amusing
review:

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<![CDATA[The Vanishing Neighbor: The Transformation of American Community]]> 19858014
Americans today find themselves mired in an era of uncertainty and frustration. The nation's safety net is pulling apart under its own weight; political compromise is viewed as a form of defeat; and our faith in the enduring concept of American exceptionalism appears increasingly outdated.

But the American Age may not be ending. In The Vanishing Neighbor, Marc J. Dunkelman identifies an epochal shift in the structure of American life—a shift unnoticed by many. Routines that once put doctors and lawyers in touch with grocers and plumbers—interactions that encouraged debate and cultivated compromise—have changed dramatically since the postwar era. Both technology and the new routines of everyday life connect tight-knit circles and expand the breadth of our social landscapes, but they've sapped the commonplace, incidental interactions that for centuries have built local communities and fostered healthy debate.

The disappearance of these once-central relationships—between people who are familiar but not close, or friendly but not intimate—lies at the root of America's economic woes and political gridlock. The institutions that were erected to support what Tocqueville called the "township"—that unique locus of the power of citizens—are failing because they haven't yet been molded to the realities of the new American community.

It's time we moved beyond the debate over whether the changes being made to American life are good or bad and focus instead on understanding the tradeoffs. Our cities are less racially segregated than in decades past, but we’ve become less cognizant of what's happening in the lives of people from different economic backgrounds, education levels, or age groups. Familiar divisions have been replaced by cross-cutting networks—with profound effects for the way we resolve conflicts, spur innovation, and care for those in need.

The good news is that the very transformation at the heart of our current anxiety holds the promise of more hope and prosperity than would have been possible under the old order. The Vanishing Neighbor argues persuasively that to win the future we need to adapt yesterday’s institutions to the realities of the twenty-first-century American community.]]>
321 Marc J. Dunkelman 0393243990 Kate 3
There were pretty big chunks of this book, though, that were just whine-y and stale. His description of polarised government, for instance, Tell us something we don’t know. Also, some of his arguments were minor and poorly supported. His focus seems to be on the economic impact of the vanishing neighbor. That’s fine—just not what I was expecting. Overall, the book is uneven in quality of thought. So, three stars.]]>
3.55 2014 The Vanishing Neighbor: The Transformation of American Community
author: Marc J. Dunkelman
name: Kate
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2018/06/21
shelves: america-oy-merica, searing-social-commentary
review:
I appreciated a couple of ideas presented in this book. The author’s review of the three rings of society—inner, middle and outer—and how we seem to be losing the middle ring. I also was interested in his description of how forward-thinking corporations are trying to bring that middle ring back, because it is the source of creative collaboration and innovation.

There were pretty big chunks of this book, though, that were just whine-y and stale. His description of polarised government, for instance, Tell us something we don’t know. Also, some of his arguments were minor and poorly supported. His focus seems to be on the economic impact of the vanishing neighbor. That’s fine—just not what I was expecting. Overall, the book is uneven in quality of thought. So, three stars.
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<![CDATA[Waking Up in Paris: Overcoming Darkness in the City of Light]]> 35488850 248 Sonia Choquette 1401944469 Kate 4 3.81 Waking Up in Paris: Overcoming Darkness in the City of Light
author: Sonia Choquette
name: Kate
average rating: 3.81
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/06/02
shelves: books-addressing-human-frailty, biography, desperate-attempts-at-self-improvem, modern-girlie-pathos
review:

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<![CDATA[Bitten By a Camel: Leaving Church, Finding God]]> 34763102 166 Kent Dobson 1506417744 Kate 5 4.12 Bitten By a Camel: Leaving Church, Finding God
author: Kent Dobson
name: Kate
average rating: 4.12
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/06/02
shelves: desperate-attempts-at-self-improvem, biography
review:

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<![CDATA[How to Be Here: A Guide to Creating a Life Worth Living]]> 22124291
Each of us was created for something great—we just need to figure out what it is and find the courage to do it. Whether it’s writing the next great American novel, starting a business, or joining a band, Rob Bell wants to help us make those dreams become reality. Our path is ours and ours alone to pursue, he reminds us, and in doing so, we derive great joy because we are living our passions.

How to Be Here lays out concrete steps we can use to define and follow our dreams, interweaving engaging stories, lessons from biblical figures, insights gleaned from Rob’s personal experience, and practical advice. Rob gives you the support and insight you need to silence your critics, move from idea to action, take the first step, find joy in the work, persevere through hard times, and surrender to the outcome.

Like Stephen Pressfield’s classic The War of Art, How to Be Here will inspire readers to seek the lives they were created to lead.]]>
210 Rob Bell 0062356291 Kate 4 3.91 2016 How to Be Here: A Guide to Creating a Life Worth Living
author: Rob Bell
name: Kate
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/06/02
shelves: desperate-attempts-at-self-improvem
review:

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<![CDATA[Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived]]> 10115852
Troubling questions—so troubling that many have lost their faith because of them. Others only whisper the questions to themselves, fearing or being taught that they might lose their faith and their church if they ask them out loud.

But what if these questions trouble us for good reason? What if the story of heaven and hell we have been taught is not, in fact, what the Bible teaches? What if what Jesus meant by heaven, hell, and salvation are very different from how we have come to understand them?

What if it is God who wants us to face these questions?

Author, pastor, and innovative teacher Rob Bell presents a deeply biblical vision for rediscovering a richer, grander, truer, and more spiritually satisfying way of understanding heaven, hell, God, Jesus, salvation, and repentance. The result is the discovery that the "good news" is much, much better than we ever imagined.

Love wins.]]>
202 Rob Bell 006204964X Kate 5 religion 3.55 2011 Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived
author: Rob Bell
name: Kate
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/06/02
shelves: religion
review:

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<![CDATA[Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America: An Evangelical's Lament]]> 93334 272 Randall Balmer 0465005195 Kate 5 3.89 2006 Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America: An Evangelical's Lament
author: Randall Balmer
name: Kate
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/06/02
shelves: religion, america-oy-merica, searing-social-commentary
review:

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<![CDATA[Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story]]> 35343329 “This is a tough, sharp history of comedy and competitiveness, of rising stars and brilliant upstarts. Of difficult egos, awful behavior, fragile friendships, bursts of inspiration, and blizzards of cocaine―told by the survivors and shaped by Chris Nashawaty's welcome insight and perspective.�
� Mark Harris, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures at a Revolution and Five Came Back

Caddyshack is one of the most beloved comedies of all time, a classic snobs vs. slobs story of working class kids and the white collar buffoons that make them haul their golf bags in the hot summer sun. It has sex, drugs and one very memorable candy bar, but the movie we all know and love didn’t start out that way, and everyone who made it certainly didn’t have the word “classic� in mind as the cameras were rolling.

In Caddyshack:The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story film critic for Entertainment Weekly Chris Nashawaty goes behind the scenes of the iconic film, chronicling the rise of comedy’s greatest deranged minds as they form The National Lampoon, turn the entertainment industry on its head, and ultimately blow up both a golf course and popular culture as we know it. Caddyshack is at once an eye-opening narrative about one of the most interesting, surreal, and dramatic film productions there’s ever been, and a rich portrait of the biggest, and most revolutionary names in Hollywood. So, it’s got that going for it…which is nice.]]>
294 Chris Nashawaty 1250105951 Kate 5 4.00 2018 Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story
author: Chris Nashawaty
name: Kate
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/06/02
shelves: creativity, great-books-nobody-ever-read, oh-so-amusing, performing-arts
review:

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<![CDATA[The Day John Met Paul: An Hour-By-Hour Account of How the Beatles Began]]> 916307 The Day John Met Paul is the story of two spirited boys on the brink of manhood who recognized a shared passion, a feeling for music so intense and pure that their seemingly simple meeting ultimately changed the face of music - and the world.]]> 192 James O'Donnell 0140253017 Kate 5 3.82 1994 The Day John Met Paul: An Hour-By-Hour Account of How the Beatles Began
author: James O'Donnell
name: Kate
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/06/02
shelves:
review:

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The Book Thief 8120173 When Death has a story to tell, you listen.

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still.

Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.Ěý

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author ofĚýI Am the Messenger,Ěýhas given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.]]>
554 Markus Zusak Kate 5 4.42 2005 The Book Thief
author: Markus Zusak
name: Kate
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/06/02
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[The Bear and the Nightingale (The Winternight Trilogy, #1)]]> 25489134
After Vasilisa's mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa's new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.

And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa's stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.

As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed—this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse's most frightening tales.

The Bear and the Nightingale is a magical debut novel from a gifted and gorgeous voice. It spins an irresistible spell as it announces the arrival of a singular talent.]]>
319 Katherine Arden 1101885939 Kate 5 4.07 2017 The Bear and the Nightingale (The Winternight Trilogy, #1)
author: Katherine Arden
name: Kate
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/03/14
shelves: contemp-fiction, sci-fi-fantasy
review:
What a lovely, lovely escape this glorious novel is! Arden takes us away to the cold northern reaches of old Russia, as the Orthodox church begins to encroach on the old ways, Vasalisa must do whatever she can to save the sprites and the house and stable gods from destruction, and, in so doing, preserve the lives of her neighbors and her family. Obstacles abound--chief among them, the fact that she is a young woman. This is an absolutely breathtaking first novel, and the first in a trilogy. Can't wait to get to the rest!
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Cruddy 29015 Now the truth can finally be revealed about the mysterious day long ago when the authorities found a child, calmly walking in the boiling desert, covered with blood.
The girl is Roberta Rohbeson, and her rant against a world bounded by "the cruddy top bedroom of a cruddy rental house on a very cruddy mud road" soon becomes a detailed account of another story, one that she has kept silent since she was eleven.
Darkly funny and resonant with humanity, Cruddy, masterfully intertwines Roberta's stories -- part Easy Rider and part bipolar Wizard of Oz. These stories, the backbone of Roberta's short life, include a one-way trip across America fueled by revenge and greed and a vivid cast of characters, starring Roberta's dangerous father, the owners of the Knocking Hammer Bar-cum-slaughterhouse, and runaway adolescents. With a teenager's eye for freakish detail and a nervous ability to make the most horrible scenes seem hilarious, Cruddy is a stunning achievement.]]>
305 Lynda Barry 068483846X Kate 3 contemp-fiction 4.16 1999 Cruddy
author: Lynda Barry
name: Kate
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2018/03/13
shelves: contemp-fiction
review:
This book is about as dark as it gets. Really awful, well developed characters who have nothing redeeming about their beautifully developed selves. The beyond-dystopian landscape is remarkably described. The action, the stuff of nightmares and gore. I hated this book and I couldn’t put it down and, did I mention I hated this book? It is incredibly violent and grim, and I cannot believe this sort of intense, murderous, grisly bloodshed is floating around in somebody’s head. But I Couldn’t put it down. Lynda—get help.
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<![CDATA[A Parliament of Souls: In Search of Global Spirituality (Companion to the Public Television Series)]]> 134174 289 Bettina Gray 0912333359 Kate 2 3.70 1995 A Parliament of Souls: In Search of Global Spirituality (Companion to the Public Television Series)
author: Bettina Gray
name: Kate
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1995
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2018/03/08
shelves: religion, supposed-to-be-deep-i-think
review:
This book is based interviews from some of the leaders who participated in the 1993 "Parliament of the World's Religions" in Chicago. I was there, so I experienced the this book in a different way than most people. The main takeaway from the Parliament was all of the dissension and in-fighting that took place. We have SO much work to do in interfaith dialog. There is a fair amount of bloviation in this book. It does not address in any meaningful way the ways in which the Parliament looked more like the Tom Lehrer song, "National Brotherhood Week," with the various religions with scores to settle fighting with one another. In reality, the actual parliament was a jarring experience in the distance we need to travel to be truly able to celebrate religious diversity. So, this book felt a tad dishonest to me, which is why so few stars.
]]>
<![CDATA[Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience]]> 66354 303 Mihály Csíkszentmihályi 0060920432 Kate 5 creativity 4.11 1990 Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
author: Mihály Csíkszentmihályi
name: Kate
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1990
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/03/05
shelves: creativity
review:
This is a classic book on the psychological state that leads to heightened productivity and creativity. Some call it "Flow." I call it "Joy."
]]>
<![CDATA[Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice]]> 9631432
"Brunetti has given the cartooning world something very similar to what Strunk & White gave to prose with their Elements of Style.Ěý . . . Keep it right next to your desk where you can find it at a moment’s notice."—Tim O’Neil, PopMatters.com The best cartooning is efficient visual storytelling—it is as much a matter of writing as it is of drawing. In this book, noted cartoonist and illustrator Ivan Brunetti presents fifteen distinct lessons on the art of cartooning, guiding his readers through wittily written passages on cartooning terminology, techniques, tools, and theory. Supplemented by Brunetti's own illustrations, prepared specially for this book, these lessons move the reader from spontaneous drawings to single-panel strips and complicated multipage stories. Through simple, creative exercises and assignments, Brunetti offers an unintimidating approach to a complex art form. He looks at the rhythms of storytelling, the challenges of character design, and the formal elements of comics while composing pages in his own iconic style and experimenting with a variety of tools, media, and approaches. By following the author's sophisticated and engaging perspective on the art of cartooning, aspiring cartoonists of all ages will hone their craft, create their personal style, and discover their own visual language.]]>
77 Ivan Brunetti 0300170998 Kate 5 artist-how-to, creativity 4.18 2011 Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice
author: Ivan Brunetti
name: Kate
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/03/05
shelves: artist-how-to, creativity
review:
What a perfect, short, and profound encouragement to pick up a pencil and create your own cartoons. This is a lovely, tiny book on cartooning. Lynda Barry recommended it, and I do, too.
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<![CDATA[Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration]]> 18077903 “What does it mean to manage well?�
From Ed Catmull, co-founder (with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter) of Pixar Animation Studios, comes an incisive book about creativity in business—sure to appeal to readers of Daniel Pink, Tom Peters, and Chip and Dan Heath. Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation—into the meetings, postmortems, and “Braintrust� sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture—but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.� For nearly twenty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner thirty Academy Awards. The joyousness of the storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, in this book, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable.
Ěý
As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, where many computer science pioneers got their start, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the thirteen movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as:
Ěý
� Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better.
� If you don’t strive to uncover what is unseen and understand its nature, you will be ill prepared to lead.
� It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them.
� The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them.
� A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody.
� Do not assume that general agreement will lead to change—it takes substantial energy to move a group, even when all are on board.]]>
368 Ed Catmull 0812993012 Kate 3 creativity 4.19 2014 Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration
author: Ed Catmull
name: Kate
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2018/03/05
shelves: creativity
review:
This is a Disneyfied view of Pixar and all the creative work that goes on there. So, it's sort of business-y, rather than straight creativity. But, still worth a read.
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The Lacuna 6433752 The Lacuna is a poignant story of a man pulled between two nations as they invent their modern identities.

Born in the United States, reared in a series of provisional households in Mexico—from a coastal island jungle to 1930s Mexico City—Harrison Shepherd finds precarious shelter but no sense of home on his thrilling odyssey. Life is whatever he learns from housekeepers who put him to work in the kitchen, errands he runs in the streets, and one fateful day, by mixing plaster for famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. He discovers a passion for Aztec history and meets the exotic, imperious artist Frida Kahlo, who will become his lifelong friend. When he goes to work for Lev Trotsky, an exiled political leader fighting for his life, Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution, newspaper headlines and howling gossip, and a risk of terrible violence.

Meanwhile, to the north, the United States will soon be caught up in the internationalist goodwill of World War II. There in the land of his birth, Shepherd believes he might remake himself in America's hopeful image and claim a voice of his own. He finds support from an unlikely kindred soul, his stenographer, Mrs. Brown, who will be far more valuable to her employer than he could ever know. Through darkening years, political winds continue to toss him between north and south in a plot that turns many times on the unspeakable breach—the lacuna—between truth and public presumption.

With deeply compelling characters, a vivid sense of place, and a clear grasp of how history and public opinion can shape a life, Barbara Kingsolver has created an unforgettable portrait of the artist—and of art itself. The Lacuna is a rich and daring work of literature, establishing its author as one of the most provocative and important of her time.]]>
508 Barbara Kingsolver 0060852577 Kate 5 contemp-fiction 3.80 2009 The Lacuna
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Kate
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/03/05
shelves: contemp-fiction
review:
Barbara Kingsolver writes yet another gripping work of historical fiction--this time about a young man caught up in both the union unrest of the midcentury US and the socialist movement of Mexico. A wonderful, thrilling story. I loved it.
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One Hundred Demons 29011 224 Lynda Barry 1570614598 Kate 5 4.17 2002 One Hundred Demons
author: Lynda Barry
name: Kate
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/03/05
shelves: american-classics, biography, books-addressing-human-frailty, exceedingly-wise, graphica, great-books-nobody-ever-read
review:
Wonderful, redemptive memoir of Lynda Barry's rough-and-tumble childhood, and all the ways she grew wise because of it. I recommend this to the moon and back.
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The Scarlet Pimpernel 136116 182 Emmuska Orczy 1576469239 Kate 4 brit-lit 4.07 1905 The Scarlet Pimpernel
author: Emmuska Orczy
name: Kate
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1905
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/03/04
shelves: brit-lit
review:

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<![CDATA[Life, Paint and Passion: Reclaiming the Magic of Spontaneous]]> 140167
With eloquence and simplicity, the authors encourage the reader to journey inward toward his or her authentic self and discover the unique intuition awaiting there. It is this intuition that provides all the tools the reader needs to crumble the barrier between the innermost self and its uncensored manifestation.

Through lively interviews with students, the authors explore painting as a practice that facilitates the ecstasy of unfettered expression. With simple brushes, a few dishes of paint, and this book, the reader will be able to coax the hidden self out of the heart and onto a paper.

Life, Paint And Passion is the result of nearly thirty years of intensive work with the painting process. It provides powerful insights into the act of creation, a solid base for facing and transcending creative blocks, and brings fresh perceptions and healing to life.]]>
224 Michele Cassou 0874778107 Kate 3 creativity 4.02 1996 Life, Paint and Passion: Reclaiming the Magic of Spontaneous
author: Michele Cassou
name: Kate
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2018/03/04
shelves: creativity
review:

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The Creative Spirit 650950 192 Daniel Goleman 0452268796 Kate 5 3.67 1992 The Creative Spirit
author: Daniel Goleman
name: Kate
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/03/04
shelves: great-books-nobody-ever-read, creativity
review:
This little book inspires me when I feel like I'm at a creative dead end.
]]>
<![CDATA[99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style]]> 162074 207 Matt Madden 1596090782 Kate 5 creativity, artist-how-to 3.89 2005 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style
author: Matt Madden
name: Kate
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/03/04
shelves: creativity, artist-how-to
review:

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A Prayer for Owen Meany 4473 637 John Irving 0552135399 Kate 4 american-classics, war-sucks 4.24 1989 A Prayer for Owen Meany
author: John Irving
name: Kate
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1989
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/03/04
shelves: american-classics, war-sucks
review:

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How to be an Artist 10762127 256 Michael Atavar 0953107310 Kate 4 creativity 3.91 2009 How to be an Artist
author: Michael Atavar
name: Kate
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/03/04
shelves: creativity
review:

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12 Rules of Creativity 18168340 Michael Atavar Kate 4 creativity 3.63 2011 12 Rules of Creativity
author: Michael Atavar
name: Kate
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/03/04
shelves: creativity
review:

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<![CDATA[The Old Wives' Fairy Tale Book]]> 198486 242 Angela Carter 0679740376 Kate 5 4.09 1990 The Old Wives' Fairy Tale Book
author: Angela Carter
name: Kate
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1990
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/03/04
shelves: folklore, chick-lit, you-are-woman-hear-you-roar
review:
great idea! A story collection focused on heroines! 'Bout time somebody came up with this!
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<![CDATA[The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It]]> 20262405 The Evolution of Adam recounts his transformative spiritual journey in which he discovered a new, more honest way to love and appreciate God’s Word.

Trained as an evangelical Bible scholar, Peter Enns loved the Scriptures and shared his devotion, teaching at Westminster Theological Seminary. But the further he studied the Bible, the more he found himself confronted by questions that could neither be answered within the rigid framework of his religious instruction or accepted among the conservative evangelical community.

Rejecting the increasingly complicated intellectual games used by conservative Christians to “protect� the Bible, Enns was conflicted. Is this what God really requires? How could God’s plan for divine inspiration mean ignoring what is really written in the Bible? These questions eventually cost Enns his job—but they also opened a new spiritual path for him to follow.

The Bible Tells Me So chronicles Enns’s spiritual odyssey, how he came to see beyond restrictive doctrine and learned to embrace God’s Word as it is actually written. As he explores questions progressive evangelical readers of Scripture commonly face yet fear voicing, Enns reveals that they are the very questions that God wants us to consider—the essence of our spiritual study.]]>
288 Peter Enns 0062272020 Kate 5 religion 4.20 2014 The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It
author: Peter Enns
name: Kate
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/03/03
shelves: religion
review:
Oh my gosh! The historical-critical method presented in such a delightful way! Who knew it could happen? I have my mainline church people reading this and they're loving it because this guy is super FUNNY!! And he is dead-on accurate in his scholarship (Harvard graduate degrees, so . . . ) Thank you, Peter Enns, for making our Lenten Bible Study far, far from the dour, gray, lifeless hour and a half of sacrifice these people have been accustomed to. This book is truly a gift. You rock.
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<![CDATA[She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana]]> 15167 A Girl Named Zippy, the woman rising heroically from the couch is Zippy's mother, Delonda. After years of languorous existence, this oversized couch potato emerged from the den to pursue a higher education. Delonda was well read but in other ways seemed ill suited for college: This middle-aged, 260-pound coed had a husband who disapproved of the entire venture, no driver's license, and almost no money. Like its predecessor, She Got Up Off the Couch holds our attention with its sympathetic rendering of idiosyncratic family characters. Hilarious; heartbreaking; ultimately empowering.]]> 337 Haven Kimmel 074328500X Kate 5 4.06 2005 She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana
author: Haven Kimmel
name: Kate
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/02/11
shelves:
review:
Can things get any more inspiring than "A Girl Named Zippy?" turns out that yes, they can. This is the story of Haven Kimmel's mom, who against all odds, as a grown, adult, Indiana woman, gets the gumption to go make something of herself. I rooted for mom all the way. You will, too.
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<![CDATA[Learn How to Knit with 50 Squares: For Beginners and Up, a Unique Approach to Learning to Knit (Knit & Crochet Blocks & Squares)]]> 25663789 Learn How to Knit with 50 Squares, you will discover all the essential skills that you need, one stitch at a time. Learn a new stitch by knitting a square, following a clear step-by-step tutorial and chart. By the time you've finished the square, you've practiced the new stitch, and you're ready to move on to the next one-quick and easy!

The squares are organized according to skill level, progressing from basic knit and purl stitches to more challenging techniques, such as cable and lace. And at the back of the book you'll find a handful of inspirational projects that show you how to combine your blocks for unique and stylish results.]]>
144 Che Lam 1250069955 Kate 3 craft-a-holic 3.65 2016 Learn How to Knit with 50 Squares: For Beginners and Up, a Unique Approach to Learning to Knit (Knit & Crochet Blocks & Squares)
author: Che Lam
name: Kate
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2018/02/11
shelves: craft-a-holic
review:
AAaaaaAaaarrrrrRRrrgggGGGggghhhHHhHHH!!!!! Why do I keep trying to learn to knit???? I found myself able to do some of these patterns, but certainly not all. I often went to other books with clearer illustrations to figure out some of the tricky bits. A great idea, really--knit up a six by six square of a particular stitch pattern, and voila! Suddenly you have 50 six by six squares. But I found the instructions, particularly for increasing and decreasing, really confusing, and some of the stitch patterns hopelessly convoluted. I got through about seven and then realized that fifty was overly ambitious. I think I'll stick to cable scarves and amigurumi.
]]>
<![CDATA[Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions]]> 33932358
"This manual for self-realization comes not from a mountain but from the mud.... My qualification is not that I am better than you but I am worse." (Russell Brand)

With a rare mix of honesty, humor, and compassion, comedian and movie star Russell Brand mines his own wild story and shares the advice and wisdom he has gained through his 14 years of recovery. Brand speaks to those suffering along the full spectrum of addiction - from drugs, alcohol, caffeine, and sugar addictions to addictions to work, stress, bad relationships, digital media, and fame. Brand understands that addiction can take many shapes and sizes and how the process of staying clean, sane, and unhooked is a daily activity. He believes that the question is not "why are you addicted?" but "what pain is your addiction masking? Why are you running - into the wrong job, the wrong life, the wrong person's arms?"

Russell has been in all the 12-step fellowships going, he's started his own men's group, he's a therapy regular and a practiced yogi - and while he's worked on this material as part of his comedy and previous best sellers, he's never before shared the tools that really took him out of it, that keep him clean and clear. Here he provides not only a recovery plan but an attempt to make sense of the ailing world.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.]]>
288 Russell Brand 1250141923 Kate 5 3.92 2017 Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions
author: Russell Brand
name: Kate
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/02/11
shelves: books-addressing-human-frailty, deep-philosophical-rants, exceedingly-wise, desperate-attempts-at-self-improvem
review:
Speaking the language of the millennial, including plentiful *f*bombs, Russell explains the 12 steps. I loved this book about his progress through the steps, and their deep spiritual significance for him. He is a brilliant writer. The words sing off the page. After I read this book, I finally felt like I understood the steps. I'm not addicted to anything, and so I wasn't sure I'd relate. However, Brand suggests that, simply by living in this consumption-oriented society, we ALL have a bit of the addict in us. Thought-provoking food for thought.
]]>
Room on the Broom 177246
The witch and her cat are happily flying through the sky on a broomstick when the wind picks up and blows away the witch's hat, then her bow, and then her wand!Ěý Luckily, three helpful animals find the missing items, and all they want in return is a ride on the broom.Ěý But is there room on the broom for so many friends?Ěý And when disaster strikes, will they be able to save the witch from a hungry dragon?

Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler are the creators of many beloved picture books including The Gruffalo , The Gruffalo's Child , The Snail and the Whale ,Ěýand The Spiffiest Giant in Town .


"A surefire read-aloud hit." - School Library Journal]]>
32 Julia Donaldson 0142501123 Kate 5 4.45 2001 Room on the Broom
author: Julia Donaldson
name: Kate
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/02/11
shelves: children-s-books, exceedingly-wise
review:
This one is a charmer. How generous can we be? And how do the people (or, in this case, creatures) in our lives respond to our generosity. A lovely story with whimsical illustrations and a heart-warming ending. This is also a wonderful animated video, which is infectiously cute. Highly recommended.
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<![CDATA[The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well]]> 30045683 Hygge has been described as everything from "cosines of the soul" to "the pursuit of everyday pleasures". The Little Book of Hygge is the book we all need right now, and is guaranteed to bring warmth and comfort to you and your loved ones this winter.

Hooga? Hhyooguh? Heurgh? It is not really important how you choose to pronounce 'hygge'. What is important is that you feel it. Whether you're cuddled up on a sofa with a loved one, or sharing comfort food with your closest friends, hygge is about creating an atmosphere where you can let your guard down.]]>
289 Meik Wiking 0241283914 Kate 3 3.76 2016 The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well
author: Meik Wiking
name: Kate
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2018/02/11
shelves: desperate-attempts-at-self-improvem
review:
I felt silly even picking this one up, but I did, and it was a total guilty pleasure. If you want the simplest of all possible simple descriptions of the Hygge craze, this book is for you. It has lovely illustrations, simple and dreamy prescriptions for getting your comfort on. A sweet little confection of a book.
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A Beautiful Work In Progress 34312042
Valerio has tied on her running shoes all across the country, from the dusty back roads of central New Jersey to the busy Route 222 corridor in Pennsylvania to the sweltering deserts of Arizona. When you meet her on the trail, you might be surprised to see she doesn’t quite fit the typical image of a long-distance runner. She’s neither skinny nor white, and she’s here to show just how misguided these stereotypes can be.

In this prejudice-busting, body-positive memoir told with raw honesty, an adventurous spirit, and a sharp sense of humor, Valerio takes readers along on her journey from first-time racer to ultramarathoner and proves that anyone can become a successful athlete.]]>
336 Mirna Valerio 1503998401 Kate 4
That's right. She's heavy. Some would say fat. And she runs, not just mere 26.3-mile marathons, but insane 50 mile races. I never knew 50 mile races were a thing, but as I listened, I got hooked into her whole story. This is so much more than another athlete memoir. This is a great lesson in overcoming obstacles and persevering in your goals. I will never in a million years be a long distance runner. I think twice about walking down the street to the post office once a day. But, oh my gosh, to live vicariously through Mirna's work is a real pleasure. No blisters. No shin splints. No sweat.]]>
3.75 2017 A Beautiful Work In Progress
author: Mirna Valerio
name: Kate
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/02/11
shelves: modern-girlie-pathos, biography
review:
I literally bought this book by its cover, and when I started it, I thought I had made a mistake. This is a book about competitive long distance running--not something I care about in the least. But the author is anything but your typical sinew-y stick figure dashing around in marathons. Mira Valerio is a very heavy-set black woman who grew up in one of the poorer neighborhoods of New York City.

That's right. She's heavy. Some would say fat. And she runs, not just mere 26.3-mile marathons, but insane 50 mile races. I never knew 50 mile races were a thing, but as I listened, I got hooked into her whole story. This is so much more than another athlete memoir. This is a great lesson in overcoming obstacles and persevering in your goals. I will never in a million years be a long distance runner. I think twice about walking down the street to the post office once a day. But, oh my gosh, to live vicariously through Mirna's work is a real pleasure. No blisters. No shin splints. No sweat.
]]>
<![CDATA[Family Secrets: The Case That Crippled the Chicago Mob]]> 8425778
ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚý Painting a vivid picture of murder, courtroom drama, family loyalties and disloyalties, journalist Jeff Coen accurately portrays the Chicago Outfit’s cold-blooded--and sometimes incompetent--killers and their crimes in the case that brought them down. In 1998 Frank Calabrese Jr. volunteered to wear a wire to gather evidence against his father, a vicious loan shark who strangled most of his victims with a rope before slitting their throats to ensure they were dead. Frank Jr. went after his uncle Nick as well, a calculating but sometimes bumbling hit man who would become one of the highest-ranking turncoats in mob history, admitting he helped strangle, stab, shoot, and bomb victims who got in the mob’s way, and turning evidence against his brother Frank.

ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚý The Chicago courtroom took on the look and feel of a movie set as Chicago’s most colorful mobsters and their equally flamboyant attorneys paraded through and James “Jimmy Lightâ€� Marcello, the acting head of the Chicago mob; Joey “the Clownâ€� Lombardo, one of Chicago’s most eccentric mobsters; Paul “the Indianâ€� Schiro; and a former Chicago police officer, Anthony “Twanâ€� Doyle, among others.

ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚý Re-creating events from court transcripts, police records, interviews, and notes taken day after day as the story unfolded in court, Coen provides a riveting wide-angle view and one of the best accounts on record of the inner workings of the Chicago syndicate and its control over the city’s streets.]]>
440 Jeff Coen 1569765456 Kate 5 chicago, history
Coen spells out, in reality, just how bad they are. I grew up in the Chicago area, and some of the names are familiar--Calabrese, LaPietra, Joey "the Clown" Lombardo. And we all know that certain areas of the city produce some people who tend to be crooked-- Cicero, Lyons, Chinatown, Rosemont, to name a few. Well, here they are, in all their viciousness. Coen outlines murder after murder, taken from transcripts and papers involved in the trial in which Frank Calabrese, Sr's son and brother rat out him and the rest of their mob friends and associates. What results is a rare look inside the Chicago Outfit. A lot of effort, artfulness and creativity go into each hit. So sad that the result is death, cruelty and loss. Some of these men are sociopaths to the core. Others seem to have been caught up in the outfit as youngsters and kill because they fear for their lives if they don't.

The lawyers in the case are also a feature of the book, the lowbrow antics of Lopez, a defense attorney, and the solid, righteous efforts of Attorney Mars are characterized in intricate detail by Coen. Mars and his colleague on the bench, John Scully, ultimately triumph in taking down the core players in the Chicago Outfit in this historic trial. This is the remarkable story of how they did it.

While I gave the book five stars, this kind of stuff is really not my thing. I picked up this book to find out about a mob associate who was once a board member at an organization where I worked. While I learned a lot about him, and thought the book was well-written and absolutely fascinating, this is probably the only book of the mob genre that I will ever read.]]>
3.72 Family Secrets: The Case That Crippled the Chicago Mob
author: Jeff Coen
name: Kate
average rating: 3.72
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/12/19
shelves: chicago, history
review:
Just like you can't take a bad picture of the Himalayas, you just can't write a bad book about the Family Secrets trial that took place in Chicago back in 2007. The subject was just too fascinating. Let me begin by saying everything I know about the mob comes from the old Matthew Broderick movie, The Freshman--a comedy in which Burt Parks sings the virtues of the Komodo Dragon. In other words, I know nothing about the mob but that they're bad people with no conscience.

Coen spells out, in reality, just how bad they are. I grew up in the Chicago area, and some of the names are familiar--Calabrese, LaPietra, Joey "the Clown" Lombardo. And we all know that certain areas of the city produce some people who tend to be crooked-- Cicero, Lyons, Chinatown, Rosemont, to name a few. Well, here they are, in all their viciousness. Coen outlines murder after murder, taken from transcripts and papers involved in the trial in which Frank Calabrese, Sr's son and brother rat out him and the rest of their mob friends and associates. What results is a rare look inside the Chicago Outfit. A lot of effort, artfulness and creativity go into each hit. So sad that the result is death, cruelty and loss. Some of these men are sociopaths to the core. Others seem to have been caught up in the outfit as youngsters and kill because they fear for their lives if they don't.

The lawyers in the case are also a feature of the book, the lowbrow antics of Lopez, a defense attorney, and the solid, righteous efforts of Attorney Mars are characterized in intricate detail by Coen. Mars and his colleague on the bench, John Scully, ultimately triumph in taking down the core players in the Chicago Outfit in this historic trial. This is the remarkable story of how they did it.

While I gave the book five stars, this kind of stuff is really not my thing. I picked up this book to find out about a mob associate who was once a board member at an organization where I worked. While I learned a lot about him, and thought the book was well-written and absolutely fascinating, this is probably the only book of the mob genre that I will ever read.
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<![CDATA[Every Day Is Epic: A Guided Journal for Daydreams, Creative Rants, and Bright Ideas]]> 33572515
In this one-year guided journal from artist Mary Kate McDevitt, every entry sparks creativity and self-reflection with inspiring prompts, upbeat affirmations, and interactive doodles. Chronicle big plans and budding ideas. Jot down daydreams or forecast your mood. Rate the day’s major, minor, or meh? With quirky humor and vibrant illustrations, every page is a celebration of the adventures, discoveries, and joys that make your life uniquely epic.


Ěý]]>
320 Mary Kate McDevitt 0761189408 Kate 5 4.60 Every Day Is Epic: A Guided Journal for Daydreams, Creative Rants, and Bright Ideas
author: Mary Kate McDevitt
name: Kate
average rating: 4.60
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/12/09
shelves: desperate-attempts-at-self-improvem
review:
How do I review a journal? I mean, a journal should be full of empty pages, right? A book I write myself. But THIS journal is guided, with really fun visual prompts to help you record events and thoughts from each day. I usually have half a dozen blank books going on at the same time, but I have a feeling I will fill every single page of this journal. It is crazy fun!
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<![CDATA[The 6 Marks of Progressive Christian Worship Music]]> 17650261
Sometimes these contemporary worship songs use too many Christian buzz words or clichés—words or phrases that the pastor deliberately avoids in every other aspect of the liturgy. Often the problem is that the new songs show no sensitivity at all to things like “inclusive language� or the theological challenges of doctrines like “penal substitutionary atonement.�

Sometimes the pastors feel that most of these new songs lack substance, that they’re too sugary, too individualistic, and too other-worldly. Sometimes there’s an emotional tone to this contemporary worship music that might work well in another kind of church but which just doesn’t feel authentic in a traditional or mainline congregation.

Now I would imagine that at least some of you began to glaze over a bit as you attempted to read those last few paragraphs. Or maybe you didn’t fully understand some of the terms I just used. If so, don’t worry—that’s why I wrote this book! If you have no idea what things like “penal substitutionary atonement� or “inclusive language� are about, this book will help you understand what these terms mean and why it’s important to your pastors for you to know your way around these issues and concepts a bit as you seek new songs to bring into the worship life of your congregation.

And I promise--I’ll do my best to use down-to-earth language that you’ll be able to easily understand without a seminary education!"]]>
201 Bryan J. Sirchio 1477249567 Kate 5 performing-arts, religion 4.67 2012 The 6 Marks of Progressive Christian Worship Music
author: Bryan J. Sirchio
name: Kate
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/12/09
shelves: performing-arts, religion
review:

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<![CDATA[The Encyclopedia of Greeting Card Tools & Techniques]]> 11489564 304 Susan Pickering Rothamel 1454701218 Kate 2 craft-a-holic 4.00 2008 The Encyclopedia of Greeting Card Tools & Techniques
author: Susan Pickering Rothamel
name: Kate
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2008
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2017/12/09
shelves: craft-a-holic
review:
If you are unsure about what a pencil or pen is. If you aren’t completely sure on the concept of, say, glue—then this book is for you! Some of the definitions border on insane. And, in ways, this book is more like a dictionary than an encyclopaedia. There are only a few places where topics are covered in any depth. Those few entries are all that kept my rating at two stars rather than just one. Not. That. Helpful.
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<![CDATA[CreativeGIRL: Mixed Media Techniques for an Artful Life]]> 24411704
CreativeGIRL features art projects that teach you how to draw and paint your story using pencils, watercolor paints and simple mixed-media supplies. Danielle Donaldson shows you how to draw the pretty pictures from your imagination, infuse your art with delightful color combinations and work through creative frustration with simple fixes. You'll learn how to paint with watercolor, tell visual stories with and without words and add depth with layers using mixed-media techniques and little details--all while finding inspiration and gaining confidence in your own artistic style.

Draw, paint, layer and create!

ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýMore than 30 techniques and projects including drawing, painting and adding layers for artists and aspiring artists of all levels.
ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýLearn how do draw and paint figures such as creativeGIRL, busyGIRL and tutuGIRL. Then create your own girl to channel your story.
ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýFind even more inspiration in a gallery filled with extraLOVE from the artist.]]>
128 Danielle Donaldson 1440340129 Kate 5 craft-a-holic, creativity 4.23 2015 CreativeGIRL: Mixed Media Techniques for an Artful Life
author: Danielle Donaldson
name: Kate
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/12/09
shelves: craft-a-holic, creativity
review:

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The Wild Children 1038269 Felice Holman 0140319301 Kate 5
The book is a reminder that cold-hearted greed and cruelty can come upon any nation, and leave starving, homeless children in its wake. It happened (and,to a lesser extent, is still happening) in Russia, and it could happen here. In the end, we have heroes like Alex, who, seeing a path to safety and wholeness, has to make the choice to take it for himself, or to turn back and show others the way.]]>
3.84 1983 The Wild Children
author: Felice Holman
name: Kate
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1983
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/12/09
shelves: books-addressing-human-frailty, classics-by-other-foreigners, children-s-books, curmudgeons-for-justice, exceedingly-wise, great-books-nobody-ever-read, searing-social-commentary, war-sucks
review:
A wise retired teacher in my church recommended this book to me. Probably appropriate for late middle school to Jr high, kids, it is also a great read for grownups—especially onsiderin* the times we find ourselves in now, where the old America we knew and loved has been overwhelmed with Russia and its oligarchs.

The book is a reminder that cold-hearted greed and cruelty can come upon any nation, and leave starving, homeless children in its wake. It happened (and,to a lesser extent, is still happening) in Russia, and it could happen here. In the end, we have heroes like Alex, who, seeing a path to safety and wholeness, has to make the choice to take it for himself, or to turn back and show others the way.
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Last Train to Istanbul 17779550 International bestseller by one of Turkey’s most beloved authors

As the daughter of one of Turkey’s last Ottoman pashas, Selva could win the heart of any man in Ankara. Yet the spirited young beauty only has eyes for Rafael Alfandari, the handsome Jewish son of an esteemed court physician. In defiance of their families, they marry, fleeing to Paris to build a new life.

But when the Nazis invade France, the exiled lovers will learn that nothing—not war, not politics, not even religion—can break the bonds of family. For after they learn that Selva is but one of their fellow citizens trapped in France, a handful of brave Turkish diplomats hatch a plan to spirit the Alfandaris and hundreds of innocents, many of whom are Jewish, to safety. Together, they must traverse a war-torn continent, crossing enemy lines and risking everything in a desperate bid for freedom. From Ankara to Paris, Cairo, and Berlin, Last Train to Istanbul is an uplifting tale of love and adventure from Turkey’s beloved bestselling novelist Ayşe Kulin.

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374 AyĹźe Kulin 1477807616 Kate 2 contemp-fiction, war-sucks 3.63 2002 Last Train to Istanbul
author: AyĹźe Kulin
name: Kate
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2002
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2017/11/28
shelves: contemp-fiction, war-sucks
review:
Do NOT, repeat, do NOT, get the Audible edition of this book. The “narrator� passes off a decent Turkish accent, but his reading has a very limited tonal and expressive range. He doesn’t narrate, really. He just reads. It was totally distracting me from the story. I stood it for as long as I could, and then switched to reading my Kindle edition.. Maybe that’s what influenced the smaller # of stars, but also, the book itself. I didn’t find a character I could really grab a hold of. So, not terrible, but not worth the time, either. At least not in English.
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<![CDATA[50 Art Ideas You Really Need to Know]]> 25043862
Taking in the defining artistic moments in history, including the Baroque, the Renaissance and the ever-changing Modern, this book also explores influential movements such as Romanticism, Cubism, and Minimalism. Susie Hodge’s concise and insightful text is accompanied by a glossary explaining key terms and concepts, as well as brief mini-essays and informative biographies on artists of the period.

With images to illustrate each key concept, and comprehensive timelines to place each movement in its context, this book provides a comprehensive key to the most significant developments in western art.]]>
208 Susie Hodge 1623651794 Kate 3 3.00 2011 50 Art Ideas You Really Need to Know
author: Susie Hodge
name: Kate
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2017/11/28
date added: 2017/11/28
shelves:
review:

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Creative Girl 9298522 320 Katharine Sise 0762441615 Kate 3 3.83 2010 Creative Girl
author: Katharine Sise
name: Kate
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2017/11/25
shelves:
review:

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I Kill Giants 6435893 184 Joe Kelly 1607060922 Kate 5 4.14 2009 I Kill Giants
author: Joe Kelly
name: Kate
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/11/25
shelves: books-addressing-human-frailty, graphica
review:
What a touching, sad, brave story about coping with grief. Highly recommended.
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Mrs. Saint and the Defectives 34204773 336 Julie Lawson Timmer 1477819967 Kate 3 3.51 2017 Mrs. Saint and the Defectives
author: Julie Lawson Timmer
name: Kate
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2017/11/25
shelves: books-addressing-human-frailty, contemp-fiction
review:
This was almost a great book. A great book shows and doesn’t tell. For about 70% of the story, the author showed the predicaments , foibles and triumphs of the characters. And then for the last 30%, Page after page after page of explaining why Mrs. Saint did what she did. I enjoyed the book and the characters, until we got to that point. And it was disappointing to be told, “She did this because she felt like that.� Or, “the reason xyz happened is because . . .”A little explaining is okay, but this was altogether too much. It stopped being fun to read then.
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James and the Giant Peach 232188 A little magic can take you a long way...

Roald Dahl was a champion of the underdog and all things little—in this case, an orphaned boy oppressed by two nasty, self-centered aunts. How James escapes his miserable life with the horrible aunts and becomes a hero is a Dahlicious fantasy of the highest order. You will never forget resourceful little James and his new family of magically overgrown insects—a ladybug, a spider, a grasshopper, a glowworm, a silkworm, and the chronic complainer, a centipede with a hundred gorgeous shoes. Their adventures aboard a luscious peach as large as a house take them across the Atlantic Ocean, through waters infested with peach-eating sharks and skies inhabited by malevolent Cloudmen, to a ticker-tape parade in New York City.

This happily ever after contemporary fairy tale is a twentieth-century classic that every child deserves to know. And Lane Smith's endearingly funny illustrations are a perfect match for the text.
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126 Roald Dahl 0140374248 Kate 4 children-s-books 3.96 1961 James and the Giant Peach
author: Roald Dahl
name: Kate
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1961
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/10/17
shelves: children-s-books
review:

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A Man Called Ove 18774964
Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations.]]>
337 Fredrik Backman 1476738017 Kate 5 4.35 2012 A Man Called Ove
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Kate
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/10/15
shelves: classics-by-other-foreigners, contemp-fiction, exceedingly-wise
review:
What a sweet story about a sour man. Some of the lines are laugh-out-loud funny. Cleverly written and very wise.
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Christy 754792 501 Catherine Marshall 0380440326 Kate 1 horrid 100% tripe. 4.23 1967 Christy
author: Catherine Marshall
name: Kate
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1967
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2017/09/30
shelves: horrid
review:
100% tripe.
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What It Is 2086132 What It Is demonstrates a tried-and-true creative method that is playful, powerful, and accessible to anyone with an inquisitive wish to write or to remember. Composed of completely new material, each page of Barry’s first Drawn & Quarterly book is a full-color collage that is not only a gentle guide to this process but an invigorating example of exactly what it is: “The ordinary is extraordinary.”]]> 210 Lynda Barry 1897299354 Kate 4 4.16 2008 What It Is
author: Lynda Barry
name: Kate
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/09/24
shelves: creativity, books-addressing-human-frailty, graphica, great-books-nobody-ever-read, reference, searing-social-commentary, artist-how-to
review:

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<![CDATA[Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor]]> 20613619
She showed me ways of using these simple things � our hands, a pen, and some paper � as both a navigation and expedition device, one that could reliably carry me into my past, deeper into my present, or farther into a place I have come to call "the image world" � a place we all know, even if we don't notice this knowing until someone reminds us of its ever-present existence.

I wasn't quite 20 years old when I started my first notebook. I had no idea that nearly 40 years later, I would not only still be using it as the most reliable route to the thing I've come to call my work, but I'd also be showing others how to use it too, as a place to practice a physical activity � in this case writing and drawing by hand � with a certain state of mind.

This practice can result in what I've come to consider a wonderful side effect: a visual or written image we can call 'a work of art,' although a work of art is not what I'm after when I'm practicing this activity.

What am I after? I'm after what Marilyn Frasca called "being present and seeing what's there."

This book is a collection of bits and pieces from the many notebooks I kept during my first three years of trying to figure out how to teach this practice to my students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison."]]>
200 Lynda Barry 1770461612 Kate 5 4.39 2014 Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor
author: Lynda Barry
name: Kate
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/09/24
shelves: books-addressing-human-frailty, deep-philosophical-rants, exceedingly-wise, graphica, reference
review:

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<![CDATA[Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution]]> 23317538
It is the rise from falling that Brown takes as her subject in Rising Strong. As a grounded theory researcher, Brown has listened as a range of people—from leaders in Fortune 500 companies and the military to artists, couples in long-term relationships, teachers, and parents—shared their stories of being brave, falling, and getting back up. She asked herself, What do these people with strong and loving relationships, leaders nurturing creativity, artists pushing innovation, and clergy walking with people through faith and mystery have in common? The answer was clear: They recognize the power of emotion and they’re not afraid to lean in to discomfort.

Walking into our stories of hurt can feel dangerous. But the process of regaining our footing in the midst of struggle is where our courage is tested and our values are forged. Our stories of struggle can be big ones, like the loss of a job or the end of a relationship, or smaller ones, like a conflict with a friend or colleague. Regardless of magnitude or circumstance, the rising strong process is the same: We reckon with our emotions and get curious about what we’re feeling; we rumble with our stories until we get to a place of truth; and we live this process, every day, until it becomes a practice and creates nothing short of a revolution in our lives. Rising strong after a fall is how we cultivate wholeheartedness. It’s the process, Brown writes, that teaches us the most about who we are.]]>
336 Brené Brown 0812995821 Kate 4 4.25 2015 Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution
author: Brené Brown
name: Kate
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/09/24
shelves: books-addressing-human-frailty, desperate-attempts-at-self-improvem, exceedingly-wise
review:
If I met Brene Brown, I'm not sure I'd like her. Did she really run around and ask people whether others "did the best they could," and consider that a research question? What does that even mean? Is she really that freaked out about what she looks like in a Speedo? What she thinks is a big deal in life is so not what I think of as a big deal. And yet, she is willing to put her whole self on display here. I guess that's her vulnerability thing. And she does make some excellent points about honest communication and good boundaries that are applicable far beyond simply recovering from failures. So, in spite of my eye-rolls every time she talks about "The Rising Strong Process" as if there ought to be a tiny [TM] following that phrase, and despite her decidedly upper-middle-class, self-centered suburbanite attitudes, I did find myself nodding quite often as I read this book. Overall, I got a lot out of it.
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All the Light We Cannot See 18143977
In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.

From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the stunningly beautiful instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

An alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here]]>
544 Anthony Doerr 1476746583 Kate 5 contemp-fiction 4.31 2014 All the Light We Cannot See
author: Anthony Doerr
name: Kate
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/09/24
shelves: contemp-fiction
review:

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<![CDATA[Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice]]> 22609522
Bill Browder’s journey started on the South Side of Chicago and moved through Stanford Business School to the dog-eat-dog world of hedge fund investing in the 1990s. It continued in Moscow, where Browder made his fortune heading the largest investment fund in Russia after the Soviet Union’s collapse. But when he exposed the corrupt oligarchs who were robbing the companies in which he was investing, Vladimir Putin turned on him and, in 2005, had him expelled from Russia.

In 2007, a group of law enforcement officers raided Browder’s offices in Moscow and stole $230 million of taxes that his fund’s companies had paid to the Russian government. Browder’s attorney Sergei Magnitsky investigated the incident and uncovered a sprawling criminal enterprise. A month after Sergei testified against the officials involved, he was arrested and thrown into pre-trial detention, where he was tortured for a year. On November 16, 2009, he was led to an isolation chamber, handcuffed to a bedrail, and beaten to death by eight guards in full riot gear.

Browder glimpsed the heart of darkness, and it transformed his life: he embarked on an unrelenting quest for justice in Sergei’s name, exposing the towering cover-up that leads right up to Putin. A financial caper, a crime thriller, and a political crusade, Red Notice is the story of one man taking on overpowering odds to change the world.]]>
380 Bill Browder 147675571X Kate 5 4.39 2015 Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice
author: Bill Browder
name: Kate
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/09/24
shelves: america-oy-merica, curmudgeons-for-justice, exceedingly-wise, searing-social-commentary
review:

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<![CDATA[The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Harold Fry, #1)]]> 13227454
Harold pens a quick reply and, leaving Maureen to her chores, heads to the corner mailbox. But then, as happens in the very best works of fiction, Harold has a chance encounter, one that convinces him that he absolutely must deliver his message to Queenie in person. And thus begins the unlikely pilgrimage. Harold Fry is determined to walk six hundred miles from Kingsbridge to the hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed because, he believes, as long as he walks, Queenie Hennessey will live.

Still in his yachting shoes and light coat, Harold embarks on his urgent quest across the countryside. Along the way he meets one character after another, each of whom unlocks his long-dormant spirit and sense of promise. Memories of his first dance with Maureen, his wedding day, his joy in fatherhood, come rushing back to him - allowing him to also reconcile the losses and the regrets. As for Maureen, she finds herself missing Harold for the first time in years.

And then there is the unfinished business with Queenie Hennessy.]]>
320 Rachel Joyce 0812993292 Kate 5 brit-lit, contemp-fiction 3.91 2012 The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Harold Fry, #1)
author: Rachel Joyce
name: Kate
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/09/24
shelves: brit-lit, contemp-fiction
review:

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<![CDATA[Listening for the Heartbeat of God: A Celtic Spirituality]]> 361552 107 John Philip Newell 0809137593 Kate 5 history, religion 4.33 1997 Listening for the Heartbeat of God: A Celtic Spirituality
author: John Philip Newell
name: Kate
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/09/24
shelves: history, religion
review:

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<![CDATA[Emergence Christianity: What It Is, Where It Is Going, and Why It Matters]]> 13789070
Through her careful study and culture-watching, Tickle invites you to join this investigation and conversation as an open-minded explorer. You will discover fascinating insights into the concerns, organizational patterns, theology, and most pressing questions facing the church today. And you’ll get a tantalizing glimpse of the future.]]>
237 Phyllis Tickle 0801013550 Kate 2 religion 3.78 2012 Emergence Christianity: What It Is, Where It Is Going, and Why It Matters
author: Phyllis Tickle
name: Kate
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2012
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2017/09/24
shelves: religion
review:

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<![CDATA[Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church Is Transforming the Faith]]> 231007 321 Diana Butler Bass 0060836946 Kate 5 religion 4.05 2006 Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church Is Transforming the Faith
author: Diana Butler Bass
name: Kate
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/09/24
shelves: religion
review:

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If the Creek Don't Rise 32804703
In a North Carolina mountain town filled with moonshine and rotten husbands, Sadie Blue is only the latest girl to face a dead-end future at the mercy of a dangerous drunk. She’s been married to Roy Tupkin for fifteen days, and she knows now that she should have listened to the folks who said he was trouble. But when a stranger sweeps in and knocks the world off-kilter for everyone in town, Sadie begins to think there might be more to life than being Roy’s wife.

As stark and magnificent as Appalachia itself, If the Creek Don’t Rise is a bold and beautifully layered debut about a dusty, desperate town finding the inner strength it needs to outrun its demons. The folks of Baines Creek will take you deep into the mountains with heart, honesty, and homegrown grit.]]>
305 Leah Weiss 1492647454 Kate 3 contemp-fiction
Not in this book. We don't know what happens to the new teacher who comes to town who seems so important at the start of the book. We don't know what happens to the preacher who seems enamored of her. We don't know what happens to Tattler, or Marris, or Gladys. They just sort of . . . drift away. Why were they there in the first place? Morris and Gladys seem to fill us in with the backstory, and that's about it.

And then there's character development. Kate had her character developed more than the others--God knows why, since we never find out whether she succeeds, stays, brings her lesbian lover to live with her. Sadie Blue definitely has character development and growth the story. Billy seems to grow a spine in the story. Why not just make it about them?

Some of the characters are cardboard cutouts. Prudence is a ridiculously one-dimensional Prude. Roy Tupkin is, basically, Bill Sykes. Same with Gladys and Marris. And the local witch, walking around with a crow on her head--that's just goofy. I live out in the country. Do you know how big a crow is? Every time this detail was mentioned, I found myself distracted by it. But moreso by the lack of meat on many of the characters in the novel They are not complex.

What I did like about it? Since this is all told in the first person, from the points of view of various characters, the language is North Carolina mountain people. All folksy. All misspellings intentional. And that's okay with me. And the ending. I really loved the ending. It's just that we didn't need half the characters in the book to get us there.



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3.86 2017 If the Creek Don't Rise
author: Leah Weiss
name: Kate
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2017/09/24
shelves: contemp-fiction
review:
The main characters have a reason for being in a well-constructed plot. What they do and who they are all pull together to create reasons for the protagonist to do what he or she does in the end. in a well-constructed plot, the main characters may have foibles and gallantries that are displayed and resolved or celebrated in various subplots, and there is some attempt at resolution for these subplots by novel's end.

Not in this book. We don't know what happens to the new teacher who comes to town who seems so important at the start of the book. We don't know what happens to the preacher who seems enamored of her. We don't know what happens to Tattler, or Marris, or Gladys. They just sort of . . . drift away. Why were they there in the first place? Morris and Gladys seem to fill us in with the backstory, and that's about it.

And then there's character development. Kate had her character developed more than the others--God knows why, since we never find out whether she succeeds, stays, brings her lesbian lover to live with her. Sadie Blue definitely has character development and growth the story. Billy seems to grow a spine in the story. Why not just make it about them?

Some of the characters are cardboard cutouts. Prudence is a ridiculously one-dimensional Prude. Roy Tupkin is, basically, Bill Sykes. Same with Gladys and Marris. And the local witch, walking around with a crow on her head--that's just goofy. I live out in the country. Do you know how big a crow is? Every time this detail was mentioned, I found myself distracted by it. But moreso by the lack of meat on many of the characters in the novel They are not complex.

What I did like about it? Since this is all told in the first person, from the points of view of various characters, the language is North Carolina mountain people. All folksy. All misspellings intentional. And that's okay with me. And the ending. I really loved the ending. It's just that we didn't need half the characters in the book to get us there.




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<![CDATA[Sleep Smarter: 21 Proven Tips to Sleep Your Way To a Better Body, Better Health and Bigger Success]]> 22377589
Whether you've struggled with sleep problems, or you're simply interested in living a longer, healthier life, you're going to be blown away with what you learn. Here's just a sampling of what you're going to discover:
Why you need to sleep more and exercise less to get the best fitness results.Ěý How to feel more energized and refreshed on less hours of sleep.Ěý Why poor sleep quality depresses brain function and leads to poor performance.Ěý What supplements are safe and helpful, and which ones to avoid (this will shock you!)Ěý What exercises you can do to instantly improve your sleep quality.Ěý How the clothes you wear to bed can depress your hormone function.Ěý Why sleep is the missing ingredient in long-term fat loss (clinically proven!)Ěý Why going to bed at the right time is more important than how many hours you sleep.Ěý What mineral deficiency can cause severe sleep problems (and how to fix it).Ěý The surprising impact that intimacy has on your sleep quality.Ěý How to calm your mind so that you can fall asleep faster.Ěý This and much more inside, so open the book and begin to Sleep Smarter now!

Shawn Stevenson is the creator of The Model Health Show, featured as the #1 Nutrition and Fitness podcast on itunes, and a leading health expert who's transformed the lives of thousands of people around the world. A graduate of The University of Missouri - St. Louis with a background in biology and kinesiology, Shawn went on to be the founder of Advanced Integrative Health Alliance, a successful company that provides Wellness Services for both individuals and organizations worldwide. Shawn is a dynamic keynote speaker who has spoken for TEDx, universities, and numerous organizations with outstanding reviews. To learn more, visit the author's website at TheShawnStevensonModel.com]]>
162 Shawn Stevenson Kate 3 hypochondriana 3.94 2014 Sleep Smarter: 21 Proven Tips to Sleep Your Way To a Better Body, Better Health and Bigger Success
author: Shawn Stevenson
name: Kate
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2014/12/23
date added: 2017/06/28
shelves: hypochondriana
review:
This book was a little more useful than "Sleep Soundly Every Night." I'm gonna try the author's suggestion of getting more magnesium in my diet, and maybe getting outside in the early morning. So, there were a couple of useful suggestions in this one. Maybe. We'll see.
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<![CDATA[Daily Rituals: How Artists Work]]> 18744226 More than 150 inspired—and inspiring—novelists, poets, playwrights, painters, philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians on how they subtly maneuver the many (self-inflicted) obstacles and (self-imposed) daily rituals to get done the work they love to do.Franz Kafka, frustrated with his living quarters and day job, wrote in a letter to Felice Bauer in 1912, “time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers.â€� Ěý Kafka is one of 161 minds who describe their daily rituals to get their work done, whether by waking early or staying up late; whether by self-medicating with doughnuts or bathing, drinking vast quantities of coffee, or taking long daily walks. Thomas Wolfe wrote standing up in the kitchen, the top of the refrigerator as his desk, dreamily fondling his “male configurationsâ€�.... Jean-Paul Sartre chewed on Corydrane tablets (a mix of amphetamine and aspirin), ingesting ten times the recommended dose each day ... Descartes liked to linger in bed, his mind wandering in sleep through woods, gardens, and enchanted palaces where he experienced “every pleasure imaginable.â€� Here Anthony Trollope, who demanded of himself that each morning he write three thousand words (250 words every fifteen minutes for three hours) before going off to his job at the postal service, which he kept for thirty-three years during the writing of more than two dozen books ... Karl Marx ... Woody Allen ... Agatha Christie ... George Balanchine, who did most of his work while ironing ... Leo Tolstoy ... Charles Dickens ... Pablo Picasso ... George Gershwin, who, said his brother Ira, worked for twelve hours a day from late morning to midnight, composing at the piano in pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers.... Here also are the daily rituals of Charles Darwin, Andy Warhol, John Updike, Twyla Tharp, Benjamin Franklin, William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Anne Rice, and Igor Stravinsky (he was never able to compose unless he was sure no one could hear him and, when blocked, stood on his head to “clear the brainâ€�).]]> 305 Mason Currey 0307962377 Kate 4 3.76 2013 Daily Rituals: How Artists Work
author: Mason Currey
name: Kate
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2016/11/24
date added: 2016/11/24
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon's Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets ofthe Heart]]> 26256472 Extraordinary things happen when we harness the power of both the brain and the heart
Ěý
Growing up in the high desert of California, Jim Doty was poor, with an alcoholic father and a mother chronically depressed and paralyzed by a stroke. Today he is the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University, of which the Dalai Lama is a founding benefactor. But back then his life was at a dead end until at twelve he wandered into a magic shop looking for a plastic thumb. Instead he met Ruth, a woman who taught him a series of exercises to ease his own suffering and manifest his greatest desires. Her final mandate was that he keep his heart open and teach these techniques to others. She gave him his first glimpse of the unique relationship between the brain and the heart.
Ěý
Doty would go on to put Ruth’s practices to work with extraordinary results—power and wealth that he could only imagine as a twelve-year-old, riding his orange Sting-Ray bike. But he neglects Ruth’s most important lesson, to keep his heart open, with disastrous results—until he has the opportunity to make a spectacular charitable contribution that will virtually ruin him. Part memoir, part science, part inspiration, and part practical instruction, Into the Magic Shop shows us how we can fundamentally change our lives by first changing our brains and our hearts.

Ěý


From the Hardcover edition.]]>
287 James R. Doty 0698404025 Kate 5 Make your own magic

James Doty should never have been able to achieve his goals, given his impoverished, dysfunctional background, but one visiting woman taught him all he needed to know to create a life full of magic. A remarkable, feel good story. I feel so inspired!]]>
4.48 2016 Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon's Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets ofthe Heart
author: James R. Doty
name: Kate
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2016/06/04
date added: 2016/06/04
shelves:
review:
Make your own magic

James Doty should never have been able to achieve his goals, given his impoverished, dysfunctional background, but one visiting woman taught him all he needed to know to create a life full of magic. A remarkable, feel good story. I feel so inspired!
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The Color Purple 373115 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1983)

Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to "Mister," a brutal man who terrorizes her. Celie eventually learns that her abusive husband has been keeping her sister's letters from her and the rage she feels, combined with an example of love and independence provided by her close friend Shug, pushes her finally toward an awakening of her creative and loving self.]]>
290 Alice Walker 0151191549 Kate 4 race-stuff 4.15 1982 The Color Purple
author: Alice Walker
name: Kate
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/02/03
shelves: race-stuff
review:
This book is feminist theology written into a novel. I love it.
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